1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge

by Tony Hawks; Prefers to remain anonymous

  ‘Good afternoon,’ I said. The more senior of the two looked at me in disbelief.

  ‘My, oh my, a gentleman travelling with a refrigerator,’ she said in an American accent.

  ‘Not so. I am just part of a surreal dream you’re both having.’

  ‘I can believe it,’ said the younger one in an accent which sounded distinctly more local. She had beautiful eyes.

  I caught a glimpse of their canvases and witnessed their interpretations of the derelict house before them. Oh. Now I don’t know much about art but I know what I don’t like.

  ‘I’m trying to find the harbour,’ I said, astutely not mentioning how much I didn’t like their work.

  ‘Just round the corner and go to the bottom of the hill and you’re there. It’s lovely.’

  And lovely it was. But it was hardly a harbour. It was no more than a narrow inlet with five fishing boats, three in the water and two in dry dock being painted. The quay was flanked by two buildings, one a hostel which was closed and the other Bunbeg House, a bed and breakfast guesthouse and the reason for my being there. I rang the bell and went through the motions of adjusting my clothes and generally preparing myself, but then gave up when I realised that I didn’t know what I was preparing myself for. It didn’t matter anyway because no one was there, which was a novel approach to running a guesthouse but not one that was altogether unexpected. I then noticed a hand written note in the window saying ‘BACKSOON’, which suggested to me that I was dealing with people who had their fingers on the very pulse of entrepreneurial commerce. ‘Back soon’ had an ambiguity about it which worried me a touch though. ‘Soon’, by any reasonable interpretation, would be a couple of hours, but this was Bunbeg, County Donegal, and there was no guarantee that this didn’t mean somebody would be with me by mid October. I was in the middle of nowhere with no accommodation, no reason for being there, and no bright ideas.

  I decided to forget about my agenda and allow myself to wind right down to ‘local speed’, so I dumped my rucksack and fridge outside the front door and embarked on the twenty-minute walk to the pub. If the proprietors of Bunbeg House were ‘BACK SOON’ they would see the fridge and be in no doubt as to who was going to be their extra guest for the night. As calling cards go it was effective, if a little bulky.

  On the way back I passed my two lady painters and the younger one called out ‘Where’s your fridge?’ and I went over and explained. Naturally enough they wanted to know more about why I had a fridge with me; in fact, I suspected that they had talked of little else for the past ten minutes. I tried to make the explanation quick but they kept firing questions at me like ‘What sort of people are stopping for you?’ and ‘Do you keep food in the fridge?’ and before we knew it we’d been chatting for half an hour.

  Both women had a groomed scruffiness about them which seems to me to be the trade mark of artists. Lois was a distinguished woman of mature years who I was surprised to learn had a gallery on New York’s 57th Street. I realised she must be an artist of some renown because I knew you didn’t get a gallery automatically on leaving art school. Elizabeth, who was much younger, was married and lived in New York, although she was originally from West Cork. I guessed that she was less successful but may have been Lois’s protege, perhaps a budding star for the future. I learned that for the last two days it had been chucking it down with rain and that the ladies had decided to sketch a barn which they had discovered at the end of a mudtrack on some farmland. They were sat in their cars with sketchpads on their laps drawing this barn when they saw, in one of the wing mirrors, an old farmer standing very still and watching them from a distance. To him it must have appeared that two women were sat in a car directly in front of his barn, staring at it Elizabeth and Lois explained that he would come back every two hours or so to see if they were still there—the women who were staring at his barn. Continuing rain the next day meant a return for .completion of the sketches, and the fanner was even more perplexed by the women!s decision to put in another full day’s staring. ‘Who are they? And why are they staring at my barn?’ These were obvious questions which he chose not to ask. Instead he just built a two-hourly check on the ‘starers’ into his day. He never found out why these two women had come from nowhere to stare at his barn from a stationary vehicle and I expect he probably never even spoke to anyone about it. Therein lies the difference between elderly farmers from Donegal and…well, everyone else.

  In the course of our conversation I must have demonstrated my complete ignorance of the area because Elizabeth and Lois announced that they would cut short their painting for the day in order to take me on an informative sightseeing tour. There was clearly something about travelling with a fridge which brought out the best in people.

  Elizabeth, who was doing the driving, pointed out a brochure of Lois’s work on the back seat which I quickly flicked through. The paintings were superb and I censured myself for my initial cursory dismissal of her work. It just goes to show—you should never judge work in progress. I wanted to articulate what I liked about her style but was unable to, so I glanced at the brochure’s text to see if its writers had managed any better. ‘Lois’s art, in its engagement with the question of realism, fits into larger debates about the privileging of abstraction and its viability for a world in conflict.’

  Exactly what I had thought although I probably wouldn’t have put it like that. Instead I said that it was ‘great’, shut the brochure quickly and steered the conversation round to an area where I had much more to offer.

  ‘So Lois, the weather has improved a good deal, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Believe it or not, this is the best day we’ve had,’ she replied. ‘You know what they say up here, ‘If you can see the mountains it’s going to rain, if you can’t see the mountains it’s raining already.’’

  ‘Either that or you haven’t opened the curtains,’ I said.

  They laughed. My God, I was great company. I felt vindicated in my decision not to discuss the privileging of abstraction and its viability for a world in conflict. After all, you can do that anytime and it’s harder to get laughs.

  The ladies explained we were in Gweedore which was a Gaelic speaking region, or ‘Gaeltacht’. The terrain was rocky and sparsely covered with gorse, and it was peppered with little white houses dotted around as if a giant had dropped them like confetti from the sky. We came to Bloody Foreland, an expanse of coastland at the northern tip of Donegal, so called because of the vivid red hues the gaunt rock face took on when lit up at sunset, and not as I had assumed, because its discoverer had grazed a knee here. There was a very clear view of the remote Tory Island and I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was going to be a case of ‘so near and yet so far’.

  §

  When I was dropped at Bunbeg House, the fridge and rucksack were gone, so they had either been taken inside by the proprietors or stolen by an eccentric opportunist. I took a chance on it being the former and said goodbye to my delightful tour guides. As they drove away and I waited an alarmingly long time for anyone to respond to the doorbell, I started to imagine the awkward conversation I would have to have with the Garda if my stuff had been stolen.

  ‘I’d like to report the theft of a rucksack and a fridge.’

  ‘A fridge?’

  ‘Yes, I’m travelling with it.’

  ‘Very funny. What are you, some kind of comedian?’

  ‘Well…yes.’

  ‘Get out and stop wasting our time.’

  Then I began to wonder what I might have let myself in for by coming here. What kind of person rings into a radio station and offers free accommodation to someone who is travelling with a fridge? A broad-minded philanthropist? A demented psychopath? Or—the door opened, ‘‘Ello mate, ‘ow are ya?’—a cockney.

  Yes, a cockney. Andy from Bermondsey, and now a resident of Bunbeg. And bloody hell, was he excited to meet me. He invited me into the lounge area. ‘Come in and sit down. Tell us about what you’re up to. I was doing breakfast t
his morning and I ‘eard you talkin’ about you and yer fridge and I thought, well I just gotta phone up and offer free accommodation—anyone who’s travellin’ round wiv a fridge bloody deserves it.’

  Quite right too. He continued, still giving me no time to respond.

  ‘I thought what a brilliant idea—a fridge. You must be pickin’ up lifts real easy like, what wiv The Gerry Ryan Show behind you. He’s a good man Gerry, what d’you reckon on Gerry—do you get on with him? Sit down, sit down—wow this is great. A fridge. I told my wife Jean about it, she couldn’t believe it, she’s pregnant, you know.’

  It was as if pregnancy was being presented as a reason for her surprise. Well, it can do strange things to the system.

  ‘Do you wanna cuppa tea?’

  It would give me something to do whilst he was talking.

  ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

  ‘I’m sorry we weren’t here earlier, I ‘ad to take Jean up the ‘ospital. It’s all all right though—no problems.’ He looked at me and shook his head in amazement The fridge man. The man with the fridge. I can’t believe it Sit down.’

  I had sat down some time ago. We talked on in a similar vein with Andy occasionally allowing a question to be answered, but with no sign of an abatement in enthusiasm, or a cup of tea. It seemed his earlier question ‘do you wanna cuppa tea?’ was just to establish whether or not I was desirous of a cup, rather than an indication of any serious intent actually to produce one.

  ‘Ill show you yer room, you get yerself a shower, clean yerself up and relax—perhaps we’ll have a pint in the local together later?’

  ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

  Exactly what I’d said in answer to the offer of a cup of tea, but somehow I had a sneaky suspicion the pint in the local was more likely to materialise than the tea had been.

  The room was first rate. It made up part of a modern extension which Andy had added to an already quite substantial building and it was a much more comfortable and sizeable proposition than I had expected to find. It was the nicest room I’d stayed in so far and probably would be for the whole trip. Certainly at the price. But in spite of its picturesque setting by the ‘harbour’ and its commodious rooms, Bunbeg House was far from full. I suppose in the tourist season it was packed, but just at the moment there was a man and his fridge, and one other couple in residence.

  ‘There you go, mate,’ said Andy as he led me into the room. Twin beds. One for you and one for yer fridge.’

  Andy was around forty I suppose, of quite slender build, and with an impish angular face and a hairline that had just recently embarked on a new policy of receding. At first his initial excitement had rendered him somewhat overbearing, but once he had arrived at the dubious conclusion that someone travelling with a fridge was pretty much the same as the next man, he was much better company, and I was beginning to warm to him now he was telling me to ‘sit down’ less often. He recommended the pub for my evening meal and arranged to join me there after I’d eaten.

  I showered in water which alternated between unpleasantly hot and unpleasantly cold, and then I took advantage of the best feature of the room—its tea and coffee-making facilities. There is something soothing and reassuring about tea- and coffee-making facilities in a room. I delight in all the intricate packaging of the tea, coffee, sugar and milk, and draw enormous pleasure from the ritual of filling the lightweight kettle, struggling to find the power point, and being unsure of whether pushing the button in at the back of the kettle has turned it on or off. For me, once I’ve made a cup of tea I belong somehow. It’s like I’m marking out my territory, and anyone attempting to come and make a cup of tea on my patch will be dealt with most severely, more likely than not with a counter attack into their territory and the seizure of their milk cartons and shortbread biscuits.

  Before I left for the pub, I rang and left a message on The Gerry Ryan Show answerphone letting them know where I could be contacted ft Gerry wanted to talk to me in the morning, well aware how much these chats were driving proceedings along. When I arrived at Hudi-Beags (the strangely titled local pub) it was around eight and still very quiet, but by the time I’d finished my pub grub it had filled up with a surprisingly young crowd. When Andy got there my anonymity had already been relinquished. Two girls had approached me at the bar and asked me if I was the man who was travelling with the fridge. This I couldn’t believe. I had left the fridge back at Bunbeg House and was beginning to worry that there was something in my general demeanour which suggested to people that I was of unsound mind. It turned out that one of them reckoned they had seen me earlier in the day as I had made my heroic journey down Highway #1.1 was soon surrounded by all their friends and bombarded with questions. Once my predicament with regard to getting out to Tory Island had been discovered, the whole pub seemed to mobilise in search of a solution.

  I soon had the phone numbers of five fishermen who might be going out to Tory Island in the morning, and 20p coins were thrust into my hand as I was dispatched to the payphone to follow up these leads. But alas, nothing. I kept hearing a polite and regretful ‘No, I can’t help you’. The fishing must have been poor out that way because no one, but no one, was going there.

  ‘Why doesn’t he try Patsy Dan?’ someone said.

  ‘Who’s Patsy Dan?’ I asked. ‘He’s the King of Tory.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Patsy Dan Rogers—he’s the King of Tory.’

  I had heard right. Tory Island has a long tradition of having its own monarch, and the present incumbent was Patsy Dan.

  I was given his phone number. This was unusual in itself. I imagine that most of me time the personal phone numbers of Kings aren’t readily handed out in pubs as a normal matter of course.

  ‘Well, what use is ringing him?’ I enquired., ‘He might be able to organise something from his end.’

  And so I found myself making my way to a pub payphone, urged on by a pubload of locals, to phone a King and explain that I needed to get myself and a fridge out to his island as a matter of some urgency. It was Tuesday night. I had set off on Monday morning. I couldn’t have expected things to have developed thus far in such a short period of time.

  ‘Hello, is that Patsy Dan?’ I said, with a small group of my more fervent followers standing near the telephone in support.

  ‘It is.’ He had a deep, gravelly voice.

  ‘Are you the King of Tory?’

  ‘That I am, yes.’

  ‘Good. I was wondering if you could help. I’m travelling around Ireland with a fridge to win a bet and I need to get out to Tory Island to complete the first part of that bet, but as you probably know, the ferry isn’t running…’ and so I went on. Patsy listened intently and seemed to find nothing unusual in my quest.

  ‘Of course we would love you to come to Tory, and so I shall be happy to greet you on your arrival, so I shall give you the following numbers that you can ring to find if anyone is coming out to the island.’

  He spoke at great length in a deliberate manner and proceeded to give me the names and numbers of all the fishermen that I had already telephoned. I resisted the temptation of saying Thanks for nothing’ or asking if the Royal Yacht was available.

  So, we had drawn another blank. My legion of helpers weren’t defeated but instead returned to the collective drawing board.

  On his arrival Andy was suitably impressed. ‘Blimey Tone, you don’t waste time in making new friends, do ya?’

  I suppose not. It wasn’t long before he had joined the ‘Get Tony to Tory Island’ committee, in fact he assumed the role of Chairman despite his tardy arrival at the meeting. The pints were being downed at an alarming rate and the suggestions were becoming more and more ridiculous, when a girl came through from the public bar and told us that she had been talking with a load of guys from the Air Corps who were stationed nearby. A voice piped up, ‘Bejaysus, that’s it! Well get yer man out by helicopter!’

  There was a split second of silence followed by overwh
elming approval. That was it, the mob had their hearts on my reaching Tory Island by helicopter. There wasn’t one dissenter.

  ‘Come on Tone, let’s go and ‘ave a word wiv ‘em,’ said Andy, his accent a reminder of home, and a more rational world I had left behind. And off we went to the public bar where I was encouraged to stand before a group of servicemen and make my ‘pitch’ for a helicopter. I wasn’t sure about this at all. I made a poor start which deteriorated rapidly when I attempted to casually throw in the involvement of a fridge in all this, and I could see the expressions of the servicemen change from curious to baffled. I lost my way and Andy took over, ‘Now boys, we’re not being silly ‘ere, this man has got to get out to Tory Island, he’s got national coverage on the radio and if we can get him out there, it’ll be good for tourism—both for Tory Island and for us round here. Now I know it’s not for you to worry about and that you’re not from round here yerselves, but think of the good press you’d get if you ‘elp out on this one and all the good feeling you’ll get in the community.’

  He was doing well. He went on, ‘Now come on, one of you must have a chopper for him.’

  All that good work undone in one careless turn of phrase.

  §

  We emerged from the bar unsuccessful, in spite of Andy’s glib sales pitch having eventually fallen on sympathetic ears. The pilots said they were up for helping out and gave us the name of a woman from the Ministry of Defence in Dublin who we would have to ask to authorise such a ‘mercy mission’. We returned to the main bar fairly confident that she would; ‘She will, won’t she?’