1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge

by Tony Hawks; Prefers to remain anonymous

  ‘This road is very tidy,’ she said pointing ahead of her.

  The taxi driver nodded non committally, a response he was to rely on more and more as the journey progressed.

  ‘Did you enjoy the wedding?’ the aunt asked me.

  ‘I didn’t go, I wasn’t a guest, I’m just travelling around the country.’

  ‘Oh. How lovely. What you should do is go to Seattle, and then head up the coast from there.’

  She appeared to think we were on the west coast of America. I thanked her and said that I’d give it some thought after I’d reached Dublin.

  After I’d spilled out of the taxi in front of the City Hall in Cork and waved it goodbye, I looked with some satisfaction at the considerable traffic and substantial buildings around me. It had been some time since I had been anywhere with this much vitality. Although it didn’t strike me as being a particularly beautiful city, nonetheless I had a good feeling about it I was just considering my next course of action when I was approached by a middle-aged Scot.

  ‘You must be Tony, and that must be your fridge,’ he said forthrightly.

  ‘It is and I am. I mean, I am and it is.’

  I was making no sense, but he didn’t mind. He had been following my progress on the radio and kept insisting how wonderful an idea it had been to travel with a fridge. Then, two minutes into our acquaintance, came the offer.

  ‘K you’ve no sorted anywhere to stay, ye can come and stop with me and me wife Sheila. Well sort ye out, give ye a chance to clean up, do your washing and all the rest of it’

  ‘That’s very kind…er—’

  ‘Dave. The name’s Dave Stewart.’

  ‘Thanks, Dave. It’s just that I haven’t made any plans just yet I thought I might head to a pub called Westimers.’

  ‘Oh aye. Do you know someone there?’

  ‘Not really, it’s just that on the first morning I spoke to Gerry Ryan, they called in and said if I ever came to Cork, they’d throw a fridge party for me.’

  ‘Oh aye. I heard that Good idea.’

  Dave gave me directions to Westimers and wrote out his address and phone number should I want to take him up on his kind offer. I crossed the road and a student came rushing out from inside a pub demanding to sign the fridge. I had re-entered the world of the ‘splendidly off kilter’, and I liked it.

  At Westimers there was much surprise that I had responded to an offer which had been made nearly three weeks previously.

  ‘Eric will be sick that he’s missed you,’ said Alan the barman.

  Eric, the boss and original instigator of the offer, was away on a fishing trip in County Mayo and couldn’t be contacted. Still no matter, that was no reason for the rest of the staff not to make a fuss of me, and I was given drinks and the now standard free lunch. The decor of the pub explained its rather odd name, Westimers. The Wild West was its theme and the walls were adorned with saddles, stetsons and gun wielding cowboys. Perhaps it was his love of the American West that had originally caused Eric to take my pioneering quest to heart.

  I had just begun talking with a lunching businessman at the bar about how I was considering making a trip down to Kinsale, when Alan interrupted, ‘Tony, there’s a phonecall for you.’

  This was weird. No one knew I was here. Correction, one person did.

  ‘Hello Tony, it’s Dave here. You know, Dave you just met on the pavement Now stay where you are, I’ve been on to my mate who is the features editor at the Evening Echo. Don’t go anywhere because they’re sending a reporter down to meet you.’ Things moved fast in Cork.

  One newspaper interview later, I returned to my pint and was soon approached by a young man who told me he could take me to Kinsale in quarter of an hour. Things moved fast in Cork.

  Everyone in Westimers thought it was a good idea if I used Cork as a base for a few days’ sightseeing, not least because that meant if Eric phoned they could tell him of my arrival and see if he waited to go ahead with the fridge party. There was much amusement amongst the staff as they watched me pack my fridge as an overnight bag, a role that hadn’t been asked of it since my jaunt to Tory Island.

  Okay, the quarter of an hour was closer to an hour, but just as he had said he would, Barry was soon transporting me to my next destination. It was somehow in keeping with the vein of my trip that he should turn out to be a sales rep for Caffreys, and that his first call at the Hole In The Wall pub in Kinsale necessitated my drinking complimentary pints whilst he went about his business. The fridge and beer had developed a truly symbiotic relationship, and together they were unstoppable. Things happened.

  A canvassing Labour politician marched past the pub garden with his entourage, and spotted me and the fridge holding court with a number of intrigued fellow drinkers. He obviously felt the notoriety that this fridge had gained in his country meant that being photographed alongside it could genuinely enhance his chances of election. His aides hastily organised a photoshoot, and suddenly there was Michael Calnan with his arm around me, beaming unnaturally and toasting the fridge with a pint of Caffreys, supplied by the equally opportunistic Barry. Kieran, the owner of the pub, was just attempting to usher all of us round to the left so that the name of his pub formed the backdrop, when Barry noticed that a traffic warden was putting a parking ticket on his car. There then followed an extraordinary scene in which Barry attempted to get the ticket rescinded, for which he produced in his defence, a Labour politi-, cian and a man pulling a fridge behind him. Against such formidable opposition, the meter maid put up a sterling effort at insisting that the ticket should stand, but when the chorus of drinkers in the pub garden chimed in with a chant of ‘Let him off, let him off, he’s driving the man with the fridge!’ she finally capitulated. There was no doubting that the politician had borne little influence, and that it had been the fridge which had swayed things. You’ve heard of ‘People Power’, well now please welcome ‘Fridge Power’. Already it had got someone off a parking ticket—there was no knowing what meritorious cause of downtrodden citizen against oppressive State it would embrace next.

  When the fridge and I returned from our political struggle, we learned that Kieran hadn’t been idle. He had organised a boat trip, for the next morning around Kinsale’s harbour, and complimentary accommodation at the White House Hotel opposite. Barry then went about arranging me a free bar meal with another Caffrey’s customer, a restaurant just around the corner called the Blue Haven.

  Honestly, what a day! I hadn’t been able to put a foot wrong since I had stepped on the ferry at Cape Clear Island. It was as if a spell had been cast in which I could have anything I wanted. It was just a shame the magic had worn off by the time I made my clumsy and slurred advances towards Brenda, the Blue Haven’s waitress. Her haven, whatever colour it was, remained firmly off limits.

  21

  Fridge Party

  Pat Collins’ little fishing boat did us proud. I wondered what instructions Kieran had given to Pat the previous night because he quite happily gave up an hour and a half of his morning, and entirely without motive he was taking a man and his fridge on a tour of the harbour, indicating any points of interest. He helped me on and off the boat with the fridge, and even posed for a photograph with his arm round it, but saw no reason in wasting any time enquiring as to what the hell I was doing with the bloody thing. I suppose he felt that those were questions for a younger man to ask.

  As we headed out to sea along the estuary of the Bandon River we passed Charles Fort on our port side. This star-shaped bastion fort was built by the British in the seventeenth century to protect Kinsale harbour from naval attack. However, William of Orange had the bright idea of attacking it by land and took it rather easily, with all its defenders looking out to sea. The Japanese had done something similar to the British at Singapore in the second world war. Simply not cricket At the mouth of the estuary, Pat pointed out the spot where a German submarine torpedoed and sank The Lusitania. Also not cricket. History seemed to demonstrate a tremendous
unwillingness by people to play by the rules. Still, as long as the great Umpire in the sky was taking note…

  The sea out here was decidedly more choppy, and our small vessel began rocking and rolling like someone’s Dad at a wedding. From the helm Pat turned around and gestured behind us, ‘You want to watch that fridge,’ he said.

  I smiled, delighted by Pat’s concern, and the gentle absurdity of his words. ‘Youwant to watch that fridge.’ It was almost as if the fridge had a reputation for profligacy and philandering. God forbid. It hadn’t even been plugged in.

  §

  Kieran was a thick-set man in his thirties with an admirable desire to help me out When I got back from the harbour tour he had organised for me, he said he’d drive me back to Cork. On the way, we called at the ‘Moving Statue of Ballinspittle’, a grotto with a large statue of the Virgin Mary, so called because thousands of people claimed to have seen it move. But hang on a minute, Kieran knew exactly where the statue was, and without hesitation drove us straight there. Surely if the Moving Statue lived up to its name, no one would be entirely sure where it was going to be. Wouldn’t enquiries have to be made? Didn’t the local radio station have the latest ‘Moving Statue news’?

  ‘The Statue was last seen outside a supermarket in Bandon and was rumoured to be heading towards Clonakilty. We’ll be bringing you more Moving Statue news later—now, on with the Death Notices—Rory O’Brien was tragically taken from us when a statue moved in front of his motorcycle on the R600…’

  §

  Back in Cork I bought a newspaper and discovered that I had made the front page of The Cork Evening Echo, just alongside a Welsh groom who had finished his stag night in hospital after falling through the glass in a greenhouse. Evidently yesterday hadn’t been a particularly newsworthy day. Never mind, I was the beneficiary, because there it was—a full-page picture of me and Saiorse, just beneath the headline;

  HERE’S A COOL IDEA!

  There followed a pun-packed article which continued on page three, where there were a further two photographs. Evidently yesterday had been a spectacularly un-newsworthy day. In Cork I was big news. I had made the front page of the Evening Echo, without even having to fall through any greenhouses.

  I checked into a hotel which Westimers had booked for me. Apart from the lift being out of action, the bathroom door having no handle, the shower curtain falling down, the window not opening, and the phone providing no outside line, it was just fine. Eric had authorised its booking, having phoned in from his fishing trip and learned that I was in town. He was cutting his fishing trip short especially so that the Fridge Party could be scheduled for the following night. I still had no idea what this party would involve. Whenever I broached the subject, those that I asked shrugged stylishly.

  Eric and his wife Caroline were unable to throw any light on the matter when I met them for a drink that evening.

  ‘We’ll just see what happens,’ said Eric.

  Eric explained that he had called into The Gerry Ryan Show on that first day as something of a joke because he had been having some problems with the guys who did the refrigeration in his pub and the suggestion of a fridge party was a way of winding them up.

  ‘So the joke’s backfired on you now I’m here,’ I said.

  ‘Not at all. We’ll have a great night.’

  It was decided that I should make tomorrow a tourist day, and Eric promised to take me and the fridge to kiss the Blarney Stone. This, as legend would have it, would confer on us a magical eloquence, an area in which for at least one of us there was room for improvement. Most of the Irish I had met needed little assistance in this regard. For myself, I was looking forward to being asked how I had found the whole Blarney Stone experience: ‘It was so moving, I was lost for words,’ was going to be my witty reply.

  §

  Not for the first time on my trip I began the day on national radio speaking to Gerry Ryan. He was intrigued by the notion of a Fridge Party.

  ‘So what exactly do you intend to do at this thing?’

  ‘We don’t really know.’

  ‘What about getting people to turn up with the bits and pieces from their fridges, the ice tray or the egg tray or anything else that identifies them as a fridge groupie.’

  ‘Sounds good to me, although quite where it goes from there I have no idea.’

  It didn’t matter. According to the fridge philosophy, we would wait and see.

  I got up, made use of the few facilities in the bathroom which were operational and made my way over to Westimers to meet Eric. Outside the pub was a huge blackboard with a misspelled chalk message inscribed upon it;

  FRIDGE PARTY TONNIGHT

  I felt a tingle of butterflies.

  §

  It was the maritime port of Cobh which became my sightseeing venue for the day, Eric having phoned to explain that he had forgotten about his involvement in a charity golf event, and therefore couldn’t make the Blarney Stone outing after all. My winning line about being ‘lost for words’ would have to be put on hold.

  From behind the bar, Alan and Noelle were insistent that I should take the fridge on the day trip.

  ‘Ifll be lonely if you leave it all on its own all day.’

  Tough. I needed to conserve energy for tonight and I knew that if I took the fridge with me, some kind of adventure would befall us, and no doubt we would end up getting hopelessly delayed in a watering hole somewhere or other.

  Getting to Cobh involved my first train journey in Ireland. It was marred by my having made the mistake of sitting opposite a man whose hair looked as if it hadn’t been washed since 1967. It smelled like it hadnt been washed since 1952. It looked extremely heavy, the equivalent of having three damp cloths placed on his head. The pungent aroma of his hair easily justified a move up the train, but I didn’t do so, partly out of a cowardly wish not to cause offence, and partly because I believed he and his hair would soon get off at one of the many stops which the sluggish train was making.

  Cobh is a wonderful example of a Victorian port, commanding one of the world’s largest natural harbours. The only negative thing I can say about it is that the man with the smelly hair lived there, and as a result I was absolutely gasping for fresh air on arrival. I climbed the hill to take a closer look at its magnificent cathedral. With a population of only eight thousand, Cobh didn’t seem to deserve such a sizeable edifice, and the burden on its congregation for its refurbishment was equally disproportionate: £3,700,000. What is it with churches? Without exception all churches in Europe need money for refurbishment, yet in the mid west of America you’ll very rarely see a church appeal for restoration. Which is odd, because they were the ones which were built by cowboys.

  On the train home I saw someone reading the Evening Echo with my picture on the front, and I pondered the concept of fame. This was an area where I had found myself in the unique position of having complete control over my status. If I wanted to get recognised and be the centre of attention then I took the fridge out with me. If I wanted to have some time to myself and revert to some semblance of normality, then I left it indoors. It was beautiful in its simplicity. How Michael Jackson and Madonna must long for such an arrangement. Still, they should have thought of that before they sold million upon million of albums and plastered their faces on posters all over the world. I may not have had their wealth, but I had certainly outwitted them on the fame thing, and that was satisfying.

  That night in my hotel room, I paced anxiously, rehearsing the speech I was going to make at the party. I had no desire to find myself floundering as I had done at the Bachelor Festival. This time I was subscribing to Baden Powell’s motto for the scout movement—‘Be Prepared’.

  I set off for the pub. Things began well. As I crossed the footbridge dragging my fridge behind me, I bumped into a group of about half a dozen girls from Cork school of art who were on their way to the party. If they were a sample of the kind of audience the fridge was going to attract, then things boded well fo
r the evening.

  ‘Look, it’s the Fridge Man!’ said a pretty girl with a cheeky little face, who I immediately identified as being the one I fancied most There followed a constant stream of questions, all of which I was able to provide answers for, except one. ‘So what exactly is a fridge party?’

  ‘I really don’t know. We’re just going to have to wait and see. I think it’s up to us.’

  These were unchartered waters and there was no previous experience to draw on to ascertain what environment might be the most appropriate for the holding of a Fridge Party. However, there was to be no such difficulty in identifying the wrong environment for such an event, because it awaited us as we entered Westimers. The whole ambience of the place had changed. The lights were dimmed and loud music was blaring out from the stage where a young male duo surrounded by synthesizers and drum machines were performing.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I shouted to Alan who was behind the bar.

  They’re a band called ‘Pisces Squared’. Unfortunately two months ago they were booked to play tonight, and we couldn’t get hold of them to cancel.’

  Right So that meant that the background noise for the Fridge Party was cover versions of the hits of Erasure and Soft Cell, all stamped with the duo’s trademark of excessive volume. I shouted hellos to some familiar faces—Dave, my Scottish PR man who had brought Ms wife to meet me, and Barry the Caffreys salesman who had arrived with his girlfriend and chums. However communication was limited to rudimentary greetings, saeh was the noise from ‘Pisces Squared’. Now I’m no expert �n astrology bat here were two Rsceans wife whom I was definitely net compatible.

  The boys’ manager hovered proudly by the stage, offering them encouragement and completely failing to notice that their techno pop message was falling on deaf ears. It became clear through the body language of the boys and their manager that this gig was something of a showbiz break and a milestone in their career to date. And so, a wholly unsatisfactory situation existed. An ambitious band, with eager manager in tow, were playing to an audience of the kind of eccentrics and quirky misfits who had been attracted by the concept of a Fridge Parry, some carrying items which they had brought from their home refrigerator. The lead singer of the band looked visibly shaken.