by Olivia Ryan
We’re all shaking our heads pathetically.
‘I’ve got two diarrhoea tablets,’ says Suze, rummaging in her bag, ‘and an old Elastoplast.’
‘Very helpful,’ sniffs Helen, who isn’t offering anything any better.
‘We need to strap it up,’ I decide, trying to remember my First Aid. ‘With something cold, I suppose.’
‘I know!’ says Lisa. ‘Where’s that towel? I’ll run back down to the beach and soak it in seawater.’
The very idea of running back down, with its concomitant thoughts of running back up again, is enough to make the rest of us shudder. Significantly, Mum and Auntie Joyce still haven’t even joined us at the top.
‘Not the towel – it’s too big and thick. What we need is…’
I’m looking round the group, and my eyes fall on Helen’s scarf. It’s one of those nice silky knit ones, blue and lilac stripes with a thread of silver running through it. She takes it off without saying a word, which is nice of her really as it looks expensive.
‘I’ve got a bottle of water in my bag,’ says Jude, sitting up a bit and wincing as she moves her ankle slightly. We all wince with her. ‘Wet it with that. No point going back down to the sea.’
What hasn’t the girl got in her bag? I peek inside. Sure enough – a bottle of water, still nice and cold. I pull it out and underneath I can see a rolled up plastic raincoat, gloves and spare pair of socks, a bar of chocolate and packet of nuts & raisins. Was she planning a nice little stroll to the next village, or a trek into the mountains? I’m surprised there’s no torch or compass. And she never even was a Girl Guide!
‘Why the spare socks?’ I can’t help asking, ‘if you weren’t even going to paddle?’
‘In case it rains,’ she mutters, looking at me as if I’m daft.
We’ve soaked the scarf in the cold water and bandaged Jude’s ankle fairly tightly by the time Mum and Joyce finally appear, gasping and holding their sides, at the top of the steps.
‘What on earth…?’ cries Mum, standing stock-still on the other side of the road and staring at us.
‘Jude twisted her ankle, Mum. It’s probably sprained.’
‘She’s in agony,’ joins in Emily, who likes a drama. ‘She fainted twice.’
‘Well – for God’s sake!’ pants Mum, coming over to join us. ‘She needs a doctor! Phone the poor girl an ambulance – don’t just stand there!’
‘I do not need the doctor, Marge,’ says Jude, trying gingerly to stand up on just her good foot. ‘Sure I’ll be fine altogether if I can just get on me feet and get to a chemist’s for some aspirin or … oh! Oh, God!’
At the first attempt to put any weight on her bad foot, she collapses back down onto the bench, as white as a sheet again.
‘I don’t think you’re going anywhere, Jude,’ points out Emily. ‘Not walking, anyway.’
‘Well, now, do you see any sign of a wheelchair around here?’ she retorts, between her teeth.
‘No. We’ll have to carry you,’ says Lisa.
Good old Lisa with her strong back and her toned muscles! That gym membership must be worth every penny.
‘You’re only little,’ agrees Helen. ‘It won’t kill us.’
‘Yes, come on, dear,’ says Mum, still panting from the climb up the steps. ‘Let me help you up.’
‘You’re not carrying anyone! And anyway – where are we carrying her to? It doesn’t exactly look like there’s a shopping centre just around the corner.’
‘Sure there’ll be a chemist in Dalkey,’ says Jude. ‘But it’s a walk and a half from here. We’d not even begun the walk.’
Now she tells us.
‘It’s a nice walk, too,’ she adds, looking miserable. ‘Sure and I’ve spoilt everyone’s day with me stupid ankle, haven’t I, so.’
‘Course you haven’t,’ we all chorus.
‘Can we not just carry you back to the Tube station, dear?’ suggests Mum.
‘DART station,’ Lisa corrects her. ‘But it’s a good idea – it can’t be far, can it, Jude?’
‘No, if you look down the railway line there, sure you can see the station just round the bend there, see? Tis only a little way, but ’t would mean missing the lovely walk and all.’
‘Bugger the lovely walk,’ says Mum with surprising spirit. ‘We need to get you back to the hotel, Jude, dear, and get you resting with that foot up.’
‘Poor Jude,’ says Emily sadly.
‘And Dalkey would have been such a grand place for you to visit, too, with the castle and the fine pub and all,’ Jude’s still wailing.
‘Well, you can sit with your foot up in a fine pub just as well as you can back at the hotel, can’t you?’ points out Helen. ‘What’s stopping us from getting off the DART at Dalkey and having lunch there anyway?’
Once the notion of the fine pub has resurfaced, it’s surprising how efficiently we get ourselves organised. It’s quickly decided that Jude won’t actually have to be carried – with someone on each side of her to take her weight she can get along on her good foot as if she’s using crutches. The only trouble is that she’s shorter than everyone else so she has to lean on their elbows rather than their shoulders.
‘No problem,’ says Lisa airily, supporting Jude under her armpit so that she practically lifts her off the ground.
‘You don’t all need to come on the DART,’ says Jude pitifully. ‘Why don’t some of you do the walk, and we’ll meet you in Dalkey?’
‘Yes – go on, dears – off you go and enjoy yourselves!’ says Mum briskly to nobody in particular. ‘We’ll get Jude to this Dorky place and I’ll sit with her while Lisa goes and finds a chemist for some tablets. Then we can all have lunch in the pub.’
‘I’ll come with you, then,’ says Helen. ‘You don’t want to be taking her weight, if you don’t mind me saying so, Marge. You look done in already.’
‘I hope they’ll be all right,’ says Emily anxiously as we set off down the road in the direction Jude showed us. ‘I feel a bit guilty leaving them to it.’
‘No, it wasn’t far to the station. And Jude was worried about spoiling the day for us all,’ smiles Joyce, who’s recovered from climbing the steps now and is striding along quite energetically, swinging her arms and breathing in the sea air. ‘She was pleased some of us are doing the walk.’
‘Bless her. It is lovely, walking along and looking down at the sea, isn’t it,’ says Karen.
‘It’s certainly done away with our hangovers!’ I laugh.
The sunshine, the fresh air, the run on the beach and even the shock of the cold sea have all helped to clear my head, sharpen my senses and cheer me up, despite the calamity with poor Jude.
‘And look at the houses along this road! Aren’t they beautiful! What a fantastic outlook they’ve got!’
‘Yeah – I read somewhere that Bono lives round here,’ says Suze excitedly. ‘I wonder which one is his house? Wouldn’t it be great if we bumped into him!’
We all laugh, but the thought of bumping into Bono suddenly around the next bend keeps us walking with a spring in our step for quite a while.
‘Jude says there are quite a few celebrities living in this area, actually,’ I tell them as we pass a particularly impressive house with views straight over the bay. ‘You can see why, can’t you.’
‘Yeah,’ jokes Emily. ‘It’s downhill all the way to the fine pub!’
We’re absolutely starving by the time we arrive in Dalkey.
‘Where are we meeting the others?’ asks Joyce. ‘At the pub?’
‘I suppose so. They didn’t actually say, did they? Oh, bugger – that’s a point!’ I laugh. ‘We don’t know the name of the pub.’
‘Well, there can’t be many, in a little place like this,’ says Emily reasonably.
‘This is Ireland, remember – almost as many pubs as there are houses,’ I point out.
‘So what do we do? Try them all?’ Suze asks hopefully, peering through the window of the first pub we come to.
‘No. Don’t want to waste time – I’m too bloody hungry.’
I get out my phone and send a quick text message to Jude:
OK, no use hiding from us! Which pub are you in?
We look through the windows of the pub again while we’re waiting for her to reply. It looks nice in here, but there’s no sign of Jude and the others.
‘Maybe we should walk on to the next one – oh, hang on!’ My phone’s ringing. ‘Hello? Jude? Oh – who’s that?’
‘Who’s this? Well, you sent a text to me!’ laughs a very attractive male voice with an English accent. ‘We’re in The Halfpenny Inn in Dublin if you want to join us – we’re certainly not hiding from you! Who are you, by the way?’
‘Oh! Oh my God, I’m sorry – how the hell did I get the wrong number?’ I stammer, embarrassed. ‘I mean – this is Jude’s number – it’s in my phone – I couldn’t have made a mistake.’
Auntie Joyce has walked on down the road a bit, looking for another pub, but needless to say, the others are standing around me, giggling.
‘No problem! Nice talking to you…’
‘Wait!’ I shout, so loudly that Emily next to me, taking photos of the village, nearly drops her camera.
I know this voice.
‘It’s Harry.’ I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This is ridiculous. ‘It’s Harry, isn’t it?’
‘Yes!’ he sounds a bit startled. There’s a pause. I can hear his mates, behind him, laughing and shouting about another pint of Guinness. ‘Who’s this? Is it Katie?’ He says my name softly, like a prayer. ‘Katie from last night?’
‘Yes! God – how embarrassing. How the hell…?’ A ridiculous thought occurs to me. ‘You didn’t put your number in my phone, did you?’
Ridiculous. I’m embarrassed, now, that I’ve even asked it. Even thought it. Emily and the others are staring at me now. Their expressions range from surprise to outright dismay.
‘I didn’t,’ says Harry almost apologetically. ‘But I’d have liked to.’
This just adds to my discomfiture.
‘Yes, well, look – I don’t know what happened here,’ I say in a rush. ‘I’m really sorry. I’ll let you get on with your beer.’
‘Nice to talk to you again, Katie,’ he says.
I can hear the smile in his voice. I bet he thinks I’ve got hold of his number somehow. How humiliating!
‘Enjoy the rest of your weekend.’
‘You too,’ I mutter, hanging up.
‘What the bloody hell…?’ starts Karen, almost accusingly.
‘You had his number?’ says Emily, looking at me as if I’ve suddenly sprouted horns and a tail.
‘No! No, I didn’t! I don’t understand… someone must have put it in my phone as a joke!’
I scroll back through my Contacts, feeling hot and upset under the suspicious gazes of my friends. Could I have hit the wrong number? Jude’s is an Irish number. I know it’s correct. I’ve only got two other J’s – Joyce, and a Jenny who I used to work with.
‘It doesn’t make sense!’
‘Try looking under H,’ Karen advises me caustically.
‘No! Look, it’s not in here – see!’ I show her the phone. ‘Not under H, not anywhere.’
‘What’s that?’ points out Emily, looking over our shoulders. ‘Irish? Who’s Irish?’
‘Oh!’ I raise my eyes to the blue, blue sky and burst out laughing. ‘Oh my God! I get it now! Oh, how weird is that! How absolutely weird!’
‘What’s weird?’ says Joyce, suddenly appearing behind us. ‘Come on, girls – I’ve found the others – they’re only in the next pub up the road here. Hurry up! Marge is getting the drinks in!’
At the mention of drinks, everyone turns and practically sprints down the road to the pub. And thankfully it’s not till we’ve taken some of the dust of the road out of our throats with a pint of Dalkey’s finest Guinness that I’m called upon to explain myself.
A LIKELY STORY!
It was the treasure hunt, you see. Phone number of a guy who speaks Irish.
After getting the red thong, the condom and the cucumber, Auntie Joyce and I were just leaving the hotel to start scouring the streets of Dublin for gorgeous men, schoolgirls and Irish speakers, among other things, when we practically fell into the arms of this guy who was rushing headlong in through the swing doors, looking around the reception area with panic in his eyes.
‘Whoops! Sorry!’ I said, stepping back to let him past as he was obviously in such a hurry.
‘Toilet!’ he shouted, staring at us – as well he might, considering the way we were dressed.
‘Sorry?’
It was pretty obvious he was either very drunk, very strange, or some kind of pervert, if not all three.
‘Toilet!’ he repeated, urgently. ‘Is there one?’
‘Over there!’ said Auntie Joyce, with a smile, pointing in the appropriate direction. ‘Poor thing,’ she added as he made a bolt for it. ‘I could see he was desperate. He was practically wriggling on the spot, the way you used to when you were a little girl…’
I didn’t particularly want my infantile toilet habits to be the subject of conversation.
‘He’s got a cheek, hasn’t he? If he’s not even staying here?’
‘Yes, dear, but sometimes, you know, you just can’t help it. I remember when your mum was pregnant with you. God almighty! She couldn’t go for more than five minutes without needing the loo. We had to ask in the most embarrassing places. Shops, pubs, libraries – we found out where all the toilets in the town were, I can tell you.’
If there was one thing I wanted to discuss even less than how much I peed when I was a little kid, it was how much my mum peed when she was expecting me. However, we’d both been so involved with this line of conversation that we hadn’t got any further than just outside the hotel door when our Mr Desperate came hurtling out again.
‘Thanks, ladies – or should I say kids!’ he said, with a grin, sounding (understandably) much calmer now. ‘Couple of Guinnesses too many – you know how it is. You all right? You lost your teacher, or something?’
We’d been studying our treasure hunt list and gazing up and down the street, hoping for inspiration.
‘No, no, we’re not lost,’ I said. ‘We’re just trying to find something.’
‘It’s a treasure hunt,’ explained Joyce. ‘We’ve got a list of things to find.’
‘Need any help?’
‘We-ell.’
Now, this was both an opportunity, and something of an embarrassment. You see, it obviously crossed my mind straight away that we could ask him, by way of returning a favour, to come back with us as our Most Gorgeous Man. The trouble was, he so patently wasn’t. (Mind you, if I’d known Lisa was going to appear with Ernest, I’d have thought we were in with a chance.) Don’t get me wrong – I’m not completely shallow. I’ve got nothing against men with strange thin curly hair combed over their bald spots, with tattoos on their necks, and weighed down with heavy gold jewellery. I don’t even mind if they’ve got a bit of a beer gut and wear their trousers too tight and far too short. Everyone has their own look, you know, their own personal style, and some people… well, some people just haven’t got it quite right.
But I couldn’t ask him to be our Most Gorgeous Man. I just couldn’t! I knew I wouldn’t be able to say it, without my face betraying the fact that he was actually the only man available so we we’d have to make do. And he surely must have known he wasn’t gorgeous, so he might think I was taking the piss.
I looked at Joyce, and wondered if she was thinking the same. I didn’t want her to jump in and ask him.
‘Well?’
He was certainly keen to help, I’d give him that.
‘Do you speak Irish?’ I asked, with a sudden spurt of relief, having noticed this one on the list. ‘We need the phone number of someone who speaks Irish!’
‘Well. No, sorry, not personally. Can’t help you there. But… just a phone num
ber, is it? That’s all you need?’
‘Yes – do you know anyone who speaks Irish?’ asked Joyce, excitedly.
‘Here you are.’ He got his phone out of his pocket, scrolled down his Contacts and called out a number.
‘Hang on, hang on!’
I didn’t have a pen, so I grabbed my own phone out of my bag and entered the number. What to save it as? Well – obviously – Irish. I’d only need it till we checked back in with Emily with all our treasure hunt booty.
‘Thanks a million!’ I told our friend.
‘You’re welcome. Will you be calling him, then?’
‘I expect so. He’ll probably have to say a few phrases, you know, to prove it.’
‘I’m reckon he’ll be glad to oblige,’ he said, with a grin. ‘See you, girls!’
‘Well, that was a bit of luck!’ I said, as he sauntered off.
‘Yes, wasn’t it,’ agreed Joyce. ‘Thank goodness we didn’t have to ask him to be Mr Gorgeous!’
Of course, when Helen and Jude turned up with Harry, no one else got the chance to show off the rest of their treasures. We were all so completely overcome by him that we just kind of abandoned the game. It was a bit of a shame really, because I don’t think they all had a red thong, for a start, and our cucumber was definitely bigger than anyone else’s. As for the Irish speaker’s phone number, it went completely out of my mind. Till now.
So is this the coincidence of the century, or what? No wonder the others are all looking at me as if I’ve concocted the most unlikely fairy story they’ve ever heard in their lives. This oddball throws himself at Joyce and me because he wants to use the hotel toilets, insists on helping us with the treasure hunt, and gives us the phone number of the very same person who’s helping Helen and Jude by being a Gorgeous Man? Like there isn’t more than one man available in the whole of Dublin?
