A Day Off
A
wind from Siberia roared down The Broadway. About fifty of us waited outside The
Cricklewood Tavern, huddled together for warmth. There was a newsagents further
down, where you could shelter under the awning, but I’d always stood outside
the Tavern, rain, hail or snow. The
first transit van pulled up at just gone six. I turned to Eamon, he was leaning
against the wall, arms folded, eyes closed, yawning. I nudged him.
‘Here they come, try and look a bit smart, for God’s sake.’
He swore under his breath, opened his eyes, and slowly pulled himself
back to his full height. The ganger climbed out of the van, turned up his collar
against the rain, began walking along the pavement in front of us, pointing to
the ones he wanted.
‘You … you … you.’
I felt my heart thumping as he approached. He stopped in front of me, his
eyes flicked over my arms and chest.
‘… You.’
I let out a breath;it was Eamon’s turn next. He’d be alright if he
managed to keep his eyes open, he had twenty years on me.
‘… You.’
‘Begob you won’t regret it, I’m a great man with the pick and
shovel’ said Eamon, putting on a thick Kerry accent and grinning like an eejit.
The ganger stiffened.
‘Are you taking the piss son?’
‘What do you mean?’
Eamon looked puzzled. The ganger hesitated, then suddenly jerked his
thumb at the van.
‘Go on, get in there before I change my mind.’
I
grabbed hold of Eamon and tugged him away before he could say anything else.
When I’d promised my brother Tom I’d look out for Eamon when he came to
London I never realised what I was taking on.
‘Stop acting the gom, for Christ’s sake.’
He just laughed. He thought he was hilarious. We climbed into the back of
the van. A big red faced culchie squeezed up next to me.
‘Hello’ he said, ‘My name’s Lonnegan’ in a booming
Kerry accent. He held out his hand till I shook it. I hoped to Jesus he hadn’t
heard Eamon putting on that voice.
‘Terrible weather, you’d need to be an Eskimo to stick it’ he said,
blowing on his big paws, then rubbing them together. I nodded, and quickly
looked away, the last thing I wanted at that time in the morning was to get
stuck with a bore like him. The van filled up. Lonnegan turned to the fella
sitting opposite.
‘You’d need to be an Eskimo to stick this.’
The man pretended not to hear him. As soon as the ganger closed the
doors, everyone lit up. The smoke from the fags and the steam rising from our
clothes formed a thick fog inside the van. The coughing started. One morning one
of us will end up with a pair of lungs in a steaming heap on our lap.
Jesus! My lungs! How am I going to smoke now?
We joined the North Circular. The ganger put his foot down. Lonnegan was
getting on everyone’s nerves, whistling The Merry Ploughboy and tapping
his feet. Eamon grabbed a rolled up newspaper someone had left on the floor,
started banging it on his knee and singing.
‘Hey baby, won't you come on over here?'
‘Jesus, put a sock in it, will you?’ said Lonnegan. Eamon carried on
singing, louder now, pretending the rolled up paper was a microphone.
‘I said now hey sugar, won't you come on over here?’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ roared Lonnegan.
The ganger shouted over his shoulder.
‘Shut up back there – you fecking Kerrymen are giving me headache.’
He turned the radio on. It was the weather forecast – wet and windy in
the south, black ice in the north, Scotland completely fucked.
No matter, the Paddies are off to work.
Eamon
said ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you were building your own house for a
change?’
I grunted, and swung my pick. It was a right bastard of a morning, the
icy rain was driving into us, the ground was as hard as rock.
‘I’d have a conservatory, so you could catch the sun in the morning.
Everything would be in white – the furniture, the carpets, the walls. And
I’d have a spiral staircase coming down through the centre of the living
room.’
Lonnegan started snorting.
‘I’d soundproof one of the rooms and turn it into a home recording
studio.’
‘Jesus, you’d need soundproofing if you were going to be singing’
said Lonnegan. A few of the others laughed. Eamon stopped digging and leaned on
his pick.
‘In the garden’, his eyes lit up as he waved his hand out in front of
him, ‘A guitar shaped swimming pool.’
‘Will you listen to that fella?’ said Lonnegan, turning to the
others, ‘You don’t want much, do you son? I suppose you think you’re
better than the rest of us?’
‘No, just you.’
Lonnegan’s face turned even redder than it already was.
‘You cheeky young whelp, I’ll fecking …’
I jumped in between them.
‘Ah now lads.’
Lonnegan tried to push past me.
‘Out of me way, this is nothing to do with you.’
‘He didn’t mean any harm. You’re sorry, aren’t you Eamon?’
‘Like fuck I am.’
Lonnegan was strong as an ox, I couldn’t have held him for long.
Luckily the others started giving out to him.
‘Leave the cunt alone, willya?’
‘Pack it in for Christ’s sake, before you get us all the sack.’
‘No one talks to me like that’ said Lonnegan, pointing over my
shoulder at Eamon. ‘I’ll see you after work. We’ll see how cocky you are
then.’
Eamon tried to laugh it off but I could tell he was scared, Lonnegan
would snap him like a twig. We went back to work. No one said anything for a
while, the only sounds were the odd grunt and the crunch of pickaxes cutting
into the ground.
A few minutes later Eamon slammed his pick into a water pipe and a jet of
water shot up into the air. He jumped back and started laughing. We all
scrambled out of the trench apart from Eamon, who stood there in the rising
water, holding his pick like one of those electric guitar yokes and singing.
‘Take me to the river,
Wash me in the water.’
I trench and grabbed the
pick.
‘Come on, pack it in, for Christ’s sake.’
We wrestled the pick back and forth between us. The others stood above
us, watching. We must have looked a right pair, him laughing like an eejit, me
cursing him at the top of my voice. The ganger pushed his way through the crowd.
‘Right, that’s it. I knew you were trouble. Youse two are sacked.’
He bunged us a few measly quid. Eamon started demanding more, but I
pulled him away. When we were at a safe distance, Eamon turned around and yelled
‘You can stick your job up your arse’ at the ganger and flashed Lonnegan a V
sign. As we walked past the portacabin, he picked up a stone and flung it at the
window.
‘Cut it out. What’s come over you today?’
‘Stop nagging, you’re worse than my da.’
We walked off the site. A rusting corrugated iron fence stretched down
both sides of the road.
‘Where are we?’ asked Eamon.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Ah, sweet Jesus.’
I lit a couple of fags and passed him one, then checked my watch, it was
nearly one.
‘Right or left?’ asked Eamon. There was a railway bridge a few
hundred yards to our left, I remembered going under it in the van.
‘Left.’
The rain turned to hail, stinging our faces and hands, spraying the fence
like buckshot, bouncing across the pavement. Eamon grabbed me by the elbow, he
had to shout to make himself heard above the din.
‘The only thing for it is the high stool. Come on, I’m buying.’
We ran like fuck.
The
barmaid looked at us as if we were the dirt under her fingernails. Our jeans
were caked in mud, and it was streaked on our face;Eamon’s long hair was
hanging in rat’s tails. She poured our two pints in thirty seconds flat,
you’d think she was turning on a water tap. We bought a couple of hot pies,
our stomachs were howling, we
hadn’t had anything to eat since 5.30 that morning.
It was a dreary place, barely half full. I don’t think anyone had
smiled in there since it had opened. We found a table, as I bit into the pie the
middle broke open, spilling half the meat and gravy onto the floor.
‘Fuck it!’
Eamon roared laughing.
‘Go on, laugh. Everything’s a big joke to you, isn’t it?’
He grinned, slowly took a bite out of his own pie, holding one hand
carefully underneath it.
‘You’d better buck up your ideas. You can’t afford to carry on the
way you did this morning in the building trade.’
‘Yes I can.’
He looked delighted with himself.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not going back to The Broadway.’
He licked some gravy off his fingers.
‘I’ve had enough. There’s more to life than swinging a pick.’
I could tell it was a line he’d been rehearsing for a long time.
‘And what are you going to do instead?’
‘Concentrate on my music.’
He out down the pie, pulled a crumpled piece of paper from the back
pocket of his jeans.
‘I’m going to form a band. I’ve been working on an advert to go in
the NME.’
He unfolded the paper and read from it.
‘Lead guitarist/singer/songwriter into Free, Led Zeppelin, Deep
Purple, Rory Gallagher etc. seeks bass player, drummer and keyboards to form
progressive rock band. No ELP/Yes fans.’
He gazed proudly at his handiwork for a few moments before folding the
paper up again and slipping it back into his pocket. He took a sip of his pint.
‘I’m not really sure about the keyboard player. I don’t want to end
up with some guy who thinks he’s Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman, you know?
There’s only going to be room for one soloist in my band.’
‘Concentrate on your music indeed. You’ll be fecking lynched if you
try and play that electric guitar in the boarding house again.’
He paused, took a fag from his packet, tapped it on the table. He knew
very well I was watching him, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. When he spoke, he
looked over towards the bar, as if something had caught his eye there.
‘I’m moving to a squat in Notting Hill.’
‘A squat? What kind of people have you been hanging around with?’
He laughed to himself.
‘A bunch of weirdos. They’re going to take a vote on Wednesday to
decide if I can move in.’
‘A vote?’
‘Yeah, they do everything democratically. But it’s a foregone
conclusion. There’s a couple of gorgeous birds there, they’ve fallen for my
Celtic charm.’
He laughed again, lit the fag. He offered me one, finally brave enough to
look at me. I waved it away.
‘Your Celtic charm? Jesus Christ, if your father was here now he’d
give you a good kick up the arse.’
He thought that was funny too.
‘You know what really clinched it? When I played them a few jigs and
reels on the mandolin. Jesus I had them eating out of my hand after that.’
‘I thought you were bored with all that?’
‘So did I, till I found out how much those two liked the old diddley
diddley.’
‘You watch you don’t go and make a fool of yourself.’
He rolled his eyes.
‘Thanks for the advice.’
He finished off the pie, then took a long swig of his pint.
‘Jesus, that’s better. I feel nearly human.’
Suddenly he clapped his hands together.
‘Let’s see if we can wake the dead.’
He got up and put some money in the juke box. Two beefy fellas carrying
pints of lager came and sat at the next table. They started talking about
football. Every second word was wanker. This one was a wanker, that one was a
wanker. Eamon came back with two more pints.
‘It was my shout.’
He shook his head and put them down on the table.
‘No, you’re alright Uncle Sean.’
He winked at me, raised his glass.
‘To our day off.’
He started singing along to the song on the juke box.
‘Hey baby, won't you come on over here?
Two more fellas joined the pair at the table opposite. I didn’t like
the look of them.
‘Why the long face?’
‘We’ve lost a day’s wages, thanks to you.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll treat you. I had a win on the horses at the
weekend. All Right Now, a tenner at 7 to 1 in the 3.15 at Chepstow.’
He tapped his nose.
‘And another twenty on Wild Rover at 3 to 1 in the 4.00 at
Doncaster.’
He struck the table with the palm of his hand.
‘The Milky Bars are on me.!’
He laughed and took a swig from his pint.
‘I see they caught the four Paddies who blew up that pub in
Guilford,’ said one of the fellas at the next table in a loud voice.
‘Yeah, the fucking animals’ another replied. ‘Hanging’s too good
for them.’
Nobody moved. It was as if somebody had knocked a glass off a table, and
we were all waiting for it to shatter on the floor.
‘Come on’ I said, ‘Drink up and let’s go. This place is a dead
loss.’
‘Aye you’re right so,’ says Eamon. He finished the rest of his pint
in one and glanced over at the men sitting at the other table. They stared back
at him.
‘Come on if you’re coming’ I said, rising from my seat, careful not
to catch their eye.
Rows
of mean, grey, terraced houses stretched down the road. I imagined people
peeking out at us from behind the net curtains, thinking Look at those two
filthy Paddies. What are they up to round here? I think I’ll call the police.
Flakes of snow tumbled from the grey sky. We walked on in silence. Tom
would hit the roof when he heard Eamon was giving up work and moving into a
squat. He’d blame me of course. We came to a row of sad looking shops. Old
newspapers and carrier bags blew about in the wind, wrapping themselves around
people’s legs. Eamon bought whisky, beer and fags in a supermarket. There was
a bus stop just outside. All the glass had been smashed, the wind whistled
straight through, blowing flurries of snow into our faces. Big wet flakes
settled on Eamon’s hair and the tips of his eyelashes. We started drinking the
whisky, trying to warm ourselves up. A police car crawled past, the coppers had
a long, hard look at us. We stared at the ground till they’d gone. Eamon spat
into the road.
‘Feckers.’
I said nothing.
‘Do you think the buses actually stop here anymore?’ Eamon asked,
handing me the bottle. He turned his back to the wind, so he could light a
couple of fags.
‘I’d say we’ll need a miracle.’
I took a good swig from the bottle, wiped my mouth with the back of my
hand.
‘Perhaps we should say a few Haily Marys?’
He smiled and passed me the fag. I took a long drag;the smoke and booze
was helping to keep the hunger at bay. I gave him back the bottle.
‘I’m heading straight for the caff when we get back. I’m going to
have lamb chops, roast spuds and peas, a mug of tea, apple crumble and
custard.’
Eamon gazed up at the sky, half closing his eyes.
‘I’ll have steak and kidney pie, chips and beans, and bread and
butter pudding after.’
He pulled a sour face.
‘They’re all vegetarians in the squat. You ought to have seen what we
had the other night – Fennel Casserole. Jesus, it was like chewing on
cardboard. That stuff wouldn’t fill a rabbit. As soon as I left I ran round to
the nearest kebab house and got myself a doner and chips.’
He raised the bottle to take another swig, then turned and looked at
me;we roared laughing.
I heard a muffled rumbling noise.
‘Listen.’
It was a bus, struggling stubbornly through the driving snow, like an old
tub pitching and rolling in a heavy sea. Eamon jumped to his feet and threw his
arms around me, laughing like a maniac.
‘It’s a miracle Uncle Sean.’
‘Get off me you big eejit.’
I stepped into the road and stuck out my hand.
We
sat upstairs, on the back seat. It stank of stale smoke and damp
clothes;cigarette butts littered the floor. There were a handful of other
passengers dotted around. They looked like corpses someone had propped up in the
seats in a desperate effort to make the bus look full. The only sign of life was
a woman downstairs, humming a merry tune.
We passed a burnt out corner shop, Ali’s Stores;a car dumped in
a canal, the roof already covered in snow. I still had no idea where we were.
‘London is a huge place’ said Eamon, ‘I don’t think you’d ever
get to know all of it, even if you lived here your whole life.’
‘There’s a lot of it you’d be better off not knowing.’
‘Did you never think of going back home, Uncle Sean?’
‘Sure there’s nothing there for me to go back for.’
‘Weren’t you and Geraldine Cullen going together once?’
I nodded and took the whisky bottle from him, it was half empty already.
‘My da thought you’d get married.’
‘So did I. Once I’d made enough money here I was going to go back and
propose to her.’
‘What happened?’
‘I’d been in London less than a year when your father wrote and
warned me to come home as soon as I could, that Gerry Cullen was after her, but
I took no notice. I was sure she’d wait.’
Neither of us said anything for a minute. He passed me the whisky. I took
a good shot of it.
‘The Cullens have always had plenty of money. None of them ever needed
to leave home.’
‘Money’s
not everything.’
‘That’s just something poor people tell themselves.’
I looked out of the window. An old woman hauling a shopping trolley went
on her arse in the snow. A couple of teenagers laughed at her. I took another couple of hefty swigs of the whisky then passed the bottle
to Eamon. He started singing that awful song again.
‘Hey baby, won't you come on over here?
I said now, hey sugar, won't you come on over here?'
I nudged him.
‘Sing The Cliffs Of Dooneen.’
He sighed.
‘Alright, just this once when no one I know is looking, alright?’
He started to sing:
‘You may travel far far from your native home,
Far away o’er the mountains far away o’er the foam,
But of all the fine places that I’ve ever been,
There is none can compare with the cliffs of Dooneen.’
I’d always loved that song. Someone told me tat it’s about Dooneen
Point, near Ballybunion in County Kerry. I’ve never been there, but I could
tell you exactly what it looks like.
Someone started coming up the stairs, humming, money jingling with every
step. The conductress, a black woman about my own age, appeared. It was a
bastard of a day but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from enjoying
herself. She was a sight for sore eyes. She smiled at Eamon. It was a beautiful
smile.
‘Now there’s a happy customer. Singing away.’
She was the first person that day we hadn’t made angry or nervous.
‘Do you like it? It’s about a place in County Kerry called The Cliffs
Of Dooneen. Have you ever been there?’
She pulled a sad face, as if she was going to cry.
‘Never.’
She put her hand on her hip and raised her eyebrows.
‘And I suppose now you’re going to tell me exactly what I’ve been
missing.’
She was a gas, she should have been on the television.
‘It’s a beautiful place on a fine summer’s day, the wildflowers
out, the mountains behind you, the clear blue sea in front of you. You’d love
it.’
She laughed.
‘You gonna take me there honey?’
‘Would you come?’
‘Now what would they think of someone like me in a place like that?’
‘Sure they’d love you. You’d be treated like a film star.’
‘Well now, that’s tempting. It’s about time somebody treated me
like a film star.
Eamon laughed.
‘Ah you’re a star alright love, don’t you worry.’
‘So you’ll come?’
‘It’s the best offer I’ve had all day. I promise to think about
it.’
‘Where does this bus go anyhow?’ Eamon asked her.
‘Where d’you want to go?’
‘Kilburn.’
She scratched the back of her neck with her finger.
‘Well now, we’re a good way from there, but I’ll tell you where you
can pick up a number 8.’
We bought our tickets. Eamon asked her to have a drink with us.
‘I’d love to darling, but I’m not allowed when I’m on duty.’
‘Ah go on.’
‘If an inspector got on and saw me drinking I’d be in big trouble and
this is the only job I got y’know.’
‘I’ll bet it’s a hard job and all’ I said.
‘You’re not kidding. I been on my feet since six this morning.’
The
bell rang then and she went back downstairs, humming to herself. Eamon handed me
the whisky again, it was nearly empty. The whisky had warmed me up nicely.
Suddenly the day felt full of promise. I started wondering what the others in
the house would say if I ever brought back a black woman. Their mouths would
fall open. They wouldn’t know where to look. It’d be a good one alright. All
of a sudden I had a mind to do it, just for the craic. I listened to her humming
to herself downstairs, I tried to pick out the tune, but I didn’t know it. I
wondered if anyone had ever tried to work out how many different tunes there
were in this world? It’d make your head spin just thinking about it.
She shouted up the stairs at us.
‘All those wanting Kilburn, change at the next stop.’
It seemed hardly any time had passed since we’d got on.
‘Let’s stay on for a while,’ I said to Eamon.
He looked at me as if I’d gone mad.
‘What for? Christ we don’t even know where the bloody bus is
going.’
It was a stupid thing to say.
‘Come on, will you?’
He pushed against me; I got up out of the seat and started walking
downstairs.
She was standing on the platform, smiling.
‘Bye now love,’ said Eamon, and stepped off.
I stopped in front of her, swaying slightly, trying to think of something
to say. She moved back a step.
‘Are you alright?’
‘Come on!’ shouted Eamon from the pavement. ‘There’s a number 8
coming.’
I wanted to say something that would make her smile again. My tongue
swelled up in my mouth.
‘Come on!’
‘You’d better hurry or you’ll miss your bus,’ she said. She
sounded worried, as if she was afraid I wouldn’t go. The passengers were
staring at me. I lowered my face and stepped off the platform. The number 8 drew
up. We sat upstairs again. Eamon passed me a beer. I tilted back my head and
drank it in one.
‘Sing The Cliffs Of Dooneen again,’ I said to Eamon.
‘Ah give it a rest, will you?’
He
leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes.
I reached inside the carrier bag for another beer, drank it staring into
the driving snow. It’s going to be a bad morning on The Broadway tomorrow.