1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge (10 page)

I struggled to my feet, made my way tentatively to the window and, with the trepidation of someone about to dive into extremely cold water, I threw open the curtains. I winced, but not as markedly as the fisherman painting a boat just outside my window who was the unwelcome recipient of an eyeful of ungroomed male nudity. His wounded expression suggested that this unsavoury spectacle had deeply unsettled him and that he would be giving breakfast a miss this morning.

Once again the shower subjected my body to the extremes of ice cold and scalding hot water, but this time I suffered it with considerably less stoicism, instead choosing to scream and shout at it If no one gave it a good talking to it would just carry on with the same sloppy attitude.

At breakfast I was joined by the only other guests staying in Bunbeg House, Cait and Rolf, a couple who were on a canoeing holiday. Their marriage was unusual in that Cait was from Ireland and Rolf from Germany, countries which seemed at opposite ends of the spectrum. Germany, a nation bonded by precision and determination; and Ireland, a nation held together by a relaxed attitude and extremely flexible drinking hours. Rolfs accent was eccentric to say the least—German with twenty years of Irish influence at play. He sounded like someone doing a poor impression of Manchester United’s goalkeeper, Peter Schmeichel. Andy advanced from the other end of the dining room and hustled me over to the phone. He looked like a man who had spent a day I and a half under a machine which had the opposite effect of a sunbed.

‘It’s
The Gerry Ryan Show
for you, Tone, now don’t forget to tell him I that we’re tryin’ to get an ‘elicopter. He could be a big help.’ I Oh God yes, the helicopter. I’d forgotten about that. I
The Gerry Ryan Show
put me on hold and said they’d come to me directly after the nine o’clock news. I stood there, phone against my ear, worried that I had killed so many brain cells the previous night that a piece of cheese would give a better interview than I was about to. Andy approached me again. What did he want this time?

‘Tone, can you take it in the bar, cos then I can turn the radio on here in the dining room so that Cait and Rolf can listen. It’s just that the speakers will cause feedback if you talk to him in here.’

‘Are you sure? They’re coming to me any second.’

‘It’ll be all right, I’ve set it all up, it’s a new system we’ve ‘ad put in, just hang up in here and then pick up the phone in the bar and press four.’

So, I hung up, picked up the phone in the bar, and pressed four. The line went dead. So far the new system had been a disappointment. In the other room though, clearly and with absolutely no feedback, Cait and Rolf could hear Gerry Ryan floundering on the radio:

‘Tony? Are you there Tony Hawks?…Well that’s funny, we had him a moment ago and now we’ve totally lost him…’

I looked at Andy, who looked at his shoes, and then back at me sheepishly. ‘They’ll ring again, don’t worry.’

‘Perhaps I won’t take it in the bar and press four this time.’

‘Fair enough Tone, fair enough. My mistake last time round, I think it might be six you have to press.’

‘If it’s all the same, I’d rather not risk it.’

‘Are you sure, Tone? It’s just that if it isn’t four, then it’s definitely six. If you take it in here Cait and Rolf will have to listen on headphones.’

As far as I could work out Cait and Rolf could listen with their ears, after all they were in the same room as me. But Andy’s warped priority was feat they should hear this radio interview exactly as the rest of the courtry would, even at the expense of the interview actually taking place.

The phone rang and I picked it up quickly, before Andy could pack me off into another room to press four, six or any other random number which might activate the ‘new system’. In the receiver I heard an anxious voice.

‘Tony?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m putting you through to Gerry now.’

And so my third interview on national radio was conducted against a backdrop of complete mayhem, as Andy, Cait and Rolf attempted to share one set of headphones. As I endeavoured to chat naturally to Gerry, I could see six hands desperately unravelling one very tangled wire, and ears being thrust and manoeuvred into positions within range of the tiny headphone speakers. The scene resembled that of three spoilt children fighting over a present which they all badly wanted and, do you know, I found it a tad disconcerting. However I got the necessary information across, remembering to mention all the helicopter business, and Gerry made the relevant appeal over the airwaves: ‘So the challenge has been laid down before us, we have to get Tony and his fridge out to Tory Island. So come on, if you have access to a helicopter, a submarine, a hot air balloon, a hovercraft, a flying boat, a yacht or indeed even a humble fishing vessel—phone us now, 1850852222, the Ryan Line is open.’

From a delighted table in the dining room, at the end of three intertwined arms, three thumbs went up from my devoted listeners, the general consensus being that the interview should have done enough to secure the helicopter. The phone would ring any minute with the Ministry of Defence offering a ‘return ticket to Tory Island’ with the Air Corps. And why not? It was only five minutes by helicopter and they just sit on their arses all day waiting to rescue people.

Cait and Rolf delayed their departure by fifteen minutes so they could hear the good news when it came through, but when it wasn’t forthcoming they wished me luck and headed off canoeing for the day. Three pots of tea later, the phone still hadn’t rung and Andy and I were beginning to pace anxiously in the dining room. Andy, for whom this mission had taken precedent over caring for a pregnant wife, was convinced that we needed to call in to Gerry Ryan’s office to see if any offers of help had been received. I was less sure, not wishing to appear pushy, but I was swayed by Andy’s convincing argument.

‘If they’ve drawn a blank, we can start following up the contacts we made last night—but if we start doing that now, and Gerry’s people are already talking to them, we’re treading on their toes—so we need to know, Tone.’

Sometimes the outbreak of war can release a heroic side to a person’s nature. It was Andy’s personal tragedy that his had been released by the arrival of a man and a fridge. For when the bad news was received that
The Gerry Ryan Show
had taken
no
calls with regard to the Tory Island appeal, Andy defied his deathly white complexion and sprang to life, making phonecall after phonecall and declaring, ‘Don’t worry, Tone, well get you out there.’

The name we had been given last night meant nothing to anyone in the Ministry of Defence, so he called the Air Corps direct, rang local press, contacted the local TD (MP) for the area, and after forty-five minutes of almost continuous bullshit he eventually acquired the telephone number of the top nob in the Ministry of Defence in Dublin. We just needed him to give clearance for the Air Corps to fly me out. Andy’s ‘moment’ had arrived. He had already demonstrated that he could talk persuasive nonsense but it had all been a rehearsal for this call. He was fantastic. I listened in wonder as he managed to convince a Dublin bureaucrat that it was vitally important to get a man and a fridge airlifted out to a tiny, sparsely populated Atlantic island.

‘…you see he’s from England, and they’re following the story over there and I’ve been inundated with phonecalls this morning with press wanting to know how he’s getting on. Ifs a big disaster for us up here because this is one of the biggest chances we’ve got to promote Donegal and Tory Island—and we’re all in complete shock because the last thing we expected was this ferry to be broke down and everyone is gutted because everyone put so much work into this…this is a big bombshell, everyone was running round last night trying to ‘elp…yeah…yeah…I understand that…right. Ifs just I don’t want to be the one going back to the committee saying that we failed on this one. If we let Tone down, we let Ireland down and we lose out on millions of pounds of tourist revenue.’

I blushed a little. Andy hung up and turned to me.

‘This is it—the end of the road. They’ve promised that they’re going to ring me back in twenty minutes and let me know one way or the other.’

‘What do you think the chances are?’

‘Good. Pretty good. He really did seem like he wanted to ‘elp.’

I was getting quite excited. I’d never been in a helicopter before.

Hang on though, hadn’t I read somewhere that the helicopter is the single most dangerous form of air transport? I became jittery and tried to calm myself down with self assurances that it was only the take off and landing which were hazardous. Then I realised that given the short nature of this flight, taking off and landing was virtually
all
we were going to do. Jitters became full-blown fear.

I needn’t have worried because twenty minutes later the Ministry of Defence rang to say they were sorry but they couldn’t help.

We felt what a tennis player must feel after losing a match having held matchpoints. Okay, the matchpoints had been on our opponent’s serve, and he was a big server, but all we’d needed was a bit of luck—a net cord or a streaky mishit return which went for a winner, and we would have been there. The adrenaline had been pumping, and victory—the moment of triumph had been within reach. It was close to midday but our day felt like it was over.

We consoled ourselves with meaningless platitudes like ‘maybe it’s for the best this way’, Veil, at least we tried’, and unsurprisingly it did little to ease the pain. Andy looked most dejected. After all, he had spent hours on what many would have described as a pointless mission, and all his efforts had been futile. It appeared that the thought of spending the rest of the day involved in things which were altogether less futile didn’t inspire him. He left, presumably to renew his acquaintance with his wife and family, and to run some errands which should have already been run. I wandered down to the quayside to check out the possibilities of finding a fishing boat which might be making the journey the next day. If that failed, I might have to throw in the towel as far as Tory Island was concerned.

Outside the sudden subjection to bright light provided each flank of my forehead with a new and freshly throbbing temple, reminding me that in future I should make more resolute efforts to treat my body like one. A few yards from Bunbeg House I could see a rugged looking fisherman on his hands and knees messing about with tackle, and as I approached him I was relieved to see that he wasn’t the one who had been privy to mine. I coughed self-consciously to get his attention.

‘Hello, I don’t know whether you’ll be able to help, I’m trying to get out to Tory Island, the ferry won’t be running till Friday, and I’m trying to find out if you know of any boats which might be going out there at all.’

He regarded me with some surprise.

‘Rory McClafferty was away an hour ago.’

‘What?’

‘Rory McClafferty is just after leaving. Around an hour ago, I’d say. He left with a load of blocks he’s taking out there.’

‘You mean, he left in a boat, from this quayside, to go to Tory Island?’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

‘Ah yes, he was away about an hour ago. You say you wanted to get out to Tory?’

‘You could say that.’ I pointed to the dining room of Bunbeg House. ‘We’ve been in there all morning organising appeals over the air on national radio and trying to get the Ministry of Defence to clear a helicopter to get me out to Tory Island.’

‘Oh, you’ll get nothing in there,’ he said, pointing into the dining room. I had to admire the terse accuracy of this remark.

‘Will anyone else be going out there today do you think?’

‘Not now, not with the tide the way it is.’ He looked up from his nets and eyed me quizzically. Were you not down at the pier this morning?’

‘Er…no.’

‘Well, if you’d been down at the pier this morning, someone would have told you about Roiy and you’d be on the island now.’

Of course I would. I had made a terrible mistake. I had trusted in the local knowledge of Andy, a man who came from Bermondsey. His awareness of what was going on amongst the boats outside his very door was on a par with his understanding of his new telephone system. Whilst he had valiantly embarked on the fruitless endeavour of securing a helicopter, a friendly fishing boat had left for the desired destination literally a matter of yards away. Telephoning fishermen the night before had proved to be no substitute for wandering down to the quayside and asking. As I walked the five or six yards back to Bunbeg House I was struck by tiie lesson there was to be learned here. Be ambitious, strive for great heights and don’t give up without a fight—but don’t do so without first exploring the simple option. I decided to spare Andy the news until later, thinking it might spoil his day still further. Besides, our failure had produced the bonus of a free afternoon which I intended to spend reading and relaxing.

I was being naively optimistic. People knew where I was, and I was in demand. All afternoon the phone didn’t stop ringing for me, and Andy’s dining room turned into my office. RTE television were the first callers. An afternoon show called
Live At Three
had heard about me on the radio and were keen to send a presenter and a mobile unit to film me hitching by the roadside. They wanted to know where I would be on Friday. So did 1.1 tried to explain this, but it was a difficult concept to grasp for someone in the Filofax ‘lefs do lunch’ world of television.

‘But you must know where you’re going to be. Do you not have a gameplan?’

‘My gameplan is not to have a gameplan,’ I said, being deliberately nebulous.

Antoinette, to whom I was talking, was torn between being genuinely amused by the whole notion of ‘fridge hitch-hiking’, and being frustrated by the guaranteed uncertainties which appeared to be a part of it. She seemed to be the producer, researcher
and
presenter on
Live At Three
, and I half expected our conversation to be cut short at any minute because she had to go and do some make-up or operate Camera 4. She called three more times in the space of an hour with more questions to which I could offer no satisfactory answers. I wasn’t making her life easy with my ‘I don’t knows’, ‘maybes’ and ‘probablys’, and I could have been more helpful, but there was a certain power afforded to me as a result of my not really caring whether I did this programme or not, and I wasn’t going to squander it.