Gurriers (10 page)

I followed these instructions with ease, grateful of the proffered precision even though I had a rough idea of where I was going myself. Clearness and accuracy are essential when giving directions and Vinno obviously knew that well.

There was a distinct bounce in my step as I scaled the four granite steps up to the large Georgian style door of the four storey restored terrace house. It felt surprisingly good to get to a call with no confusion or error or hassle.

The receptionist was a young dark haired girl who had a big smile for me as I strode into the reception.

“I’m collecting something going to Kilmainham.”

“All collections are picked up downstairs in our basement; out the front door, steps to your left.”

These sing song instructions were obviously given several times a day, but the smile returned as soon as she finished speaking. I smiled back briefly before turning on my heel to follow them.

The basement office was a far cry from the plush surroundings of the reception. The door was ajar so I walked straight into the despatch room. There were shelves full of boxes on all of the walls. Two men in suits were occupied at different shelves on opposite sides of the room, both of whom stood with their backs to me. I pondered on whether to approach one of them.

“Can I help you?” The third man in the room said, making his presence known to me. He sat at the large overcrowded table in the middle of the room, hard to distinguish from the piles of packages, envelopes and large cardboard tubes that adorned
it. He had apparently been writing in a ledger of some sort in front of him due to the poised pen hovering over the middle of the page.

“I’m collecting something going to Kilmainham.”

I anticipated a delay in the location of my package, judging by the surrounding clutter, and was pleasantly surprised to be proved wrong. His hand went straight to the middle of three cardboard backed envelopes on the edge of the table to his left, which was handed to me after a brief confirming glance at the address.

“Are you going straight there with it? It’s urgent.”

I chirpily confirmed that I was actually going straight there, but he still gave me an unfriendly stare over the rim of his glasses as the envelope changed hands; as if I was lying to him or something. I was offended at having my integrity questioned this way. If I had other work to do I would have told him.

People in general seemed to have a pretty negative impression of me as I went about my job, for no apparent reason. Nobody ever looked at me like that when I arrived in offices to work on their computer!

Upon descending the steps to street level, placing the envelope in the bag, unlocking the bike and balancing helmet on top of my right mirror, it was time for my next new experience. I had to “radio in” for the first time. Aidan had told me to call him -provided I hadn’t heard from him - when I had done the “mini” and picked up my “other Dublin 2”, as he had called it.

I was surprised at how nervous I was as I cleared my throat and brought the radio closer to my mouth, thumb poised in position for action over the button.

“Four Sean” I announced, with as much breath behind my voice as the jitters would allow.

“Who’s calling there?”

“Four Sean,” I said, slightly louder. There was no response. I decided to try one more time. “Four Sean.”

Just as I was pushing the button to speak, I heard the beginning of a word coming from the radio which was cut out as
soon as my thumb had finishing pressing the speak button. I froze in a panic with my anxiety tripping up my poor brain as it frantically tried to assess the situation.

I definitely heard someone talk. It had to be Aidan. Was he calling me?

Am I in trouble?

No! Calm down, I told myself. What else could it be? Channel Two?

He’s going to hate me! Will he know it was me?

“Give us that again, Gizzard, someone keeps cuttin’ over ye.”

My panic was slightly lessened in the knowledge that the worst case scenario was the true one. A feeling of calm acceptance washed over me in the seconds that the Gizzard was repeating himself because of me. Maybe this job just wasn’t for me anyway.

“Roger, Giz, give it another five there an’ if they haven’t got ih by then, pull out coz they’ll be on lookin’ for ye in JP. Rie, who else is callin’?”

“Er, Four Sean.”

“Ah, Four Sean go ahead.”

Unbelievably he actually sounded glad to hear from me. Still, it was time to fess up about cutting over the Gizzard.

“Erm…sorry but that was me cutting over Gizzard.”

“Not to worry - happens all the time. How’re you gettin’ on?”

“I did the mini and picked up the other Dublin 2.”

“Roger, that just leaves you with Kilmainham….Okay…yeah, just header on with that one; it’s kinda urgent. Giz a shou’ when ye drop it. Two Charlie go ahead.”

I was a much happier camper as I put on my helmet and started my engine. I felt that I could get the hang of this job after all. It was nerve-racking and so different to anything that I had ever done before, but that was where the challenge lay, and there’s them that say that the measure of a man is in the challenges that he overcomes.

Kilmainham here I come! I put the bike into gear and away I went.

According to Vinno I could get from Leeson Street to Kil
mainham by making two turns on an otherwise straight route; Leeson Street, Stephen’s Green, Cuffe Street, Kevin Street, The Coombe then right onto Meath Street. Driving the full length of Meath Street brought me to a T junction at Thomas Street, turning left brought me down Thomas Street and then (staying left at the fork), down James Street past the hospital straight through Mount Brown and into Kilmainham.

This all sounded perfectly straightforward, although the only places I had ever heard of were Leeson Street, The Green, The Coombe and James Street. Kevin Street sounded vaguely familiar but I never heard of the rest. Mount Brown? What the hell sort of a name for a street was that?

I was familiar with my surroundings along Leeson Street, along The Green and Cuffe Street (although I had never known that to be the name of the street), having travelled around this area before, but after the junction with Wexford Street, my surroundings were new and surprisingly scary, as if there was now a distinct element of danger in not knowing exactly where I was. Proceeding in as straight a line as the lay of the road would allow - saying the directions to myself over and over in my head - I was delighted to realise that the next junction – right for Christchurch and left for Harold’s Cross - was also slightly familiar. Maybe I actually knew a lot more of Dublin than I thought I did!

The lights were green so I proceeded onwards to The Coombe.

“Oh shit!” I exclaimed while slamming hard on all the brakes while beeping a warning at the girl who had just pushed a buggy - complete with a toddler - straight off the footpath onto the road on a direct collision course with me. She froze when I beeped, coming to a full stop without even having to look up. She had been fully aware of the oncoming traffic and had been using the child as a means to stop the traffic to get her across the road, despite the danger to the poor kid. I was horrified and stared at her as crossly as I could all the way past at my reduced speed. This brought on a string of verbal abuse that was so distorted by the sneering face that I could only make out
the last four words

“Ye bleedin’ bollix ye!”

My blood was boiling already with adrenalin and this crap from some common little child-endangering slapper, was enough to push me over the edge.

It took real effort not to come to a complete stop and get off my bike to give the tart a good talking to about her inconsiderate and dangerous behaviour. She was lucky that I had somewhere to get to in a hurry!

I proceeded with my directions. First right Francis Street -that’s it there., I thought. The second right that was coming up must be Meath Street - this must be it here. Then I noticed that this was Reginald Street and something was wrong.

The slapper with the buggy had actually been looking to cross the road to go onto Francis Street, but I had failed to register it as my first right because all of my attention went to the hazard. This caused me to go on, counting Meath Street as my first right instead of the second, ending up with me here at Reginald Street, stopped in the middle of the road wondering what to do.

The Coombe was a bottleneck, with the street narrowing to one lane in each direction. Nothing could get past me in my present position. The first beep from behind me made me jump slightly and instinctively start to move forwards, edging towards the kerb to let people get past me so that I could have a chance to assess the situation. This the first two cars did, with the second one beeping a pathetic display of indignation as she went past, but behind them was a ten ton rigid truck who didn’t have the space to pass me on this narrow street with the constant stream of oncoming traffic. His beep, albeit a polite one done as short as possible just to inform me of the situation, made me panic and I just kept moving forwards - ever further away from the desired Meath Street.

Alarm bells rang in my head as I proceeded slowly, shadowed by the diesel spewing monster behind me.

“This is wrong, Sean. You’re supposed to be turning right!”
screamed the little navigational voice in my head.

Then up ahead I saw a T-junction. Logic decreed that turning right here I would be going in the right direction and should cross my intended path further down the line. Stopping briefly assured me that the coast was clear so I made my right turn, relieved to hear the pursuing monster swing left behind me and gradually fade away into the distance. As I made the turn, I spied the name of the street that I was now on:

Pimlico. Not Pimlico Street or Road or Avenue - just Pimlico. Dublin was shaping up to be a very odd sounding place altogether!

I followed this little street of terraced houses as it veered to the left and gradually opened up to another T-junction, behind which I could see blocks of flats. My entire surroundings were totally alien and more than a little bit scary to me. My nerves were going haywire between the panic of being lost, the worry of wasting time with urgent work on board, the consequent terror of being called and that unsettling scariness brought on by unfamiliar surroundings.

Through the panic I could see that I had three options at this T junction: left, right, or back. Back to re-trace my steps was, of course, my best option to get myself un-lost. Turning right to counteract the left handed bend of Pimlico in the hope of crossing my intended path further on, would have been the obvious runner up in the logic race.

Turning left blindly because the original instructions had been right, then left and I had already turned right in the dim, nerve- racked hope that this would somehow cancel out the previous error was undoubtedly the worst choice of the three.

For reasons of panic, over-eagerness to please, terror of ridicule, desire to save time and sheer stupidity, I turned left. My head felt as if it was full of alarm bells as the road swung right to take me along the side of the flats that I had been facing. This was wrong and I knew it. The alarm bells rang louder as the road veered left at what looked like a corporation yard and it hit home that I was definitely going the wrong direction. The
next turn was a right, and I paused once more to weigh up three options.

“Turn right to try to get back on track,” again advised that little voice in my head.

“Just keep going and hope everything turns out all right. Go all the way back and try to work out where you went wrong.”

This time I opted for the “average” of the three options. I turned right onto Forbes lane which brought me onto James’ Walk, down the back of Fatima Mansions - one of the most notorious and dangerous flat complexes in Dublin.

I had heard of Fatima but didn’t realise that this was it in the absence of street signs. However, this place was obviously dodgy, with shady characters skulking everywhere looking suspicious because they were looking at everything - including me.

As the sheer expanse of this huge and horrible place became more evident as I made my way along James Walk, my heart sank like a lead balloon. I was nowhere near where I wanted to be. How could I be? I was en route from one business to another and there sure as hell weren’t any businesses in this godforsaken place.

Fear, panic, depression, low self-esteem and loneliness all acted together to drag my spirits deeper and deeper into the depths of demoralisation. Up until now, I had been so busy concentrating on the job that I only drifted off into the misery of my personal life in short bursts when I was off the bike or at red lights but now in this dreary place in such a negative situation, the misery within awakened to feed upon my vulnerable soul like a demon from the bowels of hell itself come to drag it down to the depths and feed on it.

You’re useless! I thought. Your whole life is a waste. You’re never going to see her again. No wonder she left you.

I was toddling along James’ Walk, almost in tears and physically feeling the pain in my chest, just moving on auto-pilot with no hope of finding my destination and little will left to live when suddenly the radio - whose industrious infusions had never stopped but had been a background noise up to now - snapped
me out of it, as Aidan calling my name and number brought it instantly to the foreground, thereby mercifully breaking the spell on my spirit.