Gurriers (14 page)

“Okay, where exactly are you now?”

“I’m at a T-junction; I think I’ve gone too far. There are no signposts and there are just fields around me.”

“Can you see any landmarks of any sort there, Sean?”

All I could see around me was green. Then I remembered the golf course.

“Hollystown golf course,” I blurted into the radio.

“Stand by there, Paddy. Four Sean did you say you were in Hollystown?”

“Roger, I just passed a turn for Hollystown Golf Club on my left and then less than a mile further I came to this T-junction,” I blabbered rapidly, not wanting to delay Aidan any further.

“Okay, I know where you are. Turn rie there, that’s the Cappagh Road, that’ll take ye down to a roundabout where ye turn right onto the Ballycoolin Road an’ the esta’e will be on yer right hand side abou’ a mile down. Twenty-six Paddy.”

The immense relief at being directed to my destination didn’t stop me from taking the time to look in the map, to confirm where I was going for myself but mostly to figure out how I had gone wrong.

I felt quite foolish on realising that I had misread the map, but was happy enough to put it down to experience with a vow that it would never happen again.

I made it to Symantec without further incident.

I was startled, to say the least, when the receptionist in Symantec told me that she had a message for me to ring the base. I replied with the same articulation that I had been applying over the air all day.

“How? But …er…well, have you…erm-”

“You are here to collect a letter for Booterstown, aren’t you?”

I nodded, employing enough wisdom to button my blubbering lip.

“Your base rang here to get you to phone them when you got here.” She paused politely to make sure that the idiot she was speaking to had kept up with her so far.

I actually felt myself redden slightly.

“You can use that phone over there, just dial 9 for an outside line and then ring the number.”

I noted the position of the phone, on a little table beside a sofa at the far wall, and understood the instructions but didn’t make a move towards it. She looked at me quizzically, the polite smile requiring that little bit more effort to be sustained.

I hadn’t moved towards the phone because I had been carefully constructing my next sentence in my head before attempting to speak it. “I only started this job yesterday and I don’t know the number yet. Do you have it handy there, by any chance?”

She seemed to relax on my completion of a coherent sentence, aided also by the explanation for my uncertain bumbling.

“I have it here on speed dial; I’ll call it for you and then transfer it across.”

That was nice of her. She well deserved the smile that she was rewarded with, although the head behind that smile was frought with anxiety at ringing the base. Was I going to be given out to? I had a nervous flashback to my first impression of Aidan sacking Barry over the phone but convinced myself with ease that there was no way on earth that misreading a map could be a sackable offence.

The extension suddenly rang in a long continuous tone, startling me into picking it up hurriedly.

“Hello,” I uttered shakily. I felt like an eejit when I heard a phone ringing in my ear, the continuous tone being the transfer of the call that I was now listening to.

“Lightning Couriers, Elaine speaking, how may I help you?” she replied, filling my ear with unexpected chirpiness.

“Er…yes, hello I’m Sean, I mean Four Sean. I got a message to ring the base…er-”

“No problem, Sean, hold the line there and I’ll get Aidan for you.”

The friendliness of the voice worked wonders on my nerves
and re-enforced the belief that I had done nothing wrong. After a lengthy wait, Aidan’s abruptness exploded into my ear.

“Hello, yes, Sean, is it?”

“Roger.”

“Okay, you’re in Symantec now, yeah?”

“Roger.”

“I was goin’ to bring ye into town an’ get ye a few goin’ north but now I might get you to hit the M50 an’ bash ou’ the airport and that Sutton. Ye have tha’ on board a while now, an’ then in with tha’ Booterstown. I know ye live west but which do you prefer: north or south?”

“South, I grew up in Blackrock.”

“Roger, do ye know your way to the M50 from there?”

“Roger, I sussed it out on the map when I was working out where I went wrong, sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it, man, you never worked as a courier before, and you don’t know yer way around Blanch, no?”

“Hadn’t got a clue to be honest with ye, unknown territory all day!”

“You’re doin’ well, Sean, very well. Everybody stand by, I’m on the bleedin’ phone, ye wankers! Rie, you’re goin’ to Aer Arann in the airport, they’re in Corballis Park, aim for the terminal building when ye go in but when the road swings right you carry on straight, ye’ll see DHL in front of ye. Go almost up to DHL then turn left and it’s a little building on your left. When you drop that, get on the M50 and turn left. Follow that until you reach the sea then turn left. Sutton Cross is the next big junction you come to. Call me if ye haven’t heard from me by the time you get them two dropped. Okay, Naoise first. Nineteen, go ahead.”

Praise from Caesar !

A broad grin made its way outwards from the centre of my face as the muscles on my brow released their grip on my eyebrows, allowing them to float upwards in a gesture of contentment with myself. I was doing very well at a job that was by no means easy. Having scurried nervously from the reception to the phone, I swaggered on the return journey, thanked the
receptionist in my smoothest voice, and strolled purposefully through the revolving door.

A mouse had entered the building but a lion had left it. Ten seconds later the mouse was back.

“Sorry…I forgot to get the envelope…thanks very much. Bye.”

I made my way to the airport via the elusive Snugborough road without much difficulty and followed the directions into Corballis Park but then took a good ten minutes to locate the offices of Aer Arann.

My eye caught a clock on my way out of the airport and I was shocked to see that it was already half eleven. It hadn’t seemed like two hours since I had left the house, but in retrospect, I had been through an awful lot since picking up this damned cabbage whose deadline was only half an hour away, adding to my anxiety pang about the next leg of my journey. I had been to both the airport and Blanchardstown before, although I didn’t really know my way around either, but I was quite sure that I had never been in or near Sutton before in my life.

Don’t worry about it, Sean; remember that you’re doing well, I thought, very well!

The sea was further away than I had imagined, and the motorway became a normal city street about three miles away from it which led to much panic around the Baldoyle area, but I soldiered on and made it as directed, turning left then and finding my way to Sutton with no mishaps.

The fruit and veg manager helped my bashed ego a little by giving out that it was a blatant abuse of the company’s account with us to use it in that manner.

“She wouldn’a sent you with this if she was fuckin’ payin’ ou’ of her own fuckin’ pocket, that’s for sure!”

It was also a great relief to get the spherical shape out of the bag. Between finding the location with little trouble, not feeling too bad about the cabbage and having my bag flat again with only one envelope in it, I exited the supermarket with a spring in my step, turning my radio up full to call in.

“Four Sean.”

“Stand by there, Sean; One Vinno, one”

I walked over to the bike and took the disc lock off it while he dealt with “numero-uno”. He despatched three jobs to Vinno while I lit up a smoke. I had been despatched three jobs all day and here was Vinno getting that amount in one go.

My little sulk was interrupted by a distraction of the two wheeled kind. The noise was the first thing that turned my head as a 100CC bashed up little two stroke of an indiscernible make (to me anyway), screamed into the car park at high revs from the Sutton Road and nailed it at full throttle through two fast gear changes before having to brake hard, dropping down a gear, to swing around the left hand bend that led to the main entrance. The thick white clouds of two stroke smoke seemed to be relentlessly pursuing this screaming demon, only catching him after he had squealed dramatically to a halt beside the trolleys on the footpath just inches from the entrance.

He was, of course, a courier.

I watched in awe as he launched himself off his little machine, which fell over onto a side stand that I hadn’t even noticed being employed, before paying a hurried visit to the over sized looking box which swayed precariously on the passenger area of his saddle, held on only by bungee hooks secured somewhere towards the bottom of his machine. He snatched an envelope and his signature book from the box as the wisps of his smoke were beginning to furl around him and leapt the last few feet to the door while I was still wondering if he was going to lock his bike or not.

Is that the way I should be? I wondered. I had driven into the car park at legal speed, sought out the appropriate parking area, dismounted, locked my bike and then proceeded to walk, at normal pace, across the car park to the main entrance. I calculated that it had taken me between three and four minutes longer than him to get from the car park entrance to the front door of the shop.

After only brief musing about the significance of this, the reality of the situation hit me like a slap in the face. In one singular instance three minutes made little difference but in rela
tion to something done many times a day it’s a different story altogether.

My brain got hold of the situation and jiggled it around a bit with startling results. If this lunatic and I did ten jobs each in a day with a three minute time difference in our approach at each pick up and drop off, it would take me an hour longer to do the same day’s work. An hour!

The little voice in my head, which I had now deduced as the voice of reason/logic, piped up again. “Well, Sean, for starters you can forget about this correct parking crap! The machine goes as close to the door as possible; sure isn’t it only going to be there for a few moments. You can smarten up the pace when on foot also instead of dilly-dallying the way you normally do, and maybe get a box; he looked decidedly more free than you do.”

“Giz a shou’ when yer all aboard. Okay, Four Sean.” Aidan said, bringing me back to reality.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“You were callin’ me there.”

“Yes, I’ve just dropped Sutton. You said to call you.”

“Roger, Sean, I’ve nothin’ ou’ that way, can you start rollin’ in the coast road an’ I’ll see if an’in comes in for ye.”

“Roger.”

“Giz a shou’ around Connolly if ye haven’t heard from me.” Fair enough. Logic decreed that going back the way I had come with the sea on my left, would take me into town. No need for the map, just keep the sea on the left. Easy.

About two miles down the coast road, I was stopped at a red light looking to my left out to sea, listening carefully as Aidan despatched work to my new workmates when my train of thought was interrupted by the high pitched squeal of a skinny tyre under too much braking force. The whirlwind courier from the shopping centre pulled up beside me, closely followed by the smell of two stroke smoke. As I glanced in his direction, I noticed that he was staring intensely at my exhaust pipe. Instinctively, I looked away immediately, but after a couple of uncomfortable seconds knowing that my bike was being gawked at, I slowly turned back to see that his gaze had moved up to the
engine. He was so engrossed in it that he was actually leaning over to study it, apparently unaware that the attention was a bit awkward for me. His head came up suddenly and he nodded his approval to me.

“Nice.”

“Er…well.” I said. Unaware of the correct way to respond to somebody admiring the bike. The word “thanks” was making its way from somewhere in my head when it was overtaken by “Wha’…” as the courier clicked his bike into gear and, almost simultaneously, tore off at high revs, spewing his white smoke behind him.

I hadn’t been watching the lights, he had. Feeling like a plonker, I hurriedly engaged the clutch, put the bike into gear, gave it some throttle and quickly released the clutch. Too quickly. The bike hopped forward ten inches or so before jerking to a stop.

“Oh, shit,” Of all the times to stall the bike!

In a state of panic my left foot slipped off the footpeg as it dove to put the bike back into neutral for the restart. This, of course, generated more panic and I just pulled in the clutch and started the bike in gear, clumsily pulling off under too much throttle while releasing the clutch too slowly in an overkill reverse of the error that had caused the stall.

It took me a good half a mile, breathing two-stroke all the way, to catch up on the little bike and I had to get up to 80 to do it! This was way too fast on this unfamiliar road, but I just had to catch and pass this bike that had made me look and feel so silly.

I tore past him without either braking or easing off with at most four inches between us, undoubtedly scaring him as much, if not more, than myself with such reckless driving but damn, did it feel good to vent off my rage at myself for my mistake at the traffic light. I kept up the dangerous pace for a little after passing him, mindful of how far back the ever receding cloud of white smoke was in my mirrors, and only slowed down after going through an amber light, knowing that he was doomed to be delayed there.