Gurriers (43 page)

“Nice one, Vinno!”

“D’ye think ye woulda goh the mortgage if they knew ye were a courier?”

“Noh sure, man. I had to geh life insurance to cover the value of the gaff. There woulda been hassle there if they knew the truth. Anyway, fuck them, here I am wi’ me lodger coverin’ half the mortgage an’ bills an’ me never ever goin’ to have a landlord again. Any of yiz tha’ have a few quid should look into it.”

“Vinno!”

“What’s up, Shy Boy?”

“I hear Harry’s movin’ out. Have ye anyone lined up to take his place?”

“Not yet, but I’ll tell ye one thing, it’s not goin’ to a courier!”

“Wha’?”

“I’ll get another civil servant or office worker or some sorta nerd. They’re the best tenants.”

“Oh! It’s just that I’m actually looking for somewhere else to live and I thought-”

“Keep lookin’, Shy Boy.”

The rejection was like a kick in the balls to me. I festered on it the whole weekend, hardly saying two words in the taxi to the local the next day to get the bikes, and then going straight home instead of staying with the lads for one.

The next time I saw Vinno was around ten on Monday morning where there just happened to be the two of us in the base. I had regained enough composure by then to do some begging.

“I’m clean, I cook and I’ll never ever be late or short with rent!”

“Shy Boy, don’t take it personally! When I first got the gaff I swore that I would always be the only courier there an’ that’s the way I’ve kept it.”

“But why?”

“’Cos a courier would have me ou’ on the piss all the time. Look at you, ou’ every nie’ no maher who is goin’ to the pub.”

“That’s cos I’m not happy where I am!”

“You’re gettin’ over some woman as well, don’t think I don’t remember, an’ men go wild when they’re recoverin’! You’d have half the pub comin’ back with ye every nie!”

“No I wouldn’t, Vinno, I swear! I would never bring anybody back without your permission and I’d make sure all the lads knew it!”

“No, Shy Boy, forget it man. It’s not goin’ to happen!”

“It would be your rules all the way, Vinno.”

“No!”

The following day was the day I first saw Tramp.

As it happened, I hardly saw Vinno at all that week. Twice I saw him across junctions at red lights going opposite directions. Each time I mimed a pleading action at him by placing my hands flat together and emphatically shaking them. Each time
the reply was two fingers to me. The more it played on my mind, the more I wanted that room. I wanted it so bad that I didn’t go for pints with the lads once during the week.

It made me smile sadly to myself to ponder what my reaction might have been if I had been told six months previously that I would soon have to prove to a courier that I was not just a piss head in a desperate attempt to be allowed move into his bachelor pad as his tenant.

“Ah well, Sean, such is life,” I said in a bid to console myself.

The next time I saw Vinno was in the base at lunchtime on Friday. He was at the table with Twelve Joe, Eighteen Gerry and Seven Mick. The only seat available was at the corner diagonally opposite to him, which suited me down to the ground because I intended to make sad homeless faces at him all through lunch. As it turned out, I never got a chance. Mick got stuck in as I sat down.

“Here! I hope ye don’t think ye’re gettin’ any o’ my fuckin’ grub for any poxy dog, Doctor fuckin’ Doolittle!”

“I wouldn’t give any creature anything that you’d been at!”

“What’re you gettin’ ou’ of it? Bit of a pervert are ye, Shy Boy? Fancy a hairy bit o’ hole, do ye?”

“Don’t get your hopes up!”

“Ye’d be doin’ the fuckin’ animal a favour if ye put i’ ou’ of its misery,” snarled Gerry. “Tha’ dog was with the tramp since he was a pup and was there when he died – it’s not goin’ anywhere. That’s the way dogs are; loyal, the poor dumb bastards!”

Insults I could handle, flinging back loud and confident replies, but harsh reality was another thing altogether. A sudden lump combined with shakiness weakened my reply to a mere shadow of my previous comments.

“He’ll find himself a home someday, Gerry.” I cringed at the pleading way I had said his name to finish the sentence, begging for hope like a poor kid might beg for an expensive Christmas present. Obvious as it was to me, Gerry either didn’t notice or wasn’t prepared to acknowledge the plea. He carried on with his harsh reality.

“I know dogs, I’ve had them for years an’ tha’ one is goin’ to
die on that spot!”

I didn’t even bother with an attempt to reply, glumly diverting my full attention to unwrapping my sandwich.

“I’ll tell you one thing plain and straight, Shy Boy,” Vinno’s loud tone got my immediate attention. “Ye can fuck off if ye think ye’re movin’ any dog into my little garden.”

My sandwich was midways to my mouth when I paused. I wondered what he meant by that statement. Did he mean that I could have that room? There was only one way to find out.

“Wha’…what was that, Vinno?”

“You heard me. You can have the room, but no dog!”

“No problem, Vinno, no problem. Just me, the goat and the donkey, but no dog.”

I said with a big grin and a wink. He slapped his hand to his forehead in mock woe.

“I wonder what the fuck you’re lettin’ yourself in for, man!” Joe tried to stir it up.

“He can be fucked out as easy as he’s bein’ let in.” Vinno gave me a stern look.

“Don’t worry, Vinno, I’ll move out of your place while you still want me to stay. Sure isn’t that what I’m doing now with my other place!”

“Okay, but I get a leg when we eat the goat!”

“Deal!”

Eight days later I was finishing my packing on a wet Saturday afternoon with a heart a little heavier than I had expected. Moving to Vinno’s was definitely the right thing to do, but moving away from Eoin and Marie was like leaving a girlfriend for no better reason than having found someone better. I felt like a cheater – something I have never been nor ever intend to be. There never had been one bad word between us during my stay there and their reaction to the news that I was moving out – especially in Marie’s case – was unexpectedly palpable disappointment.

As I lumbered my bags downstairs to where they were both waiting, I muddled a few sentences together in my head to try to
explain to them that it was best for me to move on; that the path towards recovery was a path away from the first refuge, which was a place of misery and woe and painful reminders of a life gone by. In moving away from pain I regrettably had to move away from those helping healers who had been so good to me.

“Here we go! You sure about bringing the gear over in the car? I could make a couple of trips on the bike?”

“No, it’s fine. “Eoin replied.

“Cheers, man, you’re very kind, you both are. The past few months have been the worst in my life and you two have been just brilliant friends and have done more than I could ever have asked of you to help me through it.”

“You don’t have to go, Sean!” Marie’s eyes were full of tears just waiting for the signal to cascade down her cheeks, which made me feel guiltier.

“I know, but the sooner I move on the sooner my turmoil will be through. Besides, I was brought up always to go while they still want you to stay!”

“We’ll always want you to stay!”

“That’s great to know – it really means a lot to me!”

“We worry about you, Sean! I mean….well… when are you going to go back to your real job?”

“The job I do now seems perfectly real to me.”

“I know but it’s such a waste of your education, of what you’re good at.” Marie added.

“I’m good at being a courier, and I was driving bikes long before I got my degree!” Mentally I had to keep myself in check to stop my blood boiling at the attitude that I was becoming accustomed to being treated with by non-couriers. Friends, family and old colleagues or college mates all regarded me with a definite snobbery that I had never known before.

Ian Johnston, one of my closer classmates in college whom I had crammed with many a time to get projects completed within their deadlines, had personified this feeling not two weeks earlier when I had bumped into him on the steps of the AIB on O’Connell Street; him in his suit and me in my working clothes.

“I’m sorry….oh, Sean! How are you? You’re….em….a courier? That’s… well….”

I could have eased his discomfort by breaking the ensuing awkward silence but I was so sickened by his obvious inability to greet his old friend as such that I just stood there looking him straight in the eye – a gesture that he responded to by looking everywhere but in my eyes – until he stuttered some nervous half excuse about being busy and scuttled off as if he had borrowed money off me years ago and never paid it back.

I would challenge anybody who insinuates that being a courier is not a real job to get on the back of a bike with a courier for one day and experience for themselves the sheer physical effort involved in the job.

“We were just wondering how long you intended to stay at that job – we worry about the danger of it, you know.” Eoin knew from previous conversations that I had a tendency to get a bit defensive about my choice of profession.

“This job is perfect for me right now. I feel as if I have more control over my life and that’s exactly what I need to steer myself into a happy place. It’s hard to explain some of the things about it; everybody seems to think that couriers are just wild animals or something but they’re good people, and people I should be with right now. I can’t say how long I’m going to be a courier for, but at the moment I have no plans or ambitions to do anything else.”

“Fair enough, ye seem to know what you’re up to. That room is always there for ye if ye need it again, isn’t it, hun?”

“Yes, yes, of course. We’re going to miss having you around, Sean.”

“Not at all, Marie, I’m sure you’ll be glad to have the house to yourselves again, runnin’ up an’ down the stairs in the nip with spatulas!”

I mentally slapped myself for saying something stupid like that.

“Anyhow…” I felt awkward as I noticed Marie redden. “I’ll get this lot loaded into the car.”

Harry was still in the apartment, smoking a joint in the
kitchen with Vinno when I walked in.

“Well the new key works anyway, Shy Boy!” Vinno had decided to get me keys cut and to keep Harry’s as spares.

“Yes, boss, well worth the money you made me pay you for them! How’s Harry?

Looking forward to the big move?”

“Ah yeh! Waterford’s supposed to be a buzzy little town. Vinno’s after giving me directions to a biker pub an’ told me who to ask for to get sorted out an’ all.”

“Noh just for smoke, Harry! You tell them tha’ I sent ye an’ ye’ll be welcomed wi’ open arms. I would only send ye to good people, an’ they know tha’ I’d only send good people down to them. Yiz’ll all be best mates in no time, man! As long as ye don’t go bogardin’ joints that is!”

“Oh shit! Here ye go!”

“Grassy arse, amigo! Where’s yer stuff, Shy Boy?”

“On the way over in my old landlord’s car.”

“He’s noh expectin’ a drug free zone or an-in, is ‘e?” he asked, smoking long and hard on the joint.

“Nah, no, he’s cool. They’re cool; his wife is comin’ with him.”

“Where they comin’ from?” asked Harry.

“Lucan. They’ll probably be a while yet though, traffic’s a bit heavy.”

“Sometimes ye’d almost feel sorry for the mortals in their boxes.”

Vinno triple toked furiously on the joint, indicating that he was about to pass it to me. I adjusted position slightly to make that passing smoother. He finished his sentence as I took the number, with its long hot ember threatening to fall off from having the bejaysus smoked out of it.

“If they weren’t all such bastards!” Vinno added after the long drag.

“Surely not all of them!” protested Harry, a car driver.

“Maybe not all of them on the road, my four wheeling ex-lodger, but all of them that me and my kind have any dealings with are bastards. Ye don’t screech up to someone in their car to
tell them what a sweet manoeuvre they just performed, do ye?

No, it’s always the bad shit! Shy Boy, are ye goin’ to smoke that fuckin’ thing or take a picture of it?”

“Have to let it cool down after you sucking the guts out of it, Vinno, ye drunken bastard!”

It was obvious that he had been drinking because of his manner and behaviour.

“What of it, lodger?”

“Nothing at all, landlord, except maybe a touch of jealousy!”

“There’s cans in the fridge.”

“Cool. I’ll have one and stock up for ye later. You want one yourself? Harry?

Okay. Three cans coming up!”

Those cans were drunk and the next round half finished when the loud bell in the hall shrilled the arrival of my stuff. I galloped down the stairs and along the long corridor to the front door.

The apartment was above a bookie’s in a row of shops set just off the main Dundrum Road. It was typical of the design and layout of accommodation in the ‘50s, when it was built.