Gurriers (9 page)

“Could you turn that thing down!” Not only did she look like a schoolteacher, but she sounded like one too. Her total lack of sympathy for the damage inflicted on my expensive piece of property, her barkingly derisive tone of voice and her belayed order to perform the very action that had caused the aforementioned damage, enraged me.

I glared at her as I picked up my helmet before continuing my business in a firmer voice. “I’m here to collect something for Baggot Street.”

“Is your radio turned down?”

“It’s off!”

She pursed her lips and held me momentarily in a stare that would have been better aimed at a rapist than at a nice person like me before averting her eyes to follow her hands to a plastic tray full of letters on the desk in front of her to the left.

“Baggot Street.” The triumphant call heralded the extraction
of the appropriate envelope from the confines of its bedfellows, which was then extended towards me in a manner which was no doubt intended to exude efficiency.

Instead of taking the envelope off the old witch immediately, I examined the side of my helmet that had hit the ground for three or four seconds, leaving her stuck there holding it and knowing that my helmet was more important to me than she was. I’m sure she was just about to say something when I finally snatched it from her hand, turned on my heel and marched out of the building.

This would have looked a lot more impressive as a gesture of indignance if I hadn’t had so much trouble getting the door open, struggling so much to get the envelope into the bag while holding onto my poor damaged helmet for dear life.

I was still struggling when I got back to the bike. Having managed to slide the bag from back to front over my hip and having thrown the big flap over my shoulder, I was attempting to open the Velcro fastening enough for the letter to squeeze into the bag. This was proving more than a little difficult with the bulky helmet on my arm, so I first put the helmet on and then used both hands to bag the letter before closing the flap and awkwardly sliding the bag around to my back once more.

On top of everything else that I was going to have to master, I was going to have to get well accustomed to manoeuvring and utilising the variety of equipment that was involved in this job also.

I turned the radio on, removed my disc lock and got on the bike, firing up the engine while concentrating on my next destinations.

Drop Baggot Street, pick up Leeson Street, then on to Kilmainham, I repeated the list in my mind.

“Shit!” I was just clicking my bike into gear when I realised that I had no idea what number I was going to on Baggot Street.

I put the bike back into neutral before wrestling the bag back to the front and removing the letter, scrutinised the address, giving out to myself as I clumsily shoved it back in.

“Memo to self - always learn the address before placing envelope in bag.” I realised that I had said this out loud, and angrily too, as a passerby momentarily looked at me as if I had been giving out to him.

“Always,” I mumbled aloud in a less angry tone, solely for his benefit, as I looked away from him while returning my bag to the back.

I put the bike into gear and sped away, my face a burning red colour with embarrassment.

“Left at the other side of the Pepper Canister, up…aha! Herbert Street!” I said in the hope that it would bring me back up to Baggot Street, which it did.

Nice one, Sean! Logic and good sense of direction combined. That’s the job! I proudly commended myself in my mind. I smiled at the realisation that I had quite specifically kept this rhetoric unspoken despite the fact that it’s perfectly safe to speak to yourself when on a moving bike!

“Roger, Mick, give ih five there,” It felt odd having the radio on my shoulder with Aidan’s constant communication with the couriers in my ear as work, instructions and directions were given out. It felt strange hearing only one side of the proceedings and I couldn’t help myself trying to deduce what was being said to Aidan to get the responses that I heard.

“Fifteen John, go ahead”, “Are you definitely at the right address?” and

“Okay, stand by one second.”

I had to panic brake to avoid going into the back of a van because of the amount of attention that I was giving to the radio instead of the road in my attempts to work out that situation. I had pulled myself together and scolded myself appropriately by the time Aidan came back to John.

“Fifteen John, letterbox that and carry on.”

Aha! John was obviously delivering something to an address where he wasn’t getting an answer, which meant no signature. He therefore needed permission from the sender to put it in the letterbox, which Aidan got by phoning them. All perfectly logical, and logic was always a friend of mine.

I was feeling so clever about my powers of deduction that I lost track of what I was doing and sped, grinning smugly to myself, past the building that I was supposed to be delivering to.

I slammed on the brakes while indicating left, found a gap in the line of parked cars and pulled in. A motorist beeped as he swerved around me wider than he had to - exaggerating the extent of the inconvenience inflicted upon him. Instinctively, I looked at the motorist, making brief eye contact with him as he swerved back in.

His face was gnarled and distorted in the most horrible twisted expression of pure hatred that I had ever seen. His eyes burned like hot coal from behind the extended middle finger of his left hand, as the sneering mouth viciously snarled the word “wanker” before the whole evil visage had to (thankfully) be dragged away to concentrate on the road ahead. As soon as the head was pointed forward, the powerful Mitsubishi accelerated at full throttle in a roar of anger induced mechanical gusto and departed at speed.

This was more than a little bit silly, since he had to brake hard a hundred metres or so up the road when he met the rest of the traffic, exactly where he would have been had I not been on the road at all.

Even though I had caused this horrible person to brake, I had not delayed him one second, and he treated me with such a lack of tolerance as I had never before experienced. I was gutted. I felt like the victim of a hate crime. A lump appeared in my throat as the full injustice of the incident hit home. No way, by any stretch of the imagination, did I deserve that. It was bad enough that I had gone miles past where I was supposed to be (about 12 buildings) without having to deal with that sort of nastiness.

I took a deep breath and exhaled with a heavy sigh, hoping to shed the bad feelings with a little bit of relaxation, but ignorant, vicious people tend to leave a permanent impression of their nastiness on good people.

“Go ahead, Vinno.” Aidan’s voice over the air reminded me that I was at work and had a job to do.

Baggot Street has a dividing island between the different directions of traffic, and not a little step type that a bike can skootch over either, there’s an eighteen inch concrete wall on either side making a container for the earth in which large chestnut trees are planted. This island meant that to do a U-turn, I had to drive all the way up to the top, then drive all the way back down to the other end, do another U-turn and then make my way to the building that I had driven past. I decided that this was too much hassle and opted to lock my bike where it was and walk the 12 or so buildings distance to my destination, considering the walk as penance for not concentrating on what I was doing.

It didn’t even occur to me to mount the footpath and drive down to the right door. Well, I was a beginner after all!

“Okay, Vinno, IT Solutions will give ye one for Bluebell, Coke for the Western. When you’re up that way, Brooks will give ye one comin’ back to Mayor street…giz a shou’ when ye have them two on board an we’ll see wha’ else there is goin’ up.”

I hadn’t got a clue where any of those places were, and I could hardly even make out the company names, let alone work out where they were. There was going to be a lot more brainwork involved in this job than I had bargained for. I couldn’t imagine that the day would ever come when work would be despatched to me like that.

I stopped outside the building to get myself prepared for the delivery. I turned down the radio and took off my helmet, jamming it onto my forearm securely. I did my clumsy removal of the envelope and signature book from the bag before going into the building to avoid looking like a total beginner in front of the receptionist, even though it meant having two extra items in my hands opening the door.

This task turned out to be a bit of a nightmare between the helmet blocking my left hand, while my right one was full and the small vertical door handle just out of reach. I managed to get two fingers on the door handle and swing the door open wide enough to hook my left foot onto the bottom of it. Then
I used what I guessed to be appropriate force with my foot to open the door fully. The loud bang of the door crashing open was a testament to the difficulty involved in judging force in this manner.

My spirit sagged at the prospect of another sour receptionist with a bad attitude towards me. I was relieved to see an attractive young blond smiling at me despite the fact that I had barged into her reception like the proverbial bull in the china shop. I thought that it might be best to begin with an apology.

“Sorry about the door; I had to use my foot because my hands are full.”

“That’s Okay. What can I do for you?”

Nice one, somebody pleasant! I thought, relieved.

“I have an envelope here for you from Pepper Canister House,” I placed the envelope onto the reception desk and opened the signature book. “If you could just sign there please.” I proffered the open book while roughly pointing in the direction of the appropriate line. She sat there looking at the book for an eternity of seconds without moving.

A mixture of uncertainty, panic and anger began to well up inside me.

What was her problem? I had written the two jobs clearly on the page before leaving the base. There it was in front of her in black and white, from Pepper Canister to Baggot Street.

I nervously nudged her a little verbally with a tentative point over the top of the signature book. “Er…just on that line there beside where it says Baggot Street.”

As she gazed blankly up at me instead of following the line of my finger, I caught the faintest whisper of a courier being called on my radio, way too low for me to make out who it was. The fact that it could have been me brought an added parameter of anxiety into the equation of this delay.

“Just there in the signature column,” I repeated, a little firmer this time with my forefinger tapping the line for her. Thankfully the penny dropped and she hurriedly scribbled her name on the sheet. As soon as her pen was off the page, I was gone like the greyhound after the hare, desperate to know if I was the one
being called on the radio.

With the signature book in my left hand, helmet still on my left forearm and my right hand scrabbling to turn up the radio, I opened the door by pushing down the handle with my right elbow and then forcing open the door with my right shoulder.

The door flung open even more violently than it had when I entered the building, crashing with enough force to make me wince - but not breaking my stride. I was frantic to know if I was the courier being called by this horrid, bad tempered man that was in control of this new job of mine.

The radio stayed quiet for an agonising couple of seconds while I tormented myself wondering what to do. I had seen enough of this man’s temper to know that I never wanted to be on the receiving end of it. Would he go bananas if he had been calling me without getting answered, or would it be worse for me to call him when he wasn’t looking for me, wasting his oh, so valuable time with stupid questions?

The despair of indecision was coming to a nerve-racking head when it was mercifully ended.

“Okay, everybody stand by! Thirty-five Dolores, there’ll be someone down to you in a minute. Now, Nineteen Naoise first, go ahead Naoise.”

Relief! He hadn’t been calling me, and me about to radio in! How stupid would that have been? I decided that the best course of action to take in moments of indecision like that was no action at all. If he had been calling me he could just call me again, but for me to call in when he wasn’t calling would just make me look stupid and would have me much more likely to incur the man’s wrath.

I carried on with my work. The next pick up was an advertising company called Young’s, which was on Leeson Street, running parallel to Baggot Street on the other side of Fitzwilliam Square. I was recalling the directions Vinno had give me from where I dropped off.

“Strai’ down Baggoh Stree’ til ye have to turn left, takes ye onto Pembroke Stree’ Lower,”

There was a pause to make sure that I caught the stern look
that accompanied this detail.

“That’ll bring ye onto Fitz Square West. Strai’ up past two left turns tha’ bring ye onto the other side a’ the Square an’ then ye’re on Pembroke Stree’ Upper,”

Again I received a pause and a look to make sure that I differentiated between the two. “Up to the top where ye can’t go strai’, well ye can but it means drivin’ over an island, which we do to get onte Hatch Stree’ in front of ye. Anyhoo, that’s Leeson Stree’ to yer left an’ right at that island. You turn left an’ count the door numbers on yer left down to 66 and ye’re there.”