The Street and other stories (11 page)

“Come on, lads, let’s be having youse,” Leo began. “Heads up, come on.”

Seamus was lying on his back. As he obediently and automatically sat up, Mickey saw the tearmarks on his cheeks.

“Jesus, boys!” Leo exploded. “It’s only a bloody game. It’s not the end of the world.”

The rest of the boys pulled themselves dispiritedly into sitting positions, but even then their attention was elsewhere. Beyond the partition there was an outburst of loud clapping and chanting: “Waterford, Waterford, Waterford!” followed by a low murmur of talk.

Wee Eoin went to the partition and put his eye to the gap between one of the joints. The Waterford team were sitting upright and alert, hurling sticks in hand as they listened to their manager. He was addressing them in a low, intense staccato, emphasising his instructions by jabbing his finger in the air. Eoin couldn’t hear what he was saying, but as he watched there was another outburst of chanting and laughing. He turned to face his own team.

Mickey was looking at him. He had a little smile on his face. “What’s that they’re saying next door, Eoin?” he asked.

Eoin looked at him, puzzled.

“I thought I heard them say something about Belfast dickheads,” Mickey continued.

“Oh, aye,” Eoin agreed. “They’re in quare form. They think we’re a crowd of tubes. Wait till I hear what your man’s saying now.”

Some of the boys looked up as he put his ear to the gap in the partition.

“Shit!” Eoin hissed.

“What was that?” Mickey asked.

“Nawh,” Eoin replied, “I’ll tell you later.”

The entire team looked up at him expectantly.

“Tell us what they’re saying,”Mickey commanded. “The boys deserve to know.”

“He’s saying that the game’s over. It’s in the bag. All the talk about teams from the North is spoof, especially Belfast. They’re talking about whitewashing us.”

Mickey eyed his squad.

“Is that right, Charlie? Eh? What about you, Seamus? And Gearóid? Have youse lost your tongues? C’mon, Jimmy? Seamus?”

His interrogation was interrupted by a loud burst of applause from across the partition.

“Some boy made a crack about Yella Murphy,” Eoin told them.

Mickey reached over and grabbed big Charlie’s hurley. He rattled it on the bench. His tone was urgent as he spoke.

“That’s it, lads. Where are youse from? Ballymurphy, Ballymurphy, Ballymurphy!” he chanted.

The din in the Waterford quarters intensified in retaliation. Big Charlie grabbed his stick back. He joined in Mickey’s war chant, rattling his studded boots on the floor and beating his hurley on the bench. The rest of the team joined him so that from each side of the partition the noise rose to a crescendo. As they yelled and bawled and drummed out their defiance, the St Pat’s mood changed completely. When Mickey began to speak again they quietened immediately and listened eagerly to his instructions.

“Now, boys, we’re going to change tactics. They want to play their brand of hurling: we’re going to stop them! We’re going to harass and spoil and harry and block. They want us to play their game. We can’t; we’re too tired. So don’t try any fancy stuff; let the ball do the running. Don’t play across the field or waste energy with short passes; play long balls up and down the wings. Backs!”

He addressed the backs.

“Stick to your men like glue, like their shadows—only closer! Get inside them. Get your sticks up and get to every ball first and hit it first time. Don’t even try to lift it, just get it away down the wings into their half! And no fouling. We can’t afford to give away any frees.”

The boys nodded in unison.

“Forwards, keep moving. Spread their defences. The midfield will feed you the ball. Take your points. No fancy stuff! Just steady sniping over the bar. Don’t try to run in or they’ll destroy youse. Get the ball; look up; get it over the crossbar. That’s it! Can youse do that?”

“Yes,” they nodded determinedly, and now they were on their feet, hurleys in hand, tiredness and sore limbs forgotten. Across the partition all was quiet. Their opponents were already out on the pitch.

Mickey faced them again, but it was Leo who spoke, his Dublin twang thicker than ever with the emotion.

“Where are we from?” he shouted.

“From Dirty Dublin,” wee Eoin laughed.

“From Ballybleedingmurphy,” Leo corrected him.

“From where?” he challenged the team.

“From Ballybleedingmurphy,” they mimicked.

“And youse can’t be beaten,” Mickey reminded them.

The next thirty-five minutes saw the most exciting and courageous exhibition of close-quarter hurling that most of the spectators had seen or ever would see again. The Waterford team were thwarted at every turn, but they kept their nerve, so that the play
surged back and forth without a score for the first twenty minutes. Then Jimmy sent a long high shot in towards the Waterford goalmouth. It struck the upright and bounced back into play just outside the square. As the Waterford fullback moved to clear it, wee Packie was in before him and on to the ball like a cat on a mouse. He never even broke his stride as he sent the
sliotar
rocketing into the back of the net.

The spectators went wild. Wee Packy was like a banty cock as he strutted about, shouting his team on. The Waterford goalie and the fullback were arguing.

“Where did he come from?” the Waterford fullback exclaimed.

Packie looked up at him.

“I came from Ballymurphy,” he snarled. “We eat dogs!”

That score was quickly followed by a point and then another one so that with only minutes to go the teams were level. Mickey was like a dervish on the sideline; Leo had lost his voice. Wee Eoin was up behind the goals willing dangerous balls away. Then at midfield big Charlie picked up a loose ball and passed it to wee Gerry McKeown. Gerry stopped, looked up and sent a perfect long puck over the crossbar to put St Patrick’s and Antrim into the lead.

Bedlam reigned. The referee looked at his watch. A chorus of whistles rang out from the Belfast spectators. But play continued, and then, seconds later, just in the dying minute of the game, Waterford made another valiant, desperate surge towards the St Patrick’s goal. A low shot was miraculously saved on the line by Gary, the St Pat’s keeper; there was a frenzied scramble for the
sliotar
as it bounced out from the goal. A Waterford player got to it first but was robbed almost immediately by Gary who had followed the ball out. As he moved to clear his lines for the second time, while wee Eoin screamed from behind the posts, “Help him, help him, somebody help him!” his shot was expertly blocked down.

The loose ball bounced back towards the goal and dribbled slowly—almost in slow motion—into the back of the net. For a
split second there was silence. Then as the ball settled in the dust the long piercing scream of the final whistle brought the game to an end.

Mickey embraced each of the exhausted youngsters as they came off the field to the cheers of the spectators still ringing from the sidelines. Big Charlie began to sob when Mickey grabbed him. He shook himself free and stood facing the three team mentors. He was covered in sweat, smeared with mud and his hair was plastered to his forehead. His hurling stick jutted defiantly from his clenched fist.

“They won,” he blubbered, “but they never beat us.”

Mickey grabbed him again. Leo and wee Eoin patted them both on the back.

“They’ll never beat youse, son,” Leo said. “Never.”

In the afternoon of the day, and particularly on a Saturday, in most towns in most parts of Ireland a procession of people can be seen making their hurried way back and forth between public house and bookmaker’s shop. For all I know this pedestrian perambulation, or a variation of it, may occur also in foreign parts. I make no claims in this regard. Indeed, if I am honest—and, of course, like most people, even if I wasn’t I would pretend that I was—I would have to admit that my experience of this ritual to-ing and fro-ing betwixt pub and bookies is confined to Belfast town. Nitpicking readers may therefore wish to challenge the empirical evidence of my opening sentence.

Let them do so if they must. I am undismayed by such pettiness, especially because I know that the more discerning reader like yourself will have no time for such distracting trifles. And anyway, do we have to provide scientific research or documentary proof to support everything we say? Of course not; not unless we are totally lacking in imagination. And that not being the case, neither you nor I need worry. Meanwhile, in their never-ending scurrying after facts, the mindless drones will never read stories such as this. They are lost to the real world and beyond temptation or redemption. They will certainly never be found in that jostling, animated, nervous, hopeful, optimistic collection of humanity which spends its Saturday afternoons and, depending on individual circumstances,
the afternoons of other days, rushing back and forth between public house and bookmaker’s shop in Belfast, and—dare I say it?—most towns in most parts of Ireland.

Belfast is not much different from Derry or Dublin or Cork or Waterford or Limerick. These cities also have their optimists, their sporting gentlemen, their lovers of life, so I include them all in that great fraternity which is the main subject of our story. You may have noticed that I use the term sporting gentlemen. Lest the more feminist among you jump to conclusions, let me reassure you: this is no sexist slip. No! I am as liberated as any Irish mother’s son can be. I am also zealously aware of the pitfalls of stereotyping. I know, too, how deeply sexist a language the English language is. I choose my words carefully and make no apologies for my use of the masculine noun. The term gentlemen instead of gentlepersons or gentle people or even gentlemen and gentlewomen is employed because the female sex is hardly ever, and in my experience never, represented in the mobile, male and motley multitude of public-house punters which it is my intention to tell you about, eventually.

This is not to say that women don’t drink. That would be unthinkable. Or that they don’t gamble! Of course they do! Well, at least some of them do, and as you are no doubt aware and hopefully in favour of, these days some females are also seen in public bars, though not as frequently as the male of the species and never, as I have remarked above, as part of the mobile gambling clientèle. Women, I suppose, in many ways are much too sensible for that. Or maybe, I hear you mutter under your breath, maybe they simply don’t have the time?

Or maybe it’s just the way we are. I mean, can you recall, even among the drinking and gambling women of your acquaintance, any who spent all their Saturdays between the bookies and the pub? Can you think of the last time a mother or wife pulled on her coat on a Saturday afternoon and informed her family and partner that she was away off for a few pints and a wee bet? Or do you know any husband who answers a query about his wife’s whereabouts
with the cheerful information, as he tidies the house, does the shopping and prepares the dinner, that she’s only away out with her mates for a few jars and a wager? No, of course you don’t; such men don’t exist. Not yet. And not in Belfast. Which is why, more than any other reason, I suppose, that the traffic ’twixt pub and bookies is so completely male-dominated.

Some of the more naïve among you may think that money is the cause of this imbalance. You may think that money, or more specifically the lack of it, may be a big problem for many women. This could well be true. Money, or more specifically the lack of it, is a problem for most of us, and as women in Ireland are the most of us I’m sure it’s a big problem for the most of them also.

Be that as it may, let me say without fear of contradiction—and there may well be some begrudgers among you who will say I have sufficient experience not to be contradicted—a lack of cash is never an insurmountable problem for the man who wants a drink. Thus it is that without a penny to his name a Belfast male can cheerfully contemplate an afternoon of
craic
and diversion. He requires only a few cronies and a Belfast location or alternatively a few Belfast cronies and any location, provided prohibition isn’t the order of the day. Prohibition, as you probably know, isn’t on order day or night in Belfast. Unemployment is, though. So it is that some Belfast males have plenty of time and little money. It’s a safe bet that these are the main men, in Belfast or anywhere else for that matter, plying their optimists’ trade in the bookies. It is also a non-sectarian, secular occupation, undisturbed by our current constitutional crisis and practiced on the Shankill as diligently as it is on the Falls.

Take last Saturday, for example. If you were walking down the Falls Road and were not too preoccupied with your own concerns, you may have noticed a small, pleasant-faced man standing at the Rock Bar. If you were really interested you may have noted that he arrived there at twelve noon. It was a fine morning, and as our friend stood on the sidewalk he was greeted in a friendly manner by most of the people who passed by. Indeed, if you passed by
yourself, you too may have exchanged a few words of cheerful salutation. Such is the feeling of bonhomie exuded by our friend.

After about half an hour he was joined by another man. If you were still watching, and provided you were not a stranger and not therefore by this time the subject, yourself, of surveillance by the local citizenry, you would have deduced from their manner of greeting one another that the two men were meeting by appointment. The first man is called Tucker McKnight; the second is Sean McCrory. Not that it matters. They could be any of us; they could even be you or me.

You may also have deduced that they had no money. Why otherwise would they meet outside and not inside the Rock Bar? Of all the possible reasons the lack of cash seems the most likely one. It is also the correct one, as the conversation of our two friends bears out.

“You’re late! What kept y’?”

“I was trying to pick out a few winners and I didn’t see the time going.”

“You didn’t get that few bob you were hoping for?”

“Nawh, what about yourself? Did the wife come across?”

“Nawh.”

“Dead on.”

“What d’ y’ say?”

“I said, dead on.”

“Aye.”

At this point the first man turned his pleasant smile once again on the passers-by while his colleague fished a newspaper from his coat pocket and proceeded to study the form on the racing page. Every few minutes or so he would seek the advice of his mate and when that was cheerfully given he would return to his perusal of the day’s race-meetings. After ten or perhaps fifteen minutes of this leisurely activity a number of men came out of the pub, passed Sean and Tucker and proceeded a few paces up the road to Graham’s bookmakers. On their return a few minutes later they were questioned by our two heroes.

“What won the first one at Epsom?”

“Little Lady at two to one.”

“I knew that!” Sean exclaimed.

“What do you fancy in the one-fifteen at Newbury?” one of the men asked.

“Nordic Flash,” Tucker suggested. “It’s a safe bet and it’s seven to one.”

“D’ye reckon?” the man replied. “I fancied Natural Ability.”

“No chance,” Sean scoffed. “Tucker’s right. Nordic Flash is a sure thing.”

“Maybe you’re right,” the man mused. Thoughtfully, he retraced his steps to the bookies. Tucker smiled at his retreating back.

“There goes our saviour,” he said.

“I hope you’re right,” said Sean.

“Of course I am. Did I ever put you on a bum steer? If Nordic Flash comes in like you say it will, me and you is on the pig’s back.”

And so they were. Nordic Flash didn’t let them down. The man who sought their advice put a fiver on it and on his way back to the bar he presented Sean with the five-pound note.

“There y’are,” he said, “that’ll get youse a drink.”

“Good man yourself,” they saluted him.

By now they had been joined by a third party. His name was big Mickey Nelson, or Bonaparte to his friends.

“What about yis?”

“Dead on. And yourself? What about you?”

“Grand. D’yis fancy a pint?”

“Are you breaking into your holy communion money, or what?”

“Nawh, you got that off me at the time. I tapped the wife for a few bob out of her club money. This is her good week. So when I saw the two of youse standing here like two hoors at a hockey match I thought I’d treat youse. Now, do youse want a pint or not? I need a cure, so if youse are coming youse better come now!”

“Well, if you put it like that we’ll not see you stuck, will we, Tucker?”

“Indeed and we will not, Sean.”

And with that the three of them went into the Rock, which just proves that my Aunt Maggie is right when she says that there’s them that’ll give you a pint quicker than a loaf for your table. She’s right, but that’s not really the point, I suppose. Our two friends never asked for anything. It was offered to them. That’s not to say that there aren’t those who do ask; of course, there are. And I’m not talking about the crass coat-tuggers or common-or-garden tappers, though they too have their place in the scheme of things. Some, indeed, are quite famous, as are their haunts, but we’ll make no judgement on that; such men are to be admired for their tenacity. No, I’m thinking here of the finer exponents of the art. Veterans like Tedbert or
An Fear Gorm
, the Blue Man, but they rarely enter bookmakers’ premises and are different therefore from Sean or Tucker who represent more fully the subject of this thesis. Our subjects are almost casual manifestations of an aspect of our social culture: Tedbert and
An Fear Gorm
represent something more. They are in many ways like the old professional saloon-bar gambler. A breed apart, they live for the challenge of winning against the odds. I know one such, wee Paddy Bartley, who went out one Saturday at four o’clock with only £1 in his pocket and came home stocious at midnight with a sixpack of Guinness, a half bottle of vodka for Liz, his ever-loving and patient partner, forty Park Drive, crisps for the kids, a Chinese carry-out and £5.53 cash. He never bothered declaring the money to Liz. Fair is fair, and anyway, it’s all he had left after buying the last two rounds. That man was a master of his art. That’s high-flying whiz-kiddery. Here we’re dealing with more ordinary matters.

Back at the Rock Bar our less ambitious
amigos
were sipping tentatively on their pints. Napoleon was in the toilet. He found it difficult to go there or to return without somebody asking if he had met his Waterloo. It was a standing joke in the Rock, but Napoleon wasn’t amused; today was no different.

“Friggin’ smart Alecs,” he grumbled as he elbowed his way in beside Sean and Tucker.

“I think we’ll put a few bob on Miss Musky,” Sean suggested. “What about 50p each way and we can get a bottle of stout each and watch it on TV?”

“No problem,” Tucker and Napoleon agreed.

The three of them joined the little throng which was exiting hurriedly at that minute from the bar and made their way to the bookies. Sean walked up to the counter.

“Hold on!” Tucker halted him.

“Make it a £2 double on Miss Musky and Sweet Prince. I think this’ll be our lucky day.”

“Are you sure?”

“The going at Doncaster suits Sweet Prince. He’s favourite. If Miss Musky comes in that’ll be fourteen quid riding on a two-to-one favourite. It’s a safe bet. What do you say, Napoleon?”

“No problem.”

“Okay,” Sean agreed.

He passed the extra money across to the clerk and placed his bet. The trio made their hopeful way back to the Rock. Inside they watched Miss Musky romp home; Sweet Prince was beaten in a photo-finish. Sean crumpled the beaten docket in his hand and cast it among its fellows on the barroom floor. There were no recriminations.

Twenty minutes later the three of them were back outside the bar. It was a pleasant afternoon, and as they stood there they were greeted in a friendly manner by most of the people who passed by. Indeed, if you passed by yourself, you too may have exchanged a few words of cheerful salutation. Such was the aura of bonhomie exuded by them. Napoleon was enjoying the sun and engaging in occasional banter with the perpetual posse of punters who continued to trek between the pub and the bookies. Sean had fished his paper from his pocket once more and was studying the form intently. Every so often he would seek Tucker’s advice and when that was cheerfully given he would return to his perusal of
the evening’s race meetings. After ten or perhaps fifteen minutes of this leisurely activity, they were joined by a man who detached himself from the slipstream of the crowd to-ing and fro-ing on the pavement.

“What do youse fancy for the big race?” he asked.

They all looked at Sean.

“Red Horizon,” he said.

“I agree,” Tucker nodded.

“Maybe you’re right,” the man mused. He retraced his steps thoughtfully. Tucker smiled widely at his retreating back.

“There goes our saviour,” he said.

“I hope you’re right,” said Sean.

“Youse owe me a pint,” said Napoleon.

“Do y’ hear him?” Tucker grinned.

“No problem,” Sean said confidently to Napoleon. “Did we ever let you down? It’s early days yet. You’ll get your pint.”

“I’m only slagging,” said Napoleon.

“I know,” said Tucker.

“It’s a sure thing,” Sean beamed. “A safe bet.”

That’s the way it is in the afternoons of most days, and particularly on Saturdays, in most towns in most parts of Ireland. Sean and Tucker, and Napoleon, too, of course, though they may deny it, are part of a great tradition. Like many traditions it and they may die out, though I doubt it. They are life’s great optimists. They have a vision far beyond their present status which sustains them through all life’s difficulties. They could be overtaken by modern trends; these things happen despite all our protestations. Women may even come to join the mobile mob, and in this regard my support for their involvement is now a matter of public record, and worth in the fullness of time a drink or two from the generous sex.