I spent the remainder of the Sunday evening with
Phelim and I have to admit that I felt quite dirty. I wondered how many people had looked at me
and had known that I had been a pervert’s plaything. I wondered about my cousin Paul and if he had
been a target and Gervais, my friend, could he have been a victim too? Phelim was talking away at me but I wasn’t really
listening, my mind was elsewhere, I had to decide whether or not I would stay
in Ireland. It was obvious that I would
be getting no support whatsoever from my family. I also expected that should I move the family
over then I would be under pressure to toe the religious line, but to expose my
children to a pervert might be taking things a bit too far.
Something was wrong somewhere and I couldn’t work
out what it was. I knew that I could
stay in Ireland and get on with my new life but I also knew that these people
would interfere at every opportunity they could find. I felt that I could deal with that, in fact I
was determined to tell Seamus that he was barred from my house. It was going to pull the top off a can of
very messy worms and not one fishing rod in sight. I contacted the boys and told them I would
not be starting work the following day.
I went home and sat in my bedroom, well; the bedroom I had been allowed
to sleep in, and wrote a few pages.
The next day I went down the street and
wandered about the town meeting people and saying hello. It was obvious that life was moving on and I
could join in with it if I wanted, Warrenpoint offered so much and was such a
beautiful place to live. I met up with
Phelim at lunch time and we went to a local pub for lunch. The pub we were in was known as The Ship
which did not serve food. There were a
good half dozen people in and then in came Davie Duff. Duff was the village idiot and I mean that in
a nice way, he was a simple fellow and each and every day went around every pub
in Warrenpoint asking people if they could spare fifty pence.
A menu was being passed around but it was from
Bennetts, another pub that did serve food.
I opted out but most people chose something from the menu, told the bar
man and gave him some money. Duff was
then dispatched with a list and some money over to Bennetts to get the lunches. I thought it was quite an Irish thing to
happen and everyone was happy. Twenty minutes
later Duff returned with all the meals and when the plates were all cleared he
washed the dishes before returning them to Bennetts. I hadn’t really noticed before but Duff was
running errands all over town, mainly to the bookies, but he was always busy
and always smiling.
Duff was the fellow we had set up as a blind
date with my sister Carol when she came home from Trinity in Dublin for a weekend. Where we lived was still a building site so
Duff, who walked her home to the front door after their evening out, decided that
it was too much effort to walk back down the hill so he jumped on a large
dumper truck and freewheeled down. I do remember
that I saw the dumper truck rammed in to the wall at the bottom of the hill
that night as I was staggering home. I
even checked for keys in case I could have started her up and taken myself to
the top of the hill. No such luck, so I
left it where it was and walked along the lane hoping that the bushes wouldn’t start
moving.
Of course the next morning the neighbours couldn’t
get past the dumper truck and make their way to church and putting two and two together
deduced that I had set the thing off, as a prank, when I had come home the night
before. So Duff hadn’t improved over the
years but what was nice was that the guys explained to me that on top of each
meal they would add an extra pound which the bar man put in to a special jar. A large family wedding was approaching and
they were saving up to buy Duff a suit so that he could attend and look
smart. Duff was unaware of this and I
thought it a lovely gesture that rather than ridicule the poor fellow the
community was actually looking out for him.
Phelim went back to work leaving me wondering why all my friends were so
nice and generous yet my family were not.
I had a big decision to make and knew it wouldn’t
do to dwell on the problem; I just had to take a decision and get on with it. On the plus side I had eleven brothers and
sisters to discover, mother number two might not want to have anything to do
with me but surely all eleven of them wouldn’t reject me, or would they? I walked from The Ship over to the dock wall
and stood watching the sea. I wanted my
children to enjoy what Warrenpoint had to offer and I wanted to show Irene the
rest of Ireland for it is such a wonderful place, and there’s so much of it
too. I telephoned Irene and we began to
talk about what I had been through.
The decision about whether I should stay or not
was made for me as Irene asked me to come back.
She was unsettled; a brother in law had been pestering her since I left
to go away for a dirty weekend. She knew
if I returned he would stop but I wasn’t allowed to mention it to him, she
could handle him, she just needed me there for support. I began to wonder if all families were weird
as I made my way home. If I opened my
legs I could catch the evening ferry and be back in Skelmersdale the following
afternoon. In a way I was glad that the
decision had been made for me for I really wasn’t sure what to do.
I got back to England and talked through what
had happened to me in Ireland with Irene.
She wasn’t surprised and felt that Seamus had been behind it all as we both
knew I would eventually confront the man.
Unlike the others I didn’t tug the forelock to the collar. I kept my word to Irene as well and didn’t confront
the brother in law which was a shame as I am sure his wife and children would
have loved to have known all about his sad little games, unfortunately for him
he had made an enemy of me and if I ever saw an opportunity then payback, as
they say, can be a bitch. I began to
think about what had happened and realised that I had been in a position that
we had often talked about in the armed forces.
It was a common discussion usually starting
with someone complaining about the armed forces and how badly we were treated,
especially compared to civilians. The conversation
would move on to what we would do if we were in civvie street. There always seemed to be the general
consensus that civilians were lazy good for nothings and we would show them how
to work. But we would always agree that
we would do any job to survive, from digging ditches to sweeping the streets. I found it interesting that I had found
myself almost in that exact situation where I needed a job and was willing to
do anything and that got me thinking.
It’s all very well saying that you are willing
to do almost anything to earn money and provide for your family, but would
I? Running a taxi firm would have been a
doddle, but driving a taxi, that was different.
Taxi driving was not regarded as a rewarding occupation, unless you ran a
black taxi in London. Tony had driven a
taxi to provide for himself and his family while he finished his training as an
optician. I have to admit I did shudder
a little when I thought of myself as a taxi driver; the family would go bonkers
too. I began to look in to taxi driving
as an occupation, there were always adverts asking for taxi drivers in the
local area. The mathematics of the job
seemed to be in the taxi driver’s favour. Most were self-employed and theoretically the
more you worked the more you earned. I decided
that I had to put myself to the test; it’s easy enough to say that I was going
to do this, that or the other, and plenty of people do. I, however, am not like plenty of people; I
needed to prove to myself that I wasn’t full of shit; I was going to become a taxi
driver.
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