“In a small dark room
Where I will wait
Face to face I find, I contemplate
Even though a man is made of clay
Everything can change, that one fine
One fine day, one fine day
Then before my eyes
Is standing still
I beheld it there, a city on a hill
I complete my tasks, one by one
I remove my masks, when I am done
Then a peace of mind fell over me
In these troubled times we still can see
We can use the stars to guide the way
It is not that far
That one fine
One fine day, one fine day, one fine day”
Eno/Byrne
It’s easy to get lost in the fog.
In the ‘good’ old days one of my first jobs was working behind the bar in the Golf Club. I was seventeen and would help out at functions and on Wednesday evenings to let the regular barman, Mr.O’Gorman have the day off. Wednesdays there were very hit or miss. If there was a competition on , I would be flat out from 6pm to midnight, and beyond midnight on many occasions. As these were indeed the ‘good’ old days there were no Garda checkpoints for drink driving, as they were all preoccupied with The Troubles. And most of the local Gardai were members of the club, so even if there were checkpoints, they wouldn’t be on the road from the club to town.
I didn’t mind the busy nights, they flew. It was the wet and windy, or foggy short winter evenings, when no one was about and I’d be there on my own for the whole evening,drinking Coke and eating crisps, and would be pulling the shutters down to go home when the phone would ring. I’d answer “ 81316 ?” and the phone would hang up on the other end. It was now a race.
The person phoning was a member of the golf club who had been served his last drink in town and was checking to see if I was still there. He knew that, as a member, he wouldn’t be refused entry, and that I couldn’t close the bar until he left. I’d been caught out like this a few times before. It’s no fun being sixteen, madly in love, with a world of possibilities ahead of you, and having to listen to a drunken pillar of the community tell you, repeatedly, what was wrong with the town, the gold club, where he worked, the government, his wife, his football club, his fourball partners, and invariably, his ungrateful children.
I switched off all of the lights, locked the doors and went outside to move my car out of sight. I couldn’t drive away, as the drive from the car park to the main road cut through the 9th fairway, was 500m long and I knew I wouldn’t get that far without meeting the lights of ‘his’ car coming towards me. I let myself back in through the men’s locker room, making sure to lock that door behind me as well. And had just made it back into the darkened bar when I saw the headlights of his car turn in off the main road and drive furiously towards me.
I poured myself two cokes in a pint glass and grabbed a packet of cheese and onion Tayto and sat in the dark.
He skidded to a halt in the car park, and only realised there were no lights on when he got out of the car. I heard a loud “FUCK IT!”. He walked to the door and pushed and pulled at it for a moment, cursing loudly, and then he trundled around the side to the locker rooms. After a moment or two I heard him kicking at that door. And cursing.
Then it went quiet.
I was nearly finished my Coke and crisps when he started tapping on the window with his keys. “I know you’re in there. I see your car around the back. Let me in !”
I didn’t move.
“I’ll tell your Da !”
He was staring at me now, or it felt like he did. I held my cheese and onion breath.
“You’ll never work here again !”
This wasn’t the threat he thought it was.
He shuffled over to another window and started tapping on it. He couldn’t see me. I took a deep breath…and went and poured myself another Coke and waited for him to get bored. A short while later , with a final departing “You little bastard !”, he clambered back into his car and drove out of the car park. I waited until he got onto the main road before I made a move. Oddly he turned right , for Corcaghan, instead of left towards town, where I knew he lived, but at this point I was getting indigestion from all of the Coke and crisps, and just wanted to get home.
A week or so later Dad came home from his Saturday morning round of golf and was telling Mam that ‘He’ had been telling them all that he’d been out drinking one Wednesday night and going home, the fog was so bad that he ended up in Rockcorry and was stopped by the Gardai at a checkpoint. They asked him where he was going and when he gave them his address they directed him back the way he’d come. He thanked them and turned the car around and drove off.
Half an hour later he came upon another Garda checkpoint and thought to himself ‘There must have been an incident along the border to have so many Gardai out on a night like tonight’. He rolled down the window and the Garda looked at him and said “Back again ?”.
This time the Garda told him to get in the passenger seat and he drove him home, followed by the other Garda.
He didn’t mention being locked out of the golf club.
I hadn’t started out intending to write that at all. It just popped into my head when I wrote the word ‘fog’. I was going to write about how it can seem that we’re all a little lost in the fog of things at the moment. It can seem endless, and with no way out. But there is always hope, a light, and the knowledge that fog, no matter how thick , fades. And perhaps , when you’re lost in the fog, you should always turn left.
We have been in our own actual darkness this past week due to storm Eowyn , which had left half the homes and businesses in the country without power, water, and most shockingly of all data , for a number of days. It was the biggest storm in Ireland since 1839 , the Night Of The Big Wind, or Oíche na Gaoithe Móire. It devastated the country, knocking church steeples, obliterating whole villages of thatched cottages, and laying waste to ancient forests.
It lasted long in the memory.
Between the census of 1901 and 1911 there was a dramatic rise in the percentage of over 70’s recorded. The reason was the introduction of the 1908 Pension Act , giving people over 70 a pension for the first time. Proving your age was difficult , as birth certificates were only introduced in 1863, and many people had never celebrated a birthday previously. Applicants were subsequently asked “Do you remember The Night of The Big Wind ?” and if they gave a detailed answer they were put down as over 70, and awarded the pension.
Listening to the wind last Friday morning, and living without power, water and connectivity, until yesterday, I felt as if I’d aged to 70.
Lots of businesses locally opened their canteens for neighbours to cook or recharge phones, McAree Engineering had a generator, and opened up on Saturday and Sunday. Coral Leisure in town offered their showers for free to anyone who needed them , and lots of GAA clubs and community halls opened too. Neighbours offered accommodation, food , water, and power to other neighbours.
It brought out the best in us.
It always does.
There is always a light to guide you, a neighbour to help, and to be helped.
The fog always fades.
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. I heard this for the first time this week, and it’s just what I needed. It’s David Byrne singing ‘One Fine Day’ with the Brooklyn Youth Choir. It’s for you.
P.P.S Sad to hear of Marianne Faithful’s passing this week. She dated William Westenra, 7th Baron Rossmore, but known to all as Paddy Rossmore, briefly in the early 1970’s , and visited Monaghan with him, pursued by a lovelorn Mick Jagger, who famously crashed his car into the gates of Rossmore on the Cootehill road. Marianne had difficulties with addiction and this left a lasting impression on Paddy, who set up Ireland’s first drug rehabilitation facility , Coolmine, in 1973. It’s still going strong. There is always a light. This is Marianne singing ‘Deep Water’ , written for her by Nick Cave.
