My Döner and Chide

My Döner and Chide

It was a grand day but for a wee chill in the wind and a drop of rain. You know that sort of sideways rain that always comes at you straight on so you never get your hair wet which was just as well because I’d an awful habit of taking off my hat in a place and forgetting to put it back on as I was leaving. If ever the country was to run out of spare hats it wouldn’t be my fault. So I thought I’d call in at Clancy’s for just the one to keep the mind, body and soul lined up straight. And there’s no more beautiful sight than a jar of porter, all black in the body with the foam on top in a slight dome shape and five eighths of an inch in depth with not even the suggestion of a bubble in it. The only greater joy in the world than admiring the look of the stuff is in taking the first mouthful. So I would have one. Just the one. Well that was the plan.

But the problem was that I’d such a fierce thirst on me that the first creamy glass had slipped away without me barely even knowing it was there. It’s the weather here that makes the drink go down so fast. If you want to warm the insides of yourself there’s nothing that beats a nice cool jar of stout. Ah, the money I’d save if I moved to Spain. I was telling myself to call it a day because I was saving my wages for Friday night out with the lads but the young fella behind the bar had an empty pint glass in his hand. Only polishing it with his beer-stained apron, he was, and holding it up to the light to check for greasy fingerprints and smudges of lipstick. The temptation before me was as if it was Lucifer himself and not young Aiden O' Raghallaigh that was minding the bar.  He said nothing, but the glass was screaming to be filled and there was no one else in the place without a drink so I felt duty bound to order in another for myself.

Late afternoons, before all the working folks knock off for the day, these places are as lifeless as a Ballymena wedding. Looking around me, I saw a few old ones sitting alone. One clutching his rosary beads tight in his left hand as a finger on the right moved up and down the list of horses and riders in the 3:20 at Leopardstown on a page torn from the Gazette. Another sitting on a tall stool at the bar and staring hard into space through the nicotine stains in his eyes. Half a dozen more scattered about the lounge, muttering away to themselves or an imaginary dog or their long dead mammy, and it was only the fear of spilling their Guinness that stopped them falling asleep.

Rattling around in my trouser pocket I’d almost a punt in five and ten pences so I shoved the whole lot in the slot in the juke box away in the corner beneath faded old pictures of Our Lady of Lourdes, President Kennedy and Samantha Fox. I’d already heard enough of Johnny Logan, Johnny Cash and Johnny Mathis. There were too many Johnnies in the world for me.  So, peering through the glass top of the machine that was intricately coated with a layer of fag ash and circular stains from yesterday’s beer dried and encrusted in the form of the Olympic flag, I found a few tunes to suit my taste and rouse the teatime Rip Van Winkles. The Pogues, Thin Lizzy, U2… class stuff, you know. Eight records I’d put on and my glass with only a mouthful still in it, so I went back to young Aiden the barman to put matters right with another nice pint as Shane MacGowan sang about going to where streams of whiskey were flowing; an altogether more cheerful sounding place than Clancy’s Bar.

‘I've got to give it up. I've got to give it up, that stuff!’ Phil Lynott’s voice floating over from loudspeakers hidden behind some of the twentieth century’s greatest known cobwebs and a few faded links of Christmas paper chains from a time before silver foil was discovered reminded me I should be on my way just as I was coming to the end of my drink.

And then you wouldn’t believe there was a word of truth in this, but in walked Frankie with a handsome black pint of the foaming in each of his hands.

He sat down on a stool across the genuine oak Formica-topped table from me, looked deep into my eyes to make sure it really was me and he said ‘howyeh?’

‘Howyeh?’ I replied, and ‘What are you doing wasting away your time in the pub at this hour of the day?’

‘Ah now! I’m always in for a couple with the brother of a Thursday afternoon.’

‘But the day’s only Wednesday’ I pointed out to him with a fair degree of confidence in the accuracy of my statement.

‘No! Are you pulling my micky? Well what in the name of Jaysis will I do with this other pint?’ he asked, shaking his head in disbelief, pausing to make a start on his own pint and then shaking his head again. Head shaking in disbelief and drinking pints were two human activities that both required great concentration and couldn’t be performed at the same time. He’s a good old soul is Frankie so I offered to help him out with the spare drink and he was grateful for that.

Slattery the one-armed window cleaner had never been a lucky man. Losing a limb in an unfortunate incident involving the widow Mahony could have been avoided if she’d had curtains up in her bathroom but, to make things worse, the missing arm was the very arm on which he had the hand that he used when he played on the one-armed bandit at St Philomena’s Catholic Club of a Sunday dinnertime. The only way he could continue with his favourite pastime (and only vice, so he’d tell you) was by standing with his back to the fruit machine so the handle was in reach of his remaining arm. When I was fifteen, I had a shilling or two in my pocket for the first time in my life that I earned from carrying his bucket and ringing out the shammy for him. It was then that my Da told me it would be terrible bad manners to accept a pint from a fella without buying him one back, especially if you had a shilling or two in your pocket. So that’s why I felt the obligation to get in another couple of jars for Frankie and me. It definitely wasn’t because the drink was giving me the warm feeling or the need to talk about those things that you know little about even though you think you’re a leading voice. Stuff like religion and politics and which one of Charlie’s Angels you wouldn’t mind finding with your hand up her jumper. It was the politeness and etiquette in me that made me take some of the money out of my pocket at the bar. It’s nice when you can still remember a word like etiquette even after having a few pints of plain in you.

As his brother came in through the door, Frankie suddenly remembered that they’d said they’d change the day of their quick session from Thursday to Wednesday that week because Ireland were playing Malta in the Euros at Dalymount Park which was less than a mile up the road so there was sure to be a good reception on the television if they were showing it in the lounge at the front of the pub. Frankie’s brother’s name was Niall and he’d come over to us from the bar with three lovely big pints before he ever got round to speaking to me. I’ll always respect a man who gets it right when he makes an assumption. His movement across the room with great care and caution for the concentration and skill in not spilling a drop had the look of a slow-motion action replay of a great sporting feat. If they ever get round to giving out a gold medal for carrying three pints at once then Niall’s your man.

‘Sláinte!’ he said and we responded as if we were following the words of Father McCreesh at holy mass but we didn’t speak again for a few minutes because it was his first pint and we didn’t want to interrupt the enjoyment he was taking from it.

A few words were exchanged about the weather and the condition of their mammy’s health and then, looking at Niall’s almost empty glass, Frankie remembered that it would be terrible bad manners to accept a pint from a fella without buying him one back.

‘Will I get them in?’ he asked, immediately holding up three fingers and nodding to young Aiden the barman before we had any chance of telling him we didn’t want one. He was only ordering in another round to avoid insulting his brother and at the same time not wanting to insult me by leaving me out so there I had another gorgeous pint in front of me with the match about to start.

‘You’ve to slow down with the drinking when there’s the football on,’ Niall told us. And he was right because while you’re ordering a round or finding the money for it in your pocket you might miss a goal or one of those controversial decisions they have these days, but luckily Mark Lawrenson didn’t score the first until the twenty-fourth minute so we’d no problem getting another one in. I think it was me that paid for that one. If it wasn’t me, it’ll have been Frankie or Niall. Or maybe Niall’s friend Kieran who preferred the hurling to football so he didn’t mind missing a bit of the game to fetch the drinks which was just as well because the goals came thick and fast after that.

We’d been trying to have a pint to celebrate each Irish goal but with the final score at eight-nil to the boys in green (as the song goes) we realised we’d not managed to raise a glass to every scorer. Heaven forbid that Kevin Sheedy should ever find out because he’d got two of the goals late on in the game by which time we weren’t quite as thirsty as we had been during the build up to the kick off and he might have thought us disrespectful. We consoled ourselves in the knowledge that we’d started drinking pints hours before they’d started playing football so we’d done our best for Ireland and we were only human after all.

In a matter of minutes after the referee blew his whistle to end the match (well, seventy minutes give or take a few to be precise), the bell rang for last orders. That’s always something that makes you sit up and pay attention. You need a good clear head to be dealing with the goings on during the last ten minutes that they’re serving in a packed bar. It’s good to be patriotic but when young Aiden the barman can’t hear what drinks you’re asking for because some eejit’s belting out at the top of his voice all the wrong words to A Nation Once Again then it’s time they put a stop to the patriotism. I was sure that even Brendan Behan would have backed us up on that one had he still been with us, rest his soul.

‘Would there be any chance of a bit of extra time?’ Kieran asked young Aiden the barman as he became aware that he was at least half a gallon of Guinness behind the rest of us.

‘While my dinner’s drying up in the oven at home you’ve not a chance in hell’ retorted young Aiden the barman and we all knew that the barman’s decision is final, even when it’s only young Aiden. So we had to settle for a couple of small whiskies just for the road and the hope that there’d be a bus coming along that road soon as we all wanted to get home out of the rain ourselves and watch the highlights of the game on the television. At that stage of the proceedings we were already unable to remember what the score had been or even who Ireland had been playing against.

They can’t have been showing the highlights on the television that night because the next morning I had no memory of seeing anything about it at all. It wasn’t actually seeing the highlights that I was bothered about but I needed to know the score and the name of the other team in case a discussion broke out about it in the bar later. To tell the honest truth, I wasn’t feeling altogether great in either the head or the belly. It must have been something I’d had the night before that had upset the stomach. I couldn’t for the life of me think of what it might have been until I put my coat on to go out to the shop to buy some rashers to put in a sandwich for the comfort food to make me feel less like putting my head in a bucket. It was then that I found the mortal remains of a döner kebab in the pocket along with my spectacles more scratched than the dog’s bollocks and so much loose change I could have put pennies on the eyes of every dead martyr in heaven.

So that was what had made such a glorious mess of my usually indestructible constitution. It’s when the Turkish fella (I think he’s called Mr Sullivan, or maybe Mr Suleiman) knows you might be getting a bit weary after a long day so you won’t notice if they slip a bit of their old brown lettuce in the pita bread beneath the meat-type stuff and you’ve no clue that they’ve done it until it’s inside of you and you’re feeling as rough as a badger’s arse the next morning. There were wee splashes of chilli sauce on my boots too. Suede they were. Ruined! I’d be in for a fierce chiding if my Ma saw them, but sure it’s her that’s telling me to eat more vegetables and there’s always a pile of salad in the kebabs. But I really could have done without having one that night.

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A little place where I like to have dinner when I’m in Paphos in south west Cyprus. The elephants’ legs are to die for.