The three sat on their stools at their end of the bar. JP, Mono and Rasher. It was as if they had a lease on those particular stools. It was as if time stood still or déjà vu perpetually cycled. On a few occasions they had arrived, and their stools were in use. This usually happened when an unsuspecting tourist or stranger strayed into the pub. The locals would know better. Discomfort soon set in for that luckless stranger when our brave trio would arrive. Nothing would be said, no harsh words exchanged, no form of direct communication entered. But the stranger would feel a threat to a previous calm. A discreet invasion of a personal space would begin. Very soon the lads would be back in their natural habitat and the tension would be dissipated and serenity would reign supreme once more.
It was on one such occasion that JP unleashed his Hibernia theory. The boys had come in to find some gobshite sitting at their end of the bar reading a book. Reading a book – I ask ya?. And a big book at that. He wasn’t even drinking properly. Taking these tiny girly sips from his pint. Jaysus. He might be there for the duration. They set to work. It was incremental efficiency in motion. The girly sips got bigger and bigger until with one massive swallow the bookworm was gone like a scalded cat. The rightful order was restored. Buttocks were eased left and right, elbows found the proper ergonomic bar counter position and feet and heels selected rail or stool. The boys were installed.
“Shockin’ weather”, Rasher threw out as an opener.
“Bleedin’ cat”, Mono replied.
“Think we got our summer in April.”
“Ya could be right there.”
“It’s the kids I feel sorry for.”
“To hell with the kids. I wouldn’t mind takin’ the DART out to Howth for a bit of fishing. But I’m shagged if I’m goin’ to be haulin’ hats and rain mac and flasks with me.”
“Too right.”
They went back to their pints. Long Adam’s Apples pulses. Creamed lips. Exaggerated backhand wipes. Pints were downed in manly portions. No girly sips here. Through all the ritual and introductory exchanges JP had maintained a silence. This was not unusual. He often had periods of introspection before he’d join the conversation. This was just such an occasion. But he now passed himself fit for selection and with a characteristic clearing of the throat he joined in the game.
“This country was never meant to be habited.”
He stared at his friends slowly – one after the other – and tempted them to hold eye contact. Then he reversed his stare and, satisfied that they knew there was a serious issue here for discussion, he went back to his pint and, looking directly across the bar, drained every last bit – cream and all.
Rasher and Mono shared their usual non verbals. What was he on about this time? Who would ask him? One of them had to ask or he’d go weirder and weirder. Rasher took up the bait and in the characteristic style of one thirsting for new ideas (as well as pints) he replied in his enquiring way:
“Wha’ the shaggin’ hell are ya witherin’ on about now?”
JP lit the pipe. This corner of the smoking section of the pub disappeared within a toxic dispersed plume. Time ticked onwards.
“The Weather. Just like ya said. This country was never meant to be habited. It’s obvious really when ya think about it.”
Mono looked at Rasher. Rasher looked at Mono. This time Mono volunteered to reply.
“Not with you, JP. On a different plane, a different planet but definitely not playing with the same marbles or even bottlers as you are.”
“D’ya like this weather?”
“Course I shaggin’ don’t. Didn’t we both say it’s cat.”
“Well there ya are then.”
“I know feckin’ well I’m here. So what’s anything of this got to do with anything? Take me out of the lost and found office and bring me home on this one.”
More pints were called for. It was time to settle in.
“Weather. Saints and scholars. It’s all clear when ya just give it a bit of thought.” JP reached over for the fresh pint and bent his head to watch the ritual settling of the waves and layers before it could be touched.
“Yeah. Clear as the mud in the Tolka and that’s even after the goody-two-shoes, pearl necklace, twin set, BMW second car, welly boots, once-a-year-Greens have taken the shopping trolleys out of it.”
“Let me explain.”
“Yeah explain”, the response came in Mono-Rasher stereo.
“Would ya like to live by the Mediterranean?”
“Not half. Strolling along the beach with all those young ones just about covered.”
“Yeah, and some of them not even covered”, Mono added lustfully.
“Well that’s where ya were meant to live. Ya were meant to live by the Mediterranean.”
“How d’ya make that out?”
JP sucked on the pipe another few times and slipped it to the side of his mouth.
“The good Lord never planned for all us people to be here. He liked us too much for that. We were meant to life in more pleasant climes. This island of ours – sittin’ out on it’s own in the ocean – it wasn’t meant to be a suburb of continental Europe. It was meant as a place of meditation, a place of peace and refuge.
There was silence for a while.
“D’ya mean like the saints and scholars type thing?”
“Plato Aristotle Socrates Mono. Go to the top of the class. That’s exactly wha’ I mean. Such wisdom in one so young. I will enroll ya in the ‘JP University for the Enlightened’.”
Mono knew it was typical JP bullshit but he was pleased nonetheless. He looked over at Rasher with a Cheshire Cat grin from ear to ear. Rasher was having none of it.
“OK. If I’m supposed to be livin’ on the banks of the Mediterranean with nudie young ones preenin’ themselves in me garden, would ya mind tellin’ me how I ended up here?”
“I thought that much would have been obvious”, JP replied, “even for non-enrolled ‘JP University’ peasants like you Rasher. They got lonely. Their minds turned away from the saintly pursuits and the written word to the lustful chase and the captured bird. In short – they started popping the chambermaids in the chamber and the underscullery maids under the scullery. Am I getting’ through to ya?”
“Roger one-niner. Pickin’ ya up strong on the radar screen. Clear to land. And by the way, will I put a few fresh pints across ya’re own radars?”
There was a general nod of agreement and the proposal for further “incoming” initiated a synchronized draining of glasses and silent belches.
“Ya know ya might have somethin’ there, JP”, Mono piped in as they waited for reinforcements to arrive.
“Of course I do. How could ya doubt me?”
“No. I mean things seem to make a bit more sense now. This would explain why, as a nation, we’re so holy and clever. We all derived from some randy monk or a sex-starved poet. No wonder we had Yeats and Synge and Beckett and Wilde and Con Houlihan. No wonder we had the girlies in Knock and the guy in the plastic case in Drogheda and Sister Santa Claus Kennedy. It’s all clear now.”
“Hold on one potato pickin’ minute”, Rasher raised his voice for attention. “Wha’ about the bleedin’ Norsers? Wha’ about Vikings? Wha’ about more Irish than the Irish themselves? Do ya not think ya’re loosin’ the run of yarselves?”
JP took another long suck at the pipe. There was very little incineration happening so he took out the lighter and began another cycle of environmental pollution.
“I believe ya might have somethin’ there, Rasher.”
“Wha’?”
“The fightin’!”
“The fightin’?”
“That’s where we probably got the fightin’ bit from. Ya know. The fightin’ Irish. Needin’ to give the Norsers a few whacks to keep them away.”
“So is that how we had Barry McGuigan and Steve Collins and Katie Taylor and Conor McGregor?”
“Could do.”
“ But the Norsers won. We were no good at the fightin’.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“So wha’ does that tell ya about McGregor and Collins?”
“Ah yeah, with ya now.”
“JP. There’s one thing ya’re missing. The drinkin’!”
“I miss it during lent alright. But not now. Now I’m happy with nearly a full pint in front of me and a few full pints rented inside of me.”
“No. I mean ya haven’t explained why we’re a nation that likes a sup.”
JP thought about it for a while. Thick clouds appeared above his incinerator in direct proportion to the depth that he needed to go to search for meaning. The silence was interminable. Drink was drunk. Heads were scratched. Drink was drunk. Noses were picked and then squeezed to make it look like they weren’t picked. Drink was drunk. Facial hair, as applicable, was pulled and rolled and twirled. Drink was drunk. Chins were rubbed. Drink was drunk. Donleavy was asked for more drink. JP finally broke the silence.
“The weather!”
“The weather?”
“It’s the only possible answer. Living in this bloody weather – wha’ else could ya do?”
“Fair comment.”
Donleavy was calling for time. Ladies and Gents now please/no homes to go to/the Guards are at the door/time please/even ugly bastards need beauty sleep/think of the children/JP-feck off and philosophise elsewhere/think of ye’re wifes/OK don’t think of ye’re wifes – just go.
JP decided that this whole area needed some closure.
“For all that – it’s a great little country – on it’s knees but keeps crawling. Would ya trade it? The grass and the greenness? Fried eggs? Sally O’Brien and the way she might look at ya? Yeats, Beckett, Synge, Wilde, Santa Claus, Drogheda Man, Paddy the Saint, the Girlies from Knock, Mr. Eastwood and Roddy’s brother. Katie from Bray? Would ya trade all that for a piece of brown sun baked Mediterranean clay?
Rasher looked at Mono. Mono at Rasher. Eye contact made Mono the spokesman.
“Would we trade it? Does the pope wear a funny hat? Of course we’d bleedin’ trade it.”
JP@Donleavy’s 