It Happens Between Stops

by Mattie Lennon

  The US and European forces offer china an ultimatum – a chance to negotiate a peace deal. “Look here you crowd of barbarians you can’t just go around possessing other countries. The world just doesn’t work that way!” roared Colonel Platt, his face a torrid red colour. He paused to wipe a band of sweat which had appeared across his forehead.

  “Pardon me for saying so sir, but I doubt if the Chinese will react favourably to a slightly too heavy-handed approach. I mean we must consider the economic importance of China to the West”, said Major Rice, who knew how angry Colonel Platt could become in any course of events.

  “You know damn well that I am aware of their value to our western economies. I’m not just an army big wig you know!” Platt retorted, looking indignant as usual. He hated having obvious facts spelt out to him.

  “Well why don’t the Chinese watch a re-run of the TV series ‘V’ then they might very quickly come round to working with the aliens. My attitude is if you can’t beat them – join them!” Platt said as a military transport plane flew low over his office rattling all the windows. Reluctantly the Chinese accept the offer and plans are put in place to secure the future of Japan and Korea. China will have to reduce its stockpile of nuclear weapons and sign a non-proliferation treaty. For the foreseeable future economic sanctions are imposed on China and trade with other countries will be severely curtailed. Also the island of Hong Kong will be allowed to become independent of China – the place will become designated as a tax avoidance / offshore account type place.

  The Aliens have been successful in their mission to save mankind and for a month or so they remain on earth to survey the scenery especially around Florida, Hawaii and Ireland. The extraterrestrials have regular weekly meetings with the Chinese to make sure that they keep to the terms of the agreement. After travelling half way across the universe the aliens have no time for dirty tricks or superpowers reneging on peace deals. Everything seems to be in order and the Chinese government are determined to keep to the letter of the agreement. So the day came when the Aliens announced their departure from planet earth. All has worked out well and the weird looking creatures get ready for their long voyage home. It will take them close to two decades of earth time to reach their own planet, which in their time is about two hours and a bit. Yes, they are as happy as pigs in shit, they will have achieved their mission – peace on earth. And a job well done is always worth being happy about. Plus the aliens are taking with them thousands of plant and animal specimens so that they can replicate them back on planet Zenda. They are particularly interested in the health potential of our great jungles and forests. “Hopefully we will create another environment similar to Earth”, says Vollex in an enthusiastic voice.

  Commander Vollex gives the all-clear to apply full thrust to attain light speed. The pilot using his webbed hand slides the thruster-lever fully forward and in the twinkling of an eye the great space ship has vanished. There are a lot of broken hearts left behind on earth especially amongst young women who were beginning to take a liking to the long haired creatures from planet Yipchita. Even members of the gay community were in tears, especially in San Francisco, at the departure of the incredibly handsome aliens who had physical bodies that were the envy of many a queer man!

  THE GREY HERON

  Thos Maher

  DONTCHA JUS LOVE

  A GOOD DEADLINE!!!

  Billy Fleming

  How does one imagine the future will look back upon Èire 2009....a year auspicious for its position at the bottom of just about every graph that ever graphed the course of anything that could be graphed? House prices, car prices, petrol prices, gas (Yes we are still governed by the English rules of speech) prices and the price of almost every commodity whose value we remain ignorant of all came tumbling down after a prolonged period of imitating a Satun V on its way to God knows where. There was no limit to our onward and upward march to financial independence and then some more added on.

  “Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear”,a few naysayers managed to croak before being dismissed by the new gentrified Irish Citizenry or indeed being invited to commit suicide by one of our more colourful ex-Taoisigh as he headed off for a new career on the “Lecture Circuit.”

  Did we,“de peeeple” even consider the serious world-wide implications of Allowing an ex-Taoiseach venture abroad talking, what we now know to be high octane nonsense,to some of the World’s Movers and Shakers who would actually pay $2,000 a plate to eat and listen to vivid descriptions of how to bottle coloured smoke and then market it at a substantial profit to folks who have loads of money combined with almost no knowledge of what to spend it on.

  Maybe we did, but I suspect we preferred to bask in the reflected glory inherent in any foreigner wanting to pay to listen to anything spoken by a native northside Dub.

  Gosh but it gave us all a sense of being suddenly important.... of having arrived !

  And by Golly, didn’t it just stick it to them old Imperialists who had tried, but failed to impose their dour Protestant work ethic upon us and just look at the mess they’re in now!

  And yet...and yet......most folks not yet at pension age can remember a past where money, possessions and associated other things were not traded freely or even possessed by the average workin` man...no sir they were not !

  I can still remember My Father bringing home his first “new” car...a 1950 something Ford Popular then already over 10 years old and now expected to replace his bicycle. From that day forward my Father never owned a new car and was always reluctant to spend more than £100 on whatever replacement was deemed necessary for the old one.

  There was never a chance of my Da buying a car because of its colour, or its badges...his first concern would be to see if it would take a tow-bar. Whatever car was operated was run pretty much into the ground and only dropped after a catastrophic failure of the crankshaft or suchlike. Interestingly, when I qualified as a Mechanic in 1978 and began a long career attempting to fix buses for a living it was immediately noticeable how many Bus Drivers did not drive their own cars.

  This was a matter of simple economics...they could not afford to!

  Buying, taxing, insuring and running a car was not then something which a Bus driver’s wage had the Power to support except if supplemented by other means. As a shift mechanic one of THE most important calls one could get would be to attend to a broken down Ghost....Now there was a Code-Red if ever there was one.

  One could be guaranteed that if that bus had failed, by the time the mechanic had got to it that every enthusiastic amateur employed by the board would have had a go at fixing whatever they perceived to be the problem.....which it rarely, if ever was!

  Every little panel would have been opened, forcibly if necessary, relays shorted out, wires pulled off and joined together,usually in a shower of blue flashing sparks which would in turn blow every fuse not already blown and thereby rendering the thing a real breakdown.

  Another noticeable aspect would be the sheer numbers of Staff on the Ghost.

  Conductors who could not drive, Drivers who could not afford to own and run a car and a few Inspectors and Foremen who saw good sense in availing of a free service. Many would have even thrown an “all steel Raleigh” bicycle on as they were too knackered to pedal the uphill journey home after coasting downhill to work that morning or afternoon.

  There would usually be a rousing cheer when you arrived followed by a mad rush to get onto the replacement bus you had driven out. If the batteries had gone flat, you had to be careful of keeping an eye on your “good” bus cos the Ghost driver might simply jump in and roar off leavin’ you stuck on your Todd and having to send up a red flare for the Tow-Car...No Mobile Phones then either.

  By and large the bus workforce tended to live in the Local Authority estates and saw nothing odd about it either.... relatively few were “ purchasing” their houses and these were reckoned to be particularly savvy individuals who would be listened to with gravity if they deigned to give a few financi
al tips to the others.

  Of course there were always the “Country Lads”...as yes... the boys who only came up for a summer job as a conductor and who never returned to their provincial roots,except in some tragic cases in a Pine Box.

  These were times when we, the workers,knew our place and knew that life was always an uphill struggle with only a slim chance of beating its odds if you had a big win on the (illegal) Pools or the more Catholic (and legal) Prize Bonds.

  Then if you were lucky you might even win a house in the annual Corporation Draw for those on the Housing List...now that was arriving in style! That lifestyle,in which so much was down to chance, now seems so old as to be Black and White or Sepia toned...and yet we know well that it was a vivid and enjoyable time too...with our working day taken up by all sorts of incredible noises and sensations as the products of Leyland Motors Limited disintegrated around us.

  We did however prevail,ridding ourselves of those hugely individualistic machines,replacing them with another product which many considered theoretically impossible.....We manufactured something even more mechanically individual...The Bombardier Bus !

  Now it could be argued that The Bombardier represented the beginning of an Era which saw the native Irish develop a sense of themselves as a Power on the World Stage with a vast array of hope that we could become a major exporter of things like this...sadly, apart from Baghdad we didn’t manage to get a double-deck demonstrator into service on foreign soil...ah well..... there`s always another day!

  So perhaps as we nervously listen to the latest downward spiralling news about the Dow-Jones, The ISEQ, the DAX and heaven knows how many more Big Number indexes we need to step back a bit in time and recall a time when we really didn’t have an arse in our trousers to use a Behanism which is as appropriate today as it was in his own era.

  Oh yes ...times of plenty we have had,but times of scarcity did also come before.

  THE MOTORIST

  Ronnie Hickey

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  Joe Collins

  About a quarter of a mile from where I grew up there as a large house within a walled garden. The house was always painted an off-white colour which gave it a spooky appearance. It was located toward the end of a country lane which was a cul-de-sac. It was just as well; nobody ever went near it as locals feared that it was haunted. On one side of the house there were ten windows two of which were blacked out and it was said that the rooms behind the blacked out windows were those that had been occupied by family members long deceased.

  We did know that the family was made up of four adults, two sisters and two brothers all in their late 50s or early 60s and all unmarried. They were referred to locally as The Quakers but that meant nothing to me as a child.

  Three members of the family were very quiet and retiring, however one of the brothers, the eldest deduced from his lead role in the Sunday morning march past drove a car, not very common at that time and even more uncommon was his membership of a flying club based at a small airport about 10 miles away. From time to time he flew his Cessna around the locality occasionally performing stunts such as rolling and tumbling and most scary of all climbing high and then steeply diving downward but pulling out of the dive at a safe distance from the ground as the onlookers screamed or covered their eyes for fear of the plane crashing to the ground.

  The sisters were rarely seen in public except on a Sunday morning when the entire family walked past our house in single file and presumably in order of seniority on the way to the Meeting House with each one clutching what appeared to be a bible under the left arm, heads bowed, as monks in Mount Mellerary, with not a word passing between them. The brothers never wore anything other than grey herring-bone tweed three piece suits, the sisters wore heavy ankle length skirts over which they wore tweed capes and on their heads, winter and summer, were knitted woollen bonnets. It amazed me that even on very wet Sundays they still walked despite the fact that they did have a car.

  The non-flying brother rode on an old fashioned bicycle and he passed our house frequently. My father was an avid gardener and one day the cycling brother alighted from his bicycle and approached my father who was as always pottering around in the garden. The visitor said that he himself was a keen gardener and had, for years, as he cycled past our house admired my father’s garden and his dedication to it throughout the four seasons.

  They spoke for over half an hour and before he left he said that he would deliver some lily bulbs which my father could plant in time to flower the following spring.

  The bulbs were planted and sure enough the following year we had a fantastic crop of lilies. At that time it was usual for girl Holy Communicants to carry a bunch of flowers on the special day. For many years every young girl in our area carried a bunch of lilies from our garden on her first Holy Communion day. It gave my father great pleasure when, on the Friday evenings before the first communion days, neighbours would come to our house and collect a bunch of lilies. No money changed hands but we received many photographs of the little angels dressed in their finery with the lilies draped over their arm.

  About a year after the first engagement with my father the cycling brother stopped at our garden again. I was with my father at the time and the visitor said to my dad “send your son up to my house tomorrow afternoon and I will give him some eggs, honey and rhubarb”. My father thanked him and said that I would go to the house at 3.00p.m. the next day if that suited, to which the man nodded in agreement.

  On hearing this I was terrified. This house of mystery behind a high wall and large white gates which everybody feared I was now to visit. Not wanting to be labelled a ‘Fraidy Cat’[a Limerick expression] I set out on the following afternoon for the house.

  On reaching the big gate I undid the latch and as the gate creaked open two large dogs came running down the driveway barking loudly. I turned quickly and ran back toward the closed gate. As I frantically tried to open it I heard a feeble female voice say “come in sonny the dogs won’t touch you”. I stopped for a moment to draw my breath and as I started to walk up the driveway the dogs came toward me again but they were much quieter now and plucking up courage I rubbed their heads which had a calming effect on them.

  As I approached the front door of the house I looked to my left toward the garden and nearly fainted when I saw the figure of a human with what looked like a broad rimmed hat on the head with netting covering the face. I remembered seeing such a strange looking image in a Curly Wee annual being pushed along in a wicker wheelchair by, I think it was, the fox. My heart pounded and I turned to run toward the gate but the same feeble voice which I had heard earlier said “sonny come back, I am only wearing a beekeeper’s hat with netting to protect me while I gather honey from the beehives”.

  I stopped again and went to the front door as directed by the voice from under the netting. I could not see a bell but there was a light rope by the side of the door. I pulled on it and there was a clanging noise that would awaken the dead. The tall sister opened the door and there before me appeared a large foyer with glass cases on three walls each filled with stuffed animals, birds and fish. There was a rabbit, a fox, a sheepdog, a few terriers, birds of prey, song birds and fish such as salmon, trout and larger ones whose names I did not know.

  I was invited to follow the lady into the kitchen which was very large with presses reaching to the ceiling. These presses had many drawers with a label on each one denoting what it contained. There was a smell of bread baking in the Aga cooker which created a craving in me for a slice smothered with country butter. The lady sat me down and taking my basket she went into the room next door. She returned with the basket laden with rhubarb, tomatoes, leeks, a jar of honey, a jar of homemade jam and eggs in a cardboard tray resting on top of the other contents.

  She must have sensed my longing for a slice of her oven-baked bread as she beckoned to me to sit at the table. And she produced a mug of milk and a large slice of her homemade bread on which she heaped butter scraped
from what looked like a sandcastle one would make at the seaside. It was in fact a large block of homemade butter with a very salty taste.

  While sitting there the other sister who had been collecting honey from the hives came in and up close she was even more frightening than earlier with her netted protective hat, gloves and a leather apron. As she removed this gear she explained that it was necessary to wear it when working at the hives. I had a fear of bees as I had been stung once which was very painful and caused my arm to swell up.

  I thanked them for their kindness and as I left I was fearful that the dogs might run at me as I went toward the gate. However I was relieved when the tall sister said that she was taking the dogs for a walk in the field that went down to the stream at the end of their estate.

  While I had mixed feelings about my visit to the mysterious house, the bread and butter tasted lovely I came away knowing that I never wanted to visit it again. When my father came home from work I told him that if there were any other plants, fruit or vegetables to be collected from the White House in the future he would have to go there himself. He laughed at me but after I had a few sleepless nights and nightmares on the nights that I managed some sleep he agreed that I would never be asked to go there again.