St. Peter preached the Epistles to the Apostles looking like that.
Success as Shell scores Cider
You couldn't get a sweet, or a cigarette, or a packet of Butterscotch Angel Delight for love nor money.
And if you did, you couldn't be caught with them.
"What are you rustling there" said my Mother as I ran up the stairs with contraband in gold foil.
The town was a wasteland with every shop battened down,only tumbleweed rolling through main street, the sound of bells pealing ominously from the 3 churches, Twins and a Friary as the day wore interminably on.
One could be forgiven for thinking Gary Cooper would walk out from behind a store front with a pistol on his hip at High Noon.
Because we were told we couldn't have it, even people who wore gold Pioneer Pins had the thirst of death on them..
In a countrywide epidemic of reverse psychology, we would have walked through walls to get at a pint.
Myself and my comrades in arms were on the hunt for drink.
We were supposed to be at the Ceremonies where poor Jesus was being crucified.
Again.
We were crucified with the Droot - standing in a trio outside a house that apparently sold drink.
"You go" say the girls as if to distance themselves from any or all misdoings, whilst simultaneously coercing the most outrageous one in the group to rock up at the door.
I dragged my heels and a stick along the Rowe Street wall, where we had been sitting for hours, hiding behind a statue of a Canon.
The Clerical kind as opposed to an instrument of war.
We had it planned like a military campaign.
"Why is it always Me ?" I moaned and sauntered to the door.
I have always been the Withnail in any group and have to orchestrate everything, and its outcome.
"All right, this is the plan. We'll get in there and get wrecked. Then we'll eat a pork pie.
Then we'll drop a couple of Surmontil's each.
Means we'll miss out Monday but come up smelling of roses on Tuesday"
The women hid behind the Town Hall Wall, frantically counting out silver coins.
I stare at the brown wooden door, the dusty fan light, and knock timidly.
There is no answer, so I knock again louder, with my ring, and place an ear to the door and hear the sounds of nothing emanating down from the newspaper filled hall, as I peep in the letter box.
The women pop their heads out and in a stage whisper ask what the crack is?
"There's nothing happening here, and there is nobody insid................
Oh hello. "
The door has opened while I was gatching around, and an elderly woman wants to know my business, in the name of all that's good and holy.
"Ahem, we've come to buy cider off of you" I proclaim brightly.
"I DON'T sell cider" she shouts and slams the door - In an exact replica of the farmers wife scene in Withnail and I who shouts "I don't care WHERE you come from" before slamming her OWN door.
I suppose the point I am trying to make is that doors getting slammed did not figure in our cunning plan.
We had enough for 2 flagons, between the 3 of us, and would consume them in the only place that was safe- (from our prudent parents, who knew with a heart and a hand, and to a man that we were up to no good,)
- my friend Clair's bedroom, where nobody ever came up further than the first landing as hers was the very last bedroom at the top of the house.
I was already in disgrace for opening and consuming a Chocolate Easter Egg dispensed to me from a basket of similar by Sr Phillip, who nixed as a Willy Wonka type dispensing largesse and larger eggs to the under -privileged children wandering the streets.
My Mother announces us to be disgraced by my behavior, when she spots the tell tale ring of chocolate around my mouth,
- On a BLACK fast too! - My Father announces shuffling his rosary beads under the newspaper.
We looked at each other in disbelief and were about to trudge slowly away and come up with plan C.
Well, you surely didn't think Cider from a door was our FIRST choice? Eh ?
The door opens again instantly and she asks me how many flagons I want?
I have to run the gamut of her orneriness again and when I ascertain the brand, cost, and size available I tell her we will take the 2 bottles.
If looks could kill. .
2 Bottles!!!
She also enquires how the hell we had presented at her door on a BLACK fast, asking us to sing like canaries on the informants, on the doorstep.
I gave her the mute Bambi's and a shrug.
She huffs and blows her way up the hall, and wraps the brown bottles in the newspapers left for the purpose..
We hand over what ever gleaming coins are in our fists, and she closes the door in our faces again, a warning flung over her shoulder, - dont be telling anyone else yee got that from here -
We ran along Abbey and up Georges Streets and took refuge in the room that even had an ashtray, but it was a moot point as someone somewhere had once mentioned that you could get infinitely drunker if you topped fag ash in the cider, as it agitated the alcohol, and so the women sat with their backs to the wall casually flicking the butts of major and carrolls into the bottle.
I was a non smoker then.
It mattered little.
Gaddrens shop would open for milk and bread after the ceremonies, and a procession of head scarfed women would squeeze the batch, and order cream and blocks of ripple to be collected on Easter Sunday
There was always a smell of ice-cream in Gadderns, and wafers and fresh bread, and the big white haired man with the white haired wife could not have been any nicer to the oceans of children that went in to buy Peggy's legs and Dib Dabs, a concoction of confectionary that had a stiff licourice straw battered into sherbert.
The following year on Good Friday , a man - who was my cousin - arrived at my door 4 floors up,and never a job at the top, and threw himself around the bockety furniture bemoaning the emptiness of the drinks press.
"There's not even Sherry" he wailed, in a carbon copy of the wailing I would do when I brought a new lover home, and checking the number of cans of lager in my small fridge moaned "there's not even 8!".
I am Libran and like things balanced. .
He stayed for 5 years.
The payphone taunted us from the hallway.
Someone, somewhere, must be letting people in for a lock-in and so in a process of elimination, I tapped various public houses from the phone to ascertain the chances of getting a few cans for take out.
Corrigan is all for it.
He tells us to come down as quick as we're able.
We are down the stairs and running up the quay before he has hung up.
"Was there any noise or music in there" pants the man who is my cousin,. frantically trying to keep up.
Our plan is to say "can we have a quick drink while we're waiting" when he opens the hall door and then we will be led inside to have the best session of all time, ever.
The quayside pub is quiet and there are no heads at the bar.
We are distraught.
I ring the bell and it is answered instantly by Corrigan himself, balancing a slab of Bud on his knee.
I look at Corrigan and the cousin and then hear myself ask-
"can we have a quick drink while we are waiting?".
In fairness, he did laugh.
He also nearly dropped the slab on his own foot.
Then he led us down hallways and passageways, and out into a yard, and then up a fire escape to the dining room.
The tableau that greeted us was similar to Pompeii, people frozen in the act, mouths opened, glasses tipped, matches flickered in frozen hands, as every eye stared and every heart skipped a beat in the fear of being found on , and the disgrace of being named and shamed in the Papal Peeper.
"It's alright lads - says Corrigan - they're our own"
And then we had the best session of all time.
Pairs of pints, ice in the cider, large gin and tonics and a bloody good sing song.
Shelly O Mahon and the way she might look at you
.
M.D.M.
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