The World Cup final of 2006 was remembered for only one thing. Zinedine Zidane being sent off for head butting Italian Marco Materazzi in the chest. Despite Zidane winning the Golden Ball award he returned to France somewhat tainted despite his achievements. That’s how I felt a couple of weeks later, turning the key for the last time on the shutters of the department store I managed on Crumlin Road Belfast. In the first instance it was a risky decision to locate the shop there, situated in the worst interface area of Belfast. Ardoyne. In truth, I was happy to be getting out of it.
Three years previously I was transferred to there from a very successful store in mid Ulster as the company wanted an experienced manager to launch the new venture. I was their Zinedine Zidane. It was a baptism of fire. On several occasions, I had to quell fist fights in the aisles as warring factions battled it out. Security personnel stopping any customer entering the building wearing either a Celtic FC or Rangers FC top, a decision which also caused conflict. The people wanted an end to the internecine conflict. An end to the killing. But that didn’t equate to tolerance. We had a long way to go yet. Nowhere in Northern Ireland was this more evident than on Crumlin Road.
Accentuated by local intolerance, customer footfall declined rapidly forcing cutbacks on labour and management costs, thus haemorrhaging sales. At the beginning of the third year’s trading I was the only manager remaining. Every conceivable thing was going pear-shaped. One day I got a phone call from Dermot the director of finance, an individual with a personality as engaging as a grey slug. When he spoke, birds everywhere stopped singing. ‘I am concerned about labour costs in your store. I want you to call a management meeting to sort it.’ ‘I don’t have any managers Dermot, there’s only me in the store’. ‘I still want you to call a meeting to sort it. Send me the minutes of the meeting’. ‘Who with Dermot?’ ‘With your managers’. ‘But there’s only me here’. ‘You need to call a meeting to sort the costs’. It was like speaking to a talking clock.
So in a fit of pique I turned to look at the giant mirror in my office. I had a very heated conversation with myself, telling my reflection I needed to improve productivity, vigorously pointing fingers at my now crimson face. I told me to stop pointing. To refrain from raising my voice to me and to have some respect for me. I typed out the minutes of the meeting and sent them to Dermot. Surprisingly, I didn’t receive any feedback. That was my eureka moment. I had to get out of there.
Before the final whistle was called on the branch I had a minor altercation with one of the staff, who in general were hard working. One young lad, Colm ,who although very bright, didn’t appear to have the same enthusiasm for retail as he did for academia. ‘My name is not Colm. It’s Colin. Why do you always call me Colm? ‘Because I grew up with a fella called Colm, anyway is there any chance you could speed up getting that display of Kelloggs Cornflakes filled? We will never get out of here tonight if you keep that pace up’. ‘I’m doing my best Mr Mc Cabe. I can’t do any better than that’. On my return from a tea break, Colm, sorry Colin, was nowhere to be seen. The cornflake display was unchanged. I walked into the warehouse yard to find him gabbling with the forklift driver, gauldering at him to get back inside immediately or he would need the services of a proctologist to get my shoe out of his rectum. ‘What’s a proctologist Mr McCabe?’ ‘You are within thirty seconds of finding out’. He finished the display, but very reluctantly. Shortly after the Kelloggs incident he told me he was leaving to go to university to study medicine.
Seventeen years later I retired. Around the same time both my brothers were diagnosed with cancer. My father had died at age 56 from the same disease. Their consultants advised that all siblings needed to be checked as they suspected there was a hereditary cancer gene within the family. I subsequently contacted the local medical centre requesting all the essential tests and a colonoscopy. It was easier to cancel SKY TV than it was to get an appointment with a GP. Not easily daunted I bombarded him with phone calls requesting the necessary procedures. Eventually, despite the long waiting lists, because of the sinister family history he agreed to get me fast tracked. I was to go to Kingsbridge private hospital for a colonoscopy, but the NHS would pay for it.
I attended an interview with a young female doctor who looked as if she had just left P7. With the efficiency of a beaver she talked me through the whole procedure using diagrams and graphs. It was like being back in biology class. She handed me a pack of laxative liquid. I had to fast for up to 36 hours. The bowel had to be completely clear or the procedure wouldn’t go ahead. A week later I was in a cubicle completely alone, practically naked apart from a back to front gown made with fabric so thin it could have housed tea leaves. An Indian nurse inserted a cannula into my forearm to draw blood. He was talking to me but I didn’t understand a word he was saying I was that nervous. He could have been telling me there was a fault on my computer or selling me an insurance package for my new American fridge.
Consequently I was brought into a room with so many widescreen TVs I thought I was in the new Odeon cinema. Five medical staff hovered over me as I lay vulnerable on a metal bed. One of them asked me did I want any relief. I asked her was I in a hospital or a Chinese massage parlour on Botanic Avenue. She took that as a yes injecting me with a clear liquid, instructing me to lie on my left side and look at the big screen. ‘You can see the inside of your bowel’ she boasted. I told her I’d rather be watching The Sopranos. Then the doctor came over to show me what looked like a wire with a camera a SWAT team use to secretly look for hostages in a siege. He said it was an endoscope. ‘It has a light so I can see inside you. You can see it too’. Lovely, I thought.
‘You are Mr Mc Cabe from Dunnes Crumlin Road aren’t you’. ‘Aye. How did you know that? ‘I used to be one of your student workers back in the day. My name is Colin Farrell but you always called me Colm’. Although drugged to the eyeballs I knew he wasn’t the actor from In Bruges and I wasn’t Brendan Gleeson. Watching him wave the device at me like a snake I asserted ‘I hope you are better at this than you were at building cornflake displays’. He laughed, with great intensity uttering ‘well let’s see shall we? Revenge is sweet Mr McCabe’ as he drove the snake into my rectum with the skill of Zidane in front of goal. Unfortunately the drugs were not strong enough. I felt every twist and turn he made. He was loving watching me squirm. ‘Oh look there a polyp, and another there look’ finding five in total. Afterwards he showed me photos of them informing me that they would go for analysis but not to worry, it was standard procedure. Then he told me to get dressed, which I did very sheepishly.
As I was about to leave he reminded me that having been medicated, I couldn’t drive home. I told him my wife was collecting me. ‘You must be very hungry. I will get the nurse to get you tea and toast. Would that be ok?’ ‘Thats great Colm’, I mumbled ‘but I don’t suppose you have any Kelloggs cornflakes on the ward do you?’
Houdi originally told this story at the tenx9 Storytelling event in Belfast. You can also listen to stories on their podcast.
Originally from Clones Co. Monaghan, Houdi McCabe is a legend in his own mind. He worked as a Branch Manager with Dunnes Stores all over Northern Ireland for 42 years. Retired, he now writes and acts on a full time basis, with over thirty films/plays within his oeuvre. Some of his stories have been adapted for short films, by himself and with other collaborators. He is a regular performer at literary events TENX9, Soundwaves Portrush, Pub Poetry Causeway Coast, First Drams NI and Flash Fiction Armagh. Resident in Portrush Co. Antrim he is married to local girl Carole Robinson.
They have three adult children and one grandchild, Genevieve. Houdi doesn’t have any pets as he loves himself too much.
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