For nearly four years, I trained as a retail store manager in Dublin. As 1985 arrived, I was offered a good opportunity in the company’s biggest store, which was due to open very soon in West Belfast. Understandably, I was delighted to be offered such a prestigious role but anxious that I might not have the ability to succeed. Living in the war-torn part of our island also caused me some apprehension as I had no relatives, friends or any connections in Belfast. The Belfast Telegraph classified adverts helped me secure reasonably cheap digs in an area called The Holylands. So with all my belongings in my wheelie suitcase, I boarded the Express bus to Belfast.
As Dublin disappeared I lost myself in Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits on my Sony Walkman, noting the title of the album was appropriate for where I was heading. Perhaps a harbinger about my chosen career. But choices are the hinges of destiny, two roads diverged in a yellow wood. On that bus I could have swapped tapes to listen to Frankie Goes To Hollywood as the Two Tribes in Belfast were hellbent on slaughtering each other. Post 1998, just after The Good Friday Belfast Agreement— even today, they barely tolerate each other. Back then they were openly hostile, the animus almost tangible. You could feel it hovering around like an invisible smog.
Dublin in the mid eighties was, like the whole of Ireland, in a financial depression with heroin flooding the inner city. It was dreary, but in comparison to Belfast it was a metropolis, long before the Celtic Tiger was an amoeba. It was like going to bed with Debbie Harry and waking up with Dame Edna, without the jokes. I disembarked at Oxford Street bus station, (itself a permanent reminder of the horrors of the internecine conflict, where of the nine people butchered on Bloody Friday July 21 1972, six were in the station). The bus inspector gave me general directions to The Holylands.
Belfast inner city is quite small so I went in search of my accommodation on foot. The Holylands are so called because all the streets are named after areas in Egypt and Palestine. It is juxtaposed to Botanic Avenue, itself an area even then, regarded as a safe place, witnessing very little conflict. I walked as directed but found myself on the Lisburn Road instead of Botanic Avenue. An older gentleman redirected me to go back on myself to Shaftesbury Square. Again I lost my bearings and went into…….. The Sandy Row Rangers FC Supporters Club for directions.
I was incredibly naive at that time about the machinations of various groups or how your religion could be identified by even frequenting certain areas or enclaves. With my Monaghan accent I asked the barman, where I could find Jerusalem Street. ‘Israel’ he says, shoulders heaving, laughing at his comic answer, revealing a mouthful of teeth reminiscent of The Pogues front man Shane Mac Gowan. To my right sat two bar flies. My southern brogue scorched them like Lourdes Water. One was the spit of Lee Van Cleef, in his dark cheap suit, black hat, prominent yellow teeth holding a Meerschaum pipe, swarthy skin, wearing a smile like the silver fittings on a coffin.. All I needed to see was him eating baked beans with a wooden spoon and I’d have asked for an autograph.
He enquired ‘what ya going there for?’ I told him it was my new digs. ‘Just leave here and turn right at the Ormo Cafe onto Botanic Avenue. Ask somebody there and you’ll get it, it’s not far away’. A bloated version of Eli Wallach, sporting five chins, an unshaven ginger stubble, chewing a matchstick, got up of his chair ‘you’re not from around here are you mate?’ I answered in the affirmative. ‘What has you up here mate?’ I told him I was starting work on Monday in the big new shopping centre where the greyhound track used to be. ‘That’s just off the Falls Road mate, boys like you would be quare an’ happy working in a place like that, wouldn’t you mate?’.
It was getting a bit like a spaghetti western bar scene. The Pogue with a white cloth rubbing a glass like it was a diamond, his brown eyes moving side by side, gecko like, toward the door. I was waiting for a piano to stop playing or the mirror to disappear off the wall. Both barflies were out of their chairs now. The Pogue held his glass in the air to inspect it like a jeweller, then stared at me darting his eyes to the door. Eventually the penny dropped. He was warning me to get to hell out of the saloon. Which I did. Quicker than Ben Johnson avoiding a urine test.
The next morning I got a taxi. The first thing the portly driver said, ‘if the cops stop us, you’re my mate, mate, ok mate’. As Walk Of Life by Dire Straits played on his stereo I asked him why? ‘I’ve no licence mate, I’m not supposed to be lifting people so I’m not, but dats why I’m cheaper mate, so it is’. As we went up the Donegall Road we passed the Sandy Row Rangers FC Supporters Club. There was no sign of The Pogue, Lee Van Cleef or Eli Wallach. The driver pointed to a building ‘there’s where they do the romping’. I looked at him as if he asked me the population of Uzbekistan. ‘It’s where they take the Taigs to dust them up a bit’. My throat felt like I chewed an orchard of damsons. I became elated when I espied the giant hare, the logo of the new shopping centre: ‘there’yar mate that’s you now. That’ll be £3 mate. Best of luck in your new job mate, it’ll be wee buns to you mate, wee buns. You’ll love Belfast mate. You’re in the best wee town in the country’.
He delivered this valedictory message with the conviction of a snake oil salesman. I wasn’t going to ask him, which country would that be now?
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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