On December 4th 2009 Talbot Street, Dublin was a hundred miles long. Our backpacks, loving selected, were large enough to contain a person and arched our backs. We hobbled like crippled snails past one grungy shop after another. The Polish supermarket Polaski which specialised in pickled Polish memories, Italian connection the restaurant where Claire would gain (and lose) her first job, the four euro pizza slices and the sinister bridge where the train rattled our heads. Not a leprechaun in sight. No guitar yielding gorgeous Irish boys.
Instead women’s orange self tanned faces peered from matched velour tracksuits. Hair extensions ran down their backs and heavy makeup paraded their faces. Cigarettes lolled on their lips as they bellowed to each other. “Ya bunch of cunts! To the pub!” rang in our ears until we started saying it ourselves.
In Dublin the river Liffey cuts a defiant hole through the heart of the city. South of the river is all that is posh. North of the river is all that is not. They are unmistakably joined by O’ Connell Bridge, the only bridge in Europe that is wider than it is long. The two halves like Siamese, dizygotic twins. All a part of Dublin, but the identity like the accents, is very different.
On the south side Dunn’s supermarket bursts with fresh berries and shiny wooden floors. On the north side Dunn’s supermarket is crammed with cheap cider and stale bread. On the south side you choose your Friday night dress in a designer boutique. Click your heels down George Street. Stop at Brown Thomas, the Harrods of Ireland, to admire the Roberto Cavalli dress with the green straps and gold brooch between the breasts.
On the north side you waddle down Henry Street. Fight your way between old ladies with big wheeled prams of grapes and spotty teens selling scratch cards. You buy your dress from Pennys, the Irish store with a reputation for sweat shops in Asia. Shoes cost the same as a sandwich but a single trip in the rain gives them a stench that cannot be removed; no matter how long you blow them with the hair dryer.
We were very firmly on the north side. I would become a northsider and be proud. But today the flag trumpeting our arrival at Jacob’s Inn felt ominous. Cigarette butts huddled from the cold in the street lining gutters. The next door pub had a typical name like ‘O ’Malleys’ or ‘O’ Grady’s’. It was never without a group of drunken taxi drivers gathered outside for a smoke and a look at your ass.
Inside the walls were an off putting shade of orange and the reception desk was made of cheap plywood. Disinfected air tickled our noses. The receptionist’s hair was shoulder length and greasy. He was unfriendly and our dreams were shattered. We had expected a converted Celtic castle and instead we had gotten a badly painted tin can.
There were 12 beds in our room and one shower that switched off every 15 seconds. We locked our bags with tiny gold padlocks and trapped them in giant cages. We knew that all our stuff would be stolen the second we turned our South African backs.
There were two Spanish girls in our room. Two sides of the nationality stereotype coin: one was beautiful, the other utterly crazed. I cannot remember the crazy one’s name, but we often wondered what sad government dole agency was funding her mania. She would fart. Then stare out the window. Then fart some more. She fiddled in our things and shouted at our faces. She would open all the windows in mid winter; her woolly clothes bundled around her body. Then, magically she would introduce herself to us saying “Oh aren’t you the sisters from South Africa? I’ve heard a lot about you!” She was a source of laughter and concern. One day she disappeared.
In contrast Elena’s long, dark hair curled around her features as she chatted on Skype to her girlfriend Mariana. She was from Barcelona or Bar-tha-lona as she pronounced it, with that cute lisp that made her speech childlike. She announced she would teach us Spanish and Catalan (which was her native tongue). But when she put on her orange knit shirt with the flat wooden beads and went out for drinks with friends, she didn’t invite us to join.
She would call me her “little son” and I could never figure out if it was a play on words or if she had confused daughter and son. A strange attack of adventure had made her leave her human resources job in Spain and come to Ireland to learn English. Simple protocol like “How are you?” was a struggle and conversations were jilted. She would not find work in Dublin. She would break up with Mariana. And eventually, I would follow her to Amsterdam.