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It's about now that I'll let the titles express the subtext of this story. Again, to reiterate, this was originally meant as a travelogue, written quite close to the time that we made the trip. Sadly, I couldn't bring myself to complete the story once we got to the part where Caroline got to know her now-husband George. I couldn't bring myself to write that part of the story even before I knew that they were in touch after this trip completed. I'll try to explain what stopped me when the time came. So, from part 12 of this story onwards there is a two year period of hindsight underneath the writing. Hopefully, most of this story has been uncoloured by that hindsight - it's just a catalogue of the minutiae which make any trip unique. However, as we're getting to the close of the original tale, and into its aftermath, I'm going to have to use hindsight and long-term memory more. Since this tale (the last from the notes) will relate the last day's holiday Caroline ever took together, as well as it being the last day of that trip, there's a wordplay title. Get over it! Anyway, on with the mundane...
On the morning of the last day, I was entirely disabled by the bed - I think I lay there unable to move, or unwilling to move. I'm naturally slow-to-sleep and slow-to-wake. On this occasion there was packing to be done and Caroline attacked this with aplomb, while I lay there immobile. This was probably not a good idea. In fact, I wrote in my notes of the time that I was probably banking in the discontentment bank. The discontentment bank is an invention of mine, which relates to the way that women tend to remember a man's transgressions against them... forever. Every time you do something wrong, or fail to do something right, it pays a deposit into the discontentment bank. You cannot reduce your balance and there's also a general interest rate paid on the balance over time. In some particularly large argument, your other half might issue "a statement", itemising some of the deposits in the bank, many of which have grown in value since they happened - some of which you may even have been unaware of. If you overdo it, you may get your account closed.
It's worth pointing out that this somewhat cynical viewpoint on male/female relationships was concocted before I became single and is not the product of bitterness after the fact. I merrily explained this problem to a number of my non-single friends around early 2002, unaware that I was due an account closure in the near future... and it came with a closing statement. I think, in some respects, that this comment is fair, but it's also not important if you're in the right relationship - there has to be give and take and you should not really be sitting on problems and stewing forever. I think I felt that was battling against everything that had gone wrong between Caroline and I. We found a comfortable place where we didn't hate each other, but perhaps we'd long since overrun our course. I'm more optimistic now, as a single man who has had no relationships in the last two years, than I was while living with the girl I saw as the love of my life... at the time at least.
After the packing we had breakfast and used up some spare Euros to buy some treats to bring up. Then we decided to buy a worry stone for Caroline. This became something of a stressful search as we tried in vain to find one in every shop between breakfast and the hotel. Perhaps that's ironic? Answers on a postcard in the shape of a pint of Guinness please.
Staying in an expensive hotel can make paying the bill seem stressful. I don't claim to have much cash. I had enough to splash out on taking my fiancee to another country and treat us both to meals and the viewing of various attractions. I had also booked a nice hotel and flights, with a discount on the bookings, making the money stretch just that bit further. However, if the hotel hadn't heard about the discounted rate, then things were going to get to the version of expensive that I'd describe as uncomfortable. Having left a note in the room about a blown lightbulb (not one of the ones over the "ooh you look bald" mirror, sadly), as a contribution to their list of things to improve - I didn't have time to tell them about the catalogue of building tasks I would have performed on that room - I went to reception to settle up. I was concerned about the settling up because:
The room was supposedly pre-paid (through Expedia) but they'd taken a swipe of my credit card when we arrived and not explained why.
We'd charged a few drinks and a meal to the room, so I was expecting some sort of bill.
The TV could tell you your bill, but had been lying. It said zero a lot and then worked out that we'd had a meal and said something else... but then zeroed itself again and started flashing. Confusing.
When I asked to check out, they called me Mr O'Neill... I didn't like this and I was frightened to say what was on my mind - "This Mr O'Neill - he sounds more expensive than I am".
The bill was given in Irish pounds, which was odd, since they'd moved to the Euro. This was confusing too.
Then... relief... it was also in Euros and the amount I expected to pay.
It would have made a better story if the bill had been wrong and we'd ended up washing up in their kitchen to pay it off, or if we'd been taken to one side and told never to come back to their hotel, since the suitcase-through-the-revolving-door trick is a taboo in posh Irish hotels. Sadly, these interesting things didn't happen. Never mind - real life can't always be like the movies.
Transferring to the airport by bus was straightforward. We had the obligatory moment of worrying that the bus might not come - thus causing us to miss our plane and be stranded in Ireland. So I rang up the bus company to ask about the bus and, of course, it immediately arrived. Is it ironic that Caroline should have been so worried about getting back home from Ireland, lest we get stranded there, since she now lives there? Probably not... after all, all her stuff was in Newcastle.
We had communication problems getting a coffee in the airport at Butler's, one of Ireland's other coffee shop chains. The problem revolved around the Chinese lady, who served, not understanding my order. Her English wasn't all that good, on the whole. She took an order for one drink, not two. I only discovered this while receiving the drinks. I wanted to correct the order - I wanted a second drink and I wanted to pay for it. This proved a tricky problem to solve. Perhaps it's more indicative of the labour market in Ireland that a number of the (probably lower-paid) service industry jobs were taken by immigrants without full command of the language in which they were serving. I didn't feel that they were necessarily getting the support they needed. However, I probably solved the problem in the end - perhaps with a smile. Whatever farcical comedy of errors it took to get both drinks was undoubtedly worth it as we sampled our last Irish cappuccino with its heart-shaped froth. (I never managed to recreate this shape of froth in our home cappuccino maker.)
Oh... and then we got a plane. I was able to sit without some evil charva-on-a-stag-night annoying me. We had momentary frustration with a cash-only car parking machine and then got to leave Darlington to return home. The next time we'd visit Teesside airport would be when I dropped Caroline off for her one-way trip to Ireland when she went to live there. But that wouldn't happen until June 20th and this was April the 9th. We had over 70 days to wait for that moment.
20 May 2004
Ashley Frieze