Chapter 15

I could have flown to Belfast, but I decided it was a good opportunity to use the much cheaper sea route on the ferry that took the better part of the entire day to reach the other shore. The ferry was large and sturdy, and it hardly rolled at all in the waves with the white caps at the top the entire way. I knew that the belly of the huge thing was stuffed with cars and trucks of all sizes and that half of the passengers would be getting off the ferry riding inside a vehicle and not walking down the gangplank like me.

All I had in the way of luggage was my backpack which actually held a surprising amount of clothing hidden away in secret compartments and my waist purse that had all my documents and some items of jewelry I didn’t want to be seen on the street. Inside my left shoe I had a copy of my passport with all the information and a copy of my international driver’s license just in case I got mugged. Also, I had hidden a nice clean hundred Euro note that would help me in a pinch in case I ran into trouble.

As I was descending the gangplank, I noticed that the majority of the pedestrians were obviously from other countries in Europe because they were mostly non-Caucasian. They were loaded down with suitcases some of which had wheels on the bottom so they could be easily pulled along a smooth surfaced road. There were lots of little ones holding hands so they didn’t get separated and it was weird the way that they were mostly silent as if talking would draw attention to them and they would have to answer questions in a language they didn’t understand.

I thought about my own closed mouth and realized I seldom started a conversation because I would always get the question “You are not from around here, are you?” It was a lot easier for me to blend in if I just kept my mouth shut and smiled and nodded at those around me like I agreed with everything they said.

I knew that agreeing to almost everything could get me into trouble in a hurry, but it was the line of least resistance, and I took it like the coward that I am.

Patrick had warned me about the taxi drivers in the city and that it was safer to use the bus rather than a cab where you didn’t know the driver’s agenda. As a female I thought that was good advice and I decided to take the bus into the city center. Once I got to the main bus station, he had given me the Bus Route Number and the approximate times it ran during the week almost right to his doorstep. All the buses on the pier were marked “City Center” so I figured it was the way they moved the travelers from the port to the bus station where they could board the bus that they needed to go in the right direction.

I had made certain I had the right coins and paper money for the trips and that there would be no problems of not having the correct change. My experience in the other countries in Europe had taught me a valuable lesson about having the correct change for using mass transportation and I didn’t want to get in a position where I would stick out like a sore thumb as being a stranger in a place I really didn’t belong because I always felt safer blending into the background rather than being the center of attraction.

Less than thirty minutes later I found myself at the stop he told me was closest to his home and I got off the bus with a light step because I had managed to navigate the entire route without asking a single question of anyone.

His neighborhood was close to the railway line, and I noticed that most of the houses were of the attached single family variety and not the high-rise apartments I had seen downtown. Thankfully, the street signs were new and easy to read, and I saw that each building had the numbers painted right over the front door in a very orderly manner.

I saw his family’s house with the number 337 in white on a green background and was pleased I was able to find it without much difficulty at all.

I had called him from London before I left but he was not at home, and I just left a message to say I was on my way.

The guy that answered the door was definitely not Patrick, but he did look a bit like him somewhat and jumped to the conclusion it was a brother or a close cousin with the same last name. He told me he was Patrick Joseph and that I was probably looking for his little brother Patrick Jr. who was currently down “South” taking care of some business but that he should be home this very evening after dinner at a time indefinite due to the closing of the border that was a “real pain in the ass and totally unnecessary for civilized residents.”

The Murphy household was filled to the brim with little Murphy’s and older Murphy’s all speaking English with an accent that made it difficult for me to follow exactly what they were saying even when the vocabulary was identical to mine. It had something to do with the inflection and the pronunciation of the words spoken in an almost musical way. I do remember a lot of them had names that started with the letter “M” like Mickey and Michael and Moira and Mauve and other names I could not remember at all.

His father was still at work in the factory and his daughter told me he probably stopped at the pub on the way home because it was a Friday and he always stopped for a pint on a Friday after work.

His Mother was in the kitchen, and it seemed like she was practically anchored there by a steel link chain to have a steady flow of food ready for all the Murphy’s as soon as they got home. For some, it was breakfast because they were on the night shift and were just waking up to go to work in the dark because that was the only game in town when jobs were scarce, and the production lines needed workers willing to trade daylight for the midnight hours becoming their lunch time totally confusing their metabolism and causing them to yawn at odd hours wherever they were at noon.

The first boy to answer the door sat with her in front of the television and he asked her, “Are you Patrick’s girl that he met in America?” and she wasn’t sure if she was or she wasn’t, so she just shrugged her shoulders and smiled an enigmatic smile at the handsome young man and sipped the beer he had given her to match his.

“We are close friends, but I don’t know if he thinks of me in that way. You would have to ask him that question to get a correct answer to get it right.”

Patrick Joseph took my answer to be an invitation to cuddle because the next thing I knew we were both stretched out on top of the flour sacks in the basement with him showing me how an Irishman checks out a strange female to see if his equipment fits properly inside her feminine folds in a discreet and private way and not in front of any relatives too quick to carry tales to the wrong person.