Last night we headed to O’Neill’s—my housemate Amelle, her colleague Aurelius, and I—for diner, drinks, and some traditional Irish music. Night fell misty blue over the cobbled streets, speakers over every door spinning out whatever fiddle, flute or guitar sang inside, street lights coming on, little roads filled with the usual mixture of students, tourists, revelers. I wanted to enjoy the hand-shaking, shoulder-slapping fellowship of the streets—so different from the carnival-feel of Spain, the sweaty-clubs of Tel Aviv or the drunk boredom of Ohio. I wanted to have people to call out to across the street, to meet and mingle with, travel in a pack that goes rolling down the street. But I was—am—still so knew to this city, and last night I was hungry from a pricey afternoon at the Guinness Storehouse which left me no money for a snack between “black stuff” and the pub. I was cranky, and Amelle—in the measured quietness of her dark French curls and impeccable Paris fashion—did most of the navigating.
We wandered about, asking directions, getting contradictory answers, shuffling down side streets, realizing we were going in circles; I would have thoroughly enjoyed being so lost if my stomach had been a little less vocal.
Finally we asked a man taking a smoke outside the bright red façade of the “Auld Dubliner.” He seemed to know what he was about—“O’Neill’s? Yeah, O’Neill’s,” he leaned into the pub to ask the bouncer, then he turned back to us, rubbing his shiny bald head with his free hand. “Yeah, it’s not far, it’s not far.” The bouncer joined, “You’re gonna turn here, yes, right here, turn right to Dame Street, an’you’ll see Ulster Bank across the way? Yeah, it’s in the same building, jus’ on t’ot’er side.”
We thanked him and set off down a road we’d walked at least three times, crossed over Dame Street with it’s towering bronze statues, heading for the bank.
“There it is,” I said, pointing to a green and brown storefront complete with square-paned windows and glossy gold-on-black lettering. Green vines draping down from the flowerboxes. Going inside, we realized that the modest façade visible from Dame Street concealed a wide maze of dark wood paneling and leather benches, complete with two buffet lines and at least two bars. The warm, hearty smells of gravy, meat and stuffing pulled us in until we were seated with menus in our hands and our wallets on the table. I mentally luxuriated in the list of goodies—oysters, bacon-wrapped chicken, salmon, turkey—until the promise of food no longer satisfied. I ordered a steaming lamb shank with red wine and mushroom sauce over two scoops of mashed potatoes.
“What is that?” Amelle asked.
“Lamb, this is the first time I’ve ever had it,” as I sat down with my steaming plate.
“Oh it’s so good,” said Aurelius, “You’ve never had?”
“No, it’s not very popular in the states” with my fork poised over the food, wondering how to attack the hunk of meat.
“Y’ve never had lamb?” a fair-haired man leaned over, speaking thick Irish brogue. “You’ll love it, especially here. An’what’ve you got?” leaning over Amelle’s plate, “Just’a plate’a veggies?” Sounding appauled.
“There’s salmon hiding in there,” I said as Amelle delicately picked at the lemon slices covering her fish.
“You may need to help her, I think,” said Aurelius.
“Well, th’a’ won’be a problem. I could start righ’ na-ow,” laughing with his companions. We subsided back into our separate conversations.
The lamb was delicious, warm and heavy with enough fat in the meat to make a dieter cringe, but the muscle underneath so much better for it, the pink and brown meat falling of the bone if I held the knife too close. I carved it down in fifteen minutes, then wolfishly considered the bone.
After dinner we headed upstairs for the music, squeezing between among a knot of young men enthralled by a televised boxing match and a group of French girls sharing drinks. The band was tuning up on the small stage—a square-jawed man whose dark hair and beard matched the patina on his flute, a russet haired woman sitting aloof with her concertina, and a ruddy blond guitarist acting as spokesman. He introduced “d’band” and “d’tunes” with the flute player throwing in jokes—“T’is’s what y’get folks, when I don’drink durin’ a gig,” toasting us with his McCafe cup. They spoke low to each other under the pick-up of the mics.
The first song—Star of County Down—fingers flashing over frets, flute holes and button keys, the guitarist singing—I’ve travelled a bit, but never was hit since my roving career began—my eyes wandered to the light-fingered flautist, down to the French girls having a drink, a young man with honey-colored hair coming to sit on the stage steps, his long frame languid on his makeshift seat, but his shoulders and attentive face turned towards the group’s beauty—a heart-faced blond. I’d a heart to let and no tenant yet . . . But in she went and asked no rent from the star of the County Down. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but gradually she turned more and more from her tittering companions, barely even noticing when several stood to go.
Several more songs I—When off Holyhead I wished meself was dead, or better of instead on the rocky road to Dublin—then an instrumental reel, and I lost track of the music, too engrossed in the slowly shifting posture of the pair across the way, like watching a flower track the sun. They sat apart facing each other, then leaning in, then further, then holding hands, then touching shoulders. A slight feeling of jealousy at the sudden simplicity of their lives, of the two-point system they had found tucked within the whirly chaos of music, crowd and pub, their sudden simplicity across from my own life trying to make new friends in this new place, of trying to keep in contact with those back home, of trying to not keep in contact with some back home, balancing, balancing—send that email, not that text, have coffee even though you’re tired and want to go home, laugh even though you’re nervous, look interested even when Amelle and Aurelius speak only in French, go home and blog before falling into bed, connect, connect, fight you’re introverted tendencies, connect, connect, balance. And here, for these few hours, these two cut themselves from the chatter, scaled down from the light noise of a galaxy to a binary-star, orbiting, orbiting, both around the other. I was pleasantly envious, the way we envy fifty-year couples sitting on park benches or children chasing geese across the lawns, hand-in-hand parents behind. Envious of things I might have. Seeing them makes me hope and sink at the same time—not yet, by maybe. Watching them lean together, slightly sad at their unawareness of my distant admiration, relieved that it was so, that my watching didn’t break the double gravity of two, for tonight, orbiting.
When the band closed, the flute player played the last song, a breathy baritone, like a wave pulling back to sea, or his wooden flute on its lowest notes. I was glad to leave my bar stool, descend the steps back out into the Dublin streets, the mess of taxis and wobbly, high-heeled girls already four beers deep. Flashing headlights, whining streetlights, the colored lights of dance clubs, sudden brightness of late-night snack bars. All the fluorescents, neons, incandescents so much more confusing than the single, steady light of day. Turn your face to the sun, become one to one, remember them as they were, forever in that corner of the bar, as if they never left, would never leave, honey and wheat on the steps below the flute, one and one, oribiting.
Eveline Crosses Back 