Breda married recently. She took time off from her work in Dublin; drove across the country to her home within earshot of Thoor Ballylee; and the wedding occurred in that karstic land of gurgling underground water, where tarry the ghosts of Raftery and Yeats and Augusta Gregory - a land for which I retain an old affection.
I first met Breda when I bought bagels from her in a Dublin supermarket. I was struck by her openness, her friendliness; but in so far as I analysed her style at all I may have put it down to some course she might have done in that bottomlessly false business strategy called public relations - something like the public face that television teaches presenters to wear for studio cameras.
Next time I visited Breda's department, she gave me another big smile, set in an honest face of uncontrived goodwill. She came out from behind the counter and discussed bagel flavours in a language that had nothing whatever to do with business strategy or public relations. This was the real person, behaving and speaking as her undisguised Galwegian self.
Along the way, I learned that she was a graduate of a third-level Dublin college, from which she took qualifications which, to say the least of them, fitted her abundantly for the department she ran with such aplomb.
Chocolate egg
Last Easter, she gave me a big chocolate egg. I thought of passing it to a child; but not having seen one of those for a while, I gave it a whack and ate it, tessella by tessella, over five days.
As I became aware of Breda's ways, I recalled a time when I went to Galway to do a job of work. From the breakfast menu, I chose porridge, scrambled egg, brown bread and toast to keep me going until I should have time to eat again. Then, I headed down the town to talk (and listen) to worthy burghers, private citizens and public representatives about this, that and - you may be sure - the other.
At 10.30 that night - footsore and famished - I fetched up at a Chinese restaurant, opposite the Franciscan church (no, no; not a take-away joint: a proper restaurant, with erect table napkins), where the waitress (Irish) was so attentive, got everything so right, that I said to her at the end, "Just keep on doing what you are doing." She looked a little puzzled, not to say scared. I tried again: "Everything you have done since I came in here has been just right. All you have to do is go on being yourself." She smiled; the message was getting through. I went on: "Watch those Americans who may come in here. They will bow down and bless you, and they will leave you fat tips, because they are not used to finding human beings like you in their own restaurants."
Duel with a waiter
I spoke out of some experience, because I had seen the ways of American restaurants on their home ground. Once, for instance, in an east-coast city (Little Italy Quarter), a waiter turned the business of presenting the menu into a duel. Unasked, he began to rattle off the contents of the menu, course by course, interpreting each course, item by item, in a hectoring, you'd-better-like-it voice. Ignoring him, I stepped up the conversation with my fellow-diner. But the waiter continued on, selling, selling, selling. Hoping to disarm him - to deAmericanise him - I asked, in a friendly tone, "Where in Italy do you come from?"
"Italy?" he screamed. "Sicily!" And then he said, sniffily, "You are English, yes?" The duel was a draw. We had winged each other.
The last time I met an Irish equivalent of the Sicilian waiter was a couple of months ago in a branch of one of the middle-sized supermarket chains. I was trying to buy bread, but neither the shelves nor the individual breads showed prices. I pointed this out, politely, to a man of about 20, in a white coat, stacking shelves nearby. "Prices?" he roared. "There are no prices." I asked why not. He moved to within an invasive foot of me. "Because," he hissed, "customers coming in here know the prices."
I pointed out that as far as I knew, shops were obliged to show prices. His eyes blazed (a verb I borrow from the supermarket school of literature) and he snarled, "I'll soon deal with you." He turned around and headed off. I followed. He stopped when he reached the counter, where he turned back, staring at me, as if trying to decide whether to hit me. I stared him back. I left the shop in my own time, without making a purchase.
Courteous exchanges
At such times, one misses the courteous exchanges that used to occur between customers and shop assistants (may one call them that any longer?) before the local shops huddled together for protection (and to fix prices) and became tied branches of chains such as Spar and Mace and Centra. Some of the young persons employed in such places - many of them students working for pin money - are very pleasant indeed, the girls especially; but where they are surly or mute of malice, be sure that they take their cue from the proprietor. Where the owner is gruff or dismissive, so the staff tends to be. Either that or, unable to endure the atmosphere, they pick up their wages and leave.
Breda, you may recall, was the one that started me down this zigzag path. For the courtesy and humanity she brings all the way from Co Galway to a large British-owned Dublin supermarket, I offer her this little Epithalamion, wishing her joy in her marriage, which I hope will abound in happiness, and last forever and ever.