The Plain People of Northern Ireland.

 On Saturday I was in town by accident. Walking in front of me along Donegall Street were a couple who were clearly going to a wedding reception or some sort of function. He was in a black suit and tie, and she a very short, very tight skirt and horribly tall high heels, that type that send images of snapped ankles and smashed knees in searing flashes to my brain. They were both tall and good looking, but clearly not "dressy" people. The clothes were wearing them, and they were relying on each other to get through the ordeal. He held her arm as she negotiated the uneven pavement. 

From the other direction, came a barrage of wolf-whistling, as several bald-headed gentlemen bowled out of The John Hewitt, flushed with refreshment. They surrounded the couple, and my stomach tightened into a hard ball. They're going to say something foul and sexist to the girl, I thought. They didn't, though they openly leered at her. The couple moved on. I saw his hand on her arm once again. 

Then one of the bald men stopped and turned, and shouted down the street "Did anyone see that cunt wearing a dickie bow?" At this, the long forehead posse laughed like drains before beetling off to ruin a perfectly good pub somewhere on Hill Street*. The couple kept walking. 

And I thought: the dark wit of the Northern Irish people. I've heard so much about it. The dark wit. 

About a month ago I went into a chemist in Ballyhackamore to buy some shoelaces. Shoelaces, like bottle openers and stamps, seem to have disappeared from the high street, and certainly this chemist had none in his shop.

 "Try a Timpson's" he growled.

On my way out, I suddenly remembered ballet dancers rubbing their feet with surgical spirit. That's not a sexual fetish - I'd recently been soaking my feet in tea in order to harden them, but it hadn't done much more than dye my toenails brown. So, I thought, I'm in a chemist - it's time to break out the big guns. I'll make like a ballerina. 

"Have you got any white spirit?" I said. 

"No. We don't sell it."

"Okay. Cheers."

 He let me walk all the way to the door before saying, "Surgical spirit?"

"Yes, sorry. That's what I meant. Of course."

He looked me up and down: sticky up hair. Glasses. T Shirt with a scary cat on it. Looking to buy shoelaces. Sweating, and now in need of rubbing alcohol. He thought I'd have a rendezvous with Madame Red Biddy before the day was out. 

"It's for my feet," I said, as he placed the bottle on the counter. 

"Yes," he said, "because that's what it's for. 2.80."

I paid, chastised. Weird, I thought, leaving the shop.      

About a month later, yesterday, in fact, I'd used up all the surgical spirit, and my feet were like teak. I was passing the same chemist, and thought I'd pop in to buy another bottle. At the counter there were two people serving. To the left the man I'd spoken to last time, chatting amiably to a female customer. Butter wouldn't melt. To the right, a young girl was smiling brightly at another woman. I stood in the middle, waiting for my turn. I've been in shops before. I know how it works. 

It didn't work that way. A small, apparently angry woman appeared in the middle, and barked a "Yes?" at me. "Hi," I said, gushing, "I'd like a bottle of surgical spirit, please." She stared at me and, with an audible tut, trotted over to the shelf. 

"You can have it if we've got it." she said, over her shoulder. 

"Yes," I replied, "that's how this transaction is going to work. If it does work."

She came back and banged the bottle on the counter. 

"2.80."

I took my card out of my wallet, and she tutted again, picking up the card reader but not offering it to me, meaning I had to lean in over the counter to swipe the card. I picked up the bottle and turned to leave. 

"Unbelievable". I said. 

"Do you want your receipt?" she said to my back. 

She'd been soaking in her heart in surgical spirit for years.    

*There are no good pubs on Hill Street.