Eavesdropping on the Quays (10)

I live in a gardenless work-life-unit so it’s important to go outside during Exercise Time for fresh air and sunshine. Sometimes I wander down to the river and saunter up and down the quays deciding which bridge to cross at: the Ha’penny, O’Connell or Samuel Beckett. Sometimes I don’t cross over a bridge at all but I sit on a bench on the boardwalk, and watch the people pass by.

The traffic has been so quiet so it’s easy to listen to people talking without seeming too rude or too nosey. I listen to women complaining to other women about their spouses and bosses. I hear people making frantic phone calls that perhaps they can’t make at home. I see a lot of secret smokers. You can tell the secret ones as they will smoke four cigarettes in succession and they never have a lighter or box of matches to hand. Sometimes there are people like me, who watch the river water flowing up and the river water flowing down. These are the least interesting of all the characters, who are waiting for a cue in a plot they didn’t write.

I watch a lot of seagulls on my visits to the quays.

I didn’t used to like seagulls after an incident outside a café just off Leeson Street when one of them stole a cheese and ham sandwich from my plate. He had been planning the theft for some time, from his observation point on the roof of a car nearby. When he finally swooped in I screamed quite loudly and I wondered who the woman screaming was, before I realised that it was me. Instinctively, I held onto my lunch for a few seconds, but he held on too, and in the end he won. It was quite embarrassing actually, because Brian O’Driscoll was sitting at the table next to me, with some friends, having a mocha. I felt sure they all laughed after I left and possibly told other people about the crazy screaming woman they saw, fighting with a bird.

Another time I was cycling down Capel Street and a piece of toast landed on my head. I was never very good at cycling one handed, so I couldn’t remove it for a while and rode down the street with some breakfast just perched there. When I pulled up at the lights, I saw an eager seagull waiting for his snack. Clearly, he’d dropped it while flying and now wanted it back, so I took it off my head and threw it to him. I looked at the other cyclists casually in the queue as if it were quite typical for me to ride around the city this way.

Now, I think they’re beautiful.

I love their soft white plumage and the way they walk. They are skilful flyers, and I love the fact that they can reverse. That’s possibly not the technical term for it, but you know the manoeuvre I mean, when they are able to double back on themselves. A fisherman on Inis Mór once told me that when seagulls eat mice they find them too hard to swallow dry, so they drop them into the sea to make them easier to digest. The sea is just one giant salty dip to our friends, the seagulls. I don’t know if the fisherman was pulling my leg, but I do know that seagulls mate for life, hunt in flocks and have developed a complex system of communication. These days, I find them fascinating.

A lot of people feed the seagulls.

Some people feed them bread and fruit while others give them left over takeaways, Shepherd’s Pie and jacket potatoes with beans on top. On Wednesday afternoon I saw three people give them a sausage roll and some chicken wings and the seagulls couldn’t have been happier.

The three people were sitting near me, one bench up and were sharing a two litre bottle of Strongbow. The woman took off her shoes to enjoy the sunshine fully, but otherwise she was dressed for winter. The thinner of the two men was trying to piece together the events of the night before, but it was all a little hazy and he was having difficulty with some of the details. Apparently, there had been an altercation with two other friends, namely, Damo and Frankie, who had done something unspeakable. Damo and Frankie were now mortal enemies of this smaller sub-group, which was a shame according to the barefoot woman, because they had all been exceptionally good friends up to this point. Nonetheless, the actions of Damo and Frankie would never be forgiven, even if they couldn’t quite be remembered, as this conflict was serious and had terrible ramifications.

The second man, who hadn’t participated in the discourse much up to now, joined in the conversation by saying, “do you know what you should do? You should visit the Cliffs of Moher, go on one of those bus tours. Have a day out!” It wasn’t entirely clear who he was aiming this recommendation to, so the woman started to check her pockets for some item, and the first man decided to take a little nap.

The traffic is starting to come back to the quays, which is a shame because it was much easier to eavesdrop when it was quieter. Voices travel further when not competing with motor vehicles and it’s smoother to pry without being noticed. I sit there with my mask and sunglasses on, like an extra from Mad Max and I love to hear what’s going on in the lives of the residents of Dublin 1.

Some of them are thrilled to see the city starting to go back to normal, while others are terrified. Some are looking forward to the next of the five phases, while others are dreading what it all might mean. Some of them find the seagulls a nuisance, while others think they are beautiful.

Before I left my bench on Wednesday an older man came by with a carrier bag of bits of bread. “Have you seen the swans yet?” he asked me and I told him I hadn’t. When I left, he was leaning over the barrier waiting and I don’t know how long he stayed.

But well done you, yes you my small but terribly loyal group of readers! You’ve made it through another week of your challenges and I’m so happy to see you again. You deserve some kind of a medal, and I wish you nothing but well.

I wish you nothing but well.