A powerful chemistry in intimate Ireland

The Wallah turned up on my doorstep one evening last week talking about the windmills. He sat in the kitchen and asked me could he roll a joint but I said no. His long grey hair, normally strapped in a ponytail behind his head, was hanging loose and smelled of motorcycle oil and sweat because he had travelled through the rain on his motorbike.

He went on about fracking, and the way the windmills are confusing the birds, and how the police in Greece are infiltrated by right-wing fascist organisations such as Golden Dawn.

It’s hard to believe the Wallah was once an idealistic young man in a white coat, with a job as a chemist and an honours degree from UCD. All that changed when he discovered head shops. Although the General still blames it on the local amateur drama group. The General can’t abide amateur drama anymore than he can tolerate the Wallah.

“Same old plays,” he says. “Kitchen sinks and whingeing bedridden women giving off about Catholicism and the scarcity of orgasms.”

Nor can he abide weak men, by which he means the Wallah; because the Wallah, despite all else, is a loyal husband.

"He has a dog's life," the General protests. "She forces him into the garage for hours, where he has a kettle and drinks green tea in a cloud of smoke and follows news feeds on his Facebook page like a narcissistic teenager."

“So he likes his own company,” I said.

“No. Au contraire. It’s because she won’t allow him smoke his weeds in front of the children,” the General revealed. “I bring him the newspaper regularly, because apparently she takes the racing pages out and burns them. She doesn’t want him at the horses either. That’s how weak he is.”

Lucky in love
The General, on the other hand, considers himself to be strong, especially since his recent success in the art of love.

Tonya is her name. She’s divorced, lives nearby and is the secretary of a film club in the midlands. The General convinced the committee that he was an authority on Irish cinema after his recent adventure as an extra in a short movie, so the committee invited him to attend a mini-festival over the bank holiday weekend and offered to pay his hotel bill. The secretary phoned him with the details. “My name is Tonya,” she said, “and I’m calling on behalf of the committee.”

“Surely that should be Tanya,” he declared as if she didn’t know her own name.

“No,” she insisted, “it’s Tonya.”

The General said, “Tonya sounds like the name of a motorcar.”

When he was checking in she was at reception with her bags. “Oh it’s you,” she said, “the man with the sense of humour.” Which pleased him. “I’m Tonya,” she added, “the motorcar.” Then she sized him up and added; “So what are you? A horsebox?”

Breakfast at Tonya's
Far from being insulted he found this comment flattering. In fact, the following morning, as he passed through the foyer, swaggering with his nose in the air and his belly distended, he found her already at breakfast with a festival programme and a plate of scrambled eggs.

“Good morning, Tanya,” he said, sitting beside her. “Good morning, Horsebox,” she said.

It was a silliness that caught fire that evening, when he had a few brandies in the bar after the movies, and then leaned in on her body space and began flirting. I can just imagine him, inflated with brandy, eyeing her like Stalin might eye some little poet he was about to send to a concentration camp for a few decades.

“Now look here,” he said, “this Horsebox thing will have to stop.”

And she said, “Of course it will. I apologise.”

“My friends call me the General,” he added.

And she said, “Very good. General.”

He told me that it was the manner of her submission that aroused him: her eyes went to the floor in a demure gesture of obeisance which he found thrilling.

“She’s always toying with me,” he said, “but my God, the way she says ‘Yes, General’, as if she were saying her prayers, is exquisite. And she can be so funny!”

The rest is history. The Wallah is still in the garage drinking green tea and worrying about windmills, and the General is on the tiles again bellowing like a winning lion. But what he doesn't know is that Tonya's comical outbursts are fuelled by chemicals she acquires from the Wallah. That's the thing about rural Ireland – it's intimate.