Most people, if they are on public transport and get a phone call, are strictly Irish about it: they mutter into the handset, not wanting those around them to know their business. They are also, presumably, wishing to exercise a bit of consideration for their fellow travellers. There are few things more annoying than having someone else’s shouted conversation intrude into your thoughts; especially as there isn’t even much satisfaction to be achieved by eavesdropping on it. You don’t know what the person on the other end of the line is saying, and often, the person on the train or bus yelling, “Really? That’s what I said. Oh stop, she’s a dose”, doesn’t give you enough to work with.
Yet, in my experience, the number of people having loud private conversations in public seems to be increasing. I don’t mean tourists. Americans have always been content to sit on the Dart and discuss divorces, medical procedures, even their opinions about Ireland: while seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are surrounded by Irish people. (Of course, being Irish, we don’t point this out.)
Irish people are starting to do this too. Our usual self-consciousness seems to evaporate once we have a phone in hand.
Most of the time, it’s banal stuff: literally, what do you fancy for dinner. But not always. Just before Christmas, an Irish man sitting behind me on the Dart electrified the carriage with his conversation: in part because he was speaking so loudly. His aural intrusion was so intense it was unavoidable; and I did briefly consider moving to another part of the train. But I remained: partially out of nosiness, and partially out of horror.
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This man was doing most of the talking and giving a lot of detail. He wasn’t just loud, he was fervent: and this seemed to stem from an antipathy he had towards another man who he and his interlocutor were discussing.
This is what I gleaned: Phone Man hated his enemy, but so too did others. These others had asked for the enemy’s address – with the apparent intention of doing the enemy physical harm – but Phone Man had refused to provide this information. Phone Man told his friend – in a rather self-congratulatory way – that this was because the enemy’s mother also lived there. Phone Man seemed to revere mothers.
However, such reservations didn’t seem to preclude Phone Man from hurting the enemy. It seemed as if he was due to meet the enemy the following morning – and he wanted his friend on the phone to come along too. Phone Man declared that if the enemy “said anything”, he would kill him. He also expressed confidence that the enemy “wouldn’t have the balls” to try to stab him.
The source of the dispute wasn’t made clear. It seemed to be something the enemy had said rather than something he’d done. Honour had been offended.
That’s all I heard, as I reached my station and had to get off. Obviously, my instinct was to have a look at Phone Man, but I didn’t get a chance: I was distracted by the faces of every other person in the carriage. Some were open-mouthed in amazement. And some were smiling: as if they didn’t want to take this conversation seriously; they didn’t want to contemplate that tomorrow morning, this man would be going to meet someone while possibly carrying a knife.
It was an understandable reaction, as it was so far outside the normal experience of everyone else there (I assume). Yet for this man, based on the way he was speaking and his willingness to talk loudly about it in a public place, violent encounters with knives didn’t seem that strange. It was a brief and unsettling view of another version of daily reality; a reminder that there are many different Irelands: some of which we only hear about when something terrible happens.