CLICK click click. Reading about the Guinness sponsored Roaring Twenties festival in Killarney over the St Patrick's holiday suddenly brought back buried and terrible memories of the last festival I attended where Arthur had a hand - the Galway Oyster Festival last autumn.
Even lunch at these festivals would fell a sumo wrestler in full training, especially in a town like Galway facing into a winter, or a town like Killarney drawing breath after six months' hibernation. In either place, you can hardly turn a corner without running into a posse of Guinness people anxious to relieve the Iveagh family of the cost of another round.
A tactical retreat bedwards is necessary as preparation for the deepdyed orgy that is to come, when livers are presented for inspection by a panel of experts before one is allowed into the festivities. There is a fortune to be made by anybody who'll rent out full kits of internal organs, to be returned the next morning, along with bow tie and soup stained suit.
And so, after lunch, to bed, to sleep; and then that lovely downward spiral towards warmth, and comfort, and morphine bliss. At the moment when the embrace of slumber was about to occur, it was interrupted. Click click click.
- Go away. Click click click click.
- Vanish, be gone, get thee to a clickery. Click click click click click.
Sleep departed like a ghost at dawn; but click click click did not.
Removing Adenoids
You might have heard a similar noise yourself, a din even worse than hearing adenoids being removed through the nostrils with fire tongs. It is the sound of mattress springs being rhythmically contracted and released, normally to a certain human vocal accompaniment. Click click click.
Pillow over the head, swear incoherently, and start counting pints of Guinness jumping over a gap in a hedge. Followed by oysters. Followed by click click click.
It is true, you know, what they say about oysters. It might all be in the mind, but since that is the seat of most sensations, what better place for them to have their impact - there and a couple of other places - one hers, and one his?
Click click click. A loud curse, and a fist against the wall. Skin knuckles. Click click click click, only this time accompanied by rising female pants - in the sense of breath rather than underwear. Too late for underwear, I'm afraid.
Click click click. Groans are getting heavier but are still being stifled, and one ceases to breathe, waiting for the crisis to be reached. Click click click, pant pant pant, click click click, PANT PANT PANT
Grunt Of Joy
Suddenly, a great grunt of joy is unstifled and erupts through the wall; a square yard of wallpaper is peeled off, the lumps fall out of the ceiling; yet sinisterly, terrifyingly, the click click click continues unabated. It is as if a boxer were doing his skipping training with unabashed ease. Click click click.
Pillow and blankets over the head; and through that great heap of bedwear, comes the insistent din again - click click click, pant pant pant, CLICK CLICK CLICK, PANT PANT PANT, and my unknown female neighbour unstifles a huge grunt of release, a hippopotamus giving birth to a cement truck.
Is that it?
Click click click click click click, neat and as unbroken as a metronome. Hello, what's this? Pant pant pant, click click click, pant pant pant, click click click, PANT PANT PANT, followed by a long, wailing shriek. A window cracks, a floorboard groans, and click click click.
Get up and stalk the room, plucking at one's hair in a demented frenzy. Click click click. Oh for the love of...
Happy Yodel
Click click click, pant pant pant, click click click, PANT PANT PANT P4NT concluding with a vast and happy yodel. A lump of plaster smashes on to the floor.
That must be it. It must be, this cannot continue any longer...
Click click click.
The alarm clock hits the common wall, from which wallpaper is peeling off in vast sheets. Click click click, pant pant pant...
Enough into the bathroom, draw a bath, a Niagara of Victorian Great Southern plumbing to drown out the click click click.
It does no such thing. Click click click, pant pant pant, YUGH! YUGH! YUGH! The logical thing at this point is to ring room service and ask for a Kalashnikov; but suddenly a new, stentorian, male noise is heard through the click click click, the pant pant pant, the OH OH OH.
The male is beginning to gasp, to draw deep breaths, amidst all these click click clicking. There is the sound of threshing, a din of rising expectation as the click click clicks grow faster and faster, and suddenly there is a bull roar through the walls.
Grateful Prayer
One drops to one's knees in grateful prayer, but the first words are barely murmured when they are interrupted anew by a fresh click click click, pant pant pant, YES YES YES. He has, without even breaking stride, proceeded into the next sequence.
And so he continued for the next two hours, non stop, while I dunked my head in the bath and inhaled bathwater, through which, like the pings of sonar to submariners, I could hear the click click click of the mattress next door.
The clicks were clicking when were at it when I returned at four in the morning. I was awoken at 6.30; and for three further hours, eyes like saltbaths, I gazed at the ceiling "and hallucinated as from next door came the antiphon, click click click, pant pant pant, AH AH, AH, OOOHOOOHOOOH click click click.
This year I am reconsidering my policy towards festivals.