Orna Mulcahy on people we all know
Fran's old Carina is toasty warm at 5am, even if the seats do sag and twang a bit and a whiff of underarm is cutting through the air freshener. It's a long way to the airport, and just once Rachel would like the strong silent type.
A man grappling with inner demons, say, instead of one consumed by property prices. Someone who will let her put on her lipstick in peace, without once mentioning the IRA or the atrocious state of the roads or did you see your man on Questions & Answers last night? Disgraceful! But today she has drawn Fran, who not only let her hoist her suitcase into the boot without lifting one of his own great hammy arms to help but is now calculating the value of her house as he coasts along from red light to red.
According to Fran, it's never going to last. People who are taking on 30-year mortgages to buy houses are only working for the banks. When his children grow up - his eldest lad is 11 - you know what he's going to do? Tell them to emigrate out of this sink hole. Sure why would they stay around if they have to live somewhere like Longford and spend three hours commuting every day on poxy roads? Sure what sort of a life is that?
Fran's great-grandfather was in the Land League, and he'd be spinning in his grave if he could see what the country had come to with everyone gone greedy. Very greedy. Sure there's land just five miles from the city centre, farms of land, ready to go, but the builders are allowed to hold onto it instead of being made to develop it. The politicians won't touch them, though Brian Cowen might sort them out; he's a tough guy, very interested in ordinary decent people. Not like some he could mention. He had so-and-so in the back a few times; he's a real creep, no stranger to brown envelopes.
Swaying between lanes, Fran moves on to the state of the roads. Sometimes he wishes he never learnt how to drive. His dad never drove, happy as Larry up there in Rialto with his free bus pass. Rachel wants to ask why he is taking her through the back end of Santry when it would have been much quicker via Whitehall, but she can't get a word in edgeways. He blames the binge drinking. Kids nowadays have no sense of purpose. They need something to keep them out of the pub, build up their self-esteem. He and a few of the lads used to be into the kick-boxing, and it kept them very fit. Lethal weapons they were, once upon a time.
Fortunately, they approach the airport before he gets started on people lying on trolleys in hospitals. But there is one last thing that really annoys him. People with taxi dockets who insist on filling in the amount before they sign, as if they don't trust him, the mean shites.