Roddy L'Estrange: Coastal stroll and Prufrock nearly seal it for our hero

The inquest into Wexford's early exit from the hurling championship was in full spate when Vinny Fitzpatrick, Sunday papers under his oxter, slipped quietly into the Curracloe Tavern at lunchtime.

Keeping to himself, he ordered a pint and took a seat in the “Bullshit Corner” as locals, all of a senior vintage, lamented the demise of the purple and gold.

On the hallowed turf of Rackard, Doran, Jacob and Storey, a Dub like Vinny knew better than to clash the ash and dare suggest a way forward for the Pikemen. Instead, he cast his eye over the racing cards at Fairyhouse and Limerick, and considered his position.

In truth, Vinny was still all shook up after recent events which took his liberty, and almost his life.

But for the timely arrival at the Causeway Avenue crease of Hussain Khan, his cricket pal from Lahore, there’d have been room for Vinny in the wee Ashes urn which England and Australia were about to play for across the water.

The cuts and abrasions were healing quickly but the lung damage following gas inhalation was considerable and Vinny had been ordered by the docs in Beaumont Hospital to take things handy on his discharge.

Even so, he knew he had got away lightly, unlike the old Fitzpatrick family home, which was levelled, taking with it 70 years of history, not to mention the windows of several other houses in the street.

The circumstances of the explosion, and Vinny’s revelations about Lugs O’Leary, had alerted gardaí, who were trying to track down the whereabouts of the jug-eared giant.

Armed and dangerous

With Lugs on the loose, armed and dangerous, Vinny had sought a seaside sanctuary in the Curracloe caravan bolt-hole he and Angie had bought a couple of summers earlier.

It was tucked away in a quiet corner of the Wexford village, equidistant from the beach and the boozer.

No one knew Vinny in these parts, and no one turned a head at a bulky Dub wearing over-sized shorts, and a blue football jersey – he was among a cast of thousands.

After two throat looseners and a bowl of chowder, Vinny left the hurling postmortem and took his chubby trotters for a stroll through the Raven Wood.

As the sandy trail twisted and turned through scented pine, Vinny considered his plight. He had been in a fair few fixes before but this was as serious as any.

“No wife, no kids, no roof over the head and a madman is stalking me. Where has it all gone wrong?” he thought to himself in anguish.

At 57, Vinny felt he should be free-wheeling towards an early retirement not staring up Alpe d’Huez on a Chopper.

By now Vinny had reached the end of the trail and could smell the salty tang of the sea beyond the dunes. With an effort, for he was unfit, he dragged himself through the marram grass and soft sands to the shoreline.

North of him the beach stretched seven miles from top to toe; it was late in the evening and not a sinner stirred, not even Private Ryan.

Not for the first time, when his mood was melancholy, Vinny recalled the only poem he knew off by heart, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot.

Turn white

He had memorised every stanza before the ’77 Leaving Cert English paper only to turn white when it hadn’t appeared. The omission, he was convinced, had cost him an honour and a place studying arts in Belfield, which would have bowled over the Brothers in Joeys.

Prufrock could have made him someone of import, a man with initials after his name. Instead of a BA his lot was a 29A, and it rankled.

As he dabbed his gnarly toes in the briny, the words of Prufrock came back to taunt him.

“I grow old, I grow old. I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled. I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach.

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.”

He thought of the mermaids riding their white horses and how he’d like to hear them just once before the full-time whistle.

As if in slow motion, he took off his baggy shorts, undid his shirt and peeled off his vest, to reveal a monstrous white stomach. Lugs was right with his Mr Blobby taunts, he thought.

Had someone spotted him, they might have thought of Reggie Perrin and reached out to help, but no one was around, only Vinny and the mermaids of his mind.

Step by step Vinny ventured into the briny, which rose past his calves, thighs, nether regions and moobs.

He only had thoughts now for the mermaids, coming to greet him, to bring him to a place of refuge.

“I have seen them riding seaward on the waves, combing the white hair of the waves blown back, when the wind blows the water white and black.

“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown, till human voice wake us and we drown.”

There were no voices near Vinny as the water lapped his chins.

As he ducked his head under, a large black shiny shape appeared by his side. It bumped against him, causing him to jolt back into his senses. “Jaypurs tonight, a shark,” he cried aloud as the dark Leviathan of the deep returned for a second go.

As Vinny thrashed out for the shore, the interloper surfaced. Instead of teeth there were whiskers for Vinny’s guest was a giant seal, not a shark. The pinniped barked, rolled on to its back and flapped its flippers across its belly, like it was having a laugh.

Perhaps it was, at Prufrock’s fool.