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In my Finglas bed last week, I had this dream that I was born into privilege and status. I was residing in a large Georgian house behind locked gates in Lord Wellington. Of course, I bluff the neighbours and claim I bought it for £2.6 million (£200,000 in cash ie under the table as is the norm in Dublin 4). I only had arrived two days when the bell rang five times – Welcome and you are? From? and What do you do for Wealth? and then you must come for Brunch on Sunday. I felt so enlightened, it was like having a three hour socialite Orgasm. I sat on my antique rug which I bought at the markets in Kilburn but bluffed it was the real deal and it cost me £15,000. I really was feeling good in myself. I knew my career had reached the pinnacle of all my ambitions throughout my life.
I phoned my fifth wife in Glasgow and begged her to come back to me, after my string of idiotic affairs. I found out she was working as a cleaner in a nursing home for retired fraudsters. After two weeks of begging, she arrived in a dodgy fur coat by taxi. After a quick six hours of a mini course in how to walk, talk, and pretend how her two brothers went to Eton, she fitted in so well. That weekend we had dinner with one of the neighbours, a Dublin Show Horse Judge is his status and he attends the RDS each year, a most entertaining man. His wife works part-time at the Doll House in Lower Baggot Street, D4. A few days later as we walked for lunch to Parsons we were stopped by a couple driving a Bentley and asked out for dinner at the local hotel. My wife Kathleen turned to me and said Seamus McPines you have finally reached the top but don’t forget it is a long way fucking down. A couple of days later, our phone rang, the couple could not make lunch. Some other sly bastard of a neighbour checked and found out we were renting and phoned the Bentley Snobs. The Dinner of course was cancelled, she had the proverbial Dublin 4 headache! Since then our guest list has reached so low, we have to ask people to join us from the flats at the lower end of Lord Wellington. It is a big come down but at least it is entertaining and we get the run-down of all the Muppets who live on Lord Wellington.
Then came a number of unsigned letters complaining that I do not dress properly; my garden is in bits; and the padlock on my gate looks so offensive … really I should have electronic. Another note asked – where is your Mercedes. Of course, unsigned. I just could not take anymore so I flew back to Camden Town and then onto Glasgow. Dublin 4 did not give me the welcome I expected. When finally I woke up in my bed in Finglas, there was sense of relief of knowing that all this was just a bad dream, made me feel so happy. Maybe in another life, one of my ancestors lived over there and this must have been in my subconscious. I am in my local pub today having a pint of cider and game of darts and I can tell you now, with an open heart, I feel so happy. They can have their Georgian house, their locked gates, the pretense and the Bullshit but what I have is good neighbours, a good pint and a game of darts. Seamus McPines. This is my story today. My trade is: I am a debt collector and you will never know where I am going next week – yes, it is Dublin 4, the guy in the Bentley owes 6 months on the Lease, and the others owe the Paper Man and the Milk man, what a shower of Bluffers, Enough of Disneyland for Culchies, Fred.
Fred a man of dreams has lost out yet again to wealth and property. What a relief it is a purchaser from Austria; this will curtail the level of envy. Another one of my dreams bites the dust for me!
Who Watches the Watchers? 