Pricked in Bantry

“Today’s exercise is to barter,” said Horatio. “You can barter whatever you like but you must bring back an object, the name of the person you interacted with and a story.  Meet you back here under Wolfe Tone in 40 minutes.”  We scattered like sheep. 

I’m a workshop junkie.  I attend seven or eight a year and July 2016 found me in Bantry at the West Cork Literary Festival doing Travel Writing with Horatio Clare.  

‘Bartering in Ireland,’ I thought to myself, ‘he must be mad. We’re not in China.  I’ll buy something.  Horatio will never know.’     

I crossed the street to use the ATM.    A few minutes later, armed with cash I dashed back to the market.  I had only 20 minutes left. I dodged tourists dawdling at the jewellery stall, strode past nylon Indian rugs, plastic guns, and stopped when I spotted bracelets a Euro each.  The bracelets were pretty in brilliant greens and reds strung on elastic thread.  I tried them on.  They were a little tight.  I chatted to the owner while I tried on first one, then three.  Three together looked good.  The owner’s name was Chung, he’s from North West China and has been in Ireland eight years.  All the time we talked, I weighed up whether he'd be up for bartering.    My courage failed me. I returned the bracelets and walked on.  

Almost at the end of the square, I came across an upturned Coca-Cola crate on top of which sat a tray of seedlings marked ‘Tobacco’.  Sitting next to the tray in the open door of her van was the owner.  With her long, blonde hair worn Joni Mitchell style under a scarecrow hat and skin-tight denim jeans, I recognised her immediately.  

“I met you at the Mallow Garden Festival two weeks ago, you sold me a gorgeous tree peony,” I said.  She nodded and smiled at me. 

“Are they actually tobacco?” I said, pointing at the seedlings.

“Yes," she said, "they have a lovely flower. In a few weeks the leaves will grow to about five times that size.  You cut the leaves right back to the base and hang them up to dry.  When they are fully brown you crumble them up into small pieces and smoke them.” 

“You actually smoke them?” 

She nodded happily.

I sighed and told her I was on a writing course and my  assignment to barter.

“I barter all the time,” She said. 

 “Will you barter with me?” 

“What do you have?” 

I opened my bag and listed the contents.  “I have a laptop, a packet of tissues never used,” and pointing to my head, “how about these sunglasses?” 

She looked me in the eye and said gently, “You know you can barter for services too.  If you get me a cup of coffee, I’ll give you any plant you want.”  My eyes scanned her stall greedily. She had some lovely plants. 

“Done, where do I go?” 

“There’s a red van over on the far side of the square, he sells coffee out of the back.” 

“How do you like it?” 

“Black, no sugar, no milk.” 

I was about to shoot off when I stopped, “What’s your name?’ 

“Kathy.” 

“Hi Kathy, I’m Geraldine, I’ll be right back with your coffee,"   and I took off across the square. 

The coffee van was the last van before the stall selling cheese.  A bearded man played the ukulele and sang ‘When I’m 64’ as I took my place in the queue next to a tiny, elderly lady.  The lady ordered a double espresso, poured in a pinch of milk and knocked it back before moving onto the cheese stall.   

I ordered a large black.  Carefully sealing the lid on the cup as if my life depended on it, I wound my way slowly back across the square.  The coffee was hot and I had to keep switching it from hand to hand.  I saw an elderly lady leaning on a ‘Supervalu’ trolley on the top of which her grandson was helping to balance a large cardboard box filled with primroses.  As I passed, the box fell dumping most of the plants onto the pavement and spilling the soil under the wheels of a parked car. Any other day I would have stopped to help but I kept going.  

Kathy relieved me of the coffee. “Now,” she said, “how it works is that I pay you for the coffee and you, for your services of bringing me the coffee, get to pick a plant.” 

“Oh no,” I said, “Don’t do that, let’s do the coffee for a plant.” 

“Ok, which plant would you like?” 

I looked around at the racks of hydrangeas, peace lillies, peonies, all big, healthy, colourful plants in full bloom.  Reluctantly I dragged my eyes back to the tray of seedlings.    

“I think for the sake of the story, it ought to be the tobacco,” I said. 

Kathy picked up the tray and handed it to me.  There were at least eight plants in it. 

“Oh no,” I said, “I don’t need all of them, just one will do.”  

“You can have them all.” 

“They’ll be dead by the time I get back to Cork. Really, I only need one.” 

Kathy inserted her forefinger and thumb into the first hole and gently pinched out the baby plant. It emerged from its home, snug and root-bound, perfectly intact: not a crumb of soil spilled.  She looked around for something to put it into. She climbed into the van and as she did so, I spotted a used coffee cup just inside the door and picked it up.  

“How about this?” I said.  Kathy plopped the plant into the cup.  

We both smiled.  Perfect.

I dashed back to the statue and finding a bench directly opposite Wolfe Tone, I sat down to write my story.  My brain had been pricked.  I felt alive and as excited as a five-year old.  Oblivious to the noise and activity around me, I  scribbled furiously into my notebook.  I had been admitted to an alternate universe and felt an urgent need to wrestle it down on to the page.      I heard a man insulting my seedling, “There’s something wrong with your cabbage” and he laughed. I wrote on.