The Coal Harbour

Samuel Collins (Sam to his friends) owned a butchers shop in Dun Laoghaire, not far from the harbour. He was not a large man, although he did carry some extra weight around his middle and around his face, which was not unusual for a man of his years. He wore a thick wiry black moustache stranded with grey and, he had noticed on occasion, the odd strand of ginger. These hairs he removed with a shiny silver barbers scissors, with the delicacy and precision of a surgeon. His hair was thick and black like his moustache, although in recent years, it had begun to thin out around the temples. He always thought that if he did start to go bald he would simply shave his head as a preventative measure. His nose was crooked, having been broken through violence once and accident a second time, and when the weather was cold it whistled like an old tap. His eyes were small and dark, and he had to wear glasses for reading and for driving, although the latter he rarely did anymore given that he regularly enjoyed a few pints of stout after work, and you just couldn't take the chance with the drink driving these days.
Sam stood behind the polished glass display counter in work, alone, absorbing his surroundings. His nose whistled as he inhaled deeply the the aroma of the shop, which smelled like sawdust and blood and fresh meat and shaving soap. His dry, spongy, over-washed hands rested on the stainless steel surface and his white apron, stained with brown blotches of irremovable blood hung loosely around his neck. Outside, the thin, unwarm light of a January morning cast long shadows of trees without leaves, and a cold breeze blew in gusts which disturbed the long coats of passers by. Sam looked towards the door as the small bell tinkled, signalling the arrival of what he half heartedly hoped was a customer.

The person entering the shop was an elderly gentleman with a walking stick in one hand, and a large golf umbrella in the other. He wore a light brown cap and an off-white shirt under a green cardigan. His bright red tie stood out as the only thing the man wore which didn't look worn out or dirty; a christmas present, Sam thought. His coat was cheap and stained, his trousers were cheap and creased, and his black leather shoes turned up at the toes, betraying the fact that they were at least one size too big for him. His lips curled inwards, and he shuffled rather than walked although his eyes were still bright and alert. His face was cragged and deeply wrinkled, he had one cauliflower ear, and the remnants of the limp grey hair clinging to the sides of his head were slick with oil. He brought the smell of pipe tobacco and earth and mould into the shop with him.
“Dear me”, he said as he bundled himself inside pulling the door closed closed with another tinkle of the bell, “it's cold out there today”, and immediately coughed two huge hacking coughs, only to consciously stop himself as if he would have gone on coughing until his lungs came up if he hadn't. He paused, concentrated on taking one deep, slow breath, and the looked straight at Sam. “I said, it's cold out there today, isn't it?” His voice was thin and strained, and his speech was punctuated by choppy breaths.
“Certainly is” Sam replied, trying to keep the note of irritation at having to have yet another conversation about the weather out of his voice and failing miserably. He made an attempt at a smile by way of compensation.
“It's supposed to get colder towards the end of the week too. That reminds me actually, I'll have to get some more briquettes for the fire. You don't have any here I suppose?”
Sam paused for a moment before answering, unsure if the man was joking or not. “Briquettes? No we, eh...we don't sell briquettes.”
“Not to worry, not to worry. I'll get them on the way back. Now let me see, let me see, what did I come in here for anyway? You're a butcher, isn't that right?”
Sam paused again before answering, this time leaving it just a little bit too long. He looked around at his surroundings, as if he was making sure. “Sorry...yes, a butcher shop, that's right.”

The old man didn't say anything. He stared at the meat in the display counter, behind the polished glass, a thin index finger rubbing at the side of his nose. His mouth was closed tight, and his bushy eyebrows lowered into a thick frown. Perhaps, Sam thought, he was just concentrating, trying to remember what he had wanted. He shuffled up and down the length of the counter once, twice, while Sam waited for him to make up his mind, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, trying very hard not to give the old man the impression that he was hurrying him in any way. On his third pass of the counter, the old man stopped and pointed to a tray of dark slick meat. “Is that kidney?” he asked.
“Pork kidney, yes”
“That's what I was looking for! Marvellous, marvellous! I'll take one...no, two of those please.”
“Two pork kidneys” Sam repeated more through habit that anything else. He put on a disposable, blue latex glove, and grabbed sloppy handfuls of the dark red organ meat from the tray, and piled it onto a white sheet of wax paper on a flat weighing scales.
“I was reading something the other day you see, reminded me of pork kidneys. You can't get good pork kidneys in Tesco's anymore” the old man said. “They don't stock it apparently. You used to be able to get them everywhere, but now there's no demand.”

Sam wrapped the meat tightly in the paper, then wrapped it again in clear plastic. “This is it”, he said with a small shake of his head. Perhaps, he thought, if he just agreed with wahtever the old man said, and didn't actually participate in the conversation in any way, he would just get bored and leave.
“And it's a wonderful meat you know” the man continued. “Full of iron and nutrients. Good for your muscles. Lovely in a nice pie with a bit of steak, or just fried in it's own juice and a bit of butter for breakfast. Has to be real butter mind you, none of this margerine stuff, oh no! Has to be the real deal!” The old man prodded his finger in the air, punctuating the last two syllables.
Sam just nodded in agreement. He had never tried kidney that he could remember. The old man paused and stared thoughtfully at the neat package on the counter. “It wasn't always called Dun Laoghaire you know” he said without looking up. “It used to be called Kingstown. That's what the brits called it. Imagine that! The Kings Town! Like he ever lived in the bloody place. Kingstown! That was before my time thought. My father used to talk about it. 'The only thing the bloody brits did right', he used to say, 'was that bloody harbour!' And he was right too. They built that harbour good and strong so they did. Brought all the stones down from the mountains on rails they built specially for it. You can still see the tracks up there, if you go looking for them. It's a bloody good harbour so it is. Then, after it was build, they brought coal down the same way. That's why they call it the coal harbour. You know, that little corner over by the west pier? They still call it that...the coal harbour.” He paused, and took off his cap, and rubbed the back of his neck. Sam felt like he should say something.
“I didn't know that at all now.”
“Hmm? Yes. We used to walk to the end of the pier on Sundays, after mass to watch the sail boats race. When we were kids like, me and the brothers. The three of us would go down and watch the race and bet on who would win. One time, I stole my fathers binoculars so we cold see better, and I dropped them in the water. Ha! He bate the shite out of me when he found out so he did! Knocked me out cold. Fergus...the brother I mean, Fergus was his name. Anyway, Fergus told me afterwards that Ma had to pull him off me. And me only eleven years old.” The old man was staring at his reflection in the glass of the display counter as he stopped talking for a second to take one of his long, concentrated breaths. “He was a cruel bastard.” He stopped, and rubbed the back of his neck again, and then rubbed his hand down the front of his coat. His eyes flicked back up at Sam, before continuing in a very different tone of voice.
“We used to go fishing off the beach there too. I caught this bloody gigantic ray once, the size of a dining room table, no joke of a lie. Took me two hours to land the bugger. They just angle their wings down into the current you see...fins I mean, not wings...and they just sit there. He was a big bugger all right. You don't fish yourself I suppose?”
“I don't, no.”
“Well, it's not for everyone. You need patience you see. You just have to wait for your moment, and sometimes it doesn't come, but you have to wait anyway.” There was another pause as Sam thought about either saying something, or staying quiet in the hopes that the man would just pay and leave.
“It's two eighty please, when you're ready so” he said eventually.
“Two eighty? Jaysus that's very good. You should charge more than that.”
“Nobody buys it as it is”
“Well if nobody buys it anyway, they might as well not buy it for four euros a pound rather than two bloody eighty. Here, there's four for you there now.”
“No no, you're grand, you're grand. There's your change.”
“Would you g'way. You keep that for yourself.”
Sam put the change down on the counter as the man slapped the little parcel of offal into his coat pocket. “There now”, he said as he made his way to the door. “I'll be seeing you again please God.”
“Bye now.”
The bell above the door clinked again, and a cold breeze upset the sawdust on the floor. Through the window Sam watched to old man zip up his tatty old coat and set off shuffling down the road, towards the harbour.