Leaving The Sceptred Isle

[A brief excerpt from a short-story written about my experiences of living in Dublin]

"I'm going to Dublin for a couple of months, do you want to come along?"
"Alright. Why not? It's not as though I've got tons going on here. Anyway, I can claim dole anywhere in Europe now thanks to the EU. Might as well claim it somewhere new and exciting rather than this grey sunken cunt of the world."
"Ok mate well I'm looking at leaving in 2 weeks time. Reckon you'll be up for it? Could be 3 months could be 6 - dunno yet?"
"Fine. The olds will be happy to get me out of the way anyway. Little brother's taking his A-levels this summer so fuck it I'm happy to leave well before Easter mate."
"Alright." There was a pause "Grey sunken cunt? Odd phrase - Pompey's not that fucking bad!"
"It's from James Joyce. 'Ulysses'. He said it about somewhere. Might have been Dublin - or the Holy Land. Can't remember which now! Not that I've read the whole bloody book mind - it's way too 'stream of consciousness' for me, but for some reason that phrase stuck in my mind. Not sure I've read much further than that to be honest. Starts well, but I usually get lost after a hundred pages."
"I'll lend you 'Dubliners' - it's a shed-load easier to read than that and will give you a bit of a feel for the place names at least! Anyway talk to you laters. Bye"

And then Greg rang off. I thought about it for a couple of minutes and then went down the Sussex Brewery with Uncle D and told him. He was pissed off because that meant his set designer wasn't going to be on hand for his Roaring Twenties version of 'Much Ado About Nothing' - but other than that he wished me on my way. Uncle D's always been a bit like that - he's been half way between a dad and a best mate, and he's probably single-handedly responsible for my knowledge of the theatre and all of Shakespeare's 37 plays. He was a bit of a player in his day and I might even have him to thank for my wayward urges with the ladies, but like all actors he's a bit of a self-centred old bastard and I knew that he was just thinking about his play at that moment. The folks seemed equally pleased I was actually going to do something and instead of sponging off them and was going to sponge off the Irish government. My mates were a bit less happy about it but they concluded I was just drifting aimlessly and it might do me some good. My brother barely looked up from his biology reference books as he sang along in a falsetto voice to Crowded House.

Two weeks later I was on the Holyhead Ferry.