I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but you literally couldn’t have made it up…

It was a hot Sunday afternoon in summer on the London Underground. I noticed him sitting opposite me. He’d put on weight and had less hair now. I hadn’t seen him in ten years. But it was unmistakably him.

He hadn’t seen me so I could have easily ignored him. But for some reason I made a split-second decision to get his attention.

“Mr Harbinson!” I exclaimed.

“Mr Grenaghan” he replied as he looked up somewhat surprised.

At least he remembers my name I thought to myself cynically.

20 years earlier while Mark Harbinson my old school mate from St Finiogs College, Ballycappal was at the London School of Economics mixing with future merchant bankers (no rhyming slang intended of course), cabinet ministers, diplomats, comedians and TV producers I was collecting my dole cheques and shooting pool and smoking weed in the seedy bars of Ballycappal with a bunch of unemployed layabouts. I was also claiming the dole in the neighbouring town of Kilnafin, just a few miles away but on the southern side of the border. By the time the welfare and social services bods on either side of the Irish frontier found out I’d been on the fiddle and doing the double I was already ensconced in London. I did the old “NOT KNOWN AT THIS ADDRESS – PLEASE RETURN TO SENDER” trick with the threatening letters that arrived at my parents’ address and at my bogus address in Kilnafin. It worked a treat. They gave up eventually. You could never get away with that sort of racket nowadays of course.

I’d failed my exams. I could have eventually gone to university though, but by that stage I just couldn’t see the point. Most of my other mates who’d got degrees were now either working in call centres or doing soulless clerical jobs which involved sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen for the best part of nine hours every day. Sod that for a life.

I’d even started an accounting course at the local technical college after much persuasion from my folks – and also to keep the dole office happy. Dropped out after three weeks. It was at that point that I decided to go to London. I’d contemplated going to Dublin, but was sure I would still bump into too many familiar, but unwelcome faces from Ballycappal down there. 

I’d just turned 20. Arrived late on a Monday night after getting the ferry over to Stanraer and then an eight hour bus journey down to the Smoke. I got a job on the Tuesday in the postroom at a big city insurance company and miraculously stuck at it for the next two years.The next 15 years are something of a hazy blur, which I’ll keep to myself for the moment. Maybe one day I’ll write a memoir about – that’s if I manage to remember anything. I’m not sure anyone would want to read it though.

At first I loved the anonymity of London life. I could do whatever I wanted without being the subject of malicious gossip. Could come out of a night club at two in the morning pissed or stoned out of my head without having to worry about being seen by someone who knew my parents. Then one day a few years later I was walking down the street it suddenly struck me that here I was constantly surrounded by complete strangers whose name I was never going to and who were never going to know my name or anything about me. If I walked down Ballycappal’s high street tomorrow I could guarantee you that I’d bump into at least half a dozen people I knew even though I’ve been away from the place for nearly 20 years. The chances are that they wouldn’t recognize me though as I’d probably be wearing a hat and sunglasses and keeping my head down.

Anyway, back to the story. Mark Harbinson my hometown contemporary was dressed in smart casual summer attire cream-coloured slacks and a neatly pressed short-sleeved shirt. I was wearing paint-covered jeans and a scruffy stained t-shirt with holes in it. I’d been doing a painting and decorating  job at a posh house in Hampstead that morning. 

Harbinson stretched out his hand and seemed genuinely pleased to see me. 

We’d been good mates during our early school years. But as we got older we grew apart and developed different interests. We’d hadn’t actually fallen out over anything, just gradually drifted and gone our own separate ways over the years. Towards the end of our school days at St Finiogs College, Ballycappal we were mixing in completely different social circles.

It was as if he was destined to be a high flyer. He’d always had a brass neck on him. 

Both of us had been in London now for almost 20 years, but we lived at opposite ends of the city and this was the first time we’d bumped into each other like this.

“Great win for the lads last Sunday” he said to me.

This was a reference to Ballycappal football team (or the Horses as they were known locally – a moniker derived from the original meaning of the name which translates as “horsetown” or “town of the horses” – quite appropriate really as it’s a bit of a one horse town) who had just won the county championship for the first time in 30 years after beating Killydore, a much fancied team from the eastern end of the county with a lot of hard men in their ranks. It had been a scrappy encounter with two red cards on each side. Ballycappal’s team manager was Francis McGlass, an old classmate of both myself and “The Harb” at St Finiogs. He was now working as a PE teacher at our old school. And a bit of a shady character by all accounts. Rumour had it that he hadn’t got the grades to get into teacher training college, but they’d let him in anyway because he was a county footballer - thanks to the old boys network that seemed to be operating at such establishments.  ’ve no idea if it’s true, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

McGlass had been a bit of a jack-the-lad at school – a very different character to Mark Harbison who wasn’t the sporty type, but one thing they had in common was a natural air of self-confidence. Harbinson was modestly confident, but McGlass on the other hand was cocky and had a chip on his shoulder – all the usual stuff.  Popular with the women, mostly due to his sporting prowess. Popular with the teachers – again mostly due to his sporting prowess, but he was no saint. 

Him and a few of his team mates had got pissed one time and trashed a hotel room in Dublin after an inter-schools championship match which they’d lost by a controversial single point scored during stoppage time, and  had caused a few grands’ worth of damage. They narrowly escaped expulsion. No-one was in any doubt though that if McGlass hadn’t been a county minor player he would have been out on his ear without a second thought. The school couldn’t afford to get rid of the likes of big Francie.  For a start they wouldn’t have won the cup the following year. A few years later after he’d got his teaching qualification the school welcomed him back with open arms – now that he was a county senior. A few years after that he was made head of PE. It’s safe to assume that in a few years’ time he’ll be principal. By the time he retires he’ll have spent the best part of 50 years at the same institution as both pupil and teacher. Not the sort of life I’d want myself, but each to their own.

Such is the way in that particularly bizarre corner of the world. And then of course there was that infamous incident when he was playing for the county team against Tyrone.  Well, the less said about that the better. That headbutt that got him banned for a year was the talk of the county, not to mention the talk of the town.

Although I had little time for Francie McGlass I was nevertheless pleased for the team. It had been a hard fought win which had been a long time coming. Plus it was a chance to get one over on Killydore and that area in general, given the fierce east-west rivalry that existed in the county. 

I’d known about the Horses’ famous victory because I got the local paper the Ballycappal Times from newsagents in Camden run by an Asian family. They had a full rack of local Irish weekly papers on display from the Anglo-Celt to the Ulster Herald.  I used to wonder who bought them in the age of 24 hour rolling news and ubiquitous online access. 

But getting back to Mark Harbinson I knew exactly what he was playing at with his local reference about the Horses’ famous victory, but I wasn’t fooled.

Absolute crap.  He couldn’t give a damn about Ballycappal.  He was now clearly playing to his new found one-man gallery, trying to ingratiate himself with me after all the years of indifference. 

Or maybe I was just being harsh on him because I was discontented with my lot. Not that I was any more righteous than him of course. I’d rubbed a lot of people the wrong way over the years, betrayed friends, failed to pay back generous loans from people who’d trusted me and cared about me.  He was just screwing clients out their life savings, but at least this was business and nothing personal

But then it wasn’t as if I wanted to talk about mergers and acquisitions or boiler plate clauses with him anyway.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see another vaguely familiar figure a few seats away in the same carriage of the underground train, a brooding grey-haired man. I knew his face, but couldn’t quite place him at first. Then it suddenly dawned on me that he was an actor. If my memory served me well he’d played Doctor Who at some point in the 1980s, but his career had taken a bit of a nosedive since then.  I was reminded of the fickleness of life. One minute he was one of the biggest stars on TV, the next he was probably struggling to pay the mortgage. And now here he was on public transport with no-one paying him any attention let alone recognizing who he was. Thoughts like these gave me some hope for the future.

Spotting celebrities was now something I was quite used to, having lived in London all those years. I’d be pushing a trolley down a supermarket aisle and would come across a TV presenter in an agonizing dilemma over whether to buy a quinoa or red lentil flavoured smoothie cappuccino bar. Or I’d be in the pub and see some desperately unfunny so-called comedian who I knew from one of those spectacularly unfunny panel shows that seemed to be on TV all the time, but couldn’t remember his or her name. He’d invariably be somewhat the worse for wear crying into his pint, therefore perpetuating the stereotype of the miserable clown. The only comedians you were likely to see in Ballycappal were the local politicians – and even then the only time you’d probably see them in the street was in the run-up to an election.

Suddenly I was back in the room – or the train to be precise. The Harb’s word echoed in my head.

“Great win for the lads last Sunday”

Being in a bit of a foul mood I was just about to say something along the lines of “What the hell would you care anyway? When did you start taking an interest in Ballycappal? Did you ever even go to single match when you were there?”

But I bit decided to bite my tongue and defuse the internal tensions that were going on inside my head with a joke, albeit a not particularly funny one.

“Yeah, they did well alright. The school’s going to have to build a massive extension now though.”

“Is St Finiogs getting an extension? I didn’t hear about that” he replied seeming a little surprised.

Then came my punchline:

“Well, they’re going to need one now so they can fit in Francie McGlass’s ego!”

I decided to continue the conversation in a similar vein by talking about home. At this point the train had just stopped at a station in a rough, run-down part of town where the struggling ex-Dr Who actor got off. No-one in the carriage batted an eyelid.

“Been back home lately?” I asked him

“Not for a while. I get back once a year if I’m lucky. It’s such a hassle bringing the wife and the kids over. What about yourself?”

Although he’d been away from Ballycappal for a long time I suspected he’d heard about my situation.  Word from a small town travels fast – even among the Ballycappal diaspora from from New York to New Zealand. I’m really only writing about all this for the benefit of Priya, my therapist. She encouraged to write stuff to get it out of my system and as a way of reflecting on my thoughts and behavior patterns. It’s not like anyone’s ever going to read this crap anyway, so I’ll carry on doing it to keep her happy. I asked her out on a date once. She politely declined, explaining that it would go against her professional code of conduct to have a personal relationship with a client. I suspect that was far from the only reason for her refusal, and was really a subtle way of saying “I wouldn’t touch you with a bargepole”. But at least it was original. I’ve heard much worse in my time.

I was living in a pokey bedsit eking out a miserable existence largely of my own doing, drifting from job to job and going through periods of unemployment in between. One week I was stacking shelves in a supermarket, the next I was strimming grass verges in the pouring rain, then a few days later I’d be painting fences, then sitting at a desk in a dreary open-plan office mindlessly inputting incomprehensible figures into spreadsheets for hours on end. I’d been on Prozac for my on-off bouts of depression and was half-way towards becoming an alcoholic. Mark Harbinson on the other hand was now on a six figure salary, working as a partner in one of the big city legal firms.  omething about paths and destinies springs to mind now.

The previous Christmas I’d been at a loose end. I’d managed to borrow some money and got the overnight ferry from Holyhead. I arrived in Ballycappal late on Christmas eve night. The house smelt of sage and onions. Still I was glad to spend some with the family. What would I have done if I’d stayed in London over Christmas?  Spend Christmas on my own with supermarket turkey twizzlers and a ham sandwich raising a glass of plonk to myself?

Most young people wanted to get the hell out of Ballycappal as soon as they were old enough. It had been an unemployment black spot for years, so even if they had stayed their prospects were poor. I’d been no exception, but I’d now reached a point where I’d been away for so long that I actually missed the place. Well the odd time anyway.

The conversation with this “familiar stranger” on the tube turned to holidays. He showed me the pictures of his recent trip to Japan on his smartphone, including one with his three year old daughter. I was lucky to see my kids once a year. He was now married to a Canadian academic. I could imagine the conversations they must have had.

Suddenly it was time for my old friend to get off at his stop.

“Great to see you, mate. We’ll have to meet up for a drink some time” he said as he alighted.

“Definitely” I responded.

Neither of us really meant it though. We were simply going through the motions and  both knew that we didn’t had any intention of keeping in touch. 

But six months later I finally resolved to contact him. I decided life was too short to be bearing grudges or harbouring petty jealousies and self-pity, especially after what had happened to Tim, so I dropped him a quick e-mail.

I got no immediate reply from the talented Mr Harbinson. After two months I’d given up hope of ever hearing from him. Then one morning while nursing a hangover I got an e-mail of the blue.

“Sorry for the silence, I’ve been really snowed under between work and the kids. Would be good to catch up for a beer or two soon. When might be good for you?”

Even though at that precise moment beer was the last thing on my mind and one thing I definitely didn’t want right now, I e-mailed him back and told him that Thursday nights were usually good for me, but I was fairly flexible.

I badly needed some fresh air to get rid of my headache. A thought then struck me that my counselling sessions with Priya were about to come to an end soon. So now that our professional relationship was almost over it meant I could ask her out again without breaking any clinical codes of ethics. She’d probably say no again. But stranger things have happened.

I stepped out into the street and took in the cosmopolitan odours of the city. The sun had come out at last. 

I’m still waiting for Mark Harbinson to respond to my email though.