Fresh fish and gossip, from Korea to Mullingar

I WAS IN an internet cafe during the week, surfing the net, whensuddenly I came across Main Street, Cavan, on a live webcam. I satfor ages just staring at it. I felt like a fish gazing at the riverI was born in, and longing to go home.

At first I thought the website might be a deception. It mightjust be a recording, repeated over and over again. So I watched itfor a long time, and I couldn't see any recurring image. EventuallyI saw a car coming down the street for the second time, and Ithought, "Ah-ha! It's not live!" But then I realised that the carcould have been looking for a parking spot and could have gone roundthe town twice, because I've often done that myself.

I used to do it when I was looking for a spot close to the PostOffice on pension day. Sometimes I would stop on double yellow lineswhile my mother went in for her money. The traffic warden used tofrown at me and I'd point at the window of the post office, where mymother stood in the queue, and I'd be thinking, "Go on mother, justskip the queue and hurry up."

One thing you can't hurry is a mare in foal, and apparentlythere's a stable yard some- where near Mullingar where one mare issix weeks overdue. She fell and injured herself last year and wasput in foal in the autumn and was supposed to be due at the end ofMarch. But apparently the dates were mixed up, and so now everyoneis holding their breath for an Easter birth. I know this because thegirl beside me in the internet cafe was talking about it on Skype toone of her friends in Korea. Her friend headed out to Australia inearly March, but so far only got as far as Seoul.

The two girls gossiped across the world as if they were inadjoining rooms.

"There's lots of markets here," the girl in Seoul said. "Theyhave all kinds of fish, and some of them are still alive." Clearlyshe had a limited knowledge of fish markets; the van in Mullingar onThursdays sells tuna, salmon, mackerel and whiting; but the fish areusually dead, gutted, and sliced. In Seoul the young traveller hadbeen shocked by the big eyes and open mouths of dying fish flappingaround on the stalls.

She said she wanted to rescue the living ones and bring them toher hotel and put them in the bath, but her friend in Mullingar saidthey might get big in the bath and when she was moving to Australia,she'd have to kill them herself, which wouldn't be nice. "I supposethat's true," said the voice from Seoul.

Then her Mullingar friend told her about the dogs. Someone theyknow has two fine pedigree bitches. It was the owner's dream one dayto breed from them and recently she decided to get them covered, butlearned that because they were sisters and had been reared together,they were not able to have pups.

The girl in Korea was astonished. "Does that mean they'relesbians?" she wanted to know. The Mullingar girl couldn't bedefinite about that. "They just can't have babies," she said. "Whattime is it there?" said the Mullingar girl.

"Five o'clock," said the Seoul girl.

"What are you doing for the evening?"

"I'm going to walk around the stadium for exercise," she said,"and then I'll go to another market again, 'cos they're alwaysinteresting, and I'll go into the city on a train later. What timeis it in Mullingar?"

"10 in the morning," the Mullingar girl said.

"And what are you doing?"

"I'm heading for the library," she said, "to do a bit of studyfor the Leaving."

"I'll Skype you later in the week," the voice from Seoul said.

"Yeah," said Mullingar, "do that. Miss you." "Miss you too," saidthe voice from Seoul, and the screen went blank and the Mullingargirl switched off the computer, left the shop, and headed off downthe street, her emotions hidden by sunglasses. But no one could tellhow the girl in Korea hides her emotions, or her love for Ireland,and all the fields and horses, the dogs and foxes, and her parentsand brothers and sisters, when she's mooching around in the lateevening in Seoul, looking into the eyes of dying fish.