A good few years back, must be 25 or so, me and Jimmy and another mate of ours, Bob, went to stay with this bloke who had hired us to do a job. His name was Jean-Hugo Le C’arville and we’d taken somebody who had crossed him to his palatial estate near St. Etienne in France. What happened to him I don’t know but there was a lot of screaming and drilling and sawing and setting stuff on fire one night.
While there we feasted on the best French cuisine as our host had his own chef, who came with three Michelin stars, and drank wonderful French wines including a bottle of 1973 Château Mouton Rothschild with a label designed by Pablo Picasso. Of course the French people in the little town were very French and they didn’t really understand us. Although I am a fluent French speaker my Dublin accent made things a bit difficult for them.
“Ooohvray la fenechra!”, I’d ask and it would take me a good few goes before they said “Ahhhh, ouvrez la fenêtre!” then whisper “L’anglais de merde” just loud enough for me to hear them. The joke was on them though. English, indeed. Anyway, that is just incidental.
Where the fun began was when Jean-Hugo set us a challenge. He said “Mes amis, I ‘ave, in my jardin, a network of ‘edges and paffs frough which you must find your way from one side to ze uzzer! Do you accept zis challenge?”
“What do we get if we complete ‘zis task’?”, I asked.
“I weel pay you fifty-fousand pounds. Sterling!”
I conferred with the lads. There wasn’t much conferring. That was a lot of money back then.
“All right, show us ‘ze way’”, said Jimmy and he did.
So in we went to this labyrinth thinking it would be a couple of hours diversion in the summer sunshine. By 9pm that night we had thought again. This was well before the time when a quick mobile phone call would have solved the problem and with 50 grand at stake we were sure they weren’t going to come look for us. The hedges were around 12 feet tall and there was no way of going through them or climbing on top of them. Now it was dark. ‘Oh well’, we thought, ‘we’ll have to wait till tomorrow’.
Tomorrow wasn’t any better. Or the day after. Or the day after. By day 7 we were starving and staying alive by licking the dew off the ground each morning to quench our thirst. We tried eating the leaves but they were minging. Jimmy ate a worm which took him right back to his childhood but we were in serious trouble.
Poor old Bob was the worst though, a skinny chap at the best of times he was fading fast. Sadly on the 9th night he passed away.
Says I, “Jimmy, this is like that film that hasn’t been made yet about that plane that hasn’t crashed yet with that South American rugby team that hasn’t to eat each other yet. If we want to stay alive we have to resort to…cannibalism!”
“Fair enough”, said Jimmy. “I’m fuckin’ starving”
Just then all the days without food caught up with me and the world started spinning. I got that buzzing noise in my head and the next thing I passed out. I don’t know how long I was out for but when I awoke Jimmy had managed to get a small fire going with some branches from the hedges and it smelt like he’d been cooking.
It was as sweet as smell as I’ve ever smelt. I started drooling immediately. I could taste meat even if it was the body of our former friend. When I made my way over though I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Jimmy was sitting there, like a stuffed pig, licking his lips and gnawing on bones and nothing from the wrist up on either side remained.
“What the fuck have you done?”, I thundered. “You miserable cunt. Here we are, stuck in this maze, starving to death and you eat everything? You fucking cunt.”
“Calm down, Twenty”, said Jimmy. ” I didn’t eat it all. I left you Bobby’s hands.”
*Author’s note – posted on the 25th anniversary of the death of a famous hunger striker.