By
Norman Freeman


How about this for a helmet story! It’s about a dodgy helmet bought over the Internet. This sub-standard contraption was a cause of distress and embarrassment to its wearer. Yet in the end it led to a romance that was both exotic and enhancing.

The player at the centre of this story plays at wing forward for an East Limerick junior team. Seamus K went on the Internet looking for an inexpensive helmet. He bought one from some source in Saharan Africa. He should have known better when he saw they were also offering ‘special protective headwear for use by camel-drivers’ as well as steel helmets to fit underneath turbans and keffiyah’s, ‘guaranteed to deflect bullets’.

When he first produced it at training all the team and management shook their heads and said it was a cheap and tawdry yoke. But Seamus K said he didn’t care as long as it protected his head and face.

He first wore it at a rough championship match on a pitch near the Hill of Nicker and beside the railway line from Limerick Junction to Limerick. The game was between two neighbouring teams with a long history of rancour.

The match got very heated in the second half. Seamus K and his marker had several acrimonious clashes, resulting in skinned knuckles and sore shins. Then, as the ball dropped between them, his marker pulled early. Seamus got a blow on the side of his face. If he hadn’t been wearing the helmet he could have been severely injured. The referee immediately gave his opponent the red card.

The team medicine-man came running onto the field to see if Seamus was all right. The helmet seemed to be stuck on Seamus’s head and couldn’t be got off ; it didn’t matter because Seamus said he was all right. The game started again. Seamus’s side took full advantage of the extra man and won pulling up.

When the final whistle sounded Seamus tried to take off his helmet but the visor was stuck and he couldn’t get it to budge. Two or three other players gathered round to try to help, one thinking that a good tug would solve the problem.

“Stop, stop or you’ll pull the head off me,” shouted Seamus from behind the bars.

In the dressing room other players gathered round. Some were concerned but most were joking and laughing. The team manager took over. “Stand back, stand back,” he said with authority. It seemed that the blow to the helmet had damaged the threads of the hinge screw of the face-guard. The manager, a ham-fisted sort of a fellow, tried to force the guard up over Seamus’s chin, who by this time was feeling trapped and claustrophobic.

“Mind out or you’ll break my fuckin’ neck,” Seamus yelled.

The manager then decided that this was a job for Paddy O, who ran a ramshackle garage and panel-beating establishment in the village. They drove down but they had to park some distance away and walk up the street. It was full of hurling followers standing about. The story of the immovable helmet had already got about and they all fell round the place laughing.

“You’re like The Man in the Iron Mask” some fellow called after him.

Paddy O had to be roused from his sleep before he got to his feet and unlocked the creaking corrugated-iron door of the garage. In that murky place, full of old battered car parts and worn tyres, smelling of stale engine oil and congealed lubricant, Seamus was told to sit down on a soiled, scarred wooden chair.

He noticed Paddy’s worn, oil-blackened fingernails as he tried to prise away the screw. More than that, he got the smell of drink off the man, something that made him uneasy. Seamus got even more uneasy when the panel-beater said, “We’ll have to take a chance on it - burn it away with the acetylene torch.” When Seamus saw him approaching unsteadily, holding the long implement with its concentrated blue flame gushing menacingly, he jumped up with a roar and ran for the door.

He hurried down the street. It was impossible to avoid being seen. Loud laughter was heard and someone shouted “Oh Jasus here’s The Man in the Iron Mask”. At the end of the street he turned in the door of a little café/restaurant to seek sanctuary there. He was met by the manageress, a very beautiful girl from the tropic Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. He had never spoken to her before but her attractiveness was legendary; many young fellows from the area had tried to date her, unsuccessfully. Of East Indian origin, she had light-brown skin, a beautiful complexion and two big dark eyes. Her figure was voluptuous.

She immediately saw the distress that Seamus was in and said in a commanding way “Come into the pantry at once.” She put him sitting down on a chair.

“Let me see,” she said, in a confident, masterful manner. “Mon pére etait méchanique – my father was a mechanic”. He could see her lustrous eyes and sense the warmth of her body as she quickly examined the damaged pivot-screw. She produced a small bottle of very fine Indian cooking oil. With a cotton bud she applied this to the screw. Now she took in her hand a pliers-like tin opener and clamped its cogged wheels around the screw. From behind the protective bars he got a delightful glimpse of cleavage as she clasped hard on the handles and twisted the handle briskly. With a small screeching sound the screw loosened.

She tipped the visor up and took off the helmet. She gently wiped the perspiration of panic and entrapment from his face with a fragrant cloth smelling of sandalwood. .

He was so relieved and so thankful. He was much taken by this radiant, resourceful girl whose name he knew was Lata.

“Would you have any idea who this Man in the Iron Mask might be?” he asked her.
“Of course – it’s a story about an evil King of France who was afraid his twin brother might lead a revolt against him. So he had an iron mask welded onto his brother’s head and threw him into a dungeon.”

She said she’d give him a loan of a simple version. She ran upstairs and returned with a children’s, illustrated adaptation of the tale. It was bilingual, with English on one page and French on the opposite. She explained that both languages were widely used in Mauritius. He said he’d return it to her within a week, glad of an excuse to see her again.

He read the story, again and again. Nobody more than Seamus K identified with the hero, with the terrifying feeling of facial and cranial imprisonment, the frustration and the anguish. He was totally fascinated by the story. He was so interested that he borrowed his sister’s Collins Easy Learning French dictionary and began to decipher the French version.

Astute fellow that he is, he went on the Internet and looked up information about Mauritius. He downloaded a colourful, illustrated map of Mauritius and had it framed. When he returned the book a fortnight later he presented this to her together with a Thank You card.

The beautiful Lata was delighted. They began to go out together. When he asked her if it was hard to learn French she said, “Not at all. I’ll teach you. Just learn the verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ and about a dozen other key verbs, in the present, past and future tenses. Then build up a basic vocabulary. In no time at all you’ll be as good as the fellow herding goats in Mauretania or the guy selling monkeys’ paws by the side of the road in Madagascar.”

He is envied by many of the virile young men who had cast longing eyes on this radiant, shapely young woman. One of them said “Isn’t he the lucky hoor. Helmet got jammed on his head and he ends up with this gorgeous girl. Nothing like that ever happens to uz.”

Of course, Seamus is now wearing a helmet that conforms to the IS366 standard being encouraged by the GAA. For an additional €8 he was able to have it coloured red, dark blue, yellow and green. Guess what country these are the national colours of? L’ile Maurice/Mauritius, of course. You ca