I hadn’t spoken to a soul for twenty-six days. That was a lie of course. I had spoken to souls. I’d spoken to Erin, I’d spoken to the Glovo man, and I’d spoken to the cashier at Caprabo. But it felt like nobody. Yes, it felt like there was nobody on Earth at times besides the sick and the dying around me. I was sitting alone again, thinking of the past. Listening to Jake Thackray on my phone and watching the digital clock move onwards from the night into the early morning. Time was a necessary concept but I hated it. I dreaded its ticking forward. I knew that sleep wouldn’t come, but that again I would be forced to try and find it. And so it goes. Time. What is it? The numbering of time was man-made. As were the clocks that rang out. Every day the bells of of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia would sound at obscure times. 2:13am and the bells ring out again. Who was it that was ringing those bells? For who did they toll? Where they done by machine now? Or was there some figure blessed with the blood of Christ standing there right now all alone in the blackness? I did not know. Every day had become the same. So much so that my writing, while more consistent than it had ever been before, was also becoming very much the same. What is there to write about when all you experience is the same. Day after day. Groundhog. So while the future scared me, and the present was monotonous, I thought of the past. I thought of telling drunken stories to drunken friends who would laugh at my expense. I thought of when she was here, and we went to Luigi’s and to Dunne’s and of how I met her by the Tabac on that warm Friday morning with sweat rolling down my back. Why is it that the past is eternally beautiful? Or so it seemed. The present was nothing. The present didn’t matter. The present was the same. Even the darkest days of the past are brighter following the passage of time. The bitter talk forgotten, the arguments fade, the photographs remain.
It was the day Galway beat Waterford and we were sitting in McHales Bar. Myself and Erin caught the early flight and my tonsils were ruined with a bacterial dose of tonsillitis. It was all I could talk about. We had no plans. Just that we had to get to McLouglins before midnight and that we had no way of getting there. I’d told her romanticised stories of how six months earlier I’d hitchhiked my way to Mulranny in one lift. It all happened very quick. I got off the plane with my bag, had a quick pint in the airport bar, and nervously walked along scattered stones towards the main road. I wasn’t waiting long when an old buck pulled over and I lowered my thumb to my side.
“I’m heading towards Castlebar”, I said.
“I know.”
“You know? How?”
“Well if ye wasn’t you’d be facing the opposite direction!” He laughed.
The next thing I know I’m supping pints with the old fella in Castlebar. He said if I didn’t mind having a few with him he’d take me down to Newport in a few hours and then I’d be on my way. That was sound by me. He handed me a two euro coin and told me to stick some Big Tom on the jukebox and sure enough two minutes later the place was bouncing with only four old fellas in it.
“Ah would ye schtap!” one of the bogmen said aloud.
“No Johnny, I won’t stop! That man’s a murderer.”
“He’s a gobshite if ever I knew one but he’s not a flipping murderer.”
“Ah he’s a peculiar character.” interjected my escort, causing a silence to penetrate the air. “There’s not many men like Sweeney left these days but I won’t have a bad word said against him. He’s a vintage man and that’s that.”
Nobody said a word.
“Who the fuck put this on the jukebox?”
We were standing on the stones. The suitcase wheels dirtied grey, as clouds circled above and midges hovered around us.
“I wasn’t waiting this long last time I promise”, I said. “We’ll get a lift in a minute.”
“You said you was only waiting five minutes.”
“Well I was. I think. It’s not like there’s a set time for hitching. It’s not like an Uber”, I said. “Maybe you try doing it, you’ll stand more chance as a girl like.”
Eventually a woman slowed, asking through the window where we were going.
We thanked her for the lift and there we were. Sinking pints in McHale’s, watching Joe Canning sail another over the bar. We fell into Rocky Moran’s and fell back out of it as darkness descended over day and we were too tired with drunkenness to try hitching again.
Mr. McIntyre showed us to our rooms and asked us what time we would like breakfast to be served. We said we were easy and that whatever time would be best for him would be perfect for us. He said that whatever time we wanted breakfast would be best for him and so we settled on 11am.
“And is the bar still open?”
“It’s not, but I’ll keep it open for ye’s!” He said.
We laughed and thanked and the three of us talked until the early hours drinking Swithmicks, vodkas, and shots of Tequila Rose.
“Now are ye sure you’ll be wanting your breakfast at 11?”
“We’re sure Ken.”
“And you don’t want it at 7 or 10 or 12?”
“Well definitely not at 7 Ken! But… Whenever is best for you.”
He lowered his head, nodding.
“11 o’clock it is.”
Now I’m looking at the photographs. It feels so long ago. I wonder is it the same? And would it be the same if I was to go back tomorrow? It’s been so long. And some four thousand miles from where I am sitting right now. It’s hard to imagine the place exists in the present. That it does exist perpetually in reality. That it is not a dream or a land that only comes into being when you step off the plane. I can’t imagine them now. As the faces fade into figures at bars. Bent over shillelaghs, they stand as the sun sets over Lough Conn.
I flick through the photographs and press play on a video, watching as the laughter breaks the silence of Carrer de Side and I see it all again. There it is. Just as it was. The half full Smithwicks on McLoughlins bar. Erin laughing as Ken closes an anecdote and tops up my glass. And as my camera captures this tarred world of beauty, the laughter stops, and the music on the jukebox becomes audible again.
‘And what in the world’s come over you, what in heaven’s name have you done. You’ve broken the speed and the sound of loneliness. You’re out there running just to be on the run’.
Perhaps if I close my eyes as I sit here in Side I can imagine that I am there once more. Once more walking through the fields and the bog with Ballycroy to my right. You laughing. The wind against your chest. Sound of the ocean foaming in the distance. My eyes closed. Your hair brown. Salt. Breathe. Freckled face. Smiling your smile you lean into the wind to see if it can hold your weight. Fall onto me when it doesn’t. Laughing at that stupid helmet that wouldn’t fit on my head. Laughing. Eyes open. Gone.
Anthony picked us up a few days later. We went for that meal. I laugh. He couldn’t believe it. Wonder what he’s doing now. Cup of tea? Yes. Looking out over Nephin or Conn. Rover barking in the distance. ROVER! Probably shouting that as he gurgles his tea. Barry’s Tea. Scolding Barry’s Tea on his moustache. Wonder when he last shaved his moustache? Big bushy thing. Forty years? Thirty for definite. Ah Anthony. Hunched over on your knees sculpting the fire. Your withered leathered claw meticulously shifting sod after sod to a better place. Huffing gargantuan breaths until the flames seep through the cracks in the turf. The house empty now as I see it. Silent in my ears. The wallet bare. The summer over. The ground too wet for work. The cold coming. More tea. Shaking his hand at Knock with a lump in my throat, his ghost drifts through the crowd into a memory.
I shift my bottles and place them on the counter. Pouring a glass of water before sitting again. 5:51am. Sleep must surely come. Work again in a few hours. And then? The same. Work and eggs and coffee; and then beer and television and writing. There is little more to do in these times than to write. And there is little more to write about than the past. And so I move to the bedroom and lie in bed. Thinking thoughts of Antonio and of you lying next to me, not you now, but you all those years ago, and of Nephin and Rover and Sweeney, of boreens, of fishing reels, of butter milk. And I think of John Prine, when he was singing on McLoughlin’s jukebox and I was singing along.
