by Ben Aitken
‘What did you think of the Ring of Kerry then?’
‘I thought it was very good, Ben, but I wouldn’t want to do the post round there.’
Sandra and John are from Stoke. I admit I’ve never been to Stoke, and John admits I needn’t let that bother me. Sandra says the town centre is really quiet these days, which isn’t only bad for the town, but also the people, and especially the older people. Sandra’s worried they don’t get out, that they don’t pop to the shops, not like they did. If they pop to the shops, they see people, and people see them – they become attached and involved, in small but important ways. It might just be a pork chop and a few carrots, but in effect it’s more than that. Amazon or whoever isn’t going to keep an eye on you, show an interest, remember your husband. Towns are an endangered species, she says; it’s not right.
Sandra and John do their best to buck the trend. They get out every day, if only for a coffee. They’ve been getting out every day for a fair while: it’s their 50th anniversary next year. They met at work, where John was a driver and Sandra was in the office. Sandra was with a bloke from Birmingham at the time but decided it was in everyone’s interest for her to be open-minded and give John a go one night after work. She never saw the guy from Birmingham again. I ask if they’ll do anything for their anniversary. ‘Probably go out for a coffee,’ says Sandra – ‘though I might upgrade to a latte.’ John says there’ll be no such upgrade, not if he’s got anything to do with it. Sandra laughs but Marty offers John a quid to pay for the upgrade, says life’s too short. There’s a nice awkwardness to dinner.
I’m still very hungover. It’s a struggle to sit up straight, to eat, to engage. Usually when one’s feeling acutely hungover, one self-isolates. One might eat a tin of custard and watch Pointless. One doesn’t tend to arrange for an intimate dinner in County Kerry with relative strangers. I excuse my imperfect self before pudding. Sandra is sympathetic, and even worried I’m coming down with something. ‘You do what you want,’ says Marty, ‘you’re on holiday.’ I don’t deserve their company. Not this evening.
Frank’s in his usual spot at the bar. We half watch Liverpool against Barcelona. Frank supports Hearts – Heart of Midlothian – but never says so if Scottish punters ask because what they’re really asking is whether he’s Protestant or Catholic, and he’ll be damned if he’s getting into any of that malarkey. Frank doesn’t take sides these days; he sits on the fence and the fence is a rainbow. He learnt the hard way that ideology doesn’t pay. ‘I once played a song on the coach called “The Fields of Athenry” and lost half my tips. I vowed not to do that again.’28 Despite Frank’s stated impartiality, he doesn’t half celebrate when Barcelona score for a second time. He cheers as if he were a Catalan. I look at him for an explanation.
‘I cannae stand Liverpool.’
‘I thought you were colour blind?’
‘Aye, but some colours are brighter than others.’
I ask what Frank’s come to expect regarding tips. He says you just do your job and hope for the best. Unless they’re from Yorkshire, in which case you don’t hope at all. He shares his favourite tipping story. ‘There was this one fella, a Londoner, hobbling about all week, slow as a snail, in agony he was. And yet when it came to the final disembarkation, when I normally go round collecting the tips, this old geezer was off the coach before I even had the handbrake up.’ Frank reckons there might be a lesson to be had from the episode, i.e. that it isn’t age that acts as a barrier to performance, but incentive.
More than people who don’t tip, what really gets under Frank’s skin is when people don’t listen. Frank doesn’t mean to suggest that when it comes to oratory he’s up there with Churchill, but nonetheless, if he’s saying something, then it doesn’t tend to be for the sake of his health. ‘One time, I was giving a wee history of such-and-such place, and these two girls directly behind me were going on about what they had made for their husbands’ dinners. Not just the night before, but ever, all dinners ever. I slapped the microphone and said: “Are we alright, ladies and gentlemen?” (I don’t like to pick on anyone.) “Not everybody wants to hear about Limerick – so much is admitted – but nobody wants to hear about what yous made your husbands for dinner in 1986.” Oddly enough, they left a big tip.’
We step outside for a smoke and Frank says a few more things, which is a bit of a habit of his. I guess it’s an occupational hazard. When you’ve got a microphone in front of your nose most of your life, things just sort of slip out. He says now that the Liverpool left-back is having a shocker, that farmers look the same no matter where they’re from, and that he can’t stand eating a three-course meal alone with people watching him saying, ‘Ooh there’s the driver, what’s he having?’ He says the barman doesn’t charge him for his beer, and in return Frank doesn’t charge the barman for listening to his shite most evenings. He says that what you’ve got to remember about the working class of his generation is that they all bought houses on the cheap and have good pensions and have probably been frugal all their lives, and so when it comes to wealth, they’re probably in the top 10 per cent of the population, something that isn’t generally reflected in the tips Frank gets. He says he couldn’t believe it when he saw my little backpack, and then – the two somehow being related in Frank’s mind (perhaps he’s thinking of a snail) – asks if I own a house.
‘Nope.’
‘Are ye paying into a pension?’
‘Nope.’
‘Do ye stand to inherit much?’
‘A Ford Mondeo. Lupus.’
‘And you’re a freelance something?’
‘Yep.’
‘And you’re not married to Princess Eugenie or Paris Hilton or anyone like that?’
‘Nope.’
‘In which case you better strap in, pal, because you’re pretty much f*cked.’29
I have a pint at a pub up the road called Reidy’s. It’s a lovely place. There’s a banjo in the courtyard (and a man with it like), and various nooks and unexpected rooms. The banjo makes me think of my dad, but only for a bit. I’m too hungover to be sentimental. I give Megan a call. ‘How ye?’ I say, but then I realise it’s her voicemail. I sit down and look through my pictures – a toasted sandwich, Marty with an ice cream, Chris and Carole on the coach, talking softly, sensibly, sweetly. Then I put the phone down abruptly and slide it away from me. Ah, bejaysus.
I take a walk in the rain: Ye Auld Sweet Shop, The Grand, your man Jesus on a traffic island. I hit a ring road, then go inward on St Anthony’s Passage, which delivers me to Main Street, and from Main I find New. Nothing new about me though. Same old trick. It slips down my throat and then sits under my skin, pinching my verve, nipping my nerve, squashing my mojo. A pursuit of happiness, one pint at a time. Nonsense.
There was a man called Ben
Who in search of ying, yang and zen
Drank six pints of beer
Most days of the year
Then repeated the process again.
Outside the hotel, I light up a cigarette. I look at the image of infertility on the packet, and fantasise about it being my last. As I smoke, I watch the takeaway across the road and think about brushing my teeth. ‘Whoever carries into the afternoon the law of the morning must pay with damage to his soul.’ That was Carl Jung. I’m not fully persuaded by the sentiment – it’s a bit severe – but I think there’s something in it. We’ve got to act our age, to go with the flow, to evolve. I’m caught with one leg in the playpen of youth, while the other’s desperate to stride ahead. I’m going to pull my groin at this rate.
Then I see Michael Fassbender. He’s crossing the road, hood up, eating a doughnut. It’s definitely him. Shame, Fish Tank, Hunger – I’ve stared at that face long enough to be sure. I don’t begrudge him the doughnut, not after what he did playing Bobby Sands in Hunger, which involved losing weight to within an inch of his life in order to give credence to his portrayal of a hunger striker. I’d like to ask Michael about another physically impressive pe
rformance of his. At the start of his career he starred in a Guinness advert. In it, he swims from Galway to New York to apologise to his brother. I’d like to know what he was sorry for.
27 Prior to Cromwell’s ‘conquest’ of Ireland in the middle of the 17th century, England already had considerable sway in the country – it was a so-called client state, which is one hell of a euphemism. The English seem to have treated Ireland like some kind of experimental allotment, ‘planting’ Protestants around the country as though they were a root vegetable. The reason Cromwell came over in 1649 was to make sure his allotments weren’t being got at by Royalists and Catholics. His campaign began with a prolonged siege of Drogheda, just north of Dublin. Then it was down to Wexford. Then Kilkenny. Then Clonmel. Then Waterford. And so on. Within a few years, Cromwell’s New Model Army had taken the entire island, and in the process killed roughly 500,000 Irish Catholics – about a third of the population. If the Irish sometimes appear to have a chip on their shoulder, chances are it’s because the English put it there.
28 ‘The Fields of Athenry’ was a big hit in 1979. The song tells of an Irish Catholic who stole some corn during the famine of the 1840s (‘so the young might see the morn’) and was deported to Australia. It is anti-English, and in particular anti-Charles Trevelyan, who was Home Secretary at the time of the famine, and therefore calling a lot of the shots. Presented with reports that hundreds of thousands of Irish were perishing, Trevelyan said that God was punishing them for their wickedness. Not the sort of thing that usually gets to number one, but there you go.
29 It is for such advice that one travels.
15
You can’t take a picture of them. They’re not us
The breakfast sausages are grand and Gordon and Rowan agree. Though she’s only having a half because she’s poorly and has to monitor such things. She says they used to fly all over the place, but these days they tend to stick to their own doorstep or thereabouts, which is no skin off their noses since it’s not a bad doorstep, not when you give it a proper look. Gordon says it’s human nature to ignore what’s under your nose. Then he corrects himself and says that, these days, the opposite is true because it tends to be a smartphone. Rowan says that smartphones are clever at what they do but very addictive. She remembers watching a girl at the football (Nottingham Forest) take at least 25 pictures of herself and then spend the rest of the match fiddling with them. I say that perhaps such behaviour is not unreasonable given that Nottingham Forest haven’t given a captivating performance since 1992. They both take this dig on the chin and then Rowan adds: ‘It’s not just a young person thing though. My sister’s as bad. She’ll take a picture of a plate of chips in Wetherspoons, and then fiddle with that for ages.’
‘What’s she fiddling with chips for?’ I say.
‘Because even the chips have to be aspirational,’ says Gordon.
They’re retired. Gordon took a year off to care for Rowan then didn’t go back. He reckons he’s got time to enjoy things now, time to try things. The garden is an example, says Rowan. She doesn’t think Gordon said a thing about gardening his whole life, and now he won’t shut up about it.
‘Sometimes he comes to bed with his gloves on.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ I say.
‘I won’t actually get into bed with them on,’ says Gordon. ‘But I’ve been known to brush my teeth in them.’
I ask what Gordon’s approach is in the garden.
‘Approach?’
‘I mean, how do you go about it?’
‘I just whip it out and bang it in.’
‘I see. And what do you bang in exactly?’
‘Kale, sweetcorn, beetroot, parsnip, lettuce, cauliflower.’
‘Quite a bit then.’
‘I do asparagus, but asparagus takes three years. If you don’t wait three years for your asparagus, it will be the last thing you don’t do.’30
‘Isn’t asparagus an aphrodisiac?’
‘Well I’ve not noticed owt,’ says Rowan.
Rowan says that, compared to Gordon, her fingers aren’t very green at all, not least because she only gets one week off hospital every four, which is when they try to get away. She says ‘poorly’ is her euphemism of choice, which she likes to modify with ‘quite’ and ‘very’, as the situation demands.
‘When I started being “very” quite often, that’s when Gordon got a mobile phone.’
‘I’m quite good at it now,’ he says.
‘Well you’ve had a fair bit of practice, haven’t you, love?’
They’re chatty these two. I hear of Rowan’s nephew who’s studying at Salford, and I hear of Gordon’s brother who cycled the Ring of Kerry in his boxer shorts. I hear that Boots the chemist is the major employer in Nottingham, and that the Goose Fair still goes on and I should come along one year. I hear how to grow parsnips and chard and how they’ve never been to Manchester. I hear that Trump will get off the hook, that Merkel’s a strong woman, that Fungi the dolphin has more chance of getting elected than Jeremy Corbyn. And then I hear Gordon standing and dusting himself off and saying: ‘Right then, love. Now we’ve set the world right, let’s go out and have a look at the blighter.’
Given that it was effectively a blind date, and could have gone one of a hundred ways, I’d say that this morning’s breakfast was one of the best I’ve ever had. The conversation was enjoyably circuitous. I suppose a conversation is more likely to have such shape (or lack thereof) when the interlocutors are strange to one another, when there’s no way of knowing what junctions you’ll arrive at, conversationally speaking. You don’t expect to turn off for asparagus, or take a left for respiratory disease, or go straight across for the Nottingham Goose Fair. I like that.
I go up for another piece of white pudding and another slice of toasted soda bread. Waiting on the latter, I observe to the other person waiting that they seem to have been doing so for some time. She says she put it in ten minutes ago, but it hasn’t come out yet. As she says this, my piece of toast shoots out. ‘Ah,’ she says, ‘here it is.’ Bloody boomers.
The first time I boarded this coach, I was met with silence. Now Sandra says ‘Do you want a mint? We’re all having mints’, and Marty says ‘Did you sleep well, Ben? I slept well, Ben’, and Carole says ‘Did you stop out last night then, Ben?’ It hasn’t taken much for the general atmosphere to change, for us all to become more fraternal and familiar – just a bit of proximity and time and shared adversity (some of Frank’s jokes for example). But there’s another side of the coin, of course. There’s a flipside to our new togetherness. I’ve already started to hear some of my lot speaking ill of those on the other coach, Edward’s lot. There’s a rumour they’re somehow getting the best of the eggs and longer lie-ins. Give it another few days and we’ll be saying they’ve been stealing cutlery and photocopying their drinks vouchers. If it doesn’t take much to bond, it also doesn’t take much to set oneself apart, to grow a little bias. As if sensing my train of thought, Frank says: ‘Right folks, let’s get moving before Edward nabs the best parking spot.’
We’re off to a stately home – Muckross House – but on the way we’re going to call at one or two spots, the first of those being Killarney’s cathedral. From the coach, the church’s limestone exterior looks pure and uniform, but up close, you can see that each block is a hundred colours. There’s a tree in the grounds of the church that was planted for the local children who died during the Potato Famine. We’re invited to go and touch it, and maybe spend a few minutes thinking about what it stands for. I accept the invitation, and end up thinking about Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands again, dying of hunger over the course of 66 days, or about twenty minutes in the film.
Inside the church, of all the many things that are meant to please the eye, it’s a poem pinned to a notice board that gets my attention. It’s called ‘Slow Me Down, Lord’ and does such a good job of selling slowing down that you want to get on with it in a hurry. It makes you impatient to learn ‘th
e art of taking minute vacations, of slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with a friend, to pat a dog, to read a few lines from a good book’. Marty doesn’t need to be told. He’s got the right idea. He’s leaning back on a pew with his hands behind his head and his eyes closed, smiling like it was a month of Sundays. His reverie is broken by Frank. ‘It’s time to go,’ he says. ‘Get your skates on because I’m double-parked.’
Our next stop is just up the road. It’s a piece of open ground that offers a view of Killarney and its lakes and mountains. Despite the fine view, what I want to photograph is one of the other coach parties posing for a group picture. I get them from an angle; from the side almost. Of course none of the group are looking at me, so in my picture they all look a bit demented and surreal. It’s still a group shot, and it’s still got the lakes and the mountains in the background, but it’s not a picture any of them would hang on a wall at home, or touch up and share. It defies one of the unwritten conventions of group portraiture – that the subjects be looking at the camera. Or if not looking at the camera, at least be aware of it. Sandra from Stoke comes up behind me and says: ‘You can’t take a picture of them. They’re not us.’
When Queen Victoria stayed at Muckross House in 1861, she gave six years notice of her visit – plenty of time for the house to be royally improved – and arrived with her own bed and a hundred mates. Apparently, the owner at the time almost went bankrupt sorting the place out for her. I have a peep through one of the back windows and decide that the rooms do a good job of giving a sense of how not many people lived in the 19th century. (The house was finished just a couple of years before the Potato Famine, for heaven’s sake.) I hate to put a downer on things, but houses like this, however charming, are one side of a coin whose flipside is poverty and oppression. It’s hard to have one without the other. The rhododendrons in the garden are nice, however, no matter which way you look at them.