I didn’t go into Castlebar. I didn’t think I had time. A Saab saloon with tan leather seats stopped almost immediately. The windows had the greenish tint of a pond. The driver was a handsome man with close-cropped hair and a rip on the knee of his jeans. He spoke with a European accent and introduced himself as Valentine, flicking the stick to second as he did so.
I guessed he was Italian. “Romanian,” he corrected with an accent that could have been either. He was going to Tobercurry for work in a fast-food restaurant. He liked it, working there. He liked how it wasn’t outside. I supposed the weather’s pretty bad in Ireland. “Ah you get used to it,” he shrugged in reply. He said he liked how his job kept him busy. On the weekends it was rammed. Tobercurry didn’t have many chippies.
His family lived with him in Castlebar. A sister, mother and two nieces. They were all together and that was good. You could go anywhere in the world and be happy, he said, so long as you have your family with you. Or a friend, he added on reflection.
“Do you like Ireland?” I asked.
“It’s ok,” he shrugged, “I’ll go back home if the work’s not good. But then Romania has a lot of corruption, a lot of taxes too.”
We didn't have long to chat. Valentine was turning off the N5 and I needed to stay on. I had to get east.
It was easy to find a good place from where I got out. Hitchhiking in Ireland is helped by the fact most big roads have a constant hard shoulder. So long as you’re careful - the hard shoulders aren’t safe - you don’t need to go far to find a good spot.
Kenneth drove a van with a boxy nose front. He drove it leisurely from under a pale green cap and he wore a thick grey sweatshirt as faded as the seats we sat on. He had a soft whistling voice, spoken from the small aperture between his red weathered cheeks. “I’m not going that far,” he said when I told him where I was heading, “but I’ll bring you a little bit of the way.”
We rumbled along the road. Kenneth was wise and gentle and he knew the land around here well. Apart from a brief Australian foray, he had lived here all his life. The road was slow, huddled with traffic and we soon reached a halt. The hills were low beside us, spotted with grey stone cottages.
“See that house there,” Kenneth pointed, “That’s where an Olympic champion used to live.” Playing tour guide was as natural for him as picking me up. He told me about Martin Sheridan, “He did discus, I think, back in the 30s. He won three gold medals and was a policeman too. Quite a few of them were…When he died the New York Times said he was one of America’s greatest athletes. Born right here in County Mayo.”
The traffic jam wasn’t moving. When there was a break in the oncoming stream, Kenneth slowly wheeled the van around and we drove back on ourselves, turning off to take another route. He said he’d show me Foxford.
There were no cars on this road, and it was narrow with rolling humps. At a tight turn to the left, Kenneth motioned to the right where a small graveyard sat atop a hill. “I have many relatives in there,” he told me, “Some grandparents too…And that house,” now he was leaning forward and pointing to the left, “My father built that.”
The peach-orange house was at the end of a straight track, a bungalow with four large windows, “He built many around here. And that one… that’s where the vet lives. I have a lovely collie and that’s where I take her. I normally bring her in the van with me but she’s too old now. I have to carry her onto the seat. That’s why the towels are here.” He patted the scrunched pile of muddied towels on the seat between us, missing their usual passenger. “She still wants to come you see,” Kenneth continued, “But she’s 15 now so I don’t bring her out very often.”
I asked if she used to work. “Oh aye. I have some sheep, I have a farm. Oh it’s beautiful to see them working.”
His farm was a small operation and getting smaller every year. In his barn, there were stacks and stacks of wool. It’s not worth anything these days. It costs more to have the sheep sheared. Kenneth thought it was all the cheap things coming in.
He also had a wood-cutting business, delivering hardwood logs to people in the area. The warm weather was bad for business. “If it was ten degrees colder people would be lighting fires. I’d have lots of calls. It’s too warm for that now.”
I agreed I never like unseasonably warm weather, although I had to admit it made hitchhiking more pleasant.
We came into a town. The walls of two opposite houses were painted with murals. One was of a huge curling salmon and the other a billy goat grinning in front of a bunch of fox gloves. We came to some traffic lights and Kenneth showed me a pub. The windows had several Irish flags and silver tankards arranged on display. It won an award for the best pub in Ireland a couple of years ago. Kenneth said the owner couldn’t believe it. It’s a tiny place and he’d never done anything different, never changed a thing. That’s probably why it won, I said.
“Oh,” he interrupted slowly as we left the town, shrinking back into the countryside, “See that house there, that’s where a champion boxer lived. He lived there in the 50s, a heavyweight.”
The lane was a tunnel of autumn colour, “He used to work for my father sometimes,” Kenneth continued, “My father rather idolised him. He said he was strong as a horse, could shift twice as much as the next man. No training really of course in those days, not like today. He went to Britain and competed, he was listed and everything. But it was very uncertain times then, very uncertain.”
I wondered what he meant.
Kenneth said he goes to Britain often himself. “My daughter lives in the Wittering, you see,” he said, “West Wittering.” He sounded like a songbird the way he said it. He told me he always visits London when he’s over and goes to Jermyn Street to buy a hat from Bates. They have his head size now. “They’re gentlemen’s hats,” he explained, “Smart you know, suit hats, black.” Kenneth also bought his shirts from Jermyn Street. There was a certain pleasure in buying from the finest ateliers.
I told him that the brand I work for has a shop on Jermyn Street and that he should let me know next time he comes. He told me he certainly would. We slowed to a stop and Kenneth asked me to pass him his notebook from the glove compartment. It was black leather bound with golden corners. He plucked a pen from his pocket and spelt out, in neatly crafted letters, my name and email address. He cautiously read it back when he was done.
Then he closed the notebook and set it on the blankets between us.
“Well Kenneth,” I said, “I look forward to seeing you in London. Thank you very much for the ride.”
“No bother,” he replied softly, his round button eyes looking into mine, “Nice to meet you.”
And with that, I left him and continued on my way.