3

AND IN THE OLD DAYS you could get a lift anywhere. Stand on the side of the road. Listen to the sound of a motorcar far off in the distance. And then it came closer. And there was rarely a time when a car didn’t stop.

‘There wasn’t as many cars as now. No. But you see, Birdie, in another way it was better, ’cos more of them stopped. Are you with me?’ Hughie asked.

Oh, she was with him all right.

‘And when I got into the passenger seat I would offer the driver a cigarette and he would take one and we’d talk about where he was from and where he was going, and where I was from and so on.

‘The weather was analysed. The morning news was recited. And eventually I would put my view, my entire philosophy of life, on the table. The driver listened. He considered. And then he might offer me a smoke. Now this was a great education, if you think about it. For I tended to rehearse a different world view in each car. And I’d suit my philosophy to what I could guess about the driver’s face.

‘And I could always tell if the driver was enjoying himself, because he would begin to drive slow, and he’d start waving his hand at all the other cars we’d meet. All the men and women on the roadside, and you know this yourself, Birdie; in those days they would be cutting hedges, or wheeling barrows of dung, or sitting on tractors smoking their own cigarettes, and they would always wave at a passing car. They’d put their arms up and their hands high in the air, as if welcoming the homecoming troops from a far-off adventure.

‘And no matter where I was in Ireland – and this is the truth, Birdie – there was always a pub within five miles that had great music. Are you with me? And Guinness. A place where the landlady would make the stars dance on the back of her hand, and never let a musician leave her house hungry without a few sandwiches cut as thick as doorsteps, and big salty slices of a recently boiled rump of bacon.

‘Oh Jaysus, Birdie, them were the days.

‘So before I knew where I was, the smell of drink was wafting up me nose, and I was leaning on the counter, talking poetry and playing reels and I’d forget where I was going, or who I was with, or how I was ever going to get home to the dog and the old broken-down chair in that derelict cottage me poor mother died in. God rest her soul.’

‘God rest her soul,’ says Birdie.

4

AND WHERE WOULD they be without Tommy Smith? That’s what Birdie wondered during those weeks. Where would they be without Tommy going out of his way to taxi them here, there and yonder, and God knows did he ever take a penny for his trouble?