An Atheist, an Actor and an Accountant Do the Camino

Article #13

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“Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway, we're the best of friends, insisting that the world be turnin' our way. And our way is on the road again.”

Willie Nelson - On the Road Again

True Story

I’m not sure when exactly we realised he had gone AWOL.

We definitely had maybe twenty kilometres done before we stopped to look around. And it was Paudge who clocked it first when we pulled up:

Paudge: Where’s Harry?

Me: Ah….

I look behind us.

Me: He was there a minute ago, wasn’t he?

Paudge: Fuck sake.

Paudge checks his phone.

Now maybe it was a combination of fatigue and hunger, but wild stuff started running through my brain. What if he’d been run over? Or worse still, kidnapped? Yeah, kidnapped by some human traffickers in a non-descript truck, full of… well… humans?

But then again, here in northern Spain they’d never understand his Tyrone accent. And then I thought, ‘Oh yeah, he speaks fluent Español.’ And his Español doesn’t have a Tyrone twang. It’s as if he becomes this other character when he speaks the ‘ol fluent Español. He doesn’t go full Daniel Day, but you know what I mean.

Then, for the next scene, I had visions of me and Paudge breaking the news to his worry-stricken family above in Cookstown.

Harry’s Family: What d’ye mean ye lost him?

I’d nudge Paudge to say something.

Paudge: Well, like, one minute he was there and next minute…

I’d shake my head and do that Irish thing of taking a sharp intake of breath, as if it was your last, and say “yeah, yeah” really quickly and at the same time. If you land that right, it sounds fierce empathetic.

But, my imagination is brought back to the moment.

Paudge: Ah here. Let’s drive on.

Me: What about Harry?

Paudge: He’s probably stopped off at another fuckin’ chapel [eye roll]. Come on, he knows where we’re going.

And with that, he plonks his arse on his high saddle and is off up the road like a handsome south Dublin version of a workin’ man’s Lance Armstrong - minus the persian rugs.

I follow in his wake. Hands white-knuckled around the handle bars, head down and onward. This here Camino won’t cycle herself so she won’t.

You know what the Marines say: “No man left behind.” Now, I’d be lying if I didn’t confess to a pang of guilt. But then, I reassure myself, Harry’s a hardy buck from Cookstown, County Tyrone. A man of the world who speaks fluent Español and French. And the three of us had soldiered together on the Gaelic football fields of London for Fulham Irish: This pocket rocket can jab, jab, uppercut with the best of ‘em.

I smile and think, actually, it’s the human traffickers I’d be more worried for.

The 3 Amigos: On the road again

The Idea

I can’t remember whose idea it was to do the Camino De Santiago, or as it’s known in the Queen’s Inglesa, the way of St. James. It’s a series of pathways leading to the shrine of the apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in north-western Spain. Legend has it the remains of the apostle James himself are buried.

A key tenant of the whole thing is the many ways to Santiago. There’s more than one way to get to that ol’ Cathedral on time.

And I definitely can’t recall whose idea it was to do it on bikes.

I don’t even know if it was a mid-life crisis kind of thing. Exactly what kind a meaning an atheist, an actor and an accountant would derive from a saddle sore arse across Northern Spain escapes me. But, you know yourself, life is suffering. Apparently.

At best, we’d make some memories and gather some yarns. At worst, we’d get out of London for a week.

They say if you’re tired of London, you’re tired of life. Well, we weren’t tired of life, but we wanted to get out of dodge for a spell. And get out for something different. Something with a bit of meaning to it. We’d kind of tested the waters as a three-man touring posse by doing the Isle of White for a long weekend and the craic was good. So, we decided to venture a bit further afield.

The Camino de Santiago wouldn’t be the first port of call for three thirty-something Paddies in search of a bit of soul, but maybe that’s why we liked it.

Given there was an avid atheist among our ranks, I can’t say that it was on religious grounds. But, as I always said to him, for a man who didn’t believe in Santa Claus, he spent a lot of time talking about Christmas if you know what I mean.

My faith at the time was probably best summed up by Verbal’s line in that scene from The Usual Suspects where he talks about whether Kaiser Söze exists or not: “I don’t believe in God – but I’m afraid of him.”

And we couldn’t be talking about our failed love lives to while away the kilometres and that’s for sure. There’s only so much tragedy a man can process with a sore arse and the wind in his face.

So, in the last week of April 2015, we landed in Pamplona, the home of the Festival of San Fermínthe, or the bull run to you and me. A place made even more famous by Hemimgway, as the setting for his debut novel.

And before Hemingway, Pamplona was made famous by the Michael Jordan of pilgrims - Ignatius Loyola. The founder of those Jesuits, God’s very own storm troopers, was literally one of the last men standing trying to keep the city from falling to the French in 1521. But he wasnt’ standing for long, when a canonball took the legs from under him.

So, as good a place as any to start our adventure. We checked into our hotel and prepared ourselves for the pilgrimage ahead.

Bull Run

At first light we bursted out the gate like three braisen bullocks. The first few kilometres were a doddle. But, once we got into open country and the route itself, it was downhill all the way to Estella.

Well, actually, more like uphill.

It’s not unfair to say that around lunchtime on day two, we were fuck tired and demotivated. A dangerous combo. But that was nothing like the embarrassment we were about to feel. It didn’t escape us that the route we were on was more suited to a mountain goat than a mountain bike.

But, we thought: “Sure this is all part of the Camino. We have to suffer to reach our destination.” If there’s no suffering, then the final destination won’t feel like it’s earned, and you won’t hear yourself tell all and sundry on your triumphant return: “Ah yeah, the terrain was cruel, but we suffered through and soldiered on regardless maaaaan.”

That is until a fellow pilgrim, almost knocked for six by Harry’s chicken wing elbows as he overtook him, gave us the hard truth. The path we were on was for walkers, not for bikes and we should kindly fuck off to the main road.

Now, I have to say, this was the first point I began to question the integrity of our fellowship. Three university-educated men, out in the world, fending for themselves, were the only three gobshites in Northern Spain who didn’t know this here Camino path wasn’t designed for bikes.

At first, I was relieved. On the up and down journey thus far, some of the little rolling hills were so steep and narrow we spent half the time walking alongside the bikes. And it was during those moments I found myself questioning the wisdom of this pilgrimage.

Harry was quick to point out that Paudge was the designated route planner. And rightly so. The man knew the inner workings of Google maps like Picasso knew his way around a canvas. Because, let’s face it, you might not have God in your life, but for everything else, there’s Google.

Anyway, I was inclined to agree. Although, all along the route Harry was nudging Paudge – who also happened to be his housemate and landlord - about the rent increase he’d recently introduced, without much negotiation. Nothing scathing mind you, but every time we went up yet another steep hill, Harry would lament this here wee hill was nearly as steep as Paudge’s rent increase. And there were a lot of steep hills. Now, I’m no Uri Geller, but I could sense a sinew of tension in the air between them.

That night over paella, there was no headway on a rent decrease for Harry, but we cleared the air and rechartered our course.

And by the time Harry went AWOL, we were maybe two to three days into that freshly chartered course.

And that’s life, right? Sometimes you start out on a road and down the road you realise you might be on the wrong road.

There was only one hitch. Our new roadside route wasn’t half as scenic. Let’s be honest, you peddle on one motorway lay-by, you’ve peddled on them all. Instead of winding through hills and wide-open fields, we were going from town to town like a poor man’s three man circus.

And that’s when Harry went AWOL.

Crossroads: To the next chapel and beyond.

AWOL

Looking back now, Paudge and I should have seen it coming. We were of a similar mind. Treating each day like a stage of the Tour de France. Head down, pedal like you’re late for midnight Mass and just get through. Get to the next town and then rinse and repeat.

Harry was more of a Sunday driver. He might be an accountant, but I always felt he was an anarchist trapped in the body of an accountant. If he was a character in The Shawshank Redemption it would be Andy Duffrane. I could see him in that scene, you know the one where Andy goes into the Warden’s office, puts on Le Nozze di Figaro on the loudspeaker and sits back with a smile on his face? Yep, that would be Harry. I always fancied a crack at the role of the Warden myself, but that’s a story for another day.

So, when Harry went AWOL, naturally, we were worried. So much so, we did what any thoughtful, caring friends would do. We pulled up at the first bar we could find. Which happened to be the Britannia “El bar” in Palas De Rei, ordered dos cervezas from the barkeep, congratulated ourselves on the ground we covered and gave out about Harry. Giving out about someone in their absence is thirsty work, so halfway through our second beer and some tapas to die for, Paudge gets a Whatsapp.

Paudge: Well holy Jaysus!

Me: Is he lost?

Paudge: Nope.

Me: Kidnapped?

Paudge: No, ya dope.

Paudge laughs out loud and hands me his phone and says:

Paudge: Press play there.

It’s a video of Harry taking penalties in a small goal in a small field and giving live commentary as he’s doing it. No sooner had I finished watching we hear a shout from across the road:

Harry: Well, what about ye, lads?

It’s the wild rover himself. It’s hard to miss him. He’s dressed like a cross breed of Jameroquai and Wacko Jacko, white shades and all.

Paudge: Where in the name a Jaysus did you disappear to?

Harry: Ye don’t know what ye’re missing out there lads. Did ye see that video? Haven’t lost it I tell ye. Left peg curler and all, did ya see that?

Me: Where did ya find the goals?

Harry: I just spotted them off the side of the road, in a wee village called Ferradal Novo there. I hollered at ye, but ye were gone up the road like a pair of March hares.

Paudge: Ferradal wha?

Harry: Novo. And, sure what’s the rush lads? And here, wait til’ yiz see this.

Yep, you’ve guessed it - photos of another chapel. Lots of them.

Harry: Beautiful isn’t it? And look at the colours on them flowers, sometimes ye have to stop and smell the roses lads. Here, I’m going in getting a beer in, I’m parched. Yiz want one?

It would have been bad manners to say no, so we nod and with that he’s up to the barkeep, nattering away in flawless Español.

Our fellowship restored.

The Meaning

The book All Things Shining explores how the ideas of sacredness and meaning have changed throughout the history of human culture. A crude summary of a central theme is that today, the autonomous individual is all-conquering and we no longer look to a God or King to bestow truth. Now, I’m all for that. I’m not sure I’d trust some buck who tells me he’s a God or a King, or even worse, both at the same time. But the flip side is the individual - you and I in all our infinite wisdom - must decipher what is meaningful. And that can be the high road to a kind of all-knowing narcissism: never mind some smooth-talkin’ snake oil salesman who has the codes to nuclear warheads.

But the authors point to meaning being outside ourselves. They point to the work of a craftsman, a shaper of metal, wood or stone and conclude that the goal is: “is not to generate meaning, but rather to cultivate in himself the skill of discerning the meanings that are already there.”

The journey was never quite the same after that. A lunchtime beer became a custom, a mid-afternoon penalty shootout a non-negotiable and if someone saw something shiny, we stopped. No questions asked amigo.

And it took a kid from Cookstown kicking a ball into a small goal, in some random field in Ferradal Novo, for an actor and an atheist to wake up and smell the café con leche.

The Roses

We made it to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostella in Galicia. Our legs weary, but our souls nourished.

I couldn’t tell you if the apostle James is buried there. But the Cathedral is mighty impressive and they put on an incense smoke show twice a day, that was worth every penny of the involuntary, voluntary donation.

In the nine years since the Camino, our fellowship has gone our separate ways. Scattered down different roads. London a distant memory now. We reside in three different countries, with wives, children and lives to live. And each year going by quicker than the one before.

Each of us peddalling to the next destination up ahead. Pedalling until we run out of road.

But not forgetting what that Cookstown chapel hunter taught us: Get off that bike and smell them roses let ye.