I’m walking around the back of the unmarked Gard’s car, eyes down, cheeks burning red with embarrassment.  I focus on Da’s blue socks inside his black leather sandals as we pass one another at the boot.

Across from us, a pig lorry, muck splattered, whiteish-pink flesh bulging out between wooden slats, rumbles along slowly past the cut-stone wall of the mental hospital, shaking the blue Cortina. 

We open the front doors and sit into the squad car.

The car doors slam.

I sigh heavy-silently as I try to relax in the driver’s seat.

“Ah, sure you’d a never ben able for the streets in the town.  The traffic there is too much for a first timer,” Da steals the wisdom of my stoney refusal to reverse the squad off the bridge in front of our house and just magically start driving through town on my first ever driving lesson.

 He fast twist-nods his head, clenches his bushy eyebrows together and scowls at me.

“Take her handy now, even if it ‘tis t’offical car, we still hafta give her back in wan piece,” he aims a finger at my face.

He forces out a dry false laugh.

“An’ sure Westport’ll be there no matter how fast nor slow we go … it t’always is.”

I turn the key in the ignition to a harsh grating metal sound.

“Sure the … bleddy … engine is awready on!” Da slow-snaps.  “Did ya hear me turn it off? Huh? Huh?  I don’t know what sort owa driver ‘re you going ta be atallatallatall!”

Burning with shame anger; eyes on the tiny cars speeding along in the side mirror, nearly jamming the clutch through the car floor – as previously instructed – I grab the gearstick and slam it through all four speeds then back to first.

“Now inda…caa….”

The Cortina lurches into the gap I’d spotted in the row of tiny cars whipping along within in the mirror.

“Awright, awright, Janey-mackers, that was vury fast, take her steady now, steady, steady,” Da says, the angry edge from his voice supplanted by his ever-present anxiety. 

He spins around to look behind us, then settles back into his seat.

“An’ did ya ever hear tell a them things called in…daa…kators?” he adds bitterly.  

Eyes hard on the car – DIZ 479 – crawling along in front of me, I can sense Da lean-lurching forward in his seat, his legs flickering desperately for nonexistent pedals.

“We’re in traffic now, take-her-steady-take-her-steady, give that fella in front a ya some room … ora would ya looook … at who it is?” he sneers, “that bleddy fecker, sure he was tol’ be t’judge on Wednesday not ta drive ‘til he came inta the barrack with a doctor’s letter.  Watch out now, watch out, if he spots ‘tis t’unmarked behind him he’ll think we’re pursuin’ him – he’s got that big a notion of himself.  He might notice it ‘tis you behind t’wheel an’ make a fuss above in t’barrack.  Go azy now.”

We follow this bleddy fecker for a sweaty-twisty-turny-forever, me gripping the steering wheel like it ‘twas the life-side handle of death’s door. 

Finally, without indicating – “look at him, I bleddy well should …” I sense Da gritting his teeth, twist-nodding his head – the bleddy fecker turns up a boreen that I never noticed before in my twenty-one years of been driven over and back to Old Head.

With your man gone and with him the fear of getting caught driving the Gard’s car, I let my shoulders fall down from my ears, relax my death grip on the steering wheel.

The road is straight, no one in front. 

I push on the accelerator, feeling the low vibrations of the engine’s thrum through the sole of my right foot.

“Ah, sure this is azy enough,” I say, sighing, focusing on the road ahead.

“Go handy now, just cause ya have t’open road in front a ya, doesn’t mean ya have ta ate it up.  Take her handy now, slow an’ steady, that’s how you get through life, sloooow an’ steaaddyy!”

I drive on. 

It’s easy: Just keep your foot steady on the accelerator and look: The car goes where you’re looking all by itself.

“Go azy, go azy will ya!” Da snaps angrily.  “Yer the typical new driver, ya know how many cars with ‘L’ stickers I’ve pulled outta ditches in my time?”

I ease my foot off the accelerator, we slow down.

“Sure, if ya jus’ pay attention,” I counter.  “How would end up in the ditch?”

“Ohhhhooo, let me tell ya, that’s t’vury attitude a t’fella that ends up within in t’ditch!”

I give him a bitter twist-nod and drive on.

We’re zipping along past the Halfway House, me thinking of when it was an old, thatched pub before they modernized and went broke, when Da’s bitter voice bursts in:

“Oh, I see now we Stirling Moss behind t’wheel!”

“Wha… who do ya mean?”

“Will ya slow down will ya!” he nearly yells.  “Some farmer’ll come racin’ out owa field with a load a hay an’ t’ whole shaggin’ lot of us’ll be kilt!”

He slaps his hand off the dusty dashboard.

I slow down a bit, then a bit more as the sighs keep coming from the passenger seat.  Driving on, I adjust the heaviness of my foot on the accelerator in accordance with the number and strength of sighs.

Coming up over the top of Sheean, I get an odd sense of sweaty victory: There below me, as a result of just my tapping every now and again on the accelerator, is Westport nestled in below Croagh Patrick’s looming grey-black-triangular profile.

I breath out and relax my grip on the steering wheel.

Driving’s not as difficult as Da made it out, warning me about knocking down pedestrians and crashing into cars.  You just look and the car goes there.

“Now you’re drivin’ into a town,” Da’s anxious voice breaks in.  “Watch out, there’s no end a fools drivin’ around the towns a Ireland.  If that’s t’oniest thing ya learn from yer first drivin’ lesson, then you’re doin’ awright.”

Driving down Sheaan, a bit taken back by the power of gravity, further bolstered with passenger-sighs, I keep tapping the brakes.  The Starlight ballroom crawls past on the right; Knocknaranny House on the left; then on the right, the oddly named Father Angelus Park. 

The road twists suddenly, narrows way too much and there’s too many cars badly parked on either side of the street – their arses sticking out into the road.  Two young fellas in short pants burst out the door of the yellow sweet shop, dinging the Calor Gas sign dangling from the gas cylinder, they fire brown and white Choc Ice wrappers onto the ground.  An ould fella on a black bike wobbles along taking up so much room that when I go to pass, I cross the white line.

“What are ya doin’?” Da yelps.

“I’m … I’m or I wuz….”

I take my foot off the accelerator. 

The car shudders, lurches.

“Clutch!”

I jam in the clutch and the engine goes back to normal.

“Now go handy!  Will ya be able fer Westport atallatall?” I sense him twist-nodding hard.  “Go handy now, don’t forget which pedal is which or ya’ll run over some eejit staggerin’ outta the Castlecourt.”

We crawl down Castlebar Road.

From a side street darts a hefty woman on a Honda 50, a bulging black donkey-jacket wrapped around her torso by a piece of blue-nylon rope, her grey-blonde hair flailing out from under a red helmet.

“Stay back from that German wan, she’s as daft as March hare!” Da snaps.  “An’ a divil fer the courts she is too.  I seen her below in Achill givin’ judge Brennan a lecture on the law, an’ sure no wan could unnerstan a bleddy word she said, let alone the judge.”

I take my foot off the accelerator.

The car shudders, lurches.

“CLUTCH!”

I sink the clutch.

Smoothness.

Jaysys, I might get good at this!

I relax my shoulders as I drive the car up over the humpy bridge over the Westport river. 

The Westport crowd are bit too proud of their town, always putting out flowers and bunting to make it look special.  I mean it does look nice and orderly but that’s only cause the Brits built it specifically to look nice.  In Castlebar, the Brits hid the river in people’s back yards to get it out of the way, but in Westport they made the river all cutesy and part of the town.  When we got rid of the Brits down here in 1921, the Irish government probly shoulda knocked Westport down and then rebuilt it all fucked-up like other Irish towns.

I oh-so smoothly drive up Bridge Street.  As always, there’s rakes a tourists in Westport.  The French sneering out over their cups of coffee; Germans looking-at-but-not-buying the rain gear and gaudy plastic beach toys hanging outside of shops; Americans, hands on flabby hips, about to devour some restaurant.

All the way up Bridge Street I’m king behind the wheel, seven or eight miles an hours and not one shudder-lurch, though me left leg is getting fierce tired from pumping the clutch.

I nearly hit an Irish mammy dragging a screaming child behind her as they cross towards the big clock at the top of the street.  Now, the clock is nice, I mean Castlebar should get a clock like that.  We have a clock on Protestant Church, but I don’t know if it even works; there’s hardly any protestants left around to wind it up.  Anyways, we can’t be seen copying Westport and sure we all have watches.

I drive down Shop Street: That’s a stoopid name, couldn’t they think of anything better.  But I suppose our Main Street is kinda-sorta stoopid, even Chapel Street.  For sure, people should do more thinking before making stoopid street names.

Brimming with driverly-confidence, I pull up to the Octogen – now, this is taking the biscuit altogether.  Every other town in Ireland has a raggedy ould Market Square, but the Westport crowd had to go and double that, with four extra sides making an octogen. 

I mean it is much nicer and everything, but still – cop on!

There’s a fierce traffic jam cause the Council, who we can consistently rely upon to make good-fucked-up Irish stuff, turned the Octogen into a messed up round-about. 

There’s lost-looking tourists gawking out car windows for a pub and a strong drink after the twisty-turny roads out west; a Gateuax van, the driver’s arm dangling out the window, a cigarette jammed between his fingers; cranky Coveys scowling out the windscreens as they try to get home; a farmer pulling a too-wide-and-heavy-load a hay behind a battered-and-splattered, red Massey-Ferguson.

“Look at that fella now, no roll bar,” Da grits his teeth.  “An’ his wife’ll be above in the ‘ospital complainin’ t’doctors can’t put him back tagether when goes topplin’ down the side owa bog road! 

I wait and wait, not sure how to let the other drivers know I need to get the fuck through before my left leg gives out with all the clutching.  But there’s no end a cars and lorries.  Even a bunch of bony-tanned foreigners in full rain gear on bicycles with bulging saddlebags won’t let me in.

“Go on, go on, them bleddy tourist’ll never let ya in, just drive inta them!”

“Them foreigners on the bikes!”

“Not atall, not them, the cars, just nose her out there an’ sooner or later some fool’ll let ya in.”

Being tired-legged, I not so good at nosing and clutching, but eventually a white Hiace van stops for me.

“Oho, the boyos’d stop for an unmarked awright!  They’re well useta seeing this car pull up at the campsite!” Da snort-laughs.  “Gwan around this circle an’ go straight for the hill, don’t go right.”

“Not ta Old Head?”
“No, no, go straight I said!”

I drive up the fierce steep hill, keeping my foot heavy on accelerator.  

It feels good to have control of all this power: The rapid vibration of the engine transmitting into the sole of my foot.

“Pull over now,” Da says like as if pulling over is just a regular thing. 

“I…I can’t … I mean, it’s fierce steep, the car’s achually goin’ very fast, how would I do ….”

“Just turn the bleddy steerin’ wheel inta them open spots an’ put your foot on the brake.”

Disbelieving, I direct the car under my control into a place on the side of the street where no one’s parked cause it’s all double yellow lines.  The engine slows fast as I ease foot my off the accelerator.

The car shudders and lurches heavily.

The vibrations coming through the sole of my foot stop. 

The low two-storey houses beside us confusingly move up the hill.

“BRAKE!” Da yells and handbrake croaks.

“Good God almighty did ya think cause ye’re such a great driver that yer exempt from gravity?” he snaps.  “The minute … the car stops, pull the handbrake!”

He slaps his hands together.

“It doesn’t matter where ya are, up a hill, down a hill, on the flat – what if a train ran into the back a ya?”

He wags a finger in my face.

“You’re responsible for where your car ends up.  Handbrake on, ev…ury time!  I don’t care what else ya learn today, but that’s the most important thing about driving – the handbrake, ev…ury … time.”

Sweat gushes out every pore in my skin.  But at least the houses stopped moving.

“Now, come on, come on, we’ll do a hill start.”

“Well, I haven’t done a start start yet, what’s a hill start?”

“Come on, come on, it’s exactly what it says, I’d a thought a lad fresh outta UCG could understand plain English,” he snorts out a fake laugh.  “It’s a matter of balancin’ the clutch against t’accelerator.”

He holds up both hands and slowly moves one forward, the other back.

“‘Tis like a dance nearly, let the clutch out,” he moves his left hand back, “an’ tap the accelerator, just the tiniest bit.”

The right hand just kinda-sorta moves without moving.

“Now come on, come on, what if a cattle lorry comes up t’hill  and sh… stuff splatterin’ outta it an’ us stoppin’ it from gettin’ outta here?”

Blindly, like I seen cops do on the telly when they jump into the squad to chase the bad guys, I grab the key in the ignition and turn it.  The engines coughs to life, the car jumps forwards, then slams back, the engine dead.

“Will ya put in the clutch, in … the name a God will ya!” Da snaps angrily.  “Sure, that’s the first thing ya need to do.  Clutch, key, petrel … well that’s t’accelerator.  Come on.”

Pushing down the clutch with one foot, the other just barely on the accelerator I turn the key.  The engine springs to life and the now familiar vibrations return.

“Now let out the clutch sloo….oowly.”

I hear a click and squeak-croak from the handbrake – Jaysys, what’s going on with that?

Keeping every ounce of mental energy focused on the soles of my feet, I ‘dance’ with the clutch and the accelerator.  As the car moves forward a foot, I hear the handbrake croak.  In we pull to the open space.  Letting the clutch all the way out, I push the accelerator harder.

“No-no-no!” Da snaps.  “Stay here.  Hit the brake, clutch!”

I hear him pull the handbrake.

The car stops moving, the engine thrumming through my foot.

“Now, you do it all, includin’ t’handbrake.  ‘Tis just like what ye’re doin’ with yer feet, only now ya add in t’handbrake, jus’ let it off slo…owly. ”

“Nah, we can … I’ll learn this some other day.”
“Naaah!” he shakes his head a rake.  “Oho, no, ya won’t be burnin’ out my clutch!”