pilgrim's progess

Climbing a rocky path in the Wicklow mountains.

I'm imagining a soliloquy for a character from my movie The Rah Thing.

He's an atheist.

He has a near death experience and finds himself on a mountain path, trudging upwards.

We might film it here.

He'll be grunting and saying things like:

"Life is useless struggle."

"Life is a rocky path with no point to it."

"There's no God."

Then he'll turn and see the magnificent sweep of the mountains, the valley and the lake.

He'll exclaim to himself musingly: "It all seems hopeless until suddenly you look back and see the beauty of the valley, the impossible beauty you could never otherwise have known, you could never have seen any of this without struggling to get up here, you could never have felt what you feel now without going through everything that happened before, and you realise that this is why God permits the pain, because there are certain rare beauties you could never have known, you could never have really savoured, without the suffering of a life time."

I pause well pleased with my own and the Creator of the Universe's handiwork.

"Wow Lord," I breathe, speaking as the real me, not the character from the film. "I suppose if this was some sort of spiritual allegory, some distraction would emerge right this moment to lure me off the path. What's coming Lord?"

In John Bunyan's famous allegorical tale Pilgrim's Progress, all sorts of characters show up at pivotal moments to lure the hero into error.

There's Worldly Wiseman, Mr Brisk, the monster Apollyon, and Madame Bubble.

I wouldn't mind meeting her.

There's other characters too, heavenly ones, who try to help the pilgrim along the rocky path.

But I wasn't really expecting anything.

This happened.

A man came racing towards me over the rocks.

He was youngish, tough, bearded, bare chested, wearing combat trousers and hiking boots.

I couldn't believe he could hold his balance on the stones.

He passed me at a rate of knots.

"How do you do it? How can you hold your balance?" I called after him.

"I was raised in mountains like these," he shouted back still doing the antelope routine.

Reddish hair.

Couldn't place the accent.

He might have been Irish.

Ahead of me up the path a woman picked her way towards me over the rocks.

She was shapely and sure footed but a little slower than the man had been.

Even from a good distance, I could tell she was a tad sylph like.

Must be wearing one of those close contoured body things.

Skiers and swimmers sometimes have them.

Glorified track suits really.

Her one was really well made though.

She drew level with me.

Except for a pair of hiking shoes, she was splendidly stark buck naked.

Most people can't really carry off full frontal nudity in the mountains or anywhere else.

She could.

"Hi," she said with a hand on her hip.

It would have been more effective, more of a Kodak moment I mean, if I hadn't intuited the bleeding obvious that Ivan Man Boob springing along a hundred yards further down the trail was her boyfriend.

"Good evening to you," I said brusquely.

I didn't feel equal to any further conversation.

I scrambled past her over the rocks and kept climbing.

"Madame ****ing Bubble," I muttered to myself when the power of rationcination returned. "Who wudda thunk it! Who would have rationcinated it! Bloody hell!"

Presently I was alone once more in the wilderness.

"Lord you'll have to forgive me," I told the Deity, "but with the best will in the world I think I'm going to have some difficulty noticing your wonderful mountains for the rest of the evening."

Panting and mildly discombobulated, I reached a bend in the trail and found two conservatively dressed (by Wicklow mountains standards) congenial looking American tourists standing in silence.

The air hung heavy with things unsaid.

I could guess what had silenced them.

"Thank heavens," I gasped as I reached them. "Thank heavens there are some people on these mountains actually wearing clothes today."

The Americans fell around laughing and even in these circumstances I was rather pleased that a joke had gone over.

I kept climbing for another few hours.

I was not inclined to risk meeting Lady Godiva or Ivan Man Boob again.

It was dusk as I picked my way back down the trail.

Surprisingly I really had managed to stop thinking about what had happened earlier.

This is because I was now in an imaginary phone conversation with Hollywood director Mel Gibson which had all my attention.

Gingerly I navigated the downward path. In precipitous terrain and fading light, the circumstances weren't ideal for conducting a phone conversastion.

But when you imagine Mel Gibson ringing you up to ask for the film rights to your movie, you take that phone call.

Holding my mobile phone to my ear, trying not to fall on the rocks, I enunciated aloud first my voice and then Mel Gibson's and so on as the conversation developed.

The conversation between me and Mel Gibson went as follows: "Look Mr Gibson. Look. If you want the film, it's yours. I'm not going to say no to you. If you want the film, you've got it... Right James old cobber. That simplifies things. And call me Mel... But you've got to consider the risks. The IRA are not known for their sense of humour about themselves. They might not approve of a film that makes fun of them... Cut the crap James. To hell with the IRA. Bunch of druggies. I mean drongos... No, you're okay, they're druggies too... James, I want this script to happen. Two days ago I saw a film crew up the road who could make this movie. You wanna see it on the screen, you talk to me... Okay, okay. I'm saying yes. I just think we should meet before you commit. You'll know in about thirty seconds whether you can work with me or not... I wanna do this movie Heelers. My instincts are good on this sort of thing. I'm not going to let a sure fire hit pass me by... All I'm saying is don't let your enthusiasm for the script draw you into a shooting match... Strewth James you're more of a neurotic than George Miller. This thing is gold. It's like a comedic soft centred Mad Max. A soundtrack movie. A road movie. An homage. It's got so much going for it... Hang on Mel. I've a call on the other line. Hello... James this is Steven Spielberg. Are you talking to Mel Gibson about your film?.. How do you know that?.. James, out here, we know. "

At this point I looked to my right.

In the half light quite close, I saw Lady Godiva still naked and Ivan Man Boob still half naked. They were sitting motionless on a rock, presumably enjoying the cool caress of the mountain breeze.

They were looking at me as though they'd heard every bit of my conversation with Mel Gibson and Steven Spielberg.

They did not keep the bemusement from their eyes.

Amid the gathering shadows I could see little mocking Cheshire Cat smiles on their faces.

Yes.

Incredible as it may seem they both had the presence of mind and the cheek(s) to smile at me as if I should be embarassed about something.