The lady was nice – just not my kind of nice.

She asked too many questions and pointed too often to my foibles.

Though I did not know her name, she had an opinion on my weight, and voiced it; an opinion on my chosen time for breakfast, and disapproved of it; and likely an opinion on my use of chopsticks. This last point she kept to herself, as she watched me eat.

She was a middle-aged and elegant woman, with an adult son – tall and glowing on the genes and recipes of his mother.

Her husband hardly appeared. He was bearish, relaxing behind a folding screen, from which emerged the sounds of baseball, and the opening of his beer.

It is curious, in life, how we are marked most by those people we are first apt to despise.

***

I had arrived there in high spirits after a clammy, undulating hike. At the top of the hill, four adults – in-laws and a mother, perhaps – welcomed me into their air-conditioned garage for a ‘free restroom, water and ice-shavings’.

I was their only pilgrim of the day. The trail was becoming quieter.

The gentleman, speaking through an electrolarynx device, led their questions with the help of a dual-language cheat sheet. There was something moving in his rasping whisper which emerged only when his left hand manipulated the apparatus.

Where was I from? What age was I? Did I want matcha or tangerine-flavoured ice-shavings?

‘Matcha’ I said.

I am not yet ready to give up on the bitter, powdery aftertaste of Japan’s beloved, shade-green tea. Their welcome was so energetic and joyful, I had the idea to sing them an Irish song in return.

Mum took out her phone, and the first of three mini-concerts of that day took place.

***

The hotel lady’s bickering began almost immediately.

Japan has a confusing system of inside, outside and toilet shoes, conceived to honour demonstrative cleanliness. I was caught wearing her inside shoes, outside.

There is a certain tone of correction which makes me wince. Perhaps it ignites childhood memories of micro-humiliations, enacted by those who might know a system, and use that knowledge as a weapon.

She would serve her evening meal at 7pm, by which time the other guest would surely have arrived.

Upstairs, I got to arranging my kit and washing my clothes.

The ice-shaving man, without a voice-box, burst into my room. He had followed me down the hill and was full of contrition and desire. Mum’s recording of Danny Boy had failed, and this wouldn’t do. Would I sing it again?

And so, standing on a tatami mat in bare feet, with clothes strewn about, the second performance of the day occurred to an audience of one.

***

Her establishment had a pall of the ‘80s about it. It functioned, yet was creaking in the torpor of the late afternoon; a consequence of a deficit in money, not effort, I decided.

Traditional pictures and ornaments adorned the walkway to my room, which brought further darkening to the dusk now upon us.

I had noticed a picture of a koto – the giant, hardwood instrument which embodies the sound of Japan – in the reviews of her hotel. Even if you have never heard of the instrument, you know its sound from television and movies. I asked where the instruments were.

‘I will give a mini-concert after dinner’ she said, in the manner of a medic issuing exercises to be followed.

‘You must be losing weight with all the walking’, she added. This elicited zero response from me, which she took as invitation to continue.

‘Most pilgrims take their breakfast before 7am, but 7.30am is fine’.

I nodded and said nothing. Her food was spectacularly good.

‘What god do you believe in?’

Her question was prompted by the Harvest Festival which was now passing by our door with banging drums and a massive carved-wood float.

The question’s chief interest was the implied assumption within it. Perhaps the Shikoku pilgrimage is so obviously religious to the locals that a religious motivation seems obvious.

I took time, to be sure I answered with the truth.

‘Jesus Christ’, I said.

She nodded at my answer and repeated my words. ‘Jesus Christ’.

***

After her second guest had arrived and eaten, it was time for the concert.

She led us both to her music room, three times the size of my bedroom with three kotos in the foreground and a Buddha shrine behind Perspex glass at the back.

She had been a professional musician and singer once.

This music was her passion. Slowly, diligently, she tuned the giant, horizontal instrument, each string with a movable bridge. Unlike the more introspective harp where the strings are plucked towards the player, the koto’s sound is direct and sprightly, plucked outwards towards the audience.

She sang a traditional melody, ‘Sakura’, the lyrics of which consider the ephemerality and beauty of life through the metaphor of the falling cherry blossom. Her silvery voice was high, clear and precise. She began in unison with her instrument, and then the koto took a harmony line as well.

This woman, kneeling on the floor and singing her song, became both humble and royal to me, as her notes hung in the air.

I was transfixed by their beauty, and my luck in finding such a room, in such a home.