The Salt Path Read online

  Moth threw his pack down.

  ‘We have to go to Duckpool.’

  ‘Why, why, why do we have to go to Duckpool?’

  ‘Because on the map it’s got a bigger blue line, so it might not have dried up. And if it has, half a mile inland there are some houses. They’ll give us water.’

  I hated him, for reading maps better than me, and always being so bloody right.

  ‘And Paddy says there are toilets.’

  Steeple Point came out of the heat haze and then disappeared. The path followed the sheer edge of the point and then it too disappeared. We sat on the hot grass, our legs weak, mild nausea building, not just from heat exhaustion, but also from the view. The path followed the sharp edge to the point and then just disappeared. It had to lead somewhere, but wherever that was, it was going to be down a steep, near vertical hillside.

  Inching along the tightrope of air, wind and gulls, the path reached the nose of the point; then it turned abruptly left down a bank that appeared to fall on to a thin track far below. Every step a deliberate and careful act, clutching handfuls of grass as the loose stones rolled underfoot. It took a thigh-trembling, knee-crunching, toe-crushing eternity to reach the bottom.

  The toilet block was locked, and the stream had dried up.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  We dropped our packs and melted into the dusty ground.

  ‘Bet you’d like an ice cream.’

  The gravelly voice drifted over us like a wave of tormenting flies. We ignored it.

  ‘They don’t have any water left, but you can get an ice cream.’

  Moth mustered the strength to respond.

  ‘Yeah right, mate, course we can. And where are the ice creams? I can’t see any.’

  We stayed flat out, with our eyes closed, unable to move.

  ‘In the ice cream van up the road.’

  Slowly, we got to our feet. Just along the track was an ice cream van; it had no signs or jingling music, just a man selling ice cream from a van.

  ‘All I’ve got left are rhubarb-flavoured lollies.’

  We bought four and turned back to the man to thank him.

  ‘So what are you up to, carrying full packs in this heat? It’s been thirty-eight degrees here; cooler now, it’s dropped to thirty-four.’

  ‘Started in Minehead. We’re heading for Land’s End, maybe a little further.’ Thirty-eight degrees?

  ‘Really. Really.’ He hesitated, squinting into the sun and looking Moth up and down. ‘Have you arranged somewhere to stay tonight?’

  ‘No, we’re camping. We won’t make Bude, so somewhere between here and there.’

  ‘Really? I’m renting a farmhouse, about twenty minutes away. Come and camp in the orchard.’

  We sat in the back of Grant’s sleek 4 × 4 as he drove inland through the shade of high hedges. In his mid-forties, a tall, gaunt man with a bald head that glowed pink from the sun, white socks in his sandals at the end of thin pink legs. He explained that he rented the farmhouse with his wife and household staff. He seemed very interested in the people we’d met on the path, and the hospitality we’d received.

  ‘We’ve got a huge lasagne, so plenty of food; we’ll have a few beers and you might feel like telling me a bit more about what you’re really doing.’ All we heard was lasagne and beer. Suddenly our legs weren’t so tired.

  The picture-perfect stone house stood in an orchard, next to a stream, an oasis of cool greenness. We pitched the tent beneath the apple trees on perfectly flat mown grass.

  ‘Come in, have a shower. I’ll pour a beer.’

  The sense of age in the cool house made my chest tighten. Wide walls, low dark beams, open fires: it was as if I’d walked back through my own front door. Think of something else, think of something else. It was a near physical struggle to put the sense of loss back in its box.

  ‘The shower’s through there in the back porch. Then come and meet the girls.’

  I drank pints of water straight from the tap; then I stood in the shower with my mouth open. The water ran like mud from my hair as I washed it over and over with expensive shampoo and drenched it in conditioner for the first time in weeks. It made little difference; the large mirror above the sink still shone a battered reflection back at me.

  In the kitchen three beautiful young women greeted us and I was suddenly very aware that it wasn’t just my home I’d lost. I shook hands with a stunningly tall, curly-haired woman: the wife; then an immaculately bobbed, ivory-skinned nanny; and a floating, ethereal, white-blond PA. Standing on the cold slate tiles, I felt every inch a scruffy fifty-year-old, with ragged hair and a face like a lobster. Grant was opening beer bottles at the table, still wearing his white socks. Why were these gorgeous young women here? He caught my look, raised his eyebrows and carried on pouring the beer.

  The PA took Moth’s arm and guided him to the table, ladling a huge portion of lasagne on to his plate. I drank the beer. I hate beer, but it was the best thing I’d ever drunk. I followed it with a jug of iced water, while Moth was on the third beer. I hungrily shovelled in the lasagne, a pile of salad and half the garlic bread while the others were talking, then said yes please to seconds.

  The blond hair swished around Moth as she slid her hands over his shoulders and started to massage his back.

  ‘I used to be a sports therapist before Grant enticed me away. Would you like a massage? I can see you have a lot of tension in your shoulders.’

  Without a blink, he was on the sofa in the other room, while I ate more lasagne.

  ‘Tell me about yourself then, Grant.’ He had to have something special, and it was soon evident what it was. He told a long tale of leaving home as a teenager to walk across Europe with a knapsack. Living on his wits with only a piece of bread and cheese in his pocket until he reached Italy; finding himself in a vineyard, where he lived for years, sleeping in the barn or under the stars, learning everything he needed to know about wine. He eventually came home and started importing the wines he had encountered on his travels, trading from a disused warehouse, until he eventually became a multimillionaire and attracted all the beautiful girls that made up his household. So they were there because of the quality of his wine cellar, of course.

  The wife got up to leave the room.

  ‘Take no notice of him. He studied wine at night classes and his father got him a job with a merchant he knew.’

  Grant rolled his eyes at her as she left the room.

  ‘When I retire, I want to write. I believe I could be a great writer. But it’s a good story, isn’t it? I think that Moth, if that’s what he’s calling himself for this trip, could use it. It would be marvellous material for him, don’t you think?’

  I thought about Grant’s tale and why he felt driven to tell it. When you tell a story, the first person you must convince is yourself; if you can make yourself believe it’s true, then everyone else will follow. Grant wanted to be the person he had created: hard done by, struggling through life’s adversities, but making good on his own wits, rather than the son of a wealthy father with connections. Our story was born out of self-protection. The public’s perception of the homeless immediately assumes drink, drugs and mental health issues, and prompts fear. The first few times we’d been asked how it was that we had time to walk so far and for so long, we had answered truthfully: ‘Because we’re homeless, we lost our home, but it wasn’t our fault. We’re just going where the path takes us.’ People recoiled and the wind was silenced by their sharp intake of breath. In every case the conversation ended abruptly and the other party walked away very quickly. So we had invented a lie that was more palatable. For them and for us. We had sold our home, looking for a midlife adventure, going where the wind took us – at the moment it was blowing us west. At the end of the path where would we go? ‘We don’t know, just see which way the wind’s blowing.’ That met with gasps of ‘wow, brilliant, inspirational’. What was the difference between the two stories? Only one word, but one word that in t
he public perception meant everything: ‘sold’. We could be homeless, having sold our home and put money in the bank, and be inspirational. Or we could be homeless, having lost our home and become penniless, and be social pariahs. We chose the former. Easier to have a brief passing conversation; easier for them, easier for us.

  The more times we repeated the lie, the less we felt the grief. If we told ourselves the lie for long enough, would the loss fade away, until eventually we could face it without pain? Maybe I was doing that with Moth’s illness too, or did I genuinely believe the doctor had made a mistake? It was hard to tell. Rather than the walk being a time to get our thoughts straight and make a plan, it had become a meditation, a mental void filled only with salt wind, dust and light. Each step had its own resonance, its moment of power or failure. That step, and the next and the next and the next, was the reason and the future. Each combe climbed out of was a victory, each day survived a reason to live through the next. Each lungful of salt scouring our memories, smoothing their edges, wearing them down.

  ‘Moth is his name, but he’s not a writer.’

  ‘Okay, mum’s the word, have some more lasagne.’

  I ate while Grant poured a glass of red wine; the rich aubergine purple swirled through the glass, my head spinning from the aroma alone.

  It was only when the glass of wine had mostly gone that I noticed the wife and nanny had gone too. Grant and I went through to the other room; Moth lay topless on the sofa as the PA massaged his back and the nanny rubbed oil into his feet. The wife sat on a chair, flicking through photos on her digital camera and then taking more shots of the scene.

  ‘Girls, you’re keeping my guest from me! I need to hear his stories, or maybe a poem before bed?’

  I may have had two glasses of wine, but it would take more than a massage to get a poem out of Moth. He sat up and put his T-shirt back on.

  ‘A poem? What, you mean from me?’

  ‘Don’t be coy, we all know. And now I’ve got some great photos to go with the story.’

  ‘I don’t quite get it.’

  ‘Never mind, come and have a glass and tell us about you. For a start, your name’s not Moth, is it?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Brilliant, brilliant, but we’ll just call you Simon.’

  ‘Call me what you like, mate, we’re just grateful for the hospitality.’

  ‘And you don’t mind if I use the photos? Nice little publicity thing?’

  ‘Nice? Don’t quite get how a scruffy old bloke sitting on a sofa is publicity for a wine company, but go for it.’

  ‘So where’s your next gig?’

  The third glass of wine was making everything blurred. Sleep was about to put my head on the table. Moth drank a second glass, and I could see he had no more idea what Grant was talking about than I had.

  ‘Bude. We’ll be in Bude tomorrow, then heading for Boscastle … Can’t remember what comes after that.’

  ‘And will you be at the Minack?’

  ‘The Minack? Where’s that?’

  They all exchanged looks, laughing and patting Moth on the back.

  ‘Oh Simon, you’re so funny. Go on, give us a poem before we go to bed.’

  ‘Well, I do know one my dad used to recite in the works cabin on the building site.’ Moth took a deep breath and sat back in his chair.

  ‘The boy stood on the burning deck.

  All but the goat had fled …’

  I’d heard it so many times; I really needed to sleep.

  ‘You are a corker. This is going to make such a good story.’

  I fell asleep within seconds on the flat, soft ground beneath the apple trees in the orchard. We were woken only by apples falling on the tent and Grant saying that bacon sandwiches were waiting in the kitchen.

  After they had all taken selfies with Moth and we were stuffed full of bacon sandwiches, our packs full of apples and water, we left, Grant dropping us back on the path.

  ‘So, Simon, what happened in the other room?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, what happens in the orchard, stays in the orchard. More importantly, who is Simon? That wine went straight to my head, but still, that was weird.’

  ‘ “What happens in the orchard”? You can’t get away with it that eas—’

  ‘And a poet. Do you think it’s the hat? I look a bit like my Irish grandad; maybe I look like a wandering Irish poet. The girls thought I had very artistic hands.’

  ‘The girls what …?’

  ‘And they wanted me to go and read to their friends when they’re back in London.’

  ‘Why, are they illiterate?’

  ‘No, read poetry.’

  ‘You’ve never read poetry, unless you count Beowulf, or your dad’s poem about the goat.’

  ‘I’ve always had a feeling for poetry.’

  ‘No you have not. Ha, is that what they called it, feeling for poetry?’

  ‘That’s all you think about; what happened between the girls and me was on a much higher level.’

  ‘Get lost, Byron, or shall I call you Simon now?’

  ‘I can take abuse; we poets are used to being misunderstood.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  Paddy Dillon walks from Hartland Quay to Bude – one of the most remote and difficult sections of the whole path – in a day. It had taken us three. But we survived, as we were surviving all the boulders of pain that had brought us to the path. Things we thought we would never be able to bear were becoming less jagged, turned into round river stones by the movement of the path. It was still a heavy burden to carry, but just a little less painful to hold.

  The mornings weren’t getting any easier though. I was still crawling from the tent in a scrunch of agony. My ankles cracked with a hot, grinding sensation that felt as if the bones were rubbing together, wearing themselves away. My hip hurt until my pack was on and I’d walked a couple of miles and I tried not to think about my big toe. Maybe it had been the lasagne, or the red wine, or the massage, or the thought of bacon, but Moth had got out of the tent that morning without any help. He was losing weight fast, his lean frame becoming really lean. Was he moving just a little more easily or was that me hoping for a miracle?

  The path dropped into Bude, and us with it. There would be money in the bank, and a supermarket for affordable food to last the week; we’d walked for an hour without noticing as we imagined fresh bread and fruit. Bude is a quiet little town without the bustle of Ilfracombe; we followed the path as it skirted the outer edge, diverting in for the cash machine. I inserted the card, expecting the usual sum of money to be available, but instead my gut twisted in a strange spasm. Eleven pounds. How could there only be eleven pounds?

  ‘What are we going to do, where’s it gone?’

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

  I took the ten pounds offered by the machine, holding my hand by the tray, desperate that there would be no mechanical change of heart between the instruction and the action.

  We stood in the bank and listened to the clerk explain that the usual sum of money had gone in, but a direct debit payment had gone out. How could we have forgotten to cancel it?

  ‘But it’s a standing order for insurance on a property we no longer own. Please, can’t you refund it?’ we pleaded. We knew it was hopeless but we had to try.

  ‘I’m sorry, but that’s between you and the insurance company.’ Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could we have forgotten to do that? ‘Do you know any of the insurance details? Maybe they’ll refund it?’

  We didn’t, and even if they did it would be weeks before we got it back. Fuck. ‘Can I withdraw the other pound, please?’

  We should have sold the last of the furniture, instead of storing it in a friend’s barn. We might have got a few pounds for the pine cupboard we bought in an auction when we moved into our first house. Or the kitchen table that had held everything of family life, from Rowan sleeping on it as a baby because she wouldn’t sleep anywhere else, to the last meals before they left home; it was
where we’d planned our future and agonized when we lost it. We could have sold it. Or Dad’s chair, or Moth’s family pictures. But we couldn’t let go.

  ‘What the fuck are we doing?’ I sat on the wall outside the bank, unable to hold back the tears of self-pity any longer. ‘We’re lost. No money, no food, no home. You need to eat; you’re ill, for fuck’s sake. Why didn’t I get the procedure right? Bloody juvenile mistake. Now I’ve dragged you out here when you should be somewhere safe, resting, not hauling a bag round the edgeland of life. And to where? What then? What fucking then?’ I couldn’t stop myself, couldn’t hold it in any longer. I shook with sobs and snot. ‘And those girls, so young and beautiful. I used to look like that; you used to want me. I don’t blame you, I don’t, I’m fat, ugly and old. Don’t blame you, it was there on a plate, but why don’t you want me any more?’ I rocked with gasping self-pity.

  Moth’s arms wrapped me up, as they always have.

  ‘You know what happened in that room? I had the best massage I’ve ever had, and they talked about how they have a great life with Grant – wine-buying trips and parties and they never want for anything. They wanted to take photos because they thought they might use them on the company’s social media. Don’t know where they were going with that, makes no difference to us. I was just teasing you earlier; it was fun to see you pretending not to mind.’

  ‘You arse.’

  ‘And I still want you; I just don’t feel like me any more. Maybe when things change, I’ll feel different.’

  ‘You won’t. I’ll still be fat and ugly.’