The Salt Path Page 14

  ‘And they’re going to see him perform in St Ives.’

  ‘Writers don’t perform, do they?’

  ‘Could be a book signing or something, but you wouldn’t call that a performance.’

  ‘Corker. Whoever he is we might even get to meet him.’

  ‘Don’t know if I want to now, quite like the mystery.’

  We were hanging over the edge of Hell’s Mouth to see the seals on the rocky shore beneath, grey forms lying in the sun or dropping into the water, so lucky to have caught a moment of silence between the tourists that walk here in droves from the car park and beach café. An ozone wind rushed over the edge, bringing the creatures’ deep, sorrowful calls echoing up through the rocks. Their sadness was surely an illusion, a human interpretation of the animals’ noise. The sound held no sense of doom, or longing; they were probably bickering over space, living and dying between the rock and the sea. Not emotion, just an echo of the low tone of life.

  We moved away as more tourists came, past Godrevy Lighthouse, glittering in the sun as it reflected from the sea. A bright shining light along the endless headlands all the way back to Trevose Lighthouse and possibly, faintly, in the far, far distance, Hartland Point. It was impossible to think that we were the same people who had stood at Hartland Point, with its bunting café; less still the broken shells that had stepped off the bus in Minehead. And before that? Out of reach, too far away now, our home had drifted out of range. It existed, but the distance made it untouchable. The raw, jagged, visceral pain of loss had gone, but the memory of it was still there, if I closed my eyes and let it come. It wasn’t at Godrevy though; it had been left on another headland, the pain was only in the echo.

  The wind picked up, whipping the sea into a frenzy. Hayle Beach stretched for miles ahead, basking in the white glow from St Ives, clearly in view now across Carbis Bay. We walked easily across firm sand, not like the grasping, soft horrors of Perranporth, our eyes always on the sea as it closed in quickly, rising and crashing in froth and spume. Herring gulls calling daylight calls, tossed up by the air currents, mocked our slow progress. Kite surfers lifted from the waves, harnessing the air and the water, and, just for a second, hanging between the two, free from both. At low tide and with extreme care it’s possible to cross the mouth of the River Hayle, but as soon as the strong currents start to fill the estuary it becomes a deadly trap. The tide pushed us inland and we followed the path along a string of tiny wooden shacks, gilded with shells, buoys, driftwood and collected beach debris. I could have lived in a little wooden hut, a tiny blue shelter for the winter that was coming. The summer visitors were thinning with the shorter days and most of the shacks were empty, soon to be shuttered against the storms to come.

  The path disappeared into a concrete sprawl near the old quay and then became a pavement that would follow the side of the road for miles. Paddy says some walkers opt to miss the urban section between here and St Ives and get the bus. It was late afternoon and the walk would have left us stranded in a residential area after dark with nowhere to camp, so we opted for the bus. We had just enough money left for the fare and there would be a headland for the night beyond St Ives, so we queued at the bus stop.

  ‘Where are you guys off to? Getting a bit late in the season for backpackers.’ A twenty-something in long shorts and a hoody was in the queue ahead of us.

  ‘Land’s End, then it’s all down to the weather. We might just carry on.’

  ‘How long have you got?’

  ‘As long as we want.’

  ‘What, nothing to go back for? That’s amazing, doing this at your age. Just getting out there and doing what you want.’

  ‘It’s not quite like that.’

  ‘Oh, it is, man, if you haven’t got to go back, you’re free, living the life. Good on ya, guys.’ He got on the bus going the other way, but shouted back. ‘Live the life, old guys.’

  We sat on the bus; it was a strange sensation to move so quickly, covering a distance that would have taken us hours on foot in just a few minutes. The path had taught us that foot miles were different; we knew the distance, the stretch of space from one stop to the next, from one sip of water to the next, knew it in our bones, knew it like the kestrel in the wind and the mouse in his sight. Road miles weren’t about distance; they were just about time.

  We got off in St Ives, an hour before dark, on the wrong side of town from an open headland. It didn’t matter; nothing mattered. Moth still filled the air next to me and we were free, living the life.

  14. Poets

  Even in the falling light St Ives has a luminous quality. Facing north, but surrounded on three sides by the Atlantic, the town bathes in a high level of ultra-violet light reflected from the sea, giving the painted houses a shimmering unreality, even at dusk. Bernard Leach set up a pottery here in 1920, still in production now, followed by Barbara Hepworth and her giant sculptures. The light attracted artists from all over the world and the little fishing village became a colony of bohemian life. Then the tourists came, then the Tate St Ives art gallery, then more tourists, then the pilchards left and the town’s fate was sealed. A heaving Cornish tourist mecca, where the fishermen run boat trips instead of trawlers and there are more galleries than artists. But the light is still real, reflecting from the narrow streets and terraces of fishermen’s cottages in a white Mediterranean glow.

  ‘It’d be good to stay for a day, have a look around.’

  ‘We can’t; there’s nowhere to camp.’

  We sat on the harbour wall, watching the lights coming on. An old man in a ripped woollen jumper, short wellingtons and a beanie hat pulled down to his beard was packing away a collection of new lobster pots and a half-woven one. For a moment we could have been 1930s artists absorbing the atmosphere for a painting.

  ‘Do you fish locally, with your pots?’

  ‘I’m not a fisherman, my lovely, you won’t catch me on a boat.’

  ‘What are you doing with the pots then?’

  ‘Sell them to the tourists. Why, do you want one?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘You look like you need a campsite more than a lobster pot. Follow the village out past the Tate, get on to the coastal path and you’ll see a campsite up the hill on the left.’

  We left the path and headed up the hill, through a gate and into the final field in a long string of fields that made up a caravan and camping site above the town.

  ‘We can’t pay for this.’

  ‘No, but it’s dark: they won’t come and check now. We can leave early.’

  The tent fitted perfectly into the furthest corner of the furthest field, behind the gorse bushes. We slept as if we’d walked thirteen miles across hills and rocks, sand and tarmac. When we finally woke, we took a chance and stayed.

  I took my boots off in the shower block and peeled away the socks that had been on my feet for three days and nights. The big toe was flat, the nail lifting around the edges. I cut the loose nail away leaving a thin strip still attached to the middle of a pink throbbing toe. But the floor was warm: underfloor heating in a shower block – unheard of. I dried the socks with the hairdryer beneath a huge mirror, blowing sand, dust and skin across the immaculate counter top. The radio was loud with a clotted-cream voice talking about free petrol vouchers if your car displayed a Pirate FM bumper sticker. ‘Da da da da Pirate FM.’ The little jingle got stuck in my head, and even Bon Jovi belting out ‘Dead or Alive’ while I was in the shower couldn’t shift it.

  I dried my bird’s-nest hair, the warm dry air a forgotten pleasure. Living wild on the path we were always wet. Wet with sweat, wet with rain or just wet from the moist air. Our clothes were damp, always. Damp or wringing wet with sweat during the day, damp from the moist air during the night, damp and ice cold in the morning. There would be moments of dryness, when we sat in the sun, packs off, socks off, drying, to be put back on and wet again within minutes. It was as familiar as dryness is in normal life, so familiar we didn’t really think about
it any more. Maybe that was the reason why my socks hadn’t left my feet in days. We’d tipped over the edge from modern-day civilization to a state of just existing, surviving. The hot dry floor was spa therapy to the soles of my feet, and I stood for what felt like forever with hot feet, dry hair and Pirate FM. I like civilization. Da da da da Pirate FM. Fuck. If the shower block was this good, this site must cost a fortune. We needed to go before someone asked us for money.

  St Ives was heaving, a swarm of people squeezing through the narrow streets. Banners hanging overhead announced that St Ives September Festival would begin at the weekend, but the place was already full, people obviously checking in ahead of the crowds. We walked through the streets, springing in our boots without the weight of the packs.

  ‘You know, there should be some money in the bank.’

  ‘It’s lethal; there’s so much food.’

  We pressed our noses against the window of a seafood restaurant. We had a virtual breakfast of poached eggs and smoked salmon, almost followed by a cappuccino, not quite drunk when a waitress came out and asked us to leave as we were putting people off their food. Delis, doughnuts, ice cream, clotted cream, patisseries and pasties. Pasties. We went to the cash machine.

  Balance today: twenty-five pounds and sixty-two pence. Available to withdraw today: twenty pounds. Why so little? There was nothing we could do about it; we had none of our tax credit details and even if we had we couldn’t afford the cost of the phone call to find out what was going on. We withdrew the twenty pounds and sat in silence in a tiny green park by the church.

  Moth put an arm round me.

  ‘We’ll manage. We did before.’

  ‘I know, but I really wanted that pasty. Let’s just wander round anyway.’ I was trying hard not to cry.

  ‘More noodles then. We love noodles.’

  ‘Yaaay. Love noodles.’

  The streets swelled and swayed with people and buskers, but the light seemed just a little dimmer. We followed the tiny lanes beyond the church and peered through the windows of an elegant hotel, waxed floorboards and painted through in tones of white with tongue-and-groove panelling in Nantucket blue.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘They’re the same colours I used in the kitchen of the barn. Don’t you remember?’

  A New Age trinket shop caught our attention, the window filled with bits of silver jewellery, crystals and dreamcatchers. A notice on the door said: ‘Tarot reading today’. We stared into the window, not really looking, just resting our eyes on a haze of sparkly things.

  ‘Would you like a reading?’ An old lady in jogging bottoms and a twinset held the door open for us.

  ‘No, no thanks, we can’t afford it.’

  ‘Well, come in anyway. All the business in town seems to be missing me – I’ll do a short one for you.’

  I took a step forward.

  ‘Okay, why not.’

  ‘No.’ Moth stayed on the doorstep shaking his head and wouldn’t cross. The lady put her hand out to him and guided him in.

  ‘I’ll just read for your wife. You can sit in.’

  We went into her booth in the back room, surrounded by curtains and knick-knacks, where she shuffled the cards and I picked out nine. She laid the cards down in turn.

  ‘Oh my, you have the sun at the centre of your reading, and the moon at the top. Your final three cards are Mother Earth, the arts and the scales. A prestigious, beautiful reading. Give time for what you know you must do and you will have what you desire the most.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’ She reached out to Moth and held his hand. ‘And you will be well. She has a long lifeline, and you’re in it.’

  We walked back to the sea and along the concrete sea-defence wall. An artist on the shore was balancing rocks end on end, sea sculptures in a gallery for viewing until the tide came in, while his audience dropped coins down a drainpipe into a bucket on the beach.

  ‘So, you’re going to live forever.’

  ‘And you’re going to be there with me.’

  ‘And you’re going to have whatever you desire.’

  ‘Let’s do it then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Buy a pasty.’

  There are lots of pasty sellers in Cornwall and most of them claim to either be the best, or the oldest, or the original. We bought one large pasty from a shop that claimed to be all three and sat on the harbour to eat it. Crowds of people filled the benches, gorging on bags of chips and ice creams. We dangled our feet over the concrete wall, while Moth ate his half of the pasty. The gulls were loud, cackling in angry, fast voices, perched on rooftops, railings and lamp posts. One particularly savage-looking bird was holding his ground on the boat-trip shed, his sea-glass eye fixed on us. I held the precious crumbly pastry close to me, wrapped round with its grease-stained paper bag. It really was the best pasty I’d ever eaten. Perfectly soft beef, potatoes and swede and just enough gravy not to run down my hand. I took a second bite, trying to eat slowly and make it last, always with one eye on the seagull. My hand left my mouth and I heard a rush of air as something scraped across my head from behind, and the pasty was gone. Dumbfounded, I held the empty paper bag as the boat-shed gull took off, calling raucously. What a fool. I hadn’t looked behind me. Do seagulls hunt in packs?

  ‘She said you’d have all you desire – didn’t say how long you’d keep it though.’

  ‘All right for you, you’d eaten your half.’

  ‘Oh, come on, you’ve got to admit that was funny.’

  ‘No.’

  Moth stood up and threw the paper bag in the bin.

  ‘Well, you can sit here and feel sorry for yourself. I need something from the tent. Don’t move or I won’t find you.’

  And he was gone into the crowd. There was a strange thing about the way he’d moved, smooth, straight, not stuttering with pain. Normal. Weird. Da da da da Pirate FM. We had barely been apart since we left Wales and I felt oddly dislocated, as if he’d stood up and taken half of me with him. A half-eaten pasty. The gulls massed near the fish and chip shop, not totally abandoning their instincts – they had a clear preference for fish – but would take anything given the chance. Swooping, snatching, they had occasional success. Da da da da Pirate FM. I tried to make up a ditty about St Ives. ‘As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with …’ No, that one’s already been done. What if he didn’t come back? Sick of me whingeing, he could just pack his rucksack and go. No, he wouldn’t do that; I had the money. Then it lowered on me, the roof beginning to caving in, the roof I’d held off with pit props of denial all summer. What would happen when he didn’t come back, when he left me behind for good? I’d always be a half-eaten pasty, never whole again. I hugged my knees and focused on the gulls, anything to keep the thought at bay. Da da da da Pirate FM.

  ‘I didn’t mean actually sit here.’

  ‘Well I have. What was so important?’

  ‘I needed Beowulf. C’mon.’

  ‘What?’

  We pushed through the crowds to a space where the street widened, where the buskers stood. He took up a spot near the deli and opened Beowulf, the so-familiar plain dark blue cover with the red writing.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘No, no, you can’t …’

  Moth leant against the wall, casual, as if it was the most normal thing in his world. But he always could tell a good story. He’d told stories in builders’ snap cabins, in queues for the bus, to children on his garden tours, to the visitors in our barn, to anyone who sat still for too long. Captivating people with his tales of everything from history to botany. But this was different. These were streets full of total strangers, not a captive audience. And a lot of them weren’t bucket and spade holidaymakers, they were art-savvy visitors here for the festival.

  ‘No, Moth …’

  ‘ “So.” ’

  Oh jeez. Cringingly embarrassed, I tried to back away. He’s always had such a loud voice, never one to whisper.

 
‘The Spear Danes in days gone by

  and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness …’

  A few people had stopped and turned towards him. Then two old men, arms folded, nodding. He was well into it now, oblivious to the crowd, back in the builders’ snap cabin.

  ‘ “Then a powerful demon, a prowler through the dark …” ’ He threw me his hat – surely he didn’t expect me to – and coins fell into it. Pound coins. I walked through the crowd and the coins came: twenty pence, fifty pence …

  ‘Have you got a licence?’ A voice pitched up from somewhere to the side of the crowd, which had expanded to nearly block the street. A licence?

  ‘ “ ‘Time and again, foul things attacked me …’ ” ’

  He closed the book.

  ‘So that’s it for today, folks, thank you to Seamus Heaney and Beowulf, and thanks for listening.’ And they were clapping, and clapping.

  ‘Well done, a great tribute, he would have been proud.’ One of the old men was shaking Moth’s hand. ‘Hope he’s looking down on the festival this week.’

  ‘Sorry, remind me, when did he go? I’ve been walking, lost track of things.’

  ‘Two weeks ago. A perfect, perfect tribute, thank you.’ The crowd dispersed and I shoved the hat under my fleece.

  ‘I didn’t know he’d died. I feel such a disrespectful tit.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d mind. Probably would have made him laugh.’

  ‘We should go. Did you hear that about a licence?’

  Back at the quiet end of the harbour we emptied the hat and counted the coins. Shiny, shiny coins. We counted them again. Then again. Twenty-eight pounds and three pence. Twenty-eight whole pounds! We jigged on the spot and jumped around laughing until we cried, re-enacting the scene.

  ‘I loved it when you swung round that post, so dramatic.’

  ‘Food, food, food, food.’

  We tipped our coins on to the Co-op counter, filling our bag with bread, fruit and green things, everything we’d craved that wasn’t noodles. A woolly jumper each from the charity shop and two cones of chips and we still had ten pounds to add to the twenty in our pocket. And five pounds still in the bank. Living the life.