The Salt Path Read online

  The lighthouse, the southernmost perch on the mainland, twittered, swooped and heaved with hundreds – or thousands – of swallows. As if gravity had forced them down to this point, their last moment of hesitation before they had to take to the sky and commit to a journey south. Were our farm swallows here? Had they spent their summer in the pigsty and were now waiting here with their new family, waiting for that moment when an irresistible force would lift their wings and take them towards the warmth?

  Moth stood up stiffly while I held his pack for him to put his arms through. Our eyes went back down to the path and we followed its pull north.

  17. Cold

  When do you accept that someone you love is ill? When a doctor tells you, or when you see it with your own eyes? And if you finally do accept it, what do you do then? Most sane people would instinctively care for them, relieve their pain, ease their suffering. I couldn’t do either. I couldn’t accept it, so I told myself it simply wasn’t true. He could have been in a hostel: dry, safe. Instead we were in a tent on Carrick Luz headland, another Iron Age fort, wind ripping in off the Channel, watching metal detectorists sneaking around in the dark, the Lizard Point lighthouse rhythmically lighting the sea every few seconds. We could have been camping in a friend’s garden, close to a hospital and within reach of a bathroom. But we peed in the dark, amongst the stunted blackthorn, wet with the spray caught in the wind and pretending he would never need a doctor. We could have been warm. Instead we were in a tent on a headland in wisp-thin sleeping bags, and it was nearly October.

  In the early light, streaks of white stratocumulus clouds raced onshore and a pod of resident dolphins were feeding within sight as we put on our rucksacks and walked.

  Sheltering in the Coastguard lookout on Black Head, we read a display about geology, the mind-boggling array of different rock strata that form the Lizard Peninsula. It seemed we’d spent the night on serpentinized peridotite incorporated in gabbros, but neighbouring on to peridotite, gneiss, troctolite, basalt, the Old Lizard Head Series schist faulting with the Meneage melange; it was a foreign language, or geology porn, depending which way your fancy falls. We walked a while chanting the names of rock formations until they all jumbled into one and the path went down into Coverack. Twenty-five pounds in our pocket, stocked up on rice, tuna and mini fudge bars, stuffed with a bowl of chips from the café, we carried on. Basalt, troctolite, gneiss, until we found ourselves inland on a long diversion to miss an obstruction, or landslip, or grumpy farmer, it wasn’t clear which. Peridotite, gabbros, the path left the fields and wound through a wood.

  Inland, just a short distance inland, and this was not the Cornwall we knew. Lush, warm, sheltered, welcoming. We couldn’t afford to stop at the Fat Apples Café, but the name got the better of us, and an arrow pointing to wild camping in a wood had to be followed. We pitched the tent on a grass terrace in the woods. Sheltered from the wind, the trees had grown to full height, woodland birds flitting in the branches and pheasants scratching beneath, leaves beginning to turn to shades of rust and yellow. It was an alien land after the cliffs; a moment of calm in a leafy biome, for only five pounds. We didn’t mean to eat in the café, but it was too tempting and we gave in to two forks and a vast plate of vegetarian joy.

  ‘Owner says you’re walking. Where’re you heading?’ Two Australians sat down at our table, followed by two mounds of all-day breakfast. One each. I tried not to breathe too deeply, the smell was so good.

  ‘Not sure now, just going with the weather. What about you?’

  ‘We’ve camped and done hotels to here. Getting colder though, so B & B all the way for us now. Falmouth next, drop the tent in a charity shop, then I’m going to the hairdresser’s, got to get my roots done.’

  ‘Wow, luxury. Haven’t seen my hair for days.’

  ‘You know what, gal, best not to look. Ha, wow, look at all this food. If I ate this much at home I’d be as fat as a pig. On this path all I want to do is eat, eat, eat. It’ll have to stop when I get home though.’

  Was I envious of their mass consumption of food and the prospect of a bed and a bath every night? The food undoubtedly, the constant background hunger was something I’d have happily exchanged for a regular meal, but we could survive without the bath and bed. Although I wouldn’t have refused a better sleeping bag. It was hard to leave the sanctuary of the Fat Apples; I could have spent the winter in their wood, using the cold tap in their outside toilet, but we probably wouldn’t have been good for business.

  Down the hill on the beach in Porthallow is a large carved stone block: the halfway marker to the South West Coast Path: 315 miles done, 315 to go. Don’t walk too far, and be careful on the stairs. Had Moth really covered 315 miles? Had I? Power-walking superhero Paddy Dillon passes this point on day twenty-four. On our twenty-fourth day we left Tintagel, a lifetime ago, another world. This was our forty-eighth day. By day forty-eight, Paddy’s arrived in Poole, taken the slow train home, hung up his boots, been to the pub, bored everyone with walking stories, mown the lawn and is already planning the next trip. At this speed we’d be getting to Poole after they’d turned the Christmas lights on, if we hadn’t succumbed to hypothermia in the night or wasted away first.

  The tide was in so we took the ferry across Gillan Creek. Hardly a ferry, more a wooden rowing boat through a time warp. Indian-summer warmth hanging over still water; children with fishing nets paddling in their underwear; shepherd’s huts on the bank of the river; the ferryman’s dog at the helm. Some sort of paradise. Moth was tired so we sat on a bench and soaked up the afternoon sun. Three more ferries to come over the next few days. We really shouldn’t have stopped at the Fat Apples; noodles were looking inevitable. We camped at the edge of a turnip field above the Helford River. The wild, exposed landscapes of the north so far behind us now, almost forgotten in the southern atmosphere of domesticated rurality.

  The morning was bright, soft early-autumn air hanging damp with dew and cobwebs, a light mist clearing as we pushed through a scrubby copse to a viewpoint overlooking the Helford River and made tea. Yachts drifted out to sea from the syrup-smooth ribbon of dark blue, all heading towards Falmouth through the quiet, fragile tranquillity. The silence was broken by a frantic rustling in the bushes, followed by a Dalmatian screeching to a skidding stop at the edge of the cliff.

  ‘Bloody hell, Buster, SIT.’ The dog stepped backwards away from the edge looking as shaken as a spotty dog can.

  ‘Oh, morning! Are we disturbing you?’ The dog’s owner was a Liverpudlian. ‘We always come to this spot, great view. Every year, but the bloody stupid dog never remembers. What are you doing?’

  ‘Having a cup of tea.’

  ‘Bloody good idea.’

  ‘Do you want one?’

  ‘Don’t mind if I do, make that two, two sugars each.’ The large man and his wife filled the small ledge.

  ‘There’s no milk.’

  ‘Oh well, we’ll have to manage. You should have camped with the shepherd’s huts on the bank, they wouldn’t have minded.’

  ‘Oh, do you know them?’

  ‘No.’

  Three squabbling Jack Russells towed another couple on to the viewpoint.

  ‘What’s going on here then, a gathering?’

  The Liverpudlian jumped in before we could open our mouths.

  ‘We’re having a cup of tea. Want one? You’ll have to wait ’til we’ve finished with the cups though. This couple are walking the coastal path.’

  ‘Where from, Falmouth?’

  ‘No, Minehead.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Somerset.’

  ‘No, you haven’t. That’s too far.’

  I handed them two mugs of tea; they drank it.

  ‘Yes, we have.’

  ‘No, you haven’t.’

  ‘We have.’

  ‘How come you’ve got enough time to do that then?’

  I heard Moth sigh and raise his eyebrows.

  ‘Because we have no job a
nd we’re homeless.’

  There was a lot of shuffling; the dogs recoiled; the women took a step back.

  ‘Well, we need to be off, thanks for the tea.’

  ‘Yeah, us too, thanks for that.’

  Within seconds they had all gone and Moth leant back on the bench.

  ‘Fancy some more tea?’

  ‘Can’t, there’s no water left.’

  We packed the stove away and took the ferry across the Helford River.

  Totally mistiming our arrival in Falmouth, it was dark when we hastily put the tent up by Pendennis Castle, too tired to care about the group of teenagers drinking cider on the rocks. They stayed, laughing and drinking, too wrapped up in their hormone-fuelled world to care about us.

  ‘Do you think that’s what Tom and Row are doing?’

  ‘Of course, they’re students. Well, they were.’

  ‘Have we abandoned them? We’ve talked about losing the house, but not really about you being ill and what it might mean. I’ve talked to them about everything, always. Every bump and scratch, every little heartache of their lives. But not this, not the biggest thing, not about what effect it could have on us all. It’s as if it’s too painful to even go there; the elephant in the room. None of us can say it.’ I turned over to face Moth in the darkness of the tent. ‘Do you think what’s happening to us, our family, will damage them? I can’t stand the thought that it’s going to cause them lasting scars.’

  ‘They don’t talk to you about it, because it’s you that has the problem, not them. They talk to me. We’ve talked frankly about it all. It’s going to be hard, it is hard, but they’re strong. It’s changing us all, and if you just try to face it, then maybe we can all cope. There is no elephant. Can’t be, we haven’t got room.’

  ‘Giraffe in the tent then.’

  ‘Ray, just go to sleep.’

  Students had returned to Falmouth University for the autumn term. The town was full of shiny young things, wandering the streets with a sense of studied Bohemian style, returning to the art school with carefully exaggerated nonchalance. Even compared to students we looked as if we’d been on the trail for a very long time. Moth’s camouflage trousers were held up in bunches by the belt on its last notch. His black T-shirt was brown with the shape of the rucksack stained into the back, his silver hair had bleached to shocking white and the stubble had become a beard. I’d worn the same pair of socks since St Ives, my short leggings over the long ones, the charity shop jumper growing bigger by the day and a bird’s nest on my head. I thought about our Australian friends somewhere in Falmouth getting their highlights done, eating vast meals, and realized I didn’t envy them at all. As we walked through the busy streets I was untouched by it, strong and detached, in a way that I couldn’t have imagined only two months ago; our path was passing through a different country to theirs.

  ‘Six pounds each? But we’re just foot passengers.’

  ‘Well, that’s what it costs so take it or leave it.’

  We walked away from the ferry and hung around the harbour trying to find a private boat going over to St Mawes, but there wasn’t one to be found, so we went back into town and bought four days’ worth of noodles, cutting the food rations so we could afford the ferry. Shouldn’t have gone to the Fat Apples.

  St Mawes swarmed with cream teas and wasps and the wait for the connecting ferry to Place Creek seemed unending. Dropped on the opposite shore we disappeared into the trees, like rabbits into the brambles, feeling more at home now in the undergrowth than on the street.

  The land dropped gradually away towards Greeb Point, smooth flat grass just below the brow, out of sight of the big house above. The moon climbed into a clear sky, just past full, polishing the landscape in tones of grey and silver. Dark, rich, smooth water lapped gently against the wet rock. Taking off our foul clothes, we slipped into the cold sea. As we pushed out from the ledge it eased us back and we had to swim away to hold still for a moment. Then Moth swam further out, diving under before returning.

  ‘You have to come out, you’ve got to see this.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s too deep.’

  ‘No, you have to.’

  Further from the rock, out into the moonlit water, the cold took a powerful hold.

  ‘Dip under and open your eyes.’

  ‘I can’t, the salt …’

  ‘You can.’

  I took a deep breath; then, under the water, fighting all my instincts, I opened my eyes. Instead of murky darkness, there were showers of white and silver dancing through the water, each swell sparkling with shattered, iridescent crystals of light. The moon, the source of it all, moving, swaying, refracted through the water to the sand and rock of the seabed. I went up to breathe and at eye level the water fizzed with the same light. Moth took my hand and led me further out. Then down again. The sand deeper below but still in sight, he let me go, his arms stretched wide. Scaled bodies hung barely moving in the water, reflected light shimmering on their skin, the moonlit water embodied. I reached out to one; its smooth coolness flexed slightly away, and then resumed its place among the small shoal. They floated motionless, until their joint sense told them they were too close to shore and as one they moved back to deeper water, stirring the shattered light to sparkling foam.

  We left the water, shivering but silent, touched by an almost imperceptible sense of belonging, to sleep between the sea and the sky, dry but salted.

  Walking through Portscatho, busy with early autumn visitors – young couples with small children, buckets, wellies and Boden coats – we’re unmoved, somehow outside of it all, passing by as if watching someone else’s home movie, back into the tunnels of blackthorn and gorse. On Pendower Beach we contemplated eating seaweed, but it would have taken too much gas to cook. The weather was changing, a damp wind was lifting, and the sky in the south and west grew darker. We walked in jumpers and fleeces, the wind carrying a new chill, picking at gaps in clothing, pinching our faces, slapping our rucksacks, chivvying us forward. Keep moving, keep moving. It was early but we were already looking for a spot to camp, impossible as the path was enclosed on a slope amongst spiky shrubs. Finally, resorting to searching off the path, we scrambled through blackthorn and brambles to a field near some abandoned farm buildings. A light drizzle settled over the tent as we cooked noodles, but we were ahead of the rain.

  It came in the night, thundering on the flysheet, tugging at the guy ropes. Heavy, pounding rain, a drumroll without conclusion. Fully dressed in the sleeping bags and the blanket stretched over us, we were still cold. The temperatures were dropping dramatically at night, exaggerated by the warmth of the days. By four in the morning we were huddled like dormice in the centre of the tent. Moth slept fitfully, groaning in his sleep. The cold was taking us backwards, down from the highs of Portheras Cove; he was struggling again. The physical endeavour was without doubt his friend, but the cold his worst enemy. I pushed the blanket over him, unrolled the waterproofs over that and he settled into solid sleep. We shouldn’t have chosen such useless sleeping bags. Weight over comfort: it should have been the other way around. But we’d needed as little weight as possible and they were so cheap. We couldn’t buy any others now; there was only enough money to eat. I lay awake as the wind roared against the flysheet, watching the poles flex with the force of the push, grateful when a thin grey light came and the gusts began to lessen.

  The worst of the rain blew by and we walked in heavy drizzle, pulses of horizontal rain passing in squalls on the south-westerly, sheets of grey falling from cloud to sea, a visible cycle of water. Headlands blurred and disappeared. Eyes fixed on the path, focused on the stony, muddy, foot-wide strip, we missed the inland diversion between West and East Portholland and found ourselves on a sea wall that links the two. Buffeted by the wind, trapped against the edge of the land as the sea crashed on to the shingle below, we walked a stone and concrete tightrope between the elements. We finally reached tarmac in front of a row of cottages as a woman stepped out of a door
way.

  ‘Come in, quickly. I don’t want to stand here with the door open.’

  ‘We’re too wet.’

  ‘Just drop your stuff on the slates. I watched you coming over the wall. Why didn’t you take the diversion? You could have been washed off.’

  The heat in the house was intense, the pile of dripping plastic quickly turning the room into a sauna. Not a house but a small shop. She ushered us into what would have been the sitting room but was now a tiny tea room. How did we keep ending up in tea rooms, as if someone was waiting with a teapot and a cash register behind every door and acts of kindness had a minimum charge of four pounds twenty? The rain lashed against the window; even the gulls had found a rock to hide behind, so we took the tea. Moth put his head on a cushion by the window and was instantly asleep, his arm rhythmically twitching and his face occasionally tightening into a grimace. The cold and damp were causing him far more pain than he would admit to, but when he slept there was no hiding it. Without the Pregabalin, he was feeling every stab of pain in his shoulder and head, a numbing ache in his leg and a strange nettle-rash sensation running over his skin. Not everything CBD had to offer, not yet, but enough to disturb his sleep and overshadow his days.