The Salt Path Read online

  Hours passed in the warmth of the room, until the rain eased into fog and we trudged up the slimy path to the broad, high headland of Dodman Point in early evening. We sat at the base of a big granite cross as the fog broke and rushed past in fingers of wet air, breaking to show views south to the Lizard and away into the east, before quickly hiding them from sight. Sheltered from the wind amongst the gorse and stunted trees, an old lookout hut emerged from the fog: a tiny stone building on the site of a tower built to scan the Channel for French ships during the Napoleonic wars. A ruined wall around the building protected the tent as we sat inside the stone hut cooking noodles. Playing house, being tramps, or both. Darkness came early, every scrap of light fading just after seven.

  ‘It must be late September now.’

  ‘Really?’

  Moth counted the days through the guidebook since we’d last known the date.

  ‘It’s nearly October. A few weeks and we’ll change the clocks.’

  ‘What are we going to do when it’s dark at five?’

  Back at the cross, lights moved slowly along the horizon; the wind had dropped, letting the night noises come. Gulls floated down on to the cliffs; a group of oystercatchers chattered somewhere on the rocks below. The sea broke against the cliff with a deep background growl. Silently, almost as if it was floating, a small roe deer, grey in the thin moon, passed by, slipping into the undergrowth without the movement of a leaf. We followed her, to sleep, enclosed in the dark green night.

  We lay on the concrete by the benches on Gorran Haven quayside and soaked up the retained heat, watching the gulls massing overhead.

  ‘Gorran Haven’s not like that, you know, it doesn’t have people lying drunk in the streets. The police’ll be after you.’

  I sat up, expecting the big voice to belong to a big man with an anchor tattoo, but was met by an old couple huddled on the bench in anoraks eating chips. The man with the big voice threw one to a gull and three birds landed together in a squabbling group.

  ‘We’re not drunk, just soaking up some heat.’

  ‘Proper people don’t just lie in the street. Are you tramps or something?’

  Tramps? Is that what we were now? And we weren’t on the street.

  ‘This isn’t the street, it’s a space to sit and enjoy the view. That’s what we’re doing. What are you doing?’

  ‘Eating chips.’ His wife threw another chip to the gulls.

  ‘No, you’re not, you’re feeding the gulls. Haven’t you seen the sign: “Don’t feed the gulls”? You should be careful, never know who’s watching.’

  We picked up our rucksacks and began to head away as he shouted to us:

  ‘Tramp.’

  Moth turned back and waved.

  ‘Gull feeder.’

  We carried on through the pretty village towards Mevagissey, the mass of herring gulls ahead a giveaway that we had arrived. They had the sly, pack-hunting look of St Ives’ birds, massing on fishing boats and chimneys, hanging around the bins in groups, loitering by the benches. Rashly buying a one-pound cone of chips to share, we clutched it close, one eating, one on lookout. A group of old ladies sat on the bench next to us, a full portion of fish and chips each. We eavesdropped on their conversation.

  ‘I tell you I’ve lived all over this coast, and I won’t go back to St Ives again. Weymouth, I’d move back there, I’d live in Mevagissey again, but never St Ives.’

  ‘But you still live in Mevagissey,’ said a second lady.

  A steely-eyed gull stepped sideways towards their bench, nonchalantly looking in the opposite direction.

  ‘Well, when I’ve left I’ll come back, but not St Ives.’

  ‘Why are you leaving if you’re going to come back?’

  The gull turned his back to them, looking longingly out to sea, then continued the sideways shuffle.

  ‘Theoretical, Sheila. If I were to move, then I would come back.’

  ‘But theoretically, Doris, if you want to come back, why would you want to leave?’

  The gull took his moment and, in a flurry of upturned chips, he was gone, battered fish in his grasp.

  ‘Bloody seagulls! That’s why I’m leaving Mevagissey. It’s the same as St Ives.’

  ‘Oh Doris, what a mess, but if it’s the same as St Ives then why are you coming back?’

  ‘Sheila …’

  We pitched the tent on Black Head, near the memorial to the poet A. L. Rowse, with its inscription: ‘This was the land of my content’. Content in mind, if not in body, we ate noodles while fat gulls stuffed with chips settled on the rock ledges.

  ‘Strange, they’ve never been interested in noodles.’

  ‘They’re not that stupid.’

  The area north of St Austell is the land of the china clay pits. The very fine clay, kaolin, has been mined locally since the mid eighteenth century, when William Cookworthy developed a process by which impurities could be removed from the clay. The industry grew around the production of fine porcelain china, but went on to export clay across the world for use in everything from teacups to toothpaste. When the copper and tin mines ran out or closed, the clay pits carried on growing. Unfortunately, for every tonne of clay produced a further five tonnes of waste is also created. This has mounded up across this central belt of Cornwall into what locals affectionately call the Cornish Alps, but to any untrained eye would be spoil heaps. Apparently there are lots of opportunities to be had when faced with a big white hole in the ground. You could let it naturalize: fill with murky green water and grow scrub around, then call it a heritage trail; or you could create another Eden and fill it with plants from across the world, plastic biomes and millions of visitors at twenty-five pounds a pop. You could of course put all that spoil back into the hole and relandscape it, but that would be just too obvious, and no tourist is going to pay to walk over a meadow with a leaflet that says, ‘You’d never know it, but this used to be a mine.’

  Charlestown, previously West Polmear, remains a picturesque harbour, built, oddly enough, by Charles Rashleigh, who wasn’t even slightly egotistical and changed the population from nine lobster-pot-weaving, pipe-whittling fishermen to three thousand warehouse workers filling cargo ships with clay, quicker than you can say ‘kaolin poultice anyone?’ But the tens of thousands of tonnes of clay moved out of the local harbours each year during the nineteenth century was as nothing compared with the millions of tonnes in the twentieth. Now Charlestown is a picturesque harbour, thriving on its heritage and a favourite haunt of Ross Poldark.

  As we approached Par the world became white, a fine dust covering the land like talcum powder. Funnelled around the outside of the clay-processing plant, between the high wire perimeter fence and the railway line, the path passed through a village and then on to a beach backed by the warehouse and chimneys of the clay works on one side and a sprawling caravan park on the other, and everywhere white. White trees, white path, white beach, white dog walkers. We passed through the cluster of pubs and cafés in Polkerris, ignoring the smell of food, and up into the autumn glow of the mature trees on the hillside, glad to have returned to a world of colour.

  We lay in the tent with the flaps open on the flat grass of Gribbin Head and watched the shipping and the stars pass us by. We were in the land of the Rashleighs, the wealthy family who have owned the Menabilly estate since the dissolution of the monasteries. Where Daphne du Maurier was a tenant and dreamt of Manderley, we lay homeless and penniless under the stars. We had lost everything except our children and each other, but we had the wet grass and the rhythm of the sea on the rocks. Could we survive on that? We knew the answer, but to give up on this and return to the world didn’t seem like the answer either.

  Following the path of gentle hillsides, woods in yellow and orange, rocky shores and the gulls, always the gulls, we came to Fowey. The village had grown alongside a natural harbour on a deep estuary, the narrow streets and multi-coloured houses threading up a steep hillside. It is apparently home to some of the highes
t-value housing in the south-west, and looking at the yachts still moored here in early autumn, the money had obviously come by sea. Another tea room, another pot of hot water and a chance to charge the phone; we’d forgotten we had it and hadn’t looked at it for days.

  ‘Row’ll give me hell for not charging the phone.’ But when it came back to life, among the mass of texts from the kids, there was a missed call from an old school friend, Polly. Last time we’d spoken was just after we’d moved out; I found the idea of calling for a catch-up now too painful. ‘Oh yes, still homeless, still dying, how are you?’

  We took the money from the bank, bought a loaf of bread and a tin of soup, and caught the passenger ferry across the river to Polruan, a smaller, reduced, mirror image of Fowey. We sat on the quay and watched sparks flying from a welder repairing a boat in the boatyard on the opposite side of the slipway. Our path was becoming smoother, less jagged, less tossed by the storms, more a flow of slow-running water over tide-rippled sand. We had changed with the path, become stronger, calmer, our passage quieter. A cormorant flew by low on the water, heading out to sea. The sky was grey, not threatening rain, just grey sky merging into grey sea. The sparks continued to fly from behind the boat. I imagined the welder had Flashdance playing on his headphones, but it was more likely to be Pirate FM.

  We made the steep climb out of the village, above Lantic Bay to Pencarrow Head, sheltering the tent behind some gorse, watching the lights of ships coming out of Plymouth in the far distance.

  The morning returned as a slice of palest yellow between layers of grey. A bird lifted from below the line of the cliff, silhouetting a large wingspan against the lightening sky. Coasting on the wind, it tilted its grey back to show a pale, barred underside, before swooping at such velocity that it was gone in a breath. The rabbits had scattered and small birds fell silent.

  An old man walked slowly across the headland towards us. Slightly scruffy, his clothes dirty, walking with a walking pole and a cut hazel rod, slowly getting closer until he stopped. And when he opened his mouth words rolled out in smooth globular balls of clotted cream.

  ‘Did you see her, the peregrine? She’s been here for a few weeks, beautiful in’ she. Not been here before she ’aven’t, no she’s new. Have you seen her before, I ’aven’t?’

  ‘We only got here last night, so it’s the first time we’ve seen her. Magnificent.’

  ‘Jus’ passin’, are you? I’ve lived here all my life. Got a shed in the woods I ’ave, keep some chickens, cut some timber. She is beautiful in’ she.’

  ‘Yes, beautiful.’

  ‘You going east are you? They all go that way. You’ll go to Rame Head and Bigbury and Bolt Tail. They say I could have that glau, glauc, thing with my eyes, say I might go blind, say I’ve eaten too many biscuits.’

  ‘Glaucoma.’

  ‘Is it, is that it? I come here every day I can, got to remember it see, for when I can’t see it.’

  ‘It’s a stunning sight to remember.’

  ‘I’m glad she’s come, she’s a special thing, beautiful in’ she.’

  ‘She is, beautiful.’

  The light grew, prising the sky and the sea apart. Had I seen enough things? When I could no longer see them, would I remember them, and would just the memory be enough to fill me up and make me whole? He walked away, slowly back the way he came. Could anyone ever have enough memories?

  The phone rang, harsh, insistent, interrupting.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Still on the south coast. Why, what’s the matter, Polly?’

  ‘Look, you can’t stay there for the winter. I’ve got a shed – used to be the meat-cutting room. They’ve put a bathroom in it, but it’s still lined with plastic. You can have it for a bit if you want. You’d have to finish the work off, though.’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘It’s up to you, take it or leave it.’

  The tent backed into the gorse, facing east, towards the path we had yet to follow. Undiscovered coves, headland on headland we had yet to cross, sunrises to walk into, sunsets to sleep beneath, weather to marvel at, cold still to be endured. But the cold we were feeling now would be nothing compared with the winter to come, when storms would lash this coast, meaning we would have to move inland. But where to? Polly lived in the middle of the country, in a place we barely knew; what would we do there, what future could that hold for us anyway? The decision seemed an impossible one to make.

  We left the tent where it was and explored along the coast to Lantivet Bay. To the granite landmark obelisk painted white, and the lookout cottage tucked into the cliff. We ate rice and tuna and went down the steep scramble to Lantic Bay, beachcombing along the seaweed line. The peregrine tilted her wings and curved around Pencarrow for three mornings. We needed shelter, we needed warmth, we needed money. We could try to restart a life in the normal world, or we could face the winter on the path. Moth needed warmth.

  Some wrong decisions are easy to spot and easy to rectify: you get on the wrong train; you get off at the next stop. Others you don’t know are wrong until it’s too late to step back.

  ‘Hi, Row. Could you lend us forty pounds for the train?’

  ‘I haven’t got forty, but I can send twenty.’

  ‘Tom, can you send us twenty pounds for the train?’

  ‘Yeah, okay, but I think it’s a mistake. In my gut it feels like a mistake.’

  Part Five

  * * *

  CHOICES

  Everybody needs beauty as well as bread.

  The Yosemite, John Muir

  18. Sheep

  Dislocated, disconnected, uprooted. As far away from the coast as we could be. As rain lashed against the corrugated roof of the disused meat-packing shed, we erected the tent in the middle of the floor and huddled in the familiarity. We were lost; what peace of mind we had found was quickly retreating.

  Our rucksacks sat forlornly in the corner, propping up a piece of peeling plastic wall covering. Although someone had lived in it temporarily it still felt like a processing room. A wood burner had been placed too near the plastic and caused it to melt and curl; moss grew in the windows; insulation hung from open rafters; an industrial strip light flickered on the stained ceiling. But it had a roof and we were grateful for that.

  Polly was so glad we were there, so glad she could help. No, she didn’t want rent, but if we could help with the building and on the farm, that would work out fine. If Moth could just start by plasterboarding and plastering the building out? We’d been friends through teenage crises and adult anxieties. It could work; we’d be helping each other out.

  I followed the hedgerow to the wood at the top of the hill, lost in the foreign landscape of middle England. Crows circled overhead, lifting in the cold, late October air. A buzzard glided by, following the air currents downhill, its plaintive call stretching across the valley. The large cones of a fallen larch tree scattered the ground, grass and nettles growing up through the long-dead branches; a pheasant took off from the undergrowth, disturbed from its safety, clattering wings flapping away with a cry of alarm. I now came to this place whenever I could get away from Polly’s farm. Intensely grateful for a roof, but hollow inside, an emptiness had crept over me. My days had no meaning, just a repetition of toil with no purpose for us, other than to keep warm and dry. I was alone among friends. Homelessness had taught me that however much people think they want to help you, when you enter their home, you quickly become a cuckoo in their nest, a guest that outstays their welcome. Or their usefulness. But here we were useful, for a while yet at least.

  When Moth took the rucksack off and stopped walking, the stiffness returned and the neurological pain increased; he was sleeping twelve hours a night and struggling to move in the mornings. We revisited the consultant, and explained how much better Moth had been when he was walking, how his symptoms had almost gone, until he was cold.

  ‘Well, you’ve just made it worse, accelerated your own decline; you should be res
ting, occasional gentle walks, not too far, and be careful on the stairs.’

  ‘But couldn’t the constant hard repetitive movement be helping? Maybe the extra oxygen being forced through the body can in some way halt the process, slow the build-up of tau protein? Or it’s causing something else to happen, some other beneficial reaction?’

  ‘Absolutely not. You’re just in denial; it’s natural – most people go through this phase.’

  We walked whenever we could, but it didn’t have the same effect as hours of repetitive motion with a weight on his back. We went to the gym, but that left him in agony for days. He sat on an exercise bike; the steady, repetitive action helped a little, but not enough and a cramping slowness began to take hold, punctuated sporadically by a tremor in his arm.

  Resting wasn’t an option; we were earning the roof over our heads through manual labour. Slowly, painstakingly, Moth plasterboarded the shed walls, moving his shoulders in a way that caused him endless pain. He laid a tiled floor. He built a concrete block wall, freezing in the cold. Working four hours a day was as much as he could manage, finding every movement harder and harder.

  Winter came with force, biting cold, temperatures dropping below freezing, ground hard as a stone and six inches of snow. It was moments like this when I was grateful that we were not out in the tent. We had a roof and a stove which gave us heat, even if we did need to cut wood to power it.