The Salt Path

by Raynor Winn

  ‘Mine too really; it just looked great.’

  The next morning should have stimulated an appetite, with a whole section of the coast being named after the contents of a butcher’s shop. Gammon Head, Ham Stone, Pig’s Nose, ferry. Salcombe. We walked through the town quickly, trying hard not to look at food and on around the rocky, exposed Bolt Head. We pitched the tent, finally, on Bolt Tail and watched the lights of ships heading into Plymouth.

  The heat increased as we took the ferry across the estuary from Bantham to Bigbury-on-Sea. The aura emanating from us smelt faintly like a dead animal. The family already sitting in the small wooden ferry shuffled ever further down towards the ferryman as we chugged across the estuary. By the time we reached the other side of the short crossing, the other passengers were so close to the ferryman at the rear that the front of the boat was starting to rise out of the water. We gave up on our race through the ferries and leapt into the sea, my parched skin sucking up the cool water, layers of grime and sweat washing away on the tide. We swam in circles, floating on the gentle waves until all we smelt of was ozone and salt. Our filthy clothes soaked in a rock pool while we dried in the sun. My hair, which had taken the winter to recover, had resumed its bird’s-nest form and my skin, which had slowly shed the layers of cracked dryness, was rapidly returning to a leathery state that seemed to move separately to the muscles underneath.

  Then onwards as the afternoon cooled. Refreshed, invigorated, our wet clothes hanging from our rucksacks. As the light began to fade we stood on Beacon Point and watched the sun dip behind the rippling inland horizon of Dartmoor, before dropping down towards the crossing point of Erme Mouth. The tide was going out but the water was too high to cross, so we sat under the trees and ate the last of the rice. Darkness fell and slowly a moon began to rise, glinting on the receding water. We could have waited until mid-morning and crossed then, but we walked out into the thigh-deep river, picking our way slowly across by moonlight, a tawny owl calling from the trees along the bank. We camped in a field beyond the wood and listened to the owl as he moved up and down the riverbank.

  The morning came in waves of rain, soft and floating through, muslin curtains of water stroking my face in the breeze. We shook the tent and rolled it, knowing it would be saturated when it came out later. Conversation petered out as we fell into our own thoughts, walking on in silence through the drizzle. Plymouth stretched ahead and it felt like a barrier, a huge urban doorway through which we would pass into an unknown future. Just a few days to the west of Plymouth lay Polruan and the end of our trail. The next two ferry crossings had become a symbol of the final leg of our journey. The path had given us certainty, a sense of security that came with knowing that tomorrow and the next day and the next we would pack up the tent, put one foot in front of the other and walk. I was afraid and, although it was unsaid, I knew Moth was too. Not just of an unknown future in a strange place, among people we had yet to meet, or of financial difficulties yet to come, or the practicalities of starting again. But a much bigger, more-resounding fear than that. When eventually we had to stop walking, as we would have to in order to start living back in the world, what would happen to Moth? The question followed us like a flock of gulls that could smell our tuna. We camped above Wembury, not wanting to go around the corner and allow Plymouth into view.

  At Mount Batten, we faced more everyday questions. The sort that had become the normal problems of our life. Should we take the ferry across to the Barbican for three pounds and then from the ferry terminal there take the long crossing to Cawsand for eight pounds, or the short one to Mount Edgcumbe for three? Or keep the money in the purse and take the long hike of five or six miles through the city and hope we reached the ferry point before the last crossing? Cawsand was nearer to the open headland so easier to find somewhere to camp, but would cost more. However, although it was cheaper, passing through Mount Edgcumbe Country Park in the evening would mean encountering the inevitable patrols of the deer park and would probably result in us hiking in the dark to find somewhere to camp. Or if we walked through the city to save the crossing fare and didn’t reach the ferry terminal before the last ferry, having to find somewhere to sleep in the city. Too many choices. We had fifteen pounds left, one pack of noodles and half a tube of wine gums. We opted to cross to the Barbican, then the connecting ferry to Mount Edgcumbe and have time in between to spend the remaining nine pounds on food to last for the next two days.

  We got off the ferry and wandered through the arty, wealthy area of Plymouth, finally finding a shop that sold food that wasn’t already on a plate, bought what we could and wandered back to the ferry with half an hour to spare before the last crossing. We waited on the metal walkway with a group of others and ate bread rolls and bananas. The ferry didn’t come. The people in the queue started to get twitchy. It still didn’t come. Finally a ferry pulled in and we all drifted towards it, but the ferryman pulled the barrier across.

  ‘No, I’m not going to Mount Edgcumbe. There won’t be another one going there ’til tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, where is it? We’ve waited for an hour.’

  ‘Stuck on a sandbank. Misjudged the tide, di’n’ he. He’s going nowhere tonight.’

  The others in the queue marched away, grumbling about long bus rides and taxi fares, but we just stood on the bouncing metal gangplank.

  ‘Well, that’s shit.’

  ‘Fudge bar?’ Moth sat down on his rucksack.

  ‘So, what now? Remind me why we’ve never made plans before. Oh I know, because they always end up like this.’ I could feel a flush of panic; it was not a place I wanted to be.

  ‘Tour of Plymouth then? Nothing better to do.’

  ‘I thought we’d always be able to avoid sleeping in a town. Too many people about – anything could happen.’

  ‘Let’s just have a walk around; it’ll kill a few hours anyway.’

  Leaving the well-heeled Barbican, full of tourists and night-outers, chatting, laughing, fuelled by pre-party drinks, we wandered aimlessly, finding ourselves in the centre of the city as the street lights were coming on. Past the shopping centre, then on through the university buildings.

  ‘Next month I’ll be part of that uni; now I’m walking through it without enough money to catch the bus.’

  ‘You’re going to be a student; we still won’t have enough money to catch the bus.’

  As darkness fell, under the underpass a homeless person was bedding down on the concrete, arranging his cardboard and sleeping bag. Decent bag; I wondered where he’d got it from. Much better quality than the ones we’d had last year, yet he looked as if he’d been out for a long time.

  ‘Got any money, mate? Just need some food for the night. Haven’t eaten today.’

  ‘Haven’t got any, I’m sorry.’ I could feel Moth’s mind searching the contents of the food bag. ‘I’ve got some bread and a tin of tuna though.’

  ‘Thanks, mate, that’s dead generous of you.’

  We left the archway, went back out to the open pathways and sat on a bench watching people as they rushed through their lives. A man came and sat on the bench opposite and stared at us. I tried to focus my eyes elsewhere, but he kept staring. In his late forties or fifties – it was hard to tell; time spent on the streets ages people in a way that doesn’t happen on the sofa in front of the television. A grubby pair of cargo trousers, generic trainers, a ripped fleece over a hoodie gave him away, but the brand new Carhartt baseball cap was an incongruity that I couldn’t place. Maybe he was looking at us with the same thoughts.

  ‘Can’t make you out. What you doing here?’ He got up and walked across the paving to sit on our bench. I felt a slight sense of fear, and it was hard to grasp why. Was it coming from an irrational anxiety in my other life, the one in which I myself hadn’t been homeless? Or was it because we were now in a city and being approached by anyone was making me jumpy? ‘Are you hikers? You look like it, but then there’s something about you that tells me there’s more going on
here.’

  ‘Homeless hikers. Just here for the night.’ Moth didn’t seem to feel threatened at all.

  ‘The hiking homeless – I like that. Well, you won’t be alone tonight; there’s quite a few of us around. Where’re you going to sleep? Got to be careful not to crowd anyone’s spot. They can get a bit touchy about that. I’m Colin. Fancy a beer?’

  ‘Haven’t got any money, sorry.’

  ‘No, I’ve got a beer; want one?’

  Moth took the can, taking a drink then passing it over.

  ‘Only got these ’cause my daughter came by today. It’s my birthday; she gave me the beers and this hat, nice, very nice.’

  ‘You’ve got a family and you don’t live with them?’

  ‘No, well, yeah, had it all, wife, kids, house. Then it all just fell apart. Embarrassment to them now.’

  We sat in silence. What was there to say? He didn’t have to explain to us how easy it is for a life to fall apart. A younger man walked across the open paving, beanie hat pulled low on his face, a ripped parka hanging loose.

  ‘Oh fuck, here we go, careful what you say. G’day, Dean my man, how are ya?’

  Dean was younger, a swagger in his manner, yet his thin, hollow-cheeked appearance showed that his life was a struggle.

  ‘Drinking already, man, without me?’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s my birthday. Present, weren’t they.’

  Dean took the remaining can, clearly his by right.

  ‘Drinking with strangers instead of me, man, that’s not the way. Who the fuck are you anyway?’

  ‘Don’t worry, man, they’re the hiking homeless, just on their way now, aren’t you?’

  ‘Drinking with strangers, man, what the fuck?’

  The man in the underpass rolled his cardboard, put it under his arm and walked away down the tunnel. Dean pressed his face hard up against Colin, who was gesturing us away with his hand.

  ‘Fuck off, you two, don’t know why you’re hanging around here anyway.’

  We walked away slowly, though inside I wanted to run. By the time we were fifty metres away they were fighting on the bench.

  ‘Feel like that was our fault and we’ve abandoned him.’ I’d wanted to leave, but now I felt responsible.

  ‘It’s nobody’s fault. You could tell by the way Colin reacted. It’s probably the same every night.’

  We wandered through the city, invisible to the evening revellers, heading towards the Hoe in the hope of finding a quiet spot. But every side street or bench seemed to have a resident already. Either in a sleeping bag, curled under a blanket, or just foetal on the ground, trying to hold in some warmth. Official figures in the autumn of 2014 put the number of rough sleepers in Plymouth at thirteen. If that was true, as in Newquay, we met them all that night and some.

  We found a patch of grass by Smeaton’s Tower and unrolled the mattresses and sleeping bags at the most hidden edge, not daring to put the tent up as it would be far too obvious. It didn’t get dark, the street lights giving a permanent twilight. I felt exposed, vulnerable, as I never had on the path. The wild rawness of nature had never made me nervous, but here in the land of densely packed humanity I felt fear for the first time in my homeless life, every footstep, raised voice or car door making me jolt with adrenalin.

  As light started to break we packed the sleeping bags away and sat on a bench to boil some water, relieved that the night was over.

  ‘How can they live like this? It’s exhausting.’

  ‘Like everything else, I suppose; they just get used to it.’

  Wandering the empty streets as the light lifted into day, we saw bodies emerging from piles of rags and stretching into the daylight. Life went on; the same routines to be played out again and again.

  Passing a cash machine, we stopped to check the account, unsure what day it was, whether there would be money there or not, and gratefully took the thirty pounds it offered. We found a café that was open and sat at the window sharing a sausage sandwich, watching the morning city start to move. Between the bohemian shop owners and restaurant workers, a man shuffled down the narrow street with his hood up, barely hiding his bruised face. Moth bought another sandwich and had it wrapped to go.

  ‘Colin,’ he called towards the man in the street, who stopped moving, and turned around hesitantly.

  ‘Oh jeez, it’s only you, man. Don’t normally come down this end, but had to get out of Dean’s way last night. He’s a bit fuelled-up just now. Got no brakes, that one.’

  ‘Are you all right? You look a mess. Here, I bought you a sandwich.’

  ‘What? You bought me a sandwich? Fuck, thanks. Oh, sausage, my favourite.’

  ‘We’re off to catch the ferry. Take care, mate.’

  ‘And you, homeless hikers. I might do that myself one day: just go for a hike. Yeah, one day.’

  21. Salted

  The tent rattled and shook in the strong wind whipping around Penlee Point and into Plymouth Sound. Below the stone wall of Queen Adelaide’s Chapel, the gale caught us full on. We should have had more concern for the frailty of the duct-tape-encased tent poles, but after Plymouth we were happy to be back at the edge. Devon behind us now, we were back in Cornwall and so close to the finish line of Polruan. The fabric flapped and the poles creaked as we watched a giant boat of lights sailing out of the sound, floating in a pool of glowing yellow. In another life we had been passengers on that ferry, sailing overnight to Santander in northern Spain. The children were small, we were in our early thirties and life appeared to be falling into place. The lights grew smaller, fainter, until finally they disappeared. Our old life had sailed away, and we let it go, turning our eyes to the west with a fizz of hope.

  At Rame Head the wind lifted from the sea on both sides, colliding in a Mohican of air, sending the gulls into a spin before jetting them away at high speed. Banks of white cloud raced through, leaving patches of blue sea spray and the endless sands of Whitsand Bay spreading before us. There were only a few days of walking left, time to stop and rest, to be still, a quiet moment before the start of a new life. The rocky hillside of bracken, blackthorn and gorse fell in a steep incline to the sea, and scattered intermittently along the miles of its length were sheds and chalets balanced on platforms cut from the slope. An old man passed us through a thicket of thorn trees, so we stopped to remark on them.

  ‘This is so unusual, all these shacks, spread out like that; we’ve seen nothing like it on the whole path.’

  ‘They were plots given to people between the wars. The local farmer rented them out on peppercorn rents and people just came, cutting platforms on the cliff, putting up tents and shacks. Then after the Second World War, others came who’d lost their homes in the bombing of Plymouth. That’s how my family came here, and they just stayed; well, why wouldn’t you? They’ve passed down through generations, been added to and stabilized over the years. The Council own the land now. They tried to throw us off, but we won the right to stay. Much bigger rent now though. Nearly all holiday homes of course, like everywhere else.’

  The path wound on through the undergrowth until we found our way down to the beach and dropped our packs on the rocks. The cliff climbed high behind, an endless expanse of sand spreading west and a pale blue sea crashing into white foam, the noise blocking out every sound. There is a quote, thought to be by Icelandic author Thorbergur Thordarson, which goes: ‘When the surf was high, the sound of the sea was one continuous roar, heavy, deep, dark, sombre, with all kinds of variation, and at its height you felt it also came from the very earth beneath your feet.’ This was the Icelandic sea, part of that same body of water that wraps the northern hemisphere in one continuous, deafening roar, making the earth tremble beneath my feet.

  ‘We’ll find somewhere above the high-tide line; looks promising to the west.’

  It wasn’t worth trying to shout above the noise, so we walked silently across the sands, my thoughts drifting back to the shacks on the cliff and the families who came here looking
out to sea, looking for space, shattered from the war, picking up timber and saws to build a shelter and start a new life. How can there be so few individuals who understand the need for people to have a space of their own? Does it take a time of crisis for us to see the plight of the homeless? Must they be escaping a war zone to be in need? As a people can we only respond to need if we perceive it to be valid? If the homeless of our own country were gathered in a refugee camp, or rode the seas in boats of desperation, would we open our arms to them? Our native homeless don’t fit that mould; we prefer to think their plight is self-induced and their numbers few, yet over 280,000 households in the UK claim to have no home and the percentage of those who arrive at that state because of some kind of addiction is small. If they – we – all stood together, men, women, children, we would look very different to one man alone in a shop doorway, addicted to anything that gives him a means of escape. How would we be viewed then? Two hundred and eighty thousand? More, less? The true numbers are unknown. Refugees from western civilization, cut adrift from life in a boat that rarely finds a harbour.

  ‘Can you imagine if Plymouth Council gave Colin a patch on the cliff?’

  ‘Or us?’

  ‘I’d build a shed on a ledge. I think I’d stay there forever.’

  It was difficult to say where the high-tide line was; different levels of sea debris showed that the sea battered into this bay without restraint, stopping only when it was ready. We scrambled up a small rocky spit of land and found a relatively flat patch in the undergrowth, pitching the tent facing across the Channel, and took a deep breath.

  When daylight came we went to the beach and walked its full extent and back again. When the tide was fully out we foraged for seaweeds, adding slimy shreds to noodles to make a foamy green pan of slippery food. It’s slime-to-taste value didn’t equate and so we stuck to bladderwrack, steaming it with tins of tuna and gristly limpets popped off the rocks straight into the pan. Groups of oystercatchers gathered to run together along the flat sand, rhythmically dipping their heads in an orange-booted line dance. We swam in the frothing incoming tide, surfing in on powerful waves of salt water that could have touched the shores of Iceland, Spain or America, a roaring broil that may have travelled thousands of miles or just two. We lay on our backs on hot sand and baked in the sun. Salt-crusted, preserved. Later, in the darkness of the green dome I felt his hand brush against my thigh, and with it the same electric pulse of need there had always been. Silence descended; everything stopped; I didn’t move, afraid to ignite a want that wouldn’t be satisfied, or lose a hope I’d held on to forever. He hesitated for a long moment, his hand stretching hot against my cold skin, a moment that hung between us in an unanswered question.