The Salt Path

by Raynor Winn

  Days passed. Clouds moved in from the south-west, white rolling cumuli disappearing inland. Winds changed direction: damp and light from the west; dry and cooling from the east; colder from the north-west, carrying hints of another season soon behind; then gently from the south, summer not quite yet spent. The heat reflected off the flat rocks, less jagged than those that surrounded them in the cove. We dried clothes on them, sat the stove flat on them to cook limpets, cracked an egg on them in the hope that it might fry, but when it didn’t, scraped it up and scrambled it, picking out bits of sand and grit. We lay on them, crisping to leathery brown. Bodies that fourteen months earlier were hunched and tired, soft and pale, were now lean and tanned, with a refound muscularity that we’d thought lost forever. Our hair was fried and falling out, our nails broken, clothes worn to a thread, but we were alive. Not just breathing through the thirty thousand or so days between life and death, but knowing each minute as it passed, swirling around in an exploration of time. The rock gave back the heat as it followed the arc of the sun, gulls called in differing tones as the tide left the shore and then returned, my hands wrinkled with age and my thighs changed to a new shape with passing miles, but when he pulled me to him and kissed me with an urgency that wasn’t in doubt, with a fervour that wouldn’t fail, time turned. I was ten million minutes and nineteen years ago, I was in the bus stop about to go back to his house, knowing his parents weren’t home, I was a mother of toddlers stealing moments in a walk-in wardrobe, we were us, every second of us, a long-marinated stew of life’s ingredients. We were everything we wanted to be and everything we didn’t. And we were free, free to be all those things, and stronger because of them. Skin on longed-for skin, life could wait, time could wait, death could wait. This second in the millions of seconds was the only one, the only one that we could live in. I was home, there was nothing left to search for, he was my home.

  Days passed. Heavy driving rain came from the west in banks of purple angry cloud; forked lightning danced across the sea; light rain drifted from the south in gentle cloaks of dampness falling from impenetrable grey skies. Dark black nights were lit by endless pinpoints of light, sparking with shooting stars in profusion, the late summer Perseids, meteor showers from another world. We gathered water from a stream gushing down the rock face after the rain, drinking at will, washing salt from dried throats and skin. Fat black dung beetles scurried around the low vegetation and common blue butterflies dusted the air as the sun returned, bringing a cooler, gentler warmth than before. Ever conscious that Moth shouldn’t be still for too long, we walked and swam through the days, but we were rested. Strong but peaceful, held at the ocean’s edge, out of time, closer to it than ever before. A dog walker came twice a day and peered down at us from the path above. We had been there for over a week, our food supplies had run out, limpets had lost their appeal and it was time to move on.

  The path wound gently on and off the road until it hit the concrete surrounding Tregantle Fort. Built in the nineteenth century to ward off the French, it became a gas school during the Second World War, preparing soldiers for the horrors of gas attacks. We took deep breaths of crystal-clean air and walked on, ever grateful not to have lived through that time. Beyond the tiny village of Portwrinkle the cliffs became craggier, steeper and gnarled, more Cornish, thick with undergrowth. Scrambling through the gorse and over a broken fence as the wind picked up and heavy banks of cloud began to build, we found a relatively flat patch in a field on the highest, most exposed spot there could have been. There was no best way to pitch the tent in a wind that spiralled in every direction. We huddled and crossed our fingers as rain lashed in on gale-force winds, ripping against the thin synthetic fabric and duct-taped poles, pushing at the side of the tent in a deafening growl of wild power. We lay awake, waiting for the poles to break as they distorted into weird elliptical angles. But they held, and as dawn came the wind died and we slept until the sun was bright through racing clouds. The tent had ridden the storm, battered, bent, but not broken.

  Coves of blue, green and black slipped by, the colours of Cornwall, always lit by the line of white water breaking at the base of the black cliffs. The end was so close we could almost see it. Soon we would be back on Pencarrow Head, and then we would have to begin the search for student accommodation in the hope that the security of a student loan would override our dismal credit rating. And if we failed?

  The path dropped down into Looe, a fishing village split in two by the river, its narrow streets filled with tourists. We squeezed awkwardly through bus trips of old ladies and children crying over lost ice creams. Cutting up an alleyway in the hope of avoiding the crush, we came to a dead end at a tiny three-tabled café. The red-haired Polish waitress brought us a pot of tea for one, with two cups.

  ‘They’re very big packs for people your age. Where are you going?’

  ‘West on the coastal path.’

  ‘And where have you come from? Lots of walkers come through; usually they start in Seaton, did you?’

  Moth looked over and raised his eyebrows: was that Seaton four miles east, or one of the many other Seatons on the south coast? They were starting to blur.

  ‘No, Poole in Dorset.’

  ‘But that’s another county.’

  ‘That’s right, with Devon in between.’

  ‘And where are you sleeping, in guest houses?’

  ‘No, in the tent, wild camping.’

  ‘That’s the most amazing thing I’ve heard. And you’ve walked all that way, and you’re so old. I must tell my friend – she’s always saying she wants to do something adventurous but she has no money. I’ll tell her about you. Old people, just walking and sleeping in a tent, that’s an inspiration.’

  ‘Not so old.’

  We walked out of the village, dirty, threadbare, but strangely lighter. Inspirational? What a warming thought. A young woman on the opposite pavement waved to us and ran over the road, her red hair blowing wildly in the gusting wind.

  ‘My friend phoned me. She said run out and see the old people with big rucksacks. Are you really sleeping in a tent? How far have you walked?’ Obviously the friend of the girl at the café must have shared the same box of hair dye.

  ‘From Poole, but last year from Minehead to Polruan. In a day or two we’ll have finished the whole path.’

  ‘The whole path? How long is this path?’

  ‘Six hundred and thirty miles, but we’ve missed about forty of them. One day we’ll go back and do the bits we’ve missed, but not this year.’

  ‘That’s amazing. I want to do something big and life-changing like that, but it’s scary, it puts me off.’

  ‘Scary? You’ve come to a foreign country to work – how can going for a walk be scary compared with that?’

  ‘A group of us came together, just a gap-year sort of thing. No, what you’re doing is an expedition, an adventure, a trial. It’s what I want; I want to know what I can do. Gap-year work hasn’t given me what I need. I need something, something inside.’

  ‘Then you must do it. If you feel you have a question, you must answer it. Do it before you go home.’

  ‘I will, I will, and when I do I’ll be thinking of you. Old people walking.’

  The path rose steeply up a series of endless steps with wide blue views, back across Portnadler Bay to St George’s Island and beyond. We sat at the top, struggling to catch our breath.

  ‘Are we really getting old? How many times have people said that to us now?’ I tried to run my fingers through my hair, but they got stuck in the tangle.

  ‘Well, we’re not young, are we? Think I need oxygen.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘So what if we are? Who cares? Not as if we haven’t lived, is it? Anyway, what was all that “you must answer your inner question” rubbish?’

  ‘It’s not rubbish. If we hadn’t done this there’d always have been things we wouldn’t have known, a part of ourselves we wouldn’t have found, resilience we didn’t know
we had. Like the court case. If we hadn’t tried to defend ourselves we’d be plagued by what if? So we lost – at least we found the truth, and we’re here now knowing we did everything we could and we still couldn’t stop it, so no regrets. If we hadn’t walked this path, we’d have waited for a council house, hidden ourselves away and given in. Who knows how far you would have deteriorated? We’d be bitter, angry and muttering “what if” into our milky tea. Or we could just have let it all go and found ourselves on the streets, lost like Colin. Most people go through their whole lives without answering their own questions: What am I, what do I have within me? The big stuff. What a waste.’

  ‘All right, Yoda, I was only joking.’

  ‘What do you think I’d look like with red hair?’

  ‘Please don’t.’

  The headland eased forward; mid-afternoon and there was a cooler chill in the air. Not the damp feel of approaching rain, but the softening, cooling suggestion of late August when the heat changes and there’s a smell of dewy nights and cobwebbed mornings to come. The end of the trail was near, just a day away. Moth would begin his degree in less than three weeks; we would have to find a room in a shared house somewhere, although the thought of a room in a house full of teenagers made me shrivel a little inside. I’d already done that and thankfully they grew up. The only alternative was to hope for a long-term pitch on a campsite that was keeping its toilet block open for the winter. I tried not to think about it but took out Paddy Dillon and stroked the familiar, comforting plastic cover. Minehead to Polruan was bound by an elastic hair band, as was Poole to Looe, only two meagre pages remained free, untrodden. Very soon all the pages of The South West Coast Path: Minehead to South Haven Point would be held tight by a frayed black elastic band; there would be nowhere left to go but into the future, whatever that was.

  Down steps, like all the steps, steep and merciless to the little cove of Talland Bay, the path winding its way between the benches of a café on the edge of a holiday park. We dropped our packs and found a teabag to dip into yet another scrounged pot of hot water.

  ‘Bugger, the car won’t start, again.’

  A small, delicate woman with a strong northern accent sat down on the bench next to us. ‘It’s only just back from the garage and it’s gone again – always does when you’re in some nowhere land like this. Oh, sorry, not from the caravans, are you?’

  ‘No, we’re just passing on the coastal path.’

  ‘Oh, coastal path, should have noticed the rucksacks. The days will be getting shorter soon – where are you heading for? Home soon, I would have thought; not all the way at this time of year, surely?’

  ‘Just heading west. We don’t actually have a home to go back to.’ Moth had stopped pretending we’d sold our house, and was telling the truth to anyone who asked, amusing himself with the reactions. I tightened the straps on my pack, preparing to leave, which was the normal process after Moth had told people we were homeless, and wild camping. Normally they became uncomfortable and we set off.

  ‘So you’re actually homeless?’

  ‘Yep, that’s us.’ I put my pack on ready to go.

  Amazingly, the woman didn’t flinch.

  ‘Come inside the café – it’s chilly out here. I’ll get some coffees, and you can tell me more about your trail.’

  ‘What about the car?’

  ‘Sick of the damn thing. I’ll get a taxi.’

  The café was warm, dry and full of the smell of seaweed and sweet chilli sauce, with views out to sea across beds of bladderwrack. Over hot mugs of coffee Moth spun a story of golden summers spent under canvas, of changing weather unfolding around two people living wild in nature. Of a narrow path alongside the busy world, but as separate from it as if it were in another dimension. The woman, Anna, sat mesmerized, caught by his stories, spellbound as people always are. He could have been reading from Beowulf.

  ‘And now it’s the end of the summer, where are you going to go?’

  ‘We have to stop. I’m going to uni next month, so we’ll have to find somewhere to stay.’

  ‘What, as a student? At your age?’

  ‘A late start, I know, but a fresh one hopefully.’

  ‘Do old people get student loans?’

  ‘Yes, although I could be dead before I’ve paid it back.’

  Anna sat quietly for a moment, looking from Moth, to me, then back again.

  ‘Look, I have a flat in Polruan. My tenants are moving out tomorrow but I haven’t advertised it yet; I was going to do the photos when they’d gone.’ Moth went very still on the seat next to me. ‘You could rent it. If you want. It’d be perfect for you: the coastal path runs past the front door.’

  Was this real, could it actually be happening? Stay calm, keep breathing.

  ‘You’d let us rent, even after we’ve told you our situation?’

  ‘Yes, of course. If you’re a student and you’re getting a loan or grant or whatever, I’m sure that’ll be enough to cover the rent. It’s only a small place; it’s not much.’

  ‘Do you really mean that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Anna laughed ‘I like you, so why not?’ Her taxi came and she left the café, waving. ‘See you tomorrow night.’

  We clutched the napkin with the address scribbled on it. Our address.

  The shock of something going right is almost as powerful as when it goes wrong. We stared at each other not knowing what to say, as if by speaking we might wake from a dream and it wouldn’t be real. Then together we ran out of the café and leapt and shrieked in the bladderwrack beds. The young Costa Rican café owner came out to join us and we danced in a circle like children.

  ‘Why are we dancing?’

  ‘Because we have a roof.’

  ‘Is this a great thing?’

  ‘The greatest.’

  ‘Then we should dance more.’

  We would have passed through Polperro as the lights were coming on in the pub, but that night we ran in and bought two beers, one each. We had the deposit and first month’s rent. We had noodles in the pack and a student loan coming in a few weeks. And a roof. Could life be any better than that?

  We pitched our tent one final time, crouched amidst scrub on the cliffside, with a view out of the door across the Channel. The coast to the east stretched away into the darkness: I couldn’t see it but I could feel its presence. Our long path was nearly over, littered with the past that we had dragged with us. The cool, damp wind wet my face and I knew that, at last, I could turn away and look to the west and a future less than a day’s walk away.

  ‘It can’t be a coincidence that we’ll be living where our path ends. Not just now, but last year too. It has to be fate.’

  ‘I’ll give you that – it is weird. But I’ll stick with coincidence.’

  We closed the tent flap against the southerly wind for the last time. I was exhilarated by the sudden, unexpected end to our homeless life, but what would happen when I woke up and wasn’t putting my rucksack on to walk for another day on the cliffs? What would I be, who would I be? I didn’t know, but it was all right not to; the past was on another headland and I was happy to leave it there. I could at last look to the future with hope.

  We packed the tent in bright sunlight, carefully folding the duct-taped poles, and turned the page on Paddy, slipping the last page under the hair band. There were no more loose pages. The last rollercoaster took us up and down in an eddying climax of hills, combes and coves. A white painted landmark pointed down to a perfect, short-grassed platform. The ideal spot that we always looked for at seven in the evening, but as usual we found it at midday.

  Not a person in sight, except for a man on the grass lip above the rocks. He was dressed as if he was on safari in the 1950s: stone-coloured long shorts and matching gilet, with a wide-brimmed hat. Standing looking out to sea, his left hand in his pocket, his right outstretched holding a rope that appeared to have a rock on the end. Occasionally he took a step forward and the rock followed along the short, wind-mown
grass. We watched him for ten minutes as he moved three metres forward, one small step at a time.

  ‘Can’t resist it, I’ve got to see what he’s doing.’

  As we got closer it became obvious it wasn’t a rock.

  ‘Hello there. Nice day for walking your tortoise.’ It had been well over a year since our encounter in the woods on the second day of our walk from Minehead; we had long since dismissed the prophecy that we would ‘walk with a tortoise’. Yet here, attached to a customized dog harness, as we neared the end of our journey, was that very thing. A tortoise, taking bites of grass and herby undergrowth, then moving on, one slow step after another.

  ‘Lettuce.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Her name’s Lettuce.’

  We all took a step forward.

  ‘What are you doing with it – her – up here?’

  The man looked at the lead in his hand and then at us as if we were stupid, as if what he was doing was the most obvious thing in the world.

  ‘I’m taking her for a walk.’

  ‘For a walk? She likes a long walk, does she? Not sure you need the lead, though, she’s not really going to run away in a hurry.’

  In unison we took another step.

  ‘Don’t let her deceive you; she looks slow, but if I turn my head, puff, she’s gone. Then I have to get the lettuce out and sit and wait; eventually she’ll smell it and come to it, but it can take hours.’ He lifted the flap of his pocket to show us the little gem lettuce inside.