Two Steps Forward

by Graeme Simsion

  Martin had spoken to Renata in Le Puy, but didn’t know the other women’s names. He didn’t need to point to them.

  ‘Bashful,’ he said.

  ‘I was thinking Pious. That’ll be Fabiana.’

  ‘Mama.’

  ‘Too easy. Paola. She’s in charge.’

  Martin hesitated a moment as if he’d forgotten Party Girl. ‘The other one.’

  ‘Camino Barbie?’

  Martin laughed.

  ‘Margarida,’ I said.

  ‘Wine?’

  I’d already had a beer and the glass of Pernod. I’d only earned nineteen euros, and had a hotel room to pay for. I shook my head.

  ‘My shout. Treat. I insist. You made the right call, waiting for the hotel.’

  I ordered salad and French fries—frites. Martin ordered duck. And a bottle of local wine. It was good: I could see myself getting used to it. Not such a great lesson to take home from the Camino.

  ‘So,’ said Martin, ‘the most important thing you haven’t told me about your walk is why you’re doing it. Besides the call of the scallop shell. Why are you in France?’

  ‘Don’t underestimate fate.’

  Martin raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘there are plenty of people in the world who believe our destiny is in the hands of some old white guy sitting above us dealing out rewards and punishment like…some old white guy. What I believe makes more sense than that. Some things are meant to be. Fate, destiny, karma—whatever you want to call it. The universe has plans—we just aren’t smart enough to know how it works.’

  ‘So why do you think fate sent you on this journey?’

  ‘My husband died. Suddenly. Five weeks ago.’

  ‘Christ. I’m so sorry.’

  I felt a sudden wave of emotion. I looked away and took a gulp of wine.

  ‘I haven’t really confronted it yet.’

  ‘A lot people walk the Camino to grieve,’ he said after a moment. ‘You’ve got a long way to go yet.’

  ‘I’m only going to the border.’

  ‘Still a long way.’

  Dinner arrived. My hot goat-cheese salad had a heap of greens—topped with bacon bits. I drank more wine and unloaded the bacon into my paper napkin. Reluctantly. The chèvre was the best I’d ever had.

  Martin explained his relationship with Jim the realtor and asked how I knew Camille.

  ‘We were roommates at college in St Louis,’ I said. ‘I was studying art and she was doing languages; she’d already done a year in Japan.’

  ‘And you got on—connected?’

  ‘Actually, I didn’t like her at first. She was crazy—a total drama queen—and men ran after her anyway. Sharing a room was like living in the eye of a tornado: moments of calm but then you knew the storm would move and…’

  He laughed. ‘So, what happened?’

  ‘She got into trouble.’ I was back there, picturing my roommate’s face, the beautiful, confident, sophisticated European sobbing like a child. I had realised what an act it had all been.

  ‘She was in love. But he dumped her. The crétin—that’s what we called him. In the end, we both dropped out. She went back to France, and I got married and had children.’

  ‘But you helped her?’

  ‘She…couldn’t handle the picket line. There was a lot of pro-life activism happening in St Louis. She freaked out, and in the end the only physician I could convince her to trust was out of town, so I took her there.’

  Bernhard and Margarida were laughing loudly across the room.

  ‘What about you?’ I asked him. ‘What do you think about in all your quiet time?’

  ‘How far to the next village; whether it’s going to rain; where I’m going to eat.’

  If I hadn’t been walking the Camino myself I’d have thought he was avoiding the question, but truth was, I spent a heap of time thinking about everyday stuff.

  ‘So, what are you trying to leave behind?’ It was an instinctive question. I’d drunk a lot of wine.

  Martin looked surprised, then shrugged. ‘Done that already. No problem with Cluny, but…time to do something different.’

  Now he was holding back. I sensed he was hiding a lot of pain. But he wasn’t going to share anything emotional. Typical man. Typical fucking man.

  I closed my eyes and felt my anger giving way to an overwhelming sadness. ‘Excuse me.’ I got up and went to the restroom. And fell apart.

  Great sobs heaved through my body and the tears didn’t want to stop. When I heard someone outside—there was only one stall—I forced myself to concentrate on my breathing until I was calm enough to walk out.

  When I did, I found Martin standing there, looking concerned and kind, and that started it again. He put both of his arms around me, gently, surely trying to be caring. I couldn’t deal with it. I pulled away, said, ‘I’m sorry—I’ve just had too much to drink,’ and fled upstairs.

  26

  MARTIN

  Thank God—or Renata—I had my own room. I’d have pitched my tent rather than follow Zoe upstairs after making such a fool of myself. ‘I’ve had too much to drink,’ she says, and Martin—What’s your poison, baby?—moves in. That must surely have been how it looked to her.

  I waited for her in the morning, apology and explanation ready, but she didn’t appear. The proprietor told me she had skipped breakfast—and town. She couldn’t have made it any clearer that she wanted to put distance between me and her. Half of me wanted to set things right: I’d enjoyed the chat, and had felt we were on the way to some companionable walking and perhaps meals together. The other half was relieved to escape the complications.

  The twenty kilometres to Saugues included the hardest climb so far: five hundred metres over just a few kilometres. My guidebook had a story that the postman at Saugues used to wait at the entrance to the town with cardboard boxes for the pilgrims to fill with all the kit they’d decided to send home.

  Steep ascents were the cart’s bête noire—or at least mine. Rough terrain, even snow and ice, it handled well, but climbing was like pulling a plough. I took it in fifty-metre bites, watching the GPS register each metre of elevation until I could stop for five minutes, sip some water and regroup. Even with the thermometer on my jacket zip showing six degrees, I was down to just a T-shirt.

  Shortly after noon, I reached the top of the final crest and looked back over the valley. Someone had provided a bench to sit on. I waited a few minutes for my breathing to steady, drank some water and surveyed the path ahead, looking for a white jacket. I couldn’t see anyone, and a cold wind chilled the sweat and had me reaching for my fleece.

  I arrived in Saugues mid-afternoon, propped at the first bar and settled down to watch the pilgrims arrive. I was about to leave when Renata appeared—alone, again. She was happy to share a beer and a can of olives.

  ‘How did you find the climb?’ I asked.

  ‘Not bad. I have been training for three months. The others, not so much. And I am carrying only this.’ She indicated her daypack. ‘The taxi carries our packs. After the first day, the others agreed to it. It was a democratic decision.’ Democratic but not unanimous, said her expression.

  ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘They walked past while you were getting the drinks. Anyway, tell me about your…’

  ‘Cart? It’s a long story.’

  ‘I like long stories. You can tell me at dinner.’

  I suppose some men would have prepared for the first time they had been asked out by a woman with a visit to the local tailor. Instead, I went looking for hiking boots. I found an outdoor-equipment shop, well located to serve those who needed to review their kit after two days on the track.

  The moment my feet slipped into a pair of Gore-Tex hiking shoes, I knew that I would never wear my heavy boots again. As I was paying, I spotted a familiar pack behind the counter, or at least a familiar design: the 2010 French football debacle souvenir. I slipped my glasses on and had a closer look. It wa
s obviously not new. Too much of a coincidence.

  ‘Tell me, what is that backpack?’ I asked in French.

  It was not a smart move. My English accent must have been obvious. The moustachioed man serving me whisked it away and made it apparent that no further enquiries would be entertained. I tried anyway.

  ‘Was there a woman?’

  He wasn’t having any of it. He handed me my credit card and receipt, and didn’t bother putting the boots in a bag.

  Had Zoe thrown in the towel and sold her gear to buy a bus fare back to Cluny? Had revisiting memories of her late husband, perhaps confronting them for the first time after literally running away, been too much? Or, worse, had it been my clumsy effort at comforting her?

  Thoughts along these lines persisted through an otherwise delightful dinner with Renata. She ate meat, worked for a living and was a paid-up atheist. She had no children and had recently ended a long-term relationship. They had split the assets without recourse to lawyers and remained friends. She had prepared for the walk.

  ‘I was worried I would not keep up with the younger people, but it is they who cannot keep up with me.’

  ‘You seem to be doing this almost by yourself.’

  ‘A little. But I did not want the effort of planning.’

  She was not keen to discuss her companions, and I respected her discretion. Instead we talked about the history of the walk, and its connection to her research at the University of São Paulo on the current relationships between South America and the colonising countries.

  ‘Where are the others eating tonight?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t tell them either.’ She smiled.

  I walked her back to her hotel, and she kissed me goodnight, reasonably chastely, but not before telling me that they would be stopping in St Alban sur Limagnole the following night and then Lasbros. I had resumed booking in advance, and had the same itinerary.

  In three weeks on the Chemin, I’d had three dinners with interesting women: Renata, Zoe, and Aude, the Hot Rabbit. It occurred to me that Monsieur Chevalier’s multiple pilgrimages might not have been entirely for religious reasons.

  It was only 9 p.m. so I went looking for Zoe. The municipal gîte was closed and the private hostel had locked up. If she had decided to abandon the walk, as I was now feeling must be the case, she had no reason to hang around.

  27

  ZOE

  A tough day’s walk into Saugues helped take my mind off the previous evening. I had breakfast in a bar at the bottom of a cliff where I could see the trail ahead switchbacking up. I sat for a while wondering why I was doing it—I didn’t have to keep walking just because I could afford to. I thought of my daughters, of the familiarity of home. Of talking over last night’s debacle with my girlfriends and letting the rawness heal.

  I rubbed my scallop-shell charm and Keith’s gold heart touched my fingers. Was it trying to tell me something I didn’t want to hear?

  Meanwhile, the universe was giving me a less subtle message. The wind was bitterly cold, and my hands were in danger of freezing. Ahead of me was the Aubrac plain, likely to be colder still. I needed gloves—proper gloves—before I could walk on. Or I could call it quits, maybe sell my gear, and take a bus to Paris.

  The climb into Saugues felt like an ending, and I began to imagine myself tucked into a seat on the plane home. Then, walking down the main street, I saw a camping store. The message couldn’t have been clearer.

  I was waiting in line, starting to have doubts about whether they’d want any of my stuff, when a guy behind me shrieked.

  ‘Horreur!’

  I dove to the floor—I didn’t have time to think how unlikely it was that a terrorist would target Saugues. The employees looked at me in bewilderment as I got up. The negative energy from last night’s experience must have left me more unsettled than I had realised. The weapon that had unleashed the horror seemed to be my backpack.

  ‘Je suis désolée,’ I said—sorry—though I probably didn’t sound it. ‘Je suis un pèlerin et le pack libre…gratuit.’ Free. So, get over yourselves. Did this team have any fans?

  Three staff had an animated conversation and one, an older guy with a moustache, smiled.

  ‘Madame, we have a backpack for you. Superior.’

  His colleagues disappeared into the back room and returned with a pack.

  It looked similar in size, grey and red, with a burn mark on the top flap. They were safety-pinning a miniature American flag over it.

  ‘I don’t need another pack,’ I said. ‘I need…I need gloves.’

  ‘Also, gloves!’ He grabbed a pair from the table.

  The private hostel was a home with rooms leading off each other and a clothesline across the back garden. Amaury, the photographer I’d met in Le Puy, was there and he went out to take shots of the town, after a massage. We managed a basic conversation—my French was getting better—and decided that the best hostel options for the next day were in St Alban sur Limagnole, twenty-seven kilometres away. It would be my longest day so far.

  There was also a Swiss woman, Heike, in her fifties. She was walking with her partner, Monika, who was hitchhiking back to their starting point to collect their mobile home. Their plan was to walk to the destination, then take turns to hitchhike back and retrieve the vehicle. They wanted to avoid hassles from pilgrims or hostel staff in rural France taking the Catholic line on their relationship. No problem so far, but it was only Day Two. The hostel was for dinner and companionship.

  The Brazilians never showed. They seemed to be using a variety of lodgings. Martin might be seeing more of them than I was.

  I had learned that there were three types of mud: sticky, sucking and slippery. Walking to St Alban sur Limagnole, I got all three. It was almost impossible to rid the bottom of my shoe of the two- to three-inch layer without getting the other foot stuck or falling on my butt.

  I caught up with Fabiana and Margarida an hour into the day. Both had taken their boots off and Margarida was laying on the ground out of the wind behind a stone fence—under an umbrella.

  ‘Gringa!’ Margarida said. ‘How ya doin’?’

  ‘Good,’ I said, meaning it. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Renata is ahead,’ said Margarida. ‘Always.’

  ‘And Paola?’

  ‘Bad knee,’ said Fabiana. ‘She meets us in the next town.’

  I walked on, secretly pleased that I didn’t need to stop. I was eating way more food than usual, but maybe not enough protein. My clothes were loose and I felt fitter than I’d ever been.

  I tried to figure out why I had fallen apart at dinner with Martin. I guessed he’d seen my tears as female weakness, which was annoying—I didn’t cry often. Not even at the funeral. I’d got stuck on how the minister Keith’s mother had insisted on had not captured anything about him. Though not as badly as the pastor had messed up my mother’s funeral.

  My mother. I could never understand how my mother could disown her daughter for the sin of caring for someone else. It still ate away at me.

  As I reached the top of another hill I was greeted with clapping. A barrel-chested man about my age and height was sitting on a rock, backpack beside him.

  ‘Well done, honey. That was one big mother.’

  ‘Honey?’

  The American grinned. ‘Stars and stripes on your backpack. First person from home I’ve seen. Ed Walker from Houston. Name is destiny, right?’

  Huh?

  ‘Walker. Should be Dead Walker. One more of those hills and I may be.’

  ‘Zoe Witt,’ I said. ‘Not much destiny there.’ If there had been, I might have thought of a witty response to ‘honey’. ‘I used to be Waites, but I didn’t do too much of that. I got married at twenty—so I was Rosales for a while.’

  ‘Bed of roses?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Nor was mine…Took off, and took the money and the kids with her. Now I’ve taken off.’

  ‘How old are your
kids?’

  ‘Ten and…You don’t approve, do you?’

  ‘Not my business.’

  ‘Thought I might learn something about myself on this walk. So far all I’ve learned is I hate walking. So, teach me something. Tell me what you’re thinking.’

  He asked for it. ‘Kids need their parents. Both of them.’ I almost added, ‘Which is why I gave up a man I loved,’ but stopped myself in time. Where had that come from? Was it even true? Instead I said, ‘Children blame themselves for everything that goes wrong.’

  ‘You think I walked out on them?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter what I think. That’s what they’ll think.’

  ‘I should go home?’

  ‘How often do you call them?’

  ‘I’ve only been walking three days. What do you think of the food? Supposed to be the best in the world. Not so far, it isn’t.’

  ‘We’re not exactly in Paris.’

  He laughed. ‘We’re up high. Edge of the Aubrac plain. Did they tell you it gets snowed in?’

  We both scanned the sky: no signs of a change in weather. But it was a reminder to get moving.

  The terrain had changed. Between the pine forests, there were now broad plains traversed by powerlines. I needed the gloves. With my hands out of my pockets, I could use my arms for balance as I crossed the slippery terrain.

  St Alban sur Limagnole was built around a château that was now a psychiatric facility. The hostel was down the hill, attached to a hotel. Church bells welcomed me.

  Paola, Renata and Heike were already there. I offered to cook and Paola insisted on buying the groceries.

  An hour later, I had a pot of vegetarian chilli simmering. Monika, the other half of the Swiss couple, showed up with the mobile home and two bottles of wine.

  Bernhard arrived and I sent him out for more beans.

  Three others joined in: two elderly French sisters and an Italian man with a bad hip. His priest had told him that cycling the Camino was not enough penance for some domestic sin, and he was repeating it on foot from Le Puy. He wasn’t seeing much of his wife—maybe that had been the priest’s intention.