Two Steps Forward

by Graeme Simsion

  While the chilli bubbled, I switched from cook to masseuse. Margarida, both sisters and the Italian hip-man lined up. Bernhard hovered as I did Margarida’s shoulders. Fabiana went to Mass.

  Someone had set the table with an array of mismatched plates, and Margarida plugged her iPhone into the hostel’s boom box. Our appetiser of nachos smothered in guacamole was eaten to the sounds of what I guessed was Brazilian rap. By the time the chilli hit the table the music was more like reggae and we were all—Fabiana included—bopping along.

  As we started on the chilli, the group fell silent. Heike and Monika were sweating. The French sisters were gulping water between mouthfuls.

  ‘Have I made it too hot?’ I asked.

  ‘No, no,’ said the Italian man.

  ‘This is not hot,’ said Bernhard. ‘In fact, it is…weak.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘Anyone beside Bernhard want more before I spice it up?’

  The Brazilians were up for the hot version.

  I retrieved the packet of chilli peppers that had already rescued a couple meals from blandness (Zoe’s Camino lesson: pack peppers), and crushed a dozen into what remained in the pot. I put it back on the table and helped myself.

  At my local Mexican, it might have scored three red-chilli symbols. Bernhard took one mouthful and his eyes bugged out of his head. He gulped water, then went to the kitchen, returning with a full bottle of milk. Then, as everyone watched, Bernhard ate the whole plateful, and drank most of the bottle of milk, tears running down his face. The Brazilians seemed to enjoy the food and the show as much as I did.

  28

  MARTIN

  I caught the unmistakable aroma of Central or South American food as I came downstairs to dinner. Seated in the dining room, I realised it was coming not from the hotel kitchen but from the adjacent dormitory. On the blackboard, the sole offering for tonight’s sole guest was lentils and sausage—fine, if I couldn’t smell the alternative.

  With a bottle of Kronenberg and my computer for company, I worked on my blog. There was only so much to say about the cart each day and I had been making my posts a little more personal. Likewise, the comments back were increasingly focused on my journey. The major Camino website had added a link.

  As the proprietor-waiter-chef was bringing my bill, a second guest bowled in, a stocky, balding chap of perhaps forty.

  ‘Cognac—double,’ he said in American-accented English as he intercepted our man. He raised two fingers to translate the second word, then added ‘merci’, thankfully not calling him garçon.

  The result was two individual cognacs.

  ‘I think he took double to mean two glasses,’ I said.

  ‘I figured that. Hey, buddy—you’re Australian?’

  ‘English.’

  ‘Near enough. Ed Walker from Houston, Texas. Name is destiny, right? Should be Dead Walker. You been walking too?’

  I nodded. ‘Martin Eden from Sheffield.’

  ‘Famous name there.’

  ‘More in the US than the UK,’ I said. Only Americans and literary types knew the Jack London novel.

  ‘The American dream. Start from nothing, work your way up.’

  ‘My parents didn’t know it. Any name but Anthony, as far as my dad was concerned.’

  ‘There’s some problem with Tony?’

  ‘Anthony Eden. Tory prime minister.’

  I may as well have been speaking French.

  ‘You want this?’ he said.

  I smiled and he passed me the second cognac. ‘You having dinner?’ I asked.

  ‘I ate already. Burger in my room. Had to make some calls.’

  ‘They made you a burger?’

  ‘I just kept saying “hamburger”, and he kept showing me the menu in French, and in the end I won.’

  I hoped he didn’t take this single experience as representative of the French approach to commerce.

  ‘You walked from Le Puy?’ he asked.

  ‘Cluny. I’ve been walking eighteen days. About two hundred and fifty miles.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  I let his response run over me for a few moments, basking in it. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Le Puy.’

  ‘Going to?’

  ‘St Alban sur Limagnole. Here. The end of the line.’ He raised two fingers again to the proprietor, who brought the half-full bottle over and left it on the table.

  ‘I thought I’d do this to find myself. Don’t say anything. I know what that sounds like. But I had a crappy divorce and I figured some time out would be a smart thing to do.’

  ‘But you’re stopping?’

  ‘Like I said, I wanted to work out who I was, what I wanted. Took me three days.’

  ‘If it’s not a rude question, what did you learn?’

  ‘Not rude at all. I learned I don’t want to bust my balls for no reason, I don’t like being alone, I like to work with my head not my legs.’ He took a sip of his Cognac. ‘And I’ve been an asshole to my kids since the divorce, and I’m gonna go back and do something about it instead of wandering in the fucking wilderness.’

  He topped up our glasses. ‘You been married?’

  We finished the bottle. The proprietor had gone. It would have been a good time to stop, but Ed commandeered a half-full bottle of eau de vie de framboise from behind the bar, leaving two fifty-euro notes in its place. Spending like a drunken sailor on his last day of leave.

  We finished it about 1 a.m.—a very late night for me on the Camino—and staggered up the stairs singing ‘Shiver Me Timbers’, Tom Waits and Joe Cocker on a bender.

  I forced myself to drink two big glasses of water before collapsing, clothed, on the bed.

  The twenty-three kilometres to Lasbros the next day was tougher than the thirty-nine I had done on my first day. I didn’t just feel hungover: I felt poisoned. My conversation with Ed about divorce and kids had dragged up some stuff that was still running around in my thumping head, so I had that to deal with too.

  I didn’t need a night of partying with the Brazilians. I cancelled my room, bought some bread and cold chicken in Aumont Aubrac, and pushed on another five kilometres before pitching my tent and crashing.

  In the morning, I got up late and walked the remaining two kilometres to Lasbros, where the hostel owner let me make coffee and toast, and checked the weather. A twenty percent chance of snow in the afternoon. Eighty percent tomorrow. I had planned to stop in Nasbinals, leaving the seven kilometres of exposed plain until the following day, but it made sense to knock it over before it became impassable.

  A night in the fresh air had cured the hangover. In Nasbinals, which was probably a pretty town when they weren’t doing roadworks, I bought a roll and sat on a bench contemplating the weather. It wasn’t looking great, but it was only going to get worse if I hung about.

  29

  ZOE

  ‘You are finishing here today, I hope,’ said Paola, as I slid my pack off.

  The Brazilians and I had stayed in different hostels the previous night in Lasbros, but I had shared a glass of mulled wine in front of a roaring fire with the Swiss women, given them both massages and had a good night’s sleep.

  After arriving in Nasbinals, I spent an hour in the tourist office looking at the maps showing ancient paths from all over Europe to Santiago. Including mine. Buzzing with positive energy, I set off to the hostel but Margarida ran out of the bar and pulled me in.

  The Brazilians had pushed tables together and there were other familiar faces: Heike and Monika, Bernhard, Amaury the photographer.

  ‘The next section is the tough bit, right?’ I said.

  ‘Someone got lost on the Aubrac plain last year,’ Amaury said. ‘They had to send a search party.’

  ‘How old was he?’ said Bernhard. ‘It is only nine kilometres.’

  ‘In bad weather it’s difficult for anyone, experienced or inexperienced,’ said Paola. ‘Unfortunately, we have bad weather coming. Tomorrow we take a taxi.’

  Her t
one said: no argument.

  Bernhard was tone deaf. ‘Renata will walk with me. And Zoe, if she is not afraid.’

  ‘No one in my group walks unless I say it is safe.’

  Though I was no zealot—and I was learning that there were many on the Camino—it felt wrong to get a taxi, perhaps because I had walked this far without using one. I could hole up until the weather cleared but that would add cost and put me behind my companions. Or should I trust Bernhard’s judgment over Paola’s?

  Margarida brought me a ‘special beer’ and I was greeted with the taste of blueberries. It was different, but good. As I took a second sip, I saw Martin outside, poles in one hand while he ate a piece of bread with the other. It seemed he was walking on. I jumped up. ‘I might try and do it tonight before the snow,’ I said, and rummaged in my jacket to find money for the beer.

  I looked up just in time to catch Bernhard mimicking my action, half jumping from his chair with his tongue out like a puppy dog.

  ‘Screw you, asshole,’ I said. ‘If you want to hang out with grown-ups, grow up.’

  Bernhard smiled and looked around for support: she’s snapped and I’m staying cool.

  I could fix that. By the time I hoisted my pack and walked to the door he was struggling to find obscenities to scream at me. And I was still shaking when, a minute later, panting, I caught up with Martin.

  30

  MARTIN

  I was more than surprised to see Zoe: I’d resigned myself to the conclusion that she’d given up in Saugues. And, after the awkwardness in St Privat d’Allier, I certainly hadn’t thought that she would be looking to me for emotional support again.

  But even as she asked if it would be okay to walk with me, I could see there was something wrong.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Not really. I just emptied Bernhard’s pack on the floor and poured a blueberry beer over it all. He was a bit upset.’

  ‘A bit? You’re sounding like an Englishman. Bernhard may have been a little put out.’

  She started laughing, almost hysterically, at my lame impression of an upper-class twit, stopping occasionally to add detail that set her—and me—off again. His sleeping bag soaked in beer, him snatching away the porn magazine, stuffing it back in his pack and then realising that there were things still inside that he’d now made beery.

  We were half a kilometre out of town before we both calmed down.

  ‘I’m losing it,’ she said. ‘He’s just a kid. And back in the restaurant in St Privat…’

  ‘I owe you an apology…’

  ‘You owe me? I don’t think so. You were just trying…’

  ‘I was a klutz. You’d just told me about your husband, and I was a bit wrong-footed…’

  ‘I think there’s something wrong with me. It’s almost six weeks since he died and I’ve hardly cried.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain that to an Englishman.’

  ‘Stiff upper lip, right?’

  ‘You put a lid on it and after a while it breaks through when you’re not expecting it.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to put a lid on it. I’m Californian. We talk it through.’

  ‘You haven’t had anyone to talk it through with.’

  ‘I did have…my friend Camille. But…’

  ‘You walked away. Maybe there’s something you’re not ready to deal with. Yet.’

  She didn’t ask me to elaborate. Fortunately. I was at the limit of my psychoanalytic abilities, and there were more immediate matters to attend to.

  ‘Do you have a smartphone?’ I asked.

  ‘Sorry, why?’

  ‘Wanted to check the weather. My battery died; I was in the tent last night and couldn’t charge it.’

  ‘You want to go back?’

  ‘No. I think this weather app just spins a wheel every hour anyway. Last time I looked it said thirty percent chance of snow. It’s not snowing now and every kilometre without snow is one more down. But I’ll go back with you if you’re not comfortable.’

  ‘I’ll come with you. Thank you.’

  31

  ZOE

  At first, the track looked no different than others I had walked, and there were just a few patches of snow at the side, but it soon took us high into the hills. On the ridges, we were at the mercy of a wind that seemed to be coming from the Arctic and threatened not just to chill us but to knock us off our feet.

  A weathered scallop shell on a post directed us across wet muddy fields where progress was slow and there was no clear path or anywhere to paint or hang the markers. Martin was checking his GPS a lot.

  As we passed Martin’s cart over a fence, my foot slipped and my ankle twisted. I stepped carefully and it took my weight.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I usually strap it on my back to do that. We’ll be sitting beside a fire in a couple of hours.’

  Then the snow started. The large white flakes were pretty and a little magical at first, but within minutes our visibility was down to a few feet. My nose, which had been cold, was now alternating between pain and numbness. I tried to bury my head in the fluff of my hood—not so easy when I needed to see what my feet were landing on, and where I was going, even if the chance of seeing a scallop shell in the blizzard was next to zilch. The wind whistled past my ears.

  Martin had somehow turned his hat into a ski mask. He had the GPS in his hand all the time now, and gave me a thumbs-up as he pointed ahead, then spoke into my ear, over the noise of the wind. His breath was reassuringly warm.

  ‘There’s a hut ahead. About half a kilometre. Keep your eyes open.’

  It was hard to do with snow blowing right at us, but I couldn’t afford to lose sight of Martin. It had been years since snow had been a part of my winters, and on days like this we had stayed indoors—and I was a town kid, not used to snow in the middle of nowhere. This kind of weather was an annual event in North America and featured in the news regularly. Blizzards that killed people. For the first time in my life, I felt the malevolent force of nature up close—and it was terrifying how insignificant and small I felt.

  Every story I’d ever seen on the news was running around in my head—if nature was wearing the colour of my spirit, then I was in bad shape, and no other meditative message was able to drown out bodies found after thaw and storm kills entire family. My body being dug out, frozen solid. Hadn’t the scallop shell been destined to get to Santiago? Maybe the girls would sell it to a pilgrim to help pay for my remains to be sent home.

  ‘We’re lost,’ I yelled, coming up beside Martin.

  Martin looked at me, then put his arm around my shoulder in a clumsy hug—clumsy because of backpacks and carts and poles and jackets and gloves.

  The wind and snow didn’t let up and we barely seemed to be moving. My ankle twinged as I slipped again.

  Then I saw the hut. We almost bumped into it: a few yards either side and we would have missed it. Martin nodded but seemed as relieved as I was.

  ‘Well spotted. Nice work. Do you have something warmer you can put on?’ He was shouting over the wind.

  I nodded.

  ‘Be quick about it.’

  It was a relief to be out of the storm. Martin waited outside while I took off my jacket and fleece and put my sweater on underneath. My fingers were frozen and white—I didn’t think I would ever get it done.

  ‘Not far,’ he said, when I emerged, and it must have only been half an hour before we staggered onto the road. We could make out the town of Aubrac ahead.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d ever be so grateful to see a church,’ I said. Martin looked at me as though I needed to say something more.

  ‘We wouldn’t have made it without your GPS.’

  ‘You should get one. They’re standard on smartphones these days. Then you’d have a phone too.’

  I was getting to know this guy and his sarcastic defence. I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘Thank you. Okay?’

  He smiled this time.

  I took off almost at a ru
n, and arrived at the hotel before him. In the empty bar, we peeled off layers, snow and water dripping all over the tiled floor, then fell into chairs in front of the fire.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Martin.

  ‘Holy crap.’ I was trying to massage feeling into my fingers. We ordered drinks and I took off my boots. My feet were tingling, which I hoped was a sign that I wouldn’t be losing any toes. Martin was talking to the bartender.

  ‘Dinner,’ he said, when he returned with a steaming coffee and an icy-looking beer, ‘is at 7.30.’

  ‘Probably is at the gîte too.’

  ‘It doesn’t open till April.’

  ‘You’re kidding me. How much vacation do people need in this country?’

  ‘There’s one in St Chély. It’s only a couple of hours’ walk.’

  Oh God.

  Martin sipped his beer. ‘You were looking so full of energy that last hundred metres, I can understand you’re keen to knock it over.’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Don’t be bloody silly. Tonight’s on me.’

  ‘I don’t need you to take care of me.’

  ‘Just drink your drink.’

  I was hungry, tired and being offered a good deal. I’d worry about my problems with being rescued tomorrow. Without doing massages, I wouldn’t be able to pay for the dinner or the room. And I sure as hell wasn’t massaging Martin.

  The room had a bath. I soaked for half an hour until every part of me felt approximately normal. I took a moment standing in my room, with my own bed, listening to the wind outside, to feel humble and remind myself how blessed I was, before dressing for dinner.

  Except dressing for dinner on the Camino means putting on your one change of clothes: leggings, a long top and no bra. Camille would have slit her wrists rather than go out like this—to say nothing of my red nose, which looked like it was going to swell and peel. No cosmetics to cover it.

  Martin’s meal smelled great, and mine was a well-balanced salad with hot goat cheese for protein (no bacon, as requested) and a fruit tart that had to be healthy.