Two Steps Forward

by Graeme Simsion

  I still didn’t know much about Martin. He told me he’d had an ugly divorce, but I sensed that he didn’t want to go there. Instead, we talked about our daughters and shared our worst teenager moments.

  ‘I’m not sure what I did to deserve an Aries and Taurus,’ I said.

  ‘Star signs?’

  Not everyone was into astrology but did anyone have better answers?

  ‘I’m Sagittarian,’ said Martin. ‘What does that tell you?’

  ‘If you hadn’t told me I would have guessed. The knight in shining armour. With or without the GPS.’

  ‘Not to my daughter, I’m not.’

  I waited.

  ‘We text,’ he said. ‘Not perfect. But it’s better than her being ferried between two warring parents.’

  ‘Is that what she wants?’

  ‘I don’t think seventeen-year-olds have much of an idea of what’s best for them.’

  ‘Bet you did.’

  Martin looked uneasy. ‘She’s got her mother,’ he said finally. ‘For all my problems with her, she’s been all right with Sarah.’

  ‘I had to do it alone for years before I remarried. It was tough.’

  Martin was looking beat. I figured the cart took a lot out of him. Maybe it was the weight of what he had in it, but he had seemed to be working harder than I was.

  ‘I’d better crash,’ I said.

  Martin insisted on a last drink. Keith hadn’t done after-dinner drinks and always went to bed early; I had adapted to his rhythm. Now there was no need.

  ‘To surviving parenting,’ said Martin, lifting his glass of green liquor.

  ‘And to surviving the walk,’ I said. ‘Thanks to your GPS.’

  32

  MARTIN

  Jon: Don’t know if it was the cold or missing a night’s charge, but your GPS let me down today. The one time I needed it. Flat battery in the middle of a snowstorm on the Massif Central. Had to use the little compass on my jacket zip and keep pretending to look at your bloody device so the American woman who had put her trust in it (rather than me) wouldn’t panic. Wouldn’t want it to happen in Afghanistan. It’ll be in my report. M.

  I sent the email and followed with a short message to Sarah, letting her know I was alive. Zoe’s advice about parenting was nothing new: Ed Walker had given me much the same message two nights earlier.

  Almost immediately there was a reply. Miss you Dad xxx.

  I knew she missed me. I was trying hard not to miss her, trying to do the right thing. I knew from experience—bitter experience—that one loving parent was better than being in the middle of a constant fight between two. Yes, Zoe, I did know what I needed at seventeen. I guessed she disagreed with what I’d done. She didn’t know Julia. Or my parents.

  In the morning, we shared breakfast at the hotel and set off together.

  The landscape and buildings were covered in snow. The wind had died and, off the plain, navigation was straightforward. There was nobody about and most of the time the crunch of our footsteps was the only sound.

  ‘Winter wonderland,’ I said. It came out without the irony that I would normally have given to those words. Zoe smiled and, had we not both been wearing gloves, I’d probably have taken her hand.

  ‘I’m booked in Chély tonight,’ I said, ‘and I’m inclined not to change it. Just walk an easy eight kilometres and have a break.’

  ‘Works for me. But I’m staying at the hostel. No more freeloading.’

  ‘Meet you for breakfast?’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  I had a quiet afternoon in Chély, washing clothes, checking the cart and going over my plans. I was running exactly to schedule, even with the delayed departure from Cluny.

  After dinner, I pulled out my phone to text Sarah. There was a message from her already.

  Hi Dad. Where r u?

  Chély, southern France.

  In a hotel?

  Yep.

  By yourself?

  Yep.

  How far did you walk?

  Today of all days. 8km. My shortest day. I average about 25.

  In miles.

  Work it out. If you’re still planning to do science.

  Thinking about medicine. Probs won’t get the marks. Don’t say anything.

  Who was I going to say anything to? Julia and I had not spoken since I left England. Another message came before I could reply.

  Who are you walking with?

  Different people. Mostly alone.

  What about today?

  Why the interest?

  Guessing woman.

  You’re not guessing. You read my blog. BUT, husband just died. And American ;-)

  American!!! Is she nice?

  Believes in astrology. Vego. I had exhausted my negatives.

  What’s her name?

  Candy ;-)

  Yeah, right.

  Have to go to bed.

  It’s only 9!!!

  10 here. Early start.

  Goodnight old man. Love you.

  I sent xxx and shut down.

  It wasn’t actually an early start. Breakfast at rural hotels in France never began before 7.30, and sometimes as late as 9 a.m., and I’d learnt not to depart on an empty stomach in the hope of finding something in the next village. French shops had a long list of reasons for closing: certain days of the week, lunch, annual holidays, obscure public holidays, family reasons and the all-purpose fermeture exceptionnelle.

  We got away at 9 a.m., aiming for Espalion. The weather had cleared, the sun was shining and we were both rested.

  Zoe was a pleasant walking companion. She chatted about her daughters, and it was reassuring to be reminded that all teenagers had problems and that hers had turned out fine, even without their father on the scene. Keith, the late husband, remained absent from most of the stories and she deflected questions about her parents and siblings.

  Five kilometres out from Espalion, I called a break. Some days my feet lasted longer than others, but even with the new shoes they were usually sore by twenty kilometres, particularly if I had been walking on bitumen. A few minutes’ rest was remarkably effective at restoring them.

  While I was checking my GPS, Zoe came up behind me and, without warning, put her hands over my eyes.

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Right. What did you see before I put my hands over your eyes? Describe the landscape for me.’

  ‘It’d be easier if I could see.’

  ‘You’ve been standing here for ten minutes.’

  ‘Grass, trees, clouds…I’m just not that observant. I don’t notice much outside my head.’ I said it lightly, but it was true, though not as true as it had once been. I had become accomplished at spotting scallop-shell signposts, and had not wandered off track since the second day in the pine forest. But, as an artist, she must be acutely conscious of the environment, while my mind was turning over the same things as it would have if I was drinking alone in a Sheffield bar.

  Zoe removed her hands and rose to her feet. She had made a point about our difference, but it had been made with her hands on my face and her body pressed against my back.

  We shared a mandarin and she asked where I was staying.

  ‘Haven’t decided.’

  ‘I’m staying at the hostel. If you feel like slumming it. And eating healthy food.’

  The sun was still delivering some warmth when we arrived, but it was hardly sunbathing weather. So it was a little surreal to find two women stretched out on deckchairs on the porch, sipping cocktails through straws. Doubly surreal, because they were Margarida and Fabiana, who we had left behind in Nasbinals. Triply, because Margarida had an umbrella, functioning as a sunshade.

  They greeted us effusively. ‘Caipirinhas?’

  Where did they get Brazilian cocktail ingredients in a French village? How had they crossed the Aubrac plain and arrived here ahead of us?

  They hadn’t. Paola had considered the Aubrac too risky and they had take
n the taxi to within a few kilometres of Espalion, leaving only a short walk for today. She had given a pass to Renata, who had crossed behind us, in the company of a male Danish walker who had arrived after we set out, and they had done the extra nine kilometres through to Chély while Zoe and I were recovering. No matter what you do, there’s always someone to top you. I toasted Renata, making my views of the others apparent by default.

  After dinner—a surprisingly tasty vegetable stew cooked by Zoe—it was party time. Margarida dragged me up to dance. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder red dress, which seemed an extraordinary thing to bring on a long-distance hike. Unless, I supposed, you saw it as a rolling party, in which case you would naturally pack high heels, cocktail makings and audio cables for your phone. Maybe she had a mirror ball stowed away somewhere.

  I did my standard shuffle on the spot, but Margarida grabbed my hips and did a passable impression of stand-up sex. I wondered what Zoe, and Renata, who was dancing by herself, were making of it. I suspected that Margarida was all show. Regardless, the chemistry was not there.

  I peeled her off, and caught Zoe looking pleased. If Margarida was using me to make an impression, we were square. I tried a couple of times to turn down the music, but Fabiana, of all people, turned it up again. She was dancing too, although she stopped short of making a move on me.

  There was an element of repetition about the walk. Every day finished with washing, eating, blogging, photo and video back-up, and battery charging. I had bread and coffee for breakfast, fruit for morning and afternoon breaks, and the coarsest-grained bread I could find for lunch with tomatoes and salami or cheese. If there was no fridge, I parked my salami on the window sill overnight. I had a final checklist of stuff I might have left lying around before departure: CPGS—computer, charger; passport, phone; GPS, guidebook; sticks, salami.

  Zoe and I got away ahead of the Brazilians the next day and shared a huge escargot pastry from the local patisserie. Her idea, and fair enough. No need to count calories when you’re walking twenty-five kilometres up and down hills every day.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘party again tonight?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I asked Paola where they were staying. So I wouldn’t be.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Keen to see your girlfriend?’

  ‘Girlfriend?’

  ‘You wanna dance, Marteen?’

  I spread my hands. Was it my fault?

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I’ve forgotten where they’re staying, but it’s not Golinhac. Which is where I’m going. Does that work for you?’

  Winter was turning into spring, and I might not have noticed without Zoe drawing my attention to the flower buds and butterflies. With spring came rain. The skies opened, big hailstones beating down. It only lasted fifteen minutes, but that was enough to soak both of us. Zoe’s ski jacket looked like it had been in the washing machine: limp and lifeless. She burst out laughing.

  ‘I’d just been waiting. I was so worried about getting soaked, and then…what does it matter?’

  We took belated refuge in Estaing, in the church opposite the château, which overlooked perhaps the most picturesque town I’d seen on the Chemin. Two couples from Zoe’s homeland were talking loudly. As they do.

  ‘Says here it’s Gothic. I thought that was a kind of novel.’

  There were three different interpretations offered—all wrong.

  I wandered over. ‘It’s an architectural style. Originated in France, middle of the twelfth century through to mid-sixteenth. Which was when most of this building would have been constructed.’

  ‘So, what makes it Gothic? I mean, how do you tell?’ One of the women was asking and they all seemed interested. I gave them a little illustrated lesson, conscious that Zoe was listening and being careful not to show off for her benefit.

  ‘You don’t know what these squiggles mean, do you?’ asked the man with the big camera, kneeling at the gates protecting the altar.

  ‘Tetragrammatons. The name of God in four Hebrew letters. YHWH.’

  ‘Yahweh.’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking, how do you know this stuff?’

  ‘My job.’ And because his expression demanded elaboration, I added, ‘Architecture.’ Near enough, but Zoe raised her eyebrows.

  ‘What about this picture?’ one of the women asked.

  ‘That’s St James on the left and St Roch on the right.’ I could read the inscriptions under the wooden statues. ‘St Roch is the patron saint of pilgrims.’ I gave them a short summary of the pilgrimage.

  ‘I was wondering about the picture itself.’

  I could have said the obvious—the man in the middle was Christ and the others his disciples. But Zoe stepped up.

  ‘It’s a great example of Pentecostal art,’ she said. ‘More typical of the period before the fifteenth century. It shows Christ and his disciples receiving the Holy Spirit. The light radiating from the dove is the sign of the divine illumination. Can you see the flames above their heads?’

  ‘I guess…Now that you point them out.’

  ‘They’re to show the entry of the Holy Spirit.’

  They looked closer, sounding as enthusiastic as if they’d been in the Louvre viewing the Mona Lisa.

  ‘Not a bad team,’ Zoe said after they’d thanked us and wandered out.

  ‘The religious upbringing wasn’t all wasted.’

  ‘That was art school. Mostly. And since when were you an architect?’

  ‘I didn’t want to sound like a wanker—people don’t take any notice if they think you’re showing off, but they’ll listen to someone who does it for a crust.’

  ‘Doesn’t explain how you know so much about it.’

  ‘I’m just a knowledgeable chap.’

  ‘Now you’re showing off. Wanker.’

  ‘Careful with words you don’t understand. When I was young, I wanted to be an architect. Didn’t work out.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Left school. Worked in a machine shop. Got a scholarship for engineering. End of story.’

  As we came out of the church, the Americans were looking in the window of the art gallery opposite.

  The camera guy came over. ‘Let me take a photo of you two. That’s my job.’

  He posed us on the stairs, with my arm around Zoe, and her leaning into me, and was surprised when we gave him separate email addresses for the photo.

  We picked up the key from the mairie, and there was a sense of being on an adventure together, of a different kind than navigating the snowstorm on the Aubrac. There were two dormitories. I dropped my bags in one and turned on the heating. Zoe peeled off her wet jacket and hung it on a drying rack in front of the heater.

  ‘Dining in or out?’ I asked.

  ‘I need vegetables,’ said Zoe. ‘So, in.’

  ‘Leave it to me.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Mr Carnivore.’

  She checked the kitchen cupboards for staples and stuff left behind, then wrote a list.

  I gave it a quick scan. ‘That little shop won’t have brown rice.’

  I had to find a supermarket to get wine anyway. They had brown rice in the Bio section. I bought some marinated vegetables for starters and a small tart for dessert. Plus a bottle of local red and a half-bottle of Chablis to go with the entrée.

  When I returned, Zoe had changed into tights and her long top. I dumped my purchases, put the white wine in the freezing compartment of the fridge and headed for the showers.

  Zoe had laid out the antipasto more artistically than I would have and uncorked the red. I pulled out the Chablis and poured two glasses. We clinked and she gave me a huge smile.

  We had put a dent in the wine by the time she dished up the vegetable curry. She did a bit of probing about my post-Julia personal life and I told the story about the Hot Rabbit coming on to me. I stopped at that: she could work out where things had ended up.

  I was watching for any indication beyond tha
t initial smile that she was feeling any empathy with the Hot Rabbit. Too close to call. The giggling could be put down to the amount that she had drunk. And the same isolation that had created the sense of intimacy would make any unwanted move on my part seem threatening.

  I took the bed at the opposite end of the dormitory. There were two heaters, so even our drying clothes remained decently separated.

  33

  ZOE

  Walking with Martin was different than walking alone. For one thing, I knew where I was and where I was going. He took time to talk me through the route on the map.

  ‘The path diverts from the direct line to St Jean Pied de Port, going west rather than southwest.’

  ‘Let me guess. There’s a church.’

  ‘There is indeed. The Sainte Foy abbey at Conques.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Her. Third-century martyr. Tortured to death with a brazier, aged twelve.’

  ‘You’re not making me feel any better about the church.’

  ‘It wasn’t the church that did it. The opposite.’

  Near Conques, Martin stopped and checked his GPS for about the hundredth time. ‘Celebratory drink tonight. Five hundred kilometres from Cluny. Three hundred miles, in your language.’

  ‘I’ll take the five hundred. I think I should celebrate that my body held out.’

  ‘Still three-quarters of the way to go.’

  ‘Halfway for me.’ And still no peace of mind. Or even clarity that peace of mind was what I was seeking. Monsieur Chevalier’s ‘finding what I had lost’ had sounded prophetic, but I was never going to get back the most important thing I’d lost. Keith wasn’t going to be there to congratulate me at the end.

  We had been climbing, and I was expecting that at any moment the trees would thin and we would emerge to see the town. Instead, the trail turned downhill through a wood thick with trees and undergrowth. And then, when we got our first glimpse, it looked like just another pretty village, different only because it was nestled into the side of a mountain. A little further on, we got a better view and at that moment something stirred in me.