This time, the shoe was on the other foot. Martin had told me he’d walked thirty-nine kilometres on his longest day, so I figured he’d shoot for a little more than that. Ostabat, one day short of St Jean Pied de Port, had his name on it. Could I do it? One thing this Camino had taught me was that I could walk. And, after watching Martin struggle with his cart across the Aubrac plain, I knew I could walk further than he could.
36
MARTIN
I planned to walk further than Zoe would be capable of. The guidebook estimated forty kilometres to Ostabat. I would start early, knock over the twelve kilometres to Lichos, and mentally start a twenty-eight-kilometre day there. As a bonus, I would make St Jean Pied de Port a day early.
Renata had accused me of running away from Zoe in Conques. Whether or not she was right then, she was right now. And I was doing Zoe a favour. Neither of us would want to face the other after the previous night’s debacle.
I was under no illusions that she had left her diaphragm in the bathroom or suddenly been caught short. Anyone with a modicum of sexual experience knows the scenario: at the point where lust threatens to take over, the person who isn’t ready freaks out. Zoe had obviously not been ready.
A little while later, I’d heard her crying. I took the safe option and left her alone.
Forty kilometres was a big walk but I had plenty of daylight and was fit. I was in Lichos before 9 a.m.
After a leisurely breakfast, I bought bread, salami and tomatoes for lunch, plus mandarins and chocolate for the breaks. I had a flashback to flying to Canada for holidays and organising a treat to be opened every hour on the plane for six-year-old Sarah.
It was fine but cold: good walking weather. The Pyrenees looked touchable and the snow appeared to be east of my destination.
I was in Basque country. A herd of sheep blocked the trail for a good fifteen minutes as they were shepherded across and my feet enjoyed the break.
I arrived in Ostabat twelve hours after setting out. I would not have wanted to do any more, but was pleased with the accomplishment.
A bearded guy of about my age was sitting on the porch of the hostel playing guitar and singing ‘Five Hundred Miles’ in French-accented English to a small dog.
I unhitched my cart beside him.
‘Bonsoir. I was hoping I might get a private room.’
‘Bad luck. They were pre-booked by a walking club. But there should be space in the dormitories.’
‘How much do I owe you?’
He laughed. ‘I am not the manager. I am staying here too. In a dormitory.’
‘You walk with that?’ My image of the guitar-toting pilgrim had materialised.
‘No, I drive with the dog. It is too hard for him. My wife walks.’
I pulled my cart inside, to find the place full of middle-aged French walkers pulling off boots. I added mine to the collection and went upstairs to snare a bed. I tossed my sleeping bag on a lower bunk by the wall. It was cold, and I would not have wanted to be relying on one of the cotton or silk bags that the hostel hoppers carried.
As I was coming down the stairs, I met Margarida bounding up. She saw me, broke into a hobble, then laughed.
‘Taxi?’ I said.
Oui. She pointed to her knee, but her expression told me she was only doing it for form’s sake.
I had some sympathy for Paola and her contempt for the Monsieur Chevaliers of the world, who saw the walk as an Olympic event and themselves as the governing body. But after I’d busted a gut to make some distance, the taxi did seem like cheating.
The walking club had taken over the kitchen, and offered a deal for the rest of us—ten euros for dinner and wine. I put my contribution in the pot and applied my engineering expertise to the heating, which nobody could get working. The problem was straightforward: all the gas cylinders except the one for the stove were empty. Someone went off to fetch the owner, and I donned fleece, gloves and woollen hat.
The owner duly arrived, not with gas but with a bag. After collecting our fees, he produced three unlabelled bottles of clear liquid, which he plonked on the bench.
‘Warm yourselves from the inside,’ he said.
I dug out my harmonica and joined the folk singer on the porch, which was no colder than inside. He was happy to have me play along. A woman from the walking club brought us wine.
Renata arrived, greeted me like the old friend I was, and drained my wine glass. Torben the Dane followed a few minutes later.
The kitchen team brought more wine, pigeon terrine—a local specialty—big serves of cassoulet and a huge platter of cheese. This was the end of their two-day walk, and the shared meal in the hostel was obviously a big part of what it was all about.
Paola joined us, the singer pulled out his guitar again and we discovered that Fabiana had a pretty singing voice. There had been a bit of a transformation here: her hairstyle had changed and she had become an enthusiastic drinker.
We played for maybe an hour, with the walking club and Brazilians singing and clapping along, before the cold and dark drove us inside to a kitchen slightly warmed by the oven. I transferred the gas cylinder and got one of the heaters going. The walkers perched on every available surface, which for Fabiana meant the lap of a man from the walking club, passing the marc that our host had provided.
The scene was the cliché of hiking camaraderie I had not seen so far, and perhaps a preview of the Camino Francés, the main walking trail from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago. Playing fills to ‘Under My Thumb’, with a belly full of wild pigeon and cassoulet and a glass of marc on the table, it seemed to me like a pleasant prospect.
Then I heard the front door opening and the sound of a pack being dumped in the entrance area. I turned to see Zoe. The guitarist stopped playing and Paola jumped up. Renata stopped her and looked at me, but I was already on my way over with my glass of marc.
She pulled back the hood of her ski jacket. ‘You asshole!’
37
ZOE
All men were assholes: my father, my brothers, Manny, Bernhard, Martin. Keith, for dying on me. After I left the British bed and breakfast, the first two hours had disappeared, fuelled by fury. Martin could have at least stayed to see if I was okay. He must have thought I’d been leading him on. And then made me pay for the room when I didn’t follow through.
But the sun was shining and the familiar routine lulled me into serenity. The blossom-filled orchards and farmland that I had grown used to gave way to green forests, where I passed palombière signs and large treehouses, way up high. Palombe means dove. Treehouses for pigeons to roost in—a sweet idea.
And the scallop shells. Since Cluny, they had accompanied me—not just the printed squares on trees and posts, but actual shells nailed to fences, shells carved into stone columns, big metal shells incorporated into the design of railings. Coming out of St Jean St Maurice, there had been a series of real shells with paintings by schoolchildren. All to guide pilgrims like me on our way. It was comforting—and humbling.
In Lichos, I managed to eat some bread and an apple, and I hoped it would be enough to keep me going. I was in rugged hilly terrain with neat villages. I may have been fitter than I had ever been, but my feet were aching and my legs were tired. There had been rain, and the ground under my feet was soft and occasionally slippery. I watched my step and the sheep in the fields watched me. Black faces, jaws in a constant chewing motion as another pèlerin passed by their paddock.
As I closed in on Ostobat in the failing light, I looked out for signs of a cart. Not that I had anything much to say to Martin anymore.
The previous night, I’d imagined us walking together, sharing what we’d done since Conques. The larder of wonderful preserves for guests at a gîte in Uzan. Finding an alternate route along miles of canal out of Moissac—the flat path would have been perfect for his cart. And the colours: the purples of wisteria on the houses, acres of brilliant yellow canola in the fields, the pinks of the sunset over the river bridge at Ai
re sur l’Adour. Had he seen them? It didn’t matter now. Not worth worrying about.
Then I walked into the Ostabat gîte, where his cart was parked outside, and he was kicking back, playing harmonica with a glass in his hand. I guessed he hadn’t given me or the eighty euros or the stolen whisky a thought, until I told him what I thought of him in two words.
The singing had stopped—now the talking did too. I didn’t care. I was only interested in Martin. ‘Didn’t it occur to you I might be seriously ill? Like, you know, I might need to go to the hospital or something? You could have at least stayed to ask. But no, just because you didn’t get what you wanted, you run and leave me with the bill.’
‘Merde,’ said the guitarist. Then, to Martin, ‘This is what they are always saying about the English.’
I grabbed my pack liner and its contents, and headed upstairs.
I was halfway up the first flight when Martin caught me.
‘What do you mean, leave you with the bill?’
‘The eighty euros. For the room.’
Martin’s expression was probably what mine had been when Steptoe had asked for payment.
‘I paid when I got there. Forty euros.’
I sat down on the stairs and started laughing. ‘I can’t believe we paid a hundred and twenty euros so I could get sick on cat food.’
‘What? You were ill?’
‘What did you think? I’ve hardly eaten all day. And he marked the whisky.’
‘Oh shit. I’m really sorry. I thought…What do I owe you?’
‘An explanation. And I need to lay down.’
Instead, he offered me the glass in his hand. ‘It’s pretty crappy,’ he said. ‘Basically moonshine.’
I took a swig. It burned all the way down. I took another.
‘I was embarrassed,’ he said. ‘I thought you would be too.’
So simple that it had to be true. I might have done the same if I’d woken first.
‘Here,’ said Martin standing up and grabbing my bag. ‘Let’s find you a bed and I’ll get you some food.’
Paola was peering around the corner. ‘I will bring food. You look after her.’
Martin put my liner bag on a bed. Fabiana appeared with bread and cheese, and a refill of marc. I took a few bites and a quick swill but my stomach wasn’t up for anything more yet.
Martin finally spoke. ‘You’re always giving people massages. How about I give you one?’
I was barely able to move any part of me and it felt like slow motion as I looked up at him. He was apologising. I owed him one, too.
‘I…’
‘Lie down. Or lay down. Whichever you guys do.’
I lay down, and he ran his fingers over my toes and the soles of my feet. At first they protested, but I relaxed into it. He moved to my shoulder muscles. Firm enough to get to the sore spots but not so hard that I had to grip the mattress.
‘You’re a difficult person to understand,’ said Martin.
What was there about being sick to understand?
My mind was as exhausted as my body, and the doubts that had hovered on the edge of my consciousness the previous night had evaporated. I gave in to the feeling of someone taking care of me and the tingling that made for goose bumps, quite separate from the wisps of cold air that occasionally accompanied the movement of Martin’s hands.
I was going back, twenty or more years, my body remembering a time when sexual tension was the norm.
Martin edged me over and, still fully clothed, lay down next to me. He felt surprisingly warm and safe, smelling of marc and candle smoke and freshly soap-scrubbed skin. I turned toward him, his arms pulling me so my body melded with his. He was so unlike Keith physically: thinner, muscles harder and defined, shoulder blades and ribs evident even through a shirt and thermal. But the kiss, with the brush of the neatly trimmed beard, was all lust and lost youth. It had once been like this with Keith, a long time ago.
He was in no hurry, and neither was I. Perhaps it was because I was so exhausted, beyond tired, but minutes seemed to drift past, a wonderful suspension of time where I enjoyed the luxury of kissing without any urgency on either side.
We were interrupted by talking—the Brazilians. Martin kissed me on the forehead and slipped off the bed to his bunk opposite. Exhaustion should have sent me to sleep. Instead I lay awake listening to the usual giggling, packing and repacking, toilet flushing, and then the opera of snores. I was freezing, and pulled my fleece and thermals on.
Fifteen minutes later I was shivering, too cold to sleep. There was no snoring from Martin’s bunk. I wondered if he was still awake. I had to do something. Martin seemed unsurprised. He unzipped his sleeping bag and took his fleece off as I discarded my sweater and slipped in with him. It wasn’t easy to get comfortable, particularly as he seemed to want to kiss again. After walking forty kilometres, all I wanted to do was sleep.
‘How about a hotel room tomorrow night?’ I whispered.
‘I’ll shout,’ he said, and in my exhausted state it took me a few moments to remember the quaint expression.
I snuggled into his arms, surprisingly relaxed and comfortable, and fell asleep with the warmth of his breath on my neck. It was as if we had known each other for a lifetime, yet there was little chance that I would see him again after tomorrow. My Camino was ending, and he still had weeks to go.
38
MARTIN
I woke with a numb arm. I disentangled myself and tried to enjoy the moment, but instead found myself wondering how to persuade Zoe to continue to Santiago with me.
Around dawn, I felt her stir and unzip the sleeping bag and, by the time the masses had begun to rise in the makeshift sleeping outfits they had donned against the cold, she was bouncing around the kitchen trying to light the stove.
The gas cylinder was empty and there was no electric kettle, so we set off without breakfast. In lieu of a shower I sluiced myself from the kitchen tap, then used my phone to book a hotel room in St Jean Pied de Port.
The day’s walk began with a steep hill, and we found a pub and an adequate breakfast at the top of it.
The rules of etiquette surely don’t cover appropriate topics of conversation for a day’s walk in the country when both parties have agreed it will finish with the consummation of their relationship. But there seemed to be an unspoken agreement to talk about anything except the elephant in the hotel room in St Jean Pied de Port, as we ambled our twenty-three kilometres.
I was happy with the way the previous night had turned out. I had shown what I hoped was an admirable level of restraint, and now there was a degree of tension in the air. A few kilometres along the road we stopped to shed our outer layers, and I helped Zoe off with her fleece. Before she put her pack back on, I kissed her, out in the open spring air, with nobody around.
This was Zoe’s last day of walking, and my last day of walking with her. She seemed to be celebrating, almost dancing along.
‘So, after today, it’s back to LA?’ I asked.
‘I guess. Camille’s coming to give me a ride to Paris. I haven’t really thought beyond that.’
‘You wouldn’t consider pressing on a bit? If not to Santiago, at least into Spain?’
‘I can’t change my ticket. I changed it once and it was a big deal…My travel agent will go nuts if I ask again.’
The last few kilometres of the walk, as we approached the periphery of the town, were less attractive than the early part. But in mid-afternoon we arrived in a picture-postcard town, through the Porte St Jacques by the citadel and down an ancient stone street. The queue for information at the tourist office extended out the door. We were unusual. This was a departure point, not an arrival point, theories about walking only the French section notwithstanding.
There was a long list of registrants in the visitors’ book, almost all just setting out. Most popular country of origin: USA. I’d seen just two Americans—Zoe and Ed Walker—in eleven hundred kilometres, but they were here in force. Then the Irish (Ca
tholics), Australians and New Zealanders (ubiquitous), a mix from other European nations and a sprinkling from largely Catholic countries around the world. We had stayed ahead of Torben and the Brazilians, and there were no familiar names.
On the street, there was more evidence of pilgrims and the pilgrimage than I had seen anywhere else—camping shops, Camino souvenirs, people with backpacks drinking in the outdoor cafés, a melting pot of accents and languages. A French version of Kathmandu.
We walked past a boutique and Zoe pointed to a blue sleeveless dress.
‘Margarida told me the pilgrims used to burn their clothes at the end of the walk and buy new ones to show they’d changed. I should buy that.’
‘I think you’d look stunning in it.’
‘It’d be different.’
‘That’s the point, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose.’ She laughed. ‘I guess it expresses the way that I feel different right now, but it’s not exactly a spiritual change.’
‘So—buy it.’
‘I’m not even sure I can afford to get home.’
‘Then keep walking.’
‘Did you make that hotel reservation?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I thought you might have forgotten.’
Her expression suggested otherwise, and I sensed that this was a bit of an adventure. If she had been faithfully married for years, it probably was. She could count me in on that too.
I had booked a room at the Arambide. It was the top hotel listed in the Dodo, and a hundred euros for a double room seemed more than reasonable. But it was still a fine afternoon, and now that we had stopped walking I was inclined to stretch out the wait.
‘Drink first?’
‘If you’re…shouting.’
I parked the cart beside an outside table and Zoe dropped her pack.
‘Champagne to celebrate?’
Two Steps Forward Page 14
