If you don’t sell the design, you’ll have no trouble getting a job in China as a rickshaw man.
I posted a rejoinder about how easy the cart was to pull, but could not help thinking of Zoe bouncing along beside me on that last day together. She had definitely been doing it more easily. On the other hand, she had not been carrying a tent.
Richard from Tramayes had asked for news of Zoe, and I replied that she was on her way home. Five minutes later, Sarah popped up on Skype.
Zoe gone home?
Yes. What about you?
Are you OK about it?
Of course I am. WE WERE JUST FRIENDS.
Were?
Enough. What about you?
I’m OK.
Where?
Friends. Did you tell Mum?
Yes. But you should have.
I did. Right after I talked to you. Like you said. Bugger. But she’d got what she wanted.
How’s the engineer?
Finished.
You OK?
See earlier message.
Going home?
Maybe. Coming home?
Got some walking to do first.
Have fun. Love you Dad.
xxx
Sorry about Zoe.
Sorry about the engineer.
Unlike a normal conversation, a dialogue conducted in short messages sits on the screen, begging to be reviewed. I thought I’d done well: kept the lines of communication open, not been judgmental, and shared a little in my response to the final ‘sorry’ statement without bothering her with my issues. Except for the one glaring, hit-me-in-the-face-why-haven’t-I-seen-this-before, shameful exception.
xxx. I could fix it. I just needed to type three words.
The next morning the rain had cleared, and I set off for San Sebastián, twenty-six kilometres up some steep but smooth hills, with frequent glimpses of the sea to my right. Blog posts notwithstanding, hauling the cart uphill was still not much fun, although it was second nature now to have it behind me, and to position myself and the sticks to avoid being pulled over backwards. I wondered what Jonathan’s boffins would make of it. I suspected that for light loads a fit young Afghan soldier would prefer a backpack, but perhaps there was a point at which the weight became such that the cart came into its own. I had never tested heavy loads over any distance, but my intuition was that the cart would do a good job until the hills became too steep and the cart pushed or pulled its bearer over.
After finding my way through the Pyrenees, the abundance of signposts on the Camino was almost insulting. Stone markers emblazoned with the scallop-shell symbol gave a stronger sense of permanence to the Camino than the stuck-on squares in France. They were supplemented by the crudely painted yellow arrows which I had thought were a local anomaly in Hondarribia. The French, and for that matter the English, would not have countenanced such eyesores. The clash between the arrows and the otherwise pleasant bucolic environment dramatically expressed the two different mindsets one might bring to the walk: contemplation of nature or a focus on getting to Santiago. The journey or the destination. I’d have said that my own motivation was more in line with the arrows. I still didn’t like them.
It was a good day to be freed from worrying about navigation. The Sarah situation was not working out; she had sailed through the early teen years pretty well, but now, on the verge of adulthood and university, she was doing it hard. I still felt I had given her the least worst option. Better for me to be absent than for her to have to choose a side in the poisonous relationship between Julia and me.
That said, the recent contact was enabling her to play us off each other. I was getting the better deal but it was not about me. There seemed no easy solution beyond keeping the communication lines open. And getting over the problem—my problem—of the xxx signoff. It wasn’t that I didn’t love her. On the contrary, it was too painful to confront my feelings for her. It was about me. Sarah was bearing the brunt of my being an emotional cripple. As a shower of rain wet my glasses and made the going treacherous, I resolved to do the hard thing next time we skyped.
49
ZOE
The Spanish Camino was different right from the start. The French scallop-shell signs were largely gone, and instead the locals—perhaps many at different times—had painted yellow arrows. Small, large, paint dribbling and uneven, on roads, posts and anywhere the holder of the brush thought they could be seen. The tradition had apparently come from a priest painting arrows on trees to assist peregrinos to find the way through the mountains around his town. I liked them. Their bold, naïve and slightly rebellious style was a contrast to the formality of the stone guideposts.
While part of me still wanted to wallow in self-pity, I didn’t have that luxury. My fitness and familiarity with Spanish made things easier, but I had to face the reality of my situation. Had I taken Monsieur Chevalier’s advice and gone on the Camino Francés, I would have had plenty of new pilgrims with sore muscles that needed a massage, and access to heaps of hostels. On the Camino of the North, the hostels were less frequent and the peregrinos thin on the ground. There was no way my fifty euros was going to get me through more than a couple of days. Fate and I had severed ties.
Keith had thought I needed taking care of, and I guessed that if he had been watching me from somewhere this would be the moment he would have felt needed. But it was not the financial support that I missed—the house, the furniture or the imaginary bank balance. Instead I longed for the warm arms around me at night, the laugh over the morning paper and the feeling of someone sharing my life.
A week before he died, Keith had come home to find me too angry to give him even a perfunctory hello kiss.
‘I can’t believe they won’t put a ban on fracking,’ I’d said.
‘I can,’ said Keith. ‘It’s about finding a balance.’
‘Between what? The planet and gas-company profits?’
‘What do you want me to do?’
I hadn’t answered and he didn’t come to bed until after I’d fallen asleep. I yearned to go back to that moment—to follow and sit with him.
Once, he would have told me to lighten up—got me to draw a caricature of the governor, made us both laugh. I couldn’t remember when I last saw Keith laugh. All because of money. Had he forgotten that I’d coped as a single mother with two girls—always found a way through? I told myself I could do it again.
I scanned my memory for the appropriate inspirational quote but those that spoke of healing felt too shallow. I recalled something the artist Clyfford Still had said, and it resonated: How can we live and die and never know the difference?
I got by for a few days: one hostel let me clean in exchange for a bed, and I had another night in the open under my poncho. The hills continued but I hardly noticed. Whether it was the warmer weather or more efficient walking, I was no longer constantly hungry, which was lucky. The yellow arrows got me through San Sebastián without the job of searching for scallop shells amid all the city signage. But I had no answer to my financial crisis.
Until Gernika—the Guernica of Picasso’s painting. In the urban sprawl I was stunned by graffiti art covering wall after wall. I soaked it up with a mixture of admiration and jealousy. It was everything my art had never been—bold and angry, perceptive and innovative. I thought of all the art classes I had been to at college, and of the ones Keith had pushed me to do, and felt humbled that these artists had just gone and done what they needed to. My careful lines and reworking of landscapes had no room for this approach. Because I had no talent. More like, no courage. Except when I drew my cartoons.
All the way to Bilbao I let my thoughts brew.
‘Anybody can draw that crap,’ my father had said.
‘It’s disrespectful.’ My mother.
‘That isn’t art.’ Any one of my teachers at college had I been brave enough to show them, which I had not been.
‘That’s great, honey.’ Keith.
‘Can you draw one for my teacher?’ T
essa.
‘Can you draw one of my teacher?’ Lauren.
Richard and Nicole putting them on the wall and their website. The Americans in St Jean Pied de Port commissioning caricatures of themselves.
Plenty of people could draw good cartoons, so what could I bring to the form that was any different? That people might pay for?
50
MARTIN
San Sebastián has a reputation as a great place to visit: the centre of Basque culture, a coastal location and more Michelin stars per head of population than any other city in the world. Its attractions were less apparent to a lone walker. It was bigger than any of the French towns I had passed through and I had to negotiate the suburbs on my way to the centre. I had some experience of pulling my cart into a hotel in kit more suited to a tent, but the Hotel Maria Cristina, with its grand marble foyer, was a step up again. To be fair, I was treated as if I was in a suit and tie, and conducted to a room in keeping with the general opulence of the place. The Germans had booked me for two nights and left a message that they would meet me the next day at 3 p.m. to inspect the cart, which I had brought to my room.
I spent some time browsing the internet, learning about the Ruta del Costa. I had no desire to spend time in a city or on crowded beaches. But it seemed I was going to have to get used to a more urban environment. The online information about the northern Camino was a touch more realistic than my guidebook, which had promised miles of deserted sand. This was Spain. Not the Costa del Sol, but the coast nevertheless, with resorts built on every available vantage point and the main highway hugging the coastline most of the way.
When I did head out to dinner, on a solo tapas-bar crawl, the accents around me were English and American. It was early and the Spanish take their evening snacks famously late, but I felt more tourist than pilgrim.
The next day I cleaned up the cart for its inspection, updated my blog, then killed time on the internet again until my meeting with the Germans. No sign of Sarah.
The Germans defied the national stereotype and knocked on my door almost two hours late. There were four of them, all male, middle-aged, in suits. They introduced themselves and apologised for their tardiness, then three watched as one physically inspected the cart. After no more than three minutes, he was finished.
‘Thank you,’ said one of the others in English. We shook hands and they departed. As a younger person might have texted, WTF? Had they found something they didn’t like and seen no point in proceeding or did they just want to see it in the metal, given that my website had provided all the details anyway? I had walked 135 kilometres from St Jean Pied de Port for this?
Apparently not. An hour later there was a text message: Please join us for dinner at Arzak restaurant. We will meet in hotel foyer 9 p.m.
If their choice of restaurant was an indication of the depth of their pockets, then things were looking up. A quick search informed me that I would be dining in one of the ten finest restaurants in the world. In my spare pair of walking pants. Unless I wanted to surprise them with the blue dress. I lashed out and bought a pair of slacks. My knit top would have to do.
We arrived at the restaurant by taxi, the first time I had been in a car in almost two months. It felt like cheating, even though I was making no progress on the Camino.
A quick glance at the reservation and we were greeted, seated, and furnished with Manzanilla sherry and anchovies with strawberries. No problems with the attire.
We ate brilliantly, and I was plied with liquor. I managed to strike a balance between enjoying the wine and not losing my judgment. I recalled Anders the Swede’s warning—these guys had a bigger agenda than just chewing up the expense account.
We talked about the food and my walk as the theatre of the degustation menu played out. I had little doubt as to what Monsieur Chevalier would think of this gourmet version of the pilgrimage.
The arrival of coffees heralded an abrupt change in conversation. ‘So, Dr Eden, we are prepared to purchase the design for your cart—outright—for seven thousand, five hundred euros. The offer stands until the cheque for the meal arrives.’ The man who appeared to be the senior player smiled and made a scribbling motion to the waiter.
I had not expected game playing of this kind. Frankly, I considered it pretty childish. In any case, the offer was not what I was looking for. It was a single buyout figure rather than an investment, and I had not thought in those terms. Was it enough to make a new start? Not even close.
The waiter was coming towards the table with the cheque, and ‘no’ was almost on my lips when something distracted him and he turned back, giving me time to think.
There was logic behind their offer. It was a ‘go home with something to show for your journey’ proposition. The walk would be paid for and I would have some handy change. And, to a certain extent, face. The image of Zoe skipping along while I dragged the cart came back to me. They were taking a risk and offering me a viable option. I could be on a train to Cluny tomorrow. Better, I could go back to England, see Sarah, think up a new venture. I could track down Zoe.
It was the last thought, pushing itself in front of the others, that decided me. I wasn’t going to let myself be swayed by a holiday romance that wasn’t. As the waiter placed the bill on the table, I stayed silent.
My hosts remained all smiles, and the deal was not raised again. The next morning there was an email confirming their offer, which they were happy to extend until a week before the trade fair. I replied with thanks and said I would continue to consider it. And, in the meantime, walk on.
51
ZOE
I bought some paper and pencils, propped myself outside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao—ignoring a building that at another time would have held my attention all day—and started drawing.
Several tourists stopped and commented. I may not have replied, though I smiled. I think. I was pretty consumed. A Spanish man sat down beside me.
‘You are good,’ he said, in English.
‘Gracias.’ I kept on drawing.
‘You are drawing like…fire.’
I was on fire. I replied in Spanish, and he started telling me about how he always wanted to do such pictures and instead he was stuck working in his family’s hotel. It didn’t seem like he was going away anytime soon. I looked up. He was older than me, heavyset, with grey streaks in his thick black hair.
‘Does your hotel have a business centre?’ I asked.
Only weeks ago, I would have said fate had sent him. But now, if he hadn’t found me, I would have found him. Si, the hotel had a business centre and, when I told him what I wanted it for, he was excited.
‘When you are famous, you will put me in your autobiography, no?’
‘Business centre’ was a stretch, but they had a computer and scanner. There were several emails waiting from friends. I cut and pasted a summary of my journey with a promise that I would be home mid-May.
Longer emails from Lauren and Tessa: reading between the lines, they were both doing well but mystified about what I was up to. I could imagine Tessa saying, ‘She’s probably found a guru to follow,’ and Lauren googling to see if there were any weird sects in Spain that might swallow me up. I assured them I was coping.
And wonderful news: my travel agent spent three paragraphs making sure I knew she had performed a miracle, and I was now booked on a flight out of Santiago de Compostela to LA via Paris and New York for the evening of May 13, but this is neither refundable nor exchangeable. Please reply to confirm you understand this. My visa would expire then anyway. The one thing I was sure of was my capacity to walk the mere two hundred and fifty miles that remained. But the change cost two hundred dollars that I needed to pay in the next week.
It took me three hours to scan my cartoon and write the accompanying article, and then send it off to every American newspaper and journal with a travel section whose email address I could find.
The cartoon I had chosen was of Martin (or, at least, a well-disguised version o
f him) with his cart, contemplating several bags of sins. Which would he pick up as his burden?
I titled the proposed series Pilgrims’ Progress. The first part would be Pèlerins’ Progress, set in France, and the second Peregrinos’ Progress, in Spain. There is a lot of interest in the Camino, I wrote in the covering letter, but my angle is that my articles will cover alternate, less-known routes. I imagined myself a year ago, reading my way through the paper over a weekend and saying to Keith, ‘Have you heard of the Camino? Seems like there’s more than one.’ I wished he could be here to see me pitching an angle.
I had no idea how long they would take to get back to me—or if they would reply at all. Traditional-media staff were being laid off everywhere. Before today, even if my insecurities hadn’t stopped me, that would have. Now I was filled with purpose. I wasn’t going to accept no for an answer.
I walked around town a while. At 6 p.m. I couldn’t wait any longer, and went to check. It would be 9 a.m. on the west coast but midday on the east.
I had sent thirty-two emails. There were four replies, including one bounce: the Tucson Travel Weekly was probably out of business. The New York Times sent a formulaic response: don’t call us, we’ll call you. The Indianapolis Star said they’d pass it to their travel editor.
The fourth email was from the San Francisco Chronicle, sent just five minutes earlier. We’ve been looking for something like this, wrote Stephanie, the travel editor, under my cartoon. Love the wit and your clear sense of your character. Would like more of him. But let’s talk.
‘Make sure you keep the rights to the originals,’ said Martin’s voice behind me.
52
MARTIN
I’d had a week of Spanish tourist towns and seafood restaurants, and become used to it. The food was brilliant, the rooms in pensiones spotless and the wine in the bars consistently good.
The walking in between, though less rural, had its attractions: spectacular sea views from clifftops, occasional stretches beside the water, military ruins. The sections on the highway were not so pretty, but I put the miles away easily.
Two Steps Forward Page 18
