Once Upon A Time in the West . . . Country (25 page)

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ said benign Nicky, as she welcomed me at her door.

One can’t always go by appearance, but it would be hard to imagine a woman less likely to kill or beat someone up. Certainly the latter. If murder did happen to be her thing, then she had the build of a poisoner, rather than one who favoured bludgeoning.

‘Yes, please,’ I replied, ‘and thank you so much for doing this.’

‘It’s nothing. I don’t normally phone in to radio stations, but I just felt the urge to do it this time.’

‘It’s very brave of you to take a strange man into your house.’

‘Oh, I don’t think you’re so strange. I’ve heard you on the radio and you don’t sound like a murderer.’

As someone who still enjoys his broadcasting forays on the radio, it was a great comfort to know that I didn’t sound like a murderer. Presumably this is why the bookings had flooded in over the years.

Over tea, we established that Nicky lived alone in this cute and homely cottage. Her children had flown the nest and had begun families of their own. Nicky had tried living with her current partner, but things seemed to work out better if they lived apart and spent weekends together.

‘Whatever works for you,’ I said.

This happened to be exactly what I believed, although I probably would have said it, even if it hadn’t been. Nicky and I were still in the social territory where convention has it that we agree with everything the other says. Only after a few hours, and usually a glass of wine or two, can we lock horns with someone and actually dare to challenge their views. Until then, this is the kind of exchange one might indulge in:

‘I’ve put five sugars in your tea, because I think sugar – like corporal punishment for the dropping of litter – should be compulsory.’

‘I couldn’t agree more. I don’t suppose I could have another teaspoon, could I? I love it.’

Nicky liked Titch, although she wasn’t as bowled over as many before her had been, and I sensed that she wasn’t a natural animal lover. All the more power to her elbow for inviting a pig into her house. I still wasn’t entirely sure of her motive. Was she a fan? Had I walked into a Devonian version of the plot of Stephen King’s
Misery
? Or did she just want to help me, in my effort to help some people who had a pretty tough time of things in a far-off European country? I hoped it was the latter.

As if to spite Nicky for her generosity of spirit, Titch let me down socially. Whilst Nicky cooked our fish dinner, Titch had a poo in the corner of her kitchen, and a wee on her living-room carpet.

‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,’ Nicky said, suddenly aware of the less-attractive implications of having a pig round for a sleepover.

Feeling almost as guilty as if I’d been the culprit, I swept up Titch’s poo (easy, nice dry pellets) and scrubbed away at the carpet with government endorsed disinfectant.

‘It’ll be fine,’ said Nicky.

‘Yes, I think so,’ I said, slightly conscious of the fact that the government disinfectant might be about to cause more staining than Titch had done.

‘Dinner is served,’ said my charming hostess.

A delicious plate of home-cooked food was served up, and a pleasant evening was spent gently probing for information about each other’s lives, whilst Titch nibbled on carrots and did mock foraging around the kitchen. The exhausting day was taking its toll and by 9.30 p.m. I was struggling to keep my eyes open. Unfortunately for me, Titch looked wide awake. This left me in a situation that I had never been in before. As a guest in someone’s house whom I had never met before, I wanted to go to bed earlier than the host, and the small pig that I had brought with me. There seemed to be no precedent for the social etiquette that was required at such a juncture.

‘Titch looks wide awake,’ I said, testing the water. ‘But that’s because she slept all day whilst I cycled. Would you mind if I go to bed early?’

‘No problem,’ replied Nicky, ‘I’ll make sure Titch is in her little bed before I turn in. Sleep well.’

‘I will. I’m so tired, I’m sure I’ll sleep like a baby.’

This had been a ridiculous thing to say. If I were to sleep like a baby, that would mean that I would wake every few hours screaming at the top of my voice, and then shit myself. I didn’t want to do that. Not until I knew Nicky better.

I climbed the stairs, relieved that I had escaped more conversation – not because it was tiresome, but because it was tiring, to an already exhausted man. As I crawled into my wonderfully snug bed, I smiled to myself as I heard little snorting and grunting sounds from downstairs. Titch, adaptable as ever, was bonding with her new companion for the night. I felt consciousness easing from me. Restorative sleep, healing sleep, was only moments away.

***

‘Did you sleep well?’ asked Nicky, as she prepared breakfast.

‘Slept soundly, thank you. I see Titch is still sleeping. How was she last night?’

‘As good as gold. She’s a lovely little pig, that one.’

Nicky was right. Of all the pigs in the world, surely I couldn’t have chosen a better one to have had as a travelling companion. Once people laid eyes on her, they became transformed. They turned from honest, decent citizens going about their business, into people desperate to do everything they could to help. At least, I assumed that this transformation was caused by the ‘Titch effect’. Perhaps I was underestimating my own boyish good looks and cheeky charm.

After breakfast Team Hawks kicked into action. Nicky drove us to Derek’s house where the bike was removed from the garage, and where Derek and his wife helped me pack the bike. Pleasingly, they struggled just as much as I did with the ratchet strap. Ken had made its operation look so straightforward, and yet this strap seemed to reveal something about the way our brains are formed. Evidently there are two kinds of people in the world – those who can operate ratchet straps, and those who can’t. Derek was in the second category but, unlike me, was unwilling to accept it. He struggled away with a dedication and zeal that only served to make his disappointment more profound.

‘I’ll just wedge my rucksack underneath,’ I suggested, after a full five minutes of uncomfortable struggling had failed to release the strap.

Bungies were added to further secure the bag, and I announced that Titch and I were ready to hit the road. After a round of last goodbyes, I tucked Titch into her sling, zipped up my coat and set off.

The weather today was considerably drier. The forecast was better too. Good. Today was set to be a tough day, as I was booked into a hotel in Tavistock and getting there would involve over fifty miles of tough cycling.

As I headed up Great Torrington’s High Street, I had a good feeling. Everything seemed in place for a smooth day ahead.

How wrong I would turn out to be.

12

Allez Tony! Allez Titch!

‘You sodding, sodding thing!’

I’d only been back on the Tarka Trail for five minutes when the battery on the bike had completely cut out again. As usual, I was doing my best to solve the problem by shouting at the bike. It was a method that has never, and never will, work. Nonetheless, I continued.

‘You’re a bastard battery! Bastard, bastard battery! You’ve been charging up all night, so what possible reason could you have for not working??!!’

No answer was given. Presumably because the battery was out of power.

I resorted to a tactic that I use whenever anything technological fails on me and, given its absurd simplicity, is surprisingly successful. I turned the battery off, and then back on again.

It worked.

Seconds later we were back on the road (or rather trail) again, and I was feeling rather sheepish about the way I’d spoken to the battery. I had overreacted and there had been no need for the shouting. The full power of the electric ‘pedal assist’ was sweeping us forward at a good pace towards a walker in the distance with two large dogs.

Despite ringing the bell on my bike, the walker made no attempt to move to one side of the trail and to gather in his pets. As a result, I had to slam on the brakes and I lost all momentum. The bearded, long-haired man, who was younger than I would have expected to see out walking at this time, apologised profusely.

‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t hear you.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I replied, as I wobbled past, nearly all of the valuable speed lost.

Momentum is a precious thing on a bike. No wonder town cyclists hurtle through red lights on pedestrian crossings, carefully steering their way around the walkers, only to be chastised with an admonishing:

‘Can’t you see that’s a red light?!’

In our life on the streets, we humans readily join clubs. On foot, we’re pedestrians. On bikes, we’re cyclists. In cars, we’re drivers. It’s important for each group to hate the other and to consider them idiots. This is the way things work, and it’s best not to meddle with it. Such is our schizophrenic nature, even when we switch clubs (as we do regularly, the cyclist becoming a pedestrian once dismounted), we instantly align ourselves with the bigoted views of the new club.

I was currently pissed off with pedestrians, especially when I realised that the power in the battery had cut out again. Whatever had happened during the deceleration required to pass the man and his dogs, this had been enough to upset the fragile temperament of my bike battery. It was behaving like it was hung over. Had it been on charge overnight? Or had it been out drinking in Great Torrington with Derek and his educationalist mates?

Feeling the heavy weight of the bike in my already aching legs, I let it drag to a halt, and I dismounted. I began fiddling with different cables in a hopelessly uninformed way. Once again, I opted for the sophisticated ‘turning off and on’ method, as used by NASA and air-traffic-control technicians. But I didn’t leave it at that. I crossed my fingers, too. No point in leaving a job half-done. I was just about to swing my tired leg back over the saddle and test the efficacy of the process, when a voice interrupted me:

‘I’m terribly sorry about that, I really caused you to lose momentum there.’

The bearded, long-haired, dog-walking pedestrian had caught me up, and was now displaying a surprising understanding of cyclists. Not that it mattered anyway, as I’d dismounted now and could talk to him pedestrian to pedestrian. We chatted politely and he actually proved to be very helpful, especially when I played my trump card of revealing Titch. When I explained that I was supposed to do an interview with Radio Devon quite soon, and that there appeared to be no phone signal down here in this scenic valley, he introduced himself as Simeon and explained that he had a cafe a few miles further down the track.

‘It’s normally closed this time of year, but I’ve finished walking the dogs now, so I’ll drive up there and open it up for you. You can make the call there.’

He then left the trail with his dogs, to get on with the job of opening up a cafe especially for me.

I should travel with a pig more often.

The NASA technology worked, and I made it to the Yarde Orchard cafe and bunkhouse, as it billed itself, without further technical glitches. Simeon was waiting in the doorway of the wooden hut that appeared to be the cafe.

‘Come on in, the coffee is brewing,’ he said.

I was rather pleased now that he’d not heard my bicycle bell, causing us to meet on the trail. The Yarde Orchard was a cool place. Simeon explained that in spring and summer they host people who are doing the coast-to-coast trail, either putting them up in yurts, the bunkhouse, or in their own tents. I was pleased to learn that they provide freshly cooked breakfasts, using ingredients that are only sourced locally.

This has to be the future of the way we do things on this planet. Quite how we came up with an economic system where it is sometimes cheaper to buy something that has travelled from the other side of the world, than a product that has been produced around the corner, is baffling. We need to re-embrace concepts that have been far from the zeitgeist in the past fifty years. For example, we can celebrate the fact that
simple is good
, and
small is beautiful
. It’s taken me long enough to wake up to this, but wake up to it I have. In the past, most of my selections in shops and supermarkets were based on price, without realising that the cheap product wasn’t necessarily cheap at all, the cost was just hidden. You simply pay later, when the full cost of the environmental and social damage is totted up.