Once Upon A Time in the West . . . Country (3 page)

‘That’s all well and good. But what do you actually
do
other than provide rhetoric on this subject?’

‘Oh, I think I do my bit,’ I said, ‘I . . .’

My sentence stopped there, halted by the realisation that my ‘bit’ was so small that, had I announced what it actually
was
, it would have seemed pathetic. Ridiculous even. All I could have offered up was that I occasionally cycled to places, I didn’t buy battery eggs or the cheapest chicken in the supermarket, and I had voted Green in the European elections.

Remembering that conversation as I carefully negotiated the car through the winding roads that led us from Somerset to Devon across the Blackdown Hills, a rather wrong-footing thought struck me. Here I was – this man who complained regularly about mankind’s overconsumption and denigration of the earth’s resources – sitting at the wheel of my carbon-emitting car. All I really had to contribute to the subject was hot air. I had no excuse for living the way I did, because I knew better. My niggling appetite for the truth about how we’d all made the world the way it was had seen to that. And it had led me to become something that I’d never wanted to be. I had become someone who preached one thing and did another. I had become a hypocrite.

Maybe it was that startling realisation that had highlighted to me that a change was needed.

***

‘Are you planning on making anymore daft bets?’ asked a jolly, rather tousled lady in the front row.

I was in the midst of a question-and-answer session following a successful screening of the film I’d made of my book
Playing the Moldovans at Tennis
1
.

Making the film had been a gargantuan task, and I’d been greatly relieved to find that it had been well received by audiences. After a short run in Picturehouse cinemas, I was now clawing in funds by turning up at screenings wherever there’d be an enthusiastic audience. Like Scoriton Village Hall. The venue’s lack of glamour was amply compensated by its cosiness and friendly atmosphere, and I was delighted to find the bucolic audience in a distinctly good mood. I gave the lady who’d asked the question a straight answer.

‘No,’ I replied firmly, ‘my days of doing bets on a whim and then writing about them are over. I need to have a good reason now.’

‘I’ve got a bet for you,’ the same lady chirped up with gusto, as if she hadn’t heard what I’d just said.

‘I told you, I’ve retired from bets—’

‘I bet you can’t walk from coast to coast in Devon with my pet pig Dave.’

A big laugh. In order to keep the audience on my side, I couldn’t be too dismissive.

‘It’s an interesting idea, certainly. I promise to give it some thought. But perhaps another question now . . .’

***

I hadn’t planned on giving it any thought, so I was rather surprised in the morning when I found myself, well, giving it some thought. A hazy mist was lifting over distant Dartmoor as I addressed the issue at breakfast with Kevin and Donna.

‘You know, I woke in the night thinking about Dave the Pig,’ I said, ‘and although I dismissed it at the time, I think it could be rather fun. Do either of you know who that lady was?’

Kevin and Donna, who’d both been to the screening, shook their heads.

‘It won’t be a problem finding her,’ said Donna. ‘We’ll just ask around in the village. Someone is bound to know her.’

‘Found any houses to look at?’ asked Kevin, changing the subject – perhaps to steer it away from the downright ridiculous.

I’d met Kevin a few years before, in Paraguay of all places. Both of us had travelled there as supporters of the World Land Trust. We were on a trip to see how land purchased by this excellent charity had prevented the expansion of cattle ranchers and energy companies, and protected the biodiversity and natural habitat of the region. After landing in Asunción, we’d flown on a petite five-seater plane to the remote northern part of the country and had made a further journey by boat upriver to reach the lodge that was to be our base camp. Over the coming days Kevin had protected me from mosquitoes by acting as a decoy – being bitten himself by every one of the available pests.

During the trip we’d also shared many a late-night conversation about the challenges facing the planet as the population continued to rise. It had been that trip, and those conversations, that had started to alert me to what we humans are doing to the planet – the planet we sometimes refer to as being ‘our planet’.
Our
planet. Perhaps our propensity to view it this way had been the cause of the problem.

‘We’ve found a few interesting properties to look at, so today is our “check out Devon” day,’ said Fran.

‘I don’t think you’ll be disappointed,’ said Donna.

Donna was not wrong. Beautiful spots are bountiful in Devon. We were amazed at the feeling of space. Gaps in the hedgerows provided vistas that stretched before us as far  as the eye could see, with only the odd farm building to remind us that people actually lived here. We’d always thought of England as being a country that was brimming over with people. Our escapes from London had taken us to the Surrey Hills or Sussex Downs, but we’d never felt far from a road or a development of houses.

Devon was a revelation. It has a population of about 1.1 million in an area of 670,343 hectares, but almost half of these people live in the urban areas of Plymouth, Exeter and Torbay. The remaining 55 per cent share just over 650,000 hectares, which is 1.32 hectares each. If you’ve no idea as to the size of a hectare (like me, until I looked it up), I can tell you that it’s about two and a half acres or, if you’re still none the wiser, about one and a half football pitches.

‘It reminds me of the hills near the Pyrenees in France,’ I said to Fran, on one of the many occasions when we’d had to stop the car to get out and breathe in the beauty.

A decade before, I’d bought a house for renovation not far from Pau, with the intention of providing myself with a bolthole where I could escape to write, play the piano, and generally swan around in shorts.
2

Fran loved it, particularly the views that it afforded us. However, we both knew that neither of us wanted to live in France. We both felt that we would have been culturally at sea, not having shared the same experiences as those all around us. Different schools, different pop stars, and different politicians had made their mark on us – plus there was the added problem of having to ask people to repeat everything three times. Worst of all, the French don’t have a radio programme called
Seulement une Minute
, so I wouldn’t pick up much work either. No, France was not on the agenda for the new life, but both Fran and I had said that if we could find a house in England that shared anything like that view, then we’d jump at it. The odds were heavily stacked against it though, not least because England is short on mountain ranges.

There was another factor that was going to make this search difficult – the fact that I am such a sun worshipper. When the sun is good enough to shine in the UK, as it does with a consistent inconsistency, then I can become quite upset if I can’t be in it. It seems silly, even immature, but oddly it’s something of which I’m rather proud. That’s why buying a house with a garden that faced north would be out of the question. So, that left us simply requiring a house with a breathtaking view, and with a garden that faced south. Not much to ask.

The three houses we did eventually view, late that afternoon, weren’t right, and we both knew it the moment we walked in through the front doors. They felt too plush for us, too upmarket, too ‘look how well we’ve done’. The poor estate agent
3
did his best to talk them up, but he must have seen that we weren’t excited and that this particular outing was not going to produce any commission.

The problem was that if you wanted a big garden with views, then it seemed that you had to buy a grand house, and we wanted something modest. We knew that it wouldn’t be easy – perhaps even impossible – to find what we were after.

‘If it takes eighteen months to find the right place, then let’s take eighteen months,’ I said, as we went to bed after a delicious meal with our hosts.

‘Yes, we’re not in a hurry,’ said Fran.

‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

At 4 a.m. on the Sunday morning I was down in Kevin and Donna’s kitchen trawling the internet again. I’d been struck at an odd hour by a new thought. Could it be that we had been searching for a property in the wrong price range?

‘Where have you been?’ asked a sleepy Fran, as I tried unsuccessfully to slip back into bed without waking her.

‘I’ve been online. I was wondering if we were looking at houses for too much money?’

‘Huh?’

‘Well, so far we’ve based our search on what we think we’ll sell our London house for. That means we’re looking at grand properties. Maybe we need to be more modest.’

‘Hmm. Find anything interesting?’

‘One or two.’

‘Maybe I should take a look.’

And with those words Fran slipped out of bed and headed down to the kitchen.

Kevin and Donna were hosting a couple of very odd house guests.

***

Sunday’s house search was more encouraging, but only marginally so. Fran’s ‘middle of the night’ internet session had produced an extensive list of properties and although we didn’t have any appointments to view them, we found that wandering around outside and peering through the odd window provided enough information to enable us to reject them. But we liked what we saw much more than on the previous day, and it was pleasing to know that if we could find somewhere in this price bracket then we’d have money to spare for any renovations or changes that might be required. But we had still drawn a blank. We’d soon be on the road back to London with tails, if not between our legs, then certainly not wagging.

‘One more to go,’ I said, as the car crawled up a steep and narrow hill towards another little village, and probably our tenth viewing of the day.

‘I don’t hold out much hope for this,’ said Fran, reading from one of the sheets she’d printed out that morning. ‘It’s a cottage. It’ll be quaint and tiny, no doubt.’

‘Another head-bumper,’ I added, with some resignation.

At six feet three, I’m taller than I seem on the radio, and I fall foul of the fact that in the nineteenth century people were considerably smaller, and couldn’t reach high enough to build a ceiling at a reasonable height. High ceilings were for the nobility, who were well-connected enough to have access to ladders. They invested in this extra elevation so they could cater for gentlemen in extravagant hats and ladies with unreasonably lofty hairdos.

Cherry Cottage looked pleasant enough, but it didn’t arouse our interest greatly when it first came into view. It was a long, pretty building, looking like it had started out as two cottages that had now been knocked into one. It was a little nearer the road than we would have liked, but we hadn’t passed another car getting here so we had every reason to believe that speeding cars were as common as a politician’s apology. It wasn’t until we peered over the side gate and into the back garden that our hearts began to race. What we saw was about a quarter of an acre of well-tended garden with a small pond – charming but not particularly special. However, it was what lay beyond it that took our breath away. What a view. We were looking out at English countryside at its best. The land beyond the garden fell away before rising again the other side of the valley, presenting a spreadsheet of fields, paddocks, woods and hedgerows, all combining to create a green patchwork of varying hues that soothed the eye and calmed the senses. Not spectacular, but just simply beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

‘This is it!’ I said to myself.

I knew it straight away. I just hoped that Fran liked it. If she didn’t, then this search for a house was going to take a long, long time – because we’d clearly be looking for different things.

‘I love it!’ said Fran. ‘It’s magical.’

Good, we were on the same wavelength.

‘Wait a minute, where’s that sun?’ I said, in a moment of panic.

Sod’s law it could be facing in the completely wrong direction, and that would be a deal breaker for me. I looked up at the cloudy sky. The sun, although not shining, was attempting to break through and I could make out where it was, and where it was heading.

‘The garden’s south-facing!’ I called out, at a slightly inappropriate volume.

‘Great,’ said Fran, no doubt relieved that this rather needless criterion had been met.

I rang the bell in the hope that the owners would be home and I could persuade them to show us around, and a pleasant grey-haired lady in her sixties opened the door. I explained how we were heading back to London in an hour or so and that we loved the house and could she possibly permit us to come and take a look.

‘Goodness, the place is a mess,’ said the lady. ‘Could you come back in an hour? The pub is five minutes from here and it does nice coffee.’

‘Perfect, we’ll pop there then,’ I said, wondering whether such an accommodating response would have greeted cold-calling house hunters in London. ‘So sorry to descend on you like this. Thanks so much.’

A pub within walking distance. Another big plus. All of the houses we’d viewed on the previous day had felt rather remote. This house was performing a kind of conjuring trick. From the front it was a modest cottage that was very much in the midst of a village, and yet the view from the rear suggested that it might be in the heart of a rural wilderness.