Everything I Have Always Forgotten (22 page)

PART 2

THE JOURNEY

XXII

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN

I
n 1955, my Parents rented out our family house to a bishop for his family holiday for a month in the summer. Apparently, the arrangement annoyed Father so much that the lease included him in the house rental as a ‘Landlord's Fixture'. He did not want to be kicked out of his own house, just when his work writing was going well (but my Parents were broke). In point of fact, like the rest of us, he made himself scarce before they arrived, for our family all dispersed in different directions. Father moved up into the mountains to the house that he and Mother had occupied when the Second World War was declared, the house where they were inundated with refugees for a while. Alan and I tried staying with him, but he was so absorbed in his work that however much we walked in the mountains, we felt in the way. We walked back to stay in the tiny, one-roomed cottage which was part of our property, a hundred yards from the main house and down on the rocky shore.

That tiny house had been the abode of old ‘Johnny Flatfish'. He was long gone when we arrived in 1948, but his tale lived on. He had probably died before the War. It was a very small, one-room stone cottage with walls three feet thick and a sloping stone floor. There was a large chimney with open fireplace, upon which he must have done his cooking, just as we did. Of course there was no running water, no drains, no electricity or telephone. The highest of the spring tides came within feet of the front door and the cows from the neighbouring farm (old Mr Edwards) hung out at that door, like crowds trying to get into a popular nightclub. It was better they not manage to come in, since inside and out, they would leave ripe souvenirs of their visits.

Johnny had a double-jointed big toe. Local lore had it that he would stand out on the sands in the rising tide, a gunny sack over his shoulder and harpoon in his hand. He would wiggle his special toe vertically, to resemble a lug-worm coming up into the tide to feed. Of course the plaice would pounce, they had never seen such a huge lugworm, it would be a feast. Their gourmandizing was cut short by the spear of Johnny Flatfish and the next thing they knew was his gunnysack full of their cousins.

Years before, when I was too young to be aware of what my older siblings were up to, they hatched a plan and pulled our Parents in to add a measure of ‘authority'. They had decided that the poor children of rich parents who were forced to spend their summer holidays in the staid, fancy hotel of Portmeirion, across the estuary, must find the routine of dressing for dinner, long slow meals and above all, a schedule, appallingly boring. They must have been a little bored themselves to hatch such a plot, to kindly provide adventure for some unknown children whom they assumed would be bored!

They had painted a seductive poster (my eldest sister, the sailor, was a dab hand at painting mermaids) offering ‘24 hours of children's adventure'. The fine print stipulated that they must get their parents' approval by having them telephone our Parents. They were to leave with warm and waterproof clothes and expect to be blindfolded for some time. The first clue they were given, sent them to one of the last remaining anti-aircraft posts out in the estuary. There, another clue sent them to the top of a hill on our side of the estuary, but out of sight of our house. There, another clue sent them back down to the beach where they would find a cave with lanterns and matches ready to enter.

I was too young to participate, but as I remember it three children volunteered. Their parents spoke to our Parents and the plot was authorised. We watched them as they started to cross the estuary at low water. The instructions had told them where and when to do so. We watched as they found the next clue (nailed as promised to one of the anti-aircraft posts in the sand). From there on, I could not see them from the house, but apparently everything went as planned. My siblings, ‘the gang', watched as they tried to open, light, and close the storm lanterns they had left. They were city children, not used to kerosene lamps, but finally they managed and went inside the cave.

I am claustrophobic and even when my brother took me there later, I hated the extremely narrow, diagonal cleft over a slab of rock, which led further on down to the body of the cave. Even as a child, it was close quarters and the last time I went in (at the age of eighteen) I had to let out all the air in my lungs to pass at one point.

Once they were down in the dripping, ‘main hall' of the cave, where you had to lean on the slab of rock because you could not stand up straight, a kind girl's voice told them to blow out their lanterns and they would be rescued. The lights out, my older siblings (with precautionary kerchiefs as masks over their noses and mouths) slid down the rock and welcomed them in a medley of stage accents. They blindfolded the children and warned them not to try to escape. Then they helped them back up the great slab of rock and led them out of the cave, making sure they did not hit their heads on the very low ceiling.

Now that they could walk, their hands were bound and they were led to where our Father waited in the Jeep. He drove them up into the hills, down into valleys, choosing the most twisting circuitous routes possible, with fords and potholes and rough fields. Finally, they were brought to the old abode of ‘Johnny Flatfish' where the one north-facing window (a small brass porthole from a ship) had been blacked out. Their blindfolds removed, they were forbidden to leave the cottage. They were given a sumptuous dinner with lots of hard cider and even some rationed chocolate and then, as the sun set, the porthole was unveiled for them to look out and see the expensive, uptight hotel where they were staying with their parents just a mile away, right opposite! They were asked if they would like to stay the night with my siblings, now that they knew where their parents were, and they all accepted with alacrity. My siblings entertained them with ghost stories and they all sang songs late into the night… They were delivered back to their families in the morning, dirty, tired and thrilled by the adventure.

Followers of the television series
The Prisoner
might be amused to learn that this little enactment of mystery took place some twenty years before the series was filmed at the hotel and on the very same estuary of the Traeth Bâch, where the mysterious Great White Ball of the surreal story, rolled around.

Well, this was where Alan and I decided to hang out for a while, but the cows had already managed to get in, so first we had to shovel out the cow-pats, then wash down the floor with buckets of sea water – which was closer to hand than the fresh water supply at the cow's trough. Father sometimes used the cottage to write in, when our house became too rowdy. There was a pine table and chair, a couple of collapsible army beds, even a chemical toilet, so that we need not join the cows. Outside the front door, there was a healthy growth of stinging nettles that can give you an itching rash for days afterwards, if you so much as touch the leaves. Unlike poison ivy, they can be cooked as soup, but when they are growing they can be vicious. Children soon learn their lesson and take care not to touch them, they also learn to find the broad-leafed dock plant that often grows alongside nettles and serves as a soothing antidote.

We started cooking on the big open fire, cooking things that young boys cook: canned baked beans, eggs, bacon, sausages and baked potatoes. We bickered like an old couple and every day set out for a long walk in the hills or right up into the mountains. We could not use the boats; they went with the rental of the house.

Years later, a friend asked me in amazement, why I climbed the nearby mountains so assiduously? I replied, taking my cue from Sir Edmund Hillary of climbing Mount Everest: “Because they are there.” Now I think of the painter Soulages who, when asked why he painted mostly in black, answered: “Because it exists”. I know that is not a satisfactory answer. You can just look at black, you can just look at the mountains, you do not necessarily have to become intimately involved with them. Nevertheless, we all make choices of degrees of involvement. The nexus being: ‘to be content to contemplate', or ‘to actually participate and engage'. Again, the extreme penury of post-war Britain, the greyness, the poverty, the lack of hope, the similarity with Soviet Russia – with rationing over only in 1954 – made walking the mountains a huge expression of freedom, of choice, of joy. There might be very little food, but there was lots of dramatic scenery in which to wander.

On a clear day, the mountains stood out in all their minute detail, the major crags could be seen from twenty miles away, yet one knew there was a great deal undisclosed. It felt as if you could reach out and touch them. The mountains, temptresses that they are, lured one out to meet them. At that distance, it looked as if a few paces would scale their heights. Memories of aching legs and thirsty body were forgotten and the siren call of the hills would win out. Then, from their heights, you could be rewarded for your efforts with astonishingly distant views, back down to the family house, the green fields of the lowlands, the ocean scintillating in the sunshine. To this day, I love these mountains and they call to me every time I go back to visit.

On a cloudy day, visual memories were recalled – you knew the hills were still there and the fact that one would be walking in a perpetual drizzle did not seem to matter – besides, sometimes the clouds would be suddenly torn open by the wind and there would be a quick snapshot, a cameo of a view, framed and circumscribed by cloud, even intensified because of that very frame created by the clouds, a flash that might disappear again within seconds, but remained inscribed upon the mind's eye. It was the sunny walks that I remember most vividly, but even the walks in the rain and fog left vivid memories, for there was something innately seductive about those crags, and yet, not everyone listened to the siren call. People came to stay and never ventured into the mountains – but we two boys gave in to it every day.

Most hikes were in the rain and mist. That was the simple law of averages. Those hikes led to introspection. One trudged on, watching the rugged ground in front of one's feet, automatically putting one foot in front of the other, thoughts turning in on themselves and the mind fertile. Whereas, on a clear, sunny day, the limitless view invited the mind to open wide with wonder, then the brain knew no boundaries. Thoughts flew and soared on the vast landscape and found no perch. After a clear day's hike, I would return exhausted but with a happy satisfaction, full of sights. After a wet walk in the clouds however, my memories might go no further than the water dripping from the tip of my nose and my eyebrows and the boggy ground where my next footstep would fall. There would be the stories and thoughts that had satisfied me during the day, but no joyful visual images.

At that point, I already knew that, in Wales, if you don't do something just because it's raining, you will never get anything done. So, many hikes were very wet, though in the summer, there were frequent droughts and hiking could become a hot and thirsty proposition.

One clear night, we came back to our tiny cottage, just as night had fallen and a spring tide was rising. It was dark, but the moon had already risen. We had not even lit any candles indoors yet so our eyes were attuned to the blackness – looking out at the tide, we saw the silhouette of a sailing dinghy floating by with no sails hoisted. Ghostly in the moonlight on the calm rising tide, she was drifting by. I hurriedly grabbed a rubber flashlight and suggested to Alan that we swim out to the dinghy and see what had happened, why it was drifting. He did not like the idea, so I stripped and started swimming out alone. Naturally, he called after me that it was “Probably a ghost ship, full of dead seamen who had died of thirst and scurvy”. As I swam with the flashlight in my teeth, I was fully convinced that Alan was right and a horrible sight awaited me in the boat. Yet I carried on stubbornly. I could not change my plans now. It would show that I believed Alan's silly scary tales.

To this day, I have searched my memory for real fear, something stronger than a mild, cautionary apprehension, and found none. It was not like filling the coalscuttle at night, when I would indeed be frightened. It was an automatic reflex to swim out to the drifting boat in the dark. It needed to be done, just as my eldest sister leapt overboard and dived under the boat to push the centreboard up again, just as Father jumped overboard to disentangle the boat from his fishing nets. So I knew that I just had to make a real attempt at saving the boat. If I failed, then I had failed, but at least it would not have been for want of trying. Had it been a rough and stormy night, I would certainly have thought twice before attempting the rescue, but it was a still, clear night with a mammoth tide, so I just did it.

As I approached the floating black shadow, etched from behind by the moonlight on the water, I thought of the moment when I would grab the gunwale and haul myself up to look inside: there might indeed be dead bodies on the floorboards. Perhaps there would be dead seamen, frozen slouched over their oars, their skin burned black to blisters, their tongues swollen with thirst. Nevertheless, I reached up and grabbed the gunwale and pulled myself up. I peered over the edge to see the dead people inside and shine my torch on their tortured frames. It was a perfectly normal, empty boat – a ‘Flying Dutchman', no less – I had admired this 20-foot class of international racing dinghy from afar. It was so much more efficient, fast and sophisticated than anything we had to sail at home. In a moment, I was over the gunwale and into the boat – once there, I discovered that it had been anchored on only five feet of rope! As mentioned before, the vertical rise and fall of spring tides could be as much as 34 feet. It must have been abandoned on a sand bank on an ebb tide and with so little line on the anchor, the next rising tide lifted her free, along with her anchor – and up the estuary she drifted. The stupidity of leaving her on too short a line astonished me and in moments I had freed the anchor rope from its cleat and paid out enough line to catch the anchor properly where I was. I felt it grab, tugged it to test its hold and belayed it to its cleat.