Once Upon A Time in the West . . . Country (29 page)

I thought that I had allowed plenty of time for this final leg of my journey, but the drawn-out entrails of the city seemed to go on and on, and it was clear that I was up against the clock once more. Eager cycling, coupled with a well-performing bike, meant that I cycled into the area that I took to be my arrival point at 11.57 a.m. Pretty good timing.

Two men – one with a dog – applauded. A photographer waved, and a cameraman and colleague with a microphone gave me a thumbs up. This part of Plymouth looked decidedly different to what I’d seen so far. The old harbour had escaped the destruction of the Blitz and resembled a quaint and authentic fishing port. It could easily have been the film set of a period drama.

No drama today, however. Five men and a dog hailing the triumphant completion of a coast-to-coast cycle by man and pig. I unzipped my coat, revealed my cargo, and further polite and disjointed applause was elicited. Two passers-by, oblivious to the nature of our presence here, stopped and admired Titch.

‘Where are the Mayflower Steps?’ I asked the photographer, after he had introduced himself as a freelancer hired by the local rag.

‘Right behind you.’

These steps are so called because they are believed to be the ones that the original Pilgrim Fathers descended, before setting sail for the body of land that has since become known as the United States of America. Religious dissenters, they were pious, pure and pissed off. I don’t know a huge amount about them, but my guess is that they were keen to set up a community where ‘going large’ with burgers and fries was not an option.

They may have had limited success to start with, but the settlers who followed them engaged on a greed ‘free for all’ that has created the economic climate for the world’s largest number of dollar billionaires,
4
not to mention the highest number of privately owned guns per capita. These Pilgrim Fathers were no doubt an austere bunch, and their daughters would have been incredibly difficult to ‘get off with’, but the simple values by which they had chosen to live would not have got their country to Number 2 in the shameful chart of the world’s worst polluters, and then stubbornly refuse to do much about it.

Titch and I did our photos and chat for the media, whilst I simultaneously chomped on some fish and chips, kindly donated by a nearby establishment.

‘Here, you must be hungry,’ a girl in a Rockfish T-shirt had said, proffering a healthy portion of England’s most famous seaside fare. ‘Here’s our donation to the cause.’

One of those wooden forks would have been good, but it wasn’t part of the package. As a result I ate the fish and chips with my unwashed hands; the same hands that had been handling a pig all morning. Fran would have been appalled, being someone who sticks rigidly to conventional advice when it comes to food hygiene. I always defended my rather
laissez-faire
approach – currently peaking with this latest effort – by claiming that a certain exposure to germs helps build up our immune systems. I’d never really looked into the science, or indeed the validity of the claim, but the information was extremely useful in enabling me to defend a need to be something of a slob from time to time.

Needless to say, doctors and nurses don’t handle pigs before treating patients, and this fact certainly adds strength to Fran’s argument. On the other hand, I am still here – typing this – so I have survived. There. It’s not always a bad thing to rebel against the conventional wisdom of the day. Next time you see a rather bossy ‘Now wash your hands’ sign in a bathroom, walk straight past it. Leave it five minutes and then wash them. Show them who’s boss.

I was deeply grateful for the media presence. Not only did these interviews prevent a damp squib of a finale, but they ensured that Titch and I would be on TV in the front rooms of many a West Country home this evening, and in the papers on their breakfast tables in the morning. I just hoped that a few viewers and readers would dig deep and make a small donation. Moldova awaited.

The regional news crew finished their filming by getting me to cycle around Plymouth Hoe, with Titch hanging cheekily out of the sling, turning on her charm for the camera. This was the spot where, more than four hundred years before, Drake had nonchalantly finished his game of bowls before preparing to do battle with the Spanish Armada. This story is most probably apochryphal,
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since there were no eyewitnesses, and the first written account of it was given thirty-seven years after the event.

I mean, why would you wait that long before jotting down a momentous event? For me, the worst offenders in this department have to be the writers of the gospels. Most scholars accept that they were written a good twenty or thirty years after the death of Jesus. Well, what were the great scribes of the day up to?

‘Hey, Matthew, that was a cracking story, wasn’t it?’

‘What was?’

‘Jesus’s life. Overturning the tables of the money lenders, turning the water into wine and feeding the five thousand. Talk about drama. I bet you can’t wait to write about that!’

‘It’s on my list. I’ll get to it when I’ve finished “The History of the Pebble” and “Sandals – Leather’s Great Prize.”’

‘I see. You’re confident of getting all the facts right?’

‘Facts, schmachts.’ Pointing to his friend’s feet. ‘They’re cracking sandals, where did you get them from?’

Suddenly, Titch and I were alone again. The camera kit had been packed away, warm goodbyes and wishes had been offered, and cars had been driven off. An ordinary weekday in Plymouth. I may have been on the hallowed turf of Drake’s nonchalant bowls’ game, but there was no sense of history now. No celebration lunch awaited us. Nosh had already been unceremoniously dispatched out of sheets of newspaper by my grubby, multitasking hands. The party was over and Plymouth City Council could stand down any staff that they had earmarked for clearing up the debris.

I successfully followed directions to the railway station, thus completing my last obligation on the pedalling front. I bought a ticket to Totnes, and made it to the platform with considerably more ease than when I’d set off earlier in the week. I was a veteran of pig travel now. I understood Titch, and she knew how to communicate to me. Quite what she thought I’d been up to every day was anybody’s guess, but she’d grown to accept my need to pick her up, shove her in a sling, and cycle her about the country. Pigs, bright beasts though they are, probably don’t grasp the concept of fundraising. Titch didn’t need to know. She just went with the moment. She was Zen. She was mindfulness embodied. A cool little pig.

The train journey, unlike the two-wheeled extravaganza that I had just completed, was swift and uneventful, and it was not a happy one. I knew that I would soon be saying goodbye to Titch. Buying her off Chris was not an option. He’d made it very clear from the outset that she was not for sale.

‘She’s too precious,’ he’d explained. ‘A pig with a lovely temperament like hers is very rare. We’ll need to keep her for breeding.’

So it was definitely goodbye Titch. Lovely Titch. Sweet Titch. No longer would I be able to transform the mood in a room with the unzipping of my coat. Oh, I could try. But I’d need to be wearing one hell of a jumper.

Thinking about the missing bag was hurting, too, especially the loss of a fairly decent wedge of money that was meant for a far-off children’s care centre.

‘Bollocks,’
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I mumbled under my breath, causing a nearby elderly lady to raise an eyebrow, and banish me from her list of passengers in the carriage with whom she was prepared to engage in eye contact.

The train pulled into Totnes station, and Titch and I made our way out to the car park.

‘Tiiiiitch!’ said Fran, as she rushed towards us.

Right at the very last minute, she remembered the conventional running order for greetings following time away from your partner and, quite properly, she kissed and hugged me first, before turning her attention to the piglet.

‘How is she?’

A look from me.

‘I mean, how are you both?’

That’s better.

‘We’re good, thanks.’

‘Where’s your bag?’

‘I’ll explain on the way to Pennywell Farm.’

The warm and comforting familiarity of Fran, the smells and touch of the van and the feel of ‘normal’ transport, all set to work on dissolving the memories of the week’s events. Did I
really
do that? The flimsy nature of memory was under assault from the solid, unflinching, towering stature of the present. Had all that stuff
really
happened? My sense of time was skew-whiff. Posing for the photo with the staff from the Bedford Hotel seemed like something that had happened at the beginning of the week, not just a few hours ago. Collecting Titch and introducing her to our home, standing in Ilfracombe harbour and staring up at a statue of a pregnant woman with half of her belly exposed, getting down on my hands and knees and disinfecting the ground on which Titch had walked – these all seemed like things done months before.

As we arrived at the farm, my mobile phone rang. It was Radio Devon telling me that my bag had been located. A dog walker had found it by a gate and had carried it to a local shop. The kind owner of said shop – Richard, at the Corner Shop, Yelverton – had found in my bag a business card that I’d been given at the cafe in Fremington Quay. He’d called the number on the card and spoken to its owner, who must have guessed that the bag had been mine, and directed him to Radio Devon.

‘Sorry, Fran, but we’ll have to drive all the way back from where I’ve just come. But it’s worth it. There’s a lot of money in that bag.’

***

Titch sat on my lap as Fran drove us back across Devon. Richard, kind Richard from the Corner Shop, had returned my bag and the fundraising money was all present and correct. As we left Yelverton and headed back across Devon once more, I began to see sections of route that I had cycled only that morning. Distant memories from a few hours ago. I stroked Titch and realised that this lovely, warm, little creature would be out of my life soon.

I’ve never liked goodbyes much. They rarely happen at a time that is ideal for all parties involved. Either the other party would prefer you to stay longer, or you would like to hang around but they’re anxious to see the back of you. Finding the right words is hard. We may have to dance around the truth. ‘Thanks so much for having me, I’ll definitely be in touch if I’m passing this way again’ could easily mean ‘I’m glad I’m out of here. In any other circumstances I would have stayed elsewhere. Take a good look at me, because you’ll never see me this close up again.’ Equally, being on the receiving end of ‘It’s been an interesting visit, stay in touch’ may mean ‘You’re hard work. Go. And please, limit any future communication to email. OK?’

There’d be no need to find the right words for Titch. She heard only sounds with no meaning, much like it is for us when we listen to a politician. The van pulled in to Pennywell Farm and I felt a tug in my heart. Titch. Little Titch. She’d be gone soon.

My little Titch.

We were welcomed warmly by a hearty Chris, who led us to Titch’s pen, firing pig anecdotes at us, and keeping my mind from the sad moment that awaited us. Moments later, I was standing and holding Titch, ready to lower her into her sty and to reunite her with her two cousins. I cleared my throat, which for some reason had a little lump in it.

‘So this is goodbye, Titch. You have to restart your life with pigs instead of humans. Let’s see if you can stand it.’

And in she went. Her two considerably larger cousins immediately began jostling her, in a manner that looked less than welcoming.

‘They’ll bully her for a bit,’ said Titch’s lucky owner, Chris. ‘They’ll want to establish who is boss for a while.’

‘Can I come visit her?’

‘Yes, you can come visit. She’s your special friend now.’

She was indeed. Just how special I didn’t bother to say. It was none of Chris’s business who I slept with.

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What’s In a Name?

My uncomfortable feelings about the Dartmoor National Park Planning Authority had been entirely justified. When we got back to the house, having returned Titch to the family fold, a letter awaited us giving notification that our planning application had been refused. This wasn’t great news. We’d rather set our hearts on the new kitchen extension. Never mind. We consoled ourselves with two facts.