Paul Theroux - The Kingdom by the Sea - A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain

I was setting out to have lunch at Fowey, and I planned to walk on to Par, where there was a railway junction. The grass on this path was wet with mist and dew, and before I had gone half a mile my shoes were soaked, in spite of the oil I had put on them in Looe.

This was the softer side of Cornwall, damper and greener than the north coast, which was pounded by the Atlantic. The whole cliff was green, from the top to the sea, full of ivy and meadow grass and brambles. The cliffs of Cornwall were depicted always as rocky, like ruined castles and castle walls. "I like Cornwall very much. It is not England," D. H. Lawrence wrote. "It is bare and dark and elemental… bare and sad under a level sky." He meant the other coast, the Cornish stereotype of black headlands on a choppy sea, and charming desolation. But here on the path to Fowey the cliffs were like steep meadows. The bramble bushes and the gorse made a mild reflection in the water; the trailing ivy gave a delicacy to the sea; and the foliage muffled the wind. The air was sweetened by all this greenery, and the fragrance of the rain was emphasized by its soft stutter on the grass. There was nothing elemental here, thank God.

Two battered old ladies appeared on the path, tramping toward me out of the gorse — Miss Brace and Miss Badcock. They were half-naked, leathery, and terrifying in halters and faded shorts, and though it was cool on these cliffs, they were perspiring. Old ladies in skimpy clothes could look defenseless. These two looked formidable — rather plump and plain and dauntless, with lined faces, and varicose veins standing out on their calves like thongs. They were very brown. They carried walking sticks with spiked tips. One had a bright patch on her shorts saying Bad-Gastein. They were Ramblers, they said, and then, as if to prove it, said they had walked here from Land's End.

"And we 'aven't tooched pooblic transport," Miss Brace said. Her rucksack must have weighed a hundred pounds. She had the tent; Miss Badcock had the cooking gear — you could hear the clink of the skillet.

Miss Badcock said, "'ow mooch does your knapsack weigh?"

Northerners. I said, "Not much." They plumped it with their hands and weighed it and laughed, taking me for a twinkie.

"We've got spare shoes," Miss Badcock said.

"Let's go, Vera," Miss Brace said. And she explained to me. "We're in a hoora to find accommodation in Polperro."

I said, "Polperro is full of hotels."

"We want a youth hostel," Miss Brace said.

A youth hostel? They were each well over sixty — Miss Badcock looked closer to seventy. I could see Miss Badcock's navel.

They had walked a hundred and fifteen miles since last Thursday. Had they seen anything interesting?

Miss Brace said, "We 'ad soom nice coves and bays. We 'ad soom nice villages. We joost walk by."

Miss Badcock said, "We don't stop mooch."

They asked me where I was going. I said, "To Fowey and then to Par today."

Miss Brace said, "It's a canny little step."

A canny little step was similar to a fair old trot. Why didn't the English ever use the word "far"?

We went our separate ways, and now it began to rain. Miss Brace had said that was the reason they were so scantily dressed — because of the rain: fewer clothes to get wet, and they dried quicker. I had been ashamed to say that I had a hooded plastic raincoat. I now put it on and walked around Lantivet Bay and on to Lantic Bay, where the water was wonderfully marbled with sea foam, the white veiny effect heightened by the luminous blue-green water, which was flat and gleaming.

Toward lunchtime I walked around Blackbottle Rock and into the village of Polruan. This village was so tiny, and its roads so narrow, a sign to the entrance of the village said: "Vehicular Access to Village Prohibited for Day Visitors 10am-6pm."

It was strange, the way some of these villages were protected. Polruan was sealed off: no traffic. But people still lived there, taking refuge in their small houses and the distant past. And visitors parked up the road and wandered around, peering through cottage windows and remarking on the cobblestones.

There was a ferry from Polruan to Fowey, across Fowey Harbour. The ferry sign said:

Adults 25p

Children 25p

Dogs 12p

Pram 12p

Cycle 25p

All these villages looked better from the water, face-on like Fowey from its ferry, with all their watching windows and all the peeling paint and storm damage. Fowey was perpendicular, built around the rock shelves of the steep harbor, and the houses were faded and stately. At the head of the harbor was a green wedge of woods and the emptying Fowey River, and at the harbor mouth high battlements in ruins. Fowey had been a harbor from ancient times. It looked an excellent place to start a long voyage, because it was a beautiful settled place, like a serene lakeside village.

I had my lunch — a sandwich — on the cliff at the west side of the harbor and, startling the wrens in the hedges, set off again. I walked at the margins of pastures, on the cliff edges above the sea, and around coves to a headland called the Gribbin, where there was a candy-striped beacon — a marker for sailors. From this height I could see St. Austell, and Par sprinkled at the head of St. Austell Bay, and twenty miles of coast — mountainous heaps of china-clay refuse, and Black Head, and the whole of dark blue Mevagissey Bay as far as Dodman Point. The distant rocks in the sea were called the Gwinges.

One of the pleasures of traveling that fractured coast was a vista like this. The irregularity of the English coast offered unusually long views, and these heights helped. A vantage point like the Gribbin made this part of Cornwall look like a topographical map with raised features in bright colors — the best views were always like dazzling maps. And in contrast to the sea, there were the reassuring pastures: on one side the cows and bees and sheep and slate walls and the smell of manure, and on the other side the gulls and cormorants and the whiff of salt spray — and these were mingled. The gulls crossed into the pastures, the crows strutted on the sand, and the smells of muck and salt were mingled, too.

I walked on. Under the trees above Polkerris, which was a small harbor and beach, there was a cool shade and a rich aroma — a whole acre of wild garlic.

Par was small and ugly — a china-clay factory wrapped around half its bay, and the other half a clutter of caravans and broken-down shallys. Rising behind this miserable beach were long terraces of hollow-eyed houses. Factory effluent had stained the water. I had been heading for Par all day, but instead of stopping I walked through the town to the station and caught the train that crossed the narrow part of Cornwall.

This branch-line train from Par to Newquay was a delight. We were heading west, and the bright sun was propped just above the horizon. I took the seat behind the driver, in the first carriage, and slipped my wet shoes off. There was nothing in the world more restful than an English branch-line train — it seemed like the highest stage of civilization. Nothing was disturbed by it, or spoiled; it did not alter the landscape; it was the machine in the garden, but it was a gentle machine. It was fast and economical and as safe as a vehicle could possibly be.

Mr. Kemp, the conductor, said, "When I took over this train they said they were going to close the line. That was eighteen years ago! They're still saying it, but they haven't done it yet."

But of course they would eventually, because they had closed down a hundred others just like it, all over the country. I suggested this to Mr. Kemp.

He said, "I'll be retired by then. But it'll be a shame if they close it. It's a beautiful line!"

We went through a green corridor of sunlit trees and sparkling leaves to Luxulyan. And then the landscape became stony and rather bruised-looking, as the interior of Cornwall often appeared. The hills of rubbish from the china-clay factories looked like pyramids — thick, broadbottomed, and sprawling across treeless plateaus — so that the effect was that of a lost city, as empty and geometric as any Aztec ruin. This was not far from the tiny village of Bugle.