impoverished I explained that it was deliberate. I was travelling with only £10 — another of Dick’s strictures. Too much money, Dick feels, cuts you off from the country you are visiting. A little hardship, the need to economize, even a little suffering, brings you closer to it and its people’s soul. ‘I hope you’re not in thrall to this Dick Hodge,’ Ben said. No fear of that, I reassured him. Dick has been with his family at Ostend — I wonder why he wanted us to meet in Biarritz?
Wednesday, 5 August
Biarritz. Dick arrives later tonight. In the meantime I stroll around this delightful
station balnéaire
buying a few last-minute provisions. We are travelling very light — one rucksack each, which contains reading matter, a large bottle of eau de Cologne (we will not have much chance to bathe, Dick said, and we don’t want to smell like tinkers), brilliantine for our hair (for the same reason), two extra shirts, a couple of ties, a pair of ordinary shoes, extra socks and underwear, and, carefully folded, the linen trousers that will match the linen jackets that we will wear. I have a Panama hat against the sun, Dick prefers a beret. By day we travel in shorts and walking shoes but can transform ourselves into relatively well-dressed young gentlemen in the evenings.
The plan is to walk through the Pyrenees through one of the passes and either walk or bus on to Segovia. From there we will take the train to Madrid and then on south, stopping off where we want, to the Mediterranean. I bought a wineskin and some tough fatty sausage that, I’m assured, will keep for days. From the window of our hotel, through a gap in the roofscape, I can see the creamy breakers rolling in on to the
grande plage.
This is the liberation of travel — the sense of cleansing, of purification, of sloughing off. Oxford is a distant memory, London almost forgotten. And Land — who is this Land Fothergill mouldering somewhere in banal Cornwall?
Thursday,13 August
I’m exhausted, a husk. I must have lost half a stone and am burnt to teak by the sun. Segovia — Madrid — Seville — now Algeciras. I shall have to reflect on this trip in tranquillity and solitude. Christ knows where Dick is.
It all started happily. I met him at the station in Biarritz, we dined at a bistro by the
vieux port,
then wandered round the casino, not daring to gamble. Very early the next morning we caught a bus up into the foothills of the Pyrenees and commenced our walk through the pass. At midday we paused to eat our bread and cheese and were chatting about this and that, exhilarated to be up in the mountains, and I said, apropos of nothing in particular — no, actually, we were talking about Johnson’s
Lives of the Poets
(which Dick had brought with him) — and I said, ‘Did you know Dr Johnson’s cat was called “Hodge”?’
He looked at me most oddly. ‘What’re you trying to say? Go on, spit it out.’
I laughed. ‘Just idle conversation, for heaven’s sake.’
He looked around, then swatted a fly on his forearm and held it out for me to see.
‘And that fly’s name is Logan.’
‘Grow up,’ I said.
‘If I look like a cat then you look like a squashed fly.’
‘I didn’t say you looked like a cat, you pathetic child.’
‘Right!’ he bellowed. Standing up. He was completely enraged. ‘See you in Avignon on the 28th.’
And with that he strode off up the hill. I waited for half an hour, convinced he’d come to his senses, but there was no sign of him, he seemed well and truly gone. There was no question of my setting off after him — he was the one who knew the route — so I retraced my steps and caught a bus back to Biarritz.
Since then I’ve travelled by train — third class, Dick would approve — following the vague route we had planned across Spain to the south. I’ve looked around me, visited churches and mosques, palaces and art galleries, always half expecting to see him, his big grinning
Wednesday, 5 August
Biarritz. Dick arrives later tonight. In the meantime I stroll around this delightful
station balnéaire
buying a few last-minute provisions. We are travelling very light — one rucksack each, which contains reading matter, a large bottle of eau de Cologne (we will not have much chance to bathe, Dick said, and we don’t want to smell like tinkers), brilliantine for our hair (for the same reason), two extra shirts, a couple of ties, a pair of ordinary shoes, extra socks and underwear, and, carefully folded, the linen trousers that will match the linen jackets that we will wear. I have a Panama hat against the sun, Dick prefers a beret. By day we travel in shorts and walking shoes but can transform ourselves into relatively well-dressed young gentlemen in the evenings.
The plan is to walk through the Pyrenees through one of the passes and either walk or bus on to Segovia. From there we will take the train to Madrid and then on south, stopping off where we want, to the Mediterranean. I bought a wineskin and some tough fatty sausage that, I’m assured, will keep for days. From the window of our hotel, through a gap in the roofscape, I can see the creamy breakers rolling in on to the
grande plage.
This is the liberation of travel — the sense of cleansing, of purification, of sloughing off. Oxford is a distant memory, London almost forgotten. And Land — who is this Land Fothergill mouldering somewhere in banal Cornwall?
Thursday,13 August
I’m exhausted, a husk. I must have lost half a stone and am burnt to teak by the sun. Segovia — Madrid — Seville — now Algeciras. I shall have to reflect on this trip in tranquillity and solitude. Christ knows where Dick is.
It all started happily. I met him at the station in Biarritz, we dined at a bistro by the
vieux port,
then wandered round the casino, not daring to gamble. Very early the next morning we caught a bus up into the foothills of the Pyrenees and commenced our walk through the pass. At midday we paused to eat our bread and cheese and were chatting about this and that, exhilarated to be up in the mountains, and I said, apropos of nothing in particular — no, actually, we were talking about Johnson’s
Lives of the Poets
(which Dick had brought with him) — and I said, ‘Did you know Dr Johnson’s cat was called “Hodge”?’
He looked at me most oddly. ‘What’re you trying to say? Go on, spit it out.’
I laughed. ‘Just idle conversation, for heaven’s sake.’
He looked around, then swatted a fly on his forearm and held it out for me to see.
‘And that fly’s name is Logan.’
‘Grow up,’ I said.
‘If I look like a cat then you look like a squashed fly.’
‘I didn’t say you looked like a cat, you pathetic child.’
‘Right!’ he bellowed. Standing up. He was completely enraged. ‘See you in Avignon on the 28th.’
And with that he strode off up the hill. I waited for half an hour, convinced he’d come to his senses, but there was no sign of him, he seemed well and truly gone. There was no question of my setting off after him — he was the one who knew the route — so I retraced my steps and caught a bus back to Biarritz.
Since then I’ve travelled by train — third class, Dick would approve — following the vague route we had planned across Spain to the south. I’ve looked around me, visited churches and mosques, palaces and art galleries, always half expecting to see him, his big grinning
Similar Books
