Narrow Dog to Wigan Pier Page 15

  It is called Yellow Fish.

  The car was prompt the next morning and we chatted as we drove south. Taiwan used to be called Formosa, the beautiful, but all I saw was jungle.

  My interpreter explained that people in some different eastern countries would use the same ideograms when writing, though they could not understand each other talking. He drew me the ideogram for happy, which looked like a smiling face, and the one for exit, which was an empty square.

  On a hill a factory. A small meeting room with three men waiting. Three more men arrived and one climbed out of the filing cabinet. Four more came and sat up on the window-ledge. We were leaning on one another.

  All these people were extras and the man to whom I should be talking would arrive late, to show his importance. The extras smiled and looked with disbelief at my great black beard, my round eyes, my long legs. They looked at my Italian suit, my Rolex, my Pendragon briefcase, my Church’s brogues, pricing them carefully.

  I explained the principle of the dust press and asked if they would buy some if we could supply from England. Yes, one of them said, if it gives us cost-effective production and does not break down.

  They could not have said anything different, and I began to realize how stupid many of my questions were. I should be concentrating on locating all the dust presses currently in the field, finding out who made them, when, what they cost, were they working – and then size the potential market myself.

  Three more people arrived and sat on the ones who were there already.

  Then there came a hush and the important respondent arrived smiling. A space was cleared for him and he answered my questions, even my damnfool ones, with courtesy, as best he could.

  My afternoon respondent was several hours further south. We got out of the car and struggled through creepers to reception. Here was a jewel of a factory, clean and quiet, with happy staff and shining equipment. Tarzan had come upon the hidden city. A single charming manager gave me some useful answers, and a mug that was made by a special process. I knew he liked me and it was a real gift and I kept the mug for thirty years then Monica dropped it last week.

  We were very late back at the hotel, just in time to see the butterflies.

  When we were in Monterey Monica and I had seen the monarch butterflies on their way up the coast, flooding the sky and hanging in bunches from the trees. But the migration of the monarch butterflies did not rival the midnight hour at the Taipei Hilton, when the whores were sent home. They glided down the steps and tripped along the pavement, their silks floating, colours of sunset and sea, their teeth white and sharp, Red Indian skin, coffee skin, blanched white skin, tittering and laughing as the Hilton shift came to an end and now the next act of the night could begin.

  You wanna woman?

  I knew my room boy went through all my possessions each day seeking something to steal, some leverage to gain. He had produced a drama with a couple of other boys crying and shouting. I didn’t really know what it was all about but they made it clear that a modest amount of money would save one of them from slavery and disgrace and probably buggery. It was so unfair and only I could retrieve the situation. I gave them a fiver and told them to clear off. I wished I hadn’t given them anything but they had access to all my stuff and might piss into my camera or something.

  You wanna woman?

  Yes, I said, but I will wait until I get home.

  Woman only forty pounds. Until midnight. All on room service, no trouble. Very pretty, very clean. Put on bill as dinner, or translators. Speak English.

  Oh clear off.

  I went down to dinner. A drink in the bar first. The barmaid was gorgeous. There was a mix of races in Taiwan – the Chinese with their flat yellow faces and the original Taiwanese, who were the colour of oiled teak – smooth brow, with very high cheekbones and narrow eyes. They did not look like human beings, but were pretty, neat – wooden toys. There were some Japanese faces, oval, delicate.

  Anyway this girl behind the bar was Japanese and European and perhaps a bit Chinese too and drop dead gorgeous and she made it clear that for a modest contribution I could have her as well as my beer. I fled to the dining room.

  I sat at my little table in the middle of the room. Everyone was looking at everyone else, and there was a silence, as if a great storm would soon break, or a tsunami come tearing into reception and up the stairs. A young man walked through slowly holding a packet of cigarettes behind his bum. It was clear what he was saying.

  Back in the bar the barmaid whore had gone and on the stools there were a couple of Brits holding beers. One of them was old and distinguished-looking. He looked a bit like Dr Lewis.

  My God, I said, I am just realizing what this place is like. It might be called the Hilton but it is a whorehouse. The whorehouse Hilton, Taipei. I didn’t know there was anything like this in the world – it’s shocking. Everyone is for sale – the receptionist, the barmaids, the waiters, the room boys. They have whores on room service – I have seen them leaving at midnight. I have seen them with my own eyes – hundreds of them. Corruption stewed in corruption4 – it’s Babylon.

  It’s a disgrace, said my new friend, and put his hand on my knee.

  * * *

  A pleasant mooring on a pontoon at Newark – thank you Newark – and I am sitting under the black canvas of the cratch in the bow and a big man is coming towards us in a blue duffel coat. He was walking in a shuffle and I could see a shadow behind him. Are you the chap who? he asked.

  Yes, I said.

  Is this the Phyllis May that?

  No, I said, she burned.

  My wife has read your books and has always wanted to meet you, but she’s shy.

  He moved a little to one side and I could see his wife hiding behind him, smiling at me with her eyes open as if I was Jesus Christ. She hid behind him again.

  She likes the bits about Jim, said the chap. She reads them to me. I like them too. She liked it when he danced with Monica in the square. Is Jim on board?

  Jim came out of the boat. This is the dog which, I said.

  Jim greeted the fan and his wife. She’s very nervous, said the chap. Never met a writer before.

  He turned to go and his wife went with him, moving round him as he went, like a squirrel keeping on the other side of a branch.

  We went below.

  Vippets, came a cry, vippets! Do you have vippets in here? Out with your vippets! I will see the famous Jim! Is that him? Is that the dog who?

  Heidi was a pretty lady entering middle age – she had a little accent and a smile and a personality that would defrost the roof of a Dutch barge in a February dawn. Thirty years ago she had fallen in love with a man in blue in Mönchengladbach and he had left the RAF now and they lived in England on their sixty-eight-footer.

  We decided to go to Cromwell Lock with Heidi and Tony, where we would brave the Trent, which went tidal there and of which many tales were told.

  * * *

  The South China Sea. The South China Sea! I was flying over the South China Sea! Only people in the forces went to the South China Sea, a long time ago, and not all of them came back. There were the films of course, usually with Stewart Granger and Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly or was that Africa anyway this is incredible. I can see the ships making their white trails on their way to Rangoon and Sumatra and places and here is old Terry from Stone Staffordshire, with its canal and its pubs – here he is deep in the mystic orient. I didn’t think much of the Japanese in The Bridge on the River Kwai – poor Alec Guinness – My God, we’re going down!

  This must be Nagoya, the heart of the Japanese pottery industry, a city bigger than Cardiff, on a great bay. It’s so white!

  White and modern. No real high-rise buildings. Most unlike the scruffy unexpectedness of Cardiff – this was glass and concrete and shops and cafés tucked into the ground floor. I wandered around without a hint of danger, never propositioned. I explored the underground markets selling those erasers that you drizzle with Morgan
oil and horrible creatures from the deep.

  The passers-by would try not to stare at this huge man with his strange skin colour and clothes and his terrifying beard, but little children would burst into tears.

  My hotel was comfortable when I had learned the trick of sleeping with my feet out of the window. The television poured out a stream of idiocy.

  I went to the desk manager to get a translator. He did not have much luck and was hours over his time. My dear chap, I said, don’t worry about me, go home, we’ll try tomorrow.

  But it is my job!

  I thought of the uncollected rubbish in the streets in the UK, the unburied dead, the strikes, the laziness, the hatred. But the desk manager worked later and later, and produced Itsi – efficient and charming, dark skin, from the north, a true lady.

  But it is my job!

  So I could begin my fieldwork. With Itsi at my elbow and a friendly Japanese Ceramic Federation I got the interviews I needed and had time to make friends.

  The Japanese turned out to be human beings, very like the Welsh – small, sensitive, emotional, chatty. To my surprise the detail of their body language and facial expressions was the same as ours. They loved a joke and could pick one out of the tangle of translation and we would laugh together. I think they were surprised too that we were of the same clay. I could see, said the head of one of the pottery firms, that you are a real English Rental Man.

  When I left Itsi gave me a picture she had painted for me, of a flower.

  I have a photograph of my return taken on the lawn of The Radfords, with Monica and the children joyful in the evening sunlight under the great trees.

  We don’t need a presentation, Mr Darlington. Your report is clear and we know what to do. Look, we have a number of other projects coming through – would you be interested?

  * * *

  Heidi and Tony went down the Trent yesterday, said Monica. Today it’s eleven o’clock, for the tides. We go out at Cromwell Lock then it’s sixteen miles due north to Torksey. Then next day thirty miles to Keadby. That’s as long a passage as the Albemarle Sound, or Lake Okeechobee, or the Channel. And the Trent runs fast and it bends. It’s different up here – bigger locks, bigger rivers, bigger currents, bigger bends. The North Sea tides reach forty miles up the Trent. That tells you the country is flat, and with such a small drop you have meander after meander.

  The Trent was pouring out towards the Humber, pulling at the trees and grasses on its banks fifty yards apart, as the tide was swept back out by the river. No more crystal Trent with dragonflies and trout – the wind over the low banks would blow away anything smaller than a cow, and it would be a strange and dreadful fish that could breathe in this torrent of mud.

  A narrowboat is difficult to steer, if only because the bow may already have arrived somewhere you do not want to go. Bow thrusters, which are propellers set into the sides of the boat, can help though they take half the fun away. Narrowboating is a contact sport. To enjoy a boat you have to drive her on currents, into the wind. You want to struggle with her, chuck her about, bang and bounce. I love to feel her move under me har har.

  I pushed the throttle down – let’s see you go, baby! I knew the PM2 was fast but she could overheat and this was my chance to check her safe top speed. I squinted down at the temperature gauge and ran her for five miles at between 2500 and 3000 revs, backing off when the temperature needle tipped over vertical. With the tide and the river behind her the PM2 went along the Trent like a rat up a drainpipe, roaring and splashing. I don’t know if there is a speed limit on rivers – I suppose there is – and I must have been breaking it. If there are any vigilantes out there I am awfully sorry and I won’t do it again, promise. I am an old man and will be dead soon and won’t get many more chances to do silly things, and I do so love doing silly things. And by the way, Go to Hell.

  On a river there are two things you must never forget. The first is Wear a Life Jacket, and the second is Don’t Cut the Corners. One of the biggest moments in the life of a geography teacher is when he explains how the water on the outside of a river bend moves quickly, and on the inside of a bend moves slowly. This means that the river drops mud on the inside of a bend. So when you come up on a bend in your boat you must never take the obvious short route and cut the corner.

  So go painfully round the outside, round the outside – yes, I know it can mean you go to the wrong side of the river, but stop kidding, you are meeting only three boats a day. And you have got to take that route every time, every time, however unnatural it feels. Relax once and forget and you are on the mud and waiting for the next tide, unless you got stuck on the top of the tide, in which case you can be there for weeks.

  Monica took over and I opened the engine-room door and there was Jess, with Jim hard behind. Poor Jess was panting and trembling and as I went into the saloon she fastened herself to the side of my leg and walked along with me. Jim lay down beside me and Jess flung herself into my lap. I stroked and comforted her and though animals, particularly my animals, do not normally respond to my wishes she calmed down and put her head on my chest.

  * * *

  I fled Him, down the nights5 and down the days;

  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

  I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

  Of my own mind, and in the mist of tears.

  I hid from Him …

  From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

  But with unhurrying chase,

  And unperturbèd pace,

  Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

  They beat – and a Voice beat …

  Well done, mate.

  But the voice was not for me. The voice was for the figure in the wheelchair, crouched to his task, his wheels fizzing, overtaking on my left as a thin man nearly seven feet tall swept by me on the right at nine miles an hour. My eyes filled with tears for the heroic wheelchair athlete and the respect shown by the tall man who was whole and clearly a star and the world is full of love really don’t you know and I dug in and tried to go after them. But they are faster than me; I am out of my depth. Still twenty miles to go. I should not be pushing – where is Leslie?6

  Leslie was ahead where she should be. They said she put make-up on her legs but one so favoured by nature needed little help from artifice. Black hair, pale skin, a beauty with a heart that had powered her to so many sub-three-hour marathons. Leslie knew what she was doing – that was why I was following her. Oh, you’re pretty, shouted a child.

  The Harlow Marathon was a respected event, but it was 1978 and there were fewer than three hundred runners.

  I had been told that the qualifying time for the Boston Marathon was three hours. Most marathoners never reach this time, especially veterans – men over forty, women over thirty-five. To run under three hours you have to run a mile at nearly nine miles an hour, and then do it again twenty-five times.

  The human body when match fit can react explosively for ten yards, sprint for a hundred yards, and run for sixteen miles and then it starts to eat itself from the inside.

  An hour a day, my marathon coach had said, and none of your smart-arse excuses – an hour a day and two on a Sunday. Did you do two last Sunday? Look, do you want to do Boston or not? What chance have you got of making three hours to qualify? You are a jogger, not a bloody athlete. You are a businessman, all booze and schmooze, and I bet you and your fat mates hang around young girls. Athletes are hard, they are dedicated: they have balls of steel. Come on, dig in, up this hill. Lean forward and pretend you are pulling on a magic rope that will take you to the top. Push, you fat bastard, push. Afraid of a bit of pain, are we?

  My children used to laugh at me as I set out into the night mummified against the cold. The return of the ninja!7 Or when I tried to climb the stairs, falling forward with stiffness and fatigue.

  But it was not all churning through dark streets at night. There were the runs over Mow Cop with my coach and his mates: throwing snowballs, being a boy
again. There were the trails in the woods and along the hills, and the chats over a beer, my blood foaming with more feel-good than any smackhead.

  Here I am at the sixteen-mile marker – this is where it will start to hurt. There are few worse experiences than a bad marathon, when your blood sugar has run out and you are burning fat and your body is shouting No, no – you are burning the furniture you fool you will be sorry oh God I am hurting hurting.

  And the pain settles into your muscles and flares up at every move and you get slower and slower and you are a loser and there is no sugar in your brain and you think Why am I here? I shall disgrace myself. I shall have to drop out I shall have to drop out everyone is going by me I can’t stand it.

  But this was a good marathon. It was painful now but my mood was good and I could handle it. A cool overcast day and a flat course and I did not have to think with Leslie setting the pace. I had spent the summer training slowly after an injury and holiday runs along the Pembrokeshire coast path had given me strength without burning me out.

  Twenty miles – they say this is where the race begins. I was fifteen yards behind Leslie, too shy to make myself known. I was sure she was heading for three hours – the timing was just right so far. At twenty-four miles I moved alongside her and passed her and her small cohort of admirers. No one said anything.

  On my own now.

  Pick up a drink, try to get it down, Oh sod it chuck it over your head.

  Just enough runners ahead to avoid getting lost. Feet hurting perhaps a blister but who cares who gives a damn now round this corner and there is the tape but oh it hurts it hurts just push and push and over.

  The clock read two hours and fifty-eight minutes.8

  I hung on to the chicken-wire fence. Under three hours – I had qualified for Boston. And I was an athlete – I had my union card – I could even captain an athletic club.

  I realized I was crying.

  CHAPTER TEN

  NORTH TO YORK

  Bends and Meanders

  Yellow claws and mad staring eyes