A Pilgrim, a Bottle of Wine and an apricot.

‘Are you like me, a traveller?’

He was standing in the doorway of the dormitory block, he had just ridden a bike a third of the way across France under a relentless summer sun and his tongue was as wobbly as his legs. 

He had phoned the Café à Vélosa few kilometres back, at a point when he was about to throw himself into the canal he was following; he really needed a shower after two full days of toil, he was hungry and he had decided to spend 20 euros on a bed for a night with potentially 11 others in a similar sweaty mess. He was hoping to find the administrator who had taken the reservation.

‘I’m a Pilgrim’.

Her answer surprised him.

Aren’t we all, he was thinking, one way or another?

On a cooler day, he would have taken the thoughts further but there was a glass of cold beer waiting for him on the table outside, and he was still hopeful of finding someone who could show him the showers. He needed to sit under running water for at least an hour.

He nodded, a nod that tried to convey both understanding and acceptance, smiled and left.

He swallowed half the beer.

‘I just met a Pilgrim’, he told his fellow traveller.

‘You met a penguin?’ His friend looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know why people bother’, he added and finished the second half of his own beer.

‘I….’, he was interrupted by the arrival of the admin who rattled off a series of three five digit codes that opened, respectively, the toilets, the showers and the dormitory.

He remembered the one pertaining to the showers and hoped his friend had held onto the other ten digits.

An hour later he emerged, mightily cleansed and with a blood temperature approaching normal. He had also washed all his clothes and changed into his reserve. He looked snappy, fresh and no longer awkward.

‘Hello again’, He ventured, ‘when you say Pilgrim, do you mean that you are following the Route de Compostela?’

She was sitting on a pile of sawn-off wooden pallets that had been reassembled to look like a pile of sawn-off wooden pallets that you could sit on as if they constituted a bench.

‘I’m a Bad Pilgrim’, she replied. Her accent was not French and he had quickly established that English was the preferred option. His Dutch in any case, stretched to one word.

The Bad Pilgrims; that could be a neat name for a band, He thought. Then he thought, I wonder what a Bad Pilgrim is?

‘What is a bad pilgrim?’ He thought it was time to drop the capital letters as neither of them looked like a member of a rock and roll band - though to be fair age no longer seems to be one of the guiding criteria.

‘I was following the route, but I didn’t like the vibe. So I took some diversions.'

He was certainly thinking that the Café à Velos was some way off the usual beaten track of those following the sign of The Scallop (Coquille de St Jaques), he just hadn’t voiced it.

And by now, the conversation had moved on.

‘When did you start?’

‘When I was about 8 really.”

Ok, he decided he wasn’t quite ready for this, so he smiled and went off to buy some wine and a plate of cheese.

His friend, who didn’t listen when he said; ‘I’m off to buy some wine and a plate of cheese’, went and bought a bottle too, so by the time they sat down together on the pile of wooden off-cuts they had two opened bottles. 

They were still very thirsty, even though they had drank a fair part of the shower, and so pretty soon they were feeling eloquent+.

‘What do you think a bad pilgrim is’, the one asked.

‘I don’t know why people bother’, the friend replied.

‘But some people do bother, and it’s a very long walk, longer than we have cycled’, his bum was complaining so he went to get a pile of cushions he had seen outside the restaurant. You didn’t need a code for the restaurant.

He looked at the menu in passing; curried vegetables, crepes, and steak were on offer. His friend eats steak, he believes it’s good for him, but he prefers wine and cheese – which clearly is – so he decided not to mention anything.

They stuck their feet up on another pile of wood and drank some more.

‘This cheese is good’, the friend said.

‘Have you ever wanted to go on a pilgrimage?’ The other asked.

‘I don’t know why people bother’. Where had he heard that before?

‘We are on a sort of pilgrimage with our bikes’, he suggested.

‘We’re on a bike ride.’

The friend was right, of course, and he was also right about the cheese.

‘What is your favourite cheese then?’

‘I don’t like Roquefort.’

‘Ok, so, what is your favourite.’

‘I don’t like any blue cheese.’ Conversations with his friend can be difficult sometimes.

‘Have you ever visited Roquefort, the town where they make the cheese?’

‘Near Bordeaux’. He replied, it didn’t seem to be a question (so no question mark has been included).

‘No, it’s near the viaduct’, they had previously talked about the viaduct, It just hasn't been written down here.

‘Are you sure?’

He was sure, and went on to explain what a brilliant visit it had been and how they had shown a short film about a shepherd boy, a cave and a cheese sandwich that apparently explains why Roquefort Cheese exists today.

And that got them talking about films.

‘So, what’s your favourite film?’ He was willing to try, he had drunk almost a litre of wine by this point.

‘I don’t know, there are so many good films.’

‘Ok, what’s in your top three then?’

‘I liked Alien.’

‘Which one, there are millions.’ He might have been exaggerating a bit.

‘You know, a lot of people don’t agree with me but I think Terminator is a really good film.’

‘Which one? There are at least three’.

‘The third.’

‘Are you serious? The first is clearly the best.’

‘Yep, I agree.’

‘So why did you say the third?’

‘I liked the third.’

‘I didn’t ask you which films you liked, I asked you for your top three. So, is Alien in your top three?’

‘No.’

‘Terminator three?’

‘No.’

‘Terminator One?’

‘I know, I’ve thought of another film I really liked!”

‘Ok.’

He helped himself to a bit more cheese.

And poured out some more wine.

‘And?’

‘What?’

‘This new film?’

‘What new film, I haven’t been to the cinema for years, I have been watching TV series. Band of Brothers, that was good.’

‘You can’t have a TV series as your favourite film!’ He was beginning to wish he was still cycling. ‘in fact you can’t have a series.’

‘The Green Mile’

‘What?’

‘Stephen King’.

‘What about him?’

‘I like his books’.

‘Ok, so what’s your favourite book?’

“And I like John Le Carré.”

The Pilgrim came around the corner at this point.

Thank God.

He offered her cheese, wine and a loaf – he was hoping for a miracle.

She sat down on a third pile of wood and he asked; ‘Do you have a favourite film?’

‘I don’t remember the name, but it’s a Japanese film.’

‘Do you know the director?’

‘It’s not Kurosawa.’

‘Not Ran then, or his reworking of Macbeth?’

‘John Le Carré used to work for British Intelligence’, his friend said.

‘It’s pretty clear that we don’t’, He couldn’t help himself. He probably shouldn’t talk once he had drunk a certain amount.

It was getting dark. 

Some more hot people cycled up and disappeared into the showers.

A man on an e-scooter slipped past.

’Bon appétit.’

‘What was the film about?’ He asked

‘Tatoos’, the Pilgrim replied.

‘There are two Ts in tattoo’, his friend said trying to be annoying

‘I’m Dutch. There’s only one in Dutch’. The two friends were in no position to challenge this.

‘How many tatttoos are there on a bad pilgrim?’ He asked, using three Ts, just for the sake of it and maintaining the lower case.

‘I’m a tatoo virgin AND a Bad Pilgrim’, she returned to upper case. 

In the distance a flash of lightning alerted them to a coming storm.

Thunder rolled in the distance.

‘The Lord is telling us to bring in our washing, I think.’

He got up and collected his togs and stuck them in the bike panier.

‘Does anyone want an apricot?’

They looked at him.

‘What’s your favourite fruit?’, they asked together.

 

 

 

 previously published in the archives