Page 45 of Don't Believe A Word

His eyes narrowed suspiciously as she handed him a mic.

‘You’ll need to clip it to your collar,’ she told him, ‘so no scarf, I’m afraid. Do you think you can bear the cold on your face for a while?’

‘Ah, so that’s why you’ve given me the job, so you don’t have to get your face out of that thing. Well, lucky for you I’m feeling chivalrous.’

After a few sound tests to make sure his voice was coming through loud and clear, she gave him the cue to begin.

ROBERT: ‘My name is Robert Brinkley, I’m the son of Gita Brinkley who was housekeeper to the Winters sisters for a short spell back in the year 2000. I’m about to startwalking the first mile or so of the South West Coast Path to where the sisters were staying when Sadie first joined them.’

He glanced at Cristy for approval, and receiving it, pressed on.

ROBERT: ‘It’s a truly spectacular January day with more sunshine flooding down on us than we get in the middle of an Aussie summer, although sadly none of the warmth. In fact, it’s literally zero degrees, but the way the light is sparkling across the iron grey waves of the estuary and throwing itself onto the wooded hills ahead of us makes them more inviting than chocolate.’

Cristy snorted a laugh.

‘It was the first thing that came into my head,’ he protested. ‘What do you think it should be?’

She thought, gave a few suggestions which managed to be even worse than chocolate, and in the end they were laughing so much she had to cut the recording.

‘I think you should do it,’ he told her. ‘I’m just making an idiot of myself.’

‘No, no, you started off so well. Let’s just lose the analogy and say something like “The way the light is throwing itself onto the wooded hills ahead of us makes it no wonder the region has inspired so many poets.”’

‘Now, why didn’t I think of that?’ Then, ‘Who are the poets?’

Though certain she was being teased, she said, ‘Coleridge, Wordsworth, Robert Southey …’

‘Didn’t Southey writeGoldilocks and the Three Bears?’

She grinned. ‘He also wrote some stunning descriptions of the walk between Dunster and Minehead.’

‘Great. Do you know any of them?’

Having to confess that she didn’t, at least not by heart, she offered to google them, but he was already quoting fromThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

‘“At length did cross an Albatross, Through the fog it came, As if it had been a Christian soul …’”

‘Brilliant,’ Cristy exclaimed. ‘It has absolutely nothing to do with why we’re here, or what we’re doing, but it’s definitely Coleridge. So now, perhaps we should skip naming or quoting and just keep it general about inspiring poets.’

‘Got it. Are you going to interview me after I’ve finished waxing lyrical?’

‘Of course. It’s the main reason we’re here.’

Apparently happy with that, Robert repeated his intro as discussed and added a few extra lines about the spectacular clarity of the South Wales coastline on a close horizon, along with how very blue the sky was, and salty the air.

ROBERT: ‘We’re now properly into the start of the coast path. The sea is to our right and to our left is the children’s play area where I first saw Janina sitting on a bench with her little girl. There’s no one here today – as glorious as the weather is, apparently no one is venturing out in the cold. Back then, it was spring so the trees would have been in blossom and there would certainly have been a lot of children’s noise coming from the swings and roundabouts. I think this was the bench – there’s a pink bobble hat on it today, presumably dropped by a little girl while here playing recently, and if ever there was a sign this has to be one, although of what, I can’t be sure.’

CRISTY: ‘To keep going?’

ROBERT: ‘You mean, like we’re on a treasure hunt? OK, sounds good.’

CRISTY: ‘Shall we sit down for a moment?’

ROBERT: ‘Yes, we probably need a rest by now.’

As they’d come all of fifty yards she had to laugh. Then joining him on the bench, she said, ‘Does being here bring back any other memories of Janina for you?’ She signalled for him to speak his answer into the mic.

He sat quietly for a moment and Cristy watched him as hismind travelled back in time, searching for memories that might have been lost but were still there somewhere waiting to be found.

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