Open Writing

After breakfast on Sunday morning, we assembled outside the hostel and I had to do a double take as there seemed to be two Toms.

'Bloody hell, Joe, do you have to wear your bandage on the same knee as Tom?'

'I didn't know there was anything wrong with his knee,' Paul mumbled.

'And did he tell you to buy the same coloured poles as mine, Andy?'Tom asked.

Not only were they the same age and build, but now they had identical walking poles and bandages on their right knees.

'It's a good job Joe farts all the time or we wouldn't know them apart,' said Paul. 'I knew all his farting would come in handy sometime.'

'Bugger off,' was Joe's only response (apart from a fart).

'Did you learn any more about Wainwright last night?' Tom asked Paul as we waited for Joe to tie his laces.

'Yes, I told you that he came to the Lakes for the first time when he was twenty-three, and it was also the first time he had been away from Blackburn; well, the following year, in 1931, he passed his municipal accountants exams and won a prize for the second best results in the country and had to go to the annual conference in Brighton to collect it. Apparently, he had never been south of Manchester before and said he was glad to be on the next train back.'

'Perhaps it's a good job he didn't fall in love with Brighton then,'Tom said.'Otherwise, he might not have written The Coast to Coast Walk; he might have written The Road to Brighton Pier instead.'

'I saw that in a bookshop a few weeks ago; I thought we could do that next year,' Andy said.

'Do what next year?' Paul asked, a puzzled look on his face.

'The road to Brighton Pier. Sounds a good challenge.'

'There isn't a book called The Road to Brighton Pier,' Paul explained, as patiently as he could, 'I think you're thinking about The Road to Wigan Pier!'

'There isn't a pier in Wigan,'Andy pointed out.

'I know that,' Paul said, a note of exasperation creeping into his voice.

'So why would Wainwright write a book about walking to Wigan Pier when there isn't one?' demanded Andy.

'It isn't a book about walking and Wainwright didn't write it. It was written by George Orwell,' Paul replied, raising his voice ever so slightly.

'Who's he?' Andy asked.

'He wrote Animal Farm.'

'Oh, he was a farmer, was he?'

'No, he wasn't a farmer; Animal Farm was nothing to do with farming,' Paul said, now beginning to lose his rag.

'Sounds a bit of a dickhead to me; he writes a book called The Road to Wigan Pier which has nothing to do with walking to a place that doesn't exist, and writes a book called Animal Farm which has nothing to do with farming! He won't sell many copies, I can tell you.'

'The point is,'Tom said, interrupting the debate about English literature in the twentieth century and giving no bonus points to Andy, 'we won't be walking to bloody Brighton or anywhere else in Sussex, thank God.'

'There's nothing wrong with Sussex,'Joe said, defending the county of his birth.

'I thought of moving to Sussex a few years ago,' Andy muttered. 'I saw a programme on television about four women who were single and all desperate to find a man, and what was really surprising was that they were all attractive, too. You'd be amazed at what they were prepared to do to get a man. I thought I could do with a bit of that.'

'And if you had moved to Sussex, how did you think you were going to find these four sex mad women?' asked Paul, seeing his chance to rile Andy in return.

'I'd have put myself out and about a bit and, anyway, I remembered that two of them were called Carrie and Samantha, so I could have asked if anyone knew them. There can't be too many Carries and Samanthas in Sussex.'

'Just a minute, Andy,'Tom said, in a knowing tone, 'did these women have American accents, by any chance?'

'I don't know.They did have accents but I assumed they were from Sussex; they speak funny down there anyway, don't they?'

'And were there a lot of skyscrapers?'

'I think there were a few. Why?'

'Can you remember what this programme was called?'

'I think it was something like Sussex and the City.'