CORNWALL. I HAVEN’T THOUGHT ABOUT CORNWALL IN YEARS… WHAT A RUN OUT THAT WAS.

I’m stuck in roadworks on the M6, southbound. I think Walsall’s just over to the left there. I’m in a silver Audi A6 estate car, with the pathetic two-litre diesel motor. There’s a box file of sales reports on the front passenger seat, and a child safety seat, and a large teddy bear in the back. I’m on my way to the first face-toface sales conference since lockdown, but heaven only knows when I’ll get there. What was wrong with video conferences? I thought that we’d never need to be in a stuffy meeting room in a crappy hotel ever again.

There’s a blue Skoda in front of me.

I’ve been looking at its arse-end for twenty minutes. The owner wants me to know that he (she?) is a member of the National Trust, and thinks we should both save the whales, and support British farmers. Sorry mate, why are you telling me? Stuck on the back’s one of those oval stickers; a white cross on black. It’s the flag of Cornwall. Does it just mean that he’s been to Cornwall on his hols? Or he supports independence for Cornwall? Knob. I really should have spent a fiver or whatever, and taken the toll road.

• • • • • • • • • • •

It’s true what they say about Cornwall. Once you cross the River Tamar everything changes. The most obvious thing’s the countryside. It’s not even like Devon. I saw a map once, with a great arc running up from Galicia in north-west Spain, through Brittany, and across to south-west Ireland. Right in the middle was Cornwall. I think it was all about the distribution of Celtic tribes, but it must just have been folk who liked rugged landscapes and a hard life.

Back in the nineties I was a stonemason. There were around two dozen of us. We mostly met up in the Stonemason’s Arms on Moss Lane, so we called ourselves The Stonemasons. We had a logo – a mallet and stone-cutting chisel, crossed. Jonathan’s girl drew it. It was really good. I suppose we were an MCC club, but we weren’t that organised. We didn’t elect club officers or collect subs. We just went around together at weekends; to the Peak District or the seaside – Matlock was always a favourite, of course. Went to Blackpool once, but there was trouble, and we didn’t go again. We went on lots of rallies, too. We usually got a good turn-out, even if the forecast was iffy. We were all at that age when getting wet and muddy was a bit of a hoot. We mostly had Jap bikes, though there were two or three Hinckley Triumphs. My mate, Pat, bought himself a new Thunderbird Sport – bright red, with crossover pipes. I really liked the look of that. Dave Wilkinson had a Ducati, the 600, so of course he was known as Dave the Duke. Only problem was that he hit the back end of a milkfloat one morning in the fog. Laid up for ages. There were a few mild custom jobs; nothing radical. A bloke called Sandy had a little Suzuki Savage. He was only about five feet tall so we always took the mickey out of him. Even on his baby Savage he couldn’t put both feet flat on the ground. He was alright about it. Gave as good as he got.

I was running a 600 Eliminator. A very nice bike, not as fast as some, but I liked it a lot. Bought it new from Shadwell’s. Traded my old ER-5 for it, and you don’t see many of those around anymore. I had the Kawasaki’s tank, side panels and mudguards custom painted. Nothing too fancy. No murals – I’ve never seen the appeal of murals.

Cornwall was supposed to be the best spot to see in the new millennium. You know, when all the computers were going to die a death, and we wouldn’t be able to get any cash out the hole-in-the-wall? It would be a bleak mid-winter, but we thought we’d give it a go. It’d blast the after-Christmas cobwebs away, that’s for sure.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Rob’d sorted a campsite down there, near the coast… or at least, space on a farmer’s field – it seemed everyone and his dog’d had the same idea as us. Rob danced round the pool room at the pub singing “We’re gonna party like it’s 1999” until someone emptied a packet of salt n’ vinegar crisps down the inside of his T-shirt, and gave him a big hug to crush them.

It was going to take five hours, not including coffee and wee breaks, mostly motorways, which’d be boring. Rob was a bit of an organiser, which I guess we needed. He’d photocopied the route for everyone. We were supposed to set off at eight but, with all the usual messing around, it was nearer to nine before we got underway.

It was a good run. We stopped at Gordano to regroup and stretch our legs. It’d drizzled down the M5 as we were getting near Bristol, but that cleared up. There’d been quite a lot of traffic, but it was easier from there, through Somerset. I’d never been to Cornwall before.

We passed Exeter, and got something to eat from a hot-dog van in a lay-by on the A38. Bacon n’ sausage on a bap for something like a quid. Gimme two! Apparently we’d had a choice of going more north on the A30, or to the south on the 38. Either was fine by me. Rob said that the 38 was better. Within an hour of the buttie stop we’d gone round Plymouth and crossed the bridge. Welcome to Cornwall. Terrific.

Well, not that terrific... About halfan-hour later, way out in the middle of nowhere, my front tyre blew. Well, that was scary. I’d been doing sixty, sixty-five, and then I was all over the place, front end bucking and wobbling like a rodeo horse. I left the front brake alone, dropped down through the gears as fast as I could, and absolutely sat on the rear brake pedal. By the time I was stopped on the nearside verge I was sweating like a pig.

I’d been towards the back of the pack, and the three guys who were behind me pulled over, of course. “What colour are your underpants?” asked Nick. Yeah thanks, very helpful. The tyre’d gone to hell. No idea what’d ripped through it. The good news was that the rim looked okay. The only thing to do was to pull out the old RAC card and sit on the grass for the rest of the day waiting for them to turn up. Nick and Jerry said they’d stay with me, but I told them there was nothing they could do, and they might as well crack on. Jerry gave me his chocolate stash, which was good of him, and off they went.

I had one of those little Nokias, connected to Orange. It took me a minute to find it, and when I did… oh

bloody hell, no signal.

Not a thing.

Why hadn’t

I checked that before I’d let the others go? Now what?

There were no buildings of any kind, in either direction. I could’ve tried flagging a car down, but would they stop? I wouldn’t’ve done if I was them. And anyway, if I didn’t have any signal, why would they? I sat in the grass, and started on one of Jerry’s Bounties.

I’d been there two or three minutes, no more, when I heard a rattly twostroke with a broken exhaust. I bet you could hear it halfway across the county. It was an old trail bike, no idea what kind, they do nothing for me, coming down a tiny lane that lead off the far side of the A-road. It rocketed across both carriageways, and stopped within inches of me.

“You’re not going far on that,” the rider said. It was a female voice.

“Thanks, Sherlock,” I said, “I know I’m not.”

“Jump on the back.”

I did as I was told. Hell, I never knew these bikes were so tall. She spun the bike round, zoomed across the main road again and back up the lane. She took no prisoners, that was for sure. No idea what speed we were doing, but Cornwall was flashing past me. She turned off the lane and on to a muddy track. We were riding for ten or fifteen minutes before the track came to an end among a group of trees. They’d all been bent over the same way by the wind, as if they were bowing. In front of us was a large four-wheel caravan, with a sort of wooden garden shed bolted on the side. I followed her inside.

The caravan looked a real mess from the outside, but inside it was something else. It was like a tent out of an Ali Baba story. Arabia, whatever. The ceiling was covered in a purple fabric which looked like real silk, rising to a central point, and a sort of incense burner hung from that on a chain. There were exotic tapestries on the wall, and all the furniture was intricately carved. There were tall candles in elaborate holders, piles of books, and brightly-coloured carpets on the floor – a smaller rug on top of a larger one. All the windows were blacked out. It was almost too much, slightly scary.

“Would you like some tea?”

“Oh, that would be lovely,” I said. “My name’s Brian. What’s yours?”

“I am Manaf.” Oh right. It couldn’t have been Deirdre, could it? Not with that sort of interior decor.

She disappeared somewhere for a minute, then came back with two cups of tea on a brass tray. Plus, she’d changed. What sort of woman can change her clothes in about thirty seconds? Now she was wearing a long thick garment with a hood, like a monk would wear. It was sort of an off-white. Ivory. A broad brown belt with a large brass buckle pulled it tight at her waist.

There were no handles on the cups. Perhaps they were ‘seconds’. Even holding it by the very top it burned my fingers. Manaf didn’t seem to notice the heat. The tea was just coloured water. I could smell something, and I could taste something, but it wasn’t a brew as I knew it.

“It’s camomile,” she said. “There are many reasons why it’s good for you.”

“Oh right, didn’t they have Typhoo?” She smiled. She was tall, certainly as tall as me, and slim, angular, even. You wouldn’t have called her pretty. Striking was probably a better word. Her face was not far off being skull-like, with very high cheek-bones. She had lustrous black

hair though, and very large, dark, deep eyes. It was hard to look away from her; hard not to stare.

“Finish your tea,” she said. “We need to go somewhere. I’ll bring something to eat and drink.”

I thought of asking where, but what the hell, I’d just go with the flow. She put an Afghan coat over her gown, or habit, or whatever, and we jumped back on the trail bike. We set off across country, going the same speed as she had on the Tarmac. I wasn’t quite terrified, but it was close.

The landscape was changing. It was moorland now, scrub and rock, heather and those prickly plants that catch your trousers. We were going up quite dramatically. She knew how to ride a bike off-road, you had to give her that. It was getting late. It would be dark soon. We stopped. I jumped off, and she turned the engine off, and followed suit. Stretching out to left and right there were stones sticking up through the scrub, some a few inches high, some a foot tall or more. All dark grey in the twilight, and if the nearest one was any guide, covered in moss and lichen. As I got nearer I could see that they made a circle, a really big circle. A hundred feet across. Directly ahead of us there were three huge stones, rising pretty much vertically, about twelve or so feet high. Each of the three was more or less diamond-shaped, and ended in a point. Balanced on top of the three points was a huge, flat rock about eighteen inches thick and the length and width of a car. Heaven knows how anyone got that up here without a crane.

“What’s this place?”

“It’s a quoit. Not exclusive to

Cornwall, but some of the best are here – particularly in the far west – and there are a few in south-west Wales.”

“How old is it?”

“It’s Neolithic. Somewhere between seven and twelve thousand years old.”

“Hell, and I thought my gran was old. What was it for?”

“It’s a tomb...”

“What, a grave? There’s someone under here?” That thought was freaky.

“Yes. Don’t worry. It’s only like being in a cemetery.”

“I don’t like cemeteries...”

“It was probably also a place to both gather socially and worship.”

“Like a church and the church hall combined?”

She laughed. I liked her laugh. She fished out a bowl, metal of some sort, brass or copper, and put in on the ground in the middle of the quoit.

“That’s our circle of light,” she said. “You’ve been conned,” I said, “there’s nothing in it.” She laughed again.

She had indeed brought food – lots of little parcels wrapped up in dark green leaves. There was something that tasted like lamb, something that tasted like chicken, and something that was neither lamb nor chicken. I dropped the leaves on the ground after each mouthful.

“No, no,” she said, “You eat the leaves.” What a strange idea. I mean, you don’t eat the Tupperware after you’ve finished your butties.

She had a flagon of booze of some sort, too. Birch sap wine, she claimed. Eh? Home-made. At first I thought it was a bit sweet, cloying even, but I soon took to it. It had a punch like Henry Cooper’s finest. I’ve wondered since if there was anything in it, you know, a little extra ingredient, but really I’ve got no idea.

What happened through the rest of the evening, and on into the night? I don’t exactly know. It’s not that I’ve forgotten now – I didn’t exactly know the next day. It was all very strange.

Have you ever read about ‘out of body experiences’? Where people say they’ve been floating around, like the Snowman in the Christmas film? I had that. Definitely. I floated up over the quoit, swooping down then rising higher, way across Cornwall. It was dark, but there was nothing I couldn’t see. I had x-ray vision. It was truly exhilarating. It was like riding your bike far too fast on a deserted road, and getting the line into the curves exactly right.

Did we have sex? Did we make love? I have no idea, but I did have that lovely glowing warmth you get afterwards. Perhaps it was the oak tree wine or whatever it was. More than that; it was as if all my senses had been turned right up. Never mind turning them to eleven – they’d been turned up to a hundred. And they were all mixed up. I could hear the smells, and see the sounds. I was elated. I felt immortal, as if I would live forever.

I know that I was aware of the light before dawn, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Then I slept. It can’t have been for long, but it was the deepest and most refreshing sleep I’ve ever had, before or since.

When I finally woke up the sun was fully above the horizon, but not by much. Manaf was standing just outside the shelter of the top stone. She looked... what’s the best word? Magnificent.

“I need to get the tyre fixed,” I said, “No idea who’ll be working today.” “Don’t worry about that. It’s done.” “What?” I was astonished. “How can it be done? It’s still early.”

“It was done yesterday afternoon, just after we came up here.”

“What?” I said again. “Who sorted it?” “I spoke to someone.” I was obviously not going to get any more information on that.

Half-an-hour later she dropped me off at my bike. It was exactly where I had left it, and sure enough there was a new Michelin on the front rim.

“Bye,” she said, and before I could reply she had done a one-eighty, and was off across the road again, and up the lane. I could hear the exhaust for a few more moments, and then she was gone completely. I must have stood there like a statue for a couple of minutes, just staring after her. She was gone though. I fished out Rob’s map and directions. I reckoned I was an hour’s ride from the other Stonemasons, at the most. I’d missed the new millennium piss-up, but never mind. My night had been far more interesting.

Hallelujah, I’ve reached Corley services. Not a moment too soon. I was busting for the Gents. I’m already half-an-hour late for the sales meeting so, what the hell, I might as well be an hour late. I’ve got a large latte, and I’m going through Thunderbird Sports for sale on my phone. There it was – 1999, only 6,500 miles, looks immaculate, £4,750. Pocket money. And it’s red. I’ve phoned the dealer and whizzed over a £250 deposit. Picking it up on Saturday.

STEVEN MYATT ILLUSTRATIONS BY

LOUISE LIMB