He walked back. He now felt, if it was only fleetingly, in charge, as if the man had become his appointed junior.
‘Okay.’ They crouched. ‘You have a hold? On “three” then.’
‘You give the word, skip.’
The man seemed calmer, less disoriented — if that was the proper diagnosis — even appreciative and submissive. The mere fact of doing together what couldn’t have been done by one man alone seemed to have put everything into a complete and, if just for a moment, composed perspective. Around them was Exmoor being slowly unveiled by the dawn. Except for a few sparse, travelling lights in the distance on the main road up ahead, they were alone in the landscape. There was a tiny, seemingly stationary light in the further distance. It was the light of a ship in the Bristol Channel. It would be in the station’s log.
‘One — two—three!’
It was simply achieved. A heave, an instinctive sideways thrust to the right. The back wheel was returned safely to the tarmac. The boot can’t have contained anything heavy. No dead deer, for example.
‘Fookin’ champion!’
What was it about these voices — both of them? But the man seemed genuinely elated, as if wizardry had just occurred.
‘You have to reverse her out yet.’
Again he’d said ‘her’. They both went to the front. While the man got in and turned the ignition, he continued to the nearside front wing. In another situation he might have said, ‘Reverse, and gently.’ Fortunately, his own car — engine off and lights on — was parked at a comfortable distance.
There was no difficulty. There was a slight skittering, but the gully wasn’t deep and the back wheels hauled the car entirely onto the road again. His own bit of effort on the front bumper was almost superfluous. He looked at his watch. Five minutes had passed. The man cut his engine, yanking on the handbrake, and the sudden returning silence made the brief grinding of reverse gear seem almost like some effrontery.
The man got out.
‘Fookin’ champion!’
He came forward, hand extended. Like everything else about him, the extended hand was like an act, it was like something not quite as it should be. But he took it and shook it.
‘I’ve got a thermos inside, man. Black coffee. Want some?’ The voice was normal now — normal with its Yorkshire tones.
He’d had coffee at home, minutes ago, and there’d be more at the station. But it seemed wrong not to accept the man’s gesture of gratitude. There had to be a gesture, a little ritual. Besides, he was curious.
‘Okay.’ He looked at his watch.
‘I know. You have to — clock on.’
‘Be on watch,’ he said, a little stiffly.
‘Aye aye.’
He vaguely allowed for the fact that in Yorkshire, so he believed, they said ‘aye’ for ‘yes’. All the same.
‘A cup of coffee,’ the man said. ‘Tain’t every day, is it?’
He had to agree, even give a yielding chuckle. ‘No, it’s not every day,’ he said, not really knowing exactly what the man meant. But, true, it wasn’t every day.
The man groped inside the car, first graciously producing the folded jacket from the passenger seat, then a thermos. He shook it, judging the contents, close to his ear. He unscrewed a pair of cups, one inside the other.
‘Black coffee. While I’m driving, to keep me awake. Same as you, I suppose, when you’re — on watch.’
Like the rest of the world, the man had a picture of a coastguard as a solitary figure, eyes glued to the horizon, telescope to hand, maintaining a sentry-like vigil. It wasn’t quite like that. It was a big station. A huddle of white buildings, with masts and dishes, beneath the tower of a decommissioned lighthouse. There was a rotating watch of staff. At any one time there’d be at least two on duty. There was an array of monitoring and communications equipment.
Never mind. It was a coastguard station. It was an outstandingly beautiful, dramatic section of coast. People came at weekends and for holidays. He was there all the time. He was exceptionally lucky, in his work, in his life. Ruth, the job, the two kids who’d made him, twice over, a grandfather — though they were still kids in his mind. The only cloud, it seemed, was retirement. Having to stop it all one day. He was fifty-three. The man was — what? He sometimes seemed young, then not young at all.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Coffee helps.’
‘Black coffee,’ the man said. ‘I never know whether to make a joke. And I never know whether to make a joke out of the black or the coffee. See my face, man? Black or coffee?’
He tried to look obtuse and passive. But there was something he genuinely didn’t understand.
There was a pause while Exmoor reasserted its presence. Then the man cackled. It was the shoulder-shaking, oddly engaging parrot-laugh.
‘I’m a joker, man. My business. I’m a comedian.’
That in itself seemed a possible joke, a possible trick. I met a strange man today, he was quite a comedian.
‘A co-me-di-ahn!’
And now the man — or one of his personas — was back at full frantic tilt again, even while pouring not very warm-looking coffee. He had no choice, nor did Exmoor, but to listen.
‘Ah coom all the way from Yorkshire, from fookin’ West Ridin’, just to get rescued by a coastguard, a fookin’ coastguard, on Exmoor. Serious. Exmoor. What’s a coastguard doing on fookin’ Exmoor? Ilkley Moor, me. Ah never knew you ’ad moors down ’ere an’ all. Ilkley Moor bar tat. Ilkley Moor bar mitzvah! Ee but ah do luv Ilfracombe. Il-frah-combe. Ave ah said? Ah combe from Yorkshire. Ee bah goom! But ah tell yer what they do ’ave on Exmoor. Apart from coastguards. Fookin’ deer. Did yer know? ’Erds of fookin’ deer, and ’erds of fookin’ coastguards. Ave ah told yer me deer joke? It’s the one where ah tell it and yer all go, “Dear oh dear oh dear.”’
It was astonishing. It was a performance, an unabashed performance — in the middle of nowhere. It was utterly disconcerting, but now, at least, he understood. And, actually, he was laughing, he couldn’t help it. A comedian.
The man saw that he understood. He slowed down, became near-normal again. He grinned. He held out his hand once more, as if he had to introduce himself twice.
‘Johnny Dewhurst,’ he said. Then, grasping his coffee in one hand, he slipped the other inside his jacket and pulled out a card. It said ‘Johnny Dewhurst, Comedian and Wayfarer’. Underneath, in smaller print, were the words ‘All Engagements Gratefully Appreciated’. And to one side there was a picture of a clown, a standard circus clown — big feet, big nose, made-up face. The picture bore no resemblance to Johnny Dewhurst (if that was his actual name). On the other hand, you could see that, with the topiary of hair and mobility of face, not to say voice, he could play the clown if needed — if he wasn’t doing it already. And who knows what comic paraphernalia might be stored in the boot of his car?
He laughed his parrot-laugh again. It seemed like a laugh of conspiracy, of complicity now, because his audience had laughed too.
‘Il-frah-coombe!’ The personas switched again. ‘Tonight I play Ilfracombe. Then I play Barnstaple. Baahrn-stable! I sleep in de barn or I sleep in de stable? Barnstable not very far, I tink. Then I play Plymouth. That far enough for Johnny. That like Land’s End. I next play Verona. No, that different gig. That Kiss Me Quick or someting. By Cole Porter. Wid name like that, he must be black man! Night before last I play Yeovil. Yo-Ville! I say, “Yo brother, this my kind of town, this where Johnny belong.” But they don’t understan’ me, they don’t clap very much. Then they send me on to Taunton. They send me to Tawny Town! I say, “This some kind of a joke? This some kind of a rayssiahl ting?”’