To the Ends of the Earth

She grinned. She said, “That knapsack—is that all you have?”

I said yes. We talked about traveling light. I said the great thing was to have no more than you could carry comfortably and never to carry formal clothes—suits, ties, shiny shoes, extra sweaters: what sort of travel was that?

Jan Morris said, “I just carry a few frocks. I squash them into a ball—they don’t weigh anything. It’s much easier for a woman to travel light than a man.”

There was no question that she knew what she was talking about, for she had been both a man and a woman. She smiled at me, and I felt a queer thrill when I kissed her good-bye.

Railway Buff

“I LOVE STEAM, DON’T YOU?” STAN WIGBETH SAID TO ME ON the Ffestiniog Railway, and then he leaned out of the window. He was not interested in my answer, which was, “Up to a point.” Mr. Wigbeth smiled and ground his teeth in pleasure when the whistle blew. He said there was nothing to him more beautiful than a steam “loco.” He told me they were efficient and brilliantly made; but engine drivers had described to me how uncomfortable they could be, and how horrible on winter nights, because it was impossible to drive most steam engines without sticking your face out the side window every few minutes.

I wanted Mr. Wigbeth to admit that they were outdated and ox-like, dramatic-looking but hell to drive; they were the choo-choo fantasies of lonely children; they were fun but filthy. Our train was pulled through the Welsh mountains by a Fairlie, known to the buffs as a “double engine”—two boilers—“the most uncomfortable engine I’ve ever driven,” a railwayman once told me. It was very hot for the driver because of the position of the boilers. The footplate of the Fairlie was like an Oriental oven for poaching ducks in their own sweat. Mr. Wigbeth did not agree with any of this. Like many other railway buffs, he detested our century.

This had originally been a tram line, he told me; all the way from Porthmadog to Blaenau Ffestiniog—horse trams, hauling slate from the mountain quarries. Then it was named the Narrow Gauge Railway and opened to passengers in 1869. It was closed in 1946 and eventually reopened in stages. The line was now—this month—completely open.

“We’re lucky to be here,” Mr. Wigbeth said, and checked his watch—a pocket watch, of course: the railway buff’s timepiece. He was delighted by what he saw. “Right on time!”

It was a beautiful trip to Blaenau, on the hairpin curves of the steep Snowdonia hills and through the thick evening green of the Dwyryd Valley. To the southeast, amid the lovely mountains, was the Trawsfynydd Nuclear Power Station, three or four gigantic gray slabs. An English architect, noted for his restrained taste, had been hired in 1959 to make it prettier, or at least bearable, but he had failed. Perhaps he should have planted vines. Yet this monstrosity emphasized the glory of these valleys. I found the ride restful, even with the talkative Mr. Wigbeth beside me. Then he was silenced by a mile-long tunnel. The light at the end of the tunnel was Blaenau Ffestiniog, at the head of the valley.

“Where are you off to, then?” Mr. Wigbeth asked.

“I’m catching the next train to Llandudno Junction.”

“It’s a diesel,” he said, and made a sour face.

“So what?”

“I don’t call that a train,” he said. “I call that a tin box!”

He was disgusted and angry. He put on his engine driver’s cap and his jacket with the railway lapel pins, and after a last look at his conductor-type pocket watch, he got into his little Ford Cortina and drove twenty-seven stop-and-go miles back to Bangor.

Llandudno

I WAS NOT FRIGHTENED AT THE HOTEL IN LLANDUDNO UNTIL I was taken upstairs by the pockmarked clerk, and then I sat in the dusty room alone and listened. The only sound was my breathing, from having climbed the four flights of stairs. The room was small; there were no lights in the passageway; the wallpaper had rust stains that could have been spatters of blood. The ceiling was high, the room narrow: it was like sitting at the bottom of a well. I went downstairs.

The clerk was watching television in the lounge—he called it a lounge. He did not speak to me. He was watching “Hill Street Blues,” a car chase, some shouting. I looked at the register and saw what I had missed before—that I was the only guest in this big, dark forty-room hotel. I went outside and wondered how to escape. Of course I could have marched in and said, “I’m not happy here—I’m checking out,” but the clerk might have made trouble and charged me. Anyway, I wanted to punish him for running such a scary place.