Pt IV. The Manchester Approaches.

We were encamped above the high water mark just north of Carnforth and it was pleasant to be brought back to wakefulness on that summer's morn. Wavelets looking every inch like lines of tiny Can Can dancers rolled up the beach, arms crossed and whooping but not loud because of their size, "Heeeeeeeeeeeere wego" before bowing and swishing back down, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere wego!" bowing and swishing back down. "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere wego." bowing and swishing back down. Little rouged faces grinning above fishnet stockings and frilly underwear they kicked up the incline before making a deep bow and shuffled retreat. We were enchanted but swiftly made plans to move once the cattle started to go insane.

Ahead of us was dense forest and there seemed no way forward. Women cowpokes who chewed tobacco and communicated through spit began gobbing at the largest tree nearby. Astonishingly it moved, sort of jerked itself to oneside and just as suddenly was back where it began. The women slapped each other laughed and began taking running spits to achieve better momentum.

Gilly their leader, looking remarkably like Doris Day in Calamity Jane except she had red hair was big boned and astride a gazelle kicked her heels as the animal sprang forward.

"Yeehah!" She shouted and few of us would forgot her terror but fortunately the bonds held so she didn't fall off. To everyone's surprise the forest parted like a curtain to make room for her. Many rushed forward and our final view was of this figure on a lithe African beast springing and jumping, gaining speed, the knotted cords holding her tightly. Like at a rodeo she went forth gripping a broad brimmed Sunday hat, it was something with a net, and from her quickly fading voice came the words "You fucking bastards you've not heard the last of me." Of course about that she was completely wrong.

We stood in a crowd staring at the gap that remained open when a number of voices started up.
"Well!"
"Come on then, don't be all day!"
"For fuck's sake get a move on will you!"
"Move up move up, stop pushing."
"Oooh, you cheeky beggar keep those branches to yourself. The nerve!"
"Can anyone see what's happening?"
"Oi Oi Oi, watch what you're doing will yer, I can't see a bleeding thing now.'

If you've ever seen one of those windswept trees where all the branches are on the leeside this is how the forest suddenly appeared to us and we quickly realised that from the beach all the trees had their backs to us. Never ones to miss a trick we loaded up and began to push our way through. It was not easy, there was not much room so we sent ahead those passengers who were best at forcing their way to the front of things. You know the type, ignorant, rude, surly, broad shouldered, insensitive. With the cowpokes tinging spit off their heads they had an added incentive to make good progress. Sometimes revenge for past ill deeds has a funny way of coming back to bite us on the bum, or neck as it was in this case.

A cacophony of impoliteness rose up from the forest.

"Hey, what the fuck!"
"Do you mind!"
"Watch that rail will you!"
"Oh, I say does your mother know you've got that?"
"Mind me bruise, oh, what is that disgusting brown stuff?"
"I say Archie, it's a train. With a dining car and serviettes and wood veneer, hang on a minute, didn't that tray used to be your Colin? Wow, Colin finally making something of himself. Mind you I suppose it's more a case of something being made of Colin. Still, who'd have thought."

East of us we heard a faint cry, "Ice cream, come and get your ice cream,"

We heaved on in this manner for five hours until forced by the parched cowpokes to stop for water. Behind us there remained no evidence of our passage.

From the top of a nearby oak where three teenagers had snuck for a cigarette but were stopped by a cry of 'Dad!' when an adjoining pine caught sight of their matches, came the shout.

"We can see the outskirts of Manchester from up here!" And they excitedly pointed in the direction all trees were facing.

The forest's many voices once more rose up.

"Course you can see Manchester. What the fuck do you think we're doing?"
The children replied, "We thought you were a forest."
The trees said, "We like to think of ourselves as an audience."
A spotty fifteen year old with greasy hair asked "What you looking at then?"
"Manchester of course. Better than the telly. You humans, you make us laugh, ha ha."
The spotty kid said "Ha, ha, you trees, you make us furniture."
A gruff voice boomed "Hey kid, that's not fucking funny, capiche! And besides you should get that spot seen to, oh sorry that's your face." This final was said to howls of laughter including from us. The kid scowled and tried carving his name into a branch but through poor schooling could only spell one word. We left him, tongue stuck out in concentration asking if Prick was spelt with a P.

Shortly afterwards we broke free of the canopy and before us lay our city, our home.

Behind us trees were saying things like, "Thank fuck for that!..." "They were so impolite, and those women who were spitting!..." "Wait till I tell me mam about our Colin."

As the last rail was laid by platform 14 in Manchester's Piccadilly Station we disembarked and in a stunned silence looked around. We were exhausted, we were bronzed, we had learned things about one another that we perhaps shouldn't, we had stuck together, we had made it, we had returned. The journey finally over. I watched the cowpokes head for the nearest bar laughing and competing with each other to spit the hats off small children. From the rear coach Irish nuns many of whom now had the word DISCIPLINE tatood in mirror form on their foreheads opened a last case of communion wine, drank and began fights. It was a warming sight not marred at all by the later arrests.

And me? I hitched my canvas leggings and strode from the station a changed man, not looking back, only ever now looking forward. And as they took my ticket that one last time the faint words of Colin the tray followed me out.

"Hello, hello, can anyone hear me? I am not a tray, I'm a wooden salver. Fuck!"