FROM
MUD PUPPY
I come from a long line of mud. Over seventeen miles of it. For nine years now I've tried to shake it off. This year I thought I'd finally succeeded. But not quite. Mud sticks after all.
My name's Daryl. Funny name for a girl, I know. At least in London it is. Not so much in Wales, though. There are a lot of funny names in Wales. Being Welsh has become my special feature. My trademark. Being Welsh is very sexy at the moment. At least a certain type of Welsh is sexy. You know what I mean. Wacky, eccentric, slightly-exotic-in-an-arty-type-of-way sexy. I've milked being sexy Welsh for all it's worth. Well, you have to in London. You have to find something to make you stand out. So I've played on the funny name and kept my accent lilting higher than the Brecon Beacons. Higher than it ever was when I lived in Wales. I am now Welsh with a capital W. Picture postcard Welsh. Dragons, daffodils and mountains. Nothing to do with coal mines. Or mud.
Which is a bit rich seeing as I come from Newport.
Newport lies at the mouth of the River Usk, twelve miles east of Cardiff. Just fifteen miles over the Severn Bridge into Wales. Newport has its own special feature. The rise and fall of the tides at the river mouth reach over fifty feet, the second highest tidal range in the world. Newport's special feature is caused by the sudden constriction of the water in the narrow funnelling of the Bristol Channel. This squeezing and squishing of the sea between England and Wales forces the water up and up. Right up the mouth of the Usk, through Newport and up again for another seventeen miles. Then the tide turns and it all goes down again.
In the process, the side-effect if you like, vast quantities of mud are deposited around the mouth of the river, around Newport and up the seventeen tidal miles of the Usk. Fine grey-green-brown mud. Mud of the highest quality. It is the first thing you see when the train crosses over the railway bridge and draws you into Newport station. You look down, your eyes searching for the water. But all you ever see is mud. Mud is all there ever is.
Fifty feet. The second highest tidal range in the world. Second only to the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia, where at times the water rises and falls by as much as sixty feet.
At times.
Second.
Not all the time.
The Old World versus the New. Why does everything always have to be so much more over there? Sometimes it must be less. And then at those times, on our side, there'll be more. So much more. Stands to reason. Sometimes Newport must come first. After all, second is only one away from first. And what's ten feet between friends?
Everything.
Fifty feet. Up and down. Up and down. Twice a day. Over seventeen miles of it. For nine years now I've tried to shake it off.
Funny thing is it never used to bother me. Mud used to make me feel right at home. I can't tell you how much I pined for it the first year I moved to London. You don't get much mud in London. Not even on the banks of the Thames. All you ever see is concrete. Concrete is all there ever is. Even the river banks in London are made of concrete.
Oh, I know the Thames used to have loads of mud. Down the East End, maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty years ago. Mud crawling with destitute children searching the river bed for objects of value then hopping off to Windsor to shake old Victoria out of her slumbers. They even made a film about it. But that's London for you. You'd never catch anyone from Newport making a film about mud.
And now the Thames is all developed. There's still a little bit of mud, when the tide's out. But not enough. And even that little bit is controlled like you wouldn't believe. The average tidal rise of the Thames is twenty-three feet. Pathetic. Yet the powers that be have spent millions of taxpayers' money building and maintaining a massive movable barrier to protect the capital from flooding. They call it the eighth wonder of the world. No, I'm serious, they really do. Just go and have a look in the visitor centre at Woolwich. It's written there for the whole world to see. The Thames Flood Barrier - the Eighth Wonder of the World. Without even the slightest trace of irony. But that's London for you.
That first year I would come home to Newport for the weekend, and from the moment the train came out of the Severn Tunnel, from the second we entered Wales, I would be up out of my seat, at the door, waiting. I was that homesick for the mud. I'd stand at the door window for ten minutes watching the fields and hedgerows change into the furnaces and smoke of the steelworks, into the golf course, into rows and rows of washing lines and kitchen windows.
When the train finally pulled across the bridge I would pull and press down the door-window catch and hang my head out to feel the wind pinching my cheeks. I would close my eyes against the skewering rain and breathe in great big gasps of mud. The sweet-salt-sulphur stink of it.
Glorious.
I would pull and press down the door-window catch and lean my head out so I could see clearly all the way down,
over the bridge's rusted railings, down and down. All the way down to the Sainsbury's beacon sending its orange glow shooting out towards the opposite bank but only making it halfway before being pulled and pressed down, away into the mud.
I would jump onto the platform - always number two - when the train was still moving! so I could be the first off the train. The first to come home. The first to spin my tales of life in the big city, away from mud.
But I haven't been home for a while. Nine years, in fact. Been too busy. You know how it is. And I had to get rid of the mud. You don't stand a chance of making it in London if you're covered in mud. And now the train has been modernised and the door window sealed.
There's no pull and press down window catch, no salt-mud fresh air. No horizontal rain. Just a yellow warning light and air conditioning.
For the comfort and safety of all our customers this door has been locked automatically and will not be opened until the train has come to a complete and final stop at the station.
Now I can only press my head against the door window. Now I can see the mud but not taste it, smell it, be a part of it. Be apart from it. I've wanted this kind of detachment for years. So why do I feel like my right arm is missing?