Day 4: Tuesday Oct 3rd 2017
Sooo excited. For today we pick up the hire car. The Road. Expectation. Our own Freedom Trail. Just as exciting as when I drove my Dad’s car on my own for the first time. The excitement of just sitting in the driving seat: alone, the engine quiet, scanning the controls, the smell of freedom, nervous, excited. Like holding on to the reins of a restless, eager team of horses. It was actually just a Ford Cortina Mk II but that was irrelevant. Of course on that first journey I almost killed myself, over-steering and speeding. Older and wiser now. Older anyway.
We leave Boston and head south to Cape Cod. Stop of at Plymouth 40 miles down the coast. Don’t really feel drawn to the Mayflower Pilgrim’s heritage stuff but it seems silly not to stop off and take a look. Curious to see if there’s a copy on sale anywhere of the documentary my friend Alan and I made about the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Mayflower connections back in 1995.
Plymouth is cute. Clean and tidy. In apple-pie order. The Rock sits at the bottom of its Grecian temple. Its provenance is of course tangled in myth, convenience and tourism but we stare at it anyway and reflect on our own, seven hour, air-conditioned flight. As we discovered during our research for the documentary, the pilgrims were actually tolerated reasonably well in England; a case of just get on with it as long as you don’t frighten the horses too much kind of thing. But righteous indignation and a good story won out and the rest is history. Especially round here.
Burial Hill Cemetery overlooks the town and contains the graves of Bradford and Brewster, two of the most famous and influential passengers on the Mayflower. Many graves are marked by small, US flags, which, we find out, are put there as marks of respect for the armed forces. Not sure if they have actually been killed in action but another example of the respect in which they’re held.
We got to know Bradford and Brewster well during the making of the documentary (imaginatively titled ‘The Mayflower Pilgrims’), which is still available in all good book stores. Except in Plymouth apparently…
Lunch by the beach then off to our next Airbnb in Hyannis. We arrive as our host Mia is struggling to lift a mattress into the hallway, helped by a big hunk of a man in denim dungarees (think George from ‘Of Mice and Men’). Thankfully it’s not our mattress. We immediately strike up a conversation with Mia and her friend and get the bulk of his and her life stories whilst standing in the hall, wedged in by the mattress. It feels like we’ve just arrived home again. ‘George’ remarks how he likes my boots (you can’t get them in America apparently – what?!) and we discuss Trump. Actually it’s not really a discussion, more a shared, cathartic rant.
Mia’s house is set in a kind of rural park with wooden, clapboard houses dotted around, most without any kind of fencing or boundary. This open plan living strikes us as unusual. We’re used to fences, hedges and walls; recognition that this is our bit of land, our castle; encroach at your peril. It’s the thousand and one little differences I notice whenever travelling in a foreign land that seem to heighten the senses and excite the eyes. It’s the enjoyment of being out of one’s comfort zone, where familiarity can breed a dullness of the senses. It doesn’t have to be Niagara Falls around the next corner, just a road never travelled before, which is just as exciting. As Thoreau wrote during his extended sojourn in the woods, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see”.
We share a bottle of wine and eat pizza sitting at Mia’s table, which is cluttered with books, papers, CDs and terrariums (this week’s project with her grandson Jasper) and continue swapping life stories. Like us, she has marked the growing up of her grandchildren by etching their changing heights on a door frame. It’s a grandparent thing. Mia’s recent life has not been great. Her son died tragically young and after falling ill she lost most of her money in health insurance payments. Maybe doesn’t sound like everyone’s idea of a fun evening on holiday but these AirBnB experiences will prove to be one of the abiding memories of our trip; sharing stories, making friends and feeling like locals.
Mia’s house is a glorious jumble of paintings, photos and artworks all jostling for wall space, as well as piles of unattended, official-looking paperwork. Back in England we are AirBnB hosts and every time a guest is due to arrive we spend a frantic hour or two tidying up before they arrive. It’s actually a good incentive for us, housework not being very high on our agenda. But Mia has obviously made no attempt to hide any of herself here, she hasn’t tried to create any sort of impression of herself, it’s all utterly artless and authentic. Which is charming.
Day 5: Wednesday Oct 4th 2017.
Next morning Jasper’s mum, who looks and dresses a bit like Cher in her Sonny days, drops him off early on her way to work and the familiar negotiations surrounding going to school begin.
“I’ve got a stomach ache, it’s boring” etc etc.
I guess the idea of staying home and foraging for materials to make another terrarium with Grandma is way more appealing than schoolwork. We have fun together. He has a Kermit doll and he giggles as I do the voice. He finds some chestnuts and moss in the garden and swings on the old tyre that’s been hanging from an old tree since forever. I remember that displacement activity well; keep busy and just maybe no-one will notice it’s time to leave for school. But Mia soon brings us back to the here and now, fires up her old car and they’re off. We don’t go to school (still appreciate that), we have breakfast and then head off to Cape Cod. As you do.
We’ve booked a whale-watching trip, which feels a bit of a touristy, box-ticking experience but which turns out to be way more exciting than we ever imagined. David Attenborough has given all of us the chance to experience the most amazing and unbelievable scenes from nature, presented in close-up, ultra slow-motion, orchestrally-choreographed splendour. I kind of feel that, well, we don’t really need to go out in a small boat for three hours, bob up and down in the ocean and risk sea-sickness in the hope that we might see a whale do we? Do we?
YES WE DO!
We pitch and roll out into the Atlantic for about an hour and then the engine slows down, an expectant hush falls over the boat and we all scan the water hoping we’ll be the first to spot a whale. The guide speaks over the tannoy, preparing us for the worst. We’re not guaranteed to see a whale. We circle a likely area. Then, like Captain Ahab hanging over the crow’s nest, she declares,
“Whale ahoy!” (That’s the way I heard it anyhow.)
About half a mile away as the crow flies, which is the sensible direction of travel in the open ocean, we see a humpback whale breaching the surface. It’s spectacular with a decidedly small ‘s’. It’s the kind of distance that is slightly underwhelming but which could be exaggerated in the telling once back home if need be. However, we needn’t have worried. Minutes later a huge (not a definitive measure of size but I’ve no way of judging) humpback draws alongside the boat, and I do mean alongside, and holds up first one fin and then both fins and ‘waves’ at us casually. I’m not a fan of anthropomorphism but it’s difficult not to in such circumstances. The creature certainly seems to be communicating somehow and the guide admits they don’t exactly know why they expend so much energy in this way for no apparent return. Except our appreciation? She dips back under the surface (the humpback not the guide) with a characteristic flip of the tail before submerging altogether, the prelude to a breach. The crew (ok, the passengers, but we feel a bond by now – all except for the two, pale-faced souls sitting inside, heads hanging over buckets) falls silent with expectation. Our eyes scan the water. All is still. Then, with a mighty ‘whoosh’ she breaches the surface and smashes down on the water. We all scream in delight. We’ve seen it on the telly but having such a magnificent animal displaying just for us is truly awesome. And in a country where that overused word is used to describe everything from a hot-dog to a plane crash, I feel in this case it’s justified.
This particular humpback hasn’t been seen here before, she has no familiar markings, which makes it even more special. She’ll have to return again next year to be recorded as a ‘regular’. She continues to circle just feet away from the boat, waving and breaching, breaching and waving incessantly. Each time she dives a chant of “Breach, breach, breach” goes up from the schoolchildren on board. And she delivers. Until she tires and the show is over. Was she in the employ of the Dolphin Fleet Whale-watching Company? Did she perform twice daily on demand? It certainly felt like it. We go inside for the return journey and join our less fortunate shipmates, slumped in their seats, pining for terra firma. For them alas, there was no awe.
We take a look round Provincetown (or P-town as the locals call it), which is once again apple-pie pretty, and has that out of season ennui that reminds me of Amity in the film Jaws: low, milky sun, end of season sales, and ropes clattering mournfully against the masts of all the boats in the harbour, now hunkered down for the winter. There’s something very melancholy about a coastal tourist town at this time of year.
Drive back to Mia’s place where I try to sleep off a head cold. While I slept Mia drove Jane around Hyannis to see the summer homes of the rich and famous. Closing up for winter now too. Bobby Kennedy’s widow Ethel still lives down the private lane where the Kennedy Compound still stands. Apparently Taylor Swift bought the house opposite. Don’t think she does AirBnB?
Back home for more food, more stories, more wine, sleep. Tough times.