Hosforth - part 1

Tuesday it had been and the restaurant was closing early. We had only arrived in Penzance on the late afternoon train and had not found anywhere willing to serve us. Marcy was feeling our initial delight at the scenic spectacle of the place wearing off fast as the sun grew dimmer and the establishments along the promenade one-by-one turned us away as a sleeping patriarch denies his children.

‘Try Del Amitri’s, it’s always open’, suggested the woman putting out the bins in our final place of trying. She intimated that we should be fine locating it if we simply carried along in the direction we had been going. And, even though it seemed the cliffs rose-up to block the narrowing road as it wound out of town, we followed her not-unfriendly advice and slapped our tiring feet onwards on the dusty slabs.

Rounding the corner, it seemed to the casual observer that my assumption had been correct. The pavement narrowed to a strip no wider than a buggy or a pram, presumably so that one might take one’s family to the beach and lay out on the sands that stretched from the imposing bluffs to the heaving surf. ‘Let’s go back,’ I said but Marcy had seen something that stood out – or in – for there, tucked into a fold in the cliff was a handpainted sign in greys and dusky rose that did not stand out in the way that an advert ought. It read, ‘Hosforth Murky Mile – come inside for adventure.’

Perhaps, we reasoned, there might be some map by the entrance that would say where we’d gone wrong. ‘Coming in for a ride?’ asked the lad. He was tall and sandy haired, no more than twenty but had the confidence of those who hustle for a living.

‘Nah,’ said I, ‘we’re on the lookout for Del Amitri’s Pizza place.

‘’s through here, mate.’ Said the boy.

‘What? Really?’ I asked, confused. ‘It doesn’t look like your average Italian.’ A coal-mining wagon was set on two rails that led towards a fake boulder covering over the entrance to whatever this ‘Murky Mile’ attraction could be. No indication of what sort of a ride it was, could’ve been a coal-mining exhibit, a ghost train, a funicular hoist to the top of the bluff even. Certainly it seemed unlikely that the only bite left to eat in town was inside this rock.

‘Well, it’s not inside,’ he conceded. ‘But the cliff path is closed at five-thirty and we’re open till six. If you want to get though to Del Amitri’s from the beach, this is the only way you’ll get there tonight.’

‘But what about getting back?’

‘Taxi, mate. The top road’ll only cost you a tenner if you come back in a cab. ‘s too far to walk though, ‘specially if you’re starting from Murk Cove.’

‘Fair enough, how do we, er… procede?’

‘£1.20 for the both of you’. It seemed very reasonable, though, in retrospect, perhaps I should have enquired as to what, exactly we were paying to do. I handed this gatekeeper a two pound coin which he promptly threw away into a sand-pile in the corner. He then bent over and scuffed about a bit until he pulled our eighty pence change right from the eddies of dust by his baseball shoes. I took the proffered coin and we both dutifully clambered aboard the rail-cart as indicated. ‘Enjoy,’ he said and pulled a lever.

With a startling scream like a woman in the depths of some private hell the boulder lurched aside and the cart barrelled forward. Marcy whimpered and clung to my sleeve as we careened into the gloom and the entrance blocked itself behind us. Pitch dark, terrifying, travelling at enormous and, by the second getting faster, speed we trundled along with all the noise that an oaken tub on iron bogies makes in a darkened rock tunnel only two feet wider than the transport.

Rounding one final, awful corner the truck slowed as it came towards a pile of sand against the wall where the rails ended. ‘Is this it?’ asked Marcy, ‘Do you think we are meant to get out and walk from here?’ I knew no more than she but we clambered out again, relieved to be off that thing. A glow came from our right and so, not wishing to retrace our steps, we started out cautiously in the gloom.

As we approached the turn of the bend, the wall began to show signs of curation in artefact. An extremely large plaque lay to our right several metres in length by a couple high, in high relief upon its surface projected the image of some prehistoric beast the likes of which I had not before encountered. I am no expert and the light was no more than that from a single bulb located in the gloom above and the fossil before us was skeletal and compressed by aeons of crushing weight but it was a fearsome sight nonetheless and were it to have been alive right there and then I could only imagine what fear it would have engendered within the very marrow of Marcy and myself.

With a startled umfle, Marcy tugged on my cuff and I turned to see the very same creature but in 3D form. Not, to my great relief in the flesh nor breathing, but its bones disentangled from rock and strung together as one assumes they must’ve been in full and tyrannous life.

‘Judiciosaurus Sapiensii,’ the boy from before said, stepping forwards from nowhere. ‘The lizard who judges.’