W. has no great love of nature, he says as we walk through the gorse towards Cawsands. The sublimity of nature, mountain peaks, the surging ocean, all that: it means nothing to him. He's a man of the city, W. says. And if we're out of the city today – apolis, as the Greeks would say – it is only to return to it refreshed, catching the bus back from Cawsands to Plymouth.
At most, he admires the sea as it borders the city, just as he admires the edge of Dartmoor which you can see from his office. But then, of course, he likes to approach the city from the countryside – Plymouth from Cawsands, say, or Plymouth from Jennycliff: either way, there's nothing better than seeing the city – his city – sprawled across along the edge of the Sound and running up right back to Dartmoor.
His city, W. says, but not for much longer. By what cruel fate is he being made to leave? Why is he being forced out? Of course, he knew the time would come; he always knew it, which made his relationship to Plymouth that much more intense. He knew it would slip through his fingers, W. says.
What does Plymouth make me feel?, W. asks. I tell him I'm always overjoyed to visit him. I think of the city as my own. The presence of The Dolphin on the quayside is unbearably moving to me. And the presence of Platters, a few doors up from The Dolphin restores my faith in the world. Turbot at Platters: does W. know how often I dream of that? Turbot and a bottle of Chablis: doesn't my life peak at that point?
We left a massive tip last time we visited Platters, W. remembers. How much was it? £50? £100? It was madness, pure madness, W. says. I'd stopped him from drinking any more Chablis, W. remembers. Hadn't we been drinking all day? Weren't we heading to Plymouth Gin for a nightcap?
We left a massive tip, the greatest of tips, W. says, in tribute to Platters. Because it's all so fragile. It's all coming to an end. What will happen when the owner of The Dolphin and Platters sells up? What'll happen when the owner – and it is a single individual who owns them both – decides to sell on his businesses? Disaster, W. says. The end of times. Thankfully, he'll be long gone, and will never have to see it. That's at least one horror that will be spared him.
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