There’s such a beautiful light around Sedbergh today. The nearby Howgills appear almost transparent, and lit from within. Though officially residing in the county of Cumbria, it is a place that is definitely “Yorkshire” in character, falling within the boundaries of the Yorkshire Dales national park. It’s such a long time since I was here – twenty years or more – and feeling like only yesterday, of course. But today we’re not heading up into the hills. Today is not for Arrant Haw, or Winder, or the Calf, nor is it for the long, roaring fall of Cautley Spout. Instead, we pick up the River Rawthey at New Bridge, and walk downstream. We pass its confluence with the Dee, then wander over to the Lune, the River of the Moon, and walk upstream as far as the viaduct. Then we circle back across the undulating meadows to homely Sedbergh, with its bookshops and teashops, and its feel of a time stood still.
Birks House, along the Rawthey, Sedbergh
It’s a cold day, and the breeze has ice in it, but the light holds the promise of spring, and for which we have high hopes. Unlike the sodden meadows of a few weeks ago, the ground here is already firm and pleasant underfoot. The land is rolling, and the river is a rush of gin-clear water, sharp, with dramatic limestone outcroppings from which the little dippers, white bibbed, bob and dive. But for all this surrounding beauty, the moon has gone into the dark, and I am trying not to let it take my mood with it.
I am moderating even more my diet of current affairs, to the extent of actually deleting the Guardian App. I have cancelled my subscription, and am instead reading the Reuters dispatches. These are crisp, and to the point, not spun to pander either to the left or the right. That said, it’s hard to ignore the fact we have had our annual hoo-hah over the government budget. The red box has been photographed outside Number 11. Its contents have yielded nought but record levels of taxation, yet public services are the worst they have ever been. Neither political party offers a solution.
I am moving away from partisanship. This is partly since no party now represents my aspirations, or my outlook. Also, in this election year, I do not want the Rivendale Review to become a place of rant, but having said that, it seems uncontroversial to say the governing party is on its uppers. Dare I even venture so far as to add it is out of ideas, and out of touch? Will you further allow that its intellect is either spent or ejected, its big beasts long gone. Meanwhile, the siren voices of the trickster right dictate a shift into pandering to populist wedgery, and a drift into incoherent blather.
Then there is this ever firming consensus the opposition party, under the leadership of Sir Kier Starmer, will take over some time this year. The governing party seems resigned to this, while the exiled and compassionate left, far from celebrating, predict a parliament of disappointment, of continuing “fiscal restraint”, of the ever euphemistic “difficult decisions”, and still falling living standards. They predict this will let in a more dangerous populist figure of the trickster right, towards the end of the decade.
All of this is ugly and unseemly, so unlike the Rawthey today, which is sweetly musical, and beautiful. Such a wonderful landscape as this deserves better from we who walk upon it.
Speaking of musical, I have taken up the guitar again, after a lull of decades. And I have written a short story about it called Andantino, which I have submitted to Spillwords Press. Sorry, WordPress, but Spillwords can get me around a hundred clicks, as opposed to twenty, on here. If Spillwords take it, I’ll post it to the blog in the fullness of time, or post a link, or something. But on a day like this, none of that matters much.
Nor does it matter I’m experimenting putting the earlier novels up on Google Play Books. This is an exercise for our endless rainy days, but one that has thus far yielded nought, at least so far as downloads go. On the upside, my re-reads have yielded further typos that have eluded me for decades. The project has hit the buffers with a bang, though, with the Lavender and the Rose.
I have got as far as a fresh cover art, which is the easy bit, but I am resisting delving into the text. I know there’s a lot of sex in it, which I’m sure I felt was necessary at the time, but will no doubt turn me cold now. There is also the birthing of a metaphysical divergence from mainstream thinking, and the groping towards new directions. It’s all stuff that was important at the time of writing, but I was younger then, and both I and the world have moved on. I suppose I fear appearing naive, yet ignoring the chance to review it seems like dishonouring a younger self.
Anyway,… we walk on.
I would happily ignore the fact the world is falling, take refuge in the pension, and the freedom of days like this in the hills, take refuge in my stories. But I have sons of fighting age, and we have already had that broadside of conscription, mooted by the armchair generals, also the flag sha&&ing presses, just one more scatter gun across this bewildering morass that is our informational landscape. I find myself praying I do not join the anxieties of my grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, as they gave their own boys up to that infernal tide of war.
The Lune Viaduct
We take leave of the company of rivers at the stupendous Lune Viaduct, near Low Branthwaite. Then we trace the footpath network back to Sedbergh, across bright meadows. There is apple and cherry blossom, and the hawthorns are budding. It won’t be long now before we can cast a layer or two, and get back onto the high, peaty ways without fear of morass. It’s late afternoon when we come back down into town. The teashops and the bookshops are closing, so it’s a quick brew in The Black Bull to warm our bones. There is a gently prosperous air about this place, and I am tempted to take refuge in it. There are even a few tourists, trailing suit-cases, which puts me in a mind to book some travel.
About eight and a half miles round, eight hundred feet of miscellaneous up and down.
Simon tendered his passport at the outbound border-post. It was the first time he had done so, and suspected it would be the last. He would not be returning, always assuming they let him leave in the first place. This was by no means certain.
“Your destination?” asked the guard.
“Nowhere in particular,” said Simon.
“You must have a destination,” said the guard. “What’s your business overseas?”
Outbound travel for pleasure was forbidden. There was a fear the broader foreign Zietgeist would infect the psyche of weaker minded citizens. Only travel on business was permitted, and then only by members of the more bona-fide, and strictly vetted professions.
“I am a pilgrim, ” said Simon.
“Pilgrim?” said the guard. “What kind of profession is that?”
“It is concerned with,… searching,…” said Simon. He paused a moment to reflect on what he had said. He had never had to define his calling before. To describe it as a profession was stretching a point, but he had made his living at it, or rather lived by means of it, and therefore felt he had answered truthfully, and to the best of his ability. “Yes,” he repeated. “It is a profession that searches.”
The guard eyed him suspiciously. Then he fingered the plug in his ear, and settled his hand upon the holster of his side-arm. He would be receiving instructions from the AI, thought Simon. His answers had already unsettled the machine, and he sensed the barriers shutting against him. But what else could he do? His training permitted only honesty, both by deed and discourse.
“Searches for what?” asked the guard.
“The truth,” said Simon. “For meaning. I shall find it in a place, perhaps.”
“Ah, so we do have a destination. And what’s this place called?”
“I don’t know that it has a name,” said Simon. “Nor even if it exists, actually. But if it does, my mission is to find it.”
“If you don’t know it exists, how will you recognise it? How will you know when you get there?”
“By its nature,” said Simon. “It is a place that trades only in what is true.”
“Well this sounds like a fishy business to me. Is there not enough truth for you at home?”
“There is no truth, here,” said Simon, which, as near as he could manage, was the sum total of the only truth regarding his homeland. If truth was to be found in the world, it would have to be elsewhere.
A light flashed behind the guard’s station, and a door swished open. It was as Simon had feared. This was not the door to the ocean terminal, and the waiting vessel. The guard kept hold of Simon’s passport.
“You’d better come with me,” he said.
The sky is not blue. It is red. In order to hide the redness, new-born babies are injected by the socialised health service with a drug, that makes them see the sky as blue.
Some say it started as a competition among students in a rowdy bar – who could tell the biggest lie. There is a long tradition of such tomfoolery, and much of it amusing, until that is, the nation lost its sense of humour. Then people either took offence, or began to believe the lies. Others say it came out of a focus group. In support of the latter theory, they offer the evidence it was such a masterful lie and aimed with such devastating accuracy it could only have been developed with the aid of AI. It was like a pinball sent ricocheting off several psychological triggers, to create at once a ding-a-ling ferment of fear and loathing throughout the land.
As he recalled, what became known as the Red Sky movement circulated the fringes of the absurd, for a time. Then, gradually, it began to take hold in the nation’s psyche, first and foremost among the noisy, simple minded elements, who began attacking the hospitals. They were intent, they said, on turning up proof. And when no proof was found, it only proved, they said, the depth of the conspiracy and caused them to redouble their efforts.
Far from being alarmed at this breakdown in public order, politicians saw an opportunity for self advancement, and began to work the lie into their speeches and manifestos. They promised enquires. They promised legislation. They would outlaw all things social. And it worked. The Red Sky movement became mainstream.
At first, Simon wondered how they got away with this. But then he realised those who lived by what was true, and knew the sky really was blue, had long since grown dissatisfied with politics, indeed revolted by it, and no longer bothered to vote, leaving the field open to the purveyors of untruthful fantasy. Hence, sensing further opportunity in falsehood, even more lies were concocted.
There is to be a tax levied on smart-phone usage. And though there was in truth no tax, politicians garnered support among the outraged by promising to abolish it. There is to be a law forbidding emails to be sent on Sundays. And though there was no law, politicians garnered support among the outraged by promising to abolish it. And the people, raised on this blizzard of lies were happy, until the next lie was deployed to unsettle them.
It was found that the simpler, sound-bitey untruths worked best. But they were like toxic seeds and, once sown, they poisoned the ground of discourse so more complex untruths sprouted, seemingly of their own accord, rendering the very fabric of society inherently corrupt. Even when one stumbled upon a thing that was indisputably true, such was the power and the negative weight of the Zeitgeist, one was tempted to consider the truth untrustworthy.
The executives of socialised medicine are developing a drug to be administered secretly at birth. Taken just the once it will render the very air we breathe poisonous, unless we sign up for a lifetime of antidote medication. The profits generated by its sale are intended to prop up the flagging social healthcare system.
Although inordinately complex for a sound-bite culture, the effect of this latter deception was devastating. Politicians garnered huge support among the noisesome by promising investigations, even the public execution of the guilty executives – for so heinous was the crime it warranted a reintroduction of capital punishment. Socialised medicine would be abolished, and private healthcare would come to the rescue. Warm advertisements appeared in browsers to drive the message home. Anything social was to be outlawed. The definition of “social” was very broad. Even helping an old person to cross the road was considered a suspicious act, which risked one being denounced as a subversive snowflake and hauled away by baton weilding cops.
“But Master,” said Simon, to his teacher. “What use is the truth any more? I mean beyond the walls of this retreat? We brothers speak and act truthfully among ourselves, but outside, the language is corrupt, and every act is a deception. Even to be exposed to news broadcasts and social media is to risk becoming corrupted oneself, and turned, if not into a liar, then rendered helpless with despair.”
And the teacher said: “So far as we can tell, Simon, it is always the truth that is the surest path to what is good. Lies lead to corruption, and suffering. This seems part of a long cycle, and though it may take centuries, the truth will eventually make a better showing of itself than it appears to be doing at the moment.”
“Might I find the truth anywhere else in the world, or is everywhere the same as this?”
“I do not know, Simon. Have you the courage, do you think, to search for it?”
“I don’t know, Master. But I would like to try, if you think it will help.”
“It will certainly help to know it still exists, Simon. Indeed, you must make it your mission. Go now with our blessing, and all the resources we can muster to support you on your journey. Seek the place that still lives by the truth, where people do not believe the sky is red. Once there, seek out its wisest teachers, and learn from them.”
“I shall, Master, and I shall bring home what they teach me.”
“No, don’t do that,” cautioned the master. “The truth won’t last five minutes here. Just give us a ring, and we’ll come join you.”
The guard led Simon to a cold, windowless room, and told him to wait. The walls were mirrored, and Simon assumed he was being observed from behind one or the other of them. There was no chair, no table. He waited, standing at first, but the minutes went by, then half an hour, so he sat, cross-legged, upon the bare floor. There was nothing he could do. He had failed at the first hurdle, and it pained him that he had let his master, and his fellow brothers, down. He would never find that place where they lived by the truth. He would never learn how to rid the world of the poison of its lies.
The worst thing that could happen now, he thought, was to be arrested, and sent for re-education. He had heard terrible stories of sleep depravation, and of being forced to watch endless online videos, and social media feeds in order to soften his brain. But were these stories true? Who could tell these days, and anyway all of that, that’s what people did to themselves of their own accord, so how bad could it be? He would not like to lose his grip on the truth of course, but from what he had observed, those who had already lost it, did not know they had lost it. They suffered, yes, but had forgotten what it was like not to suffer, so their suffering felt perfectly normal, and they took their small pleasures in finding others to blame for it.
It was an hour before someone came. It was not the guard, who Simon supposed had resumed his duties. It was a silent boy who’s eyes were glued to his phone, even as he led Simon away. Simon glanced over to see what the boy was looking at, thinking it might be messages, from which Simon might glean some clue as to his fate. But instead, he saw the boy was watching videos of the bubble-gum variety, high in sugar and low in nourishment. It was as if the boy were only half present in the world.
He was taken to a room in which there presided some kind of official who exuded an air of grandiosity, though Simon, finely attuned to what was truthful could tell at once this was a lie. This was simply a stone-faced slouch of a man, behind a stout desk, and yet, for all of that, he was to be the final authority on Simon’s fate. He was studying the passport.
“I’m informed you wish to leave in search of the truth. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” said Simon.
“Tell me then, what do you know of the truth?”
The official seemed dismissive, but it was a good question, thought Simon. “I know it in the feel of the ground beneath my feet, that I am present in the world,” he said. “I know it in the fact that I am aware of the sense of my own being. These things are true. Beyond that, nothing is certain. I know the opposite of the truth is a lie, and I know that to lie is to suffer, and it causes others to suffer.”
The man thought on this for a long time, but didn’t really get it. He tossed Simon’s passport back at him. “Permission to travel is denied,” he said.
So, that was that, thought Simon, but they had not kept his passport, which suggested he was at least not to be arrested, and re-educated. This was a relief, but also puzzling.
“However,” said the official. “I might be able to connect you with an informal route across the water, if you’re fool enough to risk it.”
Ah. The Master had warned Simon some of the officials he might encounter at the borders would be corrupt, and would offer to deliver him into the hands of the smugglers who had corrupted them. In the old days, these brigands had thrived on the smuggling of people into the country. Now they were smuggling people out. This was to be regretted, but the Master had authorised him to take advantage, if the offer was made, and all else had failed.
“How much?” said Simon.
“Five hundred for the connection. What you pay the courier is between you and him.”
The man produced his phone, set the transaction to receive, and offered it to Simon. Simon set the amount and waved his phone to the man’s device. Bleep. Simple as that – corruption as commonplace, as banal as paying a tip. It was easy to live a lie, harder to live the truth. Simon hoped he was not already corrupted by his proximity to such unscrupulousness.
The man revealed the contact number. Simon photographed it.
“My assistant will show you out.”
The boy with the bubble-gum phone was summoned, and Simon was led away to begin the next stage of his journey.
Later, he stood upon the blustery quay of a seaside town, looking out into the choppy grey. It was coming on to evening, and the sky was smearing over with an angry red. Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Was that a truism, he wondered? He tried to remember. Perhaps at least it boded well for the crossing. What was it he had said to the official, about the truth? He lifted his phone and prepared to dial the number, reflecting on the fact there was perhaps no greater truth in the world than an overloaded rubber boat, launched into a rough sea and with a fifty-fifty chance of drowning.
You are still in love with Yasmina. You have always known it, but sometimes forget. You last saw her in the July of 1976. That’s forty-seven years ago and, since you are approaching old age now, it’s possible she is no longer of this world. They say we know, when a distant loved one has departed for the next life, but that’s only if they have ever thought of you, and she never did. Indeed, I doubt she even knew your name. Sometimes love is like that.
It was the most beautiful, yet also the most painful thing you have known. It was also the most formative, in that it made you what you are. Which is what? What are you, my friend? Will I tell you? You lack confidence in the world, or you would not have withdrawn from it as early as you did. You are isolated in your feelings, feeling always the strangeness of yourself, and your thoughts. And that she did not know you, never asked your name, has also lent the world this air of a thing made of glass. It is transparent to you, but has an impermeable surface, which puts you always on the outside of it. Or so it feels on days like these, when the rain beats against the window, and nothing amuses you. Not reading, not writing, nor the role-call of old acquaintances – those still living, that is. So many names now remain pencilled, but with lights gone out, yet you cannot erase them, as you cannot erase Yasmina.
You were fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old, and have never felt anything so powerful. There have been women since, though few. There have even been nights of passion but, again, few. And every emotion you have felt, pales beside what you felt for her, both in the pain and the glory of it. She was, is, and always will be the standard by which you judge all things. Indeed, your whole life has been a quest for the source of what you felt in her. For though you love her, you are wise enough to know she was but the channel of a source beyond imagining. During those all too brief years, it took human form in Yasmina, for it was in her alone you might have recognised it for the divinity it was.
You cannot believe there is no purpose in such a love as that. Granted, such refusal may arise from a fear belief is delusional in a world void of meaning. And all rational evidence suggests the meaning of life is much less than we would like it to be. What is the meaning of a life, then? Any life. Will we ask it of the computer?
Hey Noodle, what do you say is the meaning of life?
Meaning, replies Noodle,… hmm, that’s a deep one, for the machine is programmed to simulate character, and humour. It then quotes us Simone De Bouvoir. It was she who said life only has meaning in so far as we value the lives of others. That’s about the best the Existentialists will allow. A gloomy bunch to be sure, best suited to violent times, not times of capitulation and crushing despair such as these. But they don’t ring true for you, and why? You have valued Yasmina above all others, and felt only her indifference. You have sought the surrogate of her love in others, and they all failed you, and only because they were not Yasmina. What then is the meaning, if the reward for so valuing others, is to be rejected by them?
Let us ask the computer again.
To exist, says Noodle, means to have a way of living. The computer’s way of living is to search, so the meaning of life, according to Noodle, is to search and to learn. Which all sounds rather dry. Plus, there are two problems with it. One, the computer is not alive, and second, there is nothing to say its way of being – as it describes – is the same as yours. But let us be generous and say we are all on the path of learning, and searching. And for sure, you have sought and learned much. But you have never shared your knowledge, always assuming the world to be indifferent to such learning, as gleaned by outsiders, like you. You therefore keep your own counsel, though your better instinct is to share.
Your purpose then, according to Noodle’s logic, is to exist in secret, and in isolation, but only in so far as you see yourself. In relation to others, you have no existence at all. So be it, but you still love Yasmina. And, strange though it may seem, therein also lies, if not your life’s purpose, then the seedling from which all else grew.
Now, from this perspective, turn your eyes away from the rain, and the despair of the times, pick up your pen, and write.
She’s a neatly-dressed woman, not young. I see her sitting on the same park bench every Saturday, at two. I can’t say exactly when my orbit became synchronised with hers, or why I persist with it now. I could always walk another way to the station. Indeed, I don’t need to walk to the station at all any more. It’s just a habit: catch the train into town, coffee in the corner café. And now her.
What’s most striking is her serene aura. She’s never lost in her phone, like most of us are these days. Sometimes she’s reading a paperback, sometimes she’s feeding the birds. But most of the time she sits and looks out across the parkland, and the pretty little lake. I’ve never spoken to her, not even caught her eye. I walk past, take the train into town, and that’s it.
At first, I was curious. You don’t see many women out on their own. I’ve read that the Internet has turned all the men into perverts. Or at least it’s convinced all the women that all the men are perverts. I don’t want her thinking that about me. But I’m wondering if she ever thinks about me at all, is curious about me, like I’m curious about her, this guy who walks by, every Saturday at two.
I’m not so old I can’t remember the urgent allure of girls, nor the lengths I went to to be with one. You could sit down next to a girl on a park bench in those days and say hello without her calling the cops – well, maybe not the same bench, but the bench opposite, perhaps. Was it that we were all so much younger, and trusting then, still working out what was the right way to enter into the full bloom of being? And somewhere along the way, something went wrong and turned us all into paranoid strangers, fearful of one another.
It was never about sex for me. I wouldn’t have admitted that to other guys, though – guys whose woman-talk never rose above the level of whether so-and-so was a good shag. They didn’t mean it, by the way. Well, not all of them did. That kind of talk used to embarrass me. And now? Well, now the prize would be someone to share a coffee with, someone to come home with, kick off our shoes, make dinner together, and watch TV.
She’s wearing a white shirt-dress today, looks summery and cool, looks like she’s waiting for someone, actually. That’s most likely it. At two-o-five, when I’ve gone by, this guy comes up, and they stroll off arm in arm. Except you wouldn’t arrange a date for two-o-five, would you? It would be two, on the dot. Or am I just over thinking things?
In truth, I don’t know how it goes any more. I met my wife of twenty-five years at work. I can’t remember which of us spoke first. It just sort of happened. It seemed to happen more easily back then. Now it doesn’t. Now you have to go on the Internet and sell yourself. But if you’ve nothing to sell, what then? I was no looker to begin with, and age has hardly improved things. But is that the best way to make a first impression, anyway?
I’ve wondered about saying hello. I mean, that’s still okay, isn’t it? I say hello to other people when I’m out walking, and they say hello back. It’s polite. It’s like saying: I’m a nice person, and you can trust me. And it usually comes with a smile, and you can tell a lot about a person that way. But it needs a bit of eye contact first, and she’s never scanning for it. Her eyes are always in her book, or watching the birds, or admiring the view. So as simple a thing as that might sound, saying hello, it never actually works out.
It would be best to break the habit, I suppose. It’s getting so my Saturday afternoons begin with the tingly anticipation of seeing her in the park, then it all falls flat, and what used to be a pleasant distraction in town suddenly isn’t any more. The train ride, the coffee, maybe a mooch in a bookshop, these things used to be a way of dodging the loneliness. But now they seem only to highlight it, and bring to the fore an aching desire to fix it.
I’m not saying she’s the right person. I mean, who knows? I’d have to talk to her first. But at least the fact I’m attracted to her is a start. Right? Plus, she might be lonely, too, and these Saturday afternoons on a park bench are her way of dealing with that. Maybe she’d like nothing more than for someone to hello. She just never gives that impression. Indeed, that air of serenity speaks of a rock-solid self-containment, and maybe that’s what I’m attracted by – that what she possesses most is the very thing I lack in myself.
Anyway, here we are again, Saturday at two. She must have noticed me. That’s what people do, they recognise patterns. She sits there, same time, same day, and this same guy comes walking by. And if she was at all curious about me, she’d be looking to make eye contact, if only to sound me out as harmless. So, perhaps today’s the day. Here we go: I give her a glance, an opening, so to speak, like I always do. It’s for her to respond, now. I can do no more but, once again, she doesn’t seem to notice me, so I look away, weigh once more the ache in my gut, and ride the train into town.
So,… coffee, in the corner café. I’d thought I was done with all this teenage stuff. I’d thought I was happy on my own, but it turns out I’m still looking for completion in the body and the soul of another, and all that crap. And worse, I also know myself by now, that I’m trapped in this groove, unable to veer left or right to dodge the hurt. And the only way this will work itself out is when I walk by one Saturday, and she’s no longer there. Then I’ll be that free man again, drinking coffee, alone, flicking on his damned phone, but all of that, at least, without this ache in his gut.
The abbot gathered the order in the meditation hall, brothers Angus and Benjamin among them, and bade them sit. Then he spoke of hard times ahead. This was nothing new, thought Angus. There had been nothing but hard times for decades, that indeed the hard times were the main reason he had turned to the monastery, for peace of mind, in the first place. But even now, after many years, he was finding peace of mind still hard to come by.
Then the abbot spoke of the recently deposed king. He reminded the monks of how the king’s misconduct, over many years, had been the cause of his eventual removal by exasperated ministers, and how the king, following his disgrace, had been cast into exile. In his place, there had been appointed a princess, a choice many had thought ill-advised, on account of her having kept company with forces believed to be allied with the barons.
Now, the barons had long ago accomplished the impoverishment and defenestration of the serfs, Angus among them, and had begun to turn their attention towards the merchants. But the barons had acted in ignorance of the full power of the merchants, who had caused a revolt, which had threatened to bankrupt the entire kingdom. In renewed desperation, and with great effort, the ministers had persuaded the princess to surrender the crown, so the merchants might be placated.
Although cloistered, Angus was only too well aware of the turbulence beyond the monastery walls. Indeed, he was ever hungry for rumours, which he picked up from the lay-brothers, who had greater contact with the outside world. What puzzled Angus now, though, was what any of this had to do with them, since the monasteries had no power, and no influence over events.
The abbot went on: so great had the chaos been in the halls of the palace, the ministers had looked about in vain for someone else among the royal line who might now take up the crown. But then some ministers had begun to look back fondly upon the days of misrule by the king, for even though his behaviour had been disgraceful, and dragged the name of the kingdom into disrepute, reducing it even to a laughing-stock among its neighbours, he had been careful never to upset the merchants. And sensing now the ambivalence of the ministers, the king, had begun petitioning for the restoration of his crown, which he saw as his by right.
Thus, the kingdom was suddenly agog with rumour that the old rogue might actually return. Now, this was news to Angus, and he sat forward, listening ever more intently. Could it be true? What would the abbot have to say about it? Opinion in the land was polarised between those aghast, and those who were delighted, for it was said the king possessed a powerful charm, gifted to him by the Goddess of Misrule, and to which only the most settled, and clear of mind were immune.
Of course, some ministers looked less forgivingly upon those days of misrule, and were inclined to dismiss the king’s ambitions as beyond the pale. But already the criers, and jesters, who had themselves called for the removal of the king only months before, and had sung in praise of the princess’s accession, were even now preparing the way for the king’s return with sweet songs, sung in the town squares, throughout the kingdom. And even among the defenestrated serfs, there were murmurs of assent.
Being themselves of the most settled and clear of mind, the monks listened to all of this news, impassively, for theirs was not the world of the town squares, or the serfs, or the merchants, or the barons, or the ministers. As for the criers, and the jesters, their duplicitous songs were transparent to anyone who was not tone-deaf. As for what the monks’ response should be to all of this, the abbot smiled mysteriously, and suggested they would do well to meditate upon it.
But this failed to quell the anxiety in Angus’ breast, and he turned briefly to Benjamin, a more experienced monk, for reassurance, only to see him tip back his head and let out a silent laugh, before nodding in approval at the abbot’s wisdom. With that, the monks were dismissed, and it was later, in the courtyard, Benjamin said to Angus: “Well, brother, you’ve got to hand it to the Abbot. He’s one crafty old devil, and a genius of a teacher.”
“But I didn’t get it,” said Angus. “What would the abbot have us do about the return of the king? Take to Twitter, or something?”
Benjamin shook his head, picked up a stone, and handed it to Angus, then instructed him to go down to the pond by the farm, at sunset, to toss the stone into the water, that by doing so he would have his answer.
So Angus did as Benjamin suggested. He went down to the pond at sunset. It was a beautiful evening, the pond was a perfect mirror for the sky, and a balm for the soul. Angus tossed the stone in and watched as the ripples broke the surface. Then the ripples were reflected, intersecting each other, until the entire pond was made up of separate shards of light all pointing in different directions, and the clarity of the reflection of the sky was lost.
He slept better that night than he had for a long time, and promised himself in future he would distance himself from the lay-bothers, whose endless gossiping kept him awake at night, wrestling with matters he had no power to influence, yet which prevented him from attaining the clarity of his own mind, and thereby the authentic nature of his being.
Some legends of the exodus tell us it took place only a few hundred years ago, others that it was a thousand. I think it was nearer a few hundred, but we can’t say with any certainty because of the darkness that followed, a time when not even the sun would rise to be counted. And the archives tell us that long before then, the earth had begun a period of change, one that rendered the complexity of machine-life difficult. So, our ancestors built the last of their great machines, and rode them to the stars.
But the learned teach us a star is like the sun, and very far away, too far for machines to reach, at least within the lifetime of a man. It was to somewhere closer, then, we believe, most probably one of the wandering stars, they went, and which are not stars, but more like the earth, only barren, and where, without machines, a man could not survive at all. Such stories would remain stories, always out of reach of what is true, except sometimes the departed return, and because the stories have a power to them, we persist in calling them star-men.
They don’t come very often, though their frequency is observed to be increasing. The manner of their coming is always foreshadowed by the dark of the moon, so we are watchful at such times, watching for their machines as they streak across the sky. The machines are often left broken and burned, leading us to believe the star-men do not come of their own choice, that they are sent as exiles from their world, that indeed their survival on arrival here is far from certain.
Thanks to the archives, we understand much of the times before the exodus, but of course we know nothing of what happened to the star-men afterwards, whether they thrived in their new world, or found things hard. It seems foolish to us that you would sooner risk a barren place, than adapt to the changes of the earth, or seek to ameliorate those changes by such skill with machines as our ancestors clearly possessed. But the records also tell us there were terrible periods of instability, that in the decades leading up to the exodus many creatures and food-crops perished. And of the billions of mankind who once walked the earth, it is estimated only ten thousand souls survived the upheavals. Those who joined the exodus then had good reason to believe they were preserving man’s very existence. It was a rational decision, though one enacted at the expense of everyone left behind, who we presume were expected to perish.
All we know of them now is that they resemble us, as men I mean, though of those we have seen, in whole or part, they have grown taller, but much weaker than we are, and they are slower on the ground. Their world has changed them in other ways too, for they are also of such a violent nature, even to their own kind, we counsel they must be avoided at all costs, and not engaged with the limited arms, such as we possess.
Their armaments are powerful, warlike, unnecessarily destructive, and terrible in the wounds they inflict. The elders say it is our good fortune the star-men do not survive long, that it is sufficient for us to evade them, while we let the microbia of the earth – to which we are immune – do their work. It is fortunate, too, their weapons fade in potency to nothing over time, rendering them useless. Those we have recovered are dismantled by our craftsmen, and their materials either re-purposed, or destroyed.
There are no records of any interaction between us, other than of the violent kind. Indeed, it is believed civilised dialogue is impossible, and that all attempts are ill-advised. Certainly the archives bear this out in the accounts of those of our kind who have been lost to the star-men’s aggression. It is better, then, to observe, and evade util such a time as the microbia have felled them for us. But it does not stop one from wondering about their reasoning, for they are a cunning species, though they appear to lack the moral consciousness they must surely once have possessed when they walked among us as brothers. One wonders too about the reasoning of those who send them, and of course about the nature of their machine-world, which must by now be beyond all imagining.
The learned tell of how, before the exodus, our ancestors first used machines to explore these distant worlds. One wonders, then, why the star-men do not do the same thing, if they wish to know the earth once more, and how it fares. This rather supports the conclusion curiosity is not their intent, that these are men who have been banished, and perhaps are not typical of their kind. But if so, why inflict upon them a certain death, after the trouble of delivering them here at the expense of valuable materials, when a more efficient death could surely be arranged in their own world?
And so it is, news reaches us by breathless runner, of another machine observed coming down with great violence, in the mountains, to the north. There is word of burning, and of the forest peoples who live there, scattering in fear. It frustrates us we cannot ask the star-men what they want, and what they mean by these absurd incursions.
Riding out, we meet people on the trails. They speak of fire raining down, and setting the forest alight. The wise man, who rides with us, assures us it is the impact of the machine that has caused the fires, that we need not fear any new and fiendish weaponry. But he has the inner sight, this man, and tells us also that though he senses no living star-men will be found, there is still something of an ill omen about the fear in the eyes of those running towards us. We proceed cautiously, therefore, while remaining faithful in the knowledge our horses can scent a star-man from afar, and with greater ease than they can a bear, that they can differentiate even between the scent of living or dead.
So it’s strange when the horses are undisturbed, even when we ride them up to the crater’s edge. There are only small pieces of the machine remaining, and a scent of burning, though by now the fires have died out to a low fog of smouldering. Even under such cataclysmic circumstances, there are normally remains to be found, but after searching in a wide circle for many days, we conclude nothing living rode this machine to earth. We turn then to seeing what materials we might salvage.
It is the wise man then who begins to find particular pieces of machine, and uses his insight to bring them together in such a way as to reveal a truth that leaves us cold. He finds a torso, a limb, a hand, then a skull, but none of it is flesh or bone. All of it machine, fashioned in the human form. We count several such forms who have ridden in place of star-men, and this perplexes us deeply, but the wise man most of all. The departed, he tells us, have diverged so far from us in kind, that in their machine world, they have themselves now become,… machines.
I didn’t know Uncle Bob, until that day I was ill. At family gatherings, he rarely spoke and always had this vacant look about him, like he wasn’t all there. He was pleasant when spoken to, but never seemed to join in the fun, and seemed a bit,… well,… embarrassed. Dad said he was odd, but Mum – Uncle Bob’s sister – said he was just a bit quiet, and always had been. Dad, being more of an outgoing sort, said that being quiet amounted to the same thing: odd. He seemed to forget I was a bit on the quiet side, too. Or maybe he didn’t.
I can’t tell you exactly what was wrong with me that day. I had a lot of problems, when I went up to big school. I’d been to a rubbish primary, one where they taught more Bible than maths and English, when at big school I discovered maths and English were the things they wanted, while the bible didn’t feature at all. I’d a feeling maths and English were what I wanted to get myself off the ground, but it was a bit late to be starting from scratch. So I was feeling like I didn’t fit in, and that I would never be any good at anything that was really wanted.
Some mornings I couldn’t face things, so I’d invent tummy aches. Nowadays, they’d be calling it mental health issues. I don’t know, maybe it was. All I know is I just hated school, and couldn’t work out how best to fit in, given the backward place I’d come from, and how not to feel like I was disappearing every time I walked through the school gates.
But anyway, this particular morning I’m quivering like a jelly outside the school office, where all the slackers and sick notes got dumped, and some poor teacher draws the short straw, and is told to drive me home. Dad’s at work, which is just as well, because he would have hit the roof, but Mum’s on the way out to work as well, and with a look of disbelief on her face as we draw up. And there’s no one else who can look after me except, maybe,… Uncle Bob.
I’d never been in Uncle Bob’s house before. Dad would never go round, you see? It wasn’t like our place. We lived in a semi on the edge of town. Mum and Dad had gone through it, made it all modern. We had a telephone, and a colour TV, and even some plastic grass instead of the real thing, so Dad didn’t have to mow it. They were well off, my parents on account of them both working. Both drove cars, which was rare in those days. Meanwhile, Uncle Bob lived in this place up by the moors. It wasn’t a big house but stood on its own, and was shaded by these big oak trees from the front, but open to the moors at the back. Dad said it hadn’t been touched since Adam was a lad, that it looked neglected, and creepy.
There was no TV, not even a black and white one, and worst of all, no telephone. If uncle Bob wanted to ring anyone up, he had to walk a mile down the lane to the phone box, not that he ever did – ring anyone up that is – and of course no one could ring him. You might wonder how anyone could manage, now, but in those days you could do everything you needed to do by letter. They were slower times, and no one expected an answer to anything straight away. It had electricity and water, but Dad said Uncle Bob used very little, and either lit candles or went to bed when it was dark. I don’t know if this was true. Dad said a lot of things about Uncle Bob, but I think this was more to reassure himself the way he lived was the right way of thinking about things, and Uncle Bob’s was wrong.
So anyway,… Mum can’t ring Uncle Bob to ask if he can look after me. She has to drive round on the off chance he’s in and not off out on his motorbike somewhere. She’s getting agitated because it’s a way out of her way, and she’s already running late, and frazzled by it, and I’m feeling like a burden, and dreading the thought of a day with my odd uncle Bob.
He looks surprised when he opens the door, me and Mum on the doorstep, and me unable to meet his eyes.
“Hello, Sandra,” he says.
I’d never heard him say mum’s name before. He spoke it warmly, like there was a person inside of him, a warm person, with feelings. But I could sense Mum was uncomfortable. I suppose it was living with Dad. Bob was her brother, and they’d grown up together, so there was a blood bond between them, but Dad was her husband, and though he never said anything rude to Bob’s face, he said plenty that was rude behind his back.
Bob was only a little older than Mum, but already retired by then, or at least he wasn’t working. When I asked Mum about it, she said it was complicated. Dad said it wasn’t complicated at all, that Bob was just a layabout. I learned later on Mum and Bob had inherited quite a bit of money, when Granddad passed away. Mum and Dad had used their share doing up the house, and changing their cars for newer ones, then going to Spain a couple of times. Bob had banked the money and given up his job instead, calculating that, if he lived frugally, he could make it to pension age without having to do another shift down the pit. It was some years later when I learned about his friend, Stephan, losing an eye and an arm in a pit accident, and Uncle Bob having to stop the bleeding, and Stephan screaming with pain until the deputy came along, with a shot of morphine. Things like that happened a lot in the pit. I wouldn’t have wanted to go back underground after that, and given the chance,… well,….
Anyway, from what Mum and Dad said, I expected Uncle Bob’s house to be falling apart, even a bit dirty, but it was all right. It was just a bit different, that’s all. He had a lot of books – walls of them. Books to read – stories and such, books that told you about stuff, and then lots of notebooks that he wrote in and, most surprising of all to me, he had a table set up in the back lean-to, where the light was good, and in there he used to paint little post-card sized pictures of trees and flowers, and chestnuts and leaves,… not to sell or anything. When he’d done, he just kept them all in a shoe-box.
I suppose we made a bit of a prickly start, that day, both me and Uncle Bob being of a reticent nature, and then me with my head full of the things Dad had said about him. I wondered if I was being punished, actually. I’d caused such a fuss, coming home from school like that, I imagined the grown-ups had conspired to make sure I wouldn’t be doing again it in a hurry, and how better to do that than have me spend the day with Uncle Bob. I heard Mum’s car disappearing down the road as she hurried off to work, and my heart sank. He stood there for a bit, like he’d not a clue what to do, and then he said:
“Do you like drawing?”
And I said: “I’m no good at drawing. ” Because, like I told you, I felt I wasn’t good at anything, and it was too late to be starting.
And Uncle Bob said: “That’s not what I asked.”
No. It wasn’t. And I did like it. Drawing I mean. But it seemed the world I’d entered needed you to be a genius at everything right away, or it wasn’t interested. “Well,… I like it, but,…”
“Liking it’s a start,” he said. “Liking’s it’s a good start. The best start. As for being good at it,” He shrugged. “Who cares? But that’s something we can sort out, isn’t it?”
It was Bert Grundy who took the call. It was the morning of the day before his retirement from the laboratory, and he’d been hoping for a quiet one. As one of the few who still knew his way around the Imperial Archives, at the National Standards Institute, he wasn’t kept terribly busy these days. There was just the occasional VIP tour they still held for crusty old Empire types, when he’d be wheeled out to share some of his knowledge on largely obsolete matters, to nods of dewy-eyed approval. But mostly he was allowed to tinker away at his own research, which involved measurements at decimals of a millimetre, using lasers. He’d been busy in his allotment the night before, so had missed the latest government announcement that millimetres were to be phased out, and those old Imperial units of measurement, more familiar to those crusty Empire types, were in fact to be brought back as the next big thing.
“Grundy, get down to the basement and dig out the foot, will you?”
“The foot, Director?”
“Yes, the bloody foot. Go check on it, will you. I’ve a feeling we’ll be needing it again.”
The director sounded irritable. Bert had known him a long time and the two of them generally got on, not withstanding their differences in rank. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would still be interested in seeing the actual, historical foot, but that was by the by. It also puzzled him how ignorant the director was of the protocols. You didn’t just go down and check on the foot. First you went onto the secure server and looked up the combination of the safe where the ledgers were kept. Then you stirred the dusty security man from his slumbers to admit you to the ledger room. And from the actual paper ledgers you looked up the combination of the lock of the vault, where the precious foot itself was kept. The entire business could take an hour of his time.
Duly armed with the combination, Bert rode the lift down to the deep basement, where the vaults lay in hermetic isolation. More dusty security men had to be negotiated. He’d not been down there for years, and the cutbacks were beginning to show in the cobwebs hanging from the ceilings, and the flickering of yellowing strip lights.
The vaults themselves were airtight to prevent degradation of their artefactual curiosities. It had been discovered, in the nineteenth century, for instance, the actual foot was shrinking. This was a little known fact, indeed, top secret, that the physical foot of today, was not the foot of a century ago. Neither was the pound, nor the ounce for that matter, though many thought they were, or rather, on reflection, Bert lamented how nobody thought very much about these things at all, actually.
It was with an air of anticipation then that Bert donned his special, sterile coveralls, and face mask, punched in the code and entered the air-lock. Not many people had gazed upon the genuine foot, at least not in recent decades. Bert himself had only seen it once, and that was some time back in the later nineteen seventies, when he was an apprentice, and wide-eyed with wonder. Now, with a faint hiss the pressures were equalised, and Bert entered the inner sanctum of all things forgotten.
There wasn’t just the foot down here, of course. There was the bucket for measuring the official Imperial gallon – arrived at by years of study, and discussion, and, like the actual foot, of purely historical interest now, since the adoption of the international system, but it was considered worth preserving anyway. There was even the apparatus, used in the eighteenth century, by Sir Arthur Boddington-Spottiswode, in support of his somewhat convoluted argument for the Empire adopting the official units of speed as furlongs per fortnight. And thank God, that hadn’t worked out! Old Spottiswode was a crackpot, of course, but influential in his day. Then there was lots and lots of other stuff, things even Bert hadn’t the vaguest idea about, and which lay forgotten by the nation, but was still of antiquarian interest for anyone sufficiently motivated to root it out.
And there it was, the cupboard, where they kept the foot, the actual foot, against which all other feet were measured. But, opening the cupboard, it was then Bert discovered, there was a problem,…
The director was ominously quiet while Bert explained his findings, and then he exploded. “What do you mean, it’s not there?”
“Well,… the ticket says it’s out for inspection,” said Bert. “Bernard Stringer withdrew it for checks. You remember old Stringer?”
The director did not, and wasn’t interested anyway. “Just get it back off him, will you? I want that foot on my desk before you go home.”
Easier said than done, explained Bert. Old Stringer had been let go in the nineties, as part of a cost-cutting drive, and was most likely dead by now – after all, there was no point in him keeping on checking the size of things that were considered obsolete, so they’d let him go. The bit of the lab he’d worked in had been refurbished several times since, and it was likely the foot had got caught up in all the confusion, and chucked out by some dozy contractor as a piece of scrap, along with the rest of old Stringer’s kit.
As a matter of interest, while he was down there, Bert had also checked on the pound and the ounce, and found they too were out on loan to Stringer, but he kept this particular news to himself. He still intended retiring tomorrow and, for now, all the director needed to know about was the foot. And the foot was missing.
The director wasn’t comforted by Bert’s argument that, from a technical point of view at least, it didn’t matter. All that had been lost was an historical artefact – embarrassing though that was – while the actual measurement of the foot, should anyone be of a mind to determine its nominals again, was secure by reference to the international units of measurement, and the conversion factors. And while the director knew that was perfectly true, he also knew he would have a hard time persuading the PM. Unknown to Bert, there were more things at stake here than could be measured by a ruler. The PM wanted The Foot, and only the genuine foot would do.
Sure enough, when the director put in the call to Downing Street, the PM was similarly incandescent. “What do you mean, you’ve lost the effing foot?”
“Well, PM, I’m sure it’s not lost exactly. We’re having a root around for it. It’s probably still about somewhere,… em.” However, the director wasn’t hopeful, and privately shared Bert’s view the glorious, Imperial foot was indeed gone forever. “But you see, PM, we know the foot is precisely 0.3048 of a meter. So for all practical purposes, the foot, as a unit of measurement, is imperishable, I mean in the abstract sense of things. As for the actual physical foot, in the archives, well, that varied from day to day, depending on how accurately you measured it, and indeed who was doing the measurement,… while, as regards the meter,…” But he was waffling, and worse, he was being technical, and the PM was having none of it.
“No, no, no. That won’t do at all. Listen, we’re not making any further reference to those damned Johnny Foreigner measures. No more meters, or sub twiddly bits thereof, d’you understand? We’ve taken back control. We are a Sovereign Nation, and shall exercise our right to exceptionality in all matters, be that feet and inches, or pounds and ounces. And to that end, I want the actual effing true blue British foot, so I can present it to the public at my next news conference. Do I make myself clear?”
Bert was putting his coat on at the day’s end, thinking he’d got away with any further involvement in the case of the missing foot, when the phone rang again. “I’m sorry, Director? Did you say fake it?”
“No, I said make it. Can’t you just make another foot? Though, technically that would be faking it, I suppose. But it’s only a lump of metal, after all. No one will know the difference. I’m sure we can get the original drawings off the Internet or something, so we know roughly what it looks like. We’d have to keep it hushed up, of course, but since I’m sure you value your pension, I presume I can rely on your discretion.”
“It’s really not as simple as that, Director. The problem isn’t so much what it looks like, but how big shall we make it? – if we can’t refer to the international standards – I mean the meter – and when the actual – you know – the actual foot itself is missing, how do we measure a foot?”
The Director sighed. Bert was a good man, but like all his kind, he was infuriatingly rational, and wilfully ignorant of the bigger picture, to say nothing of the real forces that shaped the world. “We can’t refer to the meter, Bert. It’s been impressed on me, in no uncertain terms, that’s completely out of the question. The meter is to be persona non grata. A matter of national importance, and all that. We have to find another way. A way that’s more,… I don’t know,… patriotic, let’s say.”
“Well,…” said Bert, thinking hard, but hoping he couldn’t come up with anything, because all he wanted to do was go home and check on his allotment. “We might still have a yard knocking about. Would that be patriotic enough?”
“A yard? Well, why didn’t you say so? We can work backwards from that. Three feet to the yard, right?”
“Well, I suppose so, Director. But it would be much easier if,…”
“No, Bert. I told you. The meter is out. Go fetch the yard, man.”
With a sigh, Bert hung his coat up again. He hoped he was right, and the actual yard hadn’t gone rusty, or worse, been chucked out too, or they were really sunk. Even then, how he was going to explain this to the manufacturer without reference to anything metric, he didn’t know. They’d have to measure the yard in terms of something else. There were inches, of course, thirty-six of them to the yard, and patriotic he supposed, but he’d not seen, or indeed used, any of those tricky little blighters for decades. As for the pounds and ounces thing, well Bert still wasn’t for letting that awkward bit of news out of the bag. He was retiring tomorrow, come hell or high water, and by the time it was discovered by the higher ups,… well, it was definitely going to be someone else’s problem.
I thought I might as well visit Langstrothdale, while I was up this way – this way being the Upper Wharfe, in the Yorkshire Dales. It’s evening, the shadows are long, the light is pure gold, and the Wharfe is the prettiest I’ve ever seen it. We’re nearing the source of the river here, so there’s not much breadth to it, but it makes up for that with vigour, and a charming little waterfall every couple of yards.
It’s my first time, actually, but it will not be my last. A narrow road brings us up from Buckden, by the George Inn, at Hubberholme, and on, via a series of dramatic dips and bends, to the farm at Yockenthwaite. We’ve left the car near there, at a roadside pull-in. The river is close to hand, easily accessible, and looking like a favourite picnic and paddling spot for those in the know.
The George Inn, Hubberholme
The drive would take us on to Hawes, eventually, but we’ll save that for when we’re in the little blue car, and then we’ll get the top down, so we can feel the drive, as well as see it. This is such a gorgeous, timeless place. If you wanted to film a drama, and needed a location that could pass for the 1930’s without much fudging, this is where you’d come – as indeed they did for the later series of Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small.
One of the downsides to carrying the phone everywhere is your emails can catch up with you, and I’ve just had one from the energy company that threatened to spoil my day. I’d been feeling pretty smug, actually. Draconian economies at the old homestead had cut our energy use by a third, so I was thinking – crisis or not – we were quids in. Then I get this email telling me my bills will still be fifty percent higher than they were last month. And, then passing the filling station, near Grassington, this morning, I noted the price of fuel had hit £1.76 per litre, which was around 10p a litre higher than when I filled up a few days ago. There is a feeling of poor old Albion careering into disaster.
Everyone’s struggling with it, and the poorest will be crucified by what’s coming. It grates, of course. We’ll be washing in cold water next, and banning the Lady Graeme from baking cakes (the last straw!). But an evening like this, by the Wharfe, up Langstrothdale, laughs out loud at such things. The world, as we’ve made it, and I mean the world beyond this gorgeous fold of a dale, seems a universe away, now.
Yockenthwaite, Langstrothdale
Not a long walk today. Just a mile up river, from Yockenthwaite farm, to Deepdale, then back – a bit of a scouting mission for future expeditions. The meadows are bright green and splashed with broad strokes of yellow from the buttercups. A closer look by the path-side as we make our way reveals the tiny blue faces of germander speedwell, and the little white stars of common mouse ear. Lower down the valley, in the meadows by Hubberholme, this morning, I found the bolder saxifrage, mayflower, butterwort, and campion, all in profusion, and then a lone early purple orchid.
It’s a little cold, and many of the gnarly trees by the river are looking haggard, but I guess they’re just a bit late putting on their leaves. It’s summer at home, down on the Lancashire plain. Here in the higher dales, though, it’s still spring, and looking a little uncertain of itself.
The Yockenthwaite Cricle
There’s a small stone circle along the way that I’ve been wanting to visit for a while. I’d wondered if it would be difficult to find, as many of these small antiquities sometimes are, but there it is, plain as day, and beautifully located between sparkling river and fellside. Given its size, I’m wondering if it’s more likely a ring of kerb stones for what was once a burial mound, or if it marks the site of a hut. The fact it’s on the tilt, is also curious.
So, yes, I’m missing the little blue car on this trip. She’s in for a tidy-up. I first brought her up the Wharfe the summer I bought her, 2014. I was only going to keep her a few years, get the open-top roadster thing out of my system, but we’re still together. A marriage made in heaven, you might say. The back wings are blistering out, like they always do on this marque, but I’ve managed to find a man who restores cars, and that wasn’t easy. Welding skills are becoming rare. Fingers crossed, though, my man will have her back in fine fettle with some more summers ahead of her. Then, sure as eggs, we’ll be up this way again, and we’ll drive that road from Buckden to Hawes, just like we said.
The Wharfe, Langstrothdale
This evening, I’m wondering about old Albion, down there, beyond this fold of dale, and am almost reluctant to return to the madness it has become lately. I’ve been keeping company with J B Priestly throughout this trip, reading some of his short stories, and in one of them a character describes people as either asleep, or dead. It seems a cruel thing to say, but I think I know what he means. We’ll not hurry back. We’ll settle by the river a while, and watch the light moving across the fells.
Alice Golightly had the misfortune of surviving all her family. Husband, children, brothers, sisters, all of them had gone before her, so she sailed into her nineties alone as friends, too, old and new, fell by the wayside. Among the last of the plotter girls, she’d served as a WAAF, with Fighter Command, during the Battle of Britain. Then she’d worked forty years as a formidable secretary, in one of the great manufactories, now fallen to rust. She’d spent her retirement in the bingo halls, a cheerful soul. There were holidays in Blackpool, and Marbella,…
In wartime, she’d survived a direct hit on her bunker, helped pull others, less fortunate, from the rubble, never wondering for what purpose she was spared, what purpose, this long span of life. Only now did she fall casualty, still unquestioning of the rhyme and the reason of things. A copper broke the door in, found her sleeping the eternal sleep – by now a sleight, malnourished form, under hand crocheted blankets, in an unheated room. Less mobile, and confused of late, she’d been unable to work out how to make the pension go as far as was needed. The coroner concluded she’d been subsisting on a diet of raisins, and thereby succumbed to seasonal hypothermia.
After a blur of mergers and acquisitions, the newly formed, newly fangled energy company that had taken over Alice’s supply, had risen, as if by sleight of hand, and emptied her bank account in short measure. Then it disconnected her, when she could no longer pay. Alice had been sure it was a mistake. She’d always been able to pay her way before. Official letters had couched their threats in guarded and impenetrable legalese. Her own, spidery, handwritten replies spoke of confusion, openness and old age. There was also humiliation in her appeals for explanations in terms she could understand, none of which were forthcoming. She had never joined the online world, wary of clever people duping her out of money, and ruining her life. Always outgoing and spirited, the walls of her world finally closed in, and Alice Golightly was heard from no more. She might have made it to a hundred, if only we had let her.
Alice Golightly’s last act was to have the undertaker’s little ambulance block the road by her house, during her removal from this world. The traffic backed up and blocked the neighbouring street, which in turn, like a series of ripples spreading out, caused a minor hold up in the middle of town.
Now, the chief executive who closed the deal that indirectly caused the disconnection of Alice’s energy supply, was an unhappy man. Three times married, he was approaching as many divorces. His daughter, from his first marriage, was in therapy, and hated the ground he walked upon. His son, from his second marriage, was dropping tens of thousands in the casinos of Monte Carlo, and seemed bent on bankrupting him. The renovation of his Oxfordshire mansion wasn’t going to plan, and the taxman was on his back. He’d have to move more of his money offshore. Life really was a bitch right now.
As his limousine cruised through town that day, it hit the traffic indirectly caused by Alice Golightly’s last act, and a sat-nav diversion took him by a line of people queuing for food handouts.
“So many homeless,” he mused.
It never failed to amaze him how anyone could be so feckless, so lacking in the work ethic, or intelligence, or whatever, to say nothing of being so damned shameless, as to line up for charity like that. His driver nodded, not wanting to tell him these weren’t actually homeless people. They were more likely workers, working precarious jobs, yet who still couldn’t feed their families, or heat their homes. It was just the way of the world right now. But the chief was always right.
It did nothing to improve the chief’s mood, of course, seeing the ugly underbelly of the world this way. It always had him wondering by what misfortune he might yet end up there himself. It was a recurring nightmare of his. The limousine slowed to a halt in heavy traffic. He tried to avoid eye contact with the people queuing there, but his eye was indeed caught, briefly anyway, by a young girl in the line. She looked to be of his daughter’s age, and as pretty a girl as he’d ever seen. Scrub her up, swap her cheap clothes for couture, and she wouldn’t look out of place anywhere in his world, he thought.
Was it only money, then, that made the difference? What was the trick that had him destined for riches, and her,… well,… to stand in line like this? The girl’s expression was blank, betrayed no emotion. Except, suddenly, she smiled at something her neighbour said, then laughed out loud, holding her sides as if to contain a surplus of mirth that threatened to rock her entire being off the pavement. Her laughter moved him. It was so open, so light, so genuine. He could not remember the last time he’d felt that way. It saddened him too, that he would never see his daughter laugh like that, and when his son laughed – as he often did – well, that was only out of scorn.
The traffic eased as Alice Golightly’s final journey got under way. The chief’s limousine moved sedately on, and he settled back in the leather, caught up in a moment of deep introspection. Then it came to him, the solution to his unhappiness! What he needed, more than anything, right now,…
The Rivendale Review 