Patricia Horwood
Author, Poet & aspiring Playwright
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Softly Lauren confessed, ‘Mum, I feel. …well...caught, like a fish in a net and I don’t know my way out.’
‘Oh darling,’ Nettie’s heart went out to Lauren. ‘…. if I were the fisherman I would dive down and cut you out but really, you don’t need to know the way out, all you need to know is that you want leave.’ Lauren’s eyes welled up. She trusted her mother. She remembered vividly, for years, that day at Greentops House, but time and a new and better life had faded the memory so it held no more power than an old sepia photograph. The front door had closed rather sharply and her mother had run up the stairs. She had taken down two suitcases and two large holdalls from the loft and filled the bags with as much of their essential clothing and items as she could squeeze in.
I’m fine, ..but I’m not the same person now. I’ve been through a gateway Emma; it’s not one you can ever go back through. That gateway’s gone now and I am here on the other side, a different person. I can’t change what pushed me through that gateway, and I can’t just step into being the person I was before it all happened; there is no “old” Lauren there is only a new Lauren, the one with all this new pain. I have no templates and no past to call on to tell me how to live tomorrow.
However it was looked at it, however transient the moment or person, this time in this night would always be a memory special enough to be recalled whenever belief in living needed repair. All special memories of this type were stored in a treasured place where time had been banished.
They walked down a very narrow street that ran parallel to the harbour mouth as it opened out to the sea, saying very little. Along the street were curtained cottages with tiny pathways that took you to their front doors, and opposite were high walls with painted wooden gates that prevented you seeing what was behind them. Mostly, the gates opened onto steep winding steps that took you down to a house that sat directly on the high banks overlooking the mouth of the estuary harbour. In between cracks in the gates, or where the wall suddenly dropped down to waist height, you could look down onto the harbour and make out the coastal town on the opposite side. At the end of the street the road simply disappeared and became a little track. Now they were entering the ruin of a small coastal fortress. Amazingly, the walls were reasonably intact so you stood in the centre of the quiet and dark room with the stars as a ceiling, and the archers’ windows providing keyhole views onto the surrounding rocks and ocean. As you walked through a small doorway on the other side of the fortress you found yourself standing on a large jumble of enormous rocks that tumbled into the sea only a short distance from your feet.
Lauren stood quietly and let the sound and space envelop her, permeate her. The darkness of the night was complete. It was possible to make out the opposite coastline across the estuary displaying sporadic lights shining as if suspended in the darkness. Now standing on the rocks facing away from the harbour, Lauren’s eye was drawn out over the night view of the ocean. She watched its restless tenacity that brought itself first to you, and then pulled away again.
Adam stood at a distance, wondering what was going through Lauren’s mind, what memories were paining her, what worries she had now, why she seemed so tormented? He felt he knew so little about her.
Lauren’s mind was tugging her further into the space of the horizon but her conscious thoughts were aware of the time passing by. She wanted the space to be timeless, to have it cradle her; give her a rest. She could hear the echoes of Jamie and Adam calling her back and chastised herself for being so self-centred.
It is possible to be aware of the timing of a moment, to be aware of words that have not been spoken, permitting you to come into a space without being unwelcome. Adam found himself in such a moment, and aware of Lauren’s returning presence he stepped over and reached his hand out to hers. ‘Are you ok?’
She grasped his hand, its warmth was reassuring and they stepped back inside the fortress. Lauren felt a need to almost whisper so that sound did not disturb their private night world where the sky met the sea and the stars watched, mute voyeurs. ‘Yes …… I feel much better now. It’s a magical place isn’t it?’
Jamie stopped and looked into the hedgerow silhouette growing at the back of the wide untidy grass verge. Wet and dejected he sat down in amongst the growth and bent his head in between his knees. Warm tears of miserable hopelessness began to roll down his face. His clothing was now soaked through and he had begun to shiver. Huddled on the verge he could no longer feel the determination he had felt during the last few days. The desire to get to Auntie Siobhan’s house was waning. If she didn’t know of the letter, perhaps it would be a really bad thing to show it to her. What if she was furious with him for doing this and didn’t want him there? What would his Mum be doing now? His clarity of conviction had given way to feeling muddled and foolish.
Dejected, he sat for an age. His eyes had become accustomed to the darkness but he could not see anything much through his tearful, reddened eyes. His toes and fingers had gone past being red and were now white with numbness. He could not find the heart to move. As he sat, his anguish subsiding in favour of exhaustion, he curled up in the wet grass that grew in long fronds all around him like a protecting veil, and he laid his head down onto his rucksack. There had been no hope of hitching a ride now. No traffic had come past him on this dark country lane and it was easy to slide into a hypnotic and warming peace. He fell asleep. Light rain had collected on the top of the long grasses forming glassy globules that bent the head of the grass over and dropped heavily onto his wet trousers with an unheard splat. As the rain subsided, a spider braved the weather and crawled out of the undergrowth onto Jamie’s trainer. Through the damp darkness a solitary set of headlights approached and appeared to hesitate, but then passed on into the distance.
Nuying was hesitant. ‘Are you a warrior Adam?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, do you think of yourself as a successful warrior? A certain old warrior in China would have a code of honour in which they would protect and succeed. It is either success or death, nothing in-between and so you will do whatever you think is right to be a good warrior.’
Adam was thinking.
‘I guess so; perhaps I am a warrior in the way you say. Why, what’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing is wrong with it. When the warrior goes home, does he leave his sword outside, or does he bring it into the house with him?’
‘C’mon Nuying, my sword isn’t going to be left outside is it? I’ll bring it in, put it into the corner of the room in case I need it, look after it and have it ready for the next battle.’
‘There is no place in your bed for a sword. You have to leave it outside. The warrior’s code inside the bed is different. He honours his woman with respect. In his bed she is an equal, another warrior.’
The monotonous rumble of the road encouraged his introspection. His heart had sought its dream for so long that at times his bones had ached for it. So why is it, he asked himself, when the dream is there within our reach, we question whether we should take it. We look on and wonder whether it is best left to remain a dream and go on to ask ourselves how to recognise that this is the dream we seek? So, perhaps to see the dream is ready for the taking you must remove the magical unreal parts that keep it out of our reach, and see it for what it is; ordinariness. That thing that once achieved will lift our hearts and spirts.