A drowsy July hotness lies heavily on Burford. Through a shimmering haze the sun pulses down upon the weary elms of the old Church. The trees endure like reassuring sentinels in the faraway distance of the Worcestershire countryside.
The spider is one of those large fat bodied ones that spin cartwheel webs. There it hangs, in the middle, distorting the web with its somnolent weight.
The boy, myself, blows at it without enthusiasm, but the spider merely curls up its legs. Only the slightest quiver disturbs the stillness of the immobile knapweed stem and the stalk of wheao which the web is anchored. I hunt for a grass straw to tickle the spider, and then thinking better of it, roll over in the rutted grass.
This is my lonely place. The sparrows come in flocks; they accumulate in a twittering cloud in the neighbouring hedges and, watching for their opportunity, drop quietly onto the wheat of the verges. First one, then another and soon the whole flock are feeding on the ripening corn. I'm proud of my stone-flinger. It's an ash stick cut from the hedge and slit at the larger end. Into the cut I place a flattish stone, fitting it not too tightly. I have practised with it most of the morning and now can drop a projectile neatly into the middle of the flock of birds, though I have not hit a bird and have no desire to do so.
There are plenty of pebbles on the riverbank. They are worn smooth by the ageless water of the River Teme. The clear water gurgles and swashes as it hastens over the ancient stone blocks of the Roman ford, to swirl away to the Severn and the beckoning Irish sea. I am the seignior of this secret place. A boy of ten secure in my secluded domain. A quiet ancient place, the place of my solitary childhood. My lonely, beloved place.
The glowering hills with their thick covering of dark trees and thorn-crowned ridges are mine. So is the steep bank on the far side of the river with its bare earth and innumerable rabbit warrens, stubby hawthorns and junipers. The only sound is of the roaring water as it courses over the mossy lip of the massive stones. Pale blue moths like fluttering violets, flit amongst the thistle-heads, which nod in gracious acquiescence. The splashing water overwhelms the buzzing of the insects and the bird song.
In this remote place I am inviolable. Sometimes I shout, and for a moment I can listen to the echoes of my voice rolling faintly back over the dim purpled, wooded ridge. Bevies of startled woodpigeons flutter up protestingly from the leaves; curve around in slow-motion flight, then return to the somnolence of the branches. Soon the omnipresent plash and roar of the resentless water drowns out any intrusive sound. I come every day. The birds know me. The rabbits nibble on oxlip leaves and watch from the far riverbank. If I move they do not start but munch away and watch inquisitively. I lie on my back and watch the stippled cloudlets sailing serenely overhead. The baked grass scratches my neck, but I'm too lazy to move. The pungent smell of the river assails my nostrils, an aroma of rotting vegetation, nettles, and smelly mud. I chew a piece of grass. There is sweetness on my lips.
A lark rises from the grass to soar upwards, in aerial steps, until it becomes a scarcely discernible pinpoint in the blue enormousness. Once in a while the bellowing of far off cattle swells up above the rush of the river torrent. The lark re-emerges still unwinding its chain of liquid melody. It drops to a tussock not many yards away. It watches me from behind a cloud of campion and cowslips with one beady eye. I am no threat.
This is my lonely, beloved, secret place. On wet days I sit under a juniper with and old coat or sack thrown over my shoulders. A lonely, weeping, little boy far from his mother, far from the big city with its noise and bombs. I witness the dejected harebells bowing sullenly in the weight of the rain. I wipe the tiny trickles of water from my cheeks - the rivulets of rain that mingle with the liquid of my tears. Even the ever-restless powder-blue butterflies that flit about the thistles of the riverbank are quelled to comparative inactivity - they are my fluttering friends.
The storm must have gathered in the west, but such was the haze that I never notice its imminence till the sun begins to lose its brilliance in the first wispy flying heralds of the thunderclouds. This is my lonely, secret, sad, beloved childhood place. There is a map to this secret place. The map is in my will. This is the place where my ashes will be scattered.
This is my lonely secret, godless place, where I shall be forever alone. |
