Chapter Five - When the
Future Begins
We get
out of the car. There is a tiny road to our left, which
disappears under low slung branches. The turning should be
by a church but we can see no church. We drive on. The
village is minute. By the time we have driven another half a
mile it is behind us.I stop the car and turn
round. Now we can see the church on a piece of ground
sloping away from the road, behind a row of poplars, which
are themselves behind a high stone wall.I drive back to the little
road, and the car brushes under the branches as if under a
curtain, which swings to behind us. The windows are down. I
switch off the engine, and we glide gently down the hill.
The birdsong bursts in on us, and the sun plays childlike
games with us on the windscreen, playing hide and seek among
the leaves.To our left is now another
high stone wall. We follow this to the bottom of the hill,
and swing into the driveway.The car stops. The utter
silence is an intriguing shock.Annabel leans out of the
window; her face is shining, and she is singing a little
song to herself.We sit there in a beautiful
silence; a silence filled with small natural sounds, as we
gaze out across the valley at the ragged greens jumbled
about and wildly decorating the hill in front of us.We get out of the car and
lean on a low wall, looking down the whole length of the
valley to a wild wood. There is a gate and into the garden,
beyond which is a tumble of cottages in a jumble of
woodland. There are stone walls, small, much leaded windows,
old pantiles on the roof, and a bunch of woodland tumbling
down the hillside and scrambling up against the walls.Never mind the house. We look
over the wall and down the valley at the cows grazing among
the lush green grass, one idly rubbing its neck against a
tree trunk. Across the other side of the road is a quaint
tumbledown ruin that was once a large farmhouse.We squeeze our way through
the undergrowth to the back of the house, struggling through
thickets, along a small pathway into the dense undergrowth.
Annabel turns round. Her face is a wonderful happy song. She
puts one arm round me and hugs me, almost pulling me over.
"Let's buy it."I smile weakly. Why not? Yes,
let's.I look down across the jumble
of nature running wild. I will cut back the thickets, just
leaving the main trees. I run my eyes round the wood,
counting. There are fourteen beech trees in slender majesty
striving straight up into the light, a somewhat twisted old
oak, three sycamores, and half a dozen ash trees. Who needs
the thickets?I will pull down that
monstrous garage thing in the middle of the derelict garden.
I'll pull down the shed at the back of the house, level the
ground, terrace it, and put a lawn where the cabbages are.
After all, who wants cabbages? They can grow in the shops,
not on my lawn.At the end of the garden I'll
dig a swimming pool. My eyes have glazed over, and the plans
rapidly unfold on my inner video screen, and the wonderful
future is spread out in front of me like an enticing red
carpet.Annabel's voice tinkles down
from somewhere high among the trees. I look up. She is
standing on a tree trunk in a patch of woodland above me.
The bank of the hill is naturally tiered like the rows of
boxes in a theatre. There is a splendid natural curve, and
at the top, in the gods, is an Annabel in a short blue skirt
with white stockinged legs. She is holding the ash-grey
trunk and swinging one leg. She looks as if she could swing
down at me in one majestic whoosh as if from the back of a
painting by Fragonard."When can we move in
Johnsie?" she calls down, licking her lips.I shrug my shoulders. "Right
now I guess. I'll ring up this afternoon and get things
started, shall I?""Good." And she skips through
the trees like a blue and white butterfly.I am already pacing the
grounds, measuring how much space there is, and in my head
is a map with lines, and crosses, and plants, and
structures.We go into the house as an
afterthought. It isn't very exciting but this will be our
new home. I see a redeveloped cottage, not the dull, poky
dump that stands as if waiting for someone to come along and
inject it with vitality. On every front is the future
bright, shining, and thoroughly and exquisitely wonderful.We walk down the valley,
swing over the fence and into the wood. Alongside the path
and under the willows is a bubbling, spluttering little
stream, gliding under trees, gurgling silly rhymes to
itself, and laughing immoderately, splashing the skipping
sun, and not paying any attention to us.We sit on a broken down beech
tree and listen. Now and again a blackbird scatters the dry
leaves. Now and then the laughter of the stream breaks
through our daydreams. Now and then the sun moves down onto
the moss in a light green beam, and we each sit wrapt in our
own fairy tale.Later we explore the derelict
farmhouse on the other side of the road, with floors that
have caved in to reveal cellars half full of tiles and old
beams. There is a quaint little staircase that winds round
in a spiral on the outside of the house like a turret. We
gaze dreamily back towards our cottage just visible above
its surrounding stone wall.That night we sleep in the
car, me stretched across the front seat in my sleeping bag,
and Annabel on the back seat in hers. In the early dawn we
are awakened by the lowing of cattle pushing past our
vehicle as they amble through the gate after being milked.I lay in my sleeping bag in
the car, barely awake, and yet so very alive to the future.
I know I am surrounded by something I cant quite see but
know is wonderful and exciting and important. The world has
suddenly opened up like a christmas present in a big red
box. All around me a new world is just beginning.Something magical happens the
moment when the future begins. * * * * *
If you wish to comment on this chapter, or any part of the book please click on the link below and email me.
I will upload comments within 24 hours, unless you specifically ask me not to, and I will not include your email address, just your first name.
Thanks.