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Clacton Collaboration (4)
posted Sunday, 20 July 2008
THE ARCH
by Clacton Writers' Group (2008)
Sometimes I think of you, the way you were when I last saw you – standing under the laburnum arch, shafts of sun splintering the branches and kissing your hair into spun gold. I always try to hold my thought there, on the precise moment of parting; anything either side of that moment is too painful to contemplate. Yet always, always, my traitorous mind takes me to places I’d rather not go.
I wonder what happened to you after I left. Did you travel, as you always said you would? Did you become a new forces’ sweetheart, singing up suppers from West to East? Did your journeying take you to far-flung places, to smell the aromas of the markets in Cairo, to stand, dwarfed by the pyramids of Giza? Did you travel stormy waters and feel the spray on your face? Did you stand beneath scorching suns or whisper in the wind as the northern lights spun above you?
I wish I could have been with you, wherever your life has taken you. I wish I could have held your hand when you crossed the equator, felt your body beside me as we stood on top of table mountain and felt the warm wind in our hair, wiped the tears from your eyes weeping over the beauty that was Rome...
But it was not to be; I chose the lesser trodden path, the road that took me far away from you and to places I would preferred to have never gone. I have seen sights that have made me glad that you weren’t with me, wept my own tears over things that were far from beautiful.
And through it all I have never forgotten you. Not for one second.
I turn away from the television and notice that your image is still reflected in the broken mirror that’s the only adornment in this crap hotel room. I turn away. Seeing your fame and fortune and contrasting it to my surroundings is just too painful. I walk to the bed, slump down on it and grab the bottle of gut-rot that I’ve smuggled past the porters. They’d prefer it if I drank in the bar and paid their prices. I laugh. I can hardly afford the room let alone food or drink.
I up-end the bottle and swallow greedily. The liquid burns and burns without destroying any of the images or the possibilities that may have been. If you’d turned and called after me. If you’d given a hint of … I throw the bottle towards the bin. It falls and rolls. I’m not a wasteful fool. I’d made sure that I’d drained it before I made my grand gesture.
I walk to the TV and pull the plug from the wall. The image of you fades in reality. Yet in my mind’s eye I see you there on the carpet of fame. Surrounded by glamour, riches and the most powerful people in the world.
I pull back the sheets and evict the ‘roaches that are startled by the light and angry that I’m ejecting them. But it’s my bed. I paid my last few bucks for it. And I’m not sharing it, not unless they’re paying their share.
I reluctantly climb into bed and pull the covers up. But not too far, nowhere near my nose: the smell of the bedding leaves a lot to be desired. The contrast with your life would bring tears to my eyes. That is, if I had any left to shed.
Sometimes, strangely, I become you and you me – and then I think of a different you, the way you were when a different I last saw you.
I will never forget the anguish on your face as we said goodbye under the same laburnum arch. I am haunted by that moment. Oh why did you not come with me when I asked you to? We could have travelled the world together and seen all the places I longed to see, with you. Oh yes I went to Egypt, the Arctic, Italy, India, Africa and many other places. I have seen all the great wonders of the world as I told you I would. But there was something missing all the time. There was a hollowness inside me. You were not with me.
Then I wonder what happened to you after I left. Did you start your own business? I expect you are quite rich by now, and settled with a family. I feel inner pain thinking about the children we never had. I can visualise you in a skyscraper building in London, your office high up, over looking the city below. You will be sitting behind a huge mahogany desk. There will be a plush carpet underneath and the walls adorned with expensive original works of art. I can see your many minions rushing around to do your bidding. You will go home in the evening to a large house in a leafy part of Surrey where your family will be there to welcome you.
As for me, I’ve had my own success in a way. You may have seen me on television reporting on the train crash in Germany, the earthquake in Turkey, the flooding in India and the car bomb in the Philippines. I am off to Afghanistan next month. My name and face are becoming well known. But like many reporters, I remain essentially poor and depressed. My only riches are the riches I find in the job.
Behind the animated and earnest face you see on the television is a lonely and isolated soul, yearning to see you again and forever regretting that moment we parted.
“What’s stopping you coming with me?” Rivulets of tears cascaded down. The last few days had been very uneasy.
“Everything, my love. I can’t tell you why but the reason is tearing me apart.” Guilt was in his eyes.
Any other time she would have enjoyed the scenery but the beauty of the pergola in the sun’s gaze was marred by that moment. She could have sworn a waft of whisky had come her way. “Was he drunk?” she thought to herself.
“So I’m meant to be left guessing. Is that fair? How can you do this to me?” She was racking her brains as to when he had changed. They had been having fun a week ago when swimming in the sea. That was before they had met that man in the hotel. Perhaps he was something to do with this? The two men did go off together a lot, leaving her alone sunbathing. She found lying in the sun tedious but there was little she could do on her own.
“I agree it’s not fair but if you found out the reason it would destroy you. I have had no choice. I desperately wish it hadn’t happened.” He riffled his hand through his hair. “Look I must go. I can’t bear to be in this situation. Goodbye my love.” He stood there for a few moments as if drinking in the scene, pretending it was a different outcome.
“Goodbye.” Her voice had turned colder as anger took over. Then reality hit him, his face crumbling and he rushed away from the laburnum arch, his sweat mixing with his tears. She then had to turn away as she couldn’t bear to watch him go. She secretly wished he would change his mind and come back. Pride stopped her from calling after him.
It was as if the two of them already predicted their own future thoughts about this monumental parting-of-the-ways from under the arch ... deep regrets that lasted forever, as they wrote each of their diaries or journals year after year, amid otherwise busy lives. Neither of them could quite give the other one up or even surrender hope of meeting again. They should have written, in their journals, about a strange third person involved in the parting, but neither of them did. Was this third person a catalyst in the loss of each other? Or a ghost? Or the thing that joined two pillars to make an arch?
In the centre of the far eastern desert township was an arch that met their gaze as the reporter and the cameraman arrived in the TV Company’s jeep. They were parched, the engine spluttering after the long journey, the cameraman still hanging out of the window ready for what he hoped would be the news shot of the year. The arch was, of course, not at all like the laburnum one many years before. It was a ramshackle contraption made from lumber and scrap metal that didn’t, at first sight, seem to serve any useful purpose at all. A few kids played around and under it, before scampering over in beggar-mode towards the jeep.
As the jeep drove off, the reporter turned around in the jeep’s seat for a further look at the arch. The watery shimmer that the hot air created now showed a figure within its ‘embrasure’ (for want of a better word when coming to write a jounal later that night).
The figure in the arch was not a child; it was a tall, blurry blackness against the dipped rays of the baking sun, swaying like a human-shaped willow-tree in the wind. But there was no wind. And, upon looking again, in an attempt to by-pass any mirage-effects, there was no longer a figure.
The reporter took the jeep, together with the cameraman, back to the village the next day. Nothing had changed; the hot wind still blew, the sand still moved and, in the heat, the arch shimmered.
The two of them sat together in what little shade was available from the courtyard walls and buildings. It was a good two hours, nearly mid-day, before any movement broke the stillness. The pair shuffled slowly along on their buttocks, following the shade. Unaccountably reminding them of the time they had swum together in happier times. Then they were never thirsty.
A hundred eyes watched them, the street urchin hiding in the compound behind them, two goats wandering desultorily along the street, and occasionally they thought they’d glimpse a figure in a doorway.
The sun’s power was waning when they got back in the jeep and drove back to their flea-pit of a hotel. Where they sang to their drinks.
Despite the absurdity of the quest the cameraman agreed and loaded his gear back into the jeep. They returned to the village around nine in the morning.
At midday someone offered them water. They saw no one else.
The following day no one offered them water and no one took any notice of them as the inhabitants went about their business in the heart of their war-torn country.
By the end of the following week the camels, cattle and sheep were back in the village. A market was held one morning. Food and water were shared along with chocolate, petrol and cigarettes.
Then it was gone.
They sat in the shade, waiting, camera at the ready.
The escort stopped outside the village and I saw you once more. You moved easily and they, like me, knew you’d see the arch and would not be able to resist it.
I have your death on film as the arch exploded in a sea of flame and acrid smoke. The Taliban made certain you would sing to only a heavenly choir now – no more troops.
Reporting restrictions will not be lifted. And no next of kin have owned up.
