Cryers Hill (33 page)

There are heaps of wild red poppies in the camp – and all kinds of wild flowers and trees in blossom, and there are walnut trees also. Just now clouds of dark blue butterflies appeared and then later on in the day hosts of lizards come out. If you are watching in the twilight you can see the quick-moving bats come out for the insects. So you see it is quite a paradise here! Rest camp, by the way, is another word (among our mob) for cemetery. But don't worry, I keep pinching myself, and I'm definitely not dead. Have to close as grub is up. How does it feel to be the most beautiful girl in the world?

Yours, Walter xx

M
ARY HATT WOULD
not have heard the news at all except for the fact that she wanted ribbon. Mrs Cleave at Scratch Corner had made a gift to her of some green ribbon when she'd heard about Mary receiving letters from Walter on active service. The airgraphs and letters looked smart tied up in this way and it had given Mary pleasure to see them in their little stack, each clasped to the next in a ladder of careful bows. But the unexpected arrival of Sankey's letter left Mary feeling inexplicably anxious, and she put this down to the absence of a differently coloured ribbon with which to fasten the new addition and the others that would surely follow. Mary was in no position to afford ribbon even if it had been off the ration, and Mrs Cleave's own precious ribbon collection had been tucked carefully away in tissue paper since her wedding day in 1926.

Mary's anxiety increased. She spent the morning with the land girls, outside and in, working, washing, clearing, airing the upstairs rooms while the sun was out. By two o'clock she was unable to think or sit or settle at all. She decided she would have to beg a small bit of ribbon from somebody or go mad with fidgetiness.

She had planned to collect some wild parsley in Gomms Wood for tea, but found herself walking too quickly and so by the time she arrived at Mrs Cleave's house, she was hot and breathless and unable to form a polite sentence or a neighbourly enquiry. Mrs Cleave was kind. She knew all the farming families hereabouts. She knew about Mary's lapses into strangeness. She made a pot of tea and produced a slim piece of red ribbon and Mary was finally able to say, 'Thank you very much, Mrs Cleave.'

Mrs Cleave didn't reply. A tiny clock on the mantelpiece sounded ting ting ting as though it were summoning elves. Mary drank her tea. She allowed the steam to prickle her nose and plaited the red ribbon tightly around her fingers until she felt sufficiently soothed to finish her drink without slurping.

'Walter has been killed, Mary.'

The words fell with the dust on to the sun-baked rug. They continued to fall, dropping out of order, until they began to form their own strange messages. Walter Been has killed Mary. Mary killed Walter Hasbeen. Mary Mary. Quite contrary. How does your garden grow?

'I know it's hard. Try to be brave. I'm very sorry, Mary, very sorry indeed.'

'With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.'

'Yes. It's hard. I know, Mary. His mother received the news yesterday'

I'm definitely not dead. How does it feel to be the most beautiful girl in the world?

'It was sniper fire, Hilda says.' Mrs Cleave's tears glittered. 'Very quick. They were on the move. They had just left a village and were moving northwards.'

Mrs Cleave stood to allow her tears to fall out from beneath her spectacles.

'I'll fetch you a handkerchief. I'll just go and fetch it.' And though Mary remained dry-eyed, Mrs Cleave rushed out to search for one. When she returned Mrs Cleave was startled to find Mary Hatt gone.

Here where we stood and kissed. Here where we chased. Here where you said my name. Here where we grew, me and you. Mary runs through Gomms Wood and the trees touch her as she goes. The breeze is mild and the trees tell her, Shush, shush, shush. They have seen it all before. Mary can smell blood in the woods, she is certain that is what it is.
Farm girls see more blood than soldiers.
Above her the clouds roll in the sky while beyond them the stars line up to burn their spoon, chair and bear pictures high in the black. Here (some say) is where your future is written, inside the gassy whirling patterns made by planets and stars. Here is all your bad luck, misfortune and ill gain, all spinning haphazardly in the dark.
You don't know nothing about blood and muck.
The trees cling and Mary runs. She runs until she hears her own heart bursting in her ears. As she reaches the farm track that leads to the lane she thinks she hears a cuckoo, and at precisely the same moment, Walter's voice. 'Cheerio, then,' he says. 'God bless. PS You're beautiful.'

Mary is not certain how she has slept. Perhaps she has not slept at all. She can feel the cool ground against her temple, grass on her neck. She has been listening to the cuckoo as it moved around the wood, but now there is no trace of it. She remembers a dream filled with shouts and a tall dark tree and a boy on a rock. But perhaps she was not asleep. Mary touches her cheek. It is puffy and hot. Her eyes are swollen and sore.

The pond, Mary sees, has become deeply green, bright-algaed at the edges and turning pewtery grey at the centre. Its soft surface is pinned here and there with sharp little insects. The biggest beech leans over until its towering reflection is returned with flattering watery magnification. A breeze moves quietly across the water; the reeds bow as it passes. Though she stands several feet away Mary can feel the pond's coolness on her hot skin. There is a smell, damp and sharp, the invisible business of disintegration and renewal.

Mary cannot remember the last time she and Walter came here. She can only remember him saying, 'Swim, swim, Mary Hatt, and I shall watch, like the king and the cat.' But she cannot remember how long ago this was. She remembers another time saying to him, 'Daft bugga, you,' because on that occasion, directly after she'd spoken it, he kissed her and she did not stop him.

The giant beech shivers and drops small pieces of itself into the water and waits while these leafy craft set sail. Through the smaller trees the evening sun sends flashes, spangles and bouncing discs of gold.

It is for you the nightingale sings her song.
Mary has it still, neatly folded in her pocket, taken long ago from his coat. Poop words; she has kept them just the same. Now it is all that is left of Walter Brown.

Mary watches her foot as it enters the water, impossibly white against the algae, completely disappeared now as the weed regroups over it. She will swim; he liked to watch her swim. The water will hold her and her thoughts will simmer down. Bathing is a tonic for the sick, that's what they say. He said he could watch her swim all day. She can see him; well, he always stood in the same spot, arms folded, squinting against the sun, half smiling. He never sat down for fear of staining his trousers. She looks up at the clouds. If he is gone somewhere on high then perhaps he will see her. Yoohoo.

Her clothes fall on the grass and she doesn't stop to see the dragonfly land on her cardigan. The air is soft and cooling on her skin. She ties her hair with the red ribbon, a bit of luck as otherwise the wetness will ruin the collar of her best blouse. Happenstance. One of Walter's words. He liked to say it: 'Mere happenstance,' as though he were speaking German. She ties her happenstance ribbon. If any living thing other than the giant beech had been watching, they would have witnessed the red flash of that happenstance ribbon as it entered the green pond, and immediately afterwards heard the splash of Mary's strong kick.

5th June 1944, C.M.F.

Darling Mary,

The corn is high, reaching my shoulders. It is being crushed under heavy armoured vehicles. It is possible to sniff rotting flesh. There are fields of vetch here just like the fields of clover in England. It is used as cattle fodder. Enormous fields of sunflowers too and the seeds are used for feeding poultry. Someone swore he saw an Italian milking a large dog – it must have been a goat. Four of our fellows were wounded yesterday.

You know, the fruit trees are lovely; pear, apple, peach, lemon, plum, apricot, and then of course the nuts and olives and vines – this country is blessed.

I had a dip in the Adriatic a few days ago, yes, me! The first sea-bathe for a year. I have no fear of water these days. Gee, kid, won't I be glad when this war is over. We seem never to have been out of the line for the duration and we are ready for a long rest. Funny, one lad said he'd be glad to get back to the front – it was too dangerous behind the lines, he said!

I have decided that when I come home I shall try to become a real writer, part-time for starters. I have so many plans. How about you? Will I be included in your plans, Mary? Don't keep me on tenterhooks!

We can have a happy life together, darling, I know that much. I promise you I shall write an excellent book one day, wait and see. We shall grow old together and be peaceful and content, and everything will be lovely and ordinary. I just want to come home and be with you.

I have some lava saved for you that I brought from Vesuvius. By the way, it has just started to rain here, turning the mud quite yellow. If I were to describe it (as a proper writer should) I would have to say it appears like saffroned porridge.

You say you are keeping these letters. What strange reading they will make for somebody one day, and somewhat dull I should say! Will you remember me to people? Frank and Joyce Wattings, I thought of them the other day, and the Deans and John Bain at the Royal and old George Osbourne and John, Ida and Isabel, and Mother of course. Tell them I'll be home soon. I think of Sankey often. I think of you always. You walk beside me, Mary. We are moving. I shall have to close.

In haste, I love you. You are the light in my life.

Yours, Walter xx

N
OWADAYS SEAN HAS
a desk with a lamp on it. His fingers touch the keys and the letters appear, one by one, and turn into words before his very eyes. True words these, for this is no liar alphabet.

Chapter Five.
This is the first time he has written about where he grew up; the housing estate, the tip, the pond, the woods, Ann. Wuns upon a tiem. He still has the yellowed newspaper story.
Local Tragedy.
And a photograph of her face before she died. Ann Hooper. First love lost love.

The published novels are on a shelf, smart in their book jackets. He is astonished when he sees his name along the spines. Inside, all the words are correctly spelled. Wur. Though spelling is not his strong point. In fact, he is an apauling speller. The characters who live inside his books, the nearly-people who walk and talk, stare at him from their respective pages. Wotcha, Spaz.

He can still picture people who are not there. He can still listen to them speak. They continue to live in his head, the people who are not real. They do not, however, stroll into his room and say,
Bludyell Sean crine out loud.
Not any more. They do not surprise him at the bus stop, or materialise in full battledress under the sycamore in his garden. He does not discover people out of photographs and letters smoking a pipe in his armchair.

He accepts the gone people are gone. There are no ghosts in Cryers Hill, he knows this. Only those who can't forget.

Sean is walking alone in Gomms Wood for the first time in twenty years. His father's funeral is tomorrow and Sean has returned to his childhood home. It is the same: the sun-lasered beech canopies, the birch and oak and tangles of bracken. He walks to the pond, where the bending tree continues to watch itself changing colour. He walks to the tip and discovers it is gone. He walks beside Cockshoot Wood where, once upon a time, there was a castle that was ruled by a ten-year-old queen, and up the estate hill to the Wilderness, but it is wilderness no more; it has been replaced by two identical box-faced houses. He walks and waits. But she is not here.
See ya, Spaz.

There is no trace of her. There is nothing left. Perhaps his heart is mended. Perhaps he has forgiven himself. At the Royal Standard he raises a coloured drink to the memory of his father.
The male, as tribe leader, remains superior to the female, even in death.
And he puts the past to rest. Sean no longer conjures Ann Hooper or Walter Brown. Nobody now lives in his mind's eye. He has let them go. Today his boyhood dreams are real. He is a cosmic traveller, a voyager in the bright universe. Small steps have become a giant leap. Wur.

Now is past – the happy
now
When we together roved
Beneath the wildwood's oak tree bough
And nature said we loved.
Winter's blast
The now since then has crept between,
And left us both apart.
Winters that withered all the green
Have froze the beating heart.
Now
is past.

'Now Is Past', John Clare

Between 1961 and the mid-1970s an educational experiment took place in the United Kingdom, sanctioned by the Conservative government of the day. Created during the 1950s by Conservative MP for Bath, Sir James Pitman (grandson of Sir Isaac Pitman), the Initial Teaching Alphabet would, it was hoped, revolutionise the process of teaching five-year-old children in Britain to read and write. The idea was to eradicate the inconsistencies found in the English language, making it less complicated for young children to master. The lack of a consistent code was deemed unnecessarily confusing:
through, though, bough, cough
were cited as examples. Consisting of forty-three symbols, each representing individual word sounds, Pitman's phonemic alphabet presented a logical code that disposed of the letters q and x, as well as capital letters, and enlisted characters from the Roman alphabet.

It was proposed that children would switch to traditional orthography (TO) at seven or eight years of age.

The experiment, begun in the Midlands, was implemented nationwide at pre-selected schools. There was no formal training for teachers beyond the optional one-day course, held initially in some areas. Teachers were required to learn the system in practice. Parents were not consulted regarding the experiment. More schools joined the programme in 1962 and 1963. By 1966 140 of the 158 education authorities in the UK taught ITA in one or more of their schools. The experiment was controversial and the scheme was accused of being mishandled and poorly organised. The unfavourable conclusions of the Bullock Committee proved to be the beginning of the end for ITA in Britain, and subsequently it was gradually dropped by schools throughout the United Kingdom. Support for ITA in the form of associations still exists in Australia and the USA (where it is taught remedially by the ITA Foundation).