Out of Time (5 page)

Sometimes he ventured further afield in ever growing concentric circles, exploring the terrain above the cave, familiarising himself with its teeming wildlife, trekking on one occasion as far back as the source of the stream. He felt exposed without the cave’s protection and hurried back. He spent many hours in which he did nothing but contemplate the shimmering land below while he tried to grasp the reality of what had happened. His attempts to find an explanation were futile. His situation was not explicable. He gave up trying.

One morning he woke to find that all his energy, all his elation, had drained away. He could not rise from his bracken bed, his limbs too heavy to move, his head throbbing with a dull, steady rhythm. Perhaps he was ill and was going to die in this lonely place. Would someone one day find his skeleton and wonder who he was? He contemplated the possibility without alarm. Suffocated by the immensity of his loneliness he could find no reason for the daily struggle to survive and marvelled at how energetically he had been labouring. What was it for?

He struggled onto his platform for a drink and to relieve himself - he had dug a loo up above under some trees but was too weary to climb to it - and noted vaguely that the landscape had lost its wild beauty. Its colours were washed away, the sky, the trees, the grass, reduced to a uniform grey. Joe crept back into the cave and closed his eyes.

He lay, half awake, half asleep for days without number, ate no food and now and then roused himself to drink. The fire went out while he stayed motionless, oblivious to his surroundings, absorbed by recollections from his past life replaying in a continuous, vivid loop with himself not as protagonist but as observer of friends past and present, now lost to him, of his mother. He thought about their relationship, conducted since his father left, in a pool of unspoken emotion. Unable to admit to their mutual feelings of loss and rejection, they took refuge in a sang-froid in which neither believed. He recalled with profound regret the rare occasions on which his mother had tried to break through the barrier he had erected and he had turned away, rudely rejecting her advances. The isolation that had been his choice was now his prison.

Above all, he thought about his father, a tall, comforting and exciting presence that had suddenly vanished, for whom he had felt at times a burning hatred, at others sorrow and love. His image, with the lengthening passage of time, had assumed heroic proportions. He would probably never see him again. Perhaps he would never see anyone again, not his mother, not his friends, not his home. Perhaps his life was at an end. Astonishingly, he did not care.

*

Susie is accustomed to her home imprisonment and she has learned to escape it by dreaming. She dreams of being out in the open, in the light, under the sky, the sun warming her skin. She imagines she is a bird flying over the land, away from this vile existence to a place where she will always be free, where there will be no evil men stalking her and her parents. She is frequently so absorbed in her wish-fulfilment that time passes without her noticing. It is a rude awakening to return to her real circumstances. But the mind is not easily imprisoned. They cannot put her imagination in chains.

*

A small white snail, leaving a sticky trail, climbed laboriously up a long stem of grass growing immediately outside Joe’s cave. He watched it obsessively, measuring its slow but steady progress. It took all day to reach its pinnacle and, having finally arrived, remained motionless. There was no discernible purpose to its laboured journey. Had it attained a goal invisible to Joe? It appeared satisfied with its minuscule universe, unaware of the giant eye observing it. So many universes for so many creatures. Was there a giant eye watching him? And if there was, was its owner responsible for his plight, was there some joker up there, laughing his head off? The thought made Joe angry and for the first time for days he sat up but the world spun round, for he still had eaten no food. He quickly lay down again and returned to contemplating the snail which, he now noticed, had several companions on the ground. Lucky old snail, he thought.

If this tiny mollusc could expend its energy and strength on the modest ambition of ascending the stem could not he, with his infinitely superior strength, rouse himself? He debated this coldly as though the problem were not his. It depended on how he evaluated his life, whether he considered he was worth the trouble or whether anyone, apart from his mother, cared. Did God, that mythical Being, love him or the apocryphal sparrow that lay dying in the street; did He care for the snail or was it acting of its own volition, for its own secret purpose? And what of the rest of the teeming life around him, the untold number of insects that scraped and burrowed under him every day, the worms that worked the soil, the thrush on the beech, what life force kept them going, what allowed them sufficient joy in their own existence? If a clue to these metaphysical problems existed he could not fathom it. He fell asleep.

But the next morning, with the first rays of the sun hitting the cave, with his thrush in full song, with larks rising, and kites and hawks planing the air currents in search of prey, the first stirrings of a sense of self returned. Joe crawled out of his cave and, holding onto the tree for support, stood at the edge of his promontory, a lone figure between sky and earth but no longer a lonely one. The world, which so short a time ago had been a place of desolation and despair looked new, pristine, washed clean. He felt its beauty and it pierced his heart. He had almost, with careless abandon, thrown it away. He thanked whoever was out there for this translucent morning, for the glorious revelation that life had to be cherished. It was all he had, and it was enough.

He did not, in the days that followed, go far afield but clambered up and down the cliff face, studying the tiny flowers growing out of its clefts. He admired their air of independence, a quiet assurance of their place in the abundant universe, vaunting an infinite variety of colour and form, some yellow thistle-like flowers, others pale blue miniscule snapdragons. Leaves in different shades of green grew everywhere; one long plant with seven thin sacks at each head sprouted red spiky flowers, reminding Joe of the structure of a virus illustrated in his science book. Ivy luxuriated where it could find a foothold and even where it could not, some dark green with six starred leaves, others a lighter shade, and over all the fresh, faint smell of mint and thyme.

He contemplated the shadowy valley below and in his imagination created a river flowing gently towards the ocean, a wide, light-reflecting shimmer, edged with reeds. He imagined plunging into its clear depths, he invested it with magic properties, with healing waters that would sweep away the stark images of his flight, he pictured beyond its far bank another land in which the privations and loneliness of the present would be banished. The mythical river offered a vision of Elysium, it promised salvation and hope.

He was not ready for the journey to reach it, did not yet feel the need to prove that it existed, that it was real. Through some deep connection with a mythological past of which he was unaware, Joe felt he must prepare for baptism in the river, to subject himself to a purification rite before approaching it. Unable to guess what this might be he waited, sensing that it would announce itself. It was enough that, for the time being, the river of his dreams flowed in his mind’s eye.

He stayed, and time ceased to have meaning, days passing without end, not in neat bundles containing allocated tasks punctuated by clocks, watches and bells. Here, in this cave, in this country time, like a Moebius strip, had neither a beginning nor an end, its passing relating not to an almighty clock but to his own perception. It was unquantifiable; there was night and there was day and there were moments of enchantment between the earth awakening and settling into sleep. Twilight and dawn. These were the only time keepers. He discarded his watch, a recent birthday present from his mother, placing it with the meagre reminders of home in the far recesses of the cave. Its best feature, a programme that recorded past, present and future for forty years - he would be fifty-seven when it ran out - had become irrelevant.

It rained all one day. Joe moved the fire under his roof and watched swathes of water cascading past him into the valley. The cave, though smoky, was warm and dry. In the evening the clouds lifted and the mist rose from the ground in tattered wisps, the refreshed land reflecting a sky striped green, violet and red. The invigorating smell of renewal went to his head like champagne and as he lifted his arms in a spontaneous benison a tremor started in his spine and an electric current sped through his body, leaving him trembling; but elated. Tears pricked his eyes. He wiped them away impatiently. He could not afford to weep.

One restless night an image from his childhood returned: a pile of hollow picture bricks, like a set of Russian dolls, one filling the other. But unlike the dolls they could be built into a tower, the biggest brick at the base, the smallest at the top. He had been building inwards. He must build upwards or else disappear. It was time to start on his quest to the beckoning river.

The next morning he woke before dawn and, purified by a cascade of water, dressed in his now ragged clothes. It would be the last journey for his trainers. They had done well by him.

The cliff was steep and difficult to negotiate, slippery with dew. The sun rose. Swallows circled, serkins and blackbirds, bullfinches and yellow hammers, the whole host of creation was awake on this translucent day. Looking up from the valley floor he could barely make out his tattered T shirt, placed as a marker on the longest branch of the beech. He built a cairn of stones at the point of his descent and forayed into the prickly bushes, trees and saplings, that formed a barrier between him and the river of his fantasies. Using his penknife, now sadly reduced, he hacked a way forward, stopping only at midday for some morsels of dried rabbit meat he had brought with him. He had no water and his river, if it existed, was too far to reach on this first day. In the evening he trekked back and scrambled to his eyrie, exhausted but triumphant. The journey had begun.

He returned the next day and the next, cutting an extending path. He stopped the first night in a small clearing and lit a fire. He felt exposed but not overcome; indeed, nothing disturbed him except passing deer, wildlife rustling in the undergrowth, midgets and mosquitoes descending on his skin. Did they presage water? This he fervently believed and he pressed forward next morning with the first sunlight.

It was not until the second day of his journey that the river of his longings lay before him, neither a mirage nor a figment of his imagination. It existed, it was real, surpassing in its tranquil beauty. It seemed to an exultant Joe that he had waited an eternity for this moment, that this God given expanse of water would, like the Red Sea, part before him. He ran forward, ready for a baptismal plunge into its waters.

Far to his left came a piercing cry. Joe stopped his headlong flight and turned. Nothing moved. It came again, then faded. All his elation gone, Joe waited, vulnerable in the lone landscape.

But when he dived in, the water washed away all fear. A flock of widgeon took off into the air, whistling loudly. Red breasted geese, shelducks and mallards scattered, disturbed by this strange creature. On the bank, two black cormorants hung out their wings to dry in sun and breeze. Diving, floating on his back, looking into the sky and at the soft outlines of the hills on either side, Joe twisted and turned in the clear water, splashed arms and legs, followed small schools of fish swimming with the flow. Finally exhausted, he waded to the bank. Bulrushes and reeds flourished and to his surprise, tall all embracing willows trailed their fronds in the water, giving the wilderness the ordered look of a suburban riverside garden.

The river was wide, far wider than in his dreams and the current ran strong. On its further bank the land stretched flat and overgrown to the foot of the next hills. It would take several days to reach them once he had swum across.

He returned to the cave in time to find shelter from a thunderstorm. The sky turned black and banks of dark cloud rolled across the heavens, lightning flashed and wind-swept rain invaded the cave, pushing Joe into its innermost recesses. By evening it had cleared but the next day the temperature dropped. Joe waited for the hot, sunny days that had distinguished the summer but they did not return. Morning and evening he caught the sharp chill of the coming autumn.

It was time to leave and to consider how to survive the winter. He had only his Gap jumper with which to ward off colder weather. At least he had rabbit skins. The rabbits had grown wary of him and were increasingly difficult to catch. Joe had abandoned the net and devised a sling, using gut as string. With practice he was able to hit and stun prey from several yards away. Now he calculated how many skins he needed to make a jerkin and a pair of shoes. He caught eight rabbits with difficulty over a period of two days, hung the meat and spread the skins to dry.

Travelling constantly to the river he managed to cut the journey down to one night’s stay either way. He built a permanent bivouac, strengthened his swimming and explored the river’s banks. He saw a herd of cattle come down to the water, dun coloured, long-haired. The bull looked fierce. Joe kept out of its way. He saw reindeer coming to drink, he watched kingfishers skimming the water, their brilliant blue flashing in the sun, he came to know the profusion of wild life, otters, beavers, water rats, that made the riverside its home.

Then one day, clearly imprinted on the sand, he saw footsteps.

Joe hurled himself into a bed of nearby reeds. A female teal, disturbed from its nest, scuttled away with a cry. He inwardly cursed it and himself for carelessness for it would give away his position. Joe crouched, immobile, ears strained to catch the slightest sound. Nothing stirred, only the insects humming in the still air. He parted the reeds and, heart beating, crawled out.

‘Hello,’ he called.