Tollesbury Time Forever (7 page)

“I am off now, boy,” he said, lifting a heavy looking sack over his shoulder. From where he had got it or what it contained, I did not know, nor did I, at that moment care to find out. For my thoughts then were only of myself. What would I do here alone? Tollesbury suddenly seemed large and portentous.

“Oh. Ok.”

It was just like when I had left Julia.

“You may use this place for whatever you need. I will be back the day after tomorrow.”

Zachariah Leonard walked slowly away from me up the hill. And as his image began to merge with the haze of the morning, he stopped and called back to me.

“There are some clothes in my cabin, over at the back. You should wear them boy. You look ridiculous.”

And at that, he walked off purposefully in the direction of Tolleshunt D’arcy, the village some two miles east of Tollesbury. I watched him recede into the curve of the horizon, a shambling figure, literally disappearing from view. For all I knew, he had merely stepped off the low budget film set of my low budget life, changed into a pair of jeans and a cotton shirt and got the train home to his wife and children.

Instantly, I missed him.

So there I was, standing and staring into the great nothingness, the black shack behind me and the marshes before me. There was not a sound in the air, coming either from the heavens above or from the salty earth beneath my feet. It was as if I was in a photograph, caught and trapped within an invisible frame. It was an effort to move, though move I had to. But where to go and what to do? There was no way I could consider, even for a moment, all that had happened to me up to that point; it was all too big. To have pondered longer than a second upon my situation would have been to crumble.

Examining the shack was an obvious option. It was every bit as dirty and gloomy as it had seemed the night before, despite the absence of smoke and the presence of foolhardy sunbeams who peeked through the open door. Dust particles floated in the half-light. There was a dryness in the air, a hardness that crept from the walls, that served to constrict my breathing. Had I shouted with all my might, my voice would surely have sounded no louder than a whisper. I found myself moving ever so slowly as if Zachariah Leonard was still there, perched on his haunches in a corner, watching me, smelling me, bestial and unblinking.

I stood in the centre of the shack and listened to my shallow breath, waiting for my eyes to catch up. After some moments, I made out the form of a rectangular chest in the far left hand corner. I approached it and when I peered closer, it was most definitely just a wooden box. The word ‘chest’ would have implied entirely more grandeur than it deserved. I lifted the lid and saw within a neatly folded set of clothes.

There was a pair of trousers, or what I would come to know more correctly as britches, and a rough over-shirt made out of some coarse, heavy material. My lack of knowledge of all things textile has never been of great concern to me before, though it would have been pleasing back then to know just for what I was exchanging my faithful baggy jumper. The over-shirt was slightly too large for me and the sleeves only allowed for the protrusion of my fingers. I felt I would be rather too
warm in it if the weather continued as it had been, but it seemed I had little choice.

I put my discarded jumper in the box and closed the lid, leaving the britches inside where I felt they belonged. I would stick to my jeans for now.

As the beginnings of a smile began to form upon my lips, darkness entered the shack, an all consuming darkness that laid all to waste. A cloud must have brushed itself against the sun momentarily. This place was undoubtedly, in truth, a tomb, a coffin. Where only the previous evening it had seemed to me to be the birth of the working man, now it was no more than a creaking place of death. I shuddered a little and made for the dim light of the doorway. Had I stayed there any longer, I would surely have fallen to my knees in fear and horror for the gloom was so powerful, so awesome, it could have frozen your heart white and solid. Without its master, it was an unholy place indeed.

The afternoon lay before me. The marshlands bathed in the token offerings of the sea and the sun set itself in the blue of the Tollesbury sky. Was this the same sun and the same sky that had peered in on the darker moments of my life, that had just watched as I fell apart in stages, staggering about wayward and forlorn? Or was this literally a new dawn, a new beginning? Perhaps I was already dead and this was all just some sort of dreamy purgatory.

It was then that I felt momentarily immortal. A contradiction in terms you may think but that is the closest I can come to describing how I felt at that moment. I could not be harmed and death was nothing to me. These thoughts instilled me with confidence and courage – those two elements that I so lacked in everyday life. How ironic that they should have given themselves up to me only when I had decided to eliminate myself from this world.

I turned right from the shack and walked along the edge of the marshes, where one day the winding sea wall beside me would be built and re-enforced. There were all kinds of sailing vessels upon the Blackwater now, some heading towards the harbour and others disappearing into the void of the horizon,
off to Mersea Island or London or maybe even further. I had never realised how much a seafaring village Tollesbury actually was or had been, despite the fact that the Tollesbury village sign sported a sailing vessel. The estuary truly could have been the A12, so busy and urgent was it. As I approached the harbour, my soul was filled with humility.

The sound of reed warblers, dragonflies and reed buntings rode on the gentle breeze that caressed the land about me. There was a tang of acidity in the air and I could not help but sigh as I walked. The paucity of my pace was due not to any fear or inherent lowness of mood; it was merely that I was in no rush. There was no place I had to be. The chaos was gone from my world – it was just me and this beautiful Tollesbury day. It was as simple and as lovely as that.

And in time, I came upon several wooden boats bobbing upon the shallow waters, floating upon the very exhalation and inhalation of the living waters beneath them.
 

Thus I spoke to the sea:

“Let me breathe with you and feel your touch, let me be a part of you, let me be within and without you and may you recognise my presence upon this earth, though it be so insignificant when compared with your wonder.”

As I spoke those words, mad as they were, I knew I was in deep. So I did the only thing I felt safe doing – I just kept going, just kept going as Bob Dylan had taught me.

The day was warming and the sky was clear. The sounds of the sea and the land came together like gentle hands clasped and before long I had drifted through the marshes, and arrived at the meeting of a dirt track and the Blackwater. Such was Woodrolfe Road. It was then, as the openness of the area fell upon me, that I heard the laugh of an angel. It was such a combination of giggle and breathlessness that I had no choice but to just stand where I was lest I shatter the delicacy of the moment with my clumsy oafishness. I was entranced.

“Oh Adam, do not fret so! You did well! All will be good with you!”

The sweet voice followed the laugh, grew from it almost, a continuum of brightness and innocence. My eyes could not
help but alight upon its source. And I gasped; for a gasp is the response of the heart when the world either falls apart or falls perfectly into place. The thumping of my heart was a Ringo backbeat complete with grinning joy.

Seated on the ground some twenty yards from me was the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen in my life. At that stage, I could only see her from the side yet gorgeous was still the word that exploded into my mind. She just sat there, her right arm across the thin shoulders of a young boy. From where I stood, I could see him shuddering as if he were laughing; or maybe he was just as in awe of her as I.

“I shouldn’t have to keep telling you, Adam. You should know by now. I will give you the confidence you need if it be the last thing I do!”

The woman ran her slender white fingers slowly through the boy’s black hair and he bent forward slightly as she did so. I could almost feel her nails against my own scalp as I observed the scene before me. I touched the top of my head, breathed deep and found that my eyes had closed of their own accord. I smelled the fish and the hops in the air and took in the natural beauty of all that lay around me – the grass either side of the lane, the smoke from the cottages half way up the road, the dung from the horses even that were tethered to a wooden post just the other side from where this woman sat. All was beautiful, but the gorgeous angel whose voice charmed even the breeze, had heightened my senses, brought my soul to the surface of my being. Yet she was not even aware of my presence on this most magical of afternoons. I opened my eyes wide and vowed never to let them close upon this woman again.

It was the boy who first noticed me. He must have sensed me for I saw him flinch a little as he looked over his shoulder, past the pale neck of the woman beside him. It was the third time I had seen him. He had been there in the village square when I was hauled out of the lock-up and it had been he who had jabbed me with the stick before running into the distance. His broken teeth were bared in my direction and his
eyes were as dark as his hair. He whispered something into the ear of the beautiful woman and she turned towards me.

There was a pause in time. That is the only way I can explain it. The first moment I looked upon that face was akin to looking at a portrait in the finest of galleries. It was her fragility that first struck me. There was a grace about her, a gentleness that could only have been the product of a delicate but pulsating soul. No hint of the harshness of life emanated from her. She was all innocence to me. Her hair was so fine that I felt it would fall apart were I to touch it, those red yellow ringlets flowing to her shoulders like some rolling slow motion ocean of flaming wheat. Her eyes were blue green and her thin lips were red and glistening.

I knew I was staring. I just couldn’t help it. I gulped with what was left of the wetness in my mouth before drying up completely. She pushed herself to her feet, ruffled the boy’s hair and glided over to me. Her light skirt obscured her feet as it caressed the stony ground like a parting lover’s stolen kiss.

When she was within a yard or so of me, she paused as if listening intently. Even I could hear the rush of my breath as I tried to regulate it. Without a word, she reached forward with an outstretched arm, placed a finger beneath my chin and gently closed my lolling mouth for me. For the life of me, I do believe I leaned forward a little to allow her to do it. And then she smiled, not just with her lips, but with her whole being. It was as if the sun itself were breaking forth from within her. She warmed me to the point where a spark was lit.

“Hello,” she said softly. “You are new to these parts, aren’t you sir?”

I couldn’t speak.

“My name is Penny. Penny Shoraton.”

What a fool I was and what a fool I remain.

Penny Shoraton’s eyes surveyed me, as she smiled all the while. I knew she was peering into my very being. Still I remained silent. She had truly struck me dumb.

“I’ll just be over there,” she went on, angling her head to where the boy sat. He was just looking down ignoring the moment. As the words left her mouth, he began to beat
rhythmically upon a stone with a stick he held in his hand – tap, tap, tap. She sauntered back to sit beside him again and he put down the stick as soon as she laid a hand upon his head. She murmured something into his ear. He laughed out loud, looked over at me and leaned into her shoulder.

I took my leave of this incongruous couple and spent the rest of the day wandering around Tollesbury.

Eventually, I returned to the shack and rested. I lay down by the box in which I had found the clothes and pondered my situation. How easily I had come to accept this bizarre chain of events. The world had been simplified for me. It was nature and it was people. My life had been stripped down to what was real. I had been presented with the opportunity, goodness knows how, to start again, to understand life and my part in it. It was a reassuring feeling and one that I clung to through the darkness of that night.

Penny Shoraton came to me in my dreams, parading coquettishly through my fitful sleep. She swayed slowly at the forefront of my mind, skipping across the derelict plains of my heart and making herself at home in the deepest corner. Yet I awoke with a start as the night was at its blackest, thinking only of Zachariah Leonard. A sullen pain crept above my left ear. As I sat up, I rubbed the side of my head before putting my hand down to where I had lain. It was then that I felt the padlock. I had slept throughout with my head upon a door in the floor, a door just a foot square, bolted shut and secured with a small padlock, a door I had not noticed until that moment.

I wandered out and looked up at the Tollesbury sky. Those same stars I knew so well stared back at me. I felt comfort in their rigidity, a momentary relief in their permanence. And I stood there until the red sun broke once more across the endless horizon, wondering at the immensity of this world.

As I sat upon the sodden morning grass, gazing into the water of the marshland, two shadows fell across my vision. I looked up and there stood two figures, one short and one tall.

“Who are you?” I asked, addressing the black silhouettes.