Sands of Time

dog to walk over poisoned ground anyway? So footpath 29 lay for the most part unvisited – except by Joe.

Thus it was that he was quite alone when he strode the path two months after Christmas on a clear bright day after a week of violent February gales. He walked slowly along the muddy track alongside the nature reserve, admiring its neatness, the straight clean edges of the ditch where someone after his own heart had trimmed the dead wood back neatly and removed the unsaleable remains of the holly which Joe had tossed over the ditch into the wood to make sure that the path was unencumbered. Standing under the overhanging branches of an ancient oak, safely rooted on the far side of the ditch, he did not look up to admire its grace and stature and thus did not see the huge bough, detached by the gales, hanging precariously over his head. That it chose just that exact moment to fall was of course complete coincidence.

Maureen was visiting the kids that weekend so there was no one to miss him. He came round once or twice, lying on the path, gazing up at the beauty of the huge tree under which he lay. It swam in a mist, from time to time seeming to dance slowly in a graceful pirouette, and from time to time he thought he saw faces peering at him from among the branches. It grew dark early at that time of year and as the hazy sun set below the rim of the field the temperature began to drop sharply. With a smile he closed his eyes. In the morning he would have to see to it that the fallen bough was sawn and the path tidied otherwise someone might trip over and hurt themselves.

It was three days before they found him. The village was sorry for Maureen of course. One by one they called to see if they could help and almost immediately she found herself at the centre of conversations in the post office. Once she began to get over the shock she mourned Joe, of course. But the man she mourned was the man she had married before the obsessions set in. She was, she had to admit, secretly glad to be free of him. And suddenly she felt for the first time at home in her own house. She began to feel as though she had lived in the village forever and at last she was confident that she could ask people home. When they came for coffee or tea there was no sign of any Ordnance Survey maps; no flags or pins or fluorescent pens. Around the lawn she had planted a holly hedge and that spring, out on the fields, nature began to grow back. The tree stump in the middle of the path near the nature reserve had already thrown out one or two small green shoots. No one would ever cut it back again. It’s unlucky to cut down a holly.

Sacred Ground

Somewhere in this field there is sacred ground.
Beneath the plough, the hooves,
the combine harvester,
the uncaring plodding feet,
there is a place where our ancestors
six thousand years ago
buried their dead
within a circle
sained by their priests
for all eternity.
There is no sign now of what went on.
Of the ceremonies or the prayers,
except
for a slight catch in the air,
a silence,
a space around which pipits circle.
High above, the jet plane does not know it is
dissecting sacred space.
Thousands of feet up, the prayers have dissipated
whisked onwards to the stars;
or whipped to nothing in the wind.
The gods have been down graded.
They have decamped to the edge of the field,
to a tiny copse which overhangs a stream.
Drowned by the gurgle of water
and the rustle of leaves
they are unheard by all
but those who look for them.
And listen.

Damsel in Distress

For the first ten miles she had still been crying, angrily scrubbing the tears from her cheeks with her sleeve as she swung the heavy old car around the narrow bends of the country lanes, thoughts of Murray and what he had done reverberating round and round in her brain.

It had not occurred to her to wonder, when she reached the lochside cottage in the early hours of the morning, just whose was the MGF tucked so tidily into the layby behind Murray’s Saab. She had cursed that her customary spot was taken and driven a few hundred yards on down the lane to the next field gate and left her own car there. That was why, when she arrived, hefting her overnight bag over her shoulder, they hadn’t heard her. Why, when she pushed open the gate, turned up the path, let herself in, and run up the narrow wooden stairs no one had realised that she was coming.

She dropped her bag in the doorway and headed in the dark for the bed. ‘Murray! Surprise! I managed to get away!’

It was only as she held out her arms and threw herself towards him that Murray had woken and gasped and reached for the light switch. The woman in bed with him was blonde, at least ten years younger than Ruth and even in that state of surprise, dishevelment and fear, a stunner.

For what seemed like a whole minute the three of them stared at each other in silence, then all three moved at once, the unknown lady to pull the sheets over her head, Murray to reach for his dressing gown and Ruth to turn and run back down the stairs.

Outside a huge full moon had risen over the hill behind the cottage. The silver light flooded the garden and the lane and down across the loch as she ran back towards her car.

‘Ruth!’ Murray’s voice was close behind her. ‘Ruth, darling, wait. I can explain!’ – the words used so often over countless generations by husbands who thought they would never have to say them.

She ignored him, blundering between hedges full of honeysuckle, alive with pale moths, and grabbed at the handle of the car door. For a moment she struggled with it, forgetting she had locked it, then she fumbled in her pocket with shaking hands for her keys, realising as she did so that she had left her bag where she had dropped it on the bedroom carpet.

With a sob she dragged open the door and letting herself in she stabbed the key into the ignition. Behind her Murray had found some shoes for his bare feet and was running up the lane towards her. She slammed down the door locks as the engine caught and throwing the car into gear pulled away, leaving him clawing at the empty air behind her.