I Can't Stay Long

by Laurie Lee

  First there is a hundred miles of howling void, a desert of nothingness about which nothing is known. Then, out of this steamy untracked wilderness, the city of London raises its scarlet towers, floating in space like an enchanted island. This London, of course, with its hollow, drum-like name, is neither England nor abroad but something on its own, a walled fantasy of remembered tales. Within its limits stirs the greatest concentration of life ever to have been witnessed by human eyes. A roar is heard, as of a great pot boiling, chimneys pour sulphur into the heavy sky, banners and gory heads droop from the walls, and the streets are full of crusaders and crooks, poets and pick-pockets, and slit-eyed Chinamen smoking opium on the pavements. It is neither night nor day here, but a rouged perpetual twilight, during which several notable calamities are all happening at once. There are at least a dozen houses on fire, all burning merrily. A plague cart of corpses creaks its way to the river. A policeman drops into a sewer after a spy, while a heretic roasts slowly on a spit nearby. Buses, horse broughams and Roman chariots jostle each other on the crossings; pale queens in black ride weeping to the Tower, and large on a rooftop, livid against the sky, a headman fondles his shining axe. London, in fact, is neither place nor city, nor the abode of mortal men: it is a depository of fact and drama, a rag-book history lying in the flames, its black charred pages turning slowly.

  But leaving London and striking far afield, we are next confronted by the hot damp wastes of Africa. Africa, to my eight years’ eyes, is no more than a tangled trail through a forbidden wood, but limitless in length, a sick green country of apparitions, a hunter’s hell and paradise. One hacks one’s way through tunnels of wild gooseberries, through barbed-wire tangles of bleeding briars, through fevered banks of nightshade. The pathway is stamped with fearsome tracks and throbs with drums and headache. Coils of black snakes unlace one’s boots and the wet tongues of crocodiles lick one’s blistered feet. All the animals of Noah beset this Afric path: their eyes in the undergrowth ripen like poisoned berries, their teeth shine like thorns, their voices scream and chuckle. Huge elephants flap their rhubarb leaves of ears, rhinos raise oak-tree snouts out of the swamp, the sky is black with leaping apes and leopards, and a jaguar, growling in his hole, sucks the warm juices from a hunter’s head.

  This Africa is a test for heroes, hostile, deadly, reeking of fangs and fevers. One never travels here except with a sense of mission, to effect a rescue, to explore new territory, to find a new mountain or an ancient treasure. Again there are no visible distances here, only the narrow trail and the taunting jungle. And night and day one travels it alone, feeling neither hunger nor exhaustion, conscious only of the threat in every leaf, the pitiless continent hungering for one’s bones.

  But worse than the bare-toothed beasts in the undergrowth, worse even than the Druids back home, are the multitudinous bushmen that infect one’s path. They come at you from all sides and in all sizes – knee-high pygmies blowing darts, Congo-cannibals with poisoned spears, bouncing Bantus with butchers’ knives, and giant Zulus dressed all in blood and feathers. They hunt you tirelessly, abandoning everything to the joy of the chase. They taunt you with drums and lead you into swamps hissing with adders. They hang from the trees and whisper in your ear, promising you untold torments. And finally they surround you, their eyes in every bush – and you know at last you are trapped.

  But the beauty of this great Africa – so large it seems to cover half the world, so full of threats of unspeakable deaths – is that as soon as things get too hot for you there is always a pathway down which you may turn to arrive back home in a couple of minutes.

  Let us leave Africa now to its solitary hunters, to its lizards, rocks, and monkeys’ tails encircling the moon. The cannibals lick their lips and steal away, the death drums fade, the lions yawn and sleep, made fat on our lost friends. But we are alive, and the world waits, and Africa will keep.

  For next to Africa we have the Sea, that great surge of adventure, that deep blue space among the islands, through which we sail on an upright elm tree, peering high from its topmost boughs for pirate sails and serpents. The seas of the world are legends through which we ride immortal. Here we assume the mastery of our fates, climb rigging, give orders, sail nowhere, and clash continually with passing ships in brave and bloodless warfare. In these deep waters, storm-whipped and mountain high, ships sink but to rise again and no one ever drowns. Enemies may be bound, blindfolded, cast overboard and fed to the fish, but they always reach the shore alive, or return to fight again. And disasters here are like bank holidays, frequent but never fatal. Whales and sharks seize vessels in their teeth, crush them like biscuits and tear them like paper bags. Rocks writhe like living beasts to impale one’s timbers. Volcanoes open in the waves to engulf one with steam and fire. Yet somehow one always escapes scot free. For this sea is a friendly monster, designed only to excite, and after each calamity the waves are dotted with the rafts of mariners happily drifting home.

  Beyond and among the seas lie the countries discovered by my uncles. One is India, another the Arctic, and they both lie cheek by jowl. India approaches in the shape of a jewelled elephant, with a tiger on its back. On the back of the tiger rides my Uncle Charles, fighting the beast with his bare hands. I am glad to see him and in no way surprised at his occupation, for his great brown hands were made for fighting tigers. He is as good as a circus, is Uncle Charles, and his tough, leather-skinned body is tattooed all over with exotic fancies. Cobras are coiled around his arms, there are palm trees and temples upon his chest, birds and flowers climb up his back, and a half-clad dancing girl writhes on the mobile muscles of his belly. He is a king of India, tamer of elephants and rider of wild black horses. His friends are the dark magicians who live in the sandy caves. They produce bells out of the air, swallow smoke and flames, beat drums, sing, and run swords through their bloodless hearts. This India is more fun to be in than anywhere else. It smells of hot tea and pepper, and everything one sees is a conjuring trick. Snakes dance to music, cows wear beads and speak, hawks fly to your hand with rubies in their mouths, and the wildest tigers, at a word from my uncle, immediately become hearthrugs. It is a good place to be.

  Nearby, in the Arctic, I meet another uncle, who is squat, hairy and old. It is a white place here and sparkling cold, for this is the storage house of all our winters and all the frosts and snows of the world fly here when the thaws set in. My arctic uncle has silver whiskers and is dressed like a bear. He cuts holes in the ice and pulls out shining fish. When he speaks smoke pours out of his nostrils, and standing in the snow he looks like an ancient photograph, smudged black with lines and creases.

  I like it in the Arctic for it is white and curved like the top of a balloon. Through the ice one can see the broad brown faces of Eskimos, smiling and eating candles. Polar bears, like snowmen, swim around under water. There are dogs and wolves and houses of ice like bells; but the best of this place is the abundant cold and the fact that one is higher here than anywhere else on earth.

  As for the rest of the world it is spread out thin, more distant, and rarely observed, lacking in uncles. There is Australia, of course, where men and rabbits walk like flies on the ceiling fields. There are the underground regions, full of molten fire and skeletons. There are islands of golden sand, covered with bananas and liquorice, mountains gashed by stars, deserts of storm and whirlwind, lakes full of billowing princesses and giants with hands like trees.

  The furthest countries are the best and most fearsome. In far-off Spain for instance they will nail you to the wall, screw diamonds in your eyes and give you hot gold to drink. In America they slice off the top of your head, or slash your veins and call you brother. In the jungles of Peru they make you King, fall down and worship you and feed you on roasted flies.

  But beyond all these we come to the edge of the world, and the grass-grown cliffs drop sheer into the dark. Comets and stars roll musically by, and every thought has wings. I am armed now with a spaceman’s eyes, with the nerve of
a god and the hopefulness of angels. I have renounced all human associations. I am the Solitary, shining with light and power. The world is behind me. The garden path leads outward to the moon, and I have no idea when I’ll be back.

  A Drink with a Witch

  It was the brightest day of July, and at no time during the encounter did the light diminish or one cloud obscure the sun. Yet at four o’clock in the afternoon my tongue went dry and my thumbs pricked, and looking into her eyes I smelt wet crows, midnight and burning; and I knew I was with a witch.

  It was not far from my home – or what remains of it – in a steep Cotswold valley; a fold in the limestone hills where the summer vegetation grows with all the matted fierceness of the Burmese jungle. Everything there seems more livid, greener, and more exotically lush than is decent to the general herbaceous smugness of the English countryside. In that valley wild parsley sprouts head-high, bearing great branches of sickly flowers that throw a dizzying fume into the nostrils. Garlic sprawls rank and oniony in the woods, orchids and fungi smoulder among sweating roots; elder-blossom piles up on the hedgerows like a hot-smelling snow; and the lakes, cloaked with green weed and pinned with dragonflies, break here and there with clusters of huge lilies that jag and sparkle like underwater explosions.

  This valley is nameless and leads nowhere. There is one yellow road which dies early, and from there on only a grass-tufted cart-track winds among the rabbit warrens and flowering brambles. There are badger-runs in the brittle grass and in scattered quarries you will find the earths of foxes. Owls sit in the tops of the elm trees, snoring like pensioners in the sun, and water-otters, as smooth as seals, slip silently into the deep, shaded streams. You will find little other evidence of life up there, save for one broken, tile-spilling farm, inhabited by a bearded melancholy bachelor; and half a mile away – at the farthest fold of the valley – the tiny chapel, buried in its jungle.

  This chapel had been deserted for as long as anyone could remember. When I was a boy, inspired by its rainbow-glass and vaulted roofs, we used it for several gaudy purposes: mock marriages, mock funerals, various initiations of which I can no longer speak, and once (oh, ghastly, unmentionable day) for the disposal of a dead cat we found lying there.

  It was for the purpose of visiting again this unhallowed place that I was journeying that particular afternoon up the green, hot, seething valley. I had not been there for ten years, and as I pushed my way deeper into the tangle of brambles, I felt slightly affronted by the sight of the sprawling, insect-ridden wilderness. Each and every landmark we had made our own – Crusoe’s cave, the path of the Blackfeet, the killing oak where we crucified our enemies and ate their heads with boiled potatoes – all were obliterated by a surging, indifferent tide of green.

  As I skirted the ruined farm, however, I saw something which we, as children, had never been lucky enough to see. A white bullock, with black horns, lying dead under a wall.

  At first I thought it was merely asleep in the sun, but as I approached I realised that this was not so. A buzz of flies circled its staring eyes and its pink tongue lay motionless between its teeth like a bitten rose. It was dead all right, and I left it with a faint, sinister feeling of privilege.

  It was about ten minutes later, when I was clearly within the vicinity of the chapel – but lost – that I came upon the woman. I was stumbling about in the thicket of rank-smelling nettles, searching for once-known paths, when suddenly a creature rose up from the green-spiked depths like Venus rising up from the sea. I say Venus, because she was golden and unusually beautiful. She was about thirty years old, but much clearer in skin and more monumental in figure than the usual valley woman (whom the damp seems to smother and the steep hills to stunt). She had thick yellow hair, blue eyes, pale lips like alder leaves, and a long dress of yellow hessian tied round the waist with rope. Her cheeks and arms were yellow with dried earth and she clutched a few green weeds in her fingers.

  We eyed each other in silence for a moment across the summer nettles; the valley rang with water and pigeons shuffled in the trees above. Then I said ‘Good afternoon,’ and she nodded.

  ‘Where’m ye from, then?’ she asked, not shifting her gaze. Her voice was deeper than hereabouts.

  ‘From the village,’ I answered.

  ‘Did ye see ought a me beast, then – alive or dead?’ she asked.

  I thought of the bullock, but for some reason I felt compelled not to mention it.

  ‘I saw no beast,’ I answered.

  She took a deep, convulsive breath, and looked at her hands.

  ‘It’s ’is wireless then,’ she said. ‘ ’E thinks ’e’s cotched me wi’ it. But I’ll beat ’im.’ She tapped a locket of grilled silver that hung round her neck, and smiled to herself. It was a peculiar smile, slow and clear, like one who smiles asleep. I could not imagine what she was talking about so I began afresh.

  ‘I came to see the chapel,’ I said, ‘but I don’t seem to be able to find the path.’

  ‘There ain’t no path,’ she said, then looked at me slyly. ‘Save where me beast goes – an’ ’e don’t show, do ’e?’

  I looked about the green, enclosing weeds, and said ‘No.’

  She tucked a handful of plants into her waistband and turned her back on me.

  ‘If thee’s want to see the place,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘come, I’ll show ’ee. There ain’t no law I know of.’

  She pushed her way forward and I followed, and the nettles and parsley closed behind us like a broad, foam-crested sea. The chapel appeared suddenly on its bank, pointing up among a tangle of dog-roses. Outside the door stood a crooked crab-tree, thickly furred with lichen; and from one of its branches hung a harp.

  The woman stood under the tree and looked up at it. The heavy shadows of the leaves fell over her face and body like a shower of black feathers. I could not think why I had never heard tell of her before. Strangeness and fascination began to creep over the surface of my skin.

  ‘Do you play the harp?’ I asked. She glanced at me sideways through a coil of hair.

  ‘Aye,’ she said harshly. ‘By wind and wireless. When things be what they seem, ’e plays all right.’ She swung round on me and raised her voice. ‘You says you’m never seen ought a that beast. We’ll find out, feller!’

  There was not a breath of air in the valley, and the gold dust from the apple boughs stuck in my throat like pepper.

  ‘You give me a drink and we’ll talk about it,’ I said.

  The woman looked at me up and down, then turned to the chapel door and beckoned me inside.

  There was the one bare room as I remembered it; the vaulted roof and the stained glass windows blazing. The sun threw the figures of saints like lantern-slides against the walls, and the woman, as she moved about before me, changed from blue to purple, from green to burning rose. Occasionally, like a mystic translation, the ghostly glowing face of some bearded prophet lay superimposed upon her own, and she looked at me with double eyes, through double features.

  As I suspected, she lived here. The place had been cleared of its fallen stones. There was a brass bed, a table, jars of green water, a bucket of dried weeds, and a radio with a horn.

  The woman told me to sit down, and poured me a cup of something from a jug. Then she placed a plateful of tiny strawberries before me and settled herself at the table. She grew suddenly arch, like a suburban hostess.

  ‘Ye’ll fancy a little wine on a hot day,’ she said, patting her hair. ‘It’s ripe wine, kept long, and I makes a good brew, though I sez it.’

  ‘What kind is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Bee-orchid,’ she said. ‘You’m never tasted that afore, I’ll warrant.’

  It glittered in the cup, transparent, cool, the colour of emeralds. I took a deep breath, and a gulp, and its taste was unearthly and undefinable. It was also very strong, and went immediately to the eyes. The room began to rock and smoulder and the woman to burn like a golden brand.

  ‘Tell me of me beast!�
� she commanded suddenly, dropping her mincing manner. ‘None sez they seen ’im, live or dead. But ’e ain’t fer. I took’n to browse this marnin’ an’ ’e was ’arty. I looked for’n at noon, an’ ’e was gone. You seen ’im, feller? Tell us, now.’

  Among the hazy chapel fire that surrounded her, her eyes were blue and brilliant as ice. I was helpless, and I told her. ‘It mayn’t have been your beast,’ I said. ‘But he was dead, under a wall.’

  She was rocking in her chair, her hands clasped tight.

  ‘It’s that whiskered chap up at the farm,’ she said. ‘ ’E’s been at’n – that I knows. ’E thinks I bled ’is pigs. But we’ll beat ’im.’

  ‘How could he have done such a thing?’ I asked, not knowing rightly what he’d done.

  ‘ ’E works the wireless on me,’ she said. ‘But I know when ’e’s at it. ’E can’t begin a-twiddlin’ but I knows.’ She nodded across at the radio with its ancient horn. ‘That tells when ’e’s workin’ on me. But I got one ’ere that’s stronger every time.’

  She put her fingers to her throat and raised the locket before her eyes, caressing it like a jewel. She suddenly looked very old.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll not show thee,’ she said. ‘But ’e’s a strong ’un. ’E guards my beast agen ’em all.’

  ‘But your beast is dead,’ I said. ‘It’s a great pity. But no doubt you’ll get compensation.’

  ‘Aye, I’ll get me compensation!’ she cried. ‘Beasts do live as are dead – an’ them that lives can die. That whiskered un up there, wi’ ’is sick visage – ’e’ll know. ’E’ll not work no more on me, not wi’ all ’is wirelesses. Look ’ere, feller – d’ye want to know what this’n be? ’E be stronger than all. An’ if things be what they seem, ’e’ll show ’ee.’