by Sarah Till
CHAPTER 9
It wasn't difficult for me to acquire the bag lady aesthetics because I am naturally wanton. I've known it since I was a teenager, the sort of girl who already had a full, red mouth and long eyelashes. Even a dab of too-dark make-up could make me look a bit common. If I had a different temperament, fast, flirtatious, one for the boys, I could've used this to my advantage. My long curly hair was wild and wiry and difficult to keep under control. I'd cut it when I was eighteen, but shorter it curled into tight ringlets that even the hottest hairdryer couldn't straighten. So, I let it grow and smoothed it best I could.
I knew I had a wild look, a little out of the ordinary. It had drawn Stan, who, in the dawn of our relationship, had told me I looked like a gypsy. He quickly qualified this with 'in a good way' but he was right, I had a naturally scruffy look. I suited dark colours and long skirts, as well as trousers and red t shirts, but anything tight made my huge breasts look out of proportion. Later, on one of the few occasion Stan and I did have words, he called me 'over-sexual', asked me to try to curb my appearance, flatten myself down, tame my hair. I took to wearing loose dresses and flat shoes. Plaiting my hair and winding it around in a ball at the nape of my neck, but this made me look Latino and made my already full lips look fuller still.
At night, in the privacy of our room, Stan would watch me unwind my hair and I could feel his eyes on my body. Even though there was no physical contact between us, I always knew the attraction was there; maybe that's why I didn't leave. That, and Andrew. Now, alone at night in the shed, I'd brush my hair a thousand times and then let it spring back into the oily coils that not washing with shampoo caused. Salt and pepper grey, it's perpetually greasy, but strong and healthy. My clothes are sourced from rubbish bins and charity bags. I'd go out early on bin day and sort through the bags on the streets, to me it was like a visit to Marks and Spencer's on a Saturday afternoon. Perfectly good shoes and clothes, thrown out for charity. At first, I felt slightly guilty, but then I realised that this was the efficient way; cut out the middle man. I was the charity case at the end of the charity shop sort out, so all I had done was intervened.
I'd wash myself and my clothes under the hose pipe in the summer and in the winter, I’d boil the kettle and have a big-girls-wash. My clothes would have to wait. I'd pile them up until a decent day, then hose them down and hang them on the line. In fact, I'd hosed down some clothes and myself when I got home from the headland today, ready for my visit to Andrew's office tomorrow. I had to keep myself busy. On another day, the days I am not alone, this would have been different. Jer had his own ideas about decency and privacy.
The morning after I had slept in his arms in the cave, we both woke up early. The sun shone over the rocks and I instinctively knew it was early. Jer got up and went to pee, and I was just going to do the same when he appeared naked in the mouth of the cave. He strolled casually up to the fire and poked the dying ember into life with a stick.
'Everything's safe. Down there.'
He inclined his head towards where Macy and Daisy were, but I stared straight at him.
'So, are you going to get dressed then?'
He laughed loudly, and it echoed around the cave.
'In a bit. All in good time. Is that a Manchester accent?'
'Yes. North Manchester.'
'Ah. I'm from Near Northampton. Midlands way.'
There was silence as he walked around, boiling water in a pan for tea, and producing two tin cups for outside. I felt awkward and wanted to make conversation.
'So, how did you become a Hell's Angel?'
'Misspent youth tinkering with motor bikes and playing rock music. One thing led to another and before long I was drinking a pint of my own puke.'
'What?'
'Initiation process. They make you do all sorts of things. Stayed with 'em for years, got all the tattoos, but, like everything, it's got carried away in the hype. Too many rumours for my liking, so I split and just went on my own. It's just like my own little festival. All I need is a pair of headphones to play Led Zep, and Daisy.'
He did a little dance and his bits wiggled about. It made me laugh. I tried to imagine what had gone wrong in his world to make him live like this. Like me.
'So, what if anything happens to Daisy. If she breaks down?'
'Get her to a garage and work off the fee. Most garages are grateful for an extra pair of hands for a week.'
'Right.'
Tea's ready and I sit up.
'So how do you manage, Elizabeth? Food wise? Getting enough to eat, are you?'
'Yep. I've a garden where I grow some veg. Not enough, but it gets me through bad spells. I grow sunflowers. They're like a barometer for my soul.'
I flush bright red and wonder why I had said that.
'Do you? How is it?'
'Well, I usually don't know what day it is, I can tell the time by the sun and moon, but the sunflowers give me an idea of the time of year. It's easy, really. When their heads are full it's coming up to time to think about winter. Last year I used them as a marker for when I would have all this sorted out, but that didn't happen.'
'Maybe it did. Maybe this is the better thing?'
'No. I have a house, a son. I want all that back. If I could have that back I'd be happy.'
He thinks for a minute.
'But were you happy when you had those things?'
I strained to see myself with Andrew and Stan, a flat-shoed misery of a woman, afraid to do the wrong thing.
'Not really.'
'Then why look back? Look forward.'
We drank our tea in silence, him naked and me with far too many clothes on. Eventually he spoke.
'So, fancy a bubble bath?'
I laugh.
'How? Don't tell me you've got one of those as well in your bag?'
'No. Come on. Take your clothes off and you'll see.'
'Take off my clothes?'
'Yeah, come on, don't be shy. Take 'em off and hide them under the cammo.' Just over the ledge there's a natural cove, the tides just right now to wash in and out of it. Come on.'
'I don't know.'
'What's not to know? That's the thing. We're all the same underneath. All the same tackle. You can't possibly have anything I haven't seen before.'
I'd never been naked in front of a man before. Well, maybe once. But then again, I'd never met anyone like Jerusalem before. I stepped out of the grubby clothes and into the sunlight. Jer's body was full and stocky, his belly overhanging and covered on tattoos. His legs were skinny, and his shaved head slightly stubbly. He looked at me and I looked at the floor.
'Beautiful.' His hand went to my hair, and he pushed it behind my ears. 'You're a very beautiful woman, Elizabeth.' I was actually quite surprised at the pertness of my breasts, but it was quite chilly. My stomach was slightly pot and my legs a little bumpy, but all in all I wasn't bad. 'The Birth of Venus. Botticelli. The sea in the background. Your strawberry hair. Perfect.'
'Smooth talker.'
We set off running together but he beat me to the pool in the cove. It's hewn out of the rock by the tide, and the water was lapping over the top of it just now as the tide retreats. In a second, we were sliding down the smooth rock and surrounded by surf bubbles.
If there's one thing I remember about that day, it was that there was no real need to talk. No need to keep a conversation going, and no need to impress. It was easy, sitting there in the cool water, holding hands when the tide became strong. My feet would touch his but there was no need to pull them away. It was our spirits that were alike, both of us on our designated routes, our routines that took us through life; both our lives out of the ordinarily But Jer was keen to discuss Tintagel and the myths. I got the impression that I was the first person he had chance to share his knowledge with, and that it was spilling out over the edge of him to meet mine.
'Shame about this place, really,' he said, as the sun rose fully over the horizon.
'Why? It's so beautiful.'
'Yeah, but not unspoilt. All the King Arthur stuff, none of it belongs here. Maybe he was born here. But if that's true, and the legend is true, then Camelot was near Glastonbury. Surrounded by water in those days, the Isle of Glass, where Morgana hid in wait.'
I goose-bumped at her name and looked away.
'I've been there. With me Dad and Mam. To Cadbury Castle.' I remember that I'd wanted to tell him about Dad's find, all their excitement but something stopped me. Maybe I felt daft, or maybe it was something else. 'Anyway, it's human nature, I suppose. Trying to make a quick buck. My particular favourite is the Camelot Amusement Arcade. Or the Sword in the Stone car park at a fiver and hour.'
Jer didn't laugh.
'Sad. It really bothers me. I think the more I looked at the legend, the more I became to understand that it is just a story, but one with a deep meaning. Lots of people have made shit films about it, not to mention the recent rise of the Knights Templar again, but it's bullshit. The real roots of it were the quest for the Holy Grail. Some people don't think it was a real cup, the grail, it was a mis-translation.'
'Not real? I thought it was the cup that Jesus drank from at the last supper.'
He snorted.
'Yeah. But that could just be something from more recent. The way I see it is that could have been any cup at the time, because then, millions of people in the world didn't know who he was. At the time he would have been just an ordinary fella, Jesus, going about his business. Who bloody knew who he was? And it wasn't till hundreds of years later they made something of it. So, that cup is just a symbol.'
'For what, Jer?'
He was getting excited and his hands pinched at the water.
'The quest. That's what it was all about back then. The quest was for goodness. The quest the knights went on was for purity of soul, for a life that was free and happy, and without badness. Balanced and fair. Even intention to do something had to be pure'
I laughed.
'Well, the world could certainly do with balanced and fair.'
Jer was still serious.
'Yeah. It could. The only people coming looking for the Grail today would be interested in the price of bloody gold, not what it actually means. That's the shame of it. And the danger. But if it was real and anyone did find it, they would be made for life. Like winning the Lottery.'
I looked at Jer then and his eyes were shining. It was a sheen I'd seen before in my youth. He was staring over at the castle and then he looked at me, searching my face. We waited until the next wave had washed through the pool and then Jer spoke again.
'Anyway, that's pint pot philosophy. I guess you've had a bad time, Elizabeth? Because if you hadn't you wouldn't be here living like this? Family?'
I nodded.
'Mmm. Me and Stan...'
He held his hand up suddenly.
'Don't tell me. I think I know all I need to about you. That's what I was going to say. Don't tell me anything. The more you tell people, the more they know about your story, the more they judge you. And I don't want to judge you or you to judge me. I don't want you wondering if I've got a wife and kids, or an infirm mother, or thirteen cats. I just want us to be this to each other. Do you see what I mean?'
I nodded. I did see what he meant. I had wondered about his life, about where he had lived before, if there was a woman, but I did see exactly what he meant. I was kind of afraid to tell him about my past, about Andrew, and anything else that might fall out of my baggage.
'Yes. I do see. That's more than fine by me.'
He nodded slowly and smiled.
'You know how your Dad knew the Legends of Arthur? And I know a slightly different version?'
'Yes. And I read all the modern books about it.'
'Yes. Yes. Exactly. All about the same subject, but all different. Because they were all filtered through different things. That's how I see life, Elizabeth. If I told you my past, you'd filter it through you're your own history. Then you'd reproduce it as another, different story.'
I remember thinking hard for a moment, then jumping up suddenly.
'You mean that nothing is true?'
He laughed loudly.
'Yeah. There is no truth, just two people with opinions. So, everything’s a lie. Very deep man.'
We sat in silence some more, then he sat bolt upright.
'I know. So, we've both got something to remember, let's ask each other just one question about our past. That way, we can build on that when we're apart.'
I nodded and felt a little sad. This meant that he would leave soon. But I nodded still.
'You first then?'
He thought for a moment.
'Why Tintagel? Why here?'
For one second it tempted me to tell him the truth, but I held swallowed the story. It was too much to ask, too much of a burden. Top Secret. So, I told him a half truth.
'Well, I came here each summer with my family as a child. Something happened one summer, something that I've carried with me since, and I had to come back.'
'What was it? What happened?'
I smile.
'That's two questions Jer.'
'OK. OK. Your turn then.'
'Why Jerusalem? Is that your real name or...?’
'Yep. It's my real name. My grandmother was one of the original suffragettes, and the song 'Jerusalem' was their anthem. My mother loved the song so much that she looked at William Blake's poem and found that it was founded in the myth of Jesus coming with his uncle to England to found a new Jerusalem. At Glastonbury. The story tells that he planted a Hawthorne Tree there and brought the Holy Grail. The Isle of Glass, or Camelot. You see, Elizabeth, all the stories eventually join together is a circle. They're there for a reason. My mother worked as a cleaner. She used to sing it to me, it was the only thing that would send me to sleep. My dad left when I was six and we went to live in Glastonbury. She really believed that the new Jerusalem lay there. That song gave her hope to carry on with her life, it was her Holy Grail. She's dead now. Hasn't done me any favours, this name, though. Made me stand out as a kid, got me bullied. Which was how I ended up in the Angel's. See. Round and round it goes.'
Jerusalem had left by lunchtime and I had gone back to Coombes Cottage. What he had said had made such a big impact on me that suddenly I felt lighter. I didn't ask him where he was going, I kind of knew I wouldn't see him again for a while.
Sure enough, it was a month until he arrived back on the beach, then months after that. We'd lie together in the cave, not telling each other stories, just being, and it was as if I had begun to look forward. The main topic of conversation between us was the legends, Jer's thinking on the Grail stories, the future and years to come. Even last summer, when I saw that he had become an older man. Completely grey and much more wrinkled, he had told me that nothing had changed in his life and he would continue on this route as long as his body would let him. He told me not to look back, only forward, but I can't help it. Years have passed now since I moved to Tintagel. All that time I've been wheeling my physical life around in Macy. Carrying my emotional life around on my back, the weight lessening only on my daily visits to the headland and deepening each time I see Andrew.
I think about this conversation with Jer, about what people believe about Tintagel and the legends. Even he was animated and excited by them, as if they held something sacred. It couldn't be, could it? Was that what someone was after so desperately, had someone listened a little bit too closely to dad’s stories? He'd said that it was dangerous, making people look for it out of greed. The stories had turned my father mad, John bad, and tomorrow, when I go to see Andrew and tell him what I think, I'll see what effect they have had on him. Jer had told me his side of the story, how the real quest for the Grail had been one for goodness, but I knew only too well the flip side of good. I live the legacy of it every day of my life. Who's to say it hasn't turned someone into a killer? That longing to completely own something that you couldn't have? Like Mia Connelly said, someone else h
as something of theirs. Something precious.
As I climb onto my makeshift bed in the shed, I feel the first stab of anxiety about tomorrow. Until now there has been nothing solid to pin me to a day or a time, just an abstract ramble through my past every day, punctuated by Andrew and Jerusalem and different intervals. I've become used to the ease of doing nothing but walk around Tintagel, and Jer is right; I was successful. I can see the outline of the sunflowers, their heads still a tight ball. These are the future generations of the first sunflowers I planted here, tall and rough, some years stretching over the high hedge around the garden to reach more of the sunlight. This wasn't the life I imagined; the house is worse than ever, drowning in cobwebs and mould, the furniture under a fine film of white webbing. The windows are thick with dirt and there's an acrid smell of emptiness whenever the letterbox blows open when I pass. This wasn't the life I imagined, but I know I have made a success of it. Winters are hard, and yes, I'm afraid I'm going to die, and now that someone is going to murder me. But each spring is a joy and I still have my sanity, no matter what anyone says. No matter what I look like. I just have the small matter of someone trying to kill me, dragging up the past and making me feel scared to death.
Tonight, I am lying awake, wondering what the outcome of the meeting will be. I swear I can hear sirens, but I'm too afraid to get up and look over the wall. I distract myself by thinking about the meeting again. What can they do to me? They can't send me away from my own home, have me committed? Can They? I know I will have to go into town first and sign on. Then I'll go to see Andrew, see if he can tell me anything about why John and Dad wanted Mum's treasure. I fret a little that I won't be able to follow my designated bag lady route in future, stick to my routine, but resign myself to the fact that it's only one day. I haven't done anything wrong, not unless not combing my hair is a crime. Or wearing second hand clothes amounts to a felony. If the worst comes to the worst I'll have to stay in the garden and get my shopping from Padstow. But then I'm a sitting target for whoever is trying to get me. It's all mingling into one story that, at the moment, can only lead to trouble for me whichever way it turns out.
