He scrutinised each of the walls, searching for what he needed. Empty, the space would be large enough to house two small cars. Since he only required room for his own car it would be enough to tidy all this stuff to one side. That would mean moving that thing under the tarpaulin ...he pulled the cover off to reveal a small dog cart. It was a pretty little thing, decoratively painted with white and yellow daisies on a blue background. Covered as it had been in the dimly-lit shed, the paintwork colours were as bright as the day they had been applied, but it looked as if mice had nibbled through the leather of the padded seat and set up house in the wadding. Bits of horsehair and old cotton filling were scattered over the seat and floor of the cart. Someone had set the cart upon blocks under the axles, presumably to preserve the rubber tires from perishing. Hamish reached out and spun one of the wooden spokes to check ...the wheel turned easily and the rubber looked good. He had not expected the carriage house to actually live up to its name, although this little cart hardly deserved the title ‘carriage’...having about as much in common with the it’s contemporaries as a doll’s push chair had with a full-sized perambulator.
Still, this wasn’t going to help move anything. Hamish peered into the dim corners...there, just what he needed..., leaning against the far wall beside some sacks, with the last sack still on it. Hamish checked the contents of the sack before deciding what to do with it ...it was full of clay, as were the others in the pile beside the barrow. Though the contents had long dried out from years of sitting disused, it would still be perfectly good for working with, once remoistened.
He studied the bags of clay, thinking. He hadn’t worked with clay much since his time spent at art school but it was a medium that he’d enjoyed and the chicken mesh and coils of heavier wire sitting next to it had given him the germ of an idea. He hefted the sack on the barrow outside, leaving it next to the tap by the garden shed, found a large sheet of plastic in the shed and dumped the contents of the sack out onto it. Adding water, he spent a few minutes working it through then left it to go back inside and start rearranging Jonathan Kendal’s tools and materials. He returned to knead the lumps of clay throughout the rest of the morning and early afternoon, until it was ready to use. By that time he had finished organising in the carriage house, had made space for his car and done all he could do to tidy the garden shed. The tools that were still useful had been hung on hooks on the wall or left neatly on the swept shelves. He’d even sharpened and oiled the spades and a pair of shears he’d unearthed that he thought might come in useful. The rest of the tools, he’d sorted into piles: unusable, throw away; mendable, keep; and the last pile ...no idea on earth what this is for? ...ask Arthur next time I see him...
Hamish took a short break and returned to the house to eat a late lunch then went back to the garden shed. He heaved the clay up onto the wheelbarrow then added the coil of wire, the mesh and some of the Jonathan’s tools on top of the load, before pushing them along a path he’d discovered the week before that led around past the disused glasshouse before curving down the slope to the pool and summerhouse.
When he dumped the barrow’s contents near the edge of the pool had no clear idea of what he intended to make, then he noticed the cool white features of the figure across the far side of the pool. Human form, female...hmmm...that was somewhere to start from ...he grabbed the heaviest coil of wire and bent it into a crude form, using tools and wire cutters when he needed them until he had something to build on. He pegged this solidly into the ground then continued to craft the shape with lighter wire and mesh. Within minutes he was totally involved in the task before him ...his concentration complete, working as fast as the materials would allow. Once he had the armature completed he started covering the formwork with clay, working upwards from the base.
He couldn’t have said, afterwards, at which point he became aware that he was attempting to model Elaine. Sure, the figure was crudely rough ...it had never been his intention to make something smooth and finished, but by now he was working so feverishly that the clay was stuck onto the armature in great globs ...he worked it where necessary to resemble Elaine’s body, but in places he left the clay almost unformed ...and the longer he worked the more the moist clay under his hands began to feel like her skin ...shaping her diaphragm, he could almost feel her breathing, her chest rising and falling with each breath, then, as he fashioned her breasts, hanging pendant as she bent forward, reaching her arms out towards something, it was as if the nipples hardened as they had in life when he had touched her intimately...by now, he was completely absorbed in the act of trying to recreate his lost wife, lover and mother of his child ...smoothing the curves of her hips and belly, lost in the sensuality of the slippery, moist clay, then, moving upwards to gouge, hollow, add and take away, to fashion the planes and surfaces of her face. He hadn’t thought that he would have been able to recall the exact nature of her form...but as her beautiful eyes appeared beneath his fingertips, he knew then, with a sureness that left him breathless, that he would never forget how she had felt or looked. It was etched so deeply into his subconscious that nothing could ever take it from him ... as death had taken her, with such brutal swiftness.
Then he knew with instant clarity of thought what, or more accurately, who, it was that she was reaching out towards. This armature took less time and was even cruder in its representation. He stabbed the heavy wire pegs into the ground with a strength born of anguish, forcing the mesh around the wire to shape stubby little legs, a rounded body, arms and the beginnings of a head ...By now he was working so quickly that the exertion was starting to show on his face ...the form was emerging, a small child, a little girl, taking her first tottering steps towards her mother ...he was so completely absorbed that he failed to notice, first the gathering clouds, then the rapidly darkening sky. He was still modelling the last of Lucy’s babyish features when the rain started, vehement in its intensity. As large, heavy droplets splashed on her soft upturned face the features started, almost instantly to blur...
“Nooooo...” he cried...turning from the sculptures to wave his fists at the sky...his creative urge replaced by an instantaneous and huge anger at the elements that would rob him of his loves once more.
“NOOOooo...” he thundered, “don’t do this to me ...YOU HEAR ME ...STOP RIGHT NOW ...DON’T DO THIS!!!” He ranted, shouting now at the top of his lungs until he was hoarse ...venting his long-supressed anger at everything and everyone ...at Elaine for wanting to go and visit her parents, at God ...for allowing the accident, at whatever had caused the first cars to veer out of their lanes, setting off the chain of events, …at the driver coming up behind her who had been unable to stop, but, most of all, ...at himself, for not being there and not either saving or dying with the two people he loved most in the world. Here he was...., pathetically forced to carry on living when everything that he had treasured was gone ... It just wasn’t fair ...he sank to his knees, his energy spent. His anger replaced with self-pity, he dropped his head down on the wet grass and started to sob...his salty tears washed away instantly by the downpour, weeping out his loss and anguish in a way that had been impossible in the many months since they had died.
It was pouring by now. He was drenched, his hands and arms smeared with wet clay. The rain, falling in sheets, was pelting down with such force that it was almost painful, but he didn’t move. He stayed there, curled up into an almost foetal position beside the likenesses of his beloved wife and daughter until the storm passed. By then he was chilled to the bone and it took all of his concentration to haul himself slowly and painfully, to his feet. If anyone had seen him, they could have been forgiven for thinking they were witnessing an old, sick man attempting to regain his feet after a fall.
Mercifully, it was so dark, that once he was on his feet he could no longer see the figures in the inky blackness, and he stumbled back to the house to tear off his wet clothes and drop, exhausted, into bed.
If misery loves company,
misery has com
pany enough.
H.D. Thoreau
Liana
He was not alone…
She had stood, unseen, in the deep shadows under the wide eaves towards the back of the old summerhouse, watching the man as he worked. At first it had been little more than idle curiosity that had kept her there ...she had no intention of making her presence known, let alone speaking to this stranger, but something in his manner demanded her attention. Then, little by little, she too had become caught up in his frenzied act of love and creation. By the time he had completed the figures of the woman and child she couldn’t have moved had she wanted to. She stayed as the deluge started, keeping vigil with him ...sheltered under the roofline the downpour didn’t bother her, but she could see that he was thoroughly wet, cold and wretched. Still, she ventured no nearer, but when he at last got up, she followed, moving wraith-like through the trees behind him, making sure that he found his way safely to the shelter of the house. Then she returned to the glade by the pond, with its damaged figures ...the features of the woman and child were almost unrecognisable after the savaging they had taken from the rain. She reached out a finger and touched the mangled mess that was now the woman’s face ...not fully understanding why the man had been so very upset that the rain should affect his creations. They were, after all, only soft clay and it was quite reasonable that they wouldn’t last for any time out here in the elements ...but, perhaps there was more to it. She knew sorrow when she saw it -and that man was suffering great anguish. It was so strong that it was still tangible here in the glade, hanging suspended in the damp mist of the air above the pool, long after he had gone.
I met a lady in the meads
Full beautiful, a faery’s child
Her hair was long, her foot was light
And her eyes were wild.
John Keats
Chapter Nine
Hamish opened his eyes, closing them again almost instantly. He raised a hand over his face to block the intense light before opening his drowsy eyelids once more. He didn’t need a clock to tell him that it was late in the morning, he’d left the curtains open and the sun was streaming into the small room through the glass panes of the bay window. A moving pool of bright winter sun had been slowly tracking across the leafy patterns of the study carpet until it had shone directly onto his upturned face, wakening him.
He sat up and pushed the feather-filled sleeping bag away, freeing his upper body, before stretching and getting up to pad across, bare feet enjoying the sun-warmed patches on the carpet, to open one of the casements. An instant inrush of cold air from the garden reminded him it was still winter, sunshine or no, but he left the window open all the same. He grabbed a pair of jogging pants and a pullover that had been hanging over the back of a chair, putting these on before turning to survey the room, with its messy nest of cushions, sleeping bag, blankets and pillows still marking where he had been sleeping for the past weeks.
“About time to make some changes, I think,” he pronounced determinedly, as he stripped the inner lining from the bag and pulled up the sheet he had been using to cover the sofa cushions. The linen was bundled under his arm and carried off to the laundry. On his way, he encountered his wet clothes from the night before, sitting in a sodden heap in the middle of the kitchen, so he picked these up on his way past and started the washing machine on a first load of grubby garments before picking up the freestanding clothes airer and taking it with him. He retrieved the sleeping bag from the study then opened the front door and took both outside to the stone-flagged terrace in front of the house. The bag could stay outside in the sun for the rest of the day and then he’d put it away. It was time, he’d decided, that he stopped camping and started living in this house. Suddenly, his thoughts were rudely interrupted by an audible gurgling emanating from his stomach, which was complaining at the lack of dinner the night before, so he quickly returned the sofa cushions to their rightful places, dumped the now-folded blankets on the sofa and went through to the kitchen to forage some breakfast.
He sat in the sunshine on the front stoop while he ate cereal, followed by boiled eggs and toast soldiers, alternately sipping from a cup of strong coffee held cupped between his hands which was helping to keep his fingers warm, mentally playing back some of the memories of the previous evening. Even now, so soon after, his recollection was fading, with the experience taking on an aura like that of a series of fuzzy, sepia-toned images from which he could only recall snapshots rather than the whole. That wasn’t so unusual, he thought, he was accustomed to losing chunks of time when he worked ...what he did remember, with a clarity he couldn’t ignore, was the intensity of his rage, and, equally … the overwhelming urge he’d felt to end his existence.
OK, he thought ... purposely spotlighting those memories for consideration …why had he behaved like that now, so long after the accident? Of all the emotions he’d felt since Elaine and Lucy’s deaths, he’d never thought that anger was a big player ...bit parts, certainly ... he’d supposed that that was pretty normal ...but certainly not with anything approaching the intensity he had felt last night. Then, in a moment of clarity, he understood ...ever since Elaine and Lucy had died, whenever he had felt angry he had done his best to ignore it. Thinking he’d turn it into something more positive, he had worked on in spite of it ...so that in the end, unacknowledged, it had been all that fuelled his work, whereas before, his passion for life and for Elaine, and his absolute delight in his beautiful daughter had been his inspiration. He hadn’t painted since he had moved from the studio, and the anger, unvented, had been building up inside him, like magma in a volcano, until something had had to give.
And the more morbid thoughts ... well, they weren’t so hard to work out. He’d always felt guilty that he hadn’t been with them, like he might have been able to save them both with his superlative driving skills, he thought, humourlessly. Fat chance ... he knew from the crash investigation that Elaine had managed to stop the car without his help ... and what had occurred after, well, his presence wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference. He might as well get over it, he thought, because there was no way on this earth that he could change the events of that awful day.
Sitting there in the weak winter sunshine, he realised something quintessential. He felt better sitting here, right now, than he had in a long time ...not great, admittedly, but better.... Alone, yes …but not lonely ...at least not in that impenetrable, glass-wall-between-me-and-everyone-else way that he had felt for so long.
He looked up and around at the garden, it too seemed to have changed ...nothing he could quite put his finger on, but with his new-found awareness, he sensed something different … reminding him of times when Elaine would twirl in front of him, teasing and saying, “Guess what’s new?”...and he would be left floundering, trying to work out if it was a subtle difference he was looking for or something that should be glaringly obvious.
He sat for a few minutes longer, enjoying the peace and solitude, until a drifting cloud obscured the sun. As the shadow touched him the air temperature chilled instantly and he shivered. “No matter,” he thought, He had already decided what he would do for the rest of the day. He got up to take the breakfast dishes inside and change his clothes, before going off to collect the tools he would need from the shed.
***
... It was mid-afternoon by the time he flicked the chainsaw’s kill switch for the last time and pulled off his hard hat, protective glasses and thick gloves, stowing them with the saw and axes behind a huge old elm, where they couldn’t be seen by anyone chancing by. Turning, Hamish surveyed his handiwork, visible only as far as the first bend in the meandering path. The route through the woods from White Briars was now quite clear...and at regular intervals along the edges of the track were neatly stacked piles of firewood, some cut from fallen branches of oak, beech, elder and birch trees that had proved too heavy for him to shift and others consisting of greenwood from young saplings which had taken root in the pathway. He had managed muc
h of the initial clearing with the axe and handsaws, resorting to using the chainsaw more frequently as the day wore on, slicing with ease through the trunks of several larger beeches that had fallen directly across the path, and, just now, cutting through the thick bough of the elm that had sheared off from the grand old tree, narrowly missing the kissing gate that was the entrance to White Briars from the village of Thornden. The house’s name was scarcely visible, carved into the timber gate ...mostly obscured by a thick pelt of green moss that coated the surface of both gate and posts. Although he hadn’t wanted to disturb the peace of the woods any more than necessary, the use of the chainsaw had quite literally cut days of hard labour into hours.
Straightening from stowing the tools, Hamish observed the woods nearest. A low stone wall ran away through the trees in either direction from the gateway, presumably marking the property boundary between White Briars and its nearest neighbours. The track beyond the gate forked on the village-side of the wall to run alongside the boundary and looked both well-maintained and well-used. He must find out who his neighbours were and invite them over, Hamish thought, but not right now ... having come this far he was curious to explore the village itself. Going through the gate, he followed the path for its last twenty yards until he reached the edge of the woods.
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