by Lloyd Jones
Many empty rooms in unlocked buildings: A thing to gladden the heart. Being able to sit in the old school, alone, was extremely pleasant, listening to the silence and watching the sun move across ancient floral curtains; browsing through the musty books, watching shadows move along the floor. The chapel was also open and inviting. I say chapel – in fact it’s a hybrid, the best compromise I’ve ever seen between church and chapel. The whole island is a place of trust: I left money lying around knowing full well that no-one would touch it.
A few children: Who seemed bemused by the island, less chatty than mainland children, watchful and reserved. One young person wore rubber gloves whenever I saw him: an allergy, apparently. Another was scouting the fields with a pair of binoculars at six in the morning. I would have liked to question these kids about their lives on the island but middle-aged men can’t do that sort of thing any more.
No moles, no skulls, no bones: I didn’t see a single molehill. Presumably the little gentlemen in velvet waistcoats never made it this far. Neither did I see any of the saints’ bones reported by some travellers; in one account femurs were plentiful enough to be used as fencing posts throughout Enlli. Tomos Jones, mentioned earlier, testified that many skulls and bones were ploughed up in the fields. He also revealed something of the lifestyle of previous residents, and the measures they took to stay dry: their outer clothes were covered in a coating of coal tar to waterproof them. This may have given them stiff, slightly robotic movements when they walked about in the rain...
Plentiful evidence of human toil: One of the features of the island is the oglawdd: an earth-and-stone partition between fields. In some parts of Wales the outer skin of these earth walls is strengthened and decorated with layers of stones set on edge in a zigzag or chevron design; I’m no expert, but the older walls seem to have a tighter weave with smaller stones, providing a lovely herringbone pattern. There are miles of these earthworks on the island, testifying to centuries of toil. Is there something about the Celt and earthworks? Is the act of moulding soil the most Celtic thing you can do – is it an act of ultimate atonement as well as a primal act of defence and artistry? Am I beginning to ramble? The gardens on Enlli have high walls around them, built by Lord Newborough’s men to protect them. They have uniform arches – a very practical touch.
One view of the outside world: It’s necessary to climb the hill which thinks it’s a mountain on Enlli to see the rest of the world. This hump-backed hill almost obscures any view of the mainland. I sat on its summit and smelt the drying gorse, a variant called western gorse, dense and spiny. I listened to the stonechats and the warblers. I looked over the sea, towards the body of Wales. It looked most beautiful; smoky blue shapes, jutting headlands, bays in deep shadow, and rolling fields in a patchwork of colours, with brown ploughland contrasting elegantly with many greens; a country of verdancy and plenitude. I felt rather like Ellis Wynne, who took his telescope to the top of a mountain some three hundred years ago and dreamt into being a mythical and wonderful land. I realised then that I was a creature of the mainland, needing the wide open spaces of rural Wales in which to wander without limit or fetter. To me, the mystery of Wales lies not in the constriction of islands but in the never-ending surprises of the open country, and the unfinished journey. I’d walked completely around Enlli in a morning, and again by tea, and across it countless times by the following noon. It began to choke me in a python’s coil; it began to feel claustrophobic. The magic of Enlli failed to work on me. I felt like someone at a party who’d been taking huge drags on a joint being passed around but who remained untouched while everyone else was giggling and gobbling chocolate.
So the next day, clutching my rucksack and the remains of my bread and cheese, I headed back to freedom. Because islands are mainly inside the head. More than anything else they are a state of mind. I went to Bardsey as an observer, and found a small island in the sea. Had I gone with a spiritual mindset, or a romantic mindset, I might have been touched by its fabulous history. But I wasn’t. Mystery for me is serendipitous, a happening in unexpected places at unexpected times. Within my poor little brain it can never be pre-ordered or prefigured. My own numina – spirits of place – cannot be conjured up with a prayer in a building on Sundays; they come to me by accident in fields, or on mountains, or on dusty roads to nowhere; sometimes on paths less travelled, sometimes in crowded piazzas.
So be it. The end of this book marks the end of a journey. Well, almost.
Seven years ago I nearly died of alcoholism, but I was fortunate and I survived. A blessing on those who helped me, and a blessing on those who didn’t. Life goes on.
In giving up alcohol – my sweetest lover, my darkest enemy – I decided to go on a curious journey, a journey of my own: I would attempt to write three books, walk completely around Wales, walk across Wales seven times, and circumnavigate Wales by water. All those things I have completed bar one. I have indeed written three books, rather odd little things which have taught me much about myself; that I am a strange specimen of humanity, rather ordinary in most ways, but extra-ordinary enough to be me. I have walked completely around Wales and across my homeland seven times. I have had a wonderful time doing so. Indeed, I have had a most fortunate life. But I haven’t completed the last requirement: I haven’t finished the journey on water – partly because of circumstances, partly because I fear that an ending might be just that... an ending to me and my little life. And the beginning of another bottle.
So I have devised another journey – and hopefully my life will go on for a while. Because I don’t want to leave this beautiful land. This beautiful life.
Just a few people have been with me from the start of my quest until now, the end. To you I say: Hail and farewell. I hope to meet you again on the highways and byways of Wales; on clifftops and hilltops. By riverbanks and in water meadows full of buttercups and hope. I think perhaps I’m some sort of numen myself by now: a spirit of place. Finally, at the age of fifty-seven – my father’s age when he died – I have become myself. Lloyd Jones. Father, journalist, former farm worker and nurse. Extremely minor author. Hobbit-shaped wanderer. Lover of words, nature, secularity and freedom.
At last I see a figure coming towards me through the trees. It is me.
About the Author
A former farm worker, nurse and journalist, Lloyd Jones lives on the North Wales coast. After nearly dying of alcoholism and undergoing spells in hospital and living rough, he quit drinking and walked completely around Wales – a journey of a thousand miles. In doing so he became the first Welshman to walk completely around his homeland, and his epic trek was the inspiration for his first novel, Mr Vogel. For his second novel, Mr Cassini, he changed tack, walking across Wales seven times in seven different directions.
Mr Vogel (Seren, 2004) won the McKitterick Prize in 2005 and was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.
Mr Cassini (Seren, 2006) won the Wales Book of the Year Award 2007.
Praise for Mr Vogel
“Surely one of the most remarkable books ever written on the subject of Wales – or rather around the subject, because it is an astonishing mixture of fantasy, philosophy and travel, expressed through the medium of that endlessly figurative country.”
– Jan Morris
“A rambling, redemptive mystery stuffed full of all things Welsh: rain, drink, wandering, longing, a preoccupation with death and the life that causes it. A bizarre and uncategorisable and therefore essential book.”
– Niall Griffiths
“The tour-guide Wales has been waiting for: warped history, throwaway erudition, sombre farce. Stop what you’re doing and listen to this mongrel monologue.”
– Iain Sinclair.
“Mixing fact and fiction, Jones shoehorns elements of the detective novel, a great deal of mythology and some uncommon history into what must be one of the most dazzling books ever written about Wales.”
– Independent on Sunday
Pra
ise for Mr Cassini
“...Lloyd Jones’ use of language and emotion is second to none in contemporary Welsh literature…”
Amanda Hopkinson, The Independent
“...Few people write with this much verve any more. An extraordinary work of the imagination...”
Tom Boncza-Tomaszewski, The Independent
Mr Vogel and Mr Cassini are available from Seren, £7.99
www.seren-books.com
Seren is the book imprint of Poetry Wales Press Ltd
57 Nolton Street, Bridgend, CF31 3AE, Wales
www.seren-books.com
© Lloyd Jones, 2008
ISBN 978-1-78172-132-2
The right of Lloyd Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters and incidents portrayed are the work of the author’s imagination. Any other resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.
The publisher works with the financial assistance of the Welsh Books Council.
Printed in Plantin by Bell and Bain Ltd, Glasgow