by Raynor Winn
We followed the young commissioning editor upstairs to the door of a small room. She paused with her hand on the door.
‘We thought it would be easier if we all met you today.’
Too late to run now, the door opened on to a round table and four people seated around it, with a life-size poster of Jamie Oliver framed on the wall behind them. There should have been a clear sky beyond the window of the office, but I didn’t see it. I was standing at the Lizard Point lighthouse as hundreds of swallows massed, ready to push off from the land and take to the air. Instinctively drawn to the sky, heading south to warmth and food. My head spun with the swooping surety of their flight. No doubt or hesitation, they knew what they had to do. Trust without question or belief, trust as basic and complex as just being. We’d stood at that lighthouse, at the most southerly point on the land, as the wind carried our past away and left us stripped of the weight of our history. We’d turned north and I’d followed Moth’s heels on the dusty track away from the past and into the future, trusting only each other and an instinct that told us the path would lead us forward.
A small, beautiful woman seemed to control the room with an easy elegance.
‘Have you ever been in a publishing house before? Well, to put you at your ease before we get started, I just want to say we love your book and we’d like to publish it. But you’ll have to change that title.’
A thousand swallows lifted into the warm wind, into autumn sunlight reflected from outstretched wings the colour of midnight skies. As the air cooled and the number of insects lessened the birds simply faced south and let go of the land. Disappeared into the white light of distance. Beyond hope or faith. Instinct is our word, not theirs: they simply spread their wings and trust the air.
It had been months since that moment, months of waiting for the box to come. Finally I heard the iron gate creak and seconds later Moth was back.
‘Hi, you’re here, how’s your day been?’
‘Not the best. I’ve had a strange sensation in my head and neck, as if there’s a huge weight pressing me down.’
Moth was struggling through the final few months of uni. A huge and beautiful honours project grew on the table he used as a desk on the tiny landing at the top of the stairs. Large folders of work piled around him and he slowly shrank under the weight of them. As time ran out to get it all finished he was walking less and less. Time running out in so many ways.
‘Wow, what’s that? Oh, is that it?’
‘It has to be. I’ve just sat with it. I didn’t want to open it ’til you were here.’
‘Well, get the scissors! How have you waited? I wouldn’t have been able to resist it.’
‘You open it. I don’t know if I can.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Get the scissors and we’ll do it together.’
As the box opened birds lifted into flight through bright skies, a peregrine swooped over the headland, dolphins swam in wild seas and two figures stood alone on a cliff top, the wind in their hair and hoped.
As I slowly opened the first copy of the book with its new title The Salt Path, swallows flew through the endpapers and salt water rolled down my face.
‘Look.’ Moth held a book open on the copyright page. ‘Look, you’ve done it.’ I let my hand hover over the picture of a penguin and it was the hand of a small girl dreaming. A life yet to live before that dream could be realized.
‘We did it.’
‘No, you did it; they’re your words.’
‘But it was our path.’
Copies of The Salt Path found their way on to the shelves of bookshops across the country as Moth finished his final pieces of work and walked out of the university building for the last time. Weeks later his phone began to buzz with messages from other students from his uni course who’d passed their degrees. They were celebrating their results, but Moth’s letter didn’t arrive.
‘Perhaps it’s just lost in the post. Maybe you should call your tutor?’
‘No, it’s because I’ve failed.’
‘If you’d failed you’d still have a letter.’
‘If I failed I can’t go on to teach. I don’t actually think I can spend time working on a screen any more anyway. It’s my eyes – doing the computer work in ten-minute stretches is impossible. I know we’ve said from the day I signed up for the degree that I’d teach, but I think this CBD thing has gone too far now.’
We were sitting under the shade of old oak trees hung with lichen that thrived in the clear salt air blowing up the estuary. Every week we followed the Hall Walk as it wound through the trees from Polruan, across the wooden footbridge over the river at Pont Pill, where huge fish swam on the high tide, to the car ferry at Bodinnick. We’d walked in rain and wind with mud above our ankles, past a scattering of snowdrops, through a woodland floor blanketed in bluebells, then hundreds of holidaymakers, to today, a quieter day of hot sun through shady branches. Leaves on the woodland floor crunched in my hand, parched dry, last year’s leaves lying dead on the ground beneath the shade of the new growth. Leaning against a tree trunk I could only feel relief. The studying had drained him in every way, but he’d fought through every difficulty to get to the end. Maybe now it was over he could spend more days like this, just moving in a green space, just being. I hung on to every thread of hope as his thoughts slipped and his body stumbled. Slowly, slowly he was eroding, like earth washed from the riverbank in heavy rain, leaving only the roots of him grasping for a secure hold on a slippery rocky surface. His tree about to fall.
‘I know, you can’t put all that pressure on yourself any more. We’ll have to find another way forwards. Who knows, we might sell a few copies of the book, enough to get us through the year and give us time to work out what’s next.’
Moth’s phone was ringing again. More people celebrating?
‘It’s my tutor.’ He turned the phone on to speaker, pale and still. Years of work waiting for an outcome.
‘Moth, just wondering how you are? You didn’t come in for your results the other day, so I thought I better check you’re okay. Would you like me to post the letter?’
‘I didn’t know, I thought they came in the post anyway, thought they hadn’t come because I’ve failed.’
‘No, you were far too good to fail; of course you’ve passed.’
The call ended and he shakily put the phone back in his pocket.
‘I’ve passed. Can’t believe I’ve passed.’
‘Never doubted it. We should celebrate.’ As we walked out into the bright light between the trees, the colour was returning to his face. ‘Can’t believe it: Mothman, BSc. So, so proud of you. Definitely should celebrate.’
‘Oh yeah, like a real student. Cup of tea in Fowey then?’
‘And one of those great little Portuguese tarts.’
‘Absolutely, rebel student.’
There seems to be no sleep as deep as a neurodegenerative sleep, or at least in Moth’s strange and elusive version of CBD. He’d made it to the end of his degree, exhausted, stiff, with pain in his arm and leg and a headache that never left. But now that the pressure of the work was over, all he wanted to do was sleep. Twelve hours a night and he was still tired. So why had I thought that a meditation class would help? Put a tired person in a chair and tell them to close their eyes and be quiet and what are they going to do? Sleep, obviously, but snoring – he could have kept that to himself; it’s such a giveaway. I coughed loudly and the snoring stopped. I couldn’t meditate, the snore had crept into my space and I was back in the room. I’d tried meditating on the question of what else we could possibly do to halt this rapid decline in Moth’s health, but nothing came. The science pointed to the need for vigorous exercise and the natural environment. Both impossible when half of his days were spent sleeping and we lived on a concrete path. We needed to walk again, a long, long walk, but he didn’t have the strength to carry his rucksack. Or somewhere to live where he could be on the land, connected to the earth, somewhere green. But that w
as impossible; we still had a poor credit history from having lost our home, and we were living on the tail end of a student loan and an advance on the book. Not exactly words that any landlord wanted to hear. We were so glad to have the roof we had after our months without a home, and beyond grateful to our landlady for giving us shelter, but we were stuck in an inescapable position while Moth slipped further out of reach. Each afternoon I bullied him into walking, hating myself for the words, driving a wedge between us as I tried to force him forwards. I loathed it, but for all the pain it cost, two miles wasn’t far enough. It cleared his head, eased the stiffness, but he needed more, so much more. Meditation certainly wasn’t helping either, just stiffening his neck further as he sat in the chair. What was I doing? I wanted to cry, and not from the ecstasy of reaching a Zen state.
I glanced around the room. Everyone was perfectly still, eyes closed, minds clear of thought. Simon slowly raised his head from his chest. Calm and precise as ever, he unfolded his hands.
‘And slowly allow yourselves to come back to the room in your own time. But remember the saying of the great Buddha: opportunity knocks, but karma tracks you down.’
A few weeks into meditation classes and I wasn’t too sure if any of the group actually meditated. I struggled, Moth dozed, I couldn’t imagine Gill keeping her mind still for thirty minutes and Simon obviously spent the time thinking up Buddha jokes. Only Marion seemed to find peace, drifting into a deep sleep before we’d all sat down and usually waking just in time for tea.
We were all back in the room now. Sarah stretched out of her chair with an easy grace that made me think of ripe barley moving in the wind. I watched her put the kettle on, finding it hard to believe she was close to her sixtieth birthday.
‘When do you start the publicity tour?’ She put the tea on the table and all eyes turned to me; I shuffled uncomfortably in my seat. I didn’t talk much, but had finally found a way to share a space with people and have brief conversations without being overwhelmed by panic. Gill and Simon sat down on the bench opposite, their body language beyond doubt. Two single people, no ties, no family to concern themselves about. Why were they hiding?
‘Really soon. I’m trying not to think about it.’ I could tell from the furtive exchange of looks that they doubted my ability to sit on a stage and talk to people about my book as much as I did.
‘And what about social media, have they asked you to do that?’
‘Yes, Twitter and other stuff. I’ve never even looked at Twitter, I don’t really get what it’s all for.’
‘It’s about connection, connections with other people. It helps spread the word about your book.’
‘But they’re total strangers; I don’t know anything about them. How can you trust people not to be really negative and just make it less likely for you to sell books?’
‘Well, Moth hardly knows us, but he trusts us enough to fall asleep when he’s supposed to be meditating. Sometimes you just need to do that.’
‘It’s not always that easy, Sarah.’ Gill sat upright; her manner had changed. ‘When your trust has been betrayed in the past, it can be traumatic. It’s almost impossible to regain it, or to give it again freely.’ She moved slightly on the bench, a little closer to the door. ‘Trauma can change you, whether it’s losing your house, getting divorced or just being betrayed by someone. It’s all the same: it leaves a scar.’
‘Maybe so, but sometimes you just have to jump. Forget the past and just jump. Biscuit, anyone?’ Sarah held out a plate.
‘As I said, it’s not always that easy, Sarah. Sometimes the hardest person to trust is yourself.’ Gill was putting her shoes back on, preparing to leave.
‘Oh Gill, it’s always that easy. Ray, you just have to gather it all up and take that leap. Get on that stage and believe in your book. It’s not about you, it’s all about the book.’
‘I don’t think that’ll work – the book is about me, about Moth. It’s all about us.’
‘Who cares, just jump anyway.’
Part Three
* * *
BEYOND THE WILLOWS
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
My First Summer in the Sierra, John Muir
Loud,
in a whisper so obvious I’ve always known,
in words I’ve always been able to hear.
The answer
was always there.
16. Jump
Fear has gripped me and I can’t do it. I look down at my feet in my black plimsolls, heavy on the last hay bale. A taste of metallic panic fills my throat; my chest flutters with quick breaths. Fear. Air from the void rises cool against my sweat-damp body and I feel the vast emptiness of its space. Sounds carry up: children shouting, laughing. Laughing at me.
‘Jump, jump, jump.’
I drag my feet away from the edge and catch my heel on the baler twine, taut around the dried grass. Fear explodes in a fizzing stab as I close my eyes and fall backwards. The sound of their mocking is further away but I’m still on the hay. Lying on my back on the hard surface of tightly bound bales, sun-hardened grass, lady’s bedstraw, thistles and meadow buttercup scratch at my skin. The rush of fear subsides and my breathing slows in the dense, deep, citrus-thickened air. The familiar arc of the barn roof is close, closer than I’ve seen it before. Eight years old, but I’ve never been this high, up among the beams that hold the curve, where a spider closes its web in the corrugated zinc. Slowly, methodically. Heat rises from the hay and meets the sun burning on the zinc, muffling the voices below. I’ll stay here, alone, safe. Sparrows squabble and hassle, fluttering noisily around the nest. They left it weeks ago, but still return to perch and argue. I know he’s behind me, I can feel his presence. I knew he lived here but I’ve never been this high, so close to his space. The forbidden place I know I should never come to, but I’m here. The small hay bales have been stacked high into this end of the roof space, but tier down in steps on one side to allow the men to climb to the top and catch each bale as it’s sent up on an electric elevator. By the end of this hot, dry summer the barn will be full and tinder dry. To the side of the steps is a wall of hay, a sheer drop to the ground twenty metres below. My cousins are there, waiting for me, by the pile of hay bales we’ve broken up to make a soft landing spot – hay to cushion the fall. They’ve jumped already, throwing themselves off without hesitation or thought; now they’re standing in the bright sunlight. But I am held here, held back. A barrier of fear like a glass wall. Fear of falling, of landing, of being caught out, of recrimination.
I’ve seen him skimming the hedgerows at dusk, buff, white and silent, but in this dimly lit space he’s grey. His eyes seem closed, but I sense he’s looking. Still, motionless in the furthest corner of the barn roof, his feathers sleek and folded. He holds his space here through the daylight hours, but as night falls he’ll be gone, out through the fields and scrub. His head moves quickly to the side, drawn by the call of a coot on the pond, then returns slowly, eyes wide and round, fixed on me. I know the coots. I’ve sat at the edge of the stream among the willows and watched them in their nest. Piles of twigs in the reeds keep the sitting hen just above the water until the eggs hatch and the tiny grey balls fall from the nest into the water, their red heads shaking in wet surprise. Stretched on the willow branches through endless summers, I’ve seen their pink faces slowly fade and blend with their beaks into the broad white stripe of adulthood. Now, hearing them call, I know they’re startled, their stiff grey legs splashing from the shallows to the safety of the deeper water. But as my gaze meets his I realize I don’t know him at all; he’s a stranger to me.
‘Where are you? Wimp, wimp.’
‘She won’t do it.’
Their voices are muffled and I let them drift and be hidden by the sound of the stream as it gathers speed down a short waterfall and rushes into the culvert. The deep dark brick tunnel takes the stream under the pigsties, gaining pace as it goes un
til it explodes into a wide channel through the privet thicket. Another forbidden place, but one I know well.
‘Just do it, jump, jump, jump.’
Breaking away from the barn owl, I stand up and shuffle back to the edge. The warm wind ruffles my T-shirt and I lift my arms to feel its cooling touch. I rode the culvert with my cousins and they didn’t find out, so maybe …
I hear my dad’s boots before I see him, hobnails on the stones of the stackyard, and I see the rest of the summer holiday stretch before me. Not the short sharp moment of discipline that will be his response, but the days, the weeks of Mum’s silent reproach. Her disappointment.
‘What you doing, you buggers? You. Get down from there. Now.’