Parts of a circle

“Was there an aspen tree? There. A path. Running across at an angle.”

Charlie looked for a moment at where her hand had sketched the space in the chill air. She frowned as she turned, laying an arm along the back of the curved stone bench where she sat. The mullioned windows were dull in the weak winter light.

Whether she found what she sought could not be discerned by looking at her. There was no shrug or other sign of disappointment. Equally, she did not smile or seem satisfied. Simply sat searching as her breath clouded the air.

Having examined the entire four-storey façade of brown stone, she turned back to face the sundial at the centre of the garden. Its thick coating of ice crystals unnerved her and she fussed with the skirts of her long black coat by way of distraction before tucking her hands into the opposite sleeve ends for warmth.

The broom had paused in mid-sweep, thin snow piled against the worn bristles.

“Not in my time,” the old gardener replied. He studied his hands grasped about the time darkened handle, stubby fingers emerging from the frayed wool of his gloves. “It was a plain circle of grass afore this. Holy Acre, they called it. You weren’t supposed to walk on it. But that was a long time since.”

They both looked at the shabby rose garden half-concealed by the snow. There was a small circular bed at the centre surrounding the sundial. Around that a broad path where Charlie’s feet rested in a section cleared by the gardener’s broom. Eight curved benches of stone faced the centre, each standing at the narrow end of a wedge shaped flower bed, each sector separated from the others by the eight paths that radiated out to the paving around the edge of the courtyard.

When she had first seen the garden from one of the small windows at the top of the corner tower, she had been delighted. Today, all the brittle, glassy memories made the garden feel like a place of torture, a spinning wheel with no way off.

The scrape of bristles on frozen paving slabs resumed for a moment, pushing the snow to one side.

“There’s an old photograph,” said the gardener, leaning on the broom again. “In a book. Saw it once. That’s from before my time. Long before. Is that what you mean?”

Charlie huddled into her coat and wove a smile over her misery. “That must be it.”

Thin Reflections

Waiting For The Wind

The heavy doors beat out their irregular, echoing tattoo in her memory as the train came to a stop. Confused layers of recollection and reality shimmered in the curved space; the sulphurous stink of steam, the acrid stench of diesel and dust, the clattering flap of pigeons, incomprehensible tannoy announcements and the sound of hundreds of voices, hundreds of feet.

Hanging back from the crowds, she strolled along the wide platform, trailing slow, twisting whorls of misty chaos. The grey and grimy past spread out, dissolving into the hard light of the present. She pushed through the automatic ticket barrier and looked for somewhere to sit. She told herself she needed a moment to let the memories settle and the layers of time to synchronise. She told herself everything would be all right. It was a mistake she always made.

As soon as she sat, she accepted the journey had been a mistake. Ghosts crowded the concourse. She watched them filling the space, surging back and forth, pushing through one another, fraying the edges of reality.

Accretions of time piled up like dust in the station; the detritus of centuries accummulated from all the moments lost, the anxiety, the attempt to hurry, swirled across the concourse and deposited in corners. They were all the same. From the monorail station at Srinagar that she had never since been able to find to the remote halts in the middle of all those nowheres; small, large, decaying, brand new, open air, enclosed, empty, full, they were polyps strung out on a network of steel connectivity, islands of frutration and dreams, places of greeting and parting, steeped in emotion.

Dangerous places where she had no control.

She pushed herself up from the bench and crossed to the departure board, looking up at the old mahogany structure that had once stood there. An old, cold wind tugged at the long skirts of her coat. Long past light filtered through dust. Silence fell. It would be years before there was another train.

Vague echoes drifted beneath the high glass canopy.

With a shiver, she turned from the board and walked out through the abandoned ticket hall. The station forecourt had that ‘70s Sunday morning feel. The whole length of Queen’s Road stretched before her, empty of ghosts, people, movement. In the chill, hazy distance was the sea.

“Bugger.” She pushed a finger under her glasses and wiped away a tear. The ‘70s really was the last place she wanted to be right now.

Stealing into Winter - a fragment

With all the grace of a drunken dancer, the ghost teetered about the empty square. It would lean and move off in one direction, picking up speed until it righted itself. Spinning on the spot for a moment or two, faint in the painfully bright sunshine, it would lean in another direction and be on its way again, sinuous, trailing pale peach wisps of nothingness and a faint hiss.

Jeniche watched the erratic ballet from the deep shadow of a cellar doorway. Dust ghosts were rarely seen in the city. It was rarely this quiet. Most people would be sitting or lying in a shaded room, waiting for the afternoon heat to abate, especially at this time of the year. But there were normally some people about; luckless servants mostly, sent on the errands of the fools for whom they worked.

The square and the roads leading to it, the shops and stalls. All were quiet beneath the weight of the heat, sunlight shimmering from the hard baked mud walls. Quiet except for the ghost that skittered across the open space, spinning toward Jeniche and then changing direction. She pulled her keffiyeh up over the lower half of her face, squinting as dust drifted into the stairwell. Childhood memories drifted in with it, just as unwanted. She blinked the dust from her eyes, wiping away a grimy tear with the back of her hand.

Turning in the dark, she watched the ghost swithering for a moment before gathering new energy. It dashed along the main road out of the square, picking up more dust as it went, twisting, hissing, and taking on a more solid form. Without warning it collapsed. Mute sunlight pressed down into the silence.

Renaissance

Birth is painful.
Gut wrenching.
Heart aching.
Head fucking.
Painful.

All the more painful
When you thought you were barren
When you thought
That last time
Was the one time
The only time
The true time.

Em.
Just the name.
Conjures all the sweetness.
The bitterness.
The pain.
Of birth.
And loss.
The whole gentle, uncertain dance.
Finished.
Before it really started.

You are still there.
I can close my eyes
And see you as we whirl beneath the tree.
Lifetimes ago.
And gone.

You live within me.
Loved.

And now.
How can I love another?

Birth is painful.
Gut wrenching.
Heart aching.
Head fucking.
Painful.

A long time ago...

...this is where it all began.

Fragment 4

I was only a teenager, but always made to feel welcome. It was a bit of a thrill, really. All sorts of people used to be in and out of the place. Writers. Artists. Poets. Some local. Some, sort of, well, international if you like. Martin Henty, who owned the shop and the press, he seemed to know everyone who was worth knowing.

Everyone used to go on about London and all that, but it wasn’t the only place where things were happening. In fact, Martin used to say it was easier to get things done in Brighton as there weren’t all the wasters and hangers on. People who wanted to be part of the scene but had nothing to contribute. Some he didn’t mind, but there were always those who were on the make, sponging off people. That’s what was good about Octopus, cos Martin always got rid of those types.

One of the real reasons I kept going back was cos I fell in love. [laughs]. It was a real teenage crush. Daft really. She was, well, I don’t know, thinking about it, she must have been close on forty. But she was beautiful. Elegant. Had this amazing hair. A pale, rosy gold colour. Cut really short. And a face that… er… well, it’s like she’d seen so much, good and bad, yet found some sort of peace. Nearly. There was always something. [laughs] Woman of mystery.

I really did just hang around the place in the hope of seeing her, doing odd jobs for her. She ran one of the magazines that Octopus published. I’ve still got all my copies. I’d help with anything really. Learned a lot. Course, it’s all done by computer now. Shame really, cos it might make life easier but the finished product is always a bit too perfect. I like those old magazines and papers cos they had a raw edge to them. Not just the content, but the look of them as well.

Everything she did was done properly. Do you know what I mean? She took great care with it all. I used to watch her work. Sounds a bit creepy now, I suppose, but I really was… I even bunked off school sometimes.

Nobody knew much about her. You’d hear stories. There was one about her being a motorcycle rider of some sort. Never understood that. Some daft pillock said she was a thief. I got into real trouble over that. My one and only fight. Went a bit mad. [laughs] A bit mixed up. It took a few years to sort my head out. Didn’t help when she just vanished.

Sorry? Her name? Oh. Er. Charlie. Charlie Cornelius.

She’d be about seventy now. I often wonder what happened to her. Nobody knew where she’d gone. It’s funny. I was walking through that part of town just a few days ago, looking at the places, all changed now. And you know, I’ll swear I saw her. Couldn’t have been her, of course. Didn’t look any older. [laughs] I actually ran after this woman. Lost her in the crowds along Kensington Gardens. Just as well I suppose. What would I have said? Sorry. Thought you were someone I’m, er, was in love with. Thirty years ago.

Local Oral History Project
John Charles Woodman
Extract from transcript of session 47 (22 May 2000)