Silence beneath the soil

It was early autumn, a time of year that Beatie adored. Her inner world felt calmer, wrapped in a kind of golden melancholy, the heat and noise of the summer now put quietly to bed. The trees along the path to the allotments had begun to change as their leaves were touched with shades of amber, rust, and crimson, while the air was laden with the scent of damp earth and moss, and the setting in of decay.

Beneath her boots the pavement was scattered with green horse chestnut shells, taken from the trees too early in the gale that had blown through the night before. Now the air was still, the morning still cool and Beatie pulled her coat close as she walked, enjoying the onset of darker months.

The allotment gate was stiff with age and weather, but she pushed firmly against it until it gave way. Beyond it, the world changed. The buzz of the town's daily life became muted, replaced with softer, more irregular sounds. The distant chirping of a blackbird, the call of a woodpigeon, and the sudden clatter of a pheasant rising in alarm from a bed of broccoli before settling into the hedgerow. Beatie breathed in. The smell here was different, cleaner, filled with the rich green scent of harvest and the sweetness of fallen apples.

She walked down the narrow path to her plot, the grass between the beds shining with dew. Unlocking her shed, she pushed open the swollen wooden door. Inside, the smell of wood and dried earth greeted her. Empty plant pots scattered the floor, bundles of twine and packets of seeds lay across the shelves. A moth bashed about against the shed roof and Beatie gently ushered it out of the door.

After settling her grandad’s old striped deckchair outside the shed and tucking her bag and packed lunch away inside, Beatie took out her gloves, trowel, and pruning shears. It was time to cut back the raspberries and fruit trees, and to tackle the encroaching couch grass that had a habit of wrapping its persistent roots around everything.

But when, humming to herself, she stepped back out of the shed, Beatie stopped dead.

A man she’d never seen before was standing in the middle of her plot.

He looked to be anywhere between forty and seventy years old, with salt-and-pepper grey hair, a short beard, and dark weathered skin. His clothes struck her as somewhat old-fashioned - brown corduroy trousers, worn leather boots, and a white collarless shirt under a grey cardigan. Around his neck hung a small wooden pendant, smooth and dark, carved into a shape she could not immediately identify.

He turned towards Beatie, deep brown eyes falling on her, as if he had been waiting for her to arrive.

“Good morning,” he said in a soft voice, almost as though it were from the earth itself.

Beatie smiled carefully. The allotments were private. It said so on the gate. There were signs to deter dog walkers, mischievous children and nosy strangers from venturing onto the well manicured plots that the allotment holders tended with a deep and heartfelt passion. Not wanting to appear rude, Beatie tried to steady herself. “Morning,” she managed, her voice verging on offhand. She was suddenly conscious that she was alone with the stranger.

“Fine day for it,” the man said, gesturing vaguely toward the sky.

“Yes… it is.” She hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry, but… the allotments are private. You’re not really supposed to be here.”

Instead of answering, the man tilted his head politely, as if she’d made a fair point. Then he said, “Would you mind if I sat down for a moment? Just to rest my legs. I won’t trouble you.”

Beatie knew that she should refuse, but something in her stirred and she heard herself say, “All right,” and went to fetch the other folding deck chair from her shed.

The man sat down with a sigh, resting his hands on his knees. For a moment they were silent, only the rustle of the wind through the foliage disturbing the quiet morning.

“You grow things here,” he said at last, casting his eyes over Beatie’s plot. It was well cared for, not too big or small, just enough for her to manage in between life and work and everything else.

“Yes.” She crouched to tug at a clump of weeds, feeling self-conscious but determined to get on with her tasks and not to encourage the stranger any more than she had already.

“Do you grow carrots?” he asked, but continued before Beatie could answer. “They take their time, but they tell you what the soil is like. Too many stones then they twist and split. But in good, fine ground they’ll grow wonderfully straight, as though they’re reaching down into the depths of the earth…”

Beatie nodded. “The ground here is a bit too dense for carrots so I don’t bother with them.”

The man smiled, then continued. “Potatoes, well, they like to be buried deep, hidden away, but when everything is right, they multiply beyond belief.” He stopped for a moment and looked around, as though listening for something. He nodded to himself. “But then there are things like tomatoes, the ones that need more care and attention. They need warmth and shelter, patience… and watching.”

“Yes. You need a greenhouse for those really. I don’t have one. I tried some outdoor varieties once. They did okay.” Beatie checked herself. The man seemed harmless enough but still… she was here alone.

He looked at her. “Everything in the earth tells you something. You just have to listen.”

“Okay… I kind of get that…” Beatie was beginning to wonder what the point of this was. There were always people who wanted to impart their gardening knowledge, but this was all just a bit weird. She pulled at a stubborn dandelion root as the man continued.

“Like the beans that reach out for their poles, the way the courgettes and squashes sprawl across the ground. It’s communication, all of it. Not in words, but in signs. The earth speaks. And not just of now, but of what has been…”

Beatie found herself staring at him. He was just some nature lover, a male version of an earth mother type. Not a threat. She began to feel less wary. “You mean… history?”

A faint smile passed over the man’s lips. “History, yes. But not the kind written in books, contorted and manipulated by those who wish to control its meaning. The true past is rooted deep, like everything that grows beneath the earth.”

“In what way? What exactly do you mean?” Beatie took off her gardening gloves and sat down in the striped deckchair. He had her attention. Her caution from earlier had slipped away as she found herself a little captivated, curious almost, of what the man had to say.

“The past sends out messages, if only we would take the time to notice. But we are deaf and blind to these signs. Too self obsessed in what the human race can achieve.” The man looked down at his feet, his face cast with a wash of sadness. He looked up at Beatie, his soft brown eyes meeting hers.

“Go on,” she said, “I want to understand what you mean.”

“We bury the past under new names, new ideas… what we think are new ideas… And yet, if you listen…” He tapped the side of his head. “It tells you everything. About where we’ve been. And where we’re going.”

Beatie took a deep breath telling herself this was just some sort of new-age hippy nonsense. But something of what the man said rang true with her. It was as if he were opening some sort of box that she didn’t want to look inside but was compelled to anyway. “And where are we going?” she asked, wondering if she really wanted to know the answer.

The stranger’s expression was grave. “The same way we have always gone, when we forget the lessons buried in the ground.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his tanned hand. “You see, the past does not vanish, it waits.”

“Waits? How? Surely the past is gone once it’s happened.”

“It waits until patterns and behaviours are repeated. Until foolishness, arrogance and folly is sown again, and then it rises, reaching through the darkness until it breaks forth into the world again.”

Beatie shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “That sounds a bit crazy. I don’t want to sound rude, but are you saying… we’re destined to go through the same things? To repeat what’s happened before?”

He looked at her, eyes steady and unsettling. “I am saying that we are already repeating it. Listen long enough and you can hear the echoes from time that has already gone by. The warnings are there, but no one stops to hear what the past is saying.”

Beatie wasn’t sure whether to be afraid or fascinated. “What warning? Is there a warning now?” She fastened up the zipper of her coat, feeling suddenly colder.

He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Did you know, in the years before the last terrible war, people said the air was different? They said that the birds stopped singing and there was a silence that hung in the air.”

“I’d never heard that before.”

“Probably not. That’s because most people ignored it. They were too busy with their noise, their machines, their existence.”

“That’s how it is though isn’t it? People can’t just sit still and quiet waiting to see if they hear something. People are busy, they have things to do.”

“You’re right,” said the stranger. “And that is the problem. The earth spoke, but no one listened. And so the blood came, and the fighting, and the different sort of silence that came afterwards.”

“But silence can be a good thing can’t it?” Beatie thought of the mindfulness exercises and meditation she’d been trying with little success.

“Of course. But this was different, and…” he paused, and fixed his eyes on Beatie, unflinching. “You will hear it again. The same hush, the same turning of the seasons. And when it comes, you must know what it means.”

Beatie pondered the man’s words. “I’m trying to make sense of what you’re saying.” She was quiet again, her mind searching for anything that might ring true. “It is so very quiet… but I don’t know. The whole world feels at odds with itself at the moment, everywhere you look.” She paused and fiddled with her gloves. “That’s what I love about this place. It’s an escape from it all.”

“Think about it,” the stranger said. “Nature is quieter than it should be. The insects, the birds. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Not really. In fact there were a few birds here earlier. That blasted pheasant too. Gone now though… in fact, they’ve all gone since you arrived.” Beatie wondered if perhaps the man was completely deluded… but there was just something about him. She let him continue.

“Once before, when the forests fell and the rivers were poisoned, that is how it was when the stillness came.” His fingers reached for the pendant around his neck. “It will happen again. Unless we stop to listen, really listen, that is the only way we can ever stop the rot from deep within the soil, the past, from repeating.”

A sound of leaves under heavy boots broke the deafening silence of the moment.

“Morning, Beatie!”

She turned her head with a start. It was George from the next plot, carrying his gardening trug, his flat cap pulled low. He peered at her, a look of knowing in his eyes that the man sitting on Beatie’s allotment was a stranger. “You all right there?”

“Hello George. Lovely morning.” She smiled, to let him know she was okay, though a sense of relief rippled over her, knowing she was no longer alone with the odd character sitting opposite her.

“This is George from the next plot…” she turned back towards the stranger, but the man who moments ago had been speaking of the most peculiar and disturbing things, had risen from his seat and was already walking away down the path, his boots soundless on the grass. He raised one hand without looking back.

“Remember,” he called. “The past is patient. It knows things. And it always returns. All we have to do is listen.”

Then he was gone.

George frowned. “Who was that? Do you want me to go and have a word?”

Beatie shook her head quickly. “No, no, it’s fine. Just someone passing through. I think he just wanted someone to talk to.”

George eyed her for a moment longer, then nodded and went to his own plot.

Beatie stood alone in her patch. Around her, the air felt… different. Thicker, as though a veil had been drawn over the morning. She noticed that the birds were still quiet. No blackbird, no woodpigeon, not even the pheasant.

The silence pushed against her and Beatie thought of what the stranger had said. About the hush before the war, how the earth had given its warning.

She shivered, looking down at the soil where her potatoes were ready to be dug out. For a moment, she envisaged them deep in the darkness of the ground, as though sleeping… waiting to be woken.