Loose End

I had to get away. But you don’t do you? I consoled myself with the ghosts I’d left behind in my empty house. A house that was once a home, but now only contained spirits lamenting a series of losses that wore barbs and blades and slithered around my life to punish my blind ignorance and awaken me to the new reality of my life.

Not for the first time, I considered selling that place. It would help in some respects. Diminish the power of those ghosts. But I knew that wasn’t enough. I could run all I liked, but I couldn’t hide from myself. The apparitions intent on taunting and teasing me were a part of me now. They always would be. I had to find a way of appeasing them. Design a truce that we could all live with. An uneasy peace that might one day become a habit.

The holiday cottage was cold and that suited me fine. An expected reception. A reflection of how things now were. Devoting myself to building a fire and lighting it was a welcome distraction. There was something in making and then destroying that provided some satisfaction. The flames would be a cleansing, if only I could get the thing to light and catch. There were several false starts. My magic had deserted me. The simple task of burning dry wood was seemingly beyond me. I walked away and reset at the sink. Staring at the half empty glass of water and wondering why I had opted for the polar opposite of fire. Dousing myself in its nemesis. Outside, I could see the persistent frost on the grass. Parasitically enveloping the once green blades, transforming them into something beautiful and deadly.

Turning to the room, I half hoped for a casual dance of flames behind the log burner’s glass door, but there was instead the disappointment of nothingness. Nothing happens when you do nothing. Nothing is the result, even when you do something, but it falls short. Life is a cycle of trial and error, and we spend far too long coming to terms with our part in that non-negotiable pattern.

My knees cracked as I crouched and opened the log burner’s door. They’d regularly fired these stray shots, even when I was a fit and skinny lad, but now the sound was tired and old. A sign of irrevocable wear and tear. The approach of the end. My best years squandered, used up. Some stolen. Some given away cheaply. Inspecting the would-be fire, I respected the logs their defiance and recalcitrance. They’d been through too much already. Later I would wander past their living kin and love their life. A reminder of belonging that I was yet to decode, let alone understand.

Rising, I pondered the sacrifice necessary to encourage the fire gods to bring this place light and heat. The two heaters in the room sulked. They were there to warm this place with no fuss and no nonsense. It was the fuss and nonsense that I hankered after. I felt a need for drama. My drama. Safely contained by the iron box before me.

On the coffee table, the tabloid newspaper I had bought on a whim, attempted to make itself innocuous to the point of invisibility. The die was set though. The messenger would pay for the bad news it had conveyed. Some thought this unfair, but they were going against the grain. You are what you do, and messengers deserved everything they got.

Tearing and crumping the pages of the paper, I reached under the logs and the kindling and stuffed the new accelerant into the gaping mouth of the log burner. Choking it, when what it needed was to breath. I didn’t care. I continued with the casual violence. I would have my moment, even if there was no one to witness. Triumph without pride. The way it should be.

The first match went out as the flame hovered under the newspaper. The second died before it ever got to the front. A soundless sniper snuffing it out before battle could commence. I was more deliberate with the third and the small flame grew quickly and spread. Still, I watched its progress after I closed the door. Nothing was certain in this life, and there was a moment when the flames would pare back and there would be a transfer of power to the wood. Or not. This was the fork in the road. The pivotal moment. At least this was conspicuous and binary. Other turning points were clandestine and by the time you realised you were in the wrong place, the wheels were coming off and you were stranded.

Going back was never an option, but we would try that all the same. Kidding ourselves that we were making progress, when all we were doing was running head long into rocks of despair and dashing our brains into a mush of confusion and pain. The only way is forward. Persevering and trusting that there will be other choices and a way onto the path that was always meant. The way to that path is glass encrusted and the air is thin and cruel. We wail and bemoan the pain that we must go through. Or we remain where we are. Lost. Life passing us by.

The logs’ defences were now shattered, and the flames licked and teased them. I ignored their plight and delighted in the celebrating flames. There was a dream here. A dream of warmth and much more. There was a transformation afoot. I would love the cottage, if only it would warm to me.

I continued with the motion of progress. I unpacked half of my belongings. Invading the cottage inadequately. This was not my place. I was my place, and I had work to do on making me comfortable again. Keeping myself busy in the hope that some of what I did would stick. Launching myself at task after task as a distraction from the never-ending pain, in the hope that one day I could bare it. That one day I would be able to breath without feeling shards of ice in my airways and a pain in my gut. A pain of loss that was so far from an absence. A rabid dog in a manger that would never let me be whole again.

Staying in the cottage was my favoured option. My tendency was towards inertia. Going out into the world promised far too much calamity. It had been over a year, but somehow this was my first Christmas on the other side and alone. My isolation was an improvement. I’d been far more alone with her than I had ever been when I was on my own. That was a revelation that I took an age to unwrap and play with. The tree was littered with such gifts, and I had no appetite for any of them, but I knew I would have to unwrap each and every one of them. Now, I thought I had. These gifts adding to the ghosts that would accompany me throughout the rest of my life.

The rest of my life seemed short and bitter. My prospects were all but expired and the man I inspected in the bathroom mirror seemed hollow somehow. There was a smell to him. Not quite of desperation, but it was something close to that. His skin was not grey, but there was a greyness to him all the same.

“Drab,” I whispered to the pathetic man.

He creased his brow and looked comical in his confusion as further words were exchanged, “are you a coward?”

The question remained unanswered as I left the bathroom, grabbed my coat and exited the cottage. The threat of an ice-cream headache was exhilarating as I walked into the heart of nature. For once I used an app on my phone for a useful purpose, looking for a path that would take me away from the grass verge and the road. I did not scroll or search. There was a single purpose, and it was to walk.

The hillside was steeper than it looked, and it talked to me about how out of shape I was. The cold air was like sandpaper in my throat and acid in my lungs. I wheezed but kept going. Stopping would be an admission of failure, but worse than that, I did not trust myself to carry on were I to lose all momentum. My eyes watered as I laboured further up the hill. The going was longer and tougher than it appeared, and I fancied that the liquid oozing from my eyes was changing its quality. My feelings towards this were mixed. I wanted to cry. Understood its release. But I was not yet deserving.

Eventually, the ground flattened out. I was still climbing and my legs and back ached, but this I could do. I vowed to walk more and attain a better level of fitness. This was an oft repeated vow. The dust on my dumbbells attested to that.

I willed myself on and beat myself with a stick of my own twisted making. My thoughts told me I should be at the summit by now, despite my never having walked this path and there being no sight of the summit itself. I wondered at why I had built myself this way. My need for the easy option and instant gratification ruining the best part of my life; the journey. I knew I’d celebrate the summit once I arrived, and I’d miss the point in doing so. Knowing this heightened my ignorance. And my shame.

I saw the trig point in the distance. Close, but further away than I credited it. My perspective needy and poor in its naked greed. I made those last yards more difficult than they needed to be. The hillside punishing me for my errant thoughts.

And yet at the top, the hardship of the walk fell away. The views were spectacular and there was only me in this place. I turned around and around and only once did I see evidence of human life. A red Post Office van winked into sight as it drove down a country lane in the valley below. I stood. Took it all in and then drank from my water bottle. The water refreshed me in a way I could not ignore or dismiss. I gave thanks for this simple thing.

Then I had my phone out again. There was a temptation to dive into its screen and invest myself there instead of in the midst of this glorious panorama of nature. With a force of will, I captured the moment on my camera. No selfies. Only the views before and aft of me. Then the map and a different route down. That was when I noticed the pub. If I walked down the other side of the hill I would come out into the valley and the pub was a short walk from there. The prospect of a cold pint was a fitting reward for my exertions. I knew I’d have more than one, and so I checked where the pub was in relation to the cottage. It looked walkable. Possibly not on the doorstep, as many holiday lets would describe a two mile walk, but that walk was flat and well within my capabilities. More so after a rest and a drink or two.

The second half of the walk should have been easier. After all, it was all downhill from here. Yet another cliché that doesn’t always hold water. Part way down, my thigh muscles were burning as they attempted to check my progress. My mind wandered back to a time when I would have launched myself down the hill, windmilling my arms in a theatrical display that may or may not have helped my balance and arrested my falling forward and hurting myself badly. Never did I have a care as to where I would end up. I had faith in myself and the world around me. I trusted that it did not really want to hurt me, let alone cause my downfall. I was right then. How had I arrived at this belligerent stand-off with life? I hadn’t lost my way as such, instead I’d lost touch with a vital part of myself. An aspect that needed to be plugged into the world in order for me to work properly.

By the time the hill ended, my legs were trembling. I had to pause. Leaning against a tree for some semblance of support. It did not take long for me to regain my composure. The hard work had been done and there was a reward awaiting nearby. Only now did I think about the pub’s opening times.

And of course, the door was locked as I tried to shoulder it open. So near and yet so far. I had journeyed, met with challenges and obstacles, if you counted the styles as such. And after all I had been through, the way to my desired destination was barred. There were no opening times on the door, and I was loathed to take my phone out. That felt like cheating. Instead, I opted to look through the window to establish whether there were signs of life.

The lights were on as I leant forward and peered through the window, but this part of the pub looked empty. I was resigning myself to heading back to the cottage and checking the cupboards for a beer, wine or whatever was available, when I saw movement to the left of the room. Someone was pottering about. Probably checking stock or emptying the dishwasher. This didn’t increase my chances of gaining entry to the public house, but it also didn’t prevent me from getting my hopes up.

Then the figure hove into view. A blond woman in a dress that seemed to be too formal for a country pub. The dress was a question, but there was a bigger question about to be posed. My mouth fell open idiotically as I recognised who the woman was, and I stood frozen to the spot. Something about my statue-like state must’ve caught her eye, as she suddenly looked up, clutched her chest and staggered backwards precariously making me fear that she was about to trip and fall. The bar arrested her progress and there she stopped. Another statue.

Time also froze. Then it tripped back and forth dizzyingly. I was caught in the sight of her and she in me. This was a moment that was a long time coming. An impossible moment that had been denied us so categorically, that all hope had been lost.

“Wendy?” I said her name as though she would hear it through the glass pane of the window, but I saw her mouth work in unison, and I knew she said my name also. These words held a magic, broke the spell and wove a deeper and stronger one.

Suddenly, she was moving. Not towards the locked door, but to the other side of the room. My eyes followed her, and my chest hurt as she disappeared, just as she had once before vanished from my life. Then a side door opened, and she was there, framed by it, but out in the world.

We once again said each other’s name. Then we laughed at the garbled absurdity of those layered words. Laughed at the absurdity of a world that had come between us and then chosen this moment to step back out of our way.

And there I was, carried away on a tide of inexplicable hope when the reality of the situation could have been so different. But still, we were moving towards each other on that same tide and we barely slowed as we threw our arms around each other and made the unreal as real as it could possibly get.

This time, when we said each other’s names there was something utterly different about those words. Never had anyone said my name like that. The meaning of a single word changed the entire world, and I saw that change in her face as I leant back from our embrace. Not breaking the circle. Unwilling to let her go. I saw her expression and her eyes drew me in. I fell forward into her waters and barely understood that we were kissing. Connecting again after all these years. Back where we were always meant to be. Finding our way despite the need to go forward, only forward. I wept as we kissed. And each tear was a release. Letting go. Making space. Brave again. Showing my vulnerability and the wounds incurred on my journey to this place.

She led me inside and locked the door behind me. Poured us both drinks. There were no words. I nodded as she suggested a beer with a light pat of the pump. She came back around the bar, and we touched glasses. That touch alone made me fizz with an energy long forgotten. Enlivened to be near her. Orbiting her. Drinking her in. We barely sipped our drinks. Discarded them. Reached for each other and embraced yet again. Barely understanding what this was. What we now were.

“On New Year’s Eve of all the days,” she whispered from her refuge at my shoulder.

“Is it?” I asked her.

She chuckled. A song I hadn’t heard in a lifetime. I sighed contentedly in response.

“Some things don’t change,” she whispered into my ear.

I stepped back, brought my hand to her cheek and caressed it as I looked deeply into her eyes, “no,” I told her, “no they don’t.”

She smiled her smile of old. The smile that always made her look young, lost and uncertain, “will you stay?”

“Yes,” answering the question that we should have asked way back when, “I’m right where I’ve always belonged.”