Of Rivers Unseen
Created | Updated Sep 24, 2006
LIKE A SILENT TRESSPASSER, it entered so quietly that at first I hardly noticed its presence. Yet a dark persistent fog, that wouldn’t seem to lift, had settled in. So I slid back under the covers and pressed my face into the pillow. But the mood clung on like black tar.
I closed my eyes and waited for sleep. But it refused to come. I glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Twenty minutes past four. How could I feel so unhappy I wondered? Was there nobody who cared what I thought, what I felt? ‘You're lonely’ I whispered into the night. The sudden admission unnerved me, like a dark secret I'd been keeping from myself. I closed my eyes, and waited for the feeling to pass. Things would look better in the morning I told myself. Wouldn’t they? Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. The sound seemed amplified in the darkness and silence. I could stand it no longer. By moonlight I dressed, grabbed my jacket and set off to walk.
The streets were silent except for my footsteps. Turning right and right again, through narrow lanes, between flint and cobbled cottages, lowland fields and water meadows, I followed a sign towards the River Ant. I stopped for a moment to survey the sky, the stars that were paling, and the large untroubled moon that was slowly fading away. Not a soul stirred, and only a lonely scarecrow watched as I weaved a trail across the land. Drawn by the river ahead, I quickened my pace.
Amongst the thick reeds and willow the river lay silent. I kicked off my shoes, and sank beside the waters edge. An early morning mist was rising, and I peered out through the shoals of haze. Water birds bobbed, ducks paddled lazily, and brightly coloured dragonflies hugged the waters surface. As I followed their darting movements my vision blurred. Finally I gave way to the tears that had been threatening to fall. I wept until my head throbbed and my shoulders ached. I heard no sound of footsteps, and the man’s voice startled me.
‘Beautiful spot, isn’t it,’ he said.
Glancing up, I saw an old man standing on the footpath. He was breathing heavily, one hand tightly grasping the walking stick he was leaning on.
‘Yes...it is,’ I said, quickly dropping my head again.
‘You from around these parts?’ he asked.
‘Manchester,’ I said, discreetly using my fingers to wipe the tears.
‘Holiday?’
‘No, I moved here a couple of years ago.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well you’ve picked a fine day to spend by the river. And if you’re lucky, you might catch the sound of the bittern, the bird that rests amongst the reeds. Ever heard one of those old fellas calling?’ he asked.
I looked up, shook my head. ‘I can’t say I have.’
The old man glanced over his shoulder. ‘I used to live back yonder,’ he said, motioning a hand towards a small row of cottages in the distance. ‘I strolled here daily, regular as clockwork – fair weather or foul.’
I nodded my head. I didn’t much care to listen to an old man’s ramblings. I wanted to be alone.
He shifted a little, and looked out over the river. ‘There’s something about this place - it always draws me back.’
I nodded mechanically, my thoughts elsewhere.
‘I haven’t always been blind you know,’ he declared, his tone matter-of-fact.
I swung my head to take a closer look at him. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you my dear,’ he said, a wry smile forming on his lips – like he could tell I’d just been studying him. ‘But over the years the blindness became as much a part of my life as breathing. Besides, it can sometimes take more than a pair of eyes to see things for what they are.’
I frowned at him, wondering what he meant.
‘And for an old man...I talk too much...’
I guess this was the point I should have made my excuses and left. But the old man seemed harmless enough, and I had neither the heart nor the energy to make a move. ‘No, really, you’re fine,’ I heard myself saying.
‘Thank you,’ he muttered, almost gratefully. Edging a bit closer he slowly eased himself onto the grass, wincing as he sat. He rested the stick across his lap and then turned in my direction. As if he knew of my unhappy heart his voice dropped. ‘You know my dear, nothing is ever quite as bad as it seems.’
‘Isn’t it?’ I whispered. The old man simply nodded his head, almost as if he understood.
For a while we sat in silence. I glanced his way a few times, but the old man seemed distracted. The sun crept over the horizon, and the mist dissolved around us. Flags waved their yellow tails, and tall rushes whispered in the breeze. I looked out over the river, to the low marshy flat that stretched out beyond. Like a silent sentinel, a windmill loomed, its sails held rigid in a skeletal cross. ‘Funnily enough,’ he said suddenly. ‘I’ve never told this to a soul before, and I'm not sure why I'm telling it now. You see it all happened a long time ago - but I’ve never forgotten it.
*****
‘I was twelve years old, way back in 1943 when I first became aware that I had a problem with my eyes. The country was at war, and for a long time it seemed like the whole damn world had gone crazy. I woke up one morning to the sound of a fly buzzing around the room. I tried to ignore it - but it was a persistent little bugger. As I lay there watching it, I noticed a mass of tiny black spots floating in front of my face. I rubbed my eyes a few times, thinking the spots would disappear - but when I opened them again, they were still there.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Just then an air raid siren sounded. By the time the all clear had sounded I’d completely forgotten about it. But from time to time the spots would reappear. I kept hoping that the problem would go away - but of course it didn’t. I was slowly going blind, only at the time I didn’t know it.’ The old man exhaled slowly.
‘Before long it seemed like I was tripping over my two left feet. Finally I broke down, told my mother what was happening. She grabbed my coat, and marched me straight off to the local surgery. And the rest as they say – is history.’
‘It must have been a hard thing to come to terms with,’ I muttered.
I could hear the crack in his voice, and he swallowed before he tried to talk again. ‘There’s no easy way to tell a lad he’s losing his sight, and no easy way for him to accept it. When the official news was finally broken, I couldn’t take it in. My mother, God rest her soul, broke down and wept. She wept for her only child who would have to bear this difficult burden, and then she wept for my father who was far away at the time, fighting in France.’
The old man sighed. ‘But the doctors weren’t far wrong. By the time I’d turned twenty-one, or thereabouts, I’d completely lost all vision.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly.
He gave a tight smile. ‘No need to feel concern my dear. ‘These days I’ve accepted myself for who I am, and always will be. Mind you, not that I’m about to pretend it’s always been easy. I was hitting my teens, and I hated the fact that I would be different. There were times when I felt I could almost accept my blindness, didn’t have much choice in the matter, but there were other times when I was very angry.’
We lapsed into silence. A butterfly danced above my head, so close, I felt I could almost touch it. Then it spun away, across the reeds, and disappeared from sight. I shifted a little and stretched my legs.
‘Don’t get too close to the edge,’ he said suddenly, a trace of concern creeping into his voice. ‘It might look harmless enough – but there are plenty of hidden reedbeds. It's easy to get tangled up...if you were to accidentally fall in...’
I felt my face colour. It was as if he knew of every dark thought that had ever crossed my mind. ‘I’m fine,’ I murmured.
The old man nodded. ‘You know,’ he proclaimed. ‘The one thing that strikes me most about the river is that it’s just like mankind.’
‘How do you mean?’ I asked.
He tilted his head and considered the question. ‘Well - the river lives. It moves and it breathes. And just like us - it has its own personality and different moods.’
‘I’d never really thought about it like that,’ I said.
He turned in my direction, a bemused look on his face. ‘The river has always been a vital source of life. For many it brings hope and prosperity. Communities have built their livelihoods along its shores and in its depths. It might look natural enough, but it’s not you know. Much of it is man-made.’
I looked up sharply. Hair fell across my cheek. I raised a hand and brushed it away. ‘I never knew that.’
‘Yep, its true enough. It all began in the Middle Ages,’ he explained. ‘At that time peat digging was a major industry around here. Men dug peat to fuel their fires. But over the years the water levels rose, making the peat more difficult to harvest. By the fourteenth century the pits were abandoned. Eventually they flooded - and created a whole new landscape.’
‘That's amazing,’ I said glancing out across the water. ‘It’s so peaceful, it hardly seems possible.’
His thin lips extended into a smile. ‘The river can be as calming as a lullaby, placid as a summer’s day.’
‘Like today,’ I exclaimed.
‘Ah, but you must never underestimate it,’ he said knowingly. ‘It can be very deceptive... and those who have misjudged it know only too well how unforgiving it can be.’
Sudden light burst through the trees, casting dark shadows across the river. Despite the summer heat, I shivered.
The old man nodded to himself. ‘People are shallow and people are deep. Some of course are about as deep as a puddle, why I swear you’d break your neck if you attempted to dive into them,’ he said, his well-worn face breaking out into a thousand wrinkles.
‘Yep, the river is much like the human race. And just as one day we return to the earth, the river returns to the sea.’
******
A flurry of wind swept in, sending long ripples across the river surface. Ducks seemed to quack their disapproval, and a small bird hopped tirelessly between the swaying reeds. It made an urgent churring noise, lifted into the sky, and faded to nothing. ‘That’s a reed warbler,’ he said. ‘Noisy little chap isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘He seems to have a lot to say.’
He raised a hand and slowly stroked his chin, and then his hands dropped to his side. ‘Of course losing my sight didn’t stop me from wanting to be loved. I needed it – craved it even – as much as the next man. And when I was eighteen I fell in love.’ He gave a slow far away smile.
‘She was a looker was Alice. Straw yellow hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. She was bright, kind, special like. She knew from the start about the problem with my sight, but she was never one to let anything put her off. She had a lot of spirit did that girl.
But Alice was unlike any other girl I’d ever known. Before she settled down to domestic bliss, babies and a bucket full of dirty nappies, she wanted to live a little - see the big wide world. Maybe that’s what attracted me to her in the first place...her adventurous nature. We were young and foolish, and thought that nothing could stand in our way.
It was all we ever seemed to talk about, the oceans we would cross, the places we would see - Asia, Africa, South America, exotic, mystical places. But I was slipping further into the darkness, and although I would never admit to my fears, I think deep down I always knew that it would never happen. Maybe Alice had her suspicions too...but the fantasy seemed...well it seemed so much better than the reality.’ His forehead creased, as if gathering his thoughts.
‘After a while, I felt it pulling at my heart. I loved her...but I knew I could never leave...any more than she could stay. I tried to imagine what it would be like without her... As for Alice...well she was just so caught up in the romance of the whole thing.’ His voice trailed off.
‘So what happened?’ I asked.
The old man looked away, and I couldn’t read his face. ‘She left a few weeks later.’
‘Maybe if you'd told her how you felt...maybe she'd have changed her mind,’ I suggested.
‘Yep, maybe - but sooner or later it would have come between us. Eventually she would have resented me for holding her back...and I don’t think I could have lived with that. But then who hasn’t at some time felt the sharp pangs of loneliness?’
His head dropped. I could feel the old man’s sadness tugging at my heart. It was almost as if he was touching upon my own life, as well as his.
‘Did you hear from her again?’ I asked.
‘Alice?’ He leaned forward. ‘Oh, for a while I did. But gradually the letters began to dwindle. Yet despite it all... there was still a part of me that refused to let her go. I thought that maybe she might come back.’
‘And did she?’ I asked. Did she ever come back?’
He considered the question for a moment, ran one big hand across his shiny head. ‘I never saw her again....’
‘I'm sorry to hear that.’
‘It's all right dear,’ he murmured. ‘Her sister lived in the next village, so I’d still hear about her from time to time. She settled in Texas of all places. Within a blink of an eye Alice was married, and soon after she had a son. Tommy was his name. It was only then that it finally sunk in that I’d really lost her.’
‘Hardly seems fair,’ I said.
The old man shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sometimes life isn’t fair – but you can’t hold on to what’s already lost,’ he said, his voice growing wistful. ‘Life goes on – maybe not in the same way as before – but it goes on. I never forgot her though... And then a few years later I received some terrible news. Tommy was out in the street playing on his new bike...the driver never saw him... They said there wasn’t a single mark on his body...’
I froze. I could hear the sound of my own breathing. ‘She lost a child?’ I whispered.
He nodded solemnly. ‘Poor little mite. He was barely six years old. Alice never got over it. The following year her husband came home from work and found her slumped in a chair. Stone-cold she was – still clutching a photograph of little Tommy... an empty bottle of pills by her side... ‘A tragic way for it all to end,’ he murmured. He gave an odd little smile. ‘I couldn’t help but think – if only ...’
‘But I reasoned – you weren’t to know.’
His shoulders hunched. ‘It doesn’t stop you from wondering though does it?’
******
Fish swam and the midges hovered. If only - if only! The words swirled round my head. And then there was Alice - the girl with the straw coloured hair - her spirit crushed by that tragedy. What thoughts had run through her mind in the final moments? Was it guilt, sorrow, regret? Did a shadow of the young man she’d left behind flicker through her mind?
‘Life’s strange at the best of times,’ I heard him sigh. ‘Sometimes you can question things till the cows come home – but at the end of the day it changes nothing.’
Together we sat in silence, the old man’s expression blank as looked out absentmindedly across the water. He gave a deep sigh. ‘For a long time I thought I’d never love again.’
‘And did you?’ I breathed.
He turned to me. ‘Oh yes my dear, I most certainly did. Life has a funny way of sorting itself out. Mary was a helper at the blind centre I attended. It was a different kind of love – quieter and steadier - but it was love all right. The first time I ever heard her voice I thought it the most beautiful sound in the world. And when I think of it now - it still has the same effect.’ The old man smiled. ‘Endings and beginnings, these are the unavoidable rhythms of life,’ he said wistfully.
I think it was then that I finally realized that there are different kinds of blindness. I almost smiled. The old man was right. Sometimes, no matter how much you try, you can't change the past. If only I hadn't moved away from home to be with Danny. If only he hadn't left me. But I had, and he did. And there was no changing that. It was time to face my sorrow. I could see that now.
Northwards, the sky began to darken with the promise of a summer storm. The old man’s voice jolted me back to reality. ‘Well young lady – it’s been quite a day, but I think it’s time to make a move. Rain is on its way, I can smell it in the air.’
Suddenly, a ‘booming’ sound like a muffled fog horn rang off in the distance and echoed across the river. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘That’s the bittern, the bird I was telling you about. Just listen to that cry! Isn’t that the most amazing sound you’ve ever heard?’
I felt a smile flicker across my face. ‘Yes it certainly is.’ I glanced across at the old man. And his eyes met mine. I could have sworn that a living brightness came into them. Suddenly I was seeing beyond the milky blue of his blindness. As if lit from within, those gentle eyes shone with the same lambent light that shone from the river. They captured my total attention - and as my thoughts drifted away, my whole life seemed to ebb and flow in their depth. Was it a mere moment, or was it longer? For when I focused again upon the living world, it was covered with rain, and the old man was gone. The tapping of rain upon the river reached my ears, like a whispered song.
I closed my eyes and waited for sleep. But it refused to come. I glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Twenty minutes past four. How could I feel so unhappy I wondered? Was there nobody who cared what I thought, what I felt? ‘You're lonely’ I whispered into the night. The sudden admission unnerved me, like a dark secret I'd been keeping from myself. I closed my eyes, and waited for the feeling to pass. Things would look better in the morning I told myself. Wouldn’t they? Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. The sound seemed amplified in the darkness and silence. I could stand it no longer. By moonlight I dressed, grabbed my jacket and set off to walk.
The streets were silent except for my footsteps. Turning right and right again, through narrow lanes, between flint and cobbled cottages, lowland fields and water meadows, I followed a sign towards the River Ant. I stopped for a moment to survey the sky, the stars that were paling, and the large untroubled moon that was slowly fading away. Not a soul stirred, and only a lonely scarecrow watched as I weaved a trail across the land. Drawn by the river ahead, I quickened my pace.
Amongst the thick reeds and willow the river lay silent. I kicked off my shoes, and sank beside the waters edge. An early morning mist was rising, and I peered out through the shoals of haze. Water birds bobbed, ducks paddled lazily, and brightly coloured dragonflies hugged the waters surface. As I followed their darting movements my vision blurred. Finally I gave way to the tears that had been threatening to fall. I wept until my head throbbed and my shoulders ached. I heard no sound of footsteps, and the man’s voice startled me.
‘Beautiful spot, isn’t it,’ he said.
Glancing up, I saw an old man standing on the footpath. He was breathing heavily, one hand tightly grasping the walking stick he was leaning on.
‘Yes...it is,’ I said, quickly dropping my head again.
‘You from around these parts?’ he asked.
‘Manchester,’ I said, discreetly using my fingers to wipe the tears.
‘Holiday?’
‘No, I moved here a couple of years ago.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well you’ve picked a fine day to spend by the river. And if you’re lucky, you might catch the sound of the bittern, the bird that rests amongst the reeds. Ever heard one of those old fellas calling?’ he asked.
I looked up, shook my head. ‘I can’t say I have.’
The old man glanced over his shoulder. ‘I used to live back yonder,’ he said, motioning a hand towards a small row of cottages in the distance. ‘I strolled here daily, regular as clockwork – fair weather or foul.’
I nodded my head. I didn’t much care to listen to an old man’s ramblings. I wanted to be alone.
He shifted a little, and looked out over the river. ‘There’s something about this place - it always draws me back.’
I nodded mechanically, my thoughts elsewhere.
‘I haven’t always been blind you know,’ he declared, his tone matter-of-fact.
I swung my head to take a closer look at him. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you my dear,’ he said, a wry smile forming on his lips – like he could tell I’d just been studying him. ‘But over the years the blindness became as much a part of my life as breathing. Besides, it can sometimes take more than a pair of eyes to see things for what they are.’
I frowned at him, wondering what he meant.
‘And for an old man...I talk too much...’
I guess this was the point I should have made my excuses and left. But the old man seemed harmless enough, and I had neither the heart nor the energy to make a move. ‘No, really, you’re fine,’ I heard myself saying.
‘Thank you,’ he muttered, almost gratefully. Edging a bit closer he slowly eased himself onto the grass, wincing as he sat. He rested the stick across his lap and then turned in my direction. As if he knew of my unhappy heart his voice dropped. ‘You know my dear, nothing is ever quite as bad as it seems.’
‘Isn’t it?’ I whispered. The old man simply nodded his head, almost as if he understood.
For a while we sat in silence. I glanced his way a few times, but the old man seemed distracted. The sun crept over the horizon, and the mist dissolved around us. Flags waved their yellow tails, and tall rushes whispered in the breeze. I looked out over the river, to the low marshy flat that stretched out beyond. Like a silent sentinel, a windmill loomed, its sails held rigid in a skeletal cross. ‘Funnily enough,’ he said suddenly. ‘I’ve never told this to a soul before, and I'm not sure why I'm telling it now. You see it all happened a long time ago - but I’ve never forgotten it.
*****
‘I was twelve years old, way back in 1943 when I first became aware that I had a problem with my eyes. The country was at war, and for a long time it seemed like the whole damn world had gone crazy. I woke up one morning to the sound of a fly buzzing around the room. I tried to ignore it - but it was a persistent little bugger. As I lay there watching it, I noticed a mass of tiny black spots floating in front of my face. I rubbed my eyes a few times, thinking the spots would disappear - but when I opened them again, they were still there.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Just then an air raid siren sounded. By the time the all clear had sounded I’d completely forgotten about it. But from time to time the spots would reappear. I kept hoping that the problem would go away - but of course it didn’t. I was slowly going blind, only at the time I didn’t know it.’ The old man exhaled slowly.
‘Before long it seemed like I was tripping over my two left feet. Finally I broke down, told my mother what was happening. She grabbed my coat, and marched me straight off to the local surgery. And the rest as they say – is history.’
‘It must have been a hard thing to come to terms with,’ I muttered.
I could hear the crack in his voice, and he swallowed before he tried to talk again. ‘There’s no easy way to tell a lad he’s losing his sight, and no easy way for him to accept it. When the official news was finally broken, I couldn’t take it in. My mother, God rest her soul, broke down and wept. She wept for her only child who would have to bear this difficult burden, and then she wept for my father who was far away at the time, fighting in France.’
The old man sighed. ‘But the doctors weren’t far wrong. By the time I’d turned twenty-one, or thereabouts, I’d completely lost all vision.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly.
He gave a tight smile. ‘No need to feel concern my dear. ‘These days I’ve accepted myself for who I am, and always will be. Mind you, not that I’m about to pretend it’s always been easy. I was hitting my teens, and I hated the fact that I would be different. There were times when I felt I could almost accept my blindness, didn’t have much choice in the matter, but there were other times when I was very angry.’
We lapsed into silence. A butterfly danced above my head, so close, I felt I could almost touch it. Then it spun away, across the reeds, and disappeared from sight. I shifted a little and stretched my legs.
‘Don’t get too close to the edge,’ he said suddenly, a trace of concern creeping into his voice. ‘It might look harmless enough – but there are plenty of hidden reedbeds. It's easy to get tangled up...if you were to accidentally fall in...’
I felt my face colour. It was as if he knew of every dark thought that had ever crossed my mind. ‘I’m fine,’ I murmured.
The old man nodded. ‘You know,’ he proclaimed. ‘The one thing that strikes me most about the river is that it’s just like mankind.’
‘How do you mean?’ I asked.
He tilted his head and considered the question. ‘Well - the river lives. It moves and it breathes. And just like us - it has its own personality and different moods.’
‘I’d never really thought about it like that,’ I said.
He turned in my direction, a bemused look on his face. ‘The river has always been a vital source of life. For many it brings hope and prosperity. Communities have built their livelihoods along its shores and in its depths. It might look natural enough, but it’s not you know. Much of it is man-made.’
I looked up sharply. Hair fell across my cheek. I raised a hand and brushed it away. ‘I never knew that.’
‘Yep, its true enough. It all began in the Middle Ages,’ he explained. ‘At that time peat digging was a major industry around here. Men dug peat to fuel their fires. But over the years the water levels rose, making the peat more difficult to harvest. By the fourteenth century the pits were abandoned. Eventually they flooded - and created a whole new landscape.’
‘That's amazing,’ I said glancing out across the water. ‘It’s so peaceful, it hardly seems possible.’
His thin lips extended into a smile. ‘The river can be as calming as a lullaby, placid as a summer’s day.’
‘Like today,’ I exclaimed.
‘Ah, but you must never underestimate it,’ he said knowingly. ‘It can be very deceptive... and those who have misjudged it know only too well how unforgiving it can be.’
Sudden light burst through the trees, casting dark shadows across the river. Despite the summer heat, I shivered.
The old man nodded to himself. ‘People are shallow and people are deep. Some of course are about as deep as a puddle, why I swear you’d break your neck if you attempted to dive into them,’ he said, his well-worn face breaking out into a thousand wrinkles.
‘Yep, the river is much like the human race. And just as one day we return to the earth, the river returns to the sea.’
******
A flurry of wind swept in, sending long ripples across the river surface. Ducks seemed to quack their disapproval, and a small bird hopped tirelessly between the swaying reeds. It made an urgent churring noise, lifted into the sky, and faded to nothing. ‘That’s a reed warbler,’ he said. ‘Noisy little chap isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘He seems to have a lot to say.’
He raised a hand and slowly stroked his chin, and then his hands dropped to his side. ‘Of course losing my sight didn’t stop me from wanting to be loved. I needed it – craved it even – as much as the next man. And when I was eighteen I fell in love.’ He gave a slow far away smile.
‘She was a looker was Alice. Straw yellow hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. She was bright, kind, special like. She knew from the start about the problem with my sight, but she was never one to let anything put her off. She had a lot of spirit did that girl.
But Alice was unlike any other girl I’d ever known. Before she settled down to domestic bliss, babies and a bucket full of dirty nappies, she wanted to live a little - see the big wide world. Maybe that’s what attracted me to her in the first place...her adventurous nature. We were young and foolish, and thought that nothing could stand in our way.
It was all we ever seemed to talk about, the oceans we would cross, the places we would see - Asia, Africa, South America, exotic, mystical places. But I was slipping further into the darkness, and although I would never admit to my fears, I think deep down I always knew that it would never happen. Maybe Alice had her suspicions too...but the fantasy seemed...well it seemed so much better than the reality.’ His forehead creased, as if gathering his thoughts.
‘After a while, I felt it pulling at my heart. I loved her...but I knew I could never leave...any more than she could stay. I tried to imagine what it would be like without her... As for Alice...well she was just so caught up in the romance of the whole thing.’ His voice trailed off.
‘So what happened?’ I asked.
The old man looked away, and I couldn’t read his face. ‘She left a few weeks later.’
‘Maybe if you'd told her how you felt...maybe she'd have changed her mind,’ I suggested.
‘Yep, maybe - but sooner or later it would have come between us. Eventually she would have resented me for holding her back...and I don’t think I could have lived with that. But then who hasn’t at some time felt the sharp pangs of loneliness?’
His head dropped. I could feel the old man’s sadness tugging at my heart. It was almost as if he was touching upon my own life, as well as his.
‘Did you hear from her again?’ I asked.
‘Alice?’ He leaned forward. ‘Oh, for a while I did. But gradually the letters began to dwindle. Yet despite it all... there was still a part of me that refused to let her go. I thought that maybe she might come back.’
‘And did she?’ I asked. Did she ever come back?’
He considered the question for a moment, ran one big hand across his shiny head. ‘I never saw her again....’
‘I'm sorry to hear that.’
‘It's all right dear,’ he murmured. ‘Her sister lived in the next village, so I’d still hear about her from time to time. She settled in Texas of all places. Within a blink of an eye Alice was married, and soon after she had a son. Tommy was his name. It was only then that it finally sunk in that I’d really lost her.’
‘Hardly seems fair,’ I said.
The old man shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sometimes life isn’t fair – but you can’t hold on to what’s already lost,’ he said, his voice growing wistful. ‘Life goes on – maybe not in the same way as before – but it goes on. I never forgot her though... And then a few years later I received some terrible news. Tommy was out in the street playing on his new bike...the driver never saw him... They said there wasn’t a single mark on his body...’
I froze. I could hear the sound of my own breathing. ‘She lost a child?’ I whispered.
He nodded solemnly. ‘Poor little mite. He was barely six years old. Alice never got over it. The following year her husband came home from work and found her slumped in a chair. Stone-cold she was – still clutching a photograph of little Tommy... an empty bottle of pills by her side... ‘A tragic way for it all to end,’ he murmured. He gave an odd little smile. ‘I couldn’t help but think – if only ...’
‘But I reasoned – you weren’t to know.’
His shoulders hunched. ‘It doesn’t stop you from wondering though does it?’
******
Fish swam and the midges hovered. If only - if only! The words swirled round my head. And then there was Alice - the girl with the straw coloured hair - her spirit crushed by that tragedy. What thoughts had run through her mind in the final moments? Was it guilt, sorrow, regret? Did a shadow of the young man she’d left behind flicker through her mind?
‘Life’s strange at the best of times,’ I heard him sigh. ‘Sometimes you can question things till the cows come home – but at the end of the day it changes nothing.’
Together we sat in silence, the old man’s expression blank as looked out absentmindedly across the water. He gave a deep sigh. ‘For a long time I thought I’d never love again.’
‘And did you?’ I breathed.
He turned to me. ‘Oh yes my dear, I most certainly did. Life has a funny way of sorting itself out. Mary was a helper at the blind centre I attended. It was a different kind of love – quieter and steadier - but it was love all right. The first time I ever heard her voice I thought it the most beautiful sound in the world. And when I think of it now - it still has the same effect.’ The old man smiled. ‘Endings and beginnings, these are the unavoidable rhythms of life,’ he said wistfully.
I think it was then that I finally realized that there are different kinds of blindness. I almost smiled. The old man was right. Sometimes, no matter how much you try, you can't change the past. If only I hadn't moved away from home to be with Danny. If only he hadn't left me. But I had, and he did. And there was no changing that. It was time to face my sorrow. I could see that now.
Northwards, the sky began to darken with the promise of a summer storm. The old man’s voice jolted me back to reality. ‘Well young lady – it’s been quite a day, but I think it’s time to make a move. Rain is on its way, I can smell it in the air.’
Suddenly, a ‘booming’ sound like a muffled fog horn rang off in the distance and echoed across the river. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘That’s the bittern, the bird I was telling you about. Just listen to that cry! Isn’t that the most amazing sound you’ve ever heard?’
I felt a smile flicker across my face. ‘Yes it certainly is.’ I glanced across at the old man. And his eyes met mine. I could have sworn that a living brightness came into them. Suddenly I was seeing beyond the milky blue of his blindness. As if lit from within, those gentle eyes shone with the same lambent light that shone from the river. They captured my total attention - and as my thoughts drifted away, my whole life seemed to ebb and flow in their depth. Was it a mere moment, or was it longer? For when I focused again upon the living world, it was covered with rain, and the old man was gone. The tapping of rain upon the river reached my ears, like a whispered song.
