Ochre Ridge

Ochre Ridge

 

The day is passing.

 

At the far end of Ochre Ridge amid the silver birches the pulse of life begins to ease gently down as the copse prepares for nightfall. Warm moist breath rising from the undergrowth meets the cold air of the shadows.. As it does so it sprinkles a dew of diamonds over thin nettle and spidery bramble..

 

There’s a taste of autumn in the air. .

 

Fat bellied full beaked swifts ready themselves for migration. Old crow beats his way down the valley cawing out this news as if it were scandal.

 

Virgin white, Venus holds her skirts and waits high in the wings as the passing sun sinks beneath a near horizon. It takes with it the orange and vermillion of closing day and passing through magenta leaves twilight behind.

 

Rapidly advancing, evening throws its purple quilt around the shoulders of Ochre Ridge. The cover deepens and darkens as it flutters and settles across the valley.

 

Night has fluffed up her cotton counterpane and let it settle on Ochre Ridge. Dark fingers reach up from the valley floor and tuck the quilt into every fold.

 

Bright Venus, Polaris and a silver moon have the sky.

In the village candle lights, like yellow stars in black water, shimmer in small, terraced cottage windows. Beams of bright light from the electric bulbs of the Colliers’ Bar stab into the dark at the opening of the door. They curl as they beckon like sirens, tempting the intemperate.

Inside it is Friday night and the ‘gangers’ have paid the miners their wages .

 

Blue scarred, black-eyed men settle slates, nurse glasses of golden ale and slam black dominoes. The few, the temperate and the timid, take their money and in a swirl of nicotine cloud they pass through the door and head straight for home. The rest cling precariously to the skirts of pleasure, dancing her frenzied jig, climaxing then sinking into alcoholic exhaustion.

These are the lost boys who talk only of the immediate and the past. They have no dreams, no tomorrows. They do not look up at Ochre Ridge; they dare not think of what lies beyond it.

Along the terraced rows in little back-kitchens warmed by soft coal fires, mothers scrub urchins, sisters brush fresh washed hair and protesting infants are ‘dosed’. Now it is time for bed. At the tops of the narrow stairs dutiful siblings help each other into cots in the tiny back bedrooms; girls to the right and boys to the left.

 

Old white bed sheets that serve as drapes divide these cramped dormitories. In the candle light as if in some bizarre magic lantern show, silhouetted children appear to dance shadowy jigs projected onto these curtain screens.

 

Candles are snuffed and hush settles on these cotton wrapped cherubim and seraphim as they sink into sleep to dream restful unhurried dreams. White divider sheets now become billowing clipper sails that lift them skywards over Ochre Ridge and send them scudding across the escarpment towards the Empire beyond. They bear not the marks of trauma; they dare to dream. These will be the children of the shiny chrome and blue electric age.

 

In a snug front bedroom under cosy cotton sheets, cheap as chintz Annie Ramshorn, now Mrs. Carrini cuddles with her deep and dark Luigi. She floats unfettered on his hot moist breath as he whispers and moans rich Italian wooing in her ear. The exquisiteness of her ecstasy makes her flinch, he moans.

 

United in pleasure, they drift in middle consciousness, released for a short while from the hard-nosed reality of life under the ridge. On a body hugging flocked mattress new life is conceived. The portents are good for this rich mix of Italian and Yorkshire-Viking blood.

 

On the other side of the wall at twenty-two, dim is the light in the bedroom of Albert Edward George Golightly as he half sits, yellow under a pale counterpane. With rasping gasp he snatches air. Then he responds to God’s call with a hacking coughing. Bert’s hour is nigh. He has no fear of death. He will join his Emily. No moan, no more coughing, quietly the jaundiced corpse stiffens. His ‘lux aeterna’ now shines among the stars.
Such is the juxtaposition of life and death.

 

Outside round-eyed creatures of the night go about their foraging. In spite of the walls they are aware through the common knowledge that is the unsolicited possession of all creatures, of Bert’s demise. ‘What’s in it for me?’ – It’s the only cry and it’s from those that feed on decay.

 

Unseen and unheard a barn owl swoops. A baby mouse gripped in a steel talon squeals. The stifled squeak is the only evidence of the assassin. Now wiith food for its own, the grey bird is swallowed by the black. In panic the mouse family fumble and tumble into ‘plink-plonk’ drains. All is quiet outside twenty-two. Little mouse is un-mourned.

Back in his nest old crow rests warm amongst a a lifetime’s savings of breast feathers. Yet in his high tree what should be cosy, easy sleep escapes him. Age and ailments bear down upon him. The joy of reckless young living is permanently a step beyond his reach and he moans and mourns its evasiveness. It seems to trouble him and to detract from the joy that he has and that that he’s had. Beside him his plump missus sleeps peacefully and no doubt dreams of the large extended family that appears to be the sole topic of her conversation.

 

With a squinted eye old crow stares at a sliver of pre-dawn mist as it stabs icily into the black at the base of the tall alders. Not long now and the restlessness of the night will give way to the pester of the day.

 

The string is cut and too quick to be announced the bright orange sun pops joyfully above the horizon.

 

The fresh scent of a new day is about.

 

Down Gladstone Street, bachelor, Wyn Edwards (milkman-tenor), 

Hums to the buzz of his electric cart. 

Accompanied by the ‘chink and chenk’of milk tuned bottles 

He is sweet lullabying pink cheeked damsels 

Who, soft sleeping, are dreaming of affairs of the heart.

 

In Mary Tulley's bedroom, the hamsters, (top ‘C’ sopranos),

Have whistled and trod the treadmill night away.

Accompanied by Mary’s snoring they give a final pre-dawn rondo,

As Goldie (castrato) spins the wheel,

And counterpoints a glorious alto greeting to the new day.

 

 

 

Bright on the corner, Gujurat Patel (newsagent-baritone),

Stands, arms akimbo, in the doorway of his early/late shop.

Stirred by the sun’s first ray, he hums golden brown,

Of temples and tigers, aided by Gary (paper boy –in between voice)

Who counts his paper quires and whistles a bangra bop.

 

 

 

In the bank, behind high-set, un-curtained windows,

Nellie Twee (cleaner - big band contralto) tells of her amour.

She sings and swings through fresh dancing sunbeams

And stirringly accompanied by her mop’s flip-flop,

She ‘jitterbugs’ across the shiny marble floor.

 

 

Along the terrace at 32, Sharon Jones (soprano - mezzo-mother)

Croons and coos her children from their sleep.

Stirringly accompanied by ‘snap, crackle and pop’,

She sings of her plump joy as she dishes up dishes,

Of cereal and toast, whilst mothering all within her keep.

 

 

Now a starling coughs down the chimney pot,

The dove shrugs his shoulders and coos.

The birds under the grey guttering chorus sweetly.

The new day’s congregation sings its praises

As the cat in the back yard his matins mews.

 

 

First to rise above the high tree, old crow circles calling to kith and kin, inviting them to come and search for the night’s carrion. He knows he needs the sharp eye of the young and keen if good foraging is to be done.

 

With fettered tongue crow hums in harmony with Wyn Edwards (milkman tenor). He watches the silliness of the adolescents in their prime coal-black funeral coats. They dip and soar and shout and giggle. For them life on the threshold is as joyful as the morning

 

Unconsciously crow drops his guard and sees youth without a jaundiced eye. For a moment he recalls the pleasure of being young..

 

From the other side of the hill comes a moaning and a groaning, a grumbling and a grinding, a whining and a whurring as Henshaws' chara claws its way step by step up the escarpment. In its red and cream glory it's coming to collect housewives and other trippers to Dunbryn Saturday market.

 

At the back of the copse the boys gang is pushing and shoving in play and teasing and in anticipation of the arrival of the girls. They are off to Walliams' farm to climb the barn roof and watch the slaughter – two pigs and three sheep.

 

The day moves on. Crow's reverie soon over he is back to marshalling. Up the valley and across the town the flock follows the crowd to Walliams' farm.

 

Behind Henshaws' chara - silently, almost floating - follows Bensons' shiny black and chrome body wagon. In the passenger seat sits Father McGuirke his hands folded around his neat beretta that rests on his prayer book on his knee. They are going to collect the body of Edward Albert George Golightly.

 

Father McGuirke is musing over who during the previous night conceived a child since the rule of 'one in one out' seems always to apply to the round of life as it turns under Ochre Ridge.