Another time Another Place

        It is a nippy spring morning in Bridgeton. The rising sun,  a large golden apple, has risen above the southern downs and  just touched the blossom filled trees, whose pink and pearl petals, peal slowly open; to gather in the heat of the morning light and reveal their subtle redolence.
         As the sun slowly starts its lilt across the sky, it touches the   fat thumbs of the old Georgian houses on upper church street,  whose rooves begin to steam and thus reveal sweet petrichor.  It has yet to reach the street level and the scattered twittens that  are hidden in penumbra. Dark damp lines rise up at the street corners in coarse streaks to stick up their broken fingers at the new day.
         The sky, free from cottony clouds, reveals a noiseless blackbird that swoops down to then suddenly dart to the right as the heavy clanging church bell, run by an internal clock rather than by a campanologist, slowly strikes eight.  The deep clamorous  tone, echoes past the Georgian fronted shops, along the tight turning twitten’s, though the public houses and into the playing field’s  beyond.
       The sudden sound of the bell shocks a murder of crows, claiming the house of God for themselves. Being startled, they take to flight who then ratchet and caw at the bell. With cold mocking laughter, they fight amongst themselves, in slow spiralling circles, and are then driven southward by high strong winds, towards the rich green tufted mounds of the south down’s and beyond that, the soothing and softly rolling southern sea.
          The 14^th Century church stands upon high ground; its flint walls and high pointed, tiled red roof stand majestic. It, like the 14^th Century wattle and daub fronted “grammar school” remind the town of a richer, yet darker age. An age lost to many in myth when the town was less land locked and where the fragmented wall of the castle at Bree, three quarters of a mile away stood stronger and  for more than the  mere  handful of  tourists, who manage  to find this  corner of England.  
Beyond the flint wall perimeter, a host of trumpeting daffodils lead a lemon train, away from the church and towards narrow upper church street, that then finally leads to the high street.  However, through slow time, the school and the  town are becoming mute;  dwindling  into history and a growing senses of apathy as dark politically driven  clouds  close in.
The bell stops the chime.  In its last residual echo there is a moment of serene calm that rises and falls in waves. Peace resides once more. But it wasn’t to last, for long. Especially for   flabby unkempt man, wearing a brown Macintosh and a brown fedora hat, who rests in the doorway of the church.
          A black mass of a six wheeled Mercedes  slowly comes to a halt.
         The door  of the car opens and closes. Slow crunching steps are heard. They sound sharp and uniform, disturbing the early morning silence. The sound comes from a pair of well-polished stiff leather boots’. They echo upon the aged flagstones, along the brittle flint lined path that leads towards the church entrance. They echo with the sound of history, a dark bloody victory and death.
     The soldier is young, clean skinned and polished. He stands lean in his pristine black uniform, over the shabby man. He kicks  him slowly with one of his polished boots. His narrow wet lips,  twist into a thin  line of disgust; as his sandy gunmetal blue eyes, stare blandly down. With a groan, the flabby  man raises his head and squints at the shadow that stands over him.
      ‘-You awake old man?’ the young, brush hard Germanic voice growls out. ‘Have you been out all night?’
       ‘-Wha-‘ The old man mumbles, as he awakes ‘-the time.’
      ‘-Its’ a  little after  eight  in the morning…’ The young man in the black uniform replies; pulling back on the black visor of his black military cap, so the  cap lies further back  upon  his  head.  The sun shines brightly upon the silver emblem of the deaths head on the cap and upon the sharp collar. Despite the hour he is wiping his brow slightly, which reveals beads  of sweat. ‘...you have your papers?’
         ‘-Papers?  Yes…paper’s…papers…’ The older man  looks disconcerted, disconnected and lost. He stands up and is seen as shorter than the young officer.  He pats his dirty mackintosh, and rustles in the pockets. He pulls out a  briar  pipe and tin of   four square pipe tobacco.  Muttering under his breath he rummages in his baggy trousers. The old man looks serious. His sea green  eyes narrow, revealing  of crow’s feet, under his baggy eyes.  His thinning, balding fading grey  hair, is parted to the left. His slowly growing jowls  are nearly hidden by a growth of stubble. It gives his tram lined face, a crumpled, worn but educated appearance. His body, also being flabby makes the younger thinner officer scoff at this sad fat Englishman.
        ‘Come on...’ insists the officer; his voice now on the edge of becoming hostile. ‘...I haven’t got all day.’
         ‘-No, no papers...’ the old man begins. He looks at the young German officer sheepishly and suspiciously; as if he hasn’t seen anything like him before. Then he suddenly looks down‘...I’m…I’m looking for my wife...’ He rummages into his coat pocket again  and pulls out a large photograph. With shaking hands, he shows it to the Young German officer, who is beginning to  bored,  ‘...have, have you seen her?’
          ‘-No, why would I?’
           ‘-I’ve been looking  for months… Since, since I woke up here and-‘
         ‘-If, if  you have no official papers, then, you will be declared an illegal and   have to go to the local internment station.’ The young officer answers coldly.  Suspicion fills the eyes of the younger man.
         ‘-But, but  my wife...’ the old man looks disorientated. ‘…Where is my wife, where is  this place, it looks familiar...yet ...what year is this?’
             ‘-Place...Year?’ The young officer scoffs.
The young German officer thinks that he must be an escaped lunatic from “Winston House”; the huge lunatic asylum upon the edge of town. He shakes his head, as he looks at the picture.
           ‘To answer your question old man...’ He begins, coldly ‘...you are in the town of Bridgeton on the south coast of England; which is run by The Free German alliance, in the year of our Furher, nineteen hundred and sixty nine...’ The young man’s voice begins to falter; because something catches his eye in the picture. Something that he knows shouldn’t be there.
          ‘-What is that?’  the offcer asks  pointedly.
           ‘-What is what?’  asked the old man.
          ‘-Don’t be obtuse with me!  That!’  The younger man spits as he  Aggressively points  at the picture with a sharp narrow finger.
The old man begins to gather his strength ,as he stretches out, to face him.
         ‘I, I  don’t think you’d believe me, even  if I told you.’
          ‘-This  is an illegal dissenting document.  Are you a dissident?’
          ‘No...’ begins the older man. ‘…I’m simply  lost in time.’
         ‘-Lost in time?  My God  you must be mad..  How did  you come by the picture? Are you a part of the  E.R.A?
          ‘-The  wha?-’
            '-The English  Republican Army!  Speak!’
           The  officer draws his  gun. The older  man raises his hands above his head in panic; and gets  to his  knees
         ‘-No oh God no!  I just I’m  just looking for my wife! Please Please! It’s, its, just a, a   picture. A picture of my wife.’
           ‘Name English man Speak!’
           ‘-Wilson. My name is Harold Wilson I don’t have any papers! I don’t know what happened. I woke up here three weeks ago! Where is Mary! I’m looking for Mary!’
          The Young German officer grabs the older man and puts his hands behind his back.  He cuffs his wrists and  then drags  the older man  away, to the waiting black Mercedes.  The last thing the older man sees, before he his thrown into  the back of  the car  is his precious picture; the only thing  he had  that reminds  him of another time and another place, floating off  in the  morning breeze  along the old cobbled path that leads  to the front gate of the  church. For a single moment he glimpses his old life.  He is a man of office and of standing. A leader of men and of a nation once known as Great Britain.  Then just as suddenly, the image of that time  is gone; as the picture floats out of view.
       Then he sees her. Somehow, by a  miracle, she appears. The mere ghost of an image just outside just outside his sphere of vision, by the  side of the road, as the car  speeds away, towards  the high street.

 * * *

         Mary Baldwin sighs as she walks along church road towards  the town  library,  based within  the grounds of the  Grammar school. Her honey eyes glitter with a touch of cynicism, brooding over the fact, that being in her late forties and single was getting her down.  She was therefore becoming  resigned the fact that spinsterhood, free from the company of men was not a bad thing after all. As she walked she recounted the conversation with her lose friend Glynis at the library the other week.
       ‘- but what about that nice German patrol man’ Glynis chided. ‘You know, he’s not that bad and-‘
         '-Please, Glyn, he’s a boy.’
          ‘-well beggars can’t be choosers’ Glyn smirked; and so the conversation would go on.
Mary shook her head, in the attempt to remove the day old discourse from her mind. Her long flowing plump auburn hair that  has traces of grey in thin streaks was hidden. Pulled up into a  tight regulation bun.  The hairstyle gave her  angular features and elfin jawline  a  cold appearance.  Her hair was hurting her.  She hated it.  She hated everything about it, She hated  the style the need and the orders that came with it.  Only the other day on the  television  she had seen some of the hairstyles  from the confederation of the States of America.  together with a broadcast about how decadent the place was; and how it needed  discipline  of the  Furhur. The freedom. The freedom. 
              She ached inside.  
              She keeps her head down as she steps her way along  he path along Upper  Church road. She usually uses it because it’s a short cut back to her modest bungalow. Usually, at this time in the morning see meets and greets the young officer from the barracks, whom Glyn teased her with.  Sometimes he says hello, and that lifts her heart  a little. Sometimes he does not; and she wonders what she has done wrong.  She thinks about that young officer, as a heavy humming is heard. She looks up to see a huge Zeppelin, coast slowly across the clear blue sky. She thinks about waving at it, but then changes her mind.
              The path beneath her feet changes, from gravel to stone, as a wind gently blows a large photograph along the path, towards her feet. It rests by the corner of a pale grey, wind ridden gravestone.  She bends and picks it up, more out of curiosity than anything else.  Her heart thumps in her chest. And hr eyes stare wild in disbelief.  In  the photograph she sees herself, only with long flowing hair and in the arms of a  short  plump man smoking a briar pipe.   She sees she  smiling richly,  But what strikes her is what is standing tall behind her.  For behind them both, stands something that hasn’t existed for nearly thirty years: the houses of Parliament.
It’s then she hears a muffled voice.
            She turns to see the young German officer and an older man in the back  of  a  Mercedes car, slowly driving away along upper Church  street.
              For a moment, she senses something about the older man who stars at her.  A dim, hard to articulate connection, to another time and another place. A soft blush appears upon her cheeks, but it soon passes. For she smiles as holds the picture close to her heart. For now, she has faith. She believes that somewhere, there is a place, where she can let her hair down and feel truly free.

© ADH 2016