Take A Picture Of The Lighthouse

Here the red Carr stone cliffs are millions of years old, full of iron oxide, red because they’re rusting. Limestone forms the next layer and on top of that is bright white chalk topped with a meagre strip of grass. On the beach the sea loiters away at low tide. Rocks form mounds like sleeping seals with wet green lambent hair. Looming above a boiling rain cloud forms an anvil shape dividing the pure blue sky. I see a man in a huge pair of shorts that flap about his pale thin legs. Gulls cackle and squawk in breeding pairs above his head. He is collecting stones, but not any old stones. I notice he is busily seeking out the pure white shards of chalk. When he has an armful he throws them up on a pile, he can’t have built a pile that high, could he have built a pile that high? He soldiers on in a very specific way as if he’s tidying up or taking stock. I have to ask him what he’s doing. The distraction is unfortunate, as I’m busy with my task, but I have to know before I leave.

Hello.

His head snaps around. I am not a welcome sight. He sighs and answers in a nasal northern tone: I know what you’re going to ask, everybody asks the same question.

Why are you piling up the stones?

He points toward great blocks of limestone that have fallen from the cliffs. I’m protecting the cliffs from the sea, he says, throwing another armful of stones on to the pile. They clack as they land and it sounds like a half – hearted round of applause.

I walk off to the sound of the clapping stones and the laughing gulls.

Hey, you. The tide comes in here faster than a horse can run.

I wave as if I know.

Please yourself.

The salty breeze blows his warning away.

I wander into the maze formed by the sleeping green stones between the cliffs and the foreshore and at last he is out of sight.

I can see a surfer with his blue board running the distance to the flat calm sea. Finally he flops into the water and mounts the board. He sits waiting for a wave. He is so far away that he makes no sound. Turning around, I look at the cliffs again, I notice the Lighthouse for the first time. It stands like a white mace rammed into the top of the cliff, a safe solid thing, but so far away. At this obtuse angle it may make an interesting photograph. With my back to the Lighthouse I glance over my shoulder. I hold the camera up level with my head and turning the lens to the right I click the shutter. The gulls continue to laugh.

It’s a very striking image, my half face in the foreground fixed with a grim stare, the ice cream cliffs and the spooky white mace that seems to float or hover.

I have a hundred pictures on the camera, that’s enough to keep anybody entertained isn’t it? I mean, you don’t often see the ceiling of a tower in the Alhambra, or a carved stone head, or a series of grotesque gargoyles. I wrap up the camera in two plastic sandwich bags, just to stop it getting wet. I’ll leave it here on the beach. I look around for the surfer, or anybody for that matter. The coast is clear. Sitting down among the rocks I run my fingers through the stringy weed, I can smell the sea in the ionized air. The surfer rises with the swell and for all his waiting, seemingly prepared, he’s thrown from his board and like a loose limbed doll. He crashes into the sea. The wave runs out flat and its foaming white charge dies at my feet. It retreats, dragging the newly wet pebbles away out of reach.

This journey’s end was unforeseen. A sudden decision which required no thought, no dithering.
I would have brought a sandwich and a flask of tea, but what’s the point. I thought about smoking one last cigarette, well, it could hardly do any harm could it? No, simple is best, I’ll watch one of the movies in my head. I close my eyes.

The coastlines of France, Spain, Italy and Greece, the sight of the sea, an Island – Karpathos, still almost unspoilt. There in one small coastal village I spent my mornings chewing on fresh honeycomb, drinking bitter coffee, watching small boats putter back to the quayside with buckets full of glittering squid. The fishermen called out to the restaurants strung along the quay and their wives ran out to collect the catch, out into the heat, the sunlight that made every blue, white and red and every shade in between burst bright and shimmer. Chairs scraped across the flagstones and the guttural sounds of the fishermen roaring at one another over coffee and cigarettes made the tourists laugh. And that was where, one bright busy morning, sat in the bustle of that perfect place I heard another voice, a simple quiet voice. You have to go back, you have to.

At last, the surfer finds a rumbling, roaring, giant grey wave.

I hope they find the camera.

©Stephen Pullman 2013