The Song of Forgotten Places

"Be quiet, Ewan."

"But, Eve, the coach has broken down. We are in the middle of nowhere."

I was beside myself. I am seventy-five years old and I've been married to Eve for fifty years. This coach tour was a holiday to mark our golden wedding anniversary, and here we were stranded on some country road miles from anywhere. Because it was so hot some members of the coach party had got off the coach and were stretching their legs. I decided to do the same. There was a sylvan pathway leading off the road and I wondered where it led. I'd been told we'd be stopped for at least an hour, so I decided to go down the path. Other people were staying by the coach, not venturing off the road at all. It would be okay I told myself; I had plenty of time. Eve was quite content just to stay seated on the coach. The further I went down the path the more I had the feeling I'd been there before. Then it was upon me, a beautiful, falling cascade into a calming pool of clear water. It was just like I remembered: lots of of green ferns shooting up out of crevices in the rocks, dappled sunlight playing on the water's surface, and wonderful trees encircling it all, hiding it from view. I had no idea we were so close to this place; it was one of our forgotten places when I was young.

Then I had been a young twenty year old in love for the first time, not with Eve, whom I later married, but with Eloise. Ah, Eloise, it was so long ago, but she was someone I could never forget. I'd been a young student then and Eloise was too. She was studying french literature and I was studying engineering. We'd had such a special time that summer, our last summer together. One thing that made it special was our visits to what we called 'forgotten places', and of course I'd just happened to come upon our waterfall today, over fifty years later.

*  *  *

Eloise was smoking a cigarette. That was unusual for her. I'd heard rumours that she knew some delinquent boy from the wrong part of town. This would be his influence. Her hair was blonde and wispy, her eyes the soul of witchery, so clear and blue, so knowing, so full of everything that ever was , that ever could be. Just now I wanted her, I wanted to possess her. I threw off my jacket and Eloise sat upon it, her legs crossed in front of her. She played with a wildflower in her sensitive hands. I grasped it, then put my mouth on hers, probing her beauty. She loosened her blouse; she wasn't wearing anything underneath; one breast fell out. It was perfect; so full and round, so full of temptation. Desire got the better of me and I lowered my pants, but Eloise pushed me off. She went quiet, faraway somehow, and lit another cigarette. The smoke drifted away in fine wisps towards the bluebells, the bluebells of late spring; then spring turned to summer.

We found other places: a monastery garden, a ruined abbey near a small village out in the wilds no one knew about, an old orchard full of apple blossom and carpeted by wildflowers, growing in the grass: corncockle and poppies, ox-eye daisies and clover, purple and white, celandine and rob-in-the-hedge. It was a magical time for us both. Once she played the violin, a melody so sweet it was enough to break your heart, or she'd read to me, one of her novels she was keen on writing. Eloise thought she might be a writer full-time after college. It was what she wanted to be. 

Another time, at the ruined abbey, she told me dark secrets; how her father had abused her when she was only twelve. She'd been tormented by that for years. She'd never been able to tell anyone. She told me I was the only person she'd ever told because she trusted me. We had an understanding,a commitment. I kissed her under the apple boughs, by the river under weeping willows, and here by the cascade we'd bathed naked in the dreaming pool. That had all come to an end quite abruptly. We would fight over nothing. She became taciturn and I didn't know why. She was so amazingly beautiful I forgave her immediately, but I never knew why it happened.

So our summer of young love had passed in a bittersweet way and here I was back in one of the forgotten places. It wasn't until after she died I found out why her behaviour had been so erratic. She was only twenty two and had thrown herself off a bridge. I went to the funeral and spoke to her mother. "Eloise was very beautiful," she said to me, "but quite mad." I then understood why our time had been so difficult. Her sorties across town with young ne'er--do-wells had been the other side of her schizophrenic personality rearing its ugly head; her bad temper with me was for the same reason. She was two people.  All I had left were my memories like a burning jewel of a sunlit summer. Eloise, a beautiful tantalus, and me her adoring admirer.

It was as if she was with me now in this our most precious of forgotten places. I could feel her very presence, her laughter, her tears, and I felt sad, sad that she was lost to me forever.

I kissed a bluebell and threw it upon the pool's surface, watching it drift to dreamland. I must get back: how long had I lingered here? The sun was leaving the sky and I felt a chill in the air. Just then I saw my wife Eve, coming down the path.

"Ewan, we must get back to the coach. Where have you been?"

Where had I been? I had been revisiting the past. I had been in love again.