GREENSLEEVES

GREENSLEEVES.

Even driving so painfully slowly, he only just made out the words
GREENSLEEVES on the sun-blistered board. But it was enough. It had
caught his eye. In spite of all the intervening years, a thousand
images of what he still thought of as Home rose to the surface. At this
speed he wouldn't make it back to Wellington before nightfall anyway.
Lewis stopped.
He opened the car door into such searing December heat that he was
almost forced to his knees. At the same time, the nagging ache deep
within his chest intensified. He felt in his pocket, checking that he
still had the painkillers. Somewhere inside, where it was cool, and
dark, and quiet, perhaps he would be granted a few hours
oblivion.
As he dragged himself across the car park, the chorus of the old song
echoed through his mind:
Greensleeves was all my love,
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold...
Gravel crunched beneath his feet. Every step became an effort. For
months he'd been ignoring the scale of his chronic exhaustion;
struggling to keep going round the same success-and-approval driven
track. Now it had finally caught up with him. He was played out. Empty.
A husk.
Suddenly everything in the Motel garden seemed threatening. Too big.
Too glossy. Altogether too exotic. Banks of huge scarlet flowers hung,
poised at boiling point, ready to melt back into the demonic wax from
which they'd secretly been moulded. Passion flowers seethed and
strangled. Emerald bananas clawed apart their sooty-purple blooms.
Bruised figs, hollowed by ants and marauding birds, littered the path
under a frenzy of flies. And in the background, the dull irregular
thump of citrus fruit hit the scorched grass like a failing
heartbeat.
Beyond stretched the Bush, where every tree loomed so impossibly tall,
each a massive bridge stretched between Heaven and Earth. The thought
of those terrible pines, always pointing towards the infinite
hereafter, made him shudder. What he needed now was to sink into the
cool, damp, mossy lap of the land of his birth. The Welsh Marches -
that narrow strip of countryside, supposedly dividing Saxon from Celt,
but somehow drawing the best from both - that was where he longed to
be. There, where the greens were softer, less strident, the blues
mistier the colours more fragile, less demanding. He sighed.
Alas, my love, you do me wrong...
Alas, indeed. It could almost be his epitaph. Alas was just about the
sum total of it all, he thought bitterly. Old. Alone. Tired. Useless.
Riddled with pain. Nothing left but regrets.
He registered. Automatically took the key.
Only when the door of his room was safely locked could he consider
letting go. Stripping off his jacket and tie, he threw them carelessly
on a chair. He sank down onto the bed and ran his hands over his face
before bothering to look around.
Most traces of the Greensleeves theme had long since gone. Apart from
the faded curtains and bedspread, printed with posies of improbable
cabbage roses and stiff, white, funereal lilies, this room was much the
same as a thousand others. But, to be fair, there were a few prints of
English cathedrals and moated castles. On his way to get a glass of
water, he discovered a shadowy miniature of Henry VIII by the bathroom
door. And, as always, he found himself thinking that the king looked
more like a successful butcher than a man capable of composing such a
haunting melody. What Mistress had Hal been serving when that was
snatched from the ether?
He tried humming a few bars. The notes stuck in his throat. It had been
a long time since song had played any part in his life.
After splashing his face with cold water he forced down the
painkillers, then stumbled back to stretch out on the bed, thinking
about home as he waited for them to work. Lying there, half-asleep, he
noticed that a large carved looking-glass had been set into an alcove
next to the bed. One corner of the frame was bleached and cracked as if
it had been too long in the sun, but the damage didn't detract from the
stunning workmanship. It was nothing less than a masterpiece, carved to
represent the growing branch of an oak tree. He went closer. The pain
receeded as he marvelled at the sher detail in the clustered masses of
leaves which twisted and turned in all directions. Tender young buds
unfurled along the top edge. Plump acorns ripened towards the base. A
few of the leaves even had delicately nibbled edges. Some instinct made
him feel behind these and to his amazement he discovered a row of stiff
little cocoons carved along a slender stalk.
At the top left hand corner perched a tiny wren, pointing inwards, its
head cocked as if marking his every move. Reaching out one tentative
finger, Lewis gently stroked the miniature quills of its tail, then
snatched it back, almost sure the little creature quivered beneath his
touch. Celtic legend had it that the wren, Drui-en, the Druid's bird,
and scared to Bran, bore the soul of the Oak tree. Immediately
afterwards he found the robin, staring out through the leaves with
bold, bright eyes. Lewis didn't trouble the robin. The Christians might
have claimed it for their own, but at the back of his mind there
lingered a suspicion of an older, more sinister connection with the
great god Pan, and with New Year patricide.
He hardly recognised the gaunt face in the glass. Beneath the tan his
skin had an ugly grey tinge that made his eyes stand out with a new
clarity.
Moving closer still, he found himself captured, unable to tear his eyes
free, held fast by his own hungry soul staring back at him. Panic
threatened to rise and choke him. Hours seemed to pass. Then there was
a soft butterfly churning inside. He was released. But now his
reflection was only a thin, misty thing, half obscuring a familiar
picture forming behind it, within, beyond, the glass. An ancient
half-timbered farmhouse nestled between a patchwork of ploughed fields
and the distant steel-grey slopes of dinosaur-backed mountains. To its
left was a frosted meadow leading down to a winter-bare spinney; on the
right, a long orchard with bright green clumps of mistletoe.
Lewis caught his breath. Of course, it couldn't be, logic forbade it,
but if he hadn't known better he could have sworn that the house was
his childhood home. But whatever would a picture of Ty Newydd, an
obscure border farmhouse, be doing here? Just imagination... that was
the long and short of it. He wiped his clammy forehead with the back of
his hand. Imagination? Wishful thinking, more like.
When he looked again, the picture had changed. Yellow catkins were
swinging at the edge of the spinney, among the soft purple haze of
budding alders. Early spring. Sweet white violets would be clustering
along that hedge. He closed his eyes, trying to recapture their
fragrance. For a brief moment his hands were full of their delicious
coolness. Mothering Sunday. He was taking them home to Mam. The wind
lifted his hair. Tugged at his well-darned jersey. The sappy nectar of
the poplar trees floated down on the warming air. How long since he had
experienced the pure joy of that moment?
He blinked. What in God's name was he doing to himself? This didn't
make sense. He was teetering on a precipice dge. Below lay
madness.
Then he shrugged. After all, what did it matter? He took a deep breath
and put one hand on each side of the frame, feeling the carved wood dig
into his palms. Dusk now. A handful of fragile moths fluttered from
behind the leaves, brushing his cheek with soft wings in their urgency
to taste the first honeysuckle scarmbling up through the wild roses.
Somewhere a dog barked. The glass darkened. He waited, completely
still, holding his breath. Nothing happened. It was gone. Perhaps it
had never been.
He must have slept, but woke with tears on his cheeks. Father, sister,
brothers - he could no longer remember their faces. Only his mother's
remained. For a long time he lay curled in the darkness brooding on the
past. What had he given up to be part of the mad machinery? What, if
anything, had he gained?
When he finally raised his head, dawn was breaking over the farmhouse.
During the long black night he had moved forward to stand beyond the
brook, staring up at the windows.
It had rained. Everywhere he looked, leaves, puddles, even blades of
grass, reflected back rainbows from their dripping surfaces. And the
noise was deafening. He hadn't remembered that the dawn chorus could be
so loud. For a few seconds a new ache, at the intense beauty of it all,
stirred in his chest. The sun zoomed up the sky. Almost mid-day. Must
run or he'd be late for his dinner. He stopped and felt for the jar of
minnows netted from the brook...
and came back to himself with a chilling jolt. He stared round in
disbelief at the strange room. At the outsize bed, obviously unslept
in. Everything this side of the looking-glass had become unreal. His
heart began to thump a litle too wildly. Icy sweat trickled along his
rib-cage. The pain grew steadily worse; each in-breath was a battle. He
was overwhelmed by the idea that it was almost, almost too late.
Bent double now, clutching his chest, he peered greedily into the
glass. His reflection stared back, blue-white and haggard. Then the oak
leaves began to quiver and shake as though stirred by the first gusts
of a rising storm. The little wren piped a shrill warning before
skitting through the glass to disappear into the undergrowth. The
robin's breast flushed deeper scarlet. Ruffling its feathers, it
unhurriedly preened an outstretched wing, then trilled a few bars as it
darted after her. The sun was directly overhead now. In a very few
minute sit would be eclipsed by the vast stone chimney, built wide
enough to hide a fugitive or smoke a side of beef. Quick! Quick! So
nearly too late. The pain built to an unbearable crescendo. All around
him the leaves rustled and crackled and began to fall, leathery and
autumn brown, onto the thick pile carpet.
Lewis called out just once. The door slowly opened revealing the vast,
cavernous interior. He knew who was waiting there. He was no longer
afraid. All he had ever really wanted, he realised now, was to be back
in Her arms, enclosed in the great warm body of Her immanence.
With a great effort of will he launched himself forward. The grass was
damp against his bare legs. The wind whipped a flurry of old leaves
after him. Thick black clouds gathered to hide the sun. Lightning
crackled. In the distance the first growls of thunder echoed up the
timeless valleys. As he scrambled up the cinder path, hugh splats of
warm rain began to fall like helpless tears. And at the very last
moment he reached the dark entrance and slipped joyfully back
inside.