High Hills, Deep Sea

There were four. He had picked them this morning, and the air was clear enough here in the country that they had stayed crisp and sweet and red, even though he had rushed out of the garden this morning because the neighbor's cow was kicking, and he had forgotten to put them in water. Hardy, the flowers of this country.

No, it is something about this place, he thought. Just like Bernard said. The two white, neat crosses, kneeling atop the hill. Little girls praying to the sea, crowned with garlands of flowers.

He took up the four roses in his left hand. The thorns on the stems bit at his hand a little. He merely moved the thumb of his right up, forward, brushing at the sore spots as if soothing a nervous horse. The air outside smelled like moonlight and rain and there was the sound of the sea.

He thought, as he climbed the gentle, swelling slope, this part of the Earth is alive, human, living and breathing and as soft as a woman's skin. And perhaps I know you, but I still dare not speak your name.

Just this afternoon, he had been bent over a rough patch of soil, and he had heard horse hooves. He had thought it was Bernard come back, and turned. It was with only a small lump in his throat and a slight rush of heartbeat that he had seen golden hair and a white horse coming toward him out of the wind.

And when he had blinked again, there was nothing there.

The white crosses were as he had left them yesterday. The moonlight turned the wood to marble, flowers curling round their feet, looking as if they were springing out of the earth, climbing up the crude white-washed planks, a secret sea-spray of delicate petals. They are as beautiful as you were, he thought, gently dislodging one of the roses from its sisters, wincing as the thorns stuck a little again. That one buried itself deep in the earth, which opened to receive it like a lover.

And you, he said to the other grave, you were as gentle and wise as the wind. Another rose. The soil was dryer here, a bit crumbly, and he bent down and gently packed it around the cut stem. Its red petals sighed in the breeze.

From somewhere in the distance, a horse whinnied, and his heart beat faster for just a moment, as it had this afternoon. But there would be nothing again, just a memory. He had too many of those. The sea roared in his ears, and the moonlight sprinkled itself down on his bent back, like light rain.

He looked at the two remaining roses in his hand. There was a prickling sensation at the hairs of his neck, as if he was being watched. Was it his imagination, or was there a soft nicker of a horse behind him, and then their voices, mingled slightly with the crash of the waves on the shore?

He did not turn to look. Instead, he searched for the right words to say over the flowers he held, something appropriate, something moving and deep. But he could not think of a thing, so like a man struck dumb, he simply opened his hand and let the wind take them, spinning them gently in his field of vision before drawing them out of sight towards the deep sea. He thought of Bernard then, about the place far away to where the wind might even take those two roses, the place that looked much like this one, with the gentle hill and those other two graves that he might never see.

When he turned back again, somehow he thought that he might see that other hill in the distance, the hill and the memories that lay sleeping within. But there were only the two crosses and the gentle moon. He had left a candle burning, too, in the window of the house in the valley.

But it does not matter that I might not ever see them, he decided firmly, taking a deep breath of the sweet air. He knew what she would say to him when they met again: that life was so full of joy, and she had found her happiness and hoped he had found his. Or perhaps she would not even need to say anything at all, because sometimes there were no words for something that could only be felt so deeply in the heart.
 

5 May 2004