Tollesbury Time Forever (11 page)

We hurtled across the fields, hunted by who knows how many. We were at the edges of the fog now and each time I stole a glance behind me so there were more and more lights in the grey green air. A wailing sound grew ever closer, piercing the fog, startling the birds and striking fear into me. I had heard it in some other time but could not place it. I paid little heed to my erratic breathing and less to the sharp ache in my chest. I knew my heart was breaking but it made no difference. Zachariah urged me on as if I were some old greyhound on whom he had foolishly laid his life’s savings. I craved that
final bend and that ever lengthening home straight like I had craved nothing before.

As I was about to implode, I was grabbed by Zachariah’s huge hands. He had me by the shoulders, stopping me just where I stood. It was like hitting a wall. He then took his right hand and placed it flat across my mouth. I recall to this day that taste of death as I inhaled his odour. At times, I lie awake and that same smell returns. On such occasions, I can do nothing but pace the floor until a less ungodly air fills my lungs.

After some moments my captor removed his hand and dragged me stumbling down some uneven stone steps. The mist was clearing yet a darkness prevailed. I felt cold water dripping upon my head and the smell of salt permeated the air. We were underground.

At last, Zachariah bade me stop and I sank to my knees. I was shattered in every conceivable way, within and without. Silence abounded. I hardly noticed the moment when a light crept up the wall, a light dancing from an oil lamp. When I looked up from the stony floor I saw I was in a small cavern, no bigger than ten or so square feet. I may as well have been in the belly of some vile creature.

“Sit boy. Sit and rest. They won’t find us here.”

Zachariah Leonard lit his pipe and smoked.

And me, well I just wept. I wept for my son, Robbie, and for hope and for dreams. I wept for John Lennon and for Joe Strummer. I wept for Rick Danko and for the boy I once was. But most of all I wept for Robbie.

Yes, I don’t mind telling you, I cried until I could cry no more. And then, do you know what I did? I smiled, grinned almost. I stood up, walked over to where Zachariah sat in some sort of maudlin reverie and I deftly snatched the pipe from out of his hand. Just like that.

He did not move other than to raise his eyes to me, eyes that were so red with his own tears they could have been bleeding. The tears seemed to have washed some of the grime from his face. There was a difference in the way he held himself, a complete change in his countenance. But his stench
was worse than ever. It was then that I realised why that sickening smell seemed so intense. For it rose from my own body, not Zachariah’s. Interesting, I thought.

I swept a hand through my lank hair and took a puff on the pipe.

“You don’t scare me,” I said, slowly, choosing my words with reverence.

He continued to gaze at me with those bloodshot eyes of his.

“I should hope not,” he said, eventually. “For you and I are more alike than you know.”

The thought appalled me but I knew he spoke the truth. I sat down beside him and drew him to me, holding him whilst he shook. I brushed the hair from his ragged face and rocked him to sleep. I did not know whether it was day or night and, to be honest, I didn’t care.

Zachariah Leonard was in my arms.

Robbie was in my burgeoning heart.

And I was about to be reborn from the deathly womb of this fetid land.

Time passed.

Blood flowed through my veins and my mind throbbed as if it had taken the place of my heart. Blackness was all about me and the shallow breathing of the fading Zachariah Leonard was the only indication that he was there at all. Though I could barely see him through the density of the gloom, I had a sense that something about him was diminishing - be it his overpowering presence or that indefinable potential for hostility that ever held me at bay.

Well, I’m not a fan of the dark so you can imagine how I felt stuck in that small cavern cold drops of water spattering around me. The only other discernible sounds were the exhalations of two weary men lost in life. Oh to be so adrift, so far from the shores of normality, so alien a creature in so persecutory a world; well such was my fate. To recognise oneself to be so repugnant to society is an acknowledgement that can shatter your very soul. We don’t often get the chance to start again.

So where was I to go from here? Zachariah was fading before my eyes, yet I knew that he was more a part of me then than ever he had been before. Strength brewed within me, bubbling and fermenting. My own frailty ebbed. Clarity clattered into my thoughts and brought about a satori, an enlightenment, if you will.

It was time to make a difference.

I had to begin at the beginning.

Instantly, I knew that I had to find some children. Sometimes you just know these things. Don’t make me explain it.

I looked at Zachariah, slumped as he was against the wall, and decided to leave him there. I would come back for him, of course, in due time. But for now, I had to concentrate solely on myself. This predicament I was in was mine alone to solve. As I crawled out into the daylight, the sun flooded into
my soul. I felt inebriated, drunk on nature and willing to receive all that came into my presence. But I absolutely had to find some children. I was in that groove.

But isn’t that just the way? You clamber out of a hole in the ground all set to look for a child and the first thing you come across is an old woman patting a donkey. It’s happened to me more times than I can remember.

“Hello, dear,” said the old woman. “Would you like to pat my donkey?”

I smiled and patted her donkey. The only advice I would ever dare to give anybody is that if you come across an old woman and she asks you to pat her donkey, just go ahead and pat it. What’s the sense in not doing it?

I was here to learn and learn I would. I was blazing inside, just ready to go, go, go. Alive, alive, alive. Be-bop-a-lu-la. Woo hoo! Don’t stop me now! The music was with me and there was not a Beatle in sight. I was the drums and I was the bass. I was Levon Helm and Rick Danko, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, The Mighty Max Weinberg and Garry W Tallent. You don’t need any more than that. Not when your mind is falling apart. Come on!

The sun shone high and the sky was blue, blue, blue. Where this newfound energy within me had come from, I knew not. The only thing that made sense was to keep on keeping on until somebody stopped me. Were I not fifty years old, I’m sure I would have forsaken my lumbering gait for a sprightly skip.

I wandered down to the field where they had held Tollesfest in 2005. Ah, Tollesfest. It had been a mad mini-bus ride from The King’s Head, bales of hay, rock and roll, children hurtling around, drunkenness, drunkenness and the stars in the night sky lighting up the way back home. It was olden times and it was pure and it was absolutely beyond the law. May every town and every village have a Tollesfest. And may it be the benchmark for what is right in this world. Amen.

And in that field where once I had seen ramshackle bands and drunks and burgers strewn like fallen heroes, there now was a sight which I must describe for you. A barn strode
the horizon, all wooden planks and age and sprouting hay as if it were hair. It was surely creaking a greeting as I approached it. How long it had stood there, I knew not, but there was one thing I felt to my bones - I was meant to be there and something momentous did portend. Never before had I felt so drawn.

As a friend of mine once said, “you can lead a lunatic to the clinic but you can’t make him take his medication.” He had been wrong, but then haven’t we all at some time or another?

Well, well, well.

So I stood there, the barn some twenty yards from me. As I stared at it, I felt as though everything behind me had been painted out of the picture. There was just me, the Tollesfest field and this barn. The sky dangled above me, just the sparse clouds keeping it from crashing right down and splintering across this land. The air was so clear and every line beautifully crafted. And the one smell that pervaded all was that of vitality. You couldn’t bottle it, you couldn’t wipe it off your brow. For the smell that filled my very being was that of the four elements of our universe sweating, oozing from every atom and every molecule. Frame that and hang it on your wall.

I waited. But I didn’t have to wait for too long.

A man approached me. He wore a long coat that came down to the tattered material that covered his feet. His head was bare save for a few wisps of grey and his whole face was dominated by veined, ruddy cheeks. A huge white moustache sprang from below his nose and reached down almost to his hefty jowls. Though his head was bowed as he came towards me, I somehow sensed he was smiling. And when he was but an arm's length from me, he lifted his head and looked into my eyes. I was right. What a smile!

"Hello, lad,” he said, taking my arm. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Who are you?” I asked, as he led me on.

“I am The Walrus," he replied. He bade me wait as he retrieved a wooden rocking chair from the barn. I sat upon it and rocked slowly, back and forth. Or maybe I was still and it was the sky and the earth that were rocking.

The Walrus winked at me and headed back to the barn.

“Come on children!” he shouted, pulling open two large wooden doors. “The time has come!”

And as The Walrus spoke, nine children sprung out into view. They were grubby and ragged and blinking in the daylight. I knew not for how long they had been awaiting my arrival. It all seemed so surreal even then. Oh but I did not know what was to come. I had no idea how surreal it would all get. The children were each carrying a square bale of hay as they trotted out and lined up in front of me. They placed their bale upon the ground before them and awaited further instruction from their leader. The Walrus exuded such pride and the children literally shook with anticipation.

And my life was at a standstill just exactly when it needed to be so.

There they were, nine children standing behind nine bales of hay, all in a line before me, the old barn in the background. All was still as the heavens took a photograph.

“Being for the benefit of Mr Keats, there will be a show tonight! Of Beauty and Truth and Truth and Beauty!” proclaimed The Walrus. “Well, off you go children!”

The first child in the line picked up his bale of hay and stepped a couple of paces towards me. This was truly his big moment. It was all their big moment. I stopped rocking, comforting though it was, and leaned forward, bewitched.

“My name is John,” said the boy. “And I have a tale for you.”

The other children sat down, cross-legged and looked at me. I had eyes only for John.

“There once was a poor farmer who lived alone since the death of his wife and child. He had just one field in which he grew carrots and onions and potatoes. He tilled the land and toiled from dawn until nightfall growing his own food from the soil. And each evening he would sleep upon his straw bed pleading for the dark night to take him in peace to the loved ones he had lost so long ago. He refused to join them of his own free will for his love of life far outweighed his fear of death. Though life be hard, it be life after all.

One night as the poor farmer was about to eat his soup, a soup made from the carrots, onions and potatoes of the field, the old wooden door of his home was beaten asunder, splintering before him. He shook not at all though his heart throbbed within him. For what is a door but a barrier to experience?

A starving stranger stood quaking in the doorway, ragged and reeking. The stranger lunged forward and grabbed the poor farmer’s bowl of soup, snatching it from him in an instant, drinking it down like an animal, leaving the poor farmer hungry for the night. And the stranger did leave.

As the years passed so the stranger fell upon good fortune. He grew rich and wealthy and decided one day to visit the poor farmer whom he had been told was close to death. When he arrived, the poor farmer beckoned him to come close as he was too frail to stand. He then said that all he required of him was that he sit down and share some of his home grown soup; for when you are alone, to share a meal with somebody is a true pleasure of life.

’But you must forgive me!’ pleaded the stranger.

‘I forgive everybody everything,’ replied the poor farmer, ‘And for all those that take advantage of me, there will be one such as you who may learn the strength of forgiveness and will then go out into this rotten land and do as I do.’

‘But what of those who will not do as you do, who will use the kindness of others to their own end and will go to their grave rich and obese whilst others do starve?’

‘Pity them for they will have lived their lives merely upon the surface of experience. They will have tasted but not indulged, lusted but never loved. Pity them just for a moment though for pity can be in itself akin to arrogance. And arrogance is the final refuge of the truly troubled of heart.’

And the poor farmer did then pass up into heaven.

And what of the stranger. Well he went off that day and changed the world.”

The little boy, John, took a deep breath when he finished. He then turned over his bale of hay and stood upon it, his arms by his side. And emblazoned upon the front of the bale was the
letter ‘F’. His mouth was open as if he was still speaking and his eyes were turned to the Tollesbury sky.