part sixteen
There was no denying it: the Hallow Road had aged over the last few days. Winter's march, with wind and rain, and bluster and blow, had taken its toll, had eaten away the soul of the Hallow Road. It is the saddest time, when hope concedes to decay. Trees were bereft, their remaining leaves - those last vestiges of summer warmth - finally sundered and left to rot slowly to mulch on the woodland floor, a million little deaths required to feed new life - regeneration, the sombre cycle. The morning was eerily still. There was a staccato peremptoriness to the rhythm of the trees, anorexic branches flicking distractedly, pointing irresolutely towards the dense winter cover which enveloped the skyline. They appeared to tilt at the sky, the upper branches spearing at the cloud - and they seemed puny, like a pinprick in the hide of an elephant. The focus had shifted: nature had lost its intimacy. In summer and autumn, as life unfolds, the world seems small and local; you are drawn into the kaleisdoscope of living which surrounds you, and the beauty is in the detail. Winter, though, with its raw retrenchment, has broader horizons; it is sketched with a looser touch, a grimmer palette, and nature seems distant and aloof. I looked down the tree-lined avenue of the Hallow Road and saw only a skeleton, the shape of what once had been. With dampness swirling in the atmosphere and the sound of death beneath our feet, there was an air of solitary melancholy, a suffocating sense of finality.
For the first time, the Hallow Road seemed neither beautiful nor desirable.
There was no sense of adventure as we tramped towards the Ripley House. I felt empty, impelled to act, but with neither enthusiasm nor anticipation. As we passed through the broken gate at the end of the Hallow Road I turned and looked behind me. I paused, resting my hand gingerly on the swaying fence pole as my eyes tracked back, following the curve of the river. I wasn't being melodramatic, and I said nothing to the others, but I had the strongest feeling that I would never see it again. Trying to stoke my enthusiasm, I sought to take a mental snapshot, a reminder for some future days when I might want to relive my memories, but with an ache of regret I realised that I no longer cared: the magic had been lost.
The rain started as we began the ascent towards the railway cutting. By the time we reached it - carefully picking across the eroded tracks which had instantly begun to fill with water and take the form of rushing, mini-rivers - it was sheeting down, a sudden and dramatic torrent in which there appeared to be no individual rain drops, just a constant pulse of cold, heavy water. There is a level when rain is so fierce it becomes genuinely frightening, when the casual, careless strength of nature is laid before you, and humans - for all their ingenuity - are exposed as weaklings in the grip of a more profound force. For a moment I feared we would be overwhelmed, that the path would flood and we would be washed away, swept into the brooding river below us. Wordlessly, breathlessly, we sought the sanctuary of the tunnel.
Inside, the noise was extraordinary, a cacophony of reports and blasts and slithering booms, all of them echoing and rebounding, merging into one another, degenerating into a long, baleful roar of regret. It was dark, the walls of the tunnel sliding into shadow and the world behind us settled grey and dank. Ahead, a heavy curtain of water streamed down the entrance as though protecting it, blocking our passage to our fate beyond. It glinted silver and white amidst the mire of grey and brown surrounding us, the rain collecting into a vivid stream, spiralling down and frothing on to the path, forming an ever-growing pool which threatened to take over the entire passage. It was freezing, the world around us reduced to a muddied, miserable mess: I felt we would walk out of the tunnel and emerge into Passchendaele.
We stalled and observed the impromptu waterfall ahead of us. Was it nature's final impediment, a last, desperate obstacle to deter us from our mission into history? If it was, we had to fight it: we had to continue. "Ready?" I yelled. The others nodded and we prepared ourselves and dashed towards it. Although we were already soaked, as it hit us the water seemed to melt through our clothing and into our bodies, settling so deep within us it threatened to drown our spirits. I screamed and sped forward, remaining in motion long after I had passed through the tunnel and finally stopping about fifty yards further up the path. I looked back for the others, and they scurried towards me, sodden. Jane, in particular, looked achingly discomposed: she wore only her light, summer dress and the fabric had turned transparent, clinging to her body, emphasising the thinness of her frame. Beside her, Carlee looked grim but determined, her hair plastered to her head and eyes blinking repeatedly against the rain.
"This is it," I said.
"This is it," Carlee replied.
I swept Jane into my arms and hugged her, squeezing her fast against my body, my hand stretched protectively against the back of her head. I was crying, huge teardrops slipping into the sea of rain washing over me. "I love you," I said. "I love you. Whatever happens, I love you." She had said those very words to me a few nights before, but somehow that seemed a lifetime away, an echo from a different world. I hadn't understood then, hadn't appreciated the scale of events, but now, on the brink, my love was unequivocal.
She was shivering, sobs racking her body. "I know it. And thank you."
I gestured to Carlee and she joined our embrace. "And I love you," I whispered, kissing her mouth. She responded instantly, lurching closer, mouth widening and tongue reaching out to mine. I think that moment - in the rain, soaked and frozen - was the most passionate of my life, an artful passage when - instinctively - love overcame fear, when desire became the impetus.
"We have to do this together," I shouted. Jane and Carlee looked at one another, and then at me, and nodded. We stayed like that, huddled together motionless, gathering our thoughts, for some moments, and each of us cried - cried for the pain of what had happened and for the hope of what might be. There was no fear any longer, merely a desire to meet justice. Hand in hand, we turned and formed a line, and walked slowly towards the Ripley House.
On to part seventeen
