VII. Higher Derbyshire's Cottage
THE EARLIEST MEMORY OF THE COTTAGE
And what registered that critical day when,
Longworth Road now abandoned for ever, we
were to move to Vale Avenue? I knew then
I was to stay at the Cottage with Grandad,
Granma, dear Uncle Billy, Auntie Hattie.
Scene at the door, Austin Seven outside, glad
faces. Sarah as baby in Mammy's arms.
Cousin Joe, Auntie Annie were there too, and all
talking busily, happily. What had charms
for my keen five-year-old eyes? What would enthral
them that moment? Why — Cousin Joe, once again,
had that wonderful, miniature, chuffing train.
NAMES
Grandad's cottage was called 'Higher Derbyshire
Cottage'. I painted a name-plate for it too,
but the old name had 'Derbyshire's'. The future
will likely change it more. The 'Middle' was still
there, the farm that I visited when I grew
friendly with Philip — it was just down the hill —
but the 'Lower' had vanished, cleared away by
Lord Leverhulme when he made his big estate
for the people. And again, I would wonder why
'Bob's Brow' became 'Bob's Brew'. Though there was no great
difference, no one saw it as a forehead
when they thought of the slope. The picture was dead.
MAGNIFICATION
Perhaps half a mile long and a quarter wide,
up behind Higher Derbyshire, just a slope,
part of Rivington Pike, but I was a guide
up there for pals to a hundred wonderful
places, each like no other. 'The Fort', with scope
for any battle you could wish, where powerful
knights defending fought off Mordred's lot, a hewn-
stone, lofty ruin. The gorse maze, its yellow
helmets springy. The holly cavern, all strewn
over with brown caltrops. Our dam's overflow
a great marsh that was fifty feet long. Our eyes
turned the slope to a land of legendary size.
A SPRING
Was a spring on the hillside in a little
hollow. I lay down and drank. Up close you saw
in its cup at the centre a twizzle
reaching up, bowing down, of tiny sand grains
coruscating in sunlight to a fine law
never to settle to repetition. Rains
of the past were here yielded to one secret
throat of pellucid upwelling. The surface
it was pummelling hard, an eager buffet
upwards with nothing, in a crystal chalice
edged with tuffets of moss. Invisible strife.
As from nowhere the brooklet began its life.
DAWN
Up at dawn at the Cottage, was wonderful
being the first to move about, all the dew
like the bloom on a grape, each drop a jewel
spiking the spectrum through — I'd move my head this
way and that, turn one's fire to ruby, to blue,
coppery-orange. Each flower a chalice
that was sparkling as silvery as the song
all of the birds were trying to remember. So
still, made ready for everyone. To belong
specially here on this planet, specially grow
up in Lancashire now, and be waiting thus —
was as if all this day was prepared for us.
EARLY MORNING DEW
Waking up very early at the Cottage,
you would see dew graying all the grass, sort of stamp
of the stillness, as if all the damage
man had been doing the day before had been
all repaired and a special spray, light and damp,
finished it off. Was so delicate and clean,
untouched, didn't want even to tread through it
leaving dark footsteps. The dawn chorus was loud
as a football crowd: not a single droplet
did all that noise disturb. As calm as a cloud,
all the cloth of the dew lay as proof that play
could go on as before right through the new day.
BLACKROD ISLAND
From the Cottage one morning we saw the mist
filling the valley right over to Blackrod
like a lake or the sea. It seemed to exist
though we were still where we were. It became that
other land like a heaven, ever so odd
being so real: a ferry over the flat,
sunbright straits would arrive at that friendly isle.
There we would play, and a wonderful party
would be laid on for us, all fun and games, while
Grandad and Granma and Mammy and Daddy
talked. We danced and we sang. Back over the foam
we returned to the bright real world of our home.
MAKING PATHS
I liked paths. Because people had walked that way,
others could also — they had chosen to go
along there and their choice meant that you today
found it quite easy to tread where they trod.
Behind Grandad's the sheep going to and fro
wore little trails through the grass down to the sod
and we made them our tracks. Borrowed Grandad's shears,
clipped away brambles and gorse, pulled out the stones
in the way, filled in holes. They led through frontiers,
over the rivers, chasms, into new zones
for attack and defence. The hillside became
ours, all mapped and prepared, whatever the game.
THE OLD WALL
Just along from the Cottage you saw a place
where in the past a wall had held up a bank
with a hedge at the top. You could hardly trace
it under brambles and wrestled roots of gorse,
where the rains and the snows had scooped out a blank,
tumbling the stones from their matching slots. What force
in a root had dislodged that well-set boulder,
split it to shale? What years of rabbits burrowed
in that bank, and what ant dynasties, older
in their successions than man's, carried their load
of light motes undermining that one flag? So fine
the effacement, so slow, of one human sign.
MENDING WALL
That old sheep pen had broken walls. It was fun
putting old stones back. It was like a jigsaw,
only solid, the bones of a skeleton
scattered about ready to be assembled,
like Meccano. We obeyed a sort of law:
wouldn't be satisfied if the stone wiggled
or it left a big gap somewhere. You had to
find just the one that would fit in the space you'd
made when you last had placed one. You had to view
stones from all angles, and sometimes we argued
about which was the best. The one who could show
there were two stones would fit would have the next go.
THE RED ANTS
Was a place for red ants was Rivington. You'd
lift up a stone and they'd scurry about,
busy rescuing grubs, whether this year's brood,
started this spring, or the last or the next. I'd
watch them, little machines that could have no doubt,
having to rush, with a robot brain to guide
them. Go back, mediæval ants would be stuck
fast in the same groove, doing what ants should do
and the same in the future. No running amok,
never deciding anything, false or true,
never knowing, planning, rejoicing, ruing.
Weren't we lucky to know what we were doing!
THE OLD LANE
Behind gorse bushes, slanting up the fawn hill
there was an old lane blurred into being just
a green trough with one side a broken sill
stony and hummocked, the other sprawled with old
slumps of soil, sometimes hidden under the rust
canopy bracken raised. Led to a sheepfold
that the years had dismantled, turned into fort
by the fierce strength of stories that drove us. Was
labour once in the lane, the horses that fought
weight in the carts, the shepherds who climbed because
of their livelihood; even dogs couldn't stray.
But we scrambled and shouted, lost in our play.
WHIMBERRIES
Went collecting the whimberries off the hill.
Over on Smithills Moor was a 'Whimberry
Hill'. Had bloom like on grapes, a matt grey dew till
fingers slid black reflections on their soft beads,
underside a round wave, a planetary
crater. The stems were brisk and springy as reeds,
the leaves brassy-green, blood-red and magenta,
polished and tough, threshing the wind. Always more
berries hidden down in a crowded centre,
soil beyond touch. There was no need to explore:
fifty yards from the Cottage hundreds to bring,
with each hand like a dyer's, minds on one thing.
SOME RUBBISH ON THE HILL
Between tussocks of grass a pile of rubbish:
fluff from a hoover, shrunk by rain and then dried,
lay like last year's webs tangled up, a greyish,
motionless smoke over broken crockery,
tarnished knives and forks, snapped wooden spoons, string tied
hard in old knots, egg yolk turned to papery
film in holes, rotted cabbage-stalks, old turnips
scooped out by maggots, a collapsed umbrella
all snagged up in itself, a pile of grey chips,
newspaper, greasepaper, still stuck close, dry leather
that had split like a worn bellows. No last bleep
from a heap of discarded waste. A dead sheep.
RUSTLERS
We were rustlers! I thumped my hip and click-clicked,
and my galloping legs obeyed. Wide-eyed sheep
became steers, and their baas were moos. They were tricked
into corners, and stood facing the same way;
they would flow in a current out, and would sweep
round the field with us chasing them, until they
were corralled again. 'Yippee!' The farmer heard.
All at once we were running like them, panting
all together, his boots thudding, not a word —
just his waving his stick! Then I felt the sting
on my calves. We got back, breathless with our fears,
to find parents had no pity for our tears.
THE CAVE WE COULDN'T DIG
We'd brought Steve along. Going to make a cave.
Caves were in so many stories and further
north, where limestone was, lots were. It was where brave
rebels hung out, where you could call a secret
meeting, where all the Stone Age men lived, safer
cosier. No one else would guess that private
place, so deep and so hidden. With our one spade,
scraping and shovelling, we attacked a bank
in turns. After a while we had only made
three feet in. Steve dropped the heavy spade and sank
on the grass. Tried to persuade him to go on too.
He just laughed. We just looked at the earth and knew.
BUTTERFLY-COLLECTING
There were so many butterflies in summer.
Up at the Cottage, Auntie Hattie's boxes,
glass-topped, just like big jewels with colour
frozen inside, had dead ones pinned, papery
gauzy wings, furry bodies, beady noses,
all neatly labelled, Peacock, Fritillary,
Clouded Yellow, all flying nowhere. A blue
net and a killing-bottle and I could be
like a naturalist. When you'd caught a few,
watching them dying, you needn't feel guilty.
There were so many anyway, and Cabbage
White, their caterpillars, did so much damage.
COLLECTING LADYBIRDS
I remember collecting ladybirds. I
took them back home and then I let them out
on the roses. They'd eat up all the greenfly.
Caught them and put them in a jar. Only thing,
they would leave yellow stains on your hand. I'd scout
all round the Cottage, the jar full of crawling.
There were yellow and black ones, too. The next day,
there they would be, a ladybird assembly,
and I'd think I have upset their plans. Their way
really was searching round everywhere, busy
fitting in where they should. I wanted to ask
why all these, unlike us, had a special task.
THE MECHANIZED ARMY AT THE COTTAGE
Brought the Dinky Toy Mechanized Army to
Grandad's, the wild hill much better than our lawn.
There were real rocks and real trees (that is, if you
took all the heather as trees), and the bridges
(we took planks from the barn), so you had to warn
all your commanders, 'cross the next two ridges
was some real water, so they would have to
go round unless they could set up a pontoon.
We of course had arranged who was to win, who
would have to lose the salient he'd made, and soon
the real victor would get there, and what you saw
became real as the fighting in a real war.
DAMS
Making dams. All the reservoirs around us
after all. First the stones, wrenched from their sockets
lined with fibre, met naked the impetus
of the mounting flood. Grass tufts we tore like hair,
and we crammed them between. Live mud in pockets
where the water was wasting, slapdash repair
where it swallowed the slime. Worms, ants, millipedes
drowned like men. Then the last patting of bare clay,
the caressing and smoothing, clearing of weeds,
and the waters invaded land, to display
our reflections across grass. No dam so thick
it couldn't be burst by the Water Man's stick.
THE BEST OF ALL DAMS
Was the best of all dams we'd made on the stream.
Daddy was helping that day, the only time
he came out of the Cottage to join our team.
Such fun it was to hear him say 'This stone would
fit in there', and he didn't mind the black slime,
clearing it all away with his spade with good
throws that went right across to the 'Marsh'. Hard clay,
yellow and smooth, showed up underneath, leaving
a fine pool we could bathe in. Made a causeway
over the dam, because with Daddy heaving
the big stones it was easy. Wonderful game!
But the Water Man knocked it down all the same.
LETTING THE BRAKE LOOSE
Uncle John's Austin Seven was in a place
right at the top of the drive at the Cottage.
I remember that I got into disgrace
letting the brake loose, but I don't remember
being inside and doing it. The damage —
serious? slight? or none at all? — it's a blur.
The car moved about fifteen feet, hit a fence,
though, with the drive being steep, I might have gone
down the slope. I committed a great offence,
but there's no memory of their words upon
this performance, of my shame or fear or care.
Just unpleasant to think of that car stuck there.
GRANDAD'S GRAMOPHONE
Grandad had a gramophone with a place
where you could keep records beside the horn hole.
If you opened two little doors you could pace
two fingers up inside but you couldn't go
any further. If you could crawl like a mole,
perhaps you'd go up into a studio
where a beautiful angel sang just for me.
I would play 'Grandfather's Clock' to get to know
it, but you'd have to keep winding, or he would be
singing about 'stopping short never to go
again' just when the spring began running down.
Sometimes I'd leave it unwound and let him drown.
'THE LOST CHORD'
One of Grandad's records was 'The Lost Chord'. This
man had been playing on his organ, when by
chance he found he had played something of such bliss
('Amen' it was), something so heavenly, so
grand, it seemed as if voices came from the sky,
singing from Eden God's oratorio.
Then he tried to repeat it, but, however
hard and however long he went on, the song,
it just wouldn't come back again. He never
found it. Seemed to me terrible he went wrong
and that joy he had won for a moment went,
just as if it became a vanishing scent.
GRANDAD'S TRICK
Up at Granma's I'd play with a little bell
made out of brass in the shape of a lady
in a crinoline dress so you couldn't tell
what it was really. Grandad did a trick
with it. I heard a sudden ringing plainly
somewhere about. Made me jump. He was too quick
with his hand. Who was ringing? Was it warning
us that we ought to look out? 'Did you hear that?'
Grandad asked. I could tell that he knew what thing
must have done it, and he was looking at
the brass lady. Inside, a hole like a drain,
and a ball, and a nasty spidery chain.
GRANDAD'S GARDEN
Grandad's garden was all terraces. Stone-walled
banks held them up, with flagstone paths and steps down
to the lawn. Was a short smiling man who hauled
stones in a wheelbarrow made it all. We ran
up and down in a sort of Egyptian town,
hiding sometimes in the 'summer-cave' the man
with his stones and cement had made in a
corner, a beehive six feet high. You could play
with your cars on the walls: you could begin a
road at one end, so close to your eyes, they
would find tracks all along. Yes, grown-ups would fuss,
but it never stayed as a garden for us.
GRANDAD'S GARDEN FIRE
Grandad made up a garden fire. We helped him
pile up dead leaves and dry twigs and the old weeds.
Then the fun was to watch him light it. A dim
cave underneath with a screw of newspaper
in it. Flame would go rambling, snapping at seeds,
curling up straws, making a widening crater
in the middle of leaves, tracing a necklace,
bright rubies, down pine-stems like days, bursting out
in a dazzling tusk. Blew a tiny furnace
here in a corner, my eyes stinging. A spout
of thick smoke set me coughing. I kept it fed
till it sank into ash, to a mournful bed.
THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK
Was a 'grandfather clock' Grandad had, in oak
shiny and black like coal, a Big Ben standing
in the corner there, but you hadn't to poke
opening the thin door, where dusty weights and chains
were hung, secretly moving. And for cranking
those to the top, a huge key. Losses and gains
shifted about with his finger. You saw time
running away to the past and the future.
Knew the bells inside all had to keep their chime
only to hours, and the hands had to measure,
though the minute-hand shook each time it jerked on.
And the face behind glass looked aged and wan.
'THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK'
One of Grandad's best records was called 'The
Grandfather Clock'. I found it ever so sad
as I listened. I thought how Grandad hauled the
weight up by turning the key and wondered how
the old clock in the song could 'stop short'. It had
just the same works. Couldn't know that now
the old grandfather died. How could something dead
ever find out someone died or was living?
Cogs and springs, made of metal, they had no head,
no eyes, no heart. There was nothing was giving
them a mind or a life. The old man inside,
though, became just like them when he really died.
GRANDAD'S JOB
Grandad worked for the Council — Mammy said he
used to be 'Sanitary Inspector'. It
was an important job. Was ready
always to check for diseases and to make sure
that our water was clean. For our benefit
special inspectors were needed to keep pure
what came out of the taps. Sanitarian —
that was the name of his magazine. And it had
some advertisements. Showed a pump, a cistern,
often a lavatory. Wondered if Grandad
would inspect them as well. Somebody had to,
but I didn't tell anyone that I knew.
GRANDAD'S DESK
Grandad's desk was of black oak like the settle,
massive, a grand piano of a thing. You
could not move it to sweep. To keep it level
there on the uneven flags pieces of wood
underneath. With a key it opened. You drew
up a wide sliding shutter, a sort of hood
that went snaking away, and you saw little
doors, tiny drawers, and broad flat ones, open
upright racks, every one meant for a special
lot of his letters and documents. Hidden
behind pillars some secret spaces where he
could hide things that he didn't want you to see.
GRANDAD'S SPILLS
In a round little box there were always spills.
Granma would make them, cut out of newspaper
and then folded in two and in two, stiff as quills,
long as straws. Sometimes she slit them from letters.
Was for Grandad to light his pipe, a taper
lit in the fire. Was to save the Swan Vestas
for the lamps. He would hold one to his pipe. Saw
how the tall flame fled downwards when he sucked in,
and jumped up when he stopped. That made the heat draw
in, the tobacco glow gold. On the spill the thin
ash was fiery with print or ink, the words red
for a moment — their last chance to be read.
GRANMA'S BOA
On the old clothes-stand was Granma's furry boa.
Sort of a joke the name, 'cause a boa wrapped
itself tight round your neck. But when you throw a
scarf on, you don't want to think a constrictor
is about to constrict — who'd want to be trapped
after you'd trusted a soft furry creature,
let it hug you, caress you? Thoughts of strangling
and being eaten alive, what had that to
do with fashion? And Granma's, decorating
it, had a fox's head, glaring eyes — why, who
would accept such a gift? Made a woman share
something only was found in the worst nightmare.
UNCLE BILLY AND HIS TICKETS
"'Ullo, Jum lad!" my mongol uncle greeted
me. A wet and a warm kiss scraping my face
(Grandad shaved him). As welcome I would be seated
on his knee, and I'd give him the bus ticket
(Ribble, L-shaped). So genuine an embrace
of affection and thanks for the gift of it
as he took up his pack and tipped it this way
and that, I would be puzzled. I would wonder
if collecting a set could one day repay
all the trouble — then why wear them out? Better,
like stamps, stick them in books. How ragged they grew!
But he hugged me so hard — that one thing I knew.
UNCLE BILLY'S REPROOF
At the Cottage one day Mammy got angry,
shouted that I would be smacked. Auntie Hattie,
Granma, Grandad, pretended to be busy
looking that other way, so everyone, me
too, was shocked with amazement to hear, 'Jum, lad,
come to me, Jum! Josie, Josie! Leave 'im be!
No, you mustn't do that!' My mongol uncle,
Uncle Billy, was standing, his hand shaking
his loose bus-tickets there at Mammy. Puzzle
suddenly froze all of us. Billy, taking
charge, reproving them all, his voice firm and strong.
And when Mammy just laughed, I felt she was wrong.
UNCLE BILLY'S FINGERNAILS
Uncle Billy would bite his fingernails, so
close. They were old men's faces, sort of crusty white
with the wrinkles he left where his nails should go
frowning, and bald heads, and grey eyebrows. The way
that he held up his fingers so he could bite,
nibble along, you could think he was to play
on a flute. Then for fun he would wave his bus
tickets like castanets. Knew that people bit
at their nails out of worry. Was not like us,
though. Uncle Billy always seemed opposite,
always happy to hug you, join in a laugh,
so you didn't much care each nail was a half.
UNCLE BILLY AT THE PIANO
Uncle Billy, my mongol uncle, could play
tunes when he liked on the piano. Was all
rather thumpy but we could join in a gay
song just the same as when Mammy played. But he
didn't read any music. You couldn't call
him a musician, but it was so jolly
when he played. With his clumsy fingers sideways,
you would be sure he would make mistakes — they looked
like old sausages waving, but he'd amaze
you, for there wouldn't be any, though he hooked
at the black keys and hacked at the white. They'd say
it was all on his own he had learned to play.
HAVING DINNER AT AUNTIE HATTIE'S
Having dinner at Auntie Hattie's, I'd think
how very different the tastes were. Every day
they had dinner like that and poured out a drink
they would call 'tea', but it wasn't quite the same
as the tea Mammy made. It was strange to say
'dinner' and 'tea'. How was it they used a name
just as I did and meant something different?
Wasn't that Auntie's meals weren't nice, but they had
a quite special taste, a kind of accident,
happen the water, or how much salt she'd add,
but she'd think that was how your dinner should be.
Made me wonder if they could see me as me.
THE RIVALS
Mrs. Sykes, Auntie Hattie — you could see they were
rivals. Auntie Hattie had married an upper-
middle-class man; killed in the war, he had left her
back here, but still she behaved as became that
status (daughter at public school). A bother,
though, that 'the Sykes woman' treated her as flat
equal (her husband ,also dead, a keeper
for the estate). And they even looked somewhat
alike. Mrs, Sykes always was friendlier
than Auntie Hattie, giving us sweets — a lot!
'Overstayed her welcome!' Auntie said harshly,
but I hadn't see much welcome in Auntie.
THE JEWELLERY CATALOGUE
At the Cottage on the bookshelves where the Dulac
books were, found Auntie Hattie kept a heavy,
glossy jewellery catalogue. A stiff back,
just like a book. I would push my nose between
the smooth pages and breathe in the cool, lovely
smell, like the scent of the jewels. There were green
ones and red ones like wine-gums, and some yellow,
sparking inside with bright electricity,
and some blue as Our Lady's gown, a moonglow
shining in others, all set out in pretty
pendants, necklaces. Why was it kept in store
if she hadn't the pounds to buy any more?
THE NEW ZEALAND MAGAZINES
Auntie Hattie had married a New Zealand
man, from the North Island. His name was Malone.
As a memory still of her dead husband
every few months her relations sent her some
geographical magazines. So alone
there in the best room I'd sit and slowly become
lost to Rivington, staring at volcanoes,
fiords, high alps, wide hedgeless farms.
But the strangest were pictures of Maoris. Those
glowering faces, marked with tattoos, with charms
round their necks, held my eyes. Saw their eyes aglow:
seemed to say, 'All this means more that you can know!'
THE MAORI ADZE
Auntie Hattie had given me a Maori
'adze'. Was a beautiful smooth green stone. Its edge
had been sharpened by someone with some cowrie-
shells round his neck and blue tattooed 'tiki'
on his chin, long ago. He chipped a wedge
shape from the dense hard rock, and with a tricky
sort of skill made the flakes leave it an adze. He
polished it somehow, perhaps just by using
it so often, till, marbly markings were free,
plain to the eye. A bit of rock his choosing
had transformed into tool, into work, thousands
of sea miles and long days back, now in my hand.
TRANSMISSIONS
Horwich 1-4-2 — that was Grandad's number.
Mouthpiece like daffodil, earpiece like bluebell.
And it stood in the window, and the ringer
there on the wall, ready to call you away
from whatever you did. Just two parallel
wires strung from little white beehives to convey
voices, meanings, discoveries. The wireless,
that was much cleverer still, filling all space
with our talk and our music. Felt the strangeness,
knowing that all those broadcasts, each rang a trace
in the metals around us through the years,
every one dashing past to get at our ears.
THE NEW HIGHER DERBYSHIRE'S
Before Liverpool Corporation knocked it
down, I'd be there with my chequebook and a young,
eager architect, saying how he could fit
on the extension here — ground floor, the new pantry,
and a bathroom upstairs; the old stone sink flung
out and an up-to-date kitchen, with handy
shelves, ceramic hob, freezer and fridge. Could change
all of the barn — garage, bedrooms you could add,
with a walkway in glass. And you could arrange
for one of those stair-lifts for Granma and Grandad
when they found it too difficult. Now to begin —
I remember that they aren't there to move in.
WRITING A POEM
At the Cottage I sat writing a poem,
staring in front of me at a wine-glass, green
stem and amber cup. Out of the amber, dim
visions of 'Southern suns and skies', ' a 'clust'ring
bunch of grapes', 'the surf's slow rolling hush', a scene
mingling Tahiti, Barbados; fluttering
'fronds of palm', 'rippling deep lagoons', encrusted
rocks that were 'tressed in filament weed' and 'mocked
by the tide' that raised wide the weeds and 'glutted
water with green'. And I wrote and erased, locked
Lotos-Eater-like. Sat with my back to my
grandad, whose past life remained out of my eye.
RIVINGTON NIGHTS
At the Cottage you knew what night was with no
switching a light on. Grandad used oil-lamps, fine
big ones, shiny in brass and chrome. A blue glow
first with the netting all dull, then the white fire
made its way through the threads until every line
dazzled you, printing itself sharp like green wire
on your sight. Then from smooth cream half-moons came glows
bright in a centre of a circle without
edges, where there were dark corners, black windows,
towering shadows, as if crouching about
us, all ready to leap back in, were powers
of the night, big as planets, as long as hours.
GRANDAD'S FAMILY GATHERING
Walter, Steve and I had gone to Morecambe and
stayed with some auntie of Walter's. Was funny
at a seaside resort: we walked on the sand,
bought us some candy-floss, doing what never
we would normally. Didn't have much money,
but we were laughing all the time. A clever
book we found at his auntie's amused us still
more, by Cuthbert Bede, about a student named
'Verdant Green', so we didn't get back until
evening. But Grandad was disappointed. Blamed
myself. I had forgotten his party. Had
called all the family together. I felt so sad.
'THE PROPERTY HAS BEEN DEMOLISHED'*
Was a shock when I read in the book about
Rivington (M. D. Smith's) that Auntie Hattie,
while a nurse in the Great War, while she was out
there looking after the wounded had to tend
her own husband who died. Nobody told me! —
me who was called 'Edmond Leo' too! — To lend
me his name and his nickname 'Jummy', the New
Zealander solemn in photograph — to fit
it to me! She had seen death happen. Shock, too,
reading 'the "Cottage" ... has been demolished ... it
is difficult to locate what few stones remain.'
Here is one stone at least still weighing a pain.
*[See M. D. Smith, Rivington, Lancashire, (Nelson Brothers, Chorley, 1988), pp. 123-24 ]
THE VANISHED GARDEN
I remember the gardener whom Grandad
paid for the making of the garden, a small
wiry, black-hairy man with stocky legs, clad
loose in a leather apron, tweedy trousers,
leather gaiters. You'd hear him building a wall,
clocking the stones in place, see his staggers
with the heavy flags, lowering them down for
paths and the steps, heaving a roller over
soil that sank and then rose like rubber. He'd draw
lines with a string, sow seeds. The seasons showed a
living garden to us for years. What's effaced
in the grass now does not make his work a waste.
A GHOSTLY VISIT
At the door I explain: 'I hope you don't mind —
Once, long ago now, my grandfather lived here.
Would it be inconvenient? It would be kind
if I could look around for a while.' And I
wryly note the new kitchen, pleased to peer
over the garden again from above, spy
a small scratch I remember in a doorway,
stare at the far-off lake once more. 'So, thank you,'
I say, grateful, resigned. But this little play,
daydreamed a fortnight ago before I knew,
was much more of a ghostly one than I guessed:
neither garden nor house does the grass suggest.
AN ECHO FROM THOMAS HARDY
Can I see Uncle Billy waving his bus
tickets? And Granma waving too, her glasses
flicking sunlight down the long drive to us,
bright as her smile, and Grandad raising his stick,
and hear all of them calling? But what passes
here in this vision for wavings is a trick
of the mind's light, for — 'Ah, no!' — these are leaves
shaken in cold winds, and branches cracking in
strain, and hoarse air that rasps as an old tree heaves.
Not even chance of seeing an old ruin.
Every trace is now buried away from love
As in tumuli up on the moor above.
NOT A RUIN AFTER ALL
M. D. Smith, then, was wrong. Up the steep drive there,
still on its shelf on the hill, Grandad's cottage.
Was uncanny, the real a trick. Had to stare,
trying to catch it out. Seemed to be hiding
in its presence its absence, to discourage
sentimentality, blatantly sidling
without motion away, like a guilty thing
proving its innocence by its alibi
of just being there. No use trying to cling
on to the past, it said; no use trying to pry
hoping in at the doors, nursing reveries.
Other folk now are making their memories.