49

Mr Franklin D. Huff

Believe it or not I had somehow contrived to forget my knitting! On the porch! We were halfway to Hastings in the cab and I suddenly remembered. So I asked if we could turn back. There was an entire sock – an entire, grey sock! – which I had been making for Miss Hahn. I had grown very fond of it. I had invested a lot in it. In this sock. For Miss Hahn.

Mrs Meadows was none too pleased at the prospect of a U-turn, but after a few furtive clucks and grumbles she resigned herself to it. When we arrived at Toot Rock, though, the road was blocked (ah, t’was ever thus!) by Sorcha Jennett’s van. One of the ponies had become distressed after a speeding motorbike on the Sea Road had sounded its horn at exactly the moment they were turning out on to it. The poor creature had reared up in its harness and the Pavee Queen was now carefully assessing the damage which (from what I could tell) was significant but not excessive.

Mrs Meadows had planned to jump out and fetch the knitting, but she had a terror of horses so I was obliged to do so myself. I hobbled up there. And I did quite well. But I was naturally fearful. Of being on my own, sans Mrs Meadows, and left at the mercy of the gold dust people.

It was a curious sensation, to suddenly return, having only just left. I felt as if I might catch the cottage unawares, doing something untoward (facing in the wrong direction, slamming all its windows and its doors), but everything was just as we had left it. The sad creak of the gate. The old apple tree bent down with blighted fruit. A slight aroma of badger excrement. The child’s shrine bedecked with sodden teddies (it had rained heavily that morning), the long grass flattened with over-exertion, the allotment flecked by dandelion clocks …

I tried to re-imagine my first arriving. I tried to see the cottage with the eyes I’d once had. And I was suddenly tearful. Yes. Me. Franklin D. Huff! Tearful! Just remembering my old self. Just mourning my old self. Poking him in the ribs with my elbow. Chucking him on the chin. Had he been less of a man than the one who now lamented him? Or more of a man? Impossible to tell.

A wood pigeon suddenly took off from a nearby chimney. I spun my head, alarmed, and it was with this movement – this sharp movement – that the dust was released. A bumper consignment of the damn stuff! And in a blink that once empty garden was now heaving with people. Writhing and crawling. Touching each other, blindly, seeking some kind of … of recognition. And all these dreadful waves of loneliness! This piercing sense of isolation! I took a quick step back – I was fearful – trying to keep my head straight. Because if I kept it straight (and very stiff and still) then the luminescence was less refined (just glancing) and the shadows weren’t nearly so deep or so acute. It was simply movement – life, only life – that made everything so … so unretractable …