Short fiction: A sense of place

She stepped down from the bus at the lane end. The bus stopped as she had requested. The driver was friendly and encouraging.
It'll be the cottage then for you, he said as she grappled with her bags.
Yes, she said. Yes. Inchpen Cottage.
Third house down lane. You canna miss it.
Thank you.
I'd carry those bags for yen but, you know, I must keep to schedule, unfortunately.
Yes,of course. That's very kind, she said. I'll be OK.
It's a fair step. Half an hour, mebbe.
Right.
Robert'll see you right, at the farm. He'll help if he's there. Don't be shy.
I won't. Thank you.

She steps down from the bus and gathers her bags around her on the grass. The bus doors close. The bus goes. She swings her rucksack up onto her shoulders. The sound of the bus disappears into the silence. The space opens around her, a vast primeval panoply of sky and hill and dale. It seems timeless, constant, still. The sound of the bus reappears momentarily somewhere across the hill and goes again. There is no breeze. Hogweed, cranesbill, meadow sweet stand silently as if waiting for her to speak.
Time to go, she says.
She picks up her bag and trundles the small suitcase behind her as she sets off down the lane. It makes an horrific noise, rattling, clacking and grumbling over the stones on the road. She stops. The silence returns.
That's no good, she says.
She looks around. The meadow sweet and hogweed watch. There is a narrow strip of mown grass at the edge of the verge so she lifts her case onto it and sets off again towing the case quietly on the grass.
Better, she says.

Robert was not at the farm. At least, she saw no-one. Even the inevitable dogs were absent. She dragged her case echoing between the buildings which, for a short distance, lined the road. She half-expected to be accosted and reprimanded for the noise. But no-one came. She dragged her case all the way to the cottage. It was, as the bus driver had said, half an hour; well, nearer thirty-five minutes by the time she was actually standing at last outside the cottage door.

It was blue, the door; the sort of blue she liked on a building; mid-blue, neither to dark nor too light; just right.
The door opened easily. It was not locked. She dragged her case across the threshold and set down her bag beside the kitchen table. It was scrubbed, wood, white.
Just go straight in, she had been told. We'll leave the key. And they had. It was on the kitchen table; with a note. Milk in the fridge, the note said. Make yourself at home.
A tea-caddy sat on the table and a tray set with cup, sugar, teapot and spoon. The invitation was obvious and she didn't need to be asked twice.
Yes, please, she said. I'd love a cup of tea.

It had been a long haul; half an hour of dragging her case and lumping her bag. But she was here now. It had been easy enough at first; down the lane into the valley. Next the way went past the farm or, rather, through it and then across the footbridge over the river. Then it climbed up an increasingly grassy lane, past the second house and up again to the top of the field. There, where the field gave way to the moor, the cottage waited, at a corner, at a junction of the stone walls; those stone walls that were endemic, native to the valley and that, in their lines on the landscape, told the stories of the dale.
She put the kettle on to boil and went to shut the door.

At the ford, by the footbridge, the river was in spate. It had rained in the night. She could hear the sound of the water now, from here, where she stood in the doorway. The rich brown, brandy-coloured water had rushed across the stones as if it had intended to thwart her passage, to prevent her crossing. It seemed as if, on crossing, as she crossed by the bridge, it intended to cut her off from everything that she knew and to separate her for all that was to come.

She had crossed. She was here.
She closed the door and went to make that cup of tea.

It rained again in the night.
At the ford the river was in spate peat brown and whisky-coloured, catching the morning light. She did not cross. She stood on the bridge and watched the water. As she stood there leaning on the rail she was aware of the vast spaces opening out inside; stretching at her soul.

You'll be liking it here, miss, said the voice. She turned. She had not seen him come. A man with two dogs at his heel stood looking at her at the ford's edge, on the farm side of the river.
Mrs, she said. It was a reflex. She wished she had not spoken. Perhaps he had not heard.
Sorry, he said. No offense intended.
None taken. And, yes, I think I will. I do, already, she said. I like it very much.
There was a pause. She had said too much. Why did she always blather on so? Yes. No. That was enough. Here, she felt somehow quite sure, they would be a people of few words.

They looked out across the valley, both sensing that the answer lay out there somewhere, if anywhere.
Aye. It's a grand spot.
You must be Robert.
No. No. Indeed I am not. Robert is the boss here abouts. I'm the scivvy.
No. I'm sure you're not.
Oh. And are you?
Sorry, she said. No offense intended.
None taken, he said and smiled.


He called up the dogs with some invisible and inaudible command. They came to heel casually, patient, ready.
You'll excuse us, Mam, if we cross. We're not keen on getting our feet wet.
It would be more than your feet.
Happen it would, he said. He looked up at her, there where she stood on the footbridge above the river, from under the peak of his cap.
Sorry, she said. Of course.
She pressed herself against the rail to give them room as they crossed behind her.

By the way, she said.
He had stepped down from the bridge with the dogs clustering at his feet.
What is your name?
Me? I'm Michael, he said. You know, and all angels.
Right.
You'll know us all before long, he said, and all our canny ways. There are that few of us.
Good, she said. Thank you.
A good morning to you, Mam, he said. Come away, Lass. Come, Treasure.

She had not told him her name. He had not asked. Perhaps he already knew. It did not matter, she thought. Name or no name, she was recognised and made welcome. That was what mattered.
Michael, she said to herself, and all angels.

She had come here to write. She had taken the cottage for three weeks. It was her time. It was her money. She could do what she like with it. She needed space, vast volumes of emotional and mental space. She needed time. She needed, well, it was for her to decide what she needed. For now, it was enough. She needed to be here because she needed to write. But first, she would paint.

She unpacked her painting kit from her case. She unpacked brushes, paints and a sketch pad from the shoulder bag. She had liberated two small plastic drinks bottles, the sort used in vast quantities by her young niece, to use as water containers. One was marked and smeared and blotched with paint: blue, green, red, brown, patched with yellow and grey. The other was clean. She filled them both with water at the tap in the kitchen.

The cottage was clean and tidy. As soon as she had opened the blue door the day before she had known it was right. It was light and welcoming. It felt, if not exactly lived in, at least waiting to be lived in; waiting for her. It was neatly furnished, unfussy, practical. She had been glad to see it.
She was glad to see it now as she looked round making her art materials ready. It would be easy to keep clean. It would be easy to live in, to occupy, to inhabit. It could become a habit. She was pleased.
She stood by the sink and looked out of the window. The white-washed farm lay in the valley below her. The other house, Michael's house, presumably, was not visible from here.

The bottles fitted neatly back into the small shoulder bag. She chose the brushes she wanted and put them in with the bottles of water. She took the small plastic palette with her half-pan watercolours: chrome yellow, alazurin red, cobalt blue.

The fields fell away from the cottage, rich with buttercups and sorrel; red-gold beneath the wide, pale sky. She set up on the bank above the river and, sitting deep amongst the grasses and flowers of the hay meadows, she started to paint. It was so wide. The landscape. It stretched from one edge of the visible world to the other. It was too wide for the paper. The paper was not wide enough to contain it.
She spread the pale, watery blue wet across the top of the paper, diluting it successively until almost no colour remained.

She added  more blue wash across the lower half of the paper. Then yellow. Mixing the colours on the paper. Deft, quick strokes. Confident. Touches of scarlet created greys and purples from the greens. Deep within the spread of colour, she left white rectangles for the farm house and the other buildings and a snaking, sinuous path of the river. As she painted, the images soaked into her brain and associations ambushed to her mind. A poet's consciousness began to engage with its surroundings. It clicked into gear and it began to drive.

She turned her attention to the meadow. On a new sheet of paper, she detailed the grasses, the umbels, the meadow-sweet and clovers, the yellow-rattle. At first she recorded them as individual sketches, small studies from life; try-outs. Then, first applying a wash and allowing it to dry, she painted the ensemble; a sum of so many parts.

She was pleased. She had spent almost the whole morning painting and had hardly noticed it go. Her paintings were not perfect. She knew that. But it was a start and with that she could be satisfied. She would spend the afternoon writing, now that her brain had been flushed through with the shapes and colours of the land and her whole being suffused with the sense of place.

She washed her brushes and packed them away. She spread the sheets of paper on the grass to dry.  It was good. To be here. She lay back in the grass and allowed herself to drift into what remained of the morning, carried on the pricking, prodding, pollen-rich intimacy of the meadow, like lying on the sea. It enveloped her. It took her in. It absorbed her. The gods and spirits of the meadow welcomed her and made her theirs.
She slept and as she slept, she dreamed of many things; wild and wonderful. She woke refreshed. She packed up the last of her painting things and took them home to the cottage, shaking the grass from her hair and the pollen from her ears.

The next day and the next followed in much the same pattern: painting in the morning, writing in the afternoon. It was good and she was pleased  with all she had achieved.

On the third day she painted as usual in the morning then, after a cup of tea and a change of clothes, she set off for the hill, away, up the lane, towards the horizon.The edge of the valley was high above the house. It was summer. She went lightly clad. There were hours of daylight yet. She would walk, she told herself, until she had to come down. Today, yesterday, tomorrow. It didn't matter anymore. Only the sky, the meadow, the moor and below them the river in its stony bed; only they mattered now. This was the beginning and the end. This was all. This was creation. This was everything

She paused at the corner where the lane turned to run along the hillside. She chose the track that continued up onto the moor. A curlew called. A lapwing circle above her head as she unlatched the gate and shut it again behind her. The sad melancholy of the lapwing's call was full of joy. It was full of her joy. The whole living land leapt with her and bubbled with exaltation like a goldfinch song. The bright jewels of birds flit in and out of the thistle heads against the drystone wall.

She walked and climbed until she felt the cool of the increasing height and the waning day touch her, From where she stood she could see the valley laid out below her from its rising in the high fells to its falling into the lush meadows and grey stone villages of the lowlands; a sweep of geology, history and time. The river was a silver thread. The meadows, the stone walls, the road on the far side of the valley were all part of a rich brocading on the plain woven linen of the land.

She sat for a long while with her arms around her knees, looking, watching, waiting for the moment to go down.
 It seemed unchanging, motionless, permanent. The bus creeping along the road between the stone walls on the opposite side of the valley seemed unreal, as if a child were drawing it, animated, across the surface of the universe. The bus stopped at the lane-end, debouched one passenger and moved on.
You'll be for the cottage then, she heard the driver say again as if she could hear the words reaching her across the vast spaces of air between her and the far side of the valley. Yes, she said. Inchpen Cottage, she had said. Don't be shy, he said. No, she had replied. I won't.

The tiny figure adjusted itself, some bag or luggage that it carried, and moved down into the lane.
The sun set. It was time to go. She got up and ran: down through the moor, down through the fields, down, down, down; through the gates, over the stiles, down the stony grassy track that led at last out into the lane. There she stopped to breathe, to regain her breath, to let her legs recover, bent double, hands on knees. The lapwing circled above her head, pew-witting.
The dark figure was halfway down the lane on the opposite side of the river. It must be someone going to the farm. She watched as the figure drew near to the bottom of the valley. She waited. The figure did not turn in at the farm. Slowly she began to walk, matching her pace to his. It was a man. She was sure of that. She could see him clearly now, still dark but distinct, visible. Curlews bubbled over the field behind her. The river gabbled a welcome from below. The bridge made a meeting.

She ran. He had seen her. He started to run towards her, with difficulty; hindered by his luggage.
They met at the bridge.
She was there before him. She stopped, midway, and waited for him to come.
He came, panting, up the steps towards her.
Hello, he said.
Hello, was all she could reply.
They did not need words. It was all said for them, by the river, by the evening air, by the lingering light in the sky,  by the curlews on the hill; by their eyes.
Eleanor, he said.
James, she said. Thank you so much for coming.
She wept as she held him. She knew now what she hadn't known before: how much she needed him. She had not needed anyone. She had not needed him. She could go away. She could, she would, be alone. She could reinterpret the world herself; by herself.
But, no. It was together that they would do it if it could be done at all. She could see that now. He was her place. No place, not even this place, was complete without him.

Come on, she said, letting go of him. Come on in. Bring your bags. Have you had any dinner?
She wiped away the tears from her face with an impatient hand.
Come on, she said taking him firmly by the arm. I was waiting for you.

[Draft 1.2; Beta. Editing required.]