The Quiet Moon (eBook)

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THE QUIET MOON

An absolute silence leads to sadness. It offers an image of death.

(Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker)

IT’S GREY AND STILL, one of those winter days when the world forgets to wake up. There have been moments when the sun has threatened an appearance, but the blanket of cloud has remained, the temperature barely shifting from night into day. These are the sorts of conditions that the angler within me longs for at this time of year – mild air and low light levels can make for excellent fishing. But my rods are at home and my body and mind need a different kind of interaction.

Daily exercise had felt more achievable last March when we first went into lockdown. Helped no doubt by a sense of novelty about the situation, but likely too because spring was gaining some momentum and bringing so much possibility to the world. I also had a heightened appreciation of the place where we live. Stepping straight out into a landscape that millions of other people could only dream of as they stared on to concrete from the prison of their own circumstance. I was encouraged to exploit it because I felt such privilege; to not make the most of living in rural isolation would have almost been insulting to those who would have wished to be. And we were all in it together – there was, in the beginning at least, a sense of togetherness as the whole world came to terms with a shared threat. We thought of those living alone and the less able. Those stuck in high rises or separated from loved ones. And we shared what we could – photographs, podcasts, little snippets of birdsong. We Zoomed and quizzed and shared virtual pots of tea. And all the while, the days were lengthening, spring would lead into summer and all would be well.

The circular walk around our own little patch of West Dorset, which I might usually make once a fortnight, became a daily stomp. There was, admittedly, a lengthy pause halfway to scan through the mixed flock of buntings that had settled in number in the stubble and maybe snatch a glimpse of the merlin that shadowed their winter. But I began to lose weight, to breathe deep and almost – almost – feel a bit better about myself.

Ten months on, though, and I have slipped back into familiar habits. The hangover from a cancelled Christmas and New Year has been tempered by a continuation of excess. The weekends well wetted with cheap cider, while a glut of carbohydrates replaces the alcohol during the week. The house is cold, my afternoon naps are increasingly difficult to wake from and I’m finding too many excuses to avoid any kind of physical exertion. And while I know what is good for me, what will actually make me feel sharper and happier, the lack of motivation is coupled with a depressive cycle that has whirred for most of my life. There comes a point when won’t becomes can’t, and sometimes can’t actually feels like a curious sanctuary.

Today, though, I was prompted out for a purpose not my own. A visit to my parents’ house to help out with a few urgent chores around the garden. It is always easier to nudge myself out if it feels as though I am obliged for someone else’s benefit, a state of mind that will in turn be beneficial for me. The road to Beaminster (where my parents live) is a lovely one, dotted with places to stop on my way home for my daily exercise. I chose this spot because I don’t know it very well. It is close to one of my autumn mushroom haunts, where a mossy roadside verge can sparkle with chanterelles. I first stumbled upon it several years ago when exploring some of the quieter lanes of this already quiet area. Taking ever more varied routes from home to the weekly supermarket visit in Bridport, windows down and the car doing a very lazy trundle. I was slipping through a thick beech corridor when a spill of gold caught my eye. A lovely clamber of chanterelles glowing against the green like the first celandines of spring. I was a little bit too excited, though, and didn’t consider how deep the mud was in the spot where I pulled over. The nearside wheels sank and the car bottomed out, leaving me marooned and with barely any battery on my phone to call for aid. The tranquillity of that little lane leaving me feeling rather isolated. It took a kindly soul in a Land Rover to drag me back on to the road, and I later delivered a basketful of chanterelles to his door as a thank you.

Visits here have since been fleeting. A quick, early-autumn diversion to check the mushroom spots before journeying on elsewhere. A couple of years ago, though, I came on a whim. It was later in the year and winter was already nibbling at autumn’s toes. The beeches had gone to brown and I didn’t loiter long beneath them. Instead I pushed through the trees and picked up a footpath that I had seen marked on the Ordnance Survey map. The local slopes and pasture are crisscrossed with public rights of way, and the majority seem never to be trodden. Often it is a case of picking out the footpath signs and forming your own route between them, and, providing the gates are left as they are found and respect is given, there is nothing but a cheery wave should a farmer or landowner appear. On that day, having followed the path I had seen on the map for a time, I picked up another route and trod into open country where I discovered a meadow filled with waxcaps. The dew had added an extra sheen to their glisten and even the white snowy waxcaps had a sugary shine like polished marble. The sight of those fungi had elevated my walk and given me cause to return. Today might be too late in the season to see any mushrooms but I am curious as to what else I might stumble upon. The one issue being my own state of mind. I am not feeling particularly open to opportunity and have a niggle that is urging me to return home and draw the curtains. The hour is already late, so what is the point in lingering?

I take a deep breath and press on to the gate that leads me out into the open country, pepping myself up with each step. There might be a barn owl hunting, or even a hen harrier. I might see a hare or even a wild boar. Come on Kev, at worst you are getting your heart thumping and stretching your legs.

I pause in the waxcap meadow, beginning to begrudgingly feel the benefit of my push. There is nothing but pasture around my feet, the grasses looking tired and yellowed. Dying back in the cold, rather than gnawed by sheep or cattle. A short effort takes me up on to the summit of a knoll, where a single gorse stands leggy and slightly bare. In the south-west there is a slight hint of a glow. A narrow smear of orange-pink that sits like a letterbox at the foot of a great dark door. As I watch, it smudges back behind the grey of the cloud, but that was the first hint of the sun that I have seen for a couple of days. It also suggests that the hour is slightly later than I thought, and I turn to the south-east, expecting to see the moon. I smile at my absent-mindedness. If the sun was unable to poke a route through the cotton-wool veil of cloud then the moon certainly wouldn’t be visible. It would be there about now though. I had noticed it quite high in the sky at dusk two days ago, just before the cloud rolled in, so it should still be rising in the daylight. Instead, though, my attention is drawn to another familiar form. Eggardon Hill looks a little disappointing from this angle. My own elevation and the sweep of the rise to my left have allowed it to meld into a landscape it often dominates. The ridged ramparts of the Iron Age hill fort that sits atop it are distinctive, however, and take my thoughts in a different direction.

I remember as a child visiting the Bosworth battlefield. I was around the age of 10, and my family were staying with friends, my godfather’s family, in Leicestershire. I knew nothing of the history involved, or the relevance to what little history I knew, but was intrigued as to what I might see. As it turned out, I was wholly underwhelmed. All I was looking at were fields and hedgerows, through the muck of a damp and blustery day. I have no idea what I expected to witness, but given the build-up, the talk of civil war and the death in action of Richard III, I certainly didn’t anticipate a view little different to those I saw back at home in Hampshire.

In hindsight, I am quite surprised by my response. My imagination has always been quite easy to rouse, and I had a nervous anticipation of what I might see or how I might feel. Yet I found it difficult to visualise anything beneath the surface. I felt no connection. It could be that I was unerringly tapping into the dispute around the actual battlefield location, but far more likely was the fact that with no remnant of that time, I couldn’t fill in the gaps. And having grown up in a heavily managed, if rural, area, I had got used to a landscape without historical context.

The folds of West Dorset are less sanitised, largely because the clefts and combes that have formed across this melting pot of geology are less convenient for arable agriculture – proven, perhaps, by the lynchets that remain stepped into the hillsides. Earthworks created by ancient humankind in an effort to exploit every inch of available soil, now regarded as nothing more than grazing pasture. With less pressure on the land, there remains a greater sense of what once was, and there are also far more clues to the past. Alongside the lynchets are hill forts, tumuli, stone circles and sarsens. Most of these are untouched, like the stone burial chamber around half a mile from our cottage. It appears to be partially collapsed but I have found no record of it ever having been...