The Sudden Appearance of Hope

Chapter 106

A body between the rocks.

A police car, driven all the way down the isle.

An ambulance, two hours later.

I sat on the edge of the hill, and watched it all.

Gauguin came running, fell to his knees by the edge of the cliff, half wails stuttering in his throat, an old man in an inappropriately light coat, his head in his hands, weeping.

I watched, but he didn’t seem to see me.

And when, in time, the policemen had forgotten and remembered my presence enough to grow confused, I picked up my bag, and walked away.

I walked north, along the edge of the sea.

I walked over grey stones and faded grasses.

I walked past the van that sold meat pies of uncertain provenance, to which the people came.

I walked with my eyes half closed against the rain.

I walked as the sun went down.

I walked when it rose again.

I walked inland until I could see the sea no more, then walked until I was at the water again, and sea was all I could behold, as far as the eye could see.

I walked.

And as I walked, I felt the desert beneath my feet, and the sun on my face even as it rained.

And I walked to the ferry, and I rode it across the water.

And I walked to the station, and I caught the train.

And I looked out of the windows of the train, and I saw the lives of others pass me by.

A man on a bicycle pedalling to work.

A pair of children in school caps, fighting over a bag of crisps.

A man fixing his truck by the side of the road.

A woman on her phone, standing in the middle of a bridge across a running brook, gesturing angry, sad, thwarted.

An old woman and her husband, their grandchild held between them, waving at the people moving by.

I bought a newspaper at some point, and read it from my seat by the window, and its headlines were…

full of screaming.

So I put it away.

And at Edinburgh Waverley, I bought a notebook from the stationery shop, and a bag of pens, and as the engine blared its victory over inertia and the train began to crawl south, back to England, back to the warm, back to Derby and my sister who waited, I began to write.

I wrote of the past.

Of the things that had brought me here.

Of being forgotten, and being remembered.

Of diamonds in Dubai, fires in Istanbul. Of walks through Tokyo, the mountains of Korea, the islands of the southern seas. Of America and the greyhound bus, of Filipa and Parker, Gauguin and Byron14.

I wrote, to make my memory true.

The past, living.

Now.

Here, in these words.

I wrote to make myself real.

And when at last my train reached Nottingham, I clambered from the station and ordered a cab, and when I arrived in the place where my sister lives she was sleepy, but recognised me as I came through the door, and she said, “Hope! You lied; you went away for ages.”

I apologised, and showed her the presents I’d bought — films of adventure and derring-do, of good triumphant, of beauty winning out over evil, of heroes and villains, of…

an easier world.

And when she was asleep, I wrote some more, putting down the truth between the screaming.

Remember these, my words.

Now that I am home.

Now that I am, at last, myself.

Now that I am Hope.

Remember me.