ECHO 13/4/06 - Keswick

Sundown at Castlerigg - the earth around the stones had been turned to slurry and mud pits by the countless tourists visiting throughout the day after the earlier rain - something disgusting about the way the place had been treated - the marks of an invasion, an army that has come and moved to its next target; the thoughtless, inexorable movement of feet marching in order over the landscape leaving wasted earth behind -

And the constant reminder in the air that I am not far wrong, as the Jaguars and other jet fighters come along the valley in their mock bombing runs frying the air, thrusting two supersonic fingers up at all beneath, delineating shock and awe in a moment and then whoop! - gone. It is a frightening episode; a memory stain of blood and battered cities; here over a monument to the beginnings of civilization we witness the machines that have ruined another a few thousand miles away -

and some locals complain about the impact of wind farms!! Babylon’s burning -

The night’s events thereafter, were slow -

marked first by a strange turn in front of the TV. We were watching a programme in which a man was thoroughly beaten by a neighbour on his own doorstep and left with a bloody, smashed nose, a cut and bleeding forehead, and terribly swollen and bruised eyes. He had fallen there against the jamb and his wife came to aid him. I let out a sudden, shocked sigh and began to sob. A flow of tears without warning. Pol held me close in an instant - she knew straight away why it had happened because I’d told her the story of my own beating on a street in Brixton. I carried on crying, then just as suddenly stopped and laughed and apologized. The effect of that night four years ago, combined with the reality of the imagery in the TV programme had made it all as apparent as yesterday. The sense of vulnerability; the absolute shock of a random act of violence; the fear that arrives and resides beneath the skin for months, years. And of course you get over it, but it seems never in totality - how little we know -

the gathering in The George was tame: nervous actors together after their first week of rehearsals, vying for space in conversation, looking for little chances to perform even here in front of the fire until such time as they were drunk enough to relax and become themselves -
there is talk of tiny feet and shoes to match-
of costume fittings being the best yet -
of long relationships being over -
of Etruscan artefacts with large phalluses being drawn over and again, for archaeological purposes of course -
of Beckett and Pinter and clowns -

in the final event it could only be the lake and the full moon together that would have any lasting meaning - the thick clouds passing gripped by the pale light, the stars revealed, the dark hulks of trees and the high hills across the lake - nothing to be afraid of out here; even the lambs lie down before this darkness, the tempestuous, bitter wind and the charging weather - I am out looking for a ‘moment’ as is my want; eyes peeled always for the unnoticed, the magical commonplace - “awkward to lose things you know.”

And the sight of Keswick’s late night whore tottering alone through the streets in her finest: spangled dress under a simple coat held close in one hand against the wind and clutching a bottle of wine there too, long earrings and a ‘50s style bouffant (indeed that would be about the time she was born) - she talks into her mobile phone, Cumbrian accented, still furtive in case she is overheard but she is, as she clatters inelegantly on her high-heels: “You better still be up. I’ve got what it is you want; so you better had be. I’m on my way. Five minutes.”

Arm in arm, me and Pol watch her go, secretive, clandestine.