Puckaterry by Andrew Wickham
Ageing Terry Pike moves to Ely to be near his daughter, but becomes enchanted by a temptress of the fens, and finds himself in a puckaterry (an old word from East Anglia meaning to be in a panic, muddle, stress).
Terry Pike planned to walk Cawdle Fen all the way to Cambridge.
Following his retirement, Terry's daughter, Carly, strongly encouraged him to move nearer to her, into an Independent Living Facility chosen by Mike Voyles, the practical, humourless man she had married, and the father of Terry's two grandsons.
A frank phone call from Mike Voyles had forced Terry to admit that the old family house was too big and that it was a lot for Carly and her crew to drive the couple of hours to see him. So, Terry had allowed himself to be cajoled into relocating. He quite enjoyed the attention and made more of an oppositional fuss than necessary. It was nice to feel wanted. Carly and Mike Voyles handled everything, and the move happened in the new year.
Terry Pike spent the spring getting to know the city of Ely, basking in the grandeur of the cathedral, strolling along the Great River Ouse, and window shopping on market days. Mostly though, he missed home, and passed long lonely hours sitting with a coffee by the war memorial. Then, in desperate need of a project, he had accepted the idea, tabled by Mike Voyles, of walking Cawdle Fen.
Now, clearly one cannot just set out on the first day to travel some sixteen miles from Ely to Cambridge. But there are many villages, locks and inns along the Fen and Terry's intention was to gradually increase the distance travelled week by week until he had gotten his legs. The first of these villages, and the initial destination, was Little Thetford, about three miles from Ely.
He set out in earnest one glorious July morning when the sun burned high above. His feet were willing, snug in brand new walking boots, and he was reminded of family walks in times past.
Ha! Dragging Carly and Martin round the countryside in bright anoraks. Moody faces and rainy days and then back to a pokey cottage for a cuppa. Heaven. Then, when they were grown up and gone, Helen and Terry started making plans for the places they would go. Austria! Australia! Anywhere!
In the event, they made just one visit, some years later, to the Lake District. Helen was too ill, but adamant she wanted to go, and Terry let himself be talked into it. The journey was long, and Helen was uncomfortable. They bickered for a couple of days. He strode off on the Lakes alone once or twice while Helen slept. Then they drove home early in silence. And it was not long after that; just a few months and it was all over.
A train rushed past, cutting through the fens. Terry stopped to see it, smiling to think of the speed with which Cambridge could be reached. Just twenty minutes or so by train. If he... Terry checked himself. When he eventually made it along those sixteen miles, it would take at least six hours. Probably more.
Terry felt in his pocket for the bag of jelly babies and selected one. Green - that was unfortunate. He popped it in his mouth, followed by another couple to remove that sour taste of green, and set on his way.
He crooned Frank Sinatra to the rushing wind, rustling reeds and wheat. Skipping along; through daisies and dandelions; past green nettles' thin needles waiting, poised; Terry felt that he might just go straight onto Cambridge that very morning!
Over and on the royal blue river were swans and cygnets, sparrows and swallows, geese, and gulls. A grey heron nestled through the reeds, then took to flight, its pterodactyl-gait prompting Terry to wonder about bygone times and the now-vanished watery way of life.
But all sense of time is lost when walking, and an hour had gone without notice when he looked to see the level crossing which marked entry to the village.
Terry paid little attention to Little Thetford as he was only passing through in search of the track back home. It was easy to find, down a signposted side road, and soon he was back out in the fens on the far side of the train line.
Digging deeply into his pocket to find the last few sweets, Terry suddenly became annoyed. Stupid. This was obviously a two-bag walk.
The sun beat down unbearably. Terry no longer wanted to be out. He veered left, then right, and the deep brown ground, becoming marshy, took on a thick red shade like blood. He had taken a wrong turn.
Heavy sadness overwhelmed him, and he was brought to a standstill.
Desperately, Terry thought of Helen, who would always lead from the front, folded map in hand, recounting her adventures in the Girl Guides. The family heard those stories so many times. But now, lost, and with overly expensive walking boots sinking into the sludge, Terry Pike lamented that he could not recall a single detail of Helen's innocent childhood escapades.
With a heroic effort Terry pulled himself together and pressed on in parallel with a large drainage pipe. Each sticky step was taken with great care through cloying clung and slud which grasped like quicksand. But beyond the sludge, he could see a wire fence, and then the familiar path home.
Terry swung around suddenly, sensing presence. There was nothing. He plodded forward until he reached a shallow passage of water.
A plank of wood, thin and fragile, was the single means of crossing. Not being the slightest of men, Terry approached this makeshift bridge with some trepidation. The wood creaked and complained, bending under his weight, then a horrible squelching in the water beneath caught him by surprise, nearly knocking him off balance.
He rushed on to the bank; dared a backward look. A mass of grey something like eels bubbled and foamed just under the surface. Rising.
Disconcerted, Terry clambered up a slippery incline to reach the fence, quite out of breath.
Terry gripped the wire, plotted one boot after another, swung his leg over the wooden frame, and rested astride the fence for a few moments. Then, twisting his body round to bring the other leg over, he got tangled and tumbled, dense greenery offering no protection against the hard earth on which he landed with a dull thud.
"I'm not altogether sure you're supposed to come that way!"
Terry Pike looked up, squinting from the sun's glare, and saw the one who stood over him. She was, he thought, around his age. The thin features of her face gave a mild school mistress flint, but in her clever, fern-coloured eyes, was a twinkle.
"Ow," was all Terry could manage.
"We don't get many SAS around here!"
"All right, all right," Terry said from the ground. "I may have gotten into a bit of a bother but..."
"Yes?"
Terry rubbed his back. "It hurts!"
She chuckled, holding out a hand to help: "Come on then Action Man, up you get. Slowly does it!"
"Slowly's my only option," Terry said when up on his feet, more out-of-sorts than he dared let on. But enough of a flailing trace of some foolish bravado was present that he breathed through the discomfort and stood tall.
She led the way back beside the river where they fell into a leisurely walking rhythm, and said her name was Edith. "Edie to my friends. Edie Eighty. Spelt A-T-E." Terry remarked that it sounded unusual and pretty. She smiled at the compliment: "You're a charmer! Just remember Ate's my name, not my age!"
They laughed together and stopped for a breather. Terry pointed, commenting on the splendour of the cathedral, high on its hill. Edie Ate suddenly wore a look of disdain, her face hard.
"The mountain was sacred generations before that monstrosity was constructed," she said coldly. "Built with eels for greedy Bishops a millennium ago who have been taking from us ever since."
"Us?"
"Yes, us! The rightful occupants of these fens." She wept, making Terry shift uncomfortably. "This was all underwater before they drained it for farmland. And we still feel the pain of grief. You feel it too, don't you, Terry? You feel that ache that cannot be lifted."
Terry nodded, unsure. He tried a joke to deflect: "I certainly feel a few aches at the moment!"
"The time will come when we can speak freely. But I know you are one of us." She sniffed, smiled, and walked on. "Please, tell me something about yourself to cheer me up."
Terry explained his intention of walking to Cambridge. After admitting that he was not off to the best of starts, they were nearing the road and Edie bid him farewell.
"Listen, Old Man. Go home and rest your bones."
Old Man! What a cheek! he turned to say as much but Edie Ate was already out of sight.
The need for pretence was gone: Terry hobbled laboriously to the flat, where, freeing his smarting feet from their confinement in those boots, he collapsed into his comfortable chair and promptly fell asleep.
Terry Pike took a few days to convalesce. Carly was sympathetic on the phone but was unable to visit as one of the boys was poorly with a sickness bug, plus Mike had this work thing, so... Terry lounged dejectedly around the poky flat, staring at inane programmes on the television which shackled his eyes to the screen for hours at a time.
Whenever he did arise, to top-up the biscuit barrel or refill his tea, he was struck by the bland uniformity of the decor. Everything was the same monotonous shade of cheap magnolia; even the radiators and fitted wardrobe. As soon as he could be bothered, he planned to paint the walls, get a bit of colour in the place. Greens, yellows, some blue perhaps.
After a couple of days Terry ventured out to chat with a few of the folks in the communal garden about the hot weather. He was the youngest, not yet seventy, and one of the few men. Most residents were women of eighty-plus, who had all their faculties, especially for gossip. It amused Terry to find them in that cream-coloured lounge, seated on sticky plastic cream-coloured armchairs, chewing the fat for hours on end. Drama in the laundry room! Disagreement with Tracy the manager! Despair over ninety-nine-year-old Queenie who let her great-grandchildren and that awful shih tzu run around the garden!
Soon enough Terry was ready to face the fens again. He chose not to go overboard; just as far as the footbridge where a few boats were tied up on the rippling blue.
He stood on the bridge, watching still-grey young swans attempt first flight, and finished the croissants he had picked up from the superstore. "Necessary sustenance for the return journey," he said, shaking crumbs off his shirt and hands.
He started.
Swimming in the river below was Edie Ate.
Terry rushed down the steps.
"Come on in," she called, spreading her arms wide to create inviting ripples. "It's so refreshing!"
Terry laughed, bewildered. "Oh, I don't think so!"
"Shame," Edie pouted.
"I am very happy with my feet on solid ground thank you."
Edie climbed lithely up the bank. She asked warmly if Terry had rested sufficiently following his adventures the other day.
"Oh yes, I'm fit and well and feeling as right as rain!"
Beaming, she replied: "'Never mind the weather, now we're all together...'"
And in unison: "'Hello! Hello! Here we are again!'"
She sighed. "That's an olden; you're showing your age! Come on Old Man, walk with me."
Terry abandoned his plan not to overdo it, and accompanied Edie further from Ely, slipping into easy conversation.
"You always swim in the river then, do you? There's a perfectly good pool in town."
"Chlorine and verrucas. No thank you. The ancient river reminds me of the happy times we had when we had 'never felt the rage of the blundering plough,' before they came, and, oh -"
Dramatically she pulled away, crying - "It aches! It aches!" - then collapsed into Terry's arms, burying her head in his chest: "See what they've done to this place."
She lifted her face and smiled, eyes sparkling with tears.
Terry was charmed. Absolutely. He floated home, dreamlike, and arrived back at the flat hardly aware of how he had got there.
Quite quickly Terry began arranging his trips out around the time he believed his new friend would be taking her daily exercise in the river. And, indeed, she was always there cavorting masterfully in the water: disappearing under the surface just long enough for him to worry, before springing out dolphin-like, prompting relieved applause from Terry who always refused her invitations to join her.
Every morning they walked together after Edie's swim while Terry shared his latest experiences at The Home. And, always, in the friendliest, most subtle manner, she would guide him to knowing exactly what to do for the best.
One occasion, he was expressing some frustrations about how Carly had pushed for him to move closer to her, and yet, now here, he was practically ignored; left with nothing to do all day but listen to the mindless chatter of his fellow residents at The Home.
Edie looked pained and, touching his arm lightly, said: "There are those of us who care about you, Old Man; who understand you and want only fulfilment for you here by these waters."
Terry smiled, uncomprehending, and reached in his pocket for another sweet to pop in his mouth. Edie's fern eyes followed his grasping fingers.
By autumn, Terry was intentionally avoiding everyone at The Home. Their old-fashioned East-Anglian ways annoyed him and he compared them critically with Edie Ate who, though also a fen-woman, carried an attractive air of eastern mystique. And while they were stuck in the past, waiting for the end, she was all life and future.
Her hair, slicked back in green-white streaks, enthralled him. The way she dressed so elegantly in muted silver and gold, but always with a flash of bold brightness in a hoop earring or bangle, delighted him. And simply thinking of the ludicrously quirky way in which she was always barefoot, was guaranteed to produce a smile in his loneliest moments.
Edie seemed so strong, yet, on rare occasions, so irresistibly vulnerable, and Terry believed she really cared for him. He was enamoured of her. Drawn in by the mystery of Edie Ate. And desperately restless when not in her presence.
One morning in October, the kazoo razz of the buzzer on Terry Pike's door sounded. He eased out of his armchair to answer, irked at the disturbance.
Carly's voice came distorted out of the speaker. She was downstairs with the children. Half term holidays she said; surprise visit to see Grandad as they had all been so busy recently. Terry let them up, disappointed that he would now miss seeing Edie.
Will she miss seeing me, he wondered with a sickening lurch in his stomach; panic rising that this intrusion would cause an irreparable rift between him and his friend.
They sat around struggling through strained and sporadic small talk. Terry made a show of checking his watch regularly and sighing. They drank tea in near silence, the only sound, the steady crunch of biscuits. He was short with his daughter, and when she asked if he would like to have the boys the following morning, Terry snapped, "You have no time for me until you want something. Well, I am sorry, but in your absence, I have made other plans!"
They left soon after and he finished the biscuits himself.
It was approaching midday. Terry pulled on his shoes and rushed out to Cawdle Fen. He strode, slipping many times, over damp fallen leaves in rusty ambers and dull, discoloured browns, until he became out of breath, needing to lean on the gate that crossed the railway line.
A car sat abandoned on the far side, neon green graffiti sprayed over dented bodywork, a gross parody of the natural fen colours. The sight of the car grieved him.
It was pointless, he had surely missed his chance to see Edie and felt rotten.
So sad, so stupid, so tired.
So alone.
Terry sank down, head in hands against the gate and gazed despondent into a large stagnant puddle, littered with cans and wrappers.
His stomach danced, bile rising. Shouldn't have eaten all those biscuits, he winced.
"What's the matter with you, Old Man," came a voice, gently mocking. "You should know by now; you can always find me here!"
Sorrow and sickness were forgotten instantly, it was so wonderful to see her.
And of course, Edie got Terry to see sense about the family. He phoned Carly when he got home and explained clearly that he needed some space. He would contact her in his own time, and until then, he did not wish to hear from her.
Terry's mind was now always upon the fens. Spending long hours with Edie every day, he engaged with no one and nothing else. She was his safety, her fennish home his comfort.
One day Mike Voyles called from the office to explain very sensibly how upset Carly was by the estrangement. "She's worried about you; we all are," he said. Terry unplugged his phone after that.
Autumn went its way, and winter came knocking, bringing a glistening frosty bite to the landscape. Cut off from all except Edie Ate and the Cawdle Fen, to Terry Pike life felt just as it should. Perfectly splendid, as he was fond of saying.
Then, one particularly crisp and chilly morning late in November, Edie surprised Terry when his mouth was crammed full of luscious Danish pastry, hands sticky with icing. She burst from the river, waving, cheery as ever.
"Come on in," she called. "It is so refreshing!"
Terry swallowed down the mouthful as quickly as he could. "How can you swim in there? You'll freeze."
She dove: a rippling, shimmering silver and gold under the surface. Then exploded into the air, returning to the water after a moment with barely a splash.
"Terry, please; come, be with us."
He tittered as he always did, cautiously approaching the bank. "Now Edie, come out, you'll catch your death in there."
Deftly, she slithered up the bank and stood before Terry Pike who watched the water dripping from her clothing onto the grass. Edie's expression was cold. She spoke without emotion, gesturing with arms, pale and scaly.
"We can no longer meet by these waters, Old Man," she said. "You are not truly one of us."
Immediately Terry panicked. "No! Just because I wouldn't swim in the river? You are everything to me. I need you, Edie. I think... I think I love you."
It sounded pathetic and false as he spoke, so he was quiet.
"You say you love but if it were truly so, you would come. And you would not be unfaithful with another."
Edie's keen round eyes were focussed on Terry's hands and the pastry packet held crumpled within them. Convicted, he let the sticky plastic drop to the ground.
"Please, Edie -"
"Go home Old Man."
"Okay, I'll swim if you want, Edie, I'll swim. But I must be with you. Please?"
She laughed scornfully, striking straight at Terry's wounded heart.
"Go, Terry Pike, go and fill your boots with nutty trinkets and junkery. Forget about life on these waters."
Terry turned and left. Edie Ate did not call out after him and he did not look back.
His feet carried him directly to the superstore. He filled shopping bags with treats, sweet and savoury, anything that did not need cooking, snarfing a great deal as he pounded home, ripping through packaging with his teeth.
Terry thundered into the flat and made tea. Heaping spoons of sugar into his cup until the white granules piled up and cascaded over the side, he shouted out, "See what you made me do!" and pushed the cup so it crashed into the sink.
For days he existed in a cycle of sugar and salt fuelled mood swings.
Delectable concoctions of almond, fruit, oats, butter, and syrup healed his body like an elixir. And, riding high, the colourless flat became bright and homely by glossy whites and glistening reds.
But then he would crash. His head ached, and he felt exhausted. Sometimes he shouted out, "I just needed a friend!" or, "I am sorry! Please take me back!" He slept in the chair. Then he would wake, weak and shaking, stomach ferociously demanding the next spike.
Once or twice the door buzzed; he did not answer it. The telephone remained unplugged.
Terry Pike rose on the third day when it was still dark and stepped over discarded wrappers and packets. On the way to the kitchen he noticed a piece of paper had been pushed beneath the door.
A note from Carly: Dad, I am here when you want to talk.
Terry let the paper flutter to the floor. He needed to get out of the flat.
Terry dug his walking boots out from where they had been tossed in the back of the cupboard. He heaved them on, and walked out into the dim corridor, letting the door slam. The lift clanged noisily downwards, thoughtlessly raising The Home from sleep.
Outside, the sky was deep greys and blues, with clouds pink and orange from the fledgling sunlight. The road to the Cawdle Fen was quiet and Terry crossed without care.
Crows; a hundred at least, flew overhead and settled on the telephone wires; black shadows against the skyline.
A phrase was rattling around his head: Old Man. Old Man. Someone was speaking the words, their face just out of sight. It was a voice from the past. So familiar, so dear, but one that Terry Pike could not place.
He followed the familiar path through a hostile, barren land. Without Edie Ate, all there was for him now were crows and cars sometimes speeding over the bridge.
In the half-light of dawn, the river took on a strange and desolate darkness.
In those unwieldy boots Terry's feet were heavy, stumbling.
In the distant fields, roe deer looked like brown marks against the black ploughed and ruptured earth.
He paused by the road bridge, on the railway line. There were hints of an unpleasant aroma riding on the air, recognisable from somewhere unclear, and Terry's nostrils prickled.
He moved down and sat by the river. The smell seemed stronger here. The stink of decay thought Terry woefully. He came close to the water's edge and crouching, peered into the dark and rippling void. Lifeless shapes - neither animal nor vegetable - were jostled by the current, pushed toward the bank. Towards Terry Pike.
Disquieted, he staggered back, tripping over his heavy boots.
But then, suddenly, unbelievably: Edie Ate came gliding through the water, shimmering in silver and gold.
Terry leapt to his feet, unrestrainedly waving and crying out, "Edie! Over here!"
All was forgiven.
The figure approached, playfully splashing around. She swam closer, toward the bank. Toward Terry Pike, who stopped, amazed.
It was not Edie at all but Helen, his wife.
How had he confused the two - they were nothing alike! He laughed and cried as he watched. She performed a few strokes; her face bright with a smile more lovely than Terry remembered ever seeing before.
Oh, wasn't that just like Helen making an appearance after all this time, cavorting around the Great Ouse.
Terry sat back on the damp bank and gazed in wondrous, bewildered joy at the one he loved.
He remembered then. Old Man was Helen's silly name for him. She was never a great comedian, that's for sure, but this was her simple joke to acknowledge the six months he had had on her! Terry wondered at how he had forgotten such a constant thread of a long marriage.
And abruptly, he realised what a fool he had been. His beautiful bride was there before his very eyes. Dazzling and sublime as she ever was, she had come back to him. He had missed her so much.
"Come on in," Helen exclaimed with delight. "It is so refreshing!"
And, with singular grace, she performed a few movements to show the water's appeal. Or perhaps her appeal.
She was just as he had known her. Indeed, the signs of the years graciously chose to pass her by. Or if not, the imprints of a life well-lived seemed only to embed what the gods had already given her. Not at the end of course. Terry did not want to think of that. That was the problem. He could not think of it, he had not been there. He just could not do it. The final bit. It was too much. He wanted to remember her as she had been, not as...
Carly was there at the end, for days it seemed, holding her hand, and Mike Voyles afterwards, of course, sorting everything. And Martin, driving like a wild thing down the motorway, had been busy with work he had said, and left it too late to say goodbye.
Did I say goodbye? This new thought prodded Terry sharply and he sat upright. As Helen had faded and lost her colour, her shape, her voice, Terry balked at her leaving so unfairly, and had fled from the pain. In the face of such a devastating sense of abandonment, he craved comfort from something dependable and true.
He had been rejected. So, he ate and felt a little better.
He was left to struggle alone. So, he ate again and felt better still.
So, no Terry had not said goodbye to his wife. To his Helen. He had not. Instead, he had taken refuge in a coward's cavern; a shelter of sugar and salt in which grief and conflict and uncertainty and that endless pit of sorrow leering up at him were, not merely numbed or turned away from, but steadily and surely erased from existence.
Edie Ate called to him again from the murky deep...
No, that was not right. Terry Pike shook his head vigorously and rubbed his eyes.
Helen called to him again from the murky deep. Called his name. Her eyes glimmered with that emerald magic that had enchanted him some fifty years before.
"Come on in," she called again, "It is so refreshing," then dove down under the water. One last flash of her delicate feet and then she was gone.
Silence.
Terry scrambled to the edge.
"Helen?"
He stood. Without hesitation he stepped into the freezing Ouse and sank down and down to meet his Helen.
The water was rancid.
Stagnant.
Green.
And uncannily still. Terry drifted down unaided to the underworld. Past the mad dead eyeballs of a grey heron, head severed from its long neck. The ghoulish stare of an eel.
Suddenly, Terry struggled. Swiped his arms wildly. But there was no way. Only down.
A flash of silver. Gold. Green. Green. Green.
Orange?
Terry became slowly aware of being jutted forcefully.
Something - Orange - was pushed onto him.
He started to rise.
Snakish, slithering limbs twisted amorously around his arms, his legs, taking him down to The Green. To Edie. To Helen. To all who said: "You are one of us."
But a battle raged between Green and Orange.
A rush. A roar. A struggle. Push. Pull. Push. And freezing hard earth.
Terry Pike closed his eyes.
Opened.
An orange life ring was tied around his middle by a rope.
Carly was kneeling at his side, her face pale, sick with worry. She had a phone to her ear. And Mike Voyles, with fat wet drops falling steadily from black hair onto his sopping clothes, was shouting something indistinct. Oh, his name. "TERRY! TERRY!"
Mike Voyles, thought Terry Pike distantly, floating in and out of consciousness: trust Mike Voyles to know what to do in a crisis.
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Following his retirement, Terry's daughter, Carly, strongly encouraged him to move nearer to her, into an Independent Living Facility chosen by Mike Voyles, the practical, humourless man she had married, and the father of Terry's two grandsons.
A frank phone call from Mike Voyles had forced Terry to admit that the old family house was too big and that it was a lot for Carly and her crew to drive the couple of hours to see him. So, Terry had allowed himself to be cajoled into relocating. He quite enjoyed the attention and made more of an oppositional fuss than necessary. It was nice to feel wanted. Carly and Mike Voyles handled everything, and the move happened in the new year.
Terry Pike spent the spring getting to know the city of Ely, basking in the grandeur of the cathedral, strolling along the Great River Ouse, and window shopping on market days. Mostly though, he missed home, and passed long lonely hours sitting with a coffee by the war memorial. Then, in desperate need of a project, he had accepted the idea, tabled by Mike Voyles, of walking Cawdle Fen.
Now, clearly one cannot just set out on the first day to travel some sixteen miles from Ely to Cambridge. But there are many villages, locks and inns along the Fen and Terry's intention was to gradually increase the distance travelled week by week until he had gotten his legs. The first of these villages, and the initial destination, was Little Thetford, about three miles from Ely.
He set out in earnest one glorious July morning when the sun burned high above. His feet were willing, snug in brand new walking boots, and he was reminded of family walks in times past.
Ha! Dragging Carly and Martin round the countryside in bright anoraks. Moody faces and rainy days and then back to a pokey cottage for a cuppa. Heaven. Then, when they were grown up and gone, Helen and Terry started making plans for the places they would go. Austria! Australia! Anywhere!
In the event, they made just one visit, some years later, to the Lake District. Helen was too ill, but adamant she wanted to go, and Terry let himself be talked into it. The journey was long, and Helen was uncomfortable. They bickered for a couple of days. He strode off on the Lakes alone once or twice while Helen slept. Then they drove home early in silence. And it was not long after that; just a few months and it was all over.
A train rushed past, cutting through the fens. Terry stopped to see it, smiling to think of the speed with which Cambridge could be reached. Just twenty minutes or so by train. If he... Terry checked himself. When he eventually made it along those sixteen miles, it would take at least six hours. Probably more.
Terry felt in his pocket for the bag of jelly babies and selected one. Green - that was unfortunate. He popped it in his mouth, followed by another couple to remove that sour taste of green, and set on his way.
He crooned Frank Sinatra to the rushing wind, rustling reeds and wheat. Skipping along; through daisies and dandelions; past green nettles' thin needles waiting, poised; Terry felt that he might just go straight onto Cambridge that very morning!
Over and on the royal blue river were swans and cygnets, sparrows and swallows, geese, and gulls. A grey heron nestled through the reeds, then took to flight, its pterodactyl-gait prompting Terry to wonder about bygone times and the now-vanished watery way of life.
But all sense of time is lost when walking, and an hour had gone without notice when he looked to see the level crossing which marked entry to the village.
Terry paid little attention to Little Thetford as he was only passing through in search of the track back home. It was easy to find, down a signposted side road, and soon he was back out in the fens on the far side of the train line.
Digging deeply into his pocket to find the last few sweets, Terry suddenly became annoyed. Stupid. This was obviously a two-bag walk.
The sun beat down unbearably. Terry no longer wanted to be out. He veered left, then right, and the deep brown ground, becoming marshy, took on a thick red shade like blood. He had taken a wrong turn.
Heavy sadness overwhelmed him, and he was brought to a standstill.
Desperately, Terry thought of Helen, who would always lead from the front, folded map in hand, recounting her adventures in the Girl Guides. The family heard those stories so many times. But now, lost, and with overly expensive walking boots sinking into the sludge, Terry Pike lamented that he could not recall a single detail of Helen's innocent childhood escapades.
With a heroic effort Terry pulled himself together and pressed on in parallel with a large drainage pipe. Each sticky step was taken with great care through cloying clung and slud which grasped like quicksand. But beyond the sludge, he could see a wire fence, and then the familiar path home.
Terry swung around suddenly, sensing presence. There was nothing. He plodded forward until he reached a shallow passage of water.
A plank of wood, thin and fragile, was the single means of crossing. Not being the slightest of men, Terry approached this makeshift bridge with some trepidation. The wood creaked and complained, bending under his weight, then a horrible squelching in the water beneath caught him by surprise, nearly knocking him off balance.
He rushed on to the bank; dared a backward look. A mass of grey something like eels bubbled and foamed just under the surface. Rising.
Disconcerted, Terry clambered up a slippery incline to reach the fence, quite out of breath.
Terry gripped the wire, plotted one boot after another, swung his leg over the wooden frame, and rested astride the fence for a few moments. Then, twisting his body round to bring the other leg over, he got tangled and tumbled, dense greenery offering no protection against the hard earth on which he landed with a dull thud.
"I'm not altogether sure you're supposed to come that way!"
Terry Pike looked up, squinting from the sun's glare, and saw the one who stood over him. She was, he thought, around his age. The thin features of her face gave a mild school mistress flint, but in her clever, fern-coloured eyes, was a twinkle.
"Ow," was all Terry could manage.
"We don't get many SAS around here!"
"All right, all right," Terry said from the ground. "I may have gotten into a bit of a bother but..."
"Yes?"
Terry rubbed his back. "It hurts!"
She chuckled, holding out a hand to help: "Come on then Action Man, up you get. Slowly does it!"
"Slowly's my only option," Terry said when up on his feet, more out-of-sorts than he dared let on. But enough of a flailing trace of some foolish bravado was present that he breathed through the discomfort and stood tall.
She led the way back beside the river where they fell into a leisurely walking rhythm, and said her name was Edith. "Edie to my friends. Edie Eighty. Spelt A-T-E." Terry remarked that it sounded unusual and pretty. She smiled at the compliment: "You're a charmer! Just remember Ate's my name, not my age!"
They laughed together and stopped for a breather. Terry pointed, commenting on the splendour of the cathedral, high on its hill. Edie Ate suddenly wore a look of disdain, her face hard.
"The mountain was sacred generations before that monstrosity was constructed," she said coldly. "Built with eels for greedy Bishops a millennium ago who have been taking from us ever since."
"Us?"
"Yes, us! The rightful occupants of these fens." She wept, making Terry shift uncomfortably. "This was all underwater before they drained it for farmland. And we still feel the pain of grief. You feel it too, don't you, Terry? You feel that ache that cannot be lifted."
Terry nodded, unsure. He tried a joke to deflect: "I certainly feel a few aches at the moment!"
"The time will come when we can speak freely. But I know you are one of us." She sniffed, smiled, and walked on. "Please, tell me something about yourself to cheer me up."
Terry explained his intention of walking to Cambridge. After admitting that he was not off to the best of starts, they were nearing the road and Edie bid him farewell.
"Listen, Old Man. Go home and rest your bones."
Old Man! What a cheek! he turned to say as much but Edie Ate was already out of sight.
The need for pretence was gone: Terry hobbled laboriously to the flat, where, freeing his smarting feet from their confinement in those boots, he collapsed into his comfortable chair and promptly fell asleep.
Terry Pike took a few days to convalesce. Carly was sympathetic on the phone but was unable to visit as one of the boys was poorly with a sickness bug, plus Mike had this work thing, so... Terry lounged dejectedly around the poky flat, staring at inane programmes on the television which shackled his eyes to the screen for hours at a time.
Whenever he did arise, to top-up the biscuit barrel or refill his tea, he was struck by the bland uniformity of the decor. Everything was the same monotonous shade of cheap magnolia; even the radiators and fitted wardrobe. As soon as he could be bothered, he planned to paint the walls, get a bit of colour in the place. Greens, yellows, some blue perhaps.
After a couple of days Terry ventured out to chat with a few of the folks in the communal garden about the hot weather. He was the youngest, not yet seventy, and one of the few men. Most residents were women of eighty-plus, who had all their faculties, especially for gossip. It amused Terry to find them in that cream-coloured lounge, seated on sticky plastic cream-coloured armchairs, chewing the fat for hours on end. Drama in the laundry room! Disagreement with Tracy the manager! Despair over ninety-nine-year-old Queenie who let her great-grandchildren and that awful shih tzu run around the garden!
Soon enough Terry was ready to face the fens again. He chose not to go overboard; just as far as the footbridge where a few boats were tied up on the rippling blue.
He stood on the bridge, watching still-grey young swans attempt first flight, and finished the croissants he had picked up from the superstore. "Necessary sustenance for the return journey," he said, shaking crumbs off his shirt and hands.
He started.
Swimming in the river below was Edie Ate.
Terry rushed down the steps.
"Come on in," she called, spreading her arms wide to create inviting ripples. "It's so refreshing!"
Terry laughed, bewildered. "Oh, I don't think so!"
"Shame," Edie pouted.
"I am very happy with my feet on solid ground thank you."
Edie climbed lithely up the bank. She asked warmly if Terry had rested sufficiently following his adventures the other day.
"Oh yes, I'm fit and well and feeling as right as rain!"
Beaming, she replied: "'Never mind the weather, now we're all together...'"
And in unison: "'Hello! Hello! Here we are again!'"
She sighed. "That's an olden; you're showing your age! Come on Old Man, walk with me."
Terry abandoned his plan not to overdo it, and accompanied Edie further from Ely, slipping into easy conversation.
"You always swim in the river then, do you? There's a perfectly good pool in town."
"Chlorine and verrucas. No thank you. The ancient river reminds me of the happy times we had when we had 'never felt the rage of the blundering plough,' before they came, and, oh -"
Dramatically she pulled away, crying - "It aches! It aches!" - then collapsed into Terry's arms, burying her head in his chest: "See what they've done to this place."
She lifted her face and smiled, eyes sparkling with tears.
Terry was charmed. Absolutely. He floated home, dreamlike, and arrived back at the flat hardly aware of how he had got there.
Quite quickly Terry began arranging his trips out around the time he believed his new friend would be taking her daily exercise in the river. And, indeed, she was always there cavorting masterfully in the water: disappearing under the surface just long enough for him to worry, before springing out dolphin-like, prompting relieved applause from Terry who always refused her invitations to join her.
Every morning they walked together after Edie's swim while Terry shared his latest experiences at The Home. And, always, in the friendliest, most subtle manner, she would guide him to knowing exactly what to do for the best.
One occasion, he was expressing some frustrations about how Carly had pushed for him to move closer to her, and yet, now here, he was practically ignored; left with nothing to do all day but listen to the mindless chatter of his fellow residents at The Home.
Edie looked pained and, touching his arm lightly, said: "There are those of us who care about you, Old Man; who understand you and want only fulfilment for you here by these waters."
Terry smiled, uncomprehending, and reached in his pocket for another sweet to pop in his mouth. Edie's fern eyes followed his grasping fingers.
By autumn, Terry was intentionally avoiding everyone at The Home. Their old-fashioned East-Anglian ways annoyed him and he compared them critically with Edie Ate who, though also a fen-woman, carried an attractive air of eastern mystique. And while they were stuck in the past, waiting for the end, she was all life and future.
Her hair, slicked back in green-white streaks, enthralled him. The way she dressed so elegantly in muted silver and gold, but always with a flash of bold brightness in a hoop earring or bangle, delighted him. And simply thinking of the ludicrously quirky way in which she was always barefoot, was guaranteed to produce a smile in his loneliest moments.
Edie seemed so strong, yet, on rare occasions, so irresistibly vulnerable, and Terry believed she really cared for him. He was enamoured of her. Drawn in by the mystery of Edie Ate. And desperately restless when not in her presence.
One morning in October, the kazoo razz of the buzzer on Terry Pike's door sounded. He eased out of his armchair to answer, irked at the disturbance.
Carly's voice came distorted out of the speaker. She was downstairs with the children. Half term holidays she said; surprise visit to see Grandad as they had all been so busy recently. Terry let them up, disappointed that he would now miss seeing Edie.
Will she miss seeing me, he wondered with a sickening lurch in his stomach; panic rising that this intrusion would cause an irreparable rift between him and his friend.
They sat around struggling through strained and sporadic small talk. Terry made a show of checking his watch regularly and sighing. They drank tea in near silence, the only sound, the steady crunch of biscuits. He was short with his daughter, and when she asked if he would like to have the boys the following morning, Terry snapped, "You have no time for me until you want something. Well, I am sorry, but in your absence, I have made other plans!"
They left soon after and he finished the biscuits himself.
It was approaching midday. Terry pulled on his shoes and rushed out to Cawdle Fen. He strode, slipping many times, over damp fallen leaves in rusty ambers and dull, discoloured browns, until he became out of breath, needing to lean on the gate that crossed the railway line.
A car sat abandoned on the far side, neon green graffiti sprayed over dented bodywork, a gross parody of the natural fen colours. The sight of the car grieved him.
It was pointless, he had surely missed his chance to see Edie and felt rotten.
So sad, so stupid, so tired.
So alone.
Terry sank down, head in hands against the gate and gazed despondent into a large stagnant puddle, littered with cans and wrappers.
His stomach danced, bile rising. Shouldn't have eaten all those biscuits, he winced.
"What's the matter with you, Old Man," came a voice, gently mocking. "You should know by now; you can always find me here!"
Sorrow and sickness were forgotten instantly, it was so wonderful to see her.
And of course, Edie got Terry to see sense about the family. He phoned Carly when he got home and explained clearly that he needed some space. He would contact her in his own time, and until then, he did not wish to hear from her.
Terry's mind was now always upon the fens. Spending long hours with Edie every day, he engaged with no one and nothing else. She was his safety, her fennish home his comfort.
One day Mike Voyles called from the office to explain very sensibly how upset Carly was by the estrangement. "She's worried about you; we all are," he said. Terry unplugged his phone after that.
Autumn went its way, and winter came knocking, bringing a glistening frosty bite to the landscape. Cut off from all except Edie Ate and the Cawdle Fen, to Terry Pike life felt just as it should. Perfectly splendid, as he was fond of saying.
Then, one particularly crisp and chilly morning late in November, Edie surprised Terry when his mouth was crammed full of luscious Danish pastry, hands sticky with icing. She burst from the river, waving, cheery as ever.
"Come on in," she called. "It is so refreshing!"
Terry swallowed down the mouthful as quickly as he could. "How can you swim in there? You'll freeze."
She dove: a rippling, shimmering silver and gold under the surface. Then exploded into the air, returning to the water after a moment with barely a splash.
"Terry, please; come, be with us."
He tittered as he always did, cautiously approaching the bank. "Now Edie, come out, you'll catch your death in there."
Deftly, she slithered up the bank and stood before Terry Pike who watched the water dripping from her clothing onto the grass. Edie's expression was cold. She spoke without emotion, gesturing with arms, pale and scaly.
"We can no longer meet by these waters, Old Man," she said. "You are not truly one of us."
Immediately Terry panicked. "No! Just because I wouldn't swim in the river? You are everything to me. I need you, Edie. I think... I think I love you."
It sounded pathetic and false as he spoke, so he was quiet.
"You say you love but if it were truly so, you would come. And you would not be unfaithful with another."
Edie's keen round eyes were focussed on Terry's hands and the pastry packet held crumpled within them. Convicted, he let the sticky plastic drop to the ground.
"Please, Edie -"
"Go home Old Man."
"Okay, I'll swim if you want, Edie, I'll swim. But I must be with you. Please?"
She laughed scornfully, striking straight at Terry's wounded heart.
"Go, Terry Pike, go and fill your boots with nutty trinkets and junkery. Forget about life on these waters."
Terry turned and left. Edie Ate did not call out after him and he did not look back.
His feet carried him directly to the superstore. He filled shopping bags with treats, sweet and savoury, anything that did not need cooking, snarfing a great deal as he pounded home, ripping through packaging with his teeth.
Terry thundered into the flat and made tea. Heaping spoons of sugar into his cup until the white granules piled up and cascaded over the side, he shouted out, "See what you made me do!" and pushed the cup so it crashed into the sink.
For days he existed in a cycle of sugar and salt fuelled mood swings.
Delectable concoctions of almond, fruit, oats, butter, and syrup healed his body like an elixir. And, riding high, the colourless flat became bright and homely by glossy whites and glistening reds.
But then he would crash. His head ached, and he felt exhausted. Sometimes he shouted out, "I just needed a friend!" or, "I am sorry! Please take me back!" He slept in the chair. Then he would wake, weak and shaking, stomach ferociously demanding the next spike.
Once or twice the door buzzed; he did not answer it. The telephone remained unplugged.
Terry Pike rose on the third day when it was still dark and stepped over discarded wrappers and packets. On the way to the kitchen he noticed a piece of paper had been pushed beneath the door.
A note from Carly: Dad, I am here when you want to talk.
Terry let the paper flutter to the floor. He needed to get out of the flat.
Terry dug his walking boots out from where they had been tossed in the back of the cupboard. He heaved them on, and walked out into the dim corridor, letting the door slam. The lift clanged noisily downwards, thoughtlessly raising The Home from sleep.
Outside, the sky was deep greys and blues, with clouds pink and orange from the fledgling sunlight. The road to the Cawdle Fen was quiet and Terry crossed without care.
Crows; a hundred at least, flew overhead and settled on the telephone wires; black shadows against the skyline.
A phrase was rattling around his head: Old Man. Old Man. Someone was speaking the words, their face just out of sight. It was a voice from the past. So familiar, so dear, but one that Terry Pike could not place.
He followed the familiar path through a hostile, barren land. Without Edie Ate, all there was for him now were crows and cars sometimes speeding over the bridge.
In the half-light of dawn, the river took on a strange and desolate darkness.
In those unwieldy boots Terry's feet were heavy, stumbling.
In the distant fields, roe deer looked like brown marks against the black ploughed and ruptured earth.
He paused by the road bridge, on the railway line. There were hints of an unpleasant aroma riding on the air, recognisable from somewhere unclear, and Terry's nostrils prickled.
He moved down and sat by the river. The smell seemed stronger here. The stink of decay thought Terry woefully. He came close to the water's edge and crouching, peered into the dark and rippling void. Lifeless shapes - neither animal nor vegetable - were jostled by the current, pushed toward the bank. Towards Terry Pike.
Disquieted, he staggered back, tripping over his heavy boots.
But then, suddenly, unbelievably: Edie Ate came gliding through the water, shimmering in silver and gold.
Terry leapt to his feet, unrestrainedly waving and crying out, "Edie! Over here!"
All was forgiven.
The figure approached, playfully splashing around. She swam closer, toward the bank. Toward Terry Pike, who stopped, amazed.
It was not Edie at all but Helen, his wife.
How had he confused the two - they were nothing alike! He laughed and cried as he watched. She performed a few strokes; her face bright with a smile more lovely than Terry remembered ever seeing before.
Oh, wasn't that just like Helen making an appearance after all this time, cavorting around the Great Ouse.
Terry sat back on the damp bank and gazed in wondrous, bewildered joy at the one he loved.
He remembered then. Old Man was Helen's silly name for him. She was never a great comedian, that's for sure, but this was her simple joke to acknowledge the six months he had had on her! Terry wondered at how he had forgotten such a constant thread of a long marriage.
And abruptly, he realised what a fool he had been. His beautiful bride was there before his very eyes. Dazzling and sublime as she ever was, she had come back to him. He had missed her so much.
"Come on in," Helen exclaimed with delight. "It is so refreshing!"
And, with singular grace, she performed a few movements to show the water's appeal. Or perhaps her appeal.
She was just as he had known her. Indeed, the signs of the years graciously chose to pass her by. Or if not, the imprints of a life well-lived seemed only to embed what the gods had already given her. Not at the end of course. Terry did not want to think of that. That was the problem. He could not think of it, he had not been there. He just could not do it. The final bit. It was too much. He wanted to remember her as she had been, not as...
Carly was there at the end, for days it seemed, holding her hand, and Mike Voyles afterwards, of course, sorting everything. And Martin, driving like a wild thing down the motorway, had been busy with work he had said, and left it too late to say goodbye.
Did I say goodbye? This new thought prodded Terry sharply and he sat upright. As Helen had faded and lost her colour, her shape, her voice, Terry balked at her leaving so unfairly, and had fled from the pain. In the face of such a devastating sense of abandonment, he craved comfort from something dependable and true.
He had been rejected. So, he ate and felt a little better.
He was left to struggle alone. So, he ate again and felt better still.
So, no Terry had not said goodbye to his wife. To his Helen. He had not. Instead, he had taken refuge in a coward's cavern; a shelter of sugar and salt in which grief and conflict and uncertainty and that endless pit of sorrow leering up at him were, not merely numbed or turned away from, but steadily and surely erased from existence.
Edie Ate called to him again from the murky deep...
No, that was not right. Terry Pike shook his head vigorously and rubbed his eyes.
Helen called to him again from the murky deep. Called his name. Her eyes glimmered with that emerald magic that had enchanted him some fifty years before.
"Come on in," she called again, "It is so refreshing," then dove down under the water. One last flash of her delicate feet and then she was gone.
Silence.
Terry scrambled to the edge.
"Helen?"
He stood. Without hesitation he stepped into the freezing Ouse and sank down and down to meet his Helen.
The water was rancid.
Stagnant.
Green.
And uncannily still. Terry drifted down unaided to the underworld. Past the mad dead eyeballs of a grey heron, head severed from its long neck. The ghoulish stare of an eel.
Suddenly, Terry struggled. Swiped his arms wildly. But there was no way. Only down.
A flash of silver. Gold. Green. Green. Green.
Orange?
Terry became slowly aware of being jutted forcefully.
Something - Orange - was pushed onto him.
He started to rise.
Snakish, slithering limbs twisted amorously around his arms, his legs, taking him down to The Green. To Edie. To Helen. To all who said: "You are one of us."
But a battle raged between Green and Orange.
A rush. A roar. A struggle. Push. Pull. Push. And freezing hard earth.
Terry Pike closed his eyes.
Opened.
An orange life ring was tied around his middle by a rope.
Carly was kneeling at his side, her face pale, sick with worry. She had a phone to her ear. And Mike Voyles, with fat wet drops falling steadily from black hair onto his sopping clothes, was shouting something indistinct. Oh, his name. "TERRY! TERRY!"
Mike Voyles, thought Terry Pike distantly, floating in and out of consciousness: trust Mike Voyles to know what to do in a crisis.
from FICTION on the WEB short stories https://ift.tt/7WYx5uC
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