Falls the Shadow

Out to sea, menacing, arming itself and manoeuvring in obscure but unmistakable heaves and groans, the storm was preparing for battle. The sky had changed to a gunmetal grey charged with purple and mud-brown, and the air was pressing, viscous. The chickens had been aware of it since early dawn, refusing to leave the refuge of their wooden coop, huddling together and hello-ing to themselves, hoping it would pass them by, protecting their eggs. Richard had scattered some feed inside the coop and locked them in. He had also placed heavy rocks on top of their fragile shack to forestall a repetition of the last storm's devastation, when the coop had blown over with all the trapped and screaming birds inside. Since then he had fixed it to the wall of his cottage; the rocks were an extra precaution. There was a foreboding in the air, a sense of inevitability and impotence. Despite the harbingers of the storm - the soupy colours and the wild wilful rooks soaring in black glee, playing at evil - there was little to do except sit and wait. Placed as he was between land and sea he could expect the full ferocity of the maelstrom. It was as if the storm was a shadow of the age, a ruthless crushing hand groping for him, searching him out. There would be no escape.

  Still he prepared what he could. First he visited the shepherd's hut and collected his provisions, then he checked and added to his stock of firewood, and removed all of it into the hut. He placed boards over the windows and dismantled a climbing-frame in the kitchen-garden. Finally he dragged his rowing boat further up the beach and secured it at the prow and stern to a large rock. There was nothing else he could do now except wait for the silence to break and the power to be unleashed. Yet although he had taken all these preventative measures, he was still far from easy about the coming day and night. This particular storm had been brooding and breeding for so long that he feared an unprecedented intensity, a violence of lust and panic.

  In the lull, the unwelcome calm, he decided to refill his goatskin once more, more for something to do than out of necessity. He found it impossible to sit inside his hut with the electric atmosphere and the dull ache of clouds debating when to attack, he felt claustrophobic and a little submissive. He also reasoned that from the hills he would get a better idea of when the storm would actually break, drawing conclusions from cloud lines and temperature, animal displays and pressure. The excuses were sufficient and he left the hut, well clothed and silent, sombre like the day.

  The hills supplied no relief, were as sullen and expectant as he was. They sat, resigned but fearful, staring out across the swollen sea at the shadows massed above the horizon, clouds so dense and dark they seemed to communicate with the depths of the sea, the black chill of space. The day was full of this threat; it stank.

  The spring issued unwillingly, seemingly forced out of the rock, devoid of life, its light seeping immediately into the scab-coloured earth. The iced water stung his hands spitefully. The goatskin bloated like the dead dog he had found one morning washed up just beyond his cove. Its belly swollen, teeth bared, flies mocking its death. It was probably an old work dog flung from the cliff tops, unwanted, unable to gain shore amongst the foam and polished rocks at the cliff's base. He slung the skin over his shoulder, unable to rid himself of the image, shrinking a little at the sensation of the drowned stomach sagging over him, rubbing his neck. For a second or two he imagined his own dead body, washed up on the shore, clenched fists grasping at the sand, legs still caught in the sea's grip, a bloated corpse murdered between the land and the ocean, unwanted, half-digested and spat out to rot amongst the driftwood and sand flies, eventually achieving nothing but a look of disgust from a passing stranger. Somehow the ugliness and futility of such a death seemed in keeping with the time, seemed almost to be the inevitable conclusion. Normally he would have laughed at such doom-mongering, would have made himself snap out of it, but today ...

  Back in the hut he began to lose patience with the oppressive gloom. There was something macabre about that eternal waiting, or maybe it was the amateur dramatics, the build-up of melodramatic intensity. He prayed that it would strike soon; to prolong the beginning appeared unnecessary, a particularly cheap psychological trick.

  However, time drew on, and the day made no attempt to break its heavy status quo. Gradually he became accustomed to the dark eye watching him from afar, just as he had become virtually immune now to those other unknown eyes he felt were watching him, the incomprehensible eyes of other people, of history, of possibly something more all-embracing; he was unsure. He began to think about the town and cities inland, or the large protected harbours and ports which were also awaiting the storm. To them it would be a point of interest, like the headline of a newspaper. They would note its ferocity and record it. Some people would be anxious about their property, but it would only be economic anxiety. Perhaps some children would feel frightened and begin to cry when the show really began, overawed by the theatrical over-kill of it all. Yet he realised that for him it was very different, that it was a test, that it was precisely for this that he had given up all the numbing comforts and secure monotony of his previous lifestyle. It was Richard versus reality, both of them taken to their extremes. It was naked twentieth century man against timeless nature; it was his conviction, his decision put before all those critical, doubting eyes.

  At least that's how he saw it, waiting a little nervously in the hut cleaning his nets, humming to himself. And if it seemed that way to him, if that's how he really believed it to be, then it was so.

  Despite his impatience and the long afternoon vigil the commencement still took him by surprise. He was tending the fire, trying to keep it glowing, but ensuring that new fuel would not quench it, when it thundered; a low, terrible, elongated bellow of wrath that shook the walls of his hut, made him start and drop the poker. He laughed at his nervousness as the cry continued, amused by his own sense of shock and surprise. The chickens took longer to regain their composure and screeched maniacally for minutes after, reduced to nothing with the first blow.

  The rain came and destroyed his previous understanding: it was a rain of despair, not hope. He rose and went to the window. Outside bullets rained, burying themselves deep like seeds of aggression in the too yielding soil, fuelling the sea with spurts of vengeance and anger. The sea grew to enormous heights and locked itself in battle with the tired land, a continual fight that might never end. And fanning all this violent yet somehow profoundly sad movement was the wind, swooping across the bay with lithe twists of its supple body, caught once more in the war it could never understand. For to Richard it was a war; spontaneous, reasonless, acted against the will it might be, but it was war nonetheless, and excluded nothing. That the rocks and the air and the water were oblivious to the fact changed nothing; Richard reflected the temporary expression, and his eyes saw battle joined.

  But it was not new, this experience, he had felt it before on at least three or four occasions. It was an absurdity, a phenomenon of imbalanced nature, and though he suffered it too, he was almost powerless before it. His roof was now fully repaired, he had taken other precautions, too, had built drainage ditches and made rough eaves from driftwood: now the real wait would begin. He turned away from the sea, the light already dissolving into bruise-coloured dusk, and returned to his nets and his constant playing with the fire: he was as ready as he could be; now it was virtually out of his hands.

  Night came and left him sightless, a blind man amongst the din of cascading weather. Occasionally a flash of lightening would illuminate the bizarre outside world the way a mortar shell spews light above the trenches, highlighting the grotesque earth in spasmodic explosive shocks. The rain began to creep in, via the window frames or beneath the door, but Richard ignored it, realising the pointlessness of trying to stop it. Instead he sat quietly, letting time rage on, content to allow the brutality and madness to pass. The light from the lighthouse peeked in weakly through the slots in the window-boards, reminding him of its presence, and occasionally, way out to sea he thought he could hear a ship's siren wail - or was it something more sinister, his imag
ination perhaps? He had tried to light some candles but they kept blowing out, victim of a roaming but constant draught which he could never exclude. The way the rain and wind and noise and flashes of light crept into his sanctuary made him feel vulnerable, or at least, involved. His presence seemed demanded, he could not hide.

  Interminable. After a few hours it appeared to find a rhythm, an ease of motion that belied its intensity and suggested order. The moods would change swiftly and dramatically, yet almost correctly, as if there were a preconceived plan, or a method. It was this feeling that it had all been done before that gave the storm its air of monotony, made you sense that it might never end. It was during one of the off-beats, when the wind rested and the rain abruptly ceased lashing and spitting at the walls of the hut, that he thought he heard it. He sat up quickly, alert like a feeding bird, and listened intently. To frustrate him the thunder threw down its percussive strength and the sea responded in vast crashes of cymbal and brass. He dashed over to the window and peered into the shadows woven by the lighthouse and lightening, but saw virtually nothing through the thin slats. Anyway, he knew perfectly well he couldn't see it from that angle and that it was a pointless gesture. He returned to the centre of the hut and waited. Inevitably the cacophony revolved, and this time it was unmistakable. Carried in on a wave of silence, breaking through all that sound and visionlessness like a plea, he heard the sound of wood crashing against stone, a sickening, ill-balanced crack, as unfairly matched as bone against metal. The boat was being smashed against the mooring rock, and to him it hurt as much as if it were his own body being destroyed. His deep need of that vessel, its essentiality to his way of life was something he could not ignore. Gone now were the days of financial stability: he could not replace it should it be lost. But more than that, beyond the material side of it, he saw himself as being attacked; his choice of life, his decision, his ability to survive. And something vaguer, that feeling of being tested, the long hours spent quietly accepting this storm: he felt the time had come to find out.

  Hastily he climbed into his oilskins. He still had no idea how the boat had slipped its mooring, or whether he could still save it. Secretly he hoped it was a false alarm, that to retrieve it and haul it to safety would not prove too difficult. He tied a sheath-knife around his waist and plunged into the night.

  Or rather, he plunged into reality. Outside there was no shelter, no impressions of grandeur or eternity, no why or right, simply liquids and gasses and uncontrolled forces. His oilskins were useless, a mere gesture, he might as well have been naked. With the first crushing blows of the storm he realised what he had to do, simply, without recourse to any other ideal: survive. It was the test he had been waiting for, and its suddenness, its simplicity, seemed to wake him out of a spell. He set to work. The hut was safely positioned, being spared the full power of the sea by an intricate series of rocks, and also sitting far enough back to avoid even the highest winter tides. But towards the lighthouse, where the boat had been moored, there were fewer breakwaters, and the sea surged up the beach and smashed itself against the few rocks and the base of the cliff. Richard had never seen the water rise so high, and was at first afraid to venture anywhere near the shoreline, but the occasional cronk of his boat against stone spurred him on. In the darkness it was a lethal journey, and the rain and sea-drenched pebbles shifted sickeningly beneath his galoshes, threatening to drag him to his knees at every step. He still couldn't see where his boat was, but believed that he might yet be able to retrieve it without too much effort, the rock he had secured it to being well up the beach and semi-sheltered by the cross-currents produced by the promontory on which the lighthouse stood. Now he came to the part of the beach where the waves were washing up as far as the cliff-base, and he paused a while, considering the risks involved in wading through such powerfully obsessed water. But there was little else he could do if he wanted to save the vessel, which still called to him on the wind, louder and clearer and more painful now. He moved cautiously, keeping close to the cliff wall, stopping as a tongue of froth and iced water licked roughly up the scattered beach, drenching and chilling him, mocking his protective clothing and his grim determination, pulling the sand and gravel away from his feet and laughing as he stumbled and struggled in the foam. He continued, moving rapidly once the waves receded, locking himself to the cliffs when it pounced. Little by little he advanced towards the boat, though he was frozen and numbed, and the wind ruffled his hair like a tedious big brother, confusing him and icing his face so that his head throbbed with pain and irritation and frustration. He had hoped that the lighthouse would help him to find his way, but he found that its inconsistent light only served to bewilder him, flashing at him through the rain and spray and tormenting wind. By the time he had passed the danger and was again on a part of the shore where the tide hadn't managed to reach he was exhausted and unsure of his ability to continue. All his thoughts seemed as prone to the storm as leaves, and the only constant was a clear pain in his forehead which threatened to force him back to his hut at times such was its intensity. But having come this far he knew he would carry it through no matter what the final result might be. Adjusting his sheath knife and pathetically re-arranging his clothing, he continued towards where the boat had been moored. To keep up his spirits he attacked himself for his stupidity. He wouldn't listen to his own excuses that this storm was an unprecedented freak, that the rock had always remained clear of the tides before, that it was pure bad luck, not bad judgement. Instead he cursed himself out loud, swearing at his inexperience and laziness, and with each new angry attack he found strength to slog on through the sodden sand until he reached the boat.

  It wasn't as bad as he'd feared, but it was worse than he'd hoped. The rock itself, a huge sharp-edged block of stone hurled from the cliffs and as yet unworn by the sea's continual sucking, was half submerged, and its clear edges sliced impressive towers of slow moving water over its head, falling as gently as a fountain over the seething sea and the flimsy wooden vessel that jerked and lurched at its side. The mowing rope had worked loose at the stern end, and every so often a wave or muscle of water would lightly toss it against the rock, splintering it with perfect ease. Richard saw at once what he had to do. He would somehow wade out to the rock and free the prow, then, with a little guidance, the boat should ride in on a wave and he could eventually haul it up the beach to safety. It sounded too simple, so simple that he mistrusted it. He went over the plan again, this time foreseeing possible dangers. He would wade into the powerful current and lose his footing, be dragged under by the weight of his oilskins and half drawn in the toiling depths. He would reach the rock to see the boat break free and be sucked out of reach. He would free the boat but be unable to guide it back to shore, would lose his strength and be overpowered by the ocean. Still he knew he must go on, he had come too far to turn back, too far to quit. He thought of stripping off his oilskins as they were so obviously useless in such weather, but he was afraid of the bitter cold and preferred even that token protection to virtual nakedness. He knew it was absurd and would hinder his progress, maybe even prove fatal were he to be swept out to sea, but he refused to shed his clothes. He stared for some time at the black liquid ice swirling through that madman wind, and the lighthouse rhythm, and the boat begging, and the rock, solid and sharp-edged, shocked by the maniacal sea. A giddiness came and went. Then he braced himself and entered the fray.

  The sensations that swirled around him then were so intense that he felt he would burst, that he was waiting only for the right note to shatter him like a wine glass. Chaos and absurdity clashing swords above his head, confounding him, hating him, screaming that he didn't belong. It was right, of course, too, he had no place there, amongst that height of willessness, a man of the land, an earthling in truly alien surroundings. What was he doing groping and demanding his way through the tempest? What was there to concern him?

  How loathed he was, how all his body and subconscious raged against him, sea and pain
and fear swirling and bursting around him. He no longer thought in coherent lines, he couldn't, he just kept edging nearer and nearer that unbelievable rock, that pathetic boat. It was a nightmare of total proportions; he almost wished the sea would summon up its full strength and crack him like a shell, it would be easier, quicker. He could hardly move in his oilskins, the sea around him like liquid lead, sense rapidly fading from his frozen flesh, yet somehow he managed to reach the rock. The sea, though fierce, was still only up to his waist, though occasional waves flipped over him and soaked him once more. The currents at the base of the rock threatened to topple him, but he gripped on firmly and maintained his balance, precariously by swaying with the oncoming waves, giving to them a little instead of challenging them. He could see the rowing boat clearly now, and the damage already done to it, but he daren't reach out to steady it as he was afraid of its sudden twisting movements. He was only surprised that the other mooring rope hadn't broken with the continual tugging and twitching of the panicking vessel. He allowed another surge to push him up against the rock, then cautiously unsheathed his knife. He began to edge nearer the boat, aware that he would have to get within arm's reach to cut the rope that held the prow. He would wait until the wind or waves dragged the boat away from the rock, when the rope would be at its toughest, then quickly cut through it and dodge behind the rock for safety. He waited, just out of range of the boat's whipping stern end, which thrashed to left and right, cracking against the sharp stone with demented ferocity. He waited. It seemed as if the boat knew his design and had decided to thwart him for some psychotic reason or other; it refused to pull safely away from the rock, and Richard wondered if he would ever be able to free it. Just as he was losing patience, crumbling beneath the intensity and the frustration that hemmed him in, the rope pulled taut. After a slight hesitation he pushed himself through the water and stretched out his hand. The blade lay on the rope and his concentration poured into his arm, his numb and virtually useless hand. Cut, cut! He felt, through his arm muscles, the plaits of twine severing one by one, and a feeling of triumph flooded through him as the boat spun round and crushed his arm against the rock with a speed and malice that totally shocked him. The pain didn't begin for what seemed like hours. Instead he was shocked beyond all outside events, and lost touch with his task, his test, the storm still angry all about him. The waves and currents half pushed and half pulled him back to the shore, and it wasn't until he threw himself down on the sand that the first stormings of pain charged through his system. He gripped his arm and it spurted more molten metal into his blood. He looked at his hand and saw the blood flowing comfortably along his fingers to the ground, nightmarish in that grisly light, the occasional camera flash from the lighthouse illuminating the extent of his wound. In blind panic, blubbering, still in a state of intense disbelief (my arm? my arm?) he jerked up the sleeves of his oilskin and jumper and saw the wound. It couldn't be right. He could see a long jagged gash that seemed to stretch right round his forearm, and what looked like a splintered bone, and little globules of white stuff that could be fat or muscle. But most of all he saw blood, masses of blood, his own sweet red life blood gurgling out of his own fleshy arm. He fainted.

  He came round to a searing pain which kept him hovering on the verge of unconsciousness, but refused to go that far. It blotted out almost everything except a desire to seek help, to get off the shore and do something, at least to crawl to his hut. He had no idea how long he'd been lying there, the rain still persisted and the wind was as tireless as ever, though the sea had receded a little and seemed less wild. It was still dark though. He checked his wound again. He was still losing a lot of blood, but his initial fear that it was a severed vein, had now passed. He struggled for breath and consciousness when he saw it again, but he managed to overcome the dizziness and weakness that clouded his mind, and shake reality back into his eyes and ears. He stumbled back to his hut through prisms of clarity and mist.

  Back in the hut the fire was out and the shadows had swollen in his absence. He was at a loss what to do with his arm, was frightened by the regular loss of blood that seemed intent on escaping his body. He knew that he should apply a tourniquet or something, but was uncertain of how long it had to be applied for, and where, and how tight? Nonetheless, after discarding his oilskins, he set about doing something. He tied a piece of string around his forearm the way he had seen junkies do it in the movies, and used his shirt as a makeshift bandage. The continual floods of pain made his work slow, conducted in a haze, but he eventually had his arm at least covered. He relaxed the tourniquet when he was finished and watched the blood begin to stain the blue linen of his shirt. Then he lay back on his bed, exhausted, twitching with nervousness and fear, and again passed out.

  Morning had crept timidly into view by the time he came to, and the storm had passed. A forgiving but forgetful calm lay over the land and the sea. He shivered. The pain started up, and a feverishness began to claw at his skin. He couldn't stand when he tried, and had to sink back to his bed. He realised that he had lost too much blood and that he was virtually delirious, and with a sinking feeling he could see that blood was still oozing consistently through the bandages. But it was when he thought about what he was going to do next that real terror struck him. What could he do? Crawl back to the world he had rejected for help? Drag himself to the fat farmer's door and demand medical attention? No, he had always told himself that he would never do that, that if the worse came to the worse ... but that was when it was hypothetical! But I cut myself off from that world of false progress ... you're going to die here! I can't just pretend it didn't matter! I can't just say 'I'm sorry, I made a mistake', I can't go back! And the voice again, a child's voice pleading with Father, but I'm going to die here!

  So there had been no resolutions in that freak storm, no answers, only more riddles, more confusion, more doubt. And no, he couldn't just die there in the hut, alone, watching the blood drip away, feeling the censure of the world's eyes at his back. More than that, the pain wouldn't let him. Not knowing exactly what he had in mind, he walked out of the cottage into the bright but overcast morning.

  Still he couldn't admit defeat; he felt he couldn't go to the farmer. After all, it had been no lightly taken decision; he had rejected one way and accepted the other, despite its cruelty. He remembered, as he staggered on, his thoughts of a few months before, about the sea claiming him, about his returning to it without a fight, about the amorality of the chain of being, and he felt bitter; bitter that he had not been drowned or spared, bitter that he should be only wounded and thereby offered an impossible choice.

  He grew weaker as he went on; every now and then falling to his knees with exhaustion and muzziness. He still had no idea what he was doing out there, crawling over his domain, trailing blood and beliefs as he went. But he continued, he had to continue.

  Eventually he reached the old shepherd's hut. He didn't know if he had deliberately made for it or not, but now it offered him a solution. He would lie down inside that hut and just pray that the farmer would come and find him. He was still in his territory, he had not begged for help. True, neither had he totally accepted his fate and remained in his cottage, but ... pain was his excuse. With immense difficulty he fetched the key from under its stone and fell into the hut. Perhaps it was relief at a glimmer of hope, perhaps despair at having failed, perhaps nothing more than total exhaustion, but once inside he collapsed once more into obliviousness.

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