The Stone

  THE STONE

  By Graham Adams

  Edmund lives a life of seclusion, shunning all the trappings of this modern world, in an old thatched cottage in the New Forest in Hampshire.

  The only company is his Border collie Zowie.

  What happened to make him give up all that a successful life would bring for him?

  Sometimes, whatever anyone does, there is no guarantee of a happy life.

  And then there is the mysterious stone, this adds another dimension to his story.

  1: The Gift

  Southbourne coast

  Gary and Eloise staggered to the brow of the cliff top overlooking a grey and fierce late October seascape, the wind was whipping up fine sand in their faces. Having had the sense to dress for the unpredictable British autumn weather they seemed well equipped for their early morning walk.

  They were honeymooners and had decided to spend their first time together in Southbourne, which lies between Christchurch and Bournemouth. At this time of year the coastal area is quite empty, only populated by a few dog walkers who brave the cold winds that roar across the sandy escarpment.

  ‘It’s deserted’ she exclaimed, almost falling over in the wind, saving herself on the coarse grass on the ledge. She scanned the coastal scene as it swept to the left, as far as the eye could see, culminating in a large rocky outcrop called Hengistbury Head, which could barely be made out, as it was shrouded by the misty clouds of spray caused by the wild sea.

  ‘You ready?’ he caught his breath, gritted his teeth and gripped her hand, and they struggled with the loose sandy path that led steeply down to the wet shingle.

  The sea’s roar rose to a deafening crescendo as it pounded, the surf caused white suds to blow towards the cliffs, swirling as if in a giant washing machine. About half way down the path they stopped to take a breather.

  ‘Look’ she pointed, ‘We aren’t alone at all.’

  About 500 metres from where they were to leave the cliff path there stood a solitary figure, facing the roaring tide, in a long black coat, an old western style one with long tails flapping in the wind, ‘Funny’ she thought to herself, ‘I could have sworn the beach was deserted from the cliff top’.

  ‘I don’t like this Ellie, it doesn’t seem quite right to me’ Gary shouted at the top of his voice, ‘perhaps we ought to turn around now before we get to the bottom.’

  ‘How can you say that now, when I distinctly remember at breakfast how you wanted to show how much those people at the office bored you, and to get away from their pettiness. Well here we are quite away from them – so let’s go for it,’ she said

  ‘Yeah but look at the state of the sea, it seems to be getting worse’ Gary shouted

  ‘We’ll be fine. Whatever happened to your sense of adventure?’ With that she gripped his hand and they ran down the rest of the pathway, stumbling and nearly falling but finally reaching their destination – the beach.

  ‘What about him?’ He tried to shout above the roar, but it was unheard as she ran to the water’s edge, spinning and jumping like a child. He followed her to the edge, laughing as he caught her in his arms, and enjoyed the beautiful moment.

  They screamed and shouted as the waves threatened to engulf their shoes. He picked up as many wet stones as he could, spinning them over the waves, only to fail miserably as the rough sea gobbled up every effort without a trace.

  Suddenly a high-pitched screech caught their ears. At first it stopped them in their tracks, until they noticed a flock of black and white terns flying above them, hovering on the wind, using its force to fly stationary as if by magic. One hovered in front of them, and suddenly dived into the sea like an arrow, then in a blink of an eye, reappeared, fish in beak.

  In a second the birds were gone, but they stood for a moment stunned by what they had witnessed, it had happened so quickly, they didn’t speak, just stood there holding each-other. She looked up at him. The moment gone, they were left alone again and they kissed each other warmly.

  Suddenly, the sea didn’t seem so loud, the wind was not so fierce in their faces, and a sort of calm had descended. He glanced at his watch, relieved that it was only 9am. The grey overcast envelope that had been the sky ten minutes ago looked thinner. They could see a thin line of gold on the horizon and over to the right, a real break in the cloud. Azure blue was reflecting on the sea. Weather worn faces lit up as the low sun struck in their eyes. It was not warm, but a promise. Looking east, the previously ghostly looking headland was now showing off its coloured rock face, of a mixture of sandstone and granite.

  The wild surf had subsided, and the waves broke more gently onto the sandy beach, that disappeared off into an outer headland, of unbroken beauty.

  Gary caught his breath for a moment as they stood staring at this beautiful English seascape, he pulled his wife near and felt her warmth, she responded, looking up into his eyes, smiling, and nothing could, take this moment away, he thought happily.

  About an hour had passed, since they first stood on the cliff top. Twenty-four hours before that, each of them had been embroiled in mundane jobs in the now far off city. ‘We could easily be in another world right now,’ she mused contently.

  “Shall we walk towards the headland, darling?” he asked.

  This was immediately answered by a tug on his sleeve. All at once they were sprinting towards the first of the groynes, which separated the beach into sections. The local council had, at great pains, built these structures to encourage the sand to build-up – good idea, but not that successful.

  They had reached the first structure, made of huge pieces of rock, and starting from the edge of the cliff and jutting out into the sea. On the way he picked up all sorts of flotsam and jetsam thrown up onto the beach by the fierce action of the sea – brown and green seaweed that she tried to hit him with, cold and wet. They gathered up a few coloured and broken shells, and a couple of selected pebbles that were so smooth with amazing formations. Together they marvelled at their shapes and colours.

  Ellie and Gary struggled to reach top boulder of the groyne, and he helped her jump over the other side onto the damp soft sand. The sun shone on their bare heads. ‘Life is good’, he thought to himself, as he looked around. No one in sight, he turned to her smiling. She wasn’t looking at him, but towards the sea. He looked to her indicated direction, and he could just make out a solitary figure, perhaps the same one that they had spotted on the cliff top, now about 600 metres away, standing in the same position, staring at the sea.

  Strangely, without any reason, the whole atmosphere had changed again. The sun seemed to have disappeared behind a cloud for a moment, and a grey October cool wind blew in their faces again. They looked at each other, not speaking but quietly knowing each-others’ thoughts. Their shadows reflected as they walked along towards the escarpment.

  As quickly as it came, the dark moment was gone. The sun re-appeared from the cloud and without speaking; they continued to walk along the beach, towards the headland, and the solitary figure. On the way, they continued to pick up the odd pebble, or sometimes they would peer at a shell or two, yet slowly and surely the solitary figure was getting nearer as if they were fishermen reeling him in.

  Over the next sea defence they climbed, and then suddenly only ten metres away, there he stood. He was probably less than six foot tall, but the long black leather overcoat and black wide-brimmed hat gave him height. Ellie had a sense of foreboding, and as she nervously gripped Gary’s hand tight, they tried to nonchalantly walk by.

  “Good morning”. A cultured voice without a discernable accent startled them and they stopped and stared. It was the first other voice they had heard since leaving their hotel over two hours ago!

  “S…sorry! Good morning, you must think us extreme
ly rude but…” Gary spluttered, almost tripping on his words. Ellie looked on concerned, as he almost brought up his breakfast at the same time. Her blonde hair caught the breeze covering her face, and she struggled to remove it.

  “I know.” The man said smiling. “You don’t usually get to speak to anyone down here – it’s a very private place, if you know what I mean.”

  Suddenly, all the tension was gone, as they looked into his face. It was well worn and weathered, but with a kind and yet distinguished demeanour.

  “I’m Gary, and this is my wife Eloise, we are, sort of, er, on holiday, aren’t we dear?”

  “He means that we are on honeymoon and this is our first day of surfacing, if you know what I mean,” She said, blushing.

  “Perfect for you or what?” he said, “My name is Edmund.”

  “Do you live here?” Gary asked.

  “Not too far away, but this is my favourite place, winter or summer, early in the mornings, I very often have the place to myself, helps you to think you know.”

  Just for a moment, Ellie looked closely at the man. He looked around sixty, healthy with a warm smile. She had never seen him before, yet somehow, deep down, there was a sort of friendliness that she felt towards him.

  Edmund could see that they wanted to move on, so with a wave of his hand, and a quick goodbye, they parted company. They proceeded towards the wild headland, and he headed back towards the cliff path, and regained his anonymity.

  “Oh, hold on just a minute.” A voice shouted, stopping them in their tracks. They turned around to face the stranger, and as he held out his hand, they peered into it.

  In the centre of his hand rested a piece of quartz, the colour of a small smoky brown egg, translucent in appearance, very smooth and oval in shape.

  ‘I think it is a moonstone, quite rare. How it got onto the beach, is anyone’s guess, but I’d like you to have it. Let’s say a good luck charm for your new start together. Please take it.” The stranger smiled, eagerly offering the gift.

  Gary stood stock still, not sure what to do, suddenly, Ellie rushed over to the old man took the stone out of his hand, and totally out of character, gave him a hug and then quickly ran back to her husband.

  Gary stared at the beautiful stone nestling in her hand, looked at Ellie’s face and turned back to the giver, but he was already way off in the distance. Ellie put the stone in her jeans pocket and as they continued their walk, her hand was holding it, smooth and cool yet feeling powerful.

  2: Dante’s’ Inferno

  Steel smelting plant

  Edmund sighed as he clambered up the sandy path of the cliff. At the turn he looked towards the distant arc of the beach ending at the beautiful escarpment. The small ant-like figures were just discernible at the edge of the sea, and he smiled to himself. ‘Job done, the old prophesy has been fulfilled,’’ he thought to himself.

  Looking back, as he often did these days, he thought how different life would have been but for the chance meeting forty years ago… He took his mind back to his roots; a town in Derbyshire surrounded by coalmines, mostly now played out. Those that still wanted to work in that black subterranean world had to travel northeast to north Nottinghamshire to unearth the ‘black gold.’

  Traditions however, do not die so easily. The harsh intolerant nature of the locals still existed in the early sixties, when prowess in consumption of the local ale was deemed more important than any other ‘gifts’ that a young man might possess. He tried that way of life for several early years, but always struggled with the after effects the next day.

  At this point Edmund had reached a bench, some way from the cliff edge, he sat on it and began to try and picture in his mind again, what his first job was like.

  Stanton, originally a village settlement, just south of his hometown, was at the time totally encircled by a vast, sprawling, belching giant steelworks, which never slept. Over fourteen thousand people from the surrounding district worked there. Some would be sleeping, having done their shift of heavy toil, whilst others already raising their heads from their slumber, ready for the next shift.

  His own father and elder brother, Ted, named after his father; were both part of the mighty horde at the steel plant.

  Although his graduation from the grammar school had made his mother proud, and yet was still destined to be drawn to the steel giant, to cut his teeth within the working environment, alongside those strong men of industry.

  If you were to get some idea of the structure of the place, it was basically two steel productions areas, each one had two blast furnaces strategically built so that all the other functions could feed them with coke and iron ore, and take out the ingots of finished iron.

  On an awe-inspiring visit of the works, the first impression to every prospective office worker would be of fear. Forty foot high towers of deafening sound, which seemed impossible to get near. During the tour, to make things more graphic the guide would intersperse his speech with stories of men falling into newly filled hoppers of molten steel, bodies never found, which chilled the blood.

  After the tour was completed, each prospective new starter was told to which department they were going to be allocated to. Edmund was informed that he would be working at the Coke Ovens plant offices, somewhat set apart from the centre of activities. Naively the young junior office boy was relieved to be some distance from the awe inspiring furnaces, that is, until he was given the route to find his new job.

  He set off, starting from the head offices in the centre of the works, walked two miles over railway lines, and through narrow tunnels, and after having asked several times weakly, ‘am I on the right road to the Coke Ovens?’ He was given the same response; ‘what the hell are you going there for?’ and gruffly shown the next part of his route.

  His white shirt soon became grubby, exposed to the grey dust that covered everything, lorries rushing by threw up into a choking cloud, until finally he saw a dust covered sign ‘To Coke Ovens Plant’ and it pointed into another tunnel, very narrow, about the width of one lorry with a footpath just discernible on one side. The light at the other end seemed so small though. ‘Surely that isn’t the way is it?’ He thought looking around, but there was no other road or pathway.

  Just before starting off, he peered into the black hole again. The light at the other end had gone out; and he just pulled back in time. An open top truck loaded to the gunnels with something that was steaming, suddenly rushed out of his end with a roar and mighty clatter. Two more vehicles followed, and then all went silent.

  He noticed a light at the top of the tunnel’s archway had changed from red to green. He listened. Nothing coming, and before he had a chance to proceed, it changed from green to red again and the huge trucks came rushing towards him again.

  Realising now that the light controlled the traffic, he now knew that he must run down towards the pinhole of light as soon as the light changed to green again.

  Emerging out of the long dark tunnel, praying that the light hadn’t changed to green for the oncoming traffic, Edmund tried to focus in the bright sunlight and he filled his lungs with the acrid air gasping for breath. He searched the area for signs of the works, and there it was to the left, a huge metal gateway with a sign ‘Coke Ovens Works’ and another and much larger sign in red capitals, ‘SMOKING AND NAKED LIGHTS PROHIBITED’.

  Both signs were badly damaged and the worse for wear. Beyond the entrance he could discern several plumes of smoke and steam emanating from various chimneys and grim black buildings. His first impression was of the painting he had once seen called ‘Dante’s Inferno’.

  In the foreground he noticed a single storey; brick built building with a complete row of metal-framed windows from end to end, and a pair of double doors in the centre. Through the windows he could just make out that lights were on inside, but years of grime covered the glass, enough to filter most of them out.

  Approaching the building there was a sort of movement, which he guessed were from people worki
ng inside. He went through the double doors and into an anti room where there appeared two more doors, to the left marked ‘Laboratory’ and to the right marked ‘Office’. He timidly knocked on the Office door. Hearing nothing, he knocked louder. He heard a muffled shout and went in.

  He saw three men sitting at desks, and only one of them looked up to greet him. The others had not shown any sign of acknowledgement, which did not encourage him. Looking towards the opposite wall there were two other doors in beautiful red wood with gold plaques ‘Works Manager’ and ‘Director’, firmly shut!

  His first job after leaving school then, was to be in this Dickensian workplace as an Office Junior and General dogsbody for the next three years! It was not at all what he was imagining or hoping for.

  3: Forest Hideaway

  New Forest Cottage