In which Arthur takes an unexpected step in life
Having retired, Arthur's parents had moved to the English south coast - a town called Worthing, about 10 miles west of Brighton. It wasn't an area Arthur knew much about but he'd spent a bit of time there since his parents started calling it home. He didn't much care for it: too much concrete and houses and not enough green space might seem a strange observation for a city boy to make, but that was how the town struck him. At least the demise of the seaside holiday seemed to have affected it less than some of the other Sussex towns you heard about on the news. The surrounding countryside was another matter, but his parents had opted for close to the town centre and the sea. They seemed to enjoy it and had embedded themselves in various community and social groups and things were looking good until a previously undiagnosed cancer killed his father in a matter of days. So, in the early autumn of 1995, after the funeral he was spending a week with his mother: doing some redecoration and helping get the paperwork in order.
By half way through the week, he was finding it all catching up with him - at least the house held little in the way of memories for him of his father, but the papers had his fingerprints all over it, so to speak. So he took a break from painting and paperwork and went for a walk, parking under Cissbury Ring and climbing to the top to look at the view over the sprawl of the town against the coast. Sitting down on the rampart that ringed the top of the hill, he let his mind wander from the prehistoric people who had built it, to the farmers who farmed it, to the town that had grown up under it. Many, many generations who had live their lives and then passed on as his father had done. And down there, amongst that sprawl, amongst so many people getting on with their lives his mother trying to get on with hers and wouldn't be the only one dealing with the grief and dislocation. Form the church towers he could see roughly where her house was but she was one tiny part of that whole and the best that he could do was say "there-ish". It was getting towards sunset but he'd probably got an hour or so before it got properly dark.
So he sat and thought and tried to let his mind free itself from the thoughts of paperwork and to pull it on to what he needed to do to help her move on to the rest of her life. How much of dad's stuff should they get rid of - clearly some of it would find good homes with friends and former colleagues, where it would help continue his interests; some would be for the tip as 40 years worth of old bills and bank statements were of use to nobody and even mum had mocked him for keeping them. He began to see some of the next things to move onto once they'd confirmed all the financial bits were sorted. He noticed a drop in temperature and a sudden darkening of the sky as storm clouds started to build and over to the west the rain could be seen as though someone had smeared a drop of water across a watercolour. He smiled at that and decided it was time to be getting back - and "thank God for Goretex" he thought for the rain was definitely getting closer. A rumble of thunder too. It was definitely time to be moving.
He walked back into the ring and turned towards the eastern exit - the direct path to the car park was pretty steep and as the rain started to fall it would be pretty slippery. And it was starting to rain now, so he started running as the top of a hill in a thunderstorm didn't seem the best of ideas. As he ran through the gap in the bank FLASHBANG - he stumbled thinking "that was a bit close" and followed the track round and down. Now that he was off the top and noticing that the rain had stopped and the air cleared he slowed to a walk and headed down to the flat area of compacted chalk, concrete and tarmac at the point where the made road became a farm track that passed for a car park.
"What the..." he muttered as it came into view without his car in sight. It wasn't a particularly nickable car, and definitely not his pride and joy but that's not the sort of thing you tell yourself at the moment of realising that some little toe rag has half inched it. "I'm sure that there was a gate here when I was going up" he thought when he reached the road. Perhaps he'd come down on the wrong side and this was a different spot. So he retraced his steps back up the hill - it was starting to get dark now but he should be OK if he took it carefully. He was nearing the entrance through the rampart when he heard a voice.
"By oak, ash and thorn I tell you that was not a pretty step." There was a man sat on the top of the bank, looking down at him. "Are you all right?"
"Well, aside from having lost my car..." Arthur replied.
"Lost, stolen or strayed?"
"Well if this track leads to the same place as the path running north from the top then it's stolen, but I probably just took a wrong turn."
"Ah, strayed then. Track and path go to the same place but you'll not be finding your car on this side." Arthur continued on to the top and and found the himself thinking that it had been marked by the concrete plinth of a survey point, rather than the post he now found. And no track running north. He turned to see that the man had followed him. Now that he was standing it was clear that he was short - well under 5 feet but broad in the shoulder and a wide head split with a broad grin. "It's not what you expected is it? Come over here." With that he lead Arthur back to where he'd sat looking at the town - it should have glistened with street lights now that night was near falling, but there were no lights to be seen and there looked to be rather more in the way of fields. He dismissed it as an effect of the light.
"So the storm caused a power cut?"
"I wouldn't know about that. Let's see if we can find your car - I've not seen one of those in quite a while."
That left Arthur almost as puzzled as the view that should have been of Worthing - how could you have avoided seeing a car for any length of time? They walked through the gap in the rampart with the man dropping back to watch him walk through. Everything looked normal and that, Puck thought, was going to make tonight a bit more interesting since couldn't Step back only a few minutes after Stepping through. "Interesting for me at any rate - he might not see it quite the same." he thought as he caught up with Arthur and they walked back down the track. As Arthur got back to where he'd left the car he realised his head was beginning to ache like the morning after the night before and the sinking feeling in his stomach didn't bode too well either but could just have been the natural reaction to having had his car stolen.
There was definitely no car, the clear area looked smaller than it had and there were no tyre tracks in the muddy bits. "Well, I'm pretty sure this is where I left it." was a comment as much to himself as to Puck, who turned to him and said: "Your problem isn't your car, much though I'd like to have seen it for I haven't seen one this last century. Your problem is that you've stepped into another world and it looks like you're stuck here. Now, you'll not be believing me I expect so we may as well walk down to the village and you'll see what I mean."
"Too right I don't believe you, but why not: since my car's not here I'm walking back that way." Puck was disappointed not to feel the expected shiver of surprise, the man wasn't yet getting it. Certainty of that level would only make his astonishment the sweeter when it struck.
"As we walk, suppose you tell me when you see something unexpected or different"
"Don't tell me you've got a unicorn waiting round the corner."
"Well I haven't and I'd be almost as surprised as you to see one here - I was thinking more mundane: the buildings, the roads and such like. What people do to a place."
A few minutes passed before Arthur admitted that he was pretty sure that the road had been tarmac, not compacted chalk by this point and as they dropped into Findon the village seemed smaller and older than he remembered - none of the more modern builds, it all looked Victorian or older. They passed a pub he recognised from a pub lunch with his mother the previous weekend but the name seemed different. No cars either and a lot more sign of horses. Puck sensed the astonishment growing as Arthur recognised that things were not what he was expecting and his grin started to return. This was feeling almost as good as he'd hoped for; and much more satisfying (to him at least) than the terror and pain that appealed to some of his kind.They passed unnoticed through the village and Puck led Arthur up the hill, into the woods behind the church. A smell of wood smoke noticed in the village started to strengthen.
By half way through the week, he was finding it all catching up with him - at least the house held little in the way of memories for him of his father, but the papers had his fingerprints all over it, so to speak. So he took a break from painting and paperwork and went for a walk, parking under Cissbury Ring and climbing to the top to look at the view over the sprawl of the town against the coast. Sitting down on the rampart that ringed the top of the hill, he let his mind wander from the prehistoric people who had built it, to the farmers who farmed it, to the town that had grown up under it. Many, many generations who had live their lives and then passed on as his father had done. And down there, amongst that sprawl, amongst so many people getting on with their lives his mother trying to get on with hers and wouldn't be the only one dealing with the grief and dislocation. Form the church towers he could see roughly where her house was but she was one tiny part of that whole and the best that he could do was say "there-ish". It was getting towards sunset but he'd probably got an hour or so before it got properly dark.
So he sat and thought and tried to let his mind free itself from the thoughts of paperwork and to pull it on to what he needed to do to help her move on to the rest of her life. How much of dad's stuff should they get rid of - clearly some of it would find good homes with friends and former colleagues, where it would help continue his interests; some would be for the tip as 40 years worth of old bills and bank statements were of use to nobody and even mum had mocked him for keeping them. He began to see some of the next things to move onto once they'd confirmed all the financial bits were sorted. He noticed a drop in temperature and a sudden darkening of the sky as storm clouds started to build and over to the west the rain could be seen as though someone had smeared a drop of water across a watercolour. He smiled at that and decided it was time to be getting back - and "thank God for Goretex" he thought for the rain was definitely getting closer. A rumble of thunder too. It was definitely time to be moving.
He walked back into the ring and turned towards the eastern exit - the direct path to the car park was pretty steep and as the rain started to fall it would be pretty slippery. And it was starting to rain now, so he started running as the top of a hill in a thunderstorm didn't seem the best of ideas. As he ran through the gap in the bank FLASHBANG - he stumbled thinking "that was a bit close" and followed the track round and down. Now that he was off the top and noticing that the rain had stopped and the air cleared he slowed to a walk and headed down to the flat area of compacted chalk, concrete and tarmac at the point where the made road became a farm track that passed for a car park.
"What the..." he muttered as it came into view without his car in sight. It wasn't a particularly nickable car, and definitely not his pride and joy but that's not the sort of thing you tell yourself at the moment of realising that some little toe rag has half inched it. "I'm sure that there was a gate here when I was going up" he thought when he reached the road. Perhaps he'd come down on the wrong side and this was a different spot. So he retraced his steps back up the hill - it was starting to get dark now but he should be OK if he took it carefully. He was nearing the entrance through the rampart when he heard a voice.
"By oak, ash and thorn I tell you that was not a pretty step." There was a man sat on the top of the bank, looking down at him. "Are you all right?"
"Well, aside from having lost my car..." Arthur replied.
"Lost, stolen or strayed?"
"Well if this track leads to the same place as the path running north from the top then it's stolen, but I probably just took a wrong turn."
"Ah, strayed then. Track and path go to the same place but you'll not be finding your car on this side." Arthur continued on to the top and and found the himself thinking that it had been marked by the concrete plinth of a survey point, rather than the post he now found. And no track running north. He turned to see that the man had followed him. Now that he was standing it was clear that he was short - well under 5 feet but broad in the shoulder and a wide head split with a broad grin. "It's not what you expected is it? Come over here." With that he lead Arthur back to where he'd sat looking at the town - it should have glistened with street lights now that night was near falling, but there were no lights to be seen and there looked to be rather more in the way of fields. He dismissed it as an effect of the light.
"So the storm caused a power cut?"
"I wouldn't know about that. Let's see if we can find your car - I've not seen one of those in quite a while."
That left Arthur almost as puzzled as the view that should have been of Worthing - how could you have avoided seeing a car for any length of time? They walked through the gap in the rampart with the man dropping back to watch him walk through. Everything looked normal and that, Puck thought, was going to make tonight a bit more interesting since couldn't Step back only a few minutes after Stepping through. "Interesting for me at any rate - he might not see it quite the same." he thought as he caught up with Arthur and they walked back down the track. As Arthur got back to where he'd left the car he realised his head was beginning to ache like the morning after the night before and the sinking feeling in his stomach didn't bode too well either but could just have been the natural reaction to having had his car stolen.
There was definitely no car, the clear area looked smaller than it had and there were no tyre tracks in the muddy bits. "Well, I'm pretty sure this is where I left it." was a comment as much to himself as to Puck, who turned to him and said: "Your problem isn't your car, much though I'd like to have seen it for I haven't seen one this last century. Your problem is that you've stepped into another world and it looks like you're stuck here. Now, you'll not be believing me I expect so we may as well walk down to the village and you'll see what I mean."
"Too right I don't believe you, but why not: since my car's not here I'm walking back that way." Puck was disappointed not to feel the expected shiver of surprise, the man wasn't yet getting it. Certainty of that level would only make his astonishment the sweeter when it struck.
"As we walk, suppose you tell me when you see something unexpected or different"
"Don't tell me you've got a unicorn waiting round the corner."
"Well I haven't and I'd be almost as surprised as you to see one here - I was thinking more mundane: the buildings, the roads and such like. What people do to a place."
A few minutes passed before Arthur admitted that he was pretty sure that the road had been tarmac, not compacted chalk by this point and as they dropped into Findon the village seemed smaller and older than he remembered - none of the more modern builds, it all looked Victorian or older. They passed a pub he recognised from a pub lunch with his mother the previous weekend but the name seemed different. No cars either and a lot more sign of horses. Puck sensed the astonishment growing as Arthur recognised that things were not what he was expecting and his grin started to return. This was feeling almost as good as he'd hoped for; and much more satisfying (to him at least) than the terror and pain that appealed to some of his kind.They passed unnoticed through the village and Puck led Arthur up the hill, into the woods behind the church. A smell of wood smoke noticed in the village started to strengthen.
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