1993 - In the Place of Fallen Leaves

  “Why?” I asked.

  He looked at me a moment before answering, and lit himself a cigarette. “Because your family can’t give you what you need, Alison. Maybe you’ll find people who can.”

  Before I could work out what he meant exactly he asked if I was still the only one around here who could make a drinkable pot of coffee.

  I brought him back a mug of his strong, bitter coffee and he said: “I say, Alison. Did I tell you I recorded something on our tape-recorder? You won’t believe it. I’ll play it to you.”

  I curled up in the armchair in his study while he rootled through a drawer and found the cassette he wanted. At first there was nothing on it except for the assorted sounds we’d always picked up: odd footsteps; the whoosh of a wing; a hollow tap; all in amongst the distant roaring of a storm.

  “There it is,” he declared.

  “What?”

  “Listen.” I pricked up my ears: from far away came not footsteps but a jangling guitar, a gentle drum, a rhythmic drone.

  “What on earth is it?” I asked.

  “How would I know?” he smiled. “But I do have an idea. I think they might be the lost songs of the disciples of Babaji. I must have mentioned them.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  “Well, you should ask Maria. She knows more about them than I do.”

  From far away came a man and a woman’s voices, singing the saddest songs I’d ever heard, singing them so beautifully that even though the words were in a strange language you knew that what they were saying was that, despite everything, love is something real. Gradually they grew louder, and scratchy, like an old recording. I looked at the Rector: he grinned back at me. I didn’t know whether he was grinning with delight at capturing something on his tape or more likely because he was teasing me, so I just leaned back and closed my eyes. I half opened them briefly, to see him turned back to his desk, continuing with his sermon, his concentration undisturbed by the sound of a distant, departed guru’s disciples singing songs of praise from the other side of a storm. So I let my eyes close again, and as I drifted towards sleep I remember wishing I could stay there with him, in that room, that I didn’t want to go either home or away from home, I didn’t want to go anywhere; I wanted to stay, because I felt safe there, where he’d given me a place of safety between home and the world that was waiting. I wanted to say thank you, Rector, and I think I did, but I was so drowsy he may not have heard, before I sank into sleep.

  §

  I woke at dawn with a crick in my neck: mother would be furious. The tape-recorder was off and the Rector’s chair was empty. I slipped out through the door on to the verandah, where I found Tinker waiting for me; she must have been there all night. I was stroking her behind the ears when I realized with a start that the Rector was standing at the far end of the verandah with his back to me, gazing, from there up on the ridge above the village, out across the Valley. I followed his gaze.

  Dawn mist rising from the river was tangled in the treetops, obscuring the waterfall which became a barely perceptible glimmer of movement. Thick, low clouds inched across the sky, rearranging themselves into changing shapes of grey above muted leaves of russet and gold. Sporadic birdsong was beginning to fill the emptiness of the Valley. The Rector inhaled the smell of the soil, gently breathing; the whole Valley was gently breathing. And I suddenly became aware of the fact that, although she was hidden from me, Maria was standing in front of the Rector, leaning back against him, her hands resting on his arms around her shoulders. He stood so still, at peace at last in the valley of fallen leaves, the place of exile that had become his home; he stood so still, lost in the beauty and the strangeness of the earth.

  §

  I slapped Tinker’s haunches and jumped off the verandah onto the wet skiddy grass, and ran across the lawn without looking back.

  §

  THE END