1952

So I left my job and never really told them why, other than a few vague noises about freedom and time on my own. I cashed in my savings, my policies and what was left of the inheritance then bought myself a schooner. I had planned on taking it around the Bay of Biscay but my plans never really come to much, and if they do they usually aren’t recognizable from the ideas I had in the beginning. I sold up nearly everything and planned to live on that boat, never settling, always traveling, chasing after the warmer seasons as they duck over the horizon.

I hauled her down the channel, into the Iroise and through the Gascogne, heading west for the bays. But my plans changed again and I sailed through them, only pausing for Gijon, the border of Caminho and the Bay de Setubal before veering into the Algarve and through the straits into the streams to take me speedily into Cartagena.

Only my plans were changed for me, this time. The wind changed, the seas changed and the schooner no longer held onto the same course for anything longer than fifteen minutes. I had to hug the shore and eventually I found myself dragged into an estuary by some gloomy mountains where the boat ran aground and we stopped, this time without trying.

No damage to the flat keel. Seems like a fair place to stop. I hopped off and splashed up the beach to the small town whose bell tower spire could be seen from the shore. And it was an extraordinary place; astragalled windows, wrought iron balconies, alcoves with statues and whitewashed walls were everywhere. Long overgrown trees and bushes sprouted between cobbled paths and a sprawling lawn carpeted with weeds separated the area. Ivy covered pillars surrounded a colonnaded bandstand. In the middle was a large pool, with a plinth in the middle. There was even a statue of Atlas there. The whole place looked like it had been tended carefully thirty years ago and then never touched again.

It is absolutely deserted. The wind whistles quietly. I can hear the waves on the shoreline louder than almost anything else. Good grief. Where am I?

There is a building far over to the right with a large green dome. Maybe someone lives there. I walk down to the lawn gates but I am amazed to find it locked shut with the key in the padlock. How bizarre. I turn the key and it breaks off in my hand, degenerated by years of rust.

- You’ll find that nothing much round here works any more.

I nearly shout out loud with fright. Behind me is a man wearing a blazer and a scarf. He also has a long beard. He looks very old – very tired. I compose myself.

- My boat ran aground here. I was looking for some help to get it shifted.

He smiles knowingly.

- Yes, yes…aground. No one comes here; they all set out with bad directions. Is that what you have too?

His voice is strong…strident. Very clipped and precise, almost mannered - as though he was giving me a speech he had been rehearsing to himself for years.

- I don’t understand, I say. – I just wanted some help. I need to get away.

- Yes well help is not something I’ve found very plentiful around this place. As for getting away I suggest you look around you and think to yourself just how many people got away from this place. None? One? Half of them?

- I really don’t understand.

- No. But we have a well-populated graveyard that I have somehow managed to avoid after all this time. And one and ‘one’ are just the same.

- The same? You’re losing me, sir.

- Yes. You know…six of one?

- I’m sorry, but you seem to be talking in riddles. Who are you?

- One is one.

- Maybe I should be getting back to my boat.

- No, I mean that one – as in ‘myself’ – is One. And this place really has no name. At least none that I have found in the time I have been here. Not a real one.

He would be frightening were he not so old and frail looking, but the strength of his spirit and resonance of his voice are oddly compelling. His clothes hang off him in an untidy state of disrepair. The white piping on the blazer has greyed and frayed on the collar and is missing from one lapel. None of this seems to fit with him; he would have been handsome once, maybe. Maybe proud. Surely he cannot live in this little town on his own? It’s all very strange. Certainly something to put in today’s journal. Better than descriptions of fried meals and fish and rice and rain and wind.

- How long have you been here?

- As long as I can really remember, my dear girl.

His voice is kindly now. Like a generous uncle.

- And who built it?

- Shhh…these are all a burden to others, don’t you think?

He draws a question mark in the air and raises his eyebrows. Turning around he walks off slowly, past a rusted penny farthing bicycle and up the steps towards the tower. I follow after him.

- Are you all alone here?

- All alone. As long as I can really remember.

- Are you on holiday?

- Holiday? Yes, I suppose I was at one time. Not now, though. The holiday has become a home. If you see what I mean.

I confess that I do not.

- Do you have any ropes I can use to pull my boat off the shore?

- Oh, they have everything like that here you know.

- Then maybe I should just get them and leave you here…would that be better?

- Better? A prison for oneself now, is it? Very droll what they are sending me these days. Well. You really must be going now, mustn’t you?

- Yes. I suppose I must. Do you want me to leave?

- I would prefer it if we could all leave.

- I thought you said that you were alone.

- That is what I meant. You really must run along. Your masters will be waiting for you.

- I have no ‘masters’, I laugh. – What gives you that idea?

- What indeed? Be seeing you.

And he walks off towards the dome. I don’t follow, but hunt about the shore and find nylon ropes which I take back to the boat. But the boat isn’t where I left it; instead I find it has been refloated about thirty feet into the water and that the anchor has been dropped. There are no footprints on the sand other than where I had walked. I drop the ropes and wade into the cold waters, swimming the last twenty feet and climbing over the stern. The engines fire up and I pull the vessel out into the water and head back out. Looking back I see his solitary figure stand and wave from the colonnade. Above him, a moving glint appears in the belltower, then stops. He turns around and I lose sight of him.

I drop a gear and speed back towards the Mediterranean where I can find people and sun and wine and peace and silence away from the questions chattering in my head. I wish I had taken some pictures for the journal. No one is going to believe a place like that exists.