At the north end of Les Banques, on top of a scrappy little rise, there is a bench. I don’t know how long it’s been there but I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t.
It looks out across the bay, wet and windswept in the winter, its green paint warm and cracking in the summer. Runners, commuters, dog walkers and bored teenagers drift by as easily as the sweet wrappers that blow past on the wind nowadays.
And it’s always been windy.
The wind annoyed her, she used to say. Not sure why a Guernsey girl bothered complaining about the wind… like a fish annoyed at being wet. It pushed her hair in her face while she was trying to eat her sandwiches and turned the pages of her book, but still she sat there most days.
The first time I saw her there, I caught her hat. Truthfully, I’ve never caught a hat since… even when I’ve tried. Never been a good catch… The wind just lifted it and for a moment it hovered right there as I walked by. So I grabbed it: I think it looked more impressive than it really was.
Her laugh was lovely though. “O, thank you! It’s still new.” She wedged her book into the bag at her feet and twisted on the bench to face me. The wind whipped her long brown hair around her face.
“S’alright my love, just a lucky catch. Here you go… bit of a hooley today isn’t it? You’ll want to hang onto that. I’m Mac by the way.”
“Jo…” she smiled again.
I walked that way the next day. And brought some sandwiches. She was there, on her bench and I asked if I could sit down. We ate our lunches, looking across the bay, the wind was lighter than the day before but it still rustled the brown paper bag I was holding and flicked her hair around her eyes as she chatted about her book.
Our wedding was at the mission hall at Bordeaux on a showery day a year later. Her family were Methodists and mine didn’t really go anywhere so that was the place we chose. I remember the smell of all the flowers in the church and I remember singing that hymn with the line:
“summer and winter and springtime and harvest, sun, moon and stars in their courses above”
The minister, what was his name? Beaugie, I think… from Jersey he was. Anyway I remember he did a sermon and said we’d be blessed with plenty of those seasons but what I remember the most is the walk after the wedding to the benches at Bordeaux harbour for a picnic. People didn’t go in for these big receptions back then… I think it was better.
It had been raining but the May sun was warm and the wind was blowing her hair and her veil as we walked. The path was wet and the hem of her dress got all muddy – she laughed and said she wasn’t going to need it again anyway. When we got to the benches I was going to put my jacket down for her to sit on but my father wasn’t having it; “all very well being a gentleman but I’ll never get the deposit back on that jacket” he said, so one of her aunties dried the bench and we sat down for sandwiches.
There is another bench, hidden on a steep path on the spur of the valley at Petit Bot. It looks down over the Martello tower and the kiosk gardens, sheltered from every direction but the south and warmly perfumed by the gorse in the spring and the summer. Which is when we first found it, lost, coming back from the cliff path. It became a book-reading, pastry-eating retreat for us, not too far from our home near the Villette Post Office.
We walked the paths around our cliffs on blazing blue-sky days, in misty drizzle and on days when the wind could terrify you. Always just the two of us; we knew every little branch in the path and all the steps but most of all we knew each other. Simply in silence we heard the squabbling crows, watched the kestrels hover and drank in the gorse scent.
And then the little climb up to our bench.
She would flop down onto it like it was her favourite sofa, stretch out her legs and sigh. And then she would laugh and say “We’re getting old Mac!” But she was wrong, cos that was years ago and we were young.
I’m old now though. Our summers and winters moved very quickly and the springtimes and harvests set between them like so many dozens of little pictures.
Memories.
Of living and walking, working and reading in the wind, of longed-for children, grieving and laughing. And all the time the years kept coming, blown along by the seasons. Sometimes tender, sometimes with a sudden force, but always moving us forwards. That’s the thing with the wind… things blow away but they seldom blow back. Sometimes you can snatch things before they’re gone but you can never go back.
They said there’d be happiness after her. And there has been. But my soul nowadays is restless. The benches I pass are always empty or occupied by strangers… although, if I’m honest, I always look to see if it’s her.
There are fewer benches that my legs will take me to. My knees aren’t what they used to be but I’m glad I used them up – no good leaving this world with perfect knees. I suppose it’s a bit like her wedding dress… won’t be needing them again.
I set off on a very long walk today. It’s brought me here, back to our very first bench on Les Banques. The waters of the bay are still and shining, the castle hovering on the horizon surrounded by little white sails. The wind is in a rare playful mood, teasing the grass and caressing the few fennel plants along the edge of the beach. Someone’s cleaned up as well – I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this patch of grass without a few Mars wrappers.
There is a scent on the breeze, familiar but from so long ago that it’s made me quite homesick. There’s something in the light as well; I turn away from the bench for just a moment, breathing in the scene.
“Mac…”
I turn back to our bench and her laugh is even more lovely.
Don Lowe 