Private Universe

Jack and the Hill

The holy well, Jack decided, was fortunate in being on the way to somewhere else. People wouldn't be as disappointed as they'd be if they'd made a special trip. He continued to the bridge, crossed a stile and found himself on the road which lead up the hill to the village and which he must have been driven along earlier.

The hill, he thought, he'd keep for another day. There was a tiredness in him that made the prospect of the climb unattractive. He crossed the river, turned back towards the castle and walked on a path taking him by a farm house, chicken houses and trees.  The track split on entering the trees, one way leading to the river's edge, the other rising and winding through the woodland. Jack took to the higher ground, thinking he might get a better view.

 The farm, the countryside around, the entire world; all seemed deserted. Half the population gone to the war and this a sleepy place anyway, so not odd. He doubted he'd meet anyone and so was surprised to catch sight of a woman seated by the side of the lower path. Seated? Or lying down? Had she fallen? She was curled into herself. A bag and what looked like another sketchpad lay on the ground beside her. Were her eyes closed? She seemed conscious, though. Was that a moan?

Unsure as to what was going on, and hesitant to embarrass himself,  Jack moved closer, used a tree to give himself cover and peeked around it. The woman was Eleonora. Curled like a child in a nightmare and crying softly. Not the only one expecting this place to be private, said his voice. Not a moment to interrupt, thought Jack, and definitely not one to be caught interrupting. Then his eye caught the sketch on the opened page of the pad lying on the ground. A face. Even at this distance, a recognisable face. His.

Jack moved back down the track using the utmost care to make not a sound. Then he walked to the mill and spent the rest of the afternoon sketching. The drawings gave him a tangible alibi for his whereabouts later.

***

The sketching, he found, filled his mind almost completely. What he'd just seen tried to drag itself into his head and demanded to be examined, but real thought was hard to do. The idea of Eleonora gave him a headache. Something about that didn't square with him having discussed the war with Lady Charlotte earlier. He nagged at the question, getting nowhere until an image came to him of a man taking things from a shelf. Fitted, he thought; he'd taken out opinions he'd already had and dusted them off for her. Easy peasy. Now he was trying to manufacture new ideas and finding his brain short of the stuff new ideas were made from.

That realised, he gave up on thinking for the present, promising himself he'd get to it later. Eleonora was gorgeous, but a tangle of twine he wasn't equipped to unpick. Fair enough. He didn't need to. He settled to letting his eye and hand take short cuts to each other past his brain. Shading and perspective started to settle onto the paper into things that were real. It was more than enough. Look at me, he thought, not half dead, not half dozing; filling the unforgiving minute with distance run.

When had he last sketched? Couldn't remember. He'd missed it, though hadn't known that until now. It filled some gap he couldn't describe and hadn't been aware of before putting pencil to paper. Creation. A world growing out of lines on his pad. Satisfying. Scenes he could find himself in. How come? Yours is the eye, came the voice in his head, yours the hand that takes the vacancy of whiteness and uses black line to turn it into light and shade. The artist can take the truth of the world and put it direct to paper without the need for codification through language. Here, right here on this age, are a thousand words you don’t need to look for.

Really, thought Jack, that's quite something. Finding himself in a scene was unusual. Unusual and good. His hand held the pencil, his eye beheld the scene. The scene grew on the paper and a feeling of connection grew within him. Himself to the work of creation on the page and himself to the place that he was putting there. He stopped trying to find words for it and just enjoyed the feeling.