Continental Drift  (Ch 1)

CONTINENTAL DRIFT   by Charles Humphrey Muller

CHAPTER  ONE:  Arrival in Jedburgh             

The Abbey loomed large and square through the snowstorm. The square tower, the rectangular body of the transept, gave an impression of solidity, in spite of the squalls of snow that drifted by, almost obscuring the details - the terraced rows of interlocking arches, the pitched gables, roofless, the rosette window in the raised prow at the far end. It was like a great ocean liner, stranded, majestic in ruined splendour. The curtains of sleet drifted and swirled.

          Harry shivered. He felt dislocated, lost and confused.

          The rectangular chunk of the removal van blocked half the road, parked alongside the hotel he had bought. Huddled figures struggled under boxes and beds. In the courtyard workmen banged and hammered, erecting two garden sheds to create storage space for his displaced belongings - the books and paraphernalia of an academic life he would never resume. Snow built up on the roofs as soon as they were nailed in place.

          'What the hell have I done?' Harry asked himself.

          He had lost hold of his career. He had changed course. Never again would he enjoy the status of a professor. He looked at his hotel.

          A gabled Victorian building, perched close to the bank that dropped steeply to the river Jed below, was his new venture, his new attempt at stability. This was a far cry from the prosaic damp-stained university building that resembled an office block where he had lectured to students about Dickens and existentialism, and a far cry from the milling traffic that surged continuously past his Crystal Palace home. Here the rushing London traffic, the rattling to and fro on the Northern Line, was stilled by the steadily falling snow, the wind stinging his face with cold.

          But this move to Scotland was a dream conceived five years before, in a cottage at the head of Scammerdale Loch near Oban. The romanticism of that setting, amidst snow-peppered hills and an azure-blue loch seemed to offer a romantic escape from his prosaic life in London - a life of committee and faculty meetings weighed down by the personal anxiety of his wife's mounting debts. The embarrassment of those debts, of her increasing tendency to borrow money behind his back from his colleagues, and the final reminders arising from her addiction to shopping sprees on newly-opened accounts and credit cards, made his London life too painful to bear. He had let go, eventually, when the death of his father in Dulwich left him with sufficient capital to pay all debts and, with the help of a commercial mortgage, buy a small hotel. And here he was. Could he survive here? Would he find fulfilment, here, serving eggs and bacon overshadowed by the ruins of a twelfth-century Augustinian abbey?

          He slept badly that night, waking often to fret over what he had done. What made it worse was the cold and the smell of damp in the small coffin-shaped room the sale particulars had described as 'the snug owners' bedroom.' Tiny mushrooms were sprouting in one spot, where the wall met the ceiling. He was not yet forty and never again would enjoy the prestige of being called professor by nervous students, or enjoy the kudos of a new publication, or the respect of staff when he called a meeting. On the other hand, he told himself, never again would he have to mark mounds of papers, set exams, observe deadlines, attend faculty or senate meetings; above all, never again would he have to suck up to the Dean, or fall so readily into the pattern of dancing around and patting academic egos, like a butterfly flapping around dim electric lights. He was cold and frightened, but academic posturing was a thing of the past. In this new world academic degrees, publications, and colleagues' bloated egos didn't matter. They no longer existed.

          What mattered was cashflow. Hard cash. He looked at Anne who slept soundly, like a child. So much depended on Anne, he thought. Would she be able to control her impulses to spend lavishly in this new environment? He would have to watch the accounts like a hawk. No longer would there be the comfort of a secure salary, however limited. In London they were always scraping the bottom of the barrel, each month, even with the London allowance tacked onto his salary. But at least there was a barrel to scrape.

          The next few days in March Harry stood in the dining-room window, looking at the changing light on the Abbey. The electric storage heaters, dinosaurs of an earlier age when electricity was affordable, only produced a modicum of warmth in the public rooms with their high Victorian ceilings. There were no guests and Harry spoke aloud, disgruntedly: 'This is not a viable business!'

          But at least, as Anne said, they were in Scotland. They had made a break with an unhappy past and this was a new beginning where they would be equally yoked as a husband-and-wife team. He focused his eyes on the Abbey. The weather was calm, for once, and the Abbey stood out sharply against the pale blue of the sky. Snow, like icing on a cake, softened the broken surfaces of the ruined arches. Harry listened to the continuous surge of the water as it frothed below, in the Jed. Their first guests, an American couple, had stayed the night before and at breakfast had sat in the window seat. 'What's that old church?' the old man had whined, looking at the Abbey disapprovingly. 'Why don't they fix it up?'

          Later he drew on his coat and walked down to the Abbey. The sun was warm on his face and his breath hung white in the cold air. He sat on a bench and looked across the river at the parallel terraces of arches. He felt warm and comfortable in the sunshine and counted the arches. Thirty-six on the middle level, each uniting two smaller arches. A smaller row of nine arches surmounted these. The solid square of the tower was slit by one long window facing the void where the roof had been; the side nearest to Harry had three long window slits overlooking the huge broken arch where the east wing had been. The entire structure was majestic, like a huge machine or engine designed to be driven by prayer. Some of the stairways were exposed, like old conduits, where monks shrouded by cowls had made their way to different levels. He could see the steep steps curving and disappearing into black holes.

          He got up and crossed the bridge that bore the cars into Jedburgh and made his way up the steps of the war memorial. Now he was on the same level as the nave and looked down the isle, the main body of the Abbey. This was the best view .

          Awe touched his nerves. On either side the row of high pillars, the parallel lines of shadows and light, the high vaulted arches, one after the other, sucked his soul into an infinity of vision. Cowled figures, rows and rows of them, filled the expanse, the slanting sunbeams catching their hoods, one by one, as they moved, heads bowed. A deep resonance, barely audible, subliminal, vibrated just below the threshold of his hearing. Was it a distant Gregorian chant, or an electric surge from some unknown source? His eyes rose to the circular window in the pitched gable, the white light resolving into rainbow colours. He counted the segments - twelve shafts of corpuscular rays, coalescing in a beam of white light that grew brighter as he looked. Brighter ...

          'Aye, it will suck ye in!' said a voice behind him. 'Dinna' look ta hard.'

          The light dimmed and the window was nothing more than segments of old stone. He dropped his gaze and again the shafts of light fell on the open and empty space of the transept. He turned.

          A tall figure, slightly stooped, stood there. The black hood of a duffel coat enveloped a young man's face, like a cowl. His long, lugubrious face smiled at him. 'It's a canny sight. But dinna' look ta long.'

                                                                 END OF CHAPTER ONE

                                                                                (Copyright © Charles Muller 2000)

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