AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘It’s only a few miles away.’
I walked him around the expanse of earthworks including the square ditch surrounding the curtain walls. There was no central keep, only the rugged leftovers of looming towers. ‘The East Tower was demolished during the English Civil War.’
The rubble still lay in the ditch. We stared in turn over the side, Joseph briefly leaning forward, then stopping. I held onto the wall, noting the rumbling beneath my feet, a vibration that massaged the soles.
‘Bombardment destroyed the castle?’ he asked.
‘Too well defended.’ I battled my senses. This wasn’t a convenient moment.
Joseph, fortunately, had his back to me.
‘There was a siege.’ I closed my eyes. Why were my emotions so intense when I was near him? It was as if his presence alerted me to things my camera failed to see.
‘I like the scale of the fortifications,’ he said. ‘Reminds me of Dunstanburgh. The same vastness but without the bleak coastline.’
A rotten taste laced my tongue. I heaved, nearly vomiting as if I had eaten something revolting. The reference to Dunstanburgh heightened everything I felt. The icy blast of wind carried with it the smell of burning flesh and I wished I couldn’t hear the moans of the dying, like a horrible tinnitus. Again, the world of the past was too vivid, too close, and sadly unwanted.
‘They starved to death,’ I said, hoarsely.
‘Who? Oh, you mean during the siege?’
The breeze dropped into nothing. I opened my eyes just in time to catch him pivoting to face me.
He grimaced while those sharp eyes of his narrowed into slits; he was studying me too closely. Before he spoke, he cleared his throat nervously. ‘Poor sods. Not a nice way to go. Something to be said for a swift…’ He blanched, even his lips were tinged with whiteness.
‘What?’ I was still hyper alert, a sponge waiting to soak up his feelings and feed off them.
He sighed. ‘Nothing.’
I nearly asked, but the hesitation lasted too long. The moment was lost again for both of us.
The easel had gathered an audience and he hurried to protect it from overly eager prying.
‘Best finish it,’ he said over his shoulder.
Rather than shoo away the small crowd, he slipped past the semi-circle, said something that triggered smiles, and returned to his brushwork, quietly persevering while staying the centre of attention. The concentration on his face bloomed with each second and he hunched his shoulders over the easel, cocooning himself from intruders, practising his art without a hint of doubt at his abilities. Envy struck me hard. He was content, and certainly not bored.
Was I suffering the slow erosion of my long-held fascination with castles? The self-serving passion was perhaps doomed to failure when faced with reality and not imagination. My visions hadn’t augmented my understanding of castles, instead the vivid daydreams unnerved me, and along with their vague origins and links to events I could not possibly have anticipated, they had negatively impacted my journey in a way I had not anticipated before I left. My dream of visiting every castle was curtailed to just these fifteen, and the limitation no longer felt disappointing. It was realistic. Satisfactory. Manageable.
In the distance, the small figure of Joseph, now alone again, standing over his easel sharpened into focus through my zoom lens. I snapped one indulgent shot of him on my personal camera. There was a man content in his work, confident of his skills and indifferent as to its execution. Whatever passions he embraced, he held them tight to his chest.
Jealousy bit again, for his freedom, his stoicism. I wanted to know what he felt, crack him open and rob out that hardened shell he wore so robustly. An unlikely prospect given we would soon go our separate ways.
My love affair with castles was drifting, rudderless and confused. My feelings for Joseph were equally unresolved.
?
On the menu was another sizzling barbecue delight: burger in a bun, and while Joseph fussed over flipping the burgers on the disposable grill, I told him about my latest accommodation.
‘It’s just outside Pickering. I literally threw my stuff in the room and skedaddled to here. Oh, thanks for the map, it helped no end.’
Joseph had drawn the location of the campsite on a scrap of paper and without it I might not have found the place. I’d had enough trouble finding the B&B. Having arrived there, I had been greeted at the door by an elderly gentleman in a tartan dressing gown and matching slippers. He peered at the suitcase by my feet and yelled over his shoulder.
‘Malcolm, there’s somebody ’ere. She thinks she staying ’ere.’ He frowned expressively. ‘Are you his girlfriend?’
There was a large B&B sign above the door. I had pointed to it. ‘I’m here—’
‘God, I am so sorry.’ The new arrival, a middle-aged man, had calmly deposited the old man to one side and, leaning forward, had whispered, ‘He’s got dementia. He keeps forgetting we’re a B&B.’
