The Barrowfields

Of greater and lesser forgettings

Fistral smiles its gums at the Atlantic as it is smashed with the onshore, and the surfers, like pilchards, have ducked around into the coves. We hunt for miracles that might appear in an hour of tide, but most often not. Towan bay is ill-tempered, a sour runnel of urine from the drunks drawn in by the capstan of the Central Inn flows out against the tide. The Sun palpably wants to drop beneath the shoulder of the headland and cast the dark torn water into shadow. It is where we decide to take our chances. A flotsam of learners, oblivious to the refraction patterns of cliff and harbour wall, paddle into close-outs, drop-in and festoon the long walls with their dangerous decisions.¹ Before I enter the sea I splash my face with water, offer a prayer of thanks. I am anonymous, ducking out reluctant under the first cold breakers, entering the jade silence, emerging up into the light. Spring still feels like winter.

The swell had gone ugly with the energy and wind. My timing was off, sucked out too deep, never able to find space, never in the right place. Then, on a wasted day of cutting little squalls and precious else, I find myself at the exact antisolar point and a great beam weight of rainbow warps into being and brightness. From the murk a flame bursts in every aqueous suspended gem.

And there she stands. One foot in the petrol blue waters, she strides landward with the other. The engine of the heavens stoops down and disgorges its rain of ions. The terminus is two bays over, it exactly strikes the last great bowl barrow in the line of broken earthworks mantling over Tolcarne.

I see the gods crash down to earth.

The rainbow stands defiant over the scene, before she gradually crosses the road and mills through the dead Narrowcliff Hotel where junkies are consumed in their own squalid pyres.

I finish my surf, cold but grateful, and plan to return and pay my respects to the dead.

I had forgotten this place. Rushed past it unseeing.

Forgive me.