3 Childhood Prose Pieces

A Day in My Holiday (22nd August, 1993)

I was awoken early in the morning by the song of the hoopoe and other birds excitedly twittering in the trees. I soon remembered that I was not in England any more, but in Ampurias in Spain. As excited as the birds outside, I jumped out of my bed and, after a little while, the entire family was awake, apart from my brother of course. He is a deep sleeper. When I finally woke him, he complained that he had been in the middle of a fantastic dream. He tried to continue the dream, but in vain.

We made our way to the beach through the ancient pine wood. The waves curled over, foaming at the mouth, attacking, then from high up they tumbled at our feet; endlessly continuing, their wrath never ceased. When we entered the sea they towered above us. We decided to go to another bay which was much calmer, but we were soon put off by the sight of jellyfish. They lay white, mauve, wet and slimy upon the beach – dead. So we decided to swim in the endless charge of water, travelling over it and not through it, like my little brother. I did a few strokes, then stopped and started again. I came out of the water shivering, my ears blocked. I had once read that the temperature of the Mediterranean Sea never falls below 12˚C because the water has a higher concentration of salt than the Atlantic Ocean, but I do not believe this now!

Whilst wrapped in my thoughts, the wind had increased and blew blankets of sand all around. I walked, looking down to the ground, my back to the gale which cut across my bare legs. Nothing could be heard except for the endless swashing of waves breaking on the shore and the howling of the wind as if it were travelling through a hollow tube…and then there was the endless ticking of time on my watch. That never stopped either.

There was not a single cloud in the sky because the wind had blown them far away so it was a pure and utter blue, but the sun was still orange upon the horizon and I anxiously waited for it to rise and warm me. But this cold sphere gave off no heat. It was as bitter as an orange from our orange tree — the only one in the whole village. 

We were just about to leave the beach, when we met a man who taught us to skim stones. He took a flat pebble and threw it horizontally on to the roaring waters. It hit the sea with a splash, then jumped up and, like a bird of prey, it pounced down into the waters as if to catch a lonely fish. Twice more it soared and then sank into the depths of the sea, as if drowned by the surge of the enemy’s horsemen, where it probabily still lies now. He repeated these actions again and again, but told us that they skimmed better on calm water.

On the way home, we met a French lady with two of her companions from L’Escala. She talked so fast that I could not follow her conversation, but I picked up a few words here and there and tried to make sense of what she was saying: “drapeau jaunt - yellow flag, danger - danger, deux allemands noyés - two Germans drowned” At this point, I lost the thread of the conversation. My father explained to me later that they had been sucked in by the sea in the bay which looks calm and where we found some dead jellyfish. She told us that her name was Esmé, a very rare name, only found in the works of Victor Hugo. My mother thought that it was a good opportunity to practice my French. “What should I say,” I thought to myself. I uttered the first words that came into my head, “Est-ce que vous faites de la planche à voile? - Do you do windsurfing?” At first she just stared in amazement. She then replied, “Eh ben! À mon âge! - Oh my! At my age!” My parents later told me that she was eighty-seven.

We had an enormous breakfast with lots of cereals, croissants and a baguette. Then I went for a walk on the arrow-shaped groyne. It is made of stone. The waters in that area were filled with sand and then huge boulders were placed there to make it. The sea had miraculously calmed and the wind was not nearly so harsh. I was just starting off when a man selling coconuts and shouting at the top of his voice in incomprehensible Spanish intercepted me and I bought a coconut from him. He held an extremely sharp knife with which he cut the white of the coconut with amazing speed. He slashed the coconut a few times and then gave it to me. It took over five minutes to chew only one piece because two of my milk teeth were wobbly. 

My brother and I clambered over the rocks. He treated it as a race and boasted how good he was at what he called ‘rock climbing’. At the end were a handful of old fishermen patiently waiting for a catch. We met one Belgian boy who had just caught an octopus which he was going to eat for lunch. His bait was sardines. He had learnt how to catch octopus at a nearby port. He held them by the tentacles and told us that the only dangerous part was the mouth which he pulled out and threw into the sea. 

I then started counting the waves to see if the seventh one was really the biggest. I found that this was true. When I told my brother, he quickly scribbled it down in his secret notebook which he carries everywhere he goes. It probably also contains some poetry written on the sly.

My parents had ordered some paella at the restaurant in the village square. It is a Spanish dish which is very salty. It contains rice, a fish called 'rapé’ and shrimps. My father once said that I would be put off eating paella if I saw the ugly fish they used for it, but I doubt it. It is a flat fish which lives at the bottom of the sea and is probably very hard to catch.

While the paella was being cooked, I went for a walk by the sea. I noticed that near the shore the water was a turquoise colour. Further on, it was a light blue. Even further, it was a darker blue and on the horizon, the sea was a very dark deep blue. After about fifteen minutes, I came back to find that M— had gone off looking for me. 

I had once told M— that I had a secret hiding place and he had obviously run off determined to find it. After half an hour, he was still not back. We looked for him, but in vain. He had gone as far as the ruins to look for me: a twenty minute walk. When he finally did arrive after an hour, he was panting, out of breath. His cheeks were red and his face was dripping with sweat which reflected the light of the sun and the sky. He was both hungry and very thirsty. For lunch he drank gallons of coca cola.

That afternoon we went to the Greek and Roman ruins. When my brother was little, he used to say, “Why such a fuss about a heap of broken walls?” But now that he has studied the Egyptians and their pyramids, he wants to become an archaeologist. He is especially interested in the Egyptian news and always wants to look at the newspaper to find out the temperature in Cairo. 

This year more excavations have been carried out in Ampurias, but the archaeologists cannot dig under our village, although it is believed that the temple of Venus is beneath the medieval church. In the ruins we saw the great forum, beautiful mosaics and I took a photo of a copy of the statue of Escalapius. The guide told us that the Greek ruins were not as grand as the Roman ruins because the Greeks who lived there were very poor merchants and sailors, but they were rewarded with money for supplying the Romans with food and arms at the time of the Punic Wars. It was after these wars that they became rich enough to build the ‘agora’ and ‘stoa’. My brother found some pottery and the handle of an amphora. He claimed it was made of copper, but I told him that copper oxide was black.

When we arrived home, we picked all the ripe oranges on our orange tree, but unfortunately they are bitter. M— had the scissors and my hands were getting pricked. I found it very slow just to turn the oranges round and round until they came off. As I knew he liked collecting shells, I said, “I’ll give you three nice colourful shells if you let me borrow the scissors.”

“All right,” he replied. But when he realised how much his fingers were being pricked, he briskly returned my shells and grabbed the scissors. Altogether on just one tree there was a total of seventy ripe oranges. Not thirty as I had predicted. We gave them to an old woman to make marmalade. She used to live in the farm opposite, the only house in the village which has not been renovated.

We decided to go to Figueras to play chess. The car door would not open. Somebody had tried to force it open with a screwdriver. The policeman said, “A crime is reported every day. There is over 20% unemployment in Spain, the worst in Europe.”

While the car was being mended, I read in a nearby wood. Half an hour later, my brother found me and said, “The car's been fixed. Come quickly, but be careful of snails. They are everywhere.” On the way back, he said, “I bet you crunched a snail.”

“I bet I didn’t,” I said.

“But you must have,” he replied.

That evening my father read ‘Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve’ to my brother and me. It brought back memories of the smell of burning pine cones and olive wood in the cold spring evenings, when my father used to read to me by the blazing fire. Half asleep, I could hear the voice of my brother saying, “One more page. Just one more page.” Then my father turned off the light and went upstairs. I could hear the distant sound of eggs being beaten for an omelette; loud Spanish pop music; a woman’s voice shouting something incomprehensible. I then fell fast asleep.

I dreamt that I was travelling out to sea in a boat to what had looked like an island rich in vegetation from the shore. When I reached the spot where the island lay, I found a circular ring in the water like a stationary ripple. In this ring were four ducks. When I looked at a detailed map of the area, I found it uncharted. I then sailed back to the shore as fast as I could. I thought over what I had seen, wondering why it was visible from the shore and not from the boat. The island of Atlantis which sank under the sea many years ago crossed my mind. “Perhaps it is a ghost island,” I thought. Suddenly monkeys started entering the room, followed by ducks. At the end of the procession was a hoopoe who was calling to me and I woke up to meet an equally exciting day. 

Ampurias (9th December, 1995)

        Hidden away in the north-east of Spain, in the land of the hoopoe, a few feet from the yellow sands of the hot beach, bursts forth a habitat of trees and wildlife. Listen now, and you can hear the sea. Except in the hush of night or when the Tramontana wind blows south from the Pyrenees, its sound ceases to register in the mind, for it mingles with the other changing sounds of the day and forms an omnipresent background, a piece of canvas on which to paint my picture.

In this landscape moulded by the sea, numerous kinds of life abound, plants, birds, reptiles and insects. The tall pine trees whose proud trunks have been beaten into submission by the merciless winds from the sea, turn their broken backs over the path towards the fields beyond. Within the shade of these trees, protected from the powerful heat of the sun and cooled by the strong sea winds, the ground is almost moist. Unlike the open fields and suffocating streets, where the heat is intense, soft ferns and weeds have scattered themselves. Settled, united with the sandy soil, they thrive. This carpet of green merges intermittently with spiky nettles camouflaged with grass, which grate at the ankles of unsuspecting tourists. Snakes are not uncommon hiding in the blades of grass, smooth, black and poisonous. High up in the branches, the cicadas rub their legs in quick succession, the sound, erupting, sweet, discordant, a melodious cacophony of notes upon the air, reaching a climax at midday. Swallows fly seawards, surfing on the air currents, free from everything. 

At midday, you can see the crowded beaches. The sea attracts tourists from afar, and most who come return again the following year. They sit under the brilliant sun throughout the day, sweating in the heat, a delightful form of self-torture. They then fling themselves into the sea to cool off. Some take advantage of the warm sea winds to surf on the surface of the water. Flapping triangles of colour stretch into the distance, bobbing up and down as the waves rise and fall. Others are fishing from the rocky promontory beyond the Greek breakwater or from the new arrow-shaped pier.

Behind me are the Greek and Roman ruins of Ampurias. The massive excavated walls have withstood the ravages of time. Some are made of large rectangular rocks, neatly placed in rows like Roman legionaries. Within a fenced off area is the statue of Aesculapeus, the god of medicine, overlooking all, white and inaccessible. The museum holds mysterious coins, sculptures, vases and a vessel made for funeral tears. The first Greek settlers came by ship and founded the town of Ampurias. They were traders and during the Punic Wars, they carried arms for the Romans in their ships, and so helped defeat Hannibal. They were richly rewarded and built a new 'agora'. In Roman times, Ampurias continued to be a market place and people from surrounding areas came to sell their goods in the forum. Hence Ampurias from 'Emporium’ meaning market-town. 

I turn my head and I can feel the sea wind blowing at my hair and my shirt pressed against my back. Across the dusty path, beyond the withering fields, stands a large mansion surrounded by a forest of eucalyptus trees, a painting of such beauty, colour and imagination that I have taken photos of this view on every holiday. In the distance and surveying all like deities, stretch the pale blue, snow-peaked Pyrenees. Rivers pour down these mountains in their v-shaped valleys. They then slow down as they flow through the Ampurdan plain and finally empty their silty waters in the salty sea. In the summer when the campsites are full, the mouth of the river Fluvia is no longer translucent but polluted by sewage. This may explain why jellyfish, semi-transparent and mauve, whose tentacles sting careless swimmers, are sometimes found floating just below the surface of the sea until they are washed up and lie lifeless on the beach.

The waves are gradually eroding the sea shore, slowly advancing up the beach, mercilessly destroying all in their path. The old Greek wall, made of huge boulders, is now completely surrounded by water. Two thousand years ago, it had protected the ships in the Greek harbour. Now it is a place from which fishermen can caste their lines. And perhaps in two thousand years the sea will have advanced further, and this special place will cease to be because specialness is but a temporary quality.

The Leaving (17th February, 1996)

        The curtains billowed in the wind, the curtain rings rubbing against the rails with a discordant screeching sound. I shut the open window. The noise died down to murmur. The crisp brown leaves rustled along the hard stone cobbles. It was not late, but it was already dark outside. The trees were not yet bare of leaves, their outlines visible against the clear and purple sky overlooking everything. In the daytime, hundreds had picnics under the wonderful display of yellow-brown leaves, short-lived, sparks of brilliance and wonder. Then nothing would be left behind.

The wind grew stronger now, the windows shaking in their wooden panes. I decided to leave the warmth of the house and take a short walk outside wrapped up in my anorak to feel the cool wind upon my face, the sweet night air. I moved almost effortlessly, the wind continually driving me forward on a blanket of air. The few lights that were still on were now disappearing into darkness. Then all the houses were black, bowing down in obedience to the night. The noise of my shoes upon the ground seemed to carry along the whole length of the tree-lined avenue, like a tunnel, the trees bending over my head on either side. The wind echoed and the leaves scraped against the hard surface, making a crunching noise as they were trodden on.

“Time to go back before the wind gets too strong,” I thought to myself. I turned my back to come face to face with the merciless force of the rising wind. I put on my hood, but it was little use. I turned round and began to walk backwards. I kept on looking round, but despite this, the slight changes in direction of the wind left me knocking into flower pots, walking into parked cars and on one occasion stumbling on an empty Coke can in someone’s front garden.

Suddenly I felt an abrupt pain from the back of my head. I seemed to be encircled, surrounded. I could no longer move, trapped in my position. I tried to free my arms, but all I heard was the crunching of leaves and the noise of the wind, tearing at my face. I was surrounded by leaves. They grew higher and higher. I tried to lift myself out, but to no avail. I did not have my portable telephone so I could not call for help. I was drowning in a flood of leaves. They poured all over me like waves in the sea over a drowning man. I could not swim in leaves and my body was numb from cold. I breathed heavily and after one final attempt managed to climb on to the leaves. I started to crawl over them, a wave of relief now passing over my body. The trees seemed closer to me now, still bending, but this time lower, swaying downwards, staring thoughtlessly, staring mindlessly, as if about to grab me. All I could see in the sky was a mass of black, a thunderstorm of leaves, no longer beautiful, but menacing. They were falling around me, swallowing me up. “Where am I going?” I thought to myself.

Houses trapped me on either side. My only path was forward. Then suddenly the leaves seemed to give way, leaving no escape route. There was a loud crunch as I fell through the leaves and more leaves fell on top. I was buried. I held my breath for what seemed an age, struggling furiously. Suddenly, it was light. I saw myself through the leaves lying still, motionless. The image became smaller and smaller and then completely disappeared into a vivid white.

I had left the Earth far behind and all my neighbours, a sudden departure, a vivid farewell and then there is a blankness in my memory. I was nowhere and yet I remember once drinking from a well. I was in a queue waiting to get my share of water. My two next door neighbours were behind me. They must have died in that same thunderstorm of leaves.

The picture grew larger, I saw a tree and I entered that tree, became innate with it. My arms were turning into branches, my fingers into leaves. I turned my head to see my old neighbours on that same avenue, their actions identical to mine. Then my head sprouted leaves and I became a tree. We were the homes of the new birds and since we died in autumn when the leaves died, we became creators of leaves ourselves and servants of the spring. This was the leaving of my former self and the leaving of my body.