The Water Tower - Books 1-3

Chapter 1-1

“Set me as a seal upon your heart,

“Set me as a seal upon your heart,“Set me as a seal upon your heart,as a seal upon your arm,

as a seal upon your arm,as a seal upon your arm,for love is strong as death…”

for love is strong as death…”for love is strong as death…”(Song of Solomon 8:6, English Standard Version)

* * *

It was on the day she died that they finally pulled down the Water Tower.

The final demise of the Tower, which had stood for so long as a mainstay of Little Bassington’s post-industrial heritage, came not with a tumultuous roar that signified its collapse in a moment of heart-stopping suddenness, nor in a breath-taking spectacle of intensifying destruction; instead it had happened gradually, minute by minute, hour by hour, almost in slow motion. When it ended, finally – the scaffolding, wrecking balls and cranes all having been weaponised as tools in its unravelling – it did so with an eerie stillness that signified the moment’s conclusiveness; a moment punctuated only by the grit that salted the air and the final rush of dust that was carried on the wind. Tiny particles of history settled unobtrusively over the Village Green, on the rooftops of the nearby cottages, scattering themselves along the surrounding cobbled streets. As the footnotes of the past came to rest, and the watching eyes readjusted, the landscape that greeted those observing appeared suddenly different – altered – as if it had been warped somehow by unseeing, uncaring hands; remoulded into an image not of their choosing.

And the Tower was gone.

The winter that year had been endless, the days filled with bitter winds and rain clouds that had dominated the sky wherever they’d turned. The chill had been broken only by the onset of heavy, relentless downpours which had drowned Little Bassington’s customary colour in perpetual dreariness from sunrise until sunset. When the showers had lifted, and the temperature had crawled above the intolerable lows they had been forced to endure, the trees which lined the pedestrianised thoroughfare leading to the Water Tower cast no shadows. Their branches seemed brittle, bent by the unyielding force of the winter weather that had pummelled them over the preceding months. Few buds had unfurled; none of the lush green leaves that stood out so remarkably in familiar paintings of the scenery around the Tower were in evidence now. It was like a barren landscape, one which retained just enough remnants of its past to remind onlookers of what had come before, yet coyly avoided any hint of what was still to come.

When he was younger, he and his friends would meet in the grounds of the Water Tower. In those days, when the summers had seemed endless, and the hours had stretched out before them with an inviting earnestness, he would climb over the walls which shielded the Water Tower from the Parade and Market Square, grazing his knuckles occasionally as he clamoured for purchase, and hoist himself over the dusty, uneven brickwork before allowing himself to drop easily onto the safety of the other side. The ground had invariably been wet beneath his feet; the leaves that had fallen from the canopy of decades-old trees around the perimeter wasting into a sodden mulch which had coated the concrete below. The turrets of the Water Tower cast long shadows across its boundary, the arch of the trees meeting them at the midpoint and diminishing the impact of the sun’s heat. The damp lime scale on the bricks only added to the sense of antiquity; although, as teenagers, they’d had had little to no appreciation of the Tower’s place in Little Bassington’s history. To them, it was the same as it always had been. They would sit there, within the walls their own private fortress; the place in which each of them had laughed with innocence, planned with simplicity, loved with inexperience, and dreamt with naivety.

We never imagined our days would be any different…

We never imagined our days would be any different…The future had arrived with alarming speed. There had been nothing more profoundly sobering to him than the day he’d realised that the years he’d once thought endless had passed him by unaware. There had been so much time – and then there had been no time at all. It was in the intensity of that realisation, when he had looked back over the span of moments unspooled behind him, that he had come to realise nothing was eternal. The young man felt that same sensation again, as he watched the Water Tower fall; as it was lost to that irretrievable pocket of place we call the past. Months of debate about its future, arguments and counter-arguments, indictments and accusations, placards, and metaphorical lines in the sand had all come down to that afternoon, as the dust settled and the wind tore through the open space that had once been denied to it by the inflexible walls of Little Bassington’s most defining structure. A Water Tower that existed only in paintings now, in photographs and memories; its architecture consigned to a wistful recollection of what had once been.

timeEventually, as the years determined, there would be no one left alive who remembered it standing. The young man wondered how the defining days of his life would be looked back upon in years to come. Would future generations understand why there had been such furore over the Tower? Would they feel a scrap of sympathy for the way in which dividing lines had been drawn on both sides of the debate by people who’d believed themselves equally right? Perhaps, occasionally, a solitary figure turning the pages of a photograph album, or admiring the work of a long-dead artist, would casually remark that there used to be a Water Tower overlooking Market Square. They might never know the seeds of separation that had been sewn the day Little Bassington had learned of the Tower’s fate, or understand the means by which the future had been written; in the slipstream of a choice made by one person, one unremarkable day. They would never guess the flurry of conversation that had followed, or be able to deduce where the path of those heated words had eventually led. The Tower would become just another facet of days gone by; partitioned into a listless category of mildly interesting nostalgia, whose entries were scattered like breadcrumbs around the village’s gossip circles. Like the story of the sweet shop that was now the Pharmacy, or the tale of Mr Fielding who’d clutched his chest behind the counter of the Post Office one Wednesday afternoon, closed his eyes and never opened them again.

Change is nothing new. It’s always been there, flooding our lives.

Change is nothing new. It’s always been there, flooding our lives.The young man advanced towards the demolition site, his shoes scuffing the thin layer of brick dust now coating the cobbles at the edge of the Square. His eyes were still red from the tears he’d spilled after her passing; the memory of her sweet, beautiful face still radiant in his mind. As he raised his hand to flick a speck of dusty residue from his cheek, something flickered across his senses. Just for a moment, he could have sworn that he was back there, with her; that he could feel himself gracing a strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead. As if she were standing just in front of him. So close…

So close…But the recollection slipped away, and she was gone. Like the Tower, her presence evaporated from his life, changed his landscape, twisted his perceptions, warped his outlook, and tested his willingness to go on. The dull grey scaffolding loomed large up ahead; signs in bright reds and yellows declared warnings to keep out, to stay away, cautioning trespassers of the dangers within. He watched as some of the demolition crew traipsed back to their vehicles, collecting their equipment, slowly removing their hard hats and discarding their gaudy, high-vis jackets.

Vaguely, he thought about calling his friend, but he realised that he didn’t have the first idea what he’d say. He knew that he’d tell her first, out of all of them, but the prospect of talking about the Tower – of having to face the fact that the Tower was gone – felt like too much of a burden, on top of everything else. He fished his phone out of his pocket and scrolled for her number anyway, realising as he went to press Call that he was holding his breath. Releasing it with a deep exhale that resonated sharply through his chest, the young man stopped to contemplate once more. He wasn’t ready to air the agony of the afternoon to anyone yet; wasn’t ready to face up to the bitter, heart-breaking reality of his new life. He switched off his phone and slid it back into his coat, watching as a steady trickle of demolition workers left the site. The wind skittered lightly over the silence, and he felt the dust scratching at his skin. He remembered something he’d been told once; something about ashes and bones that he’d confined to his subconscious. The words marched to the forefront of his mind now like the echo of a cannon shell reverberating.

goneCallCallHe’d slowly become aware of his own heartbeat. After he’d left the house and started his walk – after he’d allowed his lungs to collect those first pockets of late afternoon air – its rhythmic, steady beat had gradually increased. By the time he’d reached Market Square, the calm pattern of his pulse had given way to what felt like a militaristic drumbeat inside his chest. Now, his thought train pushed the drumbeat to its crescendo. He was drowning; awash in a fusion of unbearable sadness. A sense of emptiness that defied words. There was a longing somewhere inside him that he couldn’t articulate; a need that he couldn’t visualise; a hollow space that had once been occupied by his sense of purpose. His mind flitted between the here and now, and the envelope of his past. Where he’d felt safe, content, anchored and accepted. Where the exalted triumphs that had united them, the whispered truths they’d shared, and even the things they’d left unsaid, had all played out in the theatre of her eyes.

But she wasn’t there anymore. She’d gone, like a light that had faded with the strength of the afternoon sun. The moments that had once seemed so real, so powerful, so present, felt as if they had slipped quickly and irretrievably through his fingers.

presentShe was gone…

She was gone…Like the Water Tower.

A hum rose somewhere behind him. The doors to the Bricklayers Arms opened and a handful of patrons filed out. A sliver of noise escaped into the late afternoon breeze, before they closed and muffled the conversation again. Inside, he knew, life would be carrying on as normal: Ray and Anthea would be serving the tables; a couple would be shuffling closer to one another along the benches by the window; and the same familiar faces would be ordering a pint of bitter from draught, just as they’d always done. Beyond those doors, nothing had changed. He could almost hear Anthea laughing now. It was just the world outside that had shifted on its axis.

Bricklayers ArmsThe group who’d exited moments earlier stood a few steps away from the entrance, gazing out towards the demolition site. The man at the front, wearing a blue woollen hat and untidy jeans, was pointing to the empty space that had, until minutes earlier, been occupied by the Tower. The woman behind him – her blonde hair slightly dishevelled, a slim handbag tucked beneath her arm – followed his eyeline. So did the man a step behind her; her husband, perhaps, or maybe her brother. The young man watched them as the first embers of conversation were lit. He didn’t need to hear what they were saying; he could guess.