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The Riverbank by Sarnia de la Maré

nature, trees landscape riverbank green environment outdoors

Great Aunt Katherine had been seemingly on her last legs for about thirty years. Since I could remember she had been shrinking and creaking and swaying in the wind. Finally, she was gone and was currently residing in a casket for public viewing before burial later in the day.
We had never gotten along.


She was caustic and bitter and complained about everything. She irked me to the core.
None of us liked her and we seldom got in touch. Mum had fallen out with her years back and the connections rusted and corroded like old batteries. Damage had been done with emotional weaponry and unrepentant intent.


But in death people rally together to do their duty and triumphantly, one hopes, they ignore the fallout from the battleground.


The undertaker had worked a treat. Great Aunt’s hair was spruced and pompadoured like a grand poodle and someone had done a great job on her makeup. In repose, I thought I saw in her some beauty. I had never seen it before in her. How, I wondered, had I not seen it before? Perhaps then, it had been the light.


It was stuffy and death makes me nauseous so I took myself off for some air in the Lancashire sun.
 

The Riverbank

The grounds of the estate were rambling and pretty, cared for by a team of gardeners and gamekeepers. I followed a winding road, then a desire path through an accidental arch of higher foliage. Birds sang and I noticed the accidental grace of an untouched place.




‘You wanna be careful down there luv,’ said a man with a thick accident and clobber befitting a man who works on the land.


‘Oh, where does it go, this path?’ I asked.


‘Just by the riverside, it’s dangerous if you lose your footing; and don’t be tempted to swim in it, there’s wild currents, people ‘av drowned.’


‘Ok,’ I said, ‘I’ll be careful’.
‘Make sure you are, shout if there’s a bother’.


I objected to be being told and marched arrogantly on.


The riverside was a reedy unkempt place and the water seemed almost still. I doubted anyone had drowned there. I followed the bank upstream for some minutes and saw a beautiful glade just inland covered in bluebells. The blue-purple velvet tones in the late sun were breathtaking and I stopped to take a photograph on my phone.


I misjudged the bank and as I stepped back, cascaded down the steep slope, twisting my ankle as I landed with little room to spare before the water’s edge. It was a close shave. I would probably have to eat humble pie after all.


I stroked my foot; it was sore and I assumed I had twisted it. Reluctantly I called for help without trying to sound panicked.


Something had stabbed on my way down, something sharp. I was bleeding quite badly from my thigh.



I looked up the bank amongst the flattened grasses and saw something. It shimmered in the sun’s rays.


A bellowing voice broke the silence.
‘Are you alright? I told you to be careful din I?’


It was the gamekeeper doing his job, thank goodness.
‘I was trying to take a photograph,’ I explained feebly. ‘I hurt my ankle’.


‘Stay put, if you think you can follow a simple instruction. I will get my car and the first aid kit.’


The gamekeeper muttered several gripes and made his way to prepare for an overly dramatic rescue mission.


I waited as instructed and looked at the shiny object, it was a large red and gold brooch with an open bent pin. I must have stabbed myself as I tumbled down the verge.
It was tarnished and dirty but I could see it was gold. The stone looked like ruby, but I cannot profess to be an expert. It wasn’t paste, that much I knew. It was big and I was pleased to have found it immediately wondering if it was worth anything.


I began to polish it on my skirt, breathing hard on it and trying to remove the muck. As I did so I could see a small clasp and a hinge.


I tried to prize it open but it seemed to be stuck. After some brute force, the clasp was released.


Inside was like a locket, squared off. There were two photographs. One side, a picture of a young woman, a beautiful young woman and a young man with dark eyes. The woman’s hair was mounted in pompadour fashion on her proud dignified face. They were lovers, you could tell.


The other was a picture of an infant in swaddling clothes.


I tried to take out the photos but the baby picture was stuck fast. The other came out easily and inscribed on the reverse in tiny handwriting was my great aunt’s name, Katherine Baltimore and a date, 1938.


I looked again at the beautiful woman in the photograph and there I saw her as I have never seen her before.


‘Alright, old tight!’ shouted the gamekeeper.


The rescue mission passed off with ease and we trundled along the road towards the house in a four by four that looked and smelled like things were growing in it.


‘How long have you worked here?’ I asked.
‘Nigh on sixty years,’ said the gamekeeper.
‘Did my Aunt ever marry?’


‘No no, she was broken-hearted as a young girl, so they say. Had a love, apparently, died in the river there. I told you dint I?....don’t get close to the river, it has a jinx it does, I’m tellin’ ya, and your ma’ld never forgive me should out ‘appen.’


We arrived at the house to a general fuss about the state of my health and I was taken to be ‘fixed up.’


Mum was not pleased and came to my room to reprimand me in that maternal way mums do.


‘Why did you go to the riverside? People have drowned there!’ she exclaimed.
‘I wish people would stop telling me that’ I said in disgruntled fashion, ‘and who was it, Great Aunt Katherine’s boyfriend? I can’t believe she ever had one, looked like she hadn’t ever been laid with that scowl.’


‘That’s unkind,’ said mum.


‘Oh yeah sorry, I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. But she was such a bitch.’
Mum sat down on the bed next to me.


‘Well, I may as well tell you, it won’t do any damage now, I suppose.
Your Great Aunt was such a rebel. She had this red hair. My great-grandma used to say it was the hair was the problem. There was a boy here, employed. He was rough, son of the gamekeeper who rescued you.’


I raised my internal eyebrows at the word rescue but listened intently.
‘My great-grandma knew he was going to cause trouble because he had those eyes.’
‘What eyes?’ I asked


‘Ones that make you want to lie down and take your clothes off, that’s what eyes.’
‘Oh. Those eyes......’ I said, knowingly.


‘Well,’ mum continued, ‘they struck up a very intense relationship but it was never going to work. Everyone was up in arms about it. They were different people, different classes, different upbringings. Those eyes were not going to solve the problem.’


‘So, what happened? I asked, desperate now for the full story.


‘Well, your Great Aunt ended the affair but he took it badly. They say he jumped off the bridge upstream where the two rivers meet and his body was washed up here, by the bluebell glade. He had been drinking, no one really knew what had happened.’


‘But she had a baby,’ I said.


‘Yes, how did you know? It was stillborn. At the time it was all for the best.’

I went downstairs to look at the coffin and say farewell to a great aunt who had felt such pain and loss. I looked at her face embraced in the sumptuous cream satin. Great Aunt Katherine looked content, different from when I had seen her this morning. I wondered if she would have wanted me to keep the brooch and considered its value. But I knew that that would be wrong.



She would want to be reunited with her baby and her love with the lay-down eyes.


I put the brooch on her lapel and kissed her forehead. Then I apologized and said farewell.


© 2019 Sarnia de la Mare











£1,193


Digital, 101.6 W x 59.7 H x 0.3 D cm


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£983


Digital, 91.4 W x 91.4 H x 0.3 D cm


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£1,193


Digital, 101.6 W x 59.7 H x 0.3 D cm


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£1,193


Digital, 101.6 W x 59.7 H x 0.3 D cm


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£1,193


Digital, 101.6 W x 59.7 H x 0.3 D cm


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Digital, 121.9 W x 121.9 H x 0.3 D cm


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Digital, 101.6 W x 63.5 H x 0.3 D cm


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£983


Digital, 91.4 W x 91.4 H x 0.3 D cm


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£983


Digital, 91.4 W x 91.4 H x 0.3 D cm


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£983


Digital, 91.4 W x 91.4 H x 0.3 D cm


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£945


Photography, 30.5 W x 30.5 H x 0.3 D cm


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Photography, 20.3 W x 25.4 H x 0.3 D cm


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Painting, 20.3 W x 0.3 H x 0.3 D cm


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Digital, 121.9 W x 121.9 H x 0.3 D cm


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Photography, 66 W x 48.3 H x 0.3 D cm


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Digital, 121.9 W x 121.9 H x 0.5 D cm


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Digital, 203.2 W x 114.3 H x 0.3 D cm


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Digital, 101.6 W x 57.9 H x 2.5 D cm


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Simplicity, a Cat's Tale by Sarnia de la Maré


cat sleeping ginger whiskers snout ears

The alarm went off with its usual gusto and Mary trundled, heavy-footed, across the room. She hurdled with athletic ease, straight over the large sleeping cat making her way to the loo. Then, true to form, popped the kettle on and shoved two pieces of toast into the toaster still half asleep.


The rescue, who was called Simon due to a previous owner, was a cat with a catalogue of neurosis and allergies whom she adored. He lay sprawled across the shaggy rug over the underfloor heating and, just as he did every morning, miraculously avoided being trodden on by his busy owner. He was used to her now. He trusted her, finally, after the early teething problems where her strange behaviour had put into question all they had learned about cat ladies. He had assumed cat ladies were either virgins or frigid, many were broken-hearted even and, quite often, bookish. Simon loved their books. They were so warm and comfortable to sit on.


Unbeknown to his new owner, Simon had had a lot of other owners in the past and had moved around a lot. The last rescue hostel was unsure of his history, which was actually much harsher than they had guessed. Simon had known fear, death and abuse in his eight years on earth. He had seen ‘stuff’ and it had affected his view on the world. But now things were going well and he couldn’t believe his luck. He was in a great neighbourhood and there were no hooligans in these parts. He had heard about other cats being used for dog fighting bait and it was a worry for everyone at the shelter. Simon had not been able to eat and had experienced dramatic weight loss until that pivotal moment when he had purposefully locked onto Mary’s eyes and tried to look sad. It had worked, of course, and he was rehomed with her within a week.


Mary was nothing like her holy namesake. There were gentlemen callers from many cultures who spoke to Mary through her laptop. That laptop would get very warm and it made Simon quite envious but Mary would rarely let him lay on it for long. He would keep trying because eventually, Mary would cave in. They had an arrangement about things. If she ever wanted to take a photograph of him on her mobile phone, he would allow it if he was on the laptop, otherwise, he would clean his nether regions whenever she tried.


Simon had had to do a lot of things to get rid of male guests from his new home. Usually peeing on their heads in the night was the best way not to see them again. Once he had had to pass a motion inside a denim jacket but it had not deterred the male who kept coming back. Seemingly, the dirty protest had failed. Simon had had to use something he had not relied on before, violence. The man ended up having a tetanus injection but he never returned. It was a near miss, Simon thought, but he had never really got over it. Now, when people came to his flat, he would watch them with an internal panic, fretting over his future.


Mary had finally left for work after a stressful fight against time.


Simon looked at sun. It was Tuesday, Sandra’s day off, he’d best get himself off post-haste.


Sandra was a more traditional cat lady but was currently unable to have her own cat due to a harsh boyfriend ruling. Simon considered it his social duty to visit and eat the treats. Sandra went all out, no expense spared. But these meetings had to be in secret for obvious reasons and Simon would always be slightly on edge in case they got caught. It could mean the end of things. Life was so precarious, it always had been and it occasionally made Simon depressed, though the treats were a great distraction from these heavy thoughts.


Simon stayed for an hour which was more than he wanted really. Sandra was very intense and he didn’t want to miss Julie, three doors down.


Julie had felt sorry for Simon as soon as he moved into the area but already had four cats so couldn’t take him on permanently. (Simon had a colleague who had two permanent owners and he had heard of a cat who juggled three! Of course, that may be an urban myth because juggling that level of commitment could mean, horror of horrors for a free spirit, being locked in for long periods of time.)


Simon flew into Julie’s conservatory panting. He tried to find his bowl, a white ceramic affair with paw prints, standard-issue as one would expect from someone like Julie who didn’t seem to break any moulds. But the bowl was nowhere. He searched around the outer perimeter with no joy and he began to stress, scratching the areas on his body that were most affected by his stress allergy. He lifted his nose up high, sniffing in the mixed aroma of several resident cats and some food matter. If it didn’t come soon, he would need to leave. Jack and the new kitten would be expecting him.


Finally, after some calling and pained meowing, which generally worked well on cat ladies and even cat men, brunch arrived. Simon managed the whole bowl before running off in case Julie came back expecting cuddles. Cuddles were tempting but so were other things, and the time was getting on.


Crossing over the big road that cut through the village, being in a hurry and not concentrating after an excellent bowlful of the best cat food and gravy money could buy, Simon mistimed his leap to a wall. The car which had almost run him over pranged into a wall by the post office.


Simon did stop briefly to watch the mayhem as it was exciting to have this sort of thing happening. Besides, there was a dog going crazy and he loved to watch the crazies.


Annoyingly, it began to rain. Simon was not likely to make the next bit of the trip for a while so he took shelter under a bin outside a Chinese restaurant. Sometimes, there was a stray bit of chicken or some prawns lying about so he would check it out. No such luck today as the bin men arrived just as Simon was settling in for a quick nap. He really needed a clean too and began the slow process of getting into all the nooks and crannies. Simon was very particular about his appearance and grooming put him at ease if anyone was causing his anxiety levels to rise.


Suddenly, the bin started to move and Simon had to dart between black hobnail boots and a pile of maggots. The boots were successfully navigated despite some humans shouting and the maggots demanded a second look. Simon checked them out but didn't much fancy them so he darted off. The sun was straight above him now and the cloud had cleared. Time to get to the caravan.


Then something took his eye, a swift movement to his right, and there it was again. Ah, now this temptation was far too great. Simon caught a whiff of mouse and went straight in for the kill. It took longer than usual as the mouse was stealth and crafty. The chase extended around a large courtyard with a great deal of cover that was inaccessible for a cat of Simon’s girth. He worried about his weight and had noticed that some of his ladies were now feeding him less tasty foods with lower fat content. Others though seemed to enjoy his roly-poly-ness and cuddles came fast and frequent. Perhaps there were two types of cat ladies, those that liked him fat and those that liked him lean. Simon tried not to worry about his looks, it was shallow and he preferred to use his mind than his body to attract humans.


There had only been one incident where his tummy had impacted negatively on his life. A silly and somewhat embarrassing cat flap episode. But the flap had removed and Simon never saw the resident again, a very attractive white Persian female. Life goes on, he had philosophised. Their relationship was simply not meant to be.


The mouse was now scared and made a run for it across open terrane. It was poor judgment as Simon, although fat, was a nimble tiger in open terrain. The kill made Simon feel his inner worth and he wanted to show it to Mary. But there was still a lot to get done before home time so after nearly an hour of showing off to no-one, Simon hid it behind a plant pot for another day. Then he shook some muck from his thick coat and gave a quick lick of his paws. Deep cleaning would have to wait.


Time to get to Jack’s which was across the troll bridge where the house with the barking dogs imposed its reign over the smaller houses. Simon had to limber up for a tease. The dogs were unable to escape so Simon particularly loved to walk slowly across the top of the double gates pretending to be scared. If you pretended to be scared the dogs were even 'more mad'. It was highly amusing and today he fancied being even more provocative by stalling on the gate and spitting at them. It was thrilling. It was stressful too of course and Simon wondered if he was some kind of dangerous adrenalin junky.


At Jack’s, the reception was warm and convivial. The caravan was a great playground and Simon and the kitten (called midnight due to its colouring) was a great partner for tag, hide and seek, and Simon’s favourite, chase the chicken feather.


This level of physical exhaustion, however, took its toll and by mid-afternoon Simon was feeling his age. He should get back. Mary went to bed early and once or twice he’d been locked out. He also liked the underfloor heating at Mary’s and, if he was honest, he had had some feelings for her that he could not explain. Of course, Simon was damaged by previous loves and found open shows of affection difficult. The fear of losing Mary often woke him in the night and he had had some bad dreams. He felt now that he wanted Mary to be his forever human but he feared completely letting go.


The journey home was a short cut Simon ordinarily avoided. He was rudely interrupted whilst minding his own business and keeping his head down, by a stray cat from the Tunnels. The Tunnels were where the feral cats hung out and had access to old pipelines and sewage networks. The Tunnels were dangerous and the feral gangs were hard as nails. This cat answered to the name ‘Tyler’ and was huge, in the muscular sense. Simon had heard that a run in with him on his turf would lead to problems.


Tyler wasted no time and with only a few moans and spits went straight for Simon’s head with both paws at once forcing it to the ground. Simon had never come across such dexterous cat boxing.


Simon screamed hysterically calling Tyler a big fat bully and used his weight as his only weapon against the violent onslaught. Fortunately, he managed to escape Tyler’s grip running for his life. It was a close call and Simon’s anxiety shot through the roof and made him itch for a good five minutes.


Simon stopped in Mary’s garden to check himself for any visual injuries. He really did not want Mary to know about the fight or to stress about things, so he cleaned himself up hoping that the small cut on his lip would not lead to infection. The vet had pretty much abused Simon on several occasions already and he really didn’t need that in his life at the moment. Simon took a few moments to breathe and to think of calm things before his anxiety brought up his allergy again.


At home Mary got under the duvet and patted it a few times, demonstrating, without any shadow of doubt, that it was definitely cuddle-time.


This really was Simon’s favourite part of the day.


‘Oh Simon, what a terrible day I had, so stressful....’


Mary continued sharing the many dramas she had experienced at work. But Simon wasn’t listening. Besides, his purring had become so loud that he could no longer hear her voice. He felt her warmth though, and after some preparation of the duvet and several circular movements to establish the likelihood of maximum comfort, Simon settled into his bed. Of course, he would have to leave later when Mary would suddenly become a sauna and toss the duvet off unceremoniously with him on it. It was worth the disruption and Simon felt sure that Mary would grow out of these hot flashes in the night.


Mary leaned over,


‘Oh Simon, if only my life was like yours, a life of simplicity,’ she said.


Then she kissed Simon goodnight on his warm forehead and leaned over to put the light out.






© 2019 Sarnia de la Mare











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Digital, 101.6 W x 59.7 H x 0.3 D cm


Prints from £30




£983


Digital, 91.4 W x 91.4 H x 0.3 D cm


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£1,193


Digital, 101.6 W x 59.7 H x 0.3 D cm


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£1,193


Digital, 101.6 W x 59.7 H x 0.3 D cm


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£1,193


Digital, 101.6 W x 59.7 H x 0.3 D cm


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£1,215


Digital, 121.9 W x 121.9 H x 0.3 D cm


Prints from £75




£968


Digital, 101.6 W x 63.5 H x 0.3 D cm


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£983


Digital, 91.4 W x 91.4 H x 0.3 D cm


Prints from £30




£983


Digital, 91.4 W x 91.4 H x 0.3 D cm


Prints from £30




£983


Digital, 91.4 W x 91.4 H x 0.3 D cm


Prints from £39




£945


Photography, 30.5 W x 30.5 H x 0.3 D cm


Prints from £34




£645


Photography, 20.3 W x 25.4 H x 0.3 D cm


Prints from £30





Painting, 20.3 W x 0.3 H x 0.3 D cm


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Digital, 121.9 W x 121.9 H x 0.3 D cm


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Photography, 66 W x 48.3 H x 0.3 D cm


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Photography, 66 W x 66 H x 0.3 D cm


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Digital, 51.1 W x 30.5 H x 0.3 D cm


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Digital, 203.2 W x 139.7 H x 5.1 D cm


Prints from £57





Digital, 121.9 W x 121.9 H x 5.1 D cm


Prints from £35





Digital, 121.9 W x 121.9 H x 0.5 D cm


Prints from £36





Digital, 203.2 W x 114.3 H x 0.3 D cm


Prints from £30





Digital, 101.6 W x 57.9 H x 2.5 D cm


Prints from £41




£1,193


Digital, 101.6 W x 57.9 H x 2.5 D cm


Prints from £34




£968


Digital, 101.6 W x 57.9 H x 2.5 D cm


Prints from £32

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Books and Audiobooks by Sarnia de la Mare

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