There’s a pub.
Eight miles out from the town, on a B road,
there’s a pub.
The pub is set back from the road; out
front there is a gravel space for parking – even though no one drives to this
pub.
Most people walk, some cycle.
A hundred yards along from the pub is a
small lane. It’s easily missed as there are banks of high hedgerow on each
side, and the lane is small.
The small lane winds up into the hills and
though you can’t see it from the pub, the last bend will lead you to the ruins
of a castle.
Today the castle is surrounded by soft
rolling hills.
Green hills.
Green hills far away?
Once this was the site of bloody battle and
the green fields ran with blood, today there is no one.
If there was they would probably be riding
back down the lane as evening comes, toward the pub.
They would notice the heavy
scent of honeysuckle on the night air, for the hedgerows are heavy with it.
Opposite the pub, also set back from the
road, is a cottage. It sits alongside a small stream and the garden is largely
overgrown.
Next to the cottage there is a caravan; from inside you can hear the sounds of the stream for the walls of the caravans
are thin.
The cottage is closed up, the owners live
in a distant city across two borders and only come once a year.
But from the caravan a soft light shines
through the curtains.
The door opens and a young man - early
twenties (because that seems young)- steps into the garden.
It is his job to control that which is
overgrown.
He doesn’t intend to stay here long, one
year at most before he moves on.
To the north, where later he will be married and become a father.
Tonight he intends to do nothing about marriage or the
overgrown.
He steps across the stream, crosses the
road, shuffles across the gravel and enters the pub.
Someone else breathes one last drop of
honeysuckle blossom, turns a corner, skids in the gravel and sets his bike
against the wall before also entering the pub.
There is no need to lock it.
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