A Short Stay in the Country
This is an incredible story. In fact, I believe it to be the most incredible event in my life so far. No matter how many times I play it over in my head, I still cannot believe it really happened. Yet it did. I shall say no more for now, in the hope that you may experience the same amazement that I felt.
It was a few winters ago now and I needed a break. I was out of work and bored, as was often the case in those days. The job search was tiring and frustrating: writing cover letter after cover letter, receiving nothing in return. As the weeks pass by, I add an extra month to the date of my last employment. Everyone does it, of course, but I find the dishonesty demoralising.
I decide to visit my parents. They live in a small village in the countryside and are always welcoming. The cloud of my employment will loom over our conversations, naturally, bursting down upon us whenever they have friends over. I feel their concern and I know that it comes from a place of love, but that particular conversation has become as wearisome as it is inevitable.
I invite my friend Luke. He is good company and I feel guilty that I rarely have friends over. We take the train down early in the week. Luke works in a pub in central London and it’s easier to move his shifts towards the weekend. I warn him about the likely conversations; he promises to fight my corner.
We draw up an itinerary for the visit. Find some board game shops, hit the pubs, and go for the odd walk. Luke is less keen on the last part but is convinced by the first two. Perhaps he has seen the weather forecast (the news have already dubbed it “The Beast from the East”) and reckons that part will be quietly put to one side. When we arrive, we buy some board games and head to the pub.
Luke’s pub is a fine example of a city pub: relatively cheap pints, characterful interior, and pure chaos behind the scenes. The cellar resembles the Somme circa 1917, rats are everywhere, and the bar staff are doubling their wages with free beer. It is a pub I enjoy visiting, but like all London pubs it could never be mistaken for a country pub.
I think this is in part down to how few pubs in London have a fireplace. Any pub can be improved by a roaring fireplace. Like dogs, our deep primal instincts draw us towards the fire. Our ancestors whisper in our ears, “Go, there is warmth, safety, and sustenance”, and we will sit so close that we are stripped to our t-shirts grasping our pints with ruddy faces.
We have soon visited all the pubs worth going to and take the bus back. Halfway back, we need to relieve ourselves and stop off in a village with a pub. With time to kill before the next bus, we have another pint. I tell Luke that it is not as good as the pub in my parent’s village, which is true. Most village pubs have survived by becoming restaurants with a bar attached and the one we are in is no exception.
It is not a terrible pub. The bar remains the central feature and there are enough barstools to give the pretense that it is where people will go to just for a drink. However, you can tell the owners have invested heavily in the dining aspect.
It is a remarkably underappreciated truism that by catering a pub towards diners, you are telling drinkers they are not welcome. Often when people say a pub is nice, they mean for eating. These are often the worse pubs to drink in. I am hostile towards pubs that have put effort into their dining area. How dare they try to survive — they haven’t even lit their fireplace!
The staff are clearly surprised to have people there just for a drink. Or maybe they are surprised to see two men on a pub crawl in a village with one pub. We arrive at my parents’ house later than planned and swaying slightly.
The next day we wake to find the weather closing in. The first flecks of snow are floating in the air, but the papers warn us there is worse to come. One of my parents, I forget which one, attempts a flanking manoeuvre by asking Luke about his work. However, Luke, immune to hangovers, defends marvelously. I am intensely grateful, particularly as I am evidently not immune to hangovers. Conversation moves on. The cat is still missing — apparently we had been told about this last night. My parents want me to put up some flyers around the village.
He is easily identifiable. White, with two small splodges of brown, he lost his tail and gentlemanly parts after being run over as a kitten. It is not the first time he has run away. Over Christmas he disappeared for several days before being found on New Year’s Day in a hedge at the end of the village. When we went to recover him, he looked wild, with wide eyes darting back and forth. My father had put on gardening gloves to reach through thorns in the hedge, only to find they were needed as much to stop the cat’s claws. He was positively feral.
I feel protective over our cat to a degree I have never felt with our other family pets. He is the only rescue animal we have ever had and carries a fragility that occasionally leads to him lashing out. We think he has epilepsy and forgets where he is. He often hides under chairs and behind curtains.
Our previous cat could not have been more different. She was black, large, and carried herself with that regal self-assurance that cats are so often caricatured with. There was never any consideration that she could come into harm right until she died.
My mother is hosting some friends for an afternoon of bridge. This takes up the room we had been using to play boardgames, so, with the pub closed until the evening, I suggest going for a walk. Like a battery at risk from overcharging, our spaniel needs to blow off steam once a day otherwise she will be bouncing off the walls come the evening. Luke agrees, although we have differing opinions as to how long the walk will be. We wrap up warm with gloves, scarves, and hats.
The village that my parents live in sits at the base of a ridge of hills. The views from the top are beautiful, albeit not breath-taking. On a clear day one can look across the valleys on either side, or over the water towards Wales. It is not a clear day and the snow is falling.
We reach the top of the hills, slightly out-of-breath. The ascent is deceptively steep. It requires at least one stop along the way, despite the modest height. Luke is keen to turn around. The wind is strong up here and the cold is cutting, but I know these hills. The real beauty lies in the small channels, known locally as “combes”, running down from the hills on the other side. We will be sheltered there. I want to go to further along, near where I saw a herd of deer the last time I was there. After a brief negotiation, we agree to go down the nearest one.
As we begin the descent, the snow begins to pick up. More of it is settling on the ground now. Soon we are under tree cover and do not notice the snow so much. It is here that the true beauty of these hills lie. You enter a world untouched by man, a world that your worries cannot enter. At the heart of each combe, a little trickle is growing into a quivering stream and then into a babbling brook. You walk with the water, sometimes crossing it, sometimes wading along it, marvelling as it matures, still with the vivacity to dart one way then the other, down waterfalls, over fallen logs. It is the only sound you hear, and it brings peace to the soul.
We are conscious of the time; it is still early in the year and night-time falls early. I take confidence from my rule of thumb; if you leave when the combe is starting to get dark, you will be able to make it to the village before nightfall. Besides we have torches on our phones in case of emergency. Nevertheless, we will have to turn back soon. The tree cover and the snow make it harder to judge, so we are going off instinct. Suddenly we hear a noise.
At first, we aren’t sure that we’ve heard anything. But then we hear it again. It is very soft. We stop. We hear it again. We turn around. There, about twenty yards behind us, on the other side of the stream, is my parent’s cat.
We are on the other side of the hills, miles from home, but it is unmistakably him. He is weak. Horribly so. Skeletally thin. Luke collars the dog and I edge through the water with my arm outstretched. He can be skittish and I think to how he had tried to tear open my dad’s arms, but I can tell this is different. He is desperate. My heart is pounding through my chest as I reach out to stroke his fur. Don’t run. I can feel his boniness through my gloves. Please don’t run. He leans into me, so I motion to pick him up. There’s a good boy. He doesn’t resist. Thank God.
We start back up the hill. I take my hat off and place it over him to keep him warm. It is a Russian hat, with warm ear flaps. Luke puts the dog on the lead as it is eager to jump up and we cannot afford her running off after a pheasant. We have at least an hour’s walk to get back to the house. As we breached the treeline, we saw how much snow had fallen. In this terrain, the cat would be invisible. I grip him tighter.
The sun is hidden, but we know night will fall soon. We crest the hill and begin the descent. The steepness of the slope makes for awkward walking, but we manage to make good time without incident. It is only once we re-entered the village that he tries to escape. If he was healthy, I would have little chance of holding onto him, but he is weak and I can easily read his wriggling. We reach the house as dusk falls.
My parents are amazed. So are my mother’s bridge partners. It transpires that the cat has been missing for weeks. How he had survived for so long in such conditions, we will never know. He is safe now and that is all that matters. We feel like goddamn heroes.
Luke and I go to celebrate in the village pub armed with board games. We would have gone regardless, but now we are justified. We enter the front room. It is a room designed for the pub of yesteryear. There is a cap peppered with shotgun pellets, various hunting trophies, and pictures of people who mattered a great deal a long time ago. The bar is cut out of the wall, with a modest selection of beers and ciders. The tables are wonky, with a mix of pews and benches sitting awkwardly on the uneven stone floor. Opposite the door, there is a roaring fire and an empty table. Luke orders a beer, I order a cider, and we sit by the fire to play board games. It is too hot, but we don’t care.
The next day we wake to find the village is cut-off. The road is covered by a foot of snow and won’t be cleared for the rest of the week. Luke calls his manager to say he won’t be able to make his shifts. Soon I will be working for the same manager, but for now, for once, I am glad to be unemployed.
