Dispatch No. 20: In Which I Am Followed by The Sobbing Man; Elise Comes for a Visit, and I Avoid Having to Risk My Life and the Lives of Others on the Motorway

The rain was torrential, a typical November storm, with gusts of wind that stopped me in my tracks as I leaned into it and pushed on.  Next to me, Dennis Lynch was keeping pace, hood up, head down.  We were making our way across Canterbury from my flat to the train station where Dennis had to catch an early train into London to attend a conference.  The day before had been gray but dry.  Dennis had arrived in the morning and we spent most of his visit walking around Canterbury, stopping in at the cathedral and at the grave of Joseph Conrad, and catching up.

There was not catching up on our walk to the station.  Any words were whipped away by the wind—at least until we reach the High Street and were protected a bit by the buildings.  Because it was so early and the rain so intense, there were very few people out except for the public service workers picking up litter or engaging in other chores to get the city ready for the day.  We weren’t very far up the street when I heard a kind of bellowing noise behind me.  It sounded like someone coughing deeply and rhythmically.  After a few sharp, prolonged barks, the bellowing transformed into a sobbing, low but loud and echoing off the buildings and cobblestone street.  I turned to see who was in such distress, but the person behind me, a young man in a track suit who seemed oblivious to both the weather and the wailing, wasn’t the one, and the hood of my jacket and the bill of my cap kept me from seeing past him.  I asked Dennis if he saw anyone—he, too, had heard the sad, disturbing sound—but he couldn’t see any better than I could.  We kept going, all the while listening to the man’s mournful moaning, casting back glances but not able to catch a glimpse of him.

This went on for a couple of blocks when Dennis said, with a bit of urgency, “I think he’s gaining on us.”  Despite the fact that there were a few others on the street and we were probably in no danger, it was an alarming idea, and we headed out into the middle of the road where it was easier to walk and picked up our pace.  Though the distance between us and the haunted man—surely something powerful had him in its grip!—stayed the same, he gave no sign of letting up or turning off onto a side street.  And so, we continued on along the street and through the West Gate.  Once a bit past the gate, we stopped.  It was silent.

“Is he gone?” I asked.  Just then, the sobbing started up again, loud and reverberating and this time clearly disembodied: there was no one in sight at all.

“Go! Go!” I said, and we took off faster than before, reaching the train station in plenty of time for Dennis to catch his ride into the city.  Whoever had been following us was now gone, and the rain was letting up.  After discussing the strange incident and wondering about the poor man whose misery wracked him so powerfully, it was time for Dennis to board and for me to make my way back to my flat along the same route we had just come.  I took my unopened umbrella—useless in the windy torrent but perhaps useful as a weapon—from my pocket and started back. 

To my great relief—but unsatisfied curiosity—the sobbing man was gone.  I encountered no one who seemed stricken or unwell, and I arrived home sopping but safe and locked the door behind me.

Ironically, that afternoon, I delivered a lecture to the American Literature class on Edgar Allan Poe (thus the few stylistic flourishes here: poor imitation) and began my talk with this story.  I don’t know if they believed me or not, but I assure you it happened.  Just ask Dennis…if you can find him.  He’s not been heard of since he left Canterbury!  (That’s not true; I’m still in Poe mode.  He’s fine.  I think.)

Dennis was the second of three visitors who stayed with me the past couple of weeks.  Kate Lander was the first.  It was a pleasure to talk with her about movies and music and see what a fine young adult she has become.  When I dropped her off at the train station and watched her get on for her trip back to London, I recalled that I had been at her baptism and, as usually happens when that kind of memory hits, couldn’t believe that so many years had passed. 

On Thursday, another fine young adult—daughter Elise—arrived for a week-long stay.  When she and her brother, Andrew, visited Beth in 2007, almost everything the two of them wanted to do or see was closed for the winter, so I was determined that that didn’t happen again.  Despite some panic on my part because Elise couldn’t connect with wireless and couldn’t let me know when she’d be arriving in Canterbury (and didn’t know where I was living), we did stumble on to each other outside the train station—a bit like my luck in Rochester when Beth was coming in, and I had no idea how we were going to meet up.  As has become my routine with guests, I dragged Elise around town, finally letting her go to bed after 8 p.m.

This time, Elise’s visit corresponded with a school field trip to Oxford, Bath, and Stonehenge, and I was excited that she’d get to see something she hadn’t seen the last time she was here, but a month or so earlier, when I asked if she could go along, I was told that there probably wouldn’t be enough room on the bus, that tickets had already been purchased, and that she wasn’t covered by insurance.  I wasn’t going to let Elise miss seeing these sites—and I did have a job to do as mentor and needed to be with the students—so I decided I would rent a car and follow the buses.  I had driven to that part of the country before—to Stonehenge, at least—so I had an idea where we would be going, but in the intervening years, traffic in England has gotten much worse, and I dreaded the idea of navigating along the motorways, not to mention the narrower roads and congested city streets I would encounter.  The thought of what I had to do did make for some restless nights, but it was the only option I had.

So, on Friday when Elise got up, the two of us, along with one of my students, Renee, who was in need of something to do that day, picked up the rental car and headed out into the countryside so that I could get re-acquainted with driving in England.  There was some screaming (I apologized; I was pretty loud) when a bus came around a bend and we had to back up to a pull-in and wait for it to pass, and a little swearing (again: apology) when I went round the round-abouts less than expertly.  We did make it to Stodmarsh, though, without serious incident and stopped at the Red Lion for a midday meal.  Whenever we have been in or around Canterbury, we’ve made a point of eating at this pub because the food is always outstanding, and the owner, who is “in his cups” as they say, by lunchtime, is hilariously gregarious and welcoming.  We beat the rain by a few minutes and sat next to a window watching the clouds while we waited for our server.  When she came to the table, I asked about the owner and was told that Mr. Wigham had decided to retire and that she and her son had just taken over the pub the week before.  I’m happy to say that the change in ownership hasn’t done anything to lessen the quality of the food, and the new owners are as pleasant as Mr. Wigham, if a bit less tipsy.

By the time we finished eating, the rain had stopped, and the sun started to show through the clouds, so we drove in the direction of the coast.  When we got to St. Margaret’s at Cliffe, I took a wrong turn and headed us in the direction of Dover rather than the clifftop walking paths I was looking for.  When we could see Dover Castle up ahead, I knew we needed to go back into the village and start over.  Thanks to a helpful resident, we got to the place I remembered and got out to walk along the famous white chalk cliffs.  Even though they are not as high at St. Margaret’s at Cliffe as they are at Dover, the ocean is still a long way down, and after venturing close enough to look over once, I gave in to my fear of heights (and of falling off a cliff) and enjoyed the view from a safer distance.  Elise, however, stayed on the path that ran close to the edge, which caused me some consternation.  She wasn’t dangerously close, but I had to look away and hope I didn’t hear a distant splash.  Only later, after we were told that there had been a “landfall” a few weeks earlier, resulting in a huge chunk of the cliff sliding into the English Channel, did I feel vindicated for my anxiety.

That night, knowing my skill behind the wheel would be tested even more the next day, I had trouble staying asleep.  I kept telling myself that I needed to be well-rested and if I was going to take on the English highway system, but I didn’t have much success.  The coffee I had in the morning and the adrenaline rushing through my body had me alert but more than a bit edgy.  We met our passenger, Laurie, who teaches at Cazenovia College and is doing research this term in Canterbury, and headed out to meet the buses.  With the exception of one near-miss in a round-about, we made it, and I pulled up behind the buses.  I talked with the drivers and with the tour guides to make sure I knew where to park in Oxford, our first destination, and they immediately began to try to talk me out of driving.  I assured them that I would be fine and, besides, insurance and a lack of space left me no choice.  Five minutes later, they had checked with their company to make sure that we would be covered by their insurance and then came back again, insisting that I park the car and that the three of us get on the bus.  A few students had, at the last minute, decided not to go along, so there were seats and tickets for us.  Happily, I tucked the car into a space behind the college library, hoping it wouldn’t be discovered by any ticket-happy campus police, joined the rest of the group, and we were off.

I was sitting with Elise at the front of the bus, and I cannot emphasize enough how glad I was—and still am—that I did not have to drive.  Traffic was thick, it was raining, and there were all sorts of weather-related accidents and delays.  Had I tried to follow the two buses on their self-determined detours, I’d still be on the road somewhere.  It was certainly to our advantage that Dave, our driver, and Janet, our guide, were so familiar with the roads, but their conversation and ultimate decisions were beyond my comprehension.  Here is a recreated transcript of dialogue, perhaps not remembered verbatim but close enough:

Janet (studying her smart phone): Dave, there’s a lorry tipped over on the M-25 just past Junction 11 that’s got all four lanes of traffic stopped.  Perhaps we’d better take a different way.

Dave:  Right. We could go up around St. Hampton’s-on-Cleavage, over near Greater Bottomington, pick up the A4041, take that on to the M-11. 

Janet: That should work, unless there’s engineering work on the M-11. They’ve been putting in a new central reservation all along it since last summer.  Might still be dodgy.

Dave:  Right.  How about we take the A4041 to A4042? That’ll put us just near Midgelytown. We could go on through Far Wallop to the M-17.  Take a bit longer, maybe.

Janet: Yes, yes, that will do nicely.  Do watch the road, Dave.  You’re steering a bit wonky.

Adding to the difficulty of the journey was the fact that there was a graduation ceremony at Oxford University that afternoon and had I managed to get to the city, I’d have had no place to park my car.  Instead, I was able to stay with the group and wander, stop in at a museum and a bookstore and, in general, enjoy the day in this historic city.  A number of literary figures, most notably C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Lewis Carroll, are associated with Oxford, but the tour Janet conducted centered more on J.K. Rowling’s creation, Harry Potter, and his affiliation with the place. Having not read the books and having seen only a couple of the movies, I didn’t get the references, but most of the students were nodding and taking pictures each time Janet noted a particular building or setting.  My favorite part of the afternoon was seeing all of the new graduates in their robes and their parents gathering for photos to commemorate the occasion.

After a night at the local Holiday Inn Express, we left the next morning for the city of Bath, site of an ancient Roman settlement called and, as its name suggests, a Roman bath.  Named “Aquae Sulis” by the Romans, the hot spring that fed the stone pools the Roman built was probably sacred to the Britons who lived there centuries earlier.  The city—and the baths—have a rich history, too much to go into here, but in the 18^th century, a great number of buildings, all constructed from the same gold-colored stone, were erected, giving the place a typical Georgian uniformity that was never duplicated anywhere else in Great Britain. Most famous of the building was the Royal Crescent, a semi-circle of connected houses that stands on a hill looking down on the city.  There is also a circus (which means “circle”) of similar houses a few blocks away that is equally impressive but does not have the same open view. 

It was Remembrance Sunday in Bath, so before we went down into the city and on toward the river where the baths are, we joined the local citizenry and military veterans in a two-minute silence to honor those who died in the First World War.  Great Britain is a country very much defined by the two World Wars, but it is the first one that is seen as the most defining time in recent history.  In that conflict, three-quarters of a million young men never returned, and many of those who did were maimed, limbless, or crippled.  As proud as the British are of having withstood the Nazi attacks in the second war, they remember the first with much more reverence and solemnity.

When we had made our way through the busy center of the city and arrived at the Roman Baths, the group scattered, some spending more time in the museum with an audio tour, while others—including Elise and I—moved through a bit more quickly and went out to see more of the city.  With its unique architecture and narrow winding alleys, the city looks like it has been transplanted from Italy (or so I’m told, having never been there myself…but I’ve seen photographs).  This notion was reinforced when, as we climbed our way out of the city, we looked back and could see the seven hills on which it was built (like Rome) and the way in which the afternoon light caught the golden stone of the buildings.

From Bath, we traveled both in miles and in time to Stonehenge, that strange circle of stones on Salisbury Plain.  As familiar as the image of this place is and as prevalent as it is in popular culture (remember the Microsoft screen saver?), this is a place that needs to be seen to be fully appreciated.  It’s not just the stones that need to be seen, it’s the surrounding landscape as well.  In addition to the iconic structure, there are also more than 350 burial mounds that dot this huge expanse, further emphasizing its importance to the people who lived in that spot thousands of years earlier.  Unfortunately, there is a major motorway that passes close to the site, but a project that is nearing completion will see the visitors’ center moved about two miles from the stones and an access road that currently leads from the motorway to the current visitors’ center will be buried; visitors will be shuttled from the new place across the plain in a way that will make clear the significance of the entire area.

We left Stonehenge just as the sun was starting to go down and made most of the four-hour journey back to Canterbury in the dark, again prompting my gratitude at having made the trip as a passenger and not a driver.  When we got back and I saw that the car was where I had left it, ticket-less and free of damage, any lingering anxiety was gone, and I slept well that night, knowing that Elise and I were going to have a couple of days of sight-seeing, just the two of us, before she headed back home.

I’ve gone on at great length already, so I think I’ll stop here for a bit and give any of you still reading a chance to rub your eyes and stretch a bit.  In a day or two, I’ll post another dispatch, one that covers the time Elise and I spent in London and a trip Rich and I took to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford Airfield.

Thanks for reading.     

p.s. I was profoundly saddened to learn that a friend, Fred Wiegand, passed away on November 2, in Ontario, Oregon, after a long battle with cancer.  Fred and I had been members of YMCA Indian Guides and Cub Scouts when we were younger and had some notable adventures when we got into high school.  As is so often the case with hometown friends, I had not seen Fred in more than 35 years, though he did call me out of the blue one night ten years or so ago, and I talked with him again by phone during our 40-year class reunion.  What I will remember best about Fred was his cheerful haplessness.  Whether it was tipping his dad’s van over on an icy road or hitting a submerged log that broke the propeller on his dad’s pontoon boat, Fred took it all in stride and found the humor in the situation—until his dad found out about it, anyway.  Though I was not lucky enough to be part of Fred’s world beyond our high school years, I know that he had a good life and that he was well-loved by friends and family who knew him, as I did, as a man of tremendous charity and a good, good heart.