Grey Stone Blocks The bus from Salisbury station has been sitting here for about twenty minutes so far. The only sign of activity an Asian couple clambering aboard with far too many bags swelling out from their backs and waists, in durable fabric cysts. The sky outside is darkening, and all hope I had as I got on the train at Southampton that the sunshine would endure in spite of the gathering clouds has gone. Through the tinted windows I can see the tops of trees, disturbed by wind, jostling; leaves entwining and separating with each contrary gust.

We eventually pull out and I settle into the corner-back seat, staring out of the window and trying to calculate the probability that K and I will collide. I can only guess how many people visit each day and when the peak times are. I consider the absurdity of still turning up when we were unable to set a time, and it does not make me smile. Eventually I do smile, wryly considering that the absurdness of other people's lives usually makes me giggle. We weave our way from the time-locked centre of the town, out onto the slithering A roads and the relative tug of war of traffic.

The sky surrounding Stonehenge seems more grey than the stones themselves. Where the surfaces of the great blocks have been smoothed by the attention of generation upon generation of curious tourists, druids, sages and junkies, the sky has a newly forged urgency to it, as each layer of cloud streaks the one below it with shadows and angry hints of rain to come. I sit on a bench, staring at a particular configuration of the stones that appeals to me, the vertical shafts interlocking like a maze, with just a hint of light and the green of the visitor centre visible between them, the dry anonymous prize for squeezing my gaze through. The grass is a vivid green in the half-hearted light, all chlorophyll in the blades seducing as much from the sun as it possibly can.

I wait for K. It is lunacy, even in the cloud-mottled daylight, to assume that I will find her. The afternoon stretches to a close, the darkness edging in on the backs of tame herds of solemn watery cloud. I look down at the slanted shoots of grass, pressed flat by the pressure of hundreds of feet, grass that might silently long for the immense night to right itself, or which might lay prostrate until it withers and dies. I long for the slow train of people making their water-proofed procession between me and the stones to thin out, to gradually reduce until just one figure makes her way up the path, oblivious at first, taken in by the majesty of the ancient stones until turning a corner she sees me, shivering and damp with my rain-tendrilled hair hanging apologetically in front of my hopeful eyes.

K is not coming. I know this even as I sit with the cold gradually spreading from my arse, to the backs of my legs, hitching a ride along my spine until it seems that the base of my neck is braced with ice. K has been here already. Hours ago presumably, her little backpacked group of Americans and Italians trudging obediently round, taking photos, more of each other than of the monument, before filing back onto their coach to return to whichever nameless hotel they are staying in. She is not coming and I still can't bring myself to move. In the distance, beyond the motorway, beyond the circling hills the sky fills with rain and the wind in my face carries a promise that it will be with me soon. I look at my watch and think that I've been sitting for an hour, shifting from position to position, my chin resting on my hands one minute, my arms spread expansively along the back of the bench the next. However I sit I can't help feeling like a fool. Why come here without so much as a plan or a promise?

"I'm going to visit Stonehenge with my group on Thursday. You should meet me there. It would be a romantic place to see each other for the first time."

I could probably have woken up earlier. I tell myself this as the last ebbing pocket of tourists complete their circuit and descend through the tunnel under the road and back to the turnstiles and gift shops. I could have been here all day, in what I imagine was a morning of sunshine while she walked around. I console myself by thinking of myself as the saddest heart in a sad place, and then tell myself off for being so self-indulgent. There are no other sad hearts to compete with anyway.

Every so often the shriek of the motorway reasserts itself as a particularly heavy vehicle shoots past, tearing the air with scant regard for aerodynamics. Roads open either side of the mound like car-toothed jaws, and I experiment with different benches scattered around the tour route to see if it is possible to look at the stones without seeing high-sided trucks shuddering past in the distance. A solitary figure emerges from the underpass, immediately recognisable as a member of the site staff, rotund under a colourful branded wind-cheater. Checking his watch, he pays attention at each bench, even though there is nowhere for anyone to hide and I get up and make my way back along the plastic walkway to the steps.

There is no real sunset. For a while, to the west, the roof of the great grey head of cloud shines silver in the thin atmosphere, and then it is gone.

I had expected to spend my morning travelling and my afternoon quietly falling in love. The evening was a question to which I had no answer. As I emerge again from under the thundering road, I do not stop at the gift stands, or linger for refreshments. I do not stop at the fence that marks the end of the car park. I slide between haphazardly parked coaches, and unseen, vault over the barrier, and run across the empty road. On the other side I can see a wide expanse of field and more distant, a squat wall of trees. The remains of crops crackle underfoot as I follow a dusty pathway sunk into the dirt of the field.

Squinting, I can see a girl in the distance. She wears blue jeans and a brown top tied with a belt. She has thick dark hair which moves slightly in the meddling breeze. She turns without noticing me and walks towards the stand of trees, the dark blue of her legs flicking between trunks for a few seconds before they assimilate her from view. I think about following her, but do not break my stride, and eventually conclude that I am walking towards the trees anyway, and want to explore them regardless of her sudden disappearance.

When I reach the edge of the trees I realise that it is only a small thicket and can already see the fields continuing on the other side of the colonnade of trunks. There's no sign of the girl. I crunch my way disappointedly through the leaf-refuse and slant my way between silver-barked trees of a species I have no chance of naming. At the far edge of the emerging field is a village, buildings the colour of winter-sands and a small church with a red-tiled spire jutting from the centre of its roof. Between semi-distant walls I get the brief impression that I see a shred of blue, but it is gone before I can even consciously register it and so I put this from my mind and trudge on through the field.

In contrast to the other side of the trees, the earth has been newly turned, teased and prodded to worm-wriggling looseness, with green shoots emerging in fastidious rows. No matter how softly I tread, my shoes sink into the soil, leaving inch deep impressions that cling to my heels; with every forward step calling me back. I keep my head up and try to ignore the dirt smearing the bottoms of my jeans, scanning occasionally left and right for the fist-shaking of an angry landowner. I am quite alone, with no one watching me as I stroll towards the buildings. I reach a fence with a small sprung gate, and leave the fields behind, stepping in wide-churned tire tracks onto a small sunken pathway that seems to surround the village. There is only one narrow passageway between buildings, a little off to my left, and I unhesitatingly step through, my shoulders brushing against moist stone, and emerge into a square with a church at one end of it, and shops on the other three sides, their awnings all closed like knitted brows.

The girl sits on the grey stone steps leading up to the church. She sees me now, and draws her knees up in front of her, hugging herself against a cold I do not feel. I walk towards her until I am standing at the foot of the steps.

"Hello K." I say, and she smiles at me.

K doesn't really smile at me because she is not here, and the fields lie empty and unexplored. I step back on the bus as the hollowness in me resonates. And within those vibrations I feel the pressure and movement of a body untold miles distant that I have not yet seen.  ¶ Philip 10:29 PM 0 comments links to this post