Tripping on the Water Like a Laughing Girl

A day out with work today meaning a drive from here to Chesterfield. There was a lot of red in the sky first thing and there was mist on the moors by The Cat and Fiddle. All this time in a reasonably fast car equipped with hi-fi of good order meant a lot of great driving moments and a lot of fun had by all. Conclusion is that the best track for such a journey is Stupid Girl by Garbage though best album is Lovelife by Lush. Stories from the city, Stories from the sea is still good however.

Leaving at the far end, with the thought of home in your head and good loud music in your ears is powerful magic. This drive is through green and pleasant, real countryside, just losing its summer shine at this time of year. It goes from the bright edge-of-the-moors provinciality of Chesterfield itself, through bucolic and seemingly sleepy Bakewell, genteel Buxton to Macclesfield, the missing link between mill town and farm town. This journey must also be one of the few drives of a hundred miles where it is possible to see the final destination when not even half way through. The twisty descent from the tops after Buxton down towards Macclesfield has views of the whole Cheshire plain, spotted with towns and heading towards the Welsh midlands. In the distance are the various landmarks of Merseyside and South Lancashire, while nearside are various peaks, which always surprise me in countryside so close to where I live. The PJ Harvey Mercury Prize winning album is a good start as music but it makes me miss a useful stop in the still-green valleys near Bakewell, a café and bookshop, so unexpected but by the time I have seen it, I am past the entrance and on the wrong road as well. This means I have to go through Bakewell itself, though this seems like going back in time, with old cars, and no clone town this. I want to sound like Pevsner here but Architecture passes too fast, a blur of stone, the opera house gone and in last week already.

The high tops might have meant a stop for coffee at the Cat and Fiddle but the long road and long views towards home keep my foot on the pedal. We are into the Lush now. The jangle and rock of Ladykillers keeps me happy for the downhill stretch to Macclesfield but the Auto-Eroticism of 500 seems most appropriate for the gradual population of the roadside. At these lights in half-village – half town suburbanity, a languid couple, skater kids, sit or lie on some street furniture, tapping away to something I cannot hear. And we are back in a landscape I know, almost like where I grew up. Slowing for a turn, I rumble by another couple, teenagers I think, though sensibly dressed for possible rain. She is long faced with hair to match, walking ahead of him by 10 paces, though I am sure that they are together. The whole world of their day has filled my head, each thought, each reason for them being here and separated by this distance. What quarrel has happened or has it been gradual tiredness overcoming their day between A levels and college. There it is; Nascent love, split by different degrees. There is no argument, just fear of the future. Now I have their thoughts in my head from so far back on that road, all the mixed up ideas of what has been and what might be. A powerful thing is love. Forget that old thing of dumping boyfriends/girlfriends when you go to university.

What is the world like when no one is there?

This is from Mrs Dalloway.

There was nobody. Her words faded. So a rocket fades. Its sparks, having grazed their way into the night, surrender to it, dark descends, pours over the outlines of houses and towers; bleak hillsides soften and fall in. But though they are gone, the night is full of them; robbed of colour, blank of windows, they exist more ponderously, give out what the frank daylight fails to transmit—the trouble and suspense of things conglomerated there in the darkness; huddled together in the darkness; reft of the relief which dawn brings when, washing the walls white and grey, spotting each window-pane, lifting the mist from the fields, showing the red-brown cows peacefully grazing, all is once more decked out to the eye; exists again. I am alone; I am alone! she cried, by the fountain in Regent’s Park (staring at the Indian and his cross), as perhaps at midnight, when all boundaries are lost, the country reverts to its ancient shape, as the Romans saw it, lying cloudy, when they landed, and the hills had no names and rivers wound they knew not where—such was her darkness; when suddenly, as if a shelf were shot forth and she stood on it, she said how she was his wife, married years ago in Milan, his wife, and would never, never tell that he was mad! Turning, the shelf fell; down, down she dropped. For he was gone, she thought—gone, as he threatened, to kill himself—to throw himself under a cart! But no; there he was; still sitting alone on the seat, in his shabby overcoat, his legs crossed, staring, talking aloud.

I read all this to my wife last night, as it is just perfect. It says all I want to but cannot, about those little calming places I think about at night. As I drive past a wood in the rain, I imagine it while I am asleep, the rain falling on no one, just the dark and patter of the rain. And this is the argument about sound when no one is there. I hear the whole world at once, like the thoughts of these two who should be in each other’s arms, not silent and separate. They talked some night months ago, and kissed, drunkenly, their first time drunk perhaps, trying not to admit they don’t like the feeling, but she thinks of poetry and hopes he will write her some. Maybe he is not the sort she thinks but there is always the chance. She thinks she loves him but thinks she might be too young to know. I thought in cliché at that age but knew I shouldn’t. Still what’s wrong with a good cliché? Most pop for the last forty years has been full of things already said but the best of them are still good songs, good enough to give a chuckle of recognition when spoofed to people who do not even know the song. Don’t you want me baby? Woe We We Woe Woe! They have a whole story to themselves, and now they are together still, with grey hair and Bupa.

The last stretch is always powerful; entry to Liverpool is always on long, straight roads, powering down from the high moors, with dramatic sun and dark clouds. The music ends and home opens like a dream. Coffee keeps me awake and thoughts of all my life make me sleep.