Chapter 5. Running up that hill


    "Is that the Farm ?" Vie asked.


    ''''You can see almost all of it from up here." Innis said.


    He was glad for Vie''s company. It was chance to get to know


    each other better. Nain Joan had been too busy to come


    and Charlotte had her land army duties.


    Using his walking stick Innis walked arm in arm with Vie


    until they reached the top of the hill.


    "I used to come up here when I was a boy with my Mother."


    They sat on a low stone wall and waited for Innis to catch


    his breath "It might be old age, but I don''t remember this hill


    being so steep."


    Vie had noticed in the last months a steady decline in his health.


    "What do see out there?" Innis asked.


    "I see a green valley," Vie said, "wide empty fields and a lake at


    the foot of the ranges."


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    "Do you see the chalk horse cut into the far valley wall?"


    "I can." Vie said.


    "Some mornings when the mist lies flat across this valley,


    that horse looks like it''s standing by a seashore."


    "I hope I see that one day." .


    "I hope you do too." Innis said.


    "Did you grow up around here?" Vie asked.


    "Down by that lake there once stood a country house.


    It was part of a large estate that was prosperous enough to


    have it''s own Chapel. My Father was employed there as a


    Pastor and our family lived in a manse on the property.


    The three of us, my Mother, Father and me."


    Vie couldn''t see any of what Innis had described.


    "What happened to it all?"


    Innis looked at his hands.


    "My Father was the worst kind of self righteous hypocrite.


    I think he honestly believed he was destined for a position


    in the high Anglican church. But it wasn''t to be, so he took


    his frustrations out on Mother and me, and I got more


    beatings than I can remember."


    Vie shook her head.


    "I was young then, I didn''t understand how trapped my


    Mother was with him. I''m ashamed to say I thought she was


    weak. One night when my Father hit her, I took a kitchen


    knife and stabbed him. I don''t know who yelled at me the loudest.


    I didn''t wait around to find out, I ran away from home."


    "You came back though." Vie said.


    ''''Eventually." Innis said. "When I came back I found out the


    estate had changed hands a number of times over the years.


    It was in a bad way. The Chapel had lost it''s roof and the manse


    that we''d lived in, was being used to store hay."


    "Where were your parents?"


    "I asked about them when I bought the property. The owners at


    that time had no idea. I had it all razed to the ground and cleared


    away - the Chapel, the manse, the manor house, everything.


    I let the local towns people come and take whatever they wanted.


    Then one day some workmen clearing the overgrown gardens


    near where the Chapel was, found some unmarked headstones."


    "You parents?" Vie asked.


    "Maybe." Innis said. "I had the headstones removed and broken up."


    Vie took a closer look at the stones that made up the low wall they


    were sitting on.


    "You''re a perceptive young woman." Innis said. "What I did was


    a waste of time - but it did help me to understand that the only place


    the past exists, is in your mind."


    Vie thought about that for a moment.


    "Then it wasn''t a complete waste of time then." she said.


    Innis smiled.


    *