Living in Lych Pit
Decisions fuelled by Chablis are seldom wholly rational. Thus, at midnight on a balmy September evening, it seemed entirely sensible to walk the gentle hour from the town centre back to Lychpit. It was an Indian summer, the night was still and soft; silent as owl flight once I had left the centre itself and started to follow the line of the old canal, through Eastrop Park and then out past the nature reserve and the watercress beds. Circling out from the trees, a bat flickered across the sky and, as I turned up the slope of Swing Swang Lane, under the bridge, I am sure the white chest and luminous eyes of a fox darted across the road and melted into the railway undergrowth.
The night was benign, but the wine was heavy. The knoll at the end of Lambs Row called out to the protesting pads of my feet but as the path opened out, I found that a tiny muntjac had a prior claim and was nibbling contentedly on the grass, its plump little body balancing on tiny legs like a Beryl Cook ballerina. Reluctant to disturb the creature, I slowly eased myself to the ground and sat back against a tree near the edge of the clearing. As I settled myself, a voice said, “A fine evening for a walk, is it not?”
I jumped, and only then did the little deer bolt away. The voice - calm, clear and sober - emanated from a long, relaxed figure stretched out on the green, the back of his head cradled in interlaced fingers. As he spoke, he continued the contemplation of the stars which I had evidently interrupted, “I used to wonder whether the stars were dying, there used to be so many more, but then I realised it was simply the light; the light of mankind.” He laughed softly. “Who would have thought you could pollute with light. Still, we should enjoy this fine night as best we can.” He lay with a clear view of the sky but shielded from the orange glow of the streetlamps so that his form seemed somehow insubstantial in the shadows.
“I remember when all this was fields save for the odd house or farm. Like the place back there,” he gestured with his head and my slowly following mind eventually alighted on Lychpit House back on Little Basing. Fleetingly, I was conscious of the sharp bend in the road, the high wooden fence that backed the trees, the fact that everything curved around this spot and that the house and Little Basing were both closer, and older, than I appreciated.
“You could walk for miles back then and never meet a soul, if you had the mind. But that’s progress for you and you can’t stand in the way. When you get to my age and you see things differently, you see beyond the great pendulum of fashion.” It was hard to guess his age in the shadows; anywhere between 30 and 50, I would have guessed; but certainly, no older. “You just see progress getting faster and faster and the world getting smaller and flatter, like a postage stamp. And didn’t they say that those would change the world? And railways. And the canal. Well, that didn’t last so long. But railways, that was interesting; bringing people, bringing time.
“You could stand here and see the smoke from the foundries and factories in the town. Now, the town’s all offices and apartments and not a puff of smoke in sight. Except the incinerator, of course.” He chuckled quietly and was silent for a moment. Then, “I remember when this was all fields. But, I remember when it wasn’t, too; back when all of England was forest.” The man paused, “I miss the trees,” he decided. “I miss their soul; their great patient, timeless presence. You can still find a few of the old ones, here or there. In the copses west and north of here, even in the heart of the village too, down in the dell there.” His head gestured back to the wooden fence and I realised I had no idea what was behind it. “On nights like this, it’s good to be among the trees. I guess they’ve known me all their lives.”
I thought of the living bark of the young tree against which I sat as I let the strange narrative wash through me. The man continued to speak, as if from direct memory, drifting from period to period. He spoke of plagues and the taste in the air of plague-pits before they were filled in. He spoke of Edwin Landseer Lutyens building the big house on the Danes’ Hill and of the earlier architect, Inigo Jones, under siege in Basing House until Cromwell razed it to the ground, “Cromwell, he made some changes. And I guess he did some good, too,” he mused. “Provided plenty of building materials, for sure. Shame it all went to his head. Still, if you have God on your side, I guess you can’t expect to have the people too.”
I must have drifted off to sleep at some point because I was suddenly conscious of a change in the air and in my companion’s tone.
“...the Kingdom of Wessex, of course. It was a hard mid-winter – though they all seemed hard – and Æthelred’s men came and we were at war. Simple as that. You don’t refuse the king’s men, even when the king is little more than a distant myth. All you want is a quiet life, so you fight for hope and for your little corner of scratched earth.
“We were all lined up with our axes and spears and farm tools, whatever we had. We were shouting, everyone was shouting. Shouting to frighten the Danes and to still our own terrified hearts. Shouting in terror and panic and confusion and pain. I never saw it coming. The first I knew was a powerful, narrow punch straight in my chest. I looked down and the arrow was buried in me, as much out the back as out front, and down I went.
“You don’t think much, not really. You don’t feel much, either. I suppose I passed out then because I became conscious again later,” his voice now was cold and hollow, lost in himself. “Just for a short time. Mercifully. I felt the press of heavy, heavy dampness on me, the cold black earth in my mouth. My body was so twisted, I couldn’t even tell if the hand pressed against my face was my own, if the pain I felt came from my own limbs. And the smell of gore and ordure. The reek of death; the engulfing stench of my death as I realised I was buried alive – though barely and fadingly – in a lych pit.”
I awoke again, much later, stiff and aching and so cold with the strange dream’s last words a sludgy echo in my wine-treacled mind. It was a little before 3:00 am and I was, of course, alone. I hobbled out of the trees and stumbled down the bank welcoming the sodium-yellow glow like the warmth of the rising sun. I reached home by 3:30, using the centre of the road to avoid the shadows, and tumbled into bed with a second duvet wrenched from the spare room. In the morning, I emptied the hot water tank through the shower and it barely warmed me. I sneezed and cursed myself through some tea and toast and retired back to bed pausing only to gather the previous night’s clothes into the laundry basket. Mindlessly emptying the pockets, something irregular and coarse caught my attention. The crudely round shape was thin and worn with a cross and the letters “EDILRED REX” just barely visible. As I turned the coin in my fingers, crumbs of fresh earth dropped into my palm and I felt a graveyard chill penetrate my fingertips.