Nightingales
Inspired by the words at the beginning of Dante’s Inferno
“In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell what a wild, and rough, and stubborn wood this was, which in my thought renews the fear!”
Did I tell you that my father kept bees? His first venture into beekeeping was not popular with the neighbours, even in the open greenness of our village. Convinced that they were going to be stung to death, in spite of the fact that bees spend their days out about their business and only come home to bring back the goods.
So he rented a small field, and the number of hives grew, to maybe twenty or more. This field was a wild, free place for children and we loved going there with him, made dens from brushwood and ‘fished’ in the shiny overgrown little pond where the cows from the next field came to drink. But never in the copse. It was only a small copse, but very dense. Even the cattle didn’t bother to venture in along the thin paths that wound through the slender trees and the thick undergrowth. There was something else in that copse; have you ever felt it? The presence of something, someone maybe that you just can’t quite see. The feeling that if you just turned your head or listened more carefully … an ancient place, a scary place.
A hut was soon added to the estate; the luxury of two old armchairs, one to sit in, one for putting his feet up. A primus stove and a kettle for tea. Probably a few bottles of beer, though men like my father didn’t reckon bottled beer. It needed to come frothy out of a pump, in a crowded room full of smoke and people who knew you.
In the summer he would often stay up there till after dark. I think it was his refuge, his bit of peace from the noisy house of children and dogs. If we joked about him sleeping up there in his little bee kingdom, he always denied it. He had stayed, he said, to listen to the nightingales singing in the copse. It became a family joke, Dad and his ‘nightingales’
The letter from the BBC came as quite a surprise then, asking for permission to record in the field. It was, they said, one of the few places where they could record nightingales with no traffic noise. That was a bit of a blow to our humour.
He didn’t live long to enjoy his peace, his bees, and his birdsong. A sad, early death. The field given up, the bees sold. No longer any connection with the magic copse. Until today.
I’m visiting my mother in the old house and taking the dogs for their evening walk. There is a soft rain in the air, but it is not unpleasant, and dogs must be walked. The summer evening light is still filtering mildly through the clouds.
This is not my place anymore. I am a stranger with another life, another home, another family. A husband, a child. One child, only one, another lost. Something to be hidden away and not talked of, but the soft rain and the dimming light bring back the pain, though truthfully, it never goes away. As I walk the old questions reappear like the relentless rain dripping in tears from the leaves and the branches.
Lost in thought, I have walked too far. The light is fading, the wet seeping through my coat, and I find myself here, at the gate of the bee field. I will have to retrace my steps and take the long way home, or go through that copse, that home of my childhood fears. As we enter the shadow of it the dogs stop their explorations and walk close in to me, almost tripping me on the narrow path that is barely a path at all.
It so so overgrowm, briars grab at my coat and I must move broken branches from my path. The grass and weeds grow tall and dense. Why did I come in here? There is no space for the old fears, the struggle with nature is too tough, for any thoughts of what might be hidden there. I think I am mainly angry, with the wood, with myself. I am tired and chilled. Coming to a little clearing I take a rest and lean against a tree. The dim evening light filters through here, so does the rain. I slide down beside the tree, and it’s almost exhilarating to have done battle with the elements, with grabbing prickling uncontrolled nature. So why am I crying? How stupid is that? Weeping. Eyes and nose streaming and helplessly trying to mop my face with the sodden tissues from my wet coat pocket.
But now it comes to me, knife sharp and clear through the evening haze. A sound I never heard before and which reaches back over the years, healing and bright. I should move forward, get out of this place before dark, but I don’t. I stay there, very still. The dogs are leaning their bodies against me and I am grateful for their warmth. I just stay still there in the darkening air listening, listening to my father’s nightingales.