Dover

Godfrey would have ‘fehed’ and ‘poo-pawed’ the leaden grief I shouldered, long years ago now, once the reality of his passing grew heavier every day. suddenly, I felt every ache, saw every cobweb and crumb as up the stairs from our luggage shop I plodded. This day, however, came noise from our apartment, muttering in Welsh, pad of bare feet on cold tiles…could it be?, my long suffering husband Garnet hurried out, with a very large, hairy, black Wolf Spider, hanging from a drag line, on my writing shirt, which was wrapped about a stick. “It was behind the toilet”, he called back, after letting the spider out the one hall window that refused to close.

Proudly, he shook out my shirt, “only rag I could find”. He who could not abide spiders beamed. “Not a rag my dear, I took it from him, thank you, but so not a rag…

It is my writing shirt, left by Godfrey, it has a well worn, checkered history. I was wearing the shirt when the letter came from Beatrice, a stranger then, with words of Godfrey’s passing. Morning cold, susurrus of passing buses in the snow, I sat alone till afternoon when storm broke and sky struggled to clear. One sympathetic ray of winter sunlight lit up as I paused neath it, “The Bug Chandelier.”

All week I wore the shirt, rarely left my turquoise chair. The shirt was sewn of thick, brown cotton, now all softness nub worn. Shoulder seam torn, right sleeve longer than the other. “I dipped it in hot bacon fat,” explained Godfrey. “I cut it off at the cuff, lest it attract hungry varmint or bear”. “The other sleeve, but for hole in the elbow, promises many more years of long wear”.

Godfrey had used the shirt to rub a newborn foal dry. He wrote, “A bonny wee thing she was, chestnut with crooked blaze, bonded we did, the foal and I”.

He believed in the shirt, that it guided his pen, and when I wear the tatty thing, indeed I to feel the inspiration. It is oddly cool on hot summer days when we camp, warm by the drafty windows, with the heater on low. For a romantic, cozy night dress it is great, I am loathe to wash the shirt, lest it disintegrate.

“The shirt cost 50 pence, from a charity shop in Newbury”. His journal read,” my long trek by back road down to Dover nearly done.””On long, ocean voyage to Australia, the shirt hung off the ship’s stern, for it reeked of lavender and onion”. “The writing shirt bleached in the sun, I re- enforced the shoulders where backpack rubbed the fabric thin, it was even large enough when she was chilled, to wrap my daring Clementine in”.

“And the summer of long, recovery from knee surgery, in my hostel bunk, mattress ever damp and sandy, with persons breaking wind below, snoring above me, travelers talk in their sleep in Finnish and Urdu”. “I had stitches in my knee, places still to see, heaps I wanted yet to do.” “Making a pillow from my shirt at night, I stayed awake late as I could to write”.

Sun, salt and age have turned the once brown writing shirt, a distinguished “Horse Slobber Green”, faded to sage. One pocket is long gone, with stout dental floss he has sewn the remaining pocket on. The writing shirt, did the literary greats wear such a shirt? Those who roamed the Outback, broke trail with nothing to lose, where first to sail or go, the intense ones who threw paper and typewriter out the window. Did any of the lucky or who basked in wealth and glory, include a ratty shirt in their story?.

“Please keep this writing shirt”. Said Godfrey when last that October day we parted. Pulling over shaggy head, he presented it to me. It held that odd warmth, hanging baggy to my knee. “You will need the shirt to write, wear the shirt, while time waits for it to help you tell my story”. Godfrey, dearest friend, I implored him take it back, for we will guffaw again, and I could not write my way out of a wet paper sack”.

His ferry boat was docking, another one going, his final words lost to the ship’s whistles blowing. Wind gust drove autumn leaves past, swirled them to the guttering. He was laughing, calling down something, it may have been, “I will wait, as I know you would wait for me, at that distant shady gate”. “But it was probably “The walnuts were nasty in those last 6 butter tarts I ate”.

I wore the writing shirt my first ever flight, first ever, bittersweet trip to Wales. A middle aged ragamuffin, boarding the plane. Though nearly lost to Beatrice’s goats, the writing shirt and I made it home again. And, as is now well reported, eventually, I did take up my pen….

I am of the type that on my trips away to Wales, or even going camping up the lake, restless lie awake, struggle with “Resfeber”..Never packing until it’s time to go, aim my dainties in a wad across the room into a bag. I get to the airport the day before my flight, to prevent jet-lag. Godfrey learned the word his second year of travel, wrote it in the old diary Beatrice sent me.

Resfeber, he wrote, sounds like a nasty rash or nettle hive. It is the thudding of my heart, when I awake alive, excited for my day, who taught me this wisdom of think and thought? “It was a summers morning, hitching on a country lane near Aldershot. Came along an old, black car, a Bentley, though posh, it was mud spattered and a tad rusty. A Chauffeur ground it to a halt, a window rolled open, a craggy, old woman peered at me, up and down. She wore large jewels, and a hat of thick fur, requested that I, a vagabond, get in the car with her.

“I was wind burnt, had burrs in my kilt, hair grubby and askew, my shirt was to. I had been to the lighthouse, on stormy Point Bladderwrack, swam out to the Inchcape Rock, and back. Thus tattered, I met her, The Dowager Von Binge- she pressed manicured hand to my young, bare knee, I told her that I disliked beets, hello, I am Godfrey. “I am following the pathways of the poems I enjoyed as a lad, from Batley, to Newbury Town, slowly, Australia bound”. “I have been to the lakes, felt city streets that must be “The Torrible Zones”, walked 100 acre woods, sat and ate Haggis high on a Roman wall, have found a poem written for them all”.

Her driver was a silent chap, Jerome, we turned up a long drive, to hot bath in her ancient manor home. Left in only a towel as my clothes dried, sat in a drawing room, lined with paintings of ladies and lords, long since died. “In marched The Dowager Von Binge with stately bearing, cheekily eyeing the towel I was wearing, Jerome stood stoic with tea on a tray, the cups were stained and chipped, but the tea was Earl Grey. “The cuffs of his uniform were thread bare, I could smell Herring cooking off somewhere”.

“I tried not to slurp- silence echoed, then The Dowager spoke- “Resfeber! Ah, the restless heart! Free of yoke and obligation, the tangled thrill of knowing, you are on a great adventure going. “in childhood, I had a donkey and trap , learned from her to take it slow, you do not hurry a donkey, where you go”. “I doubt we meandered more than five miles in a day, all rural lanes about, no horrifying motorway” “While donkey dozed beneath shade tree, I dreamed to, of poetry, and distant lands I’d see when grown, born to wealth, I did see it all in manner grand, but in secret, longed to roam as you do, pack on back and pen in hand’. “One day we met a man with goat cart, walking, at goat’s joy, even slower than Donkey and me, letting his goats set the pace, browse and crop, he said- “It matters not how slow you go, or where your journey leads, long as the Resfeber never stop”. “This is a wisdom I learned from the kindly, old Dowager Von Binge”.

“We dined on smoked herrings, spoke of whirled peas, paper roads, and kings, she did not ask me why I disliked beets, or other embarrassing things. Resfeber! “Spoke I of days when it was better to enjoy where you are, than to get far’ “I load my suitcase carefully, with lunch inside on top, one time tramping with a friend, she dropped a spoon”. “I said, excuse me miss, you dropped this, she turned to look at me- “it is your spoon in the mud, Godfrey” “We both bent to fetch it, knocked heads with a thud, my heavy suitcase pulled me over, and in the dirt we lay”. “A crowd gathered, the thoughtless clapped, wayward cutlery slowed me, but did not ruin what I now know was Resfeber, the joy of another fine day.

“This is why it took me two years, to get from Wales to Dover. Whether washing my socks in Loch-Ness, or mid city seeking urban Pentimento, I met people like The Dowager Von Binge, who reminded me to “see the sees, to smell the smell , to take it slow”.

This odd encounter makes sense, for Godfrey would talk to anyone, talk of anything but beets, he made friends so easily, I, however have found no record of The Dowager Von Binge, and he never spoke of her, or Jerome. They are as mysterious as the old journal that contained their story…