when i come to the last pair i keep walking i keep walking slowly backwards down the hill i come to a house and then a road i keep walking backwards i am in the lowlands now i walk through fields and through hedges and gateways there are people but they do not see me i am glad about that i keep walking over motorways and through towns and cities. i come to a town i walk down a street which seems familiar i continue to walk backwards down the pavement i look up at a window above a shop and i see two faces looking down on me a woman and a young girl. now what is that expression on their faces their hands are moving behind the glass. well i don’t know anything about that. i keep walking i pass a school there is a playground full of children circling around and around something like wild dogs i hide in a corner until they have gone in i find myself lying on a bed with a girl she is a child i am a child we are wondering what to do next what happens if i touch you here well if you touch me i can touch you i suppose this is how it works that seems fair i think.
there seem to be birds scrabbling on the roof. i don’t know what this woman is saying to me a minute ago she was shouting at me now she is putting her arms around me no it is not my fault we agree on that it’s all fine really. if you keep walking backwards it emerges from behind you and then falls away again before you into the cloud and it is all fine really it is just like the wind blowing through and over you there is really no time to feel anything about it. i seem to be lying on the ground outside i don’t think i wanted to be lying here the ground is hard beneath me. i keep walking.
i move out of the town past giant metal sheds and down dirty roads i pass through a wooden gate and now rushes and reeds grow up around me from behind. i walk backwards through the rushes and the reeds and on both sides of me black water spreads out and around i keep walking though i do not know what i am walking on. forests of rushes and reeds and great black trees come from behind me and fall away there are sounds on all sides now there is an island in the water and men on horses gather around it. i keep walking backwards into a forest there are pigs in the forest i can hear them grunting around there is a group of men one of them kneels on the floor now i am sure i have seen them before now what is this. a line of men on a hill falls back and down everything falls back and down you could keep walking this way forever everything grows green after a while and the sounds of the beasts are deeper and wilder. there is an ocean of stillness back here. i recommend walking backwards everybody should walk backwards at least some of the time.
but are there any cats here. no i have not seen any and it is a cat i am searching for i remember that the cat found me and left me and i must look into its yellow eyes because there are secrets there and i need to learn them. it is all very well looking backwards but what i am looking for is not here. i walk forwards instead over we go now through the cloud and heather for ever and ever it feels like forever that i have been here. maybe the stone row is an arrow that points to the cat i haven’t heard the cat for a while i can’t smell it now i don’t think perhaps if i keep walking this way something will come. the ground begins to fall now to slope gently downwards the heather gives way to bracken here this is something new. and as i walk something else rises before me but it is not as tall as the stones and it is wider it is a low wall a low wall of earth. as i come up to it and look closer i can see that the earth is mounded and moulded around large stones which are embedded deep in the ground.
i turn right and i begin to follow this low wall which nearly comes up to my waist. after a while there is a gap in the wall i walk through the gap the cloud is still everywhere i come to a small circle of stones with some other stones scattered and buried in the ground inside it. i keep exploring there is more than one the low earth wall makes a circle around these smaller circles of stone it is like an old encampment or a village or something there i was right the stone row was pointing to something it was pointing here to this place. people lived up here that earth wall was a dyke with sharpened sticks around it there were sentries at the gate these little stone circles were houses there were fires in the grates in winter and thatch on the roofs look i am sitting on a flat stone in the middle of one of these circles it was a table or a fireplace or a bed a woman is sitting at the edge of the bed she has wild hair and hunched shoulders she is speaking in tongues she can see that up on the ridges walks a man with a staff and a wide hat she can see that a wolf plays around his feet and a raven around his shoulders she sees through the shadows cast on his face she looks into his one eye and she keeps speaking to him or to herself she keeps muttering.
outside is the sound of children playing it is not cloudy the sun is shining there is no heather or bracken there are wheat fields there are grapevines everything is abundant blue birds sing in the air the water is clean there are men with spears their faces are tattooed there are mangoes growing on trees outside there are apricots the skin of the people is weathered brown. there are goats in the pens inside the outer wall there are dogs barking there are cats the cats are here to keep the mice away from the wheat the cats are here to keep the place clean the cats are here to eat what must be eaten. if you have never been eaten then what are you.
i am hungry again i don’t suppose there is anything to eat here there are no bilberries anyway i am sick of bilberries i never want to eat another berry. never mind hunger is just a feeling feelings come and go they are like worms inside you like birds passing over just watch them and they pass by. there is nothing to eat here and i cannot eat anyway until i have looked into its eyes it would bring me terrible bad luck to eat before i have looked into its eyes it would be an indulgence it would take me away. what i need is to empty myself. perhaps it has never looked into my eyes because i have failed because i am not empty.
now. there. hear that.
it is the cat again it is the scream of the cat it is coming from my left it is indistinct it is not close but i can hear it well enough i stand up i rise from the flat stone on which i was sitting and i turn to face the direction of the sound i stay precisely still until i hear it again. yes. it is some distance away but there it is calling me i begin to walk i cross two of the hut circles and when i come again to the embankment wall i shuffle myself over it and i keep walking through the bracken the bracken gives way to heather there are bilberries here but i will not stop there is no stopping now. i hear the cry again does it sound higher than it did before does it sound different i keep walking and the ground begins to slope downwards first gently and then steeply i lie down i put my arms by my side and i begin to roll down the slope i am rolling down the slope with my sister and we are both laughing. who can get to the bottom first she is older but i always win there is the smell of mown grass by the cricket pavilion in the park we get up together and we race to the water fountain she is older but i always win because i am faster. i drink for hours in the summer sun we will find our friends by the swings and dare each other to go right the way through the low tunnel where the stream goes under the railway line can you stand in the middle when the train passes over without running listen to that sound there is the sound again it is nearer. now there are rocks there are outcrops of granite and i am having to scramble down them there are ferns growing between the rocks now and there is the sound of water there is distant water running between the rocks there is the cry of the cat it is closer now. the sound of the cat and the sound of water singing under stones.