I am painting green and yellow flamingos on to your white porcelain bowl

When complete I will let it dry in the smooth warm breeze as I fear that the hot sun will fade my fine work

You are sitting on a canvas chair reading a cheap battered paperback which is called The Abdication of King Joe

We are stationary at present as our travelling day has not yet commenced

I tell you that we are about two days from the Canal des Deux Mers

And beyond that the Mediterranean

But before the beach there is a lot to see

 

We had been travelling for about two hours when a man waves to us from the bank and asks us to stop

He talks of his canal

The French countryside is beautiful in high summer but is a harsh mistress who fought me all the way defending every metre

He explained over the chilled lime water

And strawberries dipped in honey

My wife reads a passage from her paperback which the engineer finds very funny

He asks after the author

You explain the anonymity of the writer

He wonders if it was one of his friends

Satire is a wonderful weapon

But deadly

The engineer points to a map and requests we stop at a point convenient to us both

He gives me drawings which he explains were some of the plans for the canal

My wife gives him her paperback

The engineer protests

She explains that it is unfinished

As she has removed the final twenty-eight pages

In homage to the mysterious writer

He receives the gift graciously and explains that he often reads pulp

Preferring it to be damaged or lost

I place the fragile maps near to the drying bowl

And look at the golden sun

Which is now high in the sky unhindered by any clouds

 

We should be wearing our hats but the caressing breeze inhibits this

We are touched by its eroticism

 

As the afternoon enjoys our passage you move freely around our boat wearing one of my writing shirts over your bikini

You move like a gazelle

I intend to write a poem about you on my writing shirt

When the day cools

You hand me my garment and ask me to commence my poem immediately

 

An hour or so later we are again requested to stop by a man in a heavy coat not suited for the weather

You request my shirt again for the man tells us that he is the Dean of a Cathedral in Dublin

The man smiles and notes that beauty should never be covered

He ask me about my poetry and whether I publish it anonymously

I explain that I do not publish it all

Only my shirt betrays my effort

He tells me of his fear of trees

There are many near to where we sit

And of insanity

I question whether we are all sound of mind and whether the beauties of this day are best enjoyed by a madman

Emerging from the lower decks my wife has changed into her peacock dress

The Dean smiles and notes that she reminds him of a woman he once knew

Now long dead

Her name was Esther

The peacock dress suited many moods as peacocks are capricious birds prone to fickleness and much changeable in their behaviours

My wife assures the Dean that she is a person of calm moods sometimes prone to a little melancholy even on wonderful days

He asks for a lock of her golden hair as he once possessed a lock of hair from a beautiful women but had lost it during the centuries passed

I cut a lock of my wife’s hair and place it a small envelope and note light tears in his rheumy eyes which are only visible in the direct sunlight

He in return gives me a small red book faded also by the sun

The book is the Complete Works of Lewis Carroll

He ask that when he is gone that we read the poem on page eight hundred and sixty eight and tells us both of his friendship with the Reverend Dodgson

In time the Dean departs and as he leaves us slips the tiny envelope containing a lock of my wife’s hair into his coat pocket

This will always be on my person I will not lose it for a second time

We both watch him as he walks stiffly away from us

Occasionally he looks into the trees as if his attention has been momentarily alerted by a passing bird

I read the final lines of the poem to you

The eyes that loved it once no longer wake
So lay it by with reverent care
Touching it tenderly for sorrows sake
It is a woman’s hair

We sleep in separate beds

The boat is designed in that manner

It is not a boat for lovers you joke

But for companions

I slip into your narrow bed

And lie on your breasts

You ask for stories

And I tell you of the Spanish pirates

Whose disordered ways

In part created this canal

Than runs from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean

There is a great distance to be covered

And we will needs our rest

Before we greet the sea once again

I slip back into my bed

And dream of lying on your breasts

Telling you stories of Spanish pirates

 

As a treat we decided to eat at a hotel

Some twenty kilometres distant

It is run by an English woman

Called Hilda Cottam

Who was once married to a Frenchman

A Hero of the Resistance

Who owned a large house

Next to the canal

In later years they changed it into a hotel

With each of its rooms named of one their six grandchildren

At seven in the evening we meet Hilda Cottam

A frail bird like woman of eighty six years

Her husband died fifteen years ago

And she is helped by a small army of locals

Who accept her as their own

As she was once married to a hero of the resistance

She explains that she has a declining disease

And will most probably be dead within five years

But she does not fear death

For she has met God many times

She often sees him on passing boats

And his son often eats at the hotel

With his twelve friends

I have seen the promised waters and the skies beyond

And am looking forward to spending eternity there

With her husband who was a hero of the resistance

But died a haunted man

As he did not share her faith

For he had visited Hell on many occasions

 

Hilda takes an immediate liking to my wife

Who is wearing her jade and lemon dress

The older woman considers that she is the most beautiful of women

And does not believe her fifty-seven years

They exchange photographs of grandchildren

Ours are still very young aged three and one

Whereas Hilda’s are young adults

She wishes for great-grandchildren

Before she dies

But if none arrive

Then that is God’s will

 

He told me so the other day when he was passing on a boat 

 

When she was in her youth she was beautiful also

But her beauty faded

The trees and canal retain my younger self I see it every day and this makes me so happy

It is God’s gift to me

She hands my wife a small black Bible

It was given to me by a most beautiful woman

Who was my mother

It was given to me in 1940 and was part of a bequest from the will of a certain Philip Lord Wharton who died in 1696

His only condition was that we should learn certain psalms

Which I did  before my tenth birthday

A beautiful woman gave it to a beautiful child who now passes it on to a most beautiful woman

My wife regrets the gift insisting that her children and grandchildren are more worthy

I cannot split the book into nine and I knew that one day a very beautiful woman would arrive transported by the canal

She would remind me of my most cherished mother

And this the person to whom I would present the Bible

My only condition is that you learn the self-same psalms as requested by my benefactor

 

We ask her of her travels and learn that she only returns to England twice a year

I love the country of my ancestors

But where am I to find more beauty than is here

When I die I have asked my staff to throw my ashes carelessly into the canal and bury my empty urn under that path that leads to the lock

Due to the geography of the area that part of the path has a habit of crumbling away and if I can of use after my death then let it be God’s will

He suggested this to me during a recent visit

 

She asks us of our plans and we explain that we intend to relax uninhibited on a beach at Cap D’Agde and swim in the sea

Beauty and sensuality go hand in hand we miss this fact in England but the French know this it is in their genetic make up

Their literature and art betray this fact

Quite often I have English visitors and they cannot deal with the beauty of this area they are just heading south

My hotel is just like a railway station

However the French appreciate the beauty of the hotel and the surrounding area

They too are heading south

Or maybe north

Or maybe east or west

But they appreciate the beauty that surrounds them

I often travel south

Artists used to paint me

But now they are dead and I am too old

To travel far

But you are young mature and adventurous

Do read a psalm on your uninhibited beach

 

Neither of us had met an Englishwoman like Hilda before and after we moored for the night some three kilometres away from the hotel we were strangely silent

We thought that we knew our island race

But the canal had sprung a surprise on us

We hoped to meet her again but deep down we knew that we would not be passing for a year or two

Perhaps her disease would adopt the pace of the area

Or perhaps God would intervene and invite her on to his boat for a final time when passing

 

During the night my wife crept into my bed she had dreamt of Alexander the Great and his horse Bucephalus

She felt she could hear them riding in nearby fields

But when she went onto the deck she could neither hear nor see anything apart from the insects of the night

She dreamt that she was Statira daughter of Darius and that she married Alexander and that she had joined him on his expeditions

As far as the Ganges

My wife spends the night on my breast

Her breathing betrayed her travel

 

There is a fallacy that the further south you travel the warmer it gets

This may be true in the tropics

But is not true in Southern France

We both explore Alexander’s field without shoes

We close our eyes

Trying to find evidence of hoof prints with our bare feet

The horse Bucephalus rode here I heard its ride many times    

For nearly an hour we search the field but find nothing

The day is warm but the soil feels cool under our feet

It will remain so until the height of the day

And then it will warm as the day matures

And grow cool as the day dies

 

As we return to our boat we discover a dead migrating bird

You wrap it in a yellow cloth

And we bury it next to the canal

Where it can witness the southern travellers

 

We approach the Malpas Tunnel

You have been sunbathing for the last hour

I warn you that tunnels are always cool

As fields are in the height of summer

This was a secret tunnel

Cut against the advice of the foolish

I touch Riquet’s concrete ceiling

As we drift through the tunnel

And think that this surface

Has never been touched by the warmth of the sun

Or experienced the sensuality of direct sunlight

Yet each day it witnesses the light and both ends of the tunnel

Which is evident even on the darkest of winter days

To humour my warning you have removed all your clothes and sit like a figurehead on the bow of the boat

You tell me that the coolness of your skin is as sensuous as the sun

I promise to make you a coffee when we emerge from the underworld

 

We are passing the Chemin de la flegme near the round lock in Agde

This is our destination

From Agde we will travel the short distance to the Cap d ‘Agde  where we will spend the next two weeks before returning to England on a TGV

 

We have visited Bezier and I have explained to you why the town is still sad

I hand you a note which reads Kill them all; let God sort them out which was supposedly uttered by a certain Arnaud Amaric prior the massacre

The churches and the cathedral provided no sanctuary to the Cathars and others and they were all slaughtered I explained

It was a day that even saddened the Devil himself  

 

As we explored Bezier you lit a candle in every church we visited

You always light a candle when we visit a church

 

I note in my travel diary that now we are on one of these uninhibited beaches and there is a sense of overwhelming space

As I write this I am watching you paddle in the shallows

Many like people pass you but few acknowledge your beauty

Beauty

Hilda explained beauty

And in his own way the Dean explained beauty

Everything I see is beautiful or at least I consider it to be

The beach is busy but there is a warm silence similar to that that we both experienced on the boat

But the silence is different

You are swimming now with your blond hair wet and flat in the calm warm waters and after a while emerge from the sea like one of Sappho’s women

You let the sea drip from you as you stand above me shadowing the sun

Let us swim to the Maghreb tonight

Is there not enough beauty for you here?

I think of our boat moored in the hot sun in AgdeI

It will remain there for a month before it is borrowed by friends who will travel northwards once again

I wonder who they will meet and consider their dreams

I think of the narrow canal and its Latin inscriptions

There are no Latin inscriptions on this beach

The beach is wide and a place for pleasure

It was designed for this purpose

Forty years ago

Let us swim to the Maghreb tonight

You repeat your question

I smile but do not answer

When you are still you are still travelling

I whisper in your damp ear

The stars are aware of this