Broxwood Heart: A Christmas Story for Herefordshire By James Clarke WHERE the icy road ribboned out over the edge of the high ground, mist hung thick and the world John Bowden knew, but had become tired of, retreated quickly in the rearview mirror.
John had not met anyone, had given himself to his work as a teacher and made that his own cocoon. Recently he had felt adrift, a loose canon and therefore dangerous somehow.
Far across the country, out to the furthest western sky, glimpsed momentarily on the descent at Birdlip, he could see the watchful, snow dusted high ground above Hay-on-Wye. John remembered an old uncle of his always calling it God's Country.
An unexpected, almost forgotten, sense of belonging emerged. That Christmas memory was still there if you worked hard enough to recover it.
John's dad had died three years after John had left home and the break between them had never been truly healed. Twelve years on, John felt differently. Even the largest rock eventually moves. John began losing himself in the memory of his dad - the tangle of grey beard and the bear-hug arms, the kind, deep blue eyes capped by thick, fiery eyebrows.
The place John had called home, and which he had wilfully kicked against and eventually left behind, became a vivid picture as snow danced outside the car. Glimmers of the past unspooled, criss crossing, folding in and out of each other across the windscreen.
Spotting red berries in the hollybushes as he headed closer to Hereford John remembered the story of the thorn that blossomed on Christmas morning. He had read about it in a book about folklore at his grandma's in Lyonshall. As Hereford came into view on the high road at Lugwardine, John remembered going out with his brother and dad on Christmas Eve to try and find the Christmas Thorn. That Christmas wish had never come to full colour.
The watermeadows lay smudged by the mist against the pink early morning sky. John's smile broadened. He had missed the big skies and he glanced out of the passenger window and saw that one tree, alone on the hill above Rotherwas.
Parking on Broad Street, John walked past the shopfronts. Every step comforted him more.
Drifting through High Town, noticing details he thought he had forgotten, John saw a face in the crowd. John wondered if he would be recognisable to Simon who, sure enough, saw John, waved and ran over to him. John smiled, walking quickly towards Simon.
"Alright, mate." Simon said cheerfully. "Haven't seen you in town for years. You still around, like?"
"Not really, Simon. Been gone now fifteen - sixteen - years."
John nodded and winced. "You still working in town?" John asked, aware that the glimmer of accent he thought had frozen was thawing quickly.
"No, mate," Simon replied. "After all the grief in 2001 Dad couldn't hack it. It got really bad. Didn't want to carry on with the farm so I jacked in the job and went back to the farm. Best thing that ever happened. Got to keep the wheel turning, you know."
John thought how right this sounded.
"Married?" John asked.
Simon nodded and smiled. "Ten years now, mate. She's gold dust. Got two great kids, too."
John glanced at the clock above the Butter Market.
"Better go myself, mate," Simon said. "Happy Christmas, John."
"Happy Christmas," John said and he remained fixed to the pavement beneath the Christmas lights as they flickered to life. He felt proud of this town, a feeling he had not known before. He suddenly felt reconnected. His dreams had taken shape in this place, this land. Once he had loathed the lack of anonymity that you got going into High Town. Now he wanted to see faces he recognised and remembered. He gazed up at the stars and thought of the snow falling across the earth. It was good that this town wasn't quite what so many other towns had become.
John headed back to his car, cleared fresh snow from the windscreen and caught his reflection. John drove on, northwest out of town, past Credenhill and over towards Broxwood. The world was transformed. John wanted to get out of the car and root himself to the earth. Everything else came and went, everything but that root to family, to belonging. A sudden flow of feeling, as bright and brilliant as the Wye's waters, rushed through John and the world.
Passing the turnoff for Broxwood, John went on to Lyonshall and pulled up by the red phone box and looked at the grey stone house opposite. His grandma had lived there. He had known many Christmases there. John got out of the car and took a jar with him. He climbed over a gate into the field by the brook and filled the jar with a cluster of earth and some twigs. The image of his dad on a Christmas morning formed in John's mind as he glanced across the frosted field. Everything that counted most was here. Up at Lyonshall church John saw the gravestone of his Granddad. He said a prayer there and felt the cold air warm around him as the snow gathered around like a blanket.
"I don't know a damn thing," John said quietly, snowflakes resting on his cold face. He dried his eyes and headed back around to Broxwood.
The snow silenced the world, covering it in a necessary peace. John strolled up the lane towards his Mum's place and imagined his Dad right there beside him. John looked across the eternity of fields, the smell of the farm across the lane cutting through the cold as a crow blessed the day with its call and a buzzard arced in front of the low lying sun and silhouette of a great, twisted tree. John crouched by a hedge to grasp at a sprig of holly and a robin landed, looked at him, smiling somehow and then flitted away. John reached out and saw a thorn that somehow didn't quite belong there. He let his hand hover and then put his finger to the thorn.
"Glad to be back?" a man's voice asked.
John turned and covered his mouth.
"Dad?"
The man smiled and put his hand to John's shoulder, which suddenly warmed.
"It will always be here you know." John's dad said, looking around at the silent wilderness.
Snowflakes gathered around John but none rested on his dad who crouched at his son's side and studied the thorn.
The snowfall thickened fast and now the robin, the fox and the tree that overhung the lane watched and saw the thorn soften, its tip sparkling rose red and pink, like the early morning sky.
John put his hand out to his dad but he was gone. John stood and listened to the land. He wanted to absorb every cadence of the morning breeze.
A door opened across the way and footsteps crunched on the path. John's mum stood there smiling. She had watched John from an upstairs window. John ran across the lane. Mother and son hugged.
That evening John's mum prepared a meal and friends, people John had not seen in years and who seemed so pleased to have him back, arrived and the night brimmed with laughter and warmth and stories were told eagerly and happily and hour by hour John's mind tumbled with thoughts of yesterdays and tomorrows.
Amid the delight John quietly excused himself from the meal table and went outside, losing his vision in the stars and seeing his Dad's face there momentarily.
"I'm home," John whispered.
In the darkness of the lane the thorn shone softly, a tiny bloom of rich red petals kissed by the moonlight and the gently falling snow.
Broxwood Heart: A Christmas Story for Herefordshire
4:32pm Wednesday 20th December 2006
