An impatient south-westerly wind whips rain across the fields, lashing the sycamores and rattling at the front gate. Whatever birds are prepared to brave the summer storm, their voices are lost to the elements. But at dawn, Jak rises anyway.
She hurriedly packs a few things in a backpack: clothes, soap, toothbrush, a few plastic bottles and binoculars, a dog eared bird book with a photo of a male bullfinch, a knife and cash in a waterproof purse inside a plastic bag.
Jak tears the letter from her notebook, folds it over on itself and kisses the word ‘mum’. And leaves her phone on it as a paperweight, then packs the notebook and pencil.
On her way down stairs, Jak looks at the line of photographs – relatives, ancestors, a few known to her, like mum’s sister Michelle and her husband Bartholomew, and many not, like Nanna Considine.
‘You guys, if you’re out there, look out for me will you? Ta.’
Itchycoo is curled up on the sofa. He opens his eyes to watch Jak, blinks at her and goes back to sleep. Even he doesn’t believe it’s breakfast time yet. Jak bends over and kisses his head.
She gets the bottles from her backpack, cursing herself for not having packed them on top, and fills them in the kitchen sink. As the water trickles into them she looks around the room, at the stove and oven, the food cupboards and fridge, and feels a pang of guilt – and sadness – that she’s not making breakfast for her mum right now. Breakfast in bed, what a great leaving present that would be. Toast, eggs, bacon, mushrooms, maybe beans, maybe not.
Her last water bottle overflows.
‘Time to go. C’mon Jak, let’s go.’
The garden of 28 Green Leys Road is like an old photograph in the grey early light. It is still raining. The wind, although it has dropped a little, is blowing in gusts from the south-west. The gate rattles and creaks.
Jak steps over the low wall, and carefully and quietly unlocks the Mountjoys’ shed. She attaches the rack to the back of the bike and straps down the tent and sleeping bag upon it. Then hooks a red waterproof cover over them. She checks the cooking equipment: camping stove, half full can of gas, kettle, pot, can opener, plastic knife, fork and spoon; and puts it in the box at the end of the rack along with her backpack.
Cursing herself again, she looks out one of the water bottles and puts it in the basket at the front along with the bike lock. And puts the shed key back under Mrs Tiggywinkle’s front-left paw.
The road is quiet. She rides alongside the ditch, freshly filled with twigs, leaves and discarded food packets by the storm. The sycamores continue their gusty rain dance.
On the other side of the road, she passes the derelict site of the old Kassam Stadium where she had her first construction, or rather deconstruction, job. It is a flat wasteland now.
A lone strip of corrugated metal flaps in the wind. Low lines of broken bricks mark where the offices of Oxford United had been, and where the three stands had stood. Appropriately, where the pitch once was, grass has started to grow and reclaim the empty space.
Jak cycles hard with rain in her face. The underpass, beneath the already awake and rumbling A4074, is a wind tunnel. But a mostly dry one.
Leaving the busy road behind, the morning air quietens again. The village of Sandford is still fast asleep except for ducks, chuntering to themselves in a riverside pub garden. Jak dismounts to weave round the picnic benches and cross the weir to the lock.
She stops to peer into the water, at the ripples from the falling raindrops, and breathes in the damp, slightly stagnant smell, which catches in her throat and makes her cough.
Jak looks up and out across the reedbeds on the other side of the River Thames, the rain veiling much of the open land and forming a dense mist in the middle distance. It hides the bases of towering electricity pylons so they appear to be hovering like aliens unsure whether they have come to the right planet.
Beyond the river, she continues through the village of Kennington, alarm clocks ringing and kettles boiling, past the lawns and hedges of a late twentieth century housing estate, and across a park on a narrow paved path towards a wood.
Dead pine needles crackle beneath her bike tyres as the well-defined path peters out into a slight depression in the ground. An antiseptic smell swirls in the air between the rows and rows of Scots pines, their pale, straight, thin trunks the brightest objects in this dark place. Top heavy crowns toss in the death throes of last night’s storm.
The going is slow and gruelling, a fine spray descends from the high canopy even as light itself is blocked out. Like a damp gothic cathedral without windows.
The bike wheels struggle through the loose but heavy needle litter. They catch a tree root, hidden millimetres below the surface, which acts as a sudden brake. The bike jolts Jak forward and she presses up against the handlebars. Her feet slip off the pedals and she slides down, sideways, onto the ground with her left leg caught below the chassis.
‘Ow, fuck! Okay, deep breaths, nothing broken. Scratches and bruises. Just bruises, nothing major. Back on the seat and feet on the pedals. And eyes on the path, Jak. Who knows where it’s going but eyes on the path all the same.’
Ahead, there is light. A brief hush fills the cavernous space above Jak’s head, the rain has stopped, and then a delicate flute-like song summons her forward. Has it sat silent since the dark and sodden dawn, waiting for this opportunity? To Jak, it is as if it is singing to her.
“Morning Mr Blackcap. Thank you for waiting.”
The industrial rows and columns of Scots pines abruptly end. A lower but lighter canopy of leaves allows glimpses of a brightening sky. And green fronds sprout from brown earth flecked with crumbs of white stone.
The path, such as it is, firms up beneath the bicycle tyres, which leave a faint zig-zag patterned track behind them. Jak comes to a bright, roughly circular, glade. At its centre is a wide stump, twigs and shriveled oak leaves scattered around its base.
The stump is high enough to lean her bike against, carefully so as not to damage a yellow bracket fungus sprouting from the decaying trunk, but low enough for Jak to sit resting against the mossy remnants of bark and lay her head back onto the exposed surface of heart-wood. She closes her eyes as the sun glimpses her through the gap in the canopy left by the fallen oak.
A dark-brown butterfly lands by her, also seeking fleeting warmth from the fickle sun. It has a curved white stripe running lengthways along the centre of each wing. The lines are erratic, wavy. When it opens itself up fully to the sun, they meet at the base of its wings to form a blurry, slightly out of focus, cup.
A slender sapling sways, its fresh green leaves shuddering with each breath of wind. It’s as if the old oak has fractured like an egg shell and released a multitude of new life.
‘Can’t stay here forever, Jak. Would be nice though.’
Jak scoops up a handful of earth to her face and breathes in. Deep breaths. She cycles on, rejuvenated, and after a few more minutes emerges onto a lane.
Clouds scud overhead. Shafts of sunlight sweep across the field in front of her. And, in the distance, dance along a line of hills.
The lane is a hollow way between hedgerows, a sunken path etched into the earth by countless generations of feet, hooves and wheels. It is wide enough for Jak to cycle along, but every now again she brushes past spreading hazel branches and grasping bramble bushes.
The wind, although what is left of it is still in her face, has dropped. It does still help to slightly cool her as the sun climbs and the clouds thin. She swats away a cloud of tiny black flies, which has been lurking in a sheltered, fusty nook beneath an overhanging willow. Like grains of sand, they find their way up her nostrils and get caught in her sweat-damp hair.
A small bird darts across just in front of her, its long tail disappearing into a hedge from where there is a brief outbreak of chirping. Jak stops and waits. A long, protruding bramble branch trembles slightly. But the bird remains hidden. She is none the wiser as to what it is, but happy that there must be a nest safely out of sight and guarded by thorns.
At an acute junction, the hollow way joins a hard surfaced road running along the base of the hills that Jak had seen previously. She turns right to follow the road, which curves and twists round a succession of crumbling walls and old trees, in a roughly westerly direction.
Clods of earth, with deep tyre tracks cutting through them, litter a pot-holed section of asphalt. Jak swerves slightly to avoid the largest of them. A smallish car carefully overtakes her, leaving plenty of room, and after the next bend, round a gnarly grey tree with large oval leaves, so does a second, somewhat larger car.
At a crossroads, wooden fingers pointing to Kingston Lisle, Kingston Warren, Westcot and Grove, three more cars turn into the road in front of her. And they all head west. Further along, she sees them turn left and ascend a winding lane up a grassy hillside.
Jak stops at the turning. It’s a narrow lane, not wide enough for two vehicles to pass. Those cars must be going somewhere, somewhere high up. Maybe she should follow them? There might be good views. And then carry on along the hill tops?
It is steep though. She soon has to dismount and push her bike, which is heavier than usual with the weight of the tent and other things she has packed. And the lane winds round sharp bends, an imposing bank on one side, a steep downward slope on the other.
A white compact van comes up behind her with two men in the front. One of them gets out the passenger side and catches her up. He has a Bob Marley baseball cap over a sunburnt face, checked shirt rolled up past his elbows, dirt beneath his nails, well worn blue jeans and oil stained desert boots.
“Hello. Are you here for the rechalking?” asks the man but continues before Jak can reply, “I’ll help you push your bike, it’s quite a climb in places. If you can just let my brother get past in the van, he’s needed up at the horse as soon as possible, you see, to organise the volunteers. Thanks.”
“The horse?” repeats Jak, as if trying to pronounce an unfamiliar foreign name.
“Yeah, we rechalk it every year at this time. People come from miles around. Where have you come from this morning?”
“Oxford.”
“Ah, so not too far then. Still, a bit of a trek on your bike. That’s a very Oxford way of getting here,” he chuckles to himself, “have you been before?”
“No.”
As they turn the next corner, the man looks upwards and sighs. Jak follows his gaze. On the hillside above, a man is inspecting a white line in the grass. Just to the side of him is another line following the slope of the land in an arc.
Jak furrows her brow and concentrates on pushing the bike up the ground in front of them. It flattens out for a little while as the lane runs along the foot of a particularly steep bank, before curving round and upwards.
More white lines come into view in the grass above, like a forked prong aiming at them and then something like a face or at least an eye.
“She’s looking at you now,” warns the man, “‘who is this stranger approaching?’ she asks.”
A shiver runs down Jak’s spine. She has a feeling of being watched. There is something uncanny at work here, something she doesn’t believe in but can’t help reacting to. More whiteness comes into view. Not just separate lines anymore but a horse, or perhaps some other fast running creature, in mid-gallop cut into the hillside.
Jak stops and stares, open mouthed. Sweat pours down her face.
“Welcome to the Uffington White Horse,” smiles the man.
“It’s strange,” reflects Jak hesitantly and furrows her brow again, “is it really meant to be a horse?”
“Yes. Well, most people think so,” he explains, “although it depends how you approach it. From the air it looks like a running horse. Some say it’s more like a dog, some say more like a deer or even some sort of wild cat but I’ve always seen it as a horse, myself.”
“How long has it been there?”
“Nobody knows, not exactly. Maybe three thousand years. Maybe a bit more. Those are the best estimates.”
“Oh wow,” Jak stops again and gazes up at the horse, her hands trembling on the handlebar, “three THOUSAND years!?”
“Yes. We rechalk it every year to maintain it. It’s a local tradition but anyone can join in, the more the merrier. I like to think we’re celebrating all the people who have come before us when we do it. People must’ve been rechalking it from the beginning, it wouldn’t still be here otherwise.
“To be honest, that’s the most important thing for me – remembering all those people, keeping their spirits alive in this place. Not whatever animal it was or is or why it was made in the first place.
“It’s a connection across time with people you’ve never met but who live on through the horse,” the man wipes a tear from his eye, “my mum and dad loved the rechalking. I feel their spirits here too. Do you feel anything?”
Jak shakes her head, “no, I don’t think so. Sorry. I’m not sure I really get it but I would love to help anyway.”
The lane continues to wind up the hill until it turns and runs just above the horse itself, which is set into the hillside, its sinuous body following the contours of the land.
Jak keeps looking at it, trying to see what it is.
‘Dammit, what is it? It’s not really a horse but then it’s not really anything else. Maybe, for once Jak, just listen to the man and accept it really does not matter.’
She rests her bike down on the slope next to what has now become just a stony path. And joins a group of twelve, a mix of adults and children, who have gathered around the brothers.
The two men issue instructions and hand each volunteer, including the children, a hammer, a mat to kneel on and a pair of red work gloves. Jak pulls her gloves on. They’re a bit big, a little loose around her fingers, just like they were every day on the building site, but will do. She can grip the hammer firmly, which is the main thing.
The two brothers push wheelbarrows full of white chalk lumps up the uneven path from their van, which is parked as near as possible to the horse but still some way down a slope. They go back for more and more – back and forth, up and down, with full and empty barrows.
While the volunteers stand around waiting for the lumps of chalk to be laid on the horse, Jak tries to get her bearings. Above her, the hill flattens out at the top. Away to her left, the slope forms a serpentine arc with a series of teeth-like ridges.
Her eyes follow the curve of the arc round to the wide plain in front of her. Fields are laid out in a patchwork of variably sized rectangles – yellows and greens turning to brown – under a pale blue sky. One field is a bright mix of red and green, an eruption of poppies. Thin wispy clouds create a distant haze, blurring the line of the horizon and making the land seem to go on forever.
A voice rises into the clear sky. Jak immediately looks up, scans left to right, and then further up. A tiny fluttering speck is already so small as to be unrecognisable if it wasn’t for its distinctive, flowing and burbling, indefatigably joyous song.
Jak stands there entranced.
“Are you okay?” the brother of the man who helped her walks over, “have you got everything you need? All today’s chalk is now laid out.
“So, like we said, we just need you to start pounding it with your hammer. Chalk is soft and crumbly, no need to hit it too hard. Don’t exhaust yourself but the idea is to keep going until all the chalk in your section has turned to dust.
“We thought you could work on a part of the neck, if that’s okay? Alongside the lady in the straw hat with the two boys.”
“Yes, of course,” replies Jak absently, her mind still trying to follow the little bird, “I was just listening to the skylark. It has such a beautiful song. My favourite song.”
“Okay, great,” confirms the man as he pulls down the peak of his camouflage cap against the sun and carries on round the hillside.
Jak kneels on her mat and starts hammering the chalk. Her gloves soon turn from red to white. The woman in the straw hat sings to her sons, “hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go.” They join in for a few words but it soon peters out.
“Phew,” the woman wipes her face with a cloth, “hard work this.”
“Yeah,” agrees Jak, “but it’s amazing here. And it’s a nice day.”
“Yes, at least there’s that. I don’t know how long I could get the boys to do this in the rain,” chuckles the woman, “eh, boys!”
The boys, as one, nod earnestly and continue to hammer at the chalk, concentrating on their work.
An occasional breeze brings welcome relief to the sweating volunteers. But the sun beats down relentlessly. And the white chalk is so bright as to be dazzling.
Both brothers regularly take breaks from hammering to hand out bottles of water. Until they run out. The man who gave Jak instructions announces he is driving to the shop in the village of Uffington, a couple of miles away, to buy more.
Jak continues to work hard. The man who helped her earlier walks over.
“You can take a break anytime, you know. Have you taken a break yet?” he asks, “you probably should. It can be bad for your back working from a kneeling position without regular breaks.”
“Thanks,” replies Jak, laying down her hammer and wiping sweat from around her eyes as she stands up straight.
“Listen,” the man holds one hand to his ear and puts the other to his lips, “just listen to that. It’s my favourite sound.”
Jak listens to the soft polyrhythmic ringing of a dozen hammers on chalk. And the murmur of voices, words exchanged between laboured breaths, describing journeys to the horse, recent events at home and the times they’ve been here before.
“It’s our song,” expounds the man proudly, “it lets the ancestors know we’re here again, that we haven’t abandoned them. To me, it’s beautiful.”
“Yes. Yes, I hear it. Thank you,” smiles Jak, “I think I understand now.”
She picks up her hammer and kneels back down to continue pounding the chalk.
The End