Metropolitan Lines Issue 2 - Brunel University

Magilligan’s Gift
At the time, I didn’t appreciate
what Henri did for me. I’d
never been into the woods, alone or
otherwise. It was forbidden. Woods
teemed with savage animals; lions,
tigers, wolves, even bears, all of
which ate little boys, or so I was
told. The truth was less exciting.
Little boys explore forests with
their older brothers or with children
from their neighbourhood. I didn’t
have an older brother and the
reserve my mother upheld towards
local families reduced our everyday
social life considerably. She couldn’t
slip into those easy-going
friendships young mothers take as a
matter of course. Visits to other
families with children of my age
were by written invitation and
involved my being dressed in my
best clothes and warned to behave.
The reciprocal invitations were even
worse and inevitably ended with me
and at least one other child in tears,
my sisters furious, and my being
banished to the nursery in disgrace.
To be fair to Maman, a war of
attrition was in its death throes a
mere fifty miles from the gates. Halfcrazed
deserters from both the
French and the German armies
were living rough in the dense
forests of the Champagne, surviving
by poaching, theft and scavenging.
The greatest danger however, apart
from wild boar which rarely
attacked or the occasional rutting
stag, was that Champagne is a
region grounded on chalk. This soil
composition imparts its unique
“terroir” and produces the wines for
which we are famous. It also creates
a network of cool, natural caves in
which our glorious nectar is
matured. The drawback of this
geological phenomenon is that, at
certain places, the upper chalk
strata, thin as a girl’s skin, is held
together by the root systems of
trees, the grace of God and not
much else. Without warning, the
land can collapse into vast sink holes
or vanish down the secret tunnels
carved out by subterranean
watercourses. Disappearances were
not unknown and on one occasion,
after heavy rains, an abyss appeared
in a local farmer’s yard, swallowing a
plough and the unfortunate old
horse hitched to it. I believe they
recovered the plough but the horse
was past redemption. Jeanne,
nervous of the woods to begin with,
was afraid to explore with me in
case we stumbled into one of the
smaller chasms, so my early days
were restricted to the garden.
As the trees grew in whispering
immensity before my eyes, I began
to lag back, sensing I was stepping
into an unknown world.
Magilligan’s hand held me tight and
I’d no option but to accompany him,
though he wasn’t dragging me. I
could have started another tantrum,
but by then I’d grasped he was
immune to those, so it wasn’t worth
the effort. And, deep inside my three
and three-quarter-year-old heart, I
wanted to explore with the
desperation of the born adventurer.
A high stone wall protected the
garden, and separated it from the
estate land. There was a gate, but
Magilligan steered me towards a
four-step stile built at the point
where the forest straggled down in
closest proximity to the boundary.
When we reached it, he swung me
into his arms and, despite his
disability, trotted up the steps with
the agility of a mountain goat. Then
he rolled himself and me over the
top and down the other side. My
safe familiar world now lay behind
those grey stones, and the man I’d
spent the last two months avoiding
18
postgraduate fiction
had hoisted me out of it like a sack
of pilfered potatoes.
I’m sure my father must have
lifted me into his arms as a baby but
I’ve lost any memory of it. Jeanne
had long ago stopped doing so. I’d
grown too heavy. Despite the
strangeness of the experience, I
wasn’t anxious. On the contrary, I
felt comforted and secure, even
when he set me back down on my
own two feet. From my low vantage
point, the turrets of the chateau
were just visible above the wall but I
didn’t succumb to a momentary
urge to run home. I could already
smell the musty, rotting odour of
ancient forest freshened by the
bright green aroma of sprouting
grass in the surrounding fields. My
nostrils twitched like a hamster’s as
the herbal fragrance of ferns rose
from the mulchy soil to beckon me
into this woodland paradise. A
wave of elation swept over me and,
tearing my hand loose from
Magilligan’s clasp, I dashed
headlong up a moss-springy path
into the shadowy dapple of the
trees.
‘Oy, you little ratbag... where do
you think you’re going?’
The voice followed me up the
path but freedom was so
exhilarating I didn’t want to stop. I
felt one hand on my shoulder to
slow me down as the other hand
restrained me.
‘Not so fast. I don’t want to lose
you in the woods and we’ve all
afternoon. Now let’s just go a bit
slower.’
I remember I turned and asked
what I should call him.
‘Henri,’ he said, as he took my
hand and led me deeper into the
coolness of the woods. Pigeons
gurgled on hidden branches and the
wind through the treetops rustled
like taffeta dresses at a ball. A
Metropolitan Lines Summer 2008
Magilligan
Johanna Yacoub