The Concarnadine Chronicles #009 -- "Months"
Title: "What you can never do"
'Fandom': The Concarnadine Chronicles
Claim: General; Characters
Prompt: #009 :: “Months”
Word Count: 1080
Rating: G (for harmlessness); Minor Angst warning
Summary: Reflective Elizabeth
Author's Notes: Takes place at some stage around now.
“What you can never do”
Once, this had been a quiet road, running alongside the station (or the railway had been routed alongside the road), down into the town centre. Now it was dual-carriageway, with the footbridges across it, like the one she was standing on, and the town centre had moved on and south, leaving the church and the council offices behind, marooned, while the shops around them had moved away, and their sites had become scruffy bed-sit flats for the poorer breed of commuter.
The Clock Tower was much the same, but whereas, when she’d been young, Elizabeth remembered seeing the fields and woods from its top, now all she seemed to see were more roofs, and taller buildings - flats and offices - that hadn’t been there before.
And the people had changed, too - Waterhampton had been a peaceful suburban town, where people lived, worked and shopped. Now it seemed to have become a paler shadow of the city - shops selling style rather than substance, a name rather than a real product, people too busy to stop and chat, or even look around themselves, and also two definite classes: the rich, who could afford good clothes, smart cars and the privilege of ignoring anyone outside their own circle, and the poor, the struggling shop-keepers, the staff at the restaurants, the service-industry people, who made do with what they could get and could afford: discount clothes, unappetising fast-food, and jobs with long hours for little reward.
“Have we lost it all, Meggie ?”
“Only if you let it be that way.”
“But I’ve only been away for a few months and - ”
“No, Liz - you ‘went away’ years ago. Your body came back, but your head was still in the glittering lights world of show-biz. And, to an extent, it still is. Don’t get me wrong: I love you, but you haven’t really been back for a long time.”
“I thought it would be like coming home.”
Meggie shook her head: “You can never go home. Home is where you are, not where you were; you make home, around you. If you’d stayed here, then this would be your home still - ” She held up a hand to forestall the quick and easy rejoined, and went on: “But I’m not sure that if you had, you would be who you are now.”
The new fountain in the shopping centre was something to look at, water flowing down and through an elaborate series of channels and ducts. But in the end it could not compensate for the empty shops dotted here and there. And there was the sprawling sportswear shop that had obviously overflowed into another two units without any real planning. The whole thing depressed her - it certainly didn’t fill her with any especial desire to shop there, or stay a minute longer than she had to.
And whereas the Botanical Gardens (a gift from a former Lord Mayor, before the town had lost its mayor, along with almost every scrap of civic pride, in a local government reorganisation) had used to be a balm when her juvenile nerves had become too stressed, now it looked half-dead. No more cherry-blossom - the trees had been hacked to pieces by vandals; no squirrels or song-birds - there was little if anything for them to shelter in; the neat paths between mown lawns were now broken-up paving between water-starved dust-patches where only the toughest grasses and the most persistent weeds could survive.
“It’s only been a few months -- !!”
“Be honest, Lizbet - if … things … had turned out different, would you ever have come back here ? Well, I mean, short of a TV documentary.”
Elizabeth hung her head - Meggie had a point: if Taylor Carlson had been able to get her all the fame he’d promised, then Waterhampton would have been well behind her and, without a sizeable theatre to perform at, she would have relegated it to the dust and dilapidation of her forgotten dreams - school captain, Oxbridge graduand, international diplomat.
“I don’t blame you - if I’d had the chance … ”
But Meggie hadn’t - Roger had come along and, in one seamless progression, first meeting had moved to courtship, engagement, marriage, froideur and sterile stability. And now she lived in Waterhampton, with her frozen dreams, and Elizabeth lived in Chelsea (till she got her own place again) and tried to remember what, it was now clear, would never be again.
One thing that the dual-carriageway had done, was to cut off the old road to Preadey, the small village which had never recovered after its farmland had gone under the reservoir. Elizabeth remembered cycling out there when she’d been younger, and when Meggie pulled into the little car park, beside the “Rose and Stoat”, it seemed like hardly anything had changed - well, all right, the village shop was gone, and quite a few of the houses were obviously now weekend cottages for city-folk, but there was still the duck-pond, and the strange wall, and the path to the reservoir rampart.
And the reservoir was still much the same, with the breezes sending ripples across the water, and the tiny veil of mist that nearly made it seem that this was a sea, not just an artificial lake designed to replenish the Water Board’s reserves. Perhaps things were improved by the sudden emergence of the sun from behind clouds, but the twenty-minute walk to the far end of the barrage lifted her spirits (and seemed, in turn, to lighten Meggie’s mood) and she suffered to sit and gaze across the waters for another twenty before setting off back.
“Will we see you again ?”
“I’ll try not to let it be so long this time. You’re always welcome, you know, up in town. There’s a spare room - ”
“And of course Roger would let me.” Meggie defused the potential criticism with a smile and a light giggle. “Our worlds can only meet at the edges, Liz. But call me anytime - he doesn’t get in till seven most nights. I miss you, you know.”
“I know. But I will try to come down more often. And you must try to come to town more often, now I’m sorted and can get to see you.”
The train took her back to London, with the wheels beating out a steady rhythm of days, weeks, and months. Time, she reflected, never stood still - and, like water, it wore away at things, till you couldn’t be sure what you had, what was memory, and what was just hopeful dreamings.
'Fandom': The Concarnadine Chronicles
Claim: General; Characters
Prompt: #009 :: “Months”
Word Count: 1080
Rating: G (for harmlessness); Minor Angst warning
Summary: Reflective Elizabeth
Author's Notes: Takes place at some stage around now.
“What you can never do”
Once, this had been a quiet road, running alongside the station (or the railway had been routed alongside the road), down into the town centre. Now it was dual-carriageway, with the footbridges across it, like the one she was standing on, and the town centre had moved on and south, leaving the church and the council offices behind, marooned, while the shops around them had moved away, and their sites had become scruffy bed-sit flats for the poorer breed of commuter.
The Clock Tower was much the same, but whereas, when she’d been young, Elizabeth remembered seeing the fields and woods from its top, now all she seemed to see were more roofs, and taller buildings - flats and offices - that hadn’t been there before.
And the people had changed, too - Waterhampton had been a peaceful suburban town, where people lived, worked and shopped. Now it seemed to have become a paler shadow of the city - shops selling style rather than substance, a name rather than a real product, people too busy to stop and chat, or even look around themselves, and also two definite classes: the rich, who could afford good clothes, smart cars and the privilege of ignoring anyone outside their own circle, and the poor, the struggling shop-keepers, the staff at the restaurants, the service-industry people, who made do with what they could get and could afford: discount clothes, unappetising fast-food, and jobs with long hours for little reward.
“Have we lost it all, Meggie ?”
“Only if you let it be that way.”
“But I’ve only been away for a few months and - ”
“No, Liz - you ‘went away’ years ago. Your body came back, but your head was still in the glittering lights world of show-biz. And, to an extent, it still is. Don’t get me wrong: I love you, but you haven’t really been back for a long time.”
“I thought it would be like coming home.”
Meggie shook her head: “You can never go home. Home is where you are, not where you were; you make home, around you. If you’d stayed here, then this would be your home still - ” She held up a hand to forestall the quick and easy rejoined, and went on: “But I’m not sure that if you had, you would be who you are now.”
The new fountain in the shopping centre was something to look at, water flowing down and through an elaborate series of channels and ducts. But in the end it could not compensate for the empty shops dotted here and there. And there was the sprawling sportswear shop that had obviously overflowed into another two units without any real planning. The whole thing depressed her - it certainly didn’t fill her with any especial desire to shop there, or stay a minute longer than she had to.
And whereas the Botanical Gardens (a gift from a former Lord Mayor, before the town had lost its mayor, along with almost every scrap of civic pride, in a local government reorganisation) had used to be a balm when her juvenile nerves had become too stressed, now it looked half-dead. No more cherry-blossom - the trees had been hacked to pieces by vandals; no squirrels or song-birds - there was little if anything for them to shelter in; the neat paths between mown lawns were now broken-up paving between water-starved dust-patches where only the toughest grasses and the most persistent weeds could survive.
“It’s only been a few months -- !!”
“Be honest, Lizbet - if … things … had turned out different, would you ever have come back here ? Well, I mean, short of a TV documentary.”
Elizabeth hung her head - Meggie had a point: if Taylor Carlson had been able to get her all the fame he’d promised, then Waterhampton would have been well behind her and, without a sizeable theatre to perform at, she would have relegated it to the dust and dilapidation of her forgotten dreams - school captain, Oxbridge graduand, international diplomat.
“I don’t blame you - if I’d had the chance … ”
But Meggie hadn’t - Roger had come along and, in one seamless progression, first meeting had moved to courtship, engagement, marriage, froideur and sterile stability. And now she lived in Waterhampton, with her frozen dreams, and Elizabeth lived in Chelsea (till she got her own place again) and tried to remember what, it was now clear, would never be again.
One thing that the dual-carriageway had done, was to cut off the old road to Preadey, the small village which had never recovered after its farmland had gone under the reservoir. Elizabeth remembered cycling out there when she’d been younger, and when Meggie pulled into the little car park, beside the “Rose and Stoat”, it seemed like hardly anything had changed - well, all right, the village shop was gone, and quite a few of the houses were obviously now weekend cottages for city-folk, but there was still the duck-pond, and the strange wall, and the path to the reservoir rampart.
And the reservoir was still much the same, with the breezes sending ripples across the water, and the tiny veil of mist that nearly made it seem that this was a sea, not just an artificial lake designed to replenish the Water Board’s reserves. Perhaps things were improved by the sudden emergence of the sun from behind clouds, but the twenty-minute walk to the far end of the barrage lifted her spirits (and seemed, in turn, to lighten Meggie’s mood) and she suffered to sit and gaze across the waters for another twenty before setting off back.
“Will we see you again ?”
“I’ll try not to let it be so long this time. You’re always welcome, you know, up in town. There’s a spare room - ”
“And of course Roger would let me.” Meggie defused the potential criticism with a smile and a light giggle. “Our worlds can only meet at the edges, Liz. But call me anytime - he doesn’t get in till seven most nights. I miss you, you know.”
“I know. But I will try to come down more often. And you must try to come to town more often, now I’m sorted and can get to see you.”
The train took her back to London, with the wheels beating out a steady rhythm of days, weeks, and months. Time, she reflected, never stood still - and, like water, it wore away at things, till you couldn’t be sure what you had, what was memory, and what was just hopeful dreamings.