“Waves endless to the shore…..”
It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at the cliffs and looked out onto the sea, smooth and tranquil, occasional gusts of wind raising small white breakers across its surface. Dorothy turned to the stranger called Yvette walking beside her and spoke.
“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“No, not at all. Ask me anything you like and I’ll do my best to answer you”
This was the first time they had spoken since leaving the wood together with Red walking gracefully beside them on the path leading through the trees to join the track along the top of the white and red cliffs that fell away in a sheer drop of 200 or so feet to the sea lapping gently against the rocks below.
“Well actually it’s 2 questions. That song you were whistling, at least I’m sure it was you, just before I met you. How do you know it? And……witches, when we met back then you said something about witches and my mum do you know where she is and….”
The woman walking beside her stopped and laughed. A beautiful ringing musical sound. At the same time she felt a warm rumble in her head as if Red too was laughing. A laughter that was so infectious she joined in.
“ That’s almost four questions and, though I’m happy to try and answer them, I’d rather do that sitting down . Why don’t we rest here for a moment”
She pointed to a table with wooden benches on either side just a few metres off the path where they were walking. It was set back slightly from the path with a clear view out across the cliffs towards the far headland.
“We could share something to eat, you can ask me the questions again and I’ll do my best to give you some answers”
“Of course. Though I forgot to bring anything to eat apart from a couple of apples”
“No problem I’m sure I can sort that out for us once we’re sat down”.
The three of them walked the short distance to the benches and sat down opposite each other on the warm wooden slats heated by the late evening sun with Red jumping up onto Yvette’s lap.
“Before you answer any of my other questions……..I get the feeling that you & Red know each other already?”
Again that warm rumble in her mind that she felt was Red laughing.
“Yes we have met before but rather a long time ago and a long way from here”
That startling image from Red that she had seen before of a place, a landscape not quite earth-like.
“Where exactly?” she asked, looking her straight in the eyes.
“You might not believe me if I told you”
“Try me. I live with my aunt & uncle whose research into the nature of matter and energy allows them to make some rather strange statements about the so called real world. So don't worry it’s unlikely that anything you can tell me will stretch my belief any more than their theories”
“Ah yes” she replied pausing for a moment to stroke Red & scratch him behind the ears.
A purring contented image of a soft surrendered cat.
“David and Susan”
“You know them?”
“ I know of Susan and I met your Uncle David once in Paris. We climbed the Eiffel tower together”
“What! How come?”
“So…..I reckon that makes almost 6 questions so far. Do you want to know about the song I was whistling, information bout witches, anything I might know about where your mother is, how I met the creature you call Red the cat or the story of how I climbed the Eiffel tower with your Uncle David in 1976. I’m sorry that’s actually only five questions. These apples are delicious. Did they grow in your aunt’s garden?”
An image from Red of the old apple tree growing in the back garden of David & Susan’s cottage covered in reddish orange apples only added to Dorothy’s confusion around which question she most needed answering. The image of the apple tree was followed quickly by an image, more a feeling, of shrugging shoulders a kind of ‘does it really matter’.
“Yes the apples are from the garden and…..” She thought for a moment, then her mind was clear and decided.
“Whichever question you’d like to answer”
Yvette reached into the pocket of her jacket, took out a bar of chocolate in an exotic looking gold & orange wrapper. She unwrapped it, broke off a large piece and gave it to Dorothy.
“This really is very excellent chocolate. Formidable as they would say in French. I’m sure it goes well with the apple…and no you can’t have a piece in your present state it would just make you ill”
A humorous image almost a cartoon in Dorothy’s mind of Red rolling around moaning on one of the large scatter cushions in Susan’s cottage.
Dorothy bit into the chocolate. It melted in her mouth with a delicate smoothness, a delicious mix of flavours & other textures. Honey, orange, chocolate, hazelnut, cinnamon & a couple of others she didn’t quite recognise.
“ It’s brilliant and she’s right Red chocolate, even very good chocolate, is bad news for cats”
Another cartoon image of a sulky cat turning its back on her followed by the rumbling sensation of Red’s laughter.
“He’s OK. He’ll get to eat chocolate again but not in his present form”
“What do you mean, not in his present form”
“That makes 7. Sorry 6. My maths has never been that good. I find your numerical system a little primitive and rather confusing. Let’s do single questions and answers shall we?”
Dorothy was about to say something but instead she nodded, bit off another piece of chocolate, let it dissolve in her mouth and waited for Yvette to speak.
“What do you think the likelihood is of there being intelligent life anywhere else in the universe other than on this planet?”
“Hang on. I thought you were going to answer my questions……though my mum used to say that she couldn’t see the point in spending all that money, time and energy on searching for life in the universe when we’d be better occupied cultivating what little intelligent life there might be here. I guess she was kind of joking but I think I get what she meant”
“So possibly intelligent life on this planet and……anywhere else”
“Yes definitely. It seems to me that the process of evolution and the mathematical probability of..”
“Good. We can agree on that then. The probability, if not the absolute certainty of intelligent life in other parts of the universe, even in this galaxy?”
“Yes I suppose it’s possible”
Yvette broke of another piece of chocolate and passed it Dorothy at the same time breaking a piece for herself, biting into it followed by a mouthful of apple. She sat there slowly chewing.
The sound of the gentle waves below, the wind, the call of the gulls and gannets nesting in the cliffs that fell to the sea far below drifted up towards them through the warm blue skyed lazy late summer evening.
“Yes I was right. A tasty combination.”
Yvette raised her head and looked out towards the horizon.
“This may be a little harder to accept than complex, or actually quite simple theories about the unified field, but both Red and I are not originally from this planet though we have both lived here for many years. We were born on a planet, not unlike yours circling a solar star that you call Alpha Centauri.”
Again Dorothy received an image of a landscape that seemed familiar, but something about the proportions, the colour of the rocks and vegetation, the angle of the light in the sky wasn’t quite ‘right’. Accompanied by Red’s rumble of laughter.
Dorothy laughed as well. Loud and energetically.
“Look, I haven’t known you for more than an hour or so and I have to admit there is something about you that’s rather…..”
“Strange”
“Maybe…..I’d say more unusual, but I don’t for a moment think that your some kind of alien life form and as for Red he’s just a…..”
“I see. Even though he can communicate directly with you, without miaows or words through images, feelings, sensations. I’d be most interested to hear of any other cats you know of that can do that. Which brings me to one of your other many questions. The one about his form and actually for that matter my form”
“Your form?”
“Mmmmmm…….you really should try this chocolate & apple combination. Definitely works”
Dorothy looked at Yvette with Red lying on her lap, purring like any ordinary large black furry moggie would in the company of someone they liked and felt at ease with. His eyes had been closed throughout the conversation between her and this unusual person called Yvette, if that was was what she was really called. Red opened his eyes, looked towards Dorothy and she knew, felt, experienced words could not really describe the strong sensation she had but it was of such intensity and certainty that she understood that this woman, if that was what she was, was telling her the truth.
“Yes I am a woman. Sorry I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your thoughts, that was very rude of me. The species I’m from is in many ways similar to human beings, with a few notable differences. In fact we are part of a relatively common evolutionary form that’s found on many planets around the universe. Unfortunately the misunderstandings that have arisen on your planet within your variety of our species around the nature, processes and energetics of evolution have led human beings to think that they understand how evolution works, which they don’t and, possibly even more foolishly, that your ‘intelligent’ life form is an extremely unusual, if not unique, occurrence in the universe. Fortunately this isn’t true”
Yvette stretched her arms above her head. Opened and closed her hands and flexed her fingers a few times. Rolled her head round on her shoulders in both directions and stood up. Red jumping down off her lap and began to wash himself thoroughly on the ground below the table.
“This bench does get a little uncomfortable after you’ve been sitting on it for a while don’t you think, though the view is spectacular. If you’re not going to eat that other apple then can I have it? I haven’t eaten much in the last few days so I’m rather hungry. I’d like to eat it with some more chocolate and I think I have some walnuts somewhere. Perhaps we could walk back to the village together while I answer some of your other questions. I could even drop in and say hello to David, I’m sure he’d be pleased to see me. Shall we go?”
At that moment Dorothy felt unable to say anything coherent or how to respond to the information that this extraordinary beautiful enigmatic woman had given her.
An image from Red of the track leading back along the cliff top, through the woods and through the back gate of the cottage. A fire in the lounge and some of Susan’s delicious food on the table and a bowl full of chicken pieces on the floor. A feeling of wanting to run home.
“Yes….why not….and maybe I will try that apple and chocolate combination”
“Good. Let’s walk and talk some more. Red can lead the way”
He was already up and running back along the track towards the woods with that long loping stride of his that seemed more like an antelope than a cat. Dorothy got up from the table, took a last look out across the bay where the wind was beginning to strengthen and white horses were forming on the crests of the waves before following him. Yvette came round the table to join her, linked arms and together they set off back towards Hartland & the cottage.
“David says that the colour of these cliffs, the purple red and white is pretty unique in England. I think there are some similar ones on the isle of Anglesey. When I was young he used to tell me a story about how the cliffs were held together by some special glue and how the glue was made by…”
“The last witch of Devon”
“How do you know about that. Are you a witch?”
Yvette laughed. That beautiful musical sound that was unlike any laughter Dorothy had heard. She felt the bubble of Red’s laughter inside her.
“ I’ll have to think about that one.....let’s just walk for a while, enjoy the view and this wonderful chocolate & apple combination. Are you OK with that?”
Dorothy nodded, though there were more questions she had lined up for Yvette, but they would have to wait.
The three of them walked on together in silence until they reached the place where the path divided. One part continued along the cliffs which began to rise even higher in a broad sweep heading northwest towards Clovelly bay. The other part descended through the meadow and down into the wood towards the stream that Red & Dorothy had crossed before meeting Yvette.
Where the 2 paths divided there was a wide flat area of grass surrounded by brambles, gorse bushes and wild rose hedges with the last of the summer’s white, pink and red dog-roses along one side and the edge of the cliffs along the other.
Yvette stopped walking and turned toward the cliff edge, gazing out over the sea and the waves breaking down below. She stood absoloutely still for what seemed like minutes while Dorothy also looked towards the horizon where the Atlantic stretched out to Ireland and beyond.
She waited for some time and then spoke
“Did you know....”
“Ah. Another question”
“Not really. More in the line of unusual information”
Blue laughed.
“Yes. We’ve been sharing quite a bit of that. So go on, tell me.”
“There’s an island out there. Sometimes you can see it & sometimes you can’t. But noone has ever found it. If you take a boat out or try to fly over it in a plane it just disappears. My mum says it’s called Lyonesse”
“Oh yes. The only remaining bit of Atlantis. It would seem to exist between two dimensional spaces which is why it seems to be there sometimes but you can’t quite reach it.”
“Do you believe that. The lost continent of Atlantis?”
“No. I don’t believe it, I know it to be true. There is a lot of geological evidence on the sea bed and many references to it in Greek, Babylonian & Hindu histories to name but a few. As with many ideas & theories which don’t quite fit with the mainstream view of your development as a species towards what you’d call civilisation it’s either rubbished or just completely ignored”
Dorothy was about to reply but something stopped her.
A sudden powerful series of images from Red of a vast continent, seen from high above followed by a rapid succession of full colour moving pictures of mountains, rivers, forests, fields with a few areas of what she could only think of as towns or cities inhabited by beautiful buildings of architectural shapes, forms and materials she could never had imagined in her wildest dreams.
“Yes. It was something like that. Thank you Red for the pictorial illustrations.There were humans living there in harmony for generations with a very different kind of social structure and science to the way most human societies are organised today. They lived peacefully without war or conflict in total cooperation & communication with the natural world. Many thousands of years ago. Then as this planet’s tectonic plates made a sudden disastrous shift Atlantis disappeared under the ocean causing a massive tsunami that changed forever the shape of these islands and the continent of Europe. A very few of the inhabitants escaped the catastrophe.....some of them setting up a rather distorted version of their civilisation on the island of Crete, whats come to be known as the Minoan civilisation”
“ I know a little about that. It lasted for over a thousand years but got destroyed by a volcanic eruption on the island of Thira or Santorini”
“They weren’t very lucky with natural disasters. Another story altogether of course but some of their descendants are still living. You don’t have to believe any of that Dorothy maybe it is all just a fantastic myth.....”
Blue turned from looking out across the waves and looked Dorothy in the eyes.
“No. I’ve always wondered about Atlantis. My Uncle David believes in its existence and he often says that they may treat his, mum & Susan’s results of their investigations when they publish them in the same dismissive way as they have done with any theory that doesn’t fit current scientific or political, as he calls it, dogma”
“He could well be right. Though it all depends on......”
“ What exactly.”
“ I suppose on what you believe is possible. But you asked me another question”
“Which one”
“Was I a witch?”
“Yes. Well.....I didn’t mean to be rude but..”
“Nothing rude about the question. The simple answer is “No” but there is more to it than that. But before we get into a conversation about witches perhaps I could answer some of your other questions. Would that be good?”
“If you like.”
“Which one?”
“Mmmm......the tune you were whistling that I heard before I met you. Coltrane Blue. How do you know it?”
“ Oh that”
And she began to sing.....
“I heard that love might be the answer
I heard that love might be the key
So lost in the arms of this dancer
My body & spirit are free
Time for a change
To rearrange
All of the things you can see
Time for a change
Isn’t it strange
The sun going down in the sea”
“I think there are 2 more verses but I can never quite remember the words. Do you know them? It might jog my memory...”
“Yes I do. Let’s sing them together. Maybe Red could join in too”
An immediate image from Red of him on a stage in the form of a large Pavarotti shaped opera singer in an outrageous red & purple dinner jacket covered in blue sequins with a bright orange cummerbund and a shimmering lime green cravat accompanied as if there was a spectacular operatic production going on around him.
He opened his mouth and all three of them began to sing Coltrane Blue to the cliffs, the wood, the sea & the sky.
Belting it out as if they were indeed on the stage at La Scala or the Albert Hall. Red’s ‘voice’ a rich tenor with Blue suddenly singing harmonies in a perfect contralto, Dorothy holding the main melody in her beautiful alto, her voice trained and perfected from years of singing in school & village choirs.
“Problems of organisation
Questions of power and greed
Some sort of redistribution
Can everyone get what they need
Time for a change
To rearrange
All of the things you can see
Time for a change
Isn’t it strange
The sun going down in the sea”
As they sang together it seemed to Dorothy that they were gradually accompanied by a full jazz orchestra. Just an acoustic bass & drums to begin with joined by a piano, a rhythm guitar then a full brass section. Trumpet, alto & tenor sax, trombone and finally a violin & a cello.
Yvette began to dance as she sang, joined by Red who shed his imagined cat opera singing shape to become an actual tall Romany man with long deep red hair, a multicoloured waistcoat, a blue scarf round his neck, a bright red shirt & dark blue flared velvet trousers. Leaping in almost impossible flights as he danced and clapped his hands in time to the music.
“Don’t look at your feet while you’re walking
Keep your head up in the sky
The birds and the trees do their talking
We’ll know what they say by and by.
Time for a change
To rearrange
All of the things you can see
Time for a change
Isn’t it strange
The sun going down in the sea”
Dorothy found herself dancing with them.
Turning gracefully and effortlessly as she sang with such energy and exhilaration that it seemed she would never want to stop but could dance and sing like this forever, losing the words with just melodic sounds coming out of her lips.
Until, as suddenly as they had begun, they all stopped singing and were standing once again on the cliff’s edge looking out towards the invisible shores of Lyonnesse.
Yvette spoke first
“That was fun”
“What......what just happened”
“We did a bit of singing and a bit of dancing”
“ But the music and Red.....”
Dorothy looked down at Red who, back in full pussycat form, was intently washing himself.
He stopped for a moment and she had a clear image of the dancing Romany alongside an image of Red as a cat doing some extraordinary dance steps that involved all four of his paws. “Easy peasy” were the words she heard.
“I know. Like I said, it was fun. Amazing what happens when you put your whole heart and soul into something. And to answer your question I probably first heard Coltrane Blue, if that’s what it’s called, in California sometime in the late 50s. I think it was coincidence or synchronicity that I was whistling it just before we met. Does that answer your question?”
“ Sort of but not entirely, though Susan always says that we don’t really understand what’s happening with coincidence or synchronicity. She believes it’s an important driving energy in the development & unfolding of evolution. I think she reckons there’s probably an equation for it. She reckons most events and phenomena can be expressed by equations.”
A brief image in her mind of a cartoon cat frantically covering a blackboard in chalk marks creating dozens of symbols and equations.
Blue laughed.
“She may be right though equations have never really been my strong point.”
“Me neither. I’d rather make a painting or write a poem. So what were you doing in California in the 50s”
As she asked the question a thought occurred to her. She had no idea what age this enigmatic beautiful woman was. she actually appeared to be in her late 20s or early 30s, certainly younger than her mother, father, aunt or uncle but she had a strong sense that this was just an external appearance, that she was considerably older than that
“ oh.....this and that....you know......catching up with friends. On my way back from New Mexico…… San Francisco actually. A beautiful city. Fascinating. You should go there one day”
“Yes I’d like to. David travels all over to conferences. He’s going to San Francisco next year. Some sort of symposium on Time & Material space was what he said it was called”
“Wonderful. I’ll suggest that he takes you with him. It will be good to see him again and to meet Susan”
“We should get going. They’ll wonder where I’ve got to, though they wont be worried. Red & I often go out walking for hours”
An image of Red & her walking at high speed along beaches, up and down mountains and running along the edge of cliffs. Accompanied by Red rolling over on his back and looking up at her.
“You’re probably right, but before we go I still haven’t answered your last question. The one about witches. You see though I’m not a witch, wizard, magician or sorceress there are things I can do that.......well you might consider unusual or even magical.”
Red had stopped rolling on his back and was sitting up in classic cat ‘front legs straight, back legs behind and tail curled neatly on one side’ pose looking intently up at Yvette.
“Such as”
“ I can step over the edge of this cliff and not fall to be smashed on the rocks below and washed away by the waves to feed the fish. Do you believe that?”
“ I find that rather hard to believe”
An image in her mind from Red. Yvette hovering on the edge of the cliff seen from above with the rocks & waves below her.
“Thank you Red. Would you like me to demonstrate?”
“No thanks I don’t think so”
“Why not?
“Because it’s just not possible......I’m sorry I’ve only known you for a really short time but......gravity for one and....”
“ Ah yes....gravity....lots of theories about what it may or may not be but no actual proof or equations even. It puzzled Einstein”
“If you step off the edge of the cliff I know that you would fall onto the rocks below and be killed. It’s that simple”
“ I can assure you that I would not. It’s that simple”
A brief image from Red of Yvette soaring above the cliff top. Her arms spread wide like wings. A close up of his face and his ‘voice’.
“Really. I’d believe her”
Dorothy suddenly felt angry. Both of them were playing some ridiculous game of chicken with her. It was absurd. She’d actually begun to like Yvette and now...
She turned away from them and looked down the track into the woods.
“ I dont know what you’re trying to prove but.....this is ridiculous....I’m going back to the cottage. Red, are you coming or are you going to walk over the edge of the cliff with her?”
“ Actually I’m not trying to prove anything. Just to show you that sometimes basic assumptions about what you call the real world can be slightly mistaken. Like your assumptions about an island that can be both there and not there, about me and where I come from. That’s just two for starters”
Dorothy remembered what Rosa had once said to her.
“If you’re feeling angry with someone, what they’ve done or what they’ve said then don’t respond straight away. Take a couple of deep breaths before you do anything. It sometimes helps”
So she took a couple of slow deep breaths.
Breathe in.....breathe out.....breathe in....breathe out...
Then she turned back towards the cliff and what she saw almost made her faint or at least fall onto her knees.
Red and the woman called Yvette were both a few feet from the edge of the cliff but on the wrong side. Poised over thin air. Red was actually sitting washing while Yvette was looking straight at her with a slight smile on her lips and her arms outstretched as if she was about to fly.
Dorothy closed her eyes tight for a moment. Maybe this was some form of illusion brought on by all the conversations about scarcely believable things. Or maybe she’d been hypnotised. Or...
She opened her eyes and knew it was no illusion, she had not been hypnotised. Everything was completely normal. The blue sky with a few high cirrostratus clouds out towards the horizon. The sea moving below with it’s deep Atlantic green and the white crest of the waves that were growing larger as the wind from the northwest grew stronger, the cliffs stretching out on either side as far as she could see.
The only thing that wasn’t normal was the impossibility of where Red and Yvette were. No sense of them even hovering over the edge. They were completely relaxed as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.
Then Red turned. An image from his viewpoint. A close up of her face. Pale white with her eyes wide open and her mouth also. “careful or you’ll be catching flies with that expression on your face” A deep throated rumble of his laughter and then.....and then he was suddenly on his four feet and launched himself into the air. She’d seen him leap before up onto walls or the branch of a tree or.....but this was a flight from over the edge of the cliff high in the air with the sun behind him as she looked up. Dazzling her for a moment and then he landed beside her. Sat down. Continued washing himself.
She looked at him for a moment before returning her gaze to Yvette who was moving her arms together slightly & slowly up & down as she rose from the edge of the cliff, flew up above both of them before landing gently on the other side of Dorothy from Red.
Then Dorothy had a clear memory of flying like that. In a dream……..But it was very real.
“Perhaps you too have flown sometimes. In your dreams but also here in the middle world. Though often those events, being rather outlandish, are forgotten by our conscious mind. Anyway let’s get going. I think there’s a storm on the way, that wind is strengthening. Un vrai torrent va arriver.”
She took Dorothy’s arm. Red stopped washing himself, got up and began to run ahead as they set off down the track that skirted the meadow towards the wood with Susan & David’s cottage beyond while the wind began to rise and large black edged cumulonimbus storm clouds gathered in the west.........
Long shot from cliff edge of the three of them walking down and through the trees towards the stream.
Sound of waves and wind through the beech trees.
Slow pan up to high long shot of them disappearing into the wood.
Slow track up and round to show clouds moving in fast from the sea with sudden heavy rain that obscures the camera lens with water.
Fade out