No, they couldn’t.
They were not friends. And this was not some weekend outing. If he wanted to take photographs of the river and the geese, there was nothing stopping him from going by himself. As soon as they were done with Hedge, she would take him to the church, then leave him to get on with whatever Nicole needed.
Hedge’s shop appeared closed, but the side door was ajar. She fought a flutter of nerves in the pit of her stomach and knocked before entering, Gabriel behind her. Hedge sat on a low stool inside his small shop fixing handwritten labels to jars. He looked up when they walked in and watched them saying nothing.
“Good morning, Hedge,” she greeted him cheerfully. We got your message. Thank you so much for agreeing to see us on a Sunday.”
Wordlessly, he extended his walking stick and hooked another low stool for her. “There’s a box at the back for you.” He nodded to Gabriel.
She took the chair and waited for Gabriel to find the box. Once he was seated, she cleared her throat. “Lord M wants me to write something about Margo’s Arch, and I remembered you saying there is a festival held there, so I wondered if you could tell me more about it.”
Hedge finished his last label, put the jar down, and stared into space for so long that she’d begun to wonder if he was going to say anything. Gabriel sat very still on his box, legs extended in front of him, crossed at the ankle.
“The Plough is also called The End of Winter Fest,” Hedge finally said. “Was a big deal in the old days. People don’t care no more. But what you must know, the spirit of the land sleeps but does not die when you no more think on it. The old ways had respect!” He said the word ‘respect’ with such force that it triggered coughing fit.
“You know the old distaff ballad?” he asked when he’d stopped coughing.
Pierre shook her head then pulled out her phone to google it.
“I don’t mind you playin’ w’that thing as long as it don’t start ringin’ noise.” Hedge pointed at her phone.
Pierre flicked the button on the side to set it to silent. “Is it this?” she started reading off her screen. “With distaff and Plough, Milk from your best cow…”
He took over in his gravelly voice. “The penny-pinching and fearful heart. Their spring comes with closed hand and mean heart,”he continued but there was a rhythm to his words as if reciting a long-remembered song.
Pierre tried to juggle her note taking and googling – something told her this sounded just like an old pagan festival she’d read about.
A warm hand on her arm made her look up. Gabriel gestured for her to give him the notebook and pen. Then he turned his attention back to Hedge and started writing.
It freed her to google key words in the stream of Hedge’s tale. But, if she hoped the old man would get on to Margo’s Arch any time soon, she was disappointed. Hedge talked for an hour-and-a-half about the old traditions and how the young generations forgot them.
“So, this festival at Margo’s Arch, it’s nothing to do with harvest?” she asked.
He scoffed. “It has everything to do with harvest. For those who pour good milk and their best cider.”
She didn’t understand. “Pour milk and cider into what?” she asked.
“Into the earth o’course, where else?” He reached into his pocket and took out a pouch of tobacco. “You think respectin’ the earth is about your new age hobbies who dance around crop circles and cover themselves in face paint and thingamajigs?” He started rolling a cigarette.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Gabriel write the word ‘thingamajig’ and draw a box around it. If they looked at each other, they were both going to dissolve into giggles. She dropped her head to let her hair curtain her face and hide her smirk; beside her, he was squirming with suppressed laughter.
Thank God Hedge was busy rolling his cigarette or he might throw them both out for acting like silly school kids.
Hedge lit his rolling his cigarette at last, lit it, and took a drag as if it were the sweetest air then went on with his talk. She stopped trying to guide the conversation back to Margo’s Arch and just enjoyed listening. His narrative painted pictures of a lost way of life. Gradually, an image came to life of an ancient La Canette; a relationship between people and nature, between songs, religious rituals, and farming. Pierre loved learning about old cultures; back at university, she had written a dissertation about old superstitions like throwing pennies into fountains and putting shoes on tables.
Beside her, Gabriel was flipping page after page as he wrote very fast. But she was still, thinking.
She loved her life here on the island, but it was complacent. She hadn’t even seen what was right under her nose. This folklore might have dwindled to nothing, but wasn’t this her field? She could have spent the last two years getting to know the lost traditions and civilisations of this unique place. What had become of her ambition, her passion for learning?
Lost them somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle of good food, funny greeting cards, and easy banter with friends.
The sudden quiet alerted her to the fact Hedge had finished talking.
What? What had she missed?
“Do they still hold weddings at Margo’s Arch?” she asked, hoping he hadn’t already mentioned it while her attention went wandering.
“Weddings? Pah,” he scoffed. “That’s just new age romantics pretending at the real thing. Margo’s Arch is for the New Moon Ceremony.”
