I slept badly, drifting in and out of a dream about the Lyme Chicken Festival. The rain poured, and the roof creaked. All the doors in my house rattled with the wind. The sea raged along the shore, and its sound beat against the walls, and I thought that this was the only house I could ever have owned.
My couch was uncomfortable. I like to sleep in a proper bed. I heard Elizabeth Green creaking above me, and in my dozing I thought, No, she’s not upstairs at all. She didn’t arrive with her jewels and a bottle of vodka. I’m sleeping downstairs because I am getting old and going mad. My imagination has caught fire.
The Lyme Chicken Festival is not held any more. It has been replaced by more usual entertainments, but for decades it was a popular attraction. I was there in 1947, on leave from the MV Maids of Cadiz, docked in Exmouth awaiting cargo.
Early in the year, competitors for the main event would select an eight-week-old chicken from their flocks, paying particular attention to the size of the bird’s wings. Separated from the flock and fed a special diet of fresh fruit, organic corn and mineral water, they were reared carefully. Their owners guarded them at night, often sleeping with them in cramped conditions.
The festival was held in April, on the beach. It started early, with the judging of the fancy chickens. Size of crop, comb, tail feathers and puffing chest were all considered, and rosettes presented. Photographs were taken, and local newspapermen licked their pencils. I was twenty years old, and had just returned from my first transatlantic. I was more man than I had ever been, with huge shoulders and massive arms.
After the judging of the fancies, chicken races were held, and competitions like ‘Chicken that most looks like its owner’, and ‘Miss Lyme Chicken ‘47’, but the main event was the most eagerly anticipated, and was held in the late afternoon.
A buzz went round the beach as the competitors carried their boxed birds through the crowd. They climbed on to a wooden platform and lined up. The boxes were opened and the chickens shown to the crowd. They were wearing leather harnesses. People applauded and yelled encouragement. I drank beer from the bottle.
Helium-filled balloons were brought and attached to the chickens’ harnesses by three-foot lengths of twine. Then, at the drop of a flag, the birds were released.
At first they swung madly and struggled, but then they hung limply from the balloons as they floated into the sky. It was a windless day and they rose vertically. People craned to watch while the owners took out air rifles, and aimed at the balloons. At the drop of a second flag they fired. All hit the target, and as the balloons burst, the chickens began to flap.
The winner of the event was the chicken who flew the furthest, but no one had told the birds to fly in the same direction. A couple headed towards the sea, others towards the town, a few more chose the beach. One, stunned and confused, fell without opening its wings and crashed into the sand directly in front of the owners’ platform. A dissatisfied groan rippled through the crowd, and a disappointed man went to collect the corpse.
The seabound chickens flew well but failed over water; as soon as it was beneath them they panicked, tried to turn and lost momentum. They dropped behind the breakwater, and a man dived in to try and save them, but they drowned.
Meanwhile, the birds that had headed towards town struggled to gain the height required to avoid a terrace of houses, but they failed. The first bounced on to a roof with a sickening thud, dislodged some tiles and slid to the pavement badly. The second glanced a chimney pot and careered into a back garden, while the third smashed through an upstairs window. Almost immediately a woman yelled and came to the window, and screamed ‘You’re animals!’ at us below. We applauded wildly, and cheered. I drank another bottle of beer. Another cheer went up, and we turned to watch the surviving chickens’ descent to the beach. One of these would be the winner.
There were three of them, neck and neck at this stage, their burst balloons flapping beneath them, their legs stretched right out. People shouted for their favourite, and began to run towards their likely landfall. There was madness in the air, and lust, and I had had enough, and turned away. I dropped my last beer bottle in a bin and caught the bus back to Exmouth, and the MV Maids of Cadiz.
I woke in a sweat. Sunlight was breaking the morning. The rain had passed. I sat up suddenly, and slipped off the couch. My back was sore. Elizabeth Green was in my bed. I stood up and put the kettle on the stove.
I went outside, took deep breaths, rubbed my face and the sleep from my eyes. The sea had calmed, and birds flew over the offshore stacks. I turned and looked up at the house.
I went back inside, and upstairs. I knocked on the bedroom door, and she said, ‘Come in.’
I put my head round the door and said, ‘Good morning.’
She was sitting up with my shaving mirror in her hand, brushing her hair.
I said, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
She put down her brush, lifted her chin and patted the skin beneath. ‘Lemon tea?’
‘I haven’t got…’
‘… a lemon,’ she said. ‘Okay. Make it plain. No milk. No sugar. Weak.’
I stood and looked at her, and I allowed my heart to swim. The sunlight was muddied by the plastic over the window, and pooled like custard on the floor. Her hair shone the colour of the flesh of some fish in a market in a port in the East. I couldn’t remember which port. I couldn’t remember ever going up to a woman and offering her a cup of tea in the morning. ‘Weak,’ I said. I thought about asking her if she wanted something to eat, but Gloria barked and I went downstairs.
An hour later I was sitting on my tractor. Smoke poured from its pipe. I don’t think I got a good deal when I bought it. I wasn’t concentrating. Gloria sat in the link-box.
Elizabeth said, ‘When will you be back?’
‘In a couple of hours.’
‘What time?’
‘Eleven,’ I said. ‘Or twelve. I haven’t got a watch.’
‘You haven’t got a watch…’ Her voice trailed away. ‘Stupid of me to think you’d have a watch.’
‘There’s a clock in the post office.’
‘Is there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell the time?’
I ignored this remark. Gloria looked towards the road. I said, ‘Make yourself at home.’
She said, ‘What am I going to do?’
‘I don’t know. Go for a walk?’ I pointed towards the point.
‘A walk?’
‘Yes.’
‘You must be kidding.’
‘No.’
She thought. ‘Where?’
‘There’s a path along the cliff.’
She shook her head. She looked at her feet. ‘I haven’t got any shoes. And my clothes are…’
‘Help yourself to some of mine. There’s a clean pile in the bedroom.’
‘Yours?’ Her voice sounded distant, as if she couldn’t hear it herself. She looked at my trousers. They were brown, stained with salt and earth, and hung in creases over my boots. My shirt collar was frayed to the tips, and the lining of my jacket was torn from back to front. My coat was thick, with wide lapels and a broad belt. I wasn’t wearing a tie. I had let my standards slip. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
Once, twice, three times, endlessly I had dreamed about Elizabeth Green arriving at my door in distress, drinking in front of my fire, warming herself back to life. You know you do, you know how being alone breeds a dream’s furthest borders. Life is not a dream. Don’t believe people who say it is. Life is actually happening to you.
‘Please yourself,’ I said.
She gave me a pitying look. I slammed the tractor into gear and headed up the road. I did not look back or raise my hand.