The derelict tavern marks the turn. Follow the lane
narrowing all the while and bordered by tall dark trees,
light-eating conifers, and wonder where the village
begins as the bends conduct you through the fields on the
low road, banks rising on either side, and feel relief
when the church emerges set back on your left, flanked by
the rectory and the modest church room where you find
four elderly people finishing a meeting who
compete to explain the one thing you already know,
the graveyard is not the cemetery, not at all, and
that to find the dissenters you must take the Duddery
all the way to the small crossroads and not (as you did
and have been rueing this long morning) accept the first
invitation that appeared to speak to memory
but led in a wide and empty circle back to the
boarded windows of the tavern – but go on, go on
to the crossroads, to the edge of what still can’t rightly
be called a village and turn left past over-tended
houses where willow fencing and pink paint confect a
rural fantasy to find yourself at what will turn
out to have been Meeting Green though there will be no sign
and soon again another turning you’ll resist to
the left which leads away from what has never really
happened towards the rise and half way up, pull over;
park on the verge; step out and to the iron gate secured
by a string easily slipped. Let it swing back. Scan the
windy field. Try to remember where it is and why
you can’t remember your way back to the small flat slab,
back to the shock of his name.