A Walk in the Park: The Muse in Heart & Head

By Frank McGillion

A Walk in the Park is a novel inspired by true events of two young people who fall in love and are convinced they will live their lives together. However, they are fated to go their separate ways. Fifty years later they are put in touch again. They arrange to meet in the park where they had regularly met as youngsters. This restless and poetic novel is an account of unrequited love, the memories evoked by their walk and its unpredictable and dramatic conclusion. Avant-garde literature at its best for those who appreciate the human condition portrayed at its most beguiling.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664186361

Frank McGillion

Frank McGillion is the author of over a dozen books. They include On the Edge of a Lifetime, The Opening Eye, Blinded by starlight, The Leaf: a Novel of Alchemy and, his most recent novel, A Walk in the Park. A graduate of the University of Glasgow he carried out postgraduate work at Oxford University and City University, London. He has also worked internationally in the corporate sector and as Tutor in English Literature in higher education. A recent guest of the CBS broadcast, People of Distinction he has wide media experience.

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Copyright © 2021 by Frank McGillion.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/23/2021

Xlibris

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Contents

What Are We?

Part One

Kate

Teatime

Clear for Winter

Her Reflection

Snowfall

We Speak

Flaws

Summer

The Scent of Grass

Faux Pas

A Shift in Consciousness

The Greenhouse

In Summary

The Sights and Sounds of Campfires

The Accident

Back in the Park

Party One

Fifty Years Later

Charles the Infant

The Captive

They Meet in Passing

Charles Wakes

Kate Just Woken

Rain Shower

East of Eden

Autumn

Winter

Peripheral Vision

Waiting in the Cold

Three Years Together

Untrod Pathways

Lessons

Dance Partner

Kate Invokes Chance

Charles Musing

Reflections

Beginners in Life

Absolute Beginners

Fifteen Months Later

Evening One

Evening Two

Evening Three

Sterility

The Youngsters Finish

A Brief Liaison

Party Two

Wintered

Lady in Waiting

Part Two

Sun & Rain

Evening

Music from Life

Revelation

Anna

A Chance Encounter

A Broken Vow

A Cottage Miles from Home

An Obvious Lie

Thoughts

Bliss

A Waking Dream

The Dream

Aftermath

Cliff Tops

Afternoon Walk

Marriage and Children

A Wedding

Trains

Another Parting

Contact

A Suggestion of Tragedy

Analysis and Assumptions

Fifty Years Later We Speak

Accidents

The Meeting Today

Spring

Beginning of the End

Charles’ Walk

Crossing the Threshold

Creatures of Broken Dreams

They Meet

Assessing

They Walk Together

Smalltalk

Images and Reflections

Tragedy

A Permanent Love

By the Tree

Tidying Up Life

Mother Nursing

The Spy

The Elders Finish

Dedication

Charles to Kate

What Are We?

It isn’t a stream of consciousness. It’s something else. It ululates. Ripples. Froths. It forms dribbles and droplets and indented creases of waves upon its surface. It spills-over, leaks, drips and drops and makes a variety of bubbling soothing sounds. Its colors change as do its dimensions. Its depth seems endless. Its edges widen and shrink with the Moon. Its boundaries are never defined. First and third persons meet. No. It isn’t a streaming consciousness. it moves from here to there and we follow it like flotsam. Yet, we wonder what it is. Where it came from. And, most importantly of all, we wonder where it’s going exactly, dragging us along with it.

PART ONE

Kate

The first time I touched Kate was after mass in our local church. It was on the feast of The Assumption: a day committed to the celebration of the Virgin physically rising to heaven and thereafter having a permanent physical presence there.

We were aged eleven or twelve at the time; I’ve never bothered to work it out exactly. And Kate wore a pink dress with a white sash across her left shoulder. The sash ran down towards her waist, round her back, returned, moved upwards and out of sight.

And she brushed against me briefly as if I were part of her even then. I looked to see who she was and for a moment I thought I recognized her. I certainly felt something I still can’t define. And that seemingly arbitrary touch led me to feel I wanted to keep her close always. For this life and hopefully afterwards. For eternity, along with the Virgin in heaven.

It was a very basic contact. I was leaving the church and she eased past me. The exit was crowded, so we moved closer together and her dress – pink as a flaring sunset – touched me like a caress.

Indeed, I thought it was exactly that. And I felt terror briefly. I didn’t like being touched. I still don’t. Not even brushed against. But I accepted this one willingly and the occasion imprinted itself, and Kate herself of course, onto me for the rest of my life. Though it was branded deeper into me later, as if she owned me. And I suppose she did at that time. And she still does.

That feast day virtually deified the Virgin. And Kate looked like a goddess too that day. Though I’m not suggesting an association took place that caused me to set her apart from others. Nor that this incident infused me with a living religious icon. Just that it might have. She certainly made an impact I’ve never been free from. Because I felt it. I indulged it. Indeed, I’m indulging it now. Because the pursuit of some dreams is truly endless.

So, I found, for the first time, in a church, on a feast day of the Virgin, when there were celebrations of all types taking place, what I now call my first muse. And the most important celebration of that day involved a group of girls who wore modest, pink skirts that flared out like crocus petals do under certain circumstances. And they wore white sashes that crossed over their chests the way snow clings onto windowpanes and it was there, waiting for me, and I found it. There it was hidden in plain sight. And it only took a brief touch for me to discover it.

The second time I found it, I needed far more preparation. But being alive and young was enough to discover it for the first time, though I couldn’t hold onto it. But I doubt that was due to lack of preparation. I attribute it now to an unforeseen adjustment in what we call fate. For I believe fated events exist. I’m certain of it. And I always will be.

Teatime

And two or three years later, on the first occasion we went out together, I asked Kate where she thought we should go. She was tactful. My financial status was obvious. She said she’d love a cup of tea or coffee. And we had tea. I was nervous of course. And when our cups arrived, I reached for the salt cellar instead of the sugar bowl. And I heard the most wonderful combination of a word and squeal.

‘No!’ She acted as if she were horrified. And I did a double take; pretended I was going to pour salt into her tea. She shook her head as if convinced I was serious and, for the very first time, I heard her laugh. I’ve never forgotten it.

And her smile spread color everywhere. And I noted how her hair shook slightly out of phase: like a series of evasive glances. It looked stunning. Absolutely stunning. And with that incident, relatively controlled and contained as it was, I experienced for the first time how vibrant and vivacious she was beneath her natural elegance. It was as if everything else in the world had stepped aside for a moment to allow me a step forward to access her; to obtain a glimpse of who she really was. And it was a step that would also bind me to her irrevocably and give me my intuitive understanding of why I determined to stay the course. As I have done. Until now.

I took her home afterwards. We stood near a side door, beside a window, on a driveway of red slabbed stone. I could smell the collective scent of the garden and her perfume. Two youngsters, less aware of life’s complexities than some precocious children are. And I felt awkward. For I didn’t know the protocol and, already, I wanted to ask her out again.

I wondered if I should kiss her cheek when I left, or shake her hand, or do both. But I didn’t want to move too close to her. As intimated, I didn’t like being touched.

Anyway, it was the sort of date that first dates were at that time. And, while times change, some parts don’t.

So, I expect you know yourself, the cast of emotions that act out the play on such occasions. They perform the drama that has us looking on and demanding the same script and scriptwriter, despite it having played out time-after-time-after time for generations back to antiquity.

And I could see Kate’s features clearly defined in the light from a downstairs window. It was open slightly and I was scared if I said anything inappropriate someone in the room might hear me. But I did my best. I hoped for a positive result and I asked her out again. She agreed to see me again and I was elated. And she told me that, given her family duties, when that downstairs light was on, she’d normally go in and assist with her younger siblings’ food, or washing, or tell them a bedtime story or something of that sort. That was her role. But she’d been given a pass that evening. Her mother had said she could stay out later than normal. So that was good. And so was life. Then something unexpected happened.

She invited me in to meet her parents. Her mother in particular she said. But I declined. Why? Because for some strange reason I sensed that meeting her mother just now was inadvisable. But I didn’t say that. I made some other excuse for not doing so. I’ve no idea what. But Kate didn’t insist. So finally, I gave her a chaste peck on the cheek. Then I headed home.

It was an ordinary start to an extraordinary relationship. One that would endure for life. But not a life together. Dreams can form in deceit, as if they will be perfect in their ending. But they seldom are.

And it was too, the beginning of a remarkable love story. And to have been part of it has enriched my life so completely, that I continue to thank the gods for allowing it to happen. Though I believe it could have been better and led to a conventional life together. But you take what you can get in life. It is rarely perfect. And now, on good days, I write about human dignity. But on bad days, I write about the grief and anger generated by unrequited love. For I have expertise in both.

And the last time we were out together, I was filled to the brim and overflowing with a tenacious grief that couldn’t be shifted. It could be forgotten for a time and, on occasion, displaced – put out of the way for a time. But never erased. Never. It’s the same today, as it was then, that day in the park. It almost brought me to my grave down slanting steps of unrelenting grief. And I was told later that is one signature of a muse at work. And Kate was certainly my muse.

Yet I had always been creative. I wanted to master what I could about the human condition. I wanted to be a writer with precise and accurate observation. And how can you represent something like grief on the page unless you’ve felt its almost unbearable tortures yourself?

Clear for Winter

And to describe how Kate and I fully bonded, I must first give a brief account of a long, cold winter. We all know the lines: They were the best of times; they were the worst of times. This and its continuation, is one of the finest pieces of prose ever written. And I could say something similar about the year I was given my chance to live normally. It too had the best of times I had ever known. And it was when I first saw Kate in the years of my youth. The winter of that year was described as harsh. But it was nowhere near harsh to those of us who were young and free enough to indulge in it. For the harshness the seasons bring only arrives a great deal later when youth has long since flown.

Late that autumn I was told a chest condition I had was under control and that no more skin grafts were required to treat it. I was told I was free to go into the world and catch up with all I’d missed because of this. There had been some bad news too, but I’ll address that later. That aside, this was one of the best times of my life.

After years of treatment, all the medical demands on my time were over. I could start to live normally, albeit without electing to bear my chest in public, though I even managed that in the fullness of time. Yet, in the complete fullness of time, this condition caused the world to collapse everywhere around me. Not because it still bothered me. But because it once had.

But during all that frosty, snowy, endlessly frozen winter, using my elder brother’s ice skates, I skated on the streets and roads and any other place accessible to me. It seemed that everyone went skating on those frozen pathways: miles upon miles of streets and pavements and pathways and other places, frozen over with a snow and ice covering, that was snowed over and frozen again every single night: time after time, after time. The best and worst of times indeed. But for most of us youngsters, they were only the best of times.

And they were to become even better, for me, as those months gave way to their next appearance on the calendar.

Her Reflection

Almost exactly a year later, when the snow of the previous year had long since gone, I was standing one afternoon in the town, looking in a shop window, while waiting for a school friend. I saw a reflection in the window and I turned to see what it was. And that’s when I really saw Kate; though I’m uncertain what I mean by that. After all, I was unprepared for some occasion of such import; a moment of poignant personal history that would enclose us and ease us away from virtually everything else for several years. One that would take us away from the other world: the one taking place anonymously around us.

And I felt immediately that I knew her. That I knew her so well I could barely conceive of it, or of how comprehensive it was. Because it wasn’t her biography I knew. It was her. And I also knew I wanted to spend my life with her. I felt certain that we were going to spend our lives together. All that in a single moment. Like a drop of water falling and bursting open with symmetry and order and beauty then being frozen in place forever.

And while that sounds unrealistic – after all I was only in my early teens – whenever I’m asked about it these days, I feel compelled to say why that happened. And how I could be so certain. After all, I was wrong, which seems to confirm the skeptical view. But the skeptics don’t have all the facts. So, I simply say that I have no idea. None whatsoever. Because I don’t.

It was like being subtly merged into one another that day in the town; becoming a single entity, with no warning whatsoever. There she was. And I was totally linked to her. It was really that simple. And she was wearing the uniform from the girls’ school that was twinned with the one I had recently started attending.

So, I knew I could discover who she was from my schoolfriends and I somehow knew it would go smoothly after that: that life would unfold a bit like that crocus I mentioned. Yet they only blossom in the best of times. And we were going to be exposed to some of the worst. So, my time with Kate too included the best of times and the worst of times. Yet the worst of them all unfolded when our relationship seemed long gone. Dead and done with, as I thought. But there’s always a postscript. Remember that. Always.

I went to sleep that night thinking about her. Reflecting on her reflection in that window. I can’t be precise about what my thoughts were. Not now. I suppose they were much the same as those of any adolescent boy of my background and era. But tempered surely by two factors. My long pursuit towards health and normalcy and my being certain I had found the girl I would marry, live with, have children with and then I would die with Kate left behind to grieve for me. In other words, have a normal life with her by our standards. A life normal