Paviland 

Hi there my friends, 

Sorry I missed your wedding but, as I said on the phone, I came off my bike on the M4.   I had spent too long that morning in Covent Garden searching for a special wedding gift, so, I was running late.  Then, I think it was by chance, I came across the very thing, in a motorway service station.  I met this odd bloke sitting with his back to the window at a table on his own.  There was nowhere else to sit.  He looked like an ancient hippy type; beads around his neck; leather bracelets with lucky charms; crumpled, faded baker’s boy’s hat; long grey beard and sun-baked wrinkled skin.  His eyes, I imagined, had been squinting through cannabis smoke all his life.  Looked at me like I was something left over on his plate and he was trying to decide whether to eat it or not. 

“Hi, there” I said, “You, ok?” 

"I've just seen the Red Lady," he said. 

Oh no!  I thought, A religious nutcase. 

I tried to ignore him and concentrate on opening the milk pots for my coffee but it failed to put him off. 

"Only she wasn't a lady, she was a man." 

Now, I was wondering if he was some cross-dressing weirdo. 

He went on, "She was buried in the cave at Paviland.  I've been waiting to go there for years but needed someone to go with.  A couple of weeks back, a mate of mine agreed to join me, but then he backed out at the last moment because drizzle had been forecast.  If a journey's worth doing, it must be worth doing in drizzle.  Don't you think?" 

"I suppose so," I said, looking at the drizzle on the window behind him.  That seemed to encourage him and I wished I had kept quiet.  

He leant forward, across the table, 

"The cave at Paviland was excavated by this vicar in the nineteenth century.  He found a skeleton but the bizarre thing was, it was covered in ochre and over the years the this had stained the bones red.  In the grave were necklaces, bracelets and - a mammoth's skull, but despite this last clue, the vicar pronounced that the remains were of a Red Lady, probably a Roman prostitute.  Perhaps the vicar’s only source of archaeology had been the Bible because later it was found to be the skeleton of a man, from before the last Ice-age, over thirty-thousand years ago.  But the Red Lady's name stuck. 

It’s tricky to get to Paviland, nowadays.  By kayak is the best way - have you ever canoed?" He asked. 

"No, I travel by bike," I said, tapping my helmet, next to me. 

"The thing about canoeing is, you never go out to sea alone.  But I really wanted to go.  From the beach it looked like a good day for the journey - apart from the drizzle.  The sea wasn’t too bad, but it was bound to be a bit rougher, further out.  It was only a few miles and the tide would be with me both ways.  But there are lots of extra risks, canoeing alone, not the least is, that you tend to go a bit crazy on the sea all by yourself.  But I went. 

Then, just before I reached the headland, I saw it, in the water, a dead gannet." 

He paused and looked at me as though he was waiting for me to comment,

 “What’s that,” I asked, “some sort of fish?”

“No, it’s a bird.  The gulls hadn't got at it yet.  Its mate was still circling overhead keeping the them off, probably been up there for days; she hadn't cleared off because it was drizzling.  The dead bird was beautiful, soft creamy white feathers. But it was a bad sign.

Do you know that all birds have their own omens?  Their own portents?  Especially sea birds.  Generally, the whiter the bird, the unluckier it is.  Black plumed birds bring good fortune.”

 I shook my head.

 "The albatross is the worst, of course.  To see a dead albatross is real bad luck but you don't get albatrosses in these waters.  At the other end of the spectrum is the cormorant; they're lucky.  I knew a man once who believed in the power of bird relics.  He wore a real guillemot’s foot around his neck for years.  It seemed to have worked because he met this wonderful young girl.  But when they were married, she said the bird’s foot smelt fishy and insisted he get rid of it.  Not long after, he got knocked off his bicycle by a lorry carrying fish fingers.  Goes to show, don't it? 

As I said, around here the unluckiest bird, on the avian scale of fortune, is the gannet.  So, now the signs for the journey were looking ominous.  I would have turned back but was caught by the tide rushing around the headland.  It was too strong to paddle against, I’d have to ride my luck and go along with it.  The waves got bigger where the tide raced over the shallows by the headland.  Close inshore there's usually a slower, flatter bit that you can sneak through but you risk getting caught by the breaking surf.  So, you must choose: big waves out to sea or surf on the rocks?  I took a chance with the surf.

Headlands always have a wake of herring gulls and black-backed gulls, silent bone-pickers, waiting for something dead to get washed up.  But I disappointed them this time, kept an eye on the breakers and was carried by the tide towards Paviland - in the grey drizzle.  All the time I scoured the sea for a lucky sign to count against the gannet.  A cormorant flying by would have been perfect or an oyster catcher, they're lucky.  All I saw was a seal that popped its head up, with an amazed look that said, ‘What the hell...?’ And then disappeared. 

 You see all kinds or strange things out at sea when you're in a little boat, so close to the water.  Sometimes dolphins, dustbin sized jelly fish but mostly rubbish: bottles, footballs, dead sheep and once a row of plastic ducks.  One day I saw a fluorescent light bulb floating along with a whole cluster of bright orange mussels living on it.  Must have come from a shipwreck, I reckoned.  Probably in the Caribbean because you don't get orange mussels around here.  Then, set up their little commune until the iron pins in the end of the bulb rusted away, the tube floated to the surface, got caught in the gulf stream and ended up...  well, I don't know where they ended up because I put them back in the sea.  That's some journey for a bunch of bivalves on a light bulb, don't you think?”

"Talking of journeys," I said getting up, "I must get going, got a friend's wedding to get to." But the old man held my wrist with his skinny hand, "I haven't told you the important bit yet; about the Red Lady?" 

"I'm in a hurry," I said, "I've still two hundred miles to go and I must find a wedding present." 

"Sit and listen, don't worry about a present.  Have some tea." 

He poured some tea from his pot into my coffee cup, his shaking hands splashing it over the table.  And then he carried on, 

"After a couple of hours, I got to Paviland but the waves were crashing onto some unfriendly looking rocks and I couldn't see any easy way of getting ashore.  After all that paddling, I was going to have to be content with just a glimpse of the cave from the sea.  If my mate had been there, I might have tried, but alone...  The tide was dropping quickly now and I thought there might just be a possibility; if I could get through the breaking surf, there was a flat rock where I could get ashore safely.   I'd then have to get out, swim across a rocky inlet and climb up to the cave.  No!  It'd be stupid to try, what with the dead gannet back there.  Then, above the crashing waves, I thought I heard the cry of an oyster catcher, a lucky signal.  There was a gap in the surf and without thinking anymore, I went for it: on the back of a wave, straight over the rocks and as the water flowed back out to sea I jumped out, dragged my canoe as high as I could, got out, swam across the little bay and climbed the thirty-feet, or so, to the cave. 

The entrance to Paviland is shaped like a giant teardrop; no wonder the ancients thought it was a special place.  There's a pit inside the cave, filled in now, where the vicar had found the Red Lady all those years ago.  I sat down at the back of the cave, feeling pleased with myself, I'd made it, against the odds - and on my own.  At last, I was in the very place where the Red Lady had been buried. 

I poured some tea from my flask and rolled a smoke.  But something was strange; the tea in the cup was rippling with concentric rings and my head was spinning.  I closed my eyes to clear my head and all went quiet - except for the alarm call of a blackbird - a blackbird!  Surprised, I opened my eyes and looked out of the cave entrance - the sea had gone not a whisper of it - I swear to you - what I saw was as clear as this cup on the table here." 

"What did you see?" I asked. 

 "A flat landscape, but the weird thing was, I recognised it, I'd seen it before, it was my home, like some distant memory or a recurring dream.  There was no sea but way off in the distance a winding river is that where the Red Lady had hunted and fished?  Along its banks lush green grass and muddy pools where the woolly rhinoceros and mammoth came to feed and wallow in the mud.  The place where the tribe set their traps, chased the beasts into the deep mud, killed them with spears and rocks and cut them up for food and trophies.  

A winding path led up to the cave entrance.  A procession of people carried the dead hunter on a bier of silver birch branches and flowers.  Others carried the skull from the mammoth which the hunter - the Red Lady - had died killing.  They came into the cave and laid the body in the pit.  Swirling sweet smelling smoke from burning wood bark drifted through shafts of light from the hole in the cavern roof.  Above the others, upon a rock, stood a woman, her skin shiny red with ochre and mammoth fat.  Wisps of sunlit smoke curled around her and painted yellow sunbursts glowed on her blood red dress.  Lacquered shell necklaces sparkled around her neck and kingfisher feathers danced from her hair braids.  From a basket she poured warm red earth, red ochre, over the body in the pit.  There were no tears in her eyes, just happiness because the hunter had died killing a mammoth and would be marked out for a special journey, a journey to the end of time.  These gifts would bring luck and fortune on his travels.  She took off her ivory bracelets, her periwinkle necklaces and laid them on the body.  Others brought, bows and arrows, stone axes, knives, a fishing spear, food and drink for the journey.  The woman took a leather pouch from her waist, held it up for a moment in a shaft of sunlight, then laid it gently on the body – one last gift for his journey.  Then she, along with the others, covered the body with stones and left the cave. 

The sound of the sea returned and I walked over to the pile of stones.  Everything seemed as it was when I first entered the cave.  Except, there was a piece of strip of leather.  Picking it up, I found it was attached to the leather pouch buried close to the surface – had it been there when I arrived – I hadn’t noticed it.  In the pouch was this.” 

He took a carving out of the pouch, to show me and continued his tail. 

“I couldn’t tell if it had been left there by some recent explorer, or whether it had it been there ever since… all that time – could it have survived?  I didn’t want to steal it, so I buried my flask on the same spot.  ‘For your journey,’ I said.  Exchange is no robbery, I thought. 

When I returned to my canoe the wind had got up, the tide had turned and the waves were bigger than ever.  It was the roughest trip I’d ever done; wind against tide – which makes the waves bigger - and half of it, in darkness.  How I got back safely…?  Well, perhaps I do know." 

I picked up the bird's polished webbed foot, 

“Looks to me like it’s made from resin,” I said. 

“No, no, it’s carved from mammoth ivory,” he said.  "Take it!  It’s yours.  It's done its job for me; brought me back safely through the waves to tell you what I've seen.  Now you take it.  You could give it to your friends as a wedding present, it will bring them luck for their journey together." 

I put it back on the table and started to refuse, but then thought that you two might like it.  “OK, as you insist, I’ll take it, thanks,” I said.  But as I went to pick it up, his skinny hand covered mine, 

“You must give me something in return,” he said, “It’ll be worth it” 

“Ah… That’s it, is it?  Now I get it.  Nice pitch, had me going there for a while, my friend,” I said, picking up my helmet and zipping up my leathers ready to go.  “You could have made the patter a bit less longwinded." 

"Listen, this talisman has opened my eyes, brought me back through a lonely wild sea and kept the black-backs from picking over my bones.  Omens like this grow in power as they journey on being traded from place to place.  Who knows where that journey will end?  Be part of it.  Take it on your journey and pass it on.  That’s worth a few quid, isn’t it?” 

So, I paid his asking price – and here it is.  Maybe it saved my life, because forty minutes later, on the motorway - wham!  Out of the darkness A bird hit me.  A bird strike on a bike, I know, it is pretty rare!  I asked the copper, taking my statement, what sort of bird it was,  

“I’m not a bird watcher,” he said, I don’t know their names. Mind you I’ve seen that sort of bird when I’ve been fishing on the lakes.  They come in from the coast and eat all the trout.  The fishing lake owners hate them and would shoot them if they weren’t on the protected bird list.  Big black bird with a long neck.  What’s it called...”  

“A cormorant?” I asked.

“Yeh, that’s what hit you.”

“I thought they were supposed to be lucky,” I said.

“How lucky do you want to be, feller?  Dark cloudy night; greasy road; wet from a day of constant drizzle; motorway full of juggernauts and, although you’re probably never going to admit it, by the length of the scrape marks that your bike made on the roadway, I’d say you were doing well over seventy - and you end up with hardly a scratch?” 

I spent the night in hospital.  For them to check me out, and the copper was right; hardly a scratch. 

Anyway, here is your present - for your journey – I am not sure if it is resin or mammoth ivory – but perhaps it does not matter.  

Congratulations - and good luck to you both, 

Your friend, 

Taylor