Nimrod

Elgar's music set to words

Nimrod

It is night. A wrinkled chunk of grey moon hangs low over a wooded valley. A ribbon of road, traced by an occasional light, stretches along its length but at this hour there is no traffic. In the distance a smudge of concentrated shadow could be a village. At this end of the valley there is a house set back off the road behind a screen of cypresses.

It is a functional rather than pretty house, L-shaped, two storeys, with a steeply pitched roof, its walls whitewashed but weather-stained. At the front, facing the road, there is no sign of occupation but a light is burning to the rear. Through an uncurtained window we can see into a kitchen, spacious and well equipped but dusty, its range tarnished, the floor unswept, dishes piled in a sink. Behind the back door is a long wooden table. At one end are the uncleared remnants of a meal. At the other a man is sitting flicking through a thick photo album. On the table in front of him are two brown plastic medicine bottles, their childproof lids open. On the table between them is a mound of pills. Behind these, just within reach of the man, is an unopened bottle of Glengoyne whisky and a tumbler.

He is past middle age. Though seated he is evidently tall, broad-shouldered, muscular. His hair is collar-length, grey-brown, wavy and untidy. He is wearing a blue-green checked shirt and trousers of thick brown corduroy.  One might take him for a farmer but for his hands which are pale, long-fingered and unworked. A pair of glasses is perched on the end of his nose. Sometimes he nudges them up over his eyes better to concentrate on a particular photo then they are allowed to slide back down as he looks over them at less interesting snaps.

The photos are mainly of people or of buildings in famous and not-so-famous tourist spots. Sometimes the two are combined; a woman from an earlier portrait is posed before the Coliseum, a boy shown earlier in school uniform now stands on a bridge from which the Manhattan skyline is visible. As the pictures flicker past the boy grows taller and his face fills out, the images running into one like a primitive cartoon. The young man he becomes is seen smartly suited with a girl in white. The woman in Rome also ages, acquiring a stoop and a stick and then a wheelchair but continues to smile broadly in front of Rembrandt’s house or the Sagrada Familia. There are still many pages to be turned when the man loses interest and puts the album aside.

He arranges the pills in neat symmetrical rows; five rows of five and two left over forming a crown; twenty seven in total. He leans his chin on his left hand, elbow resting on the table as he contemplates the tablets for some time.

A car passes on the main road and, distracted, he lifts his eyes to the window where a few tentative rays of sun are starting to peep over the horizon and define the trees and outhouses behind his home. Birds are announcing their morning search for food, warning of predators, telling their nestlings that they will be back soon. He rises from his seat and goes to the window, creating a stir under the table where a dog has been sleeping. It emerges from its lair and snuffles towards him.

It is a large dog, lean and alert, but it moves slowly and carefully as if considering hidden aches and stiffnesses. It is of indeterminate breed, part Labrador, part German Shepherd, part Setter, part many other things. It stands at his left side searching the man`s face for clues on what is to happen now.

The man does not look at the dog but drops his left hand to rest on its head. He is looking out the window to the hills which form the nearest flank of the valley. The sun has already warmed the rounded peaks and is now sliding down the slopes towards him. It picks out details to paint into the scene: a copse of oaks, electricity pylons, dots of cattle, the budding of trees.

The dog stretches, shakes and lopes to the back door, pawing it noiselessly. The man does not turn but raises one hand palm downward. The dog accepts the instruction and drops to rest on his front paws beside the door. The man continues to watch the light creep over the countryside. Then he turns back to the table, scoops the tablets into his left hand and counts them one by one into the plastic bottles, thirteen in one, fourteen in the other. He opens a high cupboard and places the bottles on a shelf. From another cupboard he takes a worn leather jacket and a long gnarled stick. The dog rises expectantly.

The man opens the unlocked door and the dog bounds into the garden, stopping to sniff at bushes and fence posts. The man stands framed in the doorway watching the dog and himself taking in big lungfuls of crisp early-spring air through broad nostrils. Briefly he turns back to the table and in one swift movement opens the bottle, pours a generous measure and knocks it back in one. Then he leaves the house, pulling the door closed behind him.

The dog bounds ahead to a gate and waits to be admitted to the hillside. The man catches up, opens it and strides forward. The dog smells rabbit and fox and other tantalising odours. He knows that beyond the copse there is a pond with ducks. He scoots quickly up the gradients forgetting his aches and his age but stopping now and then to check that the man is following. He is.

Before the path reaches the trees there is rocky outcrop where he knows the man will stop so he waits there. The man seats himself on the topmost boulder and looks back along the valley. The darkness at the other end has revealed itself as a cluster of roofs, spires and chimneys. There is now an irregular trickle of cars and lorries in both directions on the road. Mist is gathering in the hollows and shadows, waiting to be dispersed by the sun. A fine day is promised.

The man rises and heads towards the copse, the hilltop and the pond. The dog races ahead. There are rabbits to be chased, ducks to be barked at, scents to be traced, boundaries to be marked. It is what dogs do.