This is the second installment in a three-part series.
Bathampton
(Somerset, UK)
I am not certain of the moment I felt it, that sense that I was going home rather than traveling to a country where I’d never been before. Maybe it came over me as I was looking down from the plane’s window as it descended, watching the patchwork quilt of farmers’ fields growing larger, and then seeing the great city unfold itself, agleam and white, with the dark river gashing its way through.
Or maybe it was seeing the face of my friend Chris, whom I had met through a mutual friend when I was in grad school, as he stood there waiting at the gate. With that smile, crooked though it was, all of England seemed to say to me, “Welcome back. How long we have been waiting for you.” And just as I had suspected would happen, upon Chris’s recommendation, our very first stop was the airport pub for two pints of John Smith’s Yorkshire Bitter.
Maybe that was it: the feeling of the pound coins in my palm and then the sound of them as I plunked them onto the wooden bar, and then the barman’s voice uttering the phrase: “Thanks, mate.” In the ensuing days and weeks, how many times I would hear those words as I stood in some pub or other, looking up at the stout beams that had sustained the same roof for centuries, then gazing at the rows of pewter mugs, many of which had hung patiently on their pegs since their owners had died long beforehand; and then there was the taste of the beer, stinging a bit if it was lager, dark and earthy if it was bitter.
In any case, the feeling that I was returning to England instead of visiting for the first time never left me. I would go back numerous times over the years, and it was always the same, with my heart and gut saying to me, “You are home again at last.” And each time, after the plane and the bus and the train ride into Bath Spa station, my steps would lead me along the Kennet and Avon Canal to Holcombe Vale in the small village of Bathampton.
Forever frozen in my mind, that village is: the crisply-attired postman coming up the walk and opening each little iron gate to approach each door’s brass mail slot; the red and white and pink roses, so big you would need two hands to hold one (if you dared to pick it); the gravel alley that leads down past the primary school and then spills out onto the little bridge that spans the canal; and just beyond that is St Nicholas Church with its mossy graveyard (where my friend is now buried); and then you arrive at the George Inn.
The George Inn in Bathampton
These days the George is a chain pub, or so I am told, but I do not believe that was true in 1985 when I first drank there. I doubt it matters much - a British chain pub is not like an Applebee’s, where the food and drinks are just as bad in Miami as they are in Omaha. In the British Isles, the local charm and character of every pub is ineradicable. There remains some debate as to whether the George was established in the 12th or 17th Century, but either way, it has obviously long outlived its most faithful patrons, and I daresay it will also outlive those who might be sitting there at this very moment, quaffing an ale or a cider and laughing over a good story. As in most pubs, conversation is the primary source of entertainment; in general, there is no loud music or TV to upstage a punchline or quip. The stones, the timbers, the old, comfortable furnishings, the bright glow of lamps and hearths - all things here lend themselves to social gathering. On warm afternoons, the outdoor tables by the canal, with their colorful umbrellas against the pub’s gray stone facade, are always full, as the day demands that we stop here for a drink and a chat. The world will wait for us.
Of course, that would occur only when my friend was not in a state of exile. Sometimes when I visited Bathampton, Chris had been banished from the George by the management, though it was never a permanent condition. He was not a bad sort at all, so I’m not sure exactly why this would happen to him. Granted, he could become excited and animated, but I swear that he had no malice in him whatsoever. In truth, he was a fabulous conversationalist, with that wonderful working-class temperament, at peace with himself, with strong opinions, but as bighearted a host as one might ever wish for. He and I were “best mates,” as he put it. Maybe the publican at the George was an arsehole, or maybe it was just some sort of game he and Chris played with one another. Anyway, I would say,
“So, shall we go to the George tonight?”
And Chris would say, “No. I’ve been banned.”
And I would say, “Again? Why?”
He would say, “I’m not sure. May’ve been something I said.”
In such cases, we would spend a few evenings at the Wagon and Horses in Bristol or at the Saracen’s Head in Bath (fine alternatives, both) until Chris was allowed to return to the George.
Often his sister, Jill, would join us. Both of them were still living at home with their parents, a lovely white-haired couple who, from the moment I met them, contributed greatly to my sense that I had come home. For example, on the day I arrived, his mother had drawn a warm bath for me, something my own mother hadn’t done since I was about five. Mrs. Banbury was an English matriarch straight out of a storybook - quiet, with a soft, lilting laugh, but clearly the final authority on all family goings-on. She also happened to be an excellent chef and baker, and the first time I experienced a real British afternoon tea with fresh biscuits, in her back garden, I understood why it has been such an enduring tradition. His father, Ken, a grand old guy with a stunning hank of hair falling just above quick, intelligent eyes, had been a flier in the Royal Air Force during World War 2 (his decommission, signed by the queen, hung over the fireplace mantle). He was well-read and possessed a whiplash wit, and he immediately took me as a second son, showing me around town the next day, since Chris had to go to work. He suggested that I spend my afternoon hiking into the hills above the village, just to get the lay of things.
“See that? Just up there?” he asked, pointing. “If you look closely, you can make out a stone structure. It’s a sham castle.”
He explained that this was an old facade with turrets on either end, designed to trick passersby into believing it was a medieval fortress, when in actuality it was merely a single wall, built long ago by a wealthy landowner “to improve the view.”
“It’s all about appearances, you see,” Ken said. “In any case, if you do go up there, look for my name on the wall. I etched it there with a pen-knife when I was just a lad.”
I did go, and I did find his name: ‘Ken Banbury, 1927.’ There were many other names carved into the stone, too. Just above his, I saw ‘David Worthington, 1770.’ Perhaps it wasn’t a medieval castle, but it was still older than almost anything one might see on an afternoon’s hike in the U.S.
This led me to the startling realization, in fact, that nearly everything around me, all that I saw and touched, was somehow both an artifact of the past but also very much a useful piece of the present-day world. It was very odd. In America we are quite used to seeing buildings demolished, with new ones hastily put up in their places, and to abruptly tossing out cheap furniture, say, when it is no longer trendy, but in England, old things are not valued simply because they are old: they are well-made and well-kept and used for their original purposes for years and years, even for centuries. For instance, in most pubs and parish churches - the two essential gathering places in every English village - you must finally understand that the floorboards on which you stand, the bar upon which you rest your elbows, and the altar at which you kneel have known many thousands of feet, elbows, and knees over hundreds of years. In this way, you are eerily but solidly adhered to the inhabitants of the past through the things they used.
The structures and their tables and pews and beams may survive the ages, through wars and pestilence, storms and revolutions, but alas, the people do not. When I went to Bathampton again a few years later with my young son, Chris’s mother had died during the winter. This time his father did not squire me around the town. Instead he wandered about the house, watched television, and pruned his magnificent roses. Oh, he was still friendly enough and full of humor, but he had changed markedly overall: he was tired, stooped by the wearying weight of age and loss. When two more years had passed and I visited again (with my new wife this time), Ken had gone from this life as well. Even in that unchanging, lovely village in which so many things are preserved, where the postman continues to come along daily and carefully to open each little iron gate, and where the pewter mugs still hang in neat rows at the George, death must have his share.
One evening in the spring of 2016, my wife and I were reminiscing about England and about the possibility of going back to Bathampton to see Chris again. I had fallen out of touch with him for several months, but that was typical of our long-distance friendship. He had always sent us postcards from his trips to Spain and Thailand and Amsterdam (he had also come to see us in Florida several times over the years), and he never failed to send a card at Christmastime. Now I could not recall whether we had heard from him during the previous holiday, and then my spouse, who seems to have an uncanny talent for such things, had a sudden intuition. Very soon, a search of the Internet turned up this simple obituary in the Bath Chronicle:
BANBURY, Christopher, passed away peacefully on the 23rd October, 2015, aged 62. Much loved brother to Jill.
There was no chance of wishing it away. It was not some other Chris Banbury who also happened to have a sister named Jill. It was my friend, as certain as the tolling of a clock, but those few printed words did not seem to be enough for me somehow. I attempted a number of times to contact Jill, simply to try and cauterize something in my own mind, as though talking to her and learning exactly what had happened might help me to stash all the memories where they could be taken out, looked at, handled, and then put away again. But I was unsuccessful, and unlikely as it seemed, I wondered if she had sold the house and moved someplace else, maybe Bath, maybe London… I considered flying across the ocean once more and taking the old path along the canal, just to knock on the door at Holcombe Vale and see who might answer. Or perhaps I could go into the George Inn for a pint, and if I found him not, I could smile and ask the barman if Chris had been banned again. However, the school year was at full tilt and my duties as a teacher were clamoring and hectic, and I simply couldn’t get away just then. Or so I told myself.
In any case, it has taken me this long to understand why Bathampton, for me, remains an unresolved story, an unfinished memoir: I was not as good a friend as I ought to have been. This is the bitter truth. Had I been as good a friend as I ought to, somehow I would have known, and I would have been there. I might even have been at his side when the moment came. Still, we travel on, we people with good intentions, bound for God knows where.
