Sophie Kerr Portfolio
I: Voices
Of High Places
(a few excerpts from a short story)
I.
We’ve been searching Rome for two weeks now, my cat and I. She doesn’t ask why or even what we’re looking for. I appreciate her unusual silence because if she asked, I wouldn’t be able to answer and then we would have to turn around and go back without having found anything. It was like that in Barcelona; she kept pestering me, doubting that I was really interested in fountains and mosaics and so we left before I finished my research.
For a while, I thought I was looking for a particular statue and we spent a week touring cathedrals, chapels, museums, and plazas throughout the city. But they all started to look the same. Then I thought I had found what I was looking for in a wide avenue lined with thick columns and olive trees. We spent two afternoons walking up and down, weaving between columns, looking at grass growing between the cobblestones, and staring up at the patterns of olive branches. But Tabby (that’s the cat) quickly let me know she was bored. She refused to go the third day, so we spent the day inside. Since then, it’s been brief excursions to tourist sites within and nearby the city.
IV.
A week later and we are back in England. I had insisted that we leave immediately after our return from the hill. Tabby had stretched and settled on my lap in response, which was no response at all. “Don’t you think it’s time to go?” I asked, prodding her back. Sleepily, her voiced drifted through my head, “I told you you didn’t like fountains.” I pushed her off and went to pack my bag. It took us all week to get home because I wanted to spend some time with a friend of mine in Provence. She took me out to her favorite farm where they let you pick the lavender. It makes Tabby sneeze, but I love to make sachets and little braided wreaths as gifts, to put in with the clothes and hang in the bathroom and kitchen.
I started putting together articles for the magazine on the train rides. There was enough from the Barcelona trip to put together a good article, though I still wished Tabby had let me finish touring the mosaics so I could put together a proper “Best of” list. I work freelance, and it can be rough sometimes if the articles aren’t accepted, but I inherited enough from my father that along with my own savings I can get through rough times.
Our flat in London is spacious and though it is the second story, the view is not particularly worth noting. In fact, the only thing in London worth noting is Big Ben. Tabby disagrees, but then, she did not spend her last seven lives here, and I feel that if I have had any past lives, they most certainly must have been spent trapped in this city. I often consider moving to the suburbs, but I do like the convenience of being able to walk most places I need to go on a regular basis. And the magazine offices are all located within 15 driving minutes, assuming normal traffic. Tabby often adds the fact that we would never stay here long enough to enjoy a house in the country, anyway. As much as she likes the traveling, sometimes she gets in what I call immobile moods and she refuses to go anywhere but the park, forcing me to settle down for a while. As soon as we get back this time, she I can tell she has gone immobile.
VI.
Christmas is approaching and we are still in London. The house has been silent and frigid for a nearly a month. Today I broke the silence to tell Tabby we will be going to Devonshire for the holiday. I hoped that it would loosen her up, going to a place she used to live, but then again, she might hate me for bringing it up. She hardly ever speaks of her past lives, but I got the impression that Devonshire was a pleasant one. She agreed indifferently.
VII.
I went out on an excursion by myself today. Tabby was curled up in front of the fire in the parlor of the Bed & Breakfast where we are staying in Ilfracombe, so I went out without a word to her. She has been equally as silent here, though she has been sleeping next to me again. It is nice to have her reassuring weight beside me again. It has been a quiet, but much more comfortable few days since we arrived than it had been in London. The town is usually a seaside resort for the summer, so now in the dead of winter the Bed & Breakfast is empty but for us. The family who runs it has been most welcoming. Christmas is on Thursday and I have been invited to church services with them as well as having been promised a place at their holiday table.
We had already gone to Hillsborough and the Iron Age fort there on the first day after settling in. I had been particularly looking forward to it, perhaps hoping to see something there that would remind me of Italy. The day had been cloudy and when we got to the fort, a cold drizzle started, making the view muddied. Tabby did not complain about the cold or the damp, though she stayed relatively warm and dry once I put her in her sling, which I wore across my stomach instead of my back so I could cover her with my raincoat without smothering her. We could barely make out Ilfracombe below and across the bay. I could almost imagine the town a tiny village overlooked by the strong fortress, but there was none of the vivacity with which I had looked upon Rome. It was all long, dark years of watching for Vikings and hoping the harvest would last through winter.
Today was dry and chilly as I set out. I drove a little ways out of town to pick up the South West Coast Path, hoping to get to Great Hangman, the highest cliff in mainland Britain. I was about a half an hour into my walk when a light snow began to fall. The sea on my left was dark and choppy. By the time I finally reached the cliffs after lunch, the snow had accumulated enough that it looked like white dust on the rocks and the tops of the grasses were just peeking out. There was nothing there but the grasses and rocks and far below, the crashing waves.
The quiet but for that distant, constant shushing of waves on rock, was immense. I knew that in the summer there would be the cries of birds and the chirping of bugs, but now the quiet echoed across the cliffs and the snow. I stood close to the edge and breathed deep the scent of salt and snow. I watched the as the waves rose higher, the tide moving up the cliff-face. The snow settles on my shoulders, on my scarf, on my hat. I thought about the winter and how it would change to spring. And then the summer would bust forth for a moment before fall came tumbling through to winter once again. Colonies of ants would rise and fall just as the Empire of Rome. The heather would rise tall, reaching to the Heavens like cathedral spires. Birds would sing creation, mice would raise families, and the rocks would stand fast to the waters until it was time to crumble. Here, where there was nothing I could see life, lying dormant, waiting to pulse through the earth again.
When I returned late to the fireside, Tabby was waiting, anxious. I told her I understood now what I had felt on that hill in Rome. “I think,” I said, “we should re-consider that country house you saw in the real estate section. And I am definitely keeping the Amazon on the to-do list before winter ends.”
“I told you I’m always right,” Tabby yawned as she curled up, satisfied that my return would assure her of the next meal.
“Of course, you wise little dear.” She gave me the self-satisfied smile of cats everywhere and went to sleep. I stared for a long time at the fire, thinking of the trees they once were.
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