We leave Worcester for the short trip to Stratford for Em's youngest brother's wedding. One of Em's other brothers in the car, his wife, their child. On the way to Stratford I become momentarily excited as we pass through a village called Inkberrow - the home of And Also The Trees. Flashes of green lanes and Tudor buildings, trees and sky. I crane my neck and try to glimpse of a 'Virus Meadow', or maybe the petrified orchard in the song 'Blind Opera'. Then I remember, that song was about the orchard being destroyed; 'and the winds in your bare ribs utters still the tunes of lovers in the geese vee'd skies'.
The wedding takes place in the church where Shakespeare lies buried. After the service Em and myself slip out back to see his tomb, and the strange inscription that ends with the warning that 'curst be he who moves my bones'.
There was a thin rain after the service but by the time we arrived at the reception, this had, happily, been replaced by a pleasant summery warmth. The reception took place at the bride's parents, in a marquee in the grounds of their house in the Warwickshire countryside.
When night falls in the country (after a dazzling and unexpected sunset - see above) it comes like some dream-like thing rising from the ground, as if the darkness is a by-product of grasses and fields and trees and meadows.
A dazzling and pleasing array of family and speeches and champagne and tables scattered with tiny blue jewels. Plates of roast beef and roast potatoes and bread rolls. The DJ playing songs from the 1980s. Em remarks that the songs he plays only ever seem to be played at wedding. Wedding time is different from normal time though. Sat around table cloth laid tables, drinking daytime alcohol in unfamiliar suits, there is a certain shifting of time. This may no longer be now, may not be the wedding you arrived at. Look around, could this be not 2011 but 1971, or maybe 1931..? Wedding time is forever, and afterwards, feels as unreal as time spent in an odd faery-land.
Em and myself sharing a tent in the adjoining field. I am woken at some point in the night by something pressing against the side of the tent. Some animal munching away on, well, probably - hopefully - a discarded apple. I elected not to investigate.
Bacon sandwiches and tea in the morning, then, too-soon, on the coach at Stratford and the seven hour or so journey back.
The journey back was interesting though - particularly that part into and out of London (we changed at the soulless Victoria Coach Station). Coming in, London just seemed to appear from nowhere. One minute there was countryside, and the next buildings. The first area we went through was Golders Green, peaceful and leafy and dotted with 'Kosher Supermarkets'.
Had an interesting moment of deja-vu as the coach swung into Victoria. It started off with a 'this is familiar' feeling, which grew in intensity, but was accompanied by a half-image / feeling of a family in a darkened room having dinner. Hard to explain, but it was as if this feeling / image was something I had been thinking about 'before' when this moment had 'previously' happened. As is so often with deja-vu, there was the accompanying feeling of revelation -that moment of, when being asleep of 'ah! This is only a dream!' and waking up. With deja-vu there is no waking up though, and the moment passes, and even though deja-vu can be 'rationally' explained, you are still left with the feeling that you have been afforded a sudden and inexplicable glimpse into a wider mechanism.
South London was ragged and obscure. Boarded up shops, and the faces of pedestrians out of the window were strained and harried. Waste grounds of disused factories and poisonous looking fast food kiosks - themselves warily abandoned in the sunny nothing of Sunday evening. On the wooden boarding of one such establishment were scrawled the words 'white leper first Armageddon war chilled'.
It took a long time to travel through South London. There would be sudden stretches of industrial looking countryside -pylon states, industrial estate republics- before being plunged back into an increasingly leafy and more pleasant suburbia.
I can't remember when London ended, but soon enough, the dry yellow light of Sussex was unmistakeable. Then there was London Road, Preston Park, the Old Steine... finally Pool Valley coach station and the end of the journey.
Back in the bedsit now, an hour and a half left of Sunday, but I'm not too sad, as I remembered to book tomorrow off.
