Annie Christie's To Die For:
Episode Five
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: The Longest Day.
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What can I say about the rest of May? Exams blighted everything. I tried hard, but usually failed, to get my last minute revision done. I was thinking about Freddie all the time. I kept hoping I’d see him around Kirkcudbright. But I didn’t.
My final exam, Modern Studies, should have been the one that counted, I suppose. I was banking on getting an A. I was pretty sure I’d fluffed the French and my Maths has never been strong. I needed 4A’s and a B for St Andrews, 3A’s and 2 B’s for Glasgow and Stirling was my ‘back-up’ They only needed four passes. If I didn’t get that I’d shoot myself. But I didn’t want to go to Stirling. My sites were set on Glasgow, if I’m honest. More than any of that, I wanted to go somewhere. Be somewhere, become someone. I needed to get out of Kirkcudbright, but I still couldn’t really believe it would ever happen. Yet, while I was desperate to escape, I couldn’t think beyond that last exam – seeing Freddie again was the most important thing on my mind.
I spent a lot of time dreaming how we’d spend the summer. I had no reason to assume that he’d even be there all summer, but in my fantasies we spent a whole long, hot summer (that in itself should have convinced me I was fantasising) biking around Galloway.
I came out of my Modern Studies exam with the biggest smile on my face. I was alone, Christy didn’t do Modern Studies, and I was looking forward to falling into Freddie’s arms – or at least trying out a cool ‘hey, how’ve you been?’ before getting on the bike and riding off into the proverbial sunset. Life never works out the way you planned though, does it?
Two fifty-five saw me standing like a lemon outside the school gates, coming to the realisation I’d been stood up. The euphoria of finishing school forever was fading into the sense that I was just as much a loser in the post-school world as I had ever been while a pupil. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t not happen. I’d waited for two weeks, after all.
It didn’t take long for me to start fearing the worst. Maybe he’d found his ‘place’. He’d painted it and moved on, probably gone back to Germany. And where the hell was Dresden anyway? I quickly convinced myself I was never going to see him again.
At ten past three I called it a day. I needed to get out of there before Christy rocked up. I knew she’d be out there stalking Ian the Janny by 3.30 and I wanted to be clear of the place before she arrived. So I walked down High Street. I had it in my mind that I’d go and ask Rupert what shifts I could do over the summer – with no Freddie on the scene I might as well earn as much money as possible to help me transition to the life of a student.
I was passing Broughton House when I heard the familiar roar of the motorbike. I turned round, and there was Freddie, waving to me.
‘So sorry,’ he said as he jumped off the bike. ‘I had a problem.’
‘It’s okay,’ I lied. Well, it wasn’t really a lie, I was overjoyed to see him. My summer plans had just changed once more. ‘Anything serious?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Just, you know, the bike…’
‘Oh,’ I said. And realised I didn’t know what to say next. I wanted to run my fingers through his messy blond hair. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to say ‘are you my boyfriend? Will you be my boyfriend – even if it’s just for the summer?’ But I said nothing. How could I? He’d think I was mad. But he did seem pleased to see me.
‘So,’ he said. ‘No longer a student?’
I smiled. ‘Yeah, it feels great. I can’t wait to get out of this…’ I pointed to my uniform. Some wise spark had decided we all had to come into exams in our school uniform. It was shameful.
‘I think it is nice,’ he said.
I pulled my tie off over my head, and chucked it at him.
‘You like it so much, you can have it,’ I said.
He took it, smiled, and put it in his jacket pocket.
‘I will treasure it,’ he said. That’s when I decided that, despite English being his second language, he had a sense of humour.
‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘What now? Tell me what you’ve been up to?’
He parked up the bike and we sat on a picnic bench, me still in my school uniform – because however much I wanted to be free of school, I didn’t want to let go sight of Freddie again even for a moment – and we talked.
Mostly, he talked. I listened, but I can’t say I took it all in. He told me about the light and about Friedrich’s paintings and then he reached into his pocket and said, ‘Oh, I have something for you too.’
He pulled out a postcard. It was titled ‘Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon’ by Friedrich, and he laughed and said, ‘Like you and me at the Clatteringshaws, no?’
It was nothing like him and me at Clatteringshaws, but I was touched.
‘Cool hat,’ I said. ‘Is that the place you’re trying to find?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘but I thought you should know something of the paintings of Friedrich.
‘And I want to ask you,’ he began.
‘Ask away,’ I interrupted.
‘To spend the next full moon with me,’ he said.
‘I’d love to,’ I said. ‘When is it?’
Stupid question, I know. I mean, they come round once a month, the last one had been on May 16th, I had that day etched into my mind. I could have worked it out.
‘Because last time, it was not the full moon,’ he said.
‘What?’ of course it was.
‘No,’ he said, ‘it was the night after. It looked full but we were a day too late’
‘Does it matter?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘In art, everything matters.’
‘Okay, well, let’s make sure we don’t miss it this time,’ I said.
‘It’s Saturday, 14th,’ he said.
‘We’ve got a good couple of weeks to go then,’ I said. ‘What shall we do till then?’
‘You will be working, in the shop?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I kind of hoped I’d be able to show you around.’
‘I’m not on holiday,’ he said, an edge to his voice. ‘I am working too.’
‘Oh, okay, but…’ I was desperate, I needed some way to make sure the connection stuck, ‘but I was hoping you’d teach me some more about art. I’m really interested.’
I didn’t add that what I was really interested in was him, more than art.
He looked a bit surprised.
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Of course, there is so much to know. Not just art, but… do you know Goethe?’
‘Not personally,’ I said. Wisecracks not a speciality.
‘If I am to teach you art,’ he said, looking deadly serious, ‘you need to read Goethe.’
‘In German?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he laughed. ‘In English.’
‘Oh, okay. Where do I start?’ It was beginning to sound like I’d just talked myself into a summer of school. But if that was what it took to keep Freddie happy…
‘The library,’ he said.
So we went to the library. The last place I imagined I’d spend my first afternoon of freedom from life as a schoolgirl!
We came out with a stack of books, including a couple of big glossy art books on Friedrich. The librarian asked me if I was going to study Art History at University. I shook my head. Freddie asked me what I was going to study. I shrugged. I told him that I hadn’t really decided. That in Scotland you could sign up for three different subjects in your first year and pick between them. That you didn’t have to make your final choice till year three. He was impressed by that. I didn’t tell him that I’d put down history as my elected subject, just because I thought it would be easiest to get in to do it. I had no intention of studying history. But I didn’t really have an idea what I wanted to study. Perhaps this crash course in Art History and German Literature wouldn’t be a waste of time after all. Freddie was certainly going to broaden my horizons.
The next couple of weeks went by in something of a blur. It might sound stupid but we kind of worked our way through the art book, looking for all sorts of places. It was like some kind of artistic re-enactment. Freddie showed me that parts of Dresden Heath were very like parts of Galloway but there was much more besides. In various parts of Galloway we found versions of ‘Landscape with Oaks and Hunter’, ‘The Churchyard’, ‘Bohemian Landscape with Two Trees’, ‘Cemetery Entrance’, ‘Mountain Landscape’, ‘Memories of the Riesngebirge’ and ‘Seashore in the Moonlight.’ He sketched them all, and painted most of them. I suggested he should put up an exhibition in Rupert’s secret gallery, but he didn’t seem keen on the idea.
There was no way we could replicate ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’, of course, which was my favourite picture, but we went to the Glen of the Bar and Freddie painted me a version of it, with me standing in for him as the Wanderer, and which he signed and gave me to keep.
It was a strange month. I saw Galloway in a new light. Just as I had decided I had outgrown it and was preparing to leave, Freddie opened my eyes to all sorts of new things. He kept telling me how like Dresden Heath the Galloway Forest Park was. He seemed to miss it a lot and I wondered why, if it was so beautiful, he had come here.
I asked him. He looked sad.
‘Goethe,’ was his one word reply. I had no idea what he was talking about, of course. But I didn’t like him looking sad, so I didn’t pry. I mean, he’d told me plenty about Goethe, the colour wheel and all that, but I have to confess I didn’t always listen that carefully to what he said. I tended to get captivated by the way his eyes shone when he spoke. I know that’s somewhat superficial of me, but tell me you weren’t the same with your first love?
I wondered what Freddie would say if I suggested going to visit him in Dresden when he went back, but I didn’t like to tempt fate by talking about the inevitable future. Because I couldn’t see how Freddie and I would be in that future together. He wasn’t here for ever, after all. This bubble would break. This romance, because I did believe it was a romance, would be over and he would ride off into the sunset on his bike and… like I said, I didn’t like to think about the future. I decided just to focus on the very immediate present. And the one place we just couldn’t find.
It was for the picture ‘Chasseur in the Forest’. We looked everywhere. Nowhere was quite right. We roped my dad into the search, but this was going to be a hard one to pinpoint. Part of me hoped we never would. Freddie seemed so keen to find this as ‘the place’ that I just kind of knew that once we’d found it he would have completed his mission, whatever that was, and that would be the last I saw of him. I tried to dismiss that gloomy thought, but it kept coming back. We looked and looked. There are many places that look something like it in the Galloway Forest Park, but none of them was exactly right for Freddie. I began to wonder whether he too, like me, was putting off the finding, knowing what it meant once we achieved what had now become our joint goal. The fun, after all, was in the looking.
Disaster struck on June 14th. It was raining. There was no sign of a moon, full or otherwise. So Freddie called it off. My parents had both taken to Freddie, though dad more than mum, I have to say, which was the opposite of what I’d expected. I suppose I was a daddy’s girl and he’d never been keen on any of the boys I’d brought home before. But then, neither had I, really.
It was wet all that weekend and mum suggested we invite Freddie over. He was staying at a caravan park in the Galloway Forest. I knew which site it was but more than that I had no clue. Mum drove me out there and they told us which van it was. I felt uneasy about it, but mum was determined. We knocked on the door. It was partly a relief for me when he didn’t answer. I didn’t want to be part of the stalking fraternity Christy and Duggie inhabited. I had higher hopes for my romance than that.
He wasn’t there. At least, he didn’t answer the door. The curtains were drawn and I felt sure he was in there, but… I pulled mum away, not wanting to intrude. If he’d wanted to spend time with us, he’d have opened the door, wouldn’t he? I convinced her to back off and we drove back to Kirkcudbright together.
He turned up again on the Wednesday. He said nothing about the weekend and I didn’t want to bring it up. I didn’t have time, because he had big news.
‘I have found the place,’ he said.
I was excited, but my heart sank just a little bit at the same time.
‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘Can we go and see it?’
Freddie had a better plan than that. I don’t know how he did it but he managed to convince my parents that we should go away for a whole weekend, just him and me, camping in the Galloway Forest Park for the summer solstice. I wasn’t really a camping kind of girl, but I couldn’t wait.
I can only assume that despite my best interests to play it cool, my parents knew how keen I was on him, and I guess they knew that they’d be best to give me my head. They must also have known that this was a holiday romance, my first love, or whatever you want to call it. They knew it was important for me, and they told me to be careful, and that they trusted me. And it wasn’t like Freddie was all over me. He was very reserved – a bit too reserved for my liking, if I’m honest. He was obviously a take it slowly kind of guy, and I was hoping that a weekend camping might speed him up a bit. He had never even kissed me since that first time, and that wasn’t really what you’d call a kiss…
I didn’t have time to fret about all that though. I got my stuff together, including a camera, to spend a weekend in the forest. Dad provided a tent, camping stove and rucksack, and mum some easy cook food.
‘It’s just a weekend,’ I told them, ‘I’m not going hiking in the Himalayas.’
‘Always best to be prepared,’ they said and smiled.
Christy, who I hadn’t seen much of in the past month, had other ideas of preparation for the big night. She presented me with some condoms. I went red as a beetroot.
‘Just in case,’ she said.
I was sure I wouldn’t be needing them. It wasn’t really part of the romantic dream. But trust Christy to be practical when it counted.
‘You never know,’ she said. ‘It has to happen one day. And why not on the longest day?’
All in all, I carried such pressure and expectations with me from family and friends it’s amazing I ever went through with it. But I did.
When I look back on that weekend, it’s hard to remember detail. It was all so overwhelming. But there were moments that stuck out. The first sight of ‘the place’ was incredible. Freddie was right. It was the place. I remember observing that all that was missing was the Chasseur and the crow. He corrected me. Raven, not crow. It was allegorical. Freddie was keen to teach me all about art as religion and the allegory and symbolism of the paintings, but I found myself lost in his voice whenever he spoke and really never took that much of the content in. Then Freddie asked me to stand where the Chasseur – which of course means soldier – stood and he took some sketches.
Then I asked him to stand there and while his back was to me, I took a photograph. He turned round and caught me.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked. His tone was stern.
‘Just taking a picture of you in your place,’ I said.
‘Never,’ he said, ‘never take a picture of me.’
The happy time I’d been anticipating turned sour. I knew he didn’t like photography, but this seemed a bit harsh. I felt like I was going to cry. I tried to hold it back. He must have seen.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised. ‘You know I do not like photographs. It steals your soul and it is not a true picture.’
‘It’s just a snap,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ he said.
‘I just wanted something to… remember you by,’ I gulped. Here I was in the middle of what was supposed to be the best day of my life and… somehow it was being ruined.
‘I am here,’ he said. ‘What is there to remember?’
‘When you’re gone,’ I said.
‘Ah, then,’ he replied, like it was unimportant. ‘That is not now. And I will give you a picture to remember me by, if that is what you want.’
I wanted to say that what I wanted was to be with him forever, but I couldn’t say that, could I? It would have sounded as stupid then as it sounds now.
‘Do you promise?’ I said, sounding a deal more needy than I should have. He didn’t seem to notice.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Now, let us drink tea.’
We sat in a clearing in the forest as the sun took forever to go down and even the midgies couldn’t dampen the pleasure I got from just sitting next to him, listening to him talk.
That evening, maybe it was to prove I was forgiven for the photograph, he really opened up. He told me about his life in Dresden, about an argument he’d had – that no one understood the role of sentiment and Romanticism in life and art any more. That his teachers disagreed with him about the importance of Goethe’s colour wheel. That he’d come here to prove someone wrong.
He was talking nine to the dozen and I didn’t know which bits were important to remember, so I didn’t connect the dots like I should have done. I was just amazed that he was opening up to me. And fully expecting ‘the kiss’ at the end of it all. I was beginning to think maybe I was his soul mate. Of course, that’s something that is all too often decided unilaterally – which is, I suppose, the core of unrequited love.
As the sun finally went down it was a warm night and we decided to sleep in our bags, out in the open by the fire. I thought it was a bit risky to be having a fire that deep into the forest, but Freddie assured me that he knew what he was doing and the clearing we settled down in was a step away from ‘the place’, so I went with his greater expertise. I had kind of hoped to snuggle down in his arms, but it didn’t work that way. Part way through the night, however, I woke and I was really cold, so I caterpillared my way over to where he was and spooned him. He didn’t seem to mind, though he didn’t really respond.
Just around first light, which can’t have been much after three thirty, the fire was really low and I woke again, cold. Freddie was deep in sleep and looked so perfectly peaceful and beautiful – just like River Phoenix, I thought – and even though I knew it would annoy him if he knew, I also knew that this chance might be slipping away from me, so I got hold of my camera and took a picture of him sleeping. He didn’t wake up even then, so I started to feed the fire and get a brew going.
When he did awake, the peace had gone from his face. Maybe it was just a cold morning moment, or maybe something deeper, but he seemed once more, inexorably sad.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked him, desperate to kiss him.
He grunted.
For just a second I felt my dream dying as I looked at him. But I wasn’t ready to let go.
‘I’ve got tea here, to warm you up?’ I said.
We drank the tea in silence.
‘What do you want to do today?’ I asked him.
‘Paint,’ he said.
So paint it was. I knew that when he was painting he was concentrating so I tried not to notice the distance that once more stood between us. I sat and read my Goethe, feeling I was losing something in the translation. I tried to understand. And tried not to cry. I didn’t know what else to do.
Swearwords: None.
Description: The Longest Day.
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What can I say about the rest of May? Exams blighted everything. I tried hard, but usually failed, to get my last minute revision done. I was thinking about Freddie all the time. I kept hoping I’d see him around Kirkcudbright. But I didn’t.
My final exam, Modern Studies, should have been the one that counted, I suppose. I was banking on getting an A. I was pretty sure I’d fluffed the French and my Maths has never been strong. I needed 4A’s and a B for St Andrews, 3A’s and 2 B’s for Glasgow and Stirling was my ‘back-up’ They only needed four passes. If I didn’t get that I’d shoot myself. But I didn’t want to go to Stirling. My sites were set on Glasgow, if I’m honest. More than any of that, I wanted to go somewhere. Be somewhere, become someone. I needed to get out of Kirkcudbright, but I still couldn’t really believe it would ever happen. Yet, while I was desperate to escape, I couldn’t think beyond that last exam – seeing Freddie again was the most important thing on my mind.
I spent a lot of time dreaming how we’d spend the summer. I had no reason to assume that he’d even be there all summer, but in my fantasies we spent a whole long, hot summer (that in itself should have convinced me I was fantasising) biking around Galloway.
I came out of my Modern Studies exam with the biggest smile on my face. I was alone, Christy didn’t do Modern Studies, and I was looking forward to falling into Freddie’s arms – or at least trying out a cool ‘hey, how’ve you been?’ before getting on the bike and riding off into the proverbial sunset. Life never works out the way you planned though, does it?
Two fifty-five saw me standing like a lemon outside the school gates, coming to the realisation I’d been stood up. The euphoria of finishing school forever was fading into the sense that I was just as much a loser in the post-school world as I had ever been while a pupil. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t not happen. I’d waited for two weeks, after all.
It didn’t take long for me to start fearing the worst. Maybe he’d found his ‘place’. He’d painted it and moved on, probably gone back to Germany. And where the hell was Dresden anyway? I quickly convinced myself I was never going to see him again.
At ten past three I called it a day. I needed to get out of there before Christy rocked up. I knew she’d be out there stalking Ian the Janny by 3.30 and I wanted to be clear of the place before she arrived. So I walked down High Street. I had it in my mind that I’d go and ask Rupert what shifts I could do over the summer – with no Freddie on the scene I might as well earn as much money as possible to help me transition to the life of a student.
I was passing Broughton House when I heard the familiar roar of the motorbike. I turned round, and there was Freddie, waving to me.
‘So sorry,’ he said as he jumped off the bike. ‘I had a problem.’
‘It’s okay,’ I lied. Well, it wasn’t really a lie, I was overjoyed to see him. My summer plans had just changed once more. ‘Anything serious?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Just, you know, the bike…’
‘Oh,’ I said. And realised I didn’t know what to say next. I wanted to run my fingers through his messy blond hair. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to say ‘are you my boyfriend? Will you be my boyfriend – even if it’s just for the summer?’ But I said nothing. How could I? He’d think I was mad. But he did seem pleased to see me.
‘So,’ he said. ‘No longer a student?’
I smiled. ‘Yeah, it feels great. I can’t wait to get out of this…’ I pointed to my uniform. Some wise spark had decided we all had to come into exams in our school uniform. It was shameful.
‘I think it is nice,’ he said.
I pulled my tie off over my head, and chucked it at him.
‘You like it so much, you can have it,’ I said.
He took it, smiled, and put it in his jacket pocket.
‘I will treasure it,’ he said. That’s when I decided that, despite English being his second language, he had a sense of humour.
‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘What now? Tell me what you’ve been up to?’
He parked up the bike and we sat on a picnic bench, me still in my school uniform – because however much I wanted to be free of school, I didn’t want to let go sight of Freddie again even for a moment – and we talked.
Mostly, he talked. I listened, but I can’t say I took it all in. He told me about the light and about Friedrich’s paintings and then he reached into his pocket and said, ‘Oh, I have something for you too.’
He pulled out a postcard. It was titled ‘Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon’ by Friedrich, and he laughed and said, ‘Like you and me at the Clatteringshaws, no?’
It was nothing like him and me at Clatteringshaws, but I was touched.
‘Cool hat,’ I said. ‘Is that the place you’re trying to find?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘but I thought you should know something of the paintings of Friedrich.
‘And I want to ask you,’ he began.
‘Ask away,’ I interrupted.
‘To spend the next full moon with me,’ he said.
‘I’d love to,’ I said. ‘When is it?’
Stupid question, I know. I mean, they come round once a month, the last one had been on May 16th, I had that day etched into my mind. I could have worked it out.
‘Because last time, it was not the full moon,’ he said.
‘What?’ of course it was.
‘No,’ he said, ‘it was the night after. It looked full but we were a day too late’
‘Does it matter?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘In art, everything matters.’
‘Okay, well, let’s make sure we don’t miss it this time,’ I said.
‘It’s Saturday, 14th,’ he said.
‘We’ve got a good couple of weeks to go then,’ I said. ‘What shall we do till then?’
‘You will be working, in the shop?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I kind of hoped I’d be able to show you around.’
‘I’m not on holiday,’ he said, an edge to his voice. ‘I am working too.’
‘Oh, okay, but…’ I was desperate, I needed some way to make sure the connection stuck, ‘but I was hoping you’d teach me some more about art. I’m really interested.’
I didn’t add that what I was really interested in was him, more than art.
He looked a bit surprised.
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Of course, there is so much to know. Not just art, but… do you know Goethe?’
‘Not personally,’ I said. Wisecracks not a speciality.
‘If I am to teach you art,’ he said, looking deadly serious, ‘you need to read Goethe.’
‘In German?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he laughed. ‘In English.’
‘Oh, okay. Where do I start?’ It was beginning to sound like I’d just talked myself into a summer of school. But if that was what it took to keep Freddie happy…
‘The library,’ he said.
So we went to the library. The last place I imagined I’d spend my first afternoon of freedom from life as a schoolgirl!
We came out with a stack of books, including a couple of big glossy art books on Friedrich. The librarian asked me if I was going to study Art History at University. I shook my head. Freddie asked me what I was going to study. I shrugged. I told him that I hadn’t really decided. That in Scotland you could sign up for three different subjects in your first year and pick between them. That you didn’t have to make your final choice till year three. He was impressed by that. I didn’t tell him that I’d put down history as my elected subject, just because I thought it would be easiest to get in to do it. I had no intention of studying history. But I didn’t really have an idea what I wanted to study. Perhaps this crash course in Art History and German Literature wouldn’t be a waste of time after all. Freddie was certainly going to broaden my horizons.
The next couple of weeks went by in something of a blur. It might sound stupid but we kind of worked our way through the art book, looking for all sorts of places. It was like some kind of artistic re-enactment. Freddie showed me that parts of Dresden Heath were very like parts of Galloway but there was much more besides. In various parts of Galloway we found versions of ‘Landscape with Oaks and Hunter’, ‘The Churchyard’, ‘Bohemian Landscape with Two Trees’, ‘Cemetery Entrance’, ‘Mountain Landscape’, ‘Memories of the Riesngebirge’ and ‘Seashore in the Moonlight.’ He sketched them all, and painted most of them. I suggested he should put up an exhibition in Rupert’s secret gallery, but he didn’t seem keen on the idea.
There was no way we could replicate ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’, of course, which was my favourite picture, but we went to the Glen of the Bar and Freddie painted me a version of it, with me standing in for him as the Wanderer, and which he signed and gave me to keep.
It was a strange month. I saw Galloway in a new light. Just as I had decided I had outgrown it and was preparing to leave, Freddie opened my eyes to all sorts of new things. He kept telling me how like Dresden Heath the Galloway Forest Park was. He seemed to miss it a lot and I wondered why, if it was so beautiful, he had come here.
I asked him. He looked sad.
‘Goethe,’ was his one word reply. I had no idea what he was talking about, of course. But I didn’t like him looking sad, so I didn’t pry. I mean, he’d told me plenty about Goethe, the colour wheel and all that, but I have to confess I didn’t always listen that carefully to what he said. I tended to get captivated by the way his eyes shone when he spoke. I know that’s somewhat superficial of me, but tell me you weren’t the same with your first love?
I wondered what Freddie would say if I suggested going to visit him in Dresden when he went back, but I didn’t like to tempt fate by talking about the inevitable future. Because I couldn’t see how Freddie and I would be in that future together. He wasn’t here for ever, after all. This bubble would break. This romance, because I did believe it was a romance, would be over and he would ride off into the sunset on his bike and… like I said, I didn’t like to think about the future. I decided just to focus on the very immediate present. And the one place we just couldn’t find.
It was for the picture ‘Chasseur in the Forest’. We looked everywhere. Nowhere was quite right. We roped my dad into the search, but this was going to be a hard one to pinpoint. Part of me hoped we never would. Freddie seemed so keen to find this as ‘the place’ that I just kind of knew that once we’d found it he would have completed his mission, whatever that was, and that would be the last I saw of him. I tried to dismiss that gloomy thought, but it kept coming back. We looked and looked. There are many places that look something like it in the Galloway Forest Park, but none of them was exactly right for Freddie. I began to wonder whether he too, like me, was putting off the finding, knowing what it meant once we achieved what had now become our joint goal. The fun, after all, was in the looking.
Disaster struck on June 14th. It was raining. There was no sign of a moon, full or otherwise. So Freddie called it off. My parents had both taken to Freddie, though dad more than mum, I have to say, which was the opposite of what I’d expected. I suppose I was a daddy’s girl and he’d never been keen on any of the boys I’d brought home before. But then, neither had I, really.
It was wet all that weekend and mum suggested we invite Freddie over. He was staying at a caravan park in the Galloway Forest. I knew which site it was but more than that I had no clue. Mum drove me out there and they told us which van it was. I felt uneasy about it, but mum was determined. We knocked on the door. It was partly a relief for me when he didn’t answer. I didn’t want to be part of the stalking fraternity Christy and Duggie inhabited. I had higher hopes for my romance than that.
He wasn’t there. At least, he didn’t answer the door. The curtains were drawn and I felt sure he was in there, but… I pulled mum away, not wanting to intrude. If he’d wanted to spend time with us, he’d have opened the door, wouldn’t he? I convinced her to back off and we drove back to Kirkcudbright together.
He turned up again on the Wednesday. He said nothing about the weekend and I didn’t want to bring it up. I didn’t have time, because he had big news.
‘I have found the place,’ he said.
I was excited, but my heart sank just a little bit at the same time.
‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘Can we go and see it?’
Freddie had a better plan than that. I don’t know how he did it but he managed to convince my parents that we should go away for a whole weekend, just him and me, camping in the Galloway Forest Park for the summer solstice. I wasn’t really a camping kind of girl, but I couldn’t wait.
I can only assume that despite my best interests to play it cool, my parents knew how keen I was on him, and I guess they knew that they’d be best to give me my head. They must also have known that this was a holiday romance, my first love, or whatever you want to call it. They knew it was important for me, and they told me to be careful, and that they trusted me. And it wasn’t like Freddie was all over me. He was very reserved – a bit too reserved for my liking, if I’m honest. He was obviously a take it slowly kind of guy, and I was hoping that a weekend camping might speed him up a bit. He had never even kissed me since that first time, and that wasn’t really what you’d call a kiss…
I didn’t have time to fret about all that though. I got my stuff together, including a camera, to spend a weekend in the forest. Dad provided a tent, camping stove and rucksack, and mum some easy cook food.
‘It’s just a weekend,’ I told them, ‘I’m not going hiking in the Himalayas.’
‘Always best to be prepared,’ they said and smiled.
Christy, who I hadn’t seen much of in the past month, had other ideas of preparation for the big night. She presented me with some condoms. I went red as a beetroot.
‘Just in case,’ she said.
I was sure I wouldn’t be needing them. It wasn’t really part of the romantic dream. But trust Christy to be practical when it counted.
‘You never know,’ she said. ‘It has to happen one day. And why not on the longest day?’
All in all, I carried such pressure and expectations with me from family and friends it’s amazing I ever went through with it. But I did.
When I look back on that weekend, it’s hard to remember detail. It was all so overwhelming. But there were moments that stuck out. The first sight of ‘the place’ was incredible. Freddie was right. It was the place. I remember observing that all that was missing was the Chasseur and the crow. He corrected me. Raven, not crow. It was allegorical. Freddie was keen to teach me all about art as religion and the allegory and symbolism of the paintings, but I found myself lost in his voice whenever he spoke and really never took that much of the content in. Then Freddie asked me to stand where the Chasseur – which of course means soldier – stood and he took some sketches.
Then I asked him to stand there and while his back was to me, I took a photograph. He turned round and caught me.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked. His tone was stern.
‘Just taking a picture of you in your place,’ I said.
‘Never,’ he said, ‘never take a picture of me.’
The happy time I’d been anticipating turned sour. I knew he didn’t like photography, but this seemed a bit harsh. I felt like I was going to cry. I tried to hold it back. He must have seen.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised. ‘You know I do not like photographs. It steals your soul and it is not a true picture.’
‘It’s just a snap,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ he said.
‘I just wanted something to… remember you by,’ I gulped. Here I was in the middle of what was supposed to be the best day of my life and… somehow it was being ruined.
‘I am here,’ he said. ‘What is there to remember?’
‘When you’re gone,’ I said.
‘Ah, then,’ he replied, like it was unimportant. ‘That is not now. And I will give you a picture to remember me by, if that is what you want.’
I wanted to say that what I wanted was to be with him forever, but I couldn’t say that, could I? It would have sounded as stupid then as it sounds now.
‘Do you promise?’ I said, sounding a deal more needy than I should have. He didn’t seem to notice.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Now, let us drink tea.’
We sat in a clearing in the forest as the sun took forever to go down and even the midgies couldn’t dampen the pleasure I got from just sitting next to him, listening to him talk.
That evening, maybe it was to prove I was forgiven for the photograph, he really opened up. He told me about his life in Dresden, about an argument he’d had – that no one understood the role of sentiment and Romanticism in life and art any more. That his teachers disagreed with him about the importance of Goethe’s colour wheel. That he’d come here to prove someone wrong.
He was talking nine to the dozen and I didn’t know which bits were important to remember, so I didn’t connect the dots like I should have done. I was just amazed that he was opening up to me. And fully expecting ‘the kiss’ at the end of it all. I was beginning to think maybe I was his soul mate. Of course, that’s something that is all too often decided unilaterally – which is, I suppose, the core of unrequited love.
As the sun finally went down it was a warm night and we decided to sleep in our bags, out in the open by the fire. I thought it was a bit risky to be having a fire that deep into the forest, but Freddie assured me that he knew what he was doing and the clearing we settled down in was a step away from ‘the place’, so I went with his greater expertise. I had kind of hoped to snuggle down in his arms, but it didn’t work that way. Part way through the night, however, I woke and I was really cold, so I caterpillared my way over to where he was and spooned him. He didn’t seem to mind, though he didn’t really respond.
Just around first light, which can’t have been much after three thirty, the fire was really low and I woke again, cold. Freddie was deep in sleep and looked so perfectly peaceful and beautiful – just like River Phoenix, I thought – and even though I knew it would annoy him if he knew, I also knew that this chance might be slipping away from me, so I got hold of my camera and took a picture of him sleeping. He didn’t wake up even then, so I started to feed the fire and get a brew going.
When he did awake, the peace had gone from his face. Maybe it was just a cold morning moment, or maybe something deeper, but he seemed once more, inexorably sad.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked him, desperate to kiss him.
He grunted.
For just a second I felt my dream dying as I looked at him. But I wasn’t ready to let go.
‘I’ve got tea here, to warm you up?’ I said.
We drank the tea in silence.
‘What do you want to do today?’ I asked him.
‘Paint,’ he said.
So paint it was. I knew that when he was painting he was concentrating so I tried not to notice the distance that once more stood between us. I sat and read my Goethe, feeling I was losing something in the translation. I tried to understand. And tried not to cry. I didn’t know what else to do.
About the Author
Annie Christie is a pretty ordinary person, except that she was born Annie Christie and then married a man called Christie and so is still called Christie despite having taken on her husband’s name. She sometimes wonders if she should have called herself Christie-Christie: but who would believe that?
Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project.
To Die For is Annie's second McSerial written for McStorytellers.
Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project.
To Die For is Annie's second McSerial written for McStorytellers.