Still, there is the seaside, there is the harbour, there is the harbour master’s house — square and jutting and proud; the first house you see on Pier Road, red redbrick, redder than the average red brick villa circa 1870 which is all you can guess without a placard — and next to that is Pond Man’s house shaped like an oast house; geometric, octagonal, a strange shape and one that reminds us of hops drying out beneath wooden joists. Slow, slow the method of coming into existence. Beer from wheat. Slow drying under the roof from the heat blown up from the charcoal fire. Up and up and circulating, the ravenous heat.
Pond Man remembers what it felt like, dry heat between his toes. Not from the kiln but the sun. Where is she? Tardy today, tardy most days in early spring. Now he thinks of summer. High up along the Down land Weald the bright white cowls are out — oh how the dazzle! He covers his eyes and remembers the feel of warm earth pushing up towards the top. Hat Hill to Levin Down. The olden days. Pond Man the hop picker yanking and pulling bines bare while the September sun scratches over the earth. Tossing whole leafy lines from the pole into the yawning bin on the edge of the field. Pond Man of the strong arms and brown flecked legs. Not a patch of white on him. Not a dazzle.
But how they dazzle in the sun the bright white cowls, ‘though today the sky is subdued and the sun merely flirting with the idea of showing herself. Coy, shy, retiring, Pond Man eggs her on.
There! Behind a set of white handkerchiefs — clouds — she peeks out. Watery gold binding herself together, a late riser today, he nods. Pond Man is fond of white but nothing too bright. The front of his house is pale grey; the colour of pebbles after the sea has washed in and left some damp behind — soft, mouldering, evaporating, rising up from the smooth surface — not the fierce white of the cowl, her bright white sail atop pointing, reprimanding. Starchy. Stern. Disciplined. He felt reproved so one spring he climbed on the roof and painted her eggshell blue to soften her, bring her closer to the sky. Spoke to her softly too once he saw she had rusted. How far round she had stuck her neck east and west before she could turn no further.