WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. The lad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.439 are here, Let's get into it. I've always liked being 3 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:13.199 the first through the old green door in the morning. 4 00:00:13.400 --> 00:00:16.519 Never mind the spongy, salty smell that clings even after 5 00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:19.079 decades of the way the stone floor siys in the damp. 6 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:21.600 The museum has a chill that seeps in no matter 7 00:00:21.640 --> 00:00:23.640 the weather. But the reward is that no one's there 8 00:00:23.640 --> 00:00:26.000 to interrupt the hush, Just the creak of wooden cases, 9 00:00:26.120 --> 00:00:28.640 the faint rattle from goes investigating the eaves, and the 10 00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:31.920 feeling that something's waiting to be noticed. I'd volunteer for 11 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:34.280 the early shift because Missus Talbot was letting me help 12 00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:37.079 hand the you Local Fist's exhibition. Most of my job 13 00:00:37.159 --> 00:00:40.399 was a lot less glamorous dusting glass, flipping faded labels, 14 00:00:40.439 --> 00:00:43.159 showing the occasional group of school kids pass the breakable pottery. 15 00:00:43.759 --> 00:00:46.159 But this morning it was just me, the ladders, the 16 00:00:46.200 --> 00:00:48.920 town of paint Anne at my back, the crackling anticipation 17 00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:50.799 of a wall sin to be filled with landscapes out 18 00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:53.439 walks since ide Catadle, I paused in front of my 19 00:00:53.479 --> 00:00:57.200 favorite Wingingate hill eighteen ninety four it's scene I've tried 20 00:00:57.240 --> 00:00:59.640 to recreate a hundred times with my camera, late afternoon, 21 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:02.039 the heather on the hillside, just grazed by sun, the 22 00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:05.000 slate shadows gathering beneath the rim of the headland. I 23 00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:06.799 know that line of the hill's shoulder as well as 24 00:01:06.799 --> 00:01:09.079 the arch of my own foot. It's a view that's 25 00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:11.079 always meant home to me. Though the painting makes the 26 00:01:11.120 --> 00:01:13.359 grass more golden in the sky, somehow empty than it 27 00:01:13.400 --> 00:01:17.599 ever really gets. This time something was different. At first, 28 00:01:17.599 --> 00:01:19.079 it was just a flicker, maybe a trick of the 29 00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:21.799 museums old overheads, or the way the framed glass needed 30 00:01:21.799 --> 00:01:24.079 a wipe. But then my eye snagged on a shape 31 00:01:24.120 --> 00:01:27.280 crowning the crest, A stark white cylinder, just left of center, 32 00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:31.680 it's top shining in the painted sun. A lighthouse, tall, precise, 33 00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:33.680 the door and windows picked out as carefully as any 34 00:01:33.680 --> 00:01:37.200 cottage below. I stir for a long, slow minute, unsure weather, 35 00:01:37.239 --> 00:01:40.280 to laugh for frown. There is no lighthouse on Windate Hill, 36 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:43.159 not even the stub of a foundation. Nothing on the 37 00:01:43.239 --> 00:01:45.359 hill but low grass, brambles, and the ghost of a 38 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:48.680 sheep pen. I'd taken photos there as recently as last week, 39 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:50.719 standing right where a pain to hat lining up the 40 00:01:50.760 --> 00:01:53.719 outcrop on the ash tree below. If there'd been a lighthouse, 41 00:01:53.799 --> 00:01:56.560 even a ruined one, I'd have seen it, won't I 42 00:01:57.280 --> 00:02:01.000 admiring Old Simmonds. Are you? Garry's voice sliding from behind 43 00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:03.519 as he balanced a case of pamphlets under his arm. 44 00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:06.079 That's always been my favorite view, though I've never settled 45 00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:08.159 whether the clouds or that Lanton tower are the best. Bit. 46 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:12.439 I turned biting, dwn doubts the lighthouse. This isn't that's new. 47 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:16.280 He set the box down, dusting his hands. Oh, been 48 00:02:16.280 --> 00:02:18.439 there since I was a boy. That's Bristpoint light, built 49 00:02:18.439 --> 00:02:21.199 by old Captain Fenwick, you know, during the fogy years. 50 00:02:21.719 --> 00:02:24.439 I blinked. I don't think we've ever had a lighthouse 51 00:02:24.439 --> 00:02:26.560 on Wingate. You're thinking of the one on stone Isle, 52 00:02:27.039 --> 00:02:30.439 He ringed, shaking his head. No, no Wingate, hild There 53 00:02:30.439 --> 00:02:32.759 are stories. Missus Carter used to tell us she watched 54 00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:34.520 it sweep the bay on her wedding night, blew out 55 00:02:34.520 --> 00:02:36.400 in a storm, if you believe the old tales. The 56 00:02:36.439 --> 00:02:40.120 models in the cabinet, isn't it? I swallowed. I wanted 57 00:02:40.159 --> 00:02:43.240 to insist it wasn't, but the certainty was foggy suddenly, 58 00:02:43.280 --> 00:02:45.280 as if my own memory were a wet pane of glass. 59 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:50.319 I don't remember seeing it. He shrugged. Ah, well, it's 60 00:02:50.319 --> 00:02:52.680 one of those things that vanished till you look for them. 61 00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:55.000 He winked, as if ledting me in on a local joke. 62 00:02:55.719 --> 00:02:58.840 After Gary returned to holding pamphlets, I stared at the painting, 63 00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:01.240 searching the brushwick for ast of new paint, anything out 64 00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:05.560 of place. It was seamless. The museum's old catalog records, 65 00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:08.319 stuck in a folder upstairs, described the painting with lines 66 00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:11.439 about windplated grass, headland afternoon suner, but no mention of 67 00:03:11.479 --> 00:03:14.599 a lighthouse. None of the descriptions, at least as far 68 00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:17.759 as I remembered. Prudentials can be strangely fragile in a 69 00:03:17.800 --> 00:03:20.439 small town. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through 70 00:03:20.439 --> 00:03:23.000 my photos, finding the grainny digital record at snap for 71 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:26.240 the museum's website last spring. The painting was in the shot, 72 00:03:26.280 --> 00:03:28.240 but a resolution wasn't clear enough to make out the 73 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:31.360 cress lost behind a glare. Every image I could find 74 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:33.400 in my past attempts, a few press clippings seemed to 75 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:36.280 obscure or crop that precise bit of hill I felt 76 00:03:36.280 --> 00:03:39.400 a lurch of embarrassment, and then second guessed it. Maybe 77 00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:43.280 I'd simply never look closely enough. Maybe being away at university, 78 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:45.639 even for those three years, had scrambled more of my 79 00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:48.680 own museum than I'd realized. That should have been the end, 80 00:03:48.719 --> 00:03:51.599 a trick of memory, slip of attention, some local story 81 00:03:51.599 --> 00:03:54.759 I'd missed instead. As the morning sun crept across the 82 00:03:54.759 --> 00:03:57.439 foreboards and Missus Talbot's keys clicked in the lock behind me, 83 00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:01.039 the duck cab fluttering, delicate as dust. If something so 84 00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:03.599 central could shift without warning, what else was waiting for 85 00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:06.159 me to find it? The museum sits low and browed 86 00:04:06.159 --> 00:04:08.599 against the caise, It's roof listing gently toward the sea, 87 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:10.400 like it's always watching for the tide to creep in. 88 00:04:11.039 --> 00:04:13.719 Most days, the town drifts passed at the waywater slides 89 00:04:13.719 --> 00:04:15.759 by stone in the river. Kids on the skateboards whirring 90 00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:18.120 into the square, a postman hurrying up lanes so twisting 91 00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:20.240 you can't see both ends at once. Old men and 92 00:04:20.279 --> 00:04:23.519 wilhats debating under the awning of the fishmongers. I've grown 93 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:25.519 up here, then left for Union, the strength of a 94 00:04:25.519 --> 00:04:27.920 patch truck up portfolio and the insistence that seeing the 95 00:04:27.920 --> 00:04:30.839 world meant leaving the coast behind. But after three in 96 00:04:30.839 --> 00:04:33.480 different years, and a need for quieter mornings, I'd come back, 97 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:35.680 piecing my days together with early shifts at the Drift, 98 00:04:35.720 --> 00:04:38.560 with cafe and volunteer slots at the museum. It was 99 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:40.160 meant to be temporary, a foot in the door for 100 00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:42.079 some one who knows their f stops but not how 101 00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:45.720 to land a gallery gig. Maybe it still was, Yet 102 00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:48.519 the museum's quiet rhythm suited me far better than I expected. 103 00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:51.759 Most people, including quite a few locals, walk straight past. 104 00:04:52.439 --> 00:04:54.879 It's a muddle of rooms, ships, wheels and pilots, notebooks, 105 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:56.920 children's shoes, cake with so much does the labels of 106 00:04:56.959 --> 00:04:59.920 mystery faded, all paintings, and a collection of objects so 107 00:05:00.040 --> 00:05:02.800 peculiar the glass cabinets themselves seem to sigh in confusion. 108 00:05:03.279 --> 00:05:05.759 The museum was a customs house before anyone remembers that 109 00:05:05.839 --> 00:05:08.519 a strange then a private home whose family portraits glower 110 00:05:08.519 --> 00:05:11.240 in the side gallery, and finally, since the sixties, the 111 00:05:11.279 --> 00:05:14.959 Tan's official Chamber of Heritage weekdays. The only other volunteers 112 00:05:14.959 --> 00:05:16.920 are Gary, who seems to have taught every subject at 113 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:19.959 the primary school. And relishes correcting label typos. Rosi, a 114 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:22.720 sixth former who had always cataloging buttreats the real things 115 00:05:22.759 --> 00:05:26.519 like Exchelshfeer's cracking and Missess Talbot half magician, half martial 116 00:05:26.600 --> 00:05:30.000 and all brisk competence. Then there's June, who's lived long 117 00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:31.920 enough in this town to have become part of its myth, 118 00:05:32.040 --> 00:05:34.680 and who appears every morning ten minutes after opening, like 119 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:37.319 the name painted on the pillar outside promises her a seat. 120 00:05:37.879 --> 00:05:41.600 The museum's enters was more companionable than lonesome. Mornings were 121 00:05:41.600 --> 00:05:45.040 frustraightening displays and tangling the endless snarl of audio guides, 122 00:05:45.079 --> 00:05:47.399 and quietly killing time before the first wave of school 123 00:05:47.439 --> 00:05:50.399 children of the Odd Coach Party. Missess Talbot let me 124 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:53.120 run the local Vista's curation because truth be told, she 125 00:05:53.199 --> 00:05:55.319 didn't mind turning a profit from the types of people 126 00:05:55.360 --> 00:05:58.920 likely to donate their grandparent samplers or lead soldiers. Garry 127 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:02.040 was to fixture the point of continuity. Rosy lived most 128 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:04.360 of the year in the back room, cataloging objects with 129 00:06:04.399 --> 00:06:06.839 the reverence for category that made even old shoe buckles 130 00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:10.399 seem sacred. Afternoons, I took my battered bicycle a round 131 00:06:10.439 --> 00:06:12.879 townd camus lung over my shoulder, hoping to catch the 132 00:06:12.959 --> 00:06:14.800 light along the upper lanes, or chase the fog as 133 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:17.240 if rolled down over the mortum, vanish between the buildings. 134 00:06:17.839 --> 00:06:19.920 It's a town of phaphazard beauty, thick with stories you 135 00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:23.920 hear repeated, each time slightly different. The coastlines always changing shape. 136 00:06:23.920 --> 00:06:26.519 Every storm gnaws away at the shingle, new sandpos appear 137 00:06:26.639 --> 00:06:29.000 Alice Twista's old cottages fold inward, a lean away from 138 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:31.560 the wind Museum. Pride is a peculiar thing in a 139 00:06:31.560 --> 00:06:35.399 place so restless. This an insistence shared between Gary Rosy 140 00:06:35.560 --> 00:06:38.040 and Missess Talbot that here, at least the past remains 141 00:06:38.040 --> 00:06:40.480 pin an named, even if the streets outside seemed to 142 00:06:40.480 --> 00:06:43.639 slip about beneath your feet. They speak of in authenticity, 143 00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:46.000 the steamer tickets so genuine, the glass floats found in 144 00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:48.680 the marshes, the paintings all checked by wandering experts who 145 00:06:48.759 --> 00:06:52.680 leave light notes about provenance. Here especially likes to remind 146 00:06:52.759 --> 00:06:55.079 visitors that no other institution records the look of this 147 00:06:55.120 --> 00:06:57.560 place quite so well as we do. That's why the 148 00:06:57.600 --> 00:06:59.959 lighthouse un settled me, not out of fear or even SUSPICI, 149 00:07:00.319 --> 00:07:02.319 but because it didn't fit, not with my sense of 150 00:07:02.360 --> 00:07:04.839 the town, not with the certainty my colleagues were so easily. 151 00:07:05.399 --> 00:07:08.000 The confidence of their memories squared up against a squishness 152 00:07:08.040 --> 00:07:10.639 of mine, left a little gap for questions to slip through. 153 00:07:11.519 --> 00:07:13.680 I tried for a day or two to forget it. 154 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:16.160 It's surprisingly easy to dismiss a single oddity when you're 155 00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:18.319 surrounded by them. The crackbell from the Rek schooner, the 156 00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:21.680 Shamasake plaq iscribed to Your Anonymous Child eighteen eighty two, 157 00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:24.160 the indistinctly drawing rumor to be by a famous painter 158 00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:27.439 who died before ever reaching these shores. But trouble of 159 00:07:27.439 --> 00:07:30.600 the most interesting candrarely sits still for long. I was 160 00:07:30.600 --> 00:07:33.040 restocking pamphlets for a tour group when it happened again. 161 00:07:33.639 --> 00:07:35.879 The display in question was just outside the between the 162 00:07:35.879 --> 00:07:38.560 wall's corner, where Rose, who sometimes perched on the bat 163 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:41.800 of radiator copying accession numbers into her ledger. On the 164 00:07:41.800 --> 00:07:44.639 top shelf a black and white photograph, large and slightly 165 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:48.199 warped under the glass, labeled a dockyard Southern Vieutzy nineteen 166 00:07:48.199 --> 00:07:51.639 twenty four. I glanced at it a hundred times. The 167 00:07:51.680 --> 00:07:54.120 dockyard is the backbone of old town stories, though most 168 00:07:54.160 --> 00:07:56.759 of its bones, rusted paddings, we choked lips have long 169 00:07:56.800 --> 00:07:59.920 since been washed away by time and tide. In the photograph, 170 00:08:00.079 --> 00:08:02.600 the yard bunch beneath the slope, the same angle preserved 171 00:08:02.600 --> 00:08:06.160 in postcards and family albums, but there, stretching alongside the 172 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:09.680 gravel spit and new shape, a broad, dark boat house 173 00:08:09.800 --> 00:08:12.600 as imposing as a barren, with shillings chandle repainted bold 174 00:08:12.600 --> 00:08:15.959 acrossus eaves. The building takes her path the background, as 175 00:08:15.959 --> 00:08:19.199 if dry ugen sister doesn't belong. My mind immediately lit 176 00:08:19.279 --> 00:08:22.319 up with that crowding sense of contradiction I'd often wandered 177 00:08:22.319 --> 00:08:24.120 that part of the key of my chemist guffy grass, 178 00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:27.319 broken concrete teeth were all piling stuck up, not an 179 00:08:27.360 --> 00:08:29.959 inch of room for boathouse that alone a landmark, And 180 00:08:30.040 --> 00:08:31.639 none of the stories I had heard from the older 181 00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:35.480 fishermen ever mentioned shillings. That gravel spit ire remembered was 182 00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:38.279 only ever a place for skipping stones or dodging angry swans. 183 00:08:38.919 --> 00:08:41.360 I caught Missssed Talbot. She was adjusting the velvet rope 184 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:44.559 around a cabinet of shell spoons. Excuse me, sorry, this 185 00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:46.440 photograph of the dock yard the boat house. Was that 186 00:08:46.559 --> 00:08:49.799 always there? She paused, giving me her look reserved for 187 00:08:49.799 --> 00:08:53.240 truly basic questions. Of course, it's one of our best pieces, 188 00:08:53.240 --> 00:08:56.720 a central part of our maritime heritage. She tugged her cardigan, 189 00:08:56.759 --> 00:08:59.039 tied her tipped her glasses, and pointed at the label. 190 00:08:59.519 --> 00:09:02.720 Shillings Chandelry was a famous supply star. I remember seeing 191 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:05.200 advertisements for it in the old tam pamphlet Let me 192 00:09:05.240 --> 00:09:07.639 show you. She guided me over to a far drawer 193 00:09:07.679 --> 00:09:10.759 and produced a handful of weathered leaflets Driftport Gateway to 194 00:09:10.799 --> 00:09:14.159 the Sea from the nineteen seventies and another dockyard traditions, 195 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:18.519 possibly older. Sure enough, one pamphlet described Shilling's boat house 196 00:09:18.519 --> 00:09:21.159 the bustling heart of the port in its heyday. Another, 197 00:09:21.440 --> 00:09:23.440 just as confidently it made no mention at all, it 198 00:09:23.519 --> 00:09:25.039 called that side of the dock of the open spit 199 00:09:25.159 --> 00:09:28.519 favored for picnic's and annual bird watching. Missess Talbot looked 200 00:09:28.519 --> 00:09:31.440 at me with vague amusement. You spend enough time here, 201 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:33.720 you see how things are. The town's history is laid. 202 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:36.200 But this photo has been here since long before my time, 203 00:09:36.799 --> 00:09:39.279 I thank turned drifted back to the display, the contradiction 204 00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:42.200 swelling in my mind like a rising tide. Maybe I'd 205 00:09:42.240 --> 00:09:44.799 overlook this boat house just as I'd missed the lighthouse. 206 00:09:45.559 --> 00:09:48.080 Or was something else arranging these details, adjusting them with 207 00:09:48.159 --> 00:09:51.039 each retelling. I lingered near the visitor sign and desk, 208 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:54.039 watching as a few out of towners wandered through. An 209 00:09:54.039 --> 00:09:57.159 older couple squinted at the photo. The man nodded, oh, yes, 210 00:09:57.320 --> 00:09:59.519 my uncle worked there during the war, while his partner 211 00:09:59.559 --> 00:10:01.960 shrubed in, said funny, I thought that end was always 212 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:05.480 just gravel, their indifference to the disagreement, each memory existing 213 00:10:05.600 --> 00:10:08.279 unchallenged beside the other, rankled and intrigued in equal measure. 214 00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:11.559 It should have been a clear record. I told myself, 215 00:10:11.559 --> 00:10:13.759 I've been away too long, that I was chasing trivia. 216 00:10:14.440 --> 00:10:16.559 Yet the more I looked, the more the puzzle seemed 217 00:10:16.559 --> 00:10:19.440 to thicken, like fog drawn in around the edges. I 218 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:22.600 carried this sensation like an inch. No panic, no specter 219 00:10:22.679 --> 00:10:24.720 at my back, just the sturdy and insistent need to 220 00:10:24.799 --> 00:10:26.799 understand which version of the town had been set in 221 00:10:26.840 --> 00:10:29.639 glass and which was being gently re arranged before my eyes. 222 00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:32.399 After the door's closed for the day. I brought my 223 00:10:32.440 --> 00:10:34.799 notebook beside the painting of Wingate Hill and again writing 224 00:10:34.840 --> 00:10:38.360 down anything that seemed even faintly to shift. I didn't 225 00:10:38.360 --> 00:10:40.159 call it that, not yet, but I found my attention 226 00:10:40.200 --> 00:10:43.000 dot into every landscape, every batch of old photos, half 227 00:10:43.039 --> 00:10:45.720 expecting to spot another stray building, a fence line, gun astray, 228 00:10:45.799 --> 00:10:47.639 or a lap like glinting were before there was dark. 229 00:10:48.360 --> 00:10:51.759 Over the next mornings, the notebook began filling up. There 230 00:10:51.799 --> 00:10:53.840 was the famous sketch of the shoreline by Emily Pucks 231 00:10:53.840 --> 00:10:56.720 from eighteen seventy two. I remembered it as a simple 232 00:10:56.720 --> 00:10:58.840 sweet cliss two boats drawn up side by side, but 233 00:10:58.840 --> 00:11:01.159 now the paper showed a third day eddy stone built 234 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:03.960 curving further out to sea. The boats were moored to rings. 235 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:06.480 I was sure hadn't been there before. When I checked 236 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:09.320 the expision booklet, the description had changed boats and Jetty 237 00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:12.159 Sea eighteen seventy two. I went to the corner where 238 00:11:12.200 --> 00:11:15.360 the centenary town e ramasatin miniature of houses and shops, 239 00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:18.840 tiny match to figures leading miniature horses bunting strewn between 240 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:22.279 cardboard facades. The center of the town square was always 241 00:11:22.279 --> 00:11:25.080 just empty paving. I'd cleaned the display dozens of times 242 00:11:25.120 --> 00:11:27.919 with pale cobbles, flt withland and stray sequins from Rosy's 243 00:11:27.919 --> 00:11:33.080 occasional restoration experiments. Now a fountain stood there, broadstone, ringed 244 00:11:33.080 --> 00:11:35.840 with a flock of concealed miniature frogs, water frozen in 245 00:11:35.879 --> 00:11:40.080 its sleep. I pressed closer, muttering that's not possible. The 246 00:11:40.120 --> 00:11:42.480 base was covered in dust and faded pain as old 247 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:44.519 as the rest. But I knew the squareso while my 248 00:11:44.519 --> 00:11:46.519 mother passed through there every day after skull pick up 249 00:11:46.519 --> 00:11:49.440 all those years ago. No fountain, not even a gap 250 00:11:49.480 --> 00:11:52.200 where pipes or drains might have been. Rosy was taking 251 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:55.240 off inventory by the window. Do you think the sculper 252 00:11:55.240 --> 00:11:58.360 for the centenary fountain was local? I asked, Boy's casual 253 00:11:58.360 --> 00:12:02.159 but thin. She turned, fingers fidgeting with her pen. Boh, yes, 254 00:12:02.320 --> 00:12:04.320 arfur house. My grant said his sister posed for the 255 00:12:04.399 --> 00:12:06.080 chair up on top before they lost the malt in 256 00:12:06.120 --> 00:12:08.000 the flood. I always liked that, felt like the only 257 00:12:08.039 --> 00:12:09.559 bit of art in the middle of the square. Too 258 00:12:09.639 --> 00:12:11.519 bad they took it away when they rebuilt the market. 259 00:12:12.039 --> 00:12:14.279 I stared at her, not sure whether to play along 260 00:12:14.399 --> 00:12:17.399 or push funny. I don't remember a fountain at all. 261 00:12:17.480 --> 00:12:21.039 There's nothing but paving now. Rosy shrugged, small and oddly 262 00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:23.919 self assured. Well they used to be. The photos are 263 00:12:23.919 --> 00:12:27.559 around somewhere. She didn't seem remotely troubled by the discrepancy. 264 00:12:28.120 --> 00:12:30.639 I checked the museum's tattered guidebooks and the battered drawer 265 00:12:30.639 --> 00:12:32.960 behind the front desk, where we kept stacks of tourists 266 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:35.279 leaflets and a few bundles of found old snap truts. 267 00:12:35.960 --> 00:12:38.399 Some of the pamphs described the square as distinctive fountain, 268 00:12:38.480 --> 00:12:40.279 and even off at facts on it to restoration date. 269 00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:42.480 For others, had homes been maps showing only empty paving 270 00:12:42.519 --> 00:12:46.440 at the center. The ambiguity stitched everything together with unerving neatness. 271 00:12:47.039 --> 00:12:49.240 I took my camera out on to the square that afternoon, 272 00:12:49.360 --> 00:12:52.720 dodging rain and tourists, I bent squinting for any trace 273 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:55.120 of circle of discolored stone marks were plumbing might have 274 00:12:55.159 --> 00:12:57.799 fared a vanished feature. But there was nothing. The paving 275 00:12:57.960 --> 00:13:01.159 was a patchwork, some stones clearly old, some modern inserts 276 00:13:01.159 --> 00:13:03.840 gray and bland, but no outline of a fountain. I 277 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:06.559 found two women perched nearby on a bench, knitting, the 278 00:13:06.639 --> 00:13:09.120 sort of town regulars who'd know every pebble out of place. 279 00:13:09.919 --> 00:13:12.960 Excuse me that of an odd question? I said, was 280 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:16.399 there ever a fountaineer? One nodded, eyes flickering with memory. 281 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:18.840 Not when I was a girl, but my sister's work 282 00:13:18.919 --> 00:13:21.960 used to be the meeting place. Our friend chimed in, Oh, 283 00:13:22.039 --> 00:13:23.480 I think we all were made to walk round it 284 00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:25.679 at the school parade, or maybe that was somewhere else. 285 00:13:26.360 --> 00:13:29.399 This mild at me explanation complete on concern with its logic. 286 00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:32.360 That night, I tapped the notebook back in my desk drawer, 287 00:13:32.519 --> 00:13:34.559 alongside my print outs and the pile of and sorted 288 00:13:34.600 --> 00:13:38.080 local newsletters. It felt like I was living in parallel tracks. 289 00:13:38.159 --> 00:13:40.440 Every object in account devsion just enough to keep me 290 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:43.000 off bounce, but never so far as to feel impossible. 291 00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:46.000 I mapped out each finding the lighthouse, the dock out 292 00:13:46.039 --> 00:13:48.960 boat house, the stretching jetty of the fountain. An uneasy 293 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:52.679 pattern started to show. Some displays had clearly shifted, others, 294 00:13:52.799 --> 00:13:55.600 no matter how closely I examined them, remained exactly as 295 00:13:55.600 --> 00:13:58.320 I remembered. The painting of the stone Isle light down 296 00:13:58.360 --> 00:14:01.399 in the maritime room was still in change. The marquettes 297 00:14:01.440 --> 00:14:03.759 from the nineteen thirty festival matched even the earliest color 298 00:14:03.799 --> 00:14:07.120 photos in the file drawers. The question flowered, why did 299 00:14:07.159 --> 00:14:09.440 only some things change? And how could everyone around me 300 00:14:09.519 --> 00:14:12.159 so easily accept both? I didn't want to bring it 301 00:14:12.240 --> 00:14:14.080 up at dinner with my parents. My mother would laugh 302 00:14:14.120 --> 00:14:16.440 it off as over tiredness, and my father would mutter 303 00:14:16.519 --> 00:14:19.759 something about too much staring at dusty things. Instead, I 304 00:14:19.759 --> 00:14:23.639 turned my curiosity on the evidence itself. One afternoon, a 305 00:14:23.759 --> 00:14:26.200 rare lull and visitors, I decided to make my own record, 306 00:14:26.200 --> 00:14:28.559 a way to fix things in place. I took my 307 00:14:28.639 --> 00:14:32.960 camera through the galleries, photographing every painting, every model, muggy glassanol. 308 00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:35.799 The digital files felt like anchors, prove I could pull out. 309 00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:38.639 Later that night, at home, I imported the images to 310 00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:41.360 my laptop and consumed an on Wingate Hill eighteen ninety four. 311 00:14:41.960 --> 00:14:44.200 The lighthouse was there, crispas of her, as though it 312 00:14:44.240 --> 00:14:46.960 had always stood atop the hill. Yet one strange shot, 313 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:49.200 a slightly off angle snap taken in poor light, looked 314 00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:51.600 just as I remembered, the hiltop gleaming empty against the 315 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:54.840 painted sky. My fingers trembled as I flicked through the 316 00:14:54.879 --> 00:14:56.840 boat house in the dock yard, absent in a photo 317 00:14:56.879 --> 00:14:59.480 taken from behind a passing group of visitors, then prisoned 318 00:14:59.480 --> 00:15:01.840 and prominent a minute later in the file immediately after. 319 00:15:02.519 --> 00:15:05.960 It wasn't consistent even within my own records. My friends 320 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:08.120 sound dropped by the cave later that week and out 321 00:15:08.120 --> 00:15:10.639 of town of these days after moving to Bristol. What's 322 00:15:10.679 --> 00:15:13.200 going on? You look like you found a ghost. I 323 00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:16.240 slid my laptop over, showing him a sequence painting photo 324 00:15:16.360 --> 00:15:19.559 foto again. What do you see on the hill? He peered, 325 00:15:20.279 --> 00:15:24.720 lighthouse bright white? Why I showed the other angle? How 326 00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:28.840 about here? He looked, squinting, then shook his head. Still 327 00:15:28.840 --> 00:15:32.039 a lighthouse? Is this a trick photoshop thing? He scrolled 328 00:15:32.039 --> 00:15:35.440 for more, grinning. You're winding me up. I was not. 329 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:38.759 But every test I tried yielded the same result. Photographs 330 00:15:38.799 --> 00:15:41.399 taking seconds apart, seemed to change between Nold, Anne and you. 331 00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:44.399 But only I could see the difference. Any One else, 332 00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:47.320 even my own parents, accepted whatever was visible at the moment. 333 00:15:47.399 --> 00:15:50.679 Their surprise never provoked, their memories, always slipping into place. 334 00:15:51.480 --> 00:15:55.399 My mind spiral for explanations, misremembering local jokes, some confusion 335 00:15:55.399 --> 00:15:58.679 of cataloging, a town wide case of groupthink. None felt 336 00:15:58.679 --> 00:16:02.440 close enough. The uncertainty stopped being stressful and shifted gently 337 00:16:02.519 --> 00:16:05.919 into something more productive. If the museum's record was slippery, 338 00:16:05.960 --> 00:16:07.919 could be at the museum itself, for somehow, showing not 339 00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:09.759 only the town as it had been, but all the 340 00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:12.600 versions it might ever have been. The evidence stacked up. 341 00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:16.080 I began writing my findings more formally, now building a 342 00:16:16.159 --> 00:16:18.720 shift's locked in an old sketch book. I tracked the 343 00:16:18.759 --> 00:16:21.519 towns I noticed a change, documented the models and paintings, 344 00:16:21.559 --> 00:16:24.000 and annotated every contradictory account I could tease out of 345 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:27.879 colleagues and visitors. The contradiction was always gentle, almost playful, 346 00:16:27.879 --> 00:16:30.159 the sense that something quietly corrected itself as soon as 347 00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:33.000 he stopped paying attention. If the collection was a mistake, 348 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:35.519 the tiles arranged themselves as he watched, but the patterns 349 00:16:35.559 --> 00:16:38.440 kept changing when you blinked. At this point I started 350 00:16:38.519 --> 00:16:40.840 keeping an eye out for June. If anyone knew the 351 00:16:40.879 --> 00:16:43.559 town's oddities, it would be the only person who spent 352 00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:46.120 more hours here than I did, usually leafing through battle 353 00:16:46.159 --> 00:16:49.000 paperbacks and the alcohvore offering murmured corrections to children on 354 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:52.159 school trips. One foggy morning, I found her in the 355 00:16:52.159 --> 00:16:54.879 gallery corner perched beside a bay window, streaming pale light 356 00:16:54.919 --> 00:16:58.639 cross of row ship's models. She looked up, expectant. You 357 00:16:58.679 --> 00:17:02.519 are looking for something, she said, Before i'd spoken, I hesitated. 358 00:17:02.679 --> 00:17:05.519 Then do you ever notice the paintings change, or the models, 359 00:17:05.559 --> 00:17:08.480 little things that weren't there before? She smiled more with 360 00:17:08.519 --> 00:17:11.519 her eyes than her mouth. Oh, the meseums always remember 361 00:17:11.599 --> 00:17:13.599 better than the rest of us. The rest of town forgets. 362 00:17:13.640 --> 00:17:15.599 But these old boats and glass they know more than 363 00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:18.480 they tell. I sat my notebokopuin on my knee, the 364 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:21.839 pen already between my fingers. I think something's different about 365 00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:24.319 Wingate Hill, the lighthouse. It wasn't there before, but now 366 00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:27.640 everyone says it's always belonged. She drew a narrow journal 367 00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:30.640 from her bag, flicking through its pages, dense with looping handwriting, 368 00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:34.960 call ow snippets of clippings, almost childlike sketches. I write 369 00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:36.960 it down too, I started when I was little. My 370 00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:39.319 mum said it was only a child's game. But sometimes 371 00:17:39.359 --> 00:17:41.880 things here don't stay the same. She showed me a 372 00:17:41.880 --> 00:17:44.079 pencil drawing of the bay, the outline of two peers. 373 00:17:44.839 --> 00:17:47.000 See that to Piers Wright, this was how I saw 374 00:17:47.039 --> 00:17:50.480 it last year. Her finger traced the lines, but for 375 00:17:50.559 --> 00:17:52.519 decades it was always one. I mentioned at once to 376 00:17:52.519 --> 00:17:54.480 missus Talbot, and she told me the other had washed 377 00:17:54.480 --> 00:17:56.559 away in some storm. But the week before her answer 378 00:17:56.599 --> 00:17:58.440 was different. That's always been a shape of the harbor. 379 00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:01.240 I started keeping notes, because every so often some little 380 00:18:01.240 --> 00:18:05.559 piece returns. She flipped the page once. The warehouses appeared again, 381 00:18:05.640 --> 00:18:07.759 rose and rows, stretching up toward the hill. Though I 382 00:18:07.759 --> 00:18:10.359 remember the space as nothing but wasteland since the sixties. 383 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:12.920 Though there's this look. She held up a press far 384 00:18:12.960 --> 00:18:15.480 blue to the margin, next to a blurry photograph snip 385 00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:18.200 from a newsletter. The curve path through Glen Alley. I 386 00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:20.200 remember it sharp a summer, though now there's a fence 387 00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:23.000 blocking halfway. A year ago there was no pathway at all. 388 00:18:23.119 --> 00:18:26.400 That came back, then vanished again. Her voice was gentle, 389 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:30.359 speculative and entirely without fear. There isn't just us, you know. 390 00:18:30.519 --> 00:18:33.000 Back then some others noticed to one moved away. Another 391 00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:35.319 said it was playing with the past. Whatever that means. 392 00:18:35.359 --> 00:18:38.200 Most just stop mentioning it, maybe because it's easier to 393 00:18:38.200 --> 00:18:39.799 live with one version. But if you look, if you 394 00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:42.960 really watch, things rearrange themselves all the time, I showed 395 00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:45.559 him musketches side by side with has two ways of scene, 396 00:18:45.640 --> 00:18:49.000 the same scenes, each slightly different, each corroborated by both 397 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:51.240 evidence and live memory, but never quite the same on 398 00:18:51.279 --> 00:18:54.680 any given day. We fell to comparing details, laughing over 399 00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:57.720 some inconsistencies, sighing at others that came close to coinciding, 400 00:18:57.880 --> 00:18:59.960 only to slip out of sink the longer we examined. 401 00:19:00.640 --> 00:19:03.039