WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:06.919 The first thing I ever noticed was half straight. It 2 00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:10.000 was straightness, you see, is something you can measure, was 3 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:12.240 a rule of but rarely trust outdoors, and that's why 4 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:15.039 it stood out. I was knee deep in a century 5 00:00:15.039 --> 00:00:17.199 and a half of maps spread across the long table 6 00:00:17.239 --> 00:00:19.839 at the Historical Society, maps with yellowing parchment edges and 7 00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:22.239 others sharp from a platter match crammed with loop and 8 00:00:22.280 --> 00:00:24.839 field boundaries in the heavy pencil lines of railway sidings 9 00:00:24.839 --> 00:00:28.600 that never arrived. Every single one from eighteen seventy four 10 00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:31.399 to last year's tourist pamphlet showed the same unlikely footpath, 11 00:00:31.559 --> 00:00:34.640 a line as incompromising as the North Star, running unbent 12 00:00:34.679 --> 00:00:36.719 from the old brick library, now shabbily grazed with a 13 00:00:36.799 --> 00:00:38.719 ramp and rubber door mat, to the wild grass edge 14 00:00:38.719 --> 00:00:41.600 of the community meadow. But it wasn't just the line. 15 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:44.399 It was with a line went. Anyone who's grown up 16 00:00:44.439 --> 00:00:46.799 in Brenfield knows the old row ravine, a shaggy's gard 17 00:00:46.799 --> 00:00:48.600 in the earth at the back of town, so asteep 18 00:00:48.679 --> 00:00:50.799 that even the dog walkers prefer to skirt its farlip. 19 00:00:51.359 --> 00:00:53.399 If you value your ankles, you'd need it. The long 20 00:00:53.439 --> 00:00:56.840 way around yet there it was the cartographer's path. Didn't 21 00:00:56.880 --> 00:00:59.920 think to hesitate at the ravine. No switchback, no deeder, 22 00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:03.600 no apologetic wink of a dask crossing. It simply sailed across, 23 00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:05.560 as if every map maker agreed. There was nothing but 24 00:01:05.640 --> 00:01:08.159 green metter between Net and beee. The footpath rung perfectly 25 00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:12.120 mathematically direct. For perhaps two minutes. I simply stared cross 26 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:16.319 referencing Victorian survey wartime utility map, the pocket fold at 27 00:01:16.359 --> 00:01:19.239 with lurid icons, even a greenfel Tip's Goal project from 28 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:22.280 nineteen seventy eight. Child's handwriting squiggled at the margins all 29 00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:25.000 bear in the same unflinching path. I rubbed with them 30 00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:27.920 across the paper. On the turn of the Century sheet 31 00:01:27.959 --> 00:01:31.079 the short cut was sketched with measured certude. The latest 32 00:01:31.079 --> 00:01:34.120 Council map, glossy and horrendously digitized, carried it as a 33 00:01:34.120 --> 00:01:37.840 generic walking track, still as improbable as ever. I was 34 00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:40.959 frowning immerse when Elaine's force drifted from somewhere near the 35 00:01:40.959 --> 00:01:44.799 microfilm reader. Funny, nobody uses that one any more, she said, 36 00:01:44.959 --> 00:01:48.959 in a tone both absent and oddly affectionate. Doesn't go anywhere, now, 37 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:51.519 does it? She didn't look up. Her hands full with 38 00:01:51.560 --> 00:01:54.640 a sheaf of old parish newsletters. I found words after 39 00:01:54.680 --> 00:01:57.319 a beat. But on every map, the lane and it's 40 00:01:57.319 --> 00:01:59.599 supposed to cross the ravine, it just goes straight. Has 41 00:01:59.599 --> 00:02:04.200 anyone ever, she gave a little chuckle, not unkind short cuts, 42 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:06.280 dear were a town for them, but that one's got 43 00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:08.520 a mind of its own. She swept past to the 44 00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:11.039 tea bot, leaving the ear faintly scented with musty paper 45 00:02:11.039 --> 00:02:14.439 and dry bergamot. I'm not sure what reaction. I'd expected 46 00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:17.759 something more than fond dismissal, certainly, but her answer only 47 00:02:17.759 --> 00:02:20.120 made me more certain. This wasn't simple map makers ere 48 00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:22.719 Why would ever map maker, or for a century and 49 00:02:22.759 --> 00:02:26.360 a half, repeat such an obvious impossibility. Why hadn't anyone 50 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:28.719 corrected it or replaced the arrogant straight line with a 51 00:02:28.719 --> 00:02:32.240 crushed horseshoe the way we actually walk. Maps fascinate me 52 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:35.000 because of these little rebellions, their quiet disagreements with reality, 53 00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:37.560 the negotiations they host between us there and what's remembered 54 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:40.840 or hoped for. But I couldn't settle the contradiction that morning, 55 00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:43.080 not with the shork of gleaming back at me a 56 00:02:43.159 --> 00:02:45.599 daring blacking and not with the casual way everyone seemed 57 00:02:45.639 --> 00:02:48.680 to accept its impossibility. I resolved to find out which 58 00:02:48.680 --> 00:02:51.120 have failed the land the record on my own memory 59 00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:54.000 of Redfield. I should say a little about myself and 60 00:02:54.039 --> 00:02:56.080 the texture of Brentfield, so you can see the knot 61 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:59.120 i'd landed in. My name is Marian do'rsitch. Retired as 62 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:01.639 I still joke too off, but only from the daily lessons, 63 00:03:01.759 --> 00:03:05.639 not from learning. For more than thirty years I taught geography, maps, girls, 64 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:08.759 and the ways people tell stories about spaces. I left 65 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:10.719 the grading and the ring binder walls behind a few 66 00:03:10.759 --> 00:03:12.960 years ago, But these days I can usually be found 67 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:15.280 hair a little dusted with shark, if not quite white, 68 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:19.759 volunteering at the Historical Society, filing documents, deciphering ancients, giggles 69 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:23.039 while leading a school group through our glass cases. Brownfield 70 00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:25.479 sits on the kind of land that devis pigeonholing, part 71 00:03:25.520 --> 00:03:29.199 market town, part satellite of progress, all interrupted by odd rises, 72 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:31.960 dips and streams that seem to have up foxed every 73 00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:35.479 planner's best intentions. The old cottage is stone moss browed, 74 00:03:35.560 --> 00:03:38.280 jostle up against nineteen seventies brick and aluminium, and the 75 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:40.680 tangle of hedges and little lanes persists. The nowadays tho 76 00:03:40.680 --> 00:03:43.240 our more range rovers part perilously on their corners, and 77 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:46.680 the WiFi sometimes outpaces the river. Half the houses and 78 00:03:46.680 --> 00:03:48.520 the new estates still look like they might sprout a 79 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:51.719 barmb through the garden shed at any moment. Every Thursday, 80 00:03:51.719 --> 00:03:54.080 a Corsetta volunteers shows up at the Society to sort 81 00:03:54.199 --> 00:03:57.360 chair and chase. After the classification chaos, our predecessors left 82 00:03:57.360 --> 00:04:01.080 behind Lynna Lane ashraft Holl's court over tea and homemade biscuits, 83 00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:04.199 her accent sugared with the local vowels. She's the closest 84 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:06.560 Brentfield has still living as a deer. If something happened 85 00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:09.080 within the last sixty years, she'll recite it, complete with 86 00:04:09.120 --> 00:04:12.000 who was dating hem. If you ask her about short cuts, 87 00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:14.639 she'll hand wave in the direction of whichever story amuses 88 00:04:14.680 --> 00:04:18.360 her mood. As mister Batell, the library senior survivor whose 89 00:04:18.360 --> 00:04:20.759 idea of shelving is highly personalized, I know which titles 90 00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:22.879 have be mended, toys, and there's a kind of system, 91 00:04:22.959 --> 00:04:26.199 He'll say. He's a connoisseur of local audities. Once introduced 92 00:04:26.240 --> 00:04:29.120 me to the archive of competition winning marrow photos from yesteryear, 93 00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:31.360 and nearly every week day at Catch imperch behind the 94 00:04:31.399 --> 00:04:34.480 lending desk, perusing medical mysteries or fussing over catalog cause 95 00:04:34.519 --> 00:04:37.680 nobody else uses any more. The town's walkers form another 96 00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:42.040 informal society. They cross generations, stroller pushing, new parents, old 97 00:04:42.040 --> 00:04:44.720 timers taking up their steps with Nordic poles, and John, 98 00:04:44.759 --> 00:04:47.560 the meadow groundskeeper, whose task turned greetings count for currency. 99 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:50.519 Round these parts, there's a ritual to it. These walks 100 00:04:50.519 --> 00:04:53.160 and return routes, shaped as much by the line's stubborness 101 00:04:53.160 --> 00:04:55.920 as by people's habits. You learn, if you're local, to 102 00:04:55.959 --> 00:04:58.279 take the looping lanes and avoid short cuts across Tricher's 103 00:04:58.279 --> 00:04:59.920 dips unless you want a Whitford or a telling of 104 00:05:00.040 --> 00:05:03.160 from mister Ransom, the retirement h farmhand who patrols the allotments, 105 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:07.839 organizing sorting, map filing. These are my happy labors, even 106 00:05:07.839 --> 00:05:10.680 after years teaching. I love the little mysteries. Maps contain 107 00:05:10.959 --> 00:05:14.079 vanished footpaths, notations about ancient stones oreb where the bull 108 00:05:14.199 --> 00:05:16.800 a layer cake of wishes and corrections. There is a 109 00:05:16.879 --> 00:05:19.839 contrast between official view lines on paper named in registers, 110 00:05:19.879 --> 00:05:23.600 and the peculiar stubven geography people actually use. I've walked 111 00:05:23.639 --> 00:05:25.959 every path in Brenfield a hundred times, at least so 112 00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:29.319 I believed until that morning in the society. I know where, ever, 113 00:05:29.439 --> 00:05:32.399 kissing aliens, where the brambles threaten in August, which modern 114 00:05:32.439 --> 00:05:35.160 fences of cropped ancient rights of way down to muddy afterthoughts, 115 00:05:35.879 --> 00:05:38.279 every journey to the meadow for affair, a cricket match 116 00:05:38.439 --> 00:05:41.000 or gooseberry picking in June required the same circuit, tracing 117 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:43.560 the winding boundary to cut the ravine, no matter which 118 00:05:43.560 --> 00:05:46.920 shortcuts the maps faunted. If the ravine could have been crossed, 119 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:49.079 believe me, someone would have done it. A short cut 120 00:05:49.120 --> 00:05:51.120 is a currency ab of gold to local school children, 121 00:05:51.240 --> 00:05:54.040 and nothing escapes their nerds for long. Yet here the 122 00:05:54.079 --> 00:05:58.399 maps insisted the short cut straight, as the seasons ignored inconvenience. 123 00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:01.560 I couldn't let it go, As every bonfieldeen knows, the 124 00:06:01.639 --> 00:06:04.720 land resist simplification. And yet the record refused to acknowledge it, 125 00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:08.240 whether maps, artifacts of ambition, or records of something lost 126 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:11.000 to time. Had the short cut ever existed, or was 127 00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:13.839 it an idea transcribed into tradition, the ghostly proposal, creeping 128 00:06:13.879 --> 00:06:16.800 from one ear survey to the next, the question chafe 129 00:06:16.839 --> 00:06:19.720 even as I followed the routine. At every opportunity I 130 00:06:19.759 --> 00:06:23.160 dropped the shortcut into conversation, receiving shrugs, gentle laughs the 131 00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:25.439 odd Well, some things just used to be, didn't they 132 00:06:26.079 --> 00:06:28.920 Memory here as anywhere runs mud, the further back you go, 133 00:06:29.079 --> 00:06:32.759 And yet nobody seemed particularly troubled by the contradiction. I walked, 134 00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:36.279 I sworded, I consulted. Brenfield, with all its windy, leafy corners, 135 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:39.439 continued turning oblivious to the puzzle on my desk. But 136 00:06:39.519 --> 00:06:41.199 I couldn't shake it. The feeling not of a mystery 137 00:06:41.240 --> 00:06:44.120 to be solved, but of a mismatched demanding respect. This 138 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:47.120 short cut, in its persistent impossible link, began to feel 139 00:06:47.199 --> 00:06:49.160 less like a feature lost or gained and more like 140 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:51.399 a question encoded at the heart of town, itself, unchanging 141 00:06:51.560 --> 00:06:54.480 but never quite settled. I don't like and solve things 142 00:06:54.519 --> 00:06:57.399 even when they bother nobody but me so. On Saturday, 143 00:06:57.639 --> 00:06:59.600 armed with a rolled upper production of the nineteen twenty 144 00:06:59.720 --> 00:07:01.720 nine server in a thermis of tea, I made up 145 00:07:01.720 --> 00:07:04.040 my mind to seek out the path in person. If 146 00:07:04.040 --> 00:07:06.879 experience contradicted every map I'd know, and with luck I'd 147 00:07:06.879 --> 00:07:10.199 find some renant and abandoned footbridge, perhaps, or crumbled stones, 148 00:07:10.399 --> 00:07:13.800 or at least the mody evidence of someone's shocking ambition. Maybe, 149 00:07:13.839 --> 00:07:16.079 I reasoned, a path so prominent in the alcoves left 150 00:07:16.120 --> 00:07:19.560 some echo for a determined walker to follow. Elaine, catching 151 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:21.160 me at the door with my map case, sent a 152 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:24.000 sly look over her glasses, off to chase the old 153 00:07:24.040 --> 00:07:27.959 truck cut Her tone mixed amusement with something rire careful. 154 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:30.639 It's not as quick as it promises, I grinned, But 155 00:07:30.720 --> 00:07:32.720 inside I rehearsed my rat by the lines that others 156 00:07:32.759 --> 00:07:36.560 had inscribed so confidently. Starting from the library steps, I 157 00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:38.800 traced the edge of the car park, skirted the boxed 158 00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:41.040 and shrubs, and began looking for any sign of break 159 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:43.079 in the hedgerow, a persistent gap that would commit the 160 00:07:43.079 --> 00:07:46.639 map's promise to the earth. Surprisingly, a faint trail did surface, 161 00:07:47.399 --> 00:07:50.199 not a broad avenue, nor even a fully clear footpath, 162 00:07:50.319 --> 00:07:52.279 but enough a narrow press of grass less lively a 163 00:07:52.319 --> 00:07:55.720 suggestion of former passage, unmistakably aligned with the maps, impossible 164 00:07:55.759 --> 00:07:59.160 larrow in some places. Garden fences jetted almost to block 165 00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:01.959 the way, and yet strangely they yielded either lowered with 166 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:04.959 a poultry single bar or simply absent, as though never installed. 167 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:08.160 I stepped lightly over a little bit of wire, half buried, 168 00:08:08.199 --> 00:08:10.680 feeling the pucker of trespass, until the shortcut seemed to 169 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:13.759 reassert itself on the next stretch of communal green. It 170 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:17.199 felt not hidden, but quietly permitted. Most riviting of all, 171 00:08:17.319 --> 00:08:19.360 as the land began to tilt toward the old row 172 00:08:19.439 --> 00:08:22.160 ravine ware. Logically the ground should drop alarmingly and force 173 00:08:22.199 --> 00:08:24.839 a deter the path refused. It did not swerve for 174 00:08:24.879 --> 00:08:27.519 seek a gently descending track like the llegitimate way. Instead, 175 00:08:27.639 --> 00:08:30.759 it remained stubbornly level, dogging the direct course, refusing the 176 00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:34.039 topography entirely. The ground sloped, but my feet seemed to 177 00:08:34.039 --> 00:08:36.120 negotiate it with the natural ease, as if the shortcut 178 00:08:36.159 --> 00:08:38.639 had for long enough, or in a gentle tongue into 179 00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:42.080 the earth that made the passage less daunting than memory allowed. Then, 180 00:08:42.200 --> 00:08:43.759 at which should have been the point of crisis, the 181 00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:46.679 ravined edge, I paused, the land copped under me in 182 00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:49.039 a suspicious, flattened dip, not much more than a white 183 00:08:49.120 --> 00:08:52.399 grassy shelf h saplings clustered to the west, but for 184 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:55.159 a dozen paces the way seemed open, simple, and somehow 185 00:08:55.320 --> 00:08:57.639 entirely out of step with the surrounding bramble and undergrowth 186 00:08:57.639 --> 00:09:00.360 that choked the rest of the ravine I crossed. There 187 00:09:00.399 --> 00:09:02.279 was no drop, just a stretch of an even but 188 00:09:02.279 --> 00:09:04.399 perfectly walkable ground to drow out in the rest, with 189 00:09:04.440 --> 00:09:08.320 a distinctive pebble crunch underfoot. Looking back, the line I'd 190 00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:10.720 taken felt and broken, if regretful about its own daring. 191 00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:12.960 A headdrow that should have blocked the exit from a 192 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:15.360 neighbor's garden had thin to a single arch of dove rose, 193 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:18.720 which I ducked beneath. Beyond as on every map, a 194 00:09:18.799 --> 00:09:22.279 pass billed out onto the community meadow. Five minutes had passed, 195 00:09:22.360 --> 00:09:24.600 I might watch, though the distance was one I would 196 00:09:24.600 --> 00:09:26.759 have sworn required three times as much effort from any 197 00:09:26.799 --> 00:09:29.320 other route. A new fence crossed the field, but the 198 00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:31.360 path cut through an old style, just waiting as if 199 00:09:31.399 --> 00:09:34.039 for someone who'd always known the way. On my return, 200 00:09:34.120 --> 00:09:37.039 before entering the Society archives, I admitted my little experiment 201 00:09:37.039 --> 00:09:39.799 to Olane. She received the news with a light shruk. 202 00:09:40.440 --> 00:09:41.919 It an odd one and just a short cut if 203 00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:43.720 you need it, I suppose, or if it need you. 204 00:09:43.799 --> 00:09:47.440 Some people have the neck. She shook her head nod unsympathetically. 205 00:09:48.039 --> 00:09:50.679 Don't fuss if the path's behaving. Best not to ask 206 00:09:50.759 --> 00:09:54.240 too many questions. But I was already eaten alive by questions. 207 00:09:54.799 --> 00:09:57.000 How could so many fences and obstacles old and you 208 00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:00.799 leave just enough margin frustrate persists in crossing? Had trespasser's 209 00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:04.039 simply been sir habitual that landowners gave up contesting? Oh? 210 00:10:04.159 --> 00:10:05.960 Was there something else in play? A quiet treaty of 211 00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:10.000 expectation or an ertius light for anyone to bother correcting Elaine, ever, 212 00:10:10.039 --> 00:10:12.639 a defender of the town's eccentricities, offered no more. So 213 00:10:12.679 --> 00:10:14.480 I went home that evening with the directness of the 214 00:10:14.519 --> 00:10:18.039 short cut echo in my every step, the ravine so treacherous, 215 00:10:18.039 --> 00:10:21.559 and childhood now seen by bass by apathet ignored difficulty altogether. 216 00:10:22.200 --> 00:10:25.159 I resolved to press further. Something in Brnfield's collective record 217 00:10:25.320 --> 00:10:28.559 or collective habits, was reshaping the very ground. I spent 218 00:10:28.639 --> 00:10:30.440 much of the next week approaching the enigma as a 219 00:10:30.440 --> 00:10:34.679 scientist would, repeating the walk measuring recording. My first attempt 220 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:36.879 had left me suspicious. Perhaps I'd missed something of the 221 00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:40.600 path sequence was luck So I returned mourning and dusk 222 00:10:40.759 --> 00:10:43.440 with notebook and NOL surveyor's campass, both to satisfy my 223 00:10:43.480 --> 00:10:46.799 retire tegious soul and to challenge the path's repeatability. On 224 00:10:46.879 --> 00:10:49.919 dry mornings, the shortt greeted me with Chris clarity. The 225 00:10:49.960 --> 00:10:52.240 press turf stood out, bordered by clumps of thistle and 226 00:10:52.279 --> 00:10:56.000 the splay remains of spring nettles. Each time it seemed easier, 227 00:10:56.120 --> 00:10:58.679 more deliberate to my passage along it, increasing the unfraught. 228 00:10:59.279 --> 00:11:01.919 Yet with every ata to quantify the peculiarity, to pin 229 00:11:01.919 --> 00:11:05.919 the anomaly on careless cartography or informal trespass, contradictions multiplied. 230 00:11:06.559 --> 00:11:09.600 Once to test my suspicions, I consulted my phone's GPS 231 00:11:09.600 --> 00:11:12.000 tracking app, expecting the route to zigzag or at worst 232 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:14.960 to confirm the geography I had always known. Instead, the 233 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:17.639 blue dots stuttered, at one point, drifting clean across the ravine, 234 00:11:17.679 --> 00:11:19.600 as though the slope and trees had melted politely from 235 00:11:19.639 --> 00:11:23.440 its path. Twice, the app frozen When refresh restored me 236 00:11:23.480 --> 00:11:26.039 at the far side with a clean straight track. The 237 00:11:26.120 --> 00:11:28.519 next evening, in half rain and with a steadier hand, 238 00:11:28.759 --> 00:11:31.320 my route became a tangle, a W shaped quiggle, impossible 239 00:11:31.320 --> 00:11:33.879 to reconcile with what my feet had done. I paid 240 00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:37.240 special attention at the awkward crossings. One aghbor's yard, seemingly 241 00:11:37.240 --> 00:11:40.039 fence thoroughly the last decade, now revealed a convenient cap 242 00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:43.360 in the tangled Hawthorne. Another who had expected to challenge 243 00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:46.799 my prisons, was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a battered foot, 244 00:11:46.799 --> 00:11:48.960 both private side mark the fence, swinging in the wind 245 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:51.559 as though denying and conceding right of passage all at once. 246 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:56.200 The strangeness intensified. On one occasion, a hedge received fuller, 247 00:11:56.240 --> 00:11:59.879 almost impenetrable. I resigned myself to circling round, only to 248 00:12:00.039 --> 00:12:02.080 finds along the line of the path and arched tunnel 249 00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:03.879 of bramble that felt as if it had been gingerly 250 00:12:03.919 --> 00:12:07.759 parted for the purpose. Each journey was subtly fresh. Sometimes 251 00:12:07.799 --> 00:12:10.120 the path scouted close enough to compost deep to notice 252 00:12:10.120 --> 00:12:13.200 the acrid bite of decomposing grass. Another time, and old 253 00:12:13.279 --> 00:12:16.039 robber Butanan coumduously from a low branch, as if marking 254 00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:19.279 the Waferer waferer. When I mentioned my finding Sir mister 255 00:12:19.279 --> 00:12:21.559 Bettell at the library, he was surprised by little, but 256 00:12:21.639 --> 00:12:23.960 a tenterness was his principal hobby. He dug into his 257 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:27.440 own Trover family stories. My grandfather used to talk about 258 00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:29.559 the old quokway to school, you know, said it never 259 00:12:29.600 --> 00:12:32.480 made sense. He fished a slip of paper from his desk, 260 00:12:32.600 --> 00:12:35.879 covered in tidy leaped handwriting, it's the straight line always 261 00:12:35.960 --> 00:12:38.200 ran straight right through mis Eslot's garden before there even 262 00:12:38.279 --> 00:12:40.039 was a garden. He said, you could save ten minutes 263 00:12:40.039 --> 00:12:41.919 if he caught it on the right day. Never explained 264 00:12:41.919 --> 00:12:45.240 what the right day was. He shrugged, ice sparkling, as 265 00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:48.159 if the path itself kept changing its rules. John, the 266 00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:51.799 meadow's grounds keeper, provided a crow's perspective, recalling the short 267 00:12:51.799 --> 00:12:54.279 cut as a fact of Boyard. It was almost like 268 00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:56.399 you could walk straight through the hedge. Never thought about 269 00:12:56.440 --> 00:12:58.720 it much, he admitted, with the measured reluctance of a 270 00:12:58.759 --> 00:13:02.279 small town man, grudging in it. Extraordinary anecdote. Some kids 271 00:13:02.279 --> 00:13:03.879 said it was the best way for cricket hard to 272 00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:05.919 get grass stanes if you didn't have tavault hedges. A 273 00:13:05.960 --> 00:13:08.039 couple of us just did it, not noticing if we 274 00:13:08.039 --> 00:13:12.000 were crossing anyone's plot. He shook his head. You try now, 275 00:13:12.159 --> 00:13:14.840 Sometimes it's there, sometimes not. Maybe we will let her 276 00:13:14.879 --> 00:13:18.039 easier to pass through. Younger folks, six formers hanging about 277 00:13:18.039 --> 00:13:20.279 outside the bakery or the new residence, in the flat's 278 00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:23.360 new level of the path. It never goes any where, useful, 279 00:13:23.480 --> 00:13:26.039 a girl told me her phrase, caught between defence and indifference, 280 00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:28.840 short cut to nowhere, we all go the long Way. 281 00:13:29.440 --> 00:13:31.960 One Saturday, while trolling through a carton of towns show 282 00:13:31.960 --> 00:13:34.720 photos from the nineteen twenties, I stumbled across a seepy 283 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:36.879 tone print the frozeny mid scan a group of seven 284 00:13:36.919 --> 00:13:39.559 school children in a jump of slack with age, standing 285 00:13:39.559 --> 00:13:41.080 at the edge of the meadow on a trailer ligned 286 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:44.320 almost perfectly with the short kit's line the background, though 287 00:13:44.360 --> 00:13:47.279 through me it was planted thick with young trees, stakes 288 00:13:47.279 --> 00:13:49.519 still visible in rows right along where the path should 289 00:13:49.519 --> 00:13:52.399 have just barreled through. Yet the ground beneath the children's 290 00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:54.320 feet betrayed the shadow of a bare track, less a 291 00:13:54.320 --> 00:13:57.840 path perhaps than a confidence shared by their postures. They 292 00:13:57.879 --> 00:13:59.840 seemed primed for a run, for a race to school. 293 00:13:59.879 --> 00:14:02.080 Or home, and troubled by barriers of foe. To prove 294 00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:05.200 must have been present, The path in asserted itself after 295 00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:07.279 a rain, when the air shimmered with the possibility of 296 00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:09.399 rainbow and the grass still hung heavy, The path appeared 297 00:14:09.399 --> 00:14:12.639 shortest and most distinct in a golden ay. Before dusk, 298 00:14:12.759 --> 00:14:14.919 it showed as a lighter ubon across the field, though 299 00:14:14.919 --> 00:14:17.600 in full daylight it could seem to vanish utterly. It 300 00:14:17.679 --> 00:14:19.960 was as though the shortcut belonged to the industitial moments, 301 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.639 the threshold conditions almost visible, almost lost. No record, official 302 00:14:24.759 --> 00:14:27.000 or otherwise ever mentioned a bridge or culvert where the 303 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:31.200 path bloodely crossed a ravine. The Council's Minutes, though spoken 304 00:14:31.279 --> 00:14:33.320 nineteen thirty four, of an adequate right of way across 305 00:14:33.320 --> 00:14:37.039 the droppy drivers, suggesting intent rather than fact. Yet every map, 306 00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:39.399 old or new, kept the short cut alive a cartographic 307 00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:41.639 after image, refusing to bow to the bureaucracy of the 308 00:14:41.679 --> 00:14:44.360 land Registry and certainly to the indifferent official who lolst 309 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:47.039 severed the field. In nineteen eighty two, I began to 310 00:14:47.080 --> 00:14:49.480 suspect that, as with all things local, the story had 311 00:14:49.559 --> 00:14:53.200 lengthened and softened over generations. The historical society for the 312 00:14:53.279 --> 00:14:57.639 part or their amusement. Gently probably a mapping convention, offered 313 00:14:57.639 --> 00:15:00.840 doctor Finch, a visiting historian. You see it in market 314 00:15:00.879 --> 00:15:03.960 Town's past, proposed drawn and then never built the next map. 315 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:06.279 Make a coppice faithfully errors, and all our work is 316 00:15:06.320 --> 00:15:09.639 an endless pallemsis of other people's hopeful intentions. He gave 317 00:15:09.639 --> 00:15:11.799 a smile that bagd appreciation for the error as much 318 00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:14.519 as for the fact. Yet what to make then, of 319 00:15:14.559 --> 00:15:18.159 real physical evidence Walker's reporting a crunch of gravel or 320 00:15:18.159 --> 00:15:20.799 a truck pressed hard through grassware. Rationally it ought not 321 00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:25.600 to be I press my colleagues for stories hypothesis argument. Elaine, 322 00:15:25.679 --> 00:15:28.600 stirring her tea with an unnecessary ferocity, simply murmured, people 323 00:15:28.639 --> 00:15:31.279 see what they need, don't they? Marian. That was when 324 00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:35.240 the new questions began to burrow. Coincidence didn't satisfy, nor 325 00:15:35.320 --> 00:15:38.440 did error. The shortcut was not merely ink. Something or 326 00:15:38.440 --> 00:15:42.519 someone kept it walkable, however inconsistent. I felt increasingly I 327 00:15:42.600 --> 00:15:45.120 was witnessing not one enigma, but a stacking of mismatched 328 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:48.399 layer's documentary, tradition, practical habit, and some sort of force 329 00:15:48.440 --> 00:15:51.480 hiding between them. After a month of following anomalies and 330 00:15:51.519 --> 00:15:54.120 gently pestering every old timer in the vicinity, the shortcut's 331 00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:57.279 tenacity began to edge into the philosophical. Does the path 332 00:15:57.320 --> 00:16:00.679 actually exist, I'd wonder, But now that seems it almost quaint. 333 00:16:01.360 --> 00:16:04.000 Its reality was near a stable, nor wholly full, sometimes 334 00:16:04.039 --> 00:16:07.480 as obdurate as offense for sometimes as uncertain as remembered lyrics. 335 00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:10.159 A book on my shelf offered a clue one I'd 336 00:16:10.159 --> 00:16:13.080 ignored in my cartographic fury, the concept of the desire path. 337 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:16.480 Desire paths I had often told board year nines, or 338 00:16:16.480 --> 00:16:19.200 on official trails, warmed by repeated passage, the lines people 339 00:16:19.240 --> 00:16:23.120 actually walk irreverently correcting the official sidework plan. They can 340 00:16:23.159 --> 00:16:26.519 cut corners, curve around obstacles, or establish the most direct 341 00:16:26.559 --> 00:16:30.120 line between two places, regardless of what planners intend. The 342 00:16:30.159 --> 00:16:32.159 shortcup began to look more and more like the tense 343 00:16:32.200 --> 00:16:34.679 collective desire, the path everyone wished for, where at least 344 00:16:34.679 --> 00:16:37.840 had worked into imagination, often enough to give it physical ambiguity. 345 00:16:38.440 --> 00:16:40.960 But even that fell short because the short persistence was 346 00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:44.759 too irregular, its prisons too documented. Across the maps. Desire 347 00:16:44.799 --> 00:16:48.360 paths usually adapt to respond to practicality. This one cut straight, 348 00:16:48.399 --> 00:16:52.080 ignoring human frailty and the terrain itself. I began collecting 349 00:16:52.159 --> 00:16:54.840 oral stories, sitting down with any one willing at the Society, 350 00:16:54.879 --> 00:16:57.799 or Valunche at Tilly's cafe. The stories I drew out 351 00:16:57.840 --> 00:17:00.639 did the line not really? Not accept in tone? It 352 00:17:00.759 --> 00:17:03.639 was my path, said Missess Bridger, fingers folded over the 353 00:17:03.720 --> 00:17:06.720 dented silver handle of her cane, walking school with the fok. 354 00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:09.359 Sometimes I'd look up near the playground and realized I'd 355 00:17:09.400 --> 00:17:11.359 left the house only moments ago, as if my feet 356 00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:14.559 had done the work without consulting my head. Another nivel 357 00:17:14.599 --> 00:17:17.519 clerk recalled chasing his paper round. Only used it when 358 00:17:17.519 --> 00:17:19.799 I was late. Sometimes felt the legwork drop away. Then 359 00:17:19.799 --> 00:17:21.920 you're at the meadow gate. Sometimes you find you've missed 360 00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:25.039 your delivery entirely. His laugh was creased at the edges, 361 00:17:25.079 --> 00:17:28.559 harboring both nostalgia and out from the patchwork, a new 362 00:17:28.559 --> 00:17:31.799 pattern grew. The short cut meant different things to different people. 363 00:17:32.480 --> 00:17:34.920 Some pictured at concrete and swift, a saving of minutes. 364 00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:37.599 Others half dreamt, a fading offenses and careful rules, a 365 00:17:37.640 --> 00:17:41.359 memory of effortlesses that didn't quite translate to physical proof. Still, 366 00:17:41.400 --> 00:17:45.480 the evidence kept refusing to settle. My collection of maps, prints, photographs, 367 00:17:45.640 --> 00:17:47.519 and testimonies began to take on the quality of a 368 00:17:47.559 --> 00:17:50.839 puzzle constructed from pieces made with different intentions. The more 369 00:17:50.880 --> 00:17:53.039 I gathered, the less clearly to shot could fit any 370 00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:56.119 single understanding. Some days it felt as though the path 371 00:17:56.200 --> 00:17:59.119 was more artifact than reality, a walking daydream captured by accident. 372 00:17:59.160 --> 00:18:01.799 And yet in all confusion, there were always enough physical, 373 00:18:01.839 --> 00:18:05.400 measurable traces for skepticism to keep shifting. I tested fences 374 00:18:05.440 --> 00:18:08.440 with all photographs, pressed neighbors for records of garden works. 375 00:18:09.119 --> 00:18:11.480 I compared registration deeds, only to find that the right 376 00:18:11.519 --> 00:18:15.480 of way was usually surrendered without noting the path itself. Once, 377 00:18:15.680 --> 00:18:18.279 on wet morning, I found the shortcut gleaming with beads 378 00:18:18.279 --> 00:18:20.640 of water, a ribbon so distinct that it seemed ridiculous 379 00:18:20.640 --> 00:18:23.759 to doubt. On a different afternoon, in clear weather, the 380 00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:25.839 path blowed into the earth, as if trying to raise 381 00:18:25.880 --> 00:18:29.359 its own evidence. Even the GPS dates smirked in ambiguity. 382 00:18:30.039 --> 00:18:33.240 Sometimes my journey read as a clean straight lines, sometimes nervous, 383 00:18:33.400 --> 00:18:36.519 wavering scribble. I tried to fill my walk, but the 384 00:18:36.519 --> 00:18:39.680 footage on playback seemed unimpressive. The oddness diminished in the 385 00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:43.400 lenses flat recording. The shortcut resisted capture. It was real 386 00:18:43.480 --> 00:18:46.720 enough to walk, unreliable enough to dismiss, and persistent enough 387 00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:49.440 to return a memory more than in fact. Something had 388 00:18:49.480 --> 00:18:52.440 changed in my perception, and I knew it. The problem 389 00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:54.640 was no longer whether the shortcut was present by absent, 390 00:18:54.680 --> 00:18:57.599 but whire was so much contradiction, so many competing claims. 391 00:18:57.599 --> 00:19:00.119 It remained a constant in both record and local imagination. 392 00:19:00.720 --> 00:19:04.240 Its existence felt less binary than blended, with layers of tradition, intension, 393 00:19:04.359 --> 00:19:07.799 and happ instance. Maps, I realized, are as much about 394 00:19:07.799 --> 00:19:10.359 what people wish for as what they know. Perhaps in 395 00:19:10.359 --> 00:19:12.400 some deep way, the shortcut was a record of longing 396 00:19:12.400 --> 00:19:16.079 before it was a mark of fact. Some manifestations in Brentfield, 397 00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:18.960 I remembered, have always been generated from communal expectation of 398 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:21.319 bon violet every year, and precisely, the wrong field and 399 00:19:21.400 --> 00:19:24.599 maple dunce along a path logic says doesn't connect, But 400 00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:27.720 the short triol, phantom or somewhere between seemed to straddle 401 00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:29.720