The Summer We Said Goodbye [Installment 9]

The High Street

Kiosks of postcards and sunglasses dotted the cobblestones. Tables of muffins and scones lined the terraced walk. The High Street lay transformed. 

A horde of tour buses idled at one end of town while another negotiated its way down the High Street pavers.

Windy Hollow had been a premier market town during the Middle Ages for its Lion’s Mane wool. And a market town it remained, albeit with a new clientele in search of a different kind of commodity. 

“Hallo, hallo there!?”

A woman in an I❤️NY T-shirt hailed me from the open arches of Market Hall, already teeming with shoppers browsing through stalls of locally crafted pottery and art. 

“Could’ya take our pictah, please? Could’ya?”

I altered course and reached for the Instamatic in her waving hand.

“Larry, kids!” She wrangled her brood under a Union Jack, flapping in the breeze. “Get the flag, please! Oh, can ya get the flag?”

I stepped back to frame the shot. 

“Say, cheese —”

“Cheeeeze!”

A chorus of “Thank yous!” volleyed my way as I returned the camera and resumed course.

What yesterday’s gloom had rendered drab and redundant, today’s radiance served up kissed and distinct. 

During Jurassic times, a shallow sea had stretched to the horizon. But a bedrock of calcified sea creatures was all that remained. Escarpments of the stone had been quarried as far back as the Roman Occupation. And its golden hue, replete with fossilized mollusks, is what gave the Cotswolds their and charm.

Anchored at its heart was the Windy Arms, a honey-colored hive of to-ing and fro-ing. Local legend had it that a young prince, the future King Charles II, spent a night after his defeat to Cromwell during the Second English Civil War. 

It was a symmetrically simple yet elegant three-story stone structure with a front door flanked by gabled windows — a dining room to the right, a pub on the left, and guest rooms up top under a pitched slate roof. 

It was one of the few buildings that still served its original purpose. Most of the structures built by the town’s founders had been converted to mills and industrial dwellings when the region took off as a textile hub in the 17th century. 

But the Industrial Revolution changed all that, and the Cotswolds languished until the early 20th when it was rediscovered by artisans and craftsmen, who were drawn to the abandoned woolsheds, bolt houses, and barns they adopted as their workshops, showrooms, and guilds.

Novelists, painters, and poets soon followed, and it was only a matter of time before word got out about the Arcadia of hamlets and gardens the Cotswolds had become. A new era was upon it. 

Micky was perched on a ladder as I came to a stop, a basket of geraniums teetering in her outstretched arms. She and I had spent most of yesterday in the root cellar, lugging various vintages to higher ground. She was from Birmingham, a manufacturing center to the north, but had found her way to Windy Hollow to apprentice under Beverly, Vic’s wife and the hotel’s head chef. 

She was a sturdy but stout lass a few years older than me. Reaching from behind, I steadied the flowers and helped guide them onto a hook by the main door.

“There 'e is, me knight in shinin' armor!”

“Milady,” I bowed with a flourish and lifted a second basket to a hook opposite as I made my way into the hotel. 

The pace had quickened, but I figured I still had time for some vittles and hydration. So, I pushed through to the kitchen and dodged my way to the cereal and milk. 

Tammy was at the far end, regaling an audience with the latest gossip, no doubt. She was petite but made up for her size with attitude and accessories: chunky Doc Martens, multiple piercings, and a bleached Billy Idol do with a sneer to match. 

She hadn’t seen me come in, but everyone else had. 

“Hi, I’m Ahris, and you just saved Cahsmo’s ahss!” 

Her voice cut through the din like broken glass. Everyone stopped mid-slice and dice.

“And THIS,” she continued, turning dramatically, “is CAHSMO — “

I stood, chewing my granola, watching her composure melt as she came face-to-face with the living flesh. After the perpetual eye-roll she deigned to give me the day before, it was encouraging to see she was capable of a more robust range of facial expressions.

“And a mighty fine arse it be,” a voice bellowed from behind. 

Beverly wasn’t so much formidable as direct, unambiguously so, especially compared to Vic. And the kitchen was her domain. 

“Let’s go, ladies, chop, chop! Cosmo, you’re late.”

It was our first introduction, and she already had my number. 

I scarfed the rest of the cereal and made a beeline for the staff cottage to wash up and find Aris.

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You can find an archive of all previously published installments here.