Clem

 

I never know when I’ll next meet Clem. Months go by then my phone bleeps and it’s a terse text saying he’s in the area so how about a moorland walk? It’s always a moorland walk with Clem. Not the scenic bits though, always the bleak stretches. Usually a bleak time of year too.

The last time was early December last year. Haven’t heard much from him since, but we met at our usual café where Clem was as taciturn as always. I suppose we are both that way and perhaps it’s why we get on so well. He seemed slightly scruffier than usual, beard even less neat and his woolly hat had a hole but that’s Clem. He isn’t hard up – far from it.

We were both equipped with boots and waterproofs because the weather forecast wasn’t good and after a quiet coffee, off we went. Our usual walk begins with a stiff climb which I swear is steeper than it used to be, but we reached the moors soon enough. A dull December afternoon it was, great stretches of tussocky brown heather under low grey skies.

“I love all this,” Clem replied to my comment about the unlovely conditions, “it’s atmospheric.” He always says that. Possibly it is.

After about six miles we took a break and sat for a while on a cold gritstone rock for a drink. I had my flask of tea while Clem took an old glass bottle of apple juice from his pocket. He said it was apple juice, but he seemed to enjoy it far more than I would.

“What would most people think of this?” Clem waved an arm to take in a great sweep of moorland.

“It’s too bleak, much better when the heather’s out, and maybe a bit of sun, and some blue sky would improve the visuals. And some warmth,” I added, squinting into a bitter breeze.

“It would be horribly crowded though,” Clem answered, “and that’s not the point of being here. I reckon what we see in places and times like this is the beat of the universe. On and on and on. It never stops, never pauses, never repeats itself. Not a single second is ever repeated. Now that’s worth slogging up here for.”

“Oh, well - maybe so if you want to paint in some mystique, but it’s only a stretch of moorland and we’ve been here before. It looks much the same to me.”

“Ah but we haven’t been here before, not exactly. It changes and will change forever and we can’t come back. We never can come back. That must be worth contemplating – once we’ve left this rock we can’t quite come back.”

“That’s Heraclitus saying you can’t step Into the same river twice – for the same reason.”

“Of course it is, but we forget don’t we? We never really listened to the man, never took on the broad insight.”

“Okay, suppose we never listen. Why do we think that is?”

“Because out there…” Clem paused. 

“Because?” I replaced the plastic cup on my flask, because I was ready enough to leave our cold rock and the thickening gloom and gathering mists of late afternoon.

“Because out there is the river of Heraclitus,” Clem continued. “It’s the same truth, slightly less easy to see, but we can sit here and see what he saw. Perhaps he saw God.”

“But you aren’t a believer.”

“No I’m not, that’s a stumbling block.” Clem stroked his beard. “But out there is an eternal indifference which has handed us a whole lifetime to do with as we will. That eternal indifference – name it as you will, it’s worth contemplating. We only get one short lifetime to do it, one flicker then out we go and no coming back for another attempt.”

After that bit of Clem’s philosophy we trudged back to the café for another coffee. Not quite the same coffee of course – as Clem just had to remind me. By then it was almost dark outside, the café virtually empty. Somebody had left the door open so I pulled it shut against the cold, but that made the place seem even more empty.

“It’s the problem of yesterday,” Clem suddenly said while stirring his coffee with a small twig he’d picked up from the moor. He took the twig from his coffee, stared at it for a moment before dropping it on the table. It lay there in a tiny brown puddle of coffee.

“Take the perennial yearning for Utopia,” he continued. “Even if we get there, Utopia today becomes Utopia as it was yesterday because today it isn’t quite the same. Can’t be. The beat of the universe goes on and our precious Utopia slips away into last week, last year and never ever comes back as it was. It changes and the changes can’t be fixed. Slowly, slowly our Utopian dream slides away down the memory hole. Inexorably…”

Then Clem seemed to wake up, knocked back his coffee and climbed to his feet. “Time to be off.“