Grief works to its own dispassionate timetable, irrespective of what one might be doing or thinking. Like an assailant in the night it creeps up silently behind you to wrap its cold, merciless arms around your chest to crush your heart.
A brief break in the hills and eateries of Tuscany left me relaxed and with time on my hands. It’s unusual for me to have more than five minutes to ponder the vagaries of life, and here I was beside a thermal pool, book laid discarded across my lap, with hours to while away. Memories swam to the surface by that gently steaming water, bringing a smile to my face and occasionally a loud guffaw to startle the gently roasting
Glitteratti. Tales of Paris in the Spring, the madness of Kader, Quasimodo, pints of Beamish in the Cricketers, Sunday runs in hellish weather, pacing in Almeria, late Sunday morning Guinness in Seaford, dreams and conquests, tears and souvenirs. In the wee small hours of the morning I lay awake atop the bedclothes, window open to better hear the gently falling rain kiss the dense woodland leaves, a distant owl hooting fair warning to rustling rodents. My mind whirled, unable to rest; so many memories. Thoughts, feelings, a cauldron of emotions simmering in the balmy darkness.
Back home this morning I answered a silent yet persistent call.
I’ve carried a niggling injury for several weeks. In truth I could have returned to the downs before today but something has held me back. Now I had to clear my thoughts, put order to unruly chaos. There’s no better therapy than to take to the hills, so it was on with the gear and away before breakfast.
I set off under a clear blue sky, the sun about its beaming business high above, vowing to run without a break to test the foot, knees and general (lack of) fitness. Bewl’s not so far off and there’s a lot of work to be done to get round the warm, flat fifteen miles. Within ten minutes I was puffing like Billy Bunter trying to make the tuck shop before closing, skin swathed in perspiration, burgeoning midriff wobbling dangerously. My stride felt forced, restricted, as if I were harnessed atop the giant ball of the Earth, spinning the great orb beneath my feet as the eyes of the sun burned scornful holes in the back of my vest.
To distract myself from risinig discomforts I turned my thoughts to journeys past. To intrepid winter training runs where friends dared one another to go the extra mile. I smiled in spite of the ugly struggle as I recalled the Battle of Steyning –the
2007 Steyning Stinger - when the heavens opened on Rog, Moyleman and I just as we set off in the lea of the West Sussex fells. The race was full marathon distance, off-road over a desperately tricky course. For us it was a training run, a loose stepping stone on the rocky road to Cape Town and the mighty Two Oceans dream. Relentless rain lashed the rock-strewn trails, rivers of chalky filth running off the slopes to greet our sodden, sploshing shoes.
Soaked, freezing and squinting into the horizontal deluge close to halfway my attention snagged in the tractor beam of the ‘easy out’ offered by well-meaning marshals. Should we wish to do the half we could take a left turn ahead. One jink to the side and it could all go away . . . Just then the mighty Moyle called out. He’d reached the water station some minutes ahead, downed a gel and already started to shiver.
‘Sorry geezer, need to push on; gotta keep warm’ – and with that and a wave he was gone, red and black hooped vest thundering through the slurred stair-rods, awayinto the dancing hill-top mist.
The tale had been repeated Sunday after muddy Sunday. We’d meet at the marina, discuss our route, Chris would declare the suggested path insufficiently demanding and find a way to add a limb-sapping super-steep mile or two. He knew what it would take to make the grade and never shirked the hard yards. He never let me shirk them either, offering logic and reason for the continued brutalisation of lung and limb. Like the time we added a six mile 'warm-up’ to the Brighton Half ‘to get the miles in’. He dragged me to an impossible PB that day, albeit unofficial, cackling all the way as we embraced that marvellous through-the-field phenomenon, the Law of Diminishing Bottoms.
Back at the Stinger, almost two hours after we'd parted I caught him at the top of the last ‘sting’, using his distant yet distinctive loping frame as a magnet to pull my sorry carcass up that gnarly, mud-slaked slope. As I staggered alongside, gasping, desperate, he turned, that wicked wolf's grin spread wide, eyes sparkling through the foul rain.
‘Thought that was you – what a bloody racket!’
I attempted a rasped reply, all flapping lips and dribbling phlegm. He saved me the bother.
‘Suck it up big feller’ the grin spread wider. ‘Not far now’.
That to me is what Chris was all about. Easy affection, brutal honesty, unswerving determination, wicked humour, touching respect and a rich humanity. He cared deeply about the people around him; not in a sloppy, sentimental way, but with a depth of sincerity rarely matched. We shared a lot in our brief friendship; a love of films and music (albeit different tastes), the company of others, appreciation for a well-shaped derrier and a hearty lust for life. When I let hyperbole run riot -as I am wont to do (ahem) on occasion - he would shoot me down with a well-aimed pithy observation, always well-meant, always on the money.
In the last few miles we cavorted wildly down a perilous, twisting descent, leaping over boulders, hurdling felled tree roots and sliding through rivers of silt to hit the hard-top finish side by side.
‘Let’s jog it in’ I offered, content to cruise home over the last few hundred yards, job done.
A disdainful glance, a chuckle, ‘Fuck that!’ and he was gone, leaving me trailing in his redoubtable, indefatigable wake.
All of which makes his not being around anymore so much harder to bear.
Today the minutes slipped by un noticed as I crested Blackcap alone, stumbling back down the slope lost in a warm ocean of happy recollection. I reached home bathed in sweat, eyes burning with happy tears, chest threatening implosion, grinning wildly. I knew Chris Moyle for three short years; three of the best years of my life.
What a lucky man I am.
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.
