We saw not a soul; we might have been alone in the world. For a mile or two we went along close to the river bank and then all at once sky and sea opened before us and we crossed a broad reach and came in sight of a long, low, khaki-coloured shore. I can see it, I can see it all, as clear as day, the white punt and that sunlit shoreline and the two of us there .... It must have been a place where the river waters met the open sea, or perhaps it was something to do with the currents, or the tide was turning - I do not understand these things - but for a minute we were halted and held motionless on the unmoving water in the midst of a golden calm. The burnished surface of the sea was high and heavy and smooth as metal, and a small, repeated wave gambolled like an otter along the margin of the shore. The sun was hot. Nothing happened. We just stayed there for that minute, poised between sea and sky, suspended somehow as if in air, no, not air, but some other, unearthly element, and it seemed to me I had never known such happiness, and never would again, though happiness is not the word, not the word at all. That is where I would like to live, on some forgotten strip of sandy shore, with my back to the land, facing out into the limitless ocean. That would be freedom, watching in solitude the days pass, marking the seasons, observing the spring tides and the autumn auroras, weathering the summer sun and the storms of winter. Pure existence, pure existence and nothing else.
An excerpt from Ghosts by John Banville. Each time I've moved house, a battered copy of this book kept coming to the top of the pile, eventually I read it .... and loved it, (.... although it is described as 'His funniest book ....' on the cover - I didn't find it remotely funny .... funny that).
Painting: Disappearing sun over Eigg, Arisaig, Scotland - Paintings of Scotland.
