22October 2023
I stood before the floortoceiling window of my new flat on the twentysecond floor of a tower in London. Below, the evening traffic glimmered like molten lava, each car a bead of light, each traffic signal a tiny ruby or emerald. From up here I felt like a hawk, finally found a perch after so many years of circling the sky.
It was everything I had ever worked for. In the distance a factory chimney still puffed smoke the very plant I rescued from bankruptcy in my early thirties. My name was known on the Citys trading floors; people respected me, feared me. The flat, the Jaguar, the watch that cost as much as a modest car all the things Id once imagined while moving crates at the market in the late 80s.
Life seemed a perfectly plotted business plan, each move translating into profit. Yet each night I found myself drawn back to that window, not to triumphant awe but to an echoing silence, as still as a deserted church.
My second phone the one that rang only for work buzzed on the glass console. I glanced at the screen: an unknown number. I was about to swipe it away, annoyed by the usual sales calls, when my finger hesitated. Maybe a new client? I was always reachable.
Hello? I said in my weary, businesslike tone.
A faint, uncertain sigh followed, then a womans voice I hadnt heard for over twenty years.
James? Its its me, Ethel. Your old university mate.
I pressed my forehead against the cool pane. Ethel the slender girl with twin braids who used to sit beside me in analysis lectures, who laughed at my lofty ambitions and warned that roots mattered more than height. Id only ever smiled indulgently then. Roots? When youre meant to soar.
Ethel, I managed, what brings you here?
I braced for a request money, a job, a favour. Thats how old acquaintances usually resurfaced.
Instead she spoke of something completely different.
I was clearing out my mothers cottage and found your old notes, plus a book Strugatskys Monday Begins on Saturday. You lost it during our first term, remember? I kept it but never returned it. Im sorry; I never had the time.
I was silent. I didnt recall any Monday, only charts, contracts, and market tickers. Yet a buried thrill rose from the memory of that fantastical story about ordinary magicians, the very kind of wonder Id once dreamed of becoming a scientist, an inventor, a creator.
…I thought perhaps you might want it back? Ethels voice trembled slightly. My mothers cottage is for sale, so Im sorting everything out. Does it mean anything to you?
I wanted to dismiss it, to tell her to throw it away. I had no time for old junk. Instead I asked, Wheres the cottage?
In St. Albans, just up the road. You visited once, didnt you?
I recalled a brook, the smell of a campfire, Ethel in a simple teadress, us, a ragtag group of students debating the future of humanity. I remembered the laughter, the hope.
Alright, I said, surprised by my own resolve. Give me the address. Ill come by.
Driving my offroad vehicle down bumpy country lanes, it felt as if I were travelling not through space but back through time, the scent of cheap aftershave and youthful ambition filling the air.
The cottage matched my memory, though the fence was crooked and half the garden overgrown. Ethel stepped onto the porch, unchanged by the years no makeup, a plain dress, a deep, knowing gaze, and the same gentle smile.
Come in, she said. Teas ready.
We settled in the kitchen beside an antique kettle. She told me she now works as an accountant at a local firm, lives nearby, has a grownup daughter and a grandson. Her husband died in a car crash years ago. Skyscrapers and stock tickers feel like another planet to her.
She handed me the battered paperback in its cardboard cover. The pages were yellowed, the margins scrawled with my teenage doodles. A faint ache struck my chest, as if a longsilent string had finally been plucked.
Thank you for keeping it, I whispered.
What am I to do with it? she shrugged. Its just a bit of nostalgia, but I cant bring myself to throw it away. It feels like the whole point.
Dont you ever think its all pointless? I asked, a harshness I didnt recognise in my own voice. Your life so quiet, so unnoticed. No grand events, no scale. Do you ever regret?
Ethel looked at me not with accusation but with a soft sadness.
Scale is relative, James. Look, she said, leading me to the window. In the garden stood an ancient, spreading apple tree my grandfather had planted, and a weatherworn shed my father had built. My daughter used to play dolls beneath its branches, now my grandson runs there. Thats my whole world. Do I regret? No. Ive simply lived.
I stared at the tree, the sagging shed, the modest cottage, and a sharp, unbearable thought cut through me. I had erected towers, but I had no tree of my own, nothing to hold the warmth of my hands for those who would follow.
I had reached the heights, but I had no roots.
I left, knowing I had an important dinner with investors that night. I slipped the book onto the passenger seat and started the engine.
The city lights flickered ahead, still calling me upward, but I no longer felt like a predatory bird. I felt like a lost traveller, wandering in the wrong direction all my life.
I cancelled the dinner an unthinkable move for me and drove back to my tower. I entered the flat, went straight to the twentysecondfloor window, and watched the bustling streets below, foreign and detached.
Holding the worn book, I ran my fingers over its rough cover, opened to a random page and read: Happiness for all, given freely, and may no one go away wounded. I stayed like that until night fell, watching the citys lights dim, and for the first time in years I wished not to climb higher but to find that one spot on earth where I could plant a tree of my own.
Morning found me feeling something inside had broken finally, irrevocably.
I turned slowly, taking in my immaculate, designer flat: minimal furniture, a couple of pricey paintings, flawless order. This was a place to stay between flights, not a home.
My hand hovered over the call button for the reception. I changed my mind, dialed another number.
Hello, Ethel? Its James again, I said after a pause. Do you mind if I drop by for a bit? I have something to ask.
A hint of surprise twinkled in her voice, but she agreed.
Two hours later my vehicle was again on the dusty lane, this time coasting gently, taking in the familiar yet forgotten scenery.
Ethel waited on the same porch, her quiet smile unchanged.
I thought youd be back in the city by now, she said. You always have work.
Work can wait, I replied, cutting her off before she could protest. Youre selling the cottage. How much?
She named a sum that to me was trivial, pocketchange.
Ill buy it, I said instantly. But on one condition.
She raised an eyebrow.
Youll stay here, manage it, be the one who looks after it. I cant be here all the time, but I need to know this place is alive, that it has a soul, and that I can come back to plant that tree.
She stared, bewildered.
James, are you out of your mind? Why would you want this ramshackle place?
I have skyscrapers, I said with a bitter grin. But I have no place like this. Im not buying a cottage, Ethel. Im buying a starting point. Your answer?
She glanced at the apple tree, the path leading to the river.
Fine, she whispered. But only if you really come back and plant that tree, remembering why you need it.
We sealed the agreement with a handshake, no lawyers, no contracts. For the first time in years I felt I was making the most important deal of my life.
Back in the city I kept closing deals, signing contracts, earning millions. Yet each evening I approached the window not to feel superior, but to picture the country air scented with apples and freshly cut grass.
Sometimes I took the battered Monday Begins on Saturday and reread the lines Id once underlined, the youthful belief that we could make everyone happy for free. I was beginning to understand where to start.
At first my visits to the cottage were like site inspections. I walked the grounds, made notes on an expensive tablet, listed repairs, replacements, new builds. Ethel never interfered; she made jam, tended the garden, and occasionally peered through the doorway at my immaculate boots, which the mud was quickly ruining.
One rainy evening, after a rare escape from the office, we sat in the kitchen drinking tea sweetened with her raspberry jam. Conversation stalled; business talk had run dry, and I built a wall around any personal subject.
Ethel, without looking at me, asked quietly, Do you remember our debate with Professor Stark on Shakespeare? You argued that Hamlet wasnt a coward but a brilliant procrastinator. I said he was just a sad boy.
I lifted my eyes from the cup and saw her for the first time not as an accountant but as that brighteyed girl with fire in her mind.
I remember, I rasped. And I still think I was right.
And I? she smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling.
For the first time in many years I returned her smile, a genuine one, not a business courtesy.
My visits became more frequent, and fewer tablets entered the cottage. I brought books from my city flat and placed them on shelves Id repaired myself. We talked about everything the stories wed read, the lives wed lived, what seemed important then and now.
One evening I found her reading to her grandson. The soft lamp light gilded her face as she turned the pages of The Little Prince. Her voice was gentle, lulling, filled with such tenderness that my chest tightened. I stood in the doorway, breath held, fearing to disturb that fragile, perfect moment. I realised I could listen to that voice forever.
I became her helper, clumsy at first chopping wood, fixing a clogged sink, tying up tomato vines. She watched me with quiet approval, and for the first time I felt like a pioneer discovering the great science of simply being.
Winter arrived, the cottage blanketed in snow, smoke curling from the chimney, the scent of pine and baked apples filling the air. Ethel set a modest table for two. Watching her arrange the plates, her calm face, I understood with absolute clarity: I was home.
I slipped my arms around her shoulders from behind, rested my cheek against her hair. She tensed, then relaxed, laying her hand over mine.
Stay, she said softly, not as a request but as a statement of fact, the inevitable continuation.
Im not going anywhere, I replied, and it was the easiest, truest decision Id ever made.
We talked for hours, catching up on lost years, sharing fears, hopes, old scars. I kissed her warm hands; she stroked my greying temples. It wasnt a flash of passion but a steady, quiet flame that promised to keep us warm to the end.
Morning found the sun slanting through the window. Ethel slept beside me, her face the picture of serene peace. I stepped onto the porch, the air crisp, the snow blinding. My phone buzzed with a dozen missed calls from partners. I held it, looked at it one more time, and then, deliberately, turned it off.
I was no longer the man who hovered over the city. I had finally put down roots, and that became my greatest triumph.
