The darkest hour – when is that, I ask myself on my way to Ramsgate yesterday. It is hot driving the M2 motorway in the August sunshine. The roadside grasses are burnt a yellow dry and on either side flat fields spread out, empty, the harvest gone. It hardly feels like England I think, more like somewhere further south, and the hot car without air conditioning reminds me of other road journeys heading south I made long ago.
Where the time of the Devourer is begun. It is a welcome constancy to reach the leafy suburbs of the coastal town, park the car, get out and stretch my stiff legs, and feel the cool coastal breeze in my face. I am told all the county towns of Kent disappoint but I enjoy walking past the bungalows and villas and low retirement apartment blocks, not made over neat or tidy. Down towards the cliff top which rises above the harbour, it is not beautiful either and the wind off the North Sea must drive the inhabitants mad all year. Looking out the sea is empty except for a single ship near the horizon.
Not many are walking the cliff top road, only a few with dogs and leather tans. Below there is the harbour. It is empty like the dry stubble fields I saw from the motorway. The ferry stopped years ago I am told, and the railway station a generation before that. But the arcs of the twin outer and inner harbours remain, calming the sea waves as they enter. Only a few small fishing boats and other modest crafts remain. Nothing is happening in the whole harbour area, low dark buildings and cars and goods trucks parked at random angles.
Then directly beneath me there is the sea and sand and breakwaters, and the wind is lifted over the cliff so a small number of families and holidaymakers are sunbathing on the golden beach, and a few even swimming in the sea. As close to aquamarine as north can be I think.
I look into the still bright eyes of the old man who we have come to see. He will be ninety on Sunday and is not well. Hello Max, he says taking my hand in his.