Wareham Quay at night

Anne rings me up to suggest that we meet in The Granary, a pleasant enough eatery - she's been crunching numbers on her screen all day -

Inside - there are sepia photographs on the wall - country gents from the 1900's holding up pikes they've just fished - quiet dining rooms, lined with books - flagstones underfoot - an upper floor, on a wooden deck, overlooking the river - plain wooden tables - bottles of real ale - complementary copies of The i - it's all refurbished and restored - grain barges once moored here at the quay, sailing back down to Poole Harbour, along the winding channel - young men, born just in time for 1914, stroll in the photographs to innocent regattas - but you can see the sad memorials, in all of the Purbeck churches - the lists of names - all those obscure initials -

Walking to meet Anne, across the dark flagstones of the quay, I can see a white cabin cruiser, moored next to a green bench - the wet flagstones are shining in the light of wrought iron lamps - the river is still and black, the tide at the turn - the bridge crosses over the water into darkness - all is silent - the stars hidden by clouds

I wonder what it would be like to hear voices, from further down the river, flowing through the reeds - I think there must be so many stories marked by those names and initials - I used to dream of crowds of ghosts, rushing through the arched entrance to Waterloo Station, on their way back from France