In fairness, however, it didn't take me long to start feeling more philosophical. I hadn't found the coin in the first place - I knew that - it had found me and had stayed just long enough to make the impression it needed to and facilitate what happened next in Didsbury's other set of ruins.
It was a Friday evening, two days later, after school and after tea. I had gone for a ride on my bike, the coin in my trouser pocket as usual. The rain that had fallen earlier had cleared up nicely but I could smell it in the air still. The pavements glistened and every leaf and blade of grass shone.
I expected to see the 'Roman Church', as we called it, standing gaunt and skeletal as always as I careered into Didsbury Park in the fading light, five minutes from home. The site, beside the playground and watched over by a line of poplars, was much more genuinely ruin-like than the old train station was. That had been closed a mere ten years before. This edifice was so old that its history divided opinion. It was, so they argued: (1) an Anglo-Saxon church from the seventh century; (2) a Romano-British church, built in the later days of the Roman occupation; or (3) a small-scale Roman fort, an outpost of the garrison HQ at Castlefield in what's now Manchester city centre.
Whatever its origin, it was always a nice place to be. Because of its open location there were usually people around - children mainly, but adults too, especially students with their notebooks and sketchpads. Despite this, it had a peaceful, restful air and, as with the station, I felt equally happy whether with my friends, running about, climbing, or hiding behind the red-brown stones, or by myself, reading, thinking, writing, or just sitting or walking around, trying to tune into the secret atmosphere of the place and the story the stones were telling me. Because there was a story, I was sure of that, a resonance and mythic depth which evaded the scholars ability to grasp, define, and even perceive.
These ruins have gone now too sadly, removed to Castlefield and reconstructed next to the main fort, much to the chagrin of the 'church party', Romano-British or Anglo-Saxon. Health and Safety was the reason/excuse. Kids had started to climb to the top and jump off for a dare. Bones were broken, parents sued the Council for negligence, and that was that. But there had also been problems as the '80s wore on with graffiti and drug use, so what the Town Hall did was understandable in some ways. Yet on a deeper level the departure of the stones left a huge void, a spiritual and imaginative gap which has never been filled. Didsbury was divested of its soul and essence - its 'Daemon', if you like - and its commercialisation and gentrification began in earnest, as far as I can see, from that precise moment.
That was still years in the future though at the time of this tale. I had other things on my mind as I powered through the park that evening. I was late home and needed to cover the ground quickly. Then I saw the ruins - transformed, restored, and ablaze with light - and forgot about the encroaching dark and my Mum and Dad starting to worry. I stood on the pedals to get a better view and my rational mind swooped in with an explanation. Students from the nearby drama school, it said, had commandeered the building and fitted it up for a rehearsal or performance. Certainly they had done a good, if somewhat basic, job. I was looking at a low, four-square structure with arch-shaped windows that gave a golden glow which felt not only bright but warm and welcoming too. Then I saw a man in white beckoning me over and instantly the drama school theory dissolved like mist and I felt myself caught up in a wider, richer story. The mystery of the ruins, which I had long intuited, was unveiling itself and inviting me to play a part.
I vaulted off the bike and wheeled it across the grass to where he was standing. My folks would have had kittens if they knew. I was aware of 'stranger danger' but I also knew the stories of Simon and Andrew and James and John, and how they left their nets and straightaway followed Jesus. I didn't think this man was Jesus, and it wasn't very long before I knew that for sure. But that's what it was like. I had never seen him before, yet I felt like I had always known him and always would know him and that he knew me better than anyone in the world. I had to go. An inner imperative insisted on it.
As I came closer I could make out exactly what he was wearing - a white robe with a purple sash running from right to left from shoulder to waist. His feet were bare and his head was crowned with a chaplet of copper-coloured leaves. His hair was dark and closely cropped and he looked about twenty-five or so. He called me by my name. 'You can leave your bike here,' he added. And as he spoke I realised that I had indeed seen him before. It was the man on the coin, the man on the throne with the spear and the crown and the lines like light radiating around him.
I propped my bike against the wall and followed him along the side of the building to a set of double doors which opened at his touch, revealing a room resplendent with torches and braziers and lined with gold and purple hangings. I saw about a dozen people - men, women and children; old, young and in-between, all quite normal-looking, all in ordinary clothes: jackets, jumpers, skirts, etc. Yet a luminosity danced and played around them, reminding me of the tongues of fire in the icon of Pentecost Sunday in our school hall.
They turned as one to face us and my heart leapt as I saw them for who they truly were and are - my brethren, my companions, princes and princesses of the High Imagination - the eyes and mouths that blessed me before I was born and the hands and arms that will welcome me back to the Hallowed Halls on the day I die. And the words of Jewel in The Last Battle came to me and I spoke them out aloud in that blessed place:
'I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.'
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