Elizabeth Gardens

The River Avon runs through Salisbury, dividing the city into two. You can walk alongside its banks from Wetherspoons Pub, where men and women in sip coffee, read the papers and smoke in the April morning air. Down the path, one man sits on a bench and observes the southern flow of the river. On Crane Bridge Road, a small art shop, acts as a warden to the 7am traffic. The commuters saunter by to open up their shops.

But further downstream, the river is flanked by Elizabeth Gardens. Fishing is allowed, but only through permission – a steel sign nailed to a tree says so. No one is fishing at this time. Only I walk down the riverside path. It’s not the first time I’ve been down here either.

I remember when I came to the Gardens four years ago. Fifteen and reckless, I sat around with friends experimenting. We smoked our first cigarettes. I can remember buying them for the first time – Mayfair, ten pack. We didn’t even inhale the smoke, just circled it around in our mouths and pretended. For a month we did this, until one day we coughed and hesitated. Four years later, I stopped smoking.  

We binged for the first time – cider and vodka. One evening, I stumbled home drunk and couldn’t afford a bus home. I look back and realise, I had plenty of money.

I follow the river to the point where it splits and meets open fields. Mallard ducklings climb onto dry land, hassled by their mother who rounds up the group. They crawl over to a willow tree and search for breadcrumbs. The cathedral rises above in the distance like a lighthouse. It directs you from the Plains towards the city centre.

I walk on through the gardens – Salisbury gradually begins to awaken. Tourists brave the morning and explore; a teacher wastes times with her pupils before a visit to Stonehenge. Builders swarm around a playground preparing sacks of concrete mix. I’ve been to this playground before. My dad and I took my step-brother there once. Only a year old, he loved playing on the slides and seesaws. We hoisted him onto the monkey bars and carried him on our shoulders. Now, the gates are locked and the apparatus has been torn down.

In science, the second law of thermodynamics is the only quantity to suggest a particular direction of progress: entropy, the arrow of time, an egg timer and sand. The playground is in a process of change – the cathedral looms in the background surrounded by scaffolding. When will the thirteenth century foundations begin to crumble? The Avon entrenches its banks, reaches for the path and benches. It gradually peaks and starts to shrink.

With no water, the mother duck wanders down the path towards the city centre. Her children lead the way.