The Hagstone

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It’s the fifth day of stifling heat in succession, Mandy says she’s tired of the beach and what she calls “the feeling of saltwater seeping into my inner workings” so instead we go to the supermarket to cool down. We opt for Sainsbury’s because its cool aisle is set at a dependably lower temperature than those of rival supermarkets. While approximately parallel to the houmous and antipasti we run into Louise and Louis.

“Oh my god, what the hell are you guys doing here?” we chime.

“We came here to cool down,” they chime. “We don’t even need any food!”

“Oh my god, same!” we chime.

Soon we are chatting about what feels like every topic under the ferocious sun, while genuine customers reach awkwardly around us to grab artichokes, Kalamata olives and the new thistle-flavoured tahini that Sainsbury’s, clearly strapped for ideas, have rolled out for the summer. It goes well, or at least significantly better than last time the four of us got together, when I got tipsy and called Louise “Louis” and Louis “Louise” by mistake. Louis suggests that a fun activity might be to go off in different pairs for the remainder of the day. From a trouser pocket he produces an intricately folded piece of paper which, curiously, has one of our names pre-written on each of its four compartments. He twists this contraption, which he calls a “Fortune Teller”, in his hands, pulling the face of a confident Edwardian magician, and it is subsequently decided by the Fortune Teller, and by Louis, that I will spend the afternoon with Louise and he will spend the afternoon with Mandy.

In the car park, Louise tells me she knows an oxbow in the river where the current slows and the water deepens, which is just perfect for diving and swimming. “Unfortunately,” she adds, “it’s 1197 miles away on the Austria-Slovenia border.” But she says she knows another one, about forty minutes’ drive, which, due to its altitude and general emotional disposition, is cool and refreshing even on the hottest of days. As I steer, she sits in the passenger seat and fiddles with a smooth pebble, about the size of her hand. I notice that its centre has been eroded by the sea into an almost perfect circle. “What’s that?” I ask her.

“It’s a hagstone,” she tells me. “They’re historically associated with witches. Some people say that if you stare through them you can see a living being’s true form. I’m one of the some people who say that. Hey, let me check you out.”

She raises the stone to her left eye, like some venerable old cave banshee with a prehistoric magnifying glass, and peers at me. Unnerved, I veer marginally off the road, almost mowing down Mr Willerclough, who once tried and failed to guide me smoothly through my Applied Xenophobia GCSE to a grade of C or above, and is now older and out for one of what will turn out to be the last 54 walks of his life.

“No, we are all good,” says Louise. “You’re just Robert.”

“I’m glad,” I say. “To be perfectly honest, I’ve never felt like much else aside from a Robert.”

“I tried it on our cat last week,” says Louise. “When I looked at her through the stone she yelled at me and became the leader of a Saxon tribe.”

“Were there any telltale signs that made you think the tribe was specifically Saxon?”

But, Louise, already tiring of this line of conversation, is busy examining her hands. “I’ve always had small hands and tiny fingers and thumbs,” she says. “Hamsters love it because when I hold them it makes them feel like they are taking a brief holiday in the more swashbuckling persona of rats. Once at art school everyone was asked to do a charcoal drawing of their own hands and when the teacher came over to look at my drawing he said, ‘I think you’ve got the proportions a bit wrong there.’ Then he looked at my actual hands and said ‘No, in fact, you’ve got it just right. Excellent work. Carry on!’.”