The mountain was full of miniature eyes. There were the yellow discs of long-eared owls, the purblind blots of pygmy shrews, the immobile domes of bluebottles, the glinting black gems of brown rats.
The mountain was full of miniature eyes, of pheasants, foxes, lizards, larks, rabbits, warblers, weevils, mink, mice, lice. And each eye was focused solely on its surrounding patch of ground or gorse or rock or air. Each perceived the pattern, shade and proportion of its patch differently. Each shifted and assimilated at the pace of one patch at a time. The mountain alone looked up, down and around,
seeing
everything
at
once,
keeping watch.
The mountain was a colossal, cyclopean eye that never shut, even when it was sleeping.
It kept watch on the sky, sea and land, and every ornament and obstruction—the moon and clouds; the trawlers, yachts and gannetries; the rooftops, roads and chimney-pots; the turbines, telegraph poles and steeples.
The mountain alone could see through bracken, brick, wood, cement and steel—through to the trampolines and septic tanks; the IKEA coffee tables and home cinema systems; the family-size casks of laundry gel and multipacks of buttered popcorn. The mountain alone monitored every jostle, flap and fall; every trembling clothes peg and traversing jeep; every stray cat and cow-pat.
It witnessed the arrival of Bell and Sigh, on a clear noon in January—two bright specks against the green and green-brown and brown and brown-green and grey.
It saw them park in the driveway of a lichen-encrusted house on a lower rise beneath. It saw that they drove a red van filled with dogs and boxes. It saw that they were made of wool and boots and hair.
Once the dogs had been set loose and the van emptied, Bell and Sigh paused to appraise the view.
Although it surpassed the full spread of its surrounds, the high, rocky land was not strictly the right shape to be called a mountain. From sea level, it appeared mountain-like, but the house itself had been built on a sharp hill above the scabrous shoreline. From the perspective of the driveway where they stood, the facing outcrop appeared to be more of a ridge or bluff—blunt but tall, inhospitable.
Gently and unspectacularly it ascended from the Atlantic, as if it had accumulated its stature over centuries. As if, over centuries, it had steadily flattened itself upwards.
It was the shape of a prehistoric bank, a drove of smoke, an obliterating wave, a mud and rock and foliage barrier, impeding, protecting.