They had known each other since childhood. They were the typical boy and girl next door; their lives already mentally charted by family and friends alike. They seemed like a pigeon pair; made for each other and besottedly in love. But they also harboured doubts. The doubts they harboured were groundless, nothing real or tangible. It was just a feeling, neither uncertainty nor indecisiveness, but doubts nonetheless. These doubts never surfaced or were spoken about. They brushed them aside not even recognising them as doubts but just as the insecurities of youth and the pitfalls of teenage love. Teenage love always hurt, or so the magazines said. The songs that they shared spread a similar message. Hope, happiness, lost love and broken dreams. These were the surrounding influences and this was their lot. It was a small town. It could have been anywhere in the world.

They did the usual teenage romance things; walks in the park, listening to the current chart hits and reliving precious memories. They knew each other as well as anyone could know another person, each other's likes and dislikes and each other's hopes and aspirations. They were normal aspirations, dreams of a house with a white picket fence, a rose covered cottage somewhere by the sea perhaps with a thatched roof and small garden, chickens running in the yard and fair-haired children with perfect teeth and smiles playing with carefree abandon in the picturesque tree-lined gardens.

Every Friday evening they went to the movies and, as they grew older, they graduated to the local disco run by the clergy. Every Saturday was spent in the village, outside the small music store, listening to samples of chart hits blaring their noisy, badly-tuned and ill-becoming cacophony out into the busy market day crowds. Sundays were for studying in each other's rooms, alternating every consecutive weekend to each other's houses, where tea would be served by an intrusive mother, watchful of her own offspring's chastity and attentiveness. Either parent ever visibly portrayed no lack of trust and, ostensibly at least, each one was taken to the heart of the respective partner's parents and family. Elaborate welcomes were the order of the day and as the relationship grew and expanded in time, these welcomes became less elaborate and more mundane, settling into an acceptance of permanence in the relationship on all sides.

Some evenings, especially in summer, were spent walking in the park, or sitting on a favourite park bench, where they would study for exams or classes next day in the sunlit copse that surrounded their special place. They were too engrossed in their studies or each other to notice the beauty and melancholy of their surroundings. They were too eager to attain the knowledge contained in their books to explore what surrounded them. They were too ensconced in worrying about how the date was going to care whether the tall, creaking, ivy covered wall that surrounded two sides of the copse contained enough strength to remain standing or was weary enough to just give up gracefully and lay down to ease a lifetime of tiredness.

One evening, however, the boy was drawn to the wall, his interest aroused when he imagined a high-pitched laugh from behind its green-covered exterior. He asked his partner if she had heard it but she just shook her head and said that she hadn't. He continued his reading but was curious and after a while he couldn't contain his curiosity any longer. He left his books and walked nervously to the wall. He touched it with his hand, as though trying to feel if its heart was beating. He walked through the scrub and bushes that lay thickly at the base and cleared a path for himself to see if he could gain a foothold for climbing to observe the other side and what it contained. He loosened the dense undergrowth but could find no convenient niche to assist his ascent. He called to his love. She looked up with a start and he beckoned to her to come to him. She carefully picked up their books and walked quickly to where he stood. She used the pathway he had cleared to come stand with him. He took the books and laid them on a clear piece of ground and told her his plan. She balked at first but when he assured her it would be all right she agreed. He cupped his hands stirrup fashion and leaned back against the wall. She placed her foot inside the cupped and interlinked digits and he hoisted her up so her head could comfortably clear the top of the wall and she could relate what was on the other side.

She came down with a start and didn't seem impressed by what lay beyond the grey concrete edifice. She said there was a lot of scrub and weeds, gardens maybe, which were overgrown through years of neglect. It resembled a jungle. There was a set of old steps further along the property, these too were overgrown with weeds and were barely discernible as steps. She reasoned that maybe it was an old ruin, where the owners died and no one knew, left to die and to decay until eventually, over time, it disappeared and evaporated into whatever place they evaporate to. She saw his disappointment but discouraged sentiment. She had no understanding of what he wanted to hear and unselfconsciously bent to pick up the books and beckoned for him to come join her back on their bench. She needed them to return to their own safe little world, where danger never intruded and no darkness lurked unseen waiting to be challenged. Her ivory tower was a safe house for her dreams, life and ideals.

He needed to see for himself this jungle apparent behind the old wall. He walked along until he found a stepping-stone. He guessed that there must be a gateway constructed in the wall at some point but he couldn't find it. He was out of site of his partner and she was engrossed in her work and didn't miss him or notice his absence. He again cleared a pathway for himself through the thickly clawing undergrowth and brush. He reached the stepping-stone, a boulder that stood guard to the bottom of the wall but also betrayed its security and allowed someone to breach its integrity to display the secrets buried within. He placed a foot tenderly on top of the boulder and hopped a few times on the toes of his other foot before launching himself into a two-footed standing position on top of the large ivory stone. He clung precariously to a thick vine, which wound its way along, over, and through the great wall and was secured through its roots and vice like grip to the concrete barrier.

He stood on his tiptoes until his eye level allowed a clear view of what lay beyond. Contrary to what she saw, he viewed a lush garden, well tended in appearance, its green grass nurtured and healthy. Dotted around were brightly coloured foliage and bushes displaying roses and chrysanthemums of wonderful hues and colours. Perfect buds adorned the deeply green hosts and he was in awe of what his eyes could see. Beyond the emerald lawn, manicured to perfection, stood a quaint staircase. It had sandstone treads and risers, cracked through time. The cracks lending a distinguished look to the intricately designed structure. Protecting the left hand granite newel post, which displayed a perfect circular granite sphere placed on top and exactly in the centre, was a tall willowy lilac tree, fully in bloom with azalea bushes also fully in bloom keeping its feet warm and protecting the bottom step from austerity.

The balustrades that ran parallel with the pitch of the staircase contained posts of granite. These were square in shape and placed equidistant from each other along the run of the balustrade. The sequence broken only by another newel post, identical to the one at the base, placed exactly half way along the balustrade and displaying the same spherical stone on top. Another identical newel post stood atop the staircase on both sides defining the length.

Intertwining the posts and newels was a vine, bearing its beautiful fruit of nearly neon-shaded pink roses, scattered hither, tither and yon, along its length. Some excess vines lay across the treads of the stairs and worked their way through some of the cracks in the sandstone steps. They were clustered at various points, as they were meant to. No man could have designed this growth and positioning, this was nature's handy work and a thing of wondrous beauty.

On the right hand side laid bushes and shrubs, fully in bloom and infusing the scene with colours that mixed perfectly to form a landscape of dancing wonder, and sang a tune of sweet melody and harmony. Colours of perfect, lilac, primrose, pink and scarlet blended in a composition of sweet perfection and invited a soul of spirit and appreciation to compose an aria to its enchanting magnetism.

From his position on the wall, he saw the sunlight filter through the trees and leaves, casting its heavenly warmth and life-enhancing light across the grass and steps. It burst through the lilac trees in a blaze of heavenly luminosity and cast a smile on the atmosphere pervading the scene it highlighted magnificently. A haze enveloped the contents of the further gardens he could see beyond the portals atop the steps inviting further exploration on foot but as it was getting late in the evening he decided that it would have to wait for another day. He would return soon, he made an unspoken promise to himself, to explore what lay beyond and what attracted him to this place of beauty.

On the following morning he arose and went about his daily committed regime, he went to school and didn't see his love, who was at home in bed with a minor ailment. He missed her and still thought about his doubts with her and wondered if she experienced the same doubts. He sent her a small wish in a card and walked sorrowfully and alone to their private place. He made for the spot where his access boulder lay and longed for the serenity and succour that the garden afforded. He stepped on the boulder once again and leapt cat-like onto the top of the wall. The view he had, differed from the previous day.

To his horror, he encountered a jungle, not a garden. What lay before him was exactly how his love had described how she viewed it the previous evening. The stairway was covered with angry weeds, tough and unyielding. The cracks in the stairs appeared wider and there seemed to be larger chunks of sandstone lying about. Totally disillusioned, he jumped from the wall and made his way home. He couldn't comprehend what he had seen this evening when he balanced it with what he saw the previous day.

One week later all was right in the world of the two young lovers. They continued their routine and fell easily back into it. The wall and what it contained remained out of their lives again and they fell into the usual run of the mill comfort that their relationship engendered.

They returned to the copse on one particularly sunny evening, he felt a certain fullness in his feelings once again for his love. She smiled and whispered sweet nothings in his ear. They couldn't concentrate on their studies, only on each other. She dozed with her head in his lap as he enjoyed the solitude of the evening and the place. He heard the same sound as before, a high-pitched scream and, curious, made his way to the boulder and quickly jumped up on it to see what he could see. The original vista had returned; he was amazed, surprised and delighted. Everything was the same; nothing had changed except he could see movement beyond the further portals at the top of the stairs. He climbed over the wall and dropped lightly on the other side. The ground was soft and lush and his shoes were made slightly damp by the moistness that was delivered by the evening dew. He bent and touched the softly wet grass, wiped his hands on his clothing and walked quietly and nervously to the bottom step. He quickly ascended the stairs and stopped on the topmost one. He crouched so as not to frighten the maiden who frolicked on the flat lawn, which spread out before him.

He hadn't seen this lawn from his vantage point on the wall, but it was just as lush and beautiful as the one below. It was surrounded by much the same foliage and shrubbery as the ones beyond the garden wall and in the centre, lit by a shaft of the purest sunlight, as a performer in a spotlight would be, stood an angelic figure. She was dressed in clothes of the purest white lace and silk. The garments hung loosely about her. A knee length loosely woven lace and cotton shift was worn below a silk and pearl bodice of stunning simplicity and precious beauty. Worn above this bodice was a lace top, open at the front so that when she spun her body it opened and it seemed she had wings. Her fair hair flew wildly yet uniformly about her body as she danced.

There was no music to be heard, but he felt the music as she moved. Her arms spread wide as if in flight, her body balanced precariously as she stood on the very tips of her toes, giving the illusion that her legs did not possess feet. Her loose and light clothing swung gaily about her slight form as she twisted and danced to the music in her head, the same scream, a scream of joy, emanating from her at various intervals.

Suddenly she stopped and cocked her head in the air. She placed her right hand to her ear and turned slowly as if trying to hear where the strange breathing was coming from, as she turned to face him, he grew frightened and just before she turned fully towards him, he ran. Down the steps and across the lawn, over the wall like a gazelle in flight and back to the sanctuary of the bench, where his love still snoozed. He sat and let his breath return and was conscious of a niggling thought in his head. There was a familiarity about her, this princess, this wood nymph, a familiarity he couldn't express or identify.

He turned to his love and with an unspoken familiarity they rose and began the journey home. He paused to pick up a daisy that was trodden on by a careless foot and stroked the petals lovingly. As he did this, his love walked on. His mind leapt to the maiden dancer beyond the wall and he focused on the joy she held in herself and her wondrous spirit, still he felt that niggling familiarity and tried to conjure her image in his brain to summon recognition.

His love, noticing she was walking alone swivelled and turned to call him. He saw this action and suddenly everything was clarified. The wood nymph was his love, her spirit re-born and illuminated to him; he smiled and saw her anew. She saw his love and his desire and her heart flipped over. Together they embraced and kissed, the closeness of love restored and enhanced. They walked as one again, in rapture and in love. He looked beyond her fair-haired halo and over at the wall.

"This is indeed," he thought, with a smile and relief, "a stairway to Paradise."

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