by Helen Mort
* * *
When Alexa woke up, her head was full of cotton wool and the street outside was booming.
At work, Dave told her Maria had been picked up. She’d been in Bradford, in a hotel with an older man named Ali who she called her boyfriend. She said his family had looked after her well. She was happy and didn’t want to go home. Dave said they interviewed her three times and her story stayed the same. Maria hadn’t seen her father for years and her mother wasn’t interested in where she’d been. Slowly, her face was removed from the lamp posts round Brightside and Attercliffe.
Alexa walked her beat. With each person she passed, she wondered if she’d remember their face, if she’d be able to pick them out in a crowd. 1,500 Roma children. How many neighbours would notice if someone went missing round here? She had a crumpled poster in her pocket, Maria scrunched up, her face wrinkled by the folds of the shiny paper. When she was small, Alexa’s dad used to keep a photograph of Alexa in his wallet. In the picture, one of her baby teeth had just come out and her hair was pulled into bunches. She wondered if he still had it. She wondered if he cared what her face looked like now.
When she passed Eva’s house on Wade Street, she looked in through the kitchen window. Nobody home. The room holding itself still, waiting for her to come back. Alexa hoped she’d found the money for the plane ticket. That she was making peace with her dad.
The River at Froggatt
It’s been months. When you first lower yourself down to meet me, I grip your legs like a child. But I’m ancient, bellyful of stones, slicked with moss, overgrown and grey. You’ve been away for a while. You’ve forgotten how cold I am, how fast I can move, how many I’ve swept away and carried close. Each time you come back, my touch is a little icier. Your friends say you should buy a wetsuit, but you always say you like the sting of me, the numbness, the shortening of your breath. I hear you gasp as you go up to your thighs. A quick, dark fish darts out of the weeds and away, riding the current. Today, I’m like the surface beneath a mirror. I’m the colour of dark rock or of worn metal. I hold many things deep and close. A bedded tyre from a farm truck. A lost hairgrip. The tins from a picnic, dirty with rust. And now I’m holding you. A chill wind passes, brief – ghost wind, ghost sigh. You pause before you slip down. When you enter me, I enter you and it’s glorious. I’m in the fabric of your swimming costume, making it heavy. I’m stroking your neck at the nape, the back of your head, your soaking hair. I touch the riverbank and the grass shudders in the wind.
Leigh
Froggatt was unnervingly still. Night like a dustsheet over it. Leigh was used to the wind through the trees or buffeting you on the track as you approached, saying You’re not too big to be pushed. Tonight, the rocks stood indistinct but proud. In the dark, Three Pebble Slab seemed larger than she remembered.
‘Climbing,’ said Greg’s disembodied voice. Caron paid out the orange rope.
His headtorch shone a lame moon on the slab. It was lemony, sickly. The batteries might not last the route. Greg thought climbing by night was pure. The one last natural challenge: trusting your feet, blind, focusing on nothing but the circle of lit rock in front of you. He was going to climb Three Pebble Slab like a Zen master. He was young. He was entitled to his opinion. Leigh sank her neck down into her jacket.
Everyone was silent as Greg took his first step. Then he stopped, turned, shone his bad light on them.
‘You getting this, Jonno?’
Jonno held his phone at arm’s length like he’d never seen it before.
‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘It’s just a bit … dark.’
Caron turned to Leigh and smiled. She hadn’t tried to put Greg off when he first got obsessed with night climbing. She’d just nodded and said she knew Three Pebble Slab, she’d hold his ropes. She’d helped him practise traverses at midnight in Sheffield City Centre. He’d done the left wall of the University Arms and the right wall of the Kelham Island Tavern. A crowd of drunk students had gathered to egg him on. Boys with T-shirts that said VARSITY SKI and MY GIRLFRIEND’S OUT OF TOWN.
Leigh wondered if she should switch her headtorch off. If Greg was a purist, he should really have asked them not to bring lights. But something sharp in her wanted to see him fail. He was moving again now, past the pocket where he’d placed a cam and up on to the main slab, angled like a roof. She could hear him breathing.
‘It’s thin,’ he panted. ‘Really thin.’
Caron could have shouted advice, but she didn’t. She just kept holding the rope and watching him, coolly.
‘Hey!’ Jonno was suddenly animated. ‘If you turn round again I can get you better. It looks good there. Kind of green. That’s a great shot.’
Greg didn’t reply. His body was a column of dark, haloed slightly against the slab. He was blowing hard.
‘Watch me.’
Caron gripped the rope. As if that would make any difference when he was that high above the gear.
‘I could be off …’
He had forgotten the darkness. He had forgotten everything except the shaking in his legs and his tight fingertips. Leigh realised with a jolt that she liked this, liked seeing other people’s fear surprise them. The way it starts in your feet and crawls upwards through your body, rattling you. It was something she understood.
‘Christ!’ panted Greg. It was only then Caron gave Jonno the nod to bail him out.
Then Jonno was crashing through the darkness with a rope, his phone left somewhere in the bracken and mud as he beat a path to the rescue. Soon, he’d be at the top, throwing a bight down, feeling the rope go taut when Greg clipped it to his harness. Leigh knew he’d get there in time. People could always hold on longer than they thought.
When Greg got down, he started taking off his shoes and chucking his gear into his rucksack, silently. Caron crouched beside him. Then she took her boots off, unfastened the Velcro of her rock shoes. She stood underneath Three Pebble Slab with her headtorch glaring at it. Slowly, gently, she started to climb into the darkness.
‘Greg,’ Jonno was out of breath. ‘You all right with this?’
Greg carried on packing his rucksack. The moon had gone behind a cloud. There was a faint breeze. Leigh inhaled sharply. Jonno scooped up his phone from the mud and held it in front of him, filming Caron, who was nearly halfway up already. She moved deliberately, planting her feet.
Leigh understood why it mattered. All the weeks of not saying anything. All the years of being told you weren’t good enough or brave enough. That you climbed like a girl. This was show-not-tell. Her whole body yearned for Caron’s. She stood on her tiptoes for no reason, as if that would send Caron extra reach and height. Remembered all the times she’d almost got the hold, almost fallen, almost committed to the move. Caron didn’t deal in almost.
People said climbers looked like dancers, but this was no dance. It was martial arts. Turning the rock against itself. Making it accept your strength. Caron was at the top. Descending, back over the rocks, towards the woods. And the slab was suddenly empty. Greg sat on his rucksack, watching nothing and Leigh breathed again.
* * *
‘Pete. Pete, wake up.’
She’d seen the shop light burning from the road as she walked back to the house, her face numb from Froggatt, her left hand slightly cold and her right hand warm from where Caron had held it.
‘Pete, it’s me.’
He had made a bed behind the counter, a pillow of this season’s Arc’teryx jackets, a duvet of waterproofs. His breath smelled of red wine. Leigh took hold of his shoulders and shook him gently until he opened his eyes. She was frightened by the way he looked at her, his face hooded with confusion.
‘Come on, you can’t sleep here.’
‘Leigh. Fucking hell … Can’t a man have a nap?’
Safi was at his feet. She raised her solemn head and dropped it again.
‘I’m taking you to mine.’
‘I only closed my eyes for five minutes.’ He sat up and all the windstopp
er jackets peeled off him. ‘Where am I? Where’s Stretch?’
‘You’re in the shop.’
‘I can see that,’ he slurred. ‘Did that twat leave me here?’
‘Probably. Let’s get you a proper bed.’
She helped him to his feet and the dog reluctantly followed suit. He grabbed her earnestly by the shoulders.
‘You’re a good girl.’
His breath almost knocked her out. They walked to the front of the shop, joined and separate, like contestants in a three-legged race.
‘You know, just then when I were still out of it, I thought you were my daughter.’
‘I know.’
Back in the cottage, shivering, she tucked him in to the camp bed with its vicious springs and Carry-On sound effects. He snored all through the night, only came upstairs once, mistaking her room for the toilet. She stopped him before he pissed on the chair where she always slung her clothes.
Eventually, she softened into sleep, thinking about Caron and Three Pebble Slab, and feeling special because she knew Caron wouldn’t tell Alexa about the night climbing. Caron wouldn’t say anything, because Alexa would have had a hard shift clapping handcuffs on some petty thief or interviewing an abused woman or just walking a square mile of the city over and over and she wouldn’t want to know. Or because Caron needed secrets the same way Leigh needed secrets, things to turn over in your mind at night, run your tongue around their invisible shape, stow under your pillow. And holding Caron’s secret with her made up for everything, for the absences and the cold bed, for the picture she’d had since the party of Alexa’s pale, hunted face, her beautiful mouth, the shape of her neck.
Burbage Edge
I’m elevated, but only just. I’m a child on tiptoe, straining for a better look. Mostly, the view’s the same. The distant road, the squat shape of Fox House, the tended ground towards the Longshaw Estate, overflowing streams and boggy paths to Higgar Tor. In one direction, Stanage End, cut with tracks. In the other, Lady Canning’s Plantation. Scot’s pine. Japanese larch. Lodgepole pine. The lovely secrecy of trees, their privacy at twilight. I can’t count them, but I know how much I have, what belongs to me and what doesn’t. The mist comes down. Now you see me, now you don’t: I’m hiding, counting to ten under my breath. When you look back, there’ll be a glimpse of Ash Tree Wall beneath the grey; two women arguing at the foot of a route that traverses right, the only ones out in this weather. One of them shrugs and starts bundling her shoes and harness back into her bag, zipping her rucksack, movements exaggerated with aggressive energy. The other turns to the rock, glistening dark with water, then she turns her face towards the empty car park and the brook, back towards where they walked from. My only argument is with the sky.
Alexa
Alexa had never tried to coax someone down from a roof before. She’d never tried to coax anyone anywhere. The calm night. The car lights snaking out towards Barnsley. Concentrate. She tried his name.
‘Tony?’
It rattled round her mouth. Try harder. Persuasion wasn’t her thing. Her forte. Shut up. Tonight it would have to be.
‘Tony, why don’t you come back here where it’s a bit safer?’
The lads outside the betting shop had told her casually. One of them was eating a fried chicken wing. There’s a bloke stood on his roof. On our street. Think he might want to … y’ know. Another bite of the wing.
This would be a gorgeous place in summer. A view of Sheffield in all its rectangular glory. Alexa didn’t know there were rooftops like this round here, between the red-brick terraces and shops, but there it was – a strange, exposed flatness. The gap that led back down to the stairs and the flats. A few small weeds. And a man in a white vest and navy tracksuit bottoms, standing on the brink of it, staring out as if he didn’t see the city at all.
‘Mr Hanley?’ She tried formality. He couldn’t hear her through his thoughts. She took a step forwards, closer towards him and then hesitated. It was important she didn’t get too close to the edge.
She tried to gauge the fall. Twenty feet, maybe. Enough to leave you broken. Presumably, he was counting on traffic. For a brief moment, she wished she was a climber. Calculating falls must be second nature. Or perhaps they never thought about it. Caron didn’t seem to have any fear of falling, though she’d hit the ground enough times. Broken ankle, broken arm, a near escape with her back. Alexa remembered her grinning in A&E. My life didn’t flash before my eyes. I hit the ground and I thought, at least I can’t go any further.
Alexa didn’t know how long she’d been up on the roof, but it was getting dark. She stared at the back of Tony’s head, the thinning black hair, the wisps on the back of his neck. His vest looked like it had fitted him once.
‘Tony, come back inside. We can get you some warm clothes. Get you a brew on. You’ve been out for a long time.’ She hesitated. ‘My name’s Alexa. I’m a Police Community Support Officer and I’ve been sent up here to make sure you’re OK. I’m here to look after you.’
Minutes dragged their heels. Was this what it felt like to be invisible? It was the kind of thing people said all the time, I feel as if I don’t exist, but here on the roof above Page Hall, Alexa understood what it really meant. To be nothing. To be no one to someone. To be no one at all. She wanted to take her hi-vis jacket off and be part of the night sky. Then, in a fit of resolution, she did. She wanted to seem less official when Tony looked round. If he ever did. This was probably the wrong way of doing things. She ought to run over and grab him, pull him back to relative safety, be a hero and put herself at risk. She ought to have phoned for backup ages ago. But nobody had prepared her for this. Nobody had told her what to do.
In the end, it happened very casually. She had been silent for what seemed like hours. A small crowd had started to gather down on the street, the lads from the betting shop and some others, girls mostly, more intrigued than concerned. Alexa was crouched down, trying to make herself very still. Waiting. And, slowly, Tony turned round with a half-shrug, like someone in a supermarket queue realising they’ve forgotten something or deciding not to bother with the wait after all. He walked towards her and past her and started descending the metal ladder that led up to the roof plateau. She heard faint clapping from the street. Something that sounded like a jeer. She followed him, sliding the hatch closed after her.
He let her come into the flat and put the kettle on and when the tea was ready he spooned four sugars into his and stirred and stirred. There was nothing on the walls. No plants in the hall. A small, old-fashioned radio on the kitchen worktop. Was this how her dad lived, too? Tony’s arms were thick and he had a blue tattoo on his right, just above the hand. He answered all her questions calmly. Yes, he had seen his GP. No, he wasn’t taking medication, not any more. Yes, he had relatives in Sheffield, but he didn’t talk to them these days. A son. And when she nodded and said she knew what that was like, he snorted and didn’t believe her. He was so quiet. So relentlessly polite. So unlike what she’d imagined him to be. So when she got up to leave and turned towards the door, his shout and his fist on the table was like a hammer blow.
‘There’s going to be a fight! Not today maybe, not tomorrow, but there is. There’s going to be blood.’
He banged on the table again and the mug he’d been drinking from tumbled to the floor.
‘Don’t look like you don’t know what I’m talking about. There’s people round here that have had enough.’
‘Enough of what, Tony?’
‘Do you want me to spell it out for you?’ His voice was high and whiny.
No. She didn’t. The point was that nobody could spell it out. Not properly. They couldn’t tell you why all their sadness and loneliness and bitterness was bundled into a lump the size of a stone and lobbed into the air. They couldn’t tell you when the damage had started here or who started it. They sat, they stared, they became compass points around the city. They couldn’t tell you what had gone wrong in their lives. She did what she wasn’t s
upposed to do. She just closed the door and left.
* * *
Dave picked Alexa up on Hinde Street.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. I’m taking you back.’
She spoke to him without knowing what she was saying. The only thing that made sense was that she’d failed, she wanted to quit. She’d had enough of working for South Yorkshire.
Dave parked the car. She didn’t know where. He told her to sleep, let him cover for her. She heard the door slam and she leaned her head against the cold window and closed her eyes. Felt that heaviness drop over her like a shroud, the heaviness she was feeling all the time these days, especially when she lay in bed at night. She felt Page Hall and Burngreave soften as they merged into the background.
As soon as the dreams came, she wished she could get out. But sleep was too heavy. She dreamt she was in a vehicle, moving very slowly. At first she thought it was a police car, but it was too big. And full of equipment. Oxygen masks and first aid. Ambulance, it had to be. Now it wasn’t moving at all. In the dream, she didn’t want to look out of the window, kept looking into the back instead. But it was as if she was a puppet and something kept turning her head, controlling her movements. Bodies in red shirts. Bodies with people crouching round them. The roar and the screams and the shouts for help. And other people, behind cages, behind mesh. A policeman running past, his face opened up with panic. She was trying to move forwards, the ambulance should be moving forwards, but it was stuck. She couldn’t get on to the pitch. And nobody seemed to be able to get to her, either, nobody could carry the bodies that filled the ground. If she could move, where would she start? And she realised with a lurch that she wasn’t even in the driving seat, she was a passenger. She tried the door and she was locked in.