by Sarah Till
From that point onwards, Sarah had clearly thought I was making up the phone calls and the texts and the receipts, and everything else, in my overwrought imagination. She treated me respectfully, like someone who was mentally ill. But she was always friendly and nodded sympathetically when I told her my latest discoveries. Of course, I haven’t told her the truth. I haven’t told anyone the truth about me and David. In many ways I want to distance myself from what she was doing. Assert myself, tell her my parents were gone and that she was wrong about David. But I find myself here again now, watching through the windows as she stretches up to greet the morning.
As the sun rises proper and she finishes, I see a pair of headlights appear on the horizon and move slowly up the road. A car is parked and a door slams. It’s the very basis of my day. The sun, the stretch, the car, and now comes Vera. Well, I don’t know that she’s called Vera for sure, but I need a name for her. She’s round and wrapped up in a royal blue coat. More recently she’s been carrying a hiker’s stick, to help her down the craggy pathway and onto the moor. At first I thought she was a dog walker, but there was no dog. Then, when Sarah’s revelation hit home, I thought she was just another death tourist, coming to ogle. Or an amateur detective, scouring the moorland for a gross bounty. Bits of a plane. Standing in front of the wreckage for photos. We had specifically chosen this spot for its remoteness, but, with all the people coming and going from the moor, it was busier than when we lived in the suburbs.
Vera’s climbing her daily climb. Struggling over the wall and dropping down the other side. She disappears for a moment then I see her head bobbing down the incline in the distance. Her anorak hood is pulled up now, covering her grey hair and she soon disappears from view. She’s slower than usual and even though I don’t know her, I worry.
This is my cue to make tea and think about my plans for today. I’m supposed to be writing an article for a website about heather and its life cycle, but since I started working from home I just haven’t been able to settle. David says that it’s the inheritance – if I needed to earn money I would – but I’m not so sure. I’m unfocused. For the thousandth time today I tell myself that this will be the day I follow David and find out what he is doing for once and for all. Get rid of him and make it stop.
I drink the tea and creep back to bed, completing my silent night-time mission, just an hour before David’s alarm goes off. He kisses me and rubs my stomach, going through the motions of love but not quite getting there, and I pretend to stir in my sleep before turning over. I’m asleep before he’s out of the door.
I wake and David is gone. So is Vera. Sarah appears to have a visitor so I set about going through David’s pockets. I find nothing incriminating today, so I put the washer on and read for a while. Then I put on my bee keeping suit and head out to the hives. It’s a sunny day and I can hear the buzzing before I get there. I write down all the observations on my sheet, carefully checking the hive and making sure there is no disease. I smile faintly at them and their purpose. It’s the same with the birds. Tiny wren’s nest in a wooden box on the wall, and a couple of owl boxes contained chicks in the spring. The grouse that I can’t get to nest here as they love the moor too much. I watch as the parents fly out and return with food from the moor, yet I’ve no idea where they have been. I can’t help but notice the blank bottom half of the sheet, the late afternoon observation. The whole experiment is pointless without this observation, and my heart thumps hard at the thought of all the data I’ve collected so far being of no use without the moor observation. But I just can’t. I can’t go out there. I’m not strong enough. I walk back into the house and drop the data into a tray. The pile is high, and I know the clock is ticking.
Just before lunch I hear a car door slam. Then another. The excitement of two people arriving at once almost makes me forget about Sam. Yes, Sam. I do know her name, I just don’t like to use it. It sneers at me in my head when I think about it. I hear David’s key in the door and two people walking up the hallway. For a moment, I imagine that it’s him and her, both of them, coming to confront me and tell me the truth about their affair. I catch my breath in anticipation but it isn’t Sam. David is with a tall, skinny man, dark and sallow skinned, attractive in a way I can’t really put my finger on, but that makes me breathless.
‘Hi, Honey. This is Gabriel. He’ll be staying for a few weeks if that’s OK?’
I look from David to Gabriel and back again. Gabriel takes the cue to explain.
‘I’ve found myself in a little bit of a predicament. In that my partner has thrown me out. I’m afraid our relationship has broken down and I have nowhere immediately to stay. It’ll only be for a few days. Weeks maybe. Until I get paid.’
His face is pleading but somehow his eyes are smiling, and I nod.
‘No problem. I’ll make up a guest room. Do you work with David?’
David turns and goes into the kitchen and shuts the door. I know he is checking his phone and I stare at the door, willing myself to go in there and face him. Gabriel is answering, but I’m staring at the door.
‘No. I work for myself. I work from home, but I’ll keep out of your way. I hope that won’t be a problem?’
‘No, no. Look, will you excuse me for a second?’
Gabriel smiles and I push past him and shove the door open sharply. David is slowly stirring a mug of tea, one of three. It looks like such a cosy scene that I imagine Sarah’s head shaking and my insanometer going through the roof. He looks at me and I am sure that I see smugness.
‘Is there a problem, Patricia? Do you want some cake? I’m having a piece.’
‘No thanks. I just wondered if you want some lunch?’
He carries the tray of drinks and kisses me on the forehead.
‘Got to get back to work. I only came back to drop Gabe off. He doesn’t have a car, you see. Might have to work a bit later to make up for it.’ My face crumples a little, and I hope he hasn’t seen it. This is the tipping point in mine and David’s life, the moment a normal life turns into something else. We’ve lived together so long in this situation that words are only a small part of our language, and I have had to learn to play my part and try to hide my expressions.
But he’s seen it. In a split second he bangs the tray on the kitchen counter and grips my wrist. The pain sears through me as I feel his fingers twist bone-deep, and then his other hand is on my face, pulling my jaw towards him. He’s still talking in a level, measured tone as I try to breathe through the agony. ‘Oh, Patti, don’t start again. Please. How many times do I have to say it? I love you. You’re the only woman for me. I don’t know what’s got into you.’
He lets go and I stumble backwards as the world returns to its former calmness. We walk through and David puts the drinks on the coffee table, the tea only slightly spilt, and takes Gabriel’s bag upstairs. Gabriel is standing by the window and he turns when he hears me behind him. In his hand is a cigarette paper and he’s holding a small tobacco pouch between his fingers. I can smell the bitterness and it resurrects a place in my past that I’d rather not have flash through my still shaken mind.
‘Would you mind doing that outside, Gabriel? I’m an ex-smoker.’
Our eyes meet just as his tongue runs along the paper, leaving it moist and tacky. He presses it down firmly and it dangles between his lips. He clicks a cheap lighter and the flame springs in from of me, catching the paper alight, the smell rushing towards me. He inhales and blows out a cloud of smoke, which I quickly breathe in.
‘Sure. Not a problem.’
But I’m thinking now that it may be.
The Heath
Heath. O.E. hæð "tract of wasteland," earlier "heather," infl. by O.N. heiðr "field," from P.Gmc *kait- "open, unplowed country"
Heath heather: A low evergreen shrub or small tree, native to Europe, Asia, N Africa, and especially S Africa. (Genus: Erica, c.500 species. Family: Ericaceae.) Heather: A small, bushy, evergreen shrub (Calluna vulgaris), native to Europe, especiall
y N and W; in Scotland it forms the major food source of endemic red grouse. A rare form with white flowers is considered lucky. (Family: Ericaceae.)
Heathen This word for non-Christian or pagan is common in all the Germanic languages. It appears in Old English as hâþen in the year 826. It clearly arose after Christianity, but had to be quite early for it to appear in all the Germanic tongues, sometime in the 4th century or earlier. Most words of this age have unclear etymologies, but this is not the case with heathen. It is believed to have originated in Gothic and spread to the other Germanic tribes. In the 4th century, Ulfilas, bishop of the Goths, translated the Bible into Gothic. In Mark 7:26, which reads "Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth...," Ulfilas used the word haiþnô in place of Greek, or as it appears in the Vulgate gentilis, or gentile. Haiþnô literally means dweller on the heath. The health is associated with the regeneration of life, and the Triple Goddess symbols of the maiden, the mother and the crone, where birth, life and death are symbolised in the life force. So the original sense is remarkably the same as the modern sense, someone living beyond the bounds of civilization and who has not received the word of God.
Chapter Two
I wake just before dawn again, and slide to the edge of the bed. David stirs slightly and I catch a wave of perfume on him. I slide back again and lie gently next to him, sniffing his hair silently. He smells sweet. He didn’t get home until after midnight and I’d gone to bed early after doing the shopping and driving into town. I’d almost driven over to the school to see if he was working late, but then decided that he probably wouldn’t be there, and whoever was would tell him I’d been snooping. Instead, I’d walked around the supermarket thinking about Vera and Sarah and all the other people invested in the moor, and why I couldn’t go there.
In the time since Sarah had told me about the plane crash I’d done my own research. A lot of research that involved everything except walking out there, across the patchy grass and loose rocks and over to the heather to collect the data I needed to continue with my study. I just couldn’t bear the feel of the ground underneath my feet, heavy with undiscovered death. There were a surprising number of news reports devoted to what had happened. Some from the distant past, pasted onto blogs, but some more recent and connected to the poor hiker who was died up there. I soon found out the links with local towns.
I’d known the wider area well because been on many research trips around here. But I could only imagine what could possibly be going through the minds of those who came on the coach tours. Did they have a man with a microphone who pointed out points of interest, the morbid horror providing some kind of death reality for the people who had paid to see? Did they tell their friends afterwards that they had been on mystery tour or something peepshow? Looking at the wreck of a plane and following a manufactured ghost story? It disgusted me, and the more I drove around, the more I wanted to know why Sarah did it. I needed to know what the death tourists were hoping to discover by retracing the living steps of people so near death.
Eventually, I had a full picture of what had happened, about each person who died. About the people who hadn’t been found, where they could be. Had they simply disintegrated – today’s science deemed it unlikely – or had they walked away, leaving the rest of us to speculate?
It wasn’t as if I could go somewhere else and observe another moorland. My whole thesis depended on using the same moor and I’d chosen the house on the basis of its vicinity to the heather and the moorland life. I was trapped between death and the need to get on with my life. And my little problem with David.
I’d returned home and avoided Gabriel, who was in his room anyway, by going to my own study room and attempting to write up what little heather research I had done. I kept looking through the window but the Sarah’s visitor was still there, a dark blue car parked in her driveway. I hadn’t seen her all yesterday, and today I would walk over and have a cup of tea with her.
Now, in the cool morning, my feet touch the floor. In no time I have made my silent journey through the house, extra careful as I pass Gabriel’s room so as not to disturb our guest. The slightly queasy feeling I had yesterday when his steely eyes looked me over comes back, and I hurry on. I push the sticky handle down, and this time it doesn’t creak. I’m in the utility room and I push my hand into David’s coat pocket, my back to the windows so no one outside will see the light from the screen. The last text is a goodnight message, received at half past midnight. There have been several calls back and forth during the day and as I scroll down the screen I glance at the small, purple bruise on my wrist and I see that I was right; David was texting at the exact time he made the tea.
Suddenly I hear a click and see a glowing spot in the corner of the room in my side-vision, followed by the smell of acrid smoke. I turn to see Gabriel’s vague shape in the dim light.
‘Bloody hell, you scared me to death.’
He coughs and smiles.
‘Sorry. Couldn’t sleep. Strange bed. And I didn’t want to smoke in the main house.’
‘You could have gone outside.’
‘I could have, but it’s so cold. And the environment isn’t very friendly out there at night. Cold and uninviting’
‘Mmm. You mean the moor and the crash? Eerie, isn’t it?’
He sniggers.
‘I didn’t mean that. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Dead people are dead. Nothing to be scared of there. I mean the general atmosphere. And the lack of people. I’m a city boy.’
I realise I still have the phone in my hand and try to put it in David’s pocket without Gabriel seeing me. His eyes follow my hand in the early morning light, but he doesn’t say anything.
‘Six-thirty. I was finding out what time it was.’ He nods and smiles. ‘So, used to the city, are you? I went to university in London, so I’m used to a busy life. But David and I moved up here to have some peace. Not that it turned out like that.’
I see Sarah’s kitchen light puncture the darkness and the first sunbeam creeps over the horizon. Gabriel lights his cigarette again. I feel a little bit irked that he’s spoiled my own morning ritual, slightly invaded. But he’s talking now, quite mesmerising, and I sit down.
‘So you were a bit of a party girl were you, before you met David? Did you meet him in London? He’s very focussed, isn’t he?’
My mind flickers back to vodka shots and dancing on tables until I passed out, and I breathe in sharply.
‘Yes, I was a bit of a party animal, to be honest. I met him at uni, we were friends at first, then we got together and he got this job up here. He is very focused, but I’m not so sure on what. Anyway, here we are.’
‘Yes, here we are.’ In the growing light his eyes become more piercing and I preferred it when I couldn’t see him. ‘I expect you are wondering how I know him?’ I wasn’t particularly, I was too busy looking at him. I’d been alone here for so long, except for David and the occasional visit from Sarah, that Gabriel was quite a treat. He tells me anyway. ‘We met on a project I was doing years ago, and our paths have crossed several times since, most recently because my partner – ex-partner – Ellie has a teenage daughter who is at David’s school. She had some lessons from him and there were photographs.
I couldn’t believe it when I saw him. So we hooked up again. Funny how some people keep cropping up over and over in your life? I’ve been having the occasional pint with him after work for months.’
My mind immediately races over this revelation – a pint after work. This throws more doubt on my accusations. If David had been out after work with Gabriel, how could he have been with Sam? But in that case, where was he last night when Gabriel was here?
‘Mmm. I see.’
He leans forward, his cigarette dangling from his fingertips.
‘You were checking up on him weren’t you? Checking his phone?’ I blush bright red and Gabriel still stares. ‘It’s OK. You don’t need to tell me. I’ve been cheated on too. My ex-partner was, well, let’s
say less than truthful.’
‘Like David, you mean?’ I spit the words out and he holds his palms towards me.
‘I didn’t say that. I don’t know what’s going on here, between you two, I just wanted a room for a week or so. But I know when a relationship’s in trouble when I see it.’
‘So what do you think? Is he...?’
‘Look, I don’t know about David, I can only say what happened to me. Us. Things can appear to be what they aren’t. Confusing.’ I realise I’m leaning towards him now, close enough to smell him. It’s hard to place the smell, kind of aromatic and warm. ‘If someone’s intent on lying to you, and you know, then there isn’t much you can do about it. I even used to watch her eyes, to see if she looked to the left.’ He sniggers. ‘I read somewhere that if people look to the left when they speak to you they are lying. That’s what my life had become. Looking for signals. If you get to the level where you’re living your life on signals, relying on someone else’s actions to dictate what you do, give up. Move on.’
I frown and think about moving on. If only I could. But then I’d be giving up on everything I’d invested in. The house, the moor, my hopes for a family. Besides, David wouldn’t let me. If David left then I would only lose the latter, most precious hope. A family. If I left, it would all be gone. Unless I met someone else and stayed. In all the time I had been with David, I’d been too scared to even consider this. The thought shocks me and I push it to simmer at the back of my mind.
‘But she was lying. So why didn’t you leave? You know, straight away?’