by David Mark
‘It won’t always be this way. But he’s not having it. He’s not getting this as well.’
‘What … what were the explosions …?’
‘Poacher traps,’ shrugs Jude. ‘Pressure-triggered. More rock-salt and dust than anything else. Nothing deadly. These pricks will be sore and deaf for a couple of days but they’re not incapacitated, and if they say a word to anybody in blue, they might want to explain why they were here smoking weed laced with Spice on a Wednesday afternoon. Shows up in your piss for weeks, lads, and I promise you, the hallucinations are going to make you wish you’d climbed back inside your mothers. I understand that feeling. Everybody who’s been inside your mothers had nothing but good things to say. So, be good lads, keep the wailing down, and then report back to that red-faced bastard that the seller is not particularly keen.’
‘I thought you were stoned …’ asks Betsy.
‘So did they,’ smiles Jude.
He takes her hand and leads her back through the rain. The lightning writes scripture on the violet, roiling skies.
By the time they are back within the courtyard, the darkness of the past moments has been washed away like dirt. They are back within their bubble. Back in their fairy-tale castle.
Only afterwards, as he watches the broken men limp away over the field, tracking their move with field binoculars, shoulders squared like a boxer’s, does she ask herself the question that screams inside her every cell.
What exactly are you capable of, Jude?
Just how far would you go?
TWENTY-THREE
A filthy, late-August day.
Leaden skies pressing down upon the land: a vast grey ceiling held up by the shadowy, pencil-stroke pillars of distant rain. The valley seems otherworldly on days like this; the lip of the moor teasing infinite possibilities beyond the horizon. Betsy can imagine a dragon suddenly screeching overhead, streaking fire; or a lumpen megalosaurus waddling down from the brim of the far fell.
They’re driving into Hexham – the closest thing to a town that the area has to offer. It’s a half-hour’s drive but Betsy, comfortable in the passenger seat of the battered, old-school Land Rover, is happy for it to go on indefinitely, or at the very least, until she gets hungry. Jude, driving, is having one of his chatty days. She loves it when he’s like this. He’s never exactly taciturn, but there are certainly times when he seems far more comfortable in silence. She’ll catch him sometimes, staring at a point somewhere in the distance or in the flickering heart of the fire, lost in his own thoughts and only returning to their shared reality when she says his name or rises to kiss his cheek. She often wonders if she bored him. He always listens to her, but sometimes it seems as if he’s using a part of his brain to take notes while the rest of him is somewhere else entirely. He always seems startled to see her in his home, as if he has momentarily forgotten she is here. He seems delighted, though. Seems uncommonly thrilled to find this beguiling, bewildering soul pottering around in his kitchen, returning his smiles and occasionally looking at him as if he might be a little bit magical.
Today he has given himself a half day off to take Betsy into Hexham. He has errands to run – a phrase that sent Betsy into great cataclysms of pleasure – and, in his words, believes the rest of the world should be allowed to enjoy her too. She’d rolled her eyes at that, but she’d been pleased too, even as she made a mental note that his view of the ‘rest of the world’ might not extend far beyond Hexham.
‘… amazing view from there, once you get past the treeline,’ he’s saying, one elbow out the window, cigarette smoke drifting out and spotty rain swirling in. ‘Saw a stag perfectly silhouetted against the moon one night – one of those moments that’s so impeccable you want to grab the nearest human and say “look”, as if the world has meaning and everything’s going to be OK. If you carry on over the lip there’s a place called Old Man’s Bottom …’
‘Fuck off, no there’s not,’ laughs Betsy, grinning so widely she can see her own cheeks in her peripheral vision.
‘I swear, there is,’ he says, glancing to his left and smiling at her. ‘Man, you look exceptionally good. Very Mary Quant.’
Betsy frowns. ‘I don’t know her. Is she from the valley?’
He eyes her, suspiciously. ‘You’re taking the mick, aren’t you? Making fun of the old man and his outdated references. Fine, you look like Velma from Scooby Doo.’
‘Is that the farm over the valley?’
‘You are joking …’
She slaps him, enjoying herself. ‘Of course I am, you idiot. Do you like the fringe? I think I got it right. It’s not quite symmetrical but it was the best I could do with a bowl and some meat scissors.’
‘You’re exceptional,’ he smiles. ‘And yes, there is a place called Old Man’s Bottom. If you want to be really po-faced about it, it’s Oldman Bottom, but that isn’t anywhere near as much fun. Had a pint one night with an old boy who remembered delivering milk from his dad’s dairy herd down that way when he was a nipper. It was him and another bloke – chap who’d lost an arm in a shotgun accident. Could milk the herd with his toes. That’s not a transferrable skill.’
‘Every story to do with farming seems to involve a hideous injury,’ muses Betsy, straightening her skirt. It’s a grey, hounds-tooth affair with a neat pleat, matched with a tight black roll-neck and a short waistcoat. She’s started to enjoy rummaging through the big old chest on the landing. There always seems to be a different outfit available: a new persona to slip into. She feels rather chic today. Sleek, too. Would like a neat raincoat, a pair of jet-black sunglasses and a cigarette in a holder, but the box of delights offered nothing suitable so she’s had to make do with Jude’s old parka. She likes stuffing her hands in the pockets and riffling through the detritus of his life, pulling out receipts from agricultural stores, scraps of paper with scribbled phone numbers; tobacco papers and the wrappers from extra strong mints.
‘Any job worth doing comes with a few risks,’ says Jude, as the wilderness of the valley starts to disappear into the rear-view mirror and they begin moving quicker over better roads.
‘Accountant?’ asks Betsy, teasingly. ‘Advertising? Public relations? Marketing?’
‘Exactly,’ he smiles. He looks at her, staring through her in that way of his, as if reading her DNA. ‘What about you, Betsy? What are you going to be?’
‘When I grow up, you mean?’ She closes her eyes, wishing she had learned a neat answer. ‘Thought about that so many times and I’m still clueless. You’ve seen it – I’m a dabbler. I get into something and it has my total focus and passion and then suddenly it’s like somebody has pulled the plug and I just don’t care anymore. I’ve always been the same. Afraid to see things through, I suppose.’
Jude doesn’t reply. Turns his eyes back to the road. She looks at him, waiting for him to speak. She can see there is a sudden tension in his jaw.
‘Is that what I’ll be?’ he asks, his voice a little distant. ‘An enthusiasm? A sudden impulse?’
Her instinct is to give him a reply that will reassure him, but some tiny voice in her head stops her from offering a mindless platitude. She would rather see how he responds to the ugly truth.
‘I can’t imagine these feelings ever drifting away,’ she says, talking to the side of his face. ‘It’s all-encompassing. Scary, sometimes. If I’m honest I always kind of thought that this fiery, all-powerful love was a bit of an invention, something to sell movies and poetry books. But what I feel now, for you – it’s so intense as to be out of control. But for all that, I know there will be times when I doubt myself. Times I doubt whether you’re right for me, or whether we’re right for each other. When I have my days of self-loathing, I wonder whether you’re only attracted to me because we’re two bad people and we each see something reflected in the other.’
Jude runs his tongue across his teeth. Flicks his cigarette butt out of the window. ‘Two bad people? How are we bad people?’
She shakes her head
, wishing she hadn’t spoken. ‘I just mean I get all sorts of thoughts, you know. And often they seem crazy and paranoid and other times they seem like a total and unmistakable truth. And we’ve hardly had an easy beginning, have we? Dead animals in the stream, dead stags in the tree, people trying to hurt you, to buy you …’
‘It won’t always be like that,’ says Jude, and she can see how much he hopes it to be true. ‘I don’t know how else to be, Betsy. They want something. They’re trying to take it. I give up or I fight. And I don’t know how to give up. I feel like I’m from a different age, or something. I don’t understand how people look at themselves in the mirror. They roll over. They let people tell them how things are going to be. I can’t live that way. I don’t think I’m bad, Betsy. Stubborn, maybe.’ He glances at her. ‘You’re not letting the whispers get into your head, are you? About Maeve?’
Betsy stares through the glass. They pass a squat grey farm; a woman in her eighties bringing in washing while geese squawk around her ankles and a goat tries to put its long face into the pocket of her apron.
‘There was a man one day,’ says Betsy, quietly. ‘I saw from the window. Shaved head and little rat tail plaits.’
Jude makes a face. ‘Moon,’ he mutters. ‘He thinks he’s an animal rights activist. He’s not. He’s a thug who’s found what he thinks of as a noble cause. He worshipped Maeve. Wants somebody to blame.’
‘He said you’d sold your soul to the devil,’ prompts Betsy, wincing inside as she wonders if this will be the day that he loses his temper.
‘He’s convinced I could have helped them get a conviction against Campion. The girl who got shot, during the grouse shoot – during the protest. I was there. So was Maeve. Moon says he filmed it all and gave the footage to Maeve. Now that’s a piece of evidence that even Campion couldn’t make disappear. Moon reckons I’ve got it and chose to withhold it. You know me, Betsy. Do you think I’d do Campion a favour?’
She stares at the side of his face, longing to reach out and stroke his jaw with the knuckles of her hand. She stops herself. She doesn’t know what she believes.
‘Anyway, I’m curious – how are you bad, Betsy?’
She waves her hand, annoyed at the turn in the tone. ‘I don’t need a therapy session, Jude. Some things just are what they are.’
‘I hate that phrase,’ he mutters. ‘Maeve used to say that. “It is what it is” – that was another. Nothing has to be what it is. If things aren’t right, you change them. If something’s bugging you, you remove that thing from your life. If something scares you, you turn the tables. Make it scared of you.’
Betsy shakes her head, angry with him. ‘What, so people with mental health problems should just toughen up? Jay used to say that, if you’re wanting to play that game.’
‘I didn’t say that. That’s the last thing I mean. Listen, I …’
‘Don’t tell me to listen. I hate being told to listen. It’s like you’re saying “heel” or “sit” …’
‘How is it like that? That’s mad, Betsy.’
‘Yeah, well, newsflash – I fucking am!’
Jude sighs. Clamps his teeth together. His body language suggests he has nothing else to say.
They sit in silence for a time, passing through a straggle of villages before drifting down into Hexham. Compared to where they’ve been, it feels like driving into Vegas. All of the vehicles are driving with their headlamps on; there’s a crackle to the air, a fizz, that speaks of a gathering storm. Betsy, glaring out through the dirty glass, watches as a mum does battle with a collapsible pushchair on the pavement by the park; a toddler on her hip dressed for summer and with near-blue lips to show for it. Instinctively, she strokes her stomach, holding herself. Mourning.
Betsy had been looking forward to Hexham. There’s a crypt beneath the abbey; a museum in the old gaol. Jude had mentioned maybe going for a drink in a bar he knows or taking a walk by the river. She’d even got excited about popping to an actual supermarket – purchasing junk food and freezer meals and maybe buying extra data for her mobile phone. She winces as she remembers that she’s left the money back at the bastle. She curses herself, silently. Feels her own temperature rise as clearly as she sees the air pressure drop. A huge fat raindrop hits the windscreen: a jellyfish momentarily splattered across the glass. And then the deluge comes.
‘Jesus,’ mumbles Jude, turning the wipers to full. He looks in her direction, his demeanour altered by the sheer power of the weather. The rain is so heavy it’s somehow funny. ‘Still fancy a stroll?’
She leans over and rests her head on his chest, the Land Rover inching forward in a line of virtually static cars; the air the colour of dirty water; the rain an avalanche of pearls. He strokes her hair and she nuzzles into him.
‘I’m sorry if what I said spoiled the mood,’ she says, softly. ‘I told you about the BPD. I don’t know how it will deal with me being happy, Jude. There’ll be times when I’m anything but. It would be lovely if you could somehow heal me by loving me but it’s not like that. You couldn’t fix diabetes or a broken leg just by cuddling me twice as hard, could you?’
She feels him nodding. ‘I get carried away,’ he says, his lips brushing her hair. ‘I’m a romantic, I guess. It’s a curse. Dad never knew what to make of me. I could beat any farmhand in an arm wrestling match by the time I was thirteen but I played the saxophone and wrote poems and liked drawing pictures of feathers and eggs. Didn’t make sense to him. Couldn’t work out if I was a man or a pansy.’
‘I hate all that stuff,’ says Betsy, squeezing him. ‘Toxic bullshit – the idea that if you have feelings it’s somehow emasculating – that you’re more of a man if you treat your partner like property and hold your tears in until your heart gives out.’
‘I’ve never worried about what people think of me,’ he says, sucking his teeth as the car in front nabs the parking space he had set his sights on. ‘Never really fitted in anywhere. At university I was the farmer’s lad; on tour I was the bumpkin who hadn’t seen the world; back here I was the lad who’d turned his back; the soft lad who fell short and came home to something they thought of as second rate. I don’t rise to it. It’s impossible to make yourself criticism-proof. People will say horrible stuff regardless. Long before social media, the world was full of wankers.’
‘What do you think people say about me?’ asks Betsy, settling back into her seat.
He smiles, shaking his head at her. ‘Probably that you don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for. Or that I’ve abducted you or bullied you or bought you. No doubt they’ll have it on good authority you were in a relationship when we met. There’ll be some who think I’ve brought you home just to piss off Campion.’
Betsy furrows her brow. ‘Why would that piss him off?’
‘He wants me out, doesn’t he? And here I am setting up a new life in the bastle. With you – the love of my life, who I only met because he can’t drive.’
Betsy grins. She’d like to squeal. Love of my life, she repeats, endlessly; the words a train running upon tracks.
‘People won’t think it’s too soon?’ she asks, ever eager to bring a wasp to the picnic.
‘Too soon? What, since Maeve? I doubt it, but nor do I care.’
‘Would she have wanted this, do you think?’ asks Betsy. ‘Would she have wanted you to be happy?’
He laughs at that, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He doesn’t look at her. ‘I don’t know how often Maeve thought about my happiness when she was alive so I doubt she’s giving it much thought now she’s dead.’
Betsy takes a moment. He’d looked hard as he’d spoken. Looked as though there was something there, beneath the surface; his face wearing the same expression she glimpsed in him when she caught him gazing into the fire or staring off towards the woods.
‘The argument you had,’ she says, and genuinely can’t seem to help herself. ‘In the newspaper article, the day she died …’
He shakes his head. �
�We didn’t argue. Not really. She told me how things were and I had the choice to like it or lump it. She wanted to go see her horse up at the trekking centre. Her head was thumping so she took her meds. Maybe she took too many. Either way, she wasn’t listening to me when I suggested staying in. Said I would run her a bath, take care of her, put the flannel in the freezer and hold it to her eyes, the way she liked. But she wouldn’t be told. Wouldn’t let me take her either. Walked off while I was having a shower and I didn’t know she was gone until I came out wet and saw her boots missing and her coat gone. Her laptop was sat there on the table, like she’d just stood up and walked out. I didn’t see her alive again.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Betsy, automatically, though her tone is hard. She doesn’t like the images in her head. She winds the window down, letting the rain and the wind surge into the car, cooling the heat in her cheeks and plastering her newly-trimmed fringe to her forehead. When she looks at Jude again her face is pale as bone. ‘What had she been doing online?’ she asks, and it seems important that she know.
Jude glances at her, confused. Shrugs, as if it doesn’t matter. ‘Probably on Skype with her mum, or something, I can’t remember. She spent plenty of time on the damn thing once the next farm over got their satellite Wi-Fi put in and gave us the password. Always campaigning for something, liking stuff on social media, tapping away at the keys like she was practicing the piano. I swear, she once asked me to stop playing my saxophone as she couldn’t concentrate on what she was doing. She was only on Facebook, for God’s sake.’ He shakes his head. ‘I do remember, actually. I think she’d been burning a CD. I remember the disk drive was halfway out.’
‘The disk drive?’
‘It’s a very old laptop,’ he says, ruefully. ‘She liked doing mixtapes, or the not-quite-modern equivalent. She had a gazillion songs on her laptop and she’d do a playlist for people and burn it off.’