The Man in the Moss

by Phil Rickman

  'Like the World Cup?'

  'It's not funny, Willie.'

  'This is what you've dragged me out to see? A bloody Bible-punchers' outing?'

  'You're not getting this, are you, Willie luv?' Milly's greying hair was streaming; her dress was soaked through.

  Willie noticed with a quick stirring of untimely excitement that she wasn't wearing a bra.

  'What I'm saying, if you'll listen,' Milly hissed, 'is that they're God. And we're Satan.'

  A short time later, Milly heard a small commotion and looked out of the Post Office window to see a group of people assembled in the centre of the street between the lych-gate and the Rectory.

  One of them was Joel Beard. Someone held up the trumpet end of a loud-hailer and handed a plastic microphone to Joel.

  'GOD IS HERE,' he blasted. 'GOD IS HERE IN BRIDELOW. YOU ARE ALL INVITED TO A SPECIAL SERVICE AT EIGHT P.M. TO REDEDICATE THE CHURCH IN HIS NAME.'

  Milly felt a terrible trepidation. Obviously none of the villagers would turn up. But what effect was it going to have, all these no doubt well-meaning but dangerously misguided people stirring up the atmosphere?

  THIS IS AN OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT. BRIDELOW HAS TONIGHT BEEN FORMALLY REPOSSESSED BY THE LORD.'

  'Heathens out!' someone yelled.

  'HEATHENS OUT!'

  Part Eight

  john peveril stanage

  From Dawber's Secret Book of Bridelow (unpublished):

  MEN

  What part have men really played in the history of Bridelow?

  Not perhaps, if we are honest, a distinguished one, except for our late friend the Man in the Moss, who - we are told - gave his life for our community.

  We have, I suppose, dealt with the more mundane elements: the business matters, employment, the sustenance of a measure of wealth - enough, anyway, to keep our heads above the Moss.

  And we - that is, male members of the Dawber family - have acted as local chroniclers. Albeit discreet ones, for I am sure that if this present manuscript were ever to see the light of day our so-far hereditary function as the compilers of the dull but worthy Book of Bridelow would cease immediately to be a tolerated local tradition.

  But as for the important things in life (and death), well, all that traditionally is the preserve of the women, and as far as most of the men have been concerned they are welcome to it. We are, in the modern parlance, a Goddess-orientated society, although the role of the Christian deity is more than politely acknowledged. (Thank You, Mother - and You too, Sir, is one of our phrases.)

  However, men being men, there have been occasional attempts to disrupt the arrangement. And when a man is possessed of abilities beyond the normal and a craving for more, then, I am afraid, the repercussions may be tragic and long-lasting.

  CHAPTER I

  Macbeth pumped money into the coinbox, all the loose change he had.

  A young female voice said, 'This is ... hang on, I can't make it out ... two four oh six, I think. I don't live here, I've just picked up the phone.'

  Macbeth could hear a lot of people talking excitedly in the background. He said, 'Can I, uh, speak with Moira? Moira Cairns?'

  'This is Bridelow Rectory.'

  'Sure. I need to speak with Moira. Can you get her to the phone?'

  'I'm sorry, I'm pretty sure we haven't got a Moira. We've got a Maureen. Would you like to speak to her?'

  The glass of the phone booth was streaked with rain. It was going dark; all he could see were the lights of a fast-food joint over the road. Didn't even know which town this was. He'd just kept stopping at phones, ringing this number. First time anyone had answered.

  The young female voice asked, 'Are you still there?'

  'Yeah, yeah, I'm still here. Listen, ask around, willya? Moira Cairns, I ... Chrissake, she has to be there.'

  There was a long pause, then, 'I'm sorry,' the female voice said coldly. 'Your speech is profane. Goodbye.'

  And hung up on him.

  Hung up the fucking phone, just like that!

  Macbeth raced out of the booth and across the street, bought a burger with a ten-pound note and got plenty of change. The burger was disgusting; after two bites he tossed it into a waste bin and took his change back to feed the phone.

  He wasn't about to waste this number, all the time it had taken to obtain it. The call to the Earl, the waiting around for Malcolm Kaufmann, the blackmail.

  'I called the Earl this morning, Malcolm. You remember the Earl? The man who asked if this Rory McBain, who was booked to entertain his guests, could perhaps be replaced by Moira Cairns? This coming back to you, Malcolm? The way the Earl was prepared to, uh, oil the wheels?'

  This last item was a lucky guess, the Earl having denied any suggestion of making it worth Kaufmann's while.

  None the less, it had gone in like a harpoon, spearing Malcolm to the back of his executive swivel chair.

  'See, the longer it takes for me to find her, Malcolm, the more likely it seems I'm gonna have to reveal to Moira the extent of your co-operation in this, uh, small deception.'

  At which Malcolm had pursed his lips and written upon his telephone memo pad a phone number. All he had. He swore it. Moira had phoned yesterday, left this emergency-only contact number, along with a message: no gigs until further notice.

  'She done this kind of thing before?'

  'All too often, Mr Macbeth.'

  On top of the coinbox, Macbeth had three pounds and a couple of fifty-pence coins. He dialled again.

  This time it was a different voice, male.

  Macbeth said, 'Who's that?'

  'This is Chris.'

  'Chris,' Macbeth said. 'Right. Listen, Chris, I need to speak with Moira. Moira Cairns. You know her?'

  'Oh,' said Chris. 'You rang a few minutes ago. You were abusive, apparently."

  'Je—!' Macbeth tightened his grip on the phone, calmed himself, 'I'm ... sorry. Just I was in a hurry. It's kind of urgent, Chris. Please?'

  'Look,' Chris said. 'We're strangers here. Why don't you speak to Joel? Just hang on.'

  Macbeth fed a fifty-pence coin into the phone. Presently a different guy came on. 'This is the Reverend Joel Beard. Who am I speaking to?'

  'Uh, my name is Macbeth. I was told I could get Moira Cairns on this number, but nobody seems to know her, so maybe if I describe her. She's very beautiful, has this dark hair with ...'

  'With a vein of white,' the voice enunciated, slowly and heavily.

  Macbeth breathed out. 'Well, thank Christ, I was beginning to think I'd been fed a bunch of ... what?'

  'I said, what did you say your name was?'

  'Macbeth. That's M ... A ... C ...'

  'Ah. That's an assumed name, I suppose. I'd heard you people liked to give yourselves the names of famously evil characters as a way of investing yourselves with their - what shall we call it - "unholy glamour".'

  'Huh ... ? Listen, friend, I don't have time for a debate, but it's now widely recognised that the famously evil, as you call him, Macbeth was in fact seriously misrepresented by Shakespeare for political reasons and, uh, maybe to improve the storyline. He ...' - shoving in a pound coin - 'Jeez, what am I doing? I don't want to get into this kind of shit. All I want is to talk with Moira Cairns, is that too much to ask? What the fuck kind of show you running there?'

  A silence. Clearly the guy had won himself an attentive audience.

  'The woman you're seeking' - the voice clipped and cold - 'has been driven away. As' - the voice rose - 'will be all of your kind. You can inform your disgusting friends that, as from this evening, the village of Bridelow, erstwhile seat of Satan, has been officially repossessed ... by Almighty God!'

  'YEEEESSSS!' The background swelled, the phone obviously held aloft to capture it, a whole bunch of people in unison. 'PRAISE GOD!'

  And they hung up.

  Macbeth stood in the rain washed booth, cradling the phone in both hands.

  'Jesus Christ,' he said.

  Back in his hire-car, windows a
ll steamed-up, he slumped against the head-rest.

  Is this real?

  I mean, is it?

  The Duchess had indicated Moira had gone to this North of England village for the purpose of laying to rest the spirit of her old friend Matt Castle, whichever way you wanted to take that.

  Whatever it meant, it had clearly left the local clergy profoundly offended.

  But while Macbeth's knowledge of Northern English clerical procedure was admittedly limited, the manner of response from the guy calling himself The Reverend Joe-whoever and what sounded like his backing group was, to say the least, kind of bizarre.

  Wherever she goes, that young woman, she's bound to be touched with madness.

  Yeah, yeah, can't say I wasn't warned.

  But there is a point at which you actually get to questioning yourself about how much is real. Or to what extent you are permitting yourself to be absorbed into someone else's fantasy.

  But not unwillingly, surely?

  Well, no. Not yet.

  Truth is, it's kind of stimulating.

  The time was 5.15. Macbeth left the car and returned to the diner across the street, on the basis that one sure way of restoring a sense of total reality would be another attempt to consume a greasy quarter-pound shitburger and double fries.

  About an hour ago, before leaving Glasgow, he'd found a Sunday-opening bookshop where he bought a road atlas and a paperback.

  He laid the paperback on his table next to the shitburger.

  The cover showed a huge cavern full of stalactites and stalagmites. The angle of vision was roof-level, and way down in the left-hand corner was a small kid with a flashlight.

  The book was called Blue John's Way. From inside the title page Macbeth learned it had been first published some thirty years ago, and this was apparently the seventeenth paperback impression.

  On the inside cover, it said,

  THE AUTHOR

  John Peveril Stanage has emerged as one of the half-

  dozen best-loved children's writers of the twentieth

  century.

  Basing his compelling stories on the history,

  myths and legends of the Peak District and the

  southern Pennines, of which he has an unrivalled

  knowledge, he has ensnared the imagination of millions

  of young readers the world over.

  Mr Stanage's work has been translated into more

  than fifteen languages and won him countless awards.

  Not over-enlightening, and there was no picture. But then, Macbeth thought, the guy didn't exactly look like a favourite uncle; maybe the publishers figured he'd scare the readers.

  But then again, that was obviously part of his intention, if Blue John's Way was typical.

  A quote on the back from some literary asshole on the London Guardian said the book conveyed a powerful sense of adolescent alienation.

  The bookseller had told Macbeth a growing number of adults were hooked on Stanage's stories for kids; apparently he was becoming a minor cult-figure, like C. S. Lewis.

  'In America, I'm told,' the bookseller said, 'his books aren't even marketed as children's fiction any more.'

  'That so?' Macbeth, whose reading rarely extended beyond possible mini-series material, had never previously heard of Stanage. 'He live down in - where is it? - the English Peak District?'

  'He's publishing under false pretences if he isn't.'

  You got any idea precisely where?'

  A shrug. Negative.

  This morning, under pressure, the Earl had admitted to Macbeth that he personally had been unfamiliar with the work of Moira Cairns until a member of The Celtic Bond steering committee had drawn his attention to it. Yes, all right, forcefully drawn his attention ...

  'So it was Stanage who was insistent Moira should be hired for this particular occasion?'

  'He was keen, yes ...'

  'How keen?'

  'He's a great admirer of her work.'

  'Tell me, Earl, why is Mr Stanage on your steering committee?'

  'Well... because he's a great authority on an aspect of Celtic studies- the English element - which is often neglected. And because he's ... he's very influential.'

  And also rich, Macbeth thought. That above all. The crucial factor. The reason you're taking all this shit from me, Earl, the reason you deigned to accept this call at all.

  Macbeth propped the paperback against a sauce bottle and re-read the blurb.

  John Clough is an unhappy boy growing up fatherless

  in a remote village in me Northern hills.

  He has never been able to get on with his mother

  or his sisters who live in a strange world of their own,

  from which John, as the only male, is excluded. At

  weekends, he spends most of his time alone in the

  spectacular limestone caverns near his home, where

  he forms a special bond with the Spirits of the Deep.

  With the Spirits' help, John discovers the dark secret

  his mother has been hiding - and sets out to find his

  true identity.

  Macbeth went back to the counter, ordered up a black coffee and opened up the road-atlas.

  'How long you figure it would take me to get to ... uh ... Manchester, England?'

  'Never been, pal. Five hours? 'Pends how fast you drive.'

  Last night Macbeth had called his secretary in New York to find out how seriously they were missing his creative flair and acumen. His secretary said he should think about coming home; his mom was working too hard. Which meant his mom was working them too hard and therefore enjoying him being out of the picture.

  So no hassle.

  Five hours? A short hop.

  But they claimed Moira had been given an assisted passage out of town. The woman you're seeking has been driven away.

  So she might no longer be in that area.

  But she would not be the easiest person to get rid of if she still had unfinished business.

  Macbeth was getting that Holy Grail feeling again. The One Big Thing.

  What the fuck ... He climbed back into the Metro, started up the motor.

  CHAPTER II

  'Right, let the dog see the rabbit. That the photo, Paul? Ta.'

  'Got to be him, Sarge.'

  'Not necessarily, lad, all sorts come out here purely to top umselves. I remember once . . 'It is, look ...'

  'Aye, well done, lad. Never've thought he'd have got this far in last night's conditions, no way. But where's the gun?'

  The body lay face-up in the bottom of the quarry, both eyes wide as if seeking a reason from the darkening sky.

  'Hell fire, look at state of his head. Must've bounced off that bloody rock on his way down. You all right, Desmond?'

  'Just a bit bunged-up, Sarge. Reckon it's this flu.'

  'Hot lemon. Wi' half a cup of whisky. That's what I always take. Least you can't smell what we can smell. Hope the poor bugger shit hisself after he landed.'

  'What d'you reckon then?'

  'Harry, if you can persuade your radio to work, get word back to Mr Blackburn as he can call off the troops, would you? And let's find that gun, shall we? I don't know; be a bloody sight simpler if we hadn't got his missus bleating on about him charging after Satanists.'

  'Haw.'

  'Ah now, don't knock it, Desmond. If you'd seen some of the things I've seen up these moors. All right, more likely poor sod'd been trying to find his way back home, terrible bloody conditions, gets hopelessly disorientated, wandering round for hours - what's he come, six miles, seven? - and just falls over the edge. But this business of intruders, somebody'll want it checked out, whoever they were, whatever they was up to ...'

  'Or if they even existed.'

  'Or, as Paul says, if they even existed, except in the lad's imagination. I'd let it go, me, if we find that gun. Accidental, and you'd never prove otherwise, not in a million years. What we supposed to do, stake out the entire moor every
night till they come back for another do?'

  'Poor bugger.'

  'Aye. Glad we found him before it got dark, or we'd be out here again, first light. Well, look at that, what d'you know, it's starting raining again, Desmond.'

  'Yes Sarge.'

  'Hot lemon, lad, my advice. Wi' a good dollop of whisky.'

  Oh Lord, we're asking you to intercede, to help us sanctify this place, drenched for centuries in sin and evil. Oh Lord, come down here tonight, give us some help. Come on down, Lord ... shine your light, that's what we're asking ... come on ...'

  'SHINE YOUR LIGHT.'

  'Yes, and into every murky corner, come on ...'

  'SHINE YOUR LIGHT.'

  'Through every dismal doorway ...'

  'SHINE YOUR LIGHT.'

  'Into every fetid crevice ...'

  'SHINE YOUR LIGHT.'

  And Willie shouted it too.

  'SHINE YOUR LIGHT.'

  It was easy. It was just pulled out of you, like a handkerchief from your top pocket. Nowt to it.

  At first he'd felt right stupid. Felt bloody daft, in fact, as soon as he walked in, wearing his suit, the only suit in the place, so it was obvious from the start that he wasn't one of them.

  Not that this had bothered them. They'd leapt on him - big, frightening smiles - and started hugging him.

  'Welcome, brother, welcome!'

  'Good to see someone's been brave enough to turn his back on it all. What's your name?'

  'Willie.' Gerroff, he wanted to shout, this is no bloody way to behave in church. Or anywhere, for that matter, soft buggers.

  'Willie, we're so very glad to have you with us. To see there is one out there who wants to save his soul. Praise God! And rest assured that, from this moment on, you'll have the full protection of the Lord, and there'll be no repercussions because you'll be wearing the armour of the Lord's light. Do you believe that? Is your faith strong enough, Willie, to accept that?'