The Man in the Moss

by Phil Rickman

  'Because you can't fight this thing with primitive violence. I swear to you, Willie, those guys go up there they'll wind up killing each other. It's like, how come you can put a bunch of ardent, Bible-punching born-again Christians in a church and they come drifting out an hour or so later with this amazing born-again apathy?'

  'He's right, though, Moira,' Cathy said. 'We can't just stand around doing nothing. Somebody ought to go up there.'

  It's what I've been trying to tell you!' Willie cried, all eight fingers beating at his thighs. 'Somebody has. Mr Dawber's up there. And Mr Dawber's been in a mind to do summat daft.'

  'OK,' Moira said. 'Come on, Willie.'

  'We'll go in my car,' Macbeth offered, moving to the door.

  'Ah ... not you, Mungo.'

  'What ... !' Macbeth counted three seconds of silence before he tore off his black slicker and slammed it to the Rectory lino with a noise like a gunshot. Willie jumped back. On the sofa Chris and Chantal gripped hands.

  'Now listen up!' Macbeth snarled. 'Everybody just fucking listen up! I have had it. I have had it up to here with getting told to butt out. I am sick to my gut with being treated like some goddamn halfwit with a stupid name who had the misfortune to be born five generations too late to be part of any viable heritage. Either I'm in, or I start figuring a few things out for myself, and maybe I'll kick the wrong asses and maybe I won't, but that's your problem not mine.'

  It all went quiet. Shit, Macbeth thought. Which reject script did that come out of? He picked up his slicker and put it on.

  'OK,' said Moira carelessly. 'You drive, Mungo. Cathy, I don't know what to say, except please keep that cop off our backs for as long as you can. And maybe if you can get the Mothers together in one place, that might be best. Would everybody fit into Ma Wagstaff's parlour?'

  Some of what happened next Macbeth did not follow. Several times he wished he'd never left Glasgow.

  Once, he wished he'd never seen Moira Cairns.

  Twice Ernie Dawber had said his throat was very dry and would it be possible to get a drink of water?

  He was sprawled in a corner between the hallstand and the front door. There was broken glass all around him. He thought he'd sprained his ankle when he fell.

  'When you ter-tell me.' Shaw Horridge was still standing, feet apart, amidst the wreckage of the mirrors. His mouth looked permanently twisted because of a cut which

  extended his lower lip. There were stripes of blood down both cheeks. Freckles of glass still glittered either side of his thin nose.

  'What can I tell you?' Ernie croaked. 'He planted his seed in Bridelow and that seed turned out to be you. Was Ma going to have your mother turned away, same as they did with your father, and leave Arthur Horridge humiliated three days from the altar? 'Course she wasn't, she'd been in the same situation.'

  'I cer-cer ... I cer-cer-can't accept it, Mr Der-Der ... Aaargh!' With both fists, Shaw began to beat his own head.

  Ernie felt his agony, the way he used to experience the lad's frustration all those years ago, when Shaw was the best reader in the class and couldn't prove it.

  'They never told you, because not many outside the Mothers' Union knew about it. Me, I put two and two together after a bit, but I said nowt. It was none of my business. Ma kept an eye on you but she'd never go too close. She never wanted you to be tempted or to get too close to the shadow side. For your own good. Please, lad ... a cup of water?'

  'If I ter-turn my ber-back on you, you'll be ... out.'

  'I don't think I can even walk, lad.'

  'How der-der-do I know that? Ker-ker-keep talking.'

  Ernie swallowed. 'I ... remember once, Arthur came to see me. Arthur knew, of course. Arthur was inclined to link your stammer directly to the circumstances of your conception, and he said, Ernie, he said, why doesn't she do something? Ha? Why doesn't she cure the poor lad's stutter? Arthur, I said, if you knew how much pain that causes Ma, her own grandson …'

  'Ger-grandson!' Angry tears joined the blood on Shaw's cheeks. 'I used to stand outside wer-with the other ker-ker-kids der-daring each other to look into the wer-windows. She'd cher-chase us all off. Wer-wer-witch. Owd witch!'

  She was frightened, Shaw. Frightened for you. Scared that one day she might have to banish you as well because of what might be in your blood. Didn't want you exposed to the shadow side. That's why after your ... after Arthur died, she'd never come up to see your mother, even when Liz became agoraphobic and wouldn't come down to the village. She didn't want to go near you. She didn't want you ever to know who you were or to become drawn to the shadow side.'

  Which, in the end, he thought, you were. You were a sitting duck.

  Wanted to ask, What happened to your mother? What happened after she forced herself to come down to the village and scream tor sanctuary outside Ma's door? While you were inside, presumably. For who else would it be? Who else could destroy Ma's defences so surely? Who else would Ma allow to push her downstairs?

  'I didn't ker-kill her, you know,' Shaw said suddenly. 'She said she was der-der-dead already. Dead already!'

  And at that moment, directly above Ernie's head, the door chimes played their daft little tune and there was a banging on the glass panels and, 'Mr Dawber! Ernie!'

  Shaw jerked from the waist, as if the electric doorbell had been connected to his testicles. 'Ger-go away!'

  Ernie grabbed a breath and raised his voice. 'It's Willie Wagstaff, Shaw. Let him in, eh?'

  'Mr Dawber!'

  'Come on, Shaw!' Ernie shouted. 'You know Willie!'

  Across the hall, the front door shuddered as a boot went into it, flat, under the lock. Shaw leapt across the hall and threw himself against the back of the door as the foot went in again, and then he sprang back, lurched towards Ernie, face full of blood and glass, terror, confusion and fury. He turned, tore open a white-panelled door on the other side of the room and flung himself into the passage beyond as the front door heaved and splintered open.

  Willie was alone. His eyes flickered under his mousy fringe in the bright lights. 'Ernie.'

  'Give us a hand, Willie. Done me ankle, I think.'

  'Where's the lad?'

  'Let him go, eh? He's got a lot to think about. We need to get to the brewery, if it's not too late.'

  'Never mind that.' Willie got a hand under Ernie's arm 'Can you ... that's fine. That's excellent, Mr Dawber. Hang on to me. The brewery ... Moira's seeing to that.'

  'That lass? By 'eck, Willie, you're ...'

  'She's not just "that lass", Mr Dawber, take my word. Anyroad, Mungo's with her, the Yank. He give me his car keys; we need to get you back. You're our last hope, Mr Dawber. Come on. I'll tell you.'

  The body was up against a huge metal tub. There was the smell of beer, the smell of vomit and a smell Macbeth would soon recognise again as the smell of blood.

  'I don't know him,' Moira said. 'I've never seen him before.'

  Macbeth covered his mouth with his hand. This was it. The final proof he'd half-imagined he was never going to get, that this affair was real, life and death. Bad death.

  'This is crazy, Moira." He grabbed hold of the iron railing, for the coldness of it. Only it was slick with something and he jerked his hand away. 'I never saw a stiff before. Never saw a dead relative. Never went to a funeral with an open coffin.'

  Moira had nothing to say to this. She turned her lamp on man's face. His whole head was a weird shape, like it had been remoulded. Violently. There was blood over the face and down from the rim of the big tank. Macbeth felt his gut lurch. He leaned over the side of the huge beer vat and he threw up, shamed by the way it echoed around the scrubbed metal.

  He turned back to Moira, wiped his mouth. She was kind enough to direct the beam of her lamp away from him. Real macho stuff, huh? Either I'm in this with the rest of you or I'll go solo, start kicking asses.

  Or maybe I'll just throw up the shitburger I had near Carlisle.

  'I'm sorry,' he said. 'That was unavoidable. Thing is, I
do recognise him. His name is Frank. He was in the pub earlier, was pretty smashed.'

  He certainly looks pretty smashed now,' Moira said, sounding harder than he liked to hear. He was shocked.

  'He fell?' Looking up the steps, all slimy with something that stank.

  'You could convince yourself of anything, Macbeth. OK, after you.'

  'Up there?'

  'Well, we're no' going back now.'

  Oh, shit. Please. Get me outa here.

  'OK. You stay down here, then. Wait for me.'

  'No! Jesus. But, like, I mean, what if they're waiting for us?'

  'There's nobody here, Macbeth.'

  'How'd you know that?'

  'I was ... listening. And watching. And ... you know.'

  No, he didn't fucking know. But he wasn't going to make an issue of it. He went slowly up the metal steps. She stayed at the bottom, lighting his way, until he reached a blank wooden door.

  He hesitated, looked back down the stairs at where the beam bounced off the white walls and cast a soft light on her. She looked smaller than he remembered inside this bulky duffel coat, too big for her by a couple of sizes. And yet she seemed strangely younger, without most of her hair.

  Well, shit, of course he'd seen that, soon as he'd walked in out of the rain. It was the most awful mutilation, like slashing the Mona Lisa, taking the legs off of the Venus de Milo. It was a goddamn offence against civilization.

  But was it self-mutilation? Was it like a novice nun cuts off, all her hair to give herself to Christ?

  And this was why he'd never even mentioned it. This was why, Willie being in the car too, all he'd said to her by way of explanation for him being here was, 'The Duchess asked me to lookout for you.'

  To which she'd made no reply.

  Moira's face creased sympathetically now in the white light. 'Look, Mungo ... fact is, if the sight of this poor guy made you chuck your lunch, you're not gonny find it too pleasant in there. There's no shame in that. Willie's pretty squeamish, too, which is why he was glad to go off in search the old schoolmaster guy. So ... if you ... what I'm saying is, this isn't your problem. You really don't have to put yourself through this.'

  'And you do?'

  'Yeah,' she said. 'I'm afraid I do. Me more than anybody."

  He just stared down at her.

  'Goes back nearly twenty years. This is the consequences of getting involved with Matt Castle.'

  'He's dead.'

  'Yeah,' Moira said.

  Macbeth said, 'People here keep seeing his ghost. That's what they say. You believe that?'

  'Yeah,' Moira said.

  'What am I gonna find behind that door?'

  'You don't ever have to know, Mungo. That's what I'm trying to tell you.'

  'Aw, shit,' Macbeth said. 'The hell with this.' He scraped the hair out of his eyes, opened them wide and pushed open the door with his right foot.

  CHAPTER IV

  Willie's youngest sister was in her dressing gown, making tea. 'Sleep through this weather? Not a chance. Our Benjie's messing about up there, too, with that dog. I've told him, I'll have um both in t'shed, he doesn't settle down.'

  'Where's Martin?'

  'Working up Bolton again. Takes what he can. Bloody Gannons.'

  'Right,' Willie said. 'Well, if you can get dressed, our Sal. You've been re-co-opted onto t'Mothers.'

  'Get lost, Willie. I told Ma years ago, I said I'll take a back seat from now on, if you don't mind, it's not my sort of thing.'

  Aye, well, no arguing with that. Certainly wasn't her sort of thing these days. Sal's kitchen was half the downstairs now. Knocked through from the dining room and a posh conservatory at the back. Antique pine units, hi-tech cooker, extractor fan. All from when Horridges had made Martin sales manager, about a year before Gannons sacked him.

  'Anyroad,' Sal said. 'Can't leave our Benjie. God knows what he'd get up to, little monkey.'

  'Well, actually,' Willie said, 'I wouldn't mind getting the lad in as well. We're going to need a new Autumn Cross, a bit sharpish.'

  'Be realistic. How can a child of his age go out collecting bits of twigs and stuff on a night like this?'

  'Aye, I can!' Benjie shouted, bursting into the kitchen, already half-dressed, dragging on his wellies. 'I can, Uncle Willie, honest.'

  'Get back to bed, you little monkey, if I've told you once tonight, I've ...'

  'Lay off, eh, Sal. We need everybody we can get.'

  'Is this serious, Willie? I mean, really?'

  Willie said nothing.

  'What's in that briefcase?'

  'This and that.'

  'Uncle Willie,' said Benjie, 'T'Chief's been howling.'

  'They're all howling tonight, Benj.'

  'And t'dragon. T'dragon growed, Uncle Willie. T'dragon's growed.'

  When Milly caught Cathy's eye over the heads of the assembled Mothers they exchanged a look which said, this is hopeless.

  Altogether there were seven of them squeezed into Ma's parlour, standing room only - although at least a couple were not too good on their pins and needed chairs.

  'Susan!' Milly cried. 'Where's Susan?'

  'Staying in with the little lad,' Ethel, Susan's mum, told her. 'Frank's not back. Likely on a bender. She won't leave the little lad on his own on a night like this.'

  'Wonderful!' Cathy moaned. 'Hang on, what about Dee from the chippy? Needs must, Ethel.'

  'She's had a shock, what with Maurice, she won't even answer the door.'

  'Well, get somebody to bloody break it down. And if Susan's got to bring the kid along, do it, though I'd rather not. That'll be nine. Willie! How's it going? Any luck?'

  'We found it, I think.' Willie came in clutching Mr Dawber's old briefcase. 'Here, make a bit of space on t'table.'

  'How is he?'

  'He's resting. Had a bit of a do wi' Shaw Horridge.' Willie was spreading out sheets of foolscap paper. 'Thank God for Mr Dawber, I say. Anything to do with Bridelow he collects. Whipped it off Ma 'fore she could put it back of t'fire.'

  'Looks complicated.'

  'It's not as bad as it looks. They're all numbered, see, and they join up, so we've got a complete map of t'village wi' all the key boundary points marked. Ma did um all barefoot. But

  that were summer. What you want is one woman at each, and each to take a new stone. Alf's got um ready for consecration, like, end of his yard.'

  'How big are they, these stones?'

  'Size of a brick, maybe half a brick. Some of um are bricks, come to think of it. Ma used a wheelbarrow.'

  'We'll never do it,' Milly said in despair. 'Are you proposing to send old Sarah out to the top of Church Field with half a brick?'

  'She could do one of the closer ones,' said Cathy. 'If you or I take the Holy Well …'

  'We still haven't got enough.' Milly lowered her voice. 'And what kind of commitment we'll get out of half this lot I don't know. Ma was right. We've been hopelessly complacent. We let things slide. We haven't got a chance.'

  'There's always a chance,' Cathy said, and even Willie thought her voice was starting to sound a bit frail. She was overtired, lumpy bags under her eyes, thin hair in rat's tails.

  'What?' said Milly, approaching hysteria - and Willie had never seen that before. 'Against a feller who's spent half a lifetime stoking up his evil? Against that hideous girl? Against all them practising satanists?'

  'They're idiots,' Cathy said. 'Any idiot can be a satanist.'

  'Aye,' said Milly, 'and any idiot can make it work if they've got nowt to lose.'

  'All right.' Cathy turned to Willie. 'How's Alf getting on?'

  'Moaning,' Willie said. 'Reckons cement won't hang together wi' all the rain. Stan Burrows and them've fixed up a sort of a shelter for him. I told him, I says, you can do it again proper sometime, Alf, just make sure it sticks up tonight. I called in at Sal's, too, and young Benjie'll be along wi' a pile of stuff for a new cross. Reckon you can fettle it?'

  'Aye,' said Milly. 'I suppose I can.'<
br />
  'Don't you start losing heart, lass. Hey, our Sal's on her way too, what about that?'

  'Never!' said Cathy. 'Ceramic hob on the blink, is it?'

  'I'm persuasive, me, when I put me mind to it.'

  'That'll make it ten, then,' Cathy said. 'Still, not enough. But we're getting there. Please, Milly, please don't go negative on me now.'

  Macbeth closed the door behind him, as if to prove he wasn't really a wimp and could handle this alone, and he didn't come out for a long time, maybe half a minute, and there was no sound from him either. And Moira panicked. I was wrong. They're all there. They're waiting for us.

  'Moira,' he called out, more than a wee bit hoarse, just at the point when she was about to start screaming. 'I think I need some help.'

  At the foot of the final stairway, the air was really sour, full of beer and vomit, blood and death. She took a breath of it, anyway. She was - face it - more scared than he was, and whenever she was really scared, she went brittle and hard, surface-cynical. A shell no thicker than a ladybird's.

  She wanted a cigarette. She wanted a drink.

  She wanted out of here.

  'Hold your nose,' Macbeth advised, opening the door. He sounded calm. Too calm. He was going to pass out on her any second.

  And of course she didn't hold her damn nose, did she, and the stench of corrupted flesh nearly drove her back down the steps.

  'I covered that one over,' Macbeth said. 'Couldn't face it.'

  A circle within a circle. Candles burned down to stubs, not much more than the flames left, and all the rearing shadows they were throwing.

  'Watch where you're walking,' Macbeth said.

  The attic light was brown and bleary with sweat, grease, blood. Several chairs inside the circle. Two of them occupied.

  One was a muffled hump beneath old sacking. 'All I could find,' Macbeth said. 'I don't think you should uncover it. I don't think anybody should. Not ever.'

  A yellow hand poked out of the sacking.

  She stared at it, trying to imagine the yellow fingers stopping up the airholes on the Pennine Pipes.