by Garner, Alan
The land was as level as it could be, for the valley. Then they went past Jenkin Chapel and up towards Pym Chair. At Howlersknowl he left the road and vibrated across the cattle grid.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Conservation of mass and energy.” The road dipped down and then up to the farmhouse. “I shan’t be long.”
He went to the door and knocked. The door opened and he spoke for a few moments. Then came back.
“OK. We can park here. Out you get.”
He unlocked the boot.
“Oh no,” she said. “No.”
“Yes, Sal.”
“No. Not those poncy sticks. I won’t. I will not.”
“They make a difference. I’ve tried them.”
“I am not going to,” she said. “I don’t want to become one of these yomping urban oiks who don’t know what they’re doing or where they are. Good God. You’ll have me in a Day-Glo jacket, next.”
“Do I detect a hint of hubris?”
“You can detect what you sodding well like.”
He took her hand to go through the yard to the hillside.
“Put those sticks back in the car, Ian.”
“I may use them myself,” he said.
“Ian?”
“Yes, Sal.”
“You know just how many kinds of bastard you are, don’t you?”
“People tell me often enough. But I don’t let myself get on tender-hooks about it. Now are we going, or aren’t we?”
They walked along the track between a stone wall and the farm garden.
“Ian?”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. The moods are the worst part.”
“I know, Sal. I know.”
They began the climb across the last field before the valley. She held his arm, but soon she could not control her stumbling. He said nothing, and they went on at her pace.
“Oh, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. I really am sorry. Not a good day today. I’ve got to sit down.”
“Over here,” he said, and he took her to a yellow boulder and they both sat on it. “No rush. Take it easy.”
She put her back against his.
“And that’s what it’s all about,” she said at last.
He said nothing.
“You win. Show me how to use those footling sticks.”
“Winning doesn’t come into it.” He adjusted the length of the trekking poles.
“Stand up. Now put your hand through the thong and grip the moulded piece.”
“You know I don’t have a grip,” she said.
“Put your hand round, and your weight will do the holding. The poles are spring loaded. Now the other. To all intents and purposes, they give you two more legs. How’s it feel?”
“As if I’m an over-articulated chimpanzee.”
“I’d settle for over articulate,” he said.
“Now what?”
“Just walk. But left pole with opposite right leg. The spikes will hold you and the rubber disks will stop you from sinking in. There’ll be less lateral stress, too. Start by climbing, first. Back to the track.”
She jabbed both poles into the grass and stood for a while, testing her balance. She took a cautious step. Then another.
“Try a normal stride,” he said.
She moved, but the left pole went with the left foot, the right with the right. She fell sideways. He went to pick her up.
She was laughing too much to speak.
He lifted her under the arms and put her back on her feet. She began to shift her weight, but was overcome by giggling and rested her head on her hands on the poles.
She pushed her tongue forward inside her lower lip, jutted the jaw, furrowed her brow and set off, keeping time and measuring her strides with loud monkey grunts. When she reached the track, she turned and jangled her hands above her head, gibbering, pursing her lips. Then she strode off past the stone gateway into the valley.
“Wait for me!” He ran to catch up.
“This is great,” she said. “Fan. Tastic.”
They moved at a steady pace.
“Fan. Tastic. I’d forgotten what walking is.”
“Careful going down. The balance shifts.”
“Ian. It feels as though . . .”
She stopped and looked up and around.
“As though?”
“As though there’s no difference.”
“Between what?”
“Anything. There’s no difference. I can’t tell which is the valley and which is me.”
“I can,” he said. “My feet are my feet. And that water we’ve gone through is that water. Water does not have feet.”
“What’s the difference between your feet and the water?”
“My feet are dry. Water is wet.”
“Wiggle your toes.”
“So?”
“You are wiggling the valley and the valley is wiggling you. Third Law of Motion.”
“Then what’s this stile?”
She looked at it.
“I’ll help you over,” he said.
“No. But get ready to catch.”
She shoved the poles into the mud and put one foot on the step. She pushed and leaned forward, so that when she toppled, the momentum brought the other foot up and she caught her balance by holding the side with one hand and using the friction of her body against the post to slow her movement. Then she lifted a pole, lodged it onto the step on the other side of the bar, and crossed over with the opposite foot. She brought the rear leg up behind her, but she could not bend it enough to clear the bar. She had to put it back down, and stood with one foot on either side.
“I’m stuck.”
“Do it again; and I’ll guide your leg.”
“No.”
She swung the other pole across and set the two together, holding them with one hand. She wrapped her forearm around the post and carried her weight forward, dropping her shoulders so that her hip raised the leg. The foot lay sideways on the bar.
“Let me help.”
“No.”
She moved to drag the foot free, and it snatched clear so quickly that she lost her balance and fell. She deflected herself from the rocky ground with one pole and slid down the stone wall.
“I’m OK.”
“And what of the valley?” he said.
“It’s establishing an intimate osmotic relationship with my arse.”
By the time he had climbed over the stile she was on her feet and the poles again.
When they came to the ruin they stopped to rest and eat.
“Mind if I mooch around a bit?” he said.
“Help yourself. I shan’t run far.”
He wandered about the building and the ford, and then up the western slope. He stopped often to look at the ground. He was not gone long.
“So? What have you found?”
“Too many stone posts,” he said. “I can’t make sense of them. Most of them don’t relate to any of the walls. A lot are just lying, as if they’ve been pulled up. I’ve measured some; and though they’re different shapes, they’re all about three point five cubic metres. And if the one standing above the ford is set in as far as they were, it’ll be the same. How’s that in weight?”
“About point seven of a tonne each,” she said. “Probably the maximum practical load. They’re getting to you, aren’t they? It’s this farmhouse that bothers me. The stones belong, but the house doesn’t. What’s here is a lot older.”
“I can’t cope with geological time scales,” he said.
“Nobody can. What I’m talking about is to do with us.”
“Another part of the mm factor?”
“The what?”
“Last time we were here you mentioned an mm.”
“Did I? Yes. I suppose so. That would describe it. Let’s walk. I want to have a look at that outcrop on the ridge up there.”
“Which?”
“There’s only the one,” she said. “It’s interest
ing.”
They left the ruin and crossed the green field. At the top of the field a low, broken wall separated the pasture from the steep rough beyond.
“Head for the track we came down,” he said.
“Came down?”
“Head for that brown track to the ridge. It goes past the outcrop.”
They were nearly at the wild moor. Sheep scattered.
“There’s another stone,” he said. “How are you doing?”
“We’ll get to it on the next traverse.”
When they reached the stone, she rested on her poles. “Extraordinary. Nature improving on art.”
“Is it?” he said. “It looks sculpted to me.”
“It’s natural erosion. There isn’t a mark on it.”
The stone was the figure of a heavily pregnant woman; peaked head; a straight neck running to a straight back down into the ground; a massive, rounded belly.
“Why build it into a wall?” he said.
“That may be your answer.”
“What may?”
“Perhaps the wall was built to it.”
“These walls are old.”
“They are.”
“That would imply that this is older.”
“You always were the bright one, Ian.”
“You’re sure it hasn’t been shaped?”
“Only by the wind. I’m not saying it wasn’t chosen.”
“And brought up here? Why? When?”
“I’m just a simple geologist.”
He looked back across the valley.
“Yes,” she said. “I’d guess about point seven of a tonne, like the others.”
She settled on a piece of wall and ran her hands over the gritstone. He did the same, putting his on hers.
“It’s beautiful.”
“But what is the context?” he said.
“I’m sure you’ll come up with one,” she said. “For a start, it makes sense of the stone by the ford. If this is Effect, then the other’s well equipped to be Cause. Let’s sit and be quiet, shall we?”
“Wake up.”
“What?”
“You’ve been asleep for twenty minutes.”
“Have I? Ouch. Creeping crud. I’ll believe you.”
Still with one hand on the stone, she looked to the ridge.
“I think my eyes were bigger than this one’s stomach. If we’re to get back to the car, we’d better save the top for another day.” She levered herself up. “The muscles are feeling it. And this is enough to remember.”
She turned away from the stone and the ford and began towards the track out of the valley. “You were right. Definitely. Down is tough.”
She moved more slowly, even when they were off the hill.
“Sorry. I’ve got to rest again. No need to sit. And you may find me less willful at the stile. Old age, you know. It comes to us all. Well, most of us. Mind where you’re standing.”
He looked down. “Oh, good grief,” he whispered. He scanned the valley, took out his binoculars. “Don’t talk. Keep moving. You must keep moving. To the stile. Come on. Now.”
“Why?”
“This is marked as a public right of way. But some idiot. Sal. Move. We could be killed.”
“Bullshit.”
“Not funny. It’s still warm.”
He part carried, part dragged her, ignoring her pain, along the empty valley with its hidden folds, until they reached the stile. He picked her up and dropped her on the other side.
15
JACK LAY ON the settle as he had for the past three nights. Mary put cold compresses on his face and replaced them, and spooned water between his lips.
“Is sun up?” he said.
“Well up.”
“How’s day?”
“Mizzling.”
“I must go get him home.”
He swung his feet to the floor and pulled off the compresses.
“You’re not taking no one nowhere,” said Mary. “Not with that face. You favour a rotten mawkin.”
“Give us me bag, Ma Mary.”
“I will not,” she said. “You lie down.”
Jack stood and found the wall with his hands and worked his way to the door. He took his satchel from its peg and went back to the settle. He opened the satchel and felt around inside and brought out a wooden tube with a lid on one end. He lifted off the lid and shook three dried toadstools onto his palm. The stems were pale and the caps brown blotched white.
“Fetch us a jug of water,” he said and pushed the three pieces between his split lips and began to chew. “Haste, woman.”
Mary brought a jug. He put out his hands and she fitted them round. He lodged his upper teeth over the rim, tipped his head back and swallowed. He felt for the table, set the jug on it, then lay back on the settle and was quiet. Soon he slept.
Mary looked at the tube, without touching. She had seen it before, but never so near. Jack had always kept it covered. The tube was old and there were patterns carved on it: stars, dots, diamonds, crossed lines; a tree with some leaves on lopped branches between a hare and an animal with a long neck. On the other side was a cup or dish, and in it the stump of a tree with three sprigs; or, the other way up, it was a toadstool on its one leg.
Mary sat with Jack while he slept. He slept peacefully, the only movements were slight twitches of his limbs, which became a smooth rippling. She looked inside the tube, making no noise. It was packed with dried toadstools. She shook her head.
“Buckets for wells again, Ma Mary?”
Jack still lay on his side, his face blank with swelling, his mouth a purple cushion between moustache and beard, his nose a smear, his eyes bulged, marked only by the inward lashes of the turn.
He sat up and put the cap on the tube and the tube in the satchel, without pause or fumble.
“Jack. You can never see.”
“A man must see to do a job, mustn’t he?” He stood, put on his coat and hat, slung the satchel on his shoulder and opened the door. The fine rain was drifting, hiding the slopes in cloud. “Crom’s dew,” he said. “You’ll have good harvest.” He picked up the sack, a pat of butter and the remaining water pail from the brewis, and set off.
When he came to the Butts, he paused and listened. He moved forward and sat on the Belderstone and listened again. “Sup, me lads. Sup, me wenches.” The air of Thursbitch was still and full of bright cloud. He heard the brook. And behind the brook, near and far in the valley, a noise, the same noise wherever it was, faint or loud, the sound of a drum in the earth, each a slow march for the water.
He went up to the corner and beyond to Lankin. Lankin was not there; only the socket, and beyond, down the slope, a dent and flattened reed, and another further off; and from all Thursbitch the thump of a tread in the ground.
Jack left the track and climbed straight for Cats Tor.
When he came near the line from the Broster Rocks he stopped and listened again before moving. He saw the dents, and crossed over.
He changed direction and struck along the tor up to the level ridge and to Thoon. The stone head in the cave looked out to the rain and the cloud. He sat next to it and stroked its carved cheeks.
“Now then, old Crom. How hast tha been this journey? Did the light hurt thine een? Never fret. It’s done; while next time. We shall burn bonny fires for thee. And Jenkin shall hold stars right running.” He felt his own lids and the stone. “Eh dear. We must look a pair, you and me. But did you see at all your land and did we mind us ways? I’ll take you down and put you in your bed, as soon as stones have done supping at the brook. We don’t want to be trod on by them great lummoxes. Hush now.” He listened to the valley. The sound of the earth had stopped. “Come up, old youth. They’ve done.”
He pulled the sack over the head. He slung it over his shoulder, took up the pail and began the way down Catstair. He paused at Biggening Brom. She was firm in her reeds. He went to cross the ford. Bully Thrumble stood above him, and the other stones around. There were
dents in the shale and mud everywhere about the ford.
He followed the brook to Pearly Meg’s. First he lowered the sack to the ground and took the pail down the steps and poured the unused water back to the well. Then he brought the head, leaving the sack outside, and set it back on its shelf. “Here’s butter for thee.” He reached for his stick. The snakes were still coiled around it, but when he tapped with his finger they left and went back into the rock.
Jack lifted his hat to the darkness.
“Peace to you, Crom, and blessing to you, Crom, and sleep to you, Crom; and may the heat of the Moon be ever on you and on us all.”
He climbed the steps and out of the hill into the rain and the mist for Saltersford.
At the mouth of the valley, Lankin was back in his place, as if he had never left it. Jack patted him as he went by. He crossed the Butts to Shady and down. He stopped. There was someone moving in the mist, coming towards him.
“Nan Sarah?”
She ran and clung to him.
“Jack! Whatever are you at? Your face! Jack! You’re not fit! Must I have you dead twice?”
He put his free arm about her.
“Wife. Wife. Will you not be learnt?”
“But Jack! You can’t be out! Not like you are! Not in this!”
“I can. And I am. And it’s done. But you hear me, Nan Sarah. At times such, don’t you ever go Thursbitch. You hear me? Never. It’ll take a life as lief as give. It’s all the same road for it up there.”
16
“NO, SAL. I’M not going to risk it.”
“You’re a wimp, Ian.”
“I don’t care what I am.”
“You did not see a bull.”
“I saw the next best.”
“And I am sure that I did not see a bull. If I had, I could have remembered it.”
“If you had, you wouldn’t have been here to dispute it. Come on. Out. You wanted this, last time.”
“Did I? What?”
“You’ll see.”
He parked beside the road at Pym Chair and helped her to put her hands into the loops of the trekking poles.They went through a kissing-gate to avoid the grids that spanned the road, and waited to cross. The traffic was heavy and the road narrow.
“I’ve never seen so many sports cars,” she said.