by Garner, Alan
“Male compensatory behaviour,” he said.
“Then what are the bimbos expecting?” she said. “I feel sorry for them. All that randy paint on the body work and the wind in their bras.”
They crossed the road and stepped up to the path for Cats Tor.
“Oh, marvellous,” she said. “It’s even got a dog-flap.”
Immediately there was a stile.
“It’s the only one,” he said. “And this time we’ll not try to prove anything, or there’ll be a queue.”
He steadied her and guided her legs and feet, and held her until she was on her poles at the other side.
“It should be all right,” he said. “There’s not much of a climb, and the going’s firm.”
“Firm? It’ll be tarmac next.”
“Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
She did not look at them.
“Good morning.”
“Hello.”
The courtesies came from both directions as they were overtaken.
“Ian. Don’t encourage them,” she said through her teeth. “It’s worse than Piccadilly.”
“Lovely weather.”
“Isn’t it! They’re only being sociable.”
“Sociable. Sociable I have all day. Sociable is what I’ve come here to get away from. Do you know what sociable is? Smile without feeling. I’m an expert on sociable, dear heart.”
“Hello!”
“Hello.”
“And why are they going like the clappers? Heads down as if they’d a train to catch. They ooze ethos.”
“They’re Doing the Tors,” he said. “Shining Tor and back. It’s three point two five kilometres each way.”
“And that’s all? Can’t they see? And can’t they see how absobloodylutely better it would be without them?”
“Think of it as a prole trap.”
“Hi.”
“Hello.”
“Mega!”
“Know why?” she said.
“Cheers!” The walker did not pause.
“It’s the Pliocene Orogeny!” she shouted.
“Cool!”
“Eventually!”
“Sal. Behave. That’s enough. Do you want a smack?”
She turned to him, put her head against his chest and honked with laughter.
“I’ll be good.”
“Promise?”
“No.”
They went on, over Cats Tor. As the next confrontation approached, she stopped, flung her hands in the air, and sang: “The hills are alive with the Sound of Mucus!”
“Good morning.”
“Ian? We’re not Doing the Tors, are we?”
“No. Something better. Control yourself, and you’ll see. I told you.”
They passed over Cats Tor, the sun in their eyes, and began the gentle descent to the ridge. The peak of Shuttlingslow was sharp in front of Mow Cop on one side and the Sutton Common radio tower on the other; but the valley stayed hidden. Andrew’s Edge was dark. They followed the line of broken wall that was the county boundary.
“Slight problem,” he said. “The sheep fence has been renewed. We’ll have to keep going till there’s a way across.”
Although a try had been made at draining, in places the path was deep in water, and uneven blocks from the wall had been laid as stepping-stones. They were too unstable for her, and she had to make detours out onto the peat.
“There’s a kink in the fence ahead. It looks as though there may be something.”
It was a sawn-off length of telegraph pole, with the iron foot grips left in place.
“This’ll do,” he said. He picked her up and lifted her above the wire. She held on to the fence while he used the foot grips to climb over.
“I think you’d better bring up the rear,” she said. “It’s a bit too much. Sorry.”
The blanket bog and boles of cotton grass were unfirm, and pockets of mud and water lay covered by reeds. He took hold of one elbow and put an arm around her shoulder.
“Wow,” she said. The valley had opened. “Those few metres, and everything’s different.”
He took his binoculars and scanned.
“It looks safe enough,” he said. “And we’d see anything in plenty of time to get clear. We need to double back on ourselves. We’ve overshot.”
The slab of the outcrop was below them, though from the bottom of the valley it had crested the ridge.
He felt her stiffen. She paused, leaned on the poles, intent on the rock. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I remember. I do remember. Yes. Look.” She placed her boot in the shallow footprint. “Look. Ian. It fits.” Tears ran silent. “I’ve remembered. At last. Something new. Remembered.”
“Can you describe the rock again?” he said.
“I could. But it’s more. There’s a cave.”
“Is there?”
“Help me round to the front,” she said. “Here. We must sit in it. We have to.”
She swung off her poles into the arch and sat on the floor. He joined her in the shelter.
“You said it was natural, not hand carved. Is it?”
“Of course it is. But it’s so much more.”
“What do you mean?”
“Proof. Short term memory. Not gone. Not entirely. Yet. And.”
“Yes?”
“It’s a throne.”
“I suppose it is.”
“A throne of dreadful necessity.”
He held her close. He watched her pick every detail from the valley.
“What about the fingernails?” he said.
“Fingernails?”
“And how long they take to grow to Andrew’s Edge. Tectonic plates. Continental drift.”
“Did I tell you that? I must have been showing off. I used it to try to wake up my post-grads, when all they wanted was answers. This is so much more.”
“How more? What’s different?”
“Me.”
“Fine views, aren’t they?” The man stood by the outcrop, holding a thumb-stick. They had heard no one come.
He was bearded, and wore gaitered boots, knee britches, a red anorak with PARK RANGER sewn on it and a two-way radio slotted next to his chin.
She did not look at him, but fixed her eyes unmoving on the valley.
“Yes, splendid,” said Ian.
“You do know you’re off the public footpath, don’t you?” said the Ranger.
“Yes. But does it, in reality, matter?” he said.
“We have to be careful of the sheep in the lambing season,” said the Ranger.
“Which is why, surely, there are no sheep up here now. They’ve been taken down to the bottom, where the public access is clearly marked.”
The Ranger laughed.
“OK. It’s as much routine to keep the litter under control. Help yourselves, please. And enjoy the day. But, in future, I’d be happier if you cleared things with the farmers first.”
He turned to go.
“Of course we shall. That was unthinking. But talking about people being stupid: I should tell you that there was a bull loose in the valley when we were here last.”
“A bull? There can’t have been,” said the Ranger. “It’s illegal in a public place.”
“That’s my point.”
“Where did you see it?”
“We didn’t see it. But the droppings were north of the ford, on this side.”
“I’m afraid you must have been mistaken. No bull has been reported.”
“I’m reporting it. And I assure you, I am one that knows his turds.”
The Ranger grinned, then frowned. “When was this?”
“Two weeks ago today.”
“The only bull is at Longclough,” said the Ranger. “It’s kept up, and I check regularly. Do you want me to file an incident report?”
“I think it might be as well.”
“I’ll double check that fencing now, in any case.”
The Ranger lifted his stick in greeting and left them
.
“Thanks, Ian.”
“He was doing his job. And I’m used to being an escaped goat.”
“I was with the valley. Of the valley. And the valley was with me: of me.”
“I know. And where is the place of understanding?”
“All right. But don’t start getting professional now. Please.”
17
WITH THE FIRST nine stars, the people led their cattle towards Jenkin from the farms around. Across the lane, wood and bones were stacked together, and cut turves piled apart. The cattle were penned with hurdles as they arrived, and the people gathered in silence before Jenkin.
Martha Barber gave a bundle of cloth to Jack. He unrolled the bundle and held the two sticks that were in it. One was flat, with a charred hollow at its centre; the other was rounded and the charring was at one pointed end.
Jack laid the flat stick on the ground and knelt on one knee, holding the stick firm with the other foot. He took the rounded stick, placed the sharp end in the hollow, and began to roll it between his palms, backwards and forwards, fast, not stopping. The people watched. The only sounds were the restless shifting of the cattle and the whirling of the wood. Though small, it made a noise that echoed from Jenkin’s face: a rhythm of the air itself breathing, roaring.
Jack did not falter, but watched. He nodded, and Martha Barber crumbled dried heather into the hole. Soon a smoke rose, and she trickled more of the heather dust. The smoke became white, and at the last pale of the day a glow appeared in the wood. Martha lifted grass in her hand and held it close. A brief flame ran; but before it died she bent over with heather sprigs and caught the flame. Mary Turner brought more; and between them they passed the flame from thicker to thicker sprigs, until Martha Barber held a torch. She gave the torch to Jack, and he lit the heather inside the stack of wood and bone, so that the fire took and the stack became a blaze.
The fire shone from the whiteness of Jenkin, and the curled stones in the rock gleamed.
Then the people sang, and the young men and bigger boys jumped through the flames, and, laughing, chased the girls and dragged them to leap hand in hand with them back over the bones.
When they had caught all that they could, they opened up the fire and drove the cattle through. The light was in the bellowing and the eyes, and the panicked beasts scattered to the pastures.
The people gathered the embers, and each family lifted a turf from the stack and carried the turf to the fire. Then, still singing, they walked back to their hearths, spreading out from Jenkin under the stars, holding stars in their hands, kindling summer.
Martha Barber wrapped the two sticks into their bundle and went her way.
18
“I AM NOT happy about this.”
“I am,” she said.
“It is impractical.”
“Ian, it’s the opposite. And it’s pragmatic. No one can say how much more my legs have got, and still less about me. It’s warm and fine, but the days are shorter. Next month it won’t be possible. I’ve not seen the valley at night, and this could be my last chance. Get that bull out of your bonnet, and at least let’s give it a try. I promise not to argue.”
“Is it so important?”
“It is so important.”
“Why?”
“It’s the only thing I can remember. Time is breaking,” she said. “I can’t read any more. Three pages and I’ve forgotten what the book’s about. It’s the same with the telly. I can watch a film over and over, and don’t know what’s going to happen next. I can’t keep enough in my head to follow a reasoned paper, not even when it’s written by someone I once taught. Music still works. And here. At first it was as bad as anywhere. But I’ve remembered even what I’d forgotten. Don’t you see what that means to me? Outside, all I have is what I knew before this started. Now, nothing stays. I feel safe with the valley. And I want to know its stars.”
Thursbitch was in shadow by the time they reached the entrance. Only the high tops and the ridge held the sun. Andrew’s Edge was black. The first sheets of mist were lying among the reeds. The sky was blue metalled above and in front, and behind them red without cloud. The smells of the valley were stronger, and bees worked the flowers to the last of the light.
They went slowly, not talking. The poles bore most of her weight and he held her arm and the belt around her waist to steady her. It was as though her body were struggling to walk and to dance at the same time, so that her feet placed themselves, whether right or wrong, and her head turned from side to side, making her move her eyes to keep a straight way.
He climbed over the stile. She lay upright against it and he lifted her and brought her across.
“I must go to the well,” she said, “before the light fades.”
“Will you be able to manage on the wet?”
“Yes. I remember the well. And the big stones where we got lost. And the outcrop on the ridge. Didn’t I forget it once?”
They laughed.
“See. It’s not all bad. I remember forgetting. But I can’t remember whether I was always forgetful.”
“I don’t think we should try for the row of stones,” he said. “The ground is too rough.”
“The well is what matters.”
They passed over the ford and went around the reed beds as far as they could to reach the well. They stood above the fallen masonry. The water running under the roof slab was louder than the brook next to it.
She looked up at the opposite ridge. The line was dark against the darkening blue, and the outcrop sharp.
“When we first came, you saw a connection,” he said.
“Between what?”
“Here and there.”
“Did I?”
“A connection of difference, you said. Two same shapes, two features, but one natural and the other made. You were right. The outcrop’s high and hollow and moves outwards. The well’s here and hollow and moves in.”
“You’re learning, Ian. That’s what I came to see. I know it now. Let’s go and sit.”
She turned herself away on her poles.
They went back to the ford and sat against the stone at its head-land above the water.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
He opened the Thermos flask and kept hold of the lid while she put her hands round his and drank. They ate some of the sandwiches.
“What time is it?” she said.
“Half past eight.”
“I’d better get pilled up. If I go to sleep, wake me.”
She unzipped a pocket in her anorak and took out a dispensing box. She shook several differently coloured tablets from a compartment and swallowed them with the coffee.
“I can see a star!” It was high above the outcrop. As the night closed on the valley, more stars appeared and the one star became a constellation.
“It’s Deneb in Cygnus,” he said.
She watched the sky, childlike, pointing at first, but soon quiet, and looking, and listening, while the sky filled.
“Why is it I don’t forget this place?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“It’s stronger even than I thought. Once I’d remembered, it felt as though things were coming back to me that I had not learned.”
“I’m afraid, Sal, that sounds more like your subjectivity interacting with your symptoms.”
“Probably.”
The sky moved round.
“Ian? How good are you on Quantum Theory?”
“No good at all. It’s an area I feel I should be more aware of. As with most things.”
“I must have touched on it once; otherwise I shouldn’t be able to ask you now.”
“So?”
“It’s gone. But I’ve got this niggle that it could be connected to why this place knows we’re here.”
“You are not still serious about that, are you?”
“Of course I am. Most geologists agree about sentient landscape. If you do enough fieldwork, you can’t avoid it. Some places
have to be treated with respect, though that doesn’t get written up in the literature.”
“Come off it.”
“Are you telling me, after all we’ve seen and done here, that this is just any old gritstone anticline?”
“I’d say that it’s a powerful and dramatic sub-Alpine environment. But what I accept as appearing to be a strong atmosphere is no more than our projection of our own experience and emotion onto a circumscribed place.”
“How can a man with your job talk such crap?”
“You have to bear in mind I’m also a scientist.”
“Bollocks. This place scares the shite out of you.”
“Have another sandwich, and watch the stars.”
They leaned their heads against the stone. The sky turned.
“What’s happening at the outcrop?” she said.
“Nothing? The Pleiades are rising to the northeast. Taurus will be up soon.”
“I’m not imagining. That rock’s got a halo.”
“It has to be coincidence.”
A waning moon rose from the outcrop, from the cave within.
“That is spectacular. If we were anywhere else but here, at this stone, we should not be seeing this effect. It has to be coincidence, because the only alternative would be that the stone was put here in order to provoke the phenomenon.”
“I think it’s just a big dick,” she said.
“Mm.”
“Now it’s your turn.”
“To what?”
“To mm.”
They sat and watched, not speaking. A fox came down to drink at the ford, caught their scent and looked at them, and walked, unhurried, away. A hare went up the field across the brook. Taurus lifted from the ridge and its red eye hung above the outcrop.
“Dark and true and tender is the North,” she said. “I must have learnt that. Once.”
“Mm.”
“Mm?”
“A hunch, that’s all,” he said. “Do you think we could go a short way up there?”
“Fine.”
He helped her to stand. They took a torch, but left the bag by the stone.
“Say if it gets too much.”
They wove across the field, up to the wall that marked the rough pasture, to the bellied stone.
“Is this why?” she said. “If so, I’m sitting down.”
“Mm.”
“Ian, what are you humming about?”