‘John, please,’ said Kat. ‘I think we should turn around. I don’t want to get lost up here.’
‘We’ve only walked a mile or two,’ I said.
‘It’s not the distance,’ said Kat. ‘It’s the daylight. When it’s like this it goes dark much earlier. You know that.’
‘It’s only midday, Kat,’ I said, showing her my watch. ‘I think we’ll be all right for a while yet. You shouldn’t be scared of this place.’
‘I’m being sensible,’ she said.
‘Quiet,’ said Dadda. ‘Listen.’
Kat and I stopped and Musket closed his eyes as the wind parted his fur to the skin.
A faint sheep call came and went and Dadda sent Musket off. He disappeared but barked a few moments later and we found him sniffing at two carcasses close to the edge of the path. Both of the ewes were half buried in the snow, days dead, and their blood had frozen into crystalline veins that webbed the drifts. Crows had evidently seated themselves at the table to gorge on the remains and there wasn’t much left of either animal but a mat of plucked-at fleece. Each leg had been stripped to the bone and the sweetmeats dragged out of the ruptured bellies.
‘But what would have killed them in the first place?’ said Kat.
‘Dogs,’ said Dadda, holding Musket back from sticking his nose into the wounds. ‘When a few of them get together, they can tear a sheep to pieces if they’re determined.’
‘Oh, God, there’s another,’ said Kat, pointing past us at Musket who had found an older ewe lying split and strewn on the other side of the track.
The faint bleating came again and Musket blinked at Dadda, waiting on his instruction.
‘Go on,’ he said, and the dog turned and padded off along the track.
Through the snow a hundred yards further on, he was waiting at the edge of a deep hollow, one of the places that the Gaffer told me about, where tired pall-bearers had stumbled and sent the coffin and its contents thumping down through the grass and rocks.
The call that we’d heard was coming from the shearling sprawled at the bottom, one of the females due to be put before the ram for the first time at tupping. After an awkward fall, she’d ended up on her back and was writhing in the mud and snow to try and get herself upright.
‘She’s had it, Dadda,’ I said. ‘Look at her.’
‘She’s only rigged,’ he said and began testing the solidity of the peat near the top of the slope with the heel of his boot.
‘You’re not going down there, are you?’ said Kat.
‘Well, I’m not leaving her in pain,’ said Dadda.
‘Don’t you go as well, John,’ said Kat, holding my arm.
‘Aye, stay here, John,’ said Dadda. ‘I can manage on my own.’
‘It’s a long way down,’ I said.
‘I’ve been fetching sheep out of cloughs all my life,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll be all right,’ and began to make his way down, jabbing his crook into the crusted earth and kicking the frost off the rocks. Despite Kat calling me back, I followed him, clinging on to tufts of grass to keep myself steady.
The sheep moaned and rolled as we came to her. One of her front legs had been skinned to the tendons by the rocks and the other was snapped at right angles. The broken end flailed limply as she tried to get away from us.
‘We’ll have to leave her,’ I said.
‘Here?’ said Dadda.
‘She’s not going to be able to walk, is she?’
‘The poor lass must be in agony,’ said Dadda.
‘Not for much longer,’ I said. Her fleece was dark with blood.
‘I didn’t come all this way to find the sheep and watch them die,’ he said. ‘If I can get her back to the farm, I can get Leith to come and have a look at her.’
‘Dadda, you can’t carry her all the way back to the valley,’ I said.
‘So what do you suggest we do, then?’
‘There are plenty of stones,’ I said. ‘Put her out of her misery.’
‘Just help me get her on to my back,’ he said and gave me his cap and his crook to hold.
He knelt down and between us we managed to arrange the sheep around his shoulders like a stole. Her broken leg flopped in his grip and although she tried to wrench herself free, she settled as Dadda started to climb. In the snow, each step was judicious and I kept close to his back so that I could steady him if he looked likely to fall.
‘Was it the Sturzakers’ dogs, do you think?’ I said.
‘I can’t see him bringing them this far, can you?’ Dadda said.
‘They might have got out,’ I said.
‘You saw the cages in his back yard,’ said Dadda. ‘They looked pretty secure to me.’
‘Whose are they then?’ I said.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘They could be anybody’s. They might be strays from Wyresdale, maybe. Or folk dump them on the moors sometimes. Whoever they belong to, they must be the reason the deer were over this way.’
‘We’d better come back with a couple of shotguns,’ I said.
‘They won’t stay long now it’s snowing,’ said Dadda.
‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ I said. ‘They might find their way into the valley.’
‘Well, if they do, that’ll be my problem, won’t it?’ he said.
‘I’m not going back to Suffolk, Dadda,’ I said. ‘I told you that.’
He missed his footing and I gripped his elbow to stop him slipping over. He must have felt the sheep sliding off his shoulders and grasped the fleece with his fingers to steady her. Whatever life she’d been clinging on to left her in that moment and her head flopped back and bumped against Dadda’s back all the way to the top of the slope.
When Dadda was within touching distance, Kat reached down and helped him up. Blood had stained the back of his jacket to the hem and soaked his hair and neck. Something sinewy and grey dangled from the sheep’s fleece and left a spatter-line through the snow as he let it fall off his shoulders.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Kat. ‘The pair of you almost ended up falling down there yourselves. What would you have expected me to do if you’d broken your legs too?’
‘We’re all right,’ I said. ‘Stop making a fuss.’
‘Even to me it was obvious that sheep was going to die,’ said Kat. ‘Why the hell did you bother?’
‘I had to try and get her out,’ said Dadda.
‘There’s caring for your animals and there’s being reckless,’ said Kat. ‘Look at the weather.’
‘I know what the weather’s like,’ said Dadda.
‘Can we go now?’ said Kat. ‘The rest of them are only going to be dead too.’
‘I’d rather see that with my own eyes before I go back to the farm,’ said Dadda.
‘We’re here now, Kat,’ I said. ‘We might as well see if we can find the other ones.’
She made me look at her.
‘Who are you trying to prove yourself to, John?’ she said. ‘I hope it’s not me.’
‘Are you going to help?’ I said.
‘You promised me we could go home today,’ she said.
‘I didn’t promise you anything,’ I said. ‘I told you we were coming here to work. This is work.’
‘We have work,’ she said. ‘I have the nursery and you have the school.’
‘That’s over with now,’ I said. ‘It has to be.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Now the Gaffer’s gone, we’re needed here,’ I said. ‘These animals are ours. We’re just as responsible for them as Dadda is.’
‘Stop saying that,’ said Kat.
‘But it’s true,’ I said.
‘I don’t care about the fucking farm,’ she said and turned to Dadda. ‘Sorry, Tom, but I don’t.’
‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Who gave you the right to let it fall apart?’
‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘I mean it’s not up to you to make that decision,’ I said. ‘You’re a ca
retaker just like the rest of us. Why should other folk miss out on living in the Endlands just because you don’t want to?’
‘I’m not bringing up our son here, John,’ she said.
‘You don’t have any choice, Kat.’
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘I mean we don’t have any choice. Things have changed. There are obligations we have to fulfil now.’
‘John,’ she said. ‘I can’t say it any other way. I don’t want to be here.’
‘Why?’
‘Are you seriously asking me that question?’ she said. ‘After what the Gaffer did? After what they all did?’
Dadda looked at her.
‘Look, you stay if you want to,’ she said. ‘I’m going back to Dunwick.’
‘You’re acting like a child,’ I said.
‘Leave me alone,’ she said and walked off a little way down the track.
‘You’re not going to persuade her like that,’ said Dadda.
‘I’m not trying to persuade her,’ I said. ‘The decision’s made. She knows it’s the right one.’
‘You can’t force her to stay somewhere she doesn’t want to be,’ said Dadda.
‘She doesn’t know what she wants,’ I said. ‘That’s her problem.’
‘It sounds to me like she wants to go home,’ said Dadda.
‘When she says that, she doesn’t mean the house where we actually live,’ I said. ‘She means the vicarage.’
‘So? Let her go.’
‘No, Dadda,’ I said. ‘She needs to grow up.’
The snow began to come down with more urgency and Dadda turned up his collar which was still damp with blood.
‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘Let’s call it a day.’
‘But there might be some still alive,’ I said.
‘Not in this,’ he said, sending Musket in the direction Kat had gone.
We followed the prints that she’d left in the snow, expecting to catch up with her within a few minutes. But she’d made quicker progress than I’d expected and even Musket couldn’t find her. She wouldn’t be lost, though. For now, the Corpse Road was still discernible and as long as she stuck to it, she would soon find the grouse butts and then the Wall. And when she got there, when she’d calmed down, she’d have the sense to stay behind it and wait for us. Then we could show her the way to the top of the path and take her down into the valley. We’d go back to the farm to help the others shoo the Owd Feller from the fireplace and then crown the ram. We’d drink tea and browse the scullery for the food brought over on Devil’s Day. We’d watch the snow falling in the yard. Then we’d sit down and make plans.
Sweeting always stayed at Churchmeads with the boarders over half-term so I’d be able to phone him after prep and tell him to expect my resignation. I could hear his voice already, ranging from confusion to persuasion to acquiescence and then philosophy. Well, it was obvious that I hadn’t been happy at the school for some time, and life was too short to spend it feeling unfulfilled, and if a man found his life’s purpose then he could count himself lucky beyond measure. But he’d be relieved, I knew, that there’d be no more letters from parents, no more ripples. Ah, he’d think, it was a more complicated situation than he’d imagined. I’d been worried about my father being on his own. I’d felt a pull towards family responsibilities. There were genuine reasons for Mr Pentecost’s difficulties of late. That should appease Mrs Weaver.
We’d have to go and see Kat’s family, of course, and Barbara would be devastated when we told her what we were planning to do. Devastated and then angry, and naturally I’d be blamed. The Reverend would be sorry to see her leave the village, but secretly glad that Kat was thinking of her own life rather than her mother’s. Rick would laugh at her, unable to imagine Kit-Kat working on a farm. But whatever they said, however they felt, we’d still clear the house and put it on the market. We’d throw or give away what we didn’t need and head north for good.
It would be hard for Kat to leave the nursery, of course, but she would have left before long anyway, when the baby came. And her feelings would change, too. They always do. Things that seem so vital never usually are, and they’re often replaced by what’s truly needed.
When we came to live here, we’d be cleansed of all the old layers. The past that we once had would seem like someone else’s.
Which it does now, I say to Adam.
It seems absurd, I say, that I once taught Shelley and Shakespeare, Hardy and Houseman, to boys in deckchair blazers.
∾
On the open grouse moor, the snow had come down thickly and covered the tracks that Kat had made. Dadda headed off straight towards Poacher’s Seat, which came and went in the clouds. But the wind rose and everything ahead of us was quickly lost in a whiteout. I could see nothing but the back of Dadda’s bloodstained jacket and the divots left by his boots. Musket padded next to me, finding the best route he could, his fur licked into spikes by the wetness of the snow.
He was usually pretty adept at retracing his paw-steps, and like the sheep he could have probably found his way back to the Endlands without much difficulty, but when we came into a deeping that we would have remembered for its complete silence, Dadda called him to stop.
‘We must have gone wrong,’ he said. ‘There are no scars like this on the grouse moor.’
‘We can’t have strayed that far,’ I said. ‘We were walking in a straight line, weren’t we?’
‘When can you ever walk in a straight line in weather like this?’ said Dadda.
‘We’ll have to go back, then,’ I said.
Dadda opened his sleeve and looked at his watch. ‘It’ll start going dark in a couple of hours,’ he said.
‘I know, Dadda.’
‘It’s not easy to find the top of the path when the daylight goes.’
‘I know.’
He was expelling his doubts, that was all. I knew that he had no intention of leaving before we’d found Kat, but he was right. Darkness closed off the edges of the moors. And even if by luck we came to the head of Fiendsdale Clough, the likelihood of making a descent through the ice and snow on the sheep track without slipping into the gully was remote. We had no torch and we were tired too.
Walking through the snow had sapped the strength from both of us and we waited for a minute listening instead. The silence down there was what I forgot most when I was away from the valley. It was impossible to take it with me back to Suffolk, impossible to notice it anywhere else but here.
It was Musket with the sharper ears who heard the call first and padded off a few steps to investigate.
‘It sounds like another ewe,’ said Dadda.
‘No, that’s Kat,’ I said.
But when it came again, it didn’t sound like either. There was the intonation of words this time, but it was impossible to make out what they were.
‘Perhaps it’s whoever we heard the other day,’ said Dadda.
‘Maybe,’ I said, the voice sounded just as distant as it came a third time. A decaying note that was too short-lived to pinpoint.
Musket barked and Dadda told him to be quiet. I called Kat’s name and started to climb up the rise.
The blizzard calmed now and the snow petered out to a few spindling flakes. When I came to the top of the ravine, I could see that the wind had pushed the snowstorm across the moors, leaving the sky on the horizon in front of us a dirty orange. Musket’s nose must have been numbed by the cold. He’d led us in a wide arc so that we were now heading west and not east.
The moor might have been swept clean of cloud, but there was no trace of Kat at all, and nothing looked familiar. It was hard to judge distance, hard to tell whether the white ridges we could see were miles away or a few minutes’ walk. I followed Dadda up to a higher viewpoint on the edge of the cleft, but it only gave us more of the same. I shouted for Kat and got nothing back. The voice that we’d heard didn’t speak again.
There wasn’t much we could do any more b
ut head for the Wall. So long as we kept the failing daylight at our backs we would be walking in the right direction.
At sundown, the horizon turned to vermilion ribbons that underpinked the clouds and before long a new front came sweeping in. Dusk fell with the snow and from then on we could only try and stick to the line we’d been walking, the two of us calling Kat’s name.
By the way the light faded, I should think that Dadda and I must have walked for another hour, though I doubt we got more than a mile. Crossing the moors in the height of dry summer was slow enough, but in snow every footstep was an experience in itself and it was hard to tell whether what we were about to stand on would give way to a yard-deep hole or send the boot skidding off into slush. When we came to the basins in the moor, it was easier to edge down them on the backside rather than on foot, and climbing up the other side was as exhausting as scaling a sand-dune.
We’d worked our way in and out of half a dozen cuttings and troughs and were coming to the top of a particularly steep slope when Dadda bent down and gripped Musket’s scruff to stop him from going any further.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
He didn’t reply and when I’d climbed the last few feet to the ridge to join him, I could see that he was looking down on Far Lodge.
Despite what the Gaffer had told me, I hadn’t thought that it would be quite so well preserved. The walls were sound and the roof—surely the first thing that should have gone—held the snow in a rigid tent. The shutters had lost their black paint, but they remained tightly bolted over the windows. It was like one of those Iron Age bodies they pull out of peat bogs from time to time, with the hair and the skin and the fingernails intact. Something dead but curiously close to being still alive.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘We can’t be here if we’ve been walking east.’
‘You saw which way the sun went down,’ said Dadda. ‘We’ve been walking in the right direction.’
‘How can we have been?’ I said.
Dadda looked down at the Lodge again as it was slowly interred in snow. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Do you think we’d be able to get inside?’ I said.
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