Håkan Nesser - The Living and the Dead in Winsford

‘Three hours: have you the strength for that? And a rucksack with coffee, sandwiches and dog chews on the way.’

I confirm that both I and my dog can cope with such exertions. We’re in good condition. But if it looks as if it’s going to pour down or snow we’d prefer to put it off until January.

‘Of course,’ says Mark. ‘But I’ve already thought of that. We’ll have decent weather, a bit windy perhaps but unless I’m much mistaken we might even see a bit of sun.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ I say.

‘Don’t forget that I can see into the future,’ he says.

He gives me a big hug before he leaves. I have the impression that I am not without significance for him.

‘I’ll call round tomorrow at about this time. You don’t need to worry about the food, I’ll fix that. Is that okay?’

‘That’s okay.’

‘And you have suitable clothes?’

‘I’ve been living here for two months.’

‘Fair enough. See you tomorrow, then.’

‘Mark?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m looking forward to it. To both things.’

‘Thank you. I’d like to read what you write one of these days.’

You’ll never do that, I think when I’ve closed the door. And there’s quite a lot of other things you’ll never get to know as well.

There’s a lot that’s not relevant. A lot that has to remain hidden, even from you. It suddenly feels difficult; I think that I’m never going to be able to sort everything out. But then, I’ve already decided to put that off until another year.

It feels great to be a woman with a man and a dog — not just a woman with a dog. Sorry about that, Castor. We set off from the edge of Simonsbath soon after half past eleven. We head straight up over the boundless moor into the headwind, and after twenty minutes have crossed over a ridge and find ourselves in a place where there is no sign of civilization wherever you look. Only this bare, undulating landscape in every direction. Heather and grass in dark and light patches: it’s the heather that is dark, and where it is growing too densely it is almost impassable. Here and there are isolated clusters of thorn bushes being battered by the wind, and here and there small flocks of sheep. The sky is obscured by a thin band of cloud — perhaps the sun might break through it eventually. Below is a gulley with a beck running from east to west, then turning off northwards and disappearing between two gentle slopes. Mark points in that direction with his staff.

‘Where we’re standing now is Trout Hill. Down there is Lanacombe, the site of Mrs Barrett’s bolt-hole. I thought we could pay it a visit. We’ll be sheltered from the wind for most of the way. And then round and up the other side towards Badgworthy. What do you say to that?’

I say that sounds good, and that I seem to recognize the name Barrett from somewhere.

‘Of course you do,’ says Mark. ‘You live cheek by jowl with her daughter, as it were. No, I beg your pardon, I’m jumping over a generation: it’s her granddaughter. That grave you must have seen.’

‘Yes. Elizabeth Williford Barrett. 1911–1961. I go past it almost every day.’

He nods. ‘Unless I’m much mistaken, she was born down there.’ He points with his staff again. ‘In Barrett’s bolt-hole, yes, I think that’s right. Her mother — Elizabeth’s mother, that is — gave birth to her child in her own mother’s house because it was illegitimate; and it was Elizabeth’s grandmother who was the real, the original Barrett. Are you with me?’

I nod. I’m with him.

‘She was skilful in various black arts, you could no doubt say. Prophecy and magic and all that kind of thing. She operated here in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the fact is that Exmoor lagged behind the rest of England in many respects — in any case in various tiny places on the moor. In certain hidden-away little nooks and crannies.’

He laughs, and I link arms with him. It seems like the most natural movement in the world.

‘There are lots of stories about Barrett the witch,’ he says. ‘But she must have died shortly after becoming a grandmother, and nobody moved into her bolt-hole after she’d gone. I used to sit there smoking secretly fifty or sixty years later, I have to admit, and there wasn’t much of the place left by then.’

He likes telling stories like this, and I like listening to him.

‘The Barrett daughter — I think her name was Thelma — gave birth to her daughter in her mother’s bolt-hole, presumably because she had nowhere else to go. She had been thrown out of the farmhouse where she worked as a maid — no doubt the owner of the house was the father. Not all that unusual a story, in other words.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Most things were not better in the old days. Especially if you were poverty-stricken and a woman.’

We set off down the slope. Castor takes the lead: presumably he has been listening and knows where we are heading.

‘That stalker of yours,’ Martin asks when we have come a short way down the slope. ‘Have you seen any more of him lately?’

I shake my head. ‘No, he’s been lying low.’

‘Isn’t that odd? I mean, if he’s tracked you down and managed to find you in the back of beyond, surely he would. . well, continue to pester you somehow or other?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I haven’t really managed to understand how his mind works. I’ve no idea how he thinks or acts. But maybe you are right: if he really has found me, I ought to keep seeing him.’

‘But you’re not sure?’

‘No, I might have been imagining things, of course. It’s easy to be a bit paranoid when you think you are being pursued.’

‘I can well imagine that,’ says Mark. ‘But I’d like you to get in touch with me if anything else happens, can we agree on that? If you give me a ring I can be with you in ten minutes.’

I laugh. ‘Telephone?’ I say. ‘Is that what you mean? I don’t have a mobile that works up here, I thought I’d told you that. And I don’t really want one. . The point of sitting here writing on Exmoor is that I don’t need to have any contact with the outside world.’

‘Apart from what you yourself want?’

‘Apart from what I myself want.’

I feel sure that I sound absolutely sincere when I say that, and why should he have any reason to doubt it? He continues walking in silence for a while, thinking.

‘I know what we’ll do,’ he says eventually. ‘You can borrow a mobile from me. I have an old Nokia in a drawer that I never use. It’s pay-as-you-go, and nobody else has the number. It works up here. You can have it as. . well, as a safety measure.’

I can’t think of a reasonable objection, and thank him.

*

We drink coffee and eat teacakes in Barrett’s bolt-hole. It really is a hole: you can see the overgrown remains of some sort of building, apparently only three walls — the fourth must have been the steep hillside into which the house was built. A few metres further down is a narrow stream; Mark says it’s called Hoccombe and that it runs into Badgworthy Water a bit further on. He used to go fishing there when he was a boy. I say it all sounds a bit like Huckleberry Finn: sitting in Barrett the witch’s bolt-hole, smoking and waiting for a bite.

‘That’s more or less how I felt as well,’ says Mark. ‘But I didn’t have a Tom Sawyer, I suppose that’s what was missing. Still, I certainly miss all that, it’s odd that it should be so difficult to hark back to. . well, to one’s origins, I suppose. I turn into a philosopher when I come here, I suppose you’ve noticed that.’

‘Yes, of course,’ I say. ‘But I’ve also noticed that the sky is blue. Although the sun doesn’t penetrate as far down as this.’