Stuart Pawson - The Mushroom Man

Well, I thought so, although the Best Village judges might disagree.

Lunch was a roast beef ready-meal for one. I remembered what Annabelle had said about my eating habits and felt guilty. Happy, but guilty.

When I'd cleared up I rang her.

"It's Charlie," I said. "I've done my chores, washed the car, wallpapered the coal house and had my dinner. I'm fed up, so I was thinking about having a drive up on to the moors; blow away a few cobwebs. Any chance of you putting your tapestry down and coming along?"

"Goodness! You mean you are having a day off?" she replied.

"That's right."

"What about the crime wave?"

"Anarchy will break out all over the nation, but I don't care. Are you free?"

"I'd love to come, but I have a PCC meeting at seven. I'll have to be back about sixish Is that all right?"

"No problem. I'll see you in about forty minutes. And put your walking boots on."

We went to Blackstone Edge, a rocky outcrop at the scrag-end of the Peak District, where the high moors fade into the Aire and Calder valley. I parked in a lay-by, where the local water authority kindly still allow their subjects access to the land, and we followed a track into the moor. The path quickly became narrow and muddy, so I led the way, making diversions at intervals to avoid the worst of it. Soon we were on rocky ground, with no distinct trail, just marker poles at irregular intervals. You clambered across the boulders as best you could.

We were both wearing hiking boots and jeans, but Annabelle's jeans seemed to go on for ever. Her navy coat would have been a donkey jacket on anybody else, but on her it looked straight from a Paris fashion house. Walking on rough ground is an art, but she had obviously mastered it. She moved effortlessly, her long legs never hesitating or stumbling.

A gang of sheep, about ten of them, raised their sullen heads and watched us pass, like the honest folk in a western town contemplating a couple of outlaws riding down Mainstreet. A bird with pointed wings and down-curved beak flew leisurely by.

"Curlew," I said, pointing. We followed it till it was a speck against the sky.

"What's that one then?" Annabelle asked, as something flew from under our feet, showing a flash of white as it sped away.

"Er, SBB," I told her.

"SBB?"

"Small Brown Bird," I explained.

"It was a meadow pipit."

"Oh."

After about twenty minutes we reached the ancient cobbled road. I stood in the middle of it, arms outstretched, and said, "Voil amp;r Annabelle looked amazed and delighted. "I never knew this was here," she said. "It's Roman, isn't it?"

I nodded.

She knelt on the cobbles and ran her hand along the groove that runs down the centre. "I've seen pictures of it in books, but never knew where it was. Does anybody know what this is for?"

"No," I replied. "Lots of crackpot theories, like it was made by the keels of Viking ships as they were dragged overland; or maybe by charioteers as they trailed a foot along the ground to try to slow down. Must've ruined their sandals. It's anybody's guess."

"What do you think?"

I shook my head. "The truth," I replied, 'would probably be mundane and obvious, once we knew it. It usually is. Far better for it to remain concealed."

Annabelle stood up, and slowly turned in a full circle, studying the view. I watched the wind ruffle her hair. When she was facing me again she said: "You love the moors, don't you, Charles."

It was a statement rather than a question, but I replied to it. "Yes, I suppose I must."

"Why? What is it about them that draws you?"

I'd never tried to put it into words before. "I don't know. They're beautiful. And mysterious. They have stories to tell that we can only try to imagine. They're never the same for two days together, or even for ten minutes. They reveal themselves to you in brief glimpses, like a curtain blowing open and then closing again. But all the time there is a constancy about them." I shrugged, struggling for the right words. "I don't know, I suppose I just feel at peace when I'm near them."

Even as I spoke I was wondering if it was my feelings for the moors I was describing, or for the woman who'd asked the question.

Above us, ragged clouds, the colour of wet slate, were scurrying eastwards. Thirty thousand feet higher, the pale sky was patterned with pink fish-scales, through which an invisible jetliner etched its trail, straight as a laser beam. We walked, hand in hand, back up the hill to the outcrop of millstone grit that is Blackstone Edge.

"Are we in Lancashire or Yorkshire?" Annabelle asked.

"Neither," I asserted. "We're just about on the border, but history has been rewritten. The Wars of the Roses were now fought between Calderdale and Greater Manchester. It was a close-run thing until Kirklees joined in and tipped the balance."

When we reached the piled-up boulders of the Edge, I pointed to a smooth one and told Annabelle to sit there. We were both puffing with the exertion. I sat on the ground, leaning back against a rock and facing her, with my legs splayed out in front of me.

"I want to tell you something," I said. "About me."

Her smile was replaced by a look of concern. She sensed from my tone I was being serious, and she was uncertain and possibly worried about what I was about to say.

"What is it, Charles?"

I picked up a small stone and tossed it at my left boot. It bounced off the toe and rolled into the grass. I followed it with my gaze, as if it were some juju that might tell me the right words to use.

"Just over a year ago," I began, 'not long after I first met you, I…

I… killed a man." There, I'd said it. "We were on a raid, and ' "Yes, I know." ' he came at me with a… You know?" I looked up at her face, into those eyes the colour of a bluebell wood in spring.

"Yes," she replied, very softly.

"How do you know?"

"I read in the papers that a drug dealer had been shot. It said he fired a shotgun at a policeman, who fired back and killed him. I wondered if you were involved, and when I didn't hear from you for a long time… Then, one day, I bumped into Gilbert Superintendent Wood. So I asked him."

"You've known all the time?"

"Yes. Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, I don't think so. I just wanted to tell you."

She slid down off her rock and reached out for my hand. Hauling me to my feet she said: "Come on, then. Get me to my PCC meeting."

High above, the vapour trail was breaking up and drifting away. The jet that had made it would be heading out over the Atlantic by now. I was glad I wasn't on it. I wouldn't have traded places with the Emperor of China.

We threw our coats on the back seat or the car and I pushed the heater controls to maximum and started the engine. Annabelle clicked her seatbelt fastened and looked across at me.

"Thank you for showing me the Roman road," she said.

I winked at her and said: "You're welcome, ma'am."

"Does it have a name?"

"A name?"

"Yes, like Watling Street, or the Fosse Way."

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" I replied, thinking fast.

"No, you haven't mentioned it."

"Sorry about that. It's called the M… let me see… the M… LXII."

She chuckled and smiled. It was an indulgent smile, tolerant, and, I thought, affectionate. We arrived at her gate well before six. I politely declined the offer of a quick cup of tea and drove home.

The Peak District is chopped off the bottom of the Pennines by what Yorkshire geography teachers call the Aire Gap, although their Lancastrian colleagues may have a different name for it. The Gap acts as a funnel for migrating birds, working their way from one coast to the other. It's also a major transport route between the conurbations of Manchester and Leeds, especially since the coming of the motorway.