Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

'Because you can't fight this thing with primitive violence. I swear to you, Willie, those guys go up there they'll wind up killing each other. It's like, how come you can put a bunch of ardent, Bible-punching born-again Christians in a church and they come drifting out an hour or so later with this amazing born-again apathy?'

'He's right, though, Moira,' Cathy said. 'We can't just stand around doing nothing. Somebody ought to go up there.'

It's what I've been trying to tell you!' Willie cried, all eight fingers beating at his thighs. 'Somebody has. Mr Dawber's up there. And Mr Dawber's been in a mind to do summat daft.'

'OK,' Moira said. 'Come on, Willie.'

'We'll go in my car,' Macbeth offered, moving to the door.

'Ah… not you, Mungo.'

'What…!' Macbeth counted three seconds of silence before he tore off his black slicker and slammed it to the Rectory lino with a noise like a gunshot. Willie jumped back. On the sofa Chris and Chantal gripped hands.

'Now listen up!' Macbeth snarled. 'Everybody just fucking listen up! I have had it. I have had it up to here with getting told to butt out. I am sick to my gut with being treated like some goddamn halfwit with a stupid name who had the misfortune to be born five generations too late to be part of any viable heritage. Either I'm in, or I start figuring a few things out for myself, and maybe I'll kick the wrong asses and maybe I won't, but that's your problem not mine.'

It all went quiet. Shit, Macbeth thought. Which reject script did that come out of? He picked up his slicker and put it on.

'OK,' said Moira carelessly. 'You drive, Mungo. Cathy, I don't know what to say, except please keep that cop off our backs for as long as you can. And maybe if you can get the Mothers together in one place, that might be best. Would everybody fit into Ma Wagstaff's parlour?'

Some of what happened next Macbeth did not follow. Several times he wished he'd never left Glasgow.

Once, he wished he'd never seen Moira Cairns. Twice Ernie Dawber had said his throat was very dry and would it be possible to get a drink of water?

He was sprawled in a corner between the hallstand and the front door. There was broken glass all around him. He thought he'd sprained his ankle when he fell.

'When you ter-tell me.' Shaw Horridge was still standing, feet apart, amidst the wreckage of the mirrors. His mouth looked permanently twisted because of a cut which extended his lower lip. There were stripes of blood down both cheeks. Freckles of glass still glittered either side of his thin nose.

'What can I tell you?' Ernie croaked. 'He planted his seed in Bridelow and that seed turned out to be you. Was Ma going to have your mother turned away, same as they did with your father, and leave Arthur Horridge humiliated three days from the altar? 'Course she wasn't, she'd been in the same situation.'

'I cer-cer… I cer-cer-can't accept it, Mr Der-Der… Aaargh!' With both fists, Shaw began to beat his own head.

Ernie felt his agony, the way he used to experience the lad's frustration all those years ago, when Shaw was the best reader in the class and couldn't prove it.

'They never told you, because not many outside the Mothers' Union knew about it. Me, I put two and two together after a bit, but I said nowt. It was none of my business. Ma kept an eye on you but she'd never go too close. She never wanted you to be tempted or to get too close to the shadow side. For your own good. Please, lad… a cup of water?'

'If I ter-turn my ber-back on you, you'll be… out.'

'I don't think I can even walk, lad.'

'How der-der-do I know that? Ker-ker-keep talking.'

Ernie swallowed. 'I… remember once, Arthur came to see me. Arthur knew, of course. Arthur was inclined to link your stammer directly to the circumstances of your conception, and he said, Ernie, he said, why doesn't she do something? Ha? Why doesn't she cure the poor lad's stutter? Arthur, I said, if you knew how much pain that causes Ma, her own grandson…'

'Ger-grandson!' Angry tears joined the blood on Shaw's cheeks. 'I used to stand outside wer-with the other ker-ker-kids der-daring each other to look into the wer-windows. She'd cher-chase us all off. Wer-wer-witch. Owd witch!'

She was frightened, Shaw. Frightened for you. Scared that one day she might have to banish you as well because of what might be in your blood. Didn't want you exposed to the shadow side. That's why after your… after Arthur died, she'd never come up to see your mother, even when Liz became agoraphobic and wouldn't come down to the village. She didn't want to go near you. She didn't want you ever to know who you were or to become drawn to the shadow side.'

Which, in the end, he thought, you were. You were a sitting duck.

Wanted to ask, What happened to your mother? What happened after she forced herself to come down to the village and scream tor sanctuary outside Ma's door? While you were inside, presumably. For who else would it be? Who else could destroy Ma's defences so surely? Who else would Ma allow to push her downstairs?

'I didn't ker-kill her, you know,' Shaw said suddenly. 'She said she was der-der-dead already. Dead already!'

And at that moment, directly above Ernie's head, the door chimes played their daft little tune and there was a banging on the glass panels and, 'Mr Dawber! Ernie!'

Shaw jerked from the waist, as if the electric doorbell had been connected to his testicles. 'Ger-go away!'

Ernie grabbed a breath and raised his voice. 'It's Willie Wagstaff, Shaw. Let him in, eh?'

'Mr Dawber!'

'Come on, Shaw!' Ernie shouted. 'You know Willie!'

Across the hall, the front door shuddered as a boot went into it, flat, under the lock. Shaw leapt across the hall and threw himself against the back of the door as the foot went in again, and then he sprang back, lurched towards Ernie, face full of blood and glass, terror, confusion and fury. He turned, tore open a white-panelled door on the other side of the room and flung himself into the passage beyond as the front door heaved and splintered open.

Willie was alone. His eyes flickered under his mousy fringe in the bright lights. 'Ernie.'

'Give us a hand, Willie. Done me ankle, I think.'

'Where's the lad?'

'Let him go, eh? He's got a lot to think about. We need to get to the brewery, if it's not too late.'

'Never mind that.' Willie got a hand under Ernie's arm 'Can you… that's fine. That's excellent, Mr Dawber. Hang on to me. The brewery… Moira's seeing to that.'

'That lass? By 'eck, Willie, you're…'

'She's not just "that lass", Mr Dawber, take my word. Anyroad, Mungo's with her, the Yank. He give me his car keys; we need to get you back. You're our last hope, Mr Dawber. Come on. I'll tell you.' The body was up against a huge metal tub. There was the smell of beer, the smell of vomit and a smell Macbeth would soon recognise again as the smell of blood.

'I don't know him,' Moira said. 'I've never seen him before.'

Macbeth covered his mouth with his hand. This was it. The final proof he'd half-imagined he was never going to get, that this affair was real, life and death. Bad death.

'This is crazy, Moira." He grabbed hold of the iron railing, for the coldness of it. Only it was slick with something and he jerked his hand away. 'I never saw a stiff before. Never saw a dead relative. Never went to a funeral with an open coffin.'

Moira had nothing to say to this. She turned her lamp on man's face. His whole head was a weird shape, like it had been remoulded. Violently. There was blood over the face and down from the rim of the big tank. Macbeth felt his gut lurch. He leaned over the side of the huge beer vat and he threw up, shamed by the way it echoed around the scrubbed metal.

He turned back to Moira, wiped his mouth. She was kind enough to direct the beam of her lamp away from him. Real macho stuff, huh? Either I'm in this with the rest of you or I'll go solo, start kicking asses.