Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

Moira said, 'Hullo, Mammy.' 'You OK?'

He'd looked anxious, his tuxedo creased, the thistle lolling from his buttonhole.

Well, actually, it was more than anxious; the guy had been as scared as any of them in the room full of splintered bone – twisted antlers across the tables on beds of broken glass, and one pair still hanging menacingly among the glittering shards of a chandelier.

Moira had said, 'You ever see bomb damage in Belfast?'

'Huh?'

She was up on her knees now, examining the guitar for fractures.

'Bomb damage,' she said, not looking at him.

He was silent. He crouched down next to her, the two of them by the dais, all the others, the multi-national Celts, brushing each other down, sheltering in groups in the corners of the Great Hall.

The pale man had been helped away by the Earl and some servants He'd looked just once at Moira with his damaged eye.

There were no cracks in the body of the guitar, although its face was scratched and it looked to be very deeply offended.

'What's your name?' Moira turned to the American.

'Huh?'

'What are you called?'

'I, uh…' He grimaced, the suaveness gone, black curls sweated to his forehead. He looked as limp as the thistle he wore. 'I don't believe this has happened. Some kind of earthquake? Or what? Uh… Macbeth.'

'That's your name? My God. Here, hold this a second.' She passed him the guitar while she untangled her hair.

He held the instrument up by the neck, gripping it hard.

'You have earthquakes in these parts?'

'What?' She'd started to laugh.

'Earthquakes. Tremors.'

She said 'Macbeth. I thought you were going to be Irish despite the thistle. New York Irish '

'Just New York. Born and raised. Mungo Macbeth. Of the Manhattan Macbeths. My mother said I should wear the kilt.' He straightened the thistle. 'We compromised,'

'That's a compromise?'

He said, 'You really are OK now?'

'Oh, I'm fine. Just fine.' Feeling like she'd come through a war – a whole war in just a few minutes.

Mungo Macbeth had been looking around at all the wreckage, where the stags' heads had fallen. Then up at the ceiling.

'There isn't one of them left hanging,' he'd said, awed. Not a goddamn one.'

He was right.

What have I done?

'I mean, is that weird?' Mungo Macbeth said. 'Or is that weird?' 'And what was it that made you think,' the Duchess said contemptuously, 'that it was you?'

She didn't sound at all like Moira. Her voice was like the refined tink you made when you tapped with your fingernail on crystal glass of the very highest quality. A most cultured lady who had never been to school.

'Not me on my own,' Moira said. 'Someone… something was… you know, like an invasion? I felt threatened. This guy… Also, I didn't like the setup anyway, generations of stalkers' trophies, and all these elitist folk, like "we are the Celtic aristocracy, we're the chosen ones…" '

The Duchess lifted her chin imperiously. 'What nonsense you talk. Do you seriously think that if you began to suddenly resent me or something, you could come in here and break everything on my walls?'

Virtually all the wall space in the luxurious caravan had been decorated with fine china.

'Your walls, no,' Moira said.

'I should think not indeed.'

'But this place, I felt very threatened.'

She kept seeing, like on some kind of videotape loop, the man unfastening her guitar case. But it was all so dreamlike, part of the hallucination summoned by the song and the strangeness of the night. She couldn't talk about it.

'I'm mixed up, Mammy.'

'Don't whine,' the Duchess said mildly.

'I'm sorry.' And the smoky form in the fireplace? The sensation of Matt – and yet not Matt?

And the knowing. Confirmed by the call.

Lottie? Lottie, listen, I know it's late, I'm sorry… Only it's Matt. I've been thinking about Matt all night…

The Duchess said, 'Have you the comb with you?'

'Surely.' Moira pulled her bag on to her knee.

'Show me.' The Earl had said he couldn't explain it; the heads had been accumulating on the walls for four or more generations, and had ever been dislodged before. Some sort of chain-reaction perhaps, the domino effect. He had suggested everyone go through to the larger drawing room, and the servants had been dispatched for extra chairs and doctors to tend the injuries, none of them apparently major.

Uninjured, Moira and the American called Macbeth had gone outside into the grounds.

'Clear my head,' he said.

The house behind them was floodlit, looked like a wedding cake. A narrow terrace followed the perimeter of the house, and they walked along it, Moira carrying the guitar in its case.

'Why are you here?' she said, drifting. 'What do you do? Or are you just rich?'

'TV,' Macbeth said. 'I make lousy TV shows. But, also we're rich, the Macbeths. Which is why they let me make my lousy TV shows, and also why I'm here. That is, my mother… she was invited. She owns the company.'

'Uh huh.' Moira nodded, as if she was interested. White flakes of bone were still silently spattering her vision, like static.

'They sent me," Macbeth said, 'on account of, A I'm about the most expendable member of the family, and B – they figured it was time I reconnected with my, uh, roots.'

Roots sometimes need to stay buried,' Moira said. 'You dig up the roots, you kill the tree.'

'I never thought about it like that '

'It's probably just a clever thing to say. You found your roots? Have you been to where Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane?'

'No,' he said. 'But I think I just found one of the three witches.'

'Really?' Moira said coldly.

'Only these days they come more beautiful.' Macbeth stopped suddenly and threw up both hands. 'Ah, shit, I apologise. I don't mean to be patronizing, or sexist or anything. It was, uh… The hair… your wonderful, long, black hair…'

Oh, please…

'With that lonely grey strand,' Macbeth said. 'Like a vein of onyx. Or something. I recognized it soon as you came into the room tonight. See, I don't know much about Celtic history, but rock music and folk… I mean, I really do have those albums.'

'Would that you didn't,' Moira said quietly. Then she shook her hair. 'Sorry. Stupid. Forget it.'

Standing on the edge of the terrace overlooking a floodlit lawn, he cupped both palms around his face. 'I am such an asshole.'

No way she could disagree.

Macbeth hung his head. 'See, I… Aw, Jesus, I'm in this party of seriously intellectual Celtic people, and, like… what do I know? What's my contribution gonna be? What do I know? – I know a song. So I go – showing off my atom of knowledge – I go, how about you play The Comb Song? Just came out. Dumb, huh?'

She looked hard into his dark blue eyes. 'So it was you asked for the song.'

'Yeah, it just came to me to ask for that song. Then someone else took it up. It was confusing. I coulda bit off my tongue when it came clear you didn't want to do that number. I'm sorry.' He sat down on the paved area, legs hanging over the side of the terrace. He rubbed his eyes. 'All those stag heads. Like it was orchestrated.'

'You think it was somehow down to the song? Hence I'm a witch? You connect that with me?'

'Uh…' Macbeth looked very confused. 'I'm sorry. Whole thing scared the shit out of me. You feel the atmosphere in there? Before it happened?'

Headlight beams sliced through the trees along the drive. The ambulance probably. Maybe two. Maybe a whole fleet, seeing this was the Earl's place.

'Cold,' Macbeth said. 'Bone-freezing cold. I mean… shit… it isn't even cold out here… now.'

Moira had said, 'Can you excuse me? I need to make a phone call.' She didn't know how old the comb was. Maybe a few hundred years old, maybe over a thousand. She'd never wanted to take it to an expert, a valuer; its value was not that kind.