Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

The coffin on a wooden bier beneath the Autumn Cross, the Rector hunched stiffly before it, his strong hair slumped over his forehead, not quite hiding pearls of sweat, and the lines in his face like an engraving.

Behind the Rector bobs the new curate, curly-haired lad, built like a brick privy. Bit of a firebrand, by all accounts.

He'll be all right. He'll settle down. Won't he?

At the side, by the choir stalls, is Hans's lass, Catherine, who seems all of a sudden to have lost her youth. Anxiety on her firm, plain face; worried about her dad, and with good reason. Needs a long rest, that lad.

Two youngsters with guitars who Ernie doesn't recognize sing a wistful but forgettable ballad, stop and look around afterwards before realising congregations aren't supposed to applaud, especially at a funeral.

Then the Rector gets down to it.

'Lord, we're here to thank you for the life of Matthew Castle, and to pray that his soul might…'

Ernie, in the centre of the rearmost pew, locates Ma Wagstaff without much difficulty – that's quite a hat Ma's got on, with those big black balls on it. Anyway, it's through Ma that he spots… the mystery woman. Otherwise he never would have noticed her, all in black like that and in the shadow of the pillar.

Ma turns around just once, with that famous penetrating stare. Thought at first the old girl was looking at him. And then he sees the black, hooded figure to his left, on the little seat wedged up against the stone pillar.

By 'eck. They're not usually as public as this about it, these women. Pretty place, this church. Norman, was it, those huge archways? And candles here and there, like in a Catholic church.

Warm stained glass with Garden of Eden-type pictures full of flowers and fruit.

And the cross that hung above the carved wooden screen dividing the nave from whatever the altar area was called.

The cross was of green wood. Or at least wood that had been green last summer. Woven boughs, some with shrivelled, dead leaves still hanging from them. A cross from the woods and the hedgerows. Yeah, nice. And strange. One of several strange things in here – like the German Shepherd dog sitting stoically on a pew next to a small boy.

Well, why not?

But still just a wee bit weird.

Jesus, she'd be feeling at home here next. But she still kept the cloak about her; it was pretty damn cold in here and going to be a good deal colder outside, when the darkness came down.

Underneath the cloak, the jeans and jumper she'd travelled down in. No place to change. Wouldn't worry Matt how she looked, but jeans might not be viewed as entirely respectful at a funeral in these parts; keep them covered.

Also…I don't want this place to know me. Don't want to be identified by Lottie or Willie or Dic or anybody who ever bought a Castle Band album.

Not yet, OK?.

Locking the car, she'd glanced up into the thickening sky, and thought, Before this burial's over, it's going to be fully dark. Matt Castle going out of the dark and into the last black hole, and the peaty soil heaped upon him under cover of the night.

But no bad thing, the dark.

I can't face anybody, she'd thought, standing alone in the muddy parking area behind the church, pulling up the deep hood until her face was lost, traitorous cow, I'll stay at the back, out of sight, I'll pay my respects in my own way. And then I'll get the hell out, and nobody'll be the wiser.

And yet…

She'd stared up at the church, at its dour, crenellated walls, at its Gothic stained-glass windows showing their dark sides to the sky, taking the light and giving out nothing. At all the pop-eyed stone gargoyles grinning foolishly down on her.

… somehow…

Followed the walls to the tower and the edge of the churchyard where the moor began in ochre tufts and gorse bushes, and in the distance there was a clump of rocks like a toad, and if you blinked the toad would be quivering, having leapt and landed five yards closer.

… there's something here that knows me already.

No people around at that time, only the sensation of them behind the drawn curtains. Not peering through the cracks at the stranger and the stranger's dusty BMW, nothing so obvious.

'This is a knowing place,' she'd found herself saying aloud.

Then, all too damn conscious of looking very like an extremely witchy woman, she'd passed through a wooden wicket gate under a steep, stone archway, to walk a while among Bridelow's dead.

There, at the top of the churchyard, was the hole awaiting Matt, the area immediately around it covered with bright emerald matting, luridly unconvincing artificial grass. She stood on it, on the very edge of the hole, staring down into the black, rooty soil. And saw again the smoke-choked mouth of the great fireplace at the Earl's castle, the clawing thing her mind had constructed there.

Mammy, how was he when he died, can you tell me that?

Backing away from the open grave, thinking, There are people here who can tell me that. And I can't ask.

Standing several yards from the church doorway now and feeling strongly that someone was watching out for her. But knowing from experience that this feeling of being watched wasn't necessarily a case of someone but something. That the watcher could be something in the air, something that existed purely to watch.

Spooking herself. Down here in England, where she had no heritage and there should be no reverberations.

'Aw, fuck this,' she'd said aloud, turning towards the church doorway, looking up… directly into the massively exaggerated, gaping pussy of the Sheelagh na gig.

'Shit,' Moira said. 'Was you, wasn't it?'

The Sheelagh. The exhibitionist. The stone effigy of a woman, compressed to the dimensions of a gargoyle. Thrusting out her privates and leering about it. A blatant fertility symbol (or something) almost always found in the stonework of churches, mostly in Ireland.

But rarely as prominent as this.

'Got yourself a prime spot, here, hen,' said Moira. She'd walked under the Sheelagh na gig, through the porch and into the church, feeling better now she knew who'd been watching her. This was OK, this was not the white-haired, white-faced man who'd tried to steal the comb and (maybe…) brought the bloody house down. This was something older, more benevolent (maybe…).

She'd been the first in church. She'd sat here alone inside her own dark shroud, concealed by a pillar, until…

Until Matt arrived.

'… we'll all of us remember the day Matt returned,' the Minister said. 'The gratitude felt by the whole village that its second most important institution was to be saved…

He's not well, this minister, Moira thought. And he's worried. A real sense of oppression coming off him. And there shouldn't be that in here. This is abnormal.

The old lady knows, the one in the really bizarre hat. Hans leads them out into the churchyard, the pace all the more funereal because he can hardly walk.

As they near the doors, Ernie Dawber, standing up in his pew, sees the curate, Joel Beard, stride forward to take the Rector's arm. Then there's a rush of footsteps down the aisle and he sees Catherine squeeze past the coffin resting on the shoulders of Willie and Eric, Frank Senior and Young Frank and practically throw herself between the two clergymen, dashing the curate's hand aside and snatching her father's arm, clasping it.

By 'eck. No love lost there and she doesn't care who knows it.

The pews are emptying from front to back, which means Ernie will be the last out, except for the Mystery Woman. He glances behind just once, as he joins the end of the procession, but she's not there.

Sometimes they just disappear, these people. The next picture is so black at first, because of the sky, that it's almost like a woodcut.