Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

… vaporous arms reaching from the smoky maw of a great fireplace…

… the splintering white of a skull-storm…

… dancing lights on the moor… a rock like an encroaching toad… pop-eyed gargoyles belching blood… an eruption of steaming intestine on stone…

All these reflecting one to another like in the shards of a shattered mirror, while tiny, vicious, chattering voices gnawed at her eardrums and she felt something sucking around her shoes pulling her down, and she knew that if she didn't open her eyes she'd be screaming like a loony.

But when she did it was no better. She blinked in pain.

He lay there in his coffin. Matt Castle, not in a shroud but a plain, white T-shirt. And his grey-white hands, crossed over his chest, were fumbling at it.

Oh, God, oh, Jesus, his damned hands were…

'How dare you! How dare you!'

The man holding up the lantern, the big cleric she'd seen in the church earlier, this man's face bleached in the lamplight with rage and shock.

Below him, the old lady with the bizarre hat, sleeves pushed up and both arms in the coffin, pressing something into the dead hands of Man Castle, crossed over his breast.

It was her hands moving, not his.

Moira saw a frightened, angry glazing in the eyes of the big man as he bent roughly down with the lamp, forced himself between the old woman and the body in the coffin.

She thought she heard him sob, or it might have been her.

The big minister guy had put his own hand in there… Holy Christ, is this real…?… and brought it out, something clutched into a fist.

'Put that back…' The old woman's eyes flashing green-gold, like a cat's, in the lantern-light.

'This is… unpardonable…' Yeah, he was sobbing, the big man; sickened, shattered, furious at what he was doing.

'Joel…' The minister, the Rector, was there, on the other side of the grave, his face all twisted up, the fair-haired girl still holding on to his arm. 'Please. Put it back. I'll explain to you, I promise…'

'How… How can…'

'Turn away, Joel. Please. It isn't what you… Just turn away.'

The big clergyman lifted his left hand to the lamp. He was holding up a small bottle. Something moved in it, liquid. Moira glimpsed red.

'Joel…Give it to me…You don't understand…'

She saw that Joel was breathing rapidly now, a kind of wild, petulant hysteria there. She saw him rise to his full height, saw his arm pull back.

The Rector screamed, 'No!', shook out of the girl's grip, threw himself across the empty grave, one shoe reaching the phoney nylon grass mat on the other side, inches from the coffin…

… as Joel, breathing violently, hurled the bottle above all the heads towards the moor beyond the trees. Then he turned, put down the lamp and stumbled back into the crowd, his hands flailing.

Heard him clumping away, his outraged breathing. His sobs.

'Grab him, somebody, please…' The girl, and she meant the Rector. People pushing past Moira, reaching out for the minister as the false grass slid from under his shoe and he almost rolled into the open grave. Several minutes later, the graveyard had quietly emptied, except for the group around the empty coffin, Mostly women and not whispering any more. At the centre was the one with the hat. She was the oldest of them. Two of the others replaced the coffin lid.

Moira had backed beyond the lamplight, was a short distance away, leaning up against this tall cross in the Celtic style. Trying to breathe.

Oh, God. Oh, Holy Jesus. What the fuck am I into here?

One of the women at the graveside was Lottie Castle.

Lottie's voice was very quiet, very controlled, carefully folded up tight. 'I can't believe… that any of this has happened.'

'Lottie…'It was Willie, coming up behind her.

'And you…'

'I know,' Willie said. 'I'm sorry.'

'I'll never forgive you, Willie. Or that… her.'

'She only wanted… Oh, Jesus Christ,' Willie wailed.

'This is awful. This is a right bloody mess. I can't tell you. Oh, God, Matt…Why'd it have to be Matt?'

'Willie,' the old girl in the hat demanded. 'Stop that skrikin' and fetch me that bottle back.'

'Ma, nobody's going to find that bloody bottle tonight. If ever.'

'Then we'll have t'do what we can.' She placed both hands on the coffin. 'Pass us me bag, Joyce, it's down behind that cross.' Moira tensed; at her feet was a thick vinyl shopping bag.

Lottie's leather boot slammed down hard on the coffin between the old woman's hands. 'You,' Lottie said, 'have done about enough for one day.'

The old woman's hat fell off. She looked startled. Like nobody ever spoke to her this way.

'You don't understand, girl.'

Moira sensed an even further drop in the temperature of the night air between them. 'No,' Lottie said. 'You're right. I don't understand any of this. I don't want to. Matt thought he did. He thought he should. Well, what good did it do him? Tell me that. I thought you'd try something. I told Willie to warn you off. It goes against everything I… everything I don't believe.'

'Please, lass,' the old woman coaxed. 'Let us get on with it, best we can. Let's try and put things straight before…'

'No. That's it. Finish. You've blown it, Mrs Wagstaff. You've turned the burial of my husband into a bloody circus. You even… involved my son in your pathetic, superstitious… Anyway, that's it. It ends here. Willie, you and Eric and the Franks are going to put that poor man in the ground.'

The old woman looked up at her. 'I beg of you, Mrs Castle…'

'Ha! The famous Ma Wagstaff begging? Don't make me laugh. Don't make it worse. Just get out of my way, you silly old bag.'

Lottie stood on the fake grass behind the coffin and raised a boot. 'Now. Have I got to push it in myself?'

She stopped. 'Where's Dic?'

Willie said, 'I told him to help them get Rector home. I thought it'd be best. Lad'd 'ad enough.'

One of the other women with Ma Wagstaff said hesitantly, 'Is he all right? Rector?'

'I don't know,' Willie said. 'Lottie, look… what Ma's on about… I know how bloody awful it seems. Hate it meself…'

'Then put my husband in the ground, Willie Wagstaff. And you…' Lottie stared contemptuously at Ma Wagstaff. 'If I ever see you near this grave again, I swear I'll wring your stringy old neck for you.'

She stood and folded her arms and waited. Moira knew she wouldn't move until the last shovelful was trampled down.

When Ma Wagstaff looked at her she turned her back.

'Right, then.' Willie had a rope. He threw one end across the grave and another man caught it. 'OK, Frank. Where's t'other rope? Let's do this proper. I'm sorry, Ma, she's right. Nowt else you can do now. Let's get it filled in.'

Ma Wagstaff stood up, put on the hat with the black balls, dented now. She said, 'Well, that's it. It's started.'

'What has?'

'There were more of um here. At least one. I could tell. I could feel um. Like black damp.'

'Go home. Ma. Stoke thi' fire up, make a cuppa, eh? I'll be 'round later. See you're all right. Now, don't you look at me like that, I'm not a kid no more, I'm fifty-four… going on seventy, after today.'

'Black seed's sown,' Ma Wagstaff said ominously. 'Bury him tight and pray for us all.'

The old woman walked unsteadily away, her back bent. Like she'd been beaten, mugged, Moira thought. Several other women followed her silently down the cemetery path.

The church clock, shining bluish in the sky, said 5.42.

When the women reached the shadow of the cross where Moira stood. Ma Wagstaff stopped, stiffened, stared up at her.

As Moira silently handed her the shopping bag, old embers kindled briefly in Ma's eyes. Neither spoke. Moira didn't know her.

And yet she did. Hans lay stiffly on the old sofa in the Rectory sitting room. They'd put cushions under his knees, taken off his dog-collar. His eyes were wide open but Ernie Dawber could tell they wouldn't focus.