Alan Garner - Thursbitch

He followed the brook to Pearly Meg’s. First he lowered the sack to the ground and took the pail down the steps and poured the unused water back to the well. Then he brought the head, leaving the sack outside, and set it back on its shelf. “Here’s butter for thee.” He reached for his stick. The snakes were still coiled around it, but when he tapped with his finger they left and went back into the rock.

Jack lifted his hat to the darkness.

“Peace to you, Crom, and blessing to you, Crom, and sleep to you, Crom; and may the heat of the Moon be ever on you and on us all.”

He climbed the steps and out of the hill into the rain and the mist for Saltersford.

At the mouth of the valley, Lankin was back in his place, as if he had never left it. Jack patted him as he went by. He crossed the Butts to Shady and down. He stopped. There was someone moving in the mist, coming towards him.

“Nan Sarah?”

She ran and clung to him.

“Jack! Whatever are you at? Your face! Jack! You’re not fit! Must I have you dead twice?”

He put his free arm about her.

“Wife. Wife. Will you not be learnt?”

“But Jack! You can’t be out! Not like you are! Not in this!”

“I can. And I am. And it’s done. But you hear me, Nan Sarah. At times such, don’t you ever go Thursbitch. You hear me? Never. It’ll take a life as lief as give. It’s all the same road for it up there.”

“NO, SAL. I’M not going to risk it.”

“You’re a wimp, Ian.”

“I don’t care what I am.”

“You did not see a bull.”

“I saw the next best.”

“And I am sure that I did not see a bull. If I had, I could have remembered it.”

“If you had, you wouldn’t have been here to dispute it. Come on. Out. You wanted this, last time.”

“Did I? What?”

“You’ll see.”

He parked beside the road at Pym Chair and helped her to put her hands into the loops of the trekking poles.They went through a kissing-gate to avoid the grids that spanned the road, and waited to cross. The traffic was heavy and the road narrow.

“I’ve never seen so many sports cars,” she said.

“Male compensatory behaviour,” he said.

“Then what are the bimbos expecting?” she said. “I feel sorry for them. All that randy paint on the body work and the wind in their bras.”

They crossed the road and stepped up to the path for Cats Tor.

“Oh, marvellous,” she said. “It’s even got a dog-flap.”

Immediately there was a stile.

“It’s the only one,” he said. “And this time we’ll not try to prove anything, or there’ll be a queue.”

He steadied her and guided her legs and feet, and held her until she was on her poles at the other side.

“It should be all right,” he said. “There’s not much of a climb, and the going’s firm.”

“Firm? It’ll be tarmac next.”

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

She did not look at them.

“Good morning.”

“Hello.”

The courtesies came from both directions as they were overtaken.

“Ian. Don’t encourage them,” she said through her teeth. “It’s worse than Piccadilly.”

“Lovely weather.”

“Isn’t it! They’re only being sociable.”

“Sociable. Sociable I have all day. Sociable is what I’ve come here to get away from. Do you know what sociable is? Smile without feeling. I’m an expert on sociable, dear heart.”

“Hello!”

“Hello.”

“And why are they going like the clappers? Heads down as if they’d a train to catch. They ooze ethos.”

“They’re Doing the Tors,” he said. “Shining Tor and back. It’s three point two five kilometres each way.”

“And that’s all? Can’t they see? And can’t they see how absobloodylutely better it would be without them?”

“Think of it as a prole trap.”

“Hi.”

“Hello.”

“Mega!”

“Know why?” she said.

“Cheers!” The walker did not pause.

“It’s the Pliocene Orogeny!” she shouted.

“Cool!”

“Eventually!”

“Sal. Behave. That’s enough. Do you want a smack?”

She turned to him, put her head against his chest and honked with laughter.

“I’ll be good.”

“Promise?”

“No.”

They went on, over Cats Tor. As the next confrontation approached, she stopped, flung her hands in the air, and sang: “The hills are alive with the Sound of Mucus!”

“Good morning.”

“Ian? We’re not Doing the Tors, are we?”

“No. Something better. Control yourself, and you’ll see. I told you.”

They passed over Cats Tor, the sun in their eyes, and began the gentle descent to the ridge. The peak of Shuttlingslow was sharp in front of Mow Cop on one side and the Sutton Common radio tower on the other; but the valley stayed hidden. Andrew’s Edge was dark. They followed the line of broken wall that was the county boundary.

“Slight problem,” he said. “The sheep fence has been renewed. We’ll have to keep going till there’s a way across.”

Although a try had been made at draining, in places the path was deep in water, and uneven blocks from the wall had been laid as stepping-stones. They were too unstable for her, and she had to make detours out onto the peat.

“There’s a kink in the fence ahead. It looks as though there may be something.”

It was a sawn-off length of telegraph pole, with the iron foot grips left in place.

“This’ll do,” he said. He picked her up and lifted her above the wire. She held on to the fence while he used the foot grips to climb over.

“I think you’d better bring up the rear,” she said. “It’s a bit too much. Sorry.”

The blanket bog and boles of cotton grass were unfirm, and pockets of mud and water lay covered by reeds. He took hold of one elbow and put an arm around her shoulder.

“Wow,” she said. The valley had opened. “Those few metres, and everything’s different.”

He took his binoculars and scanned.

“It looks safe enough,” he said. “And we’d see anything in plenty of time to get clear. We need to double back on ourselves. We’ve overshot.”

The slab of the outcrop was below them, though from the bottom of the valley it had crested the ridge.

He felt her stiffen. She paused, leaned on the poles, intent on the rock. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I remember. I do remember. Yes. Look.” She placed her boot in the shallow footprint. “Look. Ian. It fits.” Tears ran silent. “I’ve remembered. At last. Something new. Remembered.”

“Can you describe the rock again?” he said.

“I could. But it’s more. There’s a cave.”

“Is there?”

“Help me round to the front,” she said. “Here. We must sit in it. We have to.”

She swung off her poles into the arch and sat on the floor. He joined her in the shelter.

“You said it was natural, not hand carved. Is it?”

“Of course it is. But it’s so much more.”

“What do you mean?”

“Proof. Short term memory. Not gone. Not entirely. Yet. And.”

“Yes?”

“It’s a throne.”

“I suppose it is.”

“A throne of dreadful necessity.”

He held her close. He watched her pick every detail from the valley.

“What about the fingernails?” he said.

“Fingernails?”

“And how long they take to grow to Andrew’s Edge. Tectonic plates. Continental drift.”

“Did I tell you that? I must have been showing off. I used it to try to wake up my post-grads, when all they wanted was answers. This is so much more.”

“How more? What’s different?”

“Me.”

“Fine views, aren’t they?” The man stood by the outcrop, holding a thumb-stick. They had heard no one come.