Alan Garner - Thursbitch

“I can’t find any from where I’m sitting,” said Richard Turner. “So I’ll not lose sleep on it. Twiddle yon huzzer at ’em, next time, and tell ’em to get away with their bother. Bezonter me! Here’s a sight for sore eyes!”

Nan Sarah was waddling down the lane from Jenkin. She had her pockets round her, hands still in them, and the red silk gleamed as she waved.

“And where’ve you been?” said Richard Turner. “Is there no work to be done?”

“It’s such a grand day,” said Nan Sarah. “I thought I’d go over to Lomases and see if they were well.”

Jack stood and put away the drum.

“Nan Sarah. Woman. I don’t know why I bother.”

They laughed, and she took one hand out of its pocket to put round his neck. He held her wrist.

“What’s them?”

There was a ring of red spots under the frill of her sleeve.

“Flefs,” she said. “Now give us a kiss.”

SHE SAT IN the car and made no move, but looked out at the hills and into her bag.

“What have you got there?” he said.

“My new hat. Do you like it? It’s de rigueur . I have to wear it all the time when I’m out now. Help me put it on.”

She handed him the padded helmet. He fitted it around her head, and fastened the chin piece.

She adjusted the mirror.

“I’d look fine on a bike,” she said. “It’s better quality than they’re wearing.”

A string of cyclists from Saltersford crested Pym Chair, crouched over their narrow handlebars.

“Watch it, lads!” she shouted. “It plays all hell-up with your sperm count!”

She was inert again.

“Where do you want to go?” he said.

Her head moved and rolled, almost a grin.

“Do you want to go along the ridge?”

“No.”

“Do you want to go to the valley?”

“Yes.”

He drove back down towards Jenkin Chapel and left the road at Howlersknowl. He helped her out and onto the poles.

“You must be sick and bloody tired of this,” she said.

“Not in the least.”

“You are. I know you are. I can tell.”

“I am not going to argue, Sal.”

“But I am! It’s just bloody brownie points! So you can go back feeling moral! God, you’re so bloody virtuous! How dare you feel sorry for me?You make me sick! You and your bloody vocation! Bloody sanctimonious bastards!”

“I do not feel sorry for you.”

“Show some emotion, damn you! You, you do it all in your head! The rest of us have to do it out in a real world! Christ Alcrappingmighty! And those notes! What are you going to make of them? Write a best-seller? Become an authority? Have your own website? And why not? Help yourself! Mate! You’ve put enough hours in! I hate you! I hate your self-righteous bloody face! You calm, smug, wanking shit! Shit! Shit! You ineffable shit!”

“I’d rather it were more uneffingly, Sal.”

“Oh, Ian.” She turned to him. “Don’t hide with words. You scare me when you twist them. I think it’s me not getting it right. Silly Sally. Sally Malley. Silly Sally Malley.”

She sobbed and laughed. He held her and lowered her onto a boulder by the track.

“We sat here, before,” she said. “There’s a ring in the stone. It pinched.”

“There isn’t one now,” he said. “But you’re right. It was this stone. And I saw a ring, too.” They looked at the yellow top. It was smooth, with spreads of lichen. “There’s no sign of there ever having been anything. It’s weathered evenly.”

“Well, there we are, then,” she said. “At least we’re dementing together. Let’s walk. I want you to make a promise.”

“What promise?”

“Let’s walk.”

They climbed into the valley. She stopped and leaned on the poles and against him.

“Ian. Thanks. You’re kind.”

“Sal, I am not kind. That is not what I am. Thanks are not appropriate. You are what matters.”

She looked at him sideways, and they walked on.

“I want to go to that stone again,” she said.

“Which?”

“Where we heard the man calling.”

“Where we heard something.”

“Where I heard the man calling.”

“There’s plenty of time,” he said.

“Is there, indeed?”

They tracked across the slope from the ruin up to the stone. He helped her to sit with her back straight.

“What a golden day,” she said.

“Do you want to eat?”

“No. We must make the most of it before the cold.”

She watched patterns of cloud and sun on the slope across the brook and the swing of the shadow of Andrew’s Edge. She waved her hand.

“There’s someone by that old well. Looking at us.”

“I can’t see anybody.”

“They’ve moved.”

“They?”

“He. She. It.”

“What did you mean by a promise, Sal?”

“What promise?”

“Nothing. Do you want to eat?”

“Yes.”

“Drink first. I’ve brought your cup.”

He took the stone out of his bag.

“Let me have a proper look. Turn it over. Aha. It is carbon fluoride. Organic staining gives it that colour. And it is Tray Cliff bull-beef.”

“But what is it? What is it for?”

“There’s quite a tourist industry. I wonder why he threw it away. It’ll have cost him.”

“Who?”

“The man I heard.”

“It’s honey and water mixed,” he said. “Yes?”

“Fine.”

He poured the thick liquid from the Thermos into the stone cup and gave her a drinking straw. He held the cup as she drank.

“I’ll save some,” she said.

He unwrapped the sandwiches. Half of them were cut into small squares. She opened her mouth.

“Breathe in first, Sal.”

He put a square to the side of her tongue.

“Close your mouth.”

“It’s –”

“Don’t talk until you’ve swallowed. Right. Have another drink.”

“It’s hard to chew,” she said.

“That’s why you must take your time.”

“Time, time, time. It seems to be in every sentence. Then I suppose it is.”

“Drink?”

“Yes. But my feet need anchoring. Any of those stones will do.”

He put a flat wall stone across each instep.

“Sit straight again, Sal; and tuck your chin in. Now. Open.”

“LAND MAN WAS here while you were gone,” said Richard Turner.

“Was he?” said Jack. “And what did that high-learnt letter gent have to say for himself?”

“He was a new un; one of the best of the worser kind of folk. T’other chap died seven year back, seemingly.”

“I wondered we’d been spared.”

“Yay, but now we’ve a young master all set to be a green broom.”

“He’ll want some learning, then.”

Jack and his father were bringing the cattle down from the summer pasture. The dogs were with them.

“He will,” said Richard Turner. “He’s a sprightly youth, full of newfanglements. Not a patch on that old un, as took as he was told.”

“What did he think on us?”

“He had to find summat wrong, o’ cause. Shippon doors must be mended; and Bean Croft wants liming. This and t’other. But he was decent enough, in his way, from what I could make on him. They talk that far back, some on ’em, a man can’t hardly plunder where they’re at. He gave Tally Ridge a bit of what-for; but he said he’d write our place a good word for Lord Cag-mag, bless him.”

“And rent?”

“Oh, he’s putting that up, and no error. He wants more; he does that. For improvements, he said.”

“Is old chap going to build himself a castle, then?”

“No. It’s for here. He said.”

“What wants improvements here?”

Richard Turner did not answer.

“Father?”