Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

We settled for the night soon after, ready for an early start. I lay down, churning over my plans for the morning. Food — that was first thing on the list, I had to work out how we’d get enough to eat without too much palaver about it. We were less than a day’s walk from Whitby, and there’d be a vast of chances to sneak food there. We could even earn us some brass if we stayed long enough, kippering fish or something, so we’d be able to buy our food. I could get her bracelet fixed then and all.

Inside my head was too aflunters to sleep straight away, there was so much to get framed up. My brain cogged away with ideas, most of them daft — we could stay in a bed and breakfast, get fish and chips from that famous café, go on the Dracula tour. We’d rent a house, someplace small, the both of us could get jobs, go out to work daytime and have the nights to usselves, alone next the fire. I started to tire soon enough, the ideas that’d come in such a rush at first starting to ease off, the cogs slowing down to a halt. I dropped off, my thoughts lying scattered around my mind, and the smell of wild garlic drufting into my nostrils from some part the wood, woken up by the rain.

Igot up early, feeling bruff, fit for anything. I could see outdoors the wood it was a gradely day. The rain clouds had buggered off west over the Moors to go piss on the Dales and it was belting bright and warm, perfect suited for us to get moving. Good morning, I told her, but she didn’t stir. I knew she was half awake, though, one portion of her brain left switched on same as a duck or a chicken roosting, always alert for Mr Fox or some other bastard might come along and catch her unawares. There wasn’t time to let her snoozing, though, I had to rouse her up, tell her the plan.

She jerked awake when I tigged her on the shoulder — don’t worry, I told her, it’s not Mr Fox, — you stay lay down a while if you like. I’m going to fetch us breakfast. She looked at me, wary. Bloody marvellous, she was thinking, he’s going to bring back some nettle flowers, is he, or a handful of garlic? I put her straight, though. You wait here while I tread over to the next village, Ugglebamby. I can’t likely go back to Garside — they’ll have the shop fixed up with barbed wire all round by now. I’ll bring us back some more sarnies, enough for a couple of days this time. She sat up, a patch of pink one side her forehead where she’d been laid. Her arm hurt, she said. I want to go back. Not now, I told her, but I didn’t say it sharp — I smiled at her, friendly — it’s too late for that, after what we’ve done. Then I told her my plans. About Whitby, and the Dracula Tour, and renting a place to stay, and I must’ve got het up explaining it all because she was tensed stiff, froze looking at me like a caught animal. It’ll be fine, I said, we just need to keep careful a while first, is all. Okay, she said. If you say so. When she said that, I filled my boots so swell I could’ve bust the leather.

Just you wait while I fetch breakfast, I said, grabbing up my bag. I was minded to run the whole way there and back, only she’d think I was even more touched than she already did, if she saw me bolting off.

♦

I cracked on over the moorland, keeping high along the hillside brim of the plain, other side from the manor house, until I passed Garside below and I could see further on toward the coast. The landscape that direction was broken up with population as the valley lowered and flattened for Whitby, veined with the dark-green slits of tree-lined ghylls joining into the Esk. Not far off, down the hillside, was Ugglebarnby, and more on I could see other villages dotting a line eastward, sucking off the river as it wound to the sea.

Someplace lower down a cuckoo was calling, the sound lulling through the still. Cuck-coo, cuck-coo, a fair bonny noise it was, but that just got me thinking — how was it such a sweet-sounding creature could be such a miserly tyke, always looking for some other poor sod bird to dump its eggs on? It capped reason, that. And why didn’t the other birds have a bit more gumption, getting tricked so easy? You’d think they might mark one of the eggs was twice the size the others. Or, when they hatched, that there was one chick looked mighty different from the rest. Ee, he’s a big ugly bugger, that one, must take after your side the family.

It was quiet about when I got into the village, but not so quiet as it was in Garside. There were some locals around. Two old women were resting up on a bench outdoors the pub, and a school-lad stood at the end of a garden path, his satchel by his feet. He was examining a bug crawling along the top the garden gate, nudging at it with his finger. I gave him the wink as I came past, but he was occupied with the bug and he ignored me. There was a shop, I saw now, up on the right, not far past the pub. I didn’t look on the old girls as I went by the bench, I kept my sight straight ahead, but they weren’t paying any heed to me anyhow, they were too busy nattering.

I hear tell he’s hired out t’ village hall for it.

Has he now?

He has. And he’s getting a mobile bar in.

By! Is he indeed? What’s that, then, mobile bar?

I don’t know. But clogs’ll be sparking that night, tha can be certain.

Their conversation trailed off as I reached the shop. All I’d do, once I was in there, I’d grab up a bagful of food and scarper. Let them chase me. I’d run them knackered, if I had to.

It took a couple of laps round the aisles before I was certain — it was empty. Shopkeeper had popped out, so I took my chance to stock up — sarnies, crisps, pork pie, scotch eggs, sausage rolls, apples, and two big bottles of water. I checked about, but there was no one coming still and I thought maybe I’d pile in some more, keep us going for a week, but then it started fixing in my head that maybe one of the old girls owned the shop, or the both of them did, and part of me didn’t feel right taking too much, so I fastened my bag and made off. And I saw her face. I knew it was her, immediate, I wasn’t dreaming it up. I bent down for a closer look, and the first thing I thought, before my head got befuddled all these other questions trying to cram inside same time, was how happy she looked. The photograph wasn’t took long ago, from the looks of her, but she was wearing a different school uniform, so I knew straight off it was took in London. She had a smile on her I hadn’t seen before and it jabbed at me sudden that she’d never looked like that with me. I shelved it, mind, when I glegged the headline.

MISSING GIRL, 15, SIGHTED WITH ABDUCTOR

A Danby schoolgirl, who went missing from her parents’ home on Sunday, was seen yesterday in the North York Moors village of Garside with the man police say may have abducted her.

They were seen as the man, Sam Marsdyke, 19, robbed a local grocery store.

My eyes flipped further down the column:

…a previous charge of molestation was brought against him.

I snatched up the newspaper and hurried out the shop. The old girls were still nattering, but I didn’t hear them. My mind was jenny-wheeling. The man police say may have abducted her. Abductor. That was a new one. Add that on the list. Man — that was a new one and all.

The school-lad had gone, picked up by the bus. He’d probably took the bug on with him to show his mates. That was all he had to think about, catching bugs, he didn’t have to worry about abducting and robbing grocery stores and previous charges of molestation, he was too young yet. I upped pace, leaving the village and following the path halfway up the hillside until it levelled out into a small clearing. There was a scrap of burnt ground one side of it, beer cans lying about. I gave one a kick down the hill. Any town or village you went, there’d always be idleback nimrods around, getting puddled. I checked I was alone, then I sat down and laid the newspaper on the ground. There was another article down the side — FALCONRY CENTRE IN ASYLUM SCANDAL — but the main story was us, her face part-way down the page, staring up at me, look how happy I was before I met you, Lankenstein.