Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

She’d be fine on her own for the time. She was too smart for them to catch her. And anyhow, I felt calm on my tod, with her off someplace else a while. It bated me yearning her. It was worse, somehow, when I was with her.

Ibided in the wood as the shadows of trees crept round the clearing. She’d been gone two hours since I’d got back, and a thought was settling, something had happened.

I shouldered my rucksack and set off, bugger knows where to, she might’ve been anyplace. Lain on the heather, her leg broke from slipping down a buckle in the ground, or lost, her bearings swallowed up by the Moors. I hadn’t a sign of her, as I scanned out again from the viewpoint, she could’ve been sat next the idlebacks’ bonfire for all I knew, giggling herself daft as they larked about telling jokes and chucking stones at beer cans.

I walked a wide circle around the wood, one eye busy for clues of what direction she’d gone — a footprint, or something dropped to the ground — but a half-hour later I was back at the viewpoint, thinking what to do. If she was down there on the plain, she’d need be careful. By now all the villages would be crawling with police, and an uprising of shopkeepers. Could’ve been she was hid waiting behind a wall or a bush for them to clear off, that was why she’d took so long. They’d have her if she wasn’t patient, and then it’d all be over, some copper marching her to the door of a police car — there, that’s one of them caught! Now, you can’t keep quiet forever, lass, where is he? Where’s Lankenstein, then? A small smile showing on her lips. You’re a mentalist if you think I’m telling you. Right, if that’s the way you’re going to be, you can get in the car and we’ll see what Chickenhead has to say about it when you get back, shall we? He opens the door all stern-faced, waiting for her to climb in the back — and look who’s there, sat aside the window. Stone the crows if it isn’t old Greengrass, spluttering his innards into his mucky red neckerchief. The door locks behind her and the copper’s face appears at the window, giving the nod toward Greengrass. We found him up at the manor house, he says, he was leading the tourists on a trip round the grounds.

I decided I’d search otherways from the plain and the coast, into the Moors. That was the only way she could’ve gone, else I’d have seen her. I set off across the small moor leading toward Goathland and the great expanse beyond.

The problem was, my brain was in a nazzartly mood, playing tricks, befuddling me with doubt. Are you sure you hadn’t made a plan with her before you left, to meet up someplace else? You must’ve forgot because you were upshelled seeing the newspaper. I closed my eyes, trying to remember what I’d said, and I was fair sure, last thing I’d told her was to wait there while I got breakfast. My brain could riddle with me all it liked, but that was what I’d said, certain, and I felt a spark of anger she’d ignored me. Why’d she gone off bogtrotting, when I’d told her to wait? She was too mooded for doing as she liked, was why. I’d have to put her right. She couldn’t go behaving like that any more, we had to be more careful now the police were looking for us. She didn’t know that yet, mind, I had to give her that.

I pressed on, a muck-lather of sweat greasing my forehead and itching at my pits. It was a teasing piece of moorland, this, small enough I could see the limit of it all sides, yet it’d still take another hour getting past, even at the crack I was on. And each step, I knew I might’ve been going the wrong direction, moving away from her. There was a dirty smirk of chimney smoke up ahead, over Goathland. Some cloth-head had a fire going, no matter it was a mafting hot afternoon. I headed toward it, though I wasn’t minded for going in the village, I didn’t think she’d likely be there — I’d skirt round instead, get on to the Moors proper, where I could scan out over the vast. I quickened onward. This wasn’t real moor, this part. The Moors laid themselves bare to boulders of wind that had swelled for miles, gathering and gusting and preventing all but the deepest-rooted, thickest-skinned articles from surviving. This cosy stretch of land here was coddled with woods and villages protecting it. Most of it wasn’t even heather, it was lush blankets of long grass swooning in the druft.

I was nearing Goathland, close enough to see the bright-coloured movements of tourists tantling about, but something made me stop a moment — my brain wasn’t done niggling at me still. A thought floated into my head, simple and innocent as a bird flying through the kitchen window. What if she’d snuck away on purpose? It certain wasn’t a stretch of the legs she’d gone for, it didn’t need half a day for that. And I’d know if they’d found her, there would’ve been plenty enough footmarks around the wood, they’d have been waiting there to catch me anyhow. It started panicking about my head. I should’ve thought it earlier, I was soft in the brain, waiting all that time for her to come back. It was the bracelet still. I shouldn’t have left her, I should’ve seen she was mardy again — what if they found her before she came to her senses? It was his fault. What did he think, he’d bought her a gradely present, a sneck-lifter, she’d let him do what he liked after he gave it her? The great nimrod. I had a picture of her sat on a hump of ground, bluthering, her face all smeared and the bracelet turning round and round in her fingers, why did he have to do it? Everything would be fine if he hadn’t broken it.

I passed through the wood by the side of Goathland, hiding once behind a tree when I thought I heard a tourist near, strayed from the village. I waited, listening for voices, until it turned out to be a squirrel scraffling in the undergrowth and I carried on, careful down a dip, over the railway, then up the other side to the top, where the Moors bulled up in front of me. Well, ramblers, it’s a gradely day for it, there’s no doubting. The clearest yet — the twitchers will be out in force, an afternoon like this, the hides’ll be full. Oh, they will, you’re right about that. And what are you spotting for, yourself, Lankenstein? Meadow pipits, is it? Grouse? The heather’s thriving with them right now, before the shooting season starts. I looked away over the Moors. No, no, it’s a different breed I’m after. Girlspotting is what I’m at. Is that right? Well, good luck to you, you don’t see a great many of them round these parts, I must say. Not really the habitat, what with the wind and the cold and blather, blather, blather — I stopped listening then, my senses locked on something else, for I had a sighting.

Two miles off, a prick of blue was creeping northward. Back the direction we’d come. She was off home, then. Found her way smart enough, I had to give her that, I didn’t know how she’d managed it. Maybe she’d left herself a trail. Oldest trick in the book, I should’ve thought of that one — dropping a stone, or a balled-up sweet paper, every few yards when I wasn’t looking. What was that? I narrow my eyes at her, suspicious. Nothing. Here, would you like a sweet? Smart as she was, mind, she didn’t think things out enough sometimes. She was too stubborn-minded. Flighting off because she had a munk on. What, did she think everything would fettle up normal again, did she? Back to the visits up the field, watching the progress of the lambs, and going down the Betty’s Sister for a drink? Oh, she’d like that, would Chickenhead, she’d be filling her boots.

♦

I kept my eyes on the blue mark up ahead, moving quick away. She had a fair steam on. It was strange thinking we’d been running through Goathland the day before yesterday, a pair of convicts, and now she was here, a blue mark escaping home. She’d forgot all that now. She was too busy thinking on the tea she was going to eat, and her comfy bed with its fresh sheets and snug of pillows all plumped up ready for her. She’d half forgot about me — I was shoved away to the dust-cupboard of her brain, with Greengrass, and the bald sod, and all the other leftovers of her memory. A mole’s skull; elegant strawberries; a tin of beans flying through the air, glass shattering everywhere. Oi, Greengrass, budge over, will you, you’re taking all the space, you fat bugger. The bald sod pushes forward, straining for a view out the cupboard door. Who’s that through there? he says, there’s someone in the front with her look, he’s got all the space he wants in there. That’s the Cyclist, I say. I can see him, grinning, talking to her. Said something funny, have you? She thinks he has anyhow, she’s laughing her arse off at him as he sidles over and whispers something in her ear. She’s still at the giggles when he stretches her arms up and slides her shirt over her head, Greengrass and the bald sod clambering over each other for a gawp, their lollickers hanging out their mouths.