Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

I walked on. That capped it, the butcher’s going. There were new shops going up all over, feckless articles no person could use. There was one now just for gift cards, and another that sold bunches of flowers — tall, daft, dangling affairs brought in from York and foreign places, no matter summer was seeping into back-end and the Moors were busting with meadowsweet and red campion.

I could see there was a crowd in the Fat Betty up ahead, because there were drinkers on the pavement and cars parked up both sides the road. Two-faced tykes. Normaltimes, the Betty was empty for weeks at a stretch, save for Jack chuntering in his corner, but now it was threatened the whole town had crawled out to show their support. They were wasting their time. The Betty was on its way, any with half a brain could tell that. There was a different breed to cater for now — this gawping lot from the cities with their fancy jars. The rambling class. Young folk hadn’t brass enough to buy houses here any more, so they were sloping off, and all that left was the old-timers. Them that weren’t for selling up sandbagged themselves in their homesteads for the remains of their time, and died with their chops in a sulk. This house hasn’t left our family for near four generations, you know. As if the city folk gave a stuff for any of that. They were rubbing their hands waiting for the old-timers to clog it. Probably had themselves a phone hotline set up — how’s old Elsie Metcalf’s Parkinson’s at the moment, not so good, you say, she’s on her way before the year end? Marvellous news.

I stepped on, head down, through the pavement drinkers. I wasn’t fussed about the Fat Betty. I didn’t drink there. I was on my way to the Tup, for I could sup in peace there, it being a manky shit-pit no person went in.

The Betty and the Maypole weren’t partial for serving me, anyhow. You’re too young, Marsdyke, no matter I was turned nineteen, they just didn’t want me on their property. They’d serve drunks and schoolkids, and they’d serve city folk who’d come to buy up the town and put everything in jars, but they’d not serve me. That was town for you.

The Tup was empty save for a barman reading a newspaper on the counter. He was glaring at a mighty pair of breasts. I ordered myself a bag of crisps with my pint, because I was hungry still, and as he poured the drink he kept slipping a look through the taps for his paper, like he was worried the breasts might bounce off down the bar counter. I took my pint and left him at it. There was a table on the pavement and I made for that — it was fresher than the musty, dank parlour that smelt of a hundred damp dogs. I was near the door when I saw a body on the other side the parlour. Seymour Swinbank. I hadn’t spotted him when I came in, but Seymour wasn’t a feller to make a show of himself. He came in because folk wouldn’t ruffle him up here, and he’d not much of a welcome many place else. We had something of a likeness there, me and Seymour, only he was grandfathering age, and I hadn’t crambazzled myself half to death with drink as yet. I went outdoors.

I sat down and took a slow gulp of my pint, looking out as the sun disappeared behind the hillside. I could just make out the farm from there, a tidgy speck right under the brown-edged horizon, and next to it, their house. Looking from this distance, it seemed like it was right up close to ours. They were probably in, cooking tea, inspecting for bugs, and her upstairs in her bedroom, flicking through the magazines. Inside the parlour I could mark Seymour moving toward the bar for another drink. He’d have one last, until the shops shut up and a few drinkers started coming in, then he’d be gone, slunk off to wherever it was he went. He was a fine article, once, was Seymour, it was difficult to believe that looking on him now. He was a fair show of how a person can mould and rot to naught. I glegged in at him, shuffling back to his seat, a generation of sorrow and drink worn into his face. In the good days he was a fisherman — him and his brother, Sidney. That was near thirty years back, it was said, when the two brothers spent their summers in Whitby, netting cod off the North Sea all day long, and not sailing shoreward till their boat was a giddy mountain of fish. Some said that was what did it for Seymour, the spray of salt and the stench of cod for days strung out, getting up his nose and addling his brain. They made some champion hauls them summers, so it went, and they returned to town for back-end and winter with brass stuffed in every pocket. Who’s for a drink, then, fellers? they’d shout, lording it down the pubs each night.

It was a female, came between them. Like gulls after the boat, lasses started following on. Ahoy there, ladies, they’d say, don’t we look dapper in our shiny oilskins? Well, you reek of cod, but s’pose you’ll do, said the ladies. And then, course, the brothers fetched their net for the same lass. They scrapped over her all summer. Then one morning there’s a beltenger of a storm on the ocean, but Seymour and Sidney take the boat out, no matter, and come evening Seymour docks up and there isn’t sight or sound of his brother, only a steaming pile of fish. Where is he? they cry. He’s gone! He’s gone — I turned round and he’d fell overboard, says Seymour, all red eyes.

Poor Seymour, they said, losing his brother like that, though, course, there was always gossip. At least you have this bonny lass to console you, that’s something — and so it was, for she consoled him right back to town and into his bed. And then it turned out there was insurance brass on Sidney’s life, a tidy portion, all for Seymour. He consoled himself for six months with scarce anyone bothering their tongues on the dead brother, until he rolled up to town one day, not a scratch on him.

But you’re dead, they told him. No, I’m alive as any of you, more alive than some by the looks on your fizzogs. But where’ve you been this six months? Well, on my way back here, of course. Took the scenic path. Now, where’s that brother of mine? And they all lipped up then, for Seymour was down the street, the lass they’d scrapped over warming his bed. When the town woke up next morning Sidney was steaming. That raggald — he pushed me over the side! How could you do it, Seymour, they said, your own brother? And the lass was at it too, how could you do it, Seymour? No bugger asked why Sidney had took six months to tell what had happened. They were too busy with — you’ll go to gaol, Seymour, you’ll go to hell. He didn’t, though — there wasn’t evidence enough to send him down either of them two. He ended up in the Tup, instead, his money took off him, his lass won over by the brother, and folk steering out his path every place he went.

That was town for you. They picked the story that best suited their ears, but I never cared much for that account — I went for the other rumour. The brothers framed it up. They planned to bide out six months till the law couldn’t take the death-money off them, then Sidney was to return, all smiles, and the brothers would split the brass. Only article in the deal had been Seymour would leave the lass in Whitby, and keep his paws off her. When Sidney found out what had happened, he made a new deal — that he’d shape his brother up for a murderer and honey-talk the girl away from him.

Oi, Marsdyke!

My dreamings flicked off as a car pulled up by the curb. A lad’s face hung out the window.

On the lash wi’ yer pals, are you?

He laughed. Another lad stuck his head out the back window.

Yer mates gone to the bog, yeah?

He laughed too. There were three of them in the car. Gommerils, the lot. I’d been at the school with them.

Bet you thought you were right smart, giving out them rotten eggs, did you? Nice house-warming that was.