Jon McGregor - Reservoir 13

On Mischief Night there were stink bombs down every side street and passageway until the supplies ran out. Irene was heard grumbling that if they thought that was mischief they were leading very sheltered lives indeed. She asked if she’d ever told the story about her late husband hiding an entire dairy herd, and was told that indeed she had. There were costumes from popular horror films, and pumpkins with carved, glowing faces. Few turnips now. The stubbled fields on the south side of the church were thick with fieldfares feeding. In the pub while Irene was cleaning there was talk of a Bond film the cinema club was putting on. Someone said it wasn’t one of the better Bonds, and Irene said if it was the one with Daniel Craig in then it was the best. Now there’s a man, she said. I’d pay good money to watch that man in a documentary about paint drying. She had expected laughter but there was silence. She carried on mopping, and told them to lift their feet. She didn’t know why she’d said anything. People were surprised. Thought if you were sleeping alone that your blood had stopped circulating. Thought if you were not capable of exciting a man’s attention there was no excitement left in you. People were surprised by the most obvious things sometimes, it seemed. You only live twice, Tony said, from behind the bar. Classic Connery, Martin chipped in. There was a debate. Irene put the mop bucket away. At the school there was a row when Mrs Simpson brought in some heating engineers to inspect the boilerhouse and Jones refused them access. You can’t do this kind of thing without notice, he said. It’s not your boilerhouse, Mr Jones. I’ll not be pushed, he told her, and the engineers said they’d come back another day.

Cathy knocked on Mr Wilson’s door and asked whether Nelson needed a walk, and he told her the kettle was already on. Nelson paced backwards and forwards while they sat in the front room, his tail crashing against the coffee table. Mr Wilson had been baking cakes again. They were really very good, but she knew there was no point asking why he never donated cakes to village events. That’s more of a ladies’ thing, isn’t it? he’d said, the one time she had asked. She’d told him this was nonsense, but knew he wouldn’t change his mind. She couldn’t remember him doing any baking while his wife was alive. But that was a long time ago now. She probably wouldn’t have noticed if he had. Jean had died fifteen years before, or more, when Cathy’s boys weren’t yet at school, and it was all Cathy could have done then to know what day it was. She remembered standing behind the front door with them and counting to ten, regaining her composure, so that she could walk through the village without it being apparent that she’d had to physically wrestle them into their clothes, and clean food off the walls, and scream into a pile of cushions. And then straighten clothes, smile, open door. Be ready to say good morning, be ready to listen to advice from anyone who passed in the street. Mr Wilson hadn’t been elderly then at all, she realised. He possibly hadn’t even retired. And yet she’d always thought of him as that, as elderly. Unconscious association with the word widower, perhaps. Or the distance of youth. Although she hadn’t been as young as all that, and had felt older, so much older all of a sudden, tired all the time. Smile, breathe, straighten clothes, open door. Be ready to agree what a delight the two boys were, to agree that yes they were a handful sometimes but it was worth it in the end, with a chuckle. Always the fucking chuckles, in those days. And keeping it together all the way down the lane because Mr Wilson was so often outside his house, doing something with the flowers or mucking about with his dog — it wasn’t Nelson then, this was a pointer, Franklin — and then collapsing through the front door but not stopping because she couldn’t stop, she could never stop, the boys always needed something else or were breaking something else and the tea needed making and the boys needed putting to bed, please, finally, and Patrick needed something when he got home. She finished her tea, and thanked Mr Wilson for the cake, and went to fetch Nelson’s lead. The sound of a truck came from way up in Hunter’s wood, dragging out timber, the engine over-revving with the strain on the heavy ground. The first snows of the winter fell at the end of the month but they were wet and they didn’t settle.

The Christmas decorations went up in the square and Tony put up a sign saying he was taking bookings for Christmas dinners. There was carol singing on the radio in the tractor shed, and when Gordon Jackson heard Will singing along to ‘Silent Night’ he wouldn’t give over about it for days. He kept breaking into Shepherds quake at the sight every time Will came into the room. Susanna’s ex-husband opened the shop door one afternoon and said hello as though he’d been invited. He seemed relaxed and open-handed, but there was something about the way he shut the door behind him. Susanna, he said. Here you are. Smiling broadly. He was a small man. He was. She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. She looked past him through the window and there was no one outside. People tended not to pass through on this street. He stayed between her and the door and he asked how she’d been. Her phone was on the shelf beside the till, and he was in the way of that as well. It was a small shop. She wanted to ask him to leave but it didn’t feel safe. She felt all her placatory instincts rushing back. Her passive defences. But she kept her posture tall. She tightened her core. She told him she was well and asked what had brought him here. Susanna, relax. You seem tense. Come on. I’m not here to stir anything up. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not here to win you back. She breathed through the rush of irritation. She shook her head very slightly and he stepped towards her. I’m just here to see Ashleigh. It’s been long enough. She needs a father. She shook her head again. Ashleigh’s at school, she said. I can wait, he replied. This isn’t what we agreed, she told him. You’re not supposed to be here. He took another step towards her, but with his palms held out as though this would make it look like he was stepping back. Susanna, we didn’t agree anything. The way he said the word agree . She stood very still. Her phone was out of reach. The shop was small. She heard his breathing quicken as he stepped towards her.

The pantomime was Goldilocks and the Three Bears . Andrew was cast as Baby Bear. He was too old for this but he went along with it because he knew his mother would be happy. He could feel his speech thickening with the anxiety of being on stage, and it was muffled further by the costume’s fluffy head. When he found Olivia Hunter sleeping in his bed, her long blonde plaits trailing over the pillow, he gave up trying to make himself understood and just watched over her. This felt like the right thing to do. There was something peaceful in it, he thought. Jess Hunter was dressed as Mummy Bear and she came rushing on stage to talk. Who’s that sleeping in your bed, Baby Bear? she asked, and even with the fixed features of the bear costume Andrew managed to look baffled. He left the stage sooner than the script required, and afterwards couldn’t be found for a time. Richard Clark came home for New Year’s Eve and his sisters were talking again about their mother moving into a home. The conversations were whispered and fraught and she cottoned on. I’ll be going nowhere, she said. You needn’t worry about that. You’ll have to carry me out in a box. Don’t upset yourself, Mum, Rachel said, raising her voice as though hearing or lack of understanding was one of Mrs Clark’s problems. We just want you to be somewhere you can be a bit more comfortable, Sarah added. Somewhere you can forget about me, you mean. Somewhere we don’t need to be worrying about you every five minutes, Mum, yes. Come on now. Don’t take on. Richard watched the conversation as if he had no part to play. It was as though they were following a script. The decision would be made without him, either way. He had to leave early to get back for a meeting, and when he left they were still discussing it. There were lights seen in the caravan in Fletcher’s orchard, and someone moving around. The brambles began to be cleared. Mike Jackson sorted all the paperwork for his trip to Australia, and was starting to pack a bag. Maisie refused to help him or to even discuss it. You’re breaking your father’s heart, she told him, and he was more or less sure this wasn’t true. He’s just putting on a brave face, Maisie said. The missing girl’s name was Rebecca, or Becky, or Bex. In the photo her face was half-turned away from the camera as though she didn’t want to be seen, as though she wanted to be somewhere else. She would be twenty years old by now but she was always spoken of as a girl. It had been seven years, and there was talk that now she would legally have to be declared dead. This turned out to have no basis in law, according to a statement released by the police. Any such declaration would always depend on the circumstances. The girl’s parents had never stopped looking and the police statement confirmed that the case remained open. In the village people looked up to the hills and felt that they’d long known. She could have walked high over the moor and stumbled into a flooded clough and sunk cold and deep in the wet peat before the dogs and thermal cameras came anywhere near, her skin tanned leather-brown and soft and her hair coiled neatly around her. She could have fallen anywhere and be lying there still.