Jon McGregor - Reservoir 13

Jones came back to the village and kept himself to himself. When the lights were first seen on at his house there were those who felt he should be acknowledged. I’ll fucking acknowledge him, Tony said. There was no question of him working at the school again. Once his time on remand had been taken into account he’d only served six months. There were conditions attached to his release but he was allowed to live at home. Those who saw him said he looked gaunt. His offences were said to be at the milder end of the spectrum but in the village they wouldn’t be brushed off. Spectrum my arse, Tony said, more than once. Martin said that it wasn’t kiddy stuff but teenage girls, and even with some thirteen-year-olds it was hard to tell. There was a silence when he spoke and no one agreed. Tony told him a thirteen-year-old was still a child, and Martin immediately backed off. I didn’t mean it like that, he said. The bloody hell is wrong with you? Tony asked. There were sale posters in Susanna’s shop window all through December. It was understood to be a closing-down sale, although nobody called it that. She hung fairy lights and paper chains and held a Christmas event. There was mulled wine and mince pies and people sang carols together. The place was packed, although it was noticed that Ashleigh wasn’t there. She was having a difficult patch. In the morning there was a new padlock on the door. At the river the keeper repaired a section of path where the flooding had taken out a foot of bank and left the gravel to slide into the water. He’d been shovelling gravel all morning and was glad of the breeze. Richard Clark didn’t make it home for Christmas and neither did his sisters. They took it in turns to call their mother’s mobile on Christmas morning, and if she stood just outside the back door she could more or less hear what they said. The girls sounded hassled, coming up for air from their hectic preparations. Richard was subdued, speaking from a room that sounded full of carpets and drapes. There was someone in the bed with him, she could tell. She’d always been able to tell, and it tickled her that he was innocent enough not to realise. A rustle of sheets, an impatience in his voice. When the phone calls were done the house and the garden were awfully quiet. Later two of Jackson’s boys came and drove her to Winnie’s for lunch. They took an arm each as they helped her to the car, and she wasn’t sure her feet touched the ground at all.

There was talk of putting the pantomime on in the church, while the village hall was being refurbished, but given the tone of recent productions the church council felt it would be inappropriate. Oh no it wouldn’t, Jane Hughes said. Well, yes, I’m afraid it would, Clive replied. Her naivety disappointed him sometimes. The pantomime was postponed for the year. That Sunday Jane’s family was seen at the church, the son and the daughter home from university and looking uncomfortable in pews they hadn’t sat in since they were half as high. The son was taller and broader than both his parents now, and when he did the reading he had to stoop over the lectern, his big hands gripping the edges as though he were about to lift it over his head. They had gone a long way towards home, he read, when they realised Jesus was missing. He was swallowing his words a little. They hurried back to the temple and found the boy there, talking to the high priests. Didn’t you know you would find me in my father’s house? he said. Jane was standing to one side, waiting to announce the next hymn, watching her son and smiling at the story being told. This is the word of the Lord, he mumbled. Thanks be to God, the congregation replied. They sang another hymn, and during the sermon Jane talked about change and renewal and told them she would soon be moving to a new job in Manchester. The river thickened with silt from the hills and plumed across the weirs. A pale light moved slowly across the moor. The missing girl’s name was Becky, or Rebecca, or Bex. If she was still alive she could be close to six feet tall by now. The computer-generated image of her at seventeen was five years out of date, but a police spokesperson said there were no plans to commission a new one. The case remained open, she said. The jeans and the body-warmer and the white hooded top would be too small. The shoes would have fallen apart.

At midnight when the year turned there was a fire in the caravan in Fletcher’s orchard. It took a time for anyone to notice, and an hour more for the fire brigade to arrive, and by then the caravan was burnt out and a dozen trees gone with it. In the morning it was still smoking and a smell of molten plastic hung over the village. There was little doubt it had been deliberately set, and not much hope of finding who’d done it. For days afterwards Fletcher was seen pacing through the orchard, inspecting the burnt trees as though they might be salvageable. The softening fields on the south side of the church were thick with feeding fieldfares. Most evenings a fog came thickly down and stayed. Andrew had another incident with his mother. She was cleaning again and she kept on at him to pick his clothes off the floor. He was in the middle of a coding run. He didn’t want to lose his thread. She knew she wasn’t supposed to come into his room but she kept asking. He was trying to keep his thread but she kept appearing at the door. He would have done it later if she’d given him a chance. He told her he was busy but she said she had a wash waiting to go on. He stood to close the door but she crossed over the metal strip between the hallway carpet and his bedroom carpet. Let me just get them myself, she said. They need washing. She came past him and stooped for the clothes, and he brought his elbow down on the back of her neck. She made a noise he didn’t understand. She knelt down and picked up the clothes. Afterwards he said he was sorry but only because he knew that’s what people said.

Brian Fletcher was still brooding on the fire and Sally knew to leave him alone. The Fletchers’ house was a big one and they each had enough space to themselves. He’d been cut off from the family’s wealth but he’d been allowed to hold on to the house. They couldn’t afford to keep it up but they did their best. It was a square Georgian townhouse which was out of all proportion with the rest of the street. It had been the vicarage at one time. There were four bedrooms and three reception rooms and a huge kitchen, and it was about three times as big as where Sally had grown up. She had a study for her wildlife books and watercolours, and Brian had a workshop crammed with bits and pieces of cars. It was known they had separate bedrooms. He was taking the fire personally. She kept out of his way while he worked it through. The fire had made him feel targeted. He found a garage in town where he could store the cars. He wondered for a time if his family might be involved, but settled in the end on some associate of Ray or Flint. That type of character is always after someone to blame, he said. After some days of agitation he came to her and asked if she would stay with him that night. It was always done in this way. There was a chance to decline, which made it easier to accept. They each had reasons to protect their own solitude but also nights when they needed to feel safe. They had sex rarely and it never made them feel they’d been missing out. Sally talked all this through with Cathy Harris one time, and afterwards wished that she hadn’t. It wasn’t something that people understood. In the rains at the end of the month a cast-iron gutter cracked and took down a soffit board when it fell. There was always something to mend and it was hard to keep up. On the moor the sheep were nicotine-yellow against the fresh snow. The falls were heavy and they drifted. Will Jackson kept Tom out of school and took him up to look for lost ewes. They’d brought most of them down the night before but there were a half-dozen they hadn’t been able to find. It was likely some would be dead by now, and Will thought Tom was old enough to see. Claire wouldn’t like it, and that was fine by him. He got the quad as far up the track as it would manage, and pointed it downhill before they got off. They had brought poles, shovels, sacks, a bag of feed and bottles of milk. They split the load between them before setting off across the hill. Tom was up to Will’s shoulders now and just as broad, and Will found himself working to keep up. He told his son to pace himself. Nothing wrong with this pace, Grandad, Tom shouted back against the wind. Will told him to fuck off, and Tom laughed. They waded on, their boots sinking deep into the settled snow, heading for the narrow clough where Will thought the sheep might have gathered. At the parish council there was disagreement about who was responsible for replacing the footbridge.