Matt Castle was standing on the pub steps with an arm around the shoulders of Lottie, his wife. Looked a bit awkward, Ernie noticed, on account of Lottie was very nearly as tall as Matt.
Lottie Castle. Long time since he'd seen her. By 'eck, still a stunner, hair strikingly red, although some of that probably came out of a bottle nowadays. Aye, that's it, lad, Ernie encouraged himself. Think about sex, what you can remember. Nowt like it for refocusing the mind after a shock.
How had she known? Was the bogman part of the Bridelow tradition? Was that it? By 'eck, it needed some thinking about, did this.
But not now.
'I'll stand here.' Matt Castle was smiling so hard he could hardly get the words between his teeth. 'So's you can all hear me, inside and out. Can you all hear me?'
'What's he say?' somebody bleated, to merry laughter, from about three yards in front of Matt. Ernie noted, rather disapprovingly, that some of this lot were half-pissed already.
'Yes, we can,' Ernie called helpfully from the edge of the forecourt.
'Thank you, Mr Dawber.'
Ernie smiled. All his ex-pupils, from no matter how far back, insisted on calling him Mr Dawber. When they'd first met, he was a baby-faced twenty-one and Matt Castle was eleven, in the top class. So he'd be fifty-six or seven now. Talk about time flying…
'I just want to say,' said the new licensee, shock-haired and stocky, 'that… well… it's bloody great to be back!'
And of course a huge cheer went up on both sides of the door. Matt Castle, Bridelow-born, had returned in triumph, like the home team bringing back the cup.
Except this was more important to the community than a bit of local glory. 'Looks well, doesn't he?' Ernie whispered to Ma Wagstaff, who didn't reply.
'Always wanted a pub of me own,' Matt told everybody. 'Never dared to dream it'd be this pub.'
The Man I'th Moss hung around him like a great black overcoat many sizes too big. Ernie hoped to God it was all going to work out. Draughty old pile, too many rooms… cellars, attics… take a bit of upkeep, absorb all the contents of your bank account by osmosis.
'To me, like to everybody else, I suppose, this was always Bridelow Brewery's pub.' Matt was dressed up tonight, suit and tie. 'We thought it always would be.'
At which point, quite a few people turned to look for Shaw Horridge, who'd long gone.
'But everything changes,' Matt said. 'Fortunes rise and fall, and this village owes the Horridge family too much not to make the effort to understand why, in the end, they were forced to part with the pub…and, of course, the brewery.'
We've all made the effort, Ernie thought, as others murmured. And we still don't understand why.
'Eeeh,' Matt said, his accent getting broader the more he spoke. 'Eeeh, I wish I were rich. Rich enough to buy the bloody lot. But at least I could put together enough for this place. Couldn't stand seeing it turned into a Berni Inn or summat.'
No, lad, Ernie thought. Left to rot.
'But… we got ourselves a bit of a bank loan. And we managed it.' Lottie Castle's fixed smile never wavering, Ernie noted, when Matt switched from 'I' to 'we' covering the money aspect.
Matt went on about how he didn't know much about running a pub, but what he did know was music. They could expect plenty of that in The Man I'th Moss.
Matt grinned. 'I know there's a few of you out there can sing a bit. And I remember, when I was a lad, there used to be a troupe of morris dancers. Where'd they go to?'
'Orthopaedic hospital,' somebody said.
'Bugger off,' said Matt. There's to be no more cynicism in this pub, all right? Anyroad, this is open house from now on for dancers and singers and instrumentalists. If there aren't enough in Bridelow, we'll ship them in from outside… big names too. And we'll build up a following, a regular audience from the towns… and, brewery or no brewery, we'll make The Man I'th Moss into a going concern again.'
At which point, somebody asked, as somebody was bound to, whether Matt and his old band would get together in Bridelow.
'Good point,' Matt accepted. 'Well, me old mucker Willie's here, Eric's not far off. And I'm working on a bit of a project which might just interest… well, somebody we used to work with… eeeh, must be fifteen years ago. Late 'seventies.'
Everybody listening now, not a chink of bottle on glass or the striking of a match. Outside, the sun was just a rosy memory.
Matt broke off. 'Hey up. For them as can't see, Lottie's giving me a warning look, she thinks I should shut up about this until we know one way or t'other…'
Lottie smiled wryly. Ernie Dawber was thinking, What the 'eck was her name, the girl who used to sing with Matt's band and then went off on her own? Very popular, she used to be, or so he'd heard.
'But, what the hell,' Matt said. 'If I'm going to do this right, I'll need your help. Fact is… it was this business of the bogman got me going. Lottie reckons I've become a bit obsessed. He laughed self-consciously. 'But the thing is… here we are, literally face to face with one of our forefathers. And it's my belief there's a lot he can teach us…'
Ernie Dawber felt Ma Wagstaff go still and watchful by his side.
'I mean about ourselves. About this village. How we relate to it and each other, and how we've progressed. There's summat special about this place, I've always known that.'
Moira Cairns, Ernie remembered. That was her name. Scottish. Very beautiful. Long, black hair.
'Right.' Matt bawled back over his shoulder, into the bar. 'Let's have a few lights on. Like a flamin' mausoleum in there.'
Ma Wagstaff stiffened and plucked at Ernie's jacket. The sun wasn't ever going to get out of that low cloud, he thought. Won't know till tomorrow if it's made it to the hills or if the Moss has got it.
'By 'eck,' he said ruefully, as if his fanciful thoughts were printed on the misting, mackerel sky where Ma Wagstaff could read them, 'I'm…'
'Getting a bit whimsy?'
Ernie laughed through his discomfort. She made it sound like a digestive problem.
'Not before time,' Ma said. 'Never any talking to you when you was headmaster. Jumped-up little devil. Knew it all – what teacher ever don't? Still… better late than not. Now then, Ernest Dawber, I'll try and teach thee summat.'
He let Ma Wagstaff lead him away to the edge of the forecourt, from where terraced stone cottages plodded up to the high-towered church, a noble sentinel over the Moss.
'What do you see?'
'This a trick question, Ma?'
Now, with the sun gone, all the houses had merged. You couldn't tell any more which ones had fresh paintwork, which had climbing roses or new porches. Only a few front steps stood out, the ones which had been recently donkey-stoned so they shone bright as morning.
'To be honest, Ma, I can't see that much. Can't even see colours.'
'What can you see, then?'
'It's not light,' Ernie said, half-closing his eyes, "and it's not dark. Everything's melting together.
'Go on.'
'I can't see the individual houses. I suppose I can only see the people who live in them. Young Frank and Susan and the little lad. Alf Beckett. Millicent Gill at the Post Office…Gus Bibby, Maurice and Dee at the chip shop. And I suppose… if I look a bit harder…'
'Aye, you do that.'
'If I look harder I can see the people who lived in the house before…The Swains – Arthur Swain and his pigeons. Alf Beckett's mother, forty-odd years a widow. I can bring them all back when I've a mind. Specially at this time of day. But that's the danger, as you get older, seeing things as they were, not as they are.'
'The trick' said Ma, 'is to see it all at same time. As it was and as it is. And when I says "as it was" I don't just mean in your lifetime or even my lifetime. I mean as far back as yon bogman's time.'
Ernie felt himself shiver. He pushed the British Museum papers deeper into his inside pocket. Whatever secret knowledge of the bogman Ma possessed, he didn't want to know any more.
Ma said, 'You stand here long enough, you can see it all the way back, and you won't see no colours, you won't see no hard edges. Now when you're out on t'Moss, Brid'lo don't look that welcoming, does it? All cold stone. You know that, you've written about it enough. But it's not cold to us, is it? Not when we're inside. No hard edges, no bright colours, never owt like that.'
'No.'
'Only shades. Ma said, almost dreamily. 'Them's what's kept this place the way it is. Shades of things '
'Shades?'
'Old colours all run together. No clashes. Know what I'm telling you, Ernest?'
'Harmony?' Ernie said. 'Is that it? Which is not to say there's no bickering, or bits of bad feeling. But, fundamentally, I s'pose, Bridelow's one of those places where most of us are happy to be. Home. And there's no defining that. Not everybody's found it. We're lucky. We've been lucky.'
'Luck?' Something was kindling behind Ma's eyes. Eighty-five if she was a day and still didn't need glasses. 'Luck? You don't see owt, do you?' Ernie'd had glasses full-time since he was thirty-five. 'What's it got to do wi' luck?'
'Just a figure of speech, Ma.'
'Balls,' said Ma. 'Luck! What this is, it's a balancing act. Very complicated for t'likes of us. Comes natural to nature.'
Ernie smiled. 'As it would.'
'Don't you mock me, Ernest Dawber.
'I'm sorry, Ma.' She was just a shade herself now, even her blue beret faded to grey.
'Beware of bright, glaring colours,' she said. 'But most of all, beware of black. And beware of white.'
'I don't know what you mean…'
'You will,' said the little old woman. 'You're a teacher.' She put a hand on his arm. 'Ernest, I'm giving you a task.
'Oh 'eck '
'You've to think of it as the most important task you've ever had in your life. You're a man of learning, Ernest. Man wi' authority.'
'Used to be, Ma. I'm just a pensioner now…' Like you, he was going to say, then he noticed how sad and serious she was looking.
'Get that man back.'
'Who?' But he knew. 'How?' he said, aghast.
'Like I said, Ernest. Tha's got authority.'
'Not that kind of authority, for God's sake.' Nobody there. He swallowed. Nobody. Not in or near the bus shelter.
It was on his nearside, which was no good, he might get hurt, so he drove further along the road, reversing into someone's drive, heading back slowly until he could see the glass-sided shelter, an advertisement for Martini on the end panel, lit up like a cinema screen in the headlights: a handsome man with wavy hair leaning over a girl on a sofa, topping up her glass.
He was mentally measuring the distance.
What am I doing! What am I bloody doing?
I could park it just here. Leave it. Walk away. Too far, anyway, for her to hear the impact.
In his mind he saw Therese standing by the telephone kiosk, about to phone for a taxi. In his mind she stopped. She was frowning. She'd be thinking what a miserable, frightened little sod he was.
He could say there had been somebody in the bus shelter, two people. Get angry. Was he supposed to kill them? Was he supposed to do that?
But she would know.
He stopped the car, the engine idling. The bus shelter had five glass panels in a concrete frame. The glass would be fortified. He would have to take a run at it, from about sixty yards.
If he didn't she would know.
He remembered the occasions she'd lost her temper with him. He shivered, stabbed at the accelerator with the car in neutral, making it roar, clutching the handbrake, a slippery grip. Too much to lose. Gritting his teeth until his gums hurt.
Too much to lose.
And you'll feel better afterwards.
Took his foot off. Closed his eyes, breathed rapidly, in and out. The road was quiet now, the hedges high on either side, high as a railway embankment.
Shaw backed up twenty or thirty yards, pulled into the middle of the road. Felt his jaw trembling and, to stiffen it, retracted his lips into a vicious snarl.
He threw the Saab into first gear. Realised, as the stolen car spurted under him, that he was screaming aloud.
On the side of the bus shelter, the handsome man leaned over the smiling girl on the sofa, topping up her glass from the bottle. In the instant before the crash, the dark, beautiful girl held out the glass in a toast to Shaw before bringing it to her lips and biting deeply into it, and when she smiled again, her smile was full of blood.
You'll feel… better. The big lights came on in the bar and were sluiced into the forecourt through the open door where Matt Castle stood grinning broadly, with his tall red-haired wife. Behind them was the boy – big lad now, early twenties, must be. Not one of Ernie's old pupils, however; Dic had been educated in and around Manchester while his dad's band was manhandling its gear around the pubs and clubs.
'Happen he will bring a bit of new life,' Ernie said. 'He's a good man.'
'Goodness in most of us,' Ma Wagstaff said, 'is a fragile thing, as you'll have learned, Ernest.'
Ernie Dawber adjusted his glasses, looked down curiously at Ma. As the mother of Little Willie Wagstaff, long-time percussionist in Matt Castle's Band, the old girl could be expected to be at least a bit enthusiastic about Matt's plans.
Ma said, 'Look at him. See owt about him, Ernest?'
Matt Castle had wandered down the steps and was still shaking hands with people and laughing a lot. He looked, to Ernie, like a very happy man indeed, a man putting substance into a dream.
Lottie Castle had remained on the step, half inside the doorway, half her face in shadow.
'She knows,' Ma Wagstaff said.
'Eh?'
'I doubt as she can see it, but she knows, anyroad.'
'Ma…?'
'Look at him. Look hard. Look like you looked at t'street.'
Matt Castle grinning, accepting a pint. Local hero.
I don't understand,1 said Ernie Dawber. He was beginning to think he'd become incapable of understanding. Forty-odd years a teacher and he'd been reduced to little-lad level by an woman who'd most likely left school at fourteen.
Ma Wagstaff said, 'He's got the black glow, Ernest.'
'What?'
On top of everything else she'd come out with tonight, this jolted Ernie Dawber so hard he feared for his heart. It was just the way she said it, like picking out a bad apple at the greengrocer's. A little old woman in a lumpy woollen skirt and shapeless old cardigan.
'What are you on about?' Ernie forcing joviality. Bloody hell, he thought, and it had all started so well. A real old Bridelow night.
'Moira?' Matt Castle was saying. 'Aye, I do think she'll come. If only for old times' sake.' People patting him on the shoulder. He looked fit and he looked happy. He looked like a man who could achieve.
The black glow?' Ernie whispered. 'The black glow?
What had been banished from his mind started to flicker – the images of the piper on the Moss over a period of fifteen, to twenty years. Echoes of the pipes: gentle and plaintive on good days, but sometimes sour and sometimes savage.
Black glow?' his voice sounding miles away.
Ma Wagstaff looked up at him. 'I'm buggered if I'm spelling it for thee.' Part Three bog oak
From Dawber's Book of Bridelow:
Bridelow Moss is a two-miles-wide blanket of black peat. Much of its native vegetation has been eroded and the surface peat made blacker by industrial deposits – although the nearest smut-exuding industries are more than fifteen miles away.
Bisected by two small rivers, The Moss slopes down, more steeply than is apparent, from the foothills of the northern Peak District almost to the edge of the village of Bridelow.
In places, the peat reaches a depth of three metres, and although there are several drainage gullies, conditions can be treacherous, and walkers unfamiliar with the Moss are not recommended to venture upon it in severe weather.
But then, on dull wet, days in Autumn and Winter, the gloomy and desolate appearance of the Moss would deter all but the hardiest rambler…