The Man in the Moss (21 page)

           
'Oh, very quick. In the end, he spent no more than a few
hours in hospital. Kept signing himself out, you see. Determined to die in
Bridelow. He was even out on the Moss yesterday morning, I'm told, with Lottie
and the boy. Brave man. Poor Matt.'

           
'What's going to happen to the pub?'

           
'She'll stay on, I imagine. For a while. You know what
she's like. Terribly independent. Old Mrs Wagstaff sent one of her special
potions across, to help her sleep. Lottie bunged it
 
back at once, with Willie. She's very
resistant to all that.'

           
'When's the funeral?'

           
'Friday afternoon.' .
           
'You're going to have
difficulty, aren't you? Especially if it gets colder.'

           
Putting her finger on it, as usual. So Hans had to come
out with what, apart from the pain, was on his mind. 'Cathy, they've given me a
curate.'

           
'Oh,' she said, surprised. 'Well, you certainly could do
win
the help. But it, er ... that could be a headache, couldn't it?'
           
'It was only a matter of
time,' Hans said, 'parish this size. Suppose I've been holding out. Putting it
off. That is, I realise this sort of thing - new chaps - has always taken care
of itself in the past. I mean, I myself was not ... well, not, perhaps, the man
they would have chosen at the time. But one gets acclimatized. Headache? Hmm
... let's hope not.'
           
'Anybody I know?'
           
'Oh, a young fellow, few
months out of college. Simon's very keen ... Well, actually not
that
young. Late twenties, I suppose.
Used to be a teacher. Joel Beard, his name. Pleasant enough lad. Slightly
earnest, but so many of them are, aren't they?'

           
Cathy said, 'Jesus Christ.'

           
Hans didn't say anything. His daughter never blasphemed
for effect.

           
'I was at the high school with him.' Hans could hear her
frowning. 'For a year or two. That is, he was four or five years in front of
me. He was Head Boy. One of those who takes it seriously. Very authoritative,
very proper. Seemed more of a grown-up than some of the teachers, do you know
what I mean? Most of the girls were crazy about him. But I was never into Greek
gods.'

           
She stopped. 'Pop, listen, you
do
know he was at St Oswald's, don't you?'

           
Yes, he did. He was surprised, though, that
she
knew the significance of this. 'It's
not necessarily a drawback, you know, Cathy.'

           
He tried to straighten his right leg and, although there
was no great pain in this one, the right knee fought him all the way. Both
knees now. God save us. Wheelchair job soon. Or one could go into hospital and
leave Joel Beard in charge.

           
'Simon thinks he's a star,' he said. 'Which means, I
suppose, that the silly sod's fallen in love with him. He used, apparently ...
Joel, this is ... he used to be some sort of Born Again Christian. Before he
decided to go straight, as it were.'

           
You call two years at St Oswald's going
straight
? The most notoriously fundamentalist
theological college in the country?'
           
'I like to think I'm
broadminded,' Hans said.
           
'Sure, but how broadminded is
Ma Wagstaff?'
           
'Look,' Hans said, 'people
adjust.
Bridelow
adjusts people. I'd
rather have a fundamentalist or a charismatic than some bureaucrat with a
briefcase and a mobile phone.
Anyway, the Diocese likes him. "He's tough, he's athletic" - this is
Simon talking - "and he's bringing God back into the arena." Bit of
muscle. They're into that these days. The anti-pansy lobby. Even Simon,
ironically. I mean, all right, I could refuse him, I could tell them to take
him back, say he doesn't fit it ... but somebody's going to ask, why doesn't he
fit? And anyway, who's to say ... ? They might not be ... orthodox here, but
they have a strong faith and strong, simple principles. Ma Wagstaff?
Very
broadminded in some ways.'
           
'Hmmm,' said Cathy,
unconvinced.

           
'However, rest assured, I won't let him take Matt's
funeral. I suspect the ladies have plans.'

           
'God, no, you mustn't let him do that.'

           
'So if I have to go out there on a pair of crutches ...
or a Zimmer frame.'

           
'Don't you go talking about Zimmer frames. Pop.'

           
'
You
did.'

           
'That's when I'll come,' Catherine decided. 'I'll come on
Wednesday night. I'll get you through the funeral. I won't have you talking
about Zimmer frames.'

           
'Now, look ...'

           
'I'm not going to argue, my phone bill's getting
ridiculous. I'll see you Wednesday night.'
           
And she hung up on him.

           
'Thank you,' the Rector said with resignation into the
dead phone. 'I suppose.'

The Hall had once been
surrounded by parkland, although now it just looked like ordinary fields with a
well-ordered assembly of mature trees - beech and sycamore and horse-chestnut.

 
The trees were higher now, but not yet high
enough to obscure the soaring stone walls of the brewery, four storeys high, an
early Victorian industrial castle, as proud and firm in its setting as St
Bride's Church.

           
She hated it now.

           
You could not see the brewery from the drawing room. But
with all the trees nearly bare again, Eliza Horridge, from her window seat,
could see the village in detail. She supposed she'd always preferred autumn and
winter for this very reason: it brought her closer to Bridelow.

           
The sad irony of this made her ache. On the night the
redundancies had been announced, she'd gone - rather bravely, she thought -
down to the post office to buy some stamps which she didn't need. She'd just
had to get it over, face the hostility.

           
Except there hadn't been any. Nobody had screamed Judas
at her, nobody had ignored her or been short with her.

           
But nobody had said a word about the jobs either. They
didn't blame her personally. But Liz Horridge blamed herself and since that
night had never been back into Bridelow.

           
Self-imposed exile in this warm and shabby-luxurious
house with its pictures and memories of Arthur Horridge.
           
Self imposed; could go out
whenever she wanted. Couldn't she?

           
She snatched up the phone on its second ring to wrench
her mind from what it couldn't cope with.

           
'Yes?' The number was ex-directory. There were too people
down there with whom she could no longer bear to speak.

           
'Yes? Hello? Is that you, Shaw?'
           
Something told her she was in
for a shock, and her eyes clutched at the view of the village for support,
following the steep cobbled street past the pub, past the post office, past
the line of tiny stone cottages to the churchyard.

           
'Liiiiz ...' Mellifluously stretching the word, as he
used to, into an embrace. 'Super!' Shattering her.

           
'Thought I saw you last week, m'girl, in Buxton. Was in a
wine bar. Thought you came up the street. No?'

           
'Couldn't have been,' she scraped out. 'Never go ...'
           
'Thought you
sensed
me ... turned your head so
sharply
.'

           
'... to Buxton.' Her voice faded.

           
'And looked at the window of the wine bar, with a sort of
sadness in your eyes. Couldn't see me, of course.'

           
She stared down at the village, but it was like watching
a documentary on the television. Or a soap opera, because she could identify
most of the people and could map out the paths

of their lives from their
movements, between the post office, the pub and the church.
           
'... perhaps it wasn't you,
after all,' he said.
           
She could even hear their
voices when the wind was in the right direction. And yes, it was a lot like the
television - a thick glass screen between them, and she was very much alone,
and the screen was growing darker.

           
'Or perhaps it was you as you
used
to be. Those chestnut curls of yore.'

           
Her hand went automatically to her hair, as coarse and
dry now as the moorland grasses. She grabbed a handful of it to stop the hand
shaking.

           
'One wonders,' he mused. 'Your hair grey now, Liz? Put on
weight or angular and gaunt? I'd so much like to see.'

           
'What do you want?' Liz croaked.

           
'If you were with me, I suppose you'd keep in trim, dye
your hair, have your skin surgically stretched. Probably wouldn't work, but
you'd try. If you were with me.'

           
'How dare you?' Stung at last into anger. 'Where did you
get this number?'
           
He laughed.

           
She felt alone and cold, terribly exposed, almost ill
with it. 'What are you trying to do?'
           
He said, 'How's dear old Ma
these days? Is she well?'
           
She said nothing.

           
'Perhaps you don't see her. Or any of them. The word is
you've become something of a
recluse
.
All alone in your rotting mansion.'

           
'What nonsense,' she said breathlessly.

           
'Also, one hears the Mothers' Union isn't as well
supported as it was. Sad, secular times, Liz. What's it all coming to? Silly
old bats, eh?'

           
'They had
your
measure,'
Liz said, with a spurt of spirit. 'They saw you off.'

           
'Oh,
long
time
ago. Things change. Barriers weaken, old sweetheart, I've been thinking, why
don't we meet up?'

           
'Certainly not!'

           
'Love to be able to come to Buxton, wouldn't you? Love to
be smart and sprightly and well-dressed. Give anything to have those chestnut
curls back. Perhaps it was you after all, sitting in your emotional prison and
day-dreaming
of Buxton. Perhaps
that'
s what I saw. Perhaps you projected
yourself. Ever try that, Liz? Should do. Could be a way out - send the spirit,
give the body the bottle to go for it. Perhaps I'll drop in on you. Like that,
would you?'

           
'You can't! They won't let you!'

           
'Times change, m'girl, times change.'

           
'What do you mean?'

           
'Will you tell dearest Ma I called?'

           
She said nothing.

           
'Of course you won't. Don't see her any more, do you? You
don't see any of them. Do you ...
Liiiiiiz?'
           
'Leave me ... !'

           
She crashed the phone down, and she and the phone sat and
trembled.

           
'Alone,' she said, and began to weep.

           
'I thought perhaps I might leave early,' Alice said.
'I've got a check-up at the dentist's in Buxton at six and I've got some stuff
to pick up at Boots, and I don't like the look of the weather. Is that all
right?'

           
'Suppose so,' Chrissie said, bending over the filing
cabinet. Roger had arrived mid-morning, seeming preoccupied, and had not even
mentioned their lunch-date, just sloped off to some appointment. Now Chrissie
would have to check everything, switch off the lights and lock up.

           
'You don't mind being alone with ...' Alice giggled. '...
him?
'

           
'Couldn't be safer,' Chrissie said. 'Rog ... Dr Hall was
telling me he hasn't got one.'

           
'Hasn't he?' Alice was putting her stuff away in her
calfskin sandbag. She flicked a card across the desk at Chrissie. 'See, there's
my appointment.'