The Man in the Moss (32 page)

           
The smell. The perfume of the dead. The coffin lid off.
His hair gone. Grave-dirt spilled on his closed eyes.

           
The way you never want to see them, the way you can't
bear to remember them. And still you can't turn away your head; it won't move.

           
What have they
done
... ?

           
Moira began to shiver. She closed her eyes, and this was
worse, like waking up in the fast lane, her senses lurching out of control,
cracked images oscillating in the steamy half-light between perceived reality
and illusion, the place where the whispers went.

           
... vaporous arms reaching from the smoky maw of a great
fireplace ...

           
... the splintering white of a skull-storm ...

           
... dancing lights on the moor... a rock like an
encroaching toad ... pop-eyed gargoyles belching blood ... an eruption of
steaming intestine on stone ...

           
All these reflecting one to another like in the shards of
a shattered mirror, while tiny, vicious, chattering voices gnawed at her
eardrums and she felt something sucking around her shoes pulling her down, and
she knew that if she didn't open her eyes she'd be screaming like a loony.

           
But when she did it was no better. She blinked in pain.

           
He lay there in his coffin. Matt Castle, not in a shroud
but a plain, white T-shirt. And his grey-white hands, crossed over his chest,
were fumbling at it.

           
Oh, God, oh, Jesus, his damned hands were ...

           
'How dare you! How
dare
you!'

           
The man holding up the lantern, the big cleric she'd seen
in the church earlier, this man's face bleached in the lamplight with rage and
shock.

           
Below him, the old lady with the bizarre hat, sleeves
pushed up and both arms in the coffin, pressing something into the dead hands
of Man Castle, crossed over his breast.

           
It was her hands moving, not his.

           
Moira saw a frightened, angry glazing in the eyes of the
big man as he bent roughly down with the lamp, forced himself between the old
woman and the body in the coffin.

           
She thought she heard him sob, or it might have been her.

           
The big minister guy had put his own hand in there ...
Holy Christ, is this real ...?...
and
brought it out, something clutched into a fist.

           
'Put that
back ...
'
The old woman's eyes flashing green-gold, like a cat's, in the lantern-light.

           
'This is ... unpardonable ...' Yeah, he was sobbing, the
big man; sickened, shattered, furious at what he was doing.

           
'Joel...' The minister, the Rector, was there, on the
other side of the grave, his face all twisted up, the fair-haired girl still
holding on to his arm. 'Please. Put it back. I'll explain to you, I promise
...'

           
'How ... How
can
...'

           
'Turn away, Joel. Please. It isn't what you ... Just turn
away.'

           
The big clergyman lifted his left hand to the lamp. He
was holding up a small bottle. Something moved in it, liquid. Moira glimpsed
red.

           
'Joel ...Give it to me ...You don't understand ...'

           
She saw that Joel was breathing rapidly now, a kind of
wild, petulant hysteria there. She saw him rise to his full height, saw his arm
pull back.

           
The Rector screamed, 'No!', shook out of the girl's grip,
threw himself across the empty grave, one shoe reaching the phoney nylon grass
mat on the other side, inches from the coffin ...

           
... as Joel, breathing violently, hurled the bottle above
all the heads towards the moor beyond the trees. Then he turned, put down the
lamp and stumbled back into the crowd, his
hands flailing.

           
Heard him clumping away, his outraged breathing. His
sobs.

           
'Grab him, somebody, please ...' The girl, and she meant
the Rector. People pushing past Moira, reaching out for the minister as the
false grass slid from under his shoe and he almost rolled into the open grave.

Several minutes later, the
graveyard had quietly emptied, except for the group around the empty coffin,
Mostly women and not whispering any more. At the centre was the one with the
hat. She was the oldest of them. Two of the others replaced the coffin lid.

           
Moira had backed beyond the lamplight, was a short
distance away, leaning up against this tall cross in the Celtic style. Trying
to breathe.

           
Oh, God. Oh, Holy
Jesus. What the fuck am I into here?

           
One of the women at the graveside was Lottie Castle.

           
Lottie's voice was very quiet, very controlled, carefully
folded up tight. 'I can't believe ... that any of this has happened.'

           
'Lottie ...'It was Willie, coming up behind her.
           
'And
you
...'

           
'I know,' Willie said. 'I'm sorry.'
           
'I'll never forgive you,
Willie. Or that ...
her
.'
           
'She only wanted ... Oh, Jesus
Christ,' Willie wailed.
           
'This is awful. This is a
right bloody mess. I can't tell you. Oh, God, Matt ...Why'd it have to be
Matt?'

           
'Willie,' the old girl in the hat demanded. 'Stop that
skrikin' and fetch me that bottle back.'

           
'Ma, nobody's going to find that bloody bottle tonight.
If ever.'

           
'Then we'll have t'do what we can.' She placed both hands
on the coffin. 'Pass us me bag, Joyce, it's down behind that cross.' Moira
tensed; at her feet was a thick vinyl shopping bag.

           
Lottie's leather boot slammed down hard on the coffin
between the old woman's hands. 'You,' Lottie said, 'have done about enough for
one day.'

           
The old woman's hat fell off. She looked startled. Like
nobody ever spoke to her this way.

           
'You don't understand, girl.'

           
Moira sensed an even further drop in the temperature of
the night air between them. 'No,' Lottie said. 'You're right. I don't
understand any of this. I don't want to. Matt thought he did. He thought he
should. Well, what good did it do him? Tell me that. I thought you'd try
something. I told Willie to warn you off. It goes against everything I ...
everything I don't
believe.'

           
'Please, lass,' the old woman coaxed. 'Let us get on with
it, best we can. Let's try and put things straight before ...'

           
'No. That's it. Finish. You've blown it, Mrs Wagstaff.
You've turned the burial of my husband into a bloody circus. You even ...
involved my son in your pathetic, superstitious ... Anyway, that's it. It ends
here. Willie, you and Eric and the Franks are going to put that poor man in the
ground.'

           
The old woman looked up at her. 'I beg of you, Mrs Castle
...'

           
'Ha! The famous Ma Wagstaff begging? Don't make me laugh.
Don't make it worse. Just get out of my way, you
silly
old bag.'

           
Lottie stood on the fake grass behind the coffin and
raised a boot. 'Now. Have I got to push it in myself?'
           
She stopped. 'Where's Dic?'

           
Willie said, 'I told him to help them get Rector home. I
thought it'd be best. Lad'd 'ad enough.'

           
One of the other women with Ma Wagstaff said hesitantly,
'Is he all right? Rector?'

           
'I don't know,' Willie said. 'Lottie, look ... what Ma's
on about ... I know how bloody awful it seems. Hate it meself ...'

           
'Then put my husband in the ground, Willie Wagstaff. And
you ...' Lottie stared contemptuously at Ma Wagstaff. 'If I ever see you near
this grave again, I swear I'll wring your stringy old neck for you.'

           
She stood and folded her arms and waited. Moira knew she
wouldn't move until the last shovelful was trampled down.
           
When Ma Wagstaff looked at her
she turned her back.

           
'Right, then.' Willie had a rope. He threw one end across
the grave and another man caught it. 'OK, Frank. Where's t'other rope? Let's do
this proper. I'm sorry, Ma, she's right. Nowt else you can do now. Let's get it
filled in.'

           
Ma Wagstaff stood up, put on the hat with the black
balls, dented now. She said, 'Well, that's it. It's started.'

           
'What has?'

           
'There were more of um here. At least one. I could tell.
I could feel um. Like black damp.'

           
'Go home. Ma. Stoke thi' fire up, make a cuppa, eh? I'll
be 'round later. See you're all right. Now, don't you look at me like that, I'm
not a kid no more, I'm fifty-four ... going on
seventy, after today.'

           
'Black seed's sown,' Ma Wagstaff said ominously. 'Bury
him tight and pray for us all.'

           
The old woman walked unsteadily away, her back bent. Like
she'd been beaten, mugged, Moira thought. Several other women followed her
silently down the cemetery path.

           
The church clock, shining bluish in the sky, said 5.42.

           
When the women reached the shadow of the cross where
Moira stood. Ma Wagstaff stopped, stiffened, stared up at her.

           
As Moira silently handed her the shopping bag, old embers
kindled briefly in Ma's eyes.
 
Neither
spoke. Moira didn't know her.

           
And yet she did.

Hans lay stiffly on the old
sofa in the Rectory sitting room. They'd put cushions under his knees, taken
off his dog-collar. His eyes were wide open but Ernie Dawber could tell they

wouldn't focus.

           
Hans kept trying to tell them something, but his mouth
wasn't shaping the words.

           
'Can't fee ... fee ...'

           
'Pop, stay quiet. Let's put your overcoat over your legs.
How's that? Mr Dawber, don't you think we should get the doctor to him?'

           
'I do. You go and make us some tea, Catherine. Dic, ring
for an ambulance.'

           
When they'd gone, Ernie leaned over Hans. 'Don't try and
talk, just nod, all right? Are you trying to say there's bits of you you can't
feel? Hey up, you don't have to nod that hard, just tilt your jaw slightly. Is
it your arm? Your shoulder?'

           
Hans pushed an elbow back into the sofa, trying to raise
himself. 'Chest. Shoulders.'

           
'Now, then ...' Ernie raised a warning finger. 'Listen,
lad, we've known each other a long time, me and thee. I'll be frank with you.
I'm not a doctor, but my feeling is you've had a bit of a heart attack.'

           
The Rector squirmed in protest.

           
'Ah, ah! Don't get alarmed, now, I've seen this before.
It's nowt to get panicked about. What you are is a classic case of a man who's
been pushing himself too far for too long. I know this is not what you'd call
an easy one, this parish, for a clergyman, and you've handled things with
tremendous skill, Hans, and courage, over the years, anybody here'll agree with
that ...'

           
The Rector's eyes flashed frustration.

           
'Aye, I know. It's not the best of times to get poorly,
what, with ... one thing and another. And that Joel ... by 'eck, he's a rum
bugger, that lad. Impetuous? Well... But, Hans, be assured, they'll
cope
, the Mothers' Union. They will
cope. They've had enough practice. Over the years.'

           
Wished he felt half as confident as he sounded. The
trouble with Bridelow was so much had been left unsaid for so long that nobody
questioned the way the mechanisms operated any more. It was just how things
were done, no fuss, no ceremony, until there was a crisis ... and they found
the stand-by machinery was all gunged up through lack of use.