Beastings Read online

  The Priest sat on a log with his eyes closed and his head full of powder as he muttered silent prayers. Immovable.

  THE GIRL ASCENDED the barren chicane. Committed to it.

  Staying off-road made it even harder.

  The pass was famous; one part of it had long been nicknamed The Struggle by locals. After a while – when the thought of them became insurmountable – she ate the few walnuts that were left. Hunger overtook pragmatism – she didn’t even give any to the child. The child didn’t need the energy to walk. She did. She needed the sustenance. It was her role to get them through. To take them elsewhere. To a new town maybe – to the land beyond. Whatever lay there. Peace and serenity and silence she hoped. No violence no more starvation. No cold morning showers; no sadistic Sisters. Just her and the child and a belief in a good God. A true God. A real God who wanted to love them and protect them and reward them for their devotion and purity.

  The one who endures to the end will be saved.

  She would walk to the horizon and then everything would be alright. Yes. She was sure of it. Yes. It had to be. Beyond the horizon was where life began. It would be better there. Yes. It had to be.

  Yes.

  The road kept rising. Each corner spawned a new curving escalation. The pass was an illusion; an endless Jacob’s Ladder.

  The walk grew purgatorial as it guided her through a series of teases and false endings like a recurring nightmare about movement without distance. Only when the girl stopped to catch her breath and turned to look back did she know that she was progressing forwards and upwards.

  The child remained silent. It unnerved her. She untied the sling and lifted it off her back and its head rolled. Glassy eyes saw right through her. She clicked her fingers by its ear but got no reaction. Its breath could barely be heard. It was nothing more than the sigh of a newborn runt kitten.

  ... and the breath came into them and they lived ...

  The girl tried not to panic and concentrated on the horizon instead. She made the horizon the boundary of heaven and when they got there food and water and warmth would be bountiful and love would await them.

  But voices said otherwise. A chorus nagged and mocked her; prodded and cackled and hissed spoke of Father and reminded her of how he said she would always be his and she could never truly leave and if she did he would find her and bring her back for her calling was the Church and she was forever indebted; how she had been sent to do God’s work in the community; to be charitable and strengthen the reputation of Mary’s through good deeds around the town and besides didn’t some of the younger fresher untouched girls need his instruction now? And the way he had turned away from her that last time was worse than the shrieks of the Sisters. Worse than any of their pinches and slaps birches and burns scratches and insertions. Because even though she despised and feared and loathed him his rejection was worse than any of that.

  SHE STAYED OFF the pass but followed it closely scrambling hand over foot between boulders. She shrank the universe down to a single footstep and she crossed that universe again and again. It was the only way she could keep moving. She tried to block out the voices and focused instead on the child on her back. The cramp. The blisters. Thirst. Starvation.

  She thought of the Bible. She thought of the scriptures. She asked for help and words came in response: the mountain falls and crumbles away and the rock is removed from its place. The waters wear away the stones; the torrents wash away the soil of the earth; so you destroy the hope of mortals.

  11.

  AFTER THEY BUILT him a new sloped roof lean-to round the back the Warden finally cleared out the old wood store. He smoked out a wasp’s nest from it and swept the tiny room and then turned it into an office. Now he had a wood burner in there plus a drop-leaf table and a foot locker full of maps and guidebooks and a first aid kit – wire splints gauze compress bandages iodine and iodine applicators; scissors aspirin matches flares brandy the cash box and the log book now tattered and nearly full. Spare oilskins and boots stayed in a shallow built-in wardrobe not more than a foot deep.

  The bunkhouse sat just beyond the peak of the pass in a hollow not far off the new road.

  There were two rooms: one for the men that had eight bunks built into the pine walls and a table in the middle and one for the women that held four. There was also a small kitchen with a range. The toilet was a hole in a board in a shed out back beside the crag.

  The bunkhouse was basic but there was food and warmth and beds and the water was good up there too. Pure and sweet. It came straight through the top sandstone.

  His bed was separate from the bunkhouse now and he could eat as much food as he could cook in exchange for running things. He could leave during the day but was instructed to never miss a night.

  The Warden’s job was to check people in keep the floors clean and the outhouse sterilised. His role was to keep the bunkhouse heated wash blankets and strong arm anyone who got too drunk or unruly or amorous in the night. This had only happened twice before. Once when a fight had broken out between two tarmackers and once when two blond boys from the continent were discovered engaged in a sexual act. Even then he’d stuck one in the wood store and one in the kitchen. Turning people out into the night in such a remote spot was something he tried to avoid. In the winter the exposure could kill anyone within hours. He did not want to shoulder the burden of death.

  Three winters ago when it never got above freezing for forty days straight and water came from melting great pots of ice and the pass froze like a waterfall cast in marble the bunkhouse floor was full with shivering bodies under blankets for days. And still he turned no-one away. He rationed the food and kept the burners glowing all hours and welcomed all new shivering arrivals.

  It suited him fine. There were new people to meet and many a night the bunkhouse sat empty and he relished the heightened sense of solitude. There was the bird-watching and animal life. There were walks on the tops. Logs to chop and wood to whittle. Dips in the stream. Fixing. Tidying. Cooking. Thinking. Plenty to do.

  Once a week the Warden went down to the lake for supplies. The county paid and he always bought extras for the stores. Bunkers were meant to bring their own bait but there were always those who weren’t prepared. They’d get lost on a ramble or caught out in the clouds. Lives had been saved because of him. He knew that. Even if was just demonstrating the correct way to lance a blister or read a compass or forcing a slab of parkin on some hapless wanderer setting out with nothing but tobacco in his pocket.

  On Wednesdays the county paid a farmer to drop off milk and cheese and eggs on the way to market and oatcakes and cigarettes on the way back that evening. The dairy lasted through to the weekend and on Mondays and Tuesdays he took his tea black.

  The most of them were walkers and climbers and he had no trouble with that lot because they were usually students or well-spoken scholars educated in some ways of the world but not in others. Then there were occasional groups there doing land surveys for the government or sent in on reconnaissance missions by the slate mines and lead works. Oftentimes there were farmers too stopping on their way over the tops to markets or country shows over in the Western Fells or up in the Dales. The rest of the bunkhouse population was made up of a variety of herdsmen salesmen itinerant labourers road crews and Romanies.

  He didn’t get many women though. Even fewer girls. And certainly not by themselves.

  AHEAD THE DOG was distracted by something. It had its nose to the ground and was pawing at the earth; pawing at something white in a crevice. A scrap of cloth or paper perhaps.

  The Poacher whistled and said Persey but the dog ignored him.

  They were walking down a steep bank in a wood. The bank was made of compacted mud with a top layer of decaying leaves. They kept sliding.

  The Priest carefully walked over to it. As he reached it the dog growled and shifted sideways flinching. Its back arched.
It swiped at its nose. The Priest leaned in and went to pick up the paper.

  Dots were streaming out of the white shape in the crevice. Dozens of them. Wasps. The paper was the grey pulp of a nest they had built into this narrow fissure in the ground and which had now been disturbed. The dog fled with a yelp. The wasps went for the Priest. He felt them swirl around his head and tried to swat them but there were too many circling. Some landed. One stung his hand and another his neck. He slipped in the dead wet leaves. A third stung his upper lip. He turned and fled downhill ducking and flapping his hands about his head.

  The Poacher had been watching from a safe distance uphill and laughed at this. Seeing the Priest express something other than impatience and disdain was hilarious. The Poacher thought this was the funniest thing he had seen in a long time.

  Run Father run he said then laughed harder still.

  The leaves gave way and the Priest slipped backwards then slid down the hill grabbing out for roots. For anything.

  His coat flapped open and trailed behind him in the dirt and his metal vial bounced around his neck. Panic crossed his face. He slid twenty then thirty feet as his hands clawed at the earth and a trail of wasps followed behind him. The Poacher bent double and laughed long and hard.

  The Priest stood and in one fluid movement ran off into the trees. Eventually he stopped. Breathless.

  He checked himself for wasps but they were no longer on him. His adrenaline was coursing in reaction to the stings and the fall. His heart thumping.

  He turned and looked back up the hill. He could just make out the figure of the Poacher and the dog beside him on the brow of the hill and when he turned to walk away he could still see the Poacher laughing and snorting and slapping his thighs.

  IT HAD BEEN two days since the last visitor had left.

  The Warden had spent the afternoon sweeping out the bunk rooms and checking the stores and now he was on the porch eating mackerel from the tin while smoking a cigarette and soaking up the last of the evening when a figure peaked the pass. It looked like a witch hunched double. A harridan from the hills like something from an old wood-cut. The figure was slow and unsteady and even from here he could hear it gasping like a death rattle.

  He put down his tin and stood. He stepped down from the porch to meet the figure and saw that it was a young lady in as a dire a state as any human he had ever seen. Her face was sweat- and mud-streaked and her skin sallow and bloodless; her eyeballs too big for sockets that appeared to have receded around them. Her clothes were rags and her boots were shapeless clots moulded to her feet. Tangled hair. Blackened hands. Desperate. Like something from the bog he thought. A creature of the soil.

  He crossed the hollow that housed the bunkhouse and walked the worn grass down to meet the pass road.

  She saw him and stopped. Her torso heaving. And it was then that he saw that the lump on her back was neither a hunch nor a pack but baby-shaped.

  Christ lass. Are you alright?

  A tongue ran round dry cracked lips but she said nothing.

  By yourself are you?

  Again silence. A heaving chest. Eyes that barely dared to take him in. When they did finally settle on him she saw a man in a thick blue roll-neck jumper. He wore a beard that masked a younger face beneath.

  That’s a raw enough climb for anyone said the Warden.

  After the silence of the pass his voice seemed loud and booming to the girl – like the after-seconds of a quarryman’s dynamite stick.

  Rawer still carrying a wean on your back.

  Again her tongue ran over dry lips still panting. Her breath chewed between her teeth.

  The bairn looks snug but I’d wager you’ll both be needing food and a sit down he said.

  The girl looked beyond the man to the wood-panelled bunkhouse sitting sturdy against the top slopes.

  Doesn’t look like you’ll have much coin about your person he said. But that’s not a concern to me.

  The girl’s breathing was slowing but her legs stayed planted. Suspicion shrouded her wide eyes.

  Tell you what he said with as gentle a smile as he could muster. I’m away to put the kettle on and if you’ve a mind to you can sit on the porch and rest those feet there. And if that’s to your liking there’ll be tea mashing and tea cake to go with it and maybe some milk for the bairn. But if it’s not and I come back out and you’re gone – well – then there’s all the more for me.

  The girl wiped her mouth with her sleeve.

  SHE’LL HAVE GONE up the pass said the Priest. Can’t see which other way she’d take.

  This was the first thing he had said in some time. He had been sulking. His top lip had come up thick. It was sore to the touch and impeded his speech. This amused the Poacher even more than when the wasps attacked and nearly as much as when the Priest had done the slapstick tumble down the bank.

  For the past three hours the Priest had refused to speak to or even acknowledge him. Instead he had unscrewed his vial and snorted more powder to numb the pain of the itching welts that had risen on his thin pale skin. The powder made him walk quicker than ever. The Poacher struggled to keep up. The Priest walked with renewed purpose; with galvanised anger.

  Now it was The Poacher who was silent. They sat down across from one another and as the Priest spoke he turned to follow his finger up to where the pass met the clouds.

  If we’ll do it tonight we’ll catch her by the morning. With God’s will.

  That right Father.

  Sooner or later she’ll head into a town. She’ll have to. I’ve checked the maps and the pass is the only way through. It’s either that or starve up top.

  Or someone’s taken her in said the Poacher.

  No. That’s a fool’s business. Word will be out by now. There’ll be posters up. All eyes will be looking for the lass. We do the pass tonight.

  The Poacher lifted his hat then cleared his throat and spat. A green globule stuck to a rock like a land-bound limpet. The dog licked it.

  You know I’ve been thinking Father. When you hired me it was for a straight tracking job. A day or two you said. Help you find this bairn you said – if it exists.

  Of course it exists.

  That’s as maybe. Or maybe not. But either way that time has long passed now Father and unplanned things have occurred and it turns out there’s some personal involvement you’ve not been mentioning either. Now you’re a man of God and as you know that’s not my interest. That’s your lookout. But you’re known Father – feared even – and I was prepared to go along with all this. For a bit. But who’s to say the same thing won’t come of this lass when we catch up with her as did befall old Tom Solomon?

  What do you care.

  I don’t particularly. But she’s better than you think this lass. She’s no dummy this one. If she was she’d be caught be now. She’s got heart. I can tell that. And a head and all. Or the right instinct anyways. Days we’ve been trailing her and we’ve not even seen so much as her shadow. Sometimes the hunter can’t help but respect the hunted.

  Respect scoffed the Priest. You must be out of your narrow backward mind. The girl’s stolen a baby man. Someone’s child. Does that not matter to you?

  Aye – and that’s unfortunate. But you’re not angelic yourself are you Father. You’ve been committing your own sins and then dismissing them in the name of God. Them poor lasses. You’ve been getting right in there haven’t you? Course you have. I know what you do Father and I don’t like it. Don’t like it a bit. You’re all at it you religious lot. Beast behaviour. But I’m not a prying man. Secrets are secrets for a reason. So here’s what I’m suggesting; you double my payment for services rendered and maybe think about putting the word in for me with that keeper’s cottage up on the estate. The gate house. Lovely little place that is and I know you’ve clout with the councillors Father. I know how the town works. I’ve got eyes a
nd ears.

  The Poacher turned gamekeeper said the Priest. Very good.

  Whatever you like Father. You’re the word man not me. But you see to it that it‘s mine from the autumn and I’m liable to keep quiet about all this mess you’ve made.

  And if I don’t?

  Well I reckon me and Persey will be on our ways.

  You think I need you when I’m this close to finding the girl don’t you? said the Priest. Well off you go then. You’re feckless and useless anyway. Disposable. But the dog stays.

  The two men stared at each other for a moment.

  Of course not all secrets stay secret shrugged the Poacher. It might be that I stop off at The Shoulder for a drink and a catch-up with the boys on the way. Boys what have daughters of their own. Tough lads but sympathetic in their own ways. Moral like.

  You’re threatening me said the Priest.

  Sex stuff tutted the Poacher. Orphan girls. The church. Bodies in caves. Addictions. Weaknesses. It’s not good Father. Not good at all. I mean no institution lasts forever. Things can quickly crumble. Just a few words could cause a dozen cathedrals to fall

  The Priest said nothing.

  Sleep-talking is a peculiar thing as well said the Poacher. Isn’t it Father.

  The Priest stood. He faced the Poacher now and then he spoke and when he did his swollen lips peeled back and the Poacher saw that his blue gums were bleeding.

  Because he practiced extortion and robbed his brother and did what is not good among his people said the Priest. Behold: he shall die for his iniquity.

  Father I’m done with your bible shit said the Poacher.

  Ezekiel said the Priest. 18:18.

  THE WATER BOILED and the Warden walked to his room and parted the curtains. He looked out. The girl was walking slowly towards the porch. He heard her boots on the creaking timber. She sat.