Beastings Read online

  He went into the main bunk room and crossed it. He reached up and pulled out the tacks that he had used to pin the notice to the wall. It was handwritten and it curled up in his hand. He unfurled it and smoothed it flat. On it it said:

  MISSING

  HAVE YOU SEEN A GIRL?

  WANTED FOR ABDUCTION

  16 YEARS OR THEREABOUTS

  5FT 6 IN HEIGHT. BROWN HAIR

  FEEBLE OF MIND &

  BELIEVED TO BE MUTE

  NAME OF BULMER

  LAST SEEN IN KESWICK

  AUGUST 8.

  HOLD HER AND TELL THE AUTHORITIES.

  He rolled the notice back into a scroll and then went and put it in his foot locker with his other papers and books.

  There was no mention of her baby but it was her alright. Had to be.

  On the porch the girl had unwrapped the bairn and was holding it up in front of her. Her hands in its armpits. The child flopped limp and loose. He watched from the window. Only the grimace on its dirty face and the slight flexing of one curled hand registered that it was even alive.

  He took tea and toasted tea cake and milk out to her.

  Special treatment he said. Hope you don’t think all guests get this.

  The girl wolfed half the tea cake and then drank the tea too quickly and burnt her mouth. He leaned against the rail and faced her.

  It’s just that you and the bairn look at death’s door.

  Do not forget to entertain strangers for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.

  Ignoring him the girl took another bite of the tea cake; she chewed it and then spat it out into her hand. She formed the paste into a small pellet and pressed it into the bairn’s mouth. It fell to the porch floor. A wet mush of bread and saliva. She bent and picked it up and then put it in her mouth and followed it with another large bite of the tea cake.

  The Warden’s eyes widened.

  The bairn was in her lap now. Its eyes were closed. Mouth open. Tongue blue-tinged and distended.

  Be dark soon he said trying to keep his voice calm and conversational even though he was unnerved.

  She drank more tea and winced at the heat. Didn’t even acknowledge him.

  No place to be – out there. Even in summer. Up top like.

  He gestured towards the fells

  Even the pass is pitch and you can’t rely on the moon to guide you. Moon has its own ways.

  She set her cup aside.

  Long way down the other side an all and no telling who’s waiting at tuther end.

  At this she looked up at him. She looked through him and she looked beyond him. He saw the words were registering with her. He knew he had to be careful.

  No-one stays here except on my say so. I’ve not turned anyone away yet but I could do if they didn’t fit right. Troubles are left at the door with the mud from the fells. You’d be safe here.

  She looked away from him along the length of the porch.

  Wherever it is you’re fetching to can no doubt wait another day he continued. There’s a bed that’s yours. Choice of beds. Hell there’s a whole room if you want it. Sun’ll be down right enough and then I reckon that’ll be us lot for the day.

  She wiped her nose.

  Got bacon an all he said.

  Silence. Then the Warden spoke again.

  You can please yourself and I always believe that anyone’s business is their business but that baby looks done for he said. If you know what’s right you’ll do what’s right because when all is said and done there’s only God to answer to and rightness is all that counts in this life and the next. You’d be best to think on that.

  Still looking away the girl nodded. Only just. But there was movement. He saw it. A slight dipping of the chin to the neck.

  IT HAPPENED IN the darkest part of the night.

  He rose and took a long deep sniff from his vial and the trees looked like rows and rows of crucifixes awaiting bodies. Swaying symbols of a faith in the limitless cathedral.

  He walked over to the dog and it growled at him but he patted it a while and got it settled and then he led it away and tied it to a tree then he walked back to the Poacher and unsheathed the Poacher’s knife and hacked at his throat. He cut out his voice-box so that he couldn’t make a noise as he died there thrashing in the dirt awake but silent with the Priest leering over him with his fine red hair falling forward and his child’s teeth grinding together as he slashed and filleted and hacked and tore at the Poacher who was gagging and choking and drowning in himself and the dog was barking and snarling at first then howling then finally silenced when the Priest threw it some fresh meat.

  THERE WERE FOOTSTEPS on the bunkhouse porch. The entire building was made of wood. She felt the vibrations.

  It was the middle of the night – she could tell from the lack of light through the gap in the curtains – and the bairn was in the bed next to her. More milk and wet crumbs had temporarily roused it though even swallowing had seemed a struggle. Now it was sleeping.

  The man who ran the bunk-house had shown kindness but she was anxious and had the fitful shallow sleep of the hunted. The mattress was the softest she had ever experienced. It creaked when she moved and she could not get comfortable. She felt like she was in quicksand; like she was being sucked under.

  So she had slept for an hour or so and now her head ached. A sharp stabbing pain ran right up through one side of her neck and deep into her skull ending somewhere behind her left eye. Her jaw ached also. Then the baby stirred and started crying. It had wet itself and wet their bed and now it had wet her too. She sat up and lifted the baby out and put it into the next bed.

  There was the sound of coughing and hacking and more shuffling of feet. Boots on wood. Voices of men. She smelled cigarette smoke. Sensed the movement of men.

  She desperately needed to urinate but she did not dare leave the room so she squatted in the corner and went as quietly as she could. It trickled across the wooden boards and gathered in a pool in the centre of the room where the floor was sagging. She climbed back into bed and dozed.

  IT WAS NOT yet four but already he could hear the first calls of birdsong from down the valley. He watched the glowing logs for a while and shivered in his coat. The sky was cloudless. The sky was endless. The Priest stood and then walked over to the prone body. He crouched.

  He reached for the leather bag and he looked inside it. He pulled out some flapjack and broke off a corner and slowly chewed it then he lifted up the hem of the Poacher’s trouser leg and saw a dirty woollen sock. He peeled it back and looked and then he laughed. He laughed silently to himself through his mouthful of food.

  He took hold of the Poacher’s leather boot and he twisted. The foot turned a way. He chewed and swallowed and twisted again harder this time but the foot did not give.

  The Priest rolled the trouser leg further up – almost tenderly – and saw that there were leather straps running up to the knee where a band of leather encircled it like a miniature belt. A buckle held it at the back. The Priest took his knife and cut through the leather then he pulled at the boot again. Harder. A jerk. The boot and the wooden foot that was wearing it came away this time. He weighed it in his hand for a moment and it felt heavy. The foot ran halfway up the shin and had a moveable ankle joint. The wood was mottled. He could see the grain of it. In places the varnish was chipped.

  The Priest turned away from the body and carefully placed the Poacher’s foot on the fire. He prodded at the embers with a stick and watched as the flames took it. The birdsong was getting louder. He watched the glowing foot until it became a shapeless blackened lump.

  He said no prayers.

  A THIN STRIP of light blue widened in the darkness then disappeared.

  The girl was unsure if she had seen it; unsure of whether she was awake or sleeping. She rolled over. Away from
the damp patch.

  But something in the room had changed. The still air had reconfigured itself into a new shape. There was energy out there – a heartbeat.

  Then there was weight upon her. A shape bearing down; a dry hand clamped down on her mouth and a hip bone colliding with her hip bone. Movement. Everything happening at once. She smelled the stench of soil and smoke and sweat – sickeningly strong – familiar yet repulsive and a knee between her legs navigating its way in to unlock her and open her like a bible. She felt the roughness of coarse stubbled hair scratching at her face and neck as if whoever it belonged to was trying to wear her away. Sand her. Erase her. Just scrub her away and file her down to nothing.

  Then there was a hand on her then there was a hand up her then there was a hand in her. A foreign body wearing her.

  She dared not move. She prayed for the baby in the next bed. She asked Him to end this.

  There was no sound but that of breathing; her through her nose and it – he – through his mouth.

  There was an adjustment of hips and shoulders – a shifting of the weight – but still the hand was on her mouth gripping her jaw bone clamping her head while the other was in then out then in again. Dry grubby fingers. She tried to close her legs and seal herself off but again the knee came up harder this time slamming into her a bolt of pain jolting right up into her stomach. Pinning her.

  Then she was spread and he was in her and he was bigger than the Priest and there was more thrusting and more weight and more everything.

  And she didn’t know who or what or why this was happening – only that it was and that she had no control and if she just lay still it would not go on forever. The nice man who fed her. He did not smell like this. Did not have that look about him. Did not seem capable. She submitted to whoever. Told herself: this will be the last time ever.

  Then darkness and silence followed and the bairn in the next bed had – she thanked God – been left alone and was sleeping.

  After everything she thought.

  So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let not man separate.

  After everything – this.

  This.

  12.

  WHEN IT WAS over and the thin line of light had been and gone again the girl stood and there was pain and when she put her hand down there something warm and wet coated her fingers but she did not dare to smell or taste it. Instead she checked the baby. She wrapped it up and then slipping in her own urine in the middle of the room quickly opened the door and moved down the corridor then was off running into the night and chasing the land beyond.

  There was a rising burning inside of her as she ran. It moved up through her abdomen and into her stomach and seared up through her chest where it fizzed and gurgled at the back of her throat hot and acidic and she had to stop to heave and spit.

  Night surrounded her and the ground was uneven; the bairn a dead weight. A useless parcel. She thought she heard movements the stumbling of shapes and a snorting sound behind her – a clearing of phlegm in the throat – so she turned and ran faster and let the ground guide her breathless gallop. Without realising it and under the cover of night she had crossed the pass and she had scraped the black sky as she peaked it and was now into the next valley. As her legs ran away with her she stumbled and wretched her breath catching in her throat again. Salty and sour. But she did not fall. Something propelled her onwards and then the moon came out from behind a bank of clouds to light her path and the pass was a frozen silver ribbon. A glinting guide – on her side – all the way.

  A rapid descent.

  But then the cloud returned to deny the moon again and the girl headed towards a darker patch in the landscape – some much-needed cover – still running and stumbling as something once warm and alive but now cold and wet and dead trickled down one leg. A slug-trail along her hairless thigh.

  Plants thrashed at her legs and they must have been nettles because soon her calves were burning with a peppery sting; hot and dry with hard white sores rising on the white mottled skin just above the sock line.

  The girl paused to stop and scratch and adjust the baby but still she felt a presence behind her. Something up there. Back there. In there. The night.

  The smell of that dark bunkhouse shape was strong on her. That man. The sweat and the dirt of him. Whoever he was. His sour skin. His foul stale mouth. The density of him.

  She wanted to be sick. She wanted water. She wanted this over.

  There were noises out there. Creatures. Nocturnal beasts shifting and watching. Pairs of eyes trained on her from holes and branches and bluffs and crags. She could feel them red and unblinking; the eyes of nature observing. And they no longer felt like allies these creatures. No. Everything was against her now. Even the beasts.

  Even the beasts.

  The girl ran for the dark patch and stumbled for cover. She pushed her way through thicket and hawthorns and then there was something springing at her jabbing at her stabbing at her a snap of pain a searing through her left eye as a thorn pierced her eyeball. She felt it go in. A rapid insertion. An alien invasion. She thought of hard boiled eggs and burst balloons and wet soap and raw meat.

  She flayed and thrashed her arms and her body instinctively drew her back and she felt whatever it was withdraw from her. Pull out from her eyeball. It made a sickening sound in her head. A wet squeak. She thought of rusted nails riven from rotten boards. Exiting rivets and rods. Spikes and skewers. Levering crowbars. She thought of unoiled hinges.

  The girl’s eyelid fluttered in protest and then clamped itself shut as the pain roared through to the back of her skull. It was excruciating yet contained; confined by bone and held in her head like bullion in a safe. Locked away from the outside world. She wanted to release the pain but it had nowhere to go. There was no exit. It echoed to her core.

  The eyeball pulsed and she brought her fingers to it and lifted up the lid with a dirty thumb and she heard a noise; a low moan like a bovine breach birth rising from deep within her. It was a noise that seemed to be thousands of years old. Primordial almost.

  Tears streamed down her cheek but they did not feel watery nor did they come freely. They were warm and sticky like syrup or sap. A slow stinging seeping.

  Her eyeball had felt hard when the thorn had punctured it. Muscular and more solid than she had expected and the way in which it had retracted had felt strange too. Almost mechanical. She groaned again – in pain and despair. Her eye had sealed itself solidly shut this time. The eyeball was already beginning to die right there in the socket. And already the girl was mourning her loss.

  THE WARDEN COULDN’T sleep so he got up before day-light to sweep and air the bunk room while a kettle boiled on the stove. He needed to decide what to do.

  The girl was the one they were after. The girl from the poster. He was sure of it. That baby wasn’t hers.

  Only he knew.

  But she looked at death’s door. They both did. And whatever had happened they were still in his care. The bairn’s health came first. Then action. Perhaps she had her reasons.

  As he saw it the Warden had three options.

  Keep her in the bunkhouse against her will.

  He knew he wouldn’t do that. It was not his way.

  He could persuade her to stay a while then alert the authorities down in town. But unless someone else arrived this morning who could deliver the message for him he would have to leave her there alone for the best part of the day and do it himself.

  Or thirdly: let her go.

  He doubted he would do that either.

  Best to act normal then. Play it by ear. Not do anything rash.

  While he thought it over he decided to cook eggs for the both of them and the men who had arrived in the night. A group of surly farm-hands.

  Child-snatcher or not the girl looked like she needed it. The bair
n too. That would need more milk and God knows what else. Hot water? Didn’t babies need hot water – or was that just when they were born?

  The eggs were frying and the kettle was boiling when there were footsteps on the porch. The sound of tired boots and the skittering sound of animal claws. His ears had become attuned to all new arrivals. Living at this elevation – pressed up against the sky and surrounded by the moors – he found his senses had become heightened. Not just his hearing but his sense of smell and response to colours too.

  There was a knock at the door. He snapped off the gas under the eggs.

  There was a man. He was so haggard looking it unnerved the Warden. His skin was as dull and grey as old newspaper but blotched red in places and his eyes wide and shot through with burst capillaries. Yet despite his state he looked far from defeated; quite the opposite in fact. He looked determined. Wolfish.

  Another casualty of the pass thought the Warden. Another stranger in the mountains. We get them all.

  The stranger’s nostrils were thin and his top lip swollen and distorted out of shape. Like an over-inflated tyre he thought. He was unwashed and unshaven yet was wearing an expensive looking tweed coat and when it flapped open he saw that the man was also wearing a dirty white collar. A clerical collar.

  He had with him a large panting dog straining at its lead.

  Are you open?

  His swollen lip impeded his diction.

  I’m always open said the Warden.

  Are you in charge?

  Yes.

  I’m here on business said the Priest. Church business.

  I thought so. When I saw the dog collar –

  I’m looking for a girl. A teenager. She’s stolen a baby over in Westmorland. I expect you’ve heard about it by now.

  The Warden hesitated.

  Might have heard something from one of the guests. If I can ask: how exactly is this church business Father?

  The girl was in my care. She was from the orphanage. Has she been here?

  Is this baby hers then?