Beastings Page 6

  These were the things that occupied the Poacher’s mind a lot of the time.

  He walked on behind the Priest listening to the muted melody that the breeze played across the fells and the strange harmonies it created around rocks and he heard the screech of a bird – a kestrel by the look of it – high above them. He thought he could hear running water somewhere too and then the insistent bleating of a sheep and then a few moments later the satisfied guttural groan of a cow a long way ahead of them and then a little while after that the screech of two crows first quarrelling and then tumbling together and beneath it all – undercutting it all – the scrape and swish of his oilskin; the panting of the dog and the reedy raspy breathing of the Priest.

  There’s no silence out here Father he finally said but because it was uttered so quietly and the Priest offered no response the Poacher wondered whether he had even spoken the words out loud at all.

  THE GIRL CROSSED the peak of the hill. Her view was obscured by trees and dips in the land but she tried to maintain as straight a line as possible.

  The hill formed part of the lower slopes that divided two valleys that ran up to join a vast range of peaks all carved by water. Left untended for hundreds of thousands of years it had run through rock and stone to carve great gorges and glens; to create dales and dells and vales and valleys. Ice and water had made this landscape. First groaning and creaking as the glaciers expanded and shifted then washing and gushing as they melted away to reveal new contours and dominions. A beautiful barren place.

  Somewhere along the way she crossed the invisible boundary between Cumberland and Westmorland. One into the other; oblivious and unaware the girl would never know which.

  At its peak the hill she found herself on was less than a thousand feet and therefore did not qualify as a mountain. The valley had tracks and paths cutting through it and was scattered with a dozen cottages and smallholdings but the hill was anonymous and unremarkable. Too roughshod and uneven to be habitable. It saw few people and would be written about in no guidebooks.

  As she crossed a clearing near the summit of the hill a panic of sound erupted. No more than thirty feet away a disturbed roe deer turned and ran into the trees but there was a fence in its way – an old sagging piece of wire that caught it across its chest and it went sprawling backwards.

  The girl stopped and watched. She could see the deer’s expanding eyes: wide black fearful and possessed by an instinctive desire for self preservation.

  She didn’t move. The deer regained its footing and charged at the fence harder this time. It boldly tried to leap the wire but the wire was high and its front legs caught the wire and snagged at the knee as its back legs pushed on forward and for a second it was like two composite parts were doing battle – instinct driving it one way and momentum the other.

  The girl stood still so as not to alarm it further. Even the baby was silent as she willed the roe to clear the fence.

  She became aware of her own heartbeat and the sound of blood rushing in her ears. Her senses more alive and shifting into overdrive. It was as if she was feeling what the roe felt.

  I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

  The girl watched as the deer bucked and flayed with the scent of the girl and the baby strong in its nostrils. And she too could smell what the roe smelled: the stale funk of sweat and unwashed hot parts. The crust of dust and saliva around her mouth. A clammy festering dampness and stale breath. The lingering hum of urine and faeces and the milky vomit of the baby on her back. Everything was heightened; her smell suddenly musky and sickening.

  Everywhere around the girl the undergrowth was creeping and rustling and crackling and seething and breeding and watching. The scrub and thicket was alive and vivid and she was brilliant and she was coursing with adrenalin but still barely daring to draw breath for fear of somehow impinging further upon the territory of the deer.

  Then the creature managed to clear the remains of the old wire fence with an energised and ungraceful leap and darted tangentially into the bushes its white rump bouncing arrogantly. Nothing but the quivering of leaves in its wake suggested it had even been there.

  The girl felt completely drained of energy. She was suddenly hungry too. Famished. Her head felt light but her limbs felt heavy as she walked across the clearing and out of plain view.

  She went into the trees and untied the baby from her back and then flopped down. Though it was difficult to discern she felt she must be resting somewhere on the large flat peak of the covered hill. She turned to look behind her and her breath audibly caught in her throat as she saw through the space between bushes a great lake spread out below her. It was iridescent as it snaked towards a dog-leg bend that ran out of sight around the curved side of a green mountain that loomed so huge it seemed to fill her vision. It was so large that it felt as if she could reach out and touch it. As if it was the entire world or perhaps even bigger.

  IT WAS THE pharmacist. The pharmacist kept him supplied. It was he who had first suggested the Priest try this miracle medicine when he returned one day for more syrup for a cough that had been rattling at his lungs like a caged bear for weeks many.

  You look tired and run-down Father he said. You should try this. It’s new on the market. I take it myself. I have it sent over from Germany. They love it over there.

  He handed over a small brown labelled box with the words FORCED MARCH printed on it.

  The Priest turned it over in his hand. Inside was a glass vial.

  A dose of that when you’re feeling a little frayed Father and it’ll see you right.

  What is it?

  They calling it a wonder drug. It’s for all-round well being. It gives you pep.

  What’s pep?

  You know. Energy. Vitality.

  I don’t think I’m interested said the Priest.

  I’m no doctor as you know but I’d recommend it Father. I’ve been taking it myself for lassitude from autumn since and I’ve never felt better.

  What do I do with it?

  You can put in your drink or you can rub it on your gums but they say the best way is to inhale some. A little dose up each nostril. Just a nip. It does wonders for the respiratory system. The effect is a little like coffee.

  I don’t like coffee.

  Ah but you see it doesn’t taste like coffee. It just gives you a little zip of a morning. Clears up any aches and pains. They’re all taking it down in London. It gives you strength and clarity.

  Clarity?

  Yes. Clarity. Look inside and read for yourself.

  The Priest opened it up and withdrew the vial. On the label it said:

  Burroughs, Welcome & Co.

  ‘FORCED MARCH’

  Containing the combined active principles of

  Kola nut and Coca leaves.

  ~ Allays hunger and prolongs the power of endurance ~

  ‘Forced March’ will supply the place of food,

  make the coward brave, the silent eloquent

  and render the sufferer insensitive to pain.

  You can have that one for free Father said the pharmacist. A trial if you like. Consider it a gift to the church from we the community. If it helps you it helps us.

  The Priest replaced the vial in the box.

  Fine. I’ll try it. Thank you.

  Take it three times a day and that vial should last you a fortnight.

  I’ll try it.

  The Priest turned to leave then paused. And can I expect to see you in church on Sunday?

  Of course Father. Of course. Remember: three times a day. And when you run out after a fortnight you just pop back here to see me.

  Perhaps I will he said. Perhaps I will.

  The Priest was back after six days.

  THE BABY WAS crying. The baby was screaming. The baby was hungry.

>   The girl still had the potato but it was large and hard and raw and she had no way of cooking it so instead she tore strips from the last of the ham then gnawed on it and mixed it with her spittle until her cheeks were packed with the pink pulp. Then she gave the baby spoonfuls of it. As soon as it had gulped the mush down it wanted more. She gave it all the ham that was left and took none for herself but still it cried the unrestrained wail of hunger.

  The girl took her dolly rag and loosened the knots that helped form its bodily shape and then smoothed it out then tied it around the baby’s ankle. She looped the other end around the base of the bush and then walked inland. She followed the hill and climbed down a small crag that plunged her into a sea of lush green bracken that was growing at shoulder height.

  The bracken was in full bloom. Come autumn it would be a brittle and burnt orange turning a flat brown and by winter little more than a graveyard of skeleton branches awaiting fossilisation. But for now it was living whole that carried at its core the summer.

  She felt the huge green mountain behind her again. Silently watching. Just knowing that it would be there long after all this was over gave her comfort.

  She could hear the baby crying. She walked quickly.

  The mountain would watch over it.

  A top breeze swept across the surface of the ferns and they swayed. Their fronds followed the weft of the fell’s covering. She looked across their surface. She looked at the ripple of movement running at her eye-line then she pushed onwards and out the other side where the bracken abruptly ended and a broad patch of low-growing shrubs began. She bent to examine them. She lifted the leaves and dug into the moss-like base and found what she was looking for: a cluster of small dark bilberries. Their skins were dusted a smoky grey from the dampness and some of them were encased in fine spider’s threads. She ate one then another. They were soft and fleshy and sharp as the summer had not yet made them sweet. But they were good enough.

  She reached around and picked more. She picked quickly pulling half a dozen off at a time by combing the undergrowth with her fingers then periodically stopping and cocking her head to the breeze to see if she could hear the baby.

  The girl mouthed the words: the mountain will watch over it.

  She dropped the bilberries into her pocket and searched the patch for more. Her back began to hurt and her forearms and wrists got snagged and scratched and stained with the purple juice of berries. It got under her fingernails and turned them even darker than they already were. She ate as she picked. It took a long time to get a large handful. Her lips became puce.

  When she stopped the girl was surprised to see that she had moved fifty feet through the patch and as she straightened she thought she saw the lake before her. But it couldn’t be the lake because she had left that behind her and she was facing in a different direction.

  A moment of confusion rippled through her. Disorientation and panic. She stopped and turned as she looked around to where she had come from but she could clearly see the virgin path she had cut through the fern and knew that the lake did not extend this far.

  The bairn. She couldn’t hear it. She couldn’t hear the bairn.

  The panic turned to relief as she realised she wasn’t lost but that there was another body of water through the trees ahead. A different one. A tree-flanked tarn or pond. A mountain-locked elevated body of water.

  She put the rest of the bilberries she had collected into her pocket and then turned and ran back through the patch. The wiry springiness of the heather underfoot helped the girl along and then she was running through the ferns and striding up the crag and pulling herself up by handfuls of grass then into the dense thicket where the baby had stopped crying and was now cramming fistfuls of dirt into its mouth.

  She grabbed its wrist and put her fingers into its mouth. She brushed away dead pine needles and leaves and arid soil that was glued to its tongue and hard pink gums with saliva.

  The girl took some berries from her pocket and pressed them down into the spoon to make a paste then poured it into the babies’ mouth. The child winced and its face drew tight but then it relaxed and she fed it more. She picked out stems and stalks from the pulp and purple drool ran down its chin. She repeated the process again and again. The baby stopped crying then coughed up a glob of unchewed berries so she put them back in its mouth and held it shut until it had swallowed.

  Then she picked the baby up and held it to her chest and patted its back until it emitted fruity belches.

  SHE PUT HER dolly rag and spoon back in her pocket and the baby on her back and began to explore the crag. The ground undulated underfoot. There were many hollows from when the earth had been dented by the tumble of great boulders forced down the conjoining valleys during the melting of the glaciers.

  There were fallen trees too. Large rotting trunks tipped sideways to reveal a shock of tangled roots that were mirror images of the dead branches splayed out across the hill. The upended trees and deep roots had torn at the earth to create more holes around their base. One of them was split asunder as if by lightning and some still had rocks and small boulders ensnared in their roots where they now hung suspended six feet above the ground to create a strange primordial wood within a wood. One of mud and root and rock. A world reversed.

  Sometimes the girl stopped and stood and looked at the lake as it changed colour. Soon the sun would be going down. She could see boats out there on the water. Tiny white dots. And there were islands. Small tree-filled rocky outcrops rising from the water like the tips of something unknown.

  Or perhaps they were floating there; adrift on the surface.

  She had heard people say that one of the islands over on Derwentwater floated. They said it was made of marsh weed and only came up to the surface when the gases made it so. The rest of the time it was hidden like a Leviathan of the deep. But sometimes – every few years – it appeared.

  They said that if you had the puff and the inclination you could swim right beneath it and come out smiling on the other side. Said there was nothing to keep it tethered.

  The girl wished she was on one of the islands now.

  The girl wished she and the baby could go there and never see anyone and never leave. She’d teach the bairn to catch fish and climb trees and that would be that. There would be no more running and no more hiding. The child wouldn’t need to speak because there would be nothing to say. Language would be unnecessary and they would not need to keep their eyes open during the dark hours; there would be no long cold bodies sliding sideways into their beds. No flesh pinched and twisted. No one to call them dummy.

  And on sunny days they would stretch out on the rocks and let the water lap at their feet and in the winter months they would hibernate in a den so well made not a single drop of water would get through its walls and they would be safe and warm like birds in a nest. They would grow vegetables. An old badger would keep the slugs and snails at bay. Bees would give them honey.

  She kept on walking. She pushed through layers of thicket so tangled overhead that the light barely reached them and stumbled out the other side into a natural clearing where more trees had once fallen or the ground was too rocky for the roots of parasites to take.

  She used a stick to part the thorny vines and barbed creepers before her. She followed animal runs.

  There was a tree whose trunk was wide in girth and dry beneath and which must have fallen during the storms of last winter because the leaves were still on it and its branches made a natural shelter from trunk to ground.

  If she climbed onto the trunk she could see the lake and the mountain and if she turned she could look up the valley where the flanks rushed to a foreboding incline and formed to scratch a jagged ridge across the sky as if it had been ripped and torn from peak to peak.

  She put the baby down and got in there under the trunk and she swept the dirt and leaves to one side then lay on her back and l
ooked up at the pin-prick holes that the weevils had made in the rotting wood.

  Then she rolled out and picked the baby up and walked back through the tangled thicket. It was easy to find her way because she had made her own trail and soon she was in the bracken patch on the fell-side.

  The baby tugged at her earlobe again the whole way then it fell asleep.

  She began to pull bracken stems from the earth at their base. She pulled and tugged but they were more deeply embedded that she expected so she tore and snapped them instead and twice they gouged her arms and twice she stopped to rub the red streaks opening up on her skin.

  The girl gathered armfuls of the fronds and stacked them in a pile and then she picked more. When the pile was big she bent and lifted it and it was heavy. With the baby on her back she felt her spine compressing. Her knees and thighs took the strain then she walked unsteadily back up the short steep hill and into the thicket and around the crown of the hill.

  She found the tree and crouched to spread the ferns down there. Then she walked back to the bracken patch and picked more and brought them back.

  The girl stood to look at the lake again which had become less silver. Now it was dark and still and she looked at the way the mountain’s fells plunged straight down into the water over at the far side without even stopping to create a shore.

  In places the scree dropped near-vertically into the dark waters and it scared her to think how deep it might be and what lay at the ice-cold bottom of the lake down there and how long it had been this way. The vast unknown of the water made her feel as uneasy as the solidity of the silent mountain provided comfort.

  She was sweating again. Her shirt was stuck to her back again. She stopped to rub her scratches again.

  The day had been the length of a month.

  She slowly walked back to the small crag. Down through the bracken. Across the bilberry patch.

  The secreted tarn was through the trees.