by Helen Mort
She realised she had no idea what her dad sounded like any more. None at all.
* * *
Leigh was running down from Higgar Tor. Not faster than she’d ever run before. Not harder. But running with her legs freewheeling underneath her and her arms low by her sides and her breathing coming from somewhere deep in her stomach. She didn’t know how long she’d been going for and she didn’t care. For the first time in her life, she really couldn’t give a fuck. Not about Tom, not about Caron, not about herself. It wasn’t anger. It was just the absence of feeling. It was a kind of freedom, if freedom was something you could feel in your shoulders and the small of your back and your hamstrings and calves.
She reached the steep descent, the track littered with rocks as if a giant had slung them there, and she let her body turn to putty. She didn’t try to brake. She looked at the bottom of the hill instead of the rocks in front of her and she let herself drop. Good fell runners always talked about this, the way you should let go on the downhill. It had never made sense until now. She didn’t mind if she tripped. That was the key. She wasn’t afraid of hurting herself.
Leigh didn’t know how long she had been running and she didn’t know how far she was going to go. The sun was sinking in the valley. It was her favourite time of day, the clear, orange light, the point in the evening where everything seemed possible.
The path sunk into a dip, a jagged kind of trough with large, ragged stones raised on either side. Leigh hurdled it and her feet smacked down into old bracken and water. She sprung away, towards the woods. This was faith. Trusting your body. Trusting your aim. Not forgetting other people, but putting them out of mind just long enough to think about yourself.
The road broke her stride, but briefly. She made short work of the woods and the tended edges of the Longshaw Estate. Then, she was leaning into the hill that climbed to the plateau of White Edge, mud clinging to her heels. She hadn’t got the right kind of shoes on. It didn’t matter. She could run. She thought about Joss Naylor, the shepherd who used to sprint up the Lake District fells after work. Legend had it he once finished a race with a broken ankle. She thought it was a tall story at the time, but tonight she could almost imagine running so long, running so completely you wouldn’t notice one part of your body any more. Your body couldn’t hurt you if you didn’t let it.
All the same, at the top of the hill, she stopped for breath and leaned over with her hands resting above her knees, gulping the air. There were no ramblers out at this time. No dog-walkers, even. Just her. It felt like this must be the way it had always been. She looked to her right, over towards Surprise View. Somewhere down there was her house, silent, idling for her to come home. She had forgotten to lock the door, but nothing would happen. Her empty house, waiting for her body to fill it again.
The thought made her so brilliantly and briefly happy she almost missed the deer. Two or three at first, tall against the skyline on her left. Then, she could pick out more of them. In this light they looked almost purple. They were very slender, alert. She started towards them and they didn’t move at first. She broke into a run, and they startled away from her, so even though she was behind them it was as if she was running with them, too, at the back of the herd. Running across White Edge, only to weave a way back again. Only to stand still, then stoop to taste the earth. Leigh ran and, just this once, her body kept up with her.
Abney Moor
I’m holding everything lightly today, balancing the still, sharp morning, not spilling a drop. There’s an eggshell in the long grass, a plover’s egg, speckled yellowish and brown, flecked with spots like rust on a railing. I touch it and I touch a clutch of sheep’s wool, marked with dye. Even the curlews with their liquid call and swoop are held above like kites. My control is fingertip-light. Sheep shit. Rabbit pellets. A man with neat binoculars who doesn’t know where else to go to be at peace. The muddy patches that suck at his wellingtons. The standing stones where a gate once stood, keeping distance safe between them. In autumn, the violet heather, the violence of its grip across the moor. A young woman who walks with her secrets in front of her, leashed and straining like a dog. Maps lost and carried in the air and dropped again, the shape of me traced on them, or something like me, what they take me for.
Alexa
From above, it must have looked as if the whole of Page Hall was on fire. The city had a burning heart. Clouds of smoke clogged the sky and the length of Robey Street was lit viciously by the flames. Alexa wondered why people ever called them plumes of smoke. Plumes made her think of feathers, of delicate things. There was nothing delicate about this. There were no good descriptive words for smoke. It was just frightening, engulfing, blocking out the moon.
They stood at a safe distance and she held two of the children close to her as they shook. Sue had her arms around the mother. They were a tight-knit ball. The woman was saying something in her own language and Alexa wished she knew what it was, so she could answer her, comfort her, say anything at all. Sue was making hushing sounds.
The firefighters were spraying jets of water through the smashed windows and roof of the terrace. Imagine doing that job, thought Alexa. Her jaw clenched of its own accord. Imagine only ever dealing in death and rescue. They were shouting to each other, a calmness in their voices, even when they were raised.
Nobody was hurt. You could call that a miracle, if you were the kind of person who believed in miracles. Alexa wasn’t. Sue was. The Roma family, the people who lived at Number 12, were coming back from the shops when it happened. They stood, stock-still, and stared at their own, smoking house. Now, they had to watch the destroyed building be salvaged.
The murmurs had started already. Arson. A sign. They’d been pushed over the edge and this is what they were giving back. Torching their own streets. Burning the Roma out of the houses. The thought made Alexa dizzy. She remembered Tony in his sickly yellow kitchen, beating the kitchen table with his fist. A warning. A ritual fire. There’s going to be a revolution.
The crowds were massing at a distance, not sure how close it was safe to go. Two teenage girls were gripping each other tight at the end of the street. Alexa wasn’t aware of the elderly couple until they were right behind her. Mr and Mrs Jones from Lloyd Street. She sat in their front room nearly every week, listening to Mrs Jones cluck like a spooked bird, complaining about the noise, the kids and their football.
‘Dear Lord,’ said Mrs Jones. ‘Dear Lord.’
‘What happened, love?’ Mr Jones touched Alexa on the elbow.
‘It’s too early to say. But the family are safe.’
Mrs Jones’s face was like shingle, soft shelves and ridges around her eyes. She looked up at Alexa and her eyes were clouded with alarm.
‘That poor woman.’
‘It’s a rum business,’ said Mr Jones. ‘Something not right about it.’
‘There’s no reason to think – ’
‘Oh, there’s every reason. There is now.’ He tried to straighten himself up to his full height. ‘This place is finished. It is, really. I’m not saying it’s nobody’s fault, but it’s gone to the dogs.’
He said this to her every week. She knew his speech by heart. We’ve lived here for fifty years.
‘We’ve lived here fifty years,’ said Mr Jones.
We’ve nothing against the immigrants. There’s all sorts of good people here.
‘We’ve nothing against the immigrants, against these good people here.’
But there aren’t enough houses any more.
‘There’s just not enough houses any more.’
‘I understand how you feel, Mr Jones.’
‘Of course you don’t, love. Of course you don’t.’
This part was unscripted.
‘When we first moved here, you knew your neighbours. You helped each other out. I could have told you the name of everyone on our street. But nobody trusts each other any more. That’s the thing. There’s no trust. None at all.’
‘Why should there be?’ said Mrs J
ones.
And Alexa knew he was right. People didn’t know what to make of each other any more. People didn’t know what to make of themselves. And you couldn’t explain that away. You couldn’t say that this was a bad area. You couldn’t blame unemployment. You couldn’t blame the EDL with their march and their rootless anger and their banners. You couldn’t blame the small houses and the narrow streets. Eva was right. People see what they want to.
Inspector Apsley was always talking about trust. It was his favourite word. Rebuilding trust. Creating a police force we can all trust in. Fostering trust in the communities of East Sheffield. But trust was something you lost in a day. Quick as a fire. And even if you ever got it back, would you know about it?
She watched the old couple walk slowly to the top of the street, helping each other quietly, their path lit by the blaze.
* * *
Alexa heard the front door shut quietly. She was sitting on the side of the bed in the dark, facing the window. There was a brief struggle as Leyton tried to help Caron up the stairs and Caron tried to push him away. Alexa registered the heavy feet, the raised voices, but everything was muffled by the soundtrack of the fire, still filling her head. When Caron came in, she didn’t turn around.
‘They’ve let me out.’
That crumpled sound, like wrapping paper, newspaper in a fist.
‘Good behaviour. It’s as if I’m on bail.’
The house collapsing, very slowly from the inside. The sirens and the shouts.
‘Don’t you want to talk to me?’
She was still in the doorway. Alexa couldn’t look at her, the way she couldn’t look at the fire. The way she couldn’t look at Tony when he stood on the roof in Page Hall, so she stared at something just beyond him until it was over and he came down.
‘It depends what you’ve got to say.’ Her voice took her by surprise. It was parched, broken.
Caron came over to sit on the bed. ‘How about “sorry”?’
‘What for?’
‘For keeping secrets.’
‘I want to hear you say it.’
‘Alexa. Come on.’
Caron took her chin in her hand and turned Alexa’s face towards hers. She felt her body prickle, her muscles stiffening. That was what had always made her lean towards Caron. Her confidence and certainty. The easy way she took control, making her climb or pinning her down, filling her glass, taking her hand in public, the first time, then every time after. Telling her what she should say to make people listen, walking ahead of her, walking a step ahead. Caron had something she couldn’t catch. Now, for the first time, she had it, whatever it was. Caron was level with her, willing her to stop, asking her to stay. But Alexa was exhausted and confused.
‘Alexa, look at me. Nothing’s changed. Nothing about us.’
Caron’s eyes were large, the pupils dilating as she stared at them. She searched them for movement, the flicker of attention that let you know Caron was there one minute, gone the next, carrying you with her. She searched for the brightness that obsessed her. But she could see only her own body, dark and small, framed by the window. And when she took in Caron’s face, it didn’t seem like Caron’s, not hers alone. It made her think of any face. The boys twitching the curtains in Page Hall when she walked past. The angry strangers on the EDL march. The Roma men, thronging the pavements after dark. The girl at the party. The women she’d kissed at Burning Man.
When she spoke, she had to say it quietly for the sake of her voice.
‘Nothing’s changed for you, you mean. You just do whatever you want. Same as always.’
Caron wouldn’t fight. Caron had never needed to before. She let Alexa’s chin fall. She lowered her hands.
Alexa closed her eyes and the burning street was there, the hunched figures of Mr and Mrs Jones, clinging to each other for comfort. It made sense now, the question the old woman had asked. Why should people trust one another? What made it so natural? You gave your word. You shook hands or kissed. And that was meant to be enough, across Page Hall, across the wide street at night. Across a pitch of rock. Or a room, a bed.
Caron was clutching herself, her arms wrapped tight around her.
‘You know where I am,’ she said. ‘If you want to talk.’
But Alexa didn’t.
Redmires
Come and sit by me and skim your thoughts like gathered pebbles across my skin. I’ll accept each one. You left your bike by the road and continued on foot. You stared at my three tiers, as if you’d never been here before, all the years you’ve lived in Sheffield. Your whole life. I welcome you, tolerate you, the way I tolerate the shadow of Stanage Edge, the rain from Hallam Moors, how the Clough enters me so casually. I accept your stare the way I let Wyming Brook Farm and Redmires Plantation watch me. I am man-made. A contained staircase of water. A solution to the cholera epidemic. I have endured; the city’s hold on me has loosened. I love all leased and stolen things. You dawdle here as if the chill doesn’t bother you, wrapping your waterproof jacket tight, folding your arms. In the trees, a cuckoo moves with gentle confidence, metallic plumage, laying eggs in the nests of other birds, calling sweetly, small god of unrequited love.
Leigh
‘Fuck. Jesus. Are you trying to kill me?’ The woman’s voice carried across Burbage.
Leigh paused on Triangle Buttress, just above the first break, looked to her right, watched the woman’s hunched body. She reminded Leigh of a beetle. Her partner tried to mutter something reassuring from the top. All Leigh could see of him was his feet.
‘I’m trying! My feet are at forty-five degrees to my body!’ the woman panted.
As she watched, Leigh suddenly became aware of her own exposure, the moves she still had to make to get to the top, the well-worn holds. A moment ago, she’d thought of nothing except the blue air, the still woods behind her, the freedom of being out on her own with her bare shoulders and her scabby hands. The woman’s loud voice was making her nervous. On a Severe, a route she’d climbed more times than any other.
‘Jesus, Dan. Dan! Dan! I’m off!’
The woman did not fall off.
‘I’m falling, Dan!’
She clung to the rock. She was large, something buoyant about her.
‘I swear to God, Dan, when we get back. I swear. I’ll bloody murder you.’
Her grunts seemed to propel her upwards at last and she flopped over the edge like someone clambering out of a swimming pool. Leigh watched her disappear. She wiped a clammy hand on her jeans and carried on climbing, focusing on the rock again, keeping her grip relaxed. She was back where she fitted. She saw the valley as a stranger would, noticed how pronounced the paths were, how ramshackle Higgar Tor looked from a distance, the punched mouth of it.
It was a busy day, the clearest in months. People were towing their families along the path in lines. A young man with an impossibly chiselled jawline and an incredibly clean windproof jacket was leading his blonde daughter by the hand. Isn’t it beautiful? he said to the girl. His voice was well-oiled, Home Counties. Aren’t we lucky to have this on our doorstep, Edie?
Leigh wanted to hate their easy happiness, but she couldn’t disagree with him. They were lucky. She was lucky. The holds on Triangle Buttress were all there and she knew exactly how to hold them, exactly which way to reach. Like the niches of a familiar body, like pleasing a lover without even having to try. She closed her eyes and trusted the movements. She would pick her way down to the bottom and then she would climb again. Over and over until her shoulders turned pink in the freakish sun and her forearms ached. She would not stop. It was always a matter of repeating things. Doing them until you got them right. The way Pete’s words had rattled round in her head until she knew what to make of them, figured how to put things together.
And she knew what to do. When she got down from here. If she ever got down from here. If she could ever drag herself away.
* * *
In The Robin Hood a man set a pint down on the table in fro
nt of her, so hard some of the warm liquid slopped over the sides.
‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘those pants have been great. We went up Kinder Scout yesterday, up to the plateau, and my wife made it, no bother. She loves them.’
Leigh nodded at him, raised the pint and smiled. She’d sold them some Rohan trousers in the shop, weeks ago, helping his wife get the right fit, the right leg length. Not even her department. But there had been something about the pair of them, her greying, him unshaven, both East Coast American, picking things up in the shop and hollering to each other across the floor, something she’d warmed to. The man sank down beside his wife in a mock-comfy chair, the stuffing spilling out of the lining where Barney the pub dog had gnawed it. Cheers, said the wife, across the room, lifting her Chardonnay. It let all the light through.
She didn’t like this ale. Nobody had bought her a drink unbidden before, not unless they wanted to pick her up. She gulped it down. The glass tasted unwashed.
Outside, gold light was making a show of the small church, the lift of the road out of the village, the rusty moors on either side. Pete was somewhere out there, walking to Apparent North with Safi, thinking about the routes dormant under the lip of the edge, sleeping, with nobody to climb them. Black Car Burning, quiet and still. Benign.
The American couple leaned into each other, their heads bowed, and she smiled. When Caron entered the pub, holding the door with one of her crutches and groping the other in front of her in a small circle, Leigh saw her as she was, the way she used to in the shop when Caron wasn’t looking, when Caron was going about her business, head down. Her hair seemed disappointed with her scalp, stood out in dark red wisps and clumps. Her shoulders could hold the world. Her eyes were dark already, but darkened more when she got the measure of a room. The tall American started to his feet to get the door. Leigh sprang up, putting her drained glass down.
