The Little Death

by Sarah Till

  But I could feel it in the hesitation of his kiss. Of his body, far from me on the other side of our double bed. Only coming near rarely – Saturday nights with the bravery of alcohol then less often until it stopped.

  I wondered what his story was, who he had lost. Because if I knew one thing it was that he was the same as me. Deeply injured. I don’t know if he ever twigged that I was going on the bus to get nearer and nearer to that moorland. I don’t know if he knew that I eventually walked up there and stood behind the dry-stone wall crying my heart out, then went home and made his tea. But I expect he did.

  I never questioned him when he was a bit late home from work. As years went by I saw a pattern. September 15th. July 10th. Then every January 29th he would pack a little case and go away for a night. With work, he said, but the look on his face said different.

  It suited me because all I wanted was routine. Anything that strayed even slightly away from it made me crazy. Like when me mam died. I was devastated because she was me mam. But I hadn’t seen her for years. I asked her to come round but she never did. I didn’t want to ever go back to their house so I didn’t. When I heard I knew what I had to do, what everyone including Colin expected me to do, but every bone in my body fought against it.

  I dealt with it like I dealt with everything, push it down and do the bare minimum. Colin did more than half because knew what to do. I pretended to be more upset than I actually was and let him. I’m not proud of that, but it just meant that I could get back to our regular life. Same when me dad died soon after. Exactly the same.

  Once they were gone I felt freer. Colin wasn’t bothered what I did as long as his tea was ready when he got home and I looked nice in front of his friends on a Saturday night, so I set about making a plan. I would find out what happened to Jimmy. I remember being very excited, thinking that it was something new. This time I would research it properly. Not from an emotional point of view. No. Proper research. I’d go to the library. Talk to folk.

  But I know now it was just a way to talk myself into going onto the moor. Until then I’d walked up there and stood at the wall, looking over. It was beautiful and I was sure that he was there somewhere. It was as if my heart was on an elastic band – all paths led there. I just needed an excuse really.

  It was a firm plan and I was all set to get on with it. But I was still a bit scared. It seemed a lot, exciting, but what did I know about research? What did I know about finding things out? And where had it got me before?

  Then Colin of all people made my mind up. It was my birthday and he presented me with a box. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. He looked excited and proud at the same time.

  ‘Open it then. Go on.’

  I pulled at the string. He usually bought me jewellery, but this wasn’t a necklace or a ring. I pulled of the paper and opened it. He looked at me and, for once, our eyes met. I always felt guilty in those moments. I knew in that second I did love him, but Jimmy’s memory was still strong.

  I knew he knew me. No words were needed. Whether we liked it or not, our lives were intertwined and were knew each other better than anyone else did. And he has seen me. He had seen my tiny drawings, my sketches of birds and the cat next door, so lifelike that I surprised even myself. And he had bought me paints and brushes and chalk. An artist’s starter kit. He produced a ream of good quality drawing paper. I smiled at him.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you so much. You don’t know what this means to me.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Aye. I do, Polly, I do.’

  So I went up to the moor. I climbed over the wall and stood there, staring at the hillside. The plane wreckage that was left stuck out, clearly embedded hard. I wondered how anyone had survived that and if it was possible that Jimmy had walked away. Or was he thrown out mid-air? Was his body somewhere else, somewhere more distant. In that moment I tried to feel him. In my soul. I tried to see if he was alive or dead. All I could feel was the light of his love, the feeling I got when we looked at each other.

  Every day I ventured a little further, taking out a sandwich and my drawing pencils and sketching a flower or a bird. In the evening I showed Colin. He never asked where I had sketched them and I expect he knew I would have lied. And I would, because this was a private part of me that I have never told anyone else until now.

  My Love Lies Bleeding

  I bet you think I’m terrible, don’t you? Marrying Colin when I still loved Jimmy? Going up there and not telling him? It does sound bad now I write it down but d’you know what it was? It was just getting through life the best way we knew how. I didn’t have a bloody clue how I would go on after that plane crash. But you have no choice. You have to carry on, one way or another. And I’d seen quite few ways. I’d seen me mam and dad, blind drunk so they wouldn’t have to admit they were trapped with each other. I thought it was because of me at first. But as time went on, I realised that it was because of them and I was just a complication.

  Then there was Annie. She carried on by deciding on one course of action. To her, the only way she could continue was if Jimmy was dead. If she had closure. She was cleverer than me. She’d probably learned from her previous mistakes. But one thing was for sure. There was no swaying from that path for Annie. No wondering.

  Me? I chose the easy way. Well, one easy way. I let Colin look after me. I seriously doubted that I would be able to look after myself. Before I met Colin, I’d found myself missing my bus stop and staring into space. Endless wondering ‘what if?’ My supervisor at work had noticed. I told her what happened, and she gently explained that I was on piece work and if I didn’t feel up to it I needed to take some time off. But if I took time off I couldn’t afford to live. Even if I lived at home I needed to eat.

  Again, it sounds bad, but I just fell into Colin’s organisation. I know now with women’s lib and everything some people would have seen it as controlling. But he meant well and we kind of complimented each other. He never questioned anything. I kept my side of the bargain and he kept his. It wasn’t until much later on I realised why.

  As soon as I started drawing, up there on the moor, I was happy. I started smiling a lot more and hummed to myself. Sometimes, when Colin was working late, I stayed until the moon came out. Because I knew that wherever Jimmy was, we shared the moon. If he was alive, he would see it when I did. If not, its gentle light would caress him the same as it caressed me.

  I felt like things were starting to improve. Life was steady and we fell into a comfortable pace in our little house. We got a car and went out and about. Colin made a plan of places we could visit. We even went abroad on holiday, spending silent days on white beaches, him red as a beetroot and me nut brown. We were like chalk and cheese, but I wouldn’t have been without him.

  He wasn’t Jimmy but he was a good man who knew what he wanted. Strong. Determined. He had his bloody hands full with me, I suppose. But we had a good life. We had our own little code words and our own signals that made us laugh. We were both good dancers and we moved together well, but we weren’t like one. Not like me and Jimmy.

  And that’s what I told myself all the time. He’s not Jimmy but... Then one day I came in from a trip up to the moor and he was home early. I felt annoyed. Angry he hadn’t said. Embarrassed that I hadn’t made tea. A million things ran through my head – probably whipped up by guilt – was he trying to catch me out? Did he know where I’d been? I’d drawn some pictures of Jimmy and hid them under the lino in the spare room. I’d been to the big library and looked up Dakota planes and drawn them too. I’d drawn the wreckage on the hillside. Had he found them? But he hadn’t. He half smiled, embarrassed as me.

  ‘Sit down Pol. Sit down.’

  My mind raced to anyone who could have died, but there was no one left. I sat.

  ‘What is it love?’

  His green eyes were bright and shiny. It was 1985 and we’d been married thirty years. I was fifty-five – yes, that makes me ninety now, love – and he was nearly sixty
. He didn’t look it. It struck me that he’d been finished at work and he didn’t know how to tell me. He licked his lips.

  ‘The thing is Pol. Well. I’ve not been well. Didn’t say nothing because I didn’t want to worry you.’ Even then he was measured. He didn’t say anything because he never did. But I knew what he meant. ‘The thing is, I’ve got... cancer.’

  I rushed to him and held him. It was dramatic and out of the ordinary and he winced. But I held on. He prised me off and sat me back down. I felt a cloud of panic descend and I had a vison of life without him. He was all I had. He carried on, louder and more firm now.

  ‘It’s in my bowel. Incurable. It’s already gone to my liver. They’ve erm... said... there’s nothing to be done. Just a matter of time.’

  I stared at him. Just a matter of time. I wanted to ask him what would happen. And what would happen to me? But I would never have done that. Instead I held his hand, gripped it hard.

  ‘I’ll look after you, love. Don’t worry. I’ll always be here.’

  His foot started to tap, the only outward sign that he was annoyed. Colin never lost his temper. We’d never argued, because before it got to that he either went out or shut up. He was quiet for a long time. The he said it.

  ‘I know. I know, Pol. But I don’t want to interrupt your life, and there are things I’m going to have to do. Things you don’t know about.’

  I sighed. We were middle aged. He was staring death in the face and we’d still never said those things.

  ‘It’s fine. I want to. And whatever you need to do, I’ll be there. Whatever it is.’

  What I wanted to say was that he had saved me. He had made a space for me to live again. Stopped me from going mad by doing the dance of life with me at just the right pace. Let me remember Jimmy. Understood what I needed and kept his secrets away from me for the right reasons rather than spite.

  But I didn’t say those things. Our unspoken agreement was silence and I would keep up my part. He would tell me as much as I needed to know and I would gladly accept it because it meant that he trusted me. And if he really was anything like me it would have been the first time he had trusted anyone for a long time.

  So I sat with him. I cooked for him until he couldn’t eat and we watched telly together. We had a bed delivered and he slept downstairs in the front room. When it was time a nurse came every day, then twice a day. A woman came in while I went shopping and, even though there was time, I never once went back to the moor when he was ill.

  He lasted six months. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, including losing Jimmy. Seeing Colin in so much pain broke my heart and I felt myself slipping back into the madness I had felt when I first met him. One day, when his pain relief had kicked in, he got out of bed and went to the sideboard. He got out a tiny key and gave it to me.

  ‘Look, Poll, there are some things I meant to do but I’m not going to be able to. Go and get my brown case.’

  His briefcase. He’d took it to work every day. I felt a pang of guilt because I’d never once wondered why he kept it locked in the back kitchen. Was it because I didn’t care enough? Was it? I got it for him and he clicked it open. He took out a photograph. A woman and a small child.

  ‘This is Marie. And Sally.’

  I nodded. Of course. His hard exterior. His missing days. I actually thought for one minute that he had another family, until the reality hit me. They were dead.

  ‘Your wife. And daughter?’

  I heard my voice, clear and crisp. A million miles for what I was feeling.

  ‘Yes. Yes. They... there was a fire. I was away.’

  I touched his arm lightly and he looked away.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Col. You could have told me. I would have understood.’

  He nodded.

  ‘I know you would. But I... I wanted it for myself. I’m sorry, Pol. I should have said. But they were no threat. They were long gone when I met you. I just...’

  We were never huggers. Not really. But I held him then, whether he liked it or not.

  He told me that there was a family plot and he wanted to be buried with them. It was a blow because I’d imagined that we would be buried together. But I’d imagined a lot of things before and been very wrong, so why should this be any different?

  He died in the night. I came downstairs and he was still and grey. I’d called the nurse and she called the doctor and that set off a whole blur of activity. Until all of a sudden I was standing at the side of Marie and Sally’s grave watching Colin lain to rest with them.

  Once again I felt completely alone. Excluded. Pushed out, But a little bit excited. Because now I really was free to be with my Jimmy.

  PATTI

  The Fox

  The scientific name of red foxes or foxes, as they are commonly known, is Vulpes vulpes. Foxes are a member of the dog family, the Canidae and for this reason they are known as canids. Wolves, coyotes, arctic foxes and the domestic dog are also canids. The canids are carnivores (meat eaters) but their diet is generalised and opportunistic, adapting to whatever foods are available locally.

  In the early 1950's it was estimated that the fox population the moors was about three to four animals per square mile. In some areas this would rise to around 10 in March with the decline over the year due to loss and migration. Recent surveys have suggested that nationwide the numbers have not changed drastically in the past 20 years and put the national population at between 240 - 250,000.

  The vixen is receptive for mating for about three days and then around 51 days later the cubs are born usually in litters of anything up to 6 cubs. At four weeks of age the cubs emerge from the den which is normally between May and June when they can be seen playing near the earth. The fox lives on a variety of foods that include rabbits, voles, mice, insects including beetles and moths, worms, snails, ground nesting birds such as the lark and Pipit. There is also evidence in dung samples found on the moor that the foxes will also eat whortleberries, blackberries and rowan berries when they are in season. The foxes tend to live out in the open on the high moor and will often be found in the dense rock fields where they make their homes. Unfortunately, foxes are often hunted for sport, their beneficial presence on the moor misinterpreted as pestilence by non-heathens.

  Chapter Eight

  I push the notes back into the folder. Poor Vera, on her own now. I’d wondered if she had anyone else. It was terrible that she’d had to live through every tiny detail of the inquest and not have any answers herself but felt so excluded. I knew the story so well that I knew all the victims’ names and backgrounds – Jimmy Jones had never been mentioned in any of my research. I already jumped to a conclusion that he wasn’t a victim. If this was true, why was Vera here every day, searching? The inquest was in 1947, more than sixty years ago, yet here she was, treading the moor every day. I’m more and more intrigued as I think about it, and now I’m free I can concentrate on what I came here for, my study. I need to speak to Vera and ask her questions, ask her about Jimmy and the moor.

  I doze for hours, sleeping off the shock and hurt and finally waking relatively calm. I get up to fetch a drink, my throat still sore from David’s assault. I can see Gabriel standing outside the house, looking over to Sarah’s place, and I go out to join him. He’s smoking a roll-up and I crave the bitterness in my lungs. A taste of my old life. He sees me and smiles.

  ‘Feeling better?’

  I hug myself and follow his line of vision. She’s in her bedroom getting undressed. I’m not sure what to say to him.

  ‘Mmm. It’s all been a bit of a shock but I’ll be OK. My hopes and dreams have been shattered, but well, you know. Tomorrows another day and all that.’

  He throws the roll up on the floor and reaches into his coat.

  ‘Look, Patti, you know what I said yesterday, about being safe?’ He gives me a phone, shiny and new out of the box. I switch it on and it lights up blue. ‘If he comes anywhere near you, ring me. OK?’

  ‘I will. But do you thin
k he will now?’

  He shakes his head. He’s still staring at Sarah through her window.

  ‘He might not. But I want to be sure that you’re safe. All the time.’

  I sigh and shiver.

  ‘Come inside, Gabriel. Come inside and I’ll make some tea.’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Look at her.’

  I see her now; she knows we’re there and she’s stretching like a cat, her arms above her head. My hackles rise but I manage to control my voice.

  ‘Is that what made you do it? Is it all that posing and preening?’

  He starts to roll another cigarette.

  ‘No. It was loneliness. She’s one of those women who makes you think about fucking her when you first meet her. It’s all on the outside. Too many women like that. I’m sorry, Patti, I really am. If I’d have known...’ He clicks the lighter and I’m rolling back to the first time I met him, his wet lips on the white paper. ‘Like I said, my problem is I don’t know where the line is. I’m only human. I rush into things without really knowing what I’m doing.’

  ‘You certainly don’t come over that way.’

  ‘Mmm. Part of my job, I suppose.’

  ‘What, writing? Why would you have to pretend you were someone else to write a book?’

  He stares at me now, and his mouth opens slightly as if he’s going to say something, but instead he pulls again on the roll-up, blowing smoke into the cold air. He gathers me towards him, his arm around my shoulders. Somehow it feels natural, caring, and what I’ve waited for. Neither of us speak for a while, then he asks me the million-dollar question.