The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 20

by Stephen Jones (ed. )

  As for painting: I wouldn’t actually be doing any, not on this my first unaccompanied visit to Tumble Tor. Instead I intended to prepare a detailed pencil sketch, and in that way get as well acquainted as possible with the monolith before attempting the greater familiarity of oils and colour. In my opinion, one has to respect one’s subjects.

  It had been a long hot summer and the ground was very hard underfoot, the soil crumbling as I climbed perhaps one third of the way up the knoll to a stone-strewn landing where the ground levelled off in a wide ledge. The sun was still rising in a mid-morning sky, but there in the shade of the summit rising behind me I seated myself on a flat stone and faced Tumble Tor with my board and paper resting comfortably on my knees. And using various grades of graphite I began to transpose my oddly staggered subject onto paper.

  Time passed quickly . . .

  Mid-afternoon, I broke for a ham sandwich with mayonnaise, washed down with a half thermos of bitter coffee. I had brought my binoculars with me; now and then I trained them on my car to ensure that it remained safe and hadn’t attracted the attention of any overly curious strangers. The glasses were also handy as a means of bringing Tumble Tor into greater resolution, making it easy to study its myriad bulges and folds before committing them to paper.

  As I looked again at that much wrinkled rock, a lone puff of cloud eased itself in front of the sun. Tumble Tor fell into shade, however temporarily, and suddenly I saw a figure high in one of the outcrop’s precipitous shoulders: the figure of a man leaning against the rock there, peering in a furtive fashion – or so it seemed to me – around the shoulder and across the moor in the general direction of the road. Towards my car? Perhaps.

  The puff of cloud persisted, slowly moving, barely drifting, across what was recently an empty, achingly blue sky, and I was aware of the first few wisps of a ground mist in the depression between my knoll and Tumble Tor. I glanced again at the sky and saw that the cloud was the first of a string of cotton-wool puffs reaching out toward Exeter in a ruler-straight line. Following this procession to its source, I was able to pick out the shining silver speck that had fashioned the aerial trail: a jet aircraft, descending toward Exeter airport. Its long vapour trail – even as it broke up into these small “clouds” – seemed determined to track across the face of the sun.

  I looked again at Tumble Tor, and adjusted the focus of my binoculars to bring the lone climber – the furtive observer of some near-distant event? – into sharper perspective. He hadn’t moved except to turn his head in my direction, and I had little doubt but that he was now looking at me. At a distance of something less than 450 yards, I must be visible to him as he was to me. But of course I had the advantage of my glasses . . . or so I thought.

  He was thin and angular, a stick of a man, with wild hair blowing in a wind I couldn’t feel, some current of air circulating around his precarious position. He wore dark clothing, and as I once again refocussed I saw that indeed he carried binoculars around his neck. Though he wasn’t using them, still I felt he gazed upon me. I tried to get a clearer view of his face but the image was blurred, trembling with the movement of my hands. However, when finally I did manage to get a good look . . . it was his narrow eyes that left a lasting impression.

  They seemed to glow in the shade of the rock with that so-called “red-eye” complication of amateur photography: an illusion – a trick of the light – obviously. But the way they were fixed upon me, those eyes, was somehow disconcerting. It was as if he was spying on me, and not the other way around.

  But spying? Feeling like some kind of voyeur, I lowered my glasses and looked away.

  Meanwhile, having swung across the sky, the sun had found me; soon my hollow in the side of the hill, rather than providing shade, was going to become a sun-trap. And so I reckoned it was time to call it a day and head for home. Before I could put my art things aside, however, a tall shadow fell across me and a deep voice said, “Aye, and ye’ve picked the perfect spot for it. What a grand picture the auld tor makes frae here, eh?”

  Momentarily startled, I jerked myself around to look up at the speaker. He was a dark silhouette, blocking out the sun.

  “Oh dear!” he said, himself startled. “Did I make ye jump just then? Well, I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed ye, and more so if I’ve broken ye’re mood. But man, ye must hae been concentratin’ verra hard not tae hear me comin’ down on ye.”

  “Concentrating?” I answered. “Actually I was watching that fellow on the tor there. He must be a bit of a climber. Myself, I don’t have much of a head for heights.”

  “On the tor, ye say?” Shading his eyes and standing tall, he peered at Tumble Tor, now bright once more in full sunlight. “Well then, he must hae moved on, gone round the back. I cannae see anyone on the rock right now, no frae here.” Then, stepping down level with me, he crouched to examine my drawing close up. And in my turn – now that the sun was out of my eyes – I could look more closely at him.

  A big, powerful man, I judged him to be in his mid-fifties. Dressed in well worn tweeds, good walking boots, and carrying a knobbed and ferruled stick, he could well have been a gamekeeper – and perhaps he was.

  “I . . . I do hope I’m not trespassing here,” I finally mumbled. “I mean, I hope this isn’t private ground.”

  “Eh?” he cocked his head a little, then smiled. “What? Do ye take me for a gillie or somethin’? No, no, I’m no that. And as far as I ken this ground’s free for us all. But a trespasser? Well, if ye are then so am I, and hae been for some twenty years!” He nodded at the unfinished drawing in my lap. “That’s a bonny piece of work. Will ye no finish it? Ye’ll excuse that I’m pokin’ my nose in, but I sense ye were about tae leave.”

  “Was and am,” I answered, getting to my feet and dusting myself off. “The sun’s to blame . . . the shadows on the tor are falling all wrong now. Also, the back of my neck was getting a bit warm.” I stooped, gathered up my art things, and looked at the drawing. “But I thank you for your comment because this is just—”

  “—A preliminary sketch?”

  “Oh?” I said. “And how did you know that?”

  Again he smiled, but most engagingly. “Why, there’s paint under ye’re fingernails. And ye’ve cross-hatched all the areas that are the self same colour as seen frae here . . . stone grey, that is. Ye’ll be plannin’ a painting – am I no right?”

  I studied him more closely. He had tousled brown hair – a lot of it for a man his years, – a long weathered face, brown, friendly eyes over a bulbous nose, and a firm mouth over a jut of a chin. His accent revealed his nationality, and he made no attempt to disguise it. The Scots are proud of themselves, and they have every right to be. This one looked as much a part of the moors as . . . well, as Tumble Tor itself.

  Impulsively, I stuck my hand out. “You’re right, I’m planning a painting. I’m Paul Stanard, from Torquay. I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “Andrew Quarry,” he came back at once, grasping my hand. “Frae a mile or two back there.” A jerk of his head indicated the knoll behind us. “My house is just off the Yelverton road, set back a wee in a copse. But – did ye say Stanard?”

  “Paul Stanard, yes,” I nodded.

  “Hmm,” he mused. “Well, it’s probably a coincidence, but there’s a picture in my house painted by one Mary May Stanard: it’s a moors scene that I bought in Exeter.”

  “My mother,” I told him, again nodding. “She sold her work through various art shops in Exeter and elsewhere. And so do I. But she she died some nine months ago. Lung cancer.”

  “Oh? Well, I’m sorry for ye,” he answered. “What, a smoker was she? Aye, it’s a verra bad business. Myself, I gave my auld pipe up years ago. But her picture – its a bonny thing.”

  I smiled, however sadly. “Oh, she knew how to paint! But I doubt if it will ever be worth any more than you paid for it.”

  “Ah, laddie,” he said, shaking his head. “But I didnae buy it for what others might reckon its value. I bo
ught it because I thought it might look right hangin’ in my livin’-room. And so it does.”

  Andrew Quarry: he was obviously a gentleman, and so open – so down-to-earth – that I couldn’t help but like him. “Are you by chance going my way?” I enquired. “That’s my car down on the road there. Maybe we can walk together?”

  “Most certainly!” he answered at once. “But only if I can prevail upon ye tae make a little detour and drop me off on the Yelverton road. It’ll be a circular route for ye but no too far out of ye’re way, I promise ye.”

  As I hesitated he quickly added, “But if ye’re in a hurry, then dinnae fret. The walkin’s good for a man. And me: I must hae tramped a thousand miles over these moors, so a half-dozen more will nae harm me.”

  “Not at all,” I answered. “I was just working out a route, that’s all. For while I’ve crossed Dartmoor often enough, still I sometimes find myself confused. Maybe I don’t pay enough attention to maps and road signs, and anyway my sense of direction isn’t up to much. You might have to show me the way.”

  “Oh, I can do that easily enough,” Quarry answered. “And I know what ye mean. I walk these moors freely in three out of four seasons, but in the fourth I go verra carefully. When the snow is on the ground, oh it’s beautiful beyond a doubt – ah, but it hides all the landmarks! A man can get lost in a blink, and then the cold sets in.” As we set off down the steep slope he asked: “So then, how did ye come here?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Ye’re route, frae the car tae here.”

  “Oh. I followed the path – barely a track, really – but I walked where many feet have gone before: around that clump of standing stones there, and so on to the foot of this hill where I left the track, climbed through the heather, and finally arrived at this grassy ledge.”

  “I see.” He nodded. “Ye avoided the more direct line frae ye’re vehicle tae the base of the tor, and frae the tor tae the knoll. Verra sensible.”

  “Oh?”

  “Aye. Ye see those rushes?” He pointed. “Between the knoll and yon rock? And those patches of red and green, huggin’ close tae the ground? Well those colours hint of what lies underfoot, and it’s marshy ground just there. Mud like that’ll suck ye’re shoes off! It would make a more direct route as the crow flies, true enough, but crows dinnae hae tae walk!”

  “You can tell all that from the colour of the vegetation? The state of the ground, that is?” He obviously knew his Dartmoor, this man.

  He shrugged. “Did I no say how I’ve lived here for twenty years? A man comes tae understand an awfy lot in twenty years.” Then he laughed. “Oh, it’s no great trick. Those colours: they indicate mosses, sphagnum mosses. And together with the rushes, that means boggy ground.”

  We had reached the foot of the knoll and set off following the rough track, making a detour wide of the tor and the allegedly swampy ground; which is to say we reversed and retraced my incoming route. And Quarry continued talking as we walked:

  “Those sphagnums . . .” he said, pausing to catch his breath. “. . . That’s peat in the makin’. A thousand years from now, it’ll be good burnin’ stuff, buried under a couple of feet of softish earth. Well, that’s if the moor doesnae dry out – as it’s done more than its share of this last verra hot summer. Aye, climatic change and all that.”

  I was impressed. “You seem to be a very knowledgeable man. So then, what are you, Mr Quarry? Something in moors conservation? Do you work for the National Park Authority? A botanist, perhaps?”

  “Botany?” He raised a shaggy eyebrow. “My profession? No laddie, hardly that. I was a veterinary surgeon up in Scotland a good long spell ago – but I dinnae hae a profession, not any more. Ye see, my hands got a wee bit wobbly. Botany’s my hobby now, that’s all. All the green things . . . I enjoy tae identify them, and the moor has an awfy lot tae identify.”

  “A Scotsman in Devon,” I said. “I should have thought the highlands would be just as varied, just as suitable to your needs.”

  “Aye, but my wife was a Devon lass, so we compromised.”

  “Compromised?”

  He grinned. “She said she’d marry me, if I said I’d come live in Devon. I’ve no regretted it.” And then, more quietly, “She’s gone now, though, the auld girl. Gone before her time. Her heart gave out. It was most unexpected.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” I said. “And so you live alone?”

  “For quite some time, aye. Until my Jennie came home frae America. So now’s a nice time for me. Jennie was studyin’ architectural design; she got her credentials – top of the class, too – and now works in Exeter.”

  We were passing the group of tall stones, their smoothed and rounded sides all grooved with the same horizontal striations. I nodded to indicate them. “They look like the same hand was at work carving them.”

  “And so it was,” said Quarry. “The hand of time – of the ice age – of the elements. But all the one hand when ye think it through. This could well be the tip of some buried tor, like an iceberg of stone in a sea of earth.”

  “There’s something of the poet in you,” I observed.

  He smiled. “Oh, I’m an auld lad of nature, for a fact!”

  And, once again on impulse, I said, “Andrew, if I may call you that, I’d very much like you to have that drawing – that’s if you’d care to accept it. It’s unfinished, I know, but—”

  “—But I would be delighted!” he cut in. “Now tell me: how much would ye accept for it?”

  “No,” I said. “I meant as a gift.”

  “A gift!” He sounded astonished. “But why on earth would a body be givin’ all those hours of work away?”

  “I really don’t know.” I shook my head, and shrugged. “And anyway, I haven’t worked on it all that long. Maybe I’d like to think of it on your wall, beside my mother’s painting.”

  “And so it shall be – if ye’re sure . . .?”

  “I am sure.”

  “Then I thank ye kindly.”

  Following which we were quiet, until eventually we arrived at the car. There, as I let Quarry into the passenger’s seat, I looked back at the sky and Tumble Tor. The puffs of cloud were still there, but dispersing now, drifting, breaking up. And on that strange high rock, nothing to be seen but the naked stone. Yet for some reason that thin, pale face with its burning eyes continued to linger in my own mind’s eye . . .

  Dartmoor is criss-crossed by many paths, tracks, roads . . . none of which are “major” in the sense of motorways, though many are modern, metalled, and with sound surfaces. Andrew Quarry directed me expertly by the shortest route possible, through various crossroads and turns, until we’d driven through Two Bridges and Prince-town. Shortly after that, he bade me stop at a stile in a hazel hedge. Beyond the stile a second hedge, running at right-angles to the road, sheltered a narrow footpath that paralleled a brook’s meandering contours. And some twenty-five yards along this footpath, in a fenced copse of oaks and birch trees, there stood Quarry’s house.

  It was a good sized two-storeyed place, probably Victorian, with oak-timbered walls of typical red Devon stone. In the high gables, under terracotta pantiles, wide windows had been thrown open; while on the ground floor, the varnished or polished oak frames of several more windows were barely visible, shining in the dapple of light falling through the trees. In one of these lower windows, I could only just make out the upper third of a raven-haired female figure busy with some task.

  “That’s Jennie,” said Quarry, getting out of the car. “Ye cannae mistake that shinin’ head of hair. She’s in the kitchen there, preparin’ this or that. I never ate so well since she’s been back. Will ye no come in for a cup of tea, Paul, or a mug of coffee, perhaps?”

  “Er, no,” I said, “I don’t think so. I’ve a few things to do at home, and it’s time I was on my way. But thanks for offering. I do appreciate it.”

  “And I appreciate ye’re gift,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll see ye some other time? Most defi
nitely, if ye’re out there paintin’ on the knoll. In fact, I shall make it my business to walk that way now and then.”

  “And I’ll be there—” I told him. “—Not every day, but on occasion, at least until my painting is finished. I’ll look forward to talking to you again.”

  “Aye,” he nodded, “and so we shall.” With which he climbed the stile with my rolled-up drawing under his arm, looked back and waved, then disappeared around a curve in the hedge.

  The forecast was rain for the next day or two. I accepted the weatherman’s verdict, stayed at home and worked on other paintings while waiting for the skies to clear; which they did eventually. Then I returned to the knoll and Tumble Tor.

  I got there early morning when there was some ground mist still lingering over from the night. Mists are a regular feature of Devon in August through December, and especially on the moors. As I left the car I saw four or five Dartmoor ponies at the gallop, their manes flying, kicking up their heels as they crossed the road. They must have known where they were headed, the nature of the uneven ground; either that or they were heedless of the danger, for with tendrils of mist swirling halfway up their gleaming legs they certainly couldn’t see where their hooves were falling! They looked like the fabulous hippocampus, I thought – like sea-horses, braving the breakers – as they ran off across the moor and were soon lost in the poor visibility.

  Poor visibility, yes . . . and I had come here to work on my painting! (Actually, to begin the second phase: this time using watercolours.) But the sun was well up, its rays already working on the mist to melt it away; Tumble Tor was mainly visible, for all that its foot was lost in the lapping swell; a further half-hour should set things to right, by which time I would be seated on my ledge in the lee of the knoll.