And now . . . now he had clambered down into the mist, and I somehow knew that my nightmare was about to become reality. For as in my dreams he was coming – he was now on his way to me – and the mental quagmire continued to suck at me. Which was when everything went dark . . .
“What’s this?” (At first, a voice from far, far away which some kind of mental red shift rapidly enhanced, making it louder and bringing it closer.) “Asleep on the job, are ye? Twitchin’ like ye’re havin’ a fit!” And then, much more seriously: “Man, but I hope ye’re not havin’ a fit!
“Eh?” I gave a start. “W-what?” And lifting my head, jerking awake, I straightened up so quickly that I came very close to toppling over sideways.
And there I was, still seated on my plastic mac, blinking up into the half-smiling, half-frowning, wholly uncertain features of Andrew Quarry. “G-God, I was dreaming!” I told him. “A nightmare. Just lately I’ve been plagued by them!”
“Then I’m glad I came along,” he answered. “It was my hope tae find ye here, but when I saw ye sittin’ there – jerkin’ and moanin’ and what all – I thought it was best I speak out.”
“And just as well that you did,” I got my breath, finding it hard to breathe properly, and even harder to get to my feet. Quarry took my elbow, assisted me as, by way of explanation, I continued: “I . . . haven’t been sleeping too well.”
“No sleepin’?” He looked me straight in the eye. “Aye, I can see that. Man, ye’re lookin’ exhausted, so ye are! And tae fall asleep here – this early in the mornin’ – now, that’s no normal.”
I could only agree with him, as for the first time I actually felt exhausted. “Maybe it was the mist,” I searched for a better explanation. “Something sickening in the mist? Some kind of – I don’t know – some kind of miasma maybe?”
He looked surprised, glanced across the moorland this way and that, in all directions. “The mist, ye say?”
I looked, too, across the low-lying ground to where Tumble Tor stood tall for all that it seemed to slump; tall, and oddly foreboding now, and dry as a bone in the warm morning sunshine!
At which I could only shake my head and insist: “But when I sat down there was a mist, and a thick mist at that! Wait . . .” And I looked at my watch – which was proof of nothing whatever, for I couldn’t judge the time.
“Well?” Quarry studied my face, curiously I thought.
“So maybe I was asleep longer than I thought,” I told him, lamely. “I must have been, for the mist to clear up like that.”
His frown lifted. “Maybe not.” He shrugged. “The moor’s as changeable as a young girl’s mind. I’ve known the mist tae come up in minutes and melt away just as fast. Anyway, ye’re lookin’ a wee bit steadier now. So will ye carry on, or what?”
“Carry on?”
“With ye’re paintin’ – or drawin’ – or whatever.”
“No, not now,” I answered, shaking my head. “I’ve had more than enough of this place for now.”
As he helped me to gather up my things, he said, “Then may I make a wee suggestion?”
“A suggestion?” We started down the hillside.
“Aye. Paul, ye look like ye could use some exercise. Ye’re way too pale, too jumpy, and too high strung. Now then, there’s this beautiful wee walk – no so wee, actually – frae my place along the beck and back. Now I’m no just lookin’ for a lift, ye ken, but we could drive there in ye’re car, walk and talk, take in some verra nice autumn countryside while exercisin’ our legs, and maybe finish off with a mug of coffee at my place before ye go on back tae Torquay. What do ye say?”
I almost turned him down, but . . . the fact was I was going short on company. Since the breakdown of my marriage (it seemed an awfully long time ago, but in fact had been less than eighteen months) all my friends had drifted away. Then again, since they had been mainly couples, maybe I should have expected that I would soon be cast out, to become a loner and outsider.
So now I nodded. “We can do that if you like. But—”
“Aye, but?”
“Is your daughter home? Er, Jennie?” Which was a blunt and stupid question whichever way you look at it; but having recognized the apprehension in my voice, he took it as it was meant.
“Oh, so ye’re no particularly interested in the company of the fairer sex, is that it?” He glanced sideways at me, but for my part I remained silent. “Oh well then, I’ll assume there’s a verra good reason,” he went on. “And anyway, I wouldnae want to seem to be intrudin’.”
“Don’t get any wrong ideas about me, Andrew,” I said then. “But my wife and I divorced quite recently, since when—”
“Say no more.” He nodded. “Ye’re no ready tae start thinkin’ that way again, I can understand that. But in any case, my Jennie’s gone off tae Exeter: a day out with a few friends. So ye’ll no be bumpin’ intae her accidententally like. And anyway, what do ye take me for: some sort of auld matchmaker? Well, let me assure ye, I’m no. As for my Jennie, ye can take it frae me: she’s no the kind of lassie ye’d find amenable to that sort of interference in the first place. So now ye ken.”
“I meant no offence,” I told him.
“No, of course ye didn’t.” He chuckled. “Aye, and if ye’d seen my Jennie, ye’d ken she doesnae need a matchmaker! Pretty as a picture, that daughter of mine. Man, ye couldnae paint a prettier one, I guarantee it!”
Along the usual route back to the car, I couldn’t resist the occasional troubled glance in the direction of Tumble Tor. Andrew Quarry must have noticed, for he nodded and said, “That auld tor: it’s given ye nothin’ but a load of grief, is it no so?”
“Grief?” I cast him a sharp look.
“With ye’re art and what all, ye’re paintin’. It’s proved a poor subject.”
A sentiment I agreed with more than Quarry could possibly know. “Yes,” I answered him in his own words, “a whole load of grief.” And then, perhaps a little angrily, revealing my frustration: “But I’m not done with that rock just yet. No, not by a long shot!”
Leaving the car on the road outside Quarry’s place, we walked and talked. Or rather he talked, simultaneously and unselfconsciously displaying his expertise with regard to the incredible variety of Dartmoor’s botanical species. And despite my current personal concerns – about my well-being, both physical and mental, following the latest unpleasant episode at Tumble Tor – I soon found myself genuinely fascinated by his monologue. But if Quarry had shown something of his specialized knowledge on our first meeting, now he excelled himself. So much so that later that day I could only remember a fraction of it.
Along the bank of the stream, he pointed out stag’s horn and hair mosses; and when we passed a stand of birch trees just fifty yards beyond his house, he identified several lichens and a clump of birch-bracket fungi. Within a mile and a half, never straying from the path beside the stream, we passed oak, holly, hazel and sycamore, their leaves displaying the colours of the season and those colours alone enabling Quarry’s instant recognition. On one occasion, where the way was fenced, he climbed a stile, crossed a field into a copse of oaks and dense conifers, and in less than five minutes filled a large white handkerchief with spongy, golden mushrooms which he called Goat’s Lip. When I asked him about that, he said:
“Aye, that’s what the locals call ’em. But listen tae me: ‘locals’, indeed! Man, I’m a local myself after all this time! Anyway, these beauties are commonly called downy boletus – or if ye’re really, really interested Xerocomus subtomentosus. So I think ye’ll agree, Paul, Goat’s Lip falls a whole lot easier frae a man’s lip, does it no?” At which I had to smile.
“And you’ll eat them?” I may have seemed doubtful.
“Oh, be sure I will!” he answered. “My Jennie’ll cook ’em up intae a fine soup, or maybe use ’em as stuffin’ in a roasted chicken . . .”
And so it went, all along the way.
But in no time at all, or so it seemed, we’d covered more t
han two miles of country pathway and it was time to turn back. “Now see,” Quarry commented, as we reversed our route, “there’s a wee bit more colour in ye’re cheeks; it’s the fresh air ye’ve been breathin’ deep intae ye’re lungs, and the blood ye’re legs hae been pumpin’ up through ye’re body. The walkin’ is good for a man. Aye, and likewise the talkin’ and the companionship. I’d be verra surprised if ye dinnae sleep well the nicht.”
So that was it. Not so much the companionship and talking, but the fact that he’d been concerned for me. So of course when he invited me in I entered the old house with him, and shortly we were seated under a low, oak-beamed ceiling in a farmhouse-styled kitchen, drinking freshly ground coffee.
“The coffee’s good,” I told him.
“Aye,” he answered. “None of ye’re instant rubbish for my Jennie. If it’s no frae the best beans it’s rubbish . . . that’s Jennie’s opinion, and I go along with it. It’s one of the good things she brought back frae America.”
We finished our coffee.
“And now a wee dram,” he said, as he guided me through the house to his spacious, comfortable living-room. “But just a wee one, for I ken ye’ll need to be drivin’ home.”
Seated, and with a shot glass of good whisky in my hand, I looked across the room to a wall of pictures, paintings, framed photographs, diplomas and such. And the first thing to catch my eye was a painting I at once recognized. A seascape, it was one of my mother’s canvases, and one of her best at that; my sketch of Tumble Tor – behind non-reflective glass in a frame that was far too good for it – occupied a space alongside.
I stood up, crossed to the wall to take a closer look, and said, “You were as good as your word. I’m glad my effort wasn’t wasted.”
“And ye’re Ma’s picture, too,” he nodded, coming to stand beside me. “The pencils and the paint: I think they make a fine contrast.”
I found myself frowning – or more properly scowling – at my drawing, and said, “Andrew, just you wait! I’m not done with painting on the moor just yet. I promise you this: I’ll soon be giving you a far better picture of that damned rock . . . even if it kills me!”
He seemed startled, taken aback. “Aye, so ye’ve said,” he answered, “—that ye’re set on it, I mean. And I sense a struggle brewin’ between the pair of ye – ye’rsel and the auld tor. But I would much prefer ye as a livin’ breathin’ friend than a dead benefactor!”
At which I breathed deeply, relaxed a little, laughed and said, “Just a figure of speech, of course. But I really do have to get to grips with that boulder. In fact I don’t believe I’ll be able to work on anything else until I’m done with it. But as for right now—” I half-turned from the wall, “I am quite done with it. Time we changed the subject, I think, and talked about other things.”
My words acted like an invocation, for before turning more fully from the wall my gaze lighted on something else: a framed colour photograph hung in a prominent position, where the stone wall had been buttressed to enclose the grate and blackened flue of an open fireplace. An immaculate studio photograph, it portrayed a young woman’s face in profile.
“Your wife?” I approached the picture.
“My Jennie,” Quarry replied. “I keep my wife’s photographs in my study, where I can speak tae her any time I like. And she sometimes answers me, or so I like tae think. As for my Jennie: well now ye’ve seen her, ye’ve seen her Ma. Like peas in a pod. Aye, but it’s fairly obvious she doesnae take after me!”
I knew what he meant. Jennie was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. Her lush hair was black as a raven’s wing, so black it was almost blue, and her eyes were as big and as blue as the sky. She had a full mouth, high cheeks and forehead, a straight nose and small, delicate ears. Despite that Jennie’s photograph was in profile, still she seemed to look at the camera from the corner of her eye, and wore a half-smile for the man taking her picture.
“And she’s in Exeter, with her boyfriend?”
Quarry shook his head. “No boyfriend, just friends. She’s no been home long enough tae develop any romantic interests. Ye should let me introduce ye some time. She was verra much taken with ye’re drawing. Ye hae that in common at least – designs, I mean. For it’s all art when ye break it down.”
After that, in a little while, I took my leave of him . . .
Driving home, for some reason known only to my troubled subconscious mind, I took the long route across the moor and drove by Tumble Tor; or I would have driven by, except Old Joe was there where I’d last seen him. In fact, I didn’t see him until almost the last moment, when he suddenly appeared through the break in the hedge, stepping out from the roadside track.
He looked at me – or more properly at my car – as it sped toward him, and for a moment he teetered there on the verge and appeared of two minds about crossing the road directly in front of me! If he’d done so I would have had a very hard time avoiding him. It would have meant applying my brakes full on, swinging my steering-wheel hard over, and in all likelihood skidding sideways across the narrow road. And there on the opposite side was this outcrop, a boulder jutting six feet out of the ground, which would surely have brought me to a violent halt; but such a halt as might easily have killed me!
As it was I had seen the old tramp in sufficient time – but only just in time – to apply my brakes safely and come to a halt alongside him.
Out of my window I said, “Old Joe, what on earth were you thinking about just then? I mean, I could so easily—”
“Yes,” he cut me off, “and so could I. Oh so very easily!” And he stood there trembling, quivering, with his eyes sunk so deep that I could scarcely see them.
Then I noticed the mist. It was just as Andrew Quarry had stated – a freak of synchronicity, sprung into being almost in a single moment – as if the earth had suddenly breathed it out; this ground mist, swirling and eddying about Old Joe’s feet and all across the low-lying ground beyond the narrow grass verge.
Distracted, alienated, and somehow feeling the dampness of that mist deep in my bones, I turned again to the old man, who was still babbling on. “But I couldn’t do it,” he said, “and I shall never do it! I’ll simply wait – forever, if needs be!”
As he began to back unsteadily away from the car, I said, “Old Joe, are you ill? What’s the trouble? Can I help you? Can I offer you a lift, take you somewhere?”
“A lift?” he answered. “No, no. This is my waiting place. It’s where I must wait. And I’m sorry – so very sorry – that I almost forgot myself.”
“What?” I said, frowning and perplexed. “What do you mean? How did you forget yourself? What are you talking about?”
“It’s here,” he replied. “Here’s where I must wait for it to happen again! But I can’t – I mustn’t, and won’t ever – try to make it happen! No, for I’m not like that one . . .”
Old Joe gave a nod and his gaze shifted; he looked beyond me, beyond the car, out across the moors at Tumble Tor. And of course, as cold as I suddenly felt, I turned my head to follow his lead. All I saw was naked stone, and without quite knowing why I breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, turning back to the old tramp, I said, “But there’s no one there, Joe!” And again, in a whisper: “Old Joe . . .?” For he wasn’t there either – just a curl of mist in the hedgerow, where he might have passed through.
And a few minutes later, by the time I had driven no more than a mile farther along the road toward Torquay, already the mist had given way to a wan, inadequate sun that was doing its best to shine.
I had been right to worry about my state of mind. Or at least, that was how I felt at the time: that my depression under this atmosphere of impending doom which I felt hovering over me was some kind of mild mental disorder. (For after all, that’s what depression is, isn’t it?) Even now, as I look back on it in the light of new understanding, perhaps it really was some sort of psychosis – but nothing that I’d brought on myself. I realize that now because at the t
ime I acknowledged the problem, while psychiatry insists that the psychotic isn’t aware of his condition.
In any case, I had been right to worry about it. For despite Andrew Quarry’s insistence that I’d sleep well that night, my dreams were as bad and even worse than before. The mist, the semi-opaque silhouette of monolithic Tumble Tor, and those eyes – those crimson-burning eyes – drawing closer, closer, and ever closer. Half-a-dozen times I woke up in a cold sweat . . . little wonder I was feeling so drained . . .
In the morning I drove into town to see my doctor. He gave me a check-up and heard me out; not the entire story, only what I felt obliged to tell him about my “insomnia”. He prescribed a course of sleeping pills and I set off home . . . such was my intention.
But almost before I knew it I was out on the country roads again. Taken in thrall by some morbid fascination or obsession, I was once more heading for Tumble Tor!
My tank was almost empty . . . I stopped at a garage, filled her up . . . the forecourt attendant was concerned, asked me if I was feeling okay . . . which really should have told me that something was very wrong, but it didn’t stop me.
Oh, I agreed with him that I didn’t feel well: I was dizzy confused, distracted, but none of these symptoms served to stop me. And through all of this I could feel the lure, the inexplicable attraction of the moors, to which I must succumb!
And I did succumb, driving all the way to Tumble Tor where I parked in my usual spot and levered myself out of my car. Old Joe was there, waving his arms and silently gibbering . . . warning me about something which I couldn’t take in . . . my mind was clogged with cotton-wool mist . . . everything seemed to be happening in slow-motion . . . those eyes, those blazing evil eyes!
I felt a whoosh of wind, heard a vehicle’s tyres screaming on the road’s rough surface, saw through the billowing mist the blurred motion of something passing close – much too close – in front of me.
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