“We knew his name,” she replied.
“Everything's in a name. Everything and nothing.”
He continued digging which, with the narrow blade of the shovel, took longer than it should have. Moll roamed around in a big circle, sniffing here and there and no doubt trying to find a stick for her to throw.
“You've nothing to say?” she said. “Nothing you think we need to discuss?”
“Like what? Did he have a favourite song you'd like to sing? A prayer?”
“Like...” Her blood boiled and she wanted to slap him, very hard and very fast. “Like how about we start with everything that happened? Like Calderbank for instance? Like the fact that you didn't visit me afterwards? Like-”
“Hold on,” he said. “You made your feelings very clear when you were back home that I was no longer needed.”
“How did I?” she cried. “And what do you mean by 'no longer needed?'“
“You couldn't wait to get rid of me,” he said. “I'd butchered Calderbank and his cronies and you'd done with me. I'm not prepared to play mind games with you, trying to guess what you're thinking. It was obvious you hated me so-”
“Why was it?”
“You totally ignored me!” he said, stabbing the sharp edge of the shovel into the ground with a twang. “You couldn't even look me in the eye after that.”
“Are you being serious?” she shouted in a full rage. “I never asked you to save me or to kill those people!”
“Don't I know it?”
“That's all I'd ever seen of you, that's all you ever did. Kill. It... it...”
“It what?”
“It scared the crap out of me! You scare the crap out of me. Don't you see it? Can you blame me if I'm not rushing to pat you on the back and say 'thanks, well done!' You're a-”
“Monster? Is that the word you're looking for?”
“I didn't say that!” she cried. “I'd never say that.”
“Why not? That's what I am,” he said but softly this time like it was an effort to say it out loud. “A monster. Worse than a monster. A demon that can't be stopped.”
“Please don't say that,” she said. “You're not any of those things. It's just... Fuck.”
“What?”
“I don't have the words, Alan. You scare me, but it doesn't change how I really feel.”
“And what is it you feel?”
She sat on a rock behind her and put her head in her hands. Moll came over like a shot and thrust her soft muzzle into her face, making her giggle. The silence lasted until she was able to find something inside her, something that felt real and tangible but as slippery as melting ice. Maybe she was melting, she thought. Maybe the cold, cold heart that had frozen all those years ago was starting to thaw and she was realising now that she couldn't hold onto it.
“When I woke up and you weren't there,” she began. “It killed me. I don't know why, I don't know how, but it did. I was drunk and angry and full of fear and there you were right in the middle of it. When you'd gone, there was nothing. A void. Just the rest of my life without you in it.
“But you'd gotten too close and I couldn't let you in any further. I couldn't imagine what would happen if you kept digging, kept burrowing out the truth. It made me wonder what would happen if it all came out and the words made things real for me. So I struck out at you and you abandoned me, just like I thought I wanted you to.”
“And now?”
“And now...” She sighed. “And now it's like being on a road, thinking there's a turning coming up when there isn't. I'm stuck on my path, this one, and I can see you up ahead and it scares me. I'm afraid because I don't know what's going to happen when I reach you.”
He stood staring at her with his hands by his sides, like maybe he was sagging under the weight he was carrying on his heart. She looked back at him and smiled.
“But you know what this feels like already, don't you?” she said. He nodded. “I think that's why I'm drawn to you. I can feel the breaks in your heart and they're as familiar as mine. I've never known that before.”
“Neither have I,” he said.
“There's just something I have to know first.” She stood up and moved closer to him.
“What?” he replied, a little hoarsely now.
She moved into his space, that part of him that no one but Moll ever entered and she stood there, looking up at him as his skin paled and his breathing became audible. He was as scared as she was and it thrilled her.
“If you're drawn to me too.”
With that she put her arms around his neck and urged his lips to hers. He offered no resistance. They held the kiss as if it wasn't just their first but their last, the only one they'd ever know again and they offered it up to eternity. His strong arms closed around her waist, pulling her body closer into his.
Eventually she broke away, taking a long deep breath and letting it out in one heartfelt sigh. He was smiling and so was she. That was it, she realised. She'd found him on the road and her life would never be the same again.
When they'd laid Christoph to rest they sat down in the grass and listened to the wind in the trees, watching as it made the branches sway a little. It was cold but beautiful and she found that her body was warm with a different kind of heat now. It flowed through her veins like fire in the blood and sitting there under his arm was like sitting before the hearth or an open fire.
“Meggy,” she said after a moment where the birds sang one long, woeful chorus for the summers gone. “Her name was Meggy and she was my baby girl.”
The words hung in the air between them and she found herself staring down at her boots, at the hard soil beneath them and beyond that to the ground in which she lay. Her baby girl. Gone now. Never to come home.
“How old was she?” he asked.
“She was only 3 years old when she died. A disease, no one knew which one or how to cure it. Just like that she was laying there in my arms when she took her last breath. Until today I thought I'd died there too and all this was just a dream. That was partly true.”
She allowed a smile to cross her face and let out the breath she was holding. Telling him the first lines of a long and painful story felt right somehow, like the pressure that'd been trapped inside her chest was now being released, slowly at first. She wanted to wrap herself in him, fold those arms around her and sleep forever till the sun never rose again and the world grew cold and died.
She didn't know how long they stayed like that but in the end they had to move and she knew it. She kissed him again, savoring him, and then stood up, looking to Ziggy.
“It'll come,” she said with a firm resolve. “I'll tell you it all, I know I will. But you need to be patient with me. I'm not ready to do this all at once, I can feel that now. But it's coming. And you'll listen and you'll remember with me until I'm long gone. And one day...”
“One day?”
“It'll end for you, Alan. It won't last forever and I'll be waiting for you and you'll come to me.” She trembled with the words but right then it all seemed so clear to her, so obvious and she wondered how she hadn't seen it before. “And we'll sit and talk like we're going to and you'll kiss me in the long summer days we haven't enjoyed yet.”
He stared at her and began to smile. Sarah basked in its warmth, closed her eyes for a moment and saw it all, spanning their forevers until the world ended once more.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The tarmac went on and on like an endless black snake that wound its way between steep hillsides and barren moorland. It was a bleak, depressing country that seemed to be devoid of any kind of life and when the promising clear sky gave way to dirty, miserable clouds and light rain, the picture was complete. Sarah found herself hunched over in her saddle willing the journey to end. Even Ziggy seemed listless and weary, plodding along as they navigated their way around a traffic accident from years gone by.
“This is grim,” she said to Alan as he rode closer to her.
“It wasn't much diff
erent before the disaster. It's always been bleak this way.”
“And you say that people lived here?”
“Yes,” he laughed. “Not my people though.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“It's an old feud, more of a joke really but back then, before the disaster, this was a different County and the one I came from, the one where Pine Lodge is, went to war with it hundreds of years earlier.”
“Why?”
“I didn't do well at history I'm afraid. Since then there's always been this kind of grudge between people from either county. My Dad was from this part of the country and he married my mother who was from ours.”
“Did it cause problems between them?” she asked.
“Only of a joking kind,” he grinned. “Whenever he'd come back up this way to visit his family, my brothers said that he slipped back into his old accent like he'd never been away.”
“You never heard it yourself?”
“They died when I was young, I can hardly remember them. My brothers looked after me. They're older than I am.”
“Not anymore.”
“That's true.”
They rode onwards and it felt like the potholed road might never end. The rain that poured down filled the ruts on either side with a black, oily fluid that glistened with rainbow colors on its surface and Alan shook his head.
“Something's leaking nearby,” he said, pointing to the south where the hills rose up into the clouds and vanished. “An old plant or some large piece of machinery.”
“There's nothing on the map. It does say that there's a village somewhere around here,” she explained. “A sort of halfway house.”
“I've not been this way for a while. Things might have changed. I'll follow your lead anyway, it's your package and your delivery.”
“I wish it wasn't now. I'd kill for a bed and a hot meal and my sides are killing me.”
“I agree,” he said. “I think even Moll has had enough. Are your ribs still hurting?”
“Yeah. More just from the cold I think and from sitting in the saddle all day. I'll get over it.”
The dog was walking along quite slowly now, her head bowed and her back soaked with rain that she tried to shake off from time to time. All her previous energy was gone and she looked ready to lay down there and then.
“Poor thing,” she said.
“Throw a stick,” grinned Alan. “That might cheer her up.”
“I think you almost made a joke then, I couldn't tell, I was laughing so hard. And do you see any sticks? There isn't anything for miles around. It's dead.”
Alan just smiled to himself and drank a little water from his flask.
“Is there nothing you can remember about these parts?” He shook his head.
“You'd think that being around for so long would mean I got to go to all these places, but even two lifetimes hasn't been long enough. That's the problem with living; there just isn't enough time to live it right.”
“What's it like?” she asked.
“What? Living this long?” She nodded and he shrugged. “I can't really nail it down. I was a gardener before I went to the laboratory. I was my own boss and so I worked hard but ate too much and drank too much, all pretty normal for a man of my age. I had this rubbery belly from the beer, but after I came out of Longsteel it was all gone. No more paunch, no more back ache, nothing. I was a new man. It was nice for a while and then I realised that some stuff would never change. I still forget things but I can remember other stuff. I can still remember my childhood with my brothers. I remember my first job.”
“What was it?”
“I delivered take-away to people in a beaten-up Golf automatic with peeling paint,” he laughed. “I'd dash around to try and deliver as many pizzas or burgers as I could to get some extra money while I was at college. That lasted six weeks before I quit.”
“I still can't believe people used to have food taken to them like that.”
“They did and I was one of the best at it.”
“Of course you were,” she grinned. “You're joking again, right? Let me know in future so I can laugh at the right time.”
“That's cruel.”
He looked at her then and smiled. “You don't talk like most people.”
“How do most people talk?” she asked.
“Like you're not from here. From all this. I'm glad to see that books shaped you into...”
“Into what?”
“You, I guess. One day that will all be gone and people will have lost it to the past. The old paperbacks and hardbacks and electronic libraries will be gone and then... Who knows? Who will write the stories then? Who will tell the old tales of heroes and villains and...”
He slipped into silence again and that was when she noticed it - the two halves of Alan Harding. The one with an eye looking forward and one looking back. One lived for the new world while the other mourned the old one. They were at odds with each other and the look of pain on his face told her that it was a bitter struggle, one that he might never win.
“We've made it this far,” she said to him. “We got through the worst years of our lives. We can get through this.”
He looked at her with a kind of astonishment, just a brief flicker of recognition that perhaps she'd said something no one had said to him before. Then it was gone and it was replaced with a smile and a laugh. The halves had changed again and the moment had passed.
They rode on into the late evening. The weather persisted in its attempts to soak them through but the poncho she wore put an end to that. If it hadn't been for the cold, the journey might have been more bearable but as it was, when the first lanterns appeared off to the west, she struggled to muster any enthusiasm.
“That looks promising,” she said, leading Ziggy off the road onto a trodden path through the fields.
“This track is well-used,” said Alan. “That's a good sign at least.”
“A good sign they won't eat us you mean.”
“Something like that.”
They followed it to where it narrowed and passed between two small orchards, barren at that time of year, but still looking ready for the summer. She saw that the land was well-tended and great furrows could be seen in some of the other parts of the fields around them, left over from last-year's harvest.
“It doesn't look dangerous,” she said.
“Dangerous places rarely do,” he replied. “That's what makes them dangerous.”
They carried on for perhaps another half-mile before they saw the first signs of village life coming towards them. It was a cart being pulled by a cheery looking donkey with its head held high and the man riding on the top of the rickety wooden thing waved for them to stop with a grin on his face. Moll, seeing the animal, gave it a wide berth and tried to sniff its flanks from afar.
“Haloo!” he called out, pulling back the patchwork hood of his animal skin coat, revealing an old, weather beaten face with no hair. “Bloody awful weather, isn’t it?”
“You're right there,” said Sarah.
“Where are you folks heading to?”
“Wherever you keep your beds and hot food for travellers.”
“Ah,” he said with a knowing nod of his head. “You'll want The Piggle then.”
“The Piggle?” asked Alan.
“Yes. The pub. Just up ahead, you can't miss it. Ask for Mildred. Good handsome woman. She'll see you right.”
“Thanks.”
“Good day to you both,” he said. Then, looking at Moll, he lost some of that country-folk cheer. “Holy-Jacoby! How big is that beast?”
“Her name's Moll,” said Alan. “She's a dog, not a 'beast'.”
“I've never seen a hound that size before today. Oh my.”
With that he struck the donkey with a riding crop and set off again without another word. They watched him drive on down the track, seeing that his cart was loaded with old aluminum beer kegs.
“This looks promising,” said Sarah. “Alco
hol.”
“Maybe. I'm not sure I want to sleep in somewhere called 'The Piggle' though.”
“It makes no difference to me,” she said, urging Ziggy on again. “I'd sleep in the hay barn if I had to. I'm goosed.”
“Goosed?”
“Goosed. Tired. Worn out. You've never heard that before?” He shook his head. “It's a word. Look it up.”
The man had been right - there was no way either of them would've missed the pub even if they'd been blindfolded. The village was in fact a farm, or at least had once been a farm and from the looks of some of the pre-fab buildings, a dairy farm to be more precise. But aside from the farmhouse and the cow sheds, other structures had been built and now, as they rode into the main street running through the middle of it, the strange collection of houses, homes and workshops looked like an architect's worst nightmare.
In every nook and gap and angle, salvaged scrap metal and rough timber had been thrown up in all ways and in all styles. Doors taken off houses or boats or cars were fixed by nails and bolts to cover badly made entrances. Furniture from living rooms and gardens and offices littered the streets or took up residence along with useless ceramic toilets or fast-food signs and even car parts. There were great, ugly chimney stacks made from tin cans or galvanised ducting and they reached upwards like weeds and spread just as quickly. Some were already belching out great clouds of black smoke that stunk of chemicals and burned paint.
The Piggle stood to one side and it must have been part of the old-brick farmhouse only someone had taken a hammer to the front and opened it up to the elements. A long bar made by planks sat on trestles was already occupied by a surly looking old hag of a woman who served mugs of foamy ale in old tin cans or chipped white coffee cups and even, in the case of a young lad, a hollowed out animal horn.
On the other side of the house there were stables and as they rode into the centre of this mass of thriving, pulsing madness, a young boy caught their eye and came running over. He was filthy with horse manure and bits of hay and he wore a leather apron that nearly hit the floor.
“Affer-noon!” squeaked the boy. “Take your horses? They're beauties, they are!”
Beyond Hope (Tales from the Brink Book 3) Page 16
