Red Shift

by Alan Garner

  “Yes. About a week later. He was mortified: gave me the cash.”

  “What did you buy?”

  “I didn’t. I saved it for this.”

  “So you’re plugged in to nothing?”

  “At least I can play whatever I want.”

  “That’s like arguing that a stopped clock’s the most accurate because it’s right twice a day.”

  “Lewis Carroll,” said Tom. “Now there’s an idea.” He went to the table and came back with a church guide and a pencil. “This’ll sort the old bitch out.” He drew a square on the plain back of the guide, and filled it with the alphabet. “I’ll teach you Lewis Carroll’s code, and we’ll use it for your letters. If she can crack this she’ll deserve a medal. It’s quite simple—”

  “I want some fresh air,” said Tom. “Let’s try for Mow Cop.”

  “Have we time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you all right now? It’s not spoilt the church?”

  “I’m fine. As long as you can handle that code. I want to get somewhere high. Out of the mire.”

  The road was steep, too steep to ride. The mountain was scattered with houses, but the village was at the top, gritstone cottages lodged among crags. The crags were grotesque. Cliffs, needles and slabs overhung the air, and in between were the houses, clamped to the rock. Dead quarries had sculpted the summit, and on the pinnacle stood a round tower and an arch, as if left from a great building, where no finished building could ever have been. The folly castle.

  Tom and Jan parked their bicycles and climbed. The tilted slabs were polished by the wind.

  “It’s fantastic!” shouted Jan.

  “Terrific!”

  The wind scoured and cleansed. Inside the castle was hollow, with no stairs.

  “Are you cold?” said Tom.

  “No. I can feel it, but I’m not cold.”

  To the north and east the Pennines led away. West and south was the plain, and Wales beyond.

  “This is us,” said Tom. “This is honest. Down there, in that sludge, all the filth, all the problems. We’re free of them.”

  “Are we?”

  “No, but it’s a good image.”

  “Barthomley and Crewe are down there, as well as the caravans.”

  “Down there, up here: it doesn’t matter as long as we know. Mow Cop just coincides with the difference.”

  “Difference?”

  “Between us up here and them down there.”

  “Are you saying you’re superior?”

  “Different.” Tom stood outside the castle, on the cliff edge. “This is for us.” Jan’s hair blew across his face.

  “Be careful.”

  “Clean wind and the smell of your hair. I can’t stand heights. Strange.”

  They ate their sandwiches in a roofless cottage that was a filter for the wind. No more than collapsed walls and a fragment of gable were left.

  “Fabulous, marvellous place,” said Tom. “And us. Living. Breathing in and out: stupendous.”

  “I wonder how many people have come home here,” said Jan. “How many babies. How many fires have been lit. How much of everything.”

  “And before that,” said Tom. They lay by the hearth. He reached up to the stone of the lintel. “Millstone grit. It was a delta from a river that wore away mountains above Norway, not two spins of the galaxy ago. And before that?”

  “I can’t,” said Jan. “It loses me. I stay with people. I love you.”

  “Rudheath and the Rector had better start worrying soon,” said Tom.

  “I know.”

  He stroked her hair.

  “But not yet,” said Jan.

  “I know.”

  “You don’t mind.”

  “I hope I wouldn’t be so crass.”

  “I love you,” said Jan.

  “Tom’s a-cold.”

  “Are you?”

  “I’m not cold. I said Tom’s a-cold.”

  “Good.”

  “There’s something in the chimney.”

  “Don’t move,” said Jan. “It’s our house.”

  “That’s all I grudge,” said Tom. “Being skint doesn’t matter—but if we could let rip, just one time. Just a few hours without worry about money.”

  “I’m happy now,” said Jan. “This will do me.”

  “But one day,” said Tom, “we shall.”

  “One day. You’re right: there is something in the chimney. It’s smooth.”

  Jan knelt on the fallen rubbish that blocked the hearth. “It’s cemented in. I can’t move it. Be careful.”

  “I’ll take away the other stones round it,” said Tom. The mortar was perished, and he lifted the blocks away from the chimney breast. “It’s a cavity. Here she comes—”

  “It’s beautiful!”

  Tom brushed the dirt with his sleeve. He held a stone axe head. It filled his palm. He rubbed with wet grass, and the axe shone grey-green, polished, flawless. It tapered to a thin edge at one end, and the other was a hammer shape, pierced for hafting.

  “It’s very beautiful,” said Tom.

  “Let me hold it.” Jan took it as if it were a delicate bird. “This is it,” she said. “This is it. My real and special thing. Can we keep it? From our house?”

  “Why not? A momentum of our visit. I doubt if the owner’s still interested,” said Tom. “But I am. Why wall it in?”

  “A Bunty,” said Jan. “A real thing.” She started to cry.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I love you. I’m so happy.”

  “Crying?”

  “I couldn’t have pets, with moving, and dolls weren’t real, and Mummy wasn’t in, and when they were they were always busy or too tired, and we never made friends with moving, and I was so lonely, so alone, till you. I’d nothing till you. Nothing stayed. But you did. You rode those bikes. You came. You’ve never let anybody down. And now. We found it in our real house. We’ll take turns to look after it, then we’ll never be apart: this in your hand.”

  “Orion,” said Tom. He held her. “There’s no end to you. I thought I had you worked out. I hadn’t begun.”

  “My face is a mess.”

  “Your face is the most important thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’m crying again.”

  “So am I.”

  The bicycles flew down Mow Cop. They passed Barthomley in darkness. Their lamps wove on the hills. Crewe was a glowing sky.

  Tom handed the axe to Jan.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello.”

  She was grinding rye by the hut doorway. Macey fed the grain to the upperstone as it whirled and rang upon the cockhead of the nether, and the flour swept white arms in a curve.

  “What do you see?”

  “No Macey,” he said.

  “Has he gone?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Where?”

  He shrugged. “Some place better for killing.”

  “Do you want him back?”

  “I’m not much, else.”

  “But you see more.”

  “I don’t want to. If he came back, he wouldn’t let me see, wouldn’t Macey. But he’s somewhere killing now. He won’t help me.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Frightened. Scared.”

  “Is it close? Do you see close?”

  “I don’t know. He’s scared, caught, yes, both.”

  “Who?”

  “Him. They’re both.”

  “Can you go to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go to him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look at him.”

  “He—they—too scared. It’s blue silver! Always blue silver! I want Macey!”

  “Hush. It’s all right.”

  “But I can’t help my mates. Seeing lies is daft.”

  “No lies,” s
he said.

  “Where the hell am I?”

  “With me,” she said. “Won’t I do?”

  “Oh, you’ll do!” he said, and laughed. “Happen I shan’t let Macey back—in case he’s jealous!”

  She stroked his head. The mill stopped.

  Magoo came into the hut and kicked Macey. “Out.” He pulled the girl across to the dark side of the hut.

  “You mustn’t. Logan said.”

  “Logan knows what he can do.”

  “And he’ll do it,” said Logan. He picked Magoo up and threw him out of the door onto the rock, stunning him. Face watched from the summit.

  “Why don’t you go and find yourself some heads,” said Logan, “and cool off, before I have to kill you?”

  Magoo squirmed for breath. “I’d—like to—get yours—”

  “You can’t afford the luxury.”

  “I—bloody know—that—”

  “You also know the girl’s not to be touched. She might abort. You keep off her.”

  “Macey was in there.”

  “Macey can’t hurt her.”

  “What’s it matter, anyroad?”

  “She’s carrying the new Ninth.”

  “The what?”

  “We breed. We reissue.”

  “One kid—!”

  “It’s a start.”

  “If it’s a girl—”

  “Then we build up stock.”

  Logan climbed to take over duty from Face.

  Magoo examined his bruises. “That bugger thinks he’ll live for ever.” He chose a sword, hung it on his back and went to patrol the limits of the mountain.

  “Watch him,” said Face to Logan. “See how he walks. He’s used to crags. Where did he enlist?”

  “Some place on the Danube, I think,” said Logan. “Or the northern frontier. I forget. Why?”

  “He’s too good. He adapted just like that. And these heads. He’s keen. He wants them. And you’ve seen him do it, no messing. The real thing.”

  “So? All you Celts do it.”

  “But none like the Mothers. He isn’t acting. He is one.”

  “How?”

  “Deserted? Re-enlisted, to get back home?”

  “You sure?”

  “I reckon. I know these tribes. And you should’ve seen him when you broke that snake. He was for shouting.”

  “What do you figure?”

  “We’re OK as long as we’re on Mow Cop,” said Face, “and as long as the Cats aren’t over-run too much. But if he gets word to his own, he’ll sell us down the river—and you first.”

  “He was in action at York. They were Mothers.”

  “Uniform,” said Face. “It does things. And it makes no odds. If Mothers stopped feuding long enough, your lot wouldn’t hold them. He was probably taking care of some family business at York.”

  “He was a member of the Imperial Roman Army, engaged in putting down insurgents.”

  “I don’t care what he was doing in Latin,” said Face, “but as far as Magoo’s concerned, the Ninth would be a bunch of heavies dim enough not to spot they were being used.”

  “That’s treason!”

  “Rome’s the biggest fall-guy the tribes have ever met.”

  “That’s treason. We’d be OK, though, with Mothers? He’d fight?”

  “Not now. Not if it meant going Roman. He’s got the flavour again. He’s tribal.”

  Face went down to the huts. He sat outside. The millstones rang on each other, and he saw the girl and Macey working by the door. The wind over the rocks kept his voice from Logan.

  “Is the goddess to speak?” said Face.

  “She is.”

  “Is there forgiveness?”

  “There is.”

  “Is there mercy?”

  “Through forgiveness.”

  “Is there another way?”

  “No other.”

  “Is it the goddess who speaks?”

  “It is.”

  “What is the forgiveness?”

  “Death.”

  “How will the death come?”

  “The goddess decides.”

  “And the girl?”

  “She pities.”

  Face rose, and entered his hut.

  “I didn’t catch any of that,” said Macey.

  “Never mind.”

  “But I do! What’s up? What’s up with him? I’ve never seen him look so badly. He’s clever: speaks Cat, Mother, Latin—all sorts.”

  “He did,” she said.

  “He’s skriking! Listen!”

  “He has lost Rome,” she said, “and is tribal, far from his tribe.”

  “First, I want a record shop,” said Jan.

  “Why?”

  “I keep thinking of you listening to no music.”

  “We agreed—”

  She waved an envelope at him. “I had a record token for Christmas.”

  “Try and cash it.”

  “No.”

  “We could do things with the money.”

  “The difference isn’t worth it. I want to give you something.”

  “I’m pretty desperate, myself,” said Tom.

  “I want to commemorate Us.”

  “How’s that, then? The title’s interesting.”

  “ ‘Cross Track’! As if I’d ever forget—!”

  “Basford sidings,” said Tom. “Barthomley. Mow Cop. Let’s have it.”

  “But it’s for you. You may not like it.”

  “With that title, it can be the crummiest music ever, and I’ll play it all my life,” said Tom.

  Jan bought the cassette with her record token, and they went out of the shop.

  “Straight to Mow?”

  “OK.”

  “But I’m not riding the last bit!”

  “The gradient’s only one in three, you weakling.”

  It was the end of winter, shoddy with cold.

  They walked the bicycles up the last pitch.

  “I’m thirsty,” said Jan.

  “I saw a couple of wells before. The inscriptions were highly moral.”

  “I don’t want to drink the writing.”

  They found the wells, arched recesses in stone. The Parson’s Well: Keep Thyself Pure and The Squire’s Well: To Do Good Forget Not.

  “Some option,” said Jan. “They’re both dry.”

  “It’s the thought that counts.”

  They lay in their house and sucked droplets from the reeds that grew in the room.

  “Matches,” said Tom. “And applied intelligence.” He pulled out several newspapers that had been wrapped next to his shirt.

  “I thought you were more crackly than usual,” said Jan.

  “It’s strange today,” said Tom. “Floating.”

  “Limbo.”

  “Not easy. Somehow.”

  He lit a fire. The place had been used before. Charred lumps and branches were scattered about the site, and some were protected from the wet.

  “Don’t burn rafters,” said Jan.

  “There’s a few old spars—”

  “It’s our house.”

  “It’s others’, too: has been.”

  “ ‘Nod Pete.’ ”

  “Who?”

  “Nod Pete,” said Jan. “Graffiti people have strange names.”

  “And do strange things,” said Tom. “One of them was either ten feet tall, could fly, or brought a ladder.”

  “Where?”

  “Right at the top of the gable, scratched in the stone.”

  “ ‘I came back Mary.’ ”

  “Was it to Mary, or by Mary?” said Tom. “I find it unutterably sad.”

  “We’re unutterably lucky.—What’s the matter?”

  Tom’s face had stiffened. “I can’t take that one. That one.”

  Jan looked at the broken plaster.

  “ ‘Pip loves Brian’?”

  “Underneath. Right underneath. A girl wrote it. You can tell. Flat letters.”

  “ ‘not really
now not any more.’ What’s wrong?”

  “Everything. No punctuation. What does it mean? Did she come back Mary? Specially? Was it a shock? What happened between?”

  “Is it so shattering?”

  “Pip loves Brian. You couldn’t ask for anything simpler. Why can’t it be simple? You’d think they had it made. And then—no punctuation.”

  “She’d be lonely.”

  “Or nothing. That’s worse. ‘not really now not any more.’ Finish. End.”

  Jan scratched the plaster with a stone. It fell from the wall, and she ground the lumps to wet dust.

  “Gone,” she said.

  “They haven’t.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Jan threw a piece of wood at the fire.

  “Nothing’s certain,” said Tom.

  “Two things are. And one is that everywhere’s been good or bad for somebody at some time, so there’s no point in moping about Pip and bloody Brian, whoever they were.”

  “What’s the other thing?”

  “I love you, of course.”

  “Do you believe in confusion at first sight?”

  “What is it? You’re not fit to take a sheep down a lane today. Come here. Tell me.”

  “Tom’s a-cold.”

  “That’s soon put right.”

  “I’m frightened.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “That’s what frightens me.”

  “You’re playing with words.”

  “They still frighten me.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s worse playing with people.”

  “Oh. Parents?”

  “I found your letters.”

  “Where?”

  “In her old handbag. Not the one she uses. The old one, with thongs round the edges. She keeps it in a drawer. My birth certificate; insurance; school reports; letters about me from teachers: all that. The catch doesn’t work. She uses string.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I read them. Thanks.”

  “Then what?”

  “Left them.”

  “She doesn’t know?”

  “I can’t compromise.”

  “You dear fool.”

  “I read your words. She wouldn’t understand them. They weren’t spoilt.”

  “Do you want Barthomley? Would it be safer?”

  “No. Here. Let’s walk.”

  They climbed the rocks beyond the castle. Tom shook his head in the wind.

  “That’s better. Clean. She’d always looked after me.”

  “Has she kept the new letters?”

  “She steamed the first one open, but when she saw the code and how you’d used ink that’d run, she gave over. Nothing’s been said.”