Westmorland Alone

by Ian Sansom

  ‘In order to get to know others,’ said Morley. ‘That’s partly what books are for.’

  ‘I haven’t read enough books to know, sir. I’ve only read yours.’

  ‘Well, I am honoured.’

  ‘I always felt I could trust you, Mr Morley.’

  ‘You certainly can, sir,’ said Morley. ‘You certainly can.’

  I coughed loudly. ‘Gentlemen,’ I said. This seemed like the right moment to leave. ‘I hate to interrupt, but—’

  ‘You know what?’ said Noname, ignoring me. ‘Let me show you something, Mr Morley.’ And he reached up above his bed to retrieve something from a high shelf. ‘Here we are then. I don’t show this to many people.’ He paused. This would be the con, I thought. ‘My library.’ And he brought down a book. Or rather, the book. Morley’s Book for Boys.

  ‘There it is,’ he said, looking triumphantly at me. If this was a set-up then it had been elaborately planned. ‘What do you think of that?’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Morley. ‘It’s a while since I’ve seen this.’

  ‘I could recite you from every page, sir. “It is my hope and expectation that this book contains everything that a young boy needs to know and is likely to be interested in.” That’s how you start, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think it is,’ said Morley. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I just check?’ I said. ‘You don’t mind?’ I thought that Morley was now so entranced with the thought that a gypsy had learned to read using his book and his book alone that he would have believed it if the man had started reciting the opening pages of the Koran. I opened the book to the first page. Noname had it exactly right.

  ‘”But to be clear,”’ Noname went on, ‘”this is not a book of facts. It is possible for a boy to know many facts and yet still be ignorant.” Which is quite right, Mr Morley. “The truly educated boy knows how to find things out for himself.” Quite right again, Mr Morley.’

  ‘Yes!’ said Morley, absolutely delighted. ‘Yes! That’s absolutely correct. And then I go on about having to learn all the most important things in life for oneself, is that right?’

  ‘Quite right once again, Mr Morley; though I have to say that all the information things about camping and setting fires and tracking animals I certainly found them very useful, as you can imagine.’

  ‘Me teaching you of all people about outdoor crafts!’ said Morley. ‘My goodness me. Would you like me to sign it?’

  ‘Sign what?’ asked Noname.

  ‘The book?’

  ‘Sign what in it?’

  ‘My name. Write my name in the book?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ said Noname, snatching the book from me. ‘I’ve got my name written in the book.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Morley. ‘My apologies.’

  ‘How exactly did you come across this book?’ I asked.

  ‘Like I say, my father bought it for me,’ said Noname, holding the book close to his chest. ‘He used it to teach me to read and write.’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ said Morley.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed.

  ‘Which was a rare thing among us, Mr Morley, I can tell you.’

  ‘I can believe it,’ said Morley. I couldn’t.

  Noname held the book up in front of him, as if having unearthed some precious artefact. ‘I was about thirteen or so, I suppose. I knew how to shoe a horse, and how to cut willows and peel ’em and dye ’em and make bread baskets, and all the other things we learn. But I didn’t know how to read and I don’t know why but I got this hankering for it, this hunger to be able to put things properly in sentences and paragraphs, and so my father he got me this book and we worked our way through it together, him teaching me all the rudiments like as we went.’

  ‘That really is a remarkable story,’ said Morley. ‘Isn’t it, Sefton?’

  ‘Remarkable,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know about remarkable, Mr Morley, but it is a true story, that’s all,’ said Noname, looking at me.

  ‘But surely all true stories are remarkable stories,’ said Morley.

  ‘Ah! And that’s how I knows you are truly Swanton Morley, sir, and not some impostor, saying things like that! That is the true sign of you being yourself.’

  Miriam was calling from outside.

  ‘Father! Father!’

  All three of us shuffled out and down the steps.

  ‘Ah, Miriam!’ said Morley.

  ‘Father, I’m afraid I am really having terrible trouble explaining something to this woman and I wondered if you could …’ The old woman was standing by her, leaning on a stick, looking entirely pathetic. ‘You see she has taken some money of mine for—’

  ‘That is a mistake,’ said Noname. ‘A misunderstanding.’ He looked at me. ‘Mother’ll not be charging today, will you, Mother?’

  ‘I won’t?’

  ‘No, she won’t.’

  And then he said something in Romani and the old woman handed back Miriam’s ten bob note, glaring at her, before shuffling back off towards her makeshift stall, muttering.

  ‘What did he say?’ Miriam asked.

  ‘No idea,’ said Morley. ‘My Romani’s a bit patchy, to be honest. Best leave her be.’

  ‘As I say, Mr Morley,’ said Noname, ‘if you’re ever in Appleby, you must come and we’ll sit by the yog.’

  ‘The fire?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. You’re a true scholar!’

  ‘I wish,’ said Morley.

  The little girl who had been bathing the baby came running over, carrying her little sister.

  ‘These are my little girls, Mr Morley, Naughty and Nice.’

  ‘You certainly have a fine line in names,’ said Morley.

  ‘I like to think so,’ said Noname. ‘Naughty,’ he instructed the little girl, ‘say hello to Mr Swanton Morley.’

  ‘Goodbye!’ said Naughty, sticking out her tongue and running off.

  ‘And goodbye to you,’ said Morley, laughing. ‘Actually …’ He consulted his wristwatch. And his other wristwatch. And his pocket-watch.

  ‘The wrestling!’ he said. ‘Sefton, why didn’t you say? You’ve made us late! Come on! Miriam! Quick! Goodbye, Noname! Pleasure to meet you, sir!’

  ‘Likewise, sir,’ cried Noname. ‘And you, Mr Sefton.’

  I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.

  CHAPTER 11

  STEPHEN ‘JAWBONE’ SEFTON

  IN Morley’s Book of Sporting Heroes (1938) Morley devotes several chapters, as one might perhaps expect, to the great cricketers, including W.G. Grace and K.S. Ranjitsinhji, whom he describes as ‘the supreme batsman of all time’, though his own personal all-time cricketing favourite, who doesn’t get a mention, was his good friend the fearless wicket-keeper Les Ames; Morley was scrupulous about being even-handed and avoiding even the slightest hint of favouritism. (In Morley’s personal opinion, however, which he was often keen to express, Ames’s achievements were nothing short of astonishing: the only Englishman ever to score more than a hundred runs before lunch in a Test; the most stumpings and the most dismissals in an English county cricket season; and one of the few people to emerge from the famous Bodyline tour of Australia with his dignity intact.) Morley also devotes chapters, perhaps rather more surprisingly, to Jack Johnson, John L. Sullivan, Jesse Owens – a ‘man of unimpeachable integrity’ – and an entire chapter to the ‘big five’ English billiards players of the 1920s and 1930s: Walter Lindrum, Clark McConachy, Willie Smith, Joe Davis and Tom Newman, ‘the baronetcy of the baize’. Miss D.D. Steel, ‘the incomparable Miss Steel’, the lady croquet player, enjoys a chapter to herself in the book and, more eccentrically, so does Mick the Miller, ‘England’s first great racing greyhound’. But perhaps the most surprising entries in Morley’s sporting hall of fame are for those he describes as ‘God’s wrestlers’, a group of Cumberland and Westmorland clergymen who ‘wrestled not only with God but with human souls – and with human bodies’, including the Reverend Abraham Brown, one-time rector of Egr
emont and one of the great wrestlers of the nineteenth century. Morley loved nothing more than a good old-fashioned Lakeland wrestling clergyman.

  There were, alas, as far as I could tell, no clergymen wrestling on the afternoon we attended the Egremont Fair, but then there are presumably no requirements for them to wrestle in clerical collar and robes. Everyone was in fact wearing the traditional Westmorland wrestling garb of white vest, long johns, dark embroidered trunks and dark socks, a get-up that made them appear like nothing so much as giant babies rolling around on the greensward under Dent Fell. It really was the most extraordinary sight. There were multiple bouts taking place at once. The wrestlers stood facing one another, legs apart, bent over, chins resting on each other’s shoulders, hands clasped behind their opponents’ backs, and then the referees – dressed in flat caps and suits – would cry ‘Hods’ and the bouts would begin, with the men attempting to slide their arms up to somehow up-end their adversary. I had no idea about the rules and regulations of the sport, but I had to admit it was rather fascinating – a bit like high-speed human chess.

  The great combat sport of the English countryside

  ‘How does this work exactly?’ asked Miriam.

  ‘The person to touch the ground with any part of their body rather than their feet is the loser,’ said Morley.

  ‘Right. Is that it?’

  ‘Best of three decides the bout.’

  ‘Hmm. Not exactly a game of skill, then, Father, is it?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Morley. ‘Au contraire! It is not only a game of skill, Miriam, it is a game of strength and speed and – as you can see – an extraordinary spectacle.’ At least in this last regard Morley was indubitably correct: as well as the dozens of contestants there were, to my astonishment, hundreds and hundreds of spectators, all of us crowded round in a vast circle, with many children on their father’s shoulders and others perched atop cars and lorries, creating a kind of impromptu tiered amphitheatre. ‘The great combat sport of the English countryside,’ continued Morley, ‘hunting, shooting and fishing notwithstanding. A sort of combination of street theatre and the enactment of ritual violence. Might be worth an essay, actually, Sefton. “Fighting on the Fair Field Full of Folk: Ritual Violence in the World of Rural Wrestling”. What do you think?’

  ‘Very good, Mr Morley.’

  ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? Good. Make a note.’

  There was, thank goodness, no time to make a note.

  ‘Oohh,’ the whole crowd gasped as one, witnessing a particularly tough fall.

  ‘Ouch,’ said Morley. ‘Don’t fancy that, eh, Sefton?’

  It was Miriam who spotted Gerald Taylor first: he towered above his opponent and easily toppled him. We shuffled our way around the edge of the crowd to get a closer view and had almost reached him by the time the bout was over and he was shaking hands with the referee. As he modestly raised his arms in triumph and the crowd applauded, I spotted our old friend the chief inspector making his way through the crowd.

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘I think it might be time for us to get back to Appleby, Mr Morley. We’re not actually meant to be here, you know.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Morley, who had been deep in conversation with a local about the current state of Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling. ‘You don’t want to see the final?’

  ‘I have a feeling Gerald Taylor might not make it to the final, Mr Morley,’ I said, pulling at Morley’s arm and pointing out the chief inspector, and the other policemen. The crowd fell silent as the chief inspector at first approached the referee and then Gerald and spoke quietly to him. It was impossible to hear what was said but we knew, as no one else at that moment knew, that Gerald Taylor’s world was about to change for ever.

  At first, he simply shook his head, disbelievingly. The chief inspector then said something else quietly in his ear and Gerald pushed him away from him.

  ‘I don’t think he’s taking it very well,’ whispered Miriam.

  ‘No,’ said Morley. ‘But what did you expect?’

  I for one did not expect what happened next.

  Gerald let out a roar of pain that echoed around the field and beyond Egremont and which could probably have been heard as far away as the Isle of Man. It was a pitiful sound and a terrible sight – this giant of a man, all done up in his bright white wrestling finery, brought suddenly and publicly so low.

  ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson,’ sighed Morley quietly; this was one biblical allusion that even I could follow.

  The chief inspector put a hand out to try to calm Gerald, but it was no good.

  ‘She’s not dead!’ he shouted. ‘Do you hear me? She’s not dead!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Taylor,’ said the chief inspector.

  ‘Do you think we should do something?’ said Morley.

  ‘Definitely not,’ said Miriam, too late. We certainly should have done something, before something happened to us.

  ‘Mr Taylor. Gerald, please,’ protested the chief inspector.

  ‘How?’ roared Gerald. ‘How did she die?’ This was the pharmacist in him speaking, obviously. The whole crowd was silent, but was also asking the same question.

  ‘You need to come with us, Gerald,’ said the chief inspector.

  ‘She is not dead till I say she’s dead!’ yelled Gerald, placing a heavy hand on the chief inspector’s shoulder. He was still in wrestling mode and the chief inspector had become his opponent.

  ‘Gerald – I’m sorry.’ The chief inspector caught my eye. He was clearly desperate, looking to deflect Gerald’s rage – and he found in me a way of doing so. I didn’t really blame him. I’d have done the same. He pointed at me. ‘In fact it was this gentleman here who found her. Mr Sefton, do you want to explain to Gerald …’

  Gerald took one look at me standing at the front of the crowd and before I could even shake my head he came charging at me, demented – like a bull at the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas in Madrid, according to Morley. (‘You were magnificent, Sefton,’ he congratulated me later. ‘Oe! Oe! Oe!’) All I recall is that Gerald had me by the neck and was doing his best to throttle me, yelling, ‘She’s not dead!’ again and again. This was most definitely not a bull-and-matador move: it was not an elegant move; and it was not a wrestling move. It was an act of rage and grief – which is probably what saved me. Of all the moves I learned to defend myself against over the years the attempted choke is perhaps the easiest to counter, and a man lashing out in sorrow is always easier to defeat than a man acting in anger or in fear. In the face of such a reckless attack, survival is an instinct rather than a skill, and all my instincts came into play. As his grasp tightened around my throat, I stamped on Gerald’s feet, raised my fists to strike him directly under the chin, flipped his arms over, got him in a quick armlock and eventually managed to wrestle him to the ground. There were oohs and ahhs from the crowd as the chief inspector rushed forward to pull me away.

  ‘Enough!’ shouted the chief inspector. ‘My God, man! What do you think you’re doing?’ He was talking to me.

  ‘I’m trying to protect myself from him!’ I said.

  ‘You might have broken his jaw!’

  ‘I haven’t broken his jaw,’ I said. I might have broken his jaw. He was certainly holding his jaw as if it were broken.

  ‘We’ll take it from here, thank you.’

  ‘Be my guest,’ I said, stepping back and holding up my hands in the traditional sign of surrender. ‘Look! He came at me. I made no attempt—’

  ‘Shut up!’ said the chief inspector, helping Gerald to his feet.

  Members of the crowd also came forward to assist; people were patting Gerald on the back, offering their sympathies. His white vest was stained with blood. He looked punch-drunk and bewildered. ‘Come on, Gerald,’ people were saying. ‘It’s all right, Mr Taylor.’ But no one spoke to me: I had instantly become the scapegoat.

  ‘I’ll be talking to you later, Mr Sefton,’ said the chief inspector, jabbing a finger at m
e. ‘And I can tell you now, you’ll be lucky if I don’t charge you with assault.’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘No, no, no, Officer,’ said Morley, shaking his head and wagging a finger, speaking loudly above the hubbub. ‘I don’t think so, do you? Self-defence, plain and simple, sir. In front of – what?’ He looked around at the stunned crowd. ‘A thousand witnesses?’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Miriam, defiantly crossing her arms.

  I wasn’t so sure we could rely on the goodwill of the crowd: it seemed to me that everyone was looking towards us with more than a little hostility. We had effectively spoiled the Egremont Fair. We had ruined the spectacle: we had brought real violence to a scene of holiday theatre.

  ‘Well,’ said the chief inspector, who was rather struggling to keep on top of events, and who clearly sensed the crowd’s hostility also. The last thing he wanted was a riot on his hands. ‘I think we’ll all just have to … sort this out back in Appleby.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Morley.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Miriam. ‘Good idea.’

  ‘I’ll see you back in Appleby then,’ said the chief inspector.

  ‘Of course,’ said Morley.

  ‘That’s all, folks!’ the inspector called out to the crowd. ‘Get about your business. Move along now. Plenty more to see and do at the fair.’

  We made a very hasty exit through the crowds, leaving Gerald in the hands of the police, and it wasn’t until we were safely back in the Lagonda and on the road that any of us spoke.

  ‘Wow,’ said Miriam. ‘That was really very impressive, Sefton.’

  ‘Wasn’t it!’ said Morley. ‘You know you are really quite … unexpected sometimes. That’s what I like about you. You know Gerald was the winner of the wrestling this year at Grasmere?’

  ‘Mmm,’ I grunted. I felt a headache coming on.

  ‘I wonder perhaps if I should consider giving up on the County Guides and becoming your manager? I’ve always rather fancied myself as a boxing or a wrestling promoter. We could tour the fairs. “Swanton Morley Presents Stephen ‘Jawbone’ Sefton, in the Fight of the—”’