by James Long
‘What’s wrong?’ Ali asked, breathing hard.
‘Nothing at all. I told you.’ Jo turned to look at them with that same unsettling expression on her face as if they didn’t belong there with her.
‘You were crying.’
‘Was I? When?’
‘Just back there. A minute ago.’
‘Oh, I’m all right now. I’m more than all right. That . . . that was just a surprise.’
‘A surprise? What do you mean? It’s all nonsense, Jo – it was meant for someone else. The other ones too – all that stuff about being old and young.’
‘The song?’ said Jo from somewhere that was still some way away. ‘You know it, don’t you?’ She sang
‘For they’re never quite young and they’re never quite old
And their song is a secret that’s best left untold.
For they’re never quite old and they’re never quite young
And lifetimes have passed since their song was first sung.’
‘No, I don’t know it,’ said Ali, ‘and I don’t understand any of it,’ but as she spoke, Ali found she was looking at a version of Jo she had never seen before. It was as if the reserved, slightly hidden girl she knew had been turned inside out. This Jo smiled at her with a kind assurance, her face lit by something like serenity.
‘Well, never mind. Do you want to come with me?’ She went into the churchyard without waiting for an answer and they followed. They heard her say ‘Hello’ as she entered the church porch as if she had met an old friend, but when they caught up she was standing alone, looking at the inner doorway. Above it was a stone lintel, a lamb carved in the centre flanked by lions. Jutting out either side to support the lintel were two stone heads, carved in profile, gazing across at each other. Both wore crowns.
Jo was staring from one to the other and it seemed to Ali and Lucy that she had addressed her greeting to the two heads.
‘Who do you suppose they are?’ Lucy asked, because it seemed a safe question.
‘A king and queen,’ Jo answered.
‘Is that a queen? I thought they were both men.’
‘’Til Christmas falls on Candlemas . . .’ Jo replied, then stopped.
‘’Till what?’ demanded Lucy. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a rhyme.’
‘You’re very full of songs and rhymes and things. If it’s a rhyme, what does it rhyme with?’
‘Oh . . .’ Jo frowned in thought. ‘’Til Christmas falls on Candlemas, the king . . . something . . .’ She looked at the heads again, raised her hand and touched the face on the right. It had a sharper profile, with a hooked nose. ‘’Til Christmas falls on Candlemas, the king shall never kiss his lass.’
She stood gazing at them and both her friends thought she was shining with a happiness they had never seen in her before.
‘I like that,’ said Lucy. ‘The two of them staring across at each other and they can’t reach each other. When does Christmas fall on Candlemas? I hope it’s soon.’
‘It’s not,’ Ali said. ‘It doesn’t happen, not ever. Candlemas is forty days after Christmas. I suppose it means the king never gets to kiss her. Have you been here before, Jo?’ but Jo seemed to have lost interest in the church. She had gone back into the graveyard, staring over to the far corner where rows of more recent gravestones stood in neat lines. She shivered.
The other two hung back. ‘This is awful,’ said Ali. ‘We’re going to be in such a lot of trouble.’
‘Us?’
‘Yes. Fleur’s going to ask about her tablets, isn’t she?’
‘Where are they?’
‘In the side pocket of my rucksack.’
‘Stand still.’
Lucy took them out, started to press one out of its bubble.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m going to throw some of them away then Fleur will think she took them.’
‘Put them back. We can’t. Anyway, it might not be that. Maybe she just needs some food or something. I’m pretty hungry.’
‘So am I,’ Lucy said, putting the tablets in her pocket. She called to Jo. ‘Let’s go and find a shop. We need food. I’m not answering for my blood sugar level if I don’t eat. Oh, she’s gone.’ Jo was striding across towards those further graves but as she got to them, they saw her check abruptly and stare at the rows of stones with an intensity that stopped them in their tracks as if they should not intrude. She put her hand up to her mouth, doubled up, and her friends watched in horror as she vomited on the grass.
‘Oh, gross,’ said Lucy.
Ali grabbed at a practical explanation. ‘That’s what’s wrong. She must have eaten something.’
‘We haven’t eaten anything. That’s why we’re hungry – unless it’s those mushrooms.’
‘Oh look, she’s off again.’
Jo was heading for a gate in the far wall and they followed, walking fast for another five minutes, again barely able to keep up with her, past fields as if the village had ended, then through more cottages to a junction where she turned left without a moment’s hesitation. There were houses all along this part of the road.
‘This is more like it,’ said Lucy hopefully.
Jo took no notice, staring all around her with keen interest, then she faltered, came to a halt and looked hard at a house as if she expected it to be something else. An old woman holding a watering can was standing in the next-door garden. ‘Can I help you, dears?’ she asked.
Jo said nothing. ‘We’re looking for the shop,’ Ali called.
‘You’re a bit too late,’ the woman answered. ‘It was here. It closed, getting on for twenty years back.’
‘Is there a pub?’
‘Not any more. There were lots of them once. There was the King’s Head just down there and the Queen’s Head right by it. Then there was the old Rest and Be Thankful before that.’
‘I’d have liked that,’ said Lucy. ‘I would have been really thankful for a rest.’
‘You wouldn’t have liked it at all,’ said the woman. ‘It was a rough old place, that one. Always fighting in the Rest, I was told.’
Jo had said nothing throughout this exchange, staring hard at her. ‘Mary?’ she said faintly.
‘Is that your name, dear? My mother was called Mary.’
‘So where would the nearest shop be?’ Ali asked.
‘Right down that way,’ said the woman, pointing onwards. ‘You go on all the way to Zeals. It’s a mile or two down the hill. You’ll find something there.’ She considered them for a moment. ‘You look a bit done in,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea and a biscuit to set you on your way?’
They sat on the bench in her garden. Lucy, sneezed, fiddled in her pocket for a tissue, turned away to stir sugar into each of their mugs, then handed the tea to the other two. ‘As soon as we’ve drunk this, let’s get out of here.’
Jo said, ‘There are things I need to do here. There’s someone I have to see.’
‘Who?’
‘You two can go on without me. I’ll be fine.’
‘We can’t possibly do that.’
‘Yes, you can. There’s a place I have to go. It’s very near.’
To Ali’s surprise, Lucy said, ‘Well, all right – but come down the road and get some food with us first. We all need to eat. Please? I’d hate it if you just went off and left us. At least let’s have one last picnic,’ and Jo considered, then agreed.
They walked out of the village but now Jo was hanging back behind them, looking over hedges, into gardens and all around. The other two found themselves far enough ahead to talk quietly. ‘Why did you agree?’ Ali asked. ‘We can’t leave her. It could be shock from the tower.’
‘If anyone should be in shock, it’s me,’ Lucy retorted. ‘Nothing happened to her.’
‘She might have taken something.’
‘What sort of something?’
‘I don’t know. Ecstasy?’
‘Jo? Not Jo. Anyway, Es don’t do that to you
.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Ali self-righteously.
‘She’s taken something now,’ said Lucy with a grim smile.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I put one of her pills in her tea.’
‘Lucy, you didn’t! After what we said.’
‘It’s an emergency. We have to get her out of here.’
‘How long will it take?’ They turned at the final cluster of cottages and watched her walking slowly towards them. ‘I don’t know,’ said Lucy.
‘Let’s see what some food and a good night’s sleep does.’
‘You sound just like your mother.’
Not long, seemed to be the answer. She caught up with them, smiled at them vaguely, and they walked on down the hill in a silence that neither Ali nor Lucy wanted to break. Silence seemed safer. After twenty minutes they came to a larger village.
‘I like this place,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s normal. It’s got traffic and signposts and street lights and houses with straight walls – and look, it’s got a real shop.’ Jo shivered and stopped to stare behind her. She said nothing for a while, then she turned back to them, frowning.
They bought pasties and chocolate bars, then they took to the countryside, climbing fences and edging around fields away from the drumming of the main road until they came to a flat triangle of grass hidden away in the corner of a field where they put up their tent.
Tearing the wrapper off her chocolate and watching Jo closely, Lucy said, ‘I didn’t like that place, Pen Selwood. It was odd.’
Jo turned to look at her with wide eyes. ‘Odd? It’s not odd.’
‘You were odd,’ said Lucy. ‘I’ve never seen you like that.’
Jo shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. Was I?’
‘I was a bit worried,’ put in Ali judiciously. ‘I thought you might be coming down with something.’
Jo turned her head and looked up towards the ridge that rose to the west. ‘No,’ she said, and her voice was slower, flatter. ‘I’m fine. I just felt like – I don’t know, like I was in a bit of a dream. I really loved it there. It was . . . calm.’
‘Calm as in dead. Dead as in spooky.’
‘No. Calm like walking on Dartmoor. Living in town is phone calls and being places at the right time and mobiles and text messages—’
‘You never hear your mobile ringing,’ Lucy retorted, ‘and there’s no point in texting you because you don’t answer.’
‘Yes, but half the time I’m with you you’re talking to somebody else. It’s like not being there at all.’
‘And you’re saying you loved that village?’ Ali asked. ‘And all we did was go to a church and walk past some houses and talk to one not very exciting woman.’
Jo was silent for a time then seemed to gather herself for a reply. ‘You could talk up there. You could sing for yourself and not have to listen to other people’s voices on earphones. Down here it’s different. Listen to that noise.’
‘The road?’
‘Yes, the cars on the road, going somewhere as fast as they can. They stop us hearing the larks and the warblers. They stop us smelling the hedges and the grass. All for the sake of taking us shopping to buy new clothes we only need because someone else tells us we need them.’
‘What are you on about?’ Lucy demanded. ‘You wouldn’t know a warbler if it pecked you. Is this the same Jo who was drooling over shirts in Topshop last week?’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Jo answered quietly.
‘Anyway, I don’t want to go back there. I don’t care about the three castles any more. Let’s go somewhere with lights and cafes.’
‘What about Andy?’ Ali pointed out. ‘They’re going to be digging there next week.’
‘Oh yes. Not to mention Conrad,’ Lucy retorted. ‘Well, I’ll care next week but not right now.’
She got no reply. Jo seemed to have forgotten about going back up to the ridge.
Lucy yawned deliberately. ‘Why don’t we just go to bed?’ Ali suggested. ‘Aren’t you tired? I am.’
So they settled in, putting Jo between them as if for safety. ‘We’re on a slant,’ Lucy complained. ‘I’m sliding downhill,’ but within a minute or two she was asleep and instantaneously, it seemed to her, she was abruptly awake again. It was morning, her head was pushing against the cold nylon wall of the tent and Ali was shaking her.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Stop it. What’s the matter?’
‘Jo’s gone,’ said Ali. ‘She’s taken her backpack and she’s gone. She’s left us a note.’
CHAPTER 18
She woke herself up, and through a fading pharmaceutical fog still knew that she was Gally. The dim dawn light filtering through the nylon told her she had the world to herself. Sitting up slowly, she looked at the girls on either side of her. Ali had her mouth open and her throat gurgled softly each time she breathed in. Lucy was curled up, pushing into the side of the tent.
In her dream she had found a door in her house that she had never seen before, revealing stairs leading down to unsuspected rooms looking out on sunny fields, and he was somewhere down here in this, her proper home. She woke before she found him and the dream should have drained away to acid disappointment but it hadn’t. Instead, it left a name washed up on the beach of waking reason and that name was Ferney. His name lay under everything and told her that all the comfort of the dream was within her reach somewhere near.
She looked at her sleeping friends and knew this was a moment of choice. She could hold on to Jo, take the pills to shut out Gally and go with the two of them wherever they took her, and walk and listen and waste time and not feel very much at all about anything. She could travel back home with them and unlock the door of the house in the middle of Exeter and be there when her mother came back, and carry on the difficult dance the two of them had learned. As Jo, she could do that and go on just about managing her dulled life.
Or she could be Gally and leave them behind and go where she had to go.
As if there were any doubt, the song played in her head again, ‘You’re never quite old and you’re never quite young’, and this time she knew that part was just the chorus because a whole verse was suddenly sitting there, right in the middle of her mind as if she just hadn’t noticed it before:
There’s a boy on the ridge at the end of the day
Who is watching the way from the west.
From behind the dark hills, light is fading away
And the sun is dying to rest,
And the sun is dying to rest.
She realised he would have been up there waiting for her yesterday when she had not come and she knew she must go straight back there. Dressing herself with minute movements, she pushed her ballooning sleeping bag into her backpack, wrote them a note, then inched her way past them, freezing when their breathing changed. She slipped out of the tent, excited, impatient, into a young morning.
A bearded man in overalls, standing on a street corner with a toolbox at his feet, was the only other person awake in Zeals. He mumbled a vague, embarrassed greeting, then looked up the road and at his watch. She ignored the way they had come. Now she was Gally, she could navigate with the certainty of a migrating bird, branching left on a lower road then on to an overgrown track, and every step she took, every foot of height she gained, was a step into greater clarity as the new parts of her brain weeded out the last traces of the drug. She was going to her real home and the morning air fuelled her with exhilaration.
The track flattened out over the shoulder of the ridge, into a lane which twisted downhill again between high leafy banks. She felt that if she stopped walking the magnet ahead of her would still tug her gently to her destination, whatever her legs might do. Then all at once there was not one destination but two. A climbing footpath beckoned to her right, the road ahead beckoned her on, down to a junction where the fall of the land ahead was screened off by woodland. She stopped in the road and they seemed equal in their demands so, thinking quite wrongly that it made no di
fference which way she went first, she carried on down the road. It seemed the right choice because when she turned left at the junction she knew she was within seconds of her heart-sought place. A bank backed by trees blocked her view to the right, but as she walked around the lane’s concealing curve, she saw a gateway and the gable-end of a house hidden in those trees and understood in a moment of ballooning delight that she had come home.
The sight of the gate stopped her in her tracks. It hung, crooked and decayed. She stood in the middle of the lane, disturbed and uncertain, acutely aware of her unwieldy backpack, feeling that she might need to turn and run. Taking it off one strap at a time, she lifted it over the roadside bank, pushing it out of sight in the bushes, then went nervously forward on soft feet to the gateway, craving and fearing the cottage. The sight of its sad dishevelment stopped her again as she went to push the gate open. In that frozen second she saw that although it was still so very early there was a stranger standing outside the front door – an older man, someone who should simply not have been there in that house.
The disturbance in her coalesced around this man and ignited into horror. She wished she had chosen the footpath up the hill. He was facing away across the yard but stiffened as if he had heard her and began to turn his head. She had just enough time to gather herself and duck away. She sensed him behind her, coming to the gate, and felt his eyes on her back as she walked faster and faster towards the corner of the road. She kept going without looking back, knowing she could not face him for reasons she did not begin to understand.
Her feet took her quickly through the village lanes to what seemed like sanctuary at the church. She sat inside the porch, hidden from view, breathing hard. The crowned heads framing the doorway knew her well enough to forgive her anything but that did not help. This bench, the cottage, the lanes through the village – all felt like a comfortable old shoe, but this shoe had a sharp stone in it. She looked up at their age-smoothed faces and thought they were telling her to confront it so she walked reluctantly to the place where she had found herself overwhelmed the day before. She saw the worn memorials of past centuries give way to newer, sharp-cut stones in perfect ranks and looked at the names on them to delay the moment of arrival. John Gaffin, Monica Jarrett, Richard Cox. They shouldn’t be dead, she thought – not John, not Mrs Jarrett. She could see them in her head – elderly, yes, but not dead. Richard Cox was a stranger.
