Cluckitt tugs up a handful of grass with his right hand and puts it on the palm of his left hand and blows the blades gently away.
“Tha’s toon talk,” he says contemptuously. “Thoo doon’t groo corn in t’cellar. Thoo’s got ter ha’ sun.”
“But what’s the use of talking about the weather?” Gog says. “We all do. Yet all our bad breath can’t blow away one drop of rain.”
“Happen thoo’d want ter knoo wha’ll happen,” Cluckitt says, consulting the remaining blades of grass on his palm as carefully as a soothsayer studies the entrails of a sacrifice. “Happen thoo’d need ter knoo when ter soo an’ when ter reap in t’ fields. It doon’t matter what’s t’weather in t’street, if thoo’s got boots on.”
“Then why do city people blather on about the weather as much as anyone else? Do you think all us British have to pretend we’re farmers and worry about the weather, just so we can think we’ve still got clay on our carpet slippers?”
“Aye, tha’ city weather talk’s all rare overs fer meddlers. Thoo doon’t preten’ ter be doon on t’farm be pratin’, it’s a donkey day. But coontry folks need ter know. Look.” Cluckitt points to the round hump of a far fell, where a cloud makes a soft black hat over the moor. “Wheer Ah coom from unner Criffel, they say:
“When dingy packs on Criffel lo’er,
Then hoose yoor kine an’ stack yoor door,
But if Criffel be far an’ cleer,
Fer win’ or wet yoo needn’t feer.
An’ when theer’s t’wheel roon’ t’moon as theer weer last neet, t’bigger t’wheel, t’neerer t’wet.
“If t’wheel in t’moon be far away,
Mek haste an’ hoose yoor corn an’ hay.”
Gog laughs for the first time that day and feels in the opening and closing of his ribs a great yawn of peace.
“That’s all very well, Cluckitt, but you forecast wrong half the time. Anyway, the moon’s got nothing to do with the rain.”
“T’moon pulls t’sea, doon’t she? An’ t’sea pulls t’rain doon ter fill it. So it’s moon pull sea, sea pull rain, an’ rain pull moon onter her back ter fill her lap wi’ water.
“T’horny moon is on her back,
Men’ yoor shoe an’ sort yoor thatch.”
Gog laughs again.
“Tell me, with all your superstitions, do you leave your red cap behind, every time it’s a red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Are you so sure you can read the weather that you’ll risk getting your head wet if you’re wrong?”
Cluckitt smiles up at Gog, then rises to his feet so that his eyes are nearly on a level with those of the sitting Gog.
“Happen Ah always weer a cap ter keep me brains snoog, even if it’s a sunny glosy mornin’ an’ Ah sweat good tidily. Thoo can’t trust t’weather in Englan’, it sets thee oop ter let thee doon. But theer’s no harm in tellin’ it what it ought ter do.”
“So if the weather behaves as you say, it proves you’re right. And if it doesn’t, it also proves you’re right, because you say the weather always lets you down.”
Cluckitt doesn’t answer. Then he grins his most crooked smile, showing his yellow teeth at the corner of his mouth.
“Best be on t’road. Last neet, didst thoo hear t’paddocks croak by t’Akenshaw burn?”
“The frogs? Yes, I did.”
“When paddocks croak in t’pond at neet,
Thoo may expect both win’ an’ wet.”
Gog laughs again.
“You’re incorrigible, Cluckitt.”
“But Ah’m reet.” He points to a chaffinch, which has begun a monotonous plaint on two melancholy notes. “Heer t’bird. Weet, weet. Dreep, dreep.”
“How long then, before the storm?”
Cluckitt smiles again.
“T’weather doon’t pay no heed ter clocks, Gog. So Ah can’t say fer exactly. But it’d be a wee bit o’ a toby-trot if theer weern’t no win’ an’ wet befor Candlemas. T’weather in general may be skeowy an’ skittery, but thoo can be sure it’s never long wet nor yet long dry. So Ah’m always reet in time. Always reet in t’end.”
And Gog laughs and rises and puts his pack on his back and scoops up Cluckitt and hoicks him high and athwart his shoulders and strides off over the yielding grass down towards the silver windings of the Tyne. And the clouds are sucked into the blue and the sun shines all day.
The Tyne makes a brown boundary of shallows beside their morning’s walk; even the sun can do little with such a sluggard muddy river, except where an occasional ripple glints as it rises and breaks by the rare pebble which is not yet rounded enough to let the water slur past. By noontide, the travellers reach the moulting sign of a game-bird, bearing the legend The Blackcock; so they turn across the bridge to Falstone, and drink beer and eat sandwiches in a pub lined with painted dark wood and low plaster ceilings. Four aged men sit at a table wearing old suits of Sunday blue. They are playing at dominoes; the sharp click of the pieces has all the violence of snapping teeth. One old man has eaten his lips, another has snuffled his nose away into a snub one, another is so hard of hearing that he has grown a tin trumpet ear, and the last has led with his chin so often that it meets his hook nose, enclosing his lips sunk onto his gums.
That afternoon, Gog and Cluckitt cut across the forests towards the Chirdon burn. The spruce trees are tall and seem to breed a particular torment of flies that surround the men’s faces in a whizzing and settling hood of insects. Cluckitt is useful here, for he can shoo the flies away from his position on Gog’s shoulders. But Gog gets too hot to support the little man’s weight and sinks to the ground at a cross-roads, where two meeting tracks have been hacked out of the forest. They lie side by side on the sandy earth, slapping at the flies until their sweat dries and the flies vanish to irritate other victims. The spruce trees are closely planted in careful rows. Between their slim aisles, nothing grows, and their needles lay a hushful floor.
Far in the gloom of an aisle between the firs, Gog sees a movement of black and white. Yet as he sees it, it vanishes.
“Dost thoo see owt?” Cluckitt says, rising to his feet and looking about, as though expecting something or somebody.
“Something black and white in the firs. It must have been a magpie.”
“Hoo many o’ them?” Cluckitt says, beginning to open up the layers of his clothing to get at his shirt.
“Just one. It couldn’t have been more.”
“Wheer Ah coom from,” Cluckitt says, “theer’s a rhyme fer seein’ magpies, an’ it’s never wrong.
“Wun’s sorry,
Two’s merry,
Three’s a weddin’,
Foor’s death,
Five’s heaven,
Six is hell,
An’ Seven’s t’ devil’s own sel’.”
“I’ll be sorry, then,” Gog says.
“Aye, but Ah’ve got a magic hat Ah’ve made ter ward away t’ evil. An’ it’ll keep off t’ sun too, it’s not particular.”
Cluckitt produces out of the pouch under his shirt an old brown felt hat. It has obviously been salvaged from a dustbin and would be as full of holes as a net, except that Cluckitt has made it into a downy helmet by covering it all over with brown grouse feathers, plucked from the game-bird and held down by a fine mesh of yellow brass wire. As a form of thwarted artistry, he has even made the hat resemble the shape of the flying grouse itself; two false wings curve down the sides of the hat to its rim, the top of the hat is sewn with black feathers and ends in a spray of tail, and the front of the hat cunningly supports a brass-ringed neck and a black head.
“That’s very magical,” Gog says. “I hope my head doesn’t fly off.” He puts on the hat and finds, to his surprise, that it fits his large skull perfectly. “Thank you,” he says to Cluckitt. “How did you know my size? I’d love to wear it, as long as a gamekeeper doesn’t mistake it for the real thing and blast off.”
“Theer’s no chance o’ tha’,” Cluckitt says, smiling. “Thoo looks
like a man in a feathery bonnet from t’ side, Ah can tell thee.”
The two men start off down the track again between the spruce trees, enclosed in a hot trench of air, with the smell of pine needles a drowsy and acrid intoxication. Gog offers Cluckitt a lift on his shoulders two or three times; but Cluckitt refuses fiercely, saying that he has tired out the big man enough. So they plod along in silence. Gog looks down at his boots, monotonously following the line of the deep rut on the side of the track. He wipes the sweat away from his forehead, then glances up into the intolerable blue of the sky.
Above and ahead, a black M hangs in the heaven, sometimes sliding down the slipstream before checking to lie on another invisible shelf of air, sometimes catching the current by an inclination of its wings so that it is wafted upwards and sideways by the merest flick of feathers. The hawk hovers so lazily that it hardly appears to be hunting. Yet in its heavenly sauntering, it watches the whole area below from its high patrol.
“I wish I got along as easily as a hawk,” Gog says, as he stares upwards in jealousy. Then he feels a pluck at his sleeve, and he looks down to see Cluckitt pointing ahead. “Theer, theer.” And Gog looks along the track, but he can see nothing in the corridor between the trees. “Badger wi’ yoong uns. Tha’s wha’ thoo sawst.” Yet hard as Gog looks, he can see nothing but the lines of firs standing on each side of the track, as regular as the troops lined up with staves in their hands to flog to death a guilty comrade as he runs the gauntlet between them.
At that moment, a bolt from the blue stabs Gog’s skull. His head is spiked and riven. As he sinks to his knees, he claps both hands to his crown. His fingers are cut by hacking wings. He grasps a bunch of quills. His wrist is savaged by a claw. He pulls a wingtip down towards his shoulder. The wound on his cheek from Cluckitt’s branch is laid open as if by a razor. Briefly, he sees the curved beak of a hawk, its eye bright as a slick speck of coal. Then his hand slips and the hawk flails free, ripping from Gog’s head the hat which is shaped like a grouse. Gog puts his palms on his scalp and feels the blood trickling through his hairs down his forehead.
When the scissors of fire stop snapping in front of his closed eyes, he blinks his lids open to see Cluckitt far away along the track, running towards a thin woman’s figure in black trousers and a white shirt. It is the woman from the car. On her hands, she wears large gloves; on her right wrist, a leather guard. She halloos to the heavens, “Icarus, Icarus, my sweet Icarus.” And the hawk comes slipping out of the sun all the way down a long slope of air to the wrist of its mistress, who wrenches the grouse cap free from its claws and laughs shrilly and ruffles the bird’s head and slips a scarlet hood over its beak down to its neck.
Gog tries to rise and pursue after her and Cluckitt, who has joined her and is gesticulating. But his skull seems split in two and he falls again onto his knees, and he has to pause, his hands pressing against the pain in his head lest it should explode like a grenade and spatter his shrapnel brains all over the sand. After a while, the pieces of his head come together and he can ease the pressure of his hands and look up again. There is no woman along the track and no hawk and no Cluckitt in his red tam o’shanter. Perhaps the little man really was Redcap and has vanished away. Perhaps he only existed in Gog’s mind, as the woman in the car, and even the hawk. Granted, blood trickles down from Gog’s scalp and cheek. But there is a sharp stone at Gog’s feet and it is dark with gore. Gog knows that he is a little out of his mind and that he imagines conspiracy everywhere. He has walked too far in the sun, he has got dizzy, he has fainted and opened up his head on a stone. The second explanation is far more reasonable than the first. Yet . . .
After a quarter of an hour, Gog collects enough of his wits together to stumble along the track out of the forest as far as the Chirdon burn, where he climbs over a split-rail fence and reaches the river bank and a pool beneath the hollow of an elder tree. There Gog strips off his clothes and stands in the water, which comes up to his waist. He scoops up the cold stream in his hands and pours it again and again over his scalp, until he can bear to lie down in the pool. But he is scared of somebody coming, and desperately as he would like to duck his whole head beneath the water, he will not risk being attacked when blinded and defenceless. So he rises from the pool and wipes himself dry with tufts of grass wrenched from the river bank and dresses and goes slowly on his way towards the south-east.
Gog walks by the burn back to the Tyne past the few stone blocks on the hill called Dally’s Castle. Then he turns towards Bellingham, with the thunder clapping its hands towards the sea and a few drops of rain falling on him out of a bright sky. But the good weather lasts and the thunder huffs and puffs away over the coast, as Gog reaches the stone coolie’s hat high on the Georgian house of Hesleyside. And luck stays with him. For as he feels the pains begin to shiver in his head again and his legs buckle with fatigue, he reaches the edge of Bellingham and sees a green bus panting up the hill towards him. He thankfully waves it down to a stop and climbs aboard, glad to sit on a jouncing seat and grudging springs, among women in mackintoshes carrying home a whole family’s rations for a week in one small shopping bag, yet overweight from the eating of starchy foods over the war years.
When the bus has groaned a dozen miles to Simonburn, Gog gets off. For his map says that a short walk will take him to Hadrian’s Wall, and he remembers the Bagman’s verse about the Romans, that they set a great wall to the North, the Wall of Hadrian. So Gog decides to approach the wall as the Northmen did out of Scotland. He turns on the small road through the village past a field of stubble, where he sees an old hare lying. The hare is too decrepit to run away; it flattens itself against the ground, its giveaway ears laid upon its back, thinking itself invisible although there is no cover at all. Only the hare’s head moves slowly round as it watches Gog passing. When Gog has gone by, he kindly looks away from the hare to allow it to hobble off on its last legs, proud at taking in stupid humanity once more.
As Gog reaches the angle of the road, where it turns sharply to the left, he sees the square back of the black car ahead of him. It has pulled onto the grass verge by a hedge; the two heads of the woman and Cluckitt are shown through the rear window. Gog moves onto the verge of the road and gets onto his hands and knees and slowly makes his way under the lee of the car. He crouches between the running-board and the hedge. He listens to the conversation inside the car, which comes to him clearly through the half-open window. Yet, although he hears every word in the present, a quirk of his mind makes him feel that he is hearing words said long ago, as though the steel and glass between him and the speakers carried all three back to a forgotten age of the thirties, where luxury was taken for granted; there were poor people then, but they weren’t us, and there were wars, but they didn’t affect us, and if the deluge were to come after us, at least it would be after us. Gog closes his eyes and sees himself where he is in place, sitting between the running-board of a black car and a hedge, eavesdropping on a conversation; but to his inward eye, his face is the face of a younger Gog, clean-shaven and wearing a tweed suit instead of torn cook’s trousers and a khaki jacket; and, to his outward ear, the conversation about him is too apt to be more than the memory of words once overheard from a much longer dialogue.
“Took you for a peasant,” the woman was saying. “Impossible.”
“Absolutely, my dear,” Cluckitt says in an accent that bypasses cut-glass and approaches crystal. “My make-up was rather professional. I wore the gardener’s clothes and a ridiculous red tam o’shanter I use to yacht in, with a R.A. capbadge on it, meaning Royal Academic rather than Royal Artilleryman. But my accent, that was my pride and joy. The worst pseudo-Northumbrian you could find, all padded out with pithy saws and wise sayings from every folk-lore book I’ve wasted my long university life over. I can’t tell you what a success I was, after I’d pretended to bump into Gog on his hike. He almost took out his notebook to record all my genuine folk memories. I tell-you, I was more of the earth t
han the earth ever is. Sheer sub-soil. In fact, I was so much so, I wouldn’t have taken in a child.”
“But we’re dealing with an infant,” the woman says.
“Precisely. Dear Gog, you know I’m really rather fond of him and his delusions. He’s got a touch of egomania and paranoia, but rather lovably so. Of course, he’s always a bit too much, too big, too bold, too generous, too naïve, too plodding, too banausic, just too too. But I don’t have to tell you!”
“No. The man isn’t merely excessive, he’s gargantuan. Of course, some of his appetites do rather please a woman . . .”
Here Cluckitt laughs a light leering laugh that is knowing without being impolite.
“And he has the infinite advantage,” the woman continues, “of always being at one’s mercy. I could search the whole world over and never find a man so exquisitely torturable. He doesn’t have that helpless passivity which is no fun to jab at. He has a sort of bewildered capacity for suffering, a flustered lunging back that never connects. He’s the perfect victim.”
“I must say, I agree,” Cluckitt says in his cultured voice. “He’s the Saint Sebastian of our time. All those lovely Italian primitives where seraphic Sebastian looks nobly surprised to find every cranny of his punctured with arrows . . . But, Maire . . .”
“Yes, Miniver.”
So these are their real names. Maire the woman, Miniver the man. Of course, Cluckitt was a pseudonym, a made-up name for a made-up man, pretending to be the peasant that he never was nor could be. And Gog, O Gog, he’s a real fool.
“Do explain to me a little about his delusion over Magog. Who is Magog? I’ve asked him, Maire, but he simply can’t make any sense of it. He burbled something about a bit of Old Norse he’d discovered and translated. He gave it to me to read as an expert. He says it’s a fragment of a lost prose Edda, called the Gogwulf Edda. Of course, it may just be that his translation is so poor . . . but I think he’s trying to plant a forgery, rather like Ossian. He won’t produce the original Norse. He can’t, because it’s only in his own mind, like all his obsessions are. Especially Magog.”
Gog Page 9
