Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby)

by Vicary, Tim

  He opened the door and showed her into a wide semi-circular room. There was a stone floor and the walls were plastered. About two-thirds of the way across it was divided by a plaster wall along which was a sink, oven, hob, worktop and a range of expensive new wooden kitchen units. At one end of this wall was a door, leading through to the bathroom, where the men were working. The floor where they stood was dusty and littered with cardboard packing, but Sarah could see it was well on the way to becoming a luxury farmhouse style kitchen. There were more kitchen units and a breakfast bar set along the outside wall under a window.

  ‘The fitters had the devil of a job to match these to the round walls,’ Michael said. ‘But they’ve done a good job, don’t you think?’

  ‘It looks great,’ Sarah agreed, running her fingers along a granite worktop. ‘But what on earth is all that?’

  Just below the ceiling was a large black painted metal wheel, with a number of metal wheels and levers attached to it.

  ‘That’s part of the machinery which I’ve kept, to make it a feature,’ Michael said. ‘Like wooden beams in a farmhouse. The wheel there, you see, is attached to the millwheel up above, and these rods and levers are what’s left of the tentering gear. It’s what the miller used to adjust to get the gap between the two millstones just right.’

  ‘Two millstones? I thought there was just one.’

  ‘Hardly,’ Michael smiled. ‘It wouldn’t work like that. Come on upstairs, I’ll show you.’

  He led the way up a wooden staircase to the first floor. This room was a similar size to the first, but much more comfortably furnished. There was a soft carpet on the floor, a widescreen TV against the wall, a leather sofa and armchair, and some chairs round what looked a like a circular dining table. But unlike other dining tables, this one had a sturdy iron pole rising up from the centre of it, and disappearing through the ceiling above. And when Sarah bent down, she saw that the table had no legs, but was resting instead on two massive circular stones, one mounted above the other.

  ‘There you are - those are the millwheels,’ Michael said, ‘that’s how the grain was ground, between these two.’

  Sarah stared at them, intrigued. ‘How, exactly?’

  ‘Well, the grain would come down a chute, from the trapdoor above, into a sort of wooden tray, a hopper, just above the millwheel where this table is now. Then it would trickle down from the hopper through a hole in the upper stone - the runner stone, it’s called, that’s the one that moves - into the gap between the two stones.’

  ‘The runner stone turns? How?’

  ‘That’s what this metal shaft is for, you see,’ Michael said, slapping it with his hand. ‘The shaft was connected to the sails, so the runner stone turned, while the bottom stone stayed still. And the grain was ground between the two stones into flour. Then it would be collected in sacks in the floor below.’

  Sarah had never thought about this. ‘Is that why they call it stone ground flour, then, like you buy in the supermarket?’

  ‘Exactly. There are a lot of phrases connected to this. For instance, if the miller wanted to know if the grain was the right temperature, not getting too hot and burning, do you know what he’d do? Put his nose to the grindstone.’

  ‘Really?’ Sarah laughed. ‘I always thought that sounded rather painful.’

  ‘It probably was, if he got too close. But he only did it to sniff the grain, that’s all. Another way of testing the quality of the flour was to rub a little bit against his fingers with his thumb, like this. Testing by rule of thumb.’

  Michael looked enthusiastic, like a child with a new toy.

  ‘But you’re not actually planning to grind flour here yourself, then?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Oh no, that would be far too much hard work. Anyway, there’s no money in it. If I tried to restore it as the conservationists wanted, I’d be bankrupt in a few years. No, as you see, my plan is to convert it into a house, keep the millwheels and few original parts as a feature, and link the sails to a generator to provide electricity. Very eco-friendly. And much more appropriate to the twenty-first century, don’t you think?’

  On the far side of the room was a new, freshly varnished door, with glass in its upper half. Michael walked across and threw it open. ‘Take a look outside.’

  Sarah stepped out onto a wide wooden balcony. It was nearly three feet wide, and ran right round the outside of the tower. Standing on it, she felt she was floating in midair. She was only one floor above the ground, but that ground swooped down almost immediately in front of her several hundred more feet to the valley below. She looked up and saw, a couple of feet above her head, the end of one of the four great sails. Close to, it looked even more massive than before. It was like a giant finger three stories long, reaching down to her from the hub in the roof of the tower. Above the hub another sail stretched a similar distance into the sky, far above the roof of the mill. Two more sails reached out like enormous arms on either side. A pair of rooks, startled by the sudden appearance of two people on the balcony, launched themselves from the right-hand sail and floated effortlessly down into the valley, cawing indignantly as they went.

  Sarah reached up to touch the end of the sail. ‘Why doesn’t it move?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s a brake on the top floor. Anyway, as you see, they’re made of lattice work too, to let the wind blow through when we don’t want to use it. In the old days, if they wanted more power, they covered the lattice work with a cloth, to give more power, like the sails of a ship. But we don’t need that now.’ He pointed to a long loop of chain hanging down the side of the tower, fastened to a cleat. ‘That operates the brake.’

  ‘So if you let that off, the sails would move?’

  ‘Probably.’ Michael hesitated. ‘I’ve only done it a couple of times before.’ He sucked his finger and held it up in the air to feel the wind. ‘But it’s a fairly calm day. I guess we could risk it.’ He unfastened the chain. ‘Stand back against the wall then. Each of those sails weighs a ton, and they can move at thirty miles an hour at times. Quite a few millers have had their heads knocked off, over the years.’

  With both hands on the chain, he pulled down hard on one side of the loop. Something creaked high above their heads, and for a moment nothing happened. Then, with a weary arthritic groan, like an old man being awakened from sleep, the sail above their heads began to move. Slowly at first, shuddering slightly, it moved away to the left, rising steadily into the air. Awestruck, Sarah watched it rise from horizontal to vertical; and as it did so, the second sail descended inexorably to take the place of the first. Moving slightly faster, this sail crossed just in front of her and above her head, before it rose away to the left, to be replaced by the third.

  It was a stirring sight. Sarah watched in awe as the sails swished round, faster and faster until they settled into a steady, regular rhythm. She had thought it was a calm day but the power the sails were generating, even on this relatively windless afternoon, was impressive. The draft from each passing sail blew her hair across her face. Machinery in the tower above her groaned and creaked dramatically. On the ground below the balcony, the workmen came round the outside of the building to watch.

  ‘Running the lights, then, are you, Mr Parker?’ one called.

  ‘Just a short demonstration,’ Michael answered. ‘To let this lady see it working.’

  The man’s eyes assessed Sarah thoughtfully. ‘You’ll be all right on your own, will you? We’ll be leaving soon.’

  ‘I’ll manage. I’ll shut it down at dusk.’

  ‘Right then.’ The men walked back round the side of the tower.

  Michael put his hand on Sarah’s elbow. ‘Let me show you the rest.’

  They climbed another wooden staircase to the third floor. ‘This is where they used to store the grain, before feeding it down to the millwheel below,’ Michael said. ‘But as you see, I’ve decided to store myself.’

  It was his bedroom. There was a soft blue carpet, with a double bed
, an armchair, a reading lamp, a chest of drawers, and a wooden wardrobe. The metal drive shaft from the floor below, Sarah noticed, was missing here. She asked about it.

  ‘We cut it off,’ he answered. ‘The remains of the shaft below are just for decoration, but here it would have gone right through the bed. I’d have had to wrap my feet around it.’

  Sarah listened thoughtfully to the rumble of the huge sails turning outside. Every few seconds one darkened the window as it swished between her and the setting sun. ‘But those sails,’ she said nervously. ‘Aren’t they driving anything?’

  ‘The new electricity generator, I hope,’ Michael said. ‘It’s on the fifth floor, just under the cap. Come on, I’ll show you.’

  The fourth floor, just above, was clearly intended as Michael’s study. ‘I haven’t moved everything in here yet,’ he said. ‘But when I do, I’m going to really enjoy it.’ There was a brown carpet, a desk with a computer and printer on it, a filing cabinet, and a comfortable leather armchair beside the window. Sarah went to the window and looked out. The view from up here was even better. She opened the window to get a better look. The sails swished by a few feet from her face.

  ‘Those cooling towers in the distance,’ she asked. ‘With the cloud above them. Is that Drax?’

  ‘That’s right. Must be all of what? Twenty five miles away. And if you look to the right - there - you can just see the tower of York Minster.’

  Sarah stared for a while, entranced, as the sun sank slowly towards the distant horizon. She was soothed by the hypnotic rhythm of the sails, and the steady rumble of the gears above her head. All around the mill, she realised, everything was peaceful and silent. There was no traffic, no streetlights, no TV chatter or children playing in the road. The only lights were those in the distant valley far below. She could hear rooks cawing around the treetops below as the dusk closed in. On the ground below an engine started, and a cone of light burrowed through the woods as the workmen drove away in their van.

  She turned back from the window. Michael was watching her with a quiet smile on his face. ‘And there’s another floor above this?’

  ‘Yes. The last one.’

  They climbed a final flight of steps into the space beneath the roof. Here she found the source of the rumbling. There were two large wooden cogwheels moved steadily round - a vertical one mounted round an axle connected to the hub of the sails, and a massive horizontal wheel called the spur wheel which, Michael explained, had originally turned the shaft to drive the millwheels below. Now, although the drive shaft was disconnected, the spur wheel still rotated, and some smaller gears linked it to another heavy millwheel whose weight slowed it down, and a modern generator which took up most the remaining floor area. The rumble of the gears, and the hum of the generator, meant that they had to raise their voices to be heard.

  ‘That vertical wheel is the brake wheel,’ Michael shouted. ‘You see this mechanism here? When I pull that chain below that tightens around it to stop the sails from moving. Like a huge brake shoe on a car wheel.’

  ‘And right now this is powering the house? The electric lights in all these rooms?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Free electricity from the wind. I can store a certain amount in those batteries there. But if I kept the sails running all day it wouldn’t just power the house, you know. I could sell it back to the national grid. Enough to cover council tax, at least.’ He caught her eye thoughtfully. ‘Do you want to go out on the roof?’

  ‘All right.’

  When he asked, she had not appreciated what she was letting herself in for. The room they were standing in, under the cap, was only a little higher than the height of a man. Michael had to bend his head slightly as he opened a small door at the back. Sarah followed him through, and gasped in shock. She was standing on a tiny balcony, eighteen inches wide, with a handrail no higher than her hips. Behind her, the smooth metal roof rose to a conical point about twice the height of her head. Below her - an aching long way below - she could see Michael’s car, a little matchbox toy, and rooks circling over treetops in the gathering dusk. She clutched the rail convulsively and took her bearings. The door they’d come through was on the side of the cap, she realised. To her left the huge dark sails revolved remorselessly between her and the setting sun. To her right, above the woods and Michael’s car, was a second smaller set of sails, mounted at right angles to the cap.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked. She detached one hand to point briefly, before re-attaching it firmly to the handrail.

  ‘The fantail. It keeps the sails pointing exactly into the wind. So if the wind shifts, the cap moves round slightly and ...’ There was a sudden lurch beneath Sarah’s feet. ‘... like that.’

  ‘What the hell happened then?’

  ‘The wind shifted slightly, like I told you, and the cap moved round.’

  ‘The cap ... you mean this whole roof we’re standing on moved? It isn’t fixed?’

  ‘No. Sorry, I should have warned you. The cap - the roof - is circular, right, and it’s resting on a set of wooden skids. The fantail’s attached to the cap but connected to the tower by a cogwheel that runs round outside the skids. So when the wind shifts, like it did just then, the fantail moves a couple of notches along the cogwheel and drags the cap around so the sails keep facing the wind. Clever, isn’t it?’ He laughed.

  ‘Very.’ Sarah drew a deep breath. She was determined not to show herself afraid. ‘And what’s the point of this balcony?’

  ‘Suicide.’

  ‘What?’ She stared at him, uncertain if she’d heard right. His face was shadowed, between her and the setting sun. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Suicide.’ He raised his arms by his sides, in the position of a swallow dive. ‘Don’t you think it would be a good way to go?’

  ‘Michael, stop it. You’re crazy.’

  He flexed his knees, as though about to jump. ‘Perfect. Two seconds sheer terror, then certain death. Can you imagine a better end?’

  Sarah shuddered. I’m alone on the roof of this tower, she thought, with a man I scarcely know. What if he turns out to be a maniac?

  ‘Michael, don’t be silly! Stop it.’

  Releasing her grip on the handrail, she clutched his arm, staring with horror at the sheer drop below. When he didn’t move, she tugged his arm again.

  ‘Michael!’

  Instead of moving, he linked her arm with his, forcing her to stand beside him. The sails whisked behind them, turning a little faster than before. A rook flew beneath their feet, cawing loudly. I’m linked to him, Sarah thought; if the cap lurches again we’ll lose our balance and fall. He’s much stronger than me - what the hell is he doing?

  Michael looked down at her. In the dusk, his face was hard to decipher. The wind blew her hair across her eyes. We’re all alone here, she thought again, there’s no one else around for miles. Is this how it ends?

  He relaxed, reached his arm round her, and guided her back through the door. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, as they came down from the cap to his study. ‘You were scared. I shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Of course I was scared.’ Sarah’s fear turned to anger. ‘What the hell were you doing up there? It was dangerous.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it was stupid. It’s just that ... I like heights, I always have. But I shouldn’t have inflicted it on you. I apologise.’

  ‘But why, Michael? What’s the attraction?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. The air, I suppose, the wind in your face. The height. The sense that you’ve got to keep control of yourself or else ... If I did ever want to die, that would be the best way to go, wouldn’t it? Very quick.’ He studied her apologetically. ‘But don’t worry, I’ve no intention of dying. Not for years and years. Especially now I’ve met you.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Sarah said coolly. If that’s his idea of a compliment he can keep it. ‘Michael, it’s late, and I’ve got some papers to read before court tomorrow. Do you mind if we go back?’

&nbs
p; On the drive home his good spirits revived. He apologised again and set himself to lighten the atmosphere with a long involved story about how as a boy he’d once got marooned on an island to which he’d rowed to climb a cliff. ‘There were gannets all over this island, and when I got down I found they’d pecked holes in my rubber dinghy. I was half a mile from the shore and no one knew where I was. I had visions of myself living on gannets’ eggs and rainwater, and growing a long beard and grey hair like Robinson Crusoe.’

  ‘A ten year old with a long beard?’

  ‘Yes, well I wasn’t sure how beards grew in those days. I thought it was something to do with the sea. It was mostly sailors who had them, after all. Like the one who picked me up in his fishing boat.’

  Sarah smiled. The thought of him as a ten year boy, scrambling barefoot over rocks at the seaside, was an appealing one. Perhaps that was what attracted him to heights, she thought. A sense of reliving his youth. And young boys did do silly, dangerous things - she remembered her own son, Simon, coming home covered with blood after speeding downhill on a bicycle. The game had been to hit the hump-backed bridge at the bottom of the hill at full speed, apparently, to see how far you could fly through the air without hitting the ground. Simon had broken the record and his arm simultaneously. Sarah had been furious and shocked, both at once.

  But her son had been nine or ten at the time, not in his forties, like Michael. She wondered, later that evening, what it all meant. He was a nice man, clearly, and liked her - he’d said so, just once. But why play the fool on top of the windmill like that? And what sort of man jokes about suicide?

  29. Dividing the Equity

  APPROACHING KING’S Square in Leeds, Sarah walked past Leeds Town Hall, where she and Bob had been married. It had been her second wedding. She had been 17 years old, a young mother with a baby. Her own mother had offered to look after Simon during the wedding, but Sarah had refused. ‘He’s marrying me and the baby, Mum!’ she’d said fiercely. ‘That’s the whole point. He doesn’t want me to give him up - unlike you!’ So the three of them - Sarah, Bob, and little Simon - had walked up the steps of the registry office together, a family before they were even married. She’d held Simon in her arms throughout the ceremony, only passing him to Bob when she signed the register. Her mother, who’d wanted to put him up for adoption, hadn’t held him at all. Sarah didn’t regard her mother as family after that. Bob and Simon were her family, she’d felt; when she needed support she could rely on them, no one else. No one else but herself.