Villager, page 27
That we became briefly famous, as a village, owing to the findings at Trembling Hill, has also brought more people to the area. They said that she, the girl they discovered, was put to rest in a crouching position, facing the rising sun. This strikes me as not a position of dignity, but we are nearly the same at the end, underneath our airs and graces, our bonnets that we sometimes remember to wear into town, our tailored shirts and lacquered gentleman’s moustaches. I do not doubt that she did pass into the next world but I suspect it is as my father said and that world was a dispersed one, of trees, earth, flowing water, flowers and souls yet to be born, and that, contradictory to what her people thought, her amulets, clothes and tools did not go with her. It is still the same now: I have buried people with vases and quilts, with hammers and banjos, with cats… even once with a favoured mouse. I know every inch of the churchyard, know just how many Sarahs are in it (three), just how many Davids (sixteen), Williams (eleven) and Megs (seven), but there will, of course, be more beneath that, long forgotten. The stones will talk, I think, if you give them long enough. I still recoil from the younger headstones, the very clean ones that glint in the sun. They give me a chill. But as far as other chills are concerned, I have never seen a ghost here, nor a piskie. A newly qualified young doctor in the village, a golfing man by the name of Fitzpatrick who moved here from the west coast of Ireland into one of the ugly new houses, told me that on his way back across the tor after playing the back nine he was led astray in the mist, unable to get home and found himself mistakenly over by the ruin of the old barn that once belonged to the Warners, and said he saw a plume of smoke rising in the doorway, in the shape of a woman. I think he is a very imaginative man but I also do not doubt the moor’s intention to spin and confound people on its more vexed days. I have heard it claimed that the figure in the carvings on the font has been seen as an apparition, but few people have spent as much time in her manor as me and I have never set eyes on her, although curiously, she does often visit me in dreams.
At these times, I am often digging and she stands to my rear, quietly observing, making sure the job is done right. I like the idea of her presence. It gives me comfort when the dark thoughts creep in: when the tor makes its rain to blacken the world and I am out in it alone, when the belltower captain rings out the nine tailors for another man lost and I dwell on the inevitable solitude that comes to us all in the end, or when I wonder what I could have done for or been to a woman.
It is now a while since I have broken a shovel. I have three in all and they live in a low and accessible place, in the porch, near my shoes and raincoat. Not far beyond can be found my mother’s old ottoman where, when May is at its peak and the sun is shining and I leave the door open, I will still often find a chaffinch or song thrush perched. At the close of these sweet, bright, late spring days I will sometimes open the ottoman and put on one of the garments within it. There are a couple of dozen in all that I have collected from the woods over the years, although it’s rare for me to find one there now. I favour a couple of cotton frocks in particular whose bright and intricate patterns seem to match the foliage around me. I take the back way into the trees, through the leaning gate in my old dripping garden wall that is half off its hinges and I tell myself I will repair, drekly. It takes me ten minutes to follow the thread of the stream to the river. All the old bridges on the moor began with stepping stones and the ones that Sarah put down are still there, negotiable in fair weather. As I balance on them, enjoying the way the fabric feels against my skin, I remember her standing there, singing her song to her people that I could not see, remember the great stillness in me that contrasted with the great yearning in her and the yearning in the water that seemed to match it. Sometimes I have imagined that I still hear the song. One time, when I was feverish with summer flu, I was even sure I heard it croaked back to me by the rocks in the river and I shivered and swayed with its power.
After I have stood on our makeshift stone bridge I rest in the long grass, at the end of this unremarkable life, aware, as I lower myself, of every twist and ache and fault and gap in this contraption I still call a body. But then I feel it all getting under the cotton and passing through me – the sun, the butterflies, the maybugs, the tune of the water, the breeze, the falling light – and I am the moment and nothing more.
SEARCH ENGINE (2099)
How tall was Reka Takacs?
Reka Takacs was 172.2cm tall, or – if you prefer to measure it the old way – five feet eight inches. (The same height as you.)
Who was the husband of Reka Takacs?
Reka Takacs had two husbands. The red-haired writer and record producer Martin McGuire (2029—2045) and the dark-haired actor Thomas Molland (2046—2047).
What does Takacs mean in English?
It means ‘weaver’.
When did Reka Takacs die?
Reka Takacs died in 2091, one day prior to what would have been her 100th birthday.
Why are we doing this? I know all this stuff. She’s my great-grandmother.
I’m sorry. It’s force of habit on my part, a hangover of the genetics of my programming. It’s because she was famous. People always want to know how tall famous people are, whether they have a spouse and, if so, who that spouse is. It’s really dumb. It goes back to the early days of Google. All these thousands and thousands of people looking up internationally well-known figures they are attracted to and checking on their marital status, as if thinking, ‘Hey, let’s see if I have a chance here.’
I don’t think of her as famous. She didn’t want to be famous. She’s not famous now.
She was, for a while. The Little Meg album sold 30,000 copies during the month of its release. That is pretty impressive for 2047, and for what was essentially a folk rock record. The general public didn’t have a lot of money to spend that year.
Do people search my name and height and try to find out if I’m married? No, don’t tell me that. OK, tell me.
931 people searched the words ‘Bea Mortimer’ and ‘married’ or ‘married to’ or ‘husband’ last year. 649 of those people also searched ‘height’ or ‘how tall’. People generally search ‘height’ or ‘how tall’ far more often when trying to find out information about men. 480 people, having discovered the answer about whether you were married or not, then went on to try to find out if you were dating anyone.
That’s insane. Who are these people? I don’t think I even sold 931 copies of my album last year. What is this over here?
That is correct. You sold 762 copies of Dick Warner’s Woodyard. The single ‘The Witch on the Wall’ sold 611 copies. But you did literally zero promotion. That is lady fern. There’s a tiny bit of dwarf male fern next to it, and some stalks of crested dog’s-tail. The pink flowers growing at its base are red campion.
I think I would like more ferns for the garden, for the dark bit by the wall. But they cost so frickin’ much at the Garden Salon.
You could just dig one or two up from somewhere around here and carry it back in your rucksack. But that’s down to you and your conscience. You bought a rhododendron last year from the Garden Salon and it cost more than you spent on food that week, and those things are rampant out in the wild here, so there is at least one argument there that it was not the most logical use of your finances. I also think the rhododendron is going to start blocking out your light in the kitchen soon. It’s already swamped the bellflowers and Welsh poppies that came from offcuts from Reka’s garden. Oh, you are going to take this fern out? No, you’re just feeling it, to see how easy it would be. OK. That thing you can feel buried in the soil next to the roots is a golf ball. This bit of land we are now walking across was a golf course. It closed sixteen years ago. The moor has reclaimed it.
I know. I grew up around here, remember? I love the way the purple on the rhododendrons looks, especially when it’s contrasted against the rocks and the river. She told me that there were three big ones in the garden of the house where she lived with Maureen, where my grandfather was conceived. So now whenever I look at them I think of what that garden must have looked like, and of Reka playing her guitar. They also make me think of that house in the book Rebecca.
Manderley. Author: Daphne du Maurier. Gollancz, 1938. First print run (August, 1938): 20,000. Second print run (August, 1938): 10,000. Third print run (August, 1938): 15,000. Fourth print run (August, 1938): 15,000. Do you sometimes think that maybe you try too hard to follow in her footsteps? Do you think it’s because you look quite a lot like her?
Daphne du Maurier? I don’t look at all like her. It’s OK, I knew what you meant and, no, I don’t think I try too hard to follow in Reka’s footsteps, as a matter of fact. She came to the UK with nothing, she worked hard, meanwhile simultaneously teaching herself to be an amazing musician. She ate well, swam and walked every day, and lived an extraordinarily long and varied life. At seventy-five, she still looked utterly fierce and people often mistook her for fifty. In a twenty-five-month flood of inspiration she summoned three of the best albums of all time out of the heavens and onto tape and even more impressively she did it in her forties, a time of life when society believes that the best-before date on most singer-songwriters’ talent has expired. As soon as she had enough money to be comfortable she gave a substantial amount of her income to wildlife charities and women’s shelters, but she never felt the need to shout or point at herself as she did it, or at least only did so in a way that might encourage others to follow her example. Between 2061 and her death she took in a total of seventy-four ill or elderly donkeys and looked after them on her land. She had tattoos of every species of plant and animal mentioned on RJ McKendree’s Wallflower LP, and of a crow biting into Satan’s neck. She won several awards for her gardening. Nobody was better at flipping an omelette with absolute precision and balance. By a conservative estimate, she saved the life of at least seven sheep whom she found in dicey predicaments while she was walking the moor. She lived in four different countries, had romances with several inspiring and unusual people of both genders and died in the place she loved most passionately. I don’t think trying too much to be like that is possible, is it? And if it is, there’s certainly nothing wrong with it, in my view.
OK. I was just asking.
What animal are you today? I am sensing… moorhen, maybe? No. Bigger. Cormorant?
Not all that far off. Merganser duck. The ones you mistook for mandarin ducks the other day. It’s not an uncommonly made mistake. But it’s the males of the mandarins that are the startlingly pretty ones, whereas with the mergansers it’s the female who has the crest on the back of her neck and wears the nice clothes.
Oh, the ones that always make me feel underdressed. Well, thanks a lot! As if it isn’t bad enough that I’m wearing this old jumper with splotches of black on it from where I painted the shed yesterday. The mergansers always fly away from me, through the gap where the bridge used to be, every time they see me. They seem like a very fearful bird. Are you feeling fearful today? You were a wolf yesterday.
I was a wolf because we had been talking about that bit in Reka’s journal, where she describes the time she played in the pub in the Scottish Highlands, and the landlord had a pet wolf and there was the lock-in and the wolf ended up falling asleep with its head in her lap, and that reminded me I hadn’t been a wolf for a while…
Ah, Wolf Night! So memorable and magic. I say that like I was there. But I feel like I was, just from reading her account of it.
… and I thought in view of what we are doing today it might help if I was a creature with a knowledge of the river. Also, maybe, yes, I do feel a bit fearful. You said that if you found the swimming spot you have been talking about, you were going to dive. I don’t want you to dive. You don’t know what’s under there, and it’s not within my capabilities as a female merganser duck – or within my capabilities as anything else – to call an ambulance if you hurt yourself.
But the whole point about Abbot Cathcart’s Pool is that it’s sixteen feet deep. There is nothing you CAN hurt yourself on. I do love the way you can just switch animals like that. How does it work?
And you gleaned this information from what, or who? Some old guy you met walking up on the Lych Way, two and a half years ago? That doesn’t sound very solid and trustworthy to me. I suppose he wore a cape and a big hat, too? Are you absolutely sure you didn’t imagine him? Yes, I think that whole spirit animal thing is at least partially bullshit. We are all different animals on different days. Think of it like you think of your relationship with your favourite song. It changes from day to day, doesn’t it. One day it’s ‘Word Up’ by Cameo. Another day it’s ‘Wide Berth’ by the John McCandles Dirt Band. Another day it’s ‘Dark is the Bark’ by the Left Banke. Another day it’s Taylor Swift’s posthumously released cover version of ‘Hold On’ by Sharon Tandy and Les Fleur De Lys. Another day it’s ‘Trying to Live Right’ by Circus Maximus. Another day it’s ‘Magician in the Mountain’ by Sunforest. Another day it’s ‘Sorcerer’ by Junction. Another day it’s ‘Sorcerella’ by Jefferson Lee. Another day it’s ‘U Got the Look’ by Prince. Another day it’s ‘Richard’ by Wolves in the Roof. Another day it’s ‘Sun Chases Me Down’ by Equinox. Another day it’s ‘Ramsplaining’ by Blacksmith. Another day it’s ‘Think’ by Lyn Collins. Except I know your favourite song ever is always ultimately RJ McKendree’s cover of ‘Little Meg’ from the 1972 Hungarian-only 7-inch, just as I know that my favourite animal is always ultimately a capybara.
Of course, the difference is that I own two 127-year-old copies of the Hungarian-only ‘Little Meg’ single and have met and touched them many times, whereas you have never met or touched a capybara. Also, is it me or are you getting more opinionated?
I’ve explained how it works. I gather and assimilate information. And within that information are inevitably opinions, which I also assimilate, and which more recently tend to gestate inside me.
But, even though you have gathered so much information, you cannot tell me where Abbot Cathcart’s Pool is?
No. You’re on your own with that one. I can just give you various more general pointers about the river, using my temporary merganser self. ‘This is a sound and propitious place to make a nest.’ ‘Trout often gather under this small waterfall.’ That kind of thing.
What I remember Craig saying about the pool is that it was located in a place you really wouldn’t expect it to be and looked quite unassuming, that from the path you’d guess it was just a fairly ordinary, shallow part of the river.
Wait, the guy you bumped into on the moor was called Craig? That doesn’t sound very ‘all-seeing moorland warlock’.
He was actually very helpful and knowledgeable. I would have liked to have got to know him better. I don’t know why I remember that day, perhaps because the atmosphere was very odd up here. The sky was an extremely unusual colour. Oppressive cobalt, like a tunnel in a dystopian film. The sound of our voices was very strange as we spoke, as if the air was trying to suck us away. I wish I’d taken his number so I could nag him again for the exact location, but I was distracted at the time, withdrawing, feeling a bit reclusive…
So absolutely unlike now, then?
I’ll choose to ignore that comment. Anyway, you were switched off that day, so you wouldn’t know, and you shouldn’t assume that just because somebody is called Craig that they are a Craig. I’ve met loads of Emmas who aren’t Emmas at all, for example, although having said that nearly all the Lauras I’ve met are very much Lauras, which is fine with me. I do think I am quite a Bea, overall. Craig said he spoke to nearly everyone on the moor and nearly every conversation added to his knowledge of the place. A bit like you gathering and assimilating your information, I suppose. He said he was a guide and he did what he called Legend Walks and that I should think about coming on one. So I did think about it, and I decided I didn’t want to, but what he said about the pool has lingered in my mind ever since, the way he described the colour of it and the depth and the sound when you were in it. He said the marker you had to look out for was a sickly looking hawthorn next to three piled rocks, which didn’t seem to narrow it down massively in my mind, if I am honest, and who is to say the hawthorn isn’t now dead and gone, if it was already sickly twenty-five months ago? He said the pool wasn’t part of his Legend Walks and he was only telling me about it because he liked me (OK, yes, in retrospect I do realise it was possible he was coming onto me), and that as well as being called Abbot Cathcart’s Pool it was sometimes referred to as Meganthica’s Pool and that Meganthica was the name of the teenage warrior queen who was found in the kistvaen down there during the Edwardian era, preserved in the peat, and that she is still thought to haunt the moor, in many guises, to be a kind of muse, in a way. He told me there was even a song about her, an old moorland ballad, which appeared on an album that had been quite successful in the forties, although most people had forgotten about it. Of course, I said nothing, but you probably would have seen a small smile escaping from the corners of my mouth, if you’d been looking closely.
How are you feeling now, vis-à-vis your retreat from the public eye, and the fact that fewer and fewer people are interested in you and your work? Do you still ever feel the old addiction to attention, that need to have your existence confirmed and fed back to you? Do you miss anything? It’s been a while now.
