Almost Insentient, Almost Divine Read online

  I feel a sharp burst within my chest, like the thin stab of a stiletto from a vast, alien abdomen. I am filled with poison and pain. I sink to the worn and dusty pavement with a gasp, as the children flee like a nest of rodents.

  There, before my dimming, dreamy mind’s-eye, a host of bobbing corpses amidst the frothy waves of pinky blood, tapping their rigid fingers against the sandy coast of Normandy, scratching at freedom, clawing at memory. They float there like a burst net of sprats, the sun upon their damp, silvery backs. And I am away, a beam of brightness, a gasp of fetid breath upon a sea breeze that dissipates against the cliffs of a mythical land.

  As the last light fades I hear the buzz of countries at their work. I hear the knives upon the chopping blocks, the creak of armchairs, the squeal of bedsprings, the cries of babies in the night, the lowing of cattle and the braying of asses, the fever of a busy place busying itself with business. The world’s cacophony dwindles to a tuneless murmur, a liquid burbling and babbling, like bubbles of spittle breaking on an infant’s lips or the gurgle of dark blood sluiced into the undertaker’s drain.

  ELSEWHERE

  Mors Janua Vitae

  That’s The Stony Path, you see, down there, over past The Lutterworth House—oh, sorry, that’s me again, The Lutterworth House, they’ve been gone ten years or more now, but we… I mean I… still call it The Lutterworth House. It’s a lovely walk, The Stony Path, if you fancy going right around the village, just be sure to mind the dog shit. Dog Shit Alley, that’s what we called it when we was kids. Our mam used to give us a right belting if she heard us say it. Dog Shit Alley—whack!

  You up from London for the weekend, no doubt. Long weekend in The Cotswolds, eh?

  *

  Oh, yeah, it’s a lovely place and that’s right enough. You been up here before?

  *

  Ah, looking for a house. Yes, we have a lot of that nowadays. Somewhere to escape to, away from the old rat race. Somewhere green and pleasant, eh?

  *

  Soon the whole village will be empty in the week. If you lot don’t come up for a good few months the place’ll all be overgrown with grass and weeds. Leave it a year and it’ll all be ivy and rubble. The country’s a hard place—needs managing, needs taming.

  *

  Ah, I don’t mean nothing by it; it don’t make much difference to me besides. I just like to sit here reminiscing. The village I knew is long gone anyway; nothing to do with you city people, just the way it is these days. There’s nothing left of the old life. There’s none of them kind of jobs around anymore, so you go and buy your nice house and learn to love the place like I did; in a different way, I know, but you learn to love it, just the same.

  *

  It’s a good seat isn’t it—the bench—just the right curve on it to fit the back. It was made in dedication to Old Man Bullingdon when he went on. John Stevens made it in his workshop, before he took ill—his sons didn’t want to take the old business on though; they moved to Bath, or Bristol, maybe.

  You can sit here for hours you know, without the least discomfort; time was I used to worry about things like that. And the view—ah! The view; right the way down to the stream and where the Grange used to be before they turned it into that conference centre. That used to be a mill there down at the end. You see it? Just behind is where the stream is, that’s well worth a little look; lovely shallows by the bridge. We used to sit there for hours, dangling our feet and fishing for nothing but stones. It used to race fast though in Autumn, and again in spring. You had to watch yourself in it then. One year a lad got swept off his feet and drowned. It happened years ago, before the first war, but all our mothers used to say about young Alfred who died in the stream, so as to warn us kids about the danger of it. Not that we took any notice, mind. Kids don’t play in streams much these days do they. Can’t say as I see them play much in fields neither. But times change don’t they. Dare say one day they’ll play in them again.

  My mother used to work as a maid at the big house at the end of the row, before they laid them all off in the second war. They were hard times, what with dad away in the army. He got caught by the Germans and spent three years a prisoner of war. Stalag Eight it was, Stalag Eight. We thought it sounded like a kind of monster—the Stalag—you know, like a beast from the forest. He never talked of it, those few years he lived on after he got home. We just knew it from the few letters he sent when he got liberated. Soviets kept hold of him for half a year while they were hunting Nazis. Who could of thought my old dad a Nazi, eh?

  Anyway, you don’t want to hear an old codger like me rambling on now do you. You found a nice place to look at have you, a nice big house to live in?

  *

  Oh, “The Reading Room”, is that up for sale again? Do you know why it’s called that? Before they turned it into a house for living in it was our little library you know—our little social club like. It was Cecil Bullingdon that set it up, with some money left to him by his mother. She said it could only be used for the “good of the village”, whatever that meant, and so he thought, seeing as they owned half the houses in the village, that they’d turn one into a little community place. So it had a little lending library—no librarian or anything, you just went in and wrote down what you’d had (you could take them out for two weeks before Cecil would be round your house)—and there was a big meeting room for all sorts of things, like lectures on local history, and little plays and the like. The parish council used to meet there until they fell out with Cecil and moved it to the room above The Wheatsheaf. That’s the problem with village life, or village life as it was in them days anyway—everyone’s a bit too close for comfort; so when you have a falling out it all gets a bit serious.

  But it’s a nice little house that. I’m sure you’ll like it there. I don’t think I’d have read half the things I did if it wasn’t for “The Reading Room”.

  That’s where me and Betty had our first kiss too, down at “The Reading Room”.

  *

  Oh no, no, she wasn’t my wife… well, she should have been, like… if things had all worked out different. Yes, me and Betty would have made a good go of it, if things had all been different.

  She was a funny one was Betty, none of the other lads would look at her. They called her “The Yank”, on account of how she’d come about see. Her mother, Doris Stark, had fallen for the ugliest bloke on the airbase—when they came over in the war, you know. It weren’t her fault, half the women in the village were at it, it just so happened that Doris was unlucky. My old mam weren’t at it, don’t get me wrong—not that many of them would have had her; they wanted a bit of glamour after all. And after she’d had my older brother Harry—on the same day that Hitler invaded Poland, as she always reminded us, as if somehow it was his fault!—I think she became an old lady overnight. Don’t get me wrong, I never knew no different, she was my mam after all—and your folks always seem like old people when you’re a kid, don’t they. No, it’s just I heard other folk talk about what she was like when she was young and she sounded so happy and bright. She used to dance and sing, they said, and even played the flute. I never heard her sing. I never saw her dance. I never saw her pick up an instrument. The time Harry came back and said he wanted to play the trumpet she said it was too expensive and what would the likes of us want with such things anyway. She was young once, but not round us. My dad must have seen it in her. I can’t imagine he’d have gone for her the way she was when we was kids; and after that—after having us—it was like she was looking forward to her grave before she was even grey-haired.

  Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, young Betty Stark. They called her “The Yank”, and she carried it all through school. That’s hard for a kid, isn’t it? It made her quiet and withdrawn like. She never hardly said a word in class, nor outside it. You’d always see her helping her mam in the garden. They grew all their own food, more because her mam couldn’t get no decent work in the village, on account of how she come by young Betty. He never s
tayed around after the war, the Yankee pilot bloke, probably had his own wife, or sweetheart, back home to go to. I hear he used to send her money now and again, so he can’t have been all bad, eh?

  *

  Yes, yes, you’re right. They loved each other for a time. That’s what it’s all about isn’t it. You love each other for the time it’s due. For some it’s for one night and for others it’s for seventy years. You’re so right there!

  That was the way with me and Betty, looking back on it now. I loved her for a time. I just didn’t realise that I hadn’t run all of my time through then. We’d go down the lake and watch the fish; we’d walk over to the high woods and watch the birds come back to roost; we’d snatch a kiss down by her garden gate at the bottom of The Stony Path—watching out for her mam, who never liked me much. We did all those things what young lovers do. Then, after that last, long summer at the end of school, I went off to Bristol to do my engineering training. I came back at Christmas and Betty were different somehow—needy, and desperate. We picked up where we left off, but somehow she wanted to be with me all the time. I hadn’t got a moment to catch up with me mates, or even take a little walk on me own. She would always turn up somehow, as if she’d been following me, or something. That was the last year Cecil Bullingdon was around and he’d decided to throw a big New Year party for the village. We’d never had nothing like it before. New Year, that was a thing for the Scots and such—it seemed so new-fangled to us. I bet you have a New Year bash don’t you? You young people like that, don’t you, fireworks and champagne and all that stuff?

  *

  Oh, sparkling wine they call it now do they?

  *

  Oh, right, well, we’d never seen the like of it, whether it’s cheap, or expensive. I think old Cecil knew he was on the way out and wanted to stick two fingers up to all those that had snubbed him over the years. I bet he hoped they’d choke on the stuff.

  Well, to cut a long story short, me and Betty got a bit tipsy and one thing followed the other, so to speak and we got a bit intimate, like. She wasn’t beautiful, Betty, but she was what you’d call pretty—you know, sort of quirky. I liked her quirkiness, that was the kind of girl I liked, see; a bit different.

  Next day I had to go off back to me college training. I didn’t see Betty ’til Easter. Thing is, during that term, I’d got together with a girl called Sally, who’d been doing her nursing training in Bath. Our college had organised a dance for us all and we’d got talking. She was funny, and confident, and independent. I fell for her straight away—or for what was different in her. I don’t know what she saw in me; a nobody, from nowhere, who knew next to nothing about her, or her world. I got so drunk that night I don’t even know what happened. But we started seeing each other and it looked as though things were going where all those things tend to lead.

  *

  Of course I wanted to tell Betty. I wasn’t that much of a coward. It was about telling her at the right time. When I got back at Easter I saw her a few times and I think she knew that something was wrong. We had a few drinks one night at the pub and I told her when we stopped by the stream, on the way back up to The Stony Path. I told her about Sally and how we’d got close and that perhaps it was best if me and her made a go of things. I told Betty she’d be better off without me like—I wasn’t right for her.

  She had a complete fit and started bashing me with her fists and scratching at my face. I ran off. She were a bloody banshee, I tell you. Never seen her like it, I hadn’t. I reckon all them years of her being at the edges of things had finally got to her. Maybe she thought I was her ticket out of the village—to a bigger life, like—what with me being at college and all.

  Well, I felt a right one and that’s for sure. I thought I’d set it right the following day though. I thought I could set it all right.

  Anyway, you don’t want to hear all of my nonsense now do you, not with your lovely plans and all, not when you’re looking for a nice place to live.

  Did you go up and see the church? Lovely isn’t it? The old vicarage has been turned into flats now—big ones mind, not such as local folks can afford.

  Did you see above the gatehouse… the words… on the stone arch?

  *

  Yes, yes, that’s it—Mors Janua Vitae. Do you know what it means?

  *

  Don’t they teach you Latin up in that London no more? Our teacher, Mr Davis, he was a right one for the Latin, he was. Some of the older kids even did some Greek with him, but he passed on before I had a chance to do it and the new teacher, Miss Harper, she was more for the mathematics than the Classics.

  *

  Oh, sorry, yes—it means, “Death—the gateway to life’; you know, eternal life; the life of the heavens, God and Christ and all that, angels and paradise.

  Ha! What a load of old cobblers. Death—the gateway to eternity, that’s for sure, but life! Ha! Life! What a load of absolute cobblers.

  Sorry, you’re not religious people are you?

  *

  No, no, few are these days, and not many city types, like you.

  I was, for all the good it did me. That was me mam’s doing too. She loved it all, you know; not the love thy neighbour bit, no, more of the fire and brimstone stuff from the first part… the old testament, isn’t it.

  Yes, my brother used to say—she should have been born a Catholic, our Dave. She should have been born a Catholic, that’s what he used to say! She’d have loved all that guilt and penitence; all the confession and the fear. He was right.

  She was a good woman really, but for her fists, and her spite.

  *

  Yes, this is the village where I was born. And where I died.

  *

  Oh, yes. I’m up in the graveyard back up there, near where you had your lunch, looking out across the fields down to the fishing lake.

  Yes, yes, I saw you up there, with your picnic blanket and hamper; all your lovely things laid out like you was at the races.

  You know what happened? Betty bashed my head in the night after I’d told her about Sally. Cracked me one—or maybe two, or three—with a shovel, and dragged me over the edge of the crag; made it look like I’d fallen on me way home from the pub. Oh, I did like a cider, so it didn’t surprise anyone really. She’s a clever one is my Betty. I dare say I was due it, right enough. I’m an old dog. Even when I’d even gone round the day after I told her it was more in the hope I could have one last go with her, so I dare say I was due it, wouldn’t you say?

  *

  It’s up to you if you believe me. Most folk I talk to probably just think I’m a batty old man and go back home and tell the funny tale to their wives or husbands, mothers, fathers, lovers—or just the cat or dog—over a glass of your chardonnay with olives and hummus, or just a cup of tea and a digestive—“Oh! You’ll never guess what happened to me today…”, or something like it. No doubt they forget it soon enough, or maybe every now and again it comes back to them, like a little uncertain memory!

  None of them has been to see Betty though, to see if it’s true—to see if I’m real.

  One day, one day soon, one of you will, it might even be you. You’ll bother to go over to the overgrown house at the bottom of The Stony Path, with the vegetable patches hidden behind the weeds and thorns, and talk to my Betty, and watch as her face wrinkles in horror as she realises I’m waiting; waiting to make good my promise and be with her—be with her proper like. After what she did to me, I’ve lots to talk to her about. And we’ll wander, like we used to, through the fading pathways, hand in hand. We’ll wander on and on, through all our beautiful places, as if nothing had ever changed.

  Honey Moon

  Robert Galton looked over the car. It was a good twenty years old now, a Morris Traveller, and would have probably been lovely in its day. Now it could do with a complete overhaul, something his uncle claimed to have been doing these past few weeks in preparation for the honeymoon in Scotland. But Robert couldn’t really be picky; the loan o
f the car, and the cottage for them to stay in, was the best they could manage while they tried to do up the dilapidated house they’d got at bargain price in the centre of Derby. It was very kind of his uncle to have offered both things—as a wedding gift. His wife, Margaret, had encouraged him to accept this option, after he’d said he would pay for them to go to France and see Paris. She knew he couldn’t afford it—that could all come later, once they’d saved a little. Robert’s uncle, Tom, was the closest family either of them had now, and he’d been so generous, even helping with some of the other costs of the wedding. It would have been rude not to accept his offer.

  “So, what do you think of her then,” Tom said, wiping his oily hands with a rag.

  “Who… what?” Robert said, miles away.

  “The car—come up a treat, ain’t she?” he said.

  “Oh, god, sorry, I thought you meant Margaret for a minute,” Robert laughed.

  “Oh, right,” Tom chuckled, nudging him in the arm. “But, she looked a treat an’ all yesterday. You’re gonna have a lovely time up at the cottage—nice, secluded little spot, if you know what I mean.”