Red Shift Page 7

  “Are they your mates?”

  “All. All brilliant. They look after me. They look after Macey.”

  “Do you like them?”

  “They’re my mates.”

  “Aren’t you angry? What they did. Their child. In me.”

  He shook. “That follows killing.”

  “Mend what’s broken?”

  “I can’t mend stone axe.”

  “You’ll find a way.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll know.”

  “Happen they’ll not keep me, when they find I’m no use, when they find Macey’s gone.”

  She smiled. “Happen.”

  Logan entered the hut. “There’s a gang on the cop, with mules. What’s it about?”

  “They’ll not attack,” she said.

  Face came in. “You’ve left nothing in that rock hole, have you?” he said to Logan.

  “No.”

  “If they think we’ve been in there—” Face turned on the girl. “One word from you and I’ll slit your throat, OK? Logan, you stay inside. You wouldn’t pass for tribal yet. We’ll scare them off, Magoo and me. Macey—out. Look sharp.”

  “They’ll not attack,” she said.

  “Think on,” said Face. “I’ve got your number. You don’t fool me.”

  Magoo whistled from the crag, and Face ran to him.

  The girl dragged herself across the floor. “Lift me to a bench,” she said. “Fetch me a cloak.” Logan and Macey helped her up. “Both of you,” she said, “don’t speak.”

  Magoo and Face watched the men approach along the ridge.

  “There’s five,” said Magoo. “We could pick them off. What’ve they come for?”

  “Religious,” said Face. “It had to be some time.”

  “If we let them too close they’ll know we’re understrength.”

  “What would Mothers do if they had something another tribe wanted?”

  “Keep it.”

  “But if the Mothers didn’t want it?”

  “Still keep it.”

  “But if they didn’t want a war on their hands, like we don’t want to take on the whole of Cheshire right now?”

  “You reckon?”

  “We’ve got to do a deal with those five and still give them the runaround.”

  “I say we knock ’em off.”

  “We don’t kill anybody: not on this mountain.”

  “What are they after?”

  “Millstones. From that hole. They’ll do anything to get them; but they won’t want a fight. The protection works both ways.”

  “Then that’s the deal. Protection.”

  “How do we set it up?”

  “Nobody argues with a Mother.”

  “Can you bluff?”

  “Watch me.”

  Magoo stood clear on the skyline. The men halted.

  “Now then,” said Magoo. “Off this garth.”

  One of the Cats came forward and held his arms open. “We’ve only hammers and chisels and some pinchbars,” he said.

  The other men unrolled wolf pelts and set down bags of grain. “For the quarry,” said the Cat.

  Magoo glanced sideways at Face.

  “And you’ll let us speak to Barthomley?” said the Cat.

  “Eh up,” said Face. “Don’t push this. It’s more than it looks.”

  Logan had fired the kindling in all the huts, and put grass on to make smoke. The settlement was occupied.

  “You and one other bring the gear. The rest stay where you are,” said Magoo. “And watch them: don’t let them too near Logan,” he said to Face. “I’ll stay here.”

  Face took the men to the hut. Macey sat outside, his skin dyed red. The men avoided him.

  Inside the hut the girl was waiting. Logan had found the darkest shadow, away from light and fire.

  The Cat knelt before her. “How do?” he said.

  “The goddess does well,” she replied.

  “Stick to the point,” said Face.

  “We’re from Bosley. Does the goddess allow stone?”

  “She does.”

  “Is the stone pure?”

  “It will be.”

  “The sacrifices—”

  “—will be made.”

  “There is a redman. Where did he kill?”

  “Barthomley.”

  “We have brought rye.”

  “It is needed.”

  “Has the goddess her stone?”

  “She has.”

  “How does it grind?”

  “Sun-rising.”

  The Cat left the hut. He stopped by Macey, but did not look at him. “May the god pass from you,” he said.

  Macey sat still.

  The Cat came back to the doorway of the hut. “Congratulations, sergeant-major,” he said in Latin. “You sure made a swell job of these guys.”

  Face ran.

  “They’re down in that pit,” said Magoo.

  “I’ll tell you something else,” said Face. “They know who we are, what we are, and you can bet they know how many we are.”

  “I thought it was too bloody quiet. Let’s get the buggers now. They’re sitting ducks.”

  “We daren’t risk it. This is their holy mountain, and that quarry’s the centre.”

  “That’s why no attacks.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “The tribute’s good.”

  “Very. Furs for winter, and enough rye till spring: like they were cultivating us.”

  “What was with the girl?”

  “She’s a corn goddess, and as long as they think she’s OK—”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I guessed it when we found her. She’d all the signs. And she’ll have a few more by spring—and that might not be too healthy.”

  “So where’s it leave us?”

  “On a bloody cold cop.”

  The Cats worked all day in the quarry, cutting stone into shallow blocks which they loaded on the mules. They sang as they worked, and poured beer on the mountain as each piece was prised loose. Magoo watched.

  Logan sat outside the hut with Face. “They’d probably know the day we moved in. All this pantomime for nothing.”

  Face stabbed the earth with a knife. “And they’ve not tried us.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “The girl. Or we’re some use. But no feuding for Barthomley: and they let us stay on their mountain. It doesn’t figure. I reckon we sit tight through winter, and then move somewheres come spring. If they let us, and we don’t antagonise.”

  “All that tribal, and they knew—”

  “Better still keep to it,” said Face.

  “Yeh. But I feel such a twat.”

  “They’re cleaning up and going,” Magoo called. “They’re washing the frigging place now.”

  “Hey! What’s Macey doing?”

  Macey had taken a sword and was waving it over his head.

  “I’ll save you! Save my mates! All my brilliant mates! Kill the Cats! Kill the Cats! Watch me flip!”

  He ran towards them. The mules were strung along the cop ridge, headed for Bosley.

  “That’s not for real,” said Logan. “Kid! Come back!”

  “Kill the Cats! Brilliant mates!”

  He was jumping, shaking the sword. The Cats paused. He danced around them, screamed at them. They ignored him. Then he was too far from the huts and he halted like a lost dog, and came puling down the slope. Magoo caught his sword and tripped him as he passed. Macey sprawled and rolled down to the huts. Logan and Face picked him up and slung him inside. He grabbed at the girl, and she held him.

  “Don’t act stupid, kid.” Face had never seen such an expression in Logan’s eyes. There was pain. “Don’t play soldiers.” He spoke to Face. “The kid’s finished. Some Ninth!”

  Logan shook the girl. “What’s this place? Why come here for rocks?”

  She did not let go of Macey.

  “What’s so special about Mow Cop?” Logan shouted.

>   “It’s the netherstone of the world,” she said. “The sky-mill turns on it to grind stars.”

  “Why haven’t we been attacked?”

  “The rock is sacred to the flour of heaven.”

  Magoo clattered across the slope. He was out of breath, excited, and came to the hut swinging a weight. He threw it along the floor, and the weight fell apart as human heads.

  “As soon as they stepped off their precious mountain,” said Magoo.

  “What the hell are you on?” said Logan.

  “We’re Mothers, aren’t we?”

  “They know we’re not!”

  “They know different now.”

  “There were five. There’s only four here.”

  “Yes, well, we always let one go—to prove what’s happened to the rest.”

  “They cared so much. They really cared.”

  “Didn’t you know?” said Jan.

  “But it wasn’t me they cared about. It was Little Boy’s Birthday. Lemonade: every time lemonade. And then my mother started sniping at you for not sending anything except the card.”

  “Bicker bicker bicker bicker bicker,” said Jan. “You’re as bad as them. Anyway, I’ve brought you a present.”

  “But we were saving—”

  “I said ‘brought,’ not ‘bought.’ Come on.”

  They had met outside the barrier at Crewe, to avoid paying for a platform ticket. Jan took him by the arm and walked away from the station.

  “What is it?” said Tom.

  “I’ve decided, for your birthday, not to let you indulge yourself. We’re going to enjoy every minute.”

  “I was sounding off, that’s all.”

  “Then do it at the caravan, not here.”

  The smoky Bingo room was the same, the same people: the balls danced like atoms to coincide with numbers on the bright panels.

  Frost had come early. The last warmth of the sun was killed by mist. Tom and Jan moved around the shops. The best heaters were over the door of Marks and Spencer, and there was colour in the Fine Fare supermarket, but it was hard to stay private. The mirrors were observant.

  “Happy?” said Jan.

  “Very.”

  “Me too.”

  “Living apart, so broke we can’t eat, moaned at by parents, hanging about shop doorways to keep warm in the last town God made, and totally happy.”

  The ceiling tinkled with music and persuasions to buy.

  “You know what Crewe is?” said Tom. “Ultimate reality. That’s why we can’t touch it. Each of these shops is full of every aspect of one part of existence. Woolworth’s is a tool shed; Boots, a bathroom; the British Home Stores, a wardrobe. And we walk through it all, but we can’t clean our teeth, or mend a fuse, or change our socks. You’d starve in this supermarket. It’s all so real, we’re shadows.”

  “Care for a brisk walk before lunch?”

  “But do you understand?”

  “Of course I don’t. That’s why I love you.”

  “Am I really worth the journey?”

  “Idiot—”

  “And the hysteria, and the portable caravan?”

  “You’re just fishing for compliments now.”

  “If you knew— Never mind.”

  “Men! Why can’t you accept that we’re very lucky and happy, against the odds, and leave it at that?”

  “There are so many pressures.”

  “But as long as we’re us, they only make the bridge stronger. Think: we were made by love, for love.”

  “By love, for love.”

  “Yes!”

  “You know that.”

  “Yes!”

  “That’s the difference.”

  “What difference?”

  “Not all of it applies to me. I wish to God it did. Tom’s a-cold.”

  “I know the remedy.”

  “So do I.”

  “A brisk walk!” said Jan.

  They set off at random. Away from the precinct the terraces became all the town, and the roads were full of noise.

  “This is better,” said Jan. They had crossed a railway bridge onto a piece of quiet land between houses. A boy on a bicycle overtook them and disappeared at the opposite corner of the space. “There’s a way through.”

  The path ran down to another street, but facing them was a break in the terraces. Two gables almost touched.

  “I wonder why they don’t,” said Tom.

  There was room to pass, and beyond they came to an open square, backed by houses.

  “Most peculiar—”

  From the square the path continued, cobbled, and overgrown by hedges that met in a tunnel arch.

  “That’s old,” said Tom. “Older than Crewe.”

  The path dropped steeply through silence to a bridge across a river, rising beyond. Each time it met a road, there was a way, beckoning further, along gaps and entries.

  “If you kept to the streets, you’d never see this,” said Tom. “It always cuts at right angles, same as the alleys.”

  Sometimes it was as wide as a road, though only children seemed to own it, but even their games were muted.

  “Have you any idea where we are?” said Jan.

  “I’m more uneasy about the ‘when.’ ”

  But the path was stopped.

  “Fairly definite,” said Jan. “Shall we have lunch after our brisk walk?”

  They were looking over a fence and across the marshalling yards, sidings and main lines of Crewe.

  “No.” Tom climbed the fence. “It’s older than railways.”

  “Come back!”

  He was picking his way among the tracks towards the distant trees on the far side.

  “It’s dangerous!”

  He moved as if on a scent, and she had to follow him over the steel. Points snapped blindly, without cause or warning: there was no place to hide, and trains were everywhere, and it was impossible to know which line they would be on. High pylons carried rows of lamps.

  “Tom!”

  “I am in blood stepped in so far—”

  An express came between them.

  “—Returning were as tedious as go o’er!”

  “Sod Shakespeare! It’s us!”

  She caught up with him.

  “You’re not funny. Those points— If you get your feet clogged—”

  “We’re more than halfway,” said Tom. “It really is the quickest. And can we move a bit faster? There are some gentlemen about three hundred metres away trying to attract our attention.”

  “Do you wonder?”

  “I can’t have you fraternising with strangers.” Tom smiled. “And I was also right.” They had reached the other side, and a path led into open country. “Let’s see where this goes, and then have lunch. You did say a brisk walk.”

  “I didn’t mean an assault course.”

  “There’s one thing about Crewe. It knows when to stop.”

  “Which is more than you do.”

  The change was precise. They were in deep farmland. The frost had cut the leaves, and they were falling with autumn. There was no town, simply the path.

  “Are you angry?” said Tom.

  “No. I was scared.”

  “Sorry. Mind if we go on—see where it ends?”

  “But it could be anywhere! Hull!”

  “Within reason, then.”

  “Whose reason?”

  “Yours.”

  She laughed, and put her arms around him.

  “This is more like.”

  “More open,” said Tom. “I don’t mind the shops and the crowds: they don’t touch us.”

  “I wish we’d some money, though: enough to manage on.”

  “You wait till I’m rich.”

  “Shall I?”

  The path broke into hedgerows and lanes, but the way was there.

  “How’s your stamina?” said Tom.

  “Great. I could walk for ever.”

  “If we don’t reach the end, we’ll stop an hour before we need to
turn back, so we don’t have to rush.”

  They walked through undulating country, golden with light from the cold sun.

  “That’s where I’d like to try for, one day,” said Jan. “I see it from the train, and then I know you’re near. It looks like a lonely old man sitting up there.”

  “We’ll go,” said Tom. “But I doubt if it’ll be today, unless you feel like running.”

  “Is it a castle?”

  “A folly. Not real. It’s called Mow Cop.”

  “I like mountains. Can we go, even if it is only a folly?”

  “Sure. I said. But how about something closer for today?”

  Across the fields a red sandstone church tower stood from a valley. The landscape was quiet, scattered farms of black timber, and the lane leading towards the church.

  “I bet the path ends there,” said Jan.

  “It does for now. I’m hungry.”

  They arrived at the village boundary. A sign was re-emerging from the hedge as the year’s growth died.

  “ ‘Barthomley,’ ” said Jan.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s idyllic.”

  “A Come to Britain poster.”

  The church was on a long, tapered mound that was bigger than the graveyard. The mound butted into the lane. Below the church were a few cottages and a thatched inn. A shallow stream ran by the lane, and was crossed by a footbridge to the only shop.

  “ ‘Saint Bertoline,’ ” Tom read. “I’ve not heard of him. Let’s see what he has to offer.”

  They went through the tower door. The church was empty and big. They wandered about, examining the memorials.

  “The central heating’s efficient,” said Tom. “And I’m famished.”

  They sat in a pew and divided the sandwiches.

  “What is it this week?”

  “Banana and Spam. I thought I’d ring the changes.”

  “What’s that other soggy?”

  “My birthday cake. I saved the last piece for you.”

  He unwrapped the driver’s cab of the railway engine.

  “You shouldn’t laugh at your father. It’s a fantastic compliment—all that careful work.”

  “I don’t laugh at him.”

  “You were trying pretty hard.”

  “I wasn’t laughing.”

  “You were making him cheap.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You were.”

  “Let there be no strife,” said Tom, “for we be brethren.”

  “I suppose that’s Shakespeare, too.”