The Night Following Read online

  Dear Ruth

  I’m angry, if you want to know.

  You might have replied. Just a few words would have done. What’s the matter, run out of words?

  Bloody words. That woman Della from your writing group. She brought the tribute. Her eyebrows shoot up and down a lot, don’t they? She says the whole bunch of them contributed but she came on her own in case presence of the others was too much. They don’t want to overwhelm me.

  She’s had it written out in fancy writing and framed. Stayed ages pretending the visit was for my sake not hers, for example did I want to ‘“talk about dear Ruth”? There’s no reply to that, I said nothing, just cracked my knuckles. So just to kick us off she brings down her eyebrows and says, “Oh! Didn’t Ruth have such a sensitivity for words?!’”

  They stick around, don’t they, words. They’re all over the place, only not a one from you to me.

  I told her, And well she might’ve, she was still an English teacher this time two years ago. And very highly regarded, did I have to remind her how many former pupils turned up at the funeral?

  At which she said “Awwwww, Arthur. Awwww, I know…”

  Imbecile. I said, Mr. Mitchell to you, thank you very much, Della, but she ignored me.

  She said she was glad I was managing to talk about you “a little,” “at last,” and she’d “hardly dared hope” the group’s tribute would help me “make the breakthrough” but she was thrilled it had. What on earth is she talking about? If I have something to say I say it, and if I don’t I don’t. Why should it bother anyone that I haven’t got things to say to the people who turn up here?

  I honestly think they show up for entertainment. And I shan’t oblige.

  Nobody including Della wants to hear about what’s important, ie what the driver of that car’s got coming to him.

  She insisted on reading the tribute out loud, because she said it was quite powerful and she didn’t want me to be alone the first time I read it, after she’d gone. Also poetry can be such a comfort at a time like this, etc etc.

  Well, prepare to be amazed, here it is:

  Tribute to Ruth

  Friend, knocked off your bike:

  Cut down

  And who’s to say not in your prime?

  For sixty-one is only the counting of the years

  The measuring of Time,

  Time allotted by a Higher Power

  That dispenses Life’s green springs and verdant summers,

  Its mellow autumns and fading winters.

  Friend, your gifts were many

  And freely given: spread around

  For the benefit of friends and family

  And members of the wider community.

  Neighbour, teacher, wife, friend.

  Your generosity was without end.

  Ruth, your name’s meaning is obscure

  But your life was crystal clear, like pure

  Running water.

  Wise proud warrior!

  Woman! Of flesh and spirit, earth and sky!

  A Writer, and in this a Mother to boot-

  For your poems and short stories

  Are your children: the fruit

  Of your creativity, given birth through

  Life’s long labour in the orchard of womanhood.

  As roses ramble upward through a tree, hold fast to the trunk

  And blossom, so your work holds, clings to the memory of you.

  Ruth, cut down like a reed,

  We whom you leave behind

  Can only hope it was quick, a swift

  Release without pain.

  Your poems and short stories full of humour and wisdom

  You leave them behind, a legacy to keep

  For those who stand by the grave and weep.

  We will do our best without you.

  And it will be hard, for friendship

  Is precious, your loss so sudden.

  All Death

  Is cruel but Ruth, yours more than most.

  So long, Writer, Woman, Friend.

  Our love for you will never end.

  Your inspiration will not cease.

  Ruth, may you rest in peace.

  From Della, Pam, Maggie, Kate, Linda, and Trish

  Monkswell & District Women Writers Group

  I don’t think the Poet Laureate needs to be looking over his shoulder just yet, do you? Who is the Poet Laureate these days, anyway? You’d know.

  When she’d read it Della hung around waiting for me to tell her I thought they were all geniuses, eyebrows on the move again and eyes brimming.

  It only rhymes, I said, here and there. We didn’t think that mattered, she says. We just wanted to express something about Ruth. After some discussion we agreed that being restricted to any particular rhyme scheme might stifle creativity.

  I’m trying to get her to go when she produces the hammer.

  Next she fishes in her bag and brings out a picture hook. She didn’t want to trouble me to go looking for mine, easier to bring hers from home, she says, and where would I like it? Didn’t reply, so then she says, Never mind, I expect you’d like me to decide. Most men don’t know a suitable wall from the side of an elephant when it comes to getting the right hang, most men wouldn’t notice if the Mona Lisa was upside down!

  I let her stick it up under the clock on the wall behind the TV. It won’t catch my eye there, as I’m not watching TV anymore.

  Arthur.

  PS Fucking tribute, pardon my French.

  It got to me, just knowing it was there. I took it down, couldn’t find claw hammer so pulled out hook with kitchen scissors, tore wallpaper, and left a hole. Tore a bit more paper off to see state of plaster generally, was wondering if that wall could do with a once-over. It could now. Plaster came with it. May get round to it, I like to have a job or two in the offing. Keeping it in the pipeline for now-there’s enough going on.

  PPS If I hadn’t let the bloody woman in there wouldn’t be all this mess and need for redecoration, not an inconsiderable task at my age.

  PPPS She said (parting shot)-Now don’t hesitate if there’s a single thing I can do. So I’m going to ask her for a contribution towards materials.

  THE COLD AND THE BEAUTY AND THE DARK

  1932

  Chapter 9: One Last Look

  All over the hillside people were packing up and heading down to the path to file through the sheep gate. Evelyn watched the line of walkers. She couldn’t make them out clearly but she gazed at them as they went on into the distance, thinking that they looked liked a long dark snake sliding ahead along the path. She could see well enough the side of the hill against the sky where it suddenly steepened above the path, and soon enough the snake of people slithered away completely, leaving Evelyn alone, aware of no other living thing except the birds. Those must be skylarks, she thought, though she could also hear familiar town birds, crows and gulls and some other sort, too, making a cry of “sweek-sweek” that mixed with the wailing of the wind.

  As Evelyn was gazing into the distance, the sun broke unexpectedly through the clouds, turning the surface of the reservoir into a flat mirror, like a sheet of steel. Then a squall of wind blew across it and broke the sheet into sparkling, brittle splinters. Evelyn shivered and settled herself for a rest. She used Paul’s sweater as a pillow and was glad of a couple of cardigans to tuck around her legs. She found herself another biscuit to nibble, just to keep the chill away, and then she lay back, looking up at the sky and thinking how beautiful it all was. Then she fell asleep.

  And because she had been asleep, she was never able to say with certainty afterward how long she had spent alone there on the hill. They told her it had been the best part of three hours, but if someone else had said it had been no more than ten minutes, she might have believed that just as easily. She would never know how much, in hours and minutes, that patch of her life up there on the hillside had taken out of the whole. She knew only that it marked the difference between Before and After, and changed
everything, forever.

  She did know, however, that in some drowsy state, she heard the birds again and they seemed to be much louder. She sat up and looked again at the reservoir and had to put a hand up against the flash of the sun coming off it, but she was too late, and she was left with a burning, ripped feeling across her eyes. She lay back again to wait for the stinging to die down, and then the birds began to sound friendly again and she turned her head on the pillow of Paul’s sweater so the wool tickled her face, and her baby lay like a warm, thick stone in her belly. With her eyes closed she felt Stan’s locket between her fingers and ran it along the chain close to the side of her neck next to her ear because she liked the silky,buzzing sound it made. Then she must have fallen asleep again.

  She woke to the noise of shouting. She sat up, blinking, and waited for the dazzle to fade. Through the grainy darkness of her vision the reservoir was now a blot of lavender blue and the sky was heavy with clouds that lightened to whiteness where they met the water. Evelyn felt as if she were rocking about on a raft, for the hillside grass was rippling around her under wavy stripes of sunlight and shadow.

  Over to her left where the shouting was coming from, where the path from its highest point dipped sharply into William Clough, she caught a movement. Some people were making their way back towards the sheep gate. She saw at once the gash of bright red around the neck and the dark, hunched figure of Stan, walking alone. Then she saw, moving ahead of him, a smaller figure, a bright, drifting smear of colour against the path. It was a girl in a yellow skirt and a blue jacket, with a yellow hat or scarf. Behind them some more figures came along, dark and moving urgently so Evelyn supposed they were men. They were shoving at one another and running and shouting. There was laughter, too, and voices chanting something.

  She turned her attention back to the figure that was unmistakably Stan. The girl in blue and yellow was now waiting for him at the sheep gate, watching him walk towards her. She stood with her hands in her pockets. Evelyn could tell she was saving up the look of him to keep for herself. She had done the same thing herself and she knew you only did that when you felt a certain way. But just before he reached her, there was another shout, this time from a way further down in the clough, and Stan stopped and turned to the men coming from behind him. He set one hand into the back of his waist and lifted the other hand and clasped the back of his neck. Then he tipped his head back as if he were letting the weight of it rest in his cupped hand. Evelyn knew it so well, that way he had of gripping his neck, and with a rush of simple tenderness opened her mouth to call out to him. But just then the girl moved forward, skipping along from the sheep gate. She put her arms around him and pressed her face into his back. Stan turned to her. He was much taller than she was. Evelyn saw him dip his head to her, saying something, and then he loosened the red scarf Evelyn had knitted for him and drew it around the girl’s neck and pulled her close. Then he brought his face down to hers and kissed her. Evelyn saw the red scarf around both their necks and the girl’s blue arms up around his shoulders, and the two heads meeting. A couple of whistles came their way from the men down the path and they separated.

  All at once Evelyn’s eyes began to run with sore, gluey tears and the baby heaved inside her stomach with a kick that she felt almost in her throat. She would have cried out but the kick startled her, and then suddenly she started to shake uncontrollably. She went on staring and staring down the hillside but now it was like gazing through a dirty window and she couldn’t see anything. It began to rain, in hard, spitting drops that felt like hail or grit, and Evelyn went on gazing. She tipped her face up to the sky wishing it would pull her up into itself until she disappeared, or that it would rain down hard enough for her to be dissolved. She was so breathless she felt faint. The world seemed to be turning dark, as if the rainstorm were blowing her before it, sweeping her westward to the very end of this bright day on the hillside and straight down into the night, where she would be left alone and lost in complete darkness, with the wind howling and the rain pouring down. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and sobbed, and it seemed her crying would never, ever stop. She was frightened of looking again at the sheep gate for fear of seeing them kissing once more, their colours entwining and blending, but when she opened her eyes there was nothing to see at all.

  It was much later when they led her off the hillside. They found her quite some way from their picnic spot, huddled and shaking and soaked through. Paul and Daphne each took one of her arms and there were other people around, all trying to help, though Evelyn was so dazed she could not take in very much or answer all the questions she was being asked. She was chilled to the bone. They led her down slowly, their voices gentle and with none of their usual bantering and teasing, so that she could sense their deep, unspoken concern. Daphne and Paul got her to the pub, where the landlord and his wife could not have been kinder. They were found a quiet room and blankets were fetched, as well as a cup of tea to go with the glass of brandy that the landlord said would be very warming. After a while a doctor arrived and announced that she was suffering from shock and mild exposure. He wasn’t qualified to comment on the sightless eyes but shock could do strange things especially to pregnant women, he said, and they would probably be as right as rain after a good night’s sleep. The baby would come to no harm, babies were tough little creatures, and that was the main thing, wasn’t it?

  Months later Evelyn heard from Daphne, who got it from Paul, that everybody was saying the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass had gone down as a great day by all accounts, even a historic one. And I was there, she thought to herself. I was there, but really, I missed it. The violent confrontation between the walkers and the keepers had occurred further away, past Kinder Downfall and deeper into William Clough, and all up along the top of Ashop Head. People had been swarming all over the place, charging around and knocking one another about with sticks and what have you. And all, Evelyn thought privately, all for a few acres of heathland.

  For her the day had drawn to a confusing and unhappy close with the bus ride home. She sat shivering and exhausted in blankets while excited singing and shouting went on around her. Daphne sat next to her and patted her hand from time to time and asked if she was all right. She nodded and kept her eyes shut. No looking out the window this time. Instead she let her mind’s eye wander over the images of the day. She tried to memorize its details, knowing they were now no more than things she had seen once but never would again, except as mementos in an album, memories of a day on Kinder Scout etched deep on her heart, that would devour the rest of her life. All she had left now was what she brought with her down from the hillside: the cold and the beauty and the dark, one present, one vanished, and one waiting up ahead for her.

  Dear Ruth

  Re: legs.

  Nurse whats-her-name and the other one came together today, ominous in itself and that was before I saw their faces. One came to the front door, the other was prying round the back. It doesn’t do anybody any good getting woken up like that, all in a fright. I’d nodded off in conservatory. They startled me, and that floor’s more slippery now. What are you using on it, they demanded to know. One of them was sliding her foot along it. You must be using something on it.

  Told them to ask you, cleaning products being your department, and got the pursed lips. One wanted to go into the soft talk but I wasn’t having any. Treating me as if I was demented, I won’t have it. Mutterings about Community Psychiatric Services again, which I ignored as per.

  The other one sits down and starts making notes. Home care review, she says. Goals, paperwork, drives them all mad. The first one gets me back in my chair and pinned down and does the legs. She launches into a lecture. Polishing the floor may be “unadvisable” as combo of wax and ceramic tiles can be extremely slippery. And there is such a thing as overdoing housework and would I please heed earlier advice about resting with legs up, and bear in mind risk of breaking skin on shins and infecting the ulcers if I’m charging around the place. Obvio
usly a waste of breath on my part to try and explain again about you and the housework, they just don’t want to hear the facts.

  Pigheaded young woman, actually-she didn’t take kindly to being corrected. The word is INadvisable not UNadvisable, I took some pleasure in pointing out, and she gave me one of those “who’s a naughty boy” looks and said there was no need to shout. I wasn’t shouting, which I also pointed out.

  Actually the IN not UN business is more your kind of remark than mine, though you generally saved that kind of thing for later instead of coming out with it at the time. But it felt like it was you in my brain, and you talking. Don’t recall you ever tripping anyone up on this particular example, but it was you, all right.

  I’m glad you’re speaking to them. I suppose you have to do it through me, at least for now. I wish you’d speak to them more. I wish you’d speak to them about my legs. Wouldn’t you think in this day and age they’d be able to do something? Other than squeezing them into elastic bandages, I mean, and that gunk they smear on.

  You could get them to understand. You could get them to see I can’t be doing with the discomfort 24 hours a day and if I take the bandages off it’s only because I need a respite. They should try it for themselves, they’d soon see what I’m talking about. And if I forget to put the bandages back on I can’t see that affects anyone but me so why the bullying. I don’t care for the tone they’re taking. Oh yes they’ve got a job to do but I’m more than twice their age.

  They’ve no right using words like uncooperative and threatening me with hospital.

  Arthur

  OK-trying to obey orders of Bossyboots and Co. went to sleep at some point once they’d gone and after I woke I just lay there, still resting. Keeping legs up. Thinking and thinking thoughts of Overdale. I tried talking to you but I don’t think you were in the vicinity, quite. It was on the early side for you. Still light.