The Living and the Dead in Winsford

40

I put on two more jerseys under my jacket and go out again. Walk round the house several times, shouting and whistling. To the south, where light from the two windows produces a slight trace of illumination, I can see for about three metres; but nothing at all in any other direction. It seems that my eyes have not yet grown accustomed to darkness. Nothing can be darker than the darkness that surrounds me now.

A faint whine from the wind can be heard from the moor, but nothing of the metallic sound that I had noticed on several evenings. In the far distance, in the direction of Exford I think, I hear the sound of a car accelerating, but it lasts no more than a second.

I walk over to the wall. Shout three times before climbing over it. The chances are that he must have gone in this direction, I think. In the other direction is the fence and the gate. Needless to say he could have negotiated those if he had really wanted to, but I have to make a choice.

I am breathing very heavily now. When I’ve climbed over the wall I stand quite still, partly in order to calm down, partly to give my eyes the chance of seeing something.

After a while I can make out my feet and a metre or so around them. Make out, not see: the nearest to any light in the darkness is the mist that is floating around and seems to be oozing forth out of the ground itself. I remain standing there, wondering about this silent and fluid movement as I continue to hold on to the wall and shout at regular intervals.

My voice still sounds very feeble, and it doesn’t penetrate many metres out into the emptiness. But Castor’s hearing is better than mine. He ought to hear me if he is around — hear me and bark in response.

I don’t dare to leave the wall. After five, perhaps ten minutes of shouting and listening I go back into the house. I fetch my torch and check that the batteries are working, then dig out two spares before going out again.

Walk round the house a few more times. Shout once more. My fear is like a tightly tied scarf around my neck.

Back to the wall. Three more shouts, and then I remain silent and listen to the faint whispering of the wind. Observe the dancing of the mist once more, and decide to head in the other direction.

Over the road and up towards the top of Winsford Hill. If I can find my way there. If it’s at all possible to work out where I am at any given time.

I find a familiar path and then lose it. I decide to adopt a plan and stick to it. Walk twenty paces. Stop, shout, listen. Wait there. Shout again.

The mist becomes more dense and less mobile the higher I get. The wind has faded and is no longer audible. I soon find myself in the middle of a patch of rough heather which is very difficult to negotiate, and I have already lost my bearings. The light from the torch is swallowed up by the mist — there’s not really any point in having it switched on. It almost makes it more difficult to make progress.

But I keep following the plan. Twenty paces. Stop, shout, listen.

I don’t know how long I’ve been following that pattern when the torch suddenly flickers and then goes dead. It doesn’t really matter. I don’t bother to try to make it go again, I just check that the spare batteries are still in my jacket pocket.

Twenty paces. Stop, shout, listen.

It’s when I’m standing still and listening that panic creeps up on me. It’s better to keep moving, better to be active: when I stand still I can’t avoid hearing my heart beat and my blood rushing around in my veins at much too fast a pace.

I am soon completely disorientated. I can’t work out what is up and what is down, what is south and what is north. I’m in the middle of quite a flat stretch of ground — or at least my immediate surroundings are flat, it’s not possible to be sure of any more than that. When I fumble around with my hands I can feel dead ferns on all sides. I seem to be following something resembling a trodden path, but when I take my eighteenth pace I find myself in a thorn bush. It smacks me in the face, and a twig brushes against my eye.

Good Lord, I think, please help me. Where are you, Castor?

You have never been a hunter. You merely glance with a minimum of interest when you come across a rabbit. We can walk through a flock of sheep without your raising an eyebrow.

I stand next to the thorn bush and for the first time try to understand what has happened. Rather than simply allowing panic to take control of me.

Why on earth would my dog want to disappear into the night?

I try to answer that question: why?

The problem is that I can’t find an answer. Perhaps I don’t want to find an answer. Instead I stand motionless beside that anonymous thorn bush and shout a few more times. Close my eyes and listen. Your hearing becomes more acute when you close your eyes.

But there’s nothing; all the time nothing. Hardly even any wind. Well, maybe there is something in fact, something that feels like a slow movement, as if. . as if the moor was breathing.

Something inside me stiffens at that thought. I realize that I must return to the house. Of course. . Of course, Castor is there already. No doubt he is wandering around the garden but can’t get into the house because I’ve closed the door. And then maybe he’ll set off to look for his missus.

Never go looking for your dog. Remain where you are and let the dog do the searching — they are much better at it than you are.

We didn’t get much benefit from that course we attended, Castor and I, but I suddenly remember those words very clearly. Never go looking. .

But there are sinkholes on the moor. Depressions full of water covered by a thin layer of soil that won’t carry anything heavy. Even ponies can sink into them and drown — I’ve read about such incidents, and we have passed close by such places.

I leave the thorn bush and start heading back home willy-nilly — I’m far from sure that I am in fact heading back home. I stumble into another cluster of thorn bushes, my heart is pounding, my blood is racing, but soon I come upon a path that seems to be heading downhill at least in places. I can’t see it, I have to fumble with hands and feet every time I take another step forward, and there are mounds of rough, razor-sharp heather on both sides. I have started crying — I only realize that when I taste the salty tears on my lips.

And then I can hear that breathing sound again. It’s louder now, and it suddenly dawns on me where it’s coming from: the ponies.

The ponies. Without warning I find myself in the middle of a group of them. Six perhaps, maybe twelve. They are so close to me that I can smell them, and feel the heat coming from their heavy, substantial bodies. I reach out my hand and touch the one standing closest to me, it doesn’t bother him in the slightest — and as I hold the palm of my hand against his warm haunch I can feel another one sniffing at the back of my neck. With my eyes I can barely make out the contours of their bodies — dark, blurred silhouettes — but their presence is so strong that just for a moment I can feel what it must be like to be a little foal. A newcomer to the world, but already embraced by the powerful bond that holds the herd together. It is a remarkable and an overpowering feeling. We stand there, breathing together in the blindness of the night and the mist. Only for a few minutes, and then one of them — a leader no doubt — gives a snort and the whole herd starts moving.

They leave me, and their absence seems just as sudden and natural as their presence had been. I stand there alone. All the breathing has ceased, silence has descended over the moor like a cold shroud.

I manage to make the torch work, not that it helps much but at least I can see my feet. I set off walking without worrying about the direction I’m taking. Walk, stop, shout, listen. After quite a while, half an hour perhaps, I come to a road. I decide it must be Halse Lane and start walking along it to the right. Slightly uphill. And soon it becomes clear that I have guessed correctly. I continue shouting at regular intervals, stand still and listen. I don’t give up. It’s so cold now that there are occasional thin patches of ice on the asphalt.

Stop. Shout. Listen.

Nothing.

Over and over again nothing.

When I go through the gate into Darne Lodge I see that the time is twenty past one. I’ve been out for almost two hours.

No Castor.

I walk around the house several times before I have to accept this as fact.

I spend the rest of the night standing and shouting, sometimes through the window, sometimes in the doorway. When I fall asleep on the sofa as dawn begins to break, I have drunk five or six glasses of wine. I am almost unconscious, but perhaps I have outlived my dog even so.