The Living and the Dead in Winsford

42

There’s a knocking on the door that wakes me up.

I pull the blanket off me and sit up. Check that I am dressed, and run my hands through my hair. Confused images are helter-skeltering through my mind, hammer blows are pounding away behind my eyes. I probably look like a witch, and am not sure if I should go and answer the door or not.

Then I recall the situation and decide that it doesn’t matter if I look like a witch. Nothing matters any more — most probably nothing has mattered for a long time now, but it is time for me to face up to that fact. To take it seriously.

More knocking. I stand up and go to open the door.

It’s Lindsey, the new waiter at The Royal Oak: several seconds pass before I manage to identify him. It’s been snowing during the night, just a thin layer that is no doubt starting to melt away already: but the landscape is still white, and that comes as a surprise.

As does Lindsey, of course. Nobody has never knocked on the door of Darne Lodge while I’ve been living here. He is stamping in the snow rather nervously with his low shoes, and apologizes.

‘Tom asked me to drive up here. I have to return straight away — we’ll be opening for lunch shortly and we’re expecting a biggish group. .’

‘What’s it all about?’

‘Your dog, madam,’ he says. ‘We have your dog at the inn. He was sitting outside the door when Rosie came downstairs. So we let him in and have given him something to eat — I assume he ran off from here earlier this morning, did he?’

I stare at him but can’t produce a word. He shuffles uncomfortably and throws out his arms as if he still wants to apologize for something.

‘I must be getting back. But you can come down and fetch him whenever it suits you. Rosie and Tom asked me to tell you that.’

‘Thank you, Lindsey,’ I manage to say at last. ‘Thank you so much for coming here to tell me. He’s been missing ever since yesterday evening, in fact. It’s so worrying. .’

I don’t know why I reduce the length of his absence by a whole day.

‘Anyway, that was all I have to tell you. .He’s a lovely dog, madam.’

‘Yes, he is lovely. Tell Rosie and Tom I’ll be there in an hour.’

‘Thank you very much, I’ll do that,’ says Lindsey and returns to his Land Rover that is chugging away on the road.

I get undressed, stand in the shower and reel off the whole of the Twenty-third Psalm. This time without being interrupted.

*

He comes to meet me as I walk in through the door. I sink down onto my knees and throw my arms around him — I had been determined to retain my dignity and not do any such thing, but there was no chance of that. He licks my ears, both my right one and my left. He smells a bit, not absolutely clean but not the way you would stink after spending two nights and a day out on a muddy moor.

‘The prodigal son has returned, I see.’

It’s Robert, sitting in his usual place with a pint of Exmoor Ale in front of him.

‘Dogs,’ says Rosie from behind the bar. ‘They’re nearly as bad as men.’

‘I don’t follow you,’ says Robert.

Rosie snorts at him. ‘If you can’t find them at home, you’ll find them at the pub. But it’s great when they come to the right place. He’s had a bite to eat and he’s slept for an hour in front of the fire. Lindsey says he’s been missing since yesterday evening.’

‘That’s right,’ I say, standing up. ‘I don’t know what got into him. I let him out to do his business, and he was off before you could say Jack Robinson.’

‘No doubt he picked up the scent of something that took his fancy,’ says Tom, who appears next to his wife behind the bar.

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’ says Rosie. ‘Just like a man.’

‘Haven’t I stood by your side for thirty years?’ sighs Tom, winking at me. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. A Merry Christmas, by the way! It looks as if it might be a white one — but you’re used to that, I suppose?’

‘I certainly am,’ I say. ‘But I don’t suppose this will stay.’

‘The main thing is that you do,’ says Rosie.

I don’t understand what she means, and they can tell that by looking at me.

‘To eat lunch here, that’s what I mean. We have a carvery today. There’ll be a big crowd coming in about half an hour, but you’ll be able to take the best bits if you sit down now.’

‘You promised me the best bits, have you forgotten that already?’ protests Robert, raising his glass.

Life goes on as usual, despite everything, I think, and sit down at the table nearest the fire. Castor lies down at my feet.

It really does. Life. It goes on as usual. And Castor and I will continue to wander around together as before.

I sit wallowing in that grandiose but perceptive thought as we drive to Dulverton after our lunchtime gluttony at The Royal Oak. As a tribute to this eternal truth and practical process we are going to buy some Christmas food. If we can find any: it’s the twenty-third today, and high time. . The road is rather bumpy and slippery after the snow, but even so Castor sits in the front passenger seat without a safety belt, so that I can keep stroking him.

Where have you been? I think. Over and over again. Where have you been? Where have you been?

But I don’t really care just now. Perhaps I don’t really want to know, and the main thing is that he’s back. I’ll never let him go out again on his own in the darkness. Not as long as we’re both alive.

I manage to keep such speculation at arm’s length — presumably the season of the year helps in that respect. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day. We don’t go anywhere, we stay in Darne Lodge and go for long walks over the moor, one in the morning and one in the afternoon: down towards the village, but only halfway — it’s too muddy to go all the way; uphill towards Wambarrows with long detours in the direction of Tarr Steps. Tarr Steps from the good side, not the Devil’s road.

And I don’t let Castor out of my sight for a single second.

I read about John Ridd and Lorna Doone, almost to the end. I called in at the second-hand bookshop and collected Bessie Hyatt’s two novels when we were doing our Christmas shopping, but they can stand next to Dickens and wait for a while. I cook and keep the fire going. We eat, we cuddle on the sofa and exchange our thoughts. We’ve nothing to complain about. Nothing at all.

The weather is so-so. The temperature is close to freezing, but there’s no more snow: what did fall has melted away. Even so, Castor wears a dog jacket when we are out walking. We don’t meet a soul out on the moor, not a single one for three days. The ponies don’t seem to be celebrating the birth of Jesus: we come across groups of them here and there as usual. It looks as if they move around during the night, and you never know where they’re going to appear the next morning. But not a day passes without our seeing them somewhere or other. It seems to me that they regard Darne Lodge as a sort of hub, a central point that they can keep an eye on and keep within range.

Just like Castor and I do, of course. This two-hundred-year-old stone dwelling on the moor is our home, for better or worse. It’s not yet time to start thinking about roads leading away from it. For now it’s somewhere to stay and make the most of.

To stick to routines.

Menelaus. Wrong.

Agamemnon. Wrong.

Achilles. Wrong.