The Living and the Dead in Winsford

44

The other person who makes history by knocking on the door of Darne Lodge is not Lindsey from The Royal Oak, but Mark Britton who has come back from Scarborough.

It is in the morning of the twenty-ninth of December. I invite him in — I have in fact been expecting him, and the house is in as good a shape as it’s possible for it to be. A fire is burning in the hearth, and two candles are lit on the table. Castor is snoozing on his sheepskin, I have showered and look a little bit less like a witch now. Mark seems rather tired, and I suspect that the stay in Scarborough was not entirely without its problems.

‘We got back yesterday evening,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t exactly the most idyllic Christmas I’ve ever experienced, but at least nobody needed to go to hospital.’

‘Jeremy?’ I ask.

‘He wasn’t exactly on top form.’

‘I thought you got on well with your sister?’

‘There’s no problem with Janet — but she has a husband and three kids as well. And Jeremy is all at sea as soon as he leaves his room. Or is away from our house, at least, but I knew that already. Anyway, it’s over and done with now. It was an experiment and I prefer to skip the details. How have things been with you?’

I have already decided not to tell him that Castor went missing. I’m not sure why, and if he’s already heard about it at the pub I intend to try and make light of it. I just say it was okay although we were a bit lonely.

‘That’s precisely what I intend to put right,’ he says, brightening up a bit. ‘I have two suggestions: a walk over the moor tomorrow, and a New Year’s Eve dinner at our place the day after. I take it you haven’t drunk all the bubbly yet?’

I lapse into a sort of feminine routine and pretend to hesitate, then say yes to both suggestions. I also explain that both Castor and I have managed to steer clear of the champagne, but that we’re looking forward to tasting it. I ask if he’d like a cup of tea, and of course he would — and then we sit over my opened-out map while he explains in broad outline the route he has in mind for tomorrow’s walk.

‘Three hours: have you the strength for that? And a rucksack with coffee, sandwiches and dog chews on the way.’

I confirm that both I and my dog can cope with such exertions. We’re in good condition. But if it looks as if it’s going to pour down or snow we’d prefer to put it off until January.

‘Of course,’ says Mark. ‘But I’ve already thought of that. We’ll have decent weather, a bit windy perhaps but unless I’m much mistaken we might even see a bit of sun.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ I say.

‘Don’t forget that I can see into the future,’ he says.

He gives me a big hug before he leaves. I have the impression that I am not without significance for him.

‘I’ll call round tomorrow at about this time. You don’t need to worry about the food, I’ll fix that. Is that okay?’

‘That’s okay.’

‘And you have suitable clothes?’

‘I’ve been living here for two months.’

‘Fair enough. See you tomorrow, then.’

‘Mark?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m looking forward to it. To both things.’

‘Thank you. I’d like to read what you write one of these days.’

You’ll never do that, I think when I’ve closed the door. And there’s quite a lot of other things you’ll never get to know as well.

There’s a lot that’s not relevant. A lot that has to remain hidden, even from you. It suddenly feels difficult; I think that I’m never going to be able to sort everything out. But then, I’ve already decided to put that off until another year.

It feels great to be a woman with a man and a dog — not just a woman with a dog. Sorry about that, Castor. We set off from the edge of Simonsbath soon after half past eleven. We head straight up over the boundless moor into the headwind, and after twenty minutes have crossed over a ridge and find ourselves in a place where there is no sign of civilization wherever you look. Only this bare, undulating landscape in every direction. Heather and grass in dark and light patches: it’s the heather that is dark, and where it is growing too densely it is almost impassable. Here and there are isolated clusters of thorn bushes being battered by the wind, and here and there small flocks of sheep. The sky is obscured by a thin band of cloud — perhaps the sun might break through it eventually. Below is a gulley with a beck running from east to west, then turning off northwards and disappearing between two gentle slopes. Mark points in that direction with his staff.

‘Where we’re standing now is Trout Hill. Down there is Lanacombe, the site of Mrs Barrett’s bolt-hole. I thought we could pay it a visit. We’ll be sheltered from the wind for most of the way. And then round and up the other side towards Badgworthy. What do you say to that?’

I say that sounds good, and that I seem to recognize the name Barrett from somewhere.

‘Of course you do,’ says Mark. ‘You live cheek by jowl with her daughter, as it were. No, I beg your pardon, I’m jumping over a generation: it’s her granddaughter. That grave you must have seen.’

‘Yes. Elizabeth Williford Barrett. 1911–1961. I go past it almost every day.’

He nods. ‘Unless I’m much mistaken, she was born down there.’ He points with his staff again. ‘In Barrett’s bolt-hole, yes, I think that’s right. Her mother — Elizabeth’s mother, that is — gave birth to her child in her own mother’s house because it was illegitimate; and it was Elizabeth’s grandmother who was the real, the original Barrett. Are you with me?’

I nod. I’m with him.

‘She was skilful in various black arts, you could no doubt say. Prophecy and magic and all that kind of thing. She operated here in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the fact is that Exmoor lagged behind the rest of England in many respects — in any case in various tiny places on the moor. In certain hidden-away little nooks and crannies.’

He laughs, and I link arms with him. It seems like the most natural movement in the world.

‘There are lots of stories about Barrett the witch,’ he says. ‘But she must have died shortly after becoming a grandmother, and nobody moved into her bolt-hole after she’d gone. I used to sit there smoking secretly fifty or sixty years later, I have to admit, and there wasn’t much of the place left by then.’

He likes telling stories like this, and I like listening to him.

‘The Barrett daughter — I think her name was Thelma — gave birth to her daughter in her mother’s bolt-hole, presumably because she had nowhere else to go. She had been thrown out of the farmhouse where she worked as a maid — no doubt the owner of the house was the father. Not all that unusual a story, in other words.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Most things were not better in the old days. Especially if you were poverty-stricken and a woman.’

We set off down the slope. Castor takes the lead: presumably he has been listening and knows where we are heading.

‘That stalker of yours,’ Martin asks when we have come a short way down the slope. ‘Have you seen any more of him lately?’

I shake my head. ‘No, he’s been lying low.’

‘Isn’t that odd? I mean, if he’s tracked you down and managed to find you in the back of beyond, surely he would. . well, continue to pester you somehow or other?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I haven’t really managed to understand how his mind works. I’ve no idea how he thinks or acts. But maybe you are right: if he really has found me, I ought to keep seeing him.’

‘But you’re not sure?’

‘No, I might have been imagining things, of course. It’s easy to be a bit paranoid when you think you are being pursued.’

‘I can well imagine that,’ says Mark. ‘But I’d like you to get in touch with me if anything else happens, can we agree on that? If you give me a ring I can be with you in ten minutes.’

I laugh. ‘Telephone?’ I say. ‘Is that what you mean? I don’t have a mobile that works up here, I thought I’d told you that. And I don’t really want one. . The point of sitting here writing on Exmoor is that I don’t need to have any contact with the outside world.’

‘Apart from what you yourself want?’

‘Apart from what I myself want.’

I feel sure that I sound absolutely sincere when I say that, and why should he have any reason to doubt it? He continues walking in silence for a while, thinking.

‘I know what we’ll do,’ he says eventually. ‘You can borrow a mobile from me. I have an old Nokia in a drawer that I never use. It’s pay-as-you-go, and nobody else has the number. It works up here. You can have it as. . well, as a safety measure.’

I can’t think of a reasonable objection, and thank him.

*

We drink coffee and eat teacakes in Barrett’s bolt-hole. It really is a hole: you can see the overgrown remains of some sort of building, apparently only three walls — the fourth must have been the steep hillside into which the house was built. A few metres further down is a narrow stream; Mark says it’s called Hoccombe and that it runs into Badgworthy Water a bit further on. He used to go fishing there when he was a boy. I say it all sounds a bit like Huckleberry Finn: sitting in Barrett the witch’s bolt-hole, smoking and waiting for a bite.

‘That’s more or less how I felt as well,’ says Mark. ‘But I didn’t have a Tom Sawyer, I suppose that’s what was missing. Still, I certainly miss all that, it’s odd that it should be so difficult to hark back to. . well, to one’s origins, I suppose. I turn into a philosopher when I come here, I suppose you’ve noticed that.’

‘Yes, of course,’ I say. ‘But I’ve also noticed that the sky is blue. Although the sun doesn’t penetrate as far down as this.’

‘Quite right,’ says Mark. ‘The sun never gets as far as Barrett’s bolt-hole. But we’re going to go up along that little slope,’ he points with his staff again, ‘and then we’ll be in sunshine all the way back, I promise you that.’

‘I’ll believe it when we get there,’ I say again. ‘So, this is where Elizabeth Barrett was born, is it?’

‘According to legend anyway,’ says Mark, looking thoughtful. ‘Maybe not the best of places in which to begin your journey through life, but let’s assume that it was in the summer. I know where she got her middle name from in any case. Williford, isn’t that what it says on her grave?’

I confirm that he’s right about that.

‘That was a name she started using after he’d died. She wrote quite clearly in her will that the name should be on her grave. And she wanted to be buried in that little copse where so many people come walking past. . Everybody should see it, that was the point.’

‘What point?’

‘The name Williford. That was the name of her father, the farmer who made her mother pregnant and then threw her out. Quite an effective way of getting her revenge, don’t you think? There are still people on Exmoor called Williford, and they’re not exactly thrilled by that grave.’

He laughs.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, I think. As I’ve thought before. But it’s not something I like remembering.

Mark’s weather forecast proved to be absolutely correct. Two hours later we are sitting in The Forest Inn in Simonsbath, having lunch. I feel both worn out and warm. Castor is lying on the floor like a dead body, and what strikes me is that I just don’t know how I’m going to sort this whole business out.

Should I tell Mark Britton everything? Literally everything?

What would happen if I did?

I take a drink of fizzy water and think I must be suffering from sunstroke. Simply asking questions like that suggests I must be.

Sunstroke on the thirtieth of December? Presumably pretty unique in that case, in these latitudes at least. I give Mark a television smile and thank him for such a nice day. He belongs to the present, not the past, and that’s the whole point. I try to insist on paying the bill, but come up against a brick wall. Never mind, I think, I’ll have time to drive to Dulverton tomorrow and buy a few bottles of decent wine at least.

But as we are sitting in Mark’s car on the way back to Winsford, I realize that tomorrow is Sunday and everywhere will be closed — so that’s another plan that comes to nothing.

‘Seven o’clock tomorrow, okay?’ he says as he drops off me and Castor. ‘You know the way — and remember to bring a bit of dog food with you, because I don’t think I’ll be driving you back home afterwards. I’ll dig out that old mobile phone as well, and make sure it’s working.’

I feel like protesting, about several of the implications, but I can’t think of appropriate ways of putting it. I nod and try to look enigmatic instead.