The Living and the Dead in Winsford Read online

  But the drink is burning in our throats, and in our minds as well: and it is speaking a different language. The same language as H, presumably: keep going, keep going!

  We follow a path that seems to be leading round the mountain, and after a while we have the sun directly behind us instead of in front of us, which makes matters a bit easier. Then the path suddenly heads downwards, into what looks like a dried-out ravine, and we stop when we come to a little plateau. I check my watch again and see that we have been walking for twenty-five minutes in all. It feels like longer. H serves some more of the red drink, but also produces some water from his rucksack and gives us some to drink. My head is spinning, and I have the feeling that I have no idea what is going on.

  Then he points at a clump of bushes not far in front of us on the plateau.

  ‘The monster,’ he says. ‘That’s where the monster lives. Get ready to kill the monster.’

  Soblewski bursts out laughing, he obviously thinks it sounds too absurd. H goes up to him and punches him in the chest. Soblewski stops laughing and apologizes. I look at Grass and see that he has raised his revolver, but is just standing there, trembling. I feel an urge to run away, but another impulse yells at me that if I do so I’ll get ten bullets in my back. I really have no idea about what’s going on.

  We stand in a line about ten metres away from the bushes. They are parched and covered in grains of sand which have turned them grey: it’s impossible to see through the branches. I have the impression that I can see something black inside there, but can’t make out what it is.

  ‘The monster is the rapist,’ says H. ‘He must die. We shall all share the responsibility for the rapist’s death. That’s why we’ve come here.’

  He pauses. Nobody says anything.

  ‘Cock your guns,’ he says. ‘Stand by.’

  We release the safety catch and aim into the bushes. The clump is no more than four metres wide, the vague black outline is exactly in the middle.

  ‘Fire!’ shouts H.

  And we all fire every bullet we have into the bushes. Thirty in all. The sound echoes around and lingers on for several minutes.

  Then we all go over to the bushes and pull out that black thing. It’s a few large pieces of cloth, now riddled with bullet holes and covered in blood. Inside is a body. It’s Gusov.

  We have killed the monster.

  We have killed the rapist.

  48

  There is a postscript, evidently added later. I don’t know when exactly he wrote ‘At Dawn’, but in the postscript he discusses what actually happened. It’s only two pages long, and he makes no attempt to justify his actions – nor those of the others. What he mainly writes about is how far he knew the point of the dawn excursion before they set off – or if he didn’t know, whether he ought to have realized. Should he not have been able to work out that Bessie Hyatt and Gusov had been having an affair – an affair that might well have been going on for a long time? For several summers? He also wonders how Herold had managed to get Gusov to his place of execution, and concludes that he must have drugged him and driven him there in the dark in his jeep. In that case he would surely have had an accomplice, and when he discusses that with Soblewski and Grass they come round to thinking that the accomplice was Bessie herself. That she played an active role in the plot. It is Grass, above all Grass, who pushes that interpretation, and he evidently does so on the basis of conversations he had with Bessie. Martin recalls that they have known each other since they were children, and it doesn’t seem impossible that she might have confessed to him.

  It also says in the postscript that he, Soblewski, Grass and the Megals leave Taza the following day. Doris Guttmann seems to have stayed on, however. Martin writes that Bessie Hyatt had an abortion a little later that same summer, something that he also learns via Grass a few months later, and that the story comes to an end when she commits suicide in April 1981. That is exactly how he puts it: ‘The story comes to an end when . . .’

  By the time I have read the whole document it is a few minutes past midnight. I switch off and put some more wood on the fire, which has almost gone out. I feel that I have many questions, and yet don’t have any.

  Hyatt is dead. Herold is dead. Martin is presumably also dead, but I wonder what he intended to do with it all. Soblewski and Grass are alive, but I would be surprised if Megal is. His younger wife – the hypnotist – might be still alive, but she isn’t involved in the finale itself. Or is she?

  Finale? I think, and then once again I have the uncomfortable feeling that it is all made up. But that can’t be the case. The e-mail from G (there is no doubt that it must be Grass) together with Martin’s meeting and nocturnal conversation with Soblewski are clear indications that those things really did happen. A dark secret. And Bessie Hyatt’s suicide in 1981 is also indisputable.

  So this is what Martin had intended writing a book about? I sit there for a good long while thinking intently about everything, try to work out how I am going to make it fit in with my own plans, and eventually, when I return to that idea of a play – Evenings in Taza, but that isn’t a very good title, despite everything – I think I am beginning to get somewhere. I eventually go to bed with this creative thought in my mind: five acts, of course, two or three on Samos and the climax in Morocco . . . But the same dinner table, the same guests, the same story . . . Yes, I decide to sleep on it and examine the idea again in the cold light of morning.

  The third of January. I’m woken up by the telephone; it feels like a signal from another world. I answer it because I suspect he will jump into his car and drive here if I don’t.

  ‘How are things?’

  I say that we are doing fine, both Castor and I, and ask how he is. And Jeremy, I add.

  ‘Excellent,’ says Mark Britton. ‘When can we meet?’

  I note that less than two days have passed since I crawled out of his bed, and that I evidently mean more to him than he does to me. How has that happened, suddenly and without warning?

  It is Thursday today. ‘How about Saturday?’ I suggest. ‘I need a few days to work.’

  ‘Has something happened?’

  I can hear the concern in his voice. Concern at the fact that I am on the defensive.

  ‘No, not at all,’ I say but regret my words immediately. It would be as well for me to give him a warning. ‘It’s just that I might have to change my plans a bit,’ I say.

  ‘What plans?’ he wonders. ‘You’ve never mentioned any plans.’

  ‘We can discuss that on Saturday,’ I say. ‘Shall we meet at the pub?’

  ‘No, certainly not. I want you to come here, of course. Don’t start playing hard to get, we’re too old for that.’

  He tries to make it sound a little ironic and jokey, but doesn’t quite manage it.

  Huh, that really is the case, I think when I close down the call. I mean too much to him already.

  But I shall have to deal with that on Saturday. Today I have other things I must think about and come to terms with as best I can. I might also have a whole play to write, but I spend most of the morning writing messages. After lunch we go for quite a short walk up to the Punchbowl and back, then drive down to the computer centre. Today it’s Margaret Allen on duty. We wish one another a Happy New Year, and chat briefly about the weather and the wind and the Queen’s speech. Needless to say it’s only Margaret who has anything to say about the Queen’s speech, since unlike all real English people I haven’t even listened to it.

  Then I sit down in my usual place. I’m the only customer today: the centre seems more outdated than ever, but I’m grateful that it exists. Grateful for the cup of tea that Margaret serves up, and just for a brief moment I have the feeling that I could live here.

  Really live here. In the village of Winsford, far from the madding crowd. On this moor where the sky and the earth kiss each other. For one more brief moment I wonder if that would be feasible to fit in with the rest of the plan, but decide not to get carried away by
that thought. I have enough to think about already.

  I write as follows from Martin to Eugen Bergman:

  My dear friend, I don’t like having to give you bad news at the beginning of a new year, but it can’t be helped. The fact is that I’m having big problems with my material, I’m not getting anywhere with it. I don’t know what I really want to do, and it’s making me feel dejected.

  I thought matters would resolve themselves in time, but now I’m beginning to realize that they might not. In any case it’s not going to be the bulky documentary novel about Herold and Hyatt that I may have given you reason to expect. If it becomes anything at all, it’s going to be on a much smaller scale.

  Just as worrying, at least for me, is that I’m feeling extremely depressed. I’ve been feeling that way for more than a month now. Maria has been doing all she can to get me back on my feet, but it’s not enough. Anyway, I’m only writing this because I want you to be aware of the situation, and to prevent overblown expectations at your publishing house and elsewhere. I’m sorry about this development, but I can’t do anything about it, believe you me.

  With my very best wishes, M

  That is more or less word-for-word what I wrote in my notebook this morning. I read it through twice, then send it off.

  There has been no response as yet from Soblewski, so I put the draft of my message to him on one side and go over to my own mailbox.

  I write to Synn:

  Dear Synn. I hope the New Year has begun well in New York. We have had a quiet and relaxing time down here in the relative warmth, but I have to tell you that your dad isn’t all that well. He’s been downcast since quite a long time before Christmas and says he simply can’t concentrate and do any work – I think he’s sinking into a state of depression, more or less. Being so far away from home doesn’t make things any easier, and I’ve begun to wonder if we ought to cut short our stay here in Morocco. I just wanted you to know that – we haven’t made any decisions yet, we’re taking each day as it comes.

  Best wishes, Mum

  And to Gunvald:

  A Happy New Year, Gunvald! I hope all is well in Copenhagen – or are you still in Sydney? I can’t remember what your dad said. In any case we’re having a calm and relaxing time in Morocco, but I have to tell you that your dad is having some problems. I know he would never admit as much to you, but he’s simply not able to work at all and I think he might be depressed – clinically depressed, I mean. If you write to him you don’t need to mention that I’ve told you this, but I know he would appreciate a few uplifting lines from you. Look after yourself wherever you are, and very best wishes from Mum.

  I send both messages, then scribble a few lines to Violetta, assuring her that of course she doesn’t need to pay rent for the months when she won’t be living in the house. I say I’m sorry to hear about her mother’s illness, and understand completely that she feels she must go home. She doesn’t need to do anything about finding somebody to live in the house – we might well decide to go home rather earlier than originally planned. Martin hasn’t been feeling very well lately.

  Feeling satisfied with these carefully worded messages, I tell Margaret Allen I hope she has a pleasant weekend, and say that I might well drop in again on Monday.

  49

  Friday the fourth of January. A sunny day with the temperature a few degrees above zero – when we leave Darne Lodge that is, halfway through the morning. I’ve consulted the map and decided to head for Rockford. Castor hasn’t expressed any objections.

  It is a hamlet comprising about fifteen houses, stretching along the bank of the East Lyn River. We get there after walking alongside the river from Brendon, and it has felt like a spring morning from the first stride: small birds are fluttering around in the bushes, and the ground seems to be swelling. It’s a few minutes past one, the pub is open and so we go in for lunch.

  We find that the pub is hosting an art exhibition: there are twenty or so small oil paintings hanging on the walls, all of them depicting the moor. Ponies in the mist. Gates. Gorse bushes. The artist herself is also present, sitting at a table with her paint brushes and tubes, carefully dabbing paint onto a little canvas on an easel in front of her.

  ‘Jane Barrett,’ says the landlady when I place my order at the bar. ‘She lives here in the village. She’s pretty good – what she doesn’t manage to sell herself we usually buy for the pub. Mind you, she sells more or less everything. If you’re interested in a painting of the moor, now’s your chance to acquire one. She’s not very expensive either.’

  Castor and I sit down at the table next to the artist’s.

  We introduce ourselves and I say that I recognize her name.

  ‘Really?’ she says. ‘I suppose you must know a bit about Exmoor, then?’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ I say. ‘But there’s a little grave almost next to where I’m living. The lady lying there is called Elizabeth Williford Barrett.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be . . .’ Her face lights up and she puts down her paintbrush on a rag. ‘So you must be living in Darne Lodge. It’s my grandma lying there. What an amazing coincidence!’

  She smiles broadly. She is a powerfully built woman about forty-five years old, the type my father would no doubt have said was full of go. A mop of red hair, tied up with an even redder ribbon. A paint-stained woollen jumper reaching down to her knees. Lively eyes. She looks every inch a creative artist.

  ‘Yes, we live there,’ I say. ‘My dog and I. We’ve been there for a few months, but we’ll probably be leaving at the end of January.’

  ‘It’s a lovely place to live,’ says Jane Barrett, stroking Castor. ‘You couldn’t have found anywhere better. No matter what your work is, I have no doubt that you are . . . well, protected.’

  ‘Protected?’

  ‘Yes. For one thing you have my grandma on the other side of the road, and for another she has made sure that the house is disinfected.’

  I smile somewhat tentatively. ‘Do you mean that . . . ?’

  I simply don’t know what to say next, but it doesn’t matter. Jane Barrett likes talking. ‘Maybe you don’t know what kind of women we are in my family. There must always be a witch on the moor, and nowadays it’s me. My grandma’s grandmother is the most notorious – the witch in Barrett’s bolt-hole . . . Have you heard of her?’

  I say that not only have I heard of her, I’ve even visited the bolt-hole.

  ‘Really?’ exclaims Jane, astonished once again. ‘But they haven’t put the place in the tourist leaflets, have they? Although it wouldn’t surprise me . . .’

  ‘I went walking around those parts with a friend who was born in Simonsbath,’ I explain. ‘He was the one who knew about her, and explained it all to me.’

  She nods and takes a drink of tea from the cup on her table. ‘I’ll tell you one thing: I’m pretty sure my mother was conceived in your house.’

  ‘Your mother? . . . Elizabeth?’

  She laughs. ‘No, Elizabeth is my grandmother. But she’s the one who was responsible for the conception. Half of it, at least. She lived in Darne Lodge with a young man at the end of the thirties, before he was conscripted for service in the Second World War. Grandma was pregnant with my mother, and gave birth in the spring of 1941. And at about the same time the man died somewhere in Africa. Killed by a German bullet. Mother and daughter Barrett continued living in Darne Lodge until they were thrown out by the owner, or whatever it was that happened . . .’

  It strikes me that Margaret Allen must have missed out the odd chapter in the history of Darne Lodge, unless I wasn’t listening intently enough.

  ‘Anyway,’ says Jane, ‘Grandma Elizabeth made sure that the house was properly protected. No dodgy goings-on were going to make it difficult for people to come to Darne Lodge. All right, I know that people have died there and that things have happened, but that’s another story. Have you felt safe, living up there?’

  I think that over, then say that yes, I have.

&nbs
p; ‘What do you do for a living?’

  ‘I write books. I’m an author.’

  She shakes my hand. ‘I thought you were an artist. You can sense things like that – especially if you are a witch.’

  She leans back, sticks her thumbs in her armpits and laughs. ‘It runs in the family, and things keep repeating themselves,’ she says slightly mysteriously. ‘We Barretts only give birth to girls. One for each generation. And we keep the name Barrett. But you’ve probably seen that it says Williford on Grandma’s grave.’

  I say that I have seen that, and think I know the reason for it.

  ‘Exactly,’ says Jane. ‘That rich farmer bastard who raped her mother. My great grandmother. And do you know, I also have a daughter . . . she’s only seventeen. As pretty as the dawn, and shortly before Christmas she came home and introduced me to a boyfriend. His name is James Williford . . . The choice here on the moor is a bit limited, you might say. It smells of incest, don’t you think?’

  She laughs again. I think for a few seconds, then I tell her about the pheasants.

  ‘Lucky you,’ she says when I’ve finished. ‘Just as I told you, you can’t hope for better protection than that. Nobody put those birds outside your door. They came there of their own accord when their time was up. They lay down and died there because Death isn’t allowed in. I can tell you that we witches are on unusually good terms with birds. But perhaps that’s an indication that . . . well, it might mean that you need some protection. Is that true, perhaps?’

  She looks at me pretending to be serious.

  ‘Who isn’t in need of protection?’

  ‘Very true. But where do you come from? Forgive me for saying so, but I can hear that you don’t come from Oxford.’

  ‘Sweden. And as I said, I’ll probably be going back home at the end of this month. But thank you . . . Thank you for the protection. I think I’d like to buy one of your paintings.’