It wasn’t until I turned off the main road and up towards the moors that it really struck me that this had been my home. There was that old sound, the wind billowing its way across the tops and down into the valley, a sound out of memory; but the way it buffeted the car was real enough. I reached out and turned the radio up, but in my mind it was another tune I heard, different lyrics:
Wheear ’ast tha bin since ah saw thee?
I smiled. Where indeed? I hadn’t felt the need to come back here since Dad had died, and that was years ago. I had my own place now, my own job; my training was done, my school days long behind me. I’d never thought to see Inchy – Warren Hinchliffe – again. I jabbed at the radio, turning it off, and listened to the sound of the wind coming over the tops. Up there were swathes of green, patched with the lighter shades of dead grass and the darker growth of heather, the purple flowers darkened to grey under a cloudy sky. And grey paths wound through it all, leading nowhere, or so it had seemed when we were small.
I remembered what Inchy had said on the phone: It’d be just what I need. I had the impression that he’d been prepared for my rejection. He’d just lost his job, he said, nothing special, just helping out on a farm, but now it had ended: I need summat to help me start ower. And he’d waited in silence, and the old guilt had crept from his end of the line to mine.
Wheear ’ast tha bin since ah saw thee?
I’d been miles away, while he had stayed, along with the memory of what had passed between us, the thing we had done. I pushed the thought away. I’d started again long ago; the least I could do was help Inchy do the same. I dropped down the slope and saw the pub – The Cow and Calf – named for the giant outcrops of millstone grit that could just be seen at the edge of the moor, and I slowed, and pulled into the car park.
Inchy was propping up the bar. I recognised him at once, though he wasn’t so much taller than me as I’d remembered, and he’d been working on a beer gut in the time I’d been away. He didn’t smile when he saw me, didn’t act surprised, didn’t say “How’ve you been?”; he just nodded to where a pint stood at his elbow.
“I was going to have a Coke –”
“You might as well ’ave it. Get it dahn thee neck, Andy.” And then, belatedly: “All right, mate?”
“Not bad.” I grinned at him before taking a drink. It was cold, but more welcome than I’d expected.
He grinned back and drained what was left of his own pint. “Lad’s day out, and all that. Get you out o’ t’ city furra bit. God’s own country.”
I tried not to let him see how the beer was going straight to my head. “My dad always called it that.”
“Aye, well, ’s changed a bit round ’ere since them days. ’S all posh folk in Ilkley now – more accountants and bankers than you can shek a stick at.”
I kept quiet, taking another sip. He knew what I did for a living, didn’t he? I was already wondering if this had been a good idea.
“Not locals. Not like us. Remember ’ow we’d go off looking for frogspawn an’ that, in t’ streams?”
I smiled. I did remember.
“They don’t do that these days. Now it’s all off to ballet in their fancy Land Rovers, or walking their labra-fucking-doodles. They sink a hundred quid on designer wellies, and chuck a hissy fit if they get ’em mucky. Well, we’d best go, mate.”
He pulled on an army surplus jacket and nodded at my padded coat. “Cragface, eh?”
“Craghoppers.” I shrugged and bent to tighten the laces on my hiking boots, only then realising how clean they were. They’d been more than a hundred quid, but they were guaranteed comfy out of the box, and I hadn’t been walking in a long time. When I straightened I expected Inchy to narrow his eyes or make some comment, but he didn’t; he only nodded.
“We’d best get off then,” he said.
Once we got walking, it was just like the old days. Inchy had always led the way then too; he was a few months older than me but he’d always been taller, and he seemed more so now, since he was higher up the hillside. The wind barrelled off the slope, flattening the grass, and we leaned into it. The path led steadily upward past the side of the old quarry and it felt as if I was fifteen again, playing hooky from school, led astray by “that boy,” as my mum used to call him. She’d even correct me if I said his nickname – Hinchy, she’d insist – but he was never called that; no one ever said their aitches, not round here, not then.
The old song started to run through my mind as we climbed higher:
On Ilkla Moor baht ’at . . .
We used to sing it for a joke and it seemed more than ever like one now, with the wind raging around us. How on earth could anyone have kept a hat on their head? The wind was cold too, chilling my ears and the nape of my neck. Tha’s bahn to catch thy deeath o’ cowd, we’d sung. I paused and pulled up my hood, holding it in place, the fabric buffeting about my head. It was loud, and at first I didn’t realise that Inchy had spoken.
“Cow n’ calf.”
He pointed down at the quarry, towards the two huge boulders. The calf stood away on its own, the cow jutting from a longer crag. Beyond them was more moor and fields and little villages and all the long grey sky watching over it all.
“Bet you never knew t’ legend,” he said. “There was this giant, see. Rombald. He ran off from ’is wife – dunno what ’ed done – an’ ’e stamped on them rocks and split t’ calf off from t’ cow. Course, it never looked like no bloody cow n’ calf to me.”
I laughed. “Me neither. I could never work out why they called it that.”
“Aye, well.” Another pause. “’E split summat up, anyroad.”
I stared after him as he started to walk, seeing only his back, the dull green of his coat blending into the landscape. I wasn’t sure he’d said what I thought I’d heard. I blinked the idea away. He hadn’t meant anything; it was only the rocks he’d been speaking of. I shrugged and started after him, climbing higher, away from the quarry and the pub and the view behind it.
As we laughed over the old days, I started to remember them in a way I hadn’t for a long time. The further I’d gone, the hazier the memories had become; now Inchy brought them back. I remembered trying to smoke a cig he’d nicked from his old man’s pocket; unscrewing people’s gates on Mischief Night; and coming up here, to the moor. That, most of all; and I remember the way it felt, as if anyone in the world could look up and see us and know what we were up to, and yet hidden too, as if we were a hundred miles from anything.
We fell quiet. There was only the sound of the wind and the rustle of our coats, and I started to drift, and I heard the old song once more in my mind:
Tha’s been a cooartin’ Mary Jane
On Ilkla Moor baht ’at …
I pulled a face. There were things I wanted to remember and things I didn’t, and this was one of the things I didn’t.
It was Inchy who’d got a girlfriend first. Of course it was; he was taller than me, and harder, and he always seemed so much older, even though the difference between us was small. And Joan was the best of them, the one all the lads fancied. It wasn’t long before they started going out, and Inchy suddenly didn’t have so much time for fishing or wandering or anything else.
She was pretty, Joan Chapman. Her long dark hair was never tied back and she had a pale oval face and, what all the lads thought but wouldn’t say in front of Inchy, the best pair of tits in school. She had a laugh like a drain and sparkles – it sounded corny even now, but she did – she had sparkles in her eyes. She looked like she was going somewhere, but of course she never did; she hadn’t gone anywhere, had never even become any older than we were then. But I hadn’t had to think about that, or not too much, because by then I’d been leaving. I was wondering how far that was true of Inchy when he said, “’Ere: I wanted to do summat. For ’er.”
“You what?”
He turned and I saw that his face was white. It came as a shock to see the way he kept blinking, as if he was trying to hold something back.
He pulled something from his pocket. I stared at it. It was a candle. I didn’t know what on earth he was thinking: it wasn’t something I wanted to remember, and anyway, a candle for God’s sake, just as if the wind wasn’t howling over the tops like the very devil. And it was daylight, even if it was thin and mean, the clouds heavy.
“I thought we could,” he said. “Old time’s sake. Finish it, you know? Just summat to …”
Start ower, I thought. I felt suddenly sick, the beer uneasy in my belly. I didn’t want to agree, but I found myself saying: “All right.”
“Serious?” He brightened at once and I suddenly felt as if I was the older one. I nodded and he went on, towards another grey rock, this one overhanging the hillside as if at any moment it would tumble to the valley below.
The pancake stone was balanced on a small grey outcrop, its position precarious, and yet it had stood there for years. Its name had never seemed quite right; it was flat on top but it looked to me more like an anvil, pointing out over the empty air. Ancient markings were carved into it, cup and ring formations, some almost joining so they looked like part of some larger pattern that had long since been lost.
“Here,” he said.
“Inch, I’m not sure –”
The look he sent me was so hurt I didn’t say anything else.
Anger I could have understood, but this, from him, was worse. He took the candle and set it into one of the cups, but it wouldn’t hold. He jammed it instead into a crack in the rock and pulled a matchbox from his pocket. The wind almost took it from him. He struck a match and it blew out at once. He swore under his breath; the wind whipped the curse away.
“Ne’er mind,” he said. “I brought summat else.”
He fiddled in his pockets and took out a small plastic bottle. Carefully, he tipped some of the liquid it held into one of the cups. “’S what they were for, they reckon,” he said. “Lighting fires.”
I looked at the rock. I wasn’t sure anyone knew what the patterns were for, not really, but I somehow felt there must be more to it than that.
This time he threw the match down as soon as it sparked and the liquid caught, flaring, and he jerked away from it. The flame became invisible almost at once.
“I ’eard,” he said, “this place behind t’ rock – Green Crag – they used t’ call it land o’ the dead. They did rites, an’ that.”
I pulled a face. I didn’t know where he was getting this stuff. For all I knew, he was making it up. This trip was a mistake, I knew that now.
Tha’s been a cooartin’ my lass Joan …
I shook my head, trying to clear it. I felt my guilt stirring, rising into the air with the flame that was already dying, dead and gone like …
“This is wheear she did it,” he said.
I whipped around to face him. “What?”
“Oppened a vein. Right ’ere. Laid ’ersel’ down on t’ rock, an’ she –”
“No. She didn’t.”
He half turned to stare at the stone, just as if he could still see the fire burning there, as if anybody could.
I took deep breaths. He had to be lying. I’d heard she’d killed herself – of course I did, everybody knew, everybody knew everything in a place like this – but I’d imagined her doing it in the bath, lying down, putting her wrist under the water before she sliced –
But I hadn’t known, had I? Because I’d left. I’d gone away to college because I couldn’t wait to turn my back on it; I hadn’t wanted to know.
And now he’d brought me here. Inchy had brought me back.
Tha’s been a cooartin’ my lass Joan (baht thee trahsers on) …
The voice in my head had become mocking. No: accusing.
It hadn’t been my fault. I’d told myself that so many times. I may have gone after her, set my cap at her as my mum would have put it, but it was Joan who’d decided: it was her choice. And when she realised it was a mistake, when we’d split and she tried to go back to Inchy and he wouldn’t have her – that wasn’t my fault either, was it? He’d been happy enough to have me back, as a friend. I’d often wondered how he could bring himself to forgive me but not her, but friendship was like that, wasn’t it? It was for keeps. It was for ever.
Now I looked into his face and I found myself wondering who the hell he was; who he had ever been.
“I would’ve bought her a ring,” he said, his voice distant. “If she ’adn’t – I mean, I know we was young. But I would ’ave. Eventually.”
I went on staring. I realised my mouth had fallen open; I closed it again. When he didn’t say anything else I tried to find words, but there were none. All I could think was, he said he didn’t care. He’d said she was just a lass and she didn’t matter, not really. He’d laughed at her when she tried to win him back. He told folk she’d let anyone lift her skirt and he called her a slag, even when she cried to his face. If he hadn’t told me he wasn’t bothered, if I’d known –
But I looked at him now and I did know. Of course he couldn’t forgive her. He hadn’t been able to forgive her because of how deep the hurt went, and I saw now that time hadn’t eased it, only weathered it, carving the grooves deeper.
When he turned, it didn’t come as a surprise to see that he was crying.
“Inchy. I – I’m going back to the pub,” I said, and I backed away.
“’Ang on.” He looked startled.
“I didn’t ask for this. Look, I said I was sorry. I am sorry. But this –” I raised my hands and let them fall again.
“Look, I din’t mean nowt. But this is why we came, in’t it? We did that to ’er, thee an’ me, and it seemed right, that’s all. It’s done now. I’ve said what I want to say, an’ that’s it. No more, all right? It’s ower.”
“Is it, Inchy?”
He rubbed a hand over his eyes and he smiled. If it hadn’t been for that smile, I would have turned and gone back then and there, but I didn’t; I looked at him for a long time, neither of us wavering, and then I nodded and I stayed.
“Rombald’s missus dropped that,” Inchy said.
I looked at the odd cairn set into the wiry grass. It was made of grey stones of similar sizes, forming a low, rough circle. It reminded me of a plate with an indentation in the middle.
“Skirtful o’ stones,” he added. “She were runnin’ after ’im, see, when ’e put ’is size nines through t’ cow n’ calf. And then she dropped all t’ stones she were carryin’ and med this circle. Dun’t know ’er name. Nubody did.”
I gave him a sharp look, but there didn’t seem to be any hidden meaning in what he said. He seemed to have put Joan out of his mind; he’d been striding out with new energy, his cheeks reddened by the continual assault of the wind. It was me that couldn’t stop thinking about her. I opened my mouth to ask why the giant’s wife was running after him, but realised I didn’t want to know. I had an image in my mind; me and Inchy heading off up Curly Hill on one of our expeditions, and Joan catching up with us; the look she’d had on her face when she pulled on Inchy’s arm. The look on her face after he’d brushed her off. She hadn’t been angry. If she’d been carrying something then, a skirtful of stones, I imagine she’d have just dropped everything too; she’d have let it all go.
I started walking, pulling my hood tighter. The wind was full in my face, chilling my eyes and my skin. It felt like little knives. I walked faster. I probably deserved it.
But Inchy had deserved it too. I felt a stab of anger. He was the one who’d let her go, wasn’t he?
I was leading the way, though I hadn’t asked where we were headed. I didn’t suppose it mattered. I wasn’t even looking at the moor, not really; I was looking into the past, and I could see Joan’s face as clear as anything. It struck me now she had always been a little like the moor, half ordinary, something that was just there, but half wild too; her hair always flying and in knots, something unfathomable in her eyes.
I wondered if it was still there when she died.
I almost felt I could hear that lilting song again, and the words crept across the moor:
Then we shall ’ave to bury thee …
I shook my head, spoke without turning. “Inchy, did you hear something?”
He didn’t reply.
“Inchy?”
His voice, when it came, was gruff. “Nowt but the wind. And you know what, mate? Me name’s Warren.”
I was only half listening. He was right, it was only the wind, but it sounded as if there were voices in it. I was sure, at some point in the past, I’d heard it called a devil wind; now I thought I knew why, only it sounded less like a devil than a host of demons crying together.
Bury thee, bury thee …
I shook my head. I was tired and wishing I was a hundred miles away, back in my old life – no, my new life – and that bloody wind just wouldn’t ease up. I was allowing the past and other people’s mistakes and yes, my own, to get to me. It was only then that Inchy’s words sank in.
Me name’s Warren …
I whirled around. He wasn’t there.
I scanned the hillside, knowing how the dull green of his jacket would have faded into it. It wasn’t any use. Inchy had gone.
Bastard.
I took a few steps back the way I had come, watching for any sign of another living being, and I saw none. Despite the wind, I felt hot all over. He’d lured me out here and then ditched me, an act of petty revenge, and why – because he’d lost his job, was jealous all over again?
I squinted into the cold air. He surely couldn’t have passed out of sight so quickly. But it occurred to me that maybe he wasn’t out of sight. He might be crouching in the grass, hiding in his green coat; but somehow it didn’t feel like that. The place felt empty. He’d already scarpered, heading back to the warm pub and leaving me to freeze. No doubt, when I got there, I’d find he’d let my tyres down too. Well, good luck to him. He was going nowhere, someone who hadn’t even had the sense to grab the girl he’d cared about and hold onto her.
The sky was heavier than ever and everything had darkened, taking on the colours of a storm. In the distance the space between earth and sky was streaked black with rain. It echoed something inside of me.
I could try and blame Inchy all I liked, but the knowledge squirmed in my gut: it was my fault. It had always been my fault, not because I went after her, because I fancied her, but because the reason I’d gone after her was that Inchy had had her first.
He had always been taller than me. He’d always been tougher. He was the one who smoked without chucking his guts up, back when smoking was something cool. I pictured him in the pub, clutching his pint glass with his yellowing fingers, I imagined the rot creeping inside him.
But I’d been the one who set out to destroy something. I was the one who’d thought about it, something Inchy never seemed to do, not back then. Now it seemed that had changed. I could hardly blame him.
It didn’t matter. All I had to do was retrace my steps and get out of here, leave it all behind, just as I had before. I turned a full circle. All around me was purple heather, long grass bowing in the wind, and bared grey earth. It looked as if there were paths everywhere, radiating like the spokes of a wheel. My belly contracted as I realised I was no longer sure which way I’d come. But it should be easy, shouldn’t it? All I had to do was head downhill. Except now I appeared to be standing at the summit of a crag. That couldn’t be right, could it? Everywhere was downhill.
My mouth felt dry. I cursed Inchy for the alcohol I’d had earlier. It was confusing my mind, clouding my judgement. Still, I couldn’t stay here; I’d pick a direction and get moving. I’d soon know if I was going the wrong way. Scowling at the moor, wondering if Inchy was still out there, watching, I started to walk.
As I went, the old tune became the background to my steps, the refrain to my thoughts. I remembered us singing it, the story of comic cannibalism where the man caught his deeath o’ cowd, was buried and eaten by worms, which were eaten by ducks, which were eaten by the people. I never knew who the ‘we’ in the song was supposed to be, the singers or someone else, and now I wondered.
Then t’worms’ll come an eyt thee up . . .
That had seemed the funniest line of all. It wasn’t so funny now.
Then we shall all ’ave etten thee. On Ilkla Moor baht ’at . . .
I stopped walking and frowned. I didn’t think this could be the right way. The moor all looked the same, flat and bleak and with nothing to relieve the monotony, and across everything, that merciless scouring wind.
I remembered I should be walking away from it, the wind behind me, but it seemed to be coming from all directions; whichever way I turned it blustered and spat in my face. My cheeks were numb, all feeling long since faded. I turned and started to walk back the way I had come. As I did, it started to rain.
I’d forgotten how bloody miserable the moor could be. Even the air seemed grey and it was hard to keep my eyes open; I squinted against the rain. It lashed my hood, drowning everything in a loud patter. Sod this. The sooner I got off the moor the better. I tried to move quicker and my boots slid on the wet, slicked-down grass. I landed on my backside, pushed myself up, went on again. I could hardly see at all. I found I was muttering the words of the song, over and over:
Tha’s bahn to catch thy death …
I realised what I was saying and shut my mouth. I’d be off this hill soon, then I could dry off in the pub before heading home. I’ve have the heater on full blast. I’d be too hot then, and I wouldn’t bloody care.
It was then that I saw the light.
It hung there on the other side of the rain, a faint yellow glow, and I realised: it was her light, it was the pancake stone, and I was back after all. It had to be. It had somehow kept burning and soon I’d be there; I’d see all the lights of Ilkley and Ben Rhydding shining out from the valley, calling me back. I hunched myself against the rain and hurried towards it.
The light flickered in and out of existence. One moment I’d think I was getting closer and then there it was, in the distance again. I must be going in a circle. Or I was seeing things. Whatever it was, I couldn’t seem to find it. And all the time the rain kept coming down and the sky was growing darker.
I tilted my head, allowing my hood to fall back and let the rain find my face. It was dead cold, and I cursed, pulling my hood back up, though it wasn’t any use; the rain was inside it. I shivered and turned. The light was still there, but it was behind me now. I didn’t know how I’d got turned around but I started off again, unable to tell if I was going up a rise or moving slightly downhill. The light kept moving. It bobbed and wavered, confusing my eyes. I had to reach it soon. The moor couldn’t be that big. If I kept going in a straight line, sooner or later, I had to reach its edge.
It was Inchy, it had to be. He’d hidden a lamp out here and he was taunting me with it, and I had to give it to him; he was fast. One minute it was off to the left, the next, away to my right. I’d tried to keep straight but somehow I’d found myself following anyway, being drawn this way and that. Well, enough; I wasn’t playing any longer. I was cold and wet and tired.
There was a large boulder in front of me and I leaned against it, slicking water from my coat. The rain was easing off at last. I knew I couldn’t stay here for long: cold was spreading from the rock, finding its way inside my skin. Still, I couldn’t quite bring myself to move. I stayed while the rain reduced to a light patter and then I felt something, almost as if the rock at my back had trembled, and a moment later I heard it: a dull, hollow boom ringing out across the moor. I reached out and touched the rock and thought I could still feel it, a faint resonance that took a while to fade.
A few seconds later, the sound came again. I froze, listening. It had to be thunder, didn’t it? It could take on all sorts of odd sounds, out here. It’s just that, for a moment, it had made me think of footsteps; the footsteps of a giant, echoing in my ears.
Damn Inchy. It was his stories, playing on my mind. Stones and giants, old legends that wouldn’t die. The cow and calf, where were they now? And something flashed across my mind, something I’d heard long ago, that there had been a bull once too; a rock bigger than any of them that was broken up and carried off for building. No one ever seemed sure if it was true or not and it was odd to think that something so large could simply disappear, out here, and no one could even agree if it had ever existed.
Just as the rain was letting up at last, the wind was rising again. Its voice moaned across the hills and my head began to throb with it, aching behind my eyes.
I forced myself to my feet, my wet jeans sticking to my skin, and set my face to the darkness. It wasn’t the rain now, robbing everything of light; soon night would fall. I would be out here all alone, and no one would come to help.
But it wasn’t entirely dark. Somewhere ahead and a little to my left was the gentle glow of a light. No: two lights, now.
Tha’s been a cooartin’ my lass Joan …
I must be seeing things, that was all. But it was easy, with night hailing at the edges of the world, to believe that both of them were out here with me: Inchy and Joan, walking hand in hand, together again …
I shook my head, trying to dispel the image. It was nonsense, of course. I started walking again, pulling my coat tighter. I’d be off this moor in no time; I would soon be warm.
Except there seemed to be no end to this place. It was as if I’d walked into some giant land that went on and on. Everywhere I looked was the moor, dark and smudged with shadows that could have been rocks, could have been anything. The land of the dead, he’d called it.
It was suddenly easy to imagine the way that Joan might have felt when she came up here all alone. The way she would have sat down on an ancient stone, perhaps smoothing a hand over the things that were carved there. And she’d opened a vein, over those cup markings perhaps, the hollows ready to receive what she gave …
And what had the old gods offered in return? What had she asked for as she lay there dying – me?
A slow chill spread through my chest.
Then we shall ’ave to bury thee …
Something struck me then, something that had never made any sense before. The last verse of the song, the very last – it was about revenge, wasn’t it? Only I’d never understood why. Yes, that was it:
That’s wheear we get us ooan back …
The ‘we’ had had their revenge because they’d eaten him, the man who’d courted the girl and caught the cold and been buried and eaten by the worms – but why our ooan back? The song never explained what he’d done to them.
But the song was a part of this place. No one even knew who’d written it; it had been sung down the ages. Now, with the light failing and no one in sight and nothing around for miles, it almost felt as if it had been intended for this moment. It repeated itself inside my mind, but the intonation was different:
That’s wheear we get us ooan back. On Ilkla Moor baht ’at …
I shuddered. Here, that’s where it would be. This was where Joan would come to me, to thank me properly for what I’d done. She’d come with the rain and the wind in her hair, her eyes all a-sparkle in the dark.
I let out an odd sound and started to hurry onward, stumbling in my haste. I realised I was singing as I went, and I knew it was crazy but I couldn’t stop. I sang the words faster and faster, no inflection in them at all, not thinking about what they meant or where they had come from, and I stumbled and slipped and for a time, everything was dark.
When I woke, the cold was bone-deep. I was lying on something hard and I touched it, felt the whorls and dips beneath my fingers, and I pushed myself up. My head swam. I was lying on a grey rock, partially hidden in the ground, and I must have hit my head on it because there was something dark there that looked like blood. I looked at the cups and the rings, delineated more clearly than any I had yet seen. I thought of Joan, her blood. How much had she given? Perhaps this would help. It was an offering, a libation; something. Perhaps it would be enough.
I lay back, not caring that the ground was hard. It wasn’t dark any longer, I realised. It wasn’t dark and the wind had fallen still, its voices silenced. I was still on the moor but now it was beautiful. The moon had risen and stars were sprinkled across the sky, sparkling like eyes, watching me. I imagined staying here forever, just looking up at them and letting everything slip away.
Then the sound came again, a long, ringing echo as of giant footsteps, and the earth shook beneath me.
I think I smiled. And I remembered a line that we used to add to the song when we were small:
On Ilkla Moor baht ’at
Wheear’s that?
The words seemed to whisper in my mind now: Wheear’s that? And I looked into the sky with its infinite stars and I realised I was no longer sure.