7

North and Further North

North, said the signs. Always north. Early afternoon and the fog was lifting. Chesterfield, Sheffield. Far away, the white-patched Peak District. Fields of wind turbines, like majestic blades on giant egg beaters, so strange close up they didn’t look quite real. The land rose and fell, the earth giving way to houses and warehouses, slate-gray rooftops, and the outline of further cities and towns on the hinterland. Maureen drove below snatches of sky where sunlight glinted on the road, steel blue, spun gold, as rich as the glances off a crow’s wing. Harold said there were as many different types of birdsong as countries in the world. He said it often, as if he had never said it before, always with wonder in his voice. Sometimes Rex recorded a bird call they didn’t know on his phone, then went home to identify it on his computer. “Listen to this!” he would say later, rushing back and holding out his phone for her to listen. “What do you think it is, Maureen?”

“Sounds like another bird to me,” she would say. “Who would like coffee?”

“Could I ask for two sugars, please, Maureen?”

“Oh, Rex,” she would say, starting to laugh. “You honestly think I haven’t learned after all these years how you like your coffee?”

At Tibshelf, Maureen had taken a shower. This was why she was happy. Who knew? Who knew there were showers in service stations? She had never so much as noticed one before—but there it was, a clean cubicle, behind a gray door with a picture of a showerhead on the front, and inside a set of hooks to hang her clothes. There was even a vending machine selling everything a human body might require, but in miniature form, including a doll-size bottle of body wash, a sachet of shampoo, a condom and a tampon. She had stood in that deluge of steaming hot water and it was almost as wonderful as the shower back at home.

The M18 and then at last the A1. Doncaster, Adwick le Street. Pontefract. Ferrybridge power station, with its disused cooling towers, like overturned pots. Maureen was entering North Yorkshire. An exit for Leeds. Wetherby. The sun sent down streamers of silver and gold light between clouds. A heron lifted into the air, as unlikely as a carpet bag taking flight. When she stopped at the service station, she was careful to be polite. She made a point of smiling at the young man mopping the floor in the washroom and telling him what a lovely clean place it was. When she bought a cup of tea, she thanked the barista a number of times, even though her hot drink was technically no more than a paper cup with some boiled water inside it, and a teabag in a separate sachet, and when the barista asked if she wanted anything else, she said, “No, thank you. That’s perfect. Thank you.” She found a table beside the window and asked the couple nearby if it was free, although it was very clearly empty and there was a plastic screen between them. She took out her puzzle magazine while she drank her tea and managed a whole cryptic crossword without being bothered by anyone. She even smiled at a table of four children who were all dressed as superheroes and eating KFC from buckets, while their mother swiped her phone and sipped a fizzy drink.

“I like your coat,” she said to another woman, as she left.

“This old thing?” said the woman. But she tugged at the lapels and laughed.

“Yes, it’s a lovely coat,” said Maureen.

Back in the car, it struck her that really the coat was quite ordinary. It was Maureen’s mood that was so likable. She switched on the radio, and when there was a song she knew, she hummed. A flock of geese flew overhead, their long necks straining north.

Already the day was over. That low January sky closing down. The spilled red of a winter sun. The land unfolded and cantilevered outwards, like breathing deeply. Ripon. Bedale. Scotch Corner. Durham. By the time she reached the Angel of the North it was dark again, the sky high-starred. The sculpture appeared before she expected it, leaning out of a hilltop ahead. It was hard to see, but the moon caught the span of its wings and she saw how wide out they stretched, how horizontal, not like ethereal wings at all, and she had the fleeting impression that if this angel came from anywhere, it would not be the heavens or the sky, but somewhere more human and earthbound. Maureen made her way round Newcastle, crossing the Tyne, and finally turned off the A1 to head west. There were granite farms, scattered and isolated, their windows a buttery yellow. She passed beneath a tunnel of trees, and the light from the street lamps shone through the branches and made mosaic crystals on the way ahead. At last there was the sign for Hexham.

Maureen had been on the road for almost fourteen hours. She was so exhausted, and had seen so much, she felt bruised, marked all over, and the sound of the car engine seemed to have taken up residence inside her head.

She pulled up to check Rex’s directions one more time, and applied a small amount of lipstick, then drove on to meet Kate. She could do this. She could.