Would he, seventeen years afterwards, be able to rediscover the mouth of the hole that led down into the Goughdale Mine? He thought he could remember roughly where it was: on the side of Big Allen facing him, the northern face, almost at the foot and a little to the right of centre. Somewhere among the crags of limestone that made a broad shelf along part of the foin’s lowest slopes.
The hole was referred to by Tace as ‘Apsley Sough’, though ‘sough’, in these parts meant a drain or channel. He had sited it far from where it really was, half a mile down from where it was; he had obviously never seen it. And it couldn’t have been a sough or drain, for there could have been no reason to drain water into a mine. Joseph Usher, Tace’s hero, had hidden himself in a chamber of the mine but had been driven out by hunger and thirst and, having given himself up, been taken away to trial and execution. Stephen made his way across the dale towards the mountain by a path that ran to the west of the ruined engine house. It was growing cool, even cold, with the departure of the sun. The sheep lifted their heads and looked at him as he passed by but they made no sound.
The weather had been hot that August when he was twelve. Peter Naulls and he, searching for the hole into the mine, had got as suntanned as if they had been on the kind of holiday they never had, on the beaches of Spain or Italy. Peter had, literally, stumbled on the mouth of the hole. Running in some ritual or phase of a game — for they didn’t spend every minute of each day crawling and peering and prodding the ground — he had caught his foot in a root and fallen headlong. He had found himself looking into the infinitely complex growth of stem and grass and leaf and tendril and fine twig that covered the moor in a thick springy upholstery, but also beyond this, through and beside this, into clear darkness. Under his face, half overlaid by a crag shaped like a mushroom growth on a tree trunk, entirely obscured until his eyes were close up to it by the thick vegetation, was the open fissure which for thirty days they had searched for in vain. He had sprung to his feet and thrown out his arms and cried, for he had just been doing Archimedes’ Principle at school, ‘Eureka!’
Where was Peter now? The uncles and aunts presumably knew but Stephen himself hadn’t heard a word of him since he went away to college in London when he was eighteen. That departure to university of a man far less intelligent than himself had been a blow to Stephen. And Dadda’s comment — he occasionally deigned to recognize the existence of the Naulls clan — had done nothing to mitigate his sad resentment. ‘Bloody degree won’t get the lad a living in Naulls’s shop.’ Peter hadn’t been expected to work in the men’s outfitters, never had and never would.
But even in their search, strictly speaking, it had been Peter who had succeeded and not he. Peter, though fortuitously, had found Apsley Sough. It had been he who, with truth, had cried out, ‘I have found it!’
Next day they had gone back with ropes and a book on rock-climbing from the library to teach themselves about knots. Dadda would have locked Stephen up if he had known what was going on. Uncle Leonard and Auntie Midge, more appropriately to their characters, would have had nervous breakdowns.
The hole was not a vertical shaft. If it had been they might not have dared penetrate it very far. It had been bored or dug or had occurred naturally at an incline of about thirty degrees, so that all the way down into the mine, holding onto the rope, they had had purchase for their feet, had almost been able to walk down, though describing it thus made a dull and orthodox act of what had been the great adventure of their boyhood.
After a long descent the shaft widened a little, and the light of their torches showed them the interior of the mine, the southern end of the tunnellings. They dropped down into a chamber, the roof of which must have been seven or eight feet high, and where the air seemed quite fresh. It was cold, though, by contrast with the heat outside, and there was a cold, damp, metallic smell. They lit the candles they had brought and made their way along a passage which led out of the chamber, gazing wordlessly — he couldn’t remember that they had spoken at all while in there — at the arched limestone walls, at the tunnels that from time to time branched from this central artery, once into a wide gallery whose egress had been blocked by a fall of stone. And then the flames of their candles had gone out. They had noticed no difference in the quality of the atmosphere but the flames of their candles had gone out.
They had said nothing. They had stood in the dark until Peter had put his torch on, and then they had turned back, glad though, relieved, when they could light a match again. Stephen had gone out first, scrambling up the shaft, putting all his weight this time on the rope and wondering what would happen, whether they would ever be found alive, if the rope came unfastened from the spur of rock to which they had tied it. But not really frightened, buoyed up always by a child’s invincible courage, the courage that comes from a sense of immortality.
When he came out into the bright white daylight he had a shock. There was another boy there, standing by the mouth of the hole, looking down, looking at the twitching rope. Adults in those circumstances would have spoken to each other, but not children. Stephen didn’t know who the boy was or what he was doing on Big Allen and he didn’t speak to him. Nor did the boy address him or Peter. He stood a little apart from them, kicking at the scree, and then he walked off across Goughdale between the crumbling towers. Stephen could remember how hot it had been, the sky a dazzling white-blue, the heat making the air wave and shiver above the dry yellowed turf.
Dusk now brought a stillness and its own grey translucent light. He walked along the ridge of rock, trying to picture once more the place where Peter had run and fallen. At one point he knelt down and parted the heather with his hands, so sure was he that he had found it, but there was nothing but the scree and the tiny plants which grew amongst it. It had become too dark to search any more and it was cold. He shivered a little as he set off for home.
6
They had meant to go out to lunch, or Nick had. He said to come upstairs to the flat only to fetch his jacket, and then they would go and eat and talk and maybe sit by the river. It was the first really warm day of summer. Lyn went first up the stairs and into the set of big, shabby rooms with arched windows that seemed full of sky.
She turned to Nick as he came in. He looked like a thin, young boy, much younger than he really was, his brown hair like a monk’s without the tonsure. His skin was brown and his eyes a light clear hazel. One of his hands was on the door, the other extended to her. She looked at his fine, thin hands, the turned wrists where there were fair hairs on the brown skin, and put her face up to his.
He kissed her. He smoothed her hair back and held it and kissed her, tenderly, then harder, and this time when his mouth opened into hers she didn’t pull away. Her heart had been beating fast and her hands were shaking, but as he kissed her and his body pressed close against hers, the length of his body hard against hers, those signs of fear gradually ceased and she grew weak and curiously fluid in his arms. He put his hands on her breasts and she made a little soft sound.
The sun on the river threw reflections across the bedroom ceiling, down the wall. The ripple reflections moved in a continuous, tiny fluttering. They danced over Lyn’s body as she undressed, over lean, brown Nick, waiting for her. Her arms felt languorous, her flesh soft and relaxed as if she had just awakened from sleep. He felt with his hands the smooth, sleepy flesh and she took his mouth on hers, himself into her.