The Man in the Moss

            Known it as soon as he and Willie had found the Cairns lass. Known it, really, for most of the day. That she was dead..

            'You're off your head, Mr Dawber.'

            'Not yet, lad. Soon, happen. But not yet.'

            'I've told you once to get out. I won't tell you again.' Shaw's eyes glittered like broken glass.

            'Kill me, eh?'

            'You think I won't?'

            'No, I know you would.' Ernie picked up his wet hat, held it in front of his chest like a breast plate. Took a big, long breath. Saw before him the little lad in Class I of the infants. Fair-haired, fair-complexioned, tall but slightly built. Brought to school that first morning by stocky, swarthy Arthur Horridge, Arthur's dark brown hair already greying at the temples.

            Ernie looked into Shaw's pale, malevolent eyes. 'Just like you killed your granny, eh, lad?'

            Shaw drew back across the hall. His mouth twisted up and opened on one side, his face alternating between a sneer and a stare of more than slightly crazed, vacant incomprehension.

            'What's this? What's this nonsense? What are you babbling about? You're an old fool, Mr Dawber.'

            'Haven't they told you, Shaw? Hasn't your father told you?'

            'My father's dead.'

            'I only wish he were, lad.'

            'I... You…'

            'Your father's Jack Lucas. John Peveril Stanage.'

            'That's ... that's absolute crap.'

            'You want to hear about this, Shaw?'

            Shaw had backed up against the flock-papered far wall, his mouth twisting noiselessly from side to side, both hands over his head, hovering half an inch above his baldness.

            'When I was a little lad'   Ernie leaned his back against the hallstand,  relaxed - 'there was a bit of a kerfuffle in Bridelow. Minor scandal, soon hushed up, years before I learned the details. Anyroad ... Ma Wagstaff ... Iris Morris in those days, young lass, bit of all right, too.  But wild. Nowt anybody could tell her. Wasn't going to stay in little Bridelow, was she? Off to the city, our Iris, most weekends. Met a feller, as you'd expect. Educated smooth-talker, name of Lucas.'

            Shaw Horridge was standing with his legs apart, panting a little.

            'Came back pregnant. Wouldn't be the first one. Prospective father buggered off soon as he found out. The old story, and folks in Bridelow's always been liberal enough about that sort of thing. Except Iris was a bit special. Direct line, see. Presented to the Mother same week she was christened, expected, somehow, to have a daughter.'

            'This is nonsense,' Shaw said. 'I'm going to kill you.'

            'Hear me out first, eh?'

.           'I killed someone else tonight. I killed Manifold. Young Frank. I killed him ... just moments ago.'

            'I don't think so,' Ernie said uncertainly. The idea of Shaw Horridge coping with Young Frank with a few drinks inside him was still a bit laughable. Wasn't it?

            'I did- I'll show you.'

            'Let me finish, lad, eh? Where was I? A daughter, yes. They expected she'd have a daughter first, that's the way it is usually. But no, it was a boy, and a most peculiar child. White. All over.'

            'No!'

            'Yes! Folks said, it's retribution. She sinned. Sinned not so much against God but against her heritage. And the child? A changeling, they said. Know what that is, Shaw? Child of another ... species, shall we say. A cuckoo. That was the word they used, changeling's my word, as a folklorist - all nonsense, of course, happen just a genetic throwback. But "cuckoo" was what they said. Not out loud, of course. Whispered it, though, when Iris wasn't about. But then she got married to Len Wagstaff and had three more, and the family closed ranks a bit and the things John did later were covered up. At first. Until it wasn't possible to cover them up any more.'

            'What things?'

            Pranks, at first. Not the worst you say about them, but if you were being charitable you'd call them pranks. Cruel pranks.'

            'Perhaps they made him feel better,' Shaw said.

            'Eh?'

            'You do something brave, you push yourself. And you start to feel better.'

            'Do you?'

            'Yes. You can do anything if you push yourself into places you wouldn't normally go.'

            'Oh, aye?'

            'Look at this, for instance. How do you think I got this?'

            He was doing it again, letting his hands hover half an inch from the bald part of his head.

            'I don't understand,' Ernie said.

            'Can't you see?' Shaw leapt about flinging switches until the hall was blazing with lights. Wall lights, ceiling lights, lights over five mirrors reflecting his bounding figure. 'Look. Look! I was completely bald at the front. Even two weeks ago, I was bald.'

            'Aye?'

            'Well?' Shaw bent his head towards Ernie. It threw off light like a steel helmet. 'Well?'

            'Well, what?'

            Shaw straightened up. 'Know when it began to grow again? When I agreed to get rid of the old lady.'

            'Your grandmother.'

            'That's crap. You come here, you give me all this bullshit. How stupid do you really think I am, Mr Dawber?'

            Ernie thought very carefully before he spoke.

            'Stupid enough,' he said, stepping away from the hallstand, bracing himself, 'to think your hair is growing again.

The fire hissed again. There was a visible bubbling among the coals.

            'Have to get Alf Beckett to fit you a cowl on t'chimney,' Willie Wagstaff said prosaically to Milly.

            Moira moved her legs closer to the fire, feeling she might never be truly warm again.

            'Your brother? He's your brother?'

            'Half-brother,' said Willie. 'But it counted for nowt. Once he'd gone he were never spoke of again. And after that, Ma never looked back.'

            'And there was a new respect for Ma,' Milly Gill said. That she was able to do it.'

            'Do what? What did she do?'

            'Personal banishing rite,' Milly said. 'She walked around the village boundary three times within a day and a night. She walked barefoot, placing stones. Calling on … elements not usually invoked. But he was a strong presence, even then.'

            'Be July of that year when he come back,' Willie recalled. 'End of his second year at Cambridge. Arrived in a fancy sports car.'

            'Wherever he went,' Milly said, 'he could make money or get people to give him things.'

            'There's an owd tree,' Willie said, 'just this side of t'Moss, 'fore you get to t'pub. Jack piled his car into that. Broke both arms. Elsie Ball, as were landlady of The Man in them days, she dint recognize Jack at first. Went out to help him, but he wouldn't come out of his car, couldn't come out. Just sat there until the ambulance come. Ma were standing at top of street, she knew who it were. Too far apart to see each other's faces, but I remember Elsie saying clouds were hanging down, hanging low, like a thunderstorm were about to burst.'