'You go out there,' Esther said, 'and I'm ringing the police, and I'll ring the bloody vicarage too and tell um where you are, I don't care what time of night it is.'
'Oh, shit!' Sam advanced on the bed, spreading his arms wide, cold by now in just his underpants. 'Bloody hell, woman. What do you suggest I do, then?'
'Come back to bed,' Esther said, trying her best to smile through the nerves that were making her face twitch. 'Please, Sam. Don't look. Just thank God they're up there and we're down here. Please. We'll talk about it tomorrow.'
'Well, thanks very much for your contribution.' Sam sighed. '"We'll talk about it tomorrow." Fucking Nora.'
He took one last glance.
The circle of light did not move.
'I've had it wi' talk,' Sam said.
First you must recognize me. For what I am.
'Recognize you?' He laughed. 'For what you are?'
He stood above her, looking down on her. The elongated shadow of his penis divided her lolling breasts like a sword.
'I know what you are,' he said. 'I know precisely what you are.'
He saw a blue calm in her eyes that was as deep as the lake, and for a moment it threatened to dilute his resolve.
Then he heard himself say, 'How dare you?'
She lay below him, placid, compliant.
'You're just a whore. How dare you seek my recognition? You're just a ... a cunt.'
In an act of explicit contempt he lowered himself upon her, and her hands moved to her crotch, thumbs extended, to open herself for him.
He's ... quite small, isn't he? I somehow expected him to be bigger. More impressive.'
'Quite manageable, really. Oh my, earth to earth, peat to peat ... it would have been rather less easy to get at him in a week or two. Watch it now, be careful of his eyes. Mustn't be blasé.'
'I'm not. It's just I'm actually not as worried about, you know, touching this one. It doesn't seem like a real body, somehow. More like a fossil.'
'Lay him gently. You've done well so far. I'm proud of you. But lay him gently, he's ours now. And remember ... never forget ...'
'I know ... I'll feel so much better afterwards.'
'Shut up. Join hands. In a circle. Around the body.'
It was not a rape; she was a whore, and a heathen whore. When he plunged into her, he found her as moist as black peat and packed just as tightly around him.
Light into darkness.
Not to be enjoyed. It was necessary.
'Whore,' he gasped with every breath. 'Whore ... whore ... whore ...'
Lifting his head to seek out her eyes, looking for a reaction, searching for some pain in them.
'Whore.' Saw her mouth stretched into a static rictus of agony.
'Wh ...' Tighter still around him.
And dry.
'... ore ...'
Dry as stone.
No.
Too late; he thrust again. Into stone.
The pain was blinding. Immeasurable. The pain was a white-hot wire driven through the tip of his penis and up through his pelvis into his spine.
His back arched, his breath set solid in his throat. And he found her eyes.
Little grey pebbles. And her mouth, stretched and twisted not in agony but ancient derision, a forever grin.
'...in the midst of death we are alive . .
'... WEAREALIVE!'
('Go on ... two handfuls ... stop ... not on his face ...shine the light... there ...')
'Behold, I shew you a mystery. We shall not sleep, but we shall be changed. In a moment. In the twinkling of an eye. At the last trump -for the trumpet shall sound. And the dead shall be raised.'
'... AND THE DEAD SHALL BE RAISED!'
('OK, now fill in the grave ... quickly, quickly, quickly ...')
'Dust to dust, to ashes, to earth.
'DUST TO ASHES TO EARTH!'
('Now stamp it down, all of you. Together ...')
'And the dead shall be raised corrupted ... and we shall be changed.'
'... WE SHALL BE CHANGED.'
('Douse the lights. Douse them!')
CHAPTER IV
Another hard, white day, and she didn't like the look of it. It had no expression; there was a threat here most folk wouldn't see.
Not good weather, not bad weather. Nowt wrong with bad weather; you couldn't very well live in Bridelow if you couldn't put up wi' spot or two of rain every other day or a bit of wind to make your fire smoke and your eyes water. Or blizzards. Or thunder and lightning.
But this was no weather. Just cold air at night and a threat.
Everything black or white. Black night with white stars. White day with black trees, black moor, black moss.
Cold and still. Round about this time of year there should be some colour and movement in the sky, even if it was only clouds in dirty shades of yellow chasing each other round the chimney pots.
Shades. There should be shades.
Ma Wagstaff stood in her back kitchen, hands on woollen-skirted hips.
She was vexed with them cats too. She'd washed their bowl, first thing, and doled out a helping of the very latest variety of gourmet cat food Willie'd brought her from that posh supermarket in Buxton - shrimp and mussel in oyster sauce. And the fickle little devils had sat there and stared at it, then stared at her. 'Well, that's it,' Ma growled. 'If you want owt else you can gerout and hunt for it.'
But the cats didn't want to go out. They mooched around, all moody, ignoring each other, looking up at Ma as if was her fault.
Bad air.
As Ma unbent, the cat food can in one hand, a fork in the other, her back suddenly creaked and then she couldn't stand up for the pain that started sawing down her spine like a bread knife.
Then the front door went, half a knock, somebody who couldn't reach the knocker. As Ma hobbled through the living room, the white light seemed to be laughing heartlessly at her, filling the front window and slashing at the jars and bottles.
The door was jammed and opened with a shudder that continued all the way up Ma's spine to the base of her skull.