Shepherd's Cross (19 page)

7.00pm:
Tina Radcliffe stood behind the bar of The Fallen Angel, hands on her hips and
with a face as grim as the weather outside. It had been an exhausting afternoon
for herself and her staff, darting to and fro as they struggled to keep up with
the constant flow of stranded villagers traipsing in and out of the pub. The
place was far messier than usual; the recently-purchased Axminster carpet in
both the formal and the back bars was sodden with a slushy mixture of melted
snow and mud. If there was one thing Tina couldn’t abide, it was untidiness.
‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’: a phrase her mother had instilled in her as
a child; to the point where she’d be scolded for so much as leaving a napkin
unfolded. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she’d spent the greater part of her teenage
years rebelling against her mother’s obsessive behaviour. Fast forward thirty
years and it was a different story – ‘like mother, like daughter,’ as the
saying goes.

‘I know this place is meant to be a Public
House, Emily,’ she said, giving a threatening stare to a man who had just entered
and was about to shake the snow from his coat onto the already soaked floor. ‘But
you wouldn’t behave like that if it was your own home, would you? I mean,
honestly: I had to tell Jack Cranfield off this afternoon for putting his feet
up on a chair; boots and all, for God’s sake. I had a mind to grab him by the
scruff of the neck and throw him out on his ear – probably would have done if
he hadn’t been with Susan. God only knows what she must have thought; then
again, what on earth is she doing with him anyway? He must be twice her age at
least!’

Emily smiled and rolled her eyes. She
often liked to drop by for a quick drink and a gossip on a Saturday evening; if
nothing else, she enjoyed the rare opportunity to be served rather than to
serve. Sitting at the bar made a refreshing change to sitting behind her Post
Office counter. ‘If I may say so, Tina, you appear to be a little agitated this
evening. After all, it
is
only water you know? I’m sure it will be dry
by morning if you leave the heating on tonight.’

‘Hmm…maybe,’ Tina said. ‘But I just wish
that people would be more considerate towards other people’s property. I don’t
think that’s asking too much, do you?’

‘No, I suppose not,’ replied Emily, in
an effort to placate her. ‘Are you sure that’s all that’s bothering you? You do
seem slightly off-colour this evening.’

Tina took a deep breath and let out a
long, tired sigh. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s been a strange couple of
days. This weather – everything seems so dark and depressing. We probably could
just do with a little sunshine in our lives for a change.’

‘I heard about what happened here last
night with the Woodsman boy. I must say, it sounds horrific what they did to
him.’

Tina nodded. ‘I’ve been a landlady for
many years, but I’ve never come across anything like it. Those Carter boys tore
into him like a rabid pack of wolves. If Sergeant Jennings hadn’t pulled them away
when he did, I honestly think they would have killed him. You could see it in
their eyes – they were like wild animals. I’ve been thinking about it all day.
I just can’t get my head around how anybody could do such a thing.’

Emily refrained from suggesting that
perhaps some of the responsibility lay at Tina’s door for allowing them to
guzzle so much alcohol in the first place. While she hadn't done anything
illegal in serving them, Emily couldn’t help but think that plying two
rebellious kids with pint after pint of strong lager would likely end up in
trouble somewhere down the line.

‘And the attitude of some of the
customers here today – I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, is it too much
to ask for them to say please and thank you? It’s as if being stranded in The
Cross has robbed folk of their manners. Heaven help us if this weather
continues…they’ll probably start looting each other’s houses next.’ She looked
across at the unoccupied wooden stool by the cigarette machine at the end of
the bar, wondering where in the world Frank Gowland could be. It wasn’t like
him to be late on a Saturday, or any other day for that matter. ‘You don’t
happen to have seen Frank out and about today, have you?’

‘Errm…no,’ said Emily. ‘At least I don’t
think so. Now you mention it, it’s not like him to not be here on a Saturday
evening.’

‘That’s what I was thinking, Funnily
enough, I kind of miss him…he’s part of the furniture here. And he might have
his faults, but you’d never hear Frank Gowland forgetting to say please or
thank you. I hope he’s alright.’

‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ Emily said. ‘Probably
come down with the flu or something. That caravan of his can’t be that warm –
he’s proba…’

‘Pint of Steeltown and a G&T, when
you’ve finished chatting,’ came a direct-sounding voice from further down the
bar; without any sign of a ‘please’ or a ‘thank you.’

Emily turned to discover the voice
belonged to Edward Bainbridge. He was standing with his wife Charlotte, glaring
at Tina, impatiently tapping his fingers across the polished wooden surface of
the bar. ‘Hello, Charlotte,’ Emily said, smiling at her. ‘Awful weather we’re
having, isn’t it?’

Charlotte looked sheepishly at Edward
and then back at Emily. ‘Yes it is rather,’ she replied, quickly turning back
to face the bar to signal the end of the conversation. Emily looked confused at
her untypically sharp response: Charlotte could normally be counted on to be
the life and soul of the party; always one for a joke and a gossip. It
certainly wasn’t like her to decline an invitation to chat. ‘I bet young
Henry’s enjoyed himself in the snow today?’ Emily asked, curious to find out
whether or not she’d misjudged her blunt behaviour.

Edward stared at her, the expression on
his face angry and bitter. ‘I’ll have you know that my wife hasn’t slept a wink
ever since you and that Youth Hostel friend of yours spouted a whole load of
mumbo-jumbo about witches and child murder and God knows what else. Her nerves
have been hanging by a thread…why on earth would you want to fill her head with
such absolute tripe?’

‘Who the hell do you think you are?’
asked Tina, the pent-up anger from the stressful afternoon rising to the
surface as she sprang to her friend’s defence.

‘It’s alright Tina, it’s alright.’ said
Emily. ‘I can handle this, please.’

Tina’s chest rose and fell with
disconcerting speed as she tried to calm herself down. It was bad enough that
this jumped-up little shit had so rudely interrupted her conversation with
Emily with his -
no please, no thank you
- drink order, but the fact
that he’d taken a direct shot at one of the kindest, best-loved residents of
Shepherd’s Cross in front of a roomful of people was simply unacceptable.

Tina needn’t have worried; Emily Mitford
was perfectly capable of standing up for herself. ‘Charlotte, I’m sorry if
Bronwyn or I offended you yesterday – it certainly wasn’t our intention.
Although unless I was mistaken, it did appear to me that you and Olivia were
enjoying our conversation. You did seem to be interested at the time?’

‘Indeed she was, very much so,’ replied
Edward on Charlotte’s behalf. ‘She wouldn’t shut up about it, right from the
moment I walked through the front door to the moment we went to bed. What on
earth possessed you to come out with such rubbish?’

Emily blushed. ‘I was only passing on
some of the old folk tales from years gone by. A brief history lesson, so to
speak. And if we’re being honest, Charlotte did ask me to tell her. Again, I’m
sorry if I…’

‘History, what history?’ Edward
interrupted. ‘History would be telling her something about lead mining or
developments in agricultural practices: events based on fact; not some
blatantly false speculation about witches and evil spirits. What kind of backward
place is this?’

Having thus far only listened with half
an ear to their conversation, the whole of the formal bar suddenly went quiet.
Whether or not they believed in it, the majority of the clientele had grown up
with superstition all around them, passed down from mother to daughter and
father to son. To them, the village’s history,
their
history, was not
something to be publically ridiculed and dismissed out of hand by outsiders,
especially not insipid, obnoxious outsiders like Edward Bainbridge.

Emily realised that she needed to speak
on behalf of them all, before the atmosphere in the pub deteriorated any
further. ‘Oh, I’m afraid you’re wrong about that,’ she said, trying to remain
calm. ‘Speak to any of the local people here, or better still, check out the
village archives at the library in Cornforth. You’ll be able to see for
yourself that executing innocent women and children for supposedly worshipping
the devil was every bit as real as the ruins of the lime kilns and lead mines
you see scattered across the Pennines. In case you hadn’t noticed, Mr
Bainbridge, Shepherd’s Cross is not Newcastle, or any other cosmopolitan city
for that matter. Whether you like it or not, this village, and the hamlets and
hills that surround it, are steeped in superstition and folklore that have made
them what they are today; as well as shaping the people whose families have
lived and died here for generations. Newcomers like you, who choose to settle
here because of perfectly understandable reasons like fresh air and beautiful
scenery, would do well to remember that Shepherd’s Cross is not some kind of
faceless, sanitised red-brick suburb. This land, and more importantly the
people whose livelihoods have depended on it for generations, do not need the
likes of you coming here criticising their ways and telling them what’s right
and what’s wrong. If nothing else, it’s downright rude. I don’t know if you
want to be accepted as part of the community here, Mr Bainbridge, but if you
do, I would recommend you start by showing people around here a little respect.’

For the first time in as long as he
could remember, Edward Bainbridge was lost for words. He’d been publicly
chastised by a woman half his size and twice his age, and he had nothing to
come back at her with. Moreover, as he looked around the room for support, only
to find ice-cold faces staring back at him, he realised that even if he
could
think of a wisecrack to throw back at her, it would probably not be in his best
interests to do so. ‘Forget the drinks,’ he said to Tina. ‘I think we ought to
leave.’

‘For once I think you’re right,’ replied
Tina, the silence and tension in the room palpable.

‘Let’s go,’ he said to Charlotte, his
voice almost a whisper. He was on the verge of saying sorry, a word that didn’t
normally figure in his vocabulary, when the entrance door was pulled inwards,
revealing the falling snow outside, baked in the orange glow from the
streetlights on the village green. Wilf Blackett had opened it and was standing
behind it, holding the handle, the look in his eyes suggesting to Edward that
he would be wise not to linger inside any longer. Edward didn’t need to be
asked twice, and without further ado he walked swiftly towards the door,
Charlotte tottering awkwardly behind him, the heels on her boots more suited to
the smooth, pristine floor of the shopping mall than the deep, uneven snow of
the countryside.

‘I suggest you change your attitude,
lad,’ Blackett said to Edward as he passed by. ‘Time might come when you need a
friend around here…’ Edward pretended not to hear him as they made their way outside,
Blackett almost walloping Charlotte’s behind with the door as he slammed it
shut behind them.

‘Three cheers for Emily!’ Tina shouted. ‘Hip
Hip…’

‘Hooray!’ came the reply from within the
room, once and then twice again, each occasion louder than the preceding one.

‘You’re quite the politician,’ Tina
said. ‘I couldn’t have said it better myself.’

In spite of the boisterous support from
her fellow villagers, Emily didn’t appear to be the slightest bit proud of her
rant at Edward; if anything she seemed embarrassed and disappointed at her
uncharacteristically assertive behaviour. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘What did I go
and do that for?’

‘Because, like the rest of us, you don’t
appreciate strangers coming in here insinuating that we’re nothing more than a
bunch of hillbillies,’ Tina replied.

‘Even if we are!’ shouted Dougie Hickman
from a table in the far corner of the room, crossing his eyes and scrunching up
his face as if to prove his point; prompting his fellow protagonists in the
room to burst out laughing.

‘Mind you,’ said Blackett. ‘That wife of
his is right not to rest easy at night. Something’s in the air alright. You can
feel it on the moors.’

‘What on earth are you blathering on
about, Wilf?’ asked Tina. ‘Didn’t your mother tell you there’s no such thing as
ghosts?’

‘WWOOOOOOHHH!’ cried Dougie, evidently
in the mood to continue in his role as village idiot.

Blackett rounded on him, upset at not
being taken seriously. ‘You go ahead and laugh, Hickman,’ he said. ‘But I don’t
know how cocksure you’d be if you knew what was sticking out the ground up at my
top field.’

‘Oh aye, what’s that then?’ asked
Dougie, his smile fading slightly.

‘A bloody great upside-down crucifix,
that’s what. And what’s more, some bastard has ripped the head of one of my
ewes and stuck it on the top for good measure.’ Once more, the whole room fell
silent. ‘Scariest thing I’ve ever seen,’ Wilf continued, quieter now. ‘Brian
and Cara came up to have a look this morning: they couldn’t believe it either.
They’ve got no idea who’s done it; not even the foggiest clue where to start looking.
Ten foot tall it is!’