boiler-suit, her working clothes. The two cats, one black, one white, sat side-by-side on the hearth, still as china. Bob and Jim. Willie reckoned they must be the fourth or fifth generation of Ma's cats called Bob and Jim, and all females.
Willie liked his mother's cottage. Nothing changed. Bottles of stuff everywhere. On the table an evil-looking root was rotting inside a glass jar, producing a fluid as thick as Castrol.
Comfrey – known as knitbone. And if it didn't knit your bones at least it'd stop your back gate from squeaking.
'Rector come round,' Ma told him. 'Said was I sure I'd given him right stuff for his arthritis.'
'Bloody hell,' said Willie. 'Chancing his arm there.'
'No, he were right,' said Ma surprisingly. 'It's not working. Never happened before, that hasn't. Never not worked, that arthritis mixture. Leastways, it's always done summat.'
She reached down to the hearth, picked up an old brown medicine bottle with a cork in it; Ma didn't believe in screw tops. 'Full-strength too. Last summer's.'
Willy smiled slyly. 'Losing thi touch, Ma?'
'Now, don't you say that!' His mother pointing a forefinger stiff as a clothes-peg. Think what you want, but don't you go saying it. It's not lucky.'
'Aye. I'm sorry.'
'Still…' She squinted into the bottle then put it back on the hearth behind Bob or Jim. 'You're not altogether wrong, for once.'
'Nay.' Willie shook his head. 'Shouldn't've said it. Just come out, like.'
'I'm not what I was.'
'Well, what d'you expect? You're eighty… three? Six?'
'That's not what I'm saying, son.'
Ma's brown eyes were calm. She still didn't need glasses, and her eyes did wonderful things. In Manchester, of a Saturday, all dolled up, she could still summon a waitress in the cafe with them eyes, even when the waitress had her back turned. And Willie had once seen this right vicious-looking street-gang part clean down the middle to let her through; Ma had sent the eyes in first.
But now the eyes were oddly calm. Accepting. Worrying, that. Never been what you might call an accepter, hadn't Ma.
'None of us is what we was this time last year,' Ma said.
'Ever since yon bogman were took…'
'Oh, no, Willie stood up. 'Not again. You start on about that bogman and I'm off.'
'Don't be so daft. You know I'm right, our Willie. Look at yer fingers, drummin' away, plonk, plonk. Always was a giveaway, yer fingers.'
'Nay,' Willie said uncomfortably, wishing he hadn't come.
'I'm telling you, we're not protected same as we was.' Ma Wagstaff stopped rocking. 'Sit down. Get your bum back on that couch a minute.'
Willie sat. He was suddenly aware of how dim it was in the parlour, despite all the sunlight, and how small it was. And how little and wizened Ma appeared. It was like looking at an old sepia photo from Victorian times. Hard to imagine this was the fiery-eyed old woman who'd blowtorched a path through a bunch of Moss Side yobboes.
'We've bin protected in this village,' Ma said. 'You know that.'
'I suppose so.'
'We're very old-established, y'see. Very old-established indeed.'
Well, this was true. And the family itself was old-established in Bridelow, at least on Ma's side. Dad had come from Oldham to work at the brewery, but Ma and her ma and her ma's ma… well, that was how it seemed to go back, through the women.
'But we've let it go,' Ma said.
Willy remembered how upset she'd been when her grand-daughter, his sister's lass, had gone to college in London. Manchester or Sheffield would've been acceptable, but London
He said, 'Let it go?'
Ma Wagstaff leaned back in the rocking-chair, closing her eyes. 'Aye,' she said sadly. 'You say as you don't want to hear this, Willie, but you're goin' t'ave to, sooner or later. You're like all the rest of um. If it's up on t'moor, or out on t'Moss, it's nowt to do wi' us. Can't do us no harm. Well, it can now, see, I'm telling thee.'
All eight of Willie's fingers started working on his knees.
Ma said, 'They're looking for openings. Looking for cracks in t'wall. Been gathering out there for years, hundreds of years.'
'What you on about, Ma?'.
'Different uns, like,' Ma said. 'Not same uns, obviously.
'Yobboes,' Willie said dismissively, realising what she meant. 'Bloody hooligans. Always been yobboes and hooligans out there maulin' wi' them owd circles. Means nowt. Except to farmers, like. Bit of a bugger for farmers.'
'Eh…' Ma was scornful. 'Farmers loses more sheep to foxes. That's not what I'm saying.'
Her eyes popped open, giving him a shock because there was no peace in them now, no acceptance. All of a sudden they looked just like the little white marbles Willie had collected as a lad, shot through with the same veins of pure, bright red.
She stabbed a finger at him again. 'I can tell um, y'know. Couldn't always… Aye. Less said about that…'
Willie's own fingers stumbled out of rhythm, the tips gone numb. 'Now, don't upset yourself.'
'But there's one now,' Ma said, one hand clutching an arm of the rocking-chair like a parrot's claw on a perch. 'Comes and goes, like an infection. Looking for an opening…'
'Shurrup, Ma, will you. Whatever it is, Lottie doesn't want…'
'Listen,' Ma said without hesitation. 'You tell that Lottie to come and see me. Tell her to come tomorrow, I'm a bit busy now. Tell her I'll talk to her about it. Just like we talked to Matt. Matt knew what had to happen. Matt were chuffed as a butty.'
'Aye.' Matt and his mate, the bogman. Together at last.
'Only we've got to protect the lad,' Ma said.
'I don't like any of this. Ma. Lottie'll go spare.'
'Well, look.' Ma was on her feet, sprightly as a ten-year-old, moving bottles on the shelf. 'Give her this.'
'What is it?'
Daft question.
'Aye.' Accepting the little brown bottle. 'All right, then, I'll give it her. Tell her it'll calm her down. Make her feel better. But I'll not tell you're going ahead with…' Willie gave his knee a couple of climactic thumps. 'No way.'
He didn't tell Ma what Lottie had said about them finishing Matt's bogman song-cycle. Because, when it came down to it, he didn't like the thought of that himself. And he had a pretty good idea how Ma would react.
I warned him not to meddle with stuff he knows nowt about, she'd say. And I don't expect to have to warn me own son.
So, in a way, Willie was hoping Lottie would have forgotten about the whole thing by the time the funeral was over.
A funeral which, if she'd any sense, she'd be attending with a very thick veil over her eyes.
CHAPTER VII
The man with two Dobermans prowling the inside of the wire mesh perimeter fence was clearly too old to be a security guard. His appallingly stained trousers were held up by a dressing-gown cord with dirty gold tassels; a thinner golden cord was draped around the crown of his tattered trilby.
However, the dogs looked menacing enough, and when the man flung open the metal gate, they sprang.
