before, like a sack of stolen bullion.
She said in a rush, 'Mammy, somebody was after the comb. I had to fight for it.'
'Yes. That happens. The comb represents a commitment. Sometimes you have to decide whether or not you want to renew it.'
'So it was this struggle which caused… See, I'm confused. I feel exhausted, but I feel I made it through to a new level, a new plateau. But that usually means something heavy's on the way. Well, doesn't it?'
The Duchess blinked. 'How is your father?' she said brightly. 'Docs he speak of me often?' She said goodbye to Donald at the gate and patted the Dobermans. Her old BMW was parked about fifty yards away near a derelict petrol station. Parked behind it was a car which had not been there before, a grey Metro with a hire-firm sticker on the rear window.
Leaning against the Metro was a man wearing a dinner jacket over a black t-shirt. On the t-shirt it said in red, I ¦ Govan. The remains of a thistle hung out of one lapel of the jacket.
His face fumbled a grin.
'Uh, hi,' he said.
Moira was furious.
'You followed me! You fucking followed me!'
'Listen… Moira… See, this has been… Like, this was the most bizarre, dramatic, momentous night of my life, you know?'
'So? You've had a sheltered life. Is that supposed…?'
'I can't walk away from this. Am I supposed to like, push it aside, maybe introduce it as an anecdote over dinner with my associates?'
Moira stood with her key in the door of the BMW. She wanted to say, OK, while you're here maybe you can tell me something about a tall, pale man with white hair.
Instead, she said, 'Macbeth, you shouldn't believe everything a woman tells you when she's in shock.'
'I… Goddammit, I saw. And I tried to sleep on it and I couldn't, so this morning…' Mungo Macbeth looked sheepish and spread his hands…
She gave him a cursory glance intended to wither, fade him out.
'I figured maybe you could use some help,' he said.
OK,' she said. 'You see those gates? Behind those gates is a guy with two huge and ferocious dogs. The dogs'll do anything the guy says… And the guy – he'll do anything I say. You got the message?'
'Couldn't we go someplace? Get a bite to eat?'
'No, we could not.' Moira opened the driver's door of the BMW and got in, wound down the window. 'You think I need a strong male shoulder to lean on, that it? Or maybe a bedpost?'
Macbeth said helplessly, 'I just think… I just think you're an amazing person.'
'Macbeth…' She sighed. 'Just go away, huh?'
He nodded, expressionless, turned back to his hire car. He looked like he might cry.
This was ridiculous.
'Hey, Macbeth.. Moira leaned back out of the window, nodded at his T-shirt. 'You ever actually been to Govan?'
'Aw, hell…' Macbeth shrugged. 'I cruised most of those Western Isles. Just don't recall which is which.'
Moira found a grin, or the grin found her. Hurriedly, she put the car into gear, drove away, and when she looked back there was only a bus, a long way behind.
From Dawber's Book of Bridelow.
THE BREWERY
Fine beers have been brewed in the Bridelow area since time immemorial, the most famous being the almost-black Bridelow Bitter.
This, or something similar, was first produced commercially, on an relatively small scale, by Elsie Berry and her sons in the late seventeenth century, using a species of aromatic bog-myrtle as a preservative. The Berry family began by providing ale for the Bridelow pub. The Man I'th Moss, but demand grew swiftly in communities up to fifteen miles away.
The Bridelow Brewery as we know it today was founded in the early nineteenth century by Thomas Horridge, a businessman from Chesterfield who bought out the Berry Family and whose enterprise was to provide employment for many generations of Bridelow folk. He at once began work on the construction of the first proper road across the Moss to facilitate the movement of his brewery wagons.
Descendants of Thomas Horridge continued to develop the industry, and the family became Bridelow's greatest benefactors, building the village hall, enabling major repairs to be carried out to the ancient church and continuing to facilitate new housing as recently as the 1950s.
However…
CHAPTER VIII
In the bar at The Man I'th Moss, lunchtime, Young Frank Manifold said, in disgust, 'Bloody gnat's piss!'
And angrily pushed his glass away.
'I'll have draught Bass next time,' Young Frank said. Never thought I'd be saying that in this pub. Never.'
'Eh, tha's just bitter, lad.' said Frank Manifold Snr, who preferred Scotch anyway. 'Tha's a right to feel bitter, mind, I'm not saying tha's not… Know what they've done, now, Ernie? Only paid off our drivers and replaced um wi' their own blokes.'
'Ken and Peter?'
'Paid off! Cut down lorries from five to two – bigger uns, like. Needed experienced HGV drivers, they reckoned. Makes you spit.'
Ernie, who also was on whisky, had a sip out of Young Frank's beer glass. 'Lad's right, I'm afraid,' he said. 'It's gone off.'
'Well, thank you!' Young Frank said devoutly. 'Thank you very much, Mr Dawber.'
'Only just don't go shouting it around the place,' Ernie muttered. 'Lottie's got to sell the stuff and she's enough problems.'
'No, she doesn't,' said Young Frank, back-row smart-arse in Ernie's top class fourteen years ago. 'Doesn't have to sell it at all no more. Free house, int it?'
Lottie wasn't here this lunchtime. Stan Burrows, who'd also been made redundant from the brewery, was minding the bar. Stan said, 'I heard as how Gannons was kicking up, claiming they'd been sabotaged, not given proper recipe, like. Threatening legal action, what I heard.'
'Balls,' said Young Frank, glaring at his discarded glass. 'They don't give a shit.'
Ernie Dawber, on his usual stool at the end of the bar, by the telephone, pondered this. The way he saw it, there was no way the Horridge family could have got away with not providing Gannons with the correct recipe. And why should they want to, with Shaw Horridge on the Board?
Yet it was a fact. Since the brewery had been taken over, the stuff had been slowly shedding its distinctive flavour.
Surprising, because it was well known that Gannons, whose bestselling product was a fizzy lager with a German name produced down Matlock way, had been anxious for some time to acquire their own genuine, old- established Real Ale – and would therefore be expected to treat Bridelow beer with more than a modicum of respect.
Ernie decided he'd better go up to the Hall one night and have a bit of a chat with Shaw Horridge or his mother. Bridelow Black Bitter had a reputation. Even if the brewery was in new hands, even if there'd been this swingeing 'rationalization', which meant firing half the lads, it was still Bridelow beer.
Gnat's piss! By 'eck, he'd never thought to hear that. When his daughter rang from Oxford, in the early afternoon, the Rector barely made it to the phone in time.
'Were you in the garden?' Catherine asked him suspiciously, and Hans didn't deny it. It had taken him almost
