No, see, all it is. He wants a link. A special moment, something between us and no one else.
You owe him. You owe him that.
You owe him nothing.
She stopped searching his eyes, didn't want to know what they might have to tell her about Matt Castle, the kindly father figure, that Matt Castle who'd said, Take your chance, grab it while you can, lass. Never mind us. We're owd men.
Dumbly, Moira laid the guitar case on the pavement in the snow and – hands shaking with the cold and the nerves – flipped up the chromium catch.
It was like opening someone's coffin.
Only the guitar lay in state. In a panic, she felt beneath the machine-heads for the velvet pouch which held the ancient metal comb.
I have to. I owe him, Mammy. I'm sorry, but I owe him.
Part One
From Dawber's Book of Bridelow:
This little book bids you, the visitor, a cordial welcome to Bridelow Across the Moss, a site of habitation for over two thousand years and the home of the famous Bridelow Black Beer.
Bridelow folk would never be so immodest as to describe their tiny, lonely village as unique. But unique it is, both in situation and character.
Although little more than half an hour's drive from the cities of Manchester and Sheffield, the village is huddled in isolation between the South Pennine moors and the vast peatbog known as Bridelow Moss. So tucked away, as the local saying goes, 'It's a wonder the sun knows where to come of a morning…'
A spring morning. A hesitant sun edging over the moor out of a mist pale as milk. Only when it clears the church tower does the sun find a few patches of blue to set it off, give it a bit of confidence.
The sun hovers a while, blinking in and out of the sparse shreds of cloud before making its way down the village street, past the cottage where Ma Wagstaff lives, bluetits breakfasting from the peanuts in two mesh bags dangling from the rowan trees in the little front garden.
The cats, Bob and Jim, sitting together on Ma's front step – donkeystoned to a full-moon whiteness – observe the bluetits through narrowed green eyes but resist their instincts because Ma will be about soon.
And while Ma understands their instincts all too well, she does not appreciate blood on her step. Milly Gill, shedding her cardigan at the Post Office door, thought the mist this morning was almost like a summer heat-haze, which wasn't bad for the second week in March.
It made Milly feel excited, somewhere deep inside her majestic bosom. It made her feel so energetic that she wanted to wander off for long walks, to fill up her reservoirs after the winter. And to go and see the Little Man. See what he had in his reservoir.
And of course it made her feel creative, too. Tonight she'd be pulling out that big sketch pad and the coloured pencils and getting to work on this year's design to be done in flowers for the dressing of the Holy Well. It was, she decided, going to reflect everything she could sense about her this morning.
Milly Gill thought, I'm forty-nine and I feel like a little girl.
This was what the promise of spring was supposed to do.
'Thank you. Mother,' Milly said aloud, with a big, innocent grin. 'And you too, sir!'
The Moss, a vast bed, hangs on to its damp duvet as usual until the sun is almost overhead. Behind temporary traffic-lights, about half a mile from the village, a Highways Authority crew is at work, widening the road which crosses the peat, a long-overdue improvement, although not everybody is in favour of improving access to the village.
It's close to midday before the foreman decides it's warm enough to strip to the waist.
This is the man who finds the chocolate corpse. The splendour of the morning dimmed a little for the Rector when, on getting out of bed, he felt a twinge.
It was, as more often than not, in the area of his left knee. 'We really must get you a plastic one,' the doctor had said last time. 'I should think the pain's pretty awful, isn't it?'
'Oh.' The Rector flexing his creased-up Walter Matthau semi-smile. 'Could be worse.' Then the. doctor ruefully shaking his head, making a joke about the Rector being determined to join the league of Holy Martyrs.
'I was thinking of joining the squash club, actually,' the Rector had said, and they'd both laughed and wondered how he was managing to keep this up.
The answer to this was Ma Wagstaff's mixture.
Standing by the window of his study, with sunshine strewn all over the carpet, pleasant around his bare feet, the Rector balanced a brimming teaspoonful of Ma's mixture, and his eyes glazed briefly at the horror of the stuff.
It looked like green frogspawn. He knew it was going to make his throat feel nostalgic for castor oil.
The bottle, as usual, was brown and semi-opaque so he wouldn't have to see the sinister strands and tendrils waving about in there like weed on the bottom of an aquarium.
But still, it worked.
Not a 'miracle' cure, of course. Ma Wagstaff, who promised nothing, would have been shocked at any such suggestion.
'Might just ease it a bit,' she'd say gruffly, leaving the bottle on his hall table, by the phone.
Through the study window the Rector saw sun-dappled gravestones and the great Norman tower of St Bride's.
He rubbed his feet into the sunshiny carpet, raised his eyes to heaven, the spoon to his lips, and swallowed. Out on the Moss, the foreman stands in the middle of the trench, in front of the JCB, waving his arms until the driver halts the big digger and sticks his head inquiringly round the side of the cab.
'Owd on a bit, Jason. I've found summat.'
The trench, at this point, is about five feet deep.
'If it's money,' says the JCB driver, 'just pass it up 'ere and I'll hide it under t'seat.' 'Well,' said Mr Dawber. 'as it's such a lovely day, we'd best be thinking about the spring. Now – think back to last year – what does that mean?'
Some of them had the good manners to put their hands up, but two little lads at the back just shouted it out.
'THE SPRING CROSS!'
Mr Dawber didn't make an issue of it. 'Aye,' he said. 'The Spring Cross.' And the two troublemakers at the back cheered at that because it would get them out of the classroom, into the wood and on to the moors.
'So,' said Mr Dawber. 'Who can tell me what we'll be looking for to put in the Spring Cross?'
The hands went up as fast and rigid as old-fashioned railway signals. Ernie Dawber looked around, singled out a little girl.
'Yes… Meryl.'
'Catkins!'
'Aye, that's right, catkins. What else? Sebastian.'
'Pussy willows!'
'Ye-es. What else? Benjamin.'
'Acorns?'
They all had a good cackle at this. Benjamin was the smallest child in the class and had the air of one who
