Out Backward Read online

  Your father ne’er signed petition, eh, Marsdyke? Jack had bought his items and fixed his flappy old face on me.

  He doesn’t drink in town, I said.

  Well, ’e should’ve signed, all t’ same.

  He picked up his items–a bag of screws and a saucepan–and buggered out the door, griping quietly into his beard. Daft old sod. He was half asleep most times he was in the Betty. What difference was it to him if they changed the decorations? Likely he was worried the brewery might bring in some other old calf-head with the new carpets and the wine glasses, who’d take over his buffit in the corner, mumble into his pint in Jack’s place.

  Doing some fencing, are you? Dennis Bennett eyed me down his nose. No, I’m making a bleeding cage, for to keep my victims in, what the hell did he think it was for?

  I slung the fencing in the back the tractor and, as I didn’t much fancy getting home yet, I took a walk through town. There were plenty of folk about. I didn’t recognise many of them, though, as I went down the street, which was fine by me, until it hit me the family might be there and I stopped, looking around, only steadying up when I was sure they weren’t near. There were other new families, mind. They all trotted round similar, gawping at the pubs and the hills as if they’d never seen the like. Because they hadn’t, probably. Their places were different than this, places with jobs and wealth and land so flat you couldn’t hide a gatepost sideways.

  Wait on, lad! Wait on!

  It was Norman, blustering up behind me, a waxy new Barbour on.

  I’m fain glad to see you, I am. I want to ask on yer father. How’s he keeping?

  He’s middlin’.

  Grand. Grand. He put a hand on my shoulder. Turnbull and yer father were tight as nuts, weren’t they?

  They drank together, I said, inching back from the hand. He reeked of Saturday spray, tangling with his more natural reek of cattle-muck.

  Get on! They were tighter than ale-partners, them pair. A pair of old rogues together, they were. His cheek bulged a slow wink over his eye. He wasn’t a bad type, old Norman. Send my greetings to him, will you, lad? And yer mother too.

  I nodded, and watched him cross the street to get in a new motor. A proper fancy one. Why the bugger Norman was sat in it, I didn’t know. He was spending some fair brass, somehow, new coat, new car, Father wouldn’t be happy.

  I was hungry, so I went up the butcher’s, my mouth juicing for a steak bake, but I’d forgot it’d been closed down a month since, and when I got there it wasn’t the butcher’s any more, it was The Green Pepper Deli. I took a look in the window. Last time I’d been here, there were rabbits strung up and bloody hunks of beef dripping on to the counter, but now it was all shiny jars on shelves and a tray of olives pricked with little sticks. Go on–try one. No, thanks, I’d rather get my jaw round a hot steak bake, do you have any of them in your jars? Do you bollocks.

  I walked on. That capped it, the butcher’s going. There were new shops going up all over, feckless articles no person could use. There was one now just for gift cards, and another that sold bunches of flowers–tall, daft, dangling affairs brought in from York and foreign places, no matter summer was seeping into back-end and the Moors were busting with meadowsweet and red campion.

  I could see there was a crowd in the Fat Betty up ahead, because there were drinkers on the pavement and cars parked up both sides the road. Two-faced tykes. Normaltimes, the Betty was empty for weeks at a stretch, save for Jack chuntering in his corner, but now it was threatened the whole town had crawled out to show their support. They were wasting their time. The Betty was on its way, any with half a brain could tell that. There was a different breed to cater for now–this gawping lot from the cities with their fancy jars. The rambling class. Young folk hadn’t brass enough to buy houses here any more, so they were sloping off, and all that left was the old-timers. Them that weren’t for selling up sandbagged themselves in their homesteads for the remains of their time, and died with their chops in a sulk. This house hasn’t left our family for near four generations, you know. As if the city folk gave a stuff for any of that. They were rubbing their hands waiting for the old-timers to clog it. Probably had themselves a phone hotline set up–how’s old Elsie Metcalf ’s Parkinson’s at the moment, not so good, you say, she’s on her way before the year end? Marvellous news.

  I stepped on, head down, through the pavement drinkers. I wasn’t fussed about the Fat Betty. I didn’t drink there. I was on my way to the Tup, for I could sup in peace there, it being a manky shit-pit no person went in.

  The Betty and the Maypole weren’t partial for serving me, anyhow. You’re too young, Marsdyke, no matter I was turned nineteen, they just didn’t want me on their property. They’d serve drunks and schoolkids, and they’d serve city folk who’d come to buy up the town and put everything in jars, but they’d not serve me. That was town for you.

  The Tup was empty save for a barman reading a newspaper on the counter. He was glaring at a mighty pair of breasts. I ordered myself a bag of crisps with my pint, because I was hungry still, and as he poured the drink he kept slipping a look through the taps for his paper, like he was worried the breasts might bounce off down the bar counter. I took my pint and left him at it. There was a table on the pavement and I made for that–it was fresher than the musty, dank parlour that smelt of a hundred damp dogs. I was near the door when I saw a body on the other side the parlour. Seymour Swinbank. I hadn’t spotted him when I came in, but Seymour wasn’t a feller to make a show of himself. He came in because folk wouldn’t ruffle him up here, and he’d not much of a welcome many place else. We had something of a likeness there, me and Seymour, only he was grandfathering age, and I hadn’t crambazzled myself half to death with drink as yet. I went outdoors.

  I sat down and took a slow gulp of my pint, looking out as the sun disappeared behind the hillside. I could just make out the farm from there, a tidgy speck right under the brown-edged horizon, and next to it, their house. Looking from this distance, it seemed like it was right up close to ours. They were probably in, cooking tea, inspecting for bugs, and her upstairs in her bedroom, flicking through the magazines. Inside the parlour I could mark Seymour moving toward the bar for another drink. He’d have one last, until the shops shut up and a few drinkers started coming in, then he’d be gone, slunk off to wherever it was he went. He was a fine article, once, was Seymour, it was difficult to believe that looking on him now. He was a fair show of how a person can mould and rot to naught. I glegged in at him, shuffling back to his seat, a generation of sorrow and drink worn into his face. In the good days he was a fisherman–him and his brother, Sidney. That was near thirty years back, it was said, when the two brothers spent their summers in Whitby, netting cod off the North Sea all day long, and not sailing shoreward till their boat was a giddy mountain of fish. Some said that was what did it for Seymour, the spray of salt and the stench of cod for days strung out, getting up his nose and addling his brain. They made some champion hauls them summers, so it went, and they returned to town for back-end and winter with brass stuffled in every pocket. Who’s for a drink, then, fellers? they’d shout, lording it down the pubs each night.

  It was a female, came between them. Like gulls after the boat, lasses started following on. Ahoy there, ladies, they’d say, don’t we look dapper in our shiny oilskins? Well, you reek of cod, but s’pose you’ll do, said the ladies. And then, course, the brothers fetched their net for the same lass. They scrapped over her all summer. Then one morning there’s a beltenger of a storm on the ocean, but Seymour and Sidney take the boat out, no matter, and come evening Seymour docks up and there isn’t sight or sound of his brother, only a steaming pile of fish. Where is he? they cry. He’s gone! He’s gone–I turned round and he’d fell overboard, says Seymour, all red eyes.

  Poor Seymour, they said, losing his brother like that, though, course, there was always gossip. At least you have this bonny lass to console you, that’s something–and so it was, for she consoled him
right back to town and into his bed. And then it turned out there was insurance brass on Sidney’s life, a tidy portion, all for Seymour. He consoled himself for six months with scarce anyone bothering their tongues on the dead brother, until he rolled up to town one day, not a scratch on him.

  But you’re dead, they told him. No, I’m alive as any of you, more alive than some by the looks on your fizzogs. But where’ve you been this six months? Well, on my way back here, of course. Took the scenic path. Now, where’s that brother of mine? And they all lipped up then, for Seymour was down the street, the lass they’d scrapped over warming his bed. When the town woke up next morning Sidney was steaming. That raggald–he pushed me over the side! How could you do it, Seymour, they said, your own brother? And the lass was at it too, how could you do it, Seymour? No bugger asked why Sidney had took six months to tell what had happened. They were too busy with–you’ll go to gaol, Seymour, you’ll go to hell. He didn’t, though–there wasn’t evidence enough to send him down either of them two. He ended up in the Tup, instead, his money took off him, his lass won over by the brother, and folk steering out his path every place he went.

  That was town for you. They picked the story that best suited their ears, but I never cared much for that account–I went for the other rumour. The brothers framed it up. They planned to bide out six months till the law couldn’t take the death-money off them, then Sidney was to return, all smiles, and the brothers would split the brass. Only article in the deal had been Seymour would leave the lass in Whitby, and keep his paws off her. When Sidney found out what had happened, he made a new deal–that he’d shape his brother up for a murderer and honey-talk the girl away from him.

  Oi, Marsdyke!

  My dreamings flicked off as a car pulled up by the curb. A lad’s face hung out the window.

  On the lash wi’ yer pals, are you?

  He laughed. Another lad stuck his head out the back window.

  Yer mates gone to the bog, yeah?

  He laughed too. There were three of them in the car. Gommerils, the lot. I’d been at the school with them.

  Bet you thought you were right smart, giving out them rotten eggs, did you? Nice house-warming that was.

  Fucking town. How many jaws had the story passed through that the mushrooms had turned to eggs?

  Yeah, right nice. Lay ’em yerself, did you?

  They liked that one. They jerked with laughter, so as the car shook. Slap–the one in the back swung his body out the window and smacked the roof.

  Fuck off back t’ Moors, you inbred.

  My skin tightened. I watched them, silent, while they laughed at me. I clammed my fingers round the arse of my glass.

  Rapist.

  My blood bolted and I stood up stumbling off the bench, he had a mighty grin on him, it was the funniest thing he ever said. But whatever I was going to do to him I never got the chance, for they sped off then. Ta, ta, Lankenstein, spinning in the air. I just stood there, blood racing jenny-wheels around my bones as the noise of the car faded away. I was still stood, watching a slant of light shrink on the road as the sun dipped behind the Moors, when I heard her voice behind me.

  You’re Sam, aren’t you?

  I turned round, she was on the pavement two yards off, looking at me stood like a proper plank.

  I am, I said, thinking that she must’ve seen the lads in the car.

  I thought it was, she said. I’ve seen you about. I live in the farmhouse close to yours.

  Oh, hello.

  She shuffled some, not saying anything, and course I didn’t speak, I was still trying to understand if she was real or not. I thought she’d take off, but she didn’t, she stayed put and said, sorry about the mushrooms. I just stood there, still red from before with the gommerils. She must’ve thought it was from talking to her. Gawky fool, she was thinking.

  She said, Mum can be a real sour-faced cow sometimes. I know you didn’t do it on purpose–unless you’ve got X-ray eyes, or something. And she smiled, so I smiled back, my lumpy old smile. She stared down at her feet. I only marked then, she’d been at school, for she was wearing the uniform from the private down the valley.

  I have to go, she said. My dad’s picking me up. See you later.

  I watched her walk off down the street, as the sun closed shop and the valley fell to shadow. Crease, crease, went her buttocks under the skirt.

  Fuck you, town. Fuck you and your rotten eggs.

  6

  I glugged up my tea and followed Father out the kitchen. He went in the storehouse, fetching his toolbox and the battering hammer, and made for the fields. He didn’t wait on me, so I tailed after, picking up the roll of fencing on my way. The fields were sogged, for it had rained in the night, and by the time I reached the bottom fence my boots were black-bright with mud.

  It’s fair buggered, he said when I came aside him.

  The middle portion the fence was sagging to the ground, and the wire was all mangled and torn with a great hole gaping wide enough a Barnsley midget might’ve stepped through and not brushed a hair on his head. Father took hold the wire and wrenched it up. A shimmer of raindrops sprung out, arching a rainbow an instant, till they fell to the sod and he began pulling the wire off the posts with his hands. I joined him at it, starting other end the fence. The wire came off easy, for it was rotted with rust and snapped apart most the time, so we worked quickly and it wasn’t long before Father had done his half. He took up the battering hammer and went at loosening the posts that were skewed all angles, clouting their sides until they were slack enough he could uproot them and dump them on the ground. I upped my pace, pulling off the last the old wire.

  A group of sheep had crept down the field, noseying on at us like a bunch of schoolgirls, tell him, go on, tell him, until one of them pushed forward and stood looking at me. Excuse me, but what is all this racket about? We were eating in peace up there until you came. I ignored her and loosened the fenceposts aside Father. As I was doing it, a smile wriggled out the back my mind and on to my lips. I lowered my face so as Father wouldn’t see it. Unless you’ve got X-ray eyes, or something. I had the voice fixed now, it wasn’t muddled with any girl else. I could play it over, often as I liked.

  Come here and hold this post, he said. I haunched down and gripped it steady while Father, taking a wide swing with the hammer, clobbered on top the post so it sank into the ground with a sludge. My hands jarped off from the vibration.

  That too hard? he said.

  Fine, I told him, never mind a wagonload of pain was juddering up my arm.

  We carried on like that–me bent down holding the posts as he battered them in–and no matter he was right up close, near enough his smell clung on me, there was nothing I could do to stop that smile coming out again. I tried to think of something else, because if he saw me smiling like that he’d likely hammer me in the ground instead. I thought about the chicken. I pictured it in the mud, rotting, a gleam of bone showing through the damp leg feathers and maggots crawling out its beak. That pulled the smile off.

  He had a sweat on, Father. His forehead was gleaming, but he’d not take his jacket off, or his cap. The cap never came off, not until the day was out and he came in the kitchen, set it on the back the door, and parked himself in front the fire with a circle on top his head like a patch of flattened grass.

  He didn’t let up until the last post was beaten in. I fetched the roll of fencing and unwound it a few curls, then held it against the first post while he hammered in the hook-nails. He seemed pleased, but it was hard to tell with him. You needed them X-ray eyes to know what was going on in his head, half the time, unless he was stewing over the subsidy cheques drying out, or–what’d I told you, Nimrod, what’d I told you? We had something in common there, me and her. A right pair they made, Father and Chickenhead. Mum can be a real sour-faced cow sometimes, she’d said, and I wasn’t going to argue her on that. I looked over at their house, poking through the trees.

  I saw Norman in town yesterday, I sa
id.

  Father went on with his hammering.

  Saw him on the high street after I’d got the fencing.

  We finished the post. I’d pushed him far enough with my talk, so I lipped up as we moved to the next, but when he started hammering again he spoke, his eyes fixed on the nail. D’you speak?

  We did. He sends his best.

  Does he? He said it quiet, out the side his mouth, like he was gobbing out a piece of gristle.

  That was it for the time, and I thought on telling him about the butcher’s, or the crowd outdoors the Betty, seeing as he was in a fair mood, but I thought better of it and we went silent again.

  D’you see his motor? he said after a while.

  I did. Must’ve cost him, eh?

  Father banged at a nail. He’d never been as friendly with Norman as he had with Turnbull, but that was owing to distance, much as anything else, Norman’s being three mile off round the hillside, Deltons’ wedged between. They spoke to each other, though. They’d pass on the road to town, and shout conversations from their tractor seats. Blashy fuckin’ weather, eh! Hast-ta the footrot yet? They passed the time like that, and it wasn’t all gritted teeth. It’d been a while, mind, since I’d seen Norman in his tractor, and them high-up conversations aren’t so easy if one of you’s in a car.

  We stood and looked at the fence. It was a champion job. The sheep trundled off up the field, happy we’d finished our banging and they could chew in peace again. I collected up the tools and we trod for home.

  He had me on all manner of jobs after that–go see i’ they want more feed mixin’…go fetch that old rannock ’as got herself split off…them stalls need muckin’ out. Me and Sal were so busy going round seeing to the sheep we hadn’t time for the Moors, or the town, the next few days. I tried to learn her about rounding the flock, but she wasn’t much use, she was too young yet, she got panicked and buried herself in the grass yapping at them with her hind in the air.