Pock Stones Moor

Do you ever wonder what makes a man cross that line? I'd never had time to wonder, dangerous ground, best left undisturbed. And I'd never loitered too long under black clouds. When that first splodge of rain hustled in on unbroken sunshine that was my cue to pick up my towel and move to dry ground. That's why I'm up here, looking out over the Thames from a triple glazed penthouse and they're down there, those fools who sat around waiting for the weather to change. I never looked back either. No point. There's only now. That's something I have in common with Sarah, apart from grey eyes and a passion for Springsteen. Sarah's a very spiritual person, a people person. Me? I never worried what made a man tick unless it affected his work, like that time Ben pleaded with me to give Dave Hopkins a second chance.

'Mike, you have to understand, he's got a lot of problems at the moment.'

'He's not the only man to have problems Ben, we've all got problems, only some of us leave them at home ,where they belong. Either he's on that plane in the morning or he's out. I don't give a shit what his wife says. I got rid of two wives who tried to tell me what to do, maybe he should do the same.'

'Its like mole hills, Mike. First one appears and then another and then - '

'Jesus, Ben, what do I care about bloody mole hills. Tell him he's on that plane or he's fired.'

But then I noticed I was spending more and more time thinking and less and less time moving on. Clouds were drifting in and blocking out the sunshine. Of course a psychologist would say the clouds had always been there, my 'unacknowledged shadow', whereas Sarah would probably put it down to a traumatic experience on a planet in another galaxy. Me? Well I never really bought into any of that 'New Age' crap or Freudian neuroses. My life has always been linear and logical and I liked it like that. When livelihoods depended on your signature there was no room for emotion. I'd seen too many buried under that gravestone. No, I'd had my share of problems and dealt with them until now. Suddenly I was being plagued with my own mole hills only I preferred to call them clouds. If I'm honest I think it began with that phone call from Cissy ten days ago,

'Mike? Its Mum, she's taken a turn for the worst. It won't be much longer.'

I'd intended going over some urgent paper work before flying to Vancouver the next morning, instead I cancelled the flight and headed for Yorkshire.

I sat there all night watching her fade, as silently and as surely as the dawn rising above Pock Stones Moor. When I'd arrived, the previous night, it was already dark but the window remained uncurtained. Ma never shut out the world. The vase of imported lilac I'd had flown in every week for the past year was sat on the oak dresser. The deep mauve blooms flooded the room with their fragrance, masking the cankerous smell of death. Cissy had lit three candles and placed them on the wide window sill. I remember thinking they were probably from the church – white, beeswax and impervious to the chill breeze curving around them. She sat on the other side of the bed to me, fingering her rosary, her dry virgin lips mouthing soundless benedictions. We each held a withered hand. The lamp by the bedside cast a soft yellow arc about Ma's head - Caravaggio shadows, pools of light and lurking prescience.

I'd never sat for so long with nothing to do except wonder. Ma lay still and silent, parchment skin sandwiched between laundered white linen. She seemed so serene with a strength drawn from a faith I couldn't command. Her eyes were closed and her breath so weak it barely stirred the heavy sheets from her chest.

I'd never watched someone die. I wasn't sure what to expect or how I'd feel. Part of me hoped for proof.

Sarah had said that sometimes she'd seen spirit people waiting for the soul to depart, to 'guide them home' as she called it. I think I was hoping to see that, so that I could believe too, but I didn't. I didn't see anything except the shadows in the room deepening as the night dragged on until it felt as if the walls had dissolved and we had become merged with the moors and its soft purple cloak of heather. I fancied if there was an Angel of Death, it was He who had dismantled the granite walls as swiftly and silently as if the grey stone blocks had been cubes of sugar, Demerara cane, like Ma used to bring out with the Crown Derby on Sundays.

I thought about that Angel a lot, imagining his tongue licking through the room like tendrils of vaporous moor mists, rising and swirling through the cracks and crevices in the floorboards, creeping through the window in a relentless quest for flesh. It was his icy breath, I was sure of it, not the forming frost, which made me shiver and rise to pull the casement tight but Cissy's protests made me stop. She was right, Ma wouldn't want it closed.

The chair was hard, the hardest piece of wood a bum had ever parked itself on. But it wouldn't be long, I knew that.

I felt the Angel return; a dark presence wrapping her in his threads of death, weaving a cocoon in which to steal her away. No – not an angel – it was the moors coming to reclaim its own; sucking her blood back into its sinkholes, cribbling her bones into its screes, flushing her flesh through its labyrinthine mines to be re-birthed – where?

A smile hovered on her lips. I felt a quiver in her fingers, as if trying to free themselves from my grip. Anger welled inside me. She wanted to go, to be released. As I witnessed the one constant in my life slip away, I shed a tear. Not for her, but for me. I curled my fingers even tighter about hers.

'Don't go, Ma,' I begged.

The curl on her lips froze. Her fingers fell limp. She faced death and all I could think was, 'who would care enough to come for me?'

I glanced across at Cissy crooning her incantations like an obsessed Creole Mamba. The familiar prickling fear played on my skin. I passed a finger over the white scar. Traced its mark from eyebrow to ear and wondered who would come for Cissy?

If there was a God, would he ever forgive someone like Cissy?

We sat until the yellow flames from the candles had merged with the first fingers of light slithering over Pock Stone Ridge . I glanced at Ma and turned away. It was an echo, nothing more, an imposter in her clothes. I shook my head, shaking the tentative grains of faith from my head. There was nothing, nothing beyond that last breath. No angels, no chariots, no trumpets, no guiding light just the nurse, gliding unsummoned through the door, as if she knew. I felt the warmth of her breath, the sweetness of her perfume – a light floral scent mingling with the smell of disinfectant and urine. She bent over me and gently prised Ma's fingers from my grasp.

I'd almost reached the car when Cissy called me back. She was leaning heavily on her cane, a frail black figure silhouetted against the light from the hall. She was holding out a thin brown envelope towards me.

A light frost clung to the landscape as I trudged back across the gravel. I was cold, tired and eager to be gone. I wondered what she wanted. There it was again - wondering. Wondering and fancying – shifting sands – dangerous ground.

She had a strange gleeful glint in her eyes as I took the envelope. The Cobra – that's what I used to call her. Strikes the moment you blink!

'Mum wanted you to have this, in case you ever asked.'

'Asked? Ask what?'

'About things before, you know, before she took you in - who you really are.'

My hand was shaking as I took the envelope. Before I could turn away, the familiar pain ripped through my chest. I bent forward, clutching the envelope to my heart and gasping for breath. Sweat dripped down my face. All I could see were Cissy's black brogues on the flagstones in front of me. They didn't move an inch. As the pounding grew weaker I managed to straighten up. Cissy just smiled at me, a strange and bitter expression, before she turned and walked away. Malcolm's prognosis echoed through my brain.

'Don't leave it too long, Mike, or you won't be around to enjoy any retirement.'

As the pain subsided I eased myself into the car, throwing the envelope onto the seat beside me. What did Cissy mean, "Who you really are."? I glanced in the rear view mirror. As far as I was concerned the sum total of who I was stared back at me - Mike Johnson, Chairman of Johnson Pharmaceuticals, twice married, twice divorced, five kids - none of whom I ever saw unless they needed money - a flat in the city, no pets and, of course, Sarah. What was Cissy up to? I had a bad feeling in my guts as I turned the key in the ignition and headed for Harrogate.

It was late morning when I let myself into the townhouse in Nile Street. I'd bought it fifteen years earlier and signed it over to Sarah. She hadn't wanted it.

'You barely know me Mike,' she'd protested, but I'd insisted. Ma and Sarah were the only women in my life who never wanted my money. Perhaps that's why I liked giving it to them. Sarah was out, so I went straight up to the bedroom and collapsed, exhausted on the bed.

When I woke up she was sat on the edge of the mattress holding my hand, much as I had held Ma's a few hours earlier. She'd removed my shoes and thrown a spare duvet over me to keep me warm. Against the light, her face looked years younger. A halo of softness circled her cropped brown curls. She was like a well worn cushion, cosy, comfortable and familiar.

'Your mum?' She asked.

I nodded.

'Has she gone?'

I nodded again.

'I'll get you some tea.' She tucked my hand under the cover as if I was a sick child and went off to bring me her cure-all.

Was I awake or was I asleep? I wasn't sure if the visions were dreams or memories but I slept fitfully that night. The sound of falling shrapnel through the trees, the wailing of sirens, a train packed with children and soldiers, a boy sitting in an empty hall alone – waiting – images and sounds chasing each other – shadowy figures in a shadowy brain-play. A few times I awoke in a cold sweat, my head buried in Sarah's breasts, her fingers stroking my hair as if to smooth away the fears. Each time she'd ask,

'Want to talk?'

And I'd cling even tighter to her warm skin, shaking my head and pummelling my nose into her armpits, pretending my tears were her sweat. In the end I took a sleeping pill and sank into oblivion.

I told Sarah I'd be back the following week for the funeral and maybe take a few days off to spend with her. I'd sensed there was something bothering her but she wouldn't come out with it straight away. She knew I needed her. That's the way she is, a giver not a taker like me. But in the end she told me Lily wanted her to retire and move out to Oz.

'I'm not getting any younger Mike, and I'd like to see more of my grandkids. I'm thinking of selling up only...'

I avoided her eyes. I knew what she wanted. Somehow another black cloud was forming. I felt numb. I couldn't say anything.

'You know it's time for you to quit too, the City's for the young.'

'It's all I know.' I almost choked on the words.

'You could come with me.'

'It's not my dream. Too hot - too far.'

I wanted to pull her into my arms, tell her how much I cared, how much I loved her but I couldn't. I just switched my mobile on, slipped it into my jacket and turned to go.

'We'll talk next week. I'll buy you a place in town, near me. You'll have plenty of time and money to visit Lily.'

'That's not my dream, Mike.'

This was a new Sarah. Another mole hill to climb.

I'd flung the envelope unopened on the table, underneath the worthless Warhol – another bloody cloud and an expensive one! One point five million down the drain as soon as the stamp had hit the canvas! It came back, rejected, the day Malcolm had told me I needed a triple by-pass. There were plenty of messages on the answer phone:

'Its Ben, switch your bloody phone on Mike, we need to talk.'

'Mike, where the bloody hell are you?'

'Mike, it's Malcolm, we need to fit you in soon, call me asap.'

'Mike, what happened to Vancouver? Call me, fast I - '

The tape had run out.

I deleted them all.

For once the buzz of the city had gone. London looked grey and ailing. I couldn't be bothered to call anyone back. Maybe Sarah was right. Get out while there was still time. What was so bad about that? She was all I had left. I wasn't stupid. I knew I couldn't keep going for ever. The board couldn't fire me but they were eager to see me gone.

I poured a large whiskey, a tumbler, and switched on the TV. The huge wall mounted screen sprang to life. A whale was floundering in the Thames - the poor bugger was struggling to swim upstream against the tide - a heaving black mass writhing in the murky grey waters under Battersea Bridge. Men in black wet suits, men in black caps, black blubber, black water – everything seemed black – or grey – or white – and all futile. I poured another drink and then another. The pixels in the plasma shifted, morphed into more squares of blackness, greyness, nothingness. Encased in steel and glass fourteen floors high I felt divorced from reality, swimming in my own plasma pool; a virtual player in a virtual reality.

I poured another whiskey but my mind was becoming confused. It drifted back five years to a different Thames drama when Ben and I had stood on Chelsea Bridge and watched them drag Dave Hopkins's bloated body from the sludge.

I don't remember when I opened it; somewhere between finishing the first and starting the second bottle, because I remember shaking the contents out onto the table between the empty one and one still full. Two photos fell out of the brown envelope, that's all there was, and a scrap of paper stapled to the one in colour. I picked up the old dog-eared picture first. It was in sepia and, even drunk, I recognised the faces swimming in front of my eyes; a woman and a young boy. It was her – not Ma – but my real mum and me – taken just before the buggers bombed us. I couldn't have been more than four at the time. Ma had shown it to me the only time I'd asked about her. Not long after the war was over and the others had gone home.

'They're gone, lad, all gone. I'm your Ma now that's all yer need to know.'

I hadn't asked again. The photo had been torn in half when she'd shown it to me, now it was complete, pieced together with a strip of sellotape. I stared at the other half. A little girl, no more than two years old, was perched on a soldier's shoulder, staring back at me with eyes so familiar.

The train, the hall, it started to come back again. Sitting in the hall, a cardboard box strung round my neck. No-one wanted me. Then Ma coming in. I remembered the smell of her dungarees – the dirt on her dark brown hands - the red patterned scarf wrapped round her hair. She bent down and read the name on my label and then a pinch faced girl pushed her face up to mine.

'Huh, a boy, that's all that's left, a boy, we don't want him.'

It was all flooding back.

I picked up the second picture, the one with the yellow post-it note stuck to the corner. It was a snapshot of me with Sarah coming out of her house. The note had one word scrawled in red crayon - INCEST. That was when I unscrewed the second bottle and gave up on the glass.

I don't remember anything between then and two days later when I pulled up outside Cissy's cottage, unshaven, unwashed and almost unconscious. I had no recollection of the journey. I still have no recollection of what I said or what I did. I just remember as I looked down and saw her crumpled body at my feet, a ghoulish twist to her jaw, dentures wrenched from her gums and her claw like fingers still grasping her beads in a pool of blood, that I knew what could make a man cross that line.