3 The Earth
Stringy Billy minds his bridge. Things are without form - until she appears. Gen.1.2
There is a bridge, not a massive bridge, just two re-enforced concrete arches that span the M1 just north of Branley. The arches support a wide walkway; a link path that afforded a passage for Mr. Buckley’s small dairy herd, a tractor, most of the village folk at one time or another, and anything else that needed access to, what the locals called, ‘Top End of Village’. Top End amounted to little more than the Post Office and General Store, three cottages and Buckley’s farm. No one paid much heed to Molyneux Hall or Manor House that lay higher up, to the left and right respectively, of the old road. The main part of the village was never referred to as Graniston, not even by the local institutions – schools, hospitals, police and so on – it was known affectionately, or otherwise, as ‘Village’. The street that ran through it, Hawkshill Road, was known as ‘Street’ and the ‘Railway Inn’ was simply ‘Pub’. The bridge however… there was no question about the bridge - it was ‘Stringy Billy’s Bridge’.
When the Motorway was built it had gouged a giant furrow through this coal-rich edge of the Pennines. Nobody had guessed then that the pits would all close or that the roar of traffic would be so tumultuous. It was now a constant and unrelenting drone, day and night. The sound ran out of the cities and into the small hours. It was this motorway that sliced right through Graniston. And it was Stringy Billy’s Bridge that linked the severed village back to itself.
Some two hundred people formed this community. A community deep in the heart of the north of England. A society of blunt, straightforward folk who had, in the main, dispensed with the Definite Article and could see no reason for others to use the word ‘the’ either.
A hundred and sixty, perhaps more, lived in houses of various size, age and condition that clustered around ‘Street’. The others, just a few dozen, lived on Oldfield’s Moor – ‘Top End’. They were farmers in the main, or folk whose ancestors had made their living in associated trades; blacksmiths, farriers or fencers for example. One or two who lived on Top End lived in the larger houses – houses that were associated with mill owners and the coal bosses from another era. It was this, the remnants of capitalist wealth, not the motorway that had historically divided the village.
From Top End, from the bridge itself, it was possible to see across the numerous hills and valleys that formed this part of England’s backbone. From here you could see the ever-present, priapic edifice that is Emley Moor Television Mast. Emley Mast, pointing to the sky like the spire of an impossibly huge subterranean cathedral. This structure was at least twelve miles away but it seemed to provide some sense of coalition for the surrounding populace. Rather like a totem pole, everyone knew of it, most could see it; many ignored it - unless there was a fog that clung around its middle, unless there was a particularly bright moonlit night, or an unusually high wind. At such times the locals would take good note and discuss their observations with like-minded parties; and there were many. Knowing the mast was much further away than Branley, which was eight miles away, or Wakehurst – ten miles, gave it more gravitas, more vaguely spiritual proportions, than it actually warranted. It could not be denied however that its distance from Graniston magnified rather than diminished its terrible height. No one had wanted the mast years ago but all, in the conurbations for miles around, benefited during the days of analogue reception. I.T.V. had insisted on building it.
It had been the farmers who had insisted on having a bridge. They had always used the old road to move cattle or sheep from one pasture to another. They still needed the route. It was almost everyone in the community who benefited however because most needed to walk up Hill to Top End at one time or another even if it was just to make use of the Post Office.
It was possible to drive under this bridge, with its cantilevered arches, and not notice it at all but if you lived in Graniston, or even nearby Denton, you would invariably be distracted for a second by the sight of a few cows or a couple of horse riders making a shifting silhouette against the sky. You would rarely see anyone lingering, looking over the edge, watching the oncoming or disappearing traffic. Granistonians never hung about on this bridge. To them it was merely an essential thoroughfare.
Standing at one end of the bridge, in a T-shirt, and oily jeans that dangled from his frame like an afterthought, was Stringy Billy. He was often there. It was where he worked most of the time. All the locals knew this link between Street and Hill, between Village and Top End, as ‘Stringy Billy’s Bridge’. Everyone accepted it and everyone – bar none – paid Billy a toll before crossing it. It was a fine example of a community caring for its own. It was a fine example of a community paying for its mistakes, assuaging its guilt.
Nothing much troubled Billy when he was working on that bridge.
It was It that bothered him. It was what he was always up against. It was what he never seemed to get. It was what he wasn’t with. And It, ironically enough, was something he could never help. The whole haphazard pattern of his early years had been a confirmation of his inability to see life as others seemed to see it and an affirmation of his early life, viz: if there was anything at all to believe in It was what he couldn’t grasp. And yet there was a deep aching within him, a longing to be something, to give something, to get something from his existence.
It was ‘Manor House’ that caught Stringy Billy’s attention on this day. The day that sparked a change in Billy’s life. He’d busied himself with cleaning off some graffiti – a badly daubed series of letters - that announced it was, “Grim up North” and he guessed it would be a quiet afternoon for him. He was leaning, as he often did, on the wall at the far end of his bridge listening to the lowing of cattle – a sound that frequently calmed him, and a grunting of pigs - something that always made him anxious. He was gazing up through the white mist, the white mist that had been hanging around for weeks, when he saw a yellow glow from one of the Manor House’s downstairs windows. He thought at first that it must be a reflection. Reflections had interested Billy for as long as he could remember and he’d seen this kind of thing before; a beautiful red sun seemed to be boxed into one of the Manor’s window frames. The house itself was dull, lifeless and black, with soot-stained, yorkstone against a sky that was speckled with white on grey. The house on the hill was still able to catch a last bit of the evening whilst down in ‘Village’ people were already enjoying the romance, or the chill, of another dark night. But this glow was no reflection.
It was nowhere near night time and there was certainly no sunlight to reflect. Billy turned to check. Just to make sure. Then the light disappeared. Vanished as if by a visual deceit. Minutes later, down the path that led from the Manor to Buckley’s Lane, came a woman. She approached with a stick though she didn’t appear to need one. She had a thick shock of grey hair and wore a brightly coloured scarf. Not the kind of scarf, Billy decided, that be worn by anyone round Village. She seemed in absolutely no doubt about where she was going however. She climbed the stile that gave on to the lane and walked directly towards him.
In an instant Billy worked out that she must have moved into the Manor House; she appeared, in his rapid assessment of her, rich enough to have bought it. It must have been an electric light inside the Manor that had drawn his attention initially. She must have turned it off just before she left. And as she approached the bridge he recognised her as Mrs. Henderson. Mrs. Henderson his old primary school teacher. His first reaction was to greet her by name then see if she could guess who he was but a whole heap of bad memories came flooding back. He decided instead to treat her as he might treat anyone who approached his bridge, stranger or not, and ask her for some string.
“I’m afraid not,” she replied.
Billy winced. He didn’t like the phrase. Did she know that?
It was definitely her. It must be nearly ten years since he’d seen her but she hadn’t changed one bit: slight Scottish lilt to her voice, preci
se and clear, self-assured but not aggressive.
“Then you can’t come across my bridge,” Billy said. He was so practiced at this that he didn’t even attempt to block Mrs. Henderson’s path. He didn’t need to. The very size of him, his casual self-confidence as he slouched against the low concrete wall, prevented anyone from using that bridge unless they gave him a piece of string.
“Well, I’m afraid I have to get across” she responded.
It was the second time she’d used the word ‘afraid’. Stringy Billy sensed that afraid was something she most definitely was not, and a cold rush, an adrenalin thing, came over him. He didn’t know why. It was beyond his control like the smell or the sound of pigs. Something to do with fight or flight he thought, and yet the situation demanded neither. It required planning, careful planning and aforethought. Just like the weeks of planning before a school trip to the seaside.
“Well that’s rules I’m afraid,” he said; intending ‘afraid’ to sound as if it was part of a game he was playing.
“What exactly are the rules?” she asked.
She must be at least sixty now but it all came gushing back into his brain at once. He was back in Mrs. Henderson’s class. He was eight years old and she would have what she would have. Nonetheless he raised himself to his full height and looked up to the sky as if he was about to recite something, which indeed he was. It was his, ‘Speech for Strangers Speech’.
“You cannot pass this way today, if nothing in your hand you bring. I want no money, corn nor hay, but just a simple piece of string.”
“How about I buy some in the village and I’ll pay you double on my return?”
“How about I don’t let you across my bridge till you have some string?”
She pulled out a knife. Just a small penknife. The type you might use to peel an apple on a picnic. She opened her coat and cut carefully into the lining. Pulling out a length of coarse thread, she cut it again, handed it to him and spoke in an abrupt, though far from exasperated, fashion.
“This will have to do for now,” she said, “I will bear you in mind while I am in the village.”
This said she continued her journey across the bridge and down towards the cluster of houses that led to the junction of Buckley’s Lane and Hawkshill Road.
Billy smiled to himself as he watched her turn left into the very heart of Village. That had been a different encounter, he thought. That was what he liked about his job. It wasn’t simply maintenance of the bridge; the cleaning, the weeding and so forth. It wasn’t just the fresh air, the seasons, the way the landscape, the cloudscape, varied from day to day, it was the people – that’s what he enjoyed about working on his bridge – the communion with other folk. He had learnt very early on in life that if you are different then life is easier. Everyone seemed different to Billy. Everyone’s life seemed easier. Thus the equation was proved: If You Were Different Life Was Easier.
This was something other. And Billy knew it was. As he watched Mrs. Henderson at the junction of Hill and Street he recognised that he was at some kind of crossroads himself. He didn’t understand what those crossroads were. It would be years before that brain-burned image, Mrs. Henderson pondering for a second at the junction of Hill and Street, would make any real sense to him.
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Stringy Billy finds his way through life, sometimes limping, sometimes singing, sometimes having a laugh and sometimes hanging by just a single thread.
“It is only through explanation that disentanglement can occur.”
What does a person do to alter the course of their troubled life?
For the playful, young William Ashton the answer is in a kaleidoscope and the garden of mirrors. For Stringy Billy it’s a guitar and the Devil at the crossroads. Seaton Redland’s solution is to become born again and for Andrew Lewis it is something else altogether.
The distinction between Emotional Disturbance, Personality Disorder and Identity Theft becomes indistinguishable when the main protagonists eventually meet at Reeney’s behest.
It seems that only Reeney can help them all and yet her existence seems totally dependent on the others. Their lives are inextricably linked – linked by pain, misunderstanding, murder and a dark thread that attempts to link the Fool to the Bearer of Truth. Lee Johns seems to be the only one to survive. He is still out there somewhere.
"An unsettling yet utterly gripping novel that keeps the reader on tenterhooks as the split narratives career headlong towards a startling denouément. It is a story that holds you fast and stays with you long after you’ve turned the last page."
Patrick Janson-Smith, Publisher, Blue Door – Harper Collins
“This is a psychological tour de force for the central characters. It covers a world of fundamentalist religion, string theory, a series of inner struggles, a wish to be loved, to be understood, to achieve and ultimately a wish to avoid being caught. This is not just the account of one person. It could easily be the story of us all.”
Four extremely diverse characters learn that they have one thing in common.
Also by the same author
Literary Fiction/Psychological Thriller A NOVELLA Literary Fiction
YOUNG TEEN FICTION POETRY
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