The empty road flowed slowly away between its flower-decked grassy banks. But without her the scene looked as barren and derelict as industrial waste land. A heaviness pulled at his throat and he turned away.
Where to now? Without the girl to guide him, he was at something of a loss. He looked around aimlessly, wondering what to do. The wooden fence next to the gate was breached by a stile, and beside the stile was a tall signpost. Perhaps this might help.
Unfortunately the sign was blank. It was a piece of wood, one end carved into a hand with the forefinger pointing across the field behind the fence, but with no words to give direction. Despite its unhelpfulness, however, he found himself entranced by the quality of the workmanship: for in addition to the forefinger, the other three fingers had also been carved, curled into the palm and gripped by the thumb, each with its nail and joint creases. Then, as he gazed up admiringly, it moved; the hand twisted upwards and the forefinger wagged, beckoning him forward.
His tiny tremor of surprise faded leaving a residue of confusion; he'd seen good wood carving before, but nothing quite this lifelike. The sign seemed to sense his lapse in attention and beckoned more vigorously, this time with an edge of impatience. His puzzlement gelled quickly around a hard pulse of indignation. Who on earth did it think it was? he thought. Then, as if to add insult to injury, as he went to turn away the wooden fingers snapped imperiously and the whole hand waved him forward and pointed across the stile.
He stormed back towards the bridge, seething. Nicely carved or not, he was damned if he was going to be ordered about by a wooden signpost – he would go this way instead. But as reached the beginning of the metal parapets, his tempest of outrage faltered. He gazed into the dizzying abyss and felt it sucking him forward, spinning him with vertigo. Perhaps not the bridge, after all.
He turned again and headed up the road towards where the girl in white had disappeared, deliberately not looking at the sign as he strode past it. A few yards beyond the stile, however, he lost confidence. The road stretched out into the dark unknown, its trees and hedges pressing in menacingly, like assassins awaiting their victim.
There was, of course, the field.
The field, with its open blue skies and its little grassy knoll where the woman in the blood-spill dress had wandered, carefree as a sky lark. Sunlit pastures opened out before him, enticing and safe.
'I'm going this way because that's what I want to do,' he said, trying to sound assured, 'I hope you understand that this is my decision, and my decision alone.'
The sign did not respond, but he sensed an arrogant smugness in the curl of the fingers. He gritted his teeth but refused the challenge; he wasn't going to let himself get rattled by some pompous, puffed up piece of wood. And so, taking an angry grip on the waist-high cross-bar of the stile, he swung himself up onto the first step.
And nearly fell off again – for the wood was like rubber, swaying and buckling under his weight. For a few precarious moments he teetered to and fro, fighting for balance, and then lunged forwards, gripping the cross-bar with both hands. He managed to swing his left leg over onto the swaying foot-piece on the far side and then stood astride the stile as it bucked like a rodeo bronco, trying to throw him off. After a short while it seemed to tire and he saw his chance. But his optimism was misplaced – just as he'd got his right leg over, the foot-piece plunged suddenly and tumbled him onto the grass.
As he picked himself up, he glanced up at the sign. Although it looked motionless, there could have been a slight vibration, a quiver of suppressed mirth. Muttering silent imprecations, he stomped away across the grass, hammering his anger into the innocent turf.
Once in the field, the path was easy to see, running over the crest of the little knoll. He walked quickly, still propelled by the rocket fuel of indignation though glad to be underway, to be finally away from the bloody thing. Then, as he looked towards the slope, he thought saw something, a diaphanous patch of colour vanishing over the horizon as if the woman's dress had left an after-image in the shimmering air. He stopped stone dead – for beside the red ghost was another, in lime green.
As he stared at the now empty sky, a weird coldness trickled inside him and his confidence ebbed like a falling tide. Perhaps the bridge was the best option after all. It wasn't that dangerous – he'd managed it once, he could do so again. Also there was something nice the other side, although he couldn't quite remember what; a mirage teardrop, black and shiny, crawled slowly across his mind and was gone.
Back to the stile, the sign held an imperious palm against him.
'I think I've come the wrong way,' he said, 'It might be better if I just went back over there.'
It pointed over his shoulder, quivering with impatience.
'I'm not sure that I should. I really think – .' His voice tailed feebly away as the sign stabbed the air with its finger. He looked up, pleading, but it remained impervious, pointing implacably across the field.