The Man in the Moss Read Online Free PDF Page B

Everyone saw shadows in the blackened cities, those
obvious pits of filth and fornication, where EVIL was scrawled in neon and the
homeless slept with the rats. And yet the source of it was up here, where
city-dwellers surged at weekends to stroll through the springy heather, picnic
among the gorse ... young couples, families, children queuing at the roadside
ice-cream vans, pensioners in small cars with their flasks of tea.
                It's all around
you, Mr Beard ... once you know what you're looking for. Look at the church,
look at the pub, look at the people ... you'll see the signs everywhere.
                Beneath him, the bike lurched into life, his strong,
gauntleted hands making the engine roar and crackle, spitting holy fire.
                He rode away from the village, back into the hills.
     
    'Shades,' Ma Wagstaff would
say later that night. 'Them's what's kept this place the way it is. Shades of
things.'
                Of all Ma's famous sayings, these were the words that
would keep coming back at Ernie Dawber during the short, anxious days and the
long, chill nights of the declining year.
                And when, as local historian, he tried to find the
beginning (as in, What exactly started the First World War? What caused the
first spark that set off the Great Fire of London?), he'd keep coming back to
this particular evening. A vivid evening at the end of May. The evening he'd
blithely and thoughtlessly told Ma Wagstaff what he'd learned about the death
of the bogman ... and Ma had made a fateful prediction.
                But it started well enough, with a big turn-out for the
official reopening of The Man, under its new proprietor. The two bars couldn't
hold all those come to welcome him home. So several dozen folk, including Ernie
Dawber - best suit, waistcoat, watch-chain - were out on the cobbled forecourt,
having a pint or two and watching the sun go down over the big hills beyond the
Moss.
                A vivid evening at the end of May. Laughter in the
streets. Hope for the future. Most enmities sheathed and worries left at home
under the settee cushions.
                A real old Bridelow night That was how it ought to have
been enshrined in his memory. All those familiar faces.
     
    A schoolteacher all his
working life, Ernie Dawber had known at least three-quarters of this lot since
they were five-year-olds at the front of the school hall: eager little faces,
timid little faces ... few belligerent ones too - always reckoned he could spot
a future troublemaker in its pram.
                He remembered Young Frank Manifold in the pram,
throttling his panda.
                'Well, well...' Twenty-odd years on. Young Frank
strolling up to his boss, all jutting chin and pint mug clenched like a big
glass knuckle-duster. 'It's Mr Horridge .'
                Shaw said nothing.
                'What's that you're drinking, Mr Horridge ?' Sneering down at Shaw's slim glass.
                Shaw's smile faltered. But he won't reply, Ernie thought,
because if he does he'll start stuttering and he knows it.
                There'd been a half-smile on Shaw's face as he stood
alone on the cobbles. A nervous, forced-looking smile but a smile none the
less. Ernie had to admire the lad, summoning the nerve to show himself tonight,
not a month since Andy Hodgson died.
                Especially with more than a few resentful brewery
employees about.
                'Looks like vodka.' Frank observed 'That what it is, Mr Horridge ? Vodka?' A few people
starting to look warily at Frank and Shaw, a couple of men guiding their wives
away.
            ''Course, I forgot. Bloody
Gannons make vodka on t'side. Gannons will make owt as'll sell. That Gannons vodka? That what it is ... Mr Horridge ?'
                Shaw
sipped his drink, not looking at Frank. This