On the very border.
CHAPTER III
It was the seventh bell they always rang, for the curfew. Almost rang itself these days. Seventeen years Jack had been doing it. Didn't need to think much about it any more. Went regular as his own heartbeat.
The bell clanged above him.
Jack let the rope slide back through his hands.
Seventy-three.
His hands closed again around the rope.
Seventy-four.
He hadn't been counting. At any point during the ringing Jack could tell you what number he was on. His arms knew. His stomach knew.
One hundred times every night. Starting at ten o'clock. Newcomers to the town, they'd asked him, 'Don't you find it spooky, going up there, through that graveyard, up all those narrow stone steps, with the church all dark, and the bell-ropes just hanging there?'
'Don't think about it,' Jack would say. And it was true; he didn't.
There were eight bells in the tower, and that was reckoned to be a good peal for this part of the country.
For weddings, sometimes in the old days, they'd all be going. Even fairly recently – though not any more – it had been known for some snooty bride from Off to bring in a handful of bell-ringers from her own parish for the big day. This had only been permitted for weddings, sometimes. On Sundays, never. And not Christmas. Not even Easter.
And also, every few years some bearded clown in a sports jacket would pass through. And then the church or the town council would gel a letter from the secretary of some group of nutters that travelled the country ringing other people's bells.
The town council would say no.
Occasionally – this was the worst problem – there'd be somebody like Colonel Croston who'd moved in from Hereford, where he was reckoned to have been in the SAS. He liked to keep fit. Jogged around the place.
And rang bells, as a hobby.
He'd been a pain in the neck at first, had Colonel Croston. 'No bell-ringers apart from you, Jack? That's appalling. Look, you leave this one to me.'
Jack Preece remembered the Colonel putting up posters inviting all able-bodied folk to come to the church one Friday night and learn the ropes. 'Give me six months. Guarantee I'll knock them into shape.'
Jack had gone along himself because he didn't like the thought of youngsters running up and down the stone steps and swinging on his ropes.
When the two of them had been waiting around for nearly an hour he let the despondent Colonel take him for a drink.
'Doesn't deserve these bells, Jack, this town.'
'Aye, aye,' Jack had said non-committally, and had permitted Colonel Croston to buy him a large brandy.
He hadn't bothered to tell the Colonel that even he only knew how to ring the curfew using the seventh bell. Well, no point in buggering with the others, see, was there? No point in making a show. They could have pulled the other bells down and flogged them off for scrap, far as Jack Preece was concerned.
Anyhow, what they'd done now, to save a lot of bother and pestering was to take down all the ropes. Except, of course the one that rang the seventh bell.
Some nights, Jack would be real knackered after a day's dipping, or shearing, or lambing. He'd stagger up them steps, hurting all over his body, dying for a pint and aching for his bed. Some nights he'd grab hold of that rope just to stop himself falling over.
Still the hundred would be done. And done on time.
And it was on nights like this that Jack felt sometimes he was helped. Felt the belfry was kind of aglow, and other hands were pulling on the rope beside his own.
Spooky?
Well, he didn't think about it. Where was the point in that?
They walked slowly into the town over a river bridge with old brick walls which badly needed pointing, the river flat and sullen below. Past a pub, the Cock, with flaky paintwork and walls that had once been whitewashed but now looked grey and unwashed.
A dark, smoky, secretive little town. There was still an afterglow on the fields, but the town was already embracing the night.
Mr. Kettle had never been to Paris or New York. But if, tonight, he was to be flown into either of them, he suspected he wouldn't feel any more of a stranger than he did entering Crybbe – a town he'd lived within twenty miles of all his life.
This town, it wasn't remote exactly, not difficult to reach, yet it was isolated. Outsiders never had reason to pass through it on the way to anywhere. Because, no matter where you wanted to reach, there was always a better way to get there than via Crybbe. Three roads intersected here, but they were B roads, two starting in Wales – one leading eventually to Hereford, the other to Ludlow – and the other… well, buggered if he knew where that one went.
Max Goff, almost glowing in his white suit, was striding into the dimness of the town, like Dr Livingstone or somebody, with a pocketful of beads for the natives.
They'd take the beads, the people here. They wouldn't thank him, but they'd take the beads.
Henry Kettle didn't claim to understand the people of Crybbe. They weren't hostile and they weren't friendly. They kept their heads down, that was all you could say about them.
A local historian had once told him this was how towns and villages on the border always used to be. If there was any cross-border conflict between the English and the Welsh they never took sides openly until it was clear which was going to win. Also, towns of no importance were less likely to be attacked and burned.
So keeping their heads down had got to be a way of life.
Tourists must turn up sometimes. By accident, probably. Mr. Kettle reckoned most of them wouldn't even bother to park. Sure the buildings were ancient enough, but they weren't painted and polished up like the timber-frame villages on the Hereford black-and-white trail. Nothing here that said 'visit me' with any enthusiasm, because there was no sense of pride.
From the church tower, above the cobbled square, a lone bell was clanging dolefully into the musty dusk. It was the only sound there was.
'What's that?' Goff demanded.
'Only the curfew.'
Goff stopped on the cobbles, his smile a great gash. 'Hey really…? This is a real curfew, like in the old days?'
'No,' Mr. Kettle said. 'Not really. That's to say, people are no longer required to be off the streets by nightfall. Just tradition nowadays. The Preece family, it is, performs the duty. One of 'em goes up the belfry, God knows how many steps every night, summer and winter; nine-thirty, or is it ten?'
He looked up at the church clock but it was too dark to make out where its hands were pointing. He was sure there used to be a light on that clock. 'Hundred times it rings, anyway.'
'Might only be a tradition, but there's still nobody on the streets,' Max Goff observed. 'Is there?'
'That's 'cause they're all in the pubs,' said Mr. Kettle. 'No, what it is, there's some old trust fund arranges for the bell to be rung. The Preeces get grazing rights on a few acres of land in return for keeping up the custom. Passed down, father to son, for four hundred-odd years. Being farmers, they always has plenty sons.'
They stood in the square until the ringing stopped.
'Crazy,' Goff said, shaking his big head in delight. 'Cray-zee. This is the first night I've spent here, y'know?'I've always stayed in Hereford. It's magic, Mr. Kettle. Hey, we still on the line?'
'I suppose we must be. Aye, see the little marker by there?'
A stone no more than a foot high, not much more than a bump in the cobbles. Goff squatted next to it and held his palms over it, as though he expected it to be hot or to light up or something. The dog, Arnold, watched, his head on one side as if puzzled by a human being who went down on all fours to sniff the places where dogs had pissed.
Two middle-aged women walked across the square talking in low voices. They stopped talking as they walked past Goff, but didn't look at him, nor Mr. Kettle, nor each other.