‘Almost there.’ Christie didn’t seem to be looking, but her voice was sure. ‘We should see the first of the lime-workers’ cottages in a moment. Be careful, the ground will be softer here.’
Murray dropped their speed to crawl. They drove on in silence. Soon he saw a shape up ahead, blacker than the darkness that surrounded them. A ruined cottage came into focus, the shadowy forms of the derelict village behind it. He stopped the car, turned off the engine and pulled on the handbrake. ‘What now?’
‘Can you drive any further?’
Murray opened his door. Outside it sounded the way he supposed a rainforest removed of wildlife might, the steady slap and drip of rain against leaves and puddles, accompanied by the white-noise hiss of the downpour. He looked at the ground in the glow of the interior light. Water was pooling into miniature streams and gullies, the earth turning to sludge.
‘I don’t think so. We’re taking a chance as it is.’
Christie leaned into the glove compartment and handed him a rubberised torch. He felt the weight of it in his hand and thought what a good weapon it would make.
‘It won’t take long.’ He saw her profile in silhouette, the set of her jaw, her half-open lips. ‘Just think of the poems and forget everything else.’
She pulled up the hood of her jacket, then opened the door and stepped into the dark. Murray jogged round to the boot of the car and took out the spade they’d stashed there earlier. He had to shout to make himself heard.
‘Are you sure you can manage?’
Christie wrestled her walking stick from the car, then linked her free arm through his. ‘If I can lean on you.’ She pointed her stick straight ahead. ‘It’s this way.’
Murray clicked on the torch, aiming its beam at the path’s greasy surface. Christie skidded and he hauled her to her feet.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes. Let’s keep moving.’
But Murray could feel her already flagging. He put his arm around Christie’s waist, holding her close. She was so light her bones might have been hollow. But still her body weighed on him. Murray swung the shovel, using it like a staff. Hill-walking had taught him that when weather and conditions conspired against you, the trick was to think of nothing, not the distance that remained, nor what would follow once you reached home, nothing but the next step, then the one after and the one after that.
They were almost in the heart of the tiny hamlet now. The trees had grown denser, but instead of sheltering them from the rain they seemed to add to its force, shedding their own hoarded load as they passed. Murray kept the torch aimed at the treacherous ground beneath their feet, but he could feel the stares of empty windows and gaping doors on either side. Christie tugged his arm and pointed towards one of the houses. She said something that was carried away by the sound of the rain. Murray swung the torch in the direction she’d indicated. An abandoned cottage glared at him.
‘There?’
She nodded and they turned their uneasy progress towards it, Murray half-dragging, half-carrying Christie.
‘Careful.’ She yanked on his arm again. ‘Keep to the path.’
He shone the beam across the ground and saw that instead of leading them straight to the cottage, the mud track curved around a patch of green. He corrected his course, swearing softly under his breath, following the trail, thinking they must look like Hansel and Gretel, grown up and evil, visiting old haunts.
The cottage’s doorway was clumped about with long grass. He hauled Christie over it and pulled her inside. Like the rest of the abandoned village, the cottage had lost its roof, so there was no real shelter from the rain within its bounds, but the stone walls seemed to deaden the sound a little. Christie propped herself against one of them. Murray thought she looked bad, but didn’t pause to ask her how she felt.
‘Where is it?’
‘There, just outside, to the left of the door. It’s shaped like a heart.’
Murray gripped the shovel tighter and went back through the opening. He found the marker easily. He could see what Christie meant. The stone was flat on top, pointed at one end and slightly bifurcated at the other. The whimsy disgusted him.
He passed the torch to Christie. ‘Here, aim where I dig.’ Then he took the shovel and prised it beneath the marker. He felt the stone shift and slid the shovel further in. The earth’s grip slackened again. The stone was loose now, but it had the hidden mass of an iceberg and he couldn’t get enough leverage to force it free of its socket. Murray cursed himself and Christie for not having had the foresight to pack a pair of rubber gloves. He squatted down on the ground and wobbled the half-excavated boulder with his bare hands. He could feel the grave-dirt on his flesh, creeping beneath his fingernails. He found a stick and used it to scrape away the mud, probing the ground like an ape hunting for termites. Finally he wedged his hands down the sides of the hollow and wrenched the stone free. The hole started to fill with water.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’
Murray lifted the shovel and began digging. He dug in the same way he would approach a desperate walk, taking it one step, one spade-full, at a time. The trees in the valley creaked and shivered with the weight of the rain and the cramping coldness of the night.
In Murray’s mind, he was alone in the small bedroom he shared with Jack. The room was in darkness, save for the light from his desk lamp pooling on the page before him. He felt his eyes droop, then the gentle weight of his father’s hand on his shoulder.
‘Time to stop now, son. Slow and steady wins the race.’
The shovel struck against something solid.
He took the torch from Christie and shone it into the hole. He could see nothing in its depths except the brown water rising from beneath, turning the mud to sludge. Murray got back down on his hands and knees, and stretched into the swelling pool. Whatever it was was too far down for him to reach.
‘Fuck.’
He lay flat on his belly in the mud and tried again. This time he made contact. His fingers were numb and he couldn’t tell if they were brushing against stone or metal, but the surface of the object was smooth, whatever it was set too deep for Murray to get a proper grip. He got to his knees and scrabbled around in the dirt again until he could find his stick, then stretched back into the pool and tried to hollow it free. The stick broke. He cursed, got to his feet and set-to with the spade, attacking the sides of the hole, swearing as this new excavation tumbled earth back into the pit. Finally it was wide enough. He put his glasses in his pocket then eased himself down into the grave. The loamy scent that had been in his nostrils all through the digging seemed to slide down into his throat. He prised the shovel beneath the object, hoping to God he’d have enough purchase to haul himself out, knowing that should the walls collapse in on him Christie would be unable to pull him free. Murray felt the box move. He squatted down in the dirt and gripped the smooth square thing with his dead fingers. He grunted and pulled, feeling all the while that the struggle was two-sided and whatever lay below wanted to drag him down there with it. Once, the box slipped from his grasp and he feared it had broken and he would see the child’s face staring up at him, squashed and leathered, like the bog folk Heaney had written about. But then, with a last sucking slurp that threatened to tug him down, the earth relinquished its dubious prize. Murray leant over the box, hands on thighs, gasping for breath.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’
He gripped the box in both hands, took a deep breath, and heaved it up onto the surface. He then hauled himself over the mud-slathering sides of the hole after it.