“Told you when?” he asks, casually.
“Months back. Spring, I think. I gave her the number for my friend, she’s very good ….,”
“And who is she?” he asks, patiently. “Shamanic priestess. That’s where she was going to go for soul retrieval.”
Rowan smothers the laugh. He doesn’t look down on any religious or spiritual practice but can’t help laugh at the matter-of-fact way she can use ‘shamanic priestess’ in a sentence, as if introducing a butcher or postman. He doesn’t need to ask her about shamanic traditions, or soul retrieval. Both played parts of his childhood.
“Do you think you could come back to the house?” asks Rowan, moving agitatedly. He wants to pace. He likes pacing. The damn room’s too small to do it properly. And cobbles! Who could pace properly on cobbles!
“I’m doing something, Rowan,” she says, patiently. “That’s why you’ve got Snowdrop, remember. I’m working.”
“Oh come on, I’m sure whatever albatross chick you’re bathing will forgive you. Come on, this might be important…,”
“What do you think I do, Rowan?” she asks, chilly. “Albatross chick?”
Snowdrop is trying to get his attention. She’s found Violet Rayner (nee Sheehan) on Facebook. Rowan glances at the profile name. She’s signed in as him. He glances at the centre of the screen. It shows that they have two FB friends in common. One is his sister, one is a librarian in Whitehaven, and a man whose name always gives Rowan a delightful trill of anticipation.
“She knows Pickle?” he asks. He leans back over Snowdrop’s shoulder and jabs again at the keyboard. Pickle has commented on several of Violet’s posts and she has done the same for him. In March, he’d left a comment below a mournful black and white picture she had posted – the words ‘That’s It – I’m Done!’ in big angry letters in the very centre. 32 people responded with crying Emojis. Pickle had left a comment urging her to come see him ‘for a decompression session’. She’d sent back a thumbs-up and a smiley face. Sometimes, the poet in Rowan truly despairs.
“Oh she must be interesting then, Dippy. I mean Pickle’s like a massive great magnet for the dangerous and the deranged. He’s only up past the Falls. I’ll wander over, get some air …,”
“No,” snaps Serendipity, too quickly. “No, you aren’t taking her to Pickle’s.” She raises her voice again, fighting the wind. “Rowan, do you hear me, he’s not a good environment …he’s not all there … he smokes every moment of the …,”
“Sorry sis,” he says, walking towards the dead zone at the far end of the room. The signal begins to drop out. He smiles at her frustrated, tinny voice, growing fainter with each step.
“…that thing …with the buffalo… no… always come back stoned…Ro…do you …,”
“Lost her,” he says, sadly holding up the phone. He grins, suddenly transformed. He adopts an exaggerated swagger as he walks back to his niece. She creases her eyes and nose into a smile that seems to take in her whole self. He suddenly has a memory, sharp as cut glass. He sees her as the little girl she was: a toddler, a tot, not much more. Big multi-coloured dungarees and rainbow jumpers; a bow in her hair and pudgy pink bare feet. A mind like a rocket. Bright eyes. Always so eager to learn. And kind, too. Happy to listen and burble as he told her where it had gone wrong and why this girl or that girl had left him. He wishes he’d sent just one of the letters he’d promised to write her. Wishes he’d turned one the silly bedtime stories he made up for her into a manuscript she could hold in her hand. Always too busy. He feels an overwhelming urge to somehow become considerably less shit.
“You did brilliantly,” he says and finds himself giving her a bump with his shoulder. It feels kind of good. She preens; a stroked cat. He moves, quickly. “Pickle,” he says. “Real name Gareth Church. Gentleman-farmer-cum-impeccable-weed-dealer. A giant of a man. A colossus. Philosopher and recognised global number one when it comes to remembering trivia and quotes from the film Withnail and I. He sort of killed somebody once but he feels bad about it…,”
“Killed somebody?”
He grins. He doesn’t know many people locally but of those he’s had the fortune to acquaint, Pickle is the only one he’d like to think of as a friend. He’s been putting off going to see him, constantly pushing back arrangements for get-togethers, dinners, a ‘good smoke and some Lucozade out in the shed’. He hadn’t wanted to show Pickle just how low he’d fallen since the last time they’d got drunk together. He fancies he can brave it now. He wants to show his niece that as a journalist, you are guaranteed to meet some weird and wonderful people. Such a demonstration would fall into Pickle’s skill-set perfectly.
“Is he the one Mum says is a weed dealer?”
Rowan grins. “Thought never entered my head.”
6
Rowan feels his mood lift with every step he takes away from the cottage. There’s a mizzling rain slapping at his face and the low cloud makes it seem that he’s looking at the world through a cigarette paper, but he’s never prescribed to the notion that beauty only belongs to warm days.
“River sounds full,” he says, making conversation. He jerks his head back down towards the Irt - clucking and surging, hidden by the swirl of mist. Beside him, Snowdrop is glaring at his phone, occasionally losing her footing on the slippery surface as she gives the screen her full attention.
“Sorry?” she asks, looking up. Her eyes widen; two perfect drops of spreading blue ink. “You’re not out of breath,” she notices, approvingly. “Mum’s always out of breath by now.”
Rowan shrugs. He’s never been much of a one for the gym and he treats his body the way a foot treats a shoe, but he’s spent most of his working life ambling relatively large distances, eating up miles of pavement as he meandered from court to council to pub to office to home.
“There’s one of the rules of journalism for you,” he says, brightly. “Always buy comfortable shoes. A good reporter shouldn’t be afraid of putting in the miles. A lot of news happens in cities, and nine times out of ten the reporter on foot can get to a scene before the reporter in the pool car. And then of course, you’re not encumbered by having to stay sober …,”
“I’ll write that down when I have a moment,” mutters Snowdrop. She’s got one eye closed, focussing all of her energy on the web page. “I’ve heard of your friend Pickle before,” she adds, warningly. “Jo says he’s bringing house prices down. I didn’t know he had a real name. Were you joking when you said he was a murderer?”
“That’s the word the court chose,” says Rowan, ruefully. He decides she’s old enough to learn how shitty the world really is. “There’s this old law called ‘joint enterprise’. Dates back centuries to when people used to fight duels. Well, it’s still in effect and sometimes prosecutors like to stick a murder charge on every member of the gang that were there when one of them stabbed a rival to death; or if a load of people go to somebody’s house intent on violence and the intended victim is killed – the whole lot are culpable. I’ve written about it a lot.”
“What do you think about it?” asks Snowdrop.
Rowan laughs, taken aback. “Me? What do I know? I just write about it, Snowdrop, and Pickle’s case was one I’d heard of even before I got to know him. Him and some university mates got drunk and thought it would be jolly funny to grab one of the lads from a nearby dorm and whisk him away like he was being kidnapped. He woke up as they were trying to get him out of his bed. He lashed out with this bloody great bayonet he kept under his pillow. It got one of his mates. Instinct kicks in and Pickle grabs the knife. Pulls it out of his mate’s stomach, sober as a judge now. Ended the night with one dead, one dying and nobody being able to say who’d done what. Pickle stood with his friends, refusing to deviate from the story they all agreed on. At the last moment the other two changed their plea to guilty and pinned it all on Pickle. A very grateful Crown Prosecution Service gave them reduced sentences. Pickle was done for manslaughter in the end. Served 11 years. He was supposed to be a barrister or a doctor by now. Instead he does little bits of this and lots of the other, living in the last of his dad’s farm buildings. He’s a bit of a character. Sort of lost himself after prison and it took a lot of chemicals to bring him back. You’ll love him.”