'Motherfucker.'
Stanage laughed. 'What? Lord, no. You ever see my mother?'
Closed up Macbeth's throat.
'Fucked a sister or two. That was fun. For a while. Strengthens the old family ties. Goodnight, m'boy. Don't suppose your passing will cause much of a vibe on the ether.'
Last thing Macbeth saw, with gratitude, was some dark shit on Stanage's shirt.
Must've sprayed it out with 'motherfucker'.
From Dawber's Secret Book of Bridelow (unpublished):
They haven't found his body and happen they never will.
Peat preserves.
Oh, aye, it does that. But how much of what peat preserves should be preserved?
It's not natural, that's the problem. Dust to dust. All things must pass. All things must rot. For in rotting there's change. That's the positive aspect of physical death. All things must change.
Nothing changes much in the peat; so peat, in my view, works against natural laws. Living on the edge of it, Bridelow folk have always been aware of the borderline between what is natural and what isn't.
This is not whimsy. But all the same, I've had a bellyful, so I've decided, on balance, that I won't die here. Happen my soul'll find its way back, who can say? But, the Lord - and Willie Wagstaff - decided one rainy night that the peat was not for me, so I'm taking the hint and I'll pop me clogs somewhere else, thank you very much.
Also, to be realistic, I think I need what time's left to me to do a bit of thinking, and I reckon Bridelow is too powerful a place right this minute to get things into any sort of perspective.
So.
I'm off to Bournemouth, owd lad.
Don't you dare say owt. And don't anybody panic either; when I say Bournemouth, I mean Bournemouth - I've a cousin runs a little guest house up towards Poole Harbour. Your Cathy says she'll come and see me and bring Milly, and they'll try their hand at a spot of the old Bridelow healing. 'Doctors!' Cathy says. 'What do they know?'
Aye. What do the buggers know?
We'll see.
He could taste the peat on her face. Nothing ever tasted as good. He wanted to believe it. He didn't.
Wherever she goes, that young woman, she's bound to be touched with madness.
He thought, If we're both dead maybe I got a chance this side.
'I ...'
'Don't talk. Not if it hurts.'
There was light in the sky; this time maybe the real thing: dawn.
All Souls Day.
His ass was wet. Everything was wet.
No.
The Duchess said. Now, who is the white man?
'No!' Macbeth screamed. 'Fuck you. Duchess!'
'She won't take too kindly to that.'
'No,' he said. 'Please. No tricks. No more tricks.' He opened his eyes. Shut them tight again. 'Stanage, you motherf—'
'He's gone. Believe me. He's the other side. He can't get across. Whether he's alive or dead, he can't get across.'
Macbeth opened his eyes. Kept them open. Kept staring and staring.
'Eggshell,' he said. 'Said her head was smashed like an eggshell.'
'Whose head?'
'Yours? When the roof came in?'
'I hope not,' Moira said, putting a hand for the first time to the remains of her hair. She wrinkled her nose. 'But I sure as hell kept bloody still underneath that beam until he'd gone. Can you walk? I mean, can you stand up?'
Macbeth leaned his back against the wall and did some coughing. Coughed his guts up. Felt better. Not a whole lot better, and the way his goddamn heart was beating ...
He got his eyes to focus on her.
'Are you real?'
'Do I no' look real?'
Her slashed hair was in spikes. Her face was streaked with black peat and blood. He couldn't tell what she was wearing except for peat.
'Uh ... yeah,' he said. 'I guess you look real. 'And I ... Did we come through this?'
'Come on,' Moira said. 'We need to move.'
Holding on to each other, Macbeth still feeling like he was dream-walking, they made it back across the forecourt to where the peat came no higher than their thighs.
And then Moira's plastic lamp went out, which seemed to bother her a lot. 'Just hang on, Mungo, thing's coming to pieces.'
'That's OK.' His brain felt like it was muffled. Mossy. 'We don't need a light any more. Sun's here. Someplace.'
Figured that even if she walked away from him at the top of the street, even if she walked away for ever, he had all the light he'd ever need.
'No,' Moira stopped. 'Been through a lot, me and this lamp. There's blood on it. Is it mine, or Stanage's?'
Macbeth panicked then. He spun around in the peat, saw the roof of The Man I'th Moss, the caved-in roof of the barn, spars and serrated masonry projecting jaggedly into the half- light.
'He's gone,' Moira said.
'You sure he's gone? How can you be sure? Someone like that, he can go that easy?'
He stared down into the peat, like a pair of hands might break and drag him down. Or even worse, if there were hands down there, underneath ...
'Please God ...' Macbeth breathed as a hand went around his arm.
'It's OK, Mungo.'
'Is it? Is it OK? Are you still real? Oh, Jesus ...'
He started to weep.
'Mungo,' Moira said. 'Wasny that easy.'
Clawing at his hard, white face, at his nose, his teeth, going at him like a madwoman. Blood oozing, greasy, warm blood. And once I saw his eyes, never really seen his eyes before.
In his eyes is this, like, languorous amusement. The damage I'm doing is superficial, and he's laughing at me.
Behind him, there's a shadow on the moss. The shadow isn't moving.
Behind me ...
This warm breath on my neck. I don't even have to turn around to know how putrid this breath is. Death-room breath.