On the southern horizon, Blackhill was a spiky smudge under a gray haze; north, but closer, Easingham was the same. Viewed from this same position at night, the glow of the coke-ovens, the flare-up and gouting orange steam when white hot coke was hosed down, would turn the entire region into a scene straight from Hell! Satanic mills? They have nothing on a nest of well-established coal mines by the sea….
We reached the top of the banks and passed warning notices telling how from here on they rolled down to sheer cliffs. When I'd been a child, miners used to clamber down the banks to the cliff-edge, hammer stakes into the earth and lower themselves on ropes with baskets to collect gull eggs. Inland, however, the land was flat, where deep grass pasture roved wild all the way from here to the coast road. There were a few farms, but that was all.
We walked half a mile along the cliff path until the fields began to be fenced; where a hedgerow inside the fence, there split the first true field. I paused and turned to Moira. We hadn't seen anyone, hadn't spoken for some time but I suppose her heart, like mine, had been speeding up a little. Not from our efforts, for walking here was easy.
"We can climb the fence, cut along the hedgerow," I suggested, a little breathlessly.
"Why?" Her eyes were wide, naive and yet questioning.
I shrugged. "A… shortcut to the main road?" But I'd made it a question, and I knew I shouldn't leave the initiative to her. Gathering my courage, I added: "Also, we'll —»
" — Find a bit of privacy?" Her face was flushed.
I climbed the rough three-bar fence; she followed my example and I helped her down, and knew she'd seen where I could hardly help looking. But she didn't seem to mind. We stayed close to the hedgerow, which was punctuated every twenty-five paces or so with great oaks, and struck inland. It was only when we were away from the fence that I remembered, just before jumping down, that I'd paused a second to scan the land about — and how for a moment I thought I'd seen someone back along the path. Raymond, I wondered? But in any case, he should lose our trail now.
After some two hundred yards there was a lone elder tree growing in the field a little way apart from the hedge, its branches shading the lush grass underneath. I led Moira away from the hedge and into the shade of the elder, and she came unresisting. And there I spread my jacket for her to sit on, and for a minute or two we just sprawled. The grass hid us almost completely in our first private place. Seated, we could just see the topmost twigs of the hedgerow, and of course the bole and spreading canopy of the nearest oak.
Now, I don't intend to go into details. Anyone who was ever young, alone with his girl, will know the details anyway. Let it suffice to say that there were things I wanted, some of which she was willing to give. And some she wasn't. "No," she said. And more positively: "No!" when I persisted. But she panted and moaned a little all the same, and her voice was almost desperate, suggesting: "But I can do it for you this way, if you like." Ah, but her hands set me on fire! I burned for her, and she felt the strength of the flame rising in me. "Josh, no!" she said again. "What if… if…"
She looked away from me, froze for a moment — and her mouth fell open. She drew air hissingly and expelled it in a gasp. "Josh!" And without pause she was doing up buttons, scrambling to her feet, brushing away wisps of grass from her skirt and blouse.
"Eh?" I said, astonished. "What is it?"
"He saw us!" she gasped. "He saw you — me — like that!" Her voice shook with a mixture of outrage and fear.
"Who?" I said, mouth dry, looking this way and that and seeing no one. "Where?"
"By the oak tree," she said. "Half-way up it. A face, peering out from behind. Someone was watching us."
Someone? Only one someone it could possibly be! But be sure that when I was done with him he'd never peep on anyone again! Flushed and furious I sprinted through the grass for the oak tree. The hedge hid a rotting fence; I went over, through it, came to a panting halt in fragments of brown, broken timber. No sign of anyone. You could hide an army in that long grass. But the fence where it was nailed to the oak bore the scuffmarks of booted feet, and the tree's bark was freshly bruised some six feet up the bole.
"You… dog!" I growled to myself. "God, but I'll get you, Raymond Maddison!"
"Josh!" I heard Moira on the other side of the "hedge. "Josh, I'm so — ashamed!"
"What?" I called out. "Of what? He won't dare say anything — whoever he is. There are laws against — ". But she was no longer there. Forcing myself through soft wooden jaws and freeing myself from the tangle of the hedge, I saw her hurrying back the way we'd come. "Moira!" I called, but she was already halfway to the three-bar fence. "Moira!" I called again, and then ran after her. By the time I reached the fence she'd climbed it and was starting back along the path.
I finally caught up with her, took her arm. "Moira, we can find some other place. I mean, just because —»
She shook me off, turned on me. "Is that all you want, Josh Peters?" Her face was angry now, eyes flashing. "Well if it is, there are plenty of other girls in Harden who'll be more than happy to… to…"
"Moira, I — " I shook my head. It wasn't like that. We were going together.
"I thought you liked me\" she snapped. "The real me!"
My jaw fell open. Why was she talking to me like this? She knew I liked — more than liked — the real Moira. She was the real Moira! It was a tiff, brought on by excitement, fear, frustration; we'd never before had to deal with anything like this, and we didn't know how. Hers heightened my emotions, and now my pride took over. I thrust my jaw out, turned on my heel and strode rapidly away from her.
"If that's what you think of me," I called back, " — if that's as much as you think of me — then maybe this is for the best…"
"Josh?" I heard her small voice behind me. But I didn't answer, didn't look back.
Furious, I hurried, almost trotted back the way we'd come: along the cliff path, scrambling steeply down through the grass-rimmed, crumbling sand pits to the dene. But at the bottom I deliberately turned left and headed for the beach. Dirty? Oh, the beach would be dirty — sufficiently dirty so that she surely wouldn't follow me. I didn't want her to. I wanted nothing of her. Oh, I did, I did! — But I wouldn't admit it, not even to myself, not then. But if she did try to follow me, it would mean… it would mean…
Moira, Moira! Did I love her? Possibly, but I couldn't handle the emotion. So many emotions; and inside I was still on fire from what had nearly been, still aching from the retention of fluids my young body had so desired to be rid of. Raymond? Raymond Maddison? By God, but I'd bloody him! I'd let some of his damned fluids out!
"Josh!" I seemed to hear Moira's voice from a long way back, but I could have been mistaken. In any case it didn't slow me down. Time and space flashed by in a blur; I was down onto the beach; I walked south under the cliffs on sand that was still sand, however blackened; I trekked grimy sand dunes up and down, kicking at withered tufts of crabgrass which reminded me of the gray and yellow hairs sprouting from the blemishes of old men. Until finally I had burned something of the anger and frustration out of myself.
Then I turned toward the sea, cut a path between the sickly dunes down to the no-man's land of black slag and stinking slurry, and found a place to sit on a rock etched by chemical reaction into an anomalous hump. It was one of a line of rocks I remembered from my childhood, reaching out half a mile to the sea, from which the men had crabbed and cast their lines. But none of that now. Beyond where I sat, only the tips of the lifeless, once limpet- and mussel-festooned rocks stuck up above the slurry; a leaning, blackened signpost warned: