Devil's Day Read online

  ‘He’s whining like a bloody baby out there,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you wanted to bring him,’ said Laurel and turned to Kat. ‘It’s our Douglas,’ she said, helping Bill carry the dishes to the table. ‘We didn’t want to leave him at home on his own.’

  Douglas was a tetchy old Rottweiler that was always at the Dyers’ gate baring his teeth no matter who came to their farm, friend or foe. He was more than capable of looking after himself, so why they’d brought him with them I couldn’t imagine.

  ‘Is he all right?’ I said. ‘He’s not ill, is he?’

  ‘No, he’s fine,’ said Laurel. ‘It’s just with the fire yesterday, well, you can’t be too careful, can you?’

  ‘Your dad would do well to make sure his doors are locked, John,’ said Bill. ‘I did tell him to. Anyone could walk through that gate.’

  ‘Anyone?’ I said.

  ‘I mean the Sturzakers,’ said Bill.

  ‘You’re not worried about little Vinny, are you?’ I said.

  ‘You haven’t seen what he did to the Wood,’ Bill replied.

  ‘It’s just a precaution,’ said Laurel. ‘Until we find out what happened.’

  The Dyers went down into the scullery together—Laurel to fetch the blackberry wine and Bill to try and drag Dadda away from the ram—and started arguing again. They could never agree on the simplest of things and the meekness that had come with Laurel’s conversion had started to grate on Bill more and more. She’d lived in the valley for thirty years, but had never seemed a farmer’s wife at all.

  Not like Angela Beasley, who came in now, swelling her orange roll-neck jumper. She was a large, breasty woman. A mother hen, grown rounder each year since her husband, Jim, had died.

  ‘Here he is at last,’ she said and smoothed the skin under my eyes with her thumbs, looking for damage and finding plenty as usual.

  ‘Christ, has she been feeding you?’ she said, nodding to Kat. ‘There’s nowt of you, lad.’

  ‘She looks after me very well,’ I said. ‘Don’t you, Kat?’

  ‘I do my best,’ said Kat.

  ‘The pair of you look like you need a good meal inside you,’ said Angela. ‘Especially you, lady.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I’ve come for,’ said Kat. ‘Fresh air and a good appetite.’

  ‘And hard work, I hope,’ said Angela.

  ‘Of course,’ said Kat.

  Angela took hold of her hands and looked at her fingers, slim and white as roots.

  ‘Will they do?’ said Kat.

  ‘She’s stronger than she looks,’ I said.

  ‘That’s just as well,’ said Angela, standing back and studying her. ‘Mind you, I think I’d better fetch over some of Liz’s owd clothes.’

  ‘It’s all right, I hardly ever put this on nowadays,’ said Kat, pulling at her lemon-coloured dress. ‘I don’t mind if it gets dirty.’

  ‘I’m not worried about that,’ said Angela. ‘You can get yourself as filthy as you like. It’s just that you’re not going to be much use to us if you’re freezing to death, are you?’

  ‘I’ve brought some sweaters,’ said Kat.

  ‘You put your good clothes back in your suitcase,’ said Angela. ‘You won’t need them here.’

  Other voices came from the hallway and Grace appeared at the kitchen door.

  ‘Hi,’ said Kat and kissed her on the cheek. ‘It’s so good to see you again. How have you been? Nice lipstick.’

  Grace said nothing and kept her hands by her side. Kat smiled and frowned and then tried again.

  ‘You’ve got taller,’ she said, holding her hand above Grace’s head. ‘You’ll shoot past me in another few months.’

  Grace humoured her with a nod and started picking at the edges of the flesh-coloured plaster on her palm.

  ‘War wound, is it?’ I said and she ignored me and carried on, chewing gum as she leant against the door frame.

  Despite her first experiments with make-up, she was looking more and more like Angela every time I came back to the valley; the moonish features and coppery hair had skipped a generation and landed firmly on her. She was in her final year at the village school and glad to be leaving. She’d never got on with the other children, especially Vinny Sturzaker. I hadn’t told Kat, but not long after we’d seen Grace at the wedding, he’d twisted her arm so hard in a playground fight that he’d almost dislocated her shoulder.

  ‘Come on, Grace, shift,’ said Liz, giving her a nudge from behind.

  With a glance over her shoulder at her mother, Grace did as she was told and sat down glumly on a chair with her arms folded. Kat smiled to reassure her that she understood what she was going through. If she didn’t want to talk, then that was fine.

  This was Grace’s first proper experience of death and it had unsettled her. She’d adored the Gaffer and he’d doted on her, as he did with all children born in the Endlands; they were assurances that when he went the place would carry on. But it wasn’t just that the Gaffer was dead. The way Liz looked at her, I could tell that Grace was in trouble about something.

  ‘Are you in the dog-house today?’ I said, and she looked out of the window.

  ‘Oh, just ignore her,’ said Liz and shifted the large plastic bag of ivy she was holding from one hand to the other so that she could kiss me.

  ‘Did you hear about the fire in the wood?’ she said.

  ‘It sounds like you had a job on your hands,’ I said.

  ‘It’s just as well it was on the riverbanks and we had water handy to put it out,’ said Liz. ‘Otherwise I don’t know what we would have done. Aren’t you cold in that, Mrs Pentecost?’

  Kat looked down at her dress. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

  ‘Have you lost more weight an’ all?’ said Liz.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Kat replied, putting her hands where Liz was staring and smiling with the anticipation of telling everyone that she’d soon be swelling in that very place.

  ‘You don’t need to starve yourself any more, you know,’ said Liz and dumped the ivy on the sideboard. ‘You’re married now. You got him.’

  ‘You certainly did,’ said Laurel, coming up from the scullery with the wine and patting my shoulder. ‘And make sure you keep him, love. They’re all good men, the Pentecosts.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kat.

  ‘It were such a lovely day, your wedding,’ said Laurel. ‘And you had the time of your life, didn’t you, Grace? Dancing all night.’

  Grace looked at her and then went back to peeling off the corner of the plaster.

  ‘Leave it alone, Grace, for God’s sake,’ said Liz. ‘You don’t want it getting infected, do you?’

  ‘Come on, miss, make yourself useful,’ said Angela, flapping open the large rectangle of plaid that was used when everyone came round to eat. Grace got up and began to smooth the cloth over the table, still not talking to anyone, and Angela put her hands on her shoulders and started to sing.

  Oh, the day is done, the harvest’s won—

  The apples and the hay.

  The leaves will wither on the bough,

  And all will fall by Devil’s Day.

  ‘The Gaffer sang those owd songs so well,’ said Laurel.

  ‘Aye, he sang them in tune,’ said Liz, and Angela stuck out her tongue and carried on.

  Hang the lamb and pour the wine,

  Play the fiddle bold

  Devil sleep upon the fire

  Until the sheep are in the fold.

  Adam knows the story behind the song. We tell it every year on Devil’s Day. It’s important to remember why we do what we do, I say to him. It’s important to know what our grandfathers have passed down to us.

  After the Blizzard, once they’d buried the dead and things started to return to normal in the valley, it was agreed that the Devil must have gone back to the moors. And so, for several years, the farmers kept their sheep down in the Endlands and out of his reach.

  But there was only so much land that could be used f
or grazing. The Moss was dangerous with its sucking marshes, and corralling the ewes in the hay meadows or in the fields by Sullom Wood eventually churned up the earth so much that nothing grew. After a few years, they had no choice but to take the ewes and their new-borns back to the high pastures and let the fields in the valley rejuvenate.

  There was much debate about what ought to be done. Would the shepherds have to stay on the moors all summer in case the Devil tried to take the sheep? And if he did, what could they do about it? Thirteen people had died in the valley. When the Devil was determined, it took a brave man to stand in his way. And if the Owd Feller was asleep, who was to say that he wouldn’t wake up and disguise himself again?

  It was Joe Pentecost, the Gaffer said, who suggested that they wake the Devil themselves, an idea that was met with derision at first. But the thing was, said Joe, for all his cunning the Devil had given away his vices when he’d come to the valley and by those things they’d trap him.

  So, that autumn, before they gathered in the sheep for the winter, they lured the Devil down off the moors—the smell of stewing meat and blackberry wine, the sound of singing and the see-saw of a fiddle bringing him spellbound to the farmhouse like a snake charmed by a fakir’s flute. All night they’d kept him there, until, drunk and bloated, he curled up on the fireplace and slept.

  The next morning, once the sheep were safely in the bye-field, they turned the Devil out of his bed of embers and the dogs chased him along the lane. He fled through the Moss and up the steep scramble of Fiendsdale Clough, where he leapt from rock to rock and disappeared on to the moors. He spent the rest of the autumn cursing the farmers, but cursing his own gullibility more. When the winter came and the snow began to fall, he climbed down into a hole under the peat and slept until the following year, when he was woken again by the Endlanders and their singing, too sick with hunger now to care if he was being tricked.

  Grace finished laying the tablecloth and Angela thanked her and cupped her cheek.

  ‘Oh, cheer up face-ache,’ she said. ‘It’s forgotten about now, isn’t it, Liz?’

  Liz inclined her head to the scullery.

  ‘Go and see Granddad Tom,’ she said. ‘Go and give him the ivy.’

  Grace looked at the bag and shook her head.

  ‘You picked it,’ said Angela. ‘You deliver it.’

  It was always the children’s job to cut the ivy for the Ram’s Crown. And it had to be ivy. The Devil hated evergreens.

  ‘Come on,’ said Liz. ‘I think you’d better do as you’re told after today’s performance.’

  Angela handed the bag to Grace and kissed her on the forehead.

  ‘Go on, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘Make it up to your mam.’

  ‘Being helpful always makes you feel better,’ said Kat, and Grace looked at her and twisted the bag closed.

  ‘I wish Daddy was here,’ she said.

  ‘He’ll be back on Devil’s Day,’ said Angela. ‘He said he would be.’

  ‘That’s ages off,’ said Grace.

  ‘Three days,’ said Angela. ‘It could be worse.’

  ‘Why can’t he come home tonight?’ said Grace.

  ‘He’s busy,’ said Liz.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Deliveries,’ said Liz. ‘You know what Daddy does. Stop pestering me.’

  ‘Three days,’ said Angela. ‘It’ll soon pass, love.’

  When Grace had gone, Liz said, ‘God, I could strangle her at the moment.’

  ‘She’s taken the ivy, hasn’t she?’ said Angela.

  ‘I’m not talking about that,’ said Liz. ‘I’m talking about what happened at the house.’

  ‘That?’ said Angela. ‘I think you’re making more of it than you need to.’

  ‘It weren’t you who had to spend an hour picking bits of glass out of the bloody carpet, were it?’ said Liz.

  She caught my expression.

  ‘Oh, you tell him, Mam,’ she said and went to light the candles on the table.

  Earlier that afternoon, Angela explained, Grace had taken a hammer from the toolbox under the sink and smashed up the mirror on the back of her bedroom door.

  ‘Hence the injury?’ I said.

  ‘It looks worse than it is,’ said Angela.

  ‘Grace did that?’ said Kat.

  ‘Does that surprise you?’ said Liz, blowing out the match. ‘Stick around.’

  ‘It’s her age,’ said Laurel. ‘She’s coming up to the change. They all turn a bit unpredictable, especially girls.’

  ‘It’s nowt to do with her age,’ said Liz. ‘She’s just being a little cow.’

  ‘She’s upset about the Gaffer,’ said Laurel.

  ‘She’s missing Jeff, too,’ said Angela.

  ‘Aye, and don’t I bloody know it?’ said Liz. ‘I tell you, if she asks me one more time when he’s coming home, I’ll swing for her.’

  ‘Don’t have children if you don’t want to answer their questions,’ said Angela. ‘You never stopped when you were her age.’

  ‘It’s every day, though, Mam.’

  ‘She’s only a little lass,’ said Angela. ‘You can’t blame her for wanting to know where he is, can you?’

  It had been a couple of months before Lambing that year when Jeff was sent down with Sam Sturzaker, Vinny’s father, for emptying the safe of the amusement arcade in the town one night. They hadn’t got away with very much (enough, went the rumours, to almost cover the cost of the petrol they used to get there and back), but even though the theft had been poorly executed, the judge had apparently taken a dim view of the fact that it had clearly been planned. He’d given Jeff twelve months and Sam, who had stolen the keys to the premises, got eighteen. And Grace and Vinny suddenly had something in common.

  When Jeff had been released early on probation, a friend of a friend of a friend managed to beg him a job as a delivery driver for a brewery. It meant that he worked long hours and he was away a lot, but at least he was working—idle hands and all that—at least he was sending some money back to Liz. It was a shame, Laurel said, that he couldn’t be here for the Gaffer’s funeral, but that was the kind of sacrifice a working man had to make sometimes. It was normal. They were a normal family now.

  In one way or another, Liz and Jeff had been together since we were children, and were closer to each other than I ever was to either of them. Liz would do her best to involve me in their games, but Jeff had always made me feel like a spare part. He and I were bonded by the fact that we were both from the Endlands but that was about it.

  I think everyone, but especially Laurel and Liz, felt guilty that they hadn’t done more to set Jeff on a better path when he’d been a boy, but the truth was I liked it when he got himself into trouble at school and at home. I enjoyed the look on Liz’s face when he tried to impress her with a pocket full of sweets he’d filched from Wigton’s, or the way she so expertly shoved him aside when he tried to pin her to the floor in kiss-catch. Filthy from the wet grass and embarrassed in front of the jeering kids from the Infants, he’d have no recourse but cruelty and he’d twist her skin and flick her ears and tell her that she looked more like a boy than him. But no matter what he did it was never so bad that he couldn’t make her laugh five minutes later in a way that she never laughed with me. Jeff was just Jeff. He was the offence and the apology, even now.

  ‘Might you have ended up with her, if you’d stayed in the valley?’ Kat had asked me the first night of our honeymoon.

  It wasn’t a serious question, she was amusing herself. If I’d chosen her, then Liz clearly wasn’t my type. Quite stocky and stooped, with big hands.

  ‘Liz?’ I said. ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t you like her in that way?’ said Kat.

  Even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered. Before I’d gone off to university, in the last few days of the summer, I’d found Jeff and Liz on the banks of the river in Sullom Wood. She had her knickers puddled around one ankle and Jeff was going at her like a jackhammer.

&nbs
p; ∾

  Bill fetched Dadda in from the ram’s pen and they emerged from the scullery with Grace moping after them, her hands in the pockets of her jeans and scuffing the loose flaps of lino with her trainers.

  ‘Come on, love,’ said Bill, ushering her into the kitchen. ‘Go and sit down. Let’s eat while I’ve managed to prise Tom away from his bloody tup for five minutes.’

  ‘Finally,’ said Angela, pouring Dadda a glass of beer. ‘That ram of yours must be sick of the sight of you.’

  ‘Leith told me to keep an eye on him,’ said Dadda. ‘I’m only following vet’s orders.’

  ‘Aye, but you’ll be sleeping in the bloody straw with him before long,’ said Angela.

  ‘It’s not Tom’s fault,’ said Laurel. ‘If the Gaffer was still here, then they could take it in turns, couldn’t they? Oh, it is going to be hard for you on your own, isn’t it, Tom, love?’

  ‘All right,’ said Bill. ‘I don’t think he needs reminding, does he?’

  ‘He’s not on his own anyway,’ said Angela. ‘Since when were anyone on their own here?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ said Laurel. ‘It won’t be the same, will it?’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ said Dadda.

  ‘Well, I suppose at least you’ve an extra pair of hands for Gathering this year,’ said Laurel, smiling at Kat as she picked out the cutlery from the drawer in the table.

  ‘Aye, but is Mrs Pentecost prepared to get her hands dirty?’ said Liz. ‘That’s the question.’

  ‘I don’t mind that,’ said Kat. ‘We had an allotment at home.’

  ‘An allotment?’ said Liz, sending a smile around the table as she took a knife and fork off Laurel. ‘Well, that’s all right then.’

  ‘You’ll be fine, won’t you, love?’ said Bill.

  ‘So long as we feed you up a bit,’ said Angela, removing the lids from the dishes of vegetables.

  Dadda stubbed out his roll-up in the ashtray on the sideboard and wheezed into a cough.

  ‘Oh, Tom, listen to you,’ said Laurel. ‘You sound awful.’