Ghost Wall(23)

Even Dan seemed to be working seriously now, quietly as the sun slipped towards the western moorland. Shadows reached. The noise of the day, the birds and small rustlers, the wind in the leaves, even perhaps the distant wash of traffic on the Great North Road, stilled. The moon, waxing, a couple of days off full, was crossing the eastern horizon, beginning to stand out from the deepening sky. I stood there, my hands cupping the space of whatever bovine desire and fear had been within that skull. I watched the men hammer posts and fix their woven panels. Mad play, the building of a wall where there was nothing inside, the conjuring of animal spirits on a summer’s night.

Bring the other bones, Silvie, don’t just stand about, it’ll be dark before we know it.

I brought the small heads one at a time in hands cupped as if to receive the body of Christ, the blood and bones of my fingers and palms a final brief protection. There had been minds there. Sheep cry for their taken lambs, even rabbits know alarm and need. I raised each one as a sacrament to the ghost wall, found myself bowing my head as Dad set them in place.

They made drumming, as the eastern sky darkened and stars prickled above the band of pale cloud. They made chanting, and I found myself joining in, heard my voice rise clear, hold its notes, above their low incantation. We sat on the ground before our raised bone-faces, sang to them as they gleamed moonlit into the darkness. We sang of death, and it felt true. Away to the south, orange light spilled across the sky from the town, and below us a single pair of headlights nosed the lane.

Why not, after all, make ceremony for the animal dead, for those we have deliberately killed. There is still a dying.





WE SLEPT LATE, all except Mum, who had a breakfast of bilberries and griddle-cakes ready before I came out of the hut, still in my pyjamas, to find the sun sharp in my eyes and the tree-shade already contracted. You were up late, she said, or I daresay early, sun must’ve been up again time you and him come in. Yeah, I said, nearly, I’m just off to the wood. I wandered through the trees until I found the bush that had become my peeing place, a very un-Iron-Age rhododendron under whose spreading skirts I could pull down my pyjamas and squat in reasonable security. I stroked the backs of my thighs, which were still sore, and when I stood up craned and lifted my top to see that the marks on my back were less angry. In a few days it would be over, until next time. And Molly, I remembered, had she come back? I should have thought of her last night, should not have been so absorbed that I forgot her altogether.

Of course she came back, said Mum, I waited up, how did you not see the car? Some lad brought her, bit the worse for wear if you ask me, the both of them, shouldn’t have been behind the wheel, I’d say. Don’t tell your dad. Not surprised if she’s still sleeping it off. Don’t tell your dad now mind. He’s off to the stream for a wash, get yourself dressed before he’s back. You know I wouldn’t tell him, I said, I’m not daft.

I thought there might be embarrassment on the air, an awkwardness at the memory of the Prof drumming with his head thrown back to the moon, at Dad himself sitting straight as if in church and joining a wordless chant, the two sceptical boys in the end not exchanging glances but intent on the bone-faces on high and swaying to rough music. I was wrong. Mum and I gave each other one look as Dad and the Prof stepped in and did a strange male back-slapping move, like gorillas. I had never seen Dad touch another man before, didn’t know he knew the steps. Great evening, said the Prof, amazing, what we did there. Yeah, said Dad, late night though, we’ve missed the best of the day. It happens, said the Prof, I’m sure it happened back then, the long summer nights, plenty of dark for sleeping in the winter. The breakfast’s all ready, said Mum, I can make you some tea if you want it, leastways herbal.

Molly and I went off foraging again. I don’t think it was even discussed: Mum was doing whatever Mum did, the boys were going with Dad and the Prof and whatever they were doing was important and didn’t need to be shared with the rest of us, Molly and I were dealing with plants, which required no ceremony. I’ve got food, said Molly, don’t worry, I stocked up in town yesterday, so we can go dig up more weird roots or whatever but first I want you to show me this ghost wall. It’s still there, right? This way? She set off through the trees and I followed her. Far’s I know, I said. I didn’t want her to see, knew it was going to look stupid under morning light. It was just a game, I said, just to see how things might have been, obviously it’s not a real ghost wall. Mm, she said, a real ghost wall, shall we think about that? I could see it now, below the brow of the hill, a rickety palisade and the cow’s skull balanced against the blue sky. Of course I know it’s not real, I said, but none of this is real, is it, this whole summer, the blankets came from a shop and you lot made the moccasins on a study day and the Prof had the grains delivered from the health food shop in Morbury, that’s not the point. So what is the—she said. How was your evening, I said, you got a lift back? She grinned. Yes I did. Well, with a bit of an interlude in a car park on the way, and very nice too. And I’m getting a lift back in again tomorrow. Come too, if you like, he’s got friends. Come where, I thought, a pub in Morbury, to drink and talk to men? Can’t, I said, no way Dad would let me. It’s there, look. The ghost wall.

Molly went up to the fence, stroked its weave. Her plaits, I saw, were woven too, their rhythm echoing the work of my dad’s hands. That’s seriously weird, she said, the heads. I thought it was just a bit naff but that’s creepy, they’re like trophies or something. What did you do last night, dance around them? No, I said, there was no dancing. Where do you want to go this morning, I asked, there’s not much on the moor except the bilberries, we could maybe go back to the beach, it’s not so hot and the tide’s out mid-afternoon. But damn, I thought, she will want to swim, she’ll think we should take our clothes off and she would see my back. Or we can try that next wood, I said, it’s too early for blackberries still but there might be more plums and maybe mushrooms, Dad could tell us if we picked anything poisonous. Molly was gazing at the sheep’s skulls, hands behind her back as if she might be tempted and didn’t want to touch them. Don’t mind, she said. Woods. It’s too far to the beach. You sure your dad knows his mushrooms? Yes, I said, I’m sure. We turned away, began to walk back down the hill towards our foraging places. Silvie, she said, you’re really OK with this, the ghost wall? It’s interesting, I said, I didn’t think it would be but it is. You’re not scared, she said. I shrugged. Of what, bones? Of people, she said. Of your dad and Jim. Nah, I said, why would I be scared, we just said it’s not real.