Fun on the Moors
On Sunday he fell apart then, without realising it, he began to put himself back together.
A 100 per cent chance of rain, said the weather app, but rain can be a mist or a monsoon and perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad, the peaks and troughs of the Cleveland Way in the morning, then a level march across the moors. He would treat it like a physical challenge, a marathon or an assault course. There’d be nobody to urge him on but there might still be some fun in that, on the moors, alone, an assault course in the rain.
But he was exhausted before the first ascent. He’d gone to bed early but it was pub quiz night and the old wooden floors had meant he was able to take part from his bed, doing well on movie themes and rivers of the world, increasingly frustrated during the picture rounds. Should he give up on sleep, go and offer his services to the Four Quizeteers? Or lie there and strain his eyes looking at the room’s tiny TV, placed too far away on the chest of drawers? There were two working channels, both showing quiz shows, so he spent the evening under intense interrogation, distant voices demanding to know who had had a number-one hit with ‘Smalltown Boy’.
Still exhausted, he climbed through woods straight out of a horror film, the mist dense as cigar smoke so that he had the illusion of walking in a small, portable grey cell, open only to the rain. His thoughts felt similarly confined. He would have to tell his parents Natasha’s news. His colleagues at work, their mutual friends, would need to know, perhaps knew already. He would have to get serious about finding a place to rent – renting at his age, my God. Would he have flatmates? He was too old for flatmates. The path opened in front, closed behind, and now the rain was seeping down his back and into his boots, and he could definitely feel the skin starting to rub. Only one idea brought relief and it was too late for that.
Finally he left the tree line, emerging at the top of the scarp, a great expanse of the north-east unrolling before him, green and yellow fields spiked with pylons and turbines and, just visible through the grey wash, Middlesbrough, Stockton and Redcar. It was a view he might once have taken in, but now he merely glanced at it, as if it was a postcard intended for someone else. He’d be heading south-west of here, but first there’d be a hill to climb, then another and another, five in all. This took up the grim, wet morning, the walk along the plateaux too brief so that the sudden descent and steep climbs seemed spiteful, enraging, and he began to doubt the wisdom of the whole project. Landscape no longer worked. There was no walking cure, and it was impossible to put the past behind you because it would always find a way to sneak ahead and obstruct your path. Round Hill and Carlton Moor, Cringle Moor and Clay Bank Top, he trudged across and up and down, the cold, steady rain seeping into every seam, into his clothes, through his skin, and into his joints so that he felt as if he was rusting. If Marnie had been here, they might have found comedy in it. Was there a way back, an apology or explanation by text or call? He did not have a gift for emotional eloquence as Marnie had discovered, but perhaps if he was honest and straightforward …
But it was a myth that talking made things better. Just keep on, get it over with. One last climb and he was on Urra Moor, exposed and bare and seemingly infinite, and he remembered Marnie’s description of looking at the world atlas as a child, that fluttering fear of great distance and empty space. He had never felt such solitude in all his life and he found himself imagining terrible things, falling overboard and watching the ship sail away – Christ, don’t think about that – his childhood nightmare of drifting through infinite space or being buried alive, spiralling fantasies of terrifying loneliness, the thoughts so relentless that he had to stand, hands on knees, struggling to breathe. Fun on the Moors! No wonder people went mad here. There was beauty in its severity, but couldn’t he find beauty in something bright and noisy and alive, somewhere populated even by just one person?
Too late for that. Keep on. Hours passed and he entered a fugue state of exhaustion, the light fading before he saw a sign of human life, a small cluster of modern houses on the lonely road that bisected the moor, their location so remote that they must have been built there by mistake. A burst of rain urged him on to a drab, pebble-dashed house, four windows and a door, like a child’s drawing, a mud-spattered minicab on its gravel forecourt. Was this really somewhere that took paying guests?
‘Good God, look at the state of you. Let’s get you indoors.’ His host was a white-haired man in his late fifties, short and stocky and blunt, like an old-fashioned football manager, ushering him into the hallway, helping him with his wet clothes.
‘You on your own?’
‘I am tonight.’
‘All this way on your own?’
‘I was with a friend, but she had to go back.’
He followed the man up the narrow stairs. His son, he said, had just joined the Royal Navy so, rather than let the room go to waste, they were trying out the B-and-B game. It was ‘early days, so please bear with us’. His wife, he said, was finding it hard and had gone to stay with her sister in Scarborough. ‘She doesn’t like people in his room.’
‘Won’t that make it a bit difficult? For a BB, I mean?’
‘Yes, well, like I said. Early days!’
And it was true, the tiny spare bedroom still carried the son’s presence – a pull-up bar above the door and a set of weights in the corner, Blu-Tack marks on the wall where the posters had once been, football stickers on the mirror and, on the chest of drawers, a huddle of trophies in black and gold plastic. The duvet was emblazoned with red and white lions, the colours of Middlesbrough FC, and the landlord, Graham, hoped he wouldn’t mind. ‘Not a Magpies’ fan, I hope!’ and Michael assured him that he was not.
‘Do you have kids yourself?’ asked Graham.
‘No, no, I don’t.’
‘You miss them when they go.’
‘I can imagine.’
There was a pause as if Graham wanted to say more. Instead it would be lads together for dinner, if that was okay, or he could run him to the pub if he preferred. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ said Graham, and gave a last forlorn look around the room as if to check, absolutely once and for all, that his son was no longer there.
And then Michael was alone again, sitting on the edge of the narrow single bed. It seemed inconceivable that he would spend the night here and inconceivable that he might leave, for where would he go? With one finger, he pulled the curtain aside and looked eastwards. Daylight had gone, the wind now spattering the window with rain. This – now this was wuthering. It was a view of such featureless desolation that he had no choice but to laugh. Leaning his phone flat against the glass, he took a photograph as a kind of joke: fat dark bands, like the view through a blindfold.
What to do with the photograph? What are photos for? He heard footsteps on the stairs, a light tap on the door, and here was Graham again, excitement in his eyes.
‘Just to say I’m about to microwave a chicken.’
‘Thank you very much, Graham,’ said Michael. ‘That sounds terrific.’ He heard Marnie’s voice, Oh, ‘terrific’, is it? and went downstairs to help.