Where it ends it begins

The rabbit lies outstretched at the roadside, one eye open, the other, mangled with blood and fur.  Through the drizzle, a solitary crow cries a mournful ‘caw’ whilst across the landscape, the moorland sheep utter a low bleat of remembrance.  The rabbit, a harlequin of soft brown fur and blood smeared tarmac, gazes up at me with its one dead eye.  I pick up a stick from the side of the road and attempt to move it, to give it a more dignified resting place, amongst the ferns and bracken.  Failure greets me, with half the deceased creature still clinging to the tarmac and the rest now strewn into an inhospitable patch of brown moorland grass.

”The road’s littered with them this morning.”  I peer through this autumn dawn’s early gloom and make out a high-viz jacket moving towards me.  It’s Gerald, the owner of the Gamekeeper’s Snare Inn, the last outpost up here on the moors.  He appears into view through the drifting mist, his old mongrel Snatch, at his heels.

“Alright Andy?  Some storm last night,” he says with a grimace, “almost took the roof off the old place.”  He looks around, searching the landscape, as if something untoward might happen at any moment.  “What are you doing up here so early?”

“Couldn’t sleep I guess.”  I look around between the skittering banks of fog at the bleak moorland outstretched around us, waiting for the wind to bring me a better answer, but there’s nothing.  “You know how it is…”

“Yeah mate.”  Gerald is a man of few words.  This early in the morning they become even fewer, without a few beers to loosen him up.

“I made a mess of the rabbit,” I say and then feel stupid.  Two men trying to make small talk, both of us as inept as the other, as if there’s some heavy force that stops us from saying anything other than the blatantly obvious.  Later, tonight in the bar it’ll be easier.

Gerald looks at the remains of the half-rabbit.  “Heard on the radio that there’s another storm coming this way.”  His eyes move to the horizon where a leaden sky glares at us from a couple of miles away.  “Won’t take long for that to get here.  I don’t think you’ll get back to your place before it hits.”

“You’re probably right,” I rub my face and look away towards the direction of home, a mile back, directly across the moorland track, or further if I take the road that winds around these troughs and hills.  “I should be okay, this gear keeps out most of the weather,” I indicate my waxed jacket and walking boots.

“I’m not opening until later this afternoon,” says Gerald.  Snatch is starting to whine and the wind is picking up again, “there’s not many people around this time of year.  Come back to the pub for a coffee if you want and wait for the storm to blow over.”

I search around the moor again, waiting for it to provide an answer.  Gerald’s okay, he’s a good enough bloke, he’s been at the Gamekeeper’s Snare for about three years now, since old Albert Greenwood passed away after running the place for over forty years.  The locals from here and abouts took a while to get used to Gerald, a quiet man who doesn't give much away, but he can pull a decent pint and keeps the whiskey shelf well stocked.

Rain starts to splatter giant tears in the road around us and the low rumble of thunder sets Snatch off at a bark. “Coffee would be good.  If that’s okay.  Thanks.”

“No problem, better get in, going to get soaked otherwise,” Gerald talks to Snatch rather than me, “come on lad, let’s get you home.”

We trudge over the brow of the hill and the Gamekeeper’s comes into sight, a sixteenth century coaching inn, high on the lonely moors from a time when folk would wind their way from one small town to the next, where weary travellers would bed down in the inn’s great barn or in one of the draughty upstairs rooms if they had enough coin in their purse.  The hanging sign outside, that hasn’t changed for as long as I can remember, creaks in the wind, the old gamekeeper setting his snare looks down at us, paint peeling from his coat, his gun-dog at his side.

Inside, Gerald sets about stoking the open fire in the main lounge, he throws on a couple of logs and pulls two spindle back chairs in front, “Might as well get warm,” he says, Snatch gives a groan and stretches out in front of the fire, set in his spot for the day.  I feel out of place, like I don’t belong here.  This is a place where I’m more than comfortable on an evening, at the bar with the local farmers and workers, pint in my hand, chewing the fat and putting the world to rights.  This morning the bar is dark and quiet, the smell of last night’s beer and tobacco hangs in the air, mixed with the strong smell of disinfectant from the recently mopped stone floors.  Outside the rain is starting to tap on the windows, demanding to be let in, harder it taps and darker it becomes as the storm clouds move their way from the horizon and across the open skies towards us.

Gerald has disappeared around the back of the bar, I can hear a kettle boiling and the sound of teaspoons in mugs.  “Sugar?”  he calls.

“No, no thanks… sweet enough and all that,” I find myself saying.  Linda would have a fit if she caught me drinking coffee.  I’ve been drinking herbal teas until they come out of my ears for the last few weeks.  Gerald returns with two mugs and half a packet of biscuits.

“There you are mate.”  Gerald hands me a chipped mug with a picture of a duck on it.  “Got some biscuits if you want one.  Some sort of fancy chocolate things that Beryl’s left.”

Beryl has worked at the Gamekeeper’s for over twenty years and even though she’s nearly eighty now, she still does a couple of shifts each week.  She likes to keep an eye on Gerald, makes sure he gets his washing done and feeds himself properly.  Gerald lives here on his own, just him and Snatch.  It’s been that way since they arrived.  No one asks many questions.  There’s a rumour that there was a girlfriend that threw him out, and that someone at the brewery owed him a favour, so that’s how he ended up here.  But no one really knows or cares much for that matter.  The turning of the seasons and this week’s livestock prices are the main topic of conversation at the bar of an evening.

Gerald comes and sits in the chair next to me.  “Didn’t you know there was a storm on its way when you set off?”

“No, I thought it had blown itself out during the night.  Kept me awake, just thought I’d get out of the house for a bit.”  We fall silent again.  The wind is banging at the old single glazed windows and a flash momentarily lights up the darkened landscape beyond.  I count, one, two, three, the thunder booms.  “Storm’s getting closer.”

“Aye.  I’d better just go and check that I shut the windows upstairs.”  Gerald gets up again and Snatch trots after him.  I’m left with the fire and my thoughts.  Another flash of lightning, this time I count to two.  Outside the tempest is rising, I get up and peer out of one of the small windows that looks out across the pub car park to the moor beyond.  Heavy, rain bloated storm clouds fill the bruised sky, and across the ravaged moor, sheep stand rooted to the spot whilst bracken and small branches take flight though the air, broomsticks without witches.  The tall oak tree at the far side of the car park watches over the place stoically, its branches swaying and contorting, but the trunk stands still, where it’s stood for hundreds of years.  My thoughts wander to the tree and what it would have seen, predicting each season, what it must be like, to be the same thing, in the same place for so long.

Twenty eight years.  That’s how long I’ve worked at Gibson and Sons, the local animal feed producer.  Four weeks, that’s how much notice they’ve given me.  Processes are changing, the world’s a more efficient place, packing and delivering, well, they can do it another way, and they don’t need me anymore.  Since I was sixteen I’ve been there, it’s a part of me, and now I don’t know how or where I fit in.  Linda has been great, she’s helped me through the initial panic attacks, not heart attacks as I’d thought they were when the chest pain hit and the desperate grasping for breath.  I’d never felt anything like it.  The day Sandra from HR told me, I’d held it together, had a joke with the boys and girls in the warehouse, “I’ll be fine, leave all the work for you youngsters,” then, the rest of the day disappeared in a flash and I had to tell Linda the news.  Driving home, I’d pulled up at the side of the road and thought that was the end.  The panic attacks have got a bit better since then.  Linda is into all that holistic stuff and she’s had me doing breathing exercises and relaxation to whale music, along with the herbal teas.

My thoughts are snatched away as a large lump of debris smacks against the window with a sudden bang that shakes the glass, making me jump, anxiety pain jolts across my chest.  Outside the oak tree is momentarily illuminated in a grand lightening flash that floods the moors as booming thunder roars its arrival.  It’s right on top of us.  The storm howls and bangs on the roof, on the windows and doors, an angry, malevolent force wanting to get in.  It feels as though the whole place is going to be lifted up and hurled across the moors with me and Gerald inside it.  Another flash and a thunderous boom that vibrates through the old stone walls and floors.  The fire spits and hisses its displeasure as giant globules of rain find their way down the chimney and into the flames.  Rain lashes in sheets against the windows.  Upstairs I hear Snatch howl.

Gerald reappears.  “I’ve shut him in the bedroom with the radio on, he’ll calm down better in there,” he nods towards upstairs and chuckles, “he’ll probably hide under the duvet for a while.”  Gerald brings the coffee mugs over to the window where I’m absorbed in counting the gaps between the thunder and lightning.  The two are still working together like a duo of twisted fiends, intent on reigning down as much destruction and damage as they can.

“Thanks for this,” I say, indicating the coffee, and more.

“Ahh, it’s just cheap stuff from that discount place in town.”  Gerald takes a sip.

“It’s good.  Linda’s stopped me from having too much caffeine… got me on these herbal tea things,” I give a half-hearted smile, “they smell like something out of your granny’s bathroom.”

“What’s she got you drinking that for?”  Gerald’s face is lit for a moment with the next lightning flash.  Outside it’s almost black, the clouds, dense and dark.

I don’t answer.  I don’t know how to admit that I’m going to be out of work by the end of the week.  People around here know me as safe, predictable, good guy Andy, always ready to help folk out.  No dramas, no fuss, just me, and Linda of course.  Like we have been for ages.  Very little changes, until now.

Gerald is quiet.  Upstairs, Snatch has calmed down and the only sound is that of the wailing storm banshee, whipping itself around the chimney stacks, thrashing the old oak tree for all it’s worth, while the creaking old pub sign swings violently back and forth, the old gamekeeper’s face set in stern concentration as he watches the turmoil unfurl all around him.  We go back to our seats by the fire.

“Never known a place like this,” Gerald fills the void left by my lack of answer.  “I’ve lived in some places, I tell you, but this one is something else, up here, away from everyone.  The moors sort of seep into you a bit”.

I’ve never heard Gerald talk about himself at all, none of us have.  I take a moment and then, “Where were you before you came here then Gerald?”

“Me?  I’ve been all over mate.  Pick myself up, dust myself off, start again.  You know how it is.”

“Well, not really.”  I respond with a shrug.  “I’ve lived around here all my life.”

I press a little more and ask Gerald about where he’s lived and worked, before he came here.  The storm casts a grim backdrop as he tells me what I suspect is just a small part of his story, a story of a mother who died when he was thirteen and a stepdad who drank and used his fists in equal measure.  Of job after job on building sites, labouring, cash jobs, back breaking work.  There were lucky breaks where he’d got settled, found a girl, got a flat, and then the plug would be pulled and he’d be starting all over again.  He mentions a couple of sons but doesn’t expand, they lived with their mother, in their late twenties now.  At that point he’s pensive and pauses, then resumes in his typical life-worn sort of style.  He’d done a fair amount of bar work in and between all the ups and downs and it turns out he ended up at the Gamekeeper’s by responding to an advert for a new tenant.  Nothing more sinister or intriguing than that.

“I’m just like loads of other blokes my age,” he says, “not got it right every time.  Life’s just like that.  I take it as it comes.  Even when it’s been really bad, something turns up and it gets better again.”

We sit and finish our coffee, and eat some of Beryl’s chocolate biscuits whilst the fire spits and the sounds of the storm echo down the chimney.  Eventually, the gaps between the thunder and the lightning get wider as the sheets of rain and bolts of light move away into the distant hills.  Outside, the Gamekeeper swings a little more gently and the pieces of tree, building, and land that have been tossed into the sky, are now strewn back on the ground.

“Better go and see what the damage is I suppose,” Gerald seems resigned to a hard life, almost as though he expects nothing more.  “If you’re free next week, I could do with some help behind the bar.  It’s getting a bit too much for Beryl.  I might need a lift with some other stuff too if you fancy it.”  I look across at Gerald, I don’t know how to answer.  My chest feels tight again.  “Old Trevor mentioned a few weeks ago about what had happened at Gibsons and your job going and all that.  You know how word gets around.”

“Right…I’ll have a think about it, thanks Gerald.”  I’m genuinely taken off guard and start to pull my coat from the back of the chair.  “Looks like the worst of the storm’s over.  I’d better get back to Linda, she’ll be wondering what’s happened to me.”

“No worries Andy.  You take it easy mate.  Might see you later on if you’re in for a pint.”  Gerald gives me one of his crooked half smiles and goes over to open the door.  A fresh morning breeze blows in a handful of leaves, but it’s brightening and there’s a fuzzy line of silver cast on the far horizon.  Birds have taken back to the sky and there’s a scattering of fine cloud letting the light find its way through, painting a golden hue over the moors.  I button up my coat and feel a sudden sense of calm that I haven’t felt for a long time.

“Thanks for the coffee Gerald.  Hopefully see you later,” and I head across the car park back towards the road and the moorland track that will take me home.  I’ve gone about five paces when I stop and turn.  Gerald is still standing in the doorway.  “A bit of bar work sounds good,” I say, “thank you.”  Gerald nods and smiles and then turns to go inside, closing the door behind him.

Back on the track over the moors, the storm is out of sight and a fine autumn day unfurls before me.  Curlews whistle in the slight breeze and the sheep are calling to each other, perhaps discussing the storm that’s just passed.  The sun's fine light filters through the cloud, casting a warm amber glow over the coarse moorland grass that ripples like waves in the wind.  I stop for a moment and breathe, taking in a world that’s transformed from monochrome to glorious technicolour now the deluge has passed.  To the side of the track I hear a scratching noise in the grass and watch as a young buck rabbit pops up, nose twitching, sniffing the air.  He sees me and in an instant, turns and runs off down the track, his white tail bobbing.

I stand and smile, watching the rabbit disappear into the grass and heather.  There is life here on these moors, it goes on, forever changing, shade and texture and hue. I just need to start looking at it differently.