“I don’t think anyone else is going to come
along this evening, May. It’s a really nice night, they’re all out in the park
or eating their dinners outside or something.”
“Well it’s not like there’s a talk on or
nothing, there isn’t an official start time this evening. The cuddly lion is on
the table, if someone else turns up they’ll see it.”
“Must be my round by now, I’ll just nip to
the bar before we all get chatting.”
“Aye, of course you will, there’s only half
a dozen of us here and three times that said they’d come – skinflint! Getting
the cheap round in, is that it?”
There’s some laughter at that. He sits back
down when everyone ribs him that there’s almost full drinks still in front of
most folk, but then says “Fuck it then, I’ll get my own pint, wait for you lot
to catch up then I’ll get the round in, fair enough?” The others smile and
reassure him they’re only messing, but it’s still awfy nice of him to get the
next one in “I’ll have a single malt!” pipes up the resident wit, to much
dutiful laughter.
The chat is general. There’s no talk, so
they discuss last month’s on reading runes. They talk over the candle magic
workshops held in the shop down the road. There’s plans for Conference. Baby
talk, family news, general discussion. Just because it’s a collection of pagans
and witches doesn’t mean there’s not family dramas and health worries, the
price of gas to talk over and moans about running a car these days. Someone has
brought a new set of tarot cards and is struggling between wanting to show off
the pretty things and the desire to keep the pack to themselves, clean and
untouched by all and sundry. It gets put away in the bag before it is properly
brought out. There’s a selection of necklaces and trinkets someone’s brought to
sell maybe, which get lots of admiration and a few orders. Someone loves the
bird ones but “they’re all owls there – got any crows? Magpies? Could you get
me a magpie one?” and the seller promises they’ll have a look.
There’s not a huge crowd, it’s the core
group. A couple of stragglers arrive, late of course because “Pagan time, eh?!”
and they debate moving outside into the late sunshine. They decide not to
because of midges and the sun being just the right height now to strike into
the eyes. Wisecracks are made about solar gods and their demands for attention.
The evening progresses. There’s the beer
festival types, a pair of hearty, round-bellied men who have been processing
round fields since they were lads running about in the altogether. They are
practical and bluff and always drinking pints of some alarming looking dark lager
or pale wheat beer, whatever is new on and out of the ordinary. They’ll compare
notes on the beer and swap recommendations for varieties that some folk think
they must have just made up, so daft are the names. The heckled one from
earlier eventually manages to get a round in, since the new folk all went and
got themselves and everyone else drinks when they arrived. Fag breaks are
taken, various people sloping off outside to stand in the summer air and smoke
while staring thoughtfully at nothing much.
Most of the women regulars are there,
diverse in everything except for their sense of humour. They laugh wickedly at
bawdy jokes, but they deny that they cackle, ever. They swap photos and recipes
and crafts. One or two are in floaty velvety skirts, one or two in jeans, one
or two in summer dresses. they are of all ages from grandparents to still
needing ID for the bar staff to serve them. Anyone looking on would have
wondered what this group of people had in common. The cuddly lion gives nothing
away and the magazines on the table can only really be seen from close up.
A group of four or five younger lads come
into the pub, happy and nearly full of cheap beer deals from the local pubs.
One or two of the moot look askance at them, wondering if there’ll be trouble
or rowdiness. They can be rowdy themselves of course but it’s still an
inconvenience to have someone else be rowdier on a quiet evening.
One of the lads casually scans the room
while his friends shout and laugh and mock-punch at the bar. He is clutching a
pint of fizzy lager. The lion catches his eye, he squints at it and laughs in
that wobbling drunk way. He sees the magazines, comes over for a read.
“Aw here, you’re some othey pagans int ye?”
he says to one of the younger women from the floaty skirt group. She nods,
unsure which way this will go. Some of the slightly older, more bold, women
smile broadly at the newcomer, sensing a chance to spread the good news that
they weren’t about to start making blood sacrifices or dance about in the
altogether.
“Used to know some pagans. One. Used to
know one pagan woman. Load of shite, isn’t it? Just an excuse to get dressed up
weird and prance about in a field getting your feet wet at dawn instead of
having to get up and go into a church of a morning.”
The beer festival types adjusted their
glasses and refolded their arms, gazing out at the pub in quite a focussed way
while apparently not paying any attention to the young man with the lager.
“I mean it’s pish, isn’t it?” the young man
persisted. The young woman giggled nervously and the smiles from the others
faded a little, looking more like gritted teeth.
“Are you a witch, then?” asked the man,
looking at the youngest woman there. She coughed nervously.
“Well... I’m a beginner really, wouldn’t
presume but yes, I suppose... I could be described as... some would say I’m a
lone practitioner... ”
The young man swayed a bit and raised an
eyebrow at her. He burped and her hesitant self-definition tailed off.
“Shite.” he said emphatically. “Pile. Of.
Shite.”
“Now there’s no need for that pal, we’re
only having a drink and a chat same as you” one of the less-young women said.
The youngest man at the moot, sitting in the woman’s shadow, nodded although he
looked less confident than he was trying to.
“And are you some sort of priestess then? A
witch too maybes?” the man with the lager addressed the woman who had spoken.
“Now I don’t mind sitting talking to anyone
about paganism but you’re out with your mates, maybe this evening isn’t the
best time... ”
“Aye it is. I’ll tell you why, too, because
I’ll not see yous again, I’ll not drink in here the same time as you lot.” he
replied.
He didn’t sound all that belligerent but one of the beer drinkers
replied “Now that’s a bit rich, son, we can have a drink where we want, same as
you. No call to be discriminating or anything.” There were nods and murmurs
from those gathered.
“It’s nothing to do with that, that’s not
it at all. I’ll tell you what it is, yous are a cult is what you are. Stole my
girlfriend so yous did.”
One of his friends at the bar overheard the
slightly raised voice and turned. He groaned when he realised what was
happening. Grabbing his own pint, he wandered over trying to look nonchalant.
“Hi folks, what’s happening here? Having a
good night? Never mind wee John here, he’s no meaning any harm, he’s had a pint
is all. We’re no for causing any trouble.” He smiled at everyone, nodding
slightly at them all in turn.
John wobbled slightly as he turned to look at
his pal. “No I’m not causing any trouble Paul, not a bit. I’m just telling this
lot of cultists about Jennifer, that’s all.”
“Aw John c’mon, they don’t want to hear
that” Paul protested, attempting to steer John away by one elbow. John shook
him off and turned back to the moot though.
“Yous like stories too, don’t you? Jennifer
was forever telling me stories and how that folklore and stuff is dead
important like. Never listened to the half of it, to be honest with you. But
you like stories, don’t you? Here I’ll tell you a cracker of a tale then.”
John thumped his pint onto a spare bit of
table, slightly sloshing the lager out of it. He found himself a chair and
clattered it onto the floor, sitting down on it without too much trouble.
The folk at the moot sighed and gritted
their teeth some more. It was a pub, after all, and John might be obnoxious but
he was right that he wasn’t causing actual trouble. Paul sighed, muttered
something that might have been an apology and headed back to the bar, although he
kept looking over at his friend to make sure all was OK.
“Right, see, I used to go out with this
lassie Jennifer, ken? Nice lassie, good looking and that, beautiful long red
hair, pale, never bothered with the fake tan although she didn’t mind showing
off a bit of skin. Great pair of pins on her, too. Nae kids or nothing. Couple
of years younger than me, she’d a good job and everything, receptionist in some
fancy place in town.”
“We’d been going out for a few years, her
pals set me up with her – her mate used to go out with one of my mates, you
know how it goes yeah? Anyway they set us up and we got on alright. Went to the
pictures and that, we’d go to the pub but we wouldn’t get totally wellied or
nothing cos that’s useless if you’ve got a bird you want to go home with, you
know? You’re useless with drink in you. Used to go for walks in the country
too, like a pair of old gimmers. Jennifer loved walking in the country, said
she was closer to the goddess out there or shite like that. My flat was next to
a park, dead handy for nipping out for a walk but you’d to watch on the weekend
nights because the neds would be out having a drink there, ken. There’d be
broken glass about a lot, Jennifer was one of they kind-hearted souls that
would go out and clear it up in case some wee cat cuts its paw, or some wean
fell over and burst its hand.”
“We talked about getting our own flat and
that, somewhere a bit quieter, we were saving up for the deposit. I worked in a
building site, nothing fancy, I was a joiner, but it paid alright and it was a
laugh, all the lads. Jennifer used to hint it’d be good to get a place
together, for when we were wanting weans ourselves. I would ignore that bit,
wasn’t ready for all that pish, I liked going out for a pint or two with the
lads, liked having Jennifer just to myself. Anyway we spent most of the time at
my bit, since the park was there and that. She’d only a wee basement place
right in the middle of town.”
“Jennifer was always into that New Age
shite, she had candles all over the fucking place, joss sticks and all sorts.
Used to stink to high heaven, the lads would give me some amount of stick about
sitting around getting stoned all the time, just because I’d come away from
Jennifer’s place smelling like joss sticks if I was over there. ‘Aye yer tryin
tae hide it wi they joss sticks, but we know whit yer daein in yer spare time
pal!’ they’d go. It was a laugh, ken?”
“Anyway the site I was on got stopped.
Still don’t know what happened, think the developer went bust. We were all
gutted, we’d been counting on that bit of work to get Christmas and that, it
would have done us all well. Big office building in the town, you’ll see it if
you go past in the seven bus – big building site with bits of plastic still
over it and half the bricks lifted by toerags.”
“Jennifer says it was OK because we had a
wee bit saved and I’d get a new job nae bother, but I didn’t want to get into
the savings. Jennifer said it was alright, she’d ask those tarot cards of hers
what would happen and do a wee spell to attract success. I said alright,
although I thought it was a lot of pish, but you’ve got to keep them happy you
know? No point causing upset.”
“So she’s doing all this divination shit in
her spare time, I’m tramping all over town looking for work. Anything, you
know? I’m no proud, I’ll work in a shop or with the clenny or anything you
know? Not that you get a job with them, mind. But there’s nothing doing, cos
this site had shut down just as all that trouble started with the economy.
Place is full of unemployed builders and that, we’re all running into each
other at job centres and recruitment places and offices. Nothing doing. The
only thing going was some wee smiley recruiter guy wanting us all to emigrate
for jobs building in Canada, Australia, the Middle East – somewhere fucking
miles away from here. When we get back to my bit there’s Jennifer mucking
around with her spells and all that pish, telling me she’s helping out that
way. She even stays in a couple of nights she tells me are the ‘most auspicious
for the working’.”
“Whatever it was she was doing it wasn’t
working like she said it would. Every time I get to a supermarket that said
it’d a job it had just been filled. Tried one of they call centres, full of
alarms going off and folk cheering one another on if they sold something, I couldnae
stick it after some snotty little shite of a supervisor shouted at me in the
middle of the office. Just because I wouldn’t scare some poor old woman into
buying some pish burglar alarm she didn’t need. I had to leave instead of
punching him, but that was me with no money.”
“So Jennifer gets in from work and I’ve
been in for a few hours. Got a carry out on the way home, as you do, because I’d
a couple of quid left in my pocket that Jennifer had tapped me for my lunch,
course I never got it because of walking out, and it’d been a shit day. This
would be last summer, so it was a nice night like this, I’m sitting on the back
green drinking my carry out and smoking, minding my own business. The upstairs
neighbour had come and taken her washing in, think she didnae want it smelling
of smoke but she was dead nice about it, ken? Never a bother off her, nice wee
wummin. So nae harm there.”
“So Jennifer sees me out the kitchen
window, she comes down to see what’s happening. I’m in a mood, right, cos I
never thumped that guy at my work and I wasn’t going to get paid for the work I
had done since I’d left with no notice, and I’m thinking I should have taken up
that smiley fella on the job in Canada when I had a chance. That last job was
shit, imagine telling wee old wummin they’ve to be feart in their own homes of
burglars and rapists and all that, just sos you can sell them some piece of
pish alarm.”
“But anyway, Jennifer comes down and gets
stuck in to me. Where had I been, why hadn’t I checked my phone, did I not
realise she’d been after trying to phone me all day to meet her in town? I
wasn’t in the mood for any of this, and I said so.”
“’Oh you’ve been drinking have you’ she
says to me, seeing the cans and that. Something about her tone, she sounded
really preachy like. It annoyed me, anyway. So I told her that aye, I have been
drinking, what’s it to her?”
“She gives me this look like she can’t
believe me, then bursts out crying and storms off up the close.”
“So, the girlfriend does that kind of shit
you’re thinking, arse, better follow her and make nice, right? I chased after
her, but I’d just picked up a beer can and I still had it in my hand when I
went up the stairs.”
“I gets in the house and she’s lying on the
bed crying. I’m thinking this is a bit much for me just standing her up in town
when I never even realised I was supposed to meet her, and me having lost my
job and that and not having any money.”
“I’m standing in the bedroom doorway, still
annoyed but feeling bad too because she’s really upset. So I ask her what’s the
matter.”
“Takes her a couple of minutes to calm
down, but she sits up and wipes her eyes and sniffs and that, looks at me.”
“’Donna phoned me, she told me you’d walked
out on that job, I thought she was winding me up.’ she says to me. I’m cursing
Donna in my head now, totally forgot she worked in that office didn’t I? ‘How
could you, and then here you are getting steaming like you’ve not a care in the
world!’”
“’Aw here now wait a minute, I’d a really
shite day and I wanted a beer, Jennifer! You’re no going to tell me now I can’t
have a can or two at the end of a day are you? Not exactly a teetotaller
yourself are you?’ I says back to her.”
“’I’ve not had a great day myself’ she
said, crying a bit again. ‘And I’ll be teetotal for the next few months now, no
thanks to you!’”
“Now, I wasn’t wellied or anything but it
took a minute til I realised what it was she was saying. I didn’t know what to
do, to tell you the truth – we’d never talked about having a baby or anything
and it was the worst timing in the world, you know?”
“’You’ve
never fell pregnant have you?’ is what I said – I know, I ken by your faces, I
know it was a shitty thing to say. But c’mon, she’d just threw this at me all
of a sudden, she was upset, I was having a bad day already... I’m no proud of
saying that, I’ll tell you that much.”
“The look on her face though. Looked like
I’d said I’d stabbed her favourite pet or something.”
“’Aye, I’m pregnant! Wasn’t sure how you’d
react but I’d hoped it’d be better than this!’ she shouted.”
“’No, Jennifer, love, that’s not what I
meant. I just meant... how? How’s this happened? You were always so careful
with that sort of thing!’”
“She was wiping her eyes again, she was a
total mess. ‘I know. It must have been that spell I was doing.’ I’m looking at
her now like she’s fucking mad. ‘I’ve been doing this spell to encourage growth
in our fortunes... I thought it would mean like job fortunes and that, but
we’ve been fortunate with a growing family instead. Aw John, what are we going
to do? I was going to tell you this evening, maybe get a bite to eat, I thought
we’d be OK because you had a new job and we’ve a wee bit savings, we could all
stay here together and it’d be fine, I never wanted to tell you like this but when
you didn’t phone me back and then Donna told me what happened at your work...
what will we do?’”
“I should have gone and cuddled her, told
her it’d be alright. I should have been supportive, should have said I’d go
back and get my job back the next day – I’d have begged them, even that snotty
wee shite of a supervisor. I mean, Jennifer was something special, she was
beautiful and smart and funny and she would have been such a good mum to our
wean.”
“But she was sitting on that bed, scrubbing
her eyes with one of the huge pile of paper hankies round her. Her face was all
blotchy and her work make-up was running all over the place and she was
talking, seriously, about a magic spell going wrong. I just... I couldn’t face
it, I couldn’t hack it at all. I lost the plot a bit. I’m not proud of myself.”
“I’m still holding this beer can that I
never opened yet. I’m trying to get my head round what she’s telling me, and I
panic – having a baby together means I’m always going to be tied to this maddie
with her spells and her sweeping the pavements and that, and I just couldn’t
see it. I don’t know what got into me, I still don’t know now.”
“Before I realise, I’m shouting at her
instead of going and giving her a wee cuddle, I’m screaming instead of being
happy that someone like her would even think of being with a jobless loser like
me.”
“’Stupid bitch!’ I’m shouting ‘How could
you be so fucking careless? Did you plan this? Is this what all y our joss
stick shite is? Trying to trap me here with a baby I don’t want in a flat I
don’t like with some mad witch?’”
“She doesn’t even cry though, she just goes
sheet white and sits and looks at me like I’d hit her. Then she gets up and
starts gathering the clothes and that she’d left at mine. I tried to stop her,
I’m saying ‘Jennifer, I’m sorry, you know I don’t mean that’ and ‘Jennifer,
please, I’ve had a drink too many, of course I want you to stay, you and the
baby and me, we’ll be a family’ but she’s pushing past me and throwing stuff in
this bag and trying not to cry again and...”
John stops and stares into his pint glass.
The folk at the moot hold their breath. The youngest woman has her hand to her
mouth, dismayed.
“I’ve been over this bit most, you know? I
still can’t. I don’t know what happened. I was only trying to get her to stay,
to talk, but... I must have pushed her by accident, or she’s tried to get past
me and I’ve stopped her... ”
“But she’s fallen over, see, she’s... she’s
tripped over the bed or the chair or something, but she’s got her hand up to
her eye and I’m horrified because the beer can has hit her on the side of the
head. I’m looking at Jennifer picking herself up and I’m looking at my hand
holding the can, I’m shocked, I didn’t take a swing for her I swear I didn’t...
but when I drop the can and hold my hands out to her she backs away and
flinches. She edges round me and runs out the door, and I hear the flat door
slam.”
“I think she’s gone back to hers or to her
pal’s or something but I sit on the bed and see her shoes on the floor, then I
see her coat’s on the chair. It’s a nice night but all her stuff’s in her coat
and where’s she going to go round this place with no shoes? So I’ve grabbed
them and run out after her.”
“I’m looking up and down the street for her
when I get outside. I never thought to shout on her, I couldn’t tell you why
but maybe I was thinking I’d scared her enough so I didn’t want to be shouting
in the street after her. I get lucky, I see just the top of her head as she’s
making her way into the woods down the path there.”
“So I run after her into the wood, and I
swear she ran faster than was natural. I should have been able to catch up dead
quick, it wasn’t that big a path and she wasn’t that far in front. The wood
looked different, too. It’s one of they wee scrubby bits of wood, few trees and
a rope swing kind of idea. But I was running for ages and couldn’t hear the
traffic any more. There were no folk out walking dogs, nothing but birds
singing and me running with Jennifer always just ahead of me.”
“I charge round this corner and almost fall
into a burn. Now, I’d been in and out that woodland loads of times walking with
Jennifer and I never once saw a burn there. She’s stopped, or tripped, she’s
kneeling at the burn, crying like her heart was breaking. I stop a wee bit away
from her. I can’t just run up to her after what’s happened. So I stop and try
and talk to her but she never even looks my way.”
“’Jennifer’ I’m saying ‘Sweetheart, please,
please just look at me at least. Darling, I’m so sorry’. But she doesn’t move.”
“’She’ll not listen to the likes of you
again, John’ this voice says from the edge of the trees. I’ve never had such a
fright in my life. I looked over and here’s this mad old woman walking out the
trees. But she’s no old really, what’s happened is her hair is covered in
spider’s webs. She’s got bits of moss on there and lichens and that, her dress
is filthy. Long brown and green dress, there’s more bits of moss on that too. I
can see spiders walking about, centipedes – it was minging. Looked like she’d
been buried in the wood and just got up.”
“’Who the hell are you?’ I asked her, she
just smiled at me. Her teeth were all rotten too. I’ve never seen anything like
it. Could have sworn there were things wriggling in her smile, her face – maybe
it was just that I was so rattled by her coming out of nowhere like that. She
walked over to us and she looked like some sad old woman, bit stooped, bit
grubby but no as bad as I’d thought.”
“’You’ve caused harm to this girl’ she says
to me, she’s leaning over and moving Jennifer’s hair out her face. Jennifer’s
still lying there greeting, as if she can’t see us at all. This woman, she
reaches out and touches Jennifer’s face. There’s a big red mark there where
I... where the beer can must have hit her. The woman just reaches over and
touches her face on the bit that was hurt, like she was brushing her fingers
over Jennifer’s face or something. Then she stood up straight and did the same
thing to her own face.”
“I’m standing there not knowing what to
say. Jennifer’s no talking to us and there’s this weird old woman in her old
coat and long skirt, really tall cos she’s standing up straight like, like some
picture you’d see from way back you know? Really old fashioned looking but
standing staring at me like I’m the freak that’s out of place. I’ve never
believed in ghosts, never, but this woman – it was weird. She was weird.
Freaked me right out. She had this long grey hair and it’s put back in one of
they things, a bun, that’s the style. I’d only seen them in old films on the
telly before. She’s standing there bold as brass as if she’s got every right in
the world to be there and to talk to me and Jennifer. She didnae look so old
and cobwebby, I mean... the longer she stood there, the more I thought she
looked like one of they women out of the old world war two black and white
films, you know?”
“’Who the fuck are you?’ I says to her, she
just keeps looking. ‘Are you going to say anything or are you stupid or
something?’ I says.”
“’You’ve caused harm to this girl’ is all
she said.”
“‘She’s hardly a fucking girl, is she?
Grown woman, creating a scene out of nothing and what’s it to you anyway?’ is
what I says back, cos I mean who did she think she was?”
“’This girl is a child of mine and under my
protection’ she said to me. And I’m looking at her and I swear to God – her
face has got a mark on it now, same as Jennifer had. And I look at Jennifer and
she’s not crying anymore, she’s just staring away into the burn, and there’s
not a mark on her. She looks dead peaceful. If I didn’t know better I’d say
that strange woman had taken the mark and hurt off her. And the woman, I don’t
know how I thought she looked like one of they old fashioned women because she
looked like one of you here” John waved his arm in the direction of the moot
women “she’d a big floaty skirt and loads of necklaces and that, long long wavy
hair.”
“’What are you talking about? I’ve never
clapped eyes on you in my life!’ I tells the woman, she smiles at me. She
stands there and smiles.”
“’I am Mother’ she says and waves her hand
in the air ‘and I will not allow harm to come to this creature in my care’”
“I hears this scream, right next to me.
Made the hairs stand on end on my neck.”
“When I look down, Jennifer’s no there
anymore. There’s no a sign of her. I’m looking about, trying to figure out
what’s going on, and I see this big red fox just disappearing behind the woman.
‘What have you done with her?’ I’m shouting at her, but she’s still standing
there with this huge fucking smile on her face. Totally eerie it was. The fox looked
out at me too, then turned and walked off into the wood.”
“’You won’t see Jennifer again, I will keep
her and her children with me now’ the woman says as I’m watching the fox. So I
looks round to ask what she’s on about and the woman’s gone. This wee lassie is
there, she laughs at me and runs off. I looks round again where the fox was and
it’s gone. Gone. I’m standing there in a muddy path surrounded by smashed
Buckie bottles and there’s no one there at all. No Jennifer, no woman, no fox,
no burn.”
John’s audience all look at one another or
take a hissing breath. He swigs a huge mouthful from his pint, and another. He
sets the glass, now mostly empty, down on the nearest table and sways slightly
as he looks at all the people looking back at him.
“That’s how I says you’re a cult. I never
saw Jennifer again from that day to this, and I never knew what happened to my
wean. She never got in touch with me to tell me. No one did. I caught hell off
her parents and that... well. I don’t want to go over that. But I’ve got no
time for you bunch of fucking weirdoes and I’m not going to drink in a pub that
you meet in. Just so’s you know.”
John turns, a bit unsteady, and walks off
out the door. Paul at the bar swears and heads out the door after him.
The moot are silent. They look at beer mats,
pints, the ceiling. They don’t yet talk over the story they heard.
They might have stayed for a few more
drinks but they’re all busy or tired so they start drifting off. The beer
festival men drain their glasses and murmur a goodbye as they head for the
door. One of the women gathers the leaflets and the lion. In ones and twos they
head off. The youngest man is left on his own, finishing his pint. He takes it
outside to have a smoke and a think.
Paul walks back towards the pub, looking
none too pleased. “Is he alright?” the young man asks him.
“What?” Paul says, obviously startled.
“Your friend, John, is he alright? He,
well, he headed off really quickly and he’d had a few, I just wondered, I
thought I’d ask... ”
Paul sighs and takes out his own packet of
fags. “Aye he’ll be fine in the morning like. He’ll sleep it off, he’ll have
one of his pills, he’ll be fine.”
“Pills?” the young man asks.
“You heard him, didn’t you? Do you think
you can go around telling the police your missing girlfriend turned into a fox
and ran off with a forest goddess without getting put on some serious pills?”
said Paul.
“Oh. Er. Oh. Did that... that happened, did
it?” the young man asks, his eyes wide “I thought maybe... look, no offence to
your friend and that, but I thought he made it up... ”
Paul laughed, but he didn’t sound too
amused. “I thought you were one of those pagans that John’s always slagging
off. Isn’t that sort of thing right up your street? Christ, you know you’re far
gone when the group you claim did you wrong says you’re exaggerating your
claims.”
“Yeah, but, I mean I worship nature and the
divine feminine in all things, but you’re saying this guy met a goddess in the
wood next to his flat?”
“I’m saying no such thing, and he’s not supposed
to if he wants to stay out the hospital. But aye, John says that sort of thing,
mostly when he’s had a few these days. His girlfriend disappeared right enough,
her mum called the police the same night because Jennifer had been on the phone
to her all excited about some news she wanted to tell John first, then she
never called her mother back. Of course the police wouldn’t do anything for a
couple of days, they called her phone, the house phone, John, couldn’t get
anyone. She hadn’t been at work, they’d been phoning her too.”
“The police went round to her flat and no
one was there. They found John dead drunk in his living room, he’d been
drinking for two solid days. Raving about this fox and this mad woman and some
wee lassie next to a burn that’s not there. It’s barely a few trees next to his
bit, there’s no way he could have been lost the way he said he was. All
Jennifer’s stuff was there, even her shoes and that, but no sign of her and
she’s never turned up again. The police have looked, they questioned John for
hours, days, but they couldn’t find anything except that there’d been a wee
scuffle in his flat and he admitted that he caught her one with a beer can. Her
bank account hasn’t been touched but... well, she’s never turned up, one way or
another.”
The young man suddenly shivers. Paul stubs
out his cigarette.
“Anyway, best if you leave it be, pal. John
won’t come back here now, you heard him – he can’t stand anything like you lot
now. It’s not like he gets aggro mind you, I mean I’ve seen him cross the road
to get by someone who looked even a wee bit like a hippy. John never used to
have a problem with anyone, but now... I’ve known him most of his life. He’s
changed.” Paul looks into the distance, shrugs. “Sorry if it upset your
evening, like, but he wanted to tell someone. He does that sometimes.”
Paul claps the younger man on the shoulder.
“You take care then, pal. See you after.” He turns and goes back into the pub.
The young man hears the other men at the bar cheer drunkenly as Paul returns.
He shivers again, stubs out his own cigarette and finishes his pint. He heads
off for the bus.