“So you’re all right?” Bill asked Jerry.
“No need to worry,” Jerry said. “I’m fine. If you hadn’t got out—”
“Aye, well,” Bill said. “No harm done.”
“If you ever get to the Furnaceman’s in Sheffield—Townsend Street—I’d like to buy you a drink.”
“Aye. All right, lad.”
He called his goodnights and ushered Brenda out into the blizzard. Jerry knew he had been lucky. He sat close to the fire and saw his sweater and anorak begin to steam.
Mrs. Raybould crossed to him:
“Why, you’re wet through! You’re shaking! Sam, get him a blanket! He’ll have to dry off! How about something to eat, if you’re staying? You are, aren’t you? Well, you’ll have to. There won’t be any going back to Sheffield, not tonight. And if that A57 stays open Manchester way, it’ll be a miracle! Now, Sam!”
Raybould went for the blanket.
“Bacon and sausage?” Mrs. Raybould said. “You’ve been in here before, haven’t you?” She petted the little poodle bitch, which sniffed at Jerry.
“A few times.”
“You were with some climbers.”
“That’s right,” Jerry said. The bitch inspected his ankle. Mrs. Raybould did not object. Jerry was suddenly violently hungry. “I could do with that bacon and sausage. And some eggs.”
“Tea and bread and butter,” Mrs. Raybould decided. “You had a girl with you.”
“Yes,” said Jerry. The woman hadn’t been anything like so agreeable when he and Deborah had called in for a meal one day in August. The food was stale, warmed up probably.
“Those lorry girls,” Mrs. Raybould grumbled. “Come in and sit all night with a cup of tea. Especially her. He doesn’t mind. Sukie hates her! Hurry up, Sam!” she called. “I’ll get your meal.”
Jerry leaned forward towards the coal fire and saw what the girl had been entranced by. Around the rim of the coalscuttle was a row of figures. They seemed to dance in the yellow and red flames. Raybould came up behind him.
“Here’s a blanket—get your things off.” Jerry closed his eyes, swaying with drowsiness. He had been near death and he was drunk with heat. “You’re a teacher, aren’t you?” Raybould asked.
Jerry managed to get the soaking tee-shirt off. Then the corduroy trousers. He felt the rough army blanket on his skin.
“Just out by yourself, then?”
“That’s it.”
Jerry didn’t want questions about his escape from death; it was too close, too real. He pointed to the figures:
“I haven’t seen this before.”
“The old scuttle fell to bits, so I use this. It’s heavy to hump about.”
“The engravings are good.”
“Should be. It came from the Castle.”
Jerry blinked in the glare as a burst of blue-red flame shot up the chimney. It had been an odd sort of day, what with the blizzard coming up and the girl hating him. He was aware that he had not recovered from the effects of the climb and the gradual freezing in the drift. It was a sign of complete exhaustion when you had fantasies like thinking you were boozing at the Furnaceman’s when you were lying face down in the snow; and thinking that Sukie was a chicken because she was white and stood on her hind legs yipping at Brenda. He talked more or less to reassure himself that he was able to:
“It’s a special kind of engraving,” he said. “Look—the figures aren’t directly representational. They’re faceless—that’s special. And their lower limbs aren’t shown in detail. It’s meant to be impressionistic. You’re supposed to see the figures dancing in a fast step, blurred as if they were before you in poor light.”
“So you’re a student?” Raybould asked. “I mean, you talk like one. You from the University? You’re a bit old, like.”
“I’m at the University.”
“Aye?”
Raybould settled himself opposite Jerry. Both men watched the engravings.
“I’m reading for a higher degree. Historical research.”
“I like a bit of history.”
“I’m doing a study of lost villages,” Jerry said, seeing Raymould’s interest. He knew he shouldn’t describe his work, since it was a dead bore to anyone but a few historians
“Lost villages? Who lost them?” Raybould was mildly amused. His small features moved closer together, nose to mouth, eyes almost meeting in merriment.
“They got built over, or the ruins sank into the ground during the past thousand years.”
“Aye?”
“If you map their distribution, you get a picture of England as it was in that time.”
“Oh, aye?” said Raybould, now uninterested. He gestured to the thick wall behind the open fireplace. “This is old, you know. A bit of the old castle before it was bombed.”
Jerry’s professional interest was immediately engaged.
“What castle?”
“This! Castle Caff, that’s this place!”
“I know what you call it. But I didn’t know it was a castle!”
No wonder Professor Bruce de Matthieu was opposed to the study he’d been working on. The fat, smarmy-voiced old bastard had been cutting just before Christmas: “All very well writing about Lost Villages, Howard, but isn’t it about time you found one or two?” And here was a bloody castle that he hadn’t known about!
“Aye, well, a sort of castle,” said Raybould. “The Nazis blew it up in the war. Bombed it, like. Blew it to buggery!”
Jerry thought he had misheard when Raybould first referred to a bombing. Now he adjusted mentally. A castle bombed!
“What did they bomb it for?”
“Here’s your sausage, bacon and eggs!” Mrs. Raybould called. “No, stay by the fire—I’ll move this table. Sam!”
Sam obliged and the scent of the food overcame Jerry. They watched him eat for a moment and then Mrs. Raybould crossed to the window.
“You couldn’t see a hand in front of you!” she called. “Telephone lines will be down. And electric. Three days, Sam?”
“About that,” Raybould said to her. He was interested in Jerry’s reaction to his story. “I don’t know why they bombed it. But they did. Only this part were left. And the cellars.”
Jerry glanced down and saw the shifting, enigmatic figures in their eternal frozen dance. A medieval castle right under his nose and he hadn’t known it existed! He might as well get a job now and forget the research. Something simple, like truck-driving. There were perks. Hard-faced Brenda, for one. Or maybe not.
“Is it all right?” asked Mrs. Raybould.
“The best I’ve ever eaten,” said Jerry truthfully. His mouth full of fried egg, he asked Raybould: “When was the castle built?”
Raybould shrugged. “I couldn’t say.”
“It can’t be medieval!”