The Lost Guide to Life and Love. Sharon Griffiths
I waved him away. A rusty Escort van was suddenly my vehicle of choice.
‘Anyway, I like the registration number, PIP,’ I said to Jake, who looked at me oddly.
‘I think the northern air has done something to your brain,’ he muttered. ‘Ring me if you want anything,’ he said. ‘And here’s the address of the B & B.’ He gave me a card. Our hands touched for a moment. ‘There’s always half a double bed there for you.’
‘I don’t think so. But thank you.’
He gave me a hug, suddenly awkward. I gave him the briefest of kisses and then climbed into PIP and drove off with barely a backward glance. I’d checked my phone—I discovered this morning that you could get a signal just at the top of the track from the farm to the main road by the old chapel. But now I needed to check my email.
I bounced along in my little rusting van, crunching the gears every now and then as I got used to it on the steep narrow roads. The previous owner must have weighed about twenty stone because the driver’s seat was in a state of collapse. The carpet was full of holes and there were odd gaps in the dashboard. But there was a radio. I pushed a button and Madonna came belting out and I sang out loud along with her at full volume. I was on my own in a strange place, in a strange van and suddenly it wasn’t scary, it was exciting, exhilarating. ‘Who’s That Girl?’ Me!
The Miners’ Arms, like the farm and the cottage, was grey stone and solid at the top of the moor. Just three or four houses and the old chapel were its only neighbours. As I pulled up in the car park, my new-found confidence faltered a little. Walking into strange pubs and bars alone could always be a bit dodgy. But the sign was newly painted and the windows sparkled. I could do this. Of course I could. I carefully locked PIP—though I didn’t believe that anyone could possibly want to steal it—and walked into the pub.
Inside there were rough stone walls and flagged floors and it smelt warmly of wood smoke and polish and further in of tantalising food smells—proper food. My stomach rumbled. Two fires burnt brightly in huge fireplaces at either end of the bar. At a table near one of the fires, two middle-aged couples in walking gear were enjoying coffee and cake. Near the other fire sat an old man reading The Northern Echo, a pint in front of him. Another couple of men were tucking into pies, steam escaping from the golden pastry and the meat tumbling out in a thick, rich gravy.
The walls were covered with old photographs. And more of those samplers. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again‘, said one, around a picture of a very fierce-looking spider, while the other said it was ‘Never too late to make amends‘. Very virtuous.
A young girl with gleaming blonde hair was sitting knitting behind the bar. As soon as she saw me, she put down her knitting and smiled. ‘What would you like?’ she asked.
‘I’ve really come in to use the Internet,’ I said, ‘but I’ve just realised I haven’t had any breakfast.’
She laughed. ‘Coffee? Orange juice? Bacon and mushroom muffin? Scr—’
‘Stop there,’ I said. ‘Coffee, juice and bacon muffin, please.’
‘The computers are round the side there, I’ll bring the coffee over for you.’
I smiled happily and followed her directions. This must have been the best Internet café ever.
In a tiny little snug alongside the bar were two computers, a printer and a huge old farmhouse settle, covered in rugs and cushions. There were shelves full of books and leaflets on local history and on another table was a pile of today’s newspapers and a selection of magazines, everything from Farmers’ Weekly to Celebrity Gossip. Bliss. The girl brought my coffee, which was good too—strong and rich, without a hint of bitterness. I checked my email—in twenty-four hours my inbox was already overflowing with rubbish—and confirmed my interview with a cheese-maker the next day. And then, quickly, I emailed Jake. Just to say that the little van was fine. I knew it was over between us, even without Felicity—sorry, I just couldn’t bring myself to call her Flick—but it was somehow important to keep on good terms. I was just emailing my friends Polly and Susannah and wondering what to tell them about Jake—they’d never really liked him, not really—when a tall man with wild, curly hair and a scruffy sweater sat down next to me at the other computer. ‘Morning,’ he nodded. ‘Your muffin’s ready. It’s on the table near the fire.’
I signed off the email and sent it quickly to Polly and returned to the cosy bar. As I ate the muffin—brilliant bacon—I looked at the photographs on the wall. They were a mixture of old and new. And it took a while for it to dawn on me that they were of the same places taken years apart, or rather, more like a century apart.
In front of a low archway that seemed to lead directly into the side of a hill, workmen in waistcoats and stout trousers, caps and long moustaches carried hammers and picks and gazed solemnly at the camera. Next to it was the modern scene—the same archway, but this time surrounded by walkers in brightly coloured cagoules, peering and pointing. A picture of the chapel dated 1900 had a hundred or more serious-faced worshippers in their Sunday best—very uncomfortable those clothes looked—lined up on the steps. The modern version showed half a dozen lads in jeans and T-shirts laughing as they unloaded canoes off the roof of a minibus.
A long view across the moors was full of industrial buildings, tall chimneys, a huge water wheel and clusters of activity. The modern version was bleak, empty, just a few ruins and a lot of sheep. The photograph was stunning. The photographer had caught the shadow of a cloud scudding across the hill. Very atmospheric.
Who were all those old people? What had happened to them? How had a place so busy become so empty?
‘Lead mining,’ said the blonde girl behind the bar as she followed my gaze. ‘A century ago and more, there used to be hundreds of men working up here. They used to be packed into lodging houses during the week and then walk back to their families at the weekend. They say the lead for the roof of the Houses of Parliament came from up here. It must have been like the Klondike. Hard to believe now, when it’s just sheep.’
‘I’m amazed the pub survived.’
‘It didn’t. It was closed for fifty years and was just a house. Dexter—’ she nodded her head in the direction of the Internet snug, so I assumed she meant the guy with the wild hair and scruffy sweater—‘inherited it last year and decided to reopen as a pub this summer.’
‘Brave move.’
‘S’pose so. But it’s going OK. Really well in fact. He does some of the cooking too. He’s not a bad cook either. For a photographer. He took all the pictures—well, not the old ones obviously, but the others.’
‘These are really good. Does he work for anyone in particular?’
‘No, just for himself. He does a lot of books and colour supplement stuff. He hasn’t done much lately though because he’s been working all hours getting the pub right. But he’s hired a chef now, so I expect he’ll get back into it.’
Some more customers came in and she put her knitting down again to serve them. She seemed to be knitting a lacy sort of scarf.
I remembered that I hadn’t looked up the directions to the cheese-maker. I looked across. Dexter had finished on the computer. Presumably he was in the kitchen preparing food for the people who’d just come in, but some walkers were busy online now. Never mind. I was very comfortable in this cosy bar. I thought about a glass of wine but, being my mother’s daughter, and having the van outside, I opted for another coffee and flipped through one of the papers. That model was all over it again. ’Foxy’s gone to ground!’ said the headlines. After signing her huge contract, the model had gone missing. Probably drugged up somewhere, I thought. No, not drugged. When she leapt up and through that window she hadn’t seemed a bit like a hunted animal. She seemed the one in charge, well ahead of the pack, as if she were playing a game. I wondered, idly, what had become of her, where she was.
By the time the walkers had finished on the computers and I’d