The Stone Book Quartet. Alan Garner
it, then!’
‘All the way?’
‘Must I come down when I’m working?’
‘But what about the Governor?’ said Mary.
‘He’s gone! I’m the Governor of this gang! There’s only me stayed to finish! Have you the tea?’
‘Yes!’
‘Plenty of sugar?’
‘Yes!’
‘I can’t spit for shouting! Come up!’
Mary hitched her frock and put the knot of the baggin cloth between her teeth and climbed the first ladder.
The ladders were spiked and roped, but the beginning of the steeple was square, a straight drop, and the ladders clattered on the side. She didn’t like that.
‘Keep fast hold of that tea!’ she heard Father call, but she didn’t lift her head, and she didn’t look down.
Up she went. It felt worse than a rock because it was so straight and it had been made. Father had made parts of it. She knew the pattern of his combing hammer on the sandstone.
Up she went.
‘Watch when you change to the spire!’ Father’s voice sounded no nearer.
At the spire, the pitch of the ladders was against the stone, and Mary had to step sideways to change. The ladders were firmer, but she began to feel a breeze. She heard an engine get up steam on the railway. The baggin cloth kept her mouth wet, but it felt dry.
The spire narrowed. There were sides to it. She saw the shallow corners begin. Up and up. Tac, tac, tac, tac, above her head. The spire narrowed. Now she couldn’t stop the blue sky from showing at the sides. Then land. Far away.
Mary felt her hands close on the rungs, and her wrists go stiff.
Tac, tac, tac, tac. She climbed to the hammer. The spire was thin. Father was not working, but giving her a rhythm. The sky was now inside the ladder. The ladder was broader than the spire.
Father’s hand took the baggin cloth out of Mary’s mouth, and his other hand steadied her as she came up through the platform.
The platform was made of good planks, and Father had lashed them, but it moved. Mary didn’t like the gaps between. She put her arms around the spire.
‘That was a bonny climb,’ said Father.
‘I do hope the next baby’s a lad,’ said Mary.
‘Have some tea,’ said Father.
She drank from the bottle. The cold sweet drink stopped her trembling.
‘Don’t look yet,’ said Father. ‘And when you do, look away first, not near. How’s Mother?’
‘Resting. She could only do five hours at the picking today, it got that hot.’
‘That’s why I’ve stayed,’ said Father. ‘They want us to finish for Sunday, and there’s one more dab of capping to do. There may be a sixpence for it.’
‘Doesn’t it fear you up here?’ said Mary.
‘Now why should it?’ said Father. ‘Glaze Hill’s higher.’
‘But you can’t fall off Glaze Hill,’ said Mary. ‘Not all at once.’
‘There’s nothing here to hurt you,’ said Father. ‘There’s stone, and wood and rope, and sky, same as at home. It’s the same ground.’
‘It’s further,’ said Mary.
‘But it’ll never hurt. And I’ll go down with you. Down’s harder.’
‘I hope the next one’s a lad,’ said Mary. ‘I’m fed up with being a lad – Father! See at the view! Isn’t it!’
Mary stood and looked out from the spire. ‘And the church,’ she said. ‘It’s so far away.’ She knelt and squinted between the planks. ‘The roof’s as far as the ground. We’re flying.’
Father watched her; his combing hammer swung from his arm.
‘There’s not many who’ll be able to say they’ve been to the top of Saint Philip’s.’
‘But I’m not at the top,’ said Mary.
The steeple cap was a swelling to take the socket for the spike of the golden cockerel. Mary could touch the spike. Above her the smooth belly raced the clouds.
‘You’re not frit?’
‘Not now,’ said Mary. ‘It’s grand.’
Father picked her up. ‘You’re really not frit? Nobody’s been that high. It was reared from the platform.’
‘Not if you help me,’ said Mary.
‘Right,’ said Father. ‘He could do with a testing. Let’s see if he runs true.’
Father lifted Mary in his arms, thick with work from wrist to elbow. For a moment again the steeple wasn’t safe on the earth when she felt the slippery gold of the weathercock bulging over her, but she kicked her leg across its back, and held the neck.
‘Get your balance,’ said Father.
‘I’ve got it,’ said Mary.
The swelling sides were like a donkey, and behind her the tail was stiff and high. Father’s head was at her feet, and he could reach her.
‘I’m set,’ she said.
Father’s face was bright and his beard danced. He took off his cap and swept it in a circle and gave the cry of the summer fields.
‘Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o-o!’
Mary laughed. The wind blew on the spire and made the weathercock seem alive. The feathers of its tail were a marvel.
Father twisted the spike with his hands against the wind, and the spike moved in its greased socket, shaking a bit, juddering, but firm. To Mary the weathercock was waking. The world turned. Her bonnet fell off and hung by its ribbon, and the wind filled her hair.
‘Faster! Faster!’ she shouted. ‘I’m not frit!’ She banged her heels on the golden sides, and the weathercock boomed.
‘Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o-o!’ cried Father. The high note of his voice crossed parishes and townships. Her hair and her bonnet flew, and she felt no spire, but only the brilliant gold of the bird spinning the air.
Father swung the tail as it passed him. ‘Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o-o! There’s me tip-top pickle of the corn!’
Mary could see all of Chorley, the railway and the new houses. She could have seen home but the Wood Hill swelled and folded into Glaze Hill between. She could see the cottage at the edge of Lifeless Moss, and the green of the Moss, and as she spun she could see Lord Stanley’s, and Stockport and Wales, and Beeston and High Billinge and Delamere, and all to the hills and Manchester. The golden twisting spark with the girl on top, and everywhere across the plain were churches.
‘Churches! I can see churches!’
And all the weathercocks turned in the wind.
Father let the spike stop, and lifted her down.
‘There,’ he said. ‘You’ll remember this day, my girl. For the rest of your life.’
‘I already have,’ said Mary.
Father ate his baggin. Mary walked round the platform. She looked at the new vicarage and the new school by the new church.
‘Are you wishing?’ said Father.
‘A bit,’ said Mary. ‘I’m wishing I’d went.’
‘It’d be fourpence a week, and all the time you’d have lost.’