Just Before I Died. S. K. Tremayne
I’d like to thank everyone who assisted me in my research on Dartmoor, in particular Tim Cumming, for his inspiration, and Loic Rich for his company. Likewise I am indebted to: the staff of the Two Bridges, White Hart and Gidleigh Park hotels; the makers of Plymouth Gin and the brewers of Dartmoor Jail Ale; and my editors at The Times and The Sunday Times Travel Magazine: Jane Knight, Ed Grenby and Nick Redman.
As always I must thank Jane Johnson, Eugenie Furniss and Sarah Hodgson for their wisdom, advice, and professionalism.
There are many references throughout this book to various Dartmoor locations and place-names. A few of these have been altered or invented, by me, although I hope that the book, in general, is a faithful representation of the uniquely beautiful Dartmoor landscape. Any unintentional errors are entirely my own.
My thanks to Seth Lakeman for allowing me to quote from the lyrics of his songs.
Saturday morning
The dead birds are neatly arranged in a row. I don’t know why they are dead. Maybe they were slaughtered, by a domestic cat, in that cruel, unhungry, feline way: killing things for fun. But I don’t know anyone who keeps a cat, not for miles. We certainly don’t. Adam prefers dogs: animals that work and hunt and retrieve, animals with a loyal purpose.
More likely is that these little songbirds died from frost and hunger: this long Dartmoor winter has been hard. The last few weeks the ice has bitten into the acid soil, gnawed at the twisted trees, sent people scurrying into their homes from little Christow to Tavy Cleave, and has turned the narrow moorland roads to rinks.
I shudder at the returning thought, as I cradle my hot coffee and gaze out of the kitchen window. Ice had been a danger on the roads for a while. Yes, I should have been more careful, but was it really my fault? I looked away for a moment, distracted by something. And then, it happened, on the dark road that runs by Burrator Reservoir.
It was just a little patch of ice. But it was enough. I went from heading home at a sedentary pace to being in a car out of control, skidding terribly, ramming the useless brakes, in the frigid December twilight, sliding faster and faster towards the waiting waters. All I remember is a strange and rushing sense of inevitability, that this had somehow been meant to happen all my life: my sudden death, at thirty-seven.
The rising black water had always been meant to freeze me; the locked car doors had always been meant to cage me. The icy liquid in my lungs had always been intended to drown the last of my gasps, on this cold, anonymous December evening on the fringes of the moor, where the bony beacons and balding hills begin their descent to Plymouth.
But it didn’t kill me.
I fought and swam, blood streaming – and I survived. Somehow, somehow. Yes, my memories are still ribbony, still ragged, but they are returning, and my body is recovering. The bruising on my face is nearly gone.
I survived a near-fatal accident and I am determined to number my blessings, as if I am an infant doing sums by counting her fingers.
Blessing number one: I have a husband I love. Adam Redway. He seems to love me too, and he is still very handsome at thirty-eight: with those dazzling blue eyes and that crow-dark hair. Almost black, but not quite. Sometimes he could pass for a man ten years younger, he has that agelessness, despite the toughness of his job; perhaps it is because of his job.
He doesn’t earn that much, as a National Park Ranger, but he adores the moors where he was born, and he adores what he does: from repairing walls so the Dartmoor ponies can’t range too far, to taking troops of school kids to see the daffodils of Steps Bridge, to guiding tourists, for fun, all the way down Lydford Gorge, spooking them out with stories of the outlaws who lived there, in the sixteenth century, the Gubbins who lived in caves, and became cannibals, and died out from inbreeding, and madness.
Adam loves all this: loves the poetry and the severity of the moor. He likes the toughness and the strangeness; he grew up with it. And over the years he has allowed me to become a part of it: we have a happy marriage, or at least a marriage happier than many. Yes, it is regular, ordinary, even predictable. Right down to the sex.
I am sure my friends from uni would laugh at the homeliness, but I find it deeply reassuring. The world turns: rhythmically and reliably. I desire, and am desired. We haven’t made love so much since the accident, but I am sure it will return. It always does.
What else can I give thanks for? What else makes me glad to be alive? I need to remind myself. Because these flashbacks are pretty painful.
Quite often I get sudden, frightening headaches: headaches sharp enough to make me cry out. It’s as if something is crunching in my mind, bone grating on nerves.
Like now. I wince. Setting the big coffee cup by the sink, I put a hand to my forehead, to that tender place where I must have hit the steering wheel, cracking bone and brain and a week of memories into fragments, like a shattered pane of winter ice on a moorland dew pond.
Deep breaths. Deep, long breaths.