Fell of Dark

‘Heave ho!’ she said.

Whether it was the extra pulling power of the girl’s hands or the attraction of the rest of her, I don’t know, but Peter popped up like a jack-in-the-box.

He sat there, getting his breath back, and I stood up to thank our helper. But surprises were not over. There were two of them. I realized at once they were the foreign girls whose seats we had taken in the bar the previous night. But their legs were no longer the eye-catching feature. Above their mini-shorts, all they wore were their bras. They had a small haversack with them and I could see their blouses tucked through the straps.

They both wore their hair long and might almost have been twins. The only instant way I saw of separating them was that Peter’s saviour wore a white bra and the other a deep blue one.

I must have stared too hard at the difference for suddenly White-bra giggled and put her hands up to her breasts. She was obviously nearer sixteen than the twenty-five her figure could have claimed. I noticed with a start her right hand had blood on it. From the sheep by the way of Peter, whose left arm was caked with a dusty red.

He stood up now.

‘Are you all right?’ the girl asked sympathetically.

‘Yes, thank you, dear,’ said Peter. ‘It was very gracious of you to help.’

He solemnly kissed her hand. White-bra giggled again and said something to Blue-bra in the language I had heard the previous night. Blue-bra giggled back.

I must have looked puzzled.

‘Olga’s my pen-friend, from Sweden,’ White-bra explained.

‘A fine country,’ said Peter, who had never been anywhere near it. ‘Thank you both again, for the help you have given me, and the spiritual stimulus you have given this old gentleman here.’

Well, you’re fully recovered, I thought, and set about dragging him away before his whimsy took him too far. He saw what I was at and strode ahead with a broad grin on his face. I murmured my own thanks and set off after him. After fifty yards or so, I glanced back and waved.

They waved back, two arms over four circles; two blue, two white.

I smiled at the thought of the odd impression they must have of us, and hoped we wouldn’t meet them again.

It was a hope the realization of which was never to give me any pleasure.

FOUR (#ulink_823d1219-2067-5cf8-bf4f-459b0466d647)

We stopped twice more on our descent into Eskdale, the first time to eat the stringy ham sandwiches Stirling had probably picked personally to go into our packed lunch. To wash them down I had a super-sized flask which I had filled with iced lager by courtesy of Peter’s waiter. I mentioned this.

‘Clive?’ he said. ‘That was nice of him especially when we were in such disgrace.’

We laughed once more at the memory. Peter seemed to have recovered completely from the episode with the sheep.

Our second halt was in the valley. We had diverted slightly to have a look at Cam Spout as it poured down from Mickledore and had followed the stream down to Esk Falls where it mingled with another which came trickling down from Bowfell. Here the track levelled out and we were able to take our ease after the exertions of the steep descent. Eventually we reached a spot where the waters broadened into a pool about a dozen feet across. Peter decided he wanted to bathe. There was no one around, but I don’t think it would have mattered if there had been. Quite unselfconsciously he took off his clothes and stepped in.

‘Come on in,’ he said. ‘The water’s lovely.’

Prudence, or prudery, made me hesitate a moment. Then my clothes were off and I leapt in beside him.

Peter flung a handful of water at me with a laugh and next minute we were engaged in a splashing match which soon degenerated into a wrestling match. Eventually, half drowned, we relaxed again and let the sun warm all that was uncovered by the water. My eyes were closed, but suddenly I sensed a shadow on my skin and looking up I saw a man standing on the bank. He was dressed for walking and looked an imposing figure as he tood there, my angle of view making him seem taller than he was. His broad sunburnt face and thick grey-red beard added to the general impression of forcefulness and power. I was sure I had seen him before.

‘Good day to you,’ he said with a slight Scottish accent. ‘If I wasn’t so modest, I’d join you.’

‘Please do,’ I replied.

‘No, no.’ He grinned. ‘I’m getting old. I couldn’t stand the comparison. Good day.’

So saying, he touched his stick to the floppy hat he wore and strode away down the track.

Shortly after this, we clambered out and dressed ourselves. I noticed Peter did not put back on the shirt with the blood-stained sleeve, but replaced it by another.

It was only a few miles now to the village of Boot. There was a fairly large inn nearby with hotel pretensions in the summer. We were both now feeling very tired.

‘If,’ I said, ‘if they can fit us in, I suggest we leave the seaside till tomorrow. It won’t go away.’

By luck, there was a double room available, a cancellation, almost a miracle at this time of year, the manager assured us. An expensive miracle, it appeared when we enquired the cost. But I hadn’t got the will-power to go any further now.

We were shown upstairs to our room and I collapsed on the nearest bed and closed my eyes for a couple of seconds. Or so I thought.

When I woke Peter was standing over me dressed in his ‘respectable’ kit.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘or we’ll miss dinner. I’ve been down already and it smells gorgeous.’

‘Borrowdale seems a million years ago,’ I commented as I sipped a well-diluted scotch in the bar.

‘Yes, doesn’t it? I bet it’s raining in Seathwaite.’

An anxious little waiter stuck his head round the bar door and waved at Peter.

‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘do you always make friends with the most unimportant members of the domestic staff?’

‘That,’ he said, ‘is Marco. He is Italian. He is here for the season. He is telling me that if we really want our dinner, we’d better get a move on or else the chef, a man with a vicious tongue and I suspect a gangrene on his shin will run amuck. I have ordered for you.’

We went in. Nearly everybody else was at the pudding stage. Over in a corner with a rather pretty young girl was the bearded man who had passed us as we bathed. His semi-formal attire made him look even more distinguished but older too. He must have been well over fifty at least.

He had his back to us but to my surprise the girl on seeing us enter reached over and touched his arm and he turned to look.

With the attractive smile I had remarked earlier, he waved genially, then returned to his food. The girl watched us to our seats, though not blatantly.

The mystery was explained when we sat down.

‘That,’ said Peter, with a flicker of his left cheek muscle in the direction of the bearded man, ‘is Richard Ferguson, the bird-man. With him is Annie Ferguson, the bird.’

‘His wife?’

‘His daughter, you fool. It’s no use looking for reassurance that your advancing years have not put you on the shelf. They’re v. devoted, almost incestuously so. His wife, I believe, is an invalid. Might even be dead.’

I had heard of Richard Ferguson, had even listened to a radio talk of his on one occasion when I had been too comfortable to reach out of my bath to change the station on my transistor. He was much sought after, so I gathered, as a broadcasting pundit. Some accident of chance had led the BBC to adopt him as one of their panel game and quiz team ‘characters’. It seemed almost incidental now that he was also one of the country’s leading ornithologists.

‘How did you meet him?’ I asked.

‘Introduced myself in the bar. When a man’s seen you naked, you’ve taken the first step to friendship after all.’