During the winter months, he stayed in a converted outbuilding. It was part of a property in one of the villages, owned by an older lady, a solitary eccentric not unlike himself, who referred to him as the “bearded wildman” and told him she found a certain reassurance in the piercing blue of his eyes. But she had no designs on him and left him alone and never forced the issue of rent. He paid when he could, whatever he’d managed to scrape together. In the summer he lived in the hills. Sometimes he crossed the moorland to a place where there was a shelter, a spot from where he could see, in the distance, a cottage he once lived in. At night he would light a fire and sit and remember the goodness of the people. But he never went back down there. In the end, there had been no place for him. Like how in the end there had been no place for him in the home where he had spent the first twenty two years of his life and where the last years would be spent, he did not know.
Creasy found the young woman on the hillside. She was half sitting, half lying amongst the clumped grass near the plantation, visibly distressed, tears running down her face.
‘Can you help me please?’
Creasy told her to put an arm around his shoulder. He could feel her shivering. Her hair fell across his hand. He helped her to an area of shorter grass where she could sit against a trunk and stretch out her leg.
‘I went over on it.’ Her voice was strained.
‘They’re only good for sheep,’ said Creasy, indicating the narrow, uneven pathway which ran in a vague line across the hillside. ‘Better off sticking to the track.’
He moved away, crouched down on his haunches and surveyed the early spring landscape, still brown but with signs of life. Over the high ground, where the land ascended unceasingly, three buzzards were gliding in overlapping circles, a distant mewing that floated down to where Creasy waited.
Creasy was a perpetually unkempt man. His winter jacket and his clothes were scruffy. His hair was a tangled mess. His skin was rough and weathered. There was dirt under his fingernails. But he had deep-set, sharp blue eyes that were untouched by the hardships of his hand-to-mouth existence, rather were themselves a quiet wonder of nature.
The woman rubbed her ankle. She reached awkwardly into her coat pocket and took out her mobile phone, and Creasy found himself listening to one half of a low-spoken and tense conversation.
‘I’ve been trying to get through to you.’
Her tone was angry, but she was welling up again.
‘No, I’m not. I went over on my ankle…on the hill…I think so. I’ve not tried yet. When are you coming home?… I thought you were finishing early?… Well, I’ll just have to, won’t I?’
She tried to lower her voice further.
‘No there’s someone here with me…I don’t know…A man…’
She glanced towards Creasy.
‘Well, what do you expect me to do? Sit in the house all day?… Forget it. I’ll manage.’
She hung up and sat gripping the phone tightly.
After a moment, Creasy said, ‘Is it far, home?’
‘Just over there. I’ll be fine.’
‘You moved into the Pearse’s place?’
‘Yes.’
Creasy nodded slowly. Owen and Annie Pearse. His nearest neighbours. Were his nearest neighbours. Good people.
He stood and went in amongst the trees, scouring the ground until he found a roughly Y-shaped branch. He dragged it back to where the woman was sitting.
‘I’ll break it down,’ he said.
He helped her to stand and get the makeshift crutch under her arm.
‘Oh, I see.’
She leant on it cautiously.
‘It’s a sturdy branch,’ he said, stepping back to admire his work. He helped her over the uneven ground, to the track.
‘I’ll be fine now,’ she said, sniffing and wiping her eyes. ‘I’m very grateful.’ She tried to smile. If it had been Annie Pearse, he would have helped her all the way home, and she would have let him. But it was the first time he’d met this woman. He’d known Annie for fifteen years.
Creasy nodded.
‘Glad I found you,’ he said and set off in the opposite direction.
*
The next day Creasy was sawing wood. He already had enough for the coming winter. But as a general rule wood needed at least a year to season, longer if it was pine, which some of it was. The following winter was his current concern.
A pristine Land Rover that Creasy had noticed driving past once already, skidded to a stop on the stony gravel by the house. A clean-shaven man wearing a flat cap and wax jacket leant his arm on the open window, tapping the metal nervously with his hand.
‘You live here?’
Creasy stopped what he was doing and regarded the man.
‘I do,’ he said.
The man’s eyes flitted between Creasy and the house. It was a single-storey, stone cottage, shabby and ramshackle, with cracked windows and flaking paintwork.
‘Those tools,’ said the man. ‘They’re yours?’
Creasy said nothing. He stood with the bow saw hung at his side, one foot steadying the sawhorse. The man eyed him suspiciously.
‘We’ve just moved to the house in the dell.’
This must be the man on the other end of the phone.
‘I helped your wife yesterday.’
‘With the stick? She’s my partner, yes. Tools exactly like those were taken from one of our sheds, a few days ago.’
‘Been sawing firewood,’ was all Creasy said. He raised his chin and continued to hold the man with a steady gaze.
Out of habit, he’d helped himself to the tools.
‘Well, I’d like them back.’
‘Be my guest.’
The man’s tapping became more rapid. Creasy didn’t move. The man extinguished the engine, yanked open the door of the Land Rover and jumped down. Creasy had expected him to be taller. He strode through Creasy’s gateway and Creasy handed him the bow saw. The man picked up the tenon saw Creasy had left on the ground. Creasy slowly folded up the sawhorse.
The man carried everything to the back of the Land Rover. He slammed the tailgate and returned to the driver’s seat.
‘I’m happy to let it go. This time,’ he said.
He gave Creasy a cursory, dismissive glance, leant forward and the engine spluttered into life.
Creasy watched him bounce away down the road in an ugly expulsion of dust and diesel fume.
*
A few nights later, a storm came. In sudden, pattering bursts, the rain hit against the curtainless windows and the wind pounded the walls and whistled through gaps. The only thing Creasy could get out of the old box TV was a pixelated hiss. Along with the few other items of furniture scattered throughout the house, the TV had come from Owen. Creasy was a young man when he came to the valley to work for a long defunct timber merchant and Owen had felt it was wrong for him to be living in the dirty portacabin which is all the company provided. Owen said the house was unclaimed. He said he imagined it was probably subject to a clause in some long-forgotten lease stuffed away in a box in a farmhouse attic. The Pearses had the keys in their possession, for some reason, and said Creasy could live there, at least for a few months. That was over fifteen years ago. They had never asked questions, just accepted his presence. He was twenty two at the time. His mum had died a year before and his dad had quickly remarried. Too quickly, and Creasy felt he was simply in their way and so he left.
Creasy poured himself a drink, lit a cigarette and sat in the dilapidated armchair, watching the water running down the dark panes, hoping the wind would fetch down a tree or two. He thought about Owen and Annie and wondered how they were, wherever it was they’d gone.
He fell asleep in the chair and woke at 2am. The storm was still blowing. He moved to his bed and slept in his clothes until 5.30am.
Creasy followed the road towards where it entered a coppice.
The rain had passed and the sky was clear but there remained a roaming wind. The hillside streams could be heard, full and overflowing, the land overwhelmed by the sky’s outpouring. Water ran too down the edge of the road and into the ditch.
As he approached the trees, he could see that there was something large, off to one side, partially hidden amongst the shadows of the trunks.
The Land Rover had gone into the ditch. A perforated line of black tyre marks led to where it was resting against a tree, its two left wheels up off the ground. It lay silent and dormant, an unnatural intrusion, spattered in flecks of smeared mud.
An area of the windscreen was shattered, a whitened web of fragmented lines. As he looked, to his surprise, something moved inside the vehicle. Cautiously, Creasy went to where he could see the driver’s seat. Pushed up against the door, raising his head to see who had discovered him, was the ungrateful man.
The driver’s door was unobstructed and Creasy rammed the handle down and it creaked open, its bottom edge coming to rest in the wet earth.
The man was now held in only by the seatbelt. He slipped when the door opened, and managed to turn himself and get one foot out on to the ground. The effort caused him to give a sharp intake of breath. He held on to the seat with his left hand.
‘These roads can be treacherous,’ said Creasy, watching as the man began trying to undo the seatbelt. Grunting, he twisted his left arm awkwardly and felt for the belt buckle. The belt came unfastened and comically he slid out of the vehicle and on to the ground. He gave a cry of pain and slumped back, pale and shaken, his wax coat trailing in the mud, the collar riding up round his chin.
‘That’s some bump,’ said Creasy, crouching before the man.
‘I hit my head. On the wheel.’
The bump was an egg shape, pushing down on the man’s eyebrow. The skin was grazed and broken.
Gingerly the man touched it and winced. He tried to lever himself up, pushing against the frame of the Land Rover. But his leg was hurt and he fell back down.
‘Fuck,’ he hissed, rubbing his knee. Creasy didn’t move.
‘I just need some help to get home. The van can stay here. Do you have a car?’
‘I don’t have a car.’
Creasy stood and peered into the back of the Land Rover. The sawhorse and the two saws were still in there, slid up against the side. Owen had never come asking for his things back. Owen Pearse knew he’d always return whatever he borrowed. And if it had been Annie Pearse who Creasy had helped on the hillside, Owen would not have thought twice about thanking him for doing so, might even have brought a bottle of something.
With a final look at the sorry sight of the man, Creasy ducked round the front of the Land Rover and made his way back to the road. He heard the man call out angrily but he carried on towards Haywood’s.
*
He went out with Haywood himself. Haywood had a contract with the local council and they spent the day cutting trees that were blocking the roads, clearing the way. They worked hard, sweating beneath their protective clothing, inhaling the intoxicating odour of petrol, wrestling with the chainsaws that dragged on their arms, the tonal variations of speed and depth drifting through the cold air. They got the work done and Haywood paid him £120 in cash and told him he’d be in touch if more work came in.
Creasy made his way home, taking the path by the stream that led through the trees all the way up the valley to the field which his house overlooked. Storm-damaged branches were scattered all along the edge of the field.
He could see a silver car parked outside the house and as he approached, the door opened.
‘Hi.’
Creasy nodded but said nothing. He noticed she was still limping.
‘I came to thank you,’ she said, after waiting a moment for him to speak. There was a directness in her manner, in her steady gaze.
Creasy leant against what remained of his boundary wall. The storm was long gone, the late afternoon left still, with broken clouds moving snail pace across the darkening sky. He took off his work boot and shook out a stone. His sock was covered in grit and bits of leaf, but he did nothing about it.
‘The man who brought the Land Rover said someone had sent him. It sounded like it was you. From…the description, I mean.’
‘The description?’
A flush spread across her face.
‘Wasn’t it you?’
He’d mentioned the crash when he arrived at Haywood’s. They’d sent one of their yardmen straightaway.
‘I wasn’t going to do nothing.’
‘We’re grateful. He’s grateful. He thought you were going to leave him there.’
‘Each to their own,’ said Creasy. ‘He took the tools though.’
The woman frowned. ‘Your tools?’
‘Your tools,’ Creasy corrected her.
The woman looked confused. She folded her arms.
‘I’d borrowed them.’
‘Oh I see. He didn’t say anything…’
‘The people who lived there before, they were fine with it. I still have this wood to sort.’
He pointed at the pile of logs lying haphazardly by the house, to which he had added a few branches gathered from the field.
‘You had an arrangement with them? The people who we bought from, I mean?’
Creasy nodded. ‘It gets cold up here, come winter,’ he said.
‘Yes. You need plenty of…fuel. You don’t have your own tools? For cutting?’
‘I don’t.’
‘I’m sure it’d be fine for you to…’
But of course it wouldn’t be fine. That was the point.
‘I better get back,’ she said. ‘But thanks again.’
*
Later in the evening he became aware of a sound outside. Wheels on the gravel. An engine extinguished. Cautiously he went to the kitchen and peered through the window. It was gone eleven. He kept no lights on in the house. The silver car was there again. A figure appeared in the darkness and opened the boot. At first he could not distinguish who it was, whether it was someone he knew, until he saw the limp. She pulled at something and it dropped on to the ground with a clank. She dragged it across the gravel, through the gateway and out of sight. She reappeared, went back and took something else from the boot and repeated the journey. Then she returned to the car. After a moment the engine started and she drove away.
Creasy finished his cigarette, blowing the last of the smoke through the open kitchen door. He stepped outside, tossed the butt on to the ground and shone the torch. Propped against the wall were the sawhorse, the bow saw and the tenon saw.
He stood for a moment, considering the tools. Then he switched on the outside light and, in its weak glow, got to work on the rest of the wood.
*
He worked into the early hours of the morning, battling the tiredness in his arms. Before sunrise, he had hoisted the tools along the track and put them back in the shed. He returned home and slept soundly until the early afternoon.
The weeks passed. Spring arrived, spreading a little more warmth across the hillside, causing green tipped branches and emboldened, nesting birds to appear, the light lingering for longer each evening.
Creasy found work with a farmer over in the next valley. The journey took him by the Pearse’s old place, where a gate had been installed across the end of the driveway.
One evening on his way home, she was putting something in the black wheelie bin. He stopped by the gate.
‘How’s the Land Rover?’
‘It’s not here,’ she said. He saw the silver car parked in the yard.
She pushed her hair aside where it had come lose and fallen across her pallid face. There were bags under her eyes.
‘I can help with this,’ said Creasy, indicating the bushes that ran up the side of the driveway. The towering foliage was on the brink of bending under its own weight.
‘I don’t charge much. And I wouldn’t take anything that wasn’t mine.’ His face relaxed, and, behind his stubble, the corners of his mouth shifted a little.
Her eyes rested on him. They seemed duller than before. ‘You could have held on to the saws for longer,’ she said.
‘He would have thought I’d taken them again.’
The woman wiped her hands on her jeans. ‘I suppose.’ She sighed and shrugged.
The sound of a vehicle came into earshot. Creasy turned to see. It was a truck with a trailer. Creasy raised his hand to acknowledge the driver, a man he knew, who gave him a thumbs up in return. The truck disappeared round the bend, a stack of haybales in the back fluttering stems in their wake.
‘You can borrow anything you like,’ she said. ‘I’m fine with it.’
Creasy’s gaze shifted to the house.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Yes.’
‘For good?’
‘Yes.’
Creasy continued to look towards the house.
‘It wasn’t working. Us. Here. I’ve made tea, if you have time.’
Creasy hesitated. Then he slipped through the gate. It gave a hollow rattle as it closed behind him.
‘Could have that sorted in no time,’ he said, assessing the bushes.
They sat at opposite ends of the table, Creasy with his coat on.
‘It’s changed a lot,’ he said, glancing round the newly fitted kitchen.
‘You came in here often?’
‘Often enough.’
‘Sad to see them go I imagine.’
Creasy took a gulp of his tea.
‘They had family further south somewhere. Wanted to be nearer them I think.’
‘We moved to get away from family,’ she replied, with a terse smile.
Through the window came the muted sound of another engine. She looked out and he saw her frown. She put the cup down on the side and left the room. Creasy stood. The gate at the end of the driveway was open and there, parked in the yard, was the Land Rover. A series of long, deep scratches ran along the side panels where it had hit the trees.
Creasy heard raised voices outside and then the kitchen door flew open, rebounding off the dresser with a bang. When he saw Creasy, the man gave a derisive snort.
‘What you after this time?’
She entered behind him.
‘Richie. Leave it.’
The man came and stood right in front of Creasy. The swelling had subsided but his forehead was still bruised. His eyes were bloodshot and Creasy could smell alcohol on his breath. He looked down at him.
‘What you after?’ he said again, trying to stare Creasy in the eye, his mouth straight and cracked open, his breathing heavy and nasal.
Creasy placed his cup next to hers. The man grabbed his arm. With a sudden and unexpected movement, Creasy took hold of him and knocked him to the floor.
‘I’m not after anything,’ said Creasy, the piercing blue eyes boring into the man, as he propped himself up on his elbows and shook his head, trying to regain his composure.
Creasy went out into the hallway, and the woman followed.
‘Go on then, the two of you…,’ the man started to say.
‘I’m so sorry. I thought he’d taken everything.’
‘I can stick around, if you’d like.’ Creasy indicated towards the kitchen.
‘Emily…,’ they heard him call out, a chair scraping on the tiled floor.
‘I’d appreciate that,’ she said.
‘Leave this open,’ Creasy said, stepping through the front door.
Creasy waited outside. He heard the incoherent voice of the man and caught the word ‘pathetic.’ Then her voice was raised. ‘Are you serious? Have you seen him?’ The man responded but Creasy couldn’t tell what he was saying.
The door opened and the man stumbled out. He didn’t see Creasy until he was sat in the Land Rover. He glared and mouthed something but Creasy had no idea what he was trying to say. He fumbled with the key, overturned it in the ignition and the engine grated jarringly. The Land Rover turned clumsily round in the yard and went off down the driveway.
She appeared on the threshold in time to see it veer on to the grass. He hit the accelerator and span the wheels, digging them into the ground, spraying up mud, turning the front wheels back and forth to maximise the damage. She swore under her breath. They watched the vehicle swing dangerously out into the road. It sped away, each gear change coming much later than was good for it.
She sighed and shook her head.
‘Could do without this.’
‘You’ll be OK?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
Creasy hesitated. She stepped away.
‘I’ve got the number for the man down the road.’
‘Haywood?’
She nodded.
‘He’s a good man.’
*
Creasy arrived early on Saturday morning. He knew where the petrol strimmer was and immediately got to work. It had been dry for days and the branches came down easily, falling in hushed whispers on the grass, covering over the petulant damage inflicted by the Land Rover. By the time she emerged in her dressing gown he was already two thirds done.
‘Don’t worry about cutting them too low.’
‘Means it won’t need doing again for a while.’
‘Fair enough. I brought you coffee.’
The coffee was in a flask cup. She handed it to him and he drank half of it in one go.
He was almost finished by the time she reappeared, She’d brushed her hair back into a ponytail. It lay tight against her head in rich brown lines, like soft tree bark. She was holding a rake.
‘Thanks again for the other evening.’ He nodded and she began dragging the foliage into piles. ‘You work quickly.’ He watched for a moment and then returned the strimmer and the ladders to the shed. He noticed the sawhorse, stood in one corner.
‘Has he been back?’
She shook her head. ‘He’s tried calling a few times. When he’s been drinking. I’m going to block his number.’
‘I can see about getting all that shifted,’ said Creasy about the pile of discarded branches. ‘Haywood might be able to help.’
‘I already asked him,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got your money in the house.’
She came back with an envelope. He didn’t open it.
‘I hope it’s enough. I don’t have much at the moment. But I did this.’
Her face flushed a little and she gave him a piece of paper, smiling slightly.
He unfolded it and slowly read.
“Contract of work”, it said, and beneath “Requirement: one day a week, handyman, odd jobs, etc. Payment: £50 a week (if I can afford it)”
She’d signed it and dated it and left a space for him to do the same.
‘It’s silly really. Don’t know why I did it.’
She looked embarrassed and cleared her throat.
‘Anyway, if you’re up for it, I could do with the help.’
*
Spring seeped into summer, and Creasy came once a week as agreed, sometimes more if necessary. He reseeded the grass, felled a small tree, rebuilt a section of drystone wall. Things he could do without a second thought. She paid him. Not always £50 but enough and he was grateful for a little regular income.
Sometimes she helped, sometimes she left him to it, often she was out at work, whatever that was. He noticed that the summer weather was bringing the colour back to her face.
One afternoon as Creasy was finishing up, Haywood’s van pulled through the gate and came up the driveway. The doors opened and they got out.
‘Hey Bob.’
Creasy nodded in acknowledgement and Haywood came to where he stood.
‘Nice evening.’
‘It is.’
‘She said you’d be here. How is it?’
‘Good to have the work.’
‘That the only reason you’re here? I don’t need any competition.’ He gave Creasy a sideways glance, a lively look in his eyes.
‘She pays regular. I need the money.’
Haywood nodded.
‘She’s decent. He’s been causing some trouble, mind. The ex. She said you’d had an encounter. He’s a piece of work. Bit of a drinker, unfortunately. Livid that I’m on the scene. She said you’d dealt with him.’
‘Like pushing a feather,’ replied Creasy and Haywood chuckled.
‘I’ve got a fence that needs some attention, if you’re interested.’
‘When?’
‘Monday?’
Creasy nodded again.
‘See you then.’
Haywood patted Creasy on the shoulder, then crossed the yard. She waved to him, and they went into the house together and the door closed. Creasy finished tidying, smoked a cigarette and left.
*
The weeks went by and one evening in late summer Creasy sat on a large stone at the edge of the plantation. Across the hills everything was turning golden in the last light. He had passed the place where he found her. The grass had grown longer but the sheep path still cut a furrow. He could see the house in the dell, tucked away out of the reach of the disappearing sun. Her silver car was parked outside and, further away, the roof of one of Haywood’s buildings was visible amongst the trees.
He became aware of a movement down below. The Land Rover had pulled up just before the gate at the end of her driveway, visible to Creasy from his vantage point but hidden from the house itself by the rise of the land. He heard the faint click of the door opening and closing. The man came into sight and cautiously made his way towards the house, keeping close to the trimmed bushes, treading the now recovered ground.
He was carrying something, but Creasy could not see what it was.
Creasy went as quickly as he could down the hillside, weaving between the grass and the reeds with deft sidesteps. He climbed over the wall, careful not to dislodge any top stones. On the ground lay a solid-looking stick.
He peered round the corner of the house. The man was throwing liquid from a cannister on to the front door and the windows. Creasy could see a bottle of something sticking out of his trouser pocket. He kept stumbling as he moved to and fro. As Creasy watched, the man dropped the empty cannister and began rifling through his pockets. He didn’t notice Creasy creeping up behind him. But he had already struck the match and thrown it at the door when Creasy hit him on the back of the head.
He fell to the ground, face down, groaning. Creasy hit him again and the groaning stopped. Creasy dragged him a few feet clear. The flames were rapidly taking hold where the man had doused the woodwork. Creasy ran round the side of the house. The other exterior door was locked. He hammered as loudly as he could and then went to the window. She burst into the room and jumped at the sight of him staring wild-eyed at her.
‘Fire!’ he shouted through the glass.
*
Who knows what would have happened, if Creasy hadn’t been there. That’s what Haywood kept saying. By the time the fire brigade arrived, the flames had ripped through much of the downstairs. They could feel the heat as helplessly the three of them watched the firemen tackle the blaze.
The man had been wheeled unconscious to the back of the ambulance, where a policewoman removed the ropes that Haywood had tied around his wrists and ankles.
Statements were taken from each of them, and a policeman said that if the case went to court, they would likely be required to testify.
‘If she decides to press charges?’ asked Haywood.
‘That would be part of it, yes.’
Haywood looked at her, but she had her back to them, transfixed by the spectacle of the glowing house.
‘He’ll be taken into custody?’ Haywood nodded towards the ambulance.
‘He’ll be taken to hospital. Afterwards, I don’t know, but I would expect him to be taken into custody, yes, in the circumstances.’
‘He’d get a lengthy prison sentence for attempted murder,’ said Haywood.
‘Thank you for your help,’ said the policeman, ignoring Haywood’s comment. ‘You’re free to leave now. That might be the best thing?’ He indicated to where she was stood.
After the policeman had gone, Haywood said, ‘Did you hear all that? I can help if you want to press charges.’
The fire was being brought under control, mobile floodlights guiding the jets of water to the remaining flames. Smoke rose into the air. The extent of the damage was already becoming visible.
‘I can’t get my head round this,’ she said.
With a glance and a nod at Creasy, he said ‘We don’t need to be here. Come on. You can stay at mine.’
Creasy watched them walk away, past the ambulance. Haywood put his arm round her shoulder. He kissed her on the head, on her brown hair, and she rested into him. Haywood had been married when Creasy first knew him but they’d divorced not long after. They disappeared down the driveway into the darkness and Creasy was left alone.
*
Towards the end of November, the truck pulled up outside Creasy’s cottage.
‘I don’t even know how he came by this place to be honest. I remember it from before, vaguely. I’m pretty sure it was unoccupied.’
Haywood went to the door and knocked. Then he went round cupping a hand and looking in at each window. He went back to the door and tried it, but it was locked.
‘No sign,’ he called back to her.
They had been living together for several months, ever since the fire.
‘Maybe he’s just out?’
Haywood turned and looked up the valley to where the hills rose up towards the moorland. A buzzard was circling in silence over the crags.
‘There’s been no one here for weeks.’ He pointed at the woodstore stacked high with wood.
‘Where would he have gone?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied.
*
By early spring, mildew had formed on the windows. Grass had grown up all along the edge of the doorstop. The paint on the woodwork had completely peeled away. Another storm came and blew down the tiles on a portion of the roof and a dampness crept into the building, into the mortar and the uncarpeted floorboards and the furnishings, such that even if Creasy did return, he could not live there.
Creasy was a good man, despite his eccentricities. He cared. He had saved her from the fire. Haywood had intended to send someone to repair the cottage. He told Creasy he would give him a permanent contract. One of his regulars was due to retire but he said that regardless he would have offered Creasy the job. He was a hard worker.
But the autumn had gone on and Haywood’s time had been taken up with the business and with helping her sort the insurance on the fire-damaged house in the dell, and trying to find out about the court case, and he simply hadn’t got round to the contract.
He wanted to tell Creasy that he should have done more for him. But what had become of Creasy no one knew and the cottage stood on the hillside in an increasing state of disrepair.
*
Haywood secured a subcontract to fell a plantation which stood at the head of the valley. For several weeks he and his workers travelled up at sunrise and worked until sunset. Haywood was normally the last to leave the site and one evening, as he padlocked the enclosure gate, he noticed something glowing faintly on the moorland. He studied it and deduced that it was a fire. Hikers, maybe. He watched for a moment, wondering who they were, where they were going. Then he got into his truck, started the engine and switched on the headlights. They cut through the darkness, revealing the deadwood and a lone tree that they had left standing. He swung the vehicle round on the rough ground and headed towards the road that would take him back down the valley, to his home.
About the Author:
Andrew Senior is a writer of short literary and speculative fiction and poetry, based in Sheffield, UK. His work has recently appeared, or is forthcoming, in various publications including Postbox Magazine, Litro Magazine, The Honest Ulsterman and Crow & Cross Keys. Visit https://andrewseniorwriting.weebly.com/
*feature image by Carlos / Saigon – Vietnam from Pixabay
Isele Magazine 