For full novel manuscript contact

​​

​​

Greyland Zoylake - excerpt

​

      The night around him was dense and dark as soot. Clouds had thickened above and the air had cooled and become moist. The sky over Bridj was a broad bleed of sulphur yellow. While out on the coastal rim a cold white light was flooding up from The Point and hanging in the mantle like a false moon.

      He walked blindly out. Down the track and into the lane where the road bowed and twisted like a burned out manganese ribbon. When he reached the marker of Scrivens' outer barn, he saw the warm glow from the windows of The Black Smock further down and his path straightened.

      There was one battered pick-up in the car park and when he passed it the light on the wall pulsed on dimly to seep across the marshy beer garden where the huge malformed Mickey Mouse head looked out from the shadows with its deranged permagrin. He opened the door and the hot fug hit him. Ruth was polishing the beer taps.

      Well. Aint seen you in a while, she said.

      No, he said.

      He went over to the fire and took off his coat and hung it on the back of a chair next to the large old dog that lay sprawled across the hearth.

      Ruth put a pint of Alfreds on the bar. Hangydowns, she said. One day you'll bring us a barrel o yours.

      Yeah, he said taking a sip. He gave her his coins and went back to the fire.

      You not sitting ovr ere with us then? An old woman shouted from her armchair.

      Leave him be mother. Youm always at people, Ruth said.

He drained most of the pint and set the glass on the table and sat back in the chair. His guts warmed and his face flushed but still he was chilled so he pulled his coat back on.

      Kick him out the way if you want, Ruth called over.

      No he's alright.

      Denny get ere.

      The old dog raised its head and with bloodshot eyes looked in her direction, then it looked at him and slumped back down and sighed.

      He's alright, he said.

      Through all seasons the peat bricks burned. They used to cook in the hot ash, roasting eggs in their shells or wrapping fish and eels in wet newspaper and shoving them in. That was when the old man was alive. Ruth would let it happen if someone wanted to do it, but she wasnt bothered herself.

The pub flooded nearly every year now. It was always built for that with a flagstone floor and electric sockets set two feet up the wall. When the water arrived it could enter and pass through freely and the sediment that it left would be shoveled up and tossed back in from the bank.

      On one wall hung autographed portrait photos of fifties rock and roll singers. Then a line of autographed eighties pop singers. On the opposite wall carnival photos and next to them a small cabinet of trophies. Then a selection of steam fare photos, only three years, 83-86.

      He got up with his empty glass and walked to the bar. He hadnt noticed the man sat with the old woman and he nodded to him and the man nodded back and sipped the froth from a new pint of beer and looked at it lovingly.

      Keeping out of trouble then Winnie.

      As long she keeps me glaz full, said the old woman.

      Ruth set another pint of goldun on the bar.

      On the house, she said. You seen Eli lately?

      Seen him earlier. Thanks Ruth, very kind.

      Tell the old bugger to come an see us, we miss him.

      Will do, he said and sipped.

      When he sat back down the old woman shouted again: Come and sit ovr ere with us.

      Mother, Ruth said. Bloody hell.

      Two men were speaking hushed at the table on the other side of the fire and he didnt recognise them.

      Thats just my experience, said the man facing out. He spoke slowly, raised his glass slowly, drank slowly, like he was bound in a great grey cobweb. The other sat with his broad back to the pub like a partition wall, turning a coin deftly across the back of his fingers as he listened.

      It's up to you what you do of course, the slow speaker said.

      Yes.

      They didnt used be able to do that. The contracts wouldnt let them.

      You know I've been a tenant all my life. The big man shook his head. You get fucking tired of these wankers, he said.

      He flipped the coin into his palm and stood and turned to The Gold Mine and jammed the coin into the slot and the machine spiraled and flashed bleeping gold lights. The other man drank, unseeing of the room beyond the smoking web of his broodings.

      He took a drink and bent down to stroke the dog. Its head and back were burning hot. Bloody hell Denny, he said and the dog opened its red eyes briefly and then closed them again. He tried to shove it to move, but it was a dead weight.

      Denny, get ere. Ruth hollered.

      The dog open it eyes again and sighed but didnt move. She came over and dragged it away from the hearth by its collar and it rolled up onto its belly and looked indignantly at the floor.

      When she was back behind the bar the great old dog lumbered up and stretched and walked to a bowl of water by the entrance to the skittle alley and drank it dry. Then it slumped across the front door.

      He turned his chair back in towards the fire and stretched out his legs. The fire smouldered. Smoke leached unseen. He drank slower. Looked into the cracks, the pulsing red glow, few solid thoughts. Wisps of something ancient half remembered. The noise of the fruit machine pinging behind him. Coins jamming into the slot. Coins pinging into the tray. More coins jamming into the slot. Then the men left and The Gold Mine defaulted into an arpeggio cycle and he fell into a trance.

      When he snapped out of it and got up, the room was smoked and the diffuse figures of Brian Scrivens and his foreman coalesced at the bar.

      Just the man, Brian Scrivens said. Want you to come round and have a look at the old Landy. Theres a high pitched squealing in the front end.

      When its turning over, or when you drive?

      When I drive. Louder as she speeds up.

      Low or high?

      Low.

      It could just be a wheel bearing. I'll come over in the week.

      Good man, Brian Scrivens said.

      When he sat down again he faced the fire and drank and all he could hear was the voice of Brian Scrivens.

      We are pushed Ruthy but I still wont employ them. I've never employed them. We're a local business and its up to us to provide employment for our community. They still cant come over here and expect to take the jobs.

      No-one replied.

      One more for Geoff, Brian Scrivens said tapping the bar. I've got to get back.

      Ok Brian. Could you leave the door open please, she said as he left.

      When the smoke had cleared he got up and went to the bar. Just a half please Ruth, he said. Alright Geoff.

     Alright mate.

     Still working for Brian Exit then.

    What else would I do. Geoff took a long draught from his pint and then held it up to the light as he turned the beer around in his mouth and swallowed and smacked his lips. You look after his sports cars? He said still looking at the pint.

     No man. He's got some fella comes over from Wiltshire for that.

     Right.

     He's still banging on about immigrants then.

     Oh fuck yeah.

     Tell him about when Brian went up to the Exit march, Ruth said.

     You never heard that?

     No.

     Well, Geoff said, his features igniting in the lines that held them. So Brian and his mate Paul, who we heard this from, was walking in the Leave march and they was getting bored so they decides to duck into a boozer and have a drink and as it was a bit of a jolly, they stayed in there and had a couple with chasers. Now when they comes back out it was scorching hot and they was alf cut and they got swept up with the people marching. Now Paul says there was a drum being beat and it was all quite lively and this lad next to em passes over a bottle of vodka. They haves a bloody great swig of it and Brians now walking with his arm round this lad grinning away and singing his rugby song and tis only when another lad shouts over in Polish that they realise they're in the Remain march.

     Ruth smacked her palm on the bar. I love it.

     They had to ask a rozzer how to get back to the Leave march.

     He laughed, drank. So has old Bri upped the wages yet for his valuable locals?

     Has he fuck.

     He drained the half. Thought not, he said. Right I'm off.

Would you read me cards now we'm at equinox, Ruth said.

Of course. Come over Tuesday.

     Ok. When.

     Around four.

Why you want to bothr with all that, Winnie shouted. Your life's alwys th same.

 

     Oh the blessing. He stood up on the road with his eyes closed and his face turned up. The rain was just coming down, lightly, finally. When he opened his eyes again the road seemed to have changed. Twisting around to the east now. The night folded in.

     He began walking the curve around to the right and his foot slipped off the edge of the road. It doesnt go this fucking way. He stopped and tried to see, eyes straining pulsing rods. The road had turned him back to face the beacon light of The Point. Out in the dark to the east he saw a thin flame of blue and then another, more green. Methane wisps dancing up across the raised peat bogs. Thats Nearemoor, he thought. It seemed to have shifted and he followed the bowing road until he was facing north, and when he dropped down into a dip he saw the lattice silhouette of Black Bridge hanging against the bleached night over Bridj. Sedgemoor was here. Where was the fucking ridge road. He lay down on the tarmac and looked up into the sulphur-filmed black. The rain had stopped already. He could hear the roads humming, marking a perimeter.

      Where was the ridge road. Keuper Marls, he said and closed his eyes. Then he felt himself drifting, so he pulled himself up and walked on.

      He found the disused railway line and went a familiar distance blindly south until he reached a gate and jumped out onto Long Drove and then he doubled back half a mile and the whole thing seemed to have swung forty-five degrees east. When finally he passed Eli's bungalow, the curtains were drawn, the house was dark, the only light on was at the back of the workshop.