Read by Lin Sagovsky - podcast here (2nd story)
The coffin stone was not far now, and George Walker hurried forward as best he could through the chaos of snow, stumbling over the rocks, gasping at the pain in his shoulders. He was stiff with the weight of his burden, chilled by the wind, panting with exertion. Near the resting place was a cleft in the mountain, just big enough for a man to shelter, if desperate enough.
Minutes later, George made it to the stone. Full of relief, he tilted his back to roll the body onto the wide, flat surface.
But the jolting of the journey had loosened the wrappings around the corpse. As George dropped the weight onto the slab, a pale hand lolled free and brushed the bare earth.
The corpse in question had been George’s uncle, until he coughed out his soul into the soot-blackened rafters of his home, and went the way of his ancestors. The man had walked the corpse way enough times himself, so it was to be hoped that his soul remembered the route and made its way expeditiously to the consecrated ground 10 miles to the west. The body, however, posed a problem to those who remained behind on the mortal plane.
George was broad of shoulder and stout of heart, but the village elders were still taken aback when he volunteered to walk the corpse way. Men never volunteered. The bearer had to contend with a steep climb out of the valley, following the beck up to the windblown ridge above. Traversing the teeth of the peak, he would need to find the narrow sheep-path that strikes across the landscape, then descend from blasted rock to the green folds of the lower dales and down to the town beyond. It wasn’t far, unless you were carrying 13 stone of dead weight on your back.
The day was cold and the air unsettled when a small group assembled at the edge of the village to see George off. A chilly wind blew from the south, carrying the suggestion of moisture.
“You be careful, George Walker,” his mother told him.
“You know me, ma.”
“Aye, I do.” She gave him a stern look. “Don’t stop until you reach the coffin stone, and don’t—”
“Don’t let Uncle touch the ground, I know.”
George didn’t pay much heed to the tales people whispered round the fire at night, but he didn’t want a clout round the ear, so he avoided expressing his opinion on this point. He kissed his mother and turned to collect his burden.
The corpse was swaddled in sackcloth, bulky and stiff. George heaved it across his shoulders, grunting at the weight, and set off as quickly as he could up the path.
The way up the beck was hard going. George’s burden seemed intent on sliding off one way or the other and planting itself in the earth. Every few paces he stopped and tried to shuffle the body into a better position.
As he gained the ridge, the discomfort in his shoulders began to take on a sharper edge. He tried thinking of the town and the one who, he hoped, awaited him there, but the image kept swimming away.
Instead, he found himself thinking of his uncle. A difficult man, hard-edged and proud. George had been afraid of him as a youngster. When it became obvious that the fluid in his lungs would soon drown him, he’d sent for George, who bent low to the bed to hear the man’s whisper.
“The only thing I regret, George, is that I shan’t see you grow older and marry. I’d very much like to have seen that.”
George had pulled back, struck dumb. Not long after, his uncle was gone, and George was left with a feeling of something left unfinished. The right words never came.
With his attention elsewhere, for a long while George remained unaware that clouds were gathering around him. When a snowflake blew against his cheek, he realised he might be in trouble. A moment later, the clouds opened.
Not one to panic easily, George set his teeth and pushed on towards the coffin stone. And it was there, rolling his uncle onto the slab, that he made his fatal mistake.
*
It was as if God had reached down and twisted the Earth two degrees off kilter. Everything looked the same, but it felt wrong, wrong like déjà vu or a falling dream.
George bent and flipped the corpse’s arm back over its chest, breaking the contact with the earth. But the wrongness remained.
He straightened up, heart thumping, breath catching in his chest. The snow was the immediate concern, so he hurried to the shelter offered by the cleft in the rock.
As he approached, he was astonished to find it already occupied.
A man was folded into the space, an old man with gangly limbs. He was wearing a sort of hooded tunic made of smooth material, and the colour was one George had never seen on a person’s clothes before. It was orange like the light on a summer’s evening, and seemed to glow in the murk. The tunic had a lot of pockets and drawstrings, and George was struck by the thought that the man might be some sort of travelling alchemist.
The alchemist seemed in a bad way. His chin was resting on his chest, body convulsed by shivering. George was a little afraid of him, but recognising a fellow traveller in distress, he unfastened his woollen cloak, squashed himself into the cleft in the rock, and wrapped them both up.
The man started as George touched him, and looked around groggily. “Who’re’yuh?” he stammered. His lips, framed by a neat grey beard, were blue.
“I’m George Walker.”
The alchemist didn’t offer anything in response, just squinted out at the snow from under the brim of his hood, as if seeing the world anew. George felt the man’s shivering steady a little.
“What’s that outside, on the slab?” the man said, eventually.
“That’s my uncle.”
“Is he all right?”
“Not really. He’s dead.”
The alchemist’s eyes widened as he contemplated this. “Of course,” he muttered. “The corpse way.”
“That’s it, aye.”
“But it hasn’t been used for hundreds of years!”
“Oh no, it’s used all t’ time.” George shifted under the cloak and tried to get a better look at his companion. “You’re not from round here, are you?”
The man was wearing a baffled expression. “No, I’m from London.”
“Are you an alchemist?”
The man laughed. “I work in IT.” He saw George’s blank look. “I suppose it’s a little like alchemy. But I’m mostly retired these days.”
“And you’re selling your wares in t’ villages.”
“I’m just travelling for a few days. I need to get back to my wife. But now, this …”
They both looked out at the weather. The air was still thick with white flakes, the sky hidden, a deep gloom settling in around them.
“Do you think we should try walking?” asked George.
“It’s too late for that,” said the alchemist. “We’d be just as likely to walk off a cliff as to find the town.”
Snow was banked up around their feet. They were both shivering now, pressed together in a strange intimacy. Outside, the corpse was lying under several inches of soft, white eiderdown.
George wondered if they would have to spend the night out on the dales, and what would happen to them if they did.
Judging by the look on the man’s face, the alchemist was thinking the same thing. But instead of voicing the thought, he shook it away with a visible effort and said: “You’re on your way to the town, yes? What will you do when you get there?”
George’s thoughts flew from the cold and dark to a spot next to a fireplace, smoke in the air, the sour whiff of spilt ale. Voices raised in conversation. Laughter. A smiling face, freckled, framed in brown curls, a little indistinct with the passage of time.
“Well,” he said. “I suppose I shall leave Uncle at the churchyard and then …” He twisted to face his companion, so they were almost nose to nose. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but perhaps you’ll be the last person to hear it, so …”
He reddened despite the cold. She was leaning into him. He could smell the sweetness of her hair, feel hot breath on his ear.
“There’s a girl. I don’t expect she’ll remember me. I hoped I might see her.”
The alchemist smiled. “That’s a good reason to complete your journey. One of the best, I’d say.”
With an effort, George gathered his wandering thoughts back into his body. It was impossible to control the shaking in his limbs now, and he felt a creeping fog at the edges of his mind. “Tell me about your wife,” he said.
The alchemist was silent a long while. “We had a long and happy life together,” he said at last.
“You say that like she’s dead.”
The man pressed his mouth into a flat line, and closed his eyes for a moment, as if in pain. “Not yet. But she’s very unwell.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was going to happen to one of us sooner or later. I’m just— I’m glad—” The man’s voice cracked. He took a couple of shaky breaths, brushed his eyes. “Excuse me. I’m glad of the time we had together. I loved my life, and I’m sad to have grown old. I think that’s all there is to it.”
George turned these thoughts over in his mind. It was the first time he had contemplated the dizzying arc of a lifetime. He felt something like fear, something like exhilaration, at the possibility of it.
Suddenly, the alchemist shook off the cloak and clambered to his feet. “George, maybe it’ll work out with your girl and maybe it won’t, but I’m damned if I’m going to let you freeze.” He bent and started packing snow around the entrance to their shelter. “Might as well put this bloody snow to good use.”
George realised what the man was doing, and got up to help. Together they built up a wall, closing off the opening in the rock. When the alchemist was satisfied, they clambered over the makeshift barricade and tucked themselves back in.
George was surprised to find that while the shelter was far from warm, it no longer felt like the life was leaching out of him. “Where did you learn to do that?” he said.
The alchemist shrugged. “Wikipedia.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
The two humans huddled together as the gloom deepened to inky night. The blizzard continued, and the wind clawed at the edges of the shelter, and the clouds hurried past, and the stars rotated through the sky.
Spirits visited George in the dark. He saw the corpse way busy with traffic, streams of luminescence threading through the night towards some distant resting place. He rose and sat on the edge of the coffin stone, and his uncle sat with him, and together they spoke of the past and the future, and watched the points of light moving through the depths of the world.
*
Morning came, and George awoke shaking. The cold had settled deep into his bones, so that he could barely move his body. As he struggled out into the chilly air, he saw the blizzard was over, the dales lying still under a layer of pristine white. His uncle remained on the stone, just a hump under the snow.
Of the alchemist, there was no sign.
George stamped the life back into his limbs and looked back at the shelter. Only one set of footprints led from the entrance. Inside, bare rock.
Mulling this over, George bent to retrieve the body. Then, with his burden secure across his shoulders, he set off down the slope, towards the town, into the life that awaited him.
(c) Dan Hinge, 2022
Dan Hinge is a financial journalist & writer based in South London. Most of the time he writes about central banks, which are (he claims) more interesting than they sound. Before LL, he had a story published by Every Day Fiction.
Apart from her voicework in various media, Lin Sagovsky helps non-actors become better communicators, on Zoom and in person. She also acts in theatre, film, tv – and has recently been playing a barrister in a corporate theatre-based training programme for railway track workers. They’re terrified …
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