The man from Wakefield
stopped at the caravan. I was
reading. The dog was demanding
attention, as usual. He was a short,
spare man with hollow cheeks, greying hair and a moustache. ‘She’s the spitting image of one o’ mine,’ he
said. I looked up from my book. I had just got to the exciting part where
Professor Cavor and Bedford had discovered an amoeba-like life form on the
surface of the moon, and I really didn’t want to be disturbed. ‘That’s them over there.’ He waved a vague
hand in the direction of the top end of the site. ‘They’re mother and son. She’s twelve and he’s eight. They’re both
pedigree cocker spaniels. We bought them
from a breeder in Huddersfield.’ I sighed, put down my
book, and arranged my face into its ‘slightly interested’ mode, which entails
the clamping of the mouth in a firm line, the slight furrowing of the brow and
the infinitesimal raising of one eyebrow, Roger Moore-like. I asked the man
from Wakefield if either dog had
suffered from any serious ailments. ‘T’mother hasn’t,’ he said, ‘but t’son has
had no end of trouble. During t’bad
winter, when was it, let me see,,,’ ‘2010’, I prompted him. ‘That’s reet, 2010. He slipped on t’ice and
tore a cruciate ligament. Then there
were the time we went to Sandringham and he caught
canine flu. He were on a drip for two
days that time. Vets’ bills came to over
a thousand pounds each.’ I clicked my
tongue in sympathy. ‘Funny thing about Sandringham' he continued. 'They wouldn’t let t’dogs in. And to think t’Queen has dozens of corgis
running about her feet whenever she’s there.
I’d paid me money – thirty quid that were, and the bloke on t’gate
wouldn’t let me in! ‘No dogs allowed,’ said he, so I went back to t’ticket
office and got me money back.’ We
chatted on for a while about dogs in general, with the casual air of two
experts on the subject, then about caravans and their virtues and vices. Finally I asked him when he was leaving. He
looked down at the watch on his scrawny wrist. ‘Two ‘o’ clock. We’re heading down to Lincoln. T’wife wants to see t’cathedral, like.’ Sure enough, at two ‘o’ clock prompt, he
drove by in a brand new car, towing a shiny new caravan. He gave me a friendly wave as he drove by.
After lunch, I persuaded my wife to come with
me for a walk. We ended up at the
graveyard on the very edge of the village.
There was no church, just a rectangle of land enclosed by an ancient
stone wall. It was on two levels, and the upper level contained the oldest
graves, many from the 19th century and just about indecipherable.
Both levels were almost full. The
gravestones were in neat rows of about nine and, peculiarly, every single one
faced east. I had never seen that
before. Nor had I seen so many simple
wooden crosses in a graveyard. I wondered whether they were paupers’
graves. One cross had had the word
‘Harr’ scratched upon it, as if the writer was about to write ‘Harry’ before being hurriedly called away, never to return. There was an oppressiveness in the atmosphere, a chilling eeriness, a
disturbing somnolence, that disappeared as soon as I closed the cemetery gate
behind me.
After dinner, we drove to
Kirkbymoorside, about nine miles away. The squat little parish church was
pealing its bells for all it was worth and the whole aspect of the market
square and the long High Street meandering down to the Scarborough
Road was pleasant and harmonious. The most
interesting building on the High Street was a barber’s shop that had kept the
original sign above it. The sign read
: ’C. Carter – Gas Works.’ I wondered what on earth what class of business Mr Carter's was when it was operational, perhaps half a century ago. It couldn't have been gas production, because it was a shop and not a coke works. I concluded that, no matter
where you go in these islands, there is always something fascinating to attract
your attention.
