narrow road suddenly rose so steeply that it was almost perpendicular. Then, as Jake steered carefully past a large jutting boulder and rounded another bend, I gasped. ‘We’re on top of the world!’
After all that climbing, we were now on a plateau. To left and right the moors stretched out for miles. Ahead was a small group of buildings and beyond that the road tumbled down and we could see another valley, a stony blur of blues and greens and greys stretching out into a hazy purple distance.
Never before had I had such a feeling of space and distance. I don’t think I’d ever been in such an empty space. Bit of a shock for a city girl. Even Jake in his foul mood looked momentarily impressed, and slowed the car to take in the vastness of the view. Then we drove past the pub, grey and solid and hunched against the weather, saw the old chapel, which now seemed to be an outdoor pursuits centre. Or had been. It was boarded up and looked sad. Apart from that there was only a handful of houses. Where were the people who came to the pub? Where were the people who had come to the chapel? Were there even any people up here?
I spotted the ‘High Hartstone only’ sign and we turned and bumped off up the track, which twisted across the vast open space of the moor. It seemed a long mile.
Suddenly we could see a small collection of buildings, dropped down at the base of another high hill that seemed to soar right up to the sky. The road led straight into a farmyard and stopped. That was the end of it. Literally the end of the road.
‘Is this it?’ asked Jake.
‘I suppose so,’ I said, having no idea. With that a woman emerged from one of the barns across the yard. She was tall, striking, with a heavy plait of greying auburn hair and, although dressed in jeans, wellies and an ancient battered waterproof, moved with a casual sort of elegance. I’d never seen anyone quite like her before.
Jake sat in the car, arms folded and a deliberately blank expression on his face as if to say that this was nothing to do with him. So I got out of the car, stiff from the journey, and walked towards her. She would have been intimidating, if she hadn’t been smiling in welcome. ‘Mrs Alderson?’ I asked tentatively.
‘Hello there!’ she said cheerfully. ‘You must be Miss Flint and’ she glanced towards the car, ‘Mr Shaw?’
‘That’s us,’ I said, relieved, thinking how nice it was to hear a friendly voice after the hours of silence in the car. She had deep dark blue eyes and the most amazing skin, and her wrinkles were definitely laughter lines. Tucked into the neck of her jumper was a vivid jade scarf that lit up her face and contrasted sharply with the dingy mud of her jacket.
‘Good journey? Found us all right?’
‘Yes, fine, thank you. Excellent directions,’ I said, extra brightly to make up for Jake’s silence. She gave us both a quick look and I swear she knew that we’d had a row en route. But she just smiled again. ‘That’s the cottage up there,’ she said, pointing up the hillside behind the farm.
In the middle of its vast steep expanse of fellside, I could see a solitary grey stone house built into a hollow. It must have been half a mile from the farm and the only building for miles, apart from a few tumbledown cottages and some abandoned stone barns, with high, dark doorways. It was a weird, empty landscape. What’s more, there seemed to be no road up to it. I began to wonder just what I’d booked.
‘You’ll have to back out of the yard and follow the track through the stream. Don’t try and get over the bridge. It’s built for horses and pedestrians, not cars. The key’s in the door. I’ve put the heating on and I think everything’s self-explanatory. But if not, just pop down and we’ll put you right. Anything you need, just ask. If I’m not here, I’m not far.’
I thanked her and we got back into the car and Jake manoeuvred it out and along the track.
‘A bloody ford!’ he muttered. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t rain much more or we’ll be washed away. You couldn’t have chosen anything further away if you’d tried.’
‘But Simeon Maynard’s grouse moor is just over there,’ I waved vaguely, ‘That’s why I chose it. Only a mile or so as the crow flies.’
‘I am not a bloody crow,’ said Jake through gritted teeth as we splashed and bumped through the ford, past the narrow packhorse bridge.
The stream…the ford…the packhorse bridge…
My mother’s voice echoed in my ears. This must have been where she came with her mother, my grandmother. This must be where part of her family—my family—had come from. So I wasn’t coming somewhere new and strange. I was coming home. What a thought. My ancestors had lived and worked in this strange, empty landscape. I tried to get my head round it and felt quite ridiculously excited.
Unlike Jake. ‘This track is going to do nothing for the suspension of the car. We’ll be lucky if the exhaust doesn’t drop off before the end of the week,’ he grumbled as he pulled up alongside the cottage.
We sat in the car and stared at it. It wasn’t a pretty house. No roses round the door. No cottage garden. Grey and solid, it was a no-nonsense, take-me-as-you-find-me sort of house, looking down the hill and across the moors. The road was so steep I felt I could drop a stone down the chimney of the farmhouse far below us. We got out of the car into a gust of wind so sudden and strong I thought it would blow us away as we ran indoors, heads down and jackets flapping. I wondered where on earth we’d come to.
But inside the cottage was warm and welcoming. As well as the central heating, there was a wood-burning stove in the small living room, which was cheerful with brightly coloured curtains and rugs and a big squashy sofa. The kitchen was modern farmhouse, lots of terracotta and pine and a stunning view from the window above the sink. On the table was a tray with mugs, a teapot, a fruit cake and a wedge of cheese and a note saying there was milk and a bottle of wine in the fridge.
Relieved that there were at least some elements of civilisation in this wild and windblown place, I dumped my bag on the floor, switched on the kettle and looked at the huge folder of information.
Jake, meanwhile, was stamping round, clutching his mobile and muttering angrily.
‘No signal! No bloody signal!’
‘Try outside,’ I said, calmly, ‘it might work better there.’
But two minutes later he was back. ‘Not even one rotten bar. Absolutely nothing.’
I’d made some tea and was looking through the notes Mrs Alderson had left. ‘It says here that there’s Internet access from the pub.’
Jake looked horrified. ‘From the pub! The pub all that way across the moors? You mean we haven’t got it here?’
‘Nope,’ I said, still reading. ‘Problem with phone lines, or lack of them. Too isolated apparently.’
And that’s when Jake lost it. ‘You mean I’ve got to drive down the track and through that bloody stream to the pub every time I want to check my emails?’ he shouted. ‘That you’ve brought us to a place in the back of bloody beyond, that has no mobile phone signal, no phone and no Internet access and is halfway up a mountain in the middle of a bloody moor in the middle of nowhere? Tilly, I’m meant to be working here. This isn’t a bloody holiday! How can I work without the tools of my trade?’
‘Well, it’s
