Devil's Peak. Brian Ball

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      Jerry knew this place. It served as a halting-place for the men who drove the vast lorries over the backbone of England through lanes which had been laid down for carts; the caff was useful to the walkers and campers too, though they were tolerated rather than encouraged.

      “I’m not going theer!” the girl shouted.

      “Then you’ll have to get out and walk, lass.”

      “Oh, you sod.”

      “And sod you,” said Bill equably. The huge tanker skidded for seconds on locked wheels as he took it round a steep curve. Jerry looked out and saw a glimpse of lights far below in a break in the blizzard. They were climbing now along the shoulder of the rock he had seen from the gritstone edge: they would climb further until they were halfway up the shivering, loose shale face of Devil’s Peak, right up to the curious projection of rocks that from a distance, and in the right light, had the configuration of a pair of curved horns. All the local peaks had names—Mam Tor and Chee Tor and Mam Nick—usually the ancient names of forgotten peoples. None was so appropriately named as this. It seemed strange, almost ironical, to be sitting in a tanker after almost freezing to death and then making for Devil’s Peak which had seemed to leer at him only an hour or two ago. But he wanted to go back to Sheffield. It was Friday, and Friday night was beer and darts night.

      “Maybe there’ll be a lorry at the caff,” he said. “You know, Bill, going back my way.”

      “Could be,” Bill agreed. “Still, you’re out of trouble, aren’t you?”

      He looked worried. The unspoken question was in the air. Would Jerry make any comment on the presence of the girl? Jerry sensed the man’s discomfort.

      “Why not leave me at the caff?” he said. “You go on—if I can’t get a lift, I’ll stay till morning.”

      Bill grinned suddenly, his fleshy face relaxed completely, “Aye. Brenda and me’ll go on to Manchester. Sure you’ll be all right?”

      Jerry checked on the condition of his fingers, nose and toes. All seemed to be functioning normally, though there was still a feeling of a tightening and painful expansion of the extremities of his body.

      “Don’t worry about me.”

      Brenda looked at him: “Who’s worrying?”

      “Cow,” said Bill pleasantly. “Soon be at the caff. Can’t stay long, though. The drifts are getting up. There won’t be many more trucks going through after me. Not tonight.”

      The girl was pressed against Jerry’s body, but there was little heat to be gained from her; it was as though she could insulate herself from him. He began to worry, for he was normally attractive to women; however partisan the lorry girls might be, this one was hostile in an unusual way. So she’d been messed about by a couple of drunk undergraduates. So what? He found himself angry in return.

      “Theer,” said the girl suddenly. There were lights beside the road a few yards ahead. The tanker was moving cautiously up the narrow road so that when she spotted the caff Bill could turn in easily.

      “Let me buy you a drink. A meal or something,” Jerry said, as the vast engine was quiet. “Bill. And you, Brenda.”

      Brenda pushed past him contemptuously. She said nothing as she jumped into the howling night.

      “A cup of tea then,” said Bill. “You all right to get out?”

      Jerry remembered how he had been hauled in by the man, a limp and frozen bundle desperate for warmth.

      “I’m all right,” he said.

      They got down, Bill jumping lightly, Jerry lowering himself tortuously on to his sore ankle. Bill waited for him in the whipping shock of the wind and snow.

      He shouted something above the wind. “She’s a cow…always on the hills… still, she’s company on the run!”

      The caff was a single-storied building roofed in white-grey concrete panels that sloped away to take the edge off the prevailing wind. The rest of the building was much older—it was built massively from blocks of the local gritstone, green and weathered from exposure to years of howling gales. In be junction of two pinnacles of rock where the caff was built, the wind boiled up the snow so that it danced as if in a tornado’s grip. Snow had drifted to the side of the building nearest the inker to a depth of three feet, up to the windows. It was an odd place to find a caff, but it seemed to suit the couple who ran it. It did a fair business. Not tonight, however. There wasn’t another lorry or car in the big park.

      Jerry hobbled his way to the door and pushed inside.

      Brenda was already drinking. She was in the act of lighting a cigarette when they came in.

      “Shut door quick!” she yelled. “It’s bloody frozen! And I’m not staying here long either!”

      Raybould himself was at the counter, hidden from view by a large coffee urn except for the top of his bald head which shone damply in the white neon lighting. He emerged as he heard the door slam shut.

      “Hello, Bill!” he called. “You look like Father Christmas—and you look perished,” he added to Jerry.

      “I got stuck walking,” said Jerry. “I can’t get back to Sheffield—”

      “That you can’t! Road’s blocked t’other side of Hathersage! Just got it from Radio Sheffield!”

      “Found him near frozen,” said Bill. “He’d been up Toller Edge.”

      Jerry didn’t want a discussion of his encounter with near-death. He shivered, the hot delirium he had felt in the cab returning once more.

      “So have you a bed for the night?” he stuttered.

      “Aye! You as well, Bill?”

      “No. Brenda and me’s pushing on.”

      “l wouldn’t,” Raybould said. He was glancing from Bill to Brenda with a wet excitement in his slightly bulbous blue eyes. Jerry could see his nose twitching, as if he were on a strong scent. His features were small, clustered in the middle of his face—eyes, nose, mouth, all scrunched together, alert like a stoat’s.

      Brenda saw the look he gave her and snorted. She took her tea across to the big coal fire that blazed furiously into the brick chimney; she sat on a low chair beside a big brass coal-scuttle that Jerry didn’t recall seeing before. But it had been summer then, so perhaps it had been out of sight; there was no call for such a fire when the High Peak was warm and friendly. The two men, Raybould and Bill, talked about the state of the roads to Manchester; Bill was confident that his big red tanker would get through. He wouldn’t stop to put on chains, just for a cup of tea. And he wouldn’t let Jerry pay after all.

      “No need for that, lad,” Bill said. “I was glad to help. Doesn’t need paying for. How’s the ankle?”

      “Fall, did you?” called Raybould. “We get a lot of broken legs. Those buggers who do the climbing. You’d think they’d know what they were about, what with ropes and helmets and that. But they’re always falling off. We buried one over Christmas.”

      Jerry’s СКАЧАТЬ