Enduring Mind Novel

Filthy

Savages

  

            We were still children then.

Innocent as newborn lambs, wild with mischief and giddy as the day is long. Our days spent roaming the secret hinterlands of childhood. Catching a glance of sunburn on our backs, as if we might flare up in moments. Such delicate, flimsy creatures and ripe for the picking like the scorched red berries of autumn.

Our youth so fleeting, it hurt.

By the end of summer we were gone in a blaze of fury and ephemeral colour.

           

Back then, was a time of tall tales and high spirits.

We were drunk on thin air – shrill as skylarks soaring above the skies; spinning in a flurry of heady excitement. Newly liberated by the school vacations, we stripped bare to the waist, exposing our pale, unblemished bodies to the sun. Wandering over scar and dale - thrashing through the tinder-dry cotton grass and knots of wild heather.

We were masters of our own fate; rambling far and wide without a care in the world. It was 1976: the middle of the longest summer heatwave Britain had ever known. Temperatures soared to around 35˚ C. On those listless sultry days we plunged into the ice-blue depths of the quarry-pit; immersing ourselves up to our necks and bursting with a rush of blood to the head. We thought nothing of the risks we took. We were invincible and oblivious to our naïve, youthful frailty.

Until that is, the girl with the blood-spattered dress stumbled into town.

She startled us all with her presence. Her jagged mouth cut in a silent scream; her face streaked with terror. We held our breath as she passed between us down the cobbled-stone streets, between the rows of terraced houses and derelict mills. Trying to pretend she didn’t exist.

But the rest of the world moved on. Children went dashing in and out of the burst standpipes in slow motion, as the sun loomed overhead, blinding us with its stark light. Water penumbras obscured our vision under a spray of multi-coloured rainbows. For awhile, no one dared move. Until some kid bowled into her, screaming blue murder.

Finally she let rip with a shriek. Something cracked inside her – opening up a long and plaintive wail - shattering the silence like glass shards. And in a blip, those halcyon days of summer were obliterated forever.

There would be no more peace in our rural idyll. No façade of childlike innocence, betrayed. Only the fleeting memory of her gliding through a wake of screaming children; dressed in her white linen smock. Her fine fleece of hair in disarray, her crisp blue eyes and pale bruised lips.

Most folk only saw the blood and simply stood there staring, mouth agape, as she slipped over the brim of Ribbelsthwaite Hill and out of sight. We averted our gaze from her diaphanous shape, as if she were an apparition shimmering out of the heat haze.

Not long after her arrival we heard the sirens wailing; as an ambulance snaked its way through Viper’s Pass, tracing its trajectory all the way from Leeds. The South Yorkshire Police had been called in on suspicion of a violent sexual assault against a minor.

 Days later, the traumatised girl was released from hospital into the care of Elsie Branning the old spinster who lived at the No. 9A, over the dressmaker’s shop near Gartside’s Mill. And by strange coincidence, it was reported the girl was Elsie’s long lost niece. She had been heading in her direction, in a vain attempt to escape the clutches of a man who had pursued her. It seemed her estranged aunt was her only hope of finding sanctuary: after she had been abandoned her to fate after the death of her parents.

At first sight she had set tongues aflame in the village and soon attracted a whirlwind of notoriety among the Press Corps descending from the industrial cities of Northern England. Their antics stirred up a frenzy of salacious gossip. And without a hint of social embarrassment, the entire population of the town marched down to Elsie Branning’s, hands and faces pressed hard against the window. We lingered with baited breath, half-expecting a stage entrance by the girl, but she was nowhere to be seen. We simply stood there purveying the odd collection of dressmaker’s dolls and the naked oriental mannequins – each one winking with an eerie glint to its eye that chilled me to the bone.

            It didn’t stop us returning next day. I recall long afternoons crowded into the hidden recesses of the shop, hordes of children, hoping for a rare glimpse of the waxen-faced doll who had disrupted all our daily routines. And then there was Elsie Branning herself – a rare oddity of middle-class spinsterhood, regally attired in her ornate turban and silk kimono; made all the more exotic, by her eccentric mannerisms and brooding charm.. She looked the part and dressed for the occasion – inviting in the neighbours for a cup of tea, but insisting on a policy of strictly no contact, pointing out the necessity of maintaining firm boundaries if the girl was to recover from her ordeal. Old Elsie Branning and her guest were thick as thieves.

And she revelled in it. Quite the doting mother she became. On several occasions the girl was allowed out behind the house, shuffling around the yard with her puppy-dog eyes and head down. On days when business was slow, Elsie invited privileged guests around, but she was inclined to leave the door ajar so her visitors could take a furtive glance in the girl’s room to quell their curiosity.

Then one hot and muggy midsummer’s day the child went missing. Vanishing into the ether like vapour. Some say she’d had enough of being gawped at and returned from whence she came. It was good riddance to a bad penny. Others claimed they witnessed her abduction, by a bearded intruder who sped off in a shiny black Cortina.

The atmosphere in town turned on a pinhead.

It was already buckling under the simmering heat.

The authorities were summoned once again. And back came the Press with a flotilla of national TV crews in tow. Now with the town thrust back into the limelight there was a spontaneous outburst of raw emotion. First shock, then anger rippled through town, before anyone could mobilise into action. Photographs of the missing child were circulated among the local community. Prayers were said by the parish priest in church and candles lit to mark the vigil. Folk may have been reticent at first, but they soon rallied together in a crisis. Small bands of vigilante youths hunted the streets by torchlight. And police were drafted in halfway across the county with a DCI from Leeds heading up the investigation. Very soon they conducted house-to-house searches and scoured the entire swathe of Scardale Moor.

Yet despite their best efforts, not a single trace of the girl was found. The days passed by in foetid blur with the sun belting down on the constables’ in their tall helmets and dark uniforms. Some were taken down with heatstroke. Eventually, a torn dress was discovered floating on the surface of the pool at the quarry. The police and press conferred with knowing nods and whispers; confirming long-held suspicions that she had been ravaged and left to drown.

Later a blue ribbon from her hair was discovered in the possession of Brian Hattersley – the local retard. And it was Elsie who verified the ribbon had been given as a gift to the girl. By nightfall, a seething crowd had gathered outside his mother’s house, demanding the wheels of justice be set in motion. They were out to gratify their lust for blood and wanted retribution.

He stood there vainly protesting his innocence in the moonlight; shaking his head hysterically and twitching at the corners of his mouth. He stood there sweating, as the steam poured off him, amid a growing wave of hysteria and vitriol. Yet, the case against him was pretty thin and couldn’t have been proved in court. They hadn’t even found a body yet.

An arrest was made. Police tried to quell the crowd. But the wounds refused to heal overnight.

I recall next day outside the police station, in the glaring heat of the midday sun as Brian was released on bail. The crowd fell eerily silent as the police sergeant ordered them to go home. Some men paced up-and-down, tightening their fists and reddening around the gills. Others shouted obscene slogans or made death threats against the suspect. Moments later Brian was taken back into protective custody.

There was a short lull as the shock waves rippled outward. Word got round that the case against him had been dropped due to a legal technicality. But it was an ugly, baseless rumour, designed to bring out the worst in people. Those with axes to grind incited the crowd to violence, and someone let out a blood-curdling cry.

Even as a child, I recall a sickening sense of foreboding wrenching at my gut. I could smell the reek of hatred among them.

An angry mob jeered outside for hours, rattling the confidence of the authorities. Someone threw a stone at a glass window and one man broke the police cordon as they called for reinforcements. Intense passions had been aroused and there was an undercurrent of hostility toward the police. By now it was an unsettling scene, as mob-rule broke out among the angry crowd. Most of them had a taste for vengeance in their throats. They were poised to riot.

Suddenly, things turned sour as if our tight little community was about to ignite and go on the rampage.

That same afternoon the assembled news crews arrived en masse, milling around in their short-sleeved shirts and sandals. Their faces ruddy with sunburn; perspiration running down their necks and staining the backs of their shirts. At first, they kept a respectful distance, but patience soon ran out. As people turned away, a group of paparazzi charged through the dispersing crowd with cameras held aloft loaded; high-speed film and flashbulbs at the ready. They hunted us down in packs, thudding through the streets and kicking up the swirls of dust in the heat-haze. All routes via town were blocked: choked by a sudden influx of traffic and thrill-seekers compelled by a morbid fascination for unspeakable things.

Tabloid headlines didn’t help much: not with their lurid speculation that Brian Hattersley was the notorious Midsummer Creeper!

Looking back, I never really believed the rumours –they were mindless cant – sinister examples of small-town bigotry and hatred. Making a mockery of our tight-knit community: the collective Yorkshire spirit had been defiled, torn wide-open by a tissue of lies and deception.

There was something compelling and inevitable about the rise in tension and calls for vigilantism. The atmosphere on the street was highly charged. Men sat around in huddles letting off steam in cafés and pubs. You could sense the rage reach fever-pitch under the stench of alcohol, coffee and cigarettes. This was the way it happened: adults concocting the truth like spiteful children, whetting their appetites for retribution under the spell of collective delusion.

Brian never had a chance: poor soul. He was a sacrificial lamb from the start.

I was no more than nine or ten then.

A youthful lad with copper-coloured hair and green eyes; freckles peppered down my face. I was a wilful child, even then, and prone to preternatural urges. It didn’t take me long for my inquisitive instincts to kick in and prevail over reason. And like any boy my age, I went tearing off down country lanes and muddy tracks; chasing after the mob, determined to cause mischief wherever we went. I couldn’t resist the urge to catch an eyeful of the man accused of murder.

Though I didn’t know it then the girl was still alive.