The Grin of the Dark

ELEVEN - INTERMENTS

I'm back in the corner when the van swings out of the lay-by. At least it's heading downhill. I brace myself, because it feels as if it's straying back and forth across the road. A car rushes past, and another, or are they gusts of wind across the moor? Here's one so violent and prolonged it seems almost to force the van into the ditch, but it could be a lorry that's passing too close. I flatten my hands against the metal walls until it relents. A series of vehicles races by, unless they're sections of wall or other objects alongside the road. The sounds are settling into a rhythm that reminds me of waves or breaths; in the darkness it's nearly hypnotic. The sounds are growing louder only because I'm more aware of them. They aren't inside the van, either shut in with me or accompanying the driver. But there is a noise in his cabin, and the van jerks as if expressing my alarm.

It's the two-note pulse of a mobile receiving a text. I hope Tracy won't attempt to read it while he's driving, but the van swerves so abruptly that I'm afraid he's trying. 'Careful,' I shout, which appears to provoke a response – a lurch that almost dislodges me from the corner and sends a pang through my knee. Have we turned off the main road? If this is a side route, why haven't we slowed down? The metal walls are booming with vibrations from the wind or the surface we're speeding over, and the oppressive uproar leaves no room in my head for thoughts. Then the van performs a manoeuvre so violent and unexpected that I can't identify it until it's finished. We've backed full tilt around a bend to a standstill that throws me halfway across the floor.

I hear the driver's door slide open as I back into the corner. I won't risk leaving its relative safety until I'm sure we're parked. The van resounds with the wind, blotting out Tracy's footsteps. I wait for him to unlock the rear doors, and once I've waited long enough I thump the side of the van with a fist. 'Hello?' I shout. 'I'm still in here. Hello?'

Perhaps the wind is rendering my protests as inaudible as any sounds outside the van are to me. I pound the metal until it reverberates like a drum, deafening me to my own shouts. The rear doors take up the rhythm as my fist begins to ache. Aren't they rattling somewhat too loosely? I shuffle forwards in a sitting position and twist the handles. The doors swing wide, almost dragging me out of the van. I sprawl backwards as if I've emerged on the edge of a sheer drop, because the view is at least as disconcerting.

I'm in a graveyard. I'm facing away from the entrance, down the central avenue that leads to a long low white church with a concrete pyramid for a spire, which is tipped with a phone mast. Against the backdrop of a sky that could represent the night, the low sun lends a flat glare to the building. A wind blunders among the monuments, leaning on the scattered trees as if to demonstrate how photographically still the rest of the graveyard is. The wind shakes the van as I poke my legs over the edge of the floor and wobble to my feet on the black path.

Were the doors unlocked while Tracy was driving? I march in a rage to the front of the van, but there's no sign of him or of a phone. He can't have gone far; the projector is still strapped into the passenger seat. I heave his door shut, less to safeguard his property than in case the noise recalls him. When he doesn't appear I hurry to the churchyard gates.

I'm at the summit of a factory town. Narrow streets of grey houses, concertinas of stone, slope bluffly to darker elongated buildings with towering chimneys that wave pennants of black smoke. At the foot of the hill a train runs the unexposed frames of film that are its windows through the ends of the streets. Otherwise I can see no movement and no sign of Tracy. The road bordering the churchyard leads both ways to the moors, and it's deserted. I can only assume he's among the graves or in the church.

I shouldn't raise my voice here. The wind urges me along the avenue as I struggle to choose my pace. In front of their black pits of shadow the glaring monuments look as flat as the sky. The shadows of the stooped trees flail them and the grass, which is dusty with frost. What's being celebrated in the church? Blurred silhouettes are jerking back and forth on the abstract stained-glass windows, beyond which I hear the slaps of many feet on boards. The congregation or whoever's inside is dancing. Is the nondescript door creeping open, or is that a shadow? As I wonder if I'm about to be invited to participate, a phone begins to play its tune behind the church. The melody tells me all I need to know. It's the Cuckoo Song – the Laurel and Hardy theme. Someone in white gloves is indeed opening the door, but I don't want to talk to anyone except Tracy, and I hurry past the church.

The graveyard behind it leads to the moors, above which a crow is flying backwards on the wind. Against the open sky suffused with darkness the carved angels that guard the area look unreal, unnaturally bright dimensionless images matted into the setting. I expect to find Tracy behind one of them, but there are only distended shadows within which the turf seems featureless as slabs of the sky. Beyond the ranks of angels are new graves with rudimentary headstones, but no Tracy. The phone continues to emit its ditty, which has begun to sound mocking amid so much desertion. I can't hear any music from the church, although the silhouettes are bobbing about more feverishly than ever, presumably in some kind of rehearsal. I forget about them as I locate where the Cuckoo Song is coming from.

One of the newest graves is producing it – at least, the mobile is propped against the headstone. As I tramp across the springy turf, ice whispers beneath my feet. Sunlight flares on the headstone until my shadow douses it. I have to blink in order to distinguish the name and dates. The grave belongs to Sean Nolan, who died this year.

I'm uselessly distracted by having misspelled his first name in my head. I haven't finished staring at the curt summary of his seventyfour years when the mobile falls silent at last. Should I have answered it? The caller seemed determined to be heard. I pick it up from the rectangle of gravel and advance to the end of the graveyard in search of Tracy, but beyond the thorny hedge the moor is deserted. Only the crow is battling the wind, sailing forwards and retreating like an image on a film an editor is running through a viewer. I thumb the key to recall the last number that rang, and the digits blacken the miniature screen as a tremor passes across the moor. Before I can read them they crumble into random bits of blackness, and the phone goes dead.