Purple Mountain - Part 5

 

‘I remember when we were children, we all used to play up on the mountain. We were drawn to it. Meet me on the mountain, we’d say as we ran out of the schoolroom. It felt so safe, you could see everything from up there, you could see who was coming and our parents could look up and see us playing, they could pick us out from our clothes. You’ll never get a view like that again, never! We loved it,’ he turned to his wife, ‘didn’t we.’

 

‘We did Laurie. It was our playground and it was where all the locals went to recharge their emotional batteries. I suppose that’s how it started.’

 

‘How what started?’ said Dill.

 

Mani stopped eating suddenly and looked quizzically at Sara, ‘Is this traditional black stew, it tastes sort of grainy?’

 

‘I tweaked the recipe,’ said Sara, ‘we like it this way, it’s got more protein.’

 

‘But what I don’t understand is,’ said Dill as she pushed Orzo’s large head away from her lap, ‘where exactly did the mountain go? Was it full of some precious minerals which were mined and taken away?’

 

Mani shook her head, ‘No, my dear, not minerals. The mountain was full of a unique sort of..’ she held out her hands and circled them as if conjuring up some sort of magic, ‘energy, something just for us, the locals. It was made here and it was made for us. Word got around though, as it did back then, social media and the like, young people pretending to be spiritual.’

 

‘Maybe they were spiritual.’

 

‘No Arty. They came here, to take photos to show people that they came here, that’s all. Just a few at first, then more, and more and more,’ she became angry suddenly, her voice hostile, ’droves actually! And they stole it.’

 

‘It was the Haish,’ said Trey, waving his hand away dismissively.

 

Dill looked confused. ‘The Haish?’

 

‘Not local,’ said Mani, shaking her head.

 

‘But they’re local now,’ said Sara, ‘they came up from the mines and settled here.’

 

‘They brought their cousins, brothers, uncles, dogs and they set up cafes and tacky little stalls around the bottom of the mountain. They sucked all the energy out of it.’

 

‘Because they’re not spiritual people!’ said Trey.

 

Dill pushed her black stew around the plate, it didn’t really taste of much, a bit of mild spice, something sweet like cinnamon, she wasn’t sure, and despite being stew, it was somehow dry, soaking up all the saliva from her mouth. 

 

She noticed that Sara was looking uncomfortable and Arty had decided to completely check out of the conversation. He was tucking into his mother’s food and didn’t appear to be listening to anything that was being said. Perhaps he’d heard it all before.

 

Something told him that Dill was staring at him and he looked up, gazed at her for a few seconds while he finished his mouthful of food, then said, ‘So are we going to go and see Great Nan?’ 

 

They finished the meal mostly in silence. Dill wondered where the elderly lady was located in the property. There was something unnerving about knowing there was another family member to meet, she wondered whether Great Nan heard any of the conversation at the table and wondered what her take was on the subject of the mountain.

 

While the others cleared the table and stacked the dishwasher, Dill and Arty had a brief moment to themselves. They hugged and Dill whispered, ‘What did your dad mean by the thingy, the…what was it, the haish?’

 

‘Oh, just some people who settled here and some people didn’t like it. It was a long time ago and they were seen as outsiders at the time. Literally, no-one cares..’ he shrugged.

 

‘Haish sounds so strange, like they were aliens or something.’

 

‘I know. They were just different, I don’t know, a different race, people used to say back then. A different culture with, what my dad calls,’ he looked uncomfortable for a second, ‘different values.’

 

Dill scoffed, ‘Wow, people still go on about that stuff.’

 

‘It was kind of interesting when we had differences but it also caused problems I guess.’

 

‘Now we’re all just grey goo,’ Dill said and they both burst out laughing.

 

‘You’re grey goo!’ Arty tickled her ribs and she let out a little scream.

 

‘I’ll just go and see if she’s ready to see us,’ said Mani and she shuffled off down the corridor of bedrooms with Orzo following, his overgrown claws clicking on the wooden floorboards. A minute or two later, she returned without the dog. ‘She’s ready,’ she said.

 

They followed her down to a bright room with a large window looking out into the garden. There was a simple wardrobe, no clutter, a bedside lamp, a tall vase filled artfully with branches from some of the trees which surrounded the property.

 

The elderly lady was sitting up in bed. She was still glorious in her way. She had high cheekbones and her white hair was mostly covered with a yellow patterned head scarf. Her eyes were tiny black beads, half sunken into her head.

 

She stared at Dill and her face broke into a smile. ‘Beautiful girl,’ she said, her voice shaky.

 

‘So how old are you?’ said Dill.

 

‘There’s no need to shout,’ said Mani, ‘she can hear really well.’

 

‘I’m a hundred and sixteen.’

 

‘No you’re a hundred and nineteen Mother!’ said Laurie.

 

‘Ha!’ she laughed, her eyes twinkled, there are three years of my life I’d rather forget about so I don’t include them.’

 

‘And the ten minutes when you died,’ Mani said, a little too gleefully.

 

‘Heart attack,’ said Trey.

 

‘I didn’t die, at least my mind didn’t. It carried on living, holding onto all my thoughts, just like,’ she slowly lifted her arm and pointed at the branches in the vase, ‘just like those leaves holding on, clinging to the branches that were cut,' she gasped a little, 'from the tree.’

 

Dill was confused and didn’t want to talk about death or lack of it or whatever it was they were referring to. She noticed Orzo curled up on a large cushion in the corner of the room, snoozing. ‘You’ve got the dog in here,’ said Dill.

 

‘And my cat,’ said the old lady.

 

Dill couldn’t see any cat but she said nothing. ‘The cat wandered off and went missing,’ said Trey.

 

‘She didn’t go missing, she went invisible! And she’s right here on the end of my bed.’

 

‘Okay Mother,’ 

 

‘Laurie likes to think I’m losing my marbles but I’m not. My physical body might be past its use by date but so far, no marbles have fallen out!’

 

‘I can tell,’ said Dill, ‘you seem very sharp.’

 

‘The thing is, we can all live as long as me and many more years with the right health care but they don’t want you to live that long because when you reach a certain age, you know everything and they don’t want that.’

 

‘Who?’ said Sara.

 

She ignored the question and looked away sadly. ‘This world is run by devils,’ she said.

 

‘Part of me agrees with you!,’ Dill said quickly.

 

‘And the other part will also agree in time,’ she lifted up her gnarled index finger then looked quizzically at Dill. ‘So what is it that you do?’ 

 

‘I work with fungus,’

 

Her face lit up and she seemed to sit up a little higher in the bed. ‘Fungus?’

 

‘Yes. We’ve just been given extra funding for our research project to try and deal with the threat.’

 

‘The threat,’ the old lady whispered and turned her head away towards the view into the garden.

 

‘She’s getting tired,’ said Mani, ‘let’s leave her for now. I need to prepare her soup for lunch anyhow.’

 

Dill so wanted to quiz her about the mountain but it was clear that they were being rounded up to leave the room, Mani ushering them like a little sheepdog.