The Lies of Fair Ladies by Jonathan Gash

You get these sudden deflections in East Anglia, usually where
the Romans built a temple, like at places called Mile End, so marching
legionaries could chuck votive offerings to some god for the success of their
campaign. Or where Middle Ages improvers built a footbridge near an old
watersplash, so making the old crossing redundant.
    I walked quieter still. I've had practice, one way and another.
The path—it was hard to find, nearing the undergrowth where the muddiness
began—narrowed further. Occasional cows must come this way, judging from the
state of the ground underfoot. The hedge was tattered, losing the battle not to
become a thicket. I supposed vaguely that gravel was anciently cast into the
river here, to make the bed firm enough for wagons. Our roads have always been
abysmal. Forget the engravings of rollicking coaches bristling with
ruddy-countenanced passengers waving bottles. When Emperor Charles VI visited
Petworth, the fifty miles from London were a nightmare—Sussex stalwarts were
hired to walk alongside, propping the coach upright. The emperor was only
upended twelve times.
    There was a faint hum. Hum? Up and down, like a pub singer trying
for his key before launching into his gala melody. Rasping, sort of. I cracked
a twig, hissing and sucking my finger when stabbed by a hawthorn. The humming
ignored me. I know little about countryside, but I do know its sounds go silent
when interrupted. Except some.
    I stepped through the hedge gap. Prammie had made it oblique, from
cunning. Stand alongside the tangle, you've to face the way you've come even to
see it. You step through, take three paces or so, and you are in this overgrown
field with blackthorn and reeds. Your only way is down, towards the creek. And
that constant, terrible humming sound.
    From Prammie Joe's shack. I saw the shack when my feet felt suddenly
cold. My shoes were water sogged. I could see the hut door. Open? I'd never
seen it open without Prammie Joe here.
    "Prammie?" Nothing. The hum continued. "It's
Lovejoy."
    The humming rose and fell. Zzzzz. A sleeping giant. Always
inhaling? A faint blur hung about the doorway. Dark, shifting, a feeble shadow
trying to become something definite.
    And an aroma. No, a smell. Not smell, even. A stench. A stench of
something having . . .
    "Joe? It's me. Lovejoy."
    Something came at my face. I brushed it away. It came again,
troubling me. I brushed it off. A bluebottle. Flies. The hanging shadow was a
cloud of buzzing blowflies. Which breed—
    "Joe!" I screamed. "For Christ's sake,
Prammie!"
    Maggots breed in soldiers' shot legs, in cattle wounds. I drew
breath, moaning, took my jacket off, covered my head with it, ran at the hut,
paused a second and stepped in, gagged, saw Joe's face one heaving mass of
maggots and bluebottles that actually dripped, dripped onto the wood floor
beside him, things squirming in his eye sockets. I turned and ran, retching,
swiping madly at the bluebottles that followed. Some were even in my jacket. I
waved it round my head fifty yards up the field. My hands were shaking. I felt
my eyes streaming. I was going "Argh, argh ..." I tried not to, but spewed
and retched and wept. I was pathetic, disgusting. I found two blowflies buzzing
in my sleeve, stamped one to death like a madman and chased the other round the
universe until I collapsed, sobbing, on the marshy ground. When I’m a prat, I
go for gold.
    As penance, I made myself walk home, nearly getting myself killed
by every night joyrider. After the pubs closed it was a nightmare. Hardly any
pavements in East Anglia.
    Two o'clock in the morning I reached my cottage. All night long I
heard buzzing, buzzing. I didn't sleep. Fault is everybody's for everything,
people say nowadays. It didn't feel like it. It felt like mine.
    Came dawn, bluetits were tapping for their bloody nuts, the robin
was flirting for his cheese, the hedgehog wondering what had gone into me. I
shut them all out. Let them get on with it. I'd had enough