Текст книги "The Boy with No Boots"

Автор книги: Sheila Jeffries

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Annie beamed, enjoying Kate’s enthusiasm.

‘And what’s under that cloth?’ Kate asked in a stage whisper, her eyes very bright as she walked round something on a pedestal, completely covered in a dark blue embroidered cloth. Her fingers itched to unveil it.

‘Ah – I’m not to show you that,’ said Annie secretively. ‘Freddie said – he wants it to stay under that cloth that his Granny embroidered until – until . . .’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the words, not while she still held some of the anger and suspicion in her heart. ‘You’ll have to wait to find that out.’

‘Ooh I do LOVE mysteries!’ Kate smiled at Annie, then glanced at the time again. ‘This is Daddy’s watch! Oh dear, I’ve got to dash. Excuse me, won’t you? It’s been lovely meeting you. Thank you for showing me this – I know we’re going to be good friends, aren’t we?’

To Annie’s surprise, Kate leaned over impulsively and gave her a warm sweet kiss on the cheek. Then she whirled out of the shop and went running down the hill to the station, her red shoes clopping and her hair bouncing as she ran. Annie was left at the shop door, staring after her, a lump in her throat, her cheek glowing. No one had given her a sweet kiss for years and years, she thought, not since her girls were little.

She couldn’t wait for Freddie to come home.

‘Guess who came here?’ she’d say tantalisingly, and when he asked ‘Who?’ she wouldn’t say ‘that Loxley girl’ she’d say, ‘Kate’ as nicely as she could manage.

‘That’s a good ’un,’ said Herbie, smoothing the chunk of freshly quarried alabaster Freddie had loaded onto the back of the lorry. ‘Got plenty of pink in it. That’s what you want, that deep rose pink, ’tis hard to find in a stone. Want a fag?’

‘No thanks.’ Freddie took off his cap, rolled up his shirtsleeves and plunged his face into the stone trough of clear spring water that welled up from the hillside. He cupped his hands and drank, then splashed it over his hair. ‘Beautiful water this,’ he said. ‘’Tis a mystery where it comes from.’

‘An underground lake,’ said Herbie, lighting up his fag and sitting up on the back of the lorry. ‘Look at yer shirt – soaking wet. My missus’d be after me if I did that!’

Freddie didn’t care. It was steaming hot in the alabaster quarry, a suntrap deep in the hills where the rare translucent stone was being hacked out by teams of men, and hauled away down the wooded lanes, covering the trees in dust. At the end of the day the workers were stacking their picks in the long shed, and leaving on an assortment of bicycles or hitching rides on the stone carts drawn by heavy Shire horses.

‘You’re steaming like a pudding now,’ laughed Herbie as Freddie sat beside him on the lorry.

‘I gotta get back,’ said Freddie.

‘Ah – you gonna write that letter?’ Herbie wagged a finger and looked under his heavy brows at Freddie. ‘You do it, lad, or you’ll lose her. ’Tis like fishing – always the best ones get away and you end up wishing you’d hauled ’em in while you got ’em.’

‘I don’t want to make the same mistake again,’ said Freddie.

‘Pah! Mistakes,’ said Herbie fiercely. ‘I made plenty of they. And if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have learned nothing. You gotta give love a chance, lad. You win some, you lose some. Don’t you let mistakes stop you.’ He ground his fag end into the dust.

Freddie looked at him gratefully, thinking that Herbie’s rather brusque friendship had done more for him than any of his family. He’d helped him discover his gift for stone carving. Every time he needed a push, Herbie seemed to be there, encouraging him, and now he was reinforcing what Freddie knew in his heart. He had to respond to Kate’s letter. Forget Ian Tillerman, and give love a chance. But first there was something he needed to do.

At the end of the hot afternoon he stood outside the pawnbroker’s shop looking in the window, searching for something he couldn’t see there. He pushed the door open and went in. A woman was in there haggling over the price of a silver teapot she was pawning. Freddie padded around, waiting and thinking about Herbie’s advice. He hadn’t yet replied to Kate’s letter. It needed thought, and he was being cautious, holding back his feelings. He didn’t want to upset Kate any more, and he didn’t want to make the same mistake again. Until he knew about Ian Tillerman, he wasn’t going to bare his soul.

He was busy, helping Annie with the bread in the early mornings, then doing as many haulage trips as he could with the lorry, and working far into the night on the stone carving. The statue of St Peter was nearly finished, and then he had to start on Joan’s commission, two stone eagles for her gateposts.

Intuition had brought him back to the pawnbroker’s. He watched with empathy as the woman left her silver teapot in the shop and departed with a meagre amount of cash in her hand, her eyes downcast. Back in January he’d stood there, miserable and penniless, and pawned the diamond ring he’d bought with such hope and joy.

‘Have you still got the ring?’ he asked, pushing the receipt across the counter. The pawnbroker peered at the receipt and opened a slim drawer in the cabinet.

‘’Tis that one,’ said Freddie, his heart soaring as he spotted the black velvet box, and he felt proud of the way it stood out, brand new amongst the collection of scruffy ring boxes. The pawnbroker seemed to enjoy creating suspense by pretending to search through the boxes, turning them over to look at numbers.

‘Have you got the money?’ he asked, finally putting the box on the counter, keeping his hand on it.

‘Would you open it, please – check the ring is in there,’ Freddie asked, and the box was opened. Both men gazed in silence at the sparkling diamond.

‘It’s a beauty. Got a bluish quality to it,’ said the pawnbroker. ‘I hope she’s worth it.’

‘She is.’

Freddie handed over the money and left, jubilant, with the box safe in his heart pocket again. It had survived his long wet journey, his accident and his illness, and its time in the pawnbroker’s shop. A symbol of hope, he thought, feeling that he could now try to answer Kate’s sad letter. And he still had money in his pocket.

‘I promise you, you won’t die of fright, Annie,’ said Joan as the two women stood on the pavement outside the bakery. Annie was clutching a willow basket filled with flowers in one hand and Levi’s walking stick in the other. Her eyes were dark with fear and the pulse was racing in her temples.

‘I can see how afraid you are,’ Joan said kindly. She looked into Annie’s eyes. ‘The fear isn’t going to go away. It’s like childbirth, Annie. The only way out of it is through it.’

Annie looked at her gratefully. She hung on to those words like a mantra. ‘The only way out of it is through it.’

‘Don’t fight it,’ said Joan, ‘let the fear come, you can’t stop it. Let it come and let it go. It will take about ten minutes. My husband says these attacks of fear only ever last for ten minutes because the body can’t sustain that level of fast breathing and racing heartbeat. The body will calm itself down, Annie, if you let it. And use the stick. If you get that giddiness, push the stick into the ground, and it will anchor you.’

‘But what will people think of me? Using a stick like an old woman?’

‘Does it matter?’ asked Joan. ‘Does that really matter MORE than you getting better?’

‘I suppose not. No.’

‘Every step you take is one step towards your freedom.’

Annie was quaking inside and she could feel the sweat prickling in her hair, but she started to do what Joan had taught her in the garden. Three steps, breathe in, three steps, breathe out.

‘Well done,’ cried Joan.

‘Shh! I don’t want the whole town to know.’

‘Keep going,’ said Joan in a gentler voice. ‘I’m with you but if I hold you it doesn’t count. You have to do it on your own.’

Annie kept going doggedly, walking and breathing as Joan minced along beside her.

‘I don’t want Freddie to know,’ she said. ‘Not until I’m sure I can do this.’

‘That’s fine. I won’t say anything,’ Joan promised. ‘Look, we’re nearly there, Annie.’

It was about a hundred yards to the church, and Annie was surprised to find herself standing in the porch.

‘There!’ said Joan triumphantly. ‘Do you want to sit down?’

‘No.’ Annie smiled and her soft eyes twinkled. ‘I want to dance!’

She put some flowers on Levi’s grave, and then the two women spent a happy hour inside the church arranging the tall spikes of larkspur, lilies and marigolds from Annie’s garden. Joan had brought a bunch of antirrhinums and some foliage.

‘That looks beautiful, doesn’t it?’ she enthused when they had finished. ‘You’ve done that pedestal very cleverly, Annie, I’d never have thought of doing it like that.’

‘I wanted to be a florist,’ Annie said, gathering up the stray leaves and stems from the floor. ‘I enjoyed doing that.’

Joan gave one of her shrieks, ‘Look at the clock! I can’t believe it’s ten past three. I promised to drive Susan to an interview for a job. I’ll have to dash. You go home on your own, Annie. You can do it. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

She ran down the church path, leaving Annie standing at the door, a look of horror on her face. Joan had abandoned her. Or was it deliberate? She’d never trusted that Joan Jarvis in the first place. Annie sat down on the porch, hoping the vicar wouldn’t turn up and find her there, hoping Freddie might come past in his lorry and see her. Then she remembered he wouldn’t be home until late. She couldn’t sit there for hours.

Trembling with anger and nervousness, Annie took her basket and Levi’s stick and set off down the path, counting her steps and chanting the mantra in her mind.

But when she went through the gate into the street, her throat closed up, her heart raced like galloping hoof-beats, and the whole street rocked and swayed, the buildings toppling, the pavement gyrating around her.

Annie was terrified.

‘I’m going to die, here on the street,’ she thought. But Joan’s words rang in her head. ‘The only way out is through it.’

‘Are you all right, Mrs Barcussy?’

Annie looked up and saw the vicar looking down at her like an inquisitive heron. She stood up straight and puffed herself up proudly. ‘I’m very well, thank you. Just on my way home. Good afternoon.’ And she walked on, her head held high. One, two, three, breathe in. Four, five, six, breathe out.

She arrived home in a state of utter exhaustion and despair. She collapsed into the old rocking chair where she rocked and cried and rocked and cried until she fell into a deep sleep with one thought blazing in her mind.

‘I’m never, EVER going out again.’

Chapter Twenty-One

TRUSTING THE DREAM

On 19 June 1930 Freddie was standing in the church porch helping to set up his statue of St Peter. With the twenty pounds stashed in his wallet, he felt satisfied as he viewed the statue from all angles, turning it to catch the light. A beam of sunlight was filtering through the tall pines and poplars that grew along the wall of the churchyard.

‘Like that?’ he said to the vicar who was earnestly inspecting the statue. ‘It needs a bit of sunlight.’

‘Yes, yes. You’re right,’ the vicar agreed. Then he looked at Freddie the same way as he’d looked at the statue. ‘You really are a very talented young man. You’ve carved the face so beautifully – and the bunch of keys – that can’t have been easy – in stone.’

‘It wasn’t.’

‘Those are the keys to the kingdom. Did you know that?’

‘Yes. Through gates of pearl,’ quoted Freddie, thinking about Levi standing by the archway in the wall. Through that archway he’d seen a golden web of light. He wanted to tell the vicar, but he felt ill at ease with him, so he asked him a question instead. ‘Do you believe in life after death?’

‘Of course I do. Jesus came to teach us that.’

Freddie frowned. ‘Then why is it wrong to talk about it?’

‘What exactly do you mean?’

‘Well – I’ll give you an example. You knew my father, didn’t you? You did his funeral. So do you believe he’s still alive?’

‘He’s with God.’

‘But do you believe that my father is alive?’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘So why is it wrong for me to tell you if I see him?’

‘Do you see him?’ The vicar’s eyes hardened and he looked intently at Freddie.

‘I’m not saying I do. I said IF I see him, why is that wrong?’ persisted Freddie.

The vicar looked flummoxed.

‘I’ve known you a long time, Freddie,’ he said, ‘ever since you were a rebellious young boy at your father’s funeral. You’re obviously a deep thinker aren’t you?’

‘You still haven’t answered my question.’

‘Do you need an answer?’

Freddie didn’t want to fall out with the ‘Holy man’ who had just paid him twenty pounds and a lot of compliments. So he said pleasantly, ‘Not today. We’ll talk another time. I’ve gotta be on my way now.’

The vicar looked relieved. He disappeared into the church and Freddie strode down the path thinking about his next haulage job: collecting sacks of grain from a farm and delivering them to the mill. The stationmaster had caught him yesterday as he was driving out of the yard. ‘Two parcels arriving for you on the mid-morning train, Freddie. Can you be here?’

‘What are they?’ he’d asked.

‘I don’t know – but they’re from Lynesend. I would guess a truckle of cheese – or a salmon maybe?’ Charlie had winked at Freddie and rubbed his hands together. ‘Something that nice young lady has sent you, I would guess.’

It was mid-morning now, but he wanted to fetch the grain first. The parcels would wait, he thought, pausing at the gate of the church to listen to an unfamiliar bird-song, a plaintive warbling melody coming from somewhere in the churchyard. Intrigued, he searched the trees and a flash of gold caught his eye, in the rippling foliage of the black poplars. He stood motionless, watching, and the bright yellow bird flew down and perched on the wall right in front of him.

Freddie held his breath. A golden oriole. There in Monterose on the church wall. A rare sight, a rare visitor.

And then he remembered. Those words! Words given to him in the night, a long, long time ago.

‘When the golden bird returns, you will meet her again.’

From far away in the cutting through the hills came the shrill whistle of a train. The mid-morning train from Gloucestershire.

Freddie leapt over the church wall and ran down the road to the bakery, started his lorry and drove off, leaving Annie standing open-mouthed in the doorway. Freddie was a grown man now, a six-footer, slow moving and thoughtful. What could have caused him to run, and to rev his precious lorry like that?

Freddie’s heart was racing as he drove down Station Road, and he was cross with himself. Why was he being an idiot? Rushing about like that. Trusting a dream!

The train was already steaming into the platform. Freddie sat in the cab of the lorry, watching the gates, watching the passengers emerging, the young boys scurrying to carry luggage as he had done. He watched and searched for a little dark-haired beauty with the face of an angel. He waited and waited, but she didn’t come. Disappointment settled over him. He’d made a fool of himself.

Now the train was leaving, the passengers walking away up Station Road. Freddie saw Charlie pop his head round the gate and look over at him, with a thumbs-up sign. He sighed. Better go and collect the parcels, whatever they were.

He swung down from the cab and loped across to the entrance.

‘Here you are, Freddie. This is yours.’ Charlie led him up the platform to a trolley where a truckle of cheese sat, wrapped in a cloth. It had a label in Kate’s writing which said, ‘With love to Annie and Freddie, from the Loxley Family at Asan Farm’. It smelled heavenly, he thought, pleased. Annie would be thrilled. He lifted the trolley handle to wheel it out.

‘Don’t go without the other parcel,’ said Charlie who seemed to be bursting with some mysterious joke. ‘It’s here, in the waiting room. ’Tis a big ’un.’

‘Right.’

Freddie pushed open the varnished door. The room was empty except for a young woman who stood with her back to him looking at a poster on the wall. Her hair was shoulder length, thick and glossy, and she wore a summer dress with emerald greens and touches of red, and a velvet bottle-green jacket. She stood with her feet neatly together in smart black shoes and stockings with straight seams.

Freddie stood there, frozen, and the door creaked shut behind him. The young woman swung round, and the room filled with light.

‘Kate! My Kate!’

Freddie went to her quietly and stood basking in her smile. She was laughing.

‘How’s this for a parcel?’ She twirled around and stood still again, gazing up into his eyes. ‘It’s lovely to see you, Freddie. I’d forgotten how tall you are.’

‘You look – radiant,’ said Freddie, trying to detect the sadness in her eyes from losing Ethie. But he saw only sunlight and humour. ‘And very smart,’ he added, suddenly conscious of his own scruffy clothes covered in stone dust and oil. ‘I’m in me working clothes. I didn’t know you were coming.’

‘I LOVE surprises,’ said Kate. ‘And you look fine. You’re a working man, that’s something to be proud of. And guess what? I’m a working girl now. I’ve got a JOB, at Monterose Hospital. I’m going to train to be a NURSE.’

‘Oh well done. So, you’ll be living here then? Where are you going to live?’

‘In the nurses’ home. I’ll have my own room, and we get all our meals, and bed linen, and I shall make lots of friends. The matron’s a bit of a dragon, but we’ll get over that. I’m used to dragons. I’m looking forward to it.’

‘Well – I hope you don’t go all stiff and starchy,’ said Freddie with a twinkle in his eye, and listened in delight to the peal of ringing laughter, a sound he’d missed.

Charlie knocked on the window and peered in cheekily. ‘Told you it was a big ’un!’ he shouted. ‘Now I’m off to taste me cheese.’

‘Was he in on the secret?’ asked Freddie.

‘Yes,’ said Kate, ‘and I brought him a little round truckle of Mummy’s cheese in my bag. He was pleased as punch.’

She chattered on about her journey and the people she had made friends with on the train, and Freddie stood there in a hazy dream, breathing in the loveliness of her presence. It was like standing under a cherry tree in full blossom on a hot day, wrapped in its wordless glory. He imagined being married to her. It would be like being married to a piece of music, he thought, and the haunting song of the golden oriole came into his mind. He wanted to tell her about it – but first –

‘Kate – before we go any further, and I hope you understand what I mean, I need to ask you something.’

‘Go on, then.’ She smiled into his attentive blue eyes, concerned to see anxiety in there.

‘What about – Ian Tillerman?’

‘Oh him,’ said Kate contemptuously. ‘I’m afraid Ian is like a little boy. He went around telling everyone I was his fiancée, and he was lying. When I found out, I told him to go to Putney on a pig.’

Freddie laughed with her, feeling his troubles rolling away like barrels down a hillside.

‘Well now – I’ll tell you something, Kate,’ he said. ‘What do you think I saw this morning? A golden oriole!’

Her mouth fell open.

‘Well I never,’ she said.

‘I bet you don’t believe me.’

Kate looked at him, her eyes full of that searching, caring expression he loved. ‘I do believe you. I’ll always believe you, Freddie,’ she said emphatically. ‘I trust you utterly and completely.’

‘So – you won’t tell me to go to Putney on a pig then?’

‘No. Never,’ she said staunchly, and linked her arm into his. ‘Now, I want you to look at this poster with me. See? It says you can go to WEYMOUTH for a day trip. Shall we go one day? It would be lovely, Freddie. You wait ’til you see the sea.’

Freddie looked at her expectantly, waiting for the next bit, and he wasn’t disappointed.

‘It SPARKLES like DIAMONDS.’

He thought about the diamond ring in its box, hidden under the floorboard, and he could feel it sparkling, coming to life in the dark place. The magic is back, he thought, the magic is back in my life. I’m so lucky.

‘Of course we’ll go,’ he said. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world. And – I might even dig out that poetry book again.’

Annie soon became aware of the difference in her Freddie. He moved around with new energy, he was whistling and singing, and his eyes had changed. They were mysteriously alive now, as if he had found some secret light, and Annie couldn’t help being pleased. She even began to feel better in herself. She had to admit that Kate Loxley had brought a new bright spirit into both their lives. The entrenched anxiety began to crumble, day by day, and her feelings warmed towards the brave, happy girl who was coping with a new life and the rigorous demands of a nurse’s training.

‘What’s Kate’s favourite colour?’ Annie asked Freddie as he was heading out to start the lorry.

‘Red,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘I’ll see you later, Mother – about six.’

Annie stood at the gate watching him drive off in a cloud of dust. ‘Red,’ she thought, and glanced up the hill at the hospital where Kate was working, its windows a soft amber in the afternoon sun. She looked down the road and she could see the wool shop. Her fingers itched to get her hands on some lovely red wool and knit Kate a cardigan. A red cardigan.

She walked inside and looked at herself in the mirror.

‘All your life, Annie Barcussy,’ she said to her reflection, ‘you’ve been standing at the gate expecting other folks to run your errands. Now it’s time you changed.’

She’d vowed never to go out again, yet now she found herself putting on her hat, taking some money from the bakery box, and wrapping her hand around Levi’s walking stick. What would she do if the panic started? She couldn’t be bothered with it. All she could see was the excitement of coming home with a basket of red wool, and a pattern for a cardigan.

Annie opened the gate and stepped out, her basket over one arm, squared her shoulders and walked steadily down the road to the shop.

On a blazing hot Saturday in July, it seemed to Freddie that the whole day was encapsulated in one moment of time. It was like the centre of a sparkle, where all the rays of light converged, focusing the essence of his dreams into one intense minute of pure light.

All day he’d waited for the moment to come. He could think of little else as he and Kate travelled down to Weymouth. They got off the train, walked hand in hand down the street towards the clock tower, and arrived at the promenade railings. Seeing the sea for the first time stunned Freddie into silence. The water heaved and glittered before him like the sequinned gown of an opera singer; it had the same massive, mysterious power as the undiscovered half of his consciousness.

For once, Kate was quiet as she watched his reaction, and waited for him to speak, but he didn’t. He was far away, under the waves, following exotic fish into caves, watching shoals of them catching the light as they twisted and turned.

‘Well, say something!’ Kate prompted him after ten minutes of contemplative gazing.

‘Ah – well – words might spoil it,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect it to be so blue, well blue-green like a kingfisher. And I didn’t know it would be so vast.’ He pointed at the horizon. ‘That sharp line, ’tis like the blade of a knife. What would I see if I went out there?’

‘France,’ said Kate.

Freddie digested that information as he followed her down some steps to the sand. France had been pink in his geography book at school, and that was all he knew about it.

As usual, Kate kicked off her shoes, looked at him bewitchingly, and went running across the sand to paddle in the edge of the sea. He struggled out of his boots and socks, rolled up his trousers and sprinted over the velvety sand into deliciously cool crystal-clear water. Together they paddled, watching the sunlight marbling their skin.

‘Taste it. It’s SALTY.’ Kate offered him some sea water in the palm of her hand. He dipped a finger, tasted the salt, then looked into her amber eyes. Is this the moment? he thought. No wait. Wait and be sure.

Someone was guiding him that day, Freddie knew. The same feeling of being in a bubble of light with Kate lingered all day as if they were cupped in the womb of a shining angel whose wings covered the sea. He fancied there were golden ribbons in the air around them, winding, binding them together. He wanted to tell Kate, but it was hard to find an opportunity. She was so busy introducing him to the wonders of the seaside, collecting shells, popping seaweed, and building sand-castles. Then came the picnic, leaning against the hot sea wall, the taste of butter and cucumber, the burn of the sun on his white feet.

The moment came just one hour before the train home. They were sitting on the end of a wooden jetty, dangling their feet in the water, and Kate was playfully trying to link her toes with his. Her sunburned arm kept brushing against his, and the sea-breeze was blowing through her hair. The sunlight was sparkling on the water.

‘Kate.’

There was something compelling in the way he lowered his voice an octave, and the way his eyes looked at her, unwavering and deep. Kate stopped giggling and paid attention.

‘Now I’m going to tell you something,’ he began, and he reached out and took her hands in his. ‘In all of my life, I’ve never done anything major without thinking about it first, and I’ve thought and thought about this, Kate. I’ve loved you ever since I saw you riding down the lane on Daisy. I’ve kept an eye on you, in secret, all those years, and when I got the chance to meet you that day at the station, I saw something in you that is very rare and beautiful. No, don’t say anything – hear me out.’ Freddie’s voice deepened with the passion he was feeling, and Kate listened, spellbound by his intensity. ‘I don’t just mean beautiful to look at, Kate, because you are, but it’s something beyond that, some magic in your eyes. You’re a beautiful person. You’re kind and full of life and – and hope. I think you are pure goodness. And when you went I was – devastated. I put my heart and soul into carving the stone angel, and her face is your face because I carried you in my heart all those years, Kate.’ Freddie paused and squeezed her hands. He looked at the sunlight in her eyes and knew from the way she was listening that he could say everything in his heart. ‘No one else knows this, but I can pick up feelings from touching stone, as if it’s a storehouse of everything that has happened close to it. So when I’d finished the stone angel, I stood out there in the twilight, with the planet Venus bright in the west, and I put my two hands on the stone angel and recited a poem, one that says everything I feel about you, Kate, and I could feel the stone absorbing my words like a prayer.’

‘What was it? The prayer?’ Kate asked, her eyes never leaving his face.

‘It’s W. B. Yeats again.’ Freddie took out his wallet and extracted a dog-eared square of cardboard, cut from a cigarette packet covered in tiny neat handwriting.

‘My granny wrote this out for me when I was a lad,’ he said, ‘with a quill pen she’d made from a chicken feather. She’d got a dark blue tablecloth she embroidered with white and gold, and she’d done the sun, moon and stars on it, and the clouds. I got it now – and I put it over the stone angel to keep the prayer in there until you saw it. ’Tis a lovely old thing, I treasure it, and she made it because she liked the poem. Have you read it?’

‘No – you read it to me, please,’ implored Kate. ‘I love to hear your voice.’

‘Oh all right.’ Freddie studied the poem for a moment, then slowly read it in a voice so quiet and deep that it blended with the whispering of the sea.

‘Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths

Enwrought with gold and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I being poor have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.’

‘That’s beautiful,’ she breathed.

Freddie took a deep breath. He sensed the golden ribbons being wound around them. He was almost there – almost.

‘Now I’ve got to ask you a question,’ he said intently.

‘Go on, then.’ Kate smiled encouragingly.

‘Do you – do you think you can love me, Kate? The way I love you?’

The answer came warm and swift, carrying him effortlessly into the moment he’d waited for all day.

‘But I DO love you, Freddie. With all my heart,’ said Kate warmly.

Freddie looked at her joyfully. He let go of her hands, reached into his heart pocket and slowly withdrew the velvet box. He hoped he wasn’t going to cry, but his voice broke a little as he gave it to her.

‘Freddie!’

‘Open it, Kate.’

She lifted the velvet lid, and gasped as the sun caught the diamond and the facets winked with the colours of sunlight.

‘I want you to have it, Kate. Because you are the diamond in my life. I’d like it to be an engagement ring – if —’

‘Freddie!’ Kate whispered, again, and her eyes brimmed with happy tears. She took the ring out, held it up to the light and then slipped it onto the ring finger of her left hand. ‘How wonderful. I’ve always loved you, and hoped you would love me too. I’ve truly – never, ever felt so blessed.’

They stared at each other, and the humour came dancing back into Kate’s brown eyes.

‘And now,’ she said bossily, ‘you are going to kiss me, aren’t you?’

Freddie took her into his arms. She felt warm and her tears tasted salty like the sea. The long slow kiss melted them together, there by the sparkling water, for one moment of time.