Текст книги "The Boy with No Boots"

Автор книги: Sheila Jeffries

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Chapter Six

‘SHADES OF THE PRISON-HOUSE’

Levi stared into the solicitor’s eyes for a long time. They were dark brown and unwavering over the top of a pair of round gold-rimmed spectacles. The lower lids were red and pimply, the skin sagging into half-moons of shadow, giving Arthur Warcombe a look like that of a bloodhound. He didn’t suffer fools, and he wouldn’t wait much longer for Levi’s decision. His black fountain pen gleamed in his hand, a minute bead of Quink on the gold nib, waiting above the document on his desk.

‘I’ve never, in my life, taken a risk like this,’ Levi said.

‘Well, now is the time, my man. Now. It won’t wait.’

‘Ah.’ Levi thought about Annie and Freddie waiting for him at home. ‘’Tis my missus, see. She can’t manage no more. Can’t go out – won’t go out. And my younger lad, Freddie, twelve he is and clever. The village school can’t teach him no more, he’s learned it all, and now he’s bored. Two more years he’s gotta go there, wasting time. I gotta show him how to make a life. That’s what I gotta do. And this – well ’tis an opportunity.’

‘He’d be better off in school here – it’s just down the road, a good school from what I hear.’

‘Ah,’ said Levi again, his mind moving several squares ahead, seeing Freddie as a young man leaving school at fourteen, and Annie, hiding indoors. He loved their cottage, but it would be better for all of them to live in town.

‘I’ve known you a long time, Levi, and your father before you,’ said Arthur. ‘And I wouldn’t give you this advice if I didn’t think you could handle it.’

Levi thrummed his fingers on the desk, looking out of the window at a cherry tree in full blossom, its white petals drifting down the street like snowflakes. People were walking past the window along the pavement. To Levi they looked energetic and smart, not downtrodden and defensive like Annie. He saw a boy pedalling past on a bike with shiny handlebars; the boy looked purposeful and in charge of his life. Levi wanted Freddie to be like that, not forever white-faced and exhausted as he carried buckets from the well and chopped wood for the fire.

‘Well then – now – I’ll do it,’ said Levi, and Arthur handed him the fountain pen.

‘Good man. No, don’t sign yet. We need a witness.’

He rang a brass bell on his desk and his secretary appeared, standing stiffly at the door in her stone-grey suit and shiny black shoes. She watched importantly while Levi signed the cream-coloured document, wrote his name and address and the date. Arthur lit a match and took a stick of red sealing wax from the tray on his desk, melted it over the flame and dropped a neat round blob onto the paper. He pressed a seal into it before it dried.

‘There. Congratulations, Mr Barcussy. You are now a baker, and a landlord. Good luck.’

Levi shook his hand, the rare spark of a smile in his eyes. A baker, and a landlord. He began to shake, deep inside his stomach, uncontrollably, and, feeling it spreading down to his painful knees, he stood up and left the office, leaning on the polished knob of his walking stick as he hobbled down the steep stairs. Outside in the street he put his cap on, then took it off again, threw it up in the air, and allowed a smile to unlock his face which had been tightly closed for years under a florid mask of resignation.

He strutted down the street, past Monterose Post Office and the church, the graveyard and the Board School. Through the cattle market and down the next street which had houses one side and tall elm trees on the other. At the end of it, Levi saw the roof of his new property coming into view, and it felt like the sun rising. Leaning on the garden wall he savoured the strength of the stones, sun-warmed and inlaid with intricate lichens, yellow stonecrop and toadflax. Inside the wall on the sunny side was a mass of pink and white valerian covered in butterflies. It was a long time since Levi had even glanced at flowers and butterflies, but now he gazed, his soul hungry for beauty. This was his garden. His paradise garden. Annie would love it.

His eyes moved down the overgrown path to the door next to the shop window and looked up at the dilapidated sign. A new one was needed. Barcussy’s Bakery. It sounded grand. Freddie would help him paint the big letters. Annie would be inside that big window in an apron as white as a goose, welcoming people into the shop, while he and Freddie made the loaves and rolls, the currant buns and the lardy cake. Levi could smell it cooking as he stood there. Freddie would have the sturdy bicycle with the delivery basket on the front and he’d go out, cleanly dressed and confident with his cargo of fresh bread.

Levi got over the wall and walked across the overgrown lawn. He stood looking at the rest of the terrace which consisted of two cottages, each with a garden. Suddenly he could smell the musty interiors, feel the heavy sag of the red tiled roofs, the collapsed chimney at one end and the bulging crop of ivy which housed a colony of sparrows. He peered through one of the dark window panes and saw a room lit by a hole in the roof. On the floor were big puddles, and in the fireplace a group of rats sat up with stiff whiskers looking at him knowingly, as rats do. This is our place. Not yours. It belongs to us rats, and the jackdaws in the chimney watching with their blue eyes, and the ivy tearing the stones apart with sinuous creepers. It belongs to the rain and the wind and the mould and the frost. Don’t think you can change it, human.

Levi’s exuberance was totally eclipsed.

‘What have I done?’ he said to himself. ‘How am I going to cope with all of this? And my money’s all gone. All of it.’

Freddie had a plan for his life.

First he had to endure school until he was fourteen. He did his work diligently in beautiful copperplate writing that he was proud of, he did his arithmetic accurately and with relish, and read the books he was told to read. None of it challenged him now. Sitting in a class whose ages ranged from five to thirteen, he’d heard the same history and geography lessons over and over; he’d sung the same old songs and heard the same old Bible stories. He developed strategies to deal with his boredom, and dreaming was top of the list. He felt useless and imprisoned, except on the rare occasions when Harry Price asked him to help the ‘little ones’ or mark the register or clean the blackboard.

He longed to be fourteen. On his birthday he would leave school forever and learn to be a mechanic. Then when he was sixteen, old enough to drive, he planned to buy a lorry and start a haulage business. And he’d save every penny to buy tools and paints for the art he wanted to do. In his mind he had a queue of pictures waiting to be painted and sculptures waiting to be carved. He grew increasingly resentful of his wasted time in school. At home he had no time to himself at all, always out on errands or helping with the endless tasks that needed to be done. Sometimes he stayed up late in his bedroom making models by candlelight, as quietly as he could. His latest was a model of a queen wasp which he’d found hibernating in a fold of the curtains. He’d caught her under a glass jar and studied every detail of her stripy body, then he’d made a model using an acorn and a hazelnut shell. The face was a tiny triangular piece of wood cut from a clothes peg and drawn in ink, the legs and antenna from bits of wire found in the hedge. The yellow paint he’d begged from the sign-maker’s workshop in the village, a precious spoonful in a tobacco tin, and the brush he made from a chicken feather. The wings were two of Annie’s hairpins.

Annie was thrilled with the model. She made Freddie take it to school, but Harry Price wasn’t interested.

‘So that’s what you waste your time on is it?’ he mocked. ‘Making silly models of wasps.’

Freddie thought carefully about what he was going to say in reply. He tucked the anger away in a corner of his mind, looked Harry Price in the eye, and spoke slowly.

‘I need to practise making models,’ he said calmly, ‘because one day I’m going to make aeroplanes for the war and I think that’s important, don’t you, Sir?’

The mole on Harry Price’s right cheek began to twitch, and the pupils of his dispassionate eyes became small pinheads.

‘Well, Frederick – and what war are we talking about?’ he asked. ‘The war ended years ago, or were you too busy making models to notice?’

Again Freddie allowed a silence to hover as the words dropped into his mind like aniseed balls from a jar.

‘When you are an old man,’ he said, ‘I’ll be a young man, and World War Two will come. And I’m not going to fight. I’m going to make aeroplanes. About the nineteen thirties, I would say.’

‘Oh, and how do you know this? You can see into the future now, can you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes, what?’

‘Sir.’ Freddie searched Harry Price’s eyes and discovered a sea of fear lurking behind a barrage of anger.

‘And stop staring at me like that, boy. Insolent. That’s what you are. And arrogant.’ Then Harry Price lost his temper, as Freddie had known he would, thumping the desk so hard that a tray of pencils jumped in the air and scattered, some rolling onto the wooden floor.

Freddie wasn’t fazed. Quietly he picked up the fallen pencils and put them back.

‘Arrogant. That’s what you are,’ shouted Harry Price. ‘Look at me when I’m talking to you, boy.’

‘Excuse me – Sir –but you just told me to stop looking at you,’ said Freddie quietly, and he strolled back to his desk, lifted the lid and put the model wasp inside.

‘I’ve got better things to do than talk to a boy who thinks he can see into the future.’

Ignoring Harry Price’s blustering and the extravagant curls of smoke that suddenly puffed from his pipe, Freddie opened his copy of Treasure Island and tried to read. He was aware of the other children glancing at him as much as they dared, and he felt a sense of kinship with them. But the words on the page blurred into a mist. All he could see was a vision of a fleet of aeroplanes lined up on a vast airfield in the rain. They weren’t like the ones he had seen. These were small, elegant planes with rounded wing tips and rounded noses lifted towards the eastern sky. The clouds rolled back and he heard the roar of the brave little planes, as they took off one by one into the dawn. And he saw himself, a grown man, standing watching on the airfield, wearing dark blue overalls, a spanner in his hand.

The vision made him feel strong.

When he got home from school, Freddie was surprised to see his father there, sitting under the apple tree. Annie was with him and the two of them were talking animatedly.

‘Now, you sit yourself down, Fred. I got something to tell you,’ said Levi in a rather ominous tone, and Freddie sat down on the grass, and looked at his father, puzzled by the unusual sparkle in his eyes.

‘Now,’ said Levi again. ‘You take this in, Fred. ’Cause this is what your life is gonna be in a few years when you leave school. I got a job, and a business all lined up for you. What do you think of that?’

Freddie didn’t answer. He felt a shadow creeping over his shoulders, the shadow of a great wall which his parents would build to keep him in confinement.

Levi rushed on, anticipating a smile on his son’s face, a light in his eyes, gratitude.

‘I bought a bakery,’ he said proudly. ‘And it’s got all the equipment, the ovens, the recipes, the big bicycle with the basket on front. In town, it is, near the railway. We’re going to live there. There’s a school just down the road you can go to.’

‘And a shop at the front,’ said Annie. ‘You and Levi’s going to be making the bread, and I’ll be behind the counter selling it.’

‘And – I haven’t finished,’ said Levi. ‘It’s got a terrace of two cottages. We’ll live in one, and let the other – just need a lick of paint, they do – and that will bring in some money, plenty of money. What with that, and the bakery, you’ll have a ready-made job to go to when you leave school, Fred, and one day, when you’re old enough, you’ll take over the business.’

A bolt of pain shot through Freddie’s mind. A baker. They wanted him to be a baker.

‘I done it for you, lad, and for your mother,’ continued Levi, puzzled by the way Freddie was staring stonily at the sky.

‘She can’t go out much. Now she won’t have to. There’s work for all three of us, years of work. I done it for you.’

Annie was frowning at Freddie. ‘Say thank you,’ she mouthed.

‘Thank you.’

‘’Tis a risk,’ said Levi. ‘Cost me all my money, it did.’

‘Granny Barcussy’s money?’ Freddie’s eyes stung with the threat of tears.

‘Ah. Granny Barcussy’s money.’

Freddie stood up. Even the soles of his feet burned with anger. But I won’t be like Dad, he thought. I won’t lose my temper. I won’t. I will not. His face went hard with the effort, hard as glass, and his fists ached in his pockets. He looked at Levi who was sitting with his back against the apple tree, his hands idly collecting petals from the fallen blossom, scooping them into his palm and blowing them playfully at Annie.

He’s got no idea what I want, Freddie thought. I’ll have to tell him, somehow.

And then he saw her. Granny Barcussy. Floating like steam, and radiant as sunlight, in the air next to Levi. She wore a robe that glistened with the colours she’d loved, he could smell the honeysuckle and lavender she had grown, and sense the warmth of her. She didn’t look haggard and old now, her skin was smooth and her eyes full of life and compassion. She looked directly at Freddie and her smile melted his anger. It was the same mischievous smile she’d always had, and now she held a finger to her lips and shook her head. He heard her voice.

‘Don’t tell him,’ she said. ‘Not now. You keep the peace.’

She disappeared gently, like salt dissolving in water, and Freddie became aware that Annie was looking at him with an alarmed expression on her face. He wasn’t allowed to tell her, but she knew, Freddie was sure. The hours of eye contact he’d had with his mother on those long difficult walks, the way their souls had been linked by her panic, as if he was her anchor forever chained to her, and she was his lifeboat, safe, but blotting out the light.

‘I’ll talk to him,’ she said to Levi. ‘He just needs time to think about it.’

‘Aye. ’Tis a big thing. For a lad,’ Levi nodded, struggled to his feet and brushed the apple blossom from his trousers. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

Freddie sat down again, close to his mother’s bottle-green dress and the white apron she wore so proudly. They were better dressed since the war had ended. He had a new shirt and shorts, socks without darns and new brown boots, a warm jacket and a cap.

‘Did Harry Price like the queen wasp?’ asked Annie.

‘No.’

‘More fool him,’ said Annie. ‘The old misery. Well, now you can wave him goodbye. You can go to a new school in town. They’ve got four teachers there, and one of them is a lady. A Miss Francis. She takes the top class, and they say she’s very nice, and clever.’

‘But Mother – I don’t want to be a baker. I want to make aeroplanes.’

‘I know.’ Annie put her arm round Freddie. He was twelve now, tall for his age, his white blond hair had darkened a little. She looked at his long fingers. ‘You’ve got hands like your dad. Do you know what he wanted to do when he was young?’

‘What?’

‘He wanted to be a jeweller.’

‘A jeweller?’ Freddie stared at her in surprise. ‘Why wasn’t he, then? What stopped him?’

‘His hands were too big. He couldn’t do the delicate work, so he had to give up his dream. Just as I had to give up my dream.’

‘Your dream? You had a dream? What was it?’

‘I wanted to be florist – to grow flowers and make them up into bouquets and wreaths. I was good at it. But then the family came along, needed me to do the washing and the baking and the scrubbing and the nursing, and then the war came. We’ve all had to make do, and do things we don’t want, Freddie. And you will too. This bakery idea, it’s perfect for your father. He won’t have to go out in the cold and the wet with his arthritis, he can work at home in a warm dry bakery. It’s perfect. We’ve gotta help him, Freddie. Give it a chance.’

Freddie sighed.

‘But all my life I’ve been doing things I don’t want to do.’

‘I know,’ said Annie kindly. ‘But your turn will come. You’ll see.’

‘It hasn’t so far.’

Freddie looked gloomily at his mother. Her grey curly hair was scattered with apple blossom petals, her red cheeks shining with excitement. The hope in her dark blue eyes was underlaid with layers and layers of old fear and old pain going deep into the distances of her soul, and right at the far end was a little child full of love who only wanted to pick flowers. He felt sorry for her.

‘You’ve had a hard life,’ he said.

She nodded slowly. ‘But the hardest thing,’ she said, ‘is my fear, Freddie. Night and day it’s with me. I’m a strong woman, got to be, but that fear is stronger than me. It’s like an illness, but it’s invisible. No one knows, Freddie, only you. No one knows what I go through.’

‘Isn’t there a medicine for it?’ Freddie asked.

Annie shook her head vigorously. ‘Even if there was, I daren’t tell the doctor, daren’t ask for it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because – he’ll think I’m mad, and they lock you up, in these terrible places. Asylums, they call them. I’m not going to one of those, ever. I’d rather be dead,’ she said fiercely, wagging her finger at Freddie. ‘And don’t you let them take me.’

‘’Course I won’t. I’ll take care of you,’ said Freddie, now feeling the weight of the shadow that hung over his shoulders, darker and denser as he thought about what was to come. A shadow over his dreams. Instead of making aeroplanes he was expected to be a baker and he couldn’t bear the thought of standing there making bread, shut away from the world. Instead of marrying a brave bright girl, like the girl on the horse, he’d have to be his mother’s guardian. For how long?

People kept telling him the war had been fought, and all those soldiers had given their lives, so that he, Frederick Barcussy, could be free. But he wasn’t free. He wondered if God had got it wrong.

He undid his school satchel and took out a piece of paper which he unrolled and showed to his mother.

‘We had to copy this poem,’ he said. ‘It’s a long poem but we’ve got to learn this verse of it by heart and say it to Mr Price. Shall I read it to you?’

‘Yes please. You know I like poetry.’

Annie sat back to listen. She loved to hear Freddie read.

‘This is another William,’ he said. ‘William Wordsworth.’

‘Oh – Daffodils?’

‘No. This is different. Listen.’

Freddie spread the paper out and began to read, the words falling like the apple blossom petals into Annie’s troubled mind. But as he read on, he got tense and emotional, hardly able to read at all.

‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star

Hath had elsewhere its setting

And cometh from afar;

Not in entire forge fulness

And not in utter nakedness

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing boy . . .’

Freddie stopped, unable to continue.

‘That’s it then. Isn’t it? Shades of the prison-house – that’s my life – and yours.’

Chapter Seven

THE GOLDEN BIRD

The young girl with the red ribbon in her hair carried the billycan of fresh milk out through the gates where the two stone lions watched her pass below in the September sunlight. She crossed the road and walked up the village street until she came to another stone gateway, two pillars with a coat of arms carved on each and painted in blue, black and gold. Inside the gates a magnificent avenue of copper beeches led to Hilbegut Court, residence of the Squire of Hilbegut.

Built from Bath stone, with turrets and minarets between the tall golden chimneys, it was an ornate and imposing place. Although fully occupied by the Squire and his servants, it still seemed to belong to the hordes of jackdaws who nested in the complex chimneys and cubbyholes of the roof. At dusk, the blue-eyed birds performed a spectacular ritual of formation flying, swooping to roost and covering the entire roof with their fluttering black bodies. Today they knew, by the arrival of the girl with the billycan, that it was nine o’clock in the morning, and just before the clock tower reverberated with its nine chimes, they flew down and strutted around the lawns.

The young girl bustled up the steps to the oak door which stood in its own archway of golden stone. She pulled the white porcelain knob of the doorbell and waited, listening to the bell jangling deep inside the house, and the tap-tap of footsteps. A flustered-looking maid opened the door.

‘Hello, Miss Kate. The Squire’s waiting for you.’

‘Hello, Millie.’

With her back very straight and her long hair swinging, Kate stepped through the porch and into the great hall of Hilbegut Court. At the far end the Squire of Hilbegut sat at his breakfast table, his legs in brown riding boots stretched wide, his pipe in his hand. His expression was gloomy, but when he saw Kate his eyes lit up and he gave his moustache a tweak. Captivated by her radiance and her confidence, he watched her coming down the hall towards him. She was only a child from the farm, the daughter of his tenant, bringing his milk, but she walked like a princess and smiled like a nurse. He could have had the milk delivered straight to the kitchen, but he wanted to see the child. Sometimes her mother came, or her sister, and then he was disappointed. It was Kate he wanted to see. He loved the way she tried so hard to behave but her eyes had a wicked, expectant sparkle.

‘I’ve brought your milk, Sir.’

‘Is it fresh?’ he asked, not because he wanted to know, but because he wanted her to talk to him. She always had some bright tale to tell him.

‘Oh yes, Sir,’ said Kate. ‘It’s Jenny Lu’s milk. She’s a Jersey cow, and I milked her myself. Ethie helped me. We sat one each side on two three-legged stools and we got the giggles.’

‘The giggles?’ The Squire raised his ginger eyebrows, pretending he didn’t know what the giggles were, just to engage Kate in more conversation.

He was rewarded with the radiant smile which brought such warmth and cheeriness into his neglected heart. The child trusted him like no one else did.

‘The giggles,’ she announced, putting the billycan on the table, ‘is when you can’t stop laughing.’

Since he rarely laughed, that sounded like a song from a party to which he hadn’t been invited. Taking the lid off the billycan he poured the fresh milk into a waiting tumbler, and took a long drink.

‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘More of that tomorrow, please.’

Kate’s eyes had turned solemn.

‘Well – this is the last time I can come,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow my mum will bring it for you.’

‘And why is that?’

‘I’m going away. To boarding school with Ethie. I’m eleven now,’ said Kate, and for the first time the Squire thought he saw a cloud pass through her sunny eyes.

‘Ah,’ he said, hiding his disappointment. ‘So you’re growing up now, are you? And how do you feel about boarding school? Won’t you miss your mum?’

The cloud rushed through her eyes again, but Kate seemed to have an internal light switch. She lifted her chin and gave him a smile that made him feel the whole world was all right, God was in his heaven and all would be well.

‘I’m going to enjoy every minute of it. Especially –’ Kate leaned forward and whispered dramatically, ‘the midnight feasts.’

The Squire put his hand into the pocket of his clean tweed jacket, and fumbled with the coins in there. He took out a silver half-crown and pressed it into Kate’s small hand.

‘Thank you,’ she gasped. ‘That’s very kind of you.’

‘You get some chocolate. For your midnight feasts. And I want to hear all about it when you come home.’ He managed a smile, or what he hoped was a smile. ‘Goodbye now.’

Kate knew she was supposed to walk out of Hilbegut Court in a lady-like manner, but the half-crown was so exciting that she tucked it in her pinafore pocket, lifted the skirt of her red dress and skipped away down the hall, turning once to wave at the sad old Squire who was staring after her. She would have liked to tickle him under his arm and round his ribs and make him laugh out loud like she did with her father, but she knew her mother wouldn’t approve.

She danced all the way home, in and out of the copper beeches, the leaves crackling like cornflakes under her laced boots. Scooping armfuls of leaves from the hollows around the tree roots, she flung them into the air, whirling and laughing as they fluttered down into her hair. At the end of the avenue she paused and took a last look at the turrets and chimneys of Hilbegut Court, and the jackdaws flew up, chack-chacking as if saying goodbye.

It was to be a day of last looks for Kate, and her older sister Ethie, but Ethie was used to it. Ethie was thirteen and bored with it all, and she spent a lot of energy trying to be responsible. This morning she’d said scathingly, ‘You don’t have to say goodbye to each individual chicken, Kate.’

But Kate loved every animal on the farm, even the massive Hereford bull steaming and stamping in his well-barricaded corner of the barn. She wanted to touch the bristly backs of the pigs and watch their ears twitch as she told them her news; she wanted to look into the velvety faces of the sheep, and smooth the coat of every cow. And Daisy, the Shire horse, she’d already said goodbye to about six times, her arms wrapped around the horse’s kindly face.

Kate didn’t want to grow up. She didn’t want to get cross and busty like Ethie. She wanted to stay eleven for the rest of her life.

As she skipped through the gate between the stone lions, it began to rain in a silver downpour. Kate ran for the swing which was set in the barn door on two scratchy ropes. She loved to swing backwards into the high dusty interior and sail out into the glistening rain, and sing: ‘Out in the rain and in again, out in the rain and in again.’ The squeak of the ropes, the rush of air on her face, the extravagant rhythm, created a time to sort out her thoughts, chuck out the bad ones and keep the good.

Tomorrow morning the half past ten train would carry her away, like a log on a swollen river. Her father would turn the pony and cart round and drive home at a brisk trot, without her.

But it didn’t work out quite as expected.

Kate got down from the swing and ran into the kitchen where her mother was making butter at the kitchen table. Her cheeks were tense and pale, and instead of greeting her daughter in her usual peaceful way, she said, ‘We’ll have to change our plans for tomorrow morning, Kate. Your father’s not well, and I’m afraid he’s too poorly to drive to the station. I’ll have to do it, or Ethie will.’

‘What’s wrong with Daddy?’ asked Kate, watching her mother’s eyes.

‘We don’t know,’ said her mother shortly.

Kate sat down at the oak table and rested her chin on her two hands, studying her mother’s face. Sally Loxley was giving nothing away. She went on beating and beating the milk in a round white basin; she wouldn’t stop until it turned to butter and then she would separate the whey, and work the butter between two wooden butter pats, over and over, working the beads of moisture out of it. She’d won prizes for her butter-and cheese-making and the certificates were displayed inside a glass cabinet, along with several silver cups. The largest of these was inscribed with ‘Best all round Farm’, awarded to her husband Gilbert Loxley, Bertie.

Sally was a sturdy woman, energetic and calm. She’d raised four children, two boys who had both married and emigrated to Canada, then after a ten-year gap, Ethie had come along, and finally Kate. The two girls had grown up at Hilbegut Farm among the cider orchards and peat-cutting areas of the Somerset Levels. Bertie ran his own tenant farm as well as overseeing the farms and cottages owned by the Squire. The good wages and abundant crops had continued even through the war, and now the family had sufficient wealth to send Ethie and Kate to boarding school on the Dorset coast.

It was rare for Sally to look worried, but she did now, and it alarmed Kate. Something bad had happened, on this last day before she went away to school. She never remembered her father being ill. He was up at first light, organised and hard-working, but always made time to talk to his children. Kate adored him. He’d played games with her, read her stories, and showed her how to love and care for animals, trusted her to fetch the gentle Shire horse on her own, let her care for orphan lambs and piglets. He often said, ‘Our Kate – she could run the farm on her own.’

‘Where is Daddy?’ she asked now.

‘In bed.’

‘In bed! So what is it, Mummy? The ’flu?’

‘No. We don’t know, dear, ’til the doctor comes. But he looks bad.’

‘I don’t want to go to boarding school when Daddy is ill,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to stay and look after him.’

‘No, dear. No, you’ve got to go. You can’t miss the first day, it’s so important.’

‘But Daddy is important, to me.’

‘I can look after him.’

‘No you can’t, Mummy. And you can’t run the farm on your own. Who’s going to milk the cows?’

‘Don’t tell me what I can’t do, Kate. You go up and see your father, see what he wants you to do.’ Sally looked wearily at her daughter’s assertive expression. She didn’t need a battle with her now. ‘And don’t twist your father round your little finger – madam,’ she added, in a good-humoured way.

Kate flounced up the stairs, her cheeks hot with determination. She pushed open the varnished wood door to her parents’ bedroom and swanned up to the bed.

‘Daddy?’

What she saw extinguished her enthusiasm like a candle-flame being snuffed out. The man looking at her from the bed was a pale ghost of the father she knew. The sparkle had gone from his eyes, they looked like two bubbles surrounded by shadows, and his skin was a sickly yellow. Even the whites of his eyes were yellow. He tried to smile, but it didn’t convince Kate. Obviously her father was seriously ill.