by Fiona Shaw
Fiona Shaw is the author of three previous novels, The Sweetest Thing, The Picture She Took and Tell it to the Bees. She has also writen a memoir, Out Of Me. She lives in York.
A Stone’s Throw
FIONA SHAW
A complete catalogue record for this book can
be obtained from the British Library on request
The right of Fiona Shaw to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988
Copyright © 2012 Fiona Shaw
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any
similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not
intended by the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First published in 2012 by Serpent’s Tail,
an imprint of Profile Books Ltd
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London ECIR OJH
website: www.serpentstail.com
ISBN 978 1 84668 831 7
eISBN 978 1 84765 777 0
Designed and typeset by Crow Books
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays, Bungay, Suffolk
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of Nigel Greenwood, 1941–2004
ICE
They left the house, father and son, by the back door. The day was bright, but bitter cold. The boy was well-wrapped with a mother’s eye for detail – scarf tucked into his jacket, hat over his ears, mittens. On the man everything was adrift. He carried a fishing bag over his shoulder and he held his son by the elbow as if his life depended on it.
The man walked fast and his boots rang out. The boy ran beside him like a hobbled colt. This was how they went along until they reached the church; then the man let go of his son’s elbow to unlatch the gate. Through the gate and beneath the spreading yew they walked, the man less sure now, his boots quieter.
Inside the church, the man dropped his bag on a pew and put his clothes in order, buttoning and belting. The boy stood at the head of the nave and waited. He felt beneath the scarf for the chain, and ran his finger down to St Christopher, warm against his skin. His breath made little clouds. He banged his feet for warmth and the thin air swallowed up the sound. The boy tucked his arms about himself and turned around slowly. He looked at the bright eagle and the slitty-eyed men and dragons near the door. His stomach growled with hunger. He looked at the stained glass picture with Mary carrying Baby Jesus, his halo like a cushion behind his head. Underneath, the boy made out the names of Robert and William and the date, 1918, which was before he was born.
‘So –,’ the man said. ‘Ready?’
‘I’m hungry,’ the boy said. ‘Can we have breakfast now?’
They sat in a pew and the boy chewed some bread.
‘Look.’ The man showed the boy four squares of chocolate. ‘I saved it.’
‘For our adventure,’ the boy said.
They walked across the flat graves to the kissing gate in the corner of the churchyard. The father went through first, then the son. They walked down beside the first beet field, and the second. The boy stepped on the hummocks when he could; but sometimes he couldn’t and the snow was deeper in between, and it made his socks wet above his boots.
‘This is too deep for Meg,’ the boy said. ‘She’d need carrying.’
At the end of the second beet field they were into the woods. The snow was heavier and wetter here, so the boy trod in his father’s footsteps, jumping a little to get from one to the next.
‘D’you think there’ll be a cake when we get there?’ he said.
The woods were quiet except for the slops of snow that fell from the branches. The sun made streaks through the trees.
‘And will Aunt Ada be standing with the lantern? Like she did at Christmas?’
‘We’ll get there before dark if this weather holds. But Ada doesn’t know about us coming, so there likely won’t be cake.’ They walked on through the woods, father in front and son behind, the father sometimes stopping for his son to catch up, a finger drumming on his thigh.
The boy watched his feet in the snow. He’d found a stick for balancing. He didn’t want to fall over again. They were making a trail through the woods, like the animals. If somebody hunted for them, they’d follow the trail and find them easily. Unless it snowed again, or melted.
‘The bigger boys come here,’ he said.
‘We’ll be going further than them,’ his father said. ‘It’s a long way.’
‘It doesn’t matter if they can see where we’ve been on the adventure, because we’re not escaping,’ he said.
His father didn’t reply.
‘Is it the time I’d be going to school?’
His father checked his watch.
‘About that.’
‘And you’d be at your work.’ The boy swiped his stick at a branch to see the snow fall. ‘You’d be making a table, or a cabinet, or a chair.’
‘I’ll have no trouble,’ the father said to himself. ‘Ada said there’s plenty of work in the city.’
‘Did you tell Fred?’ the boy said. ‘Did he want to come too? Or he might be tracking us.’
‘Stop that with the stick,’ his father said. ‘You’re slowing us.’
They came to the edge of the trees. It was bright on the snow and they blinked in the glare. Beyond the fence the white stretched away to the horizon.
‘It’s like a big sea,’ the boy said.
‘There’s a bridge down the far side, then the road,’ said the man. ‘We might get a ride after that, if we’re lucky.’
The man set off wading the sea. He took sweeping strides to clear as much of the snow as he could for his small son. The boy stood and beat his stick at the snow.
‘Meg can’t walk to school without me,’ he said.
‘We’ll be there right before dark if we can get a lift,’ the man called back. ‘Before the snow starts up again,’ he added to himself.
‘She’s too small,’ the boy said. He looked down at his boots, sodden with snow. It was cold, just standing.
‘Come on, Will.’
‘But Ma can’t take her, so then Mrs Pierce will punish her.’
His father stopped and turned.
‘Meg’s fine,’ he said, ‘and you’re fine. But we’ve to keep moving.’
‘She can’t go across the big road on her own,’ the boy said quietly.
He stepped out into the sea, a wide, playground step, arms out for balance, then his stick planted.
‘I’ll show her about going over the snow. How you have to have your arms out, and not to stand still too long if your boots are wet.’
They walked in the middle of the road where the snow was at its firmest. The boy watched his father’s boots. He was weary: his legs ached and his feet and hands were cold. He counted steps and told himself they would stop after ten, then after twenty, then on till he forgot the number he had reached and began again. It was quiet, not even the black birds rawing in the empty trees. He heard an engine sound and far down the road, at least ninety steps away, a lorry came towards them, lumbering and high. The boy looked up, two bright spots in his cold cheeks.
‘It might be going back home,’ he said. ‘We could wave and stop it.’
His father moved to the edge of the road. The sun shone hard and the light beat up in pulses.
‘We could ride on the lorry,’ the boy said, ‘and I could tell Ma about our adv
enture.’
The lorry roared up and the driver raised his hand; then it was gone.
They stopped just after and the man hoisted the boy to the top bar of a gate and brought a couple of apples out of his bag, wizened and liver-spotted. He gave them to the boy, one after the other; for himself he took a plug of tobacco from his pouch that he chewed and spat, chewed and spat onto the white snow, all the while pacing a line from the gate to the road and back. The boy ate the apples down to the shrivelled pips, splitting them between his teeth for the taste of almond. When he had finished, his father stopped pacing and turned to him. His face was a furious colour and he spoke in a rush.
‘We’re not going home,’ he said.
The boy licked the last of almond from his lip.
‘Ada’s is just for now. We’ll stay with her tomorrow, then I’m going to the city. Once I’ve got work and some digs, I’ll come back for you. We’ll find a school; you’ll get new friends.’
The man paused. The boy was sitting very still. Finally he looked down at his lap, then up at his father.
‘We’ve got a house, and I’ve got a school, and friends.’
‘So they’ll be different, is all.’
‘But I have to walk with Meg. And Ma needs me to fetch in the water.’
‘We’re not going home.’
The boy poked at the snow on the gate top, drilled a hole down to the wood with a finger.
‘I don’t want to go to Ada’s any more, or the city. And anyhow my legs are hurting.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake…’ The man flung his bag at the silent snow and walked away; then he stopped and turned.
‘We can’t stay here, Will,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘We’ll freeze before the night’s done. We’ll get to Ada’s and then…’
‘Ma doesn’t know where I am. Nor Meg.’
‘Your ma does know where you are.’
The boy shook his head, just a small movement, and then more fiercely, side to side.
‘No,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t.’
‘She knows you’re with me,’ his father said.
‘No,’ the boy said. ‘She wouldn’t have let me.’
His father walked back towards him and the boy stared past him. Then he turned away, swung his legs over the gate and dropped into the field. The snow lay deep in the furrows; he sank down to his thighs. But the ridges were blown clear, and he scrambled up and ran free and high along the iron earth. He ran fast, as if his tiredness and the heavy land had let him go. By the time his father had climbed the gate, the boy was half way to the trees that lined the near side. By the time his father reached the trees, his son had disappeared between them.
‘Will!’ the man shouted. ‘Come back!’ But the snow swallowed the sound and he ran on into silence.
Will ran through the trees and over the shadows till he came to a place like a smooth, round field where the trees stopped and the sun made the snow shine. He stood still and listened. Pulling off his mittens, he picked up a handful of snow, cupped it in his palm. It turned to ice and dripped into his cuff. He sipped at it, wincing at the cold and listened again. From somewhere in the trees there was the crack of a branch breaking. Will dropped the snow, his body still as an animal’s. A moment later there was the packed thud of someone running.
‘I’m going home,’ Will said to himself and he was off, onto the field. The ground was so flat, so clear, it was like running downhill. Animals had been across before him. There were rabbits’ prints, and birds, and the cloven prints of deer. Will laughed, a whoop of sound, and kicked up his knees, faster and faster, till he was nearly in the middle and he had the sun on his shoulders.
‘Will!’ It was a shout. He glanced back. His father was bent forward, his bag thrown off his shoulder, one hand against a tree trunk for support.
‘Stop!’ His father’s voice was hoarse. ‘Stop. It’s dangerous.’
The boy slowed to a walk, then turned to face his father across the flat snow.
‘I’m going home,’ he called.
‘Will, you’re on ice,’ his father said, his voice high, pleading.
Will shook his head and walked backwards, one hand to his neck to touch St Christopher. He walked away from his father, surely, steadily, with the bearing of a child who knows what he will do.
His father stood straight, still breathing heavily, and walked to the edge. He spoke between breaths, keeping his voice lower now, calmer.
‘Please. It’s not safe. You could fall through.’
The boy waved and he made a little jig.
‘No!’ his father roared. He raised his arm. ‘Wait there. Don’t move.’
But seeing his father come towards him, the boy turned and ran again into the heart of the sun.
WATER
Meg sat upright in the tender and looked straight ahead. The waves were choppy and the boat bucked a little, so she had one hand on the seat to steady herself. With the other she made sure of her hat. Although the air had been dry when she arrived at the docks, out on the water there was a fine mist blowing in from the sea; by the time they reached the ship, you could be forgiven for mistaking the fret on her face for tears.
Although she didn’t know it yet, she was the youngest passenger to join the upper deck, and amongst those dozen or so watching her come on board, there was much speculation as to why she was travelling at this time.
From the lower deck, a crowd of soldiers watched her too. They were the same age, just boys, their fatigues still stiff and their hair newly shorn, and they were on their way to war. The wind jostled her and caught at her skirt. Somebody wolfwhistled.
She didn’t look at the soldiers, not even a glance. Held herself back from it. They probably thought she was stuck-up. She was the final passenger and as she stepped through the rail, people nodded a greeting and several introduced themselves.
Even before the steward had shown her to her cabin, the ship had weighed anchor and was on its way.
Once her trunk had been delivered, Meg locked the door, slipped off her shoes and lay down on the lower bunk. She couldn’t feel the ship move, but her stomach swung as though she were on a fairground ride. Turning her head into the pillow, she shut her eyes. She was tired but the pillow smelt unfamiliar and she knew she wouldn’t sleep. Her stomach rumbled. There was a chunk of cake packed away in her trunk – her mother had wrapped it up in oiled paper – but it was for her wedding day; she shouldn’t eat it.
Leaving had been easier than she’d anticipated. Alice had cried every day for the last week and Joyce said that nothing would ever be the same, but Meg had felt detached, she didn’t know why. She had their friendship tokens in her trunk. Mr and Mrs Gilmer had asked Meg and her mother to tea on her last Saturday. Meg had gone alone, of course, and they had fed her fit to burst and sent her home with a big cheese, sewn tight into its cloth. It would feed her mother for months.
Mrs Gilmer had cried, tears dripping onto the cheese, and told Meg she was like a daughter. Mr Gilmer told her she had the best milking hands in the county and she’d be sorely missed.
Meg was happy not to walk there in the dark each morning, her body still asleep and the wind coming off the fields so bitterly. But she would miss butting her head against the cows’ warm pelts, and the clean, sharp sound of the milk hitting the bucket. And she would miss their smell.
At four o’clock she checked her face in the mirror. Tea was served in the lounge in cups and saucers of fine china and with plates of Rich Tea biscuits. There were perhaps thirty passengers drinking tea, though not many of them were women. Meg stood at one side and looked from face to face. People smiled and nodded. The war was on, but this ship was sailing to somewhere else. Perhaps that was why they smiled. She turned to watch the thin line of England through the window, feeling better for the biscuits.
A young woman came over and introduced herself. She wore a wedding ring and was maybe five or six years older.
‘Margery Richardson. You nearly didn’t make it.’<
br />
‘Meg Bryan,’ she said.
‘Travelling alone in the war. How bold.’
‘My fiancé is meeting me off the boat,’ Meg said.
‘Family in Africa?’
‘Colonial service. Essential war effort work.’
‘Anyway, how sensible, not to wait.’
Meg blushed. ‘He said I should come. He said it was safe as houses in a convoy.’
‘Always another ship to come to the rescue,’ Mrs Richardson said. ‘That’s what they’ve been telling me. Accidents do happen, of course, but fingers crossed.’
‘Are you travelling with your husband?’ Meg said.
‘We’re going home. South Africa. Been in London and had enough of the Blitz. Rather have the heat and the natives than any more bombing.’
They sat down in easy chairs and Mr Richardson came over to join them. He patted his wife on the hand and looked Meg up and down, before going in search of more tea.
‘I should warn you, my husband’s a journalist,’ said Mrs Richardson.
‘Warn me?’
‘Lots of questions. He does it all the time, and he does know a terrible lot. More than ever I could.’
Mr Richardson returned and the two women listened as he told them stories and important facts about the war. Meg watched Mrs Richardson and wondered how often she had heard all these before. Mr Richardson didn’t ask Meg any questions. She nodded when he paused and she thought about the future. He reminded her of George and she wondered whether she would have to tend to George in the same way.
She’d met George in the town hall when she’d gone about her father, and he’d bought her a coffee afterwards. She hadn’t said very much. That she lived with her mother and worked in the village. He said he was doing exams and if he passed them, he would go and work far away.
‘To London, do you mean?’ Meg said. ‘I’d like to go to London. I’d like to go a long way away.’
On their second date George took her for tea at the Empire. He told her he was going to go to Africa, not London, if he passed his exams and he said he thought she was the wife he needed. He was going to establish himself and that meant leaving things behind. He needed a wife who understood that; who wanted that too, and he thought she was the right woman.