Truestory

by Catherine Simpson

  When the committal was over I couldn’t wait to get in the car and back down the lane. I could hardly believe we’d survived. There had been no meltdown, no screaming, no turning purple, no disaster that would knock me for six for a week, no turmoil that would make Sam hide or hurt himself.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, setting off.

  Sam looked at his watch.

  ‘It is 16.45 hours. The sun will set today at 21.21 hours which is four hours and 36 minutes from now. I want to climb a hill.’

  ‘A hill?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.

  ‘Big Hill?’

  ‘No. Big Hill is not big.’

  What’s up?’ Duncan said, catching up with us.

  ‘He wants to climb a hill.’

  ‘I want to climb a hill and see the pink road and the blue road that lead to Lancaster and to the Rest of the World.’

  ‘Big Hill?’ Duncan said.

  ‘No,’ I shook my head. ‘We’ve been through that.’

  ‘If we walk 200 yards in a northerly direction and cut across a field on the public right of way and climb the stile and follow the path through the copse, we will reach a hill,’ Sam said. ‘That is the hill I want to climb.’ And he set off.

  All those hours studying Larry’s ordnance survey map meant he knew the landscape by heart: every lane, every field, every detail. Duncan and I jogged a bit to catch up with him.

  ‘Climb a hill. Aye,’ said Duncan.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, looking at my shoes. Thank God they were flat. ‘Climb a hill.’

  We fell in step with him – one on either side – and walked along in silence. As we rounded the corner the field gate came into view as Sam said it would and he climbed up and jumped over. Duncan did the same and held my hand as I jumped down too. Sam followed the hedge around the field and straight to the stile.

  ‘Here’s the stile!’ I said, as though there had been any doubt about it.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sam. ‘That is what the map said.’

  I felt a rush of exhilaration and a laugh bubbled up in my throat.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’

  Duncan was watching me.

  ‘I don’t know. Everything.’

  I gazed at the cows staring from the next field, looking suspicious and nosey and a bit put-out and the pair of ducks heading for the pond at the bottom of the field. I noticed the grey sheep’s wool dangling from the barbed wire fence and the cow parsley growing in the hedgerows with the leggy buttercups.

  The map was good but it couldn’t show all this.

  Sam marched along and I kept doing a little run to keep up. Walking through the wood the ground felt springy – there were so many pine needles and dead leaves underfoot.

  ‘Hey look!’ I jumped up and down. ‘It’s bouncy, see.’ I stumbled and Duncan grabbed my arm.

  He laughed. ‘Steady on, Alice.’

  I realised that Sam had never walked through a wood before as he stopped to stare up at the tree tops. Duncan and I did the same and we watched the sun glinting through the branches.

  ‘It is just one tree after another,’ said Sam. ‘Like on my maps.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘just one tree after another.’

  Sam’s pace slowed as we left the woods behind and the land began to rise. I was out of breath and panting and Sam hesitated and looked over his shoulder at me. I tried to smile but I was knackered. I held out my hand. He looked at it but didn’t take it.

  I put my head down and plodded on, each step burning my legs and my lungs. I felt a hand grasp mine.

  ‘Come on,’ Duncan said. ‘Don’t stop now, we’re nearly there.’

  At the top of the hill we sat down in a row and gazed at the patchwork of fields and the Pennines beyond.

  ‘That’s the A6, Sam,’ said Duncan, pointing. ‘And past that it’s the M6.’

  ‘The pink road and the blue road,’ whispered Sam.

  ‘Yep, the pink road and the blue road,’ I said.

  He pointed north. ‘And that way are the graves hewn from rock where St Patrick landed from Ireland.’

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded my head. ‘And we can go and see them any time. Tomorrow, if you like.’

  He looked at me. ‘Is that a true story?’

  ‘Yes, Sam,’ I said, ‘it’s a true story.’

  He watched the tiny cars for a long time as they crawled to and fro.

  ‘It is the rest of the world,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it is.’

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