The Moon Field

by Judith Allnatt

  Mr Mounsey looked him up and down. ‘Good shoulders. You need strength and stamina for hand cranking. You’ve been in the forces, I presume?’

  George nodded and held himself more upright.

  Mr Mounsey scrutinised his face. ‘Pardon me for asking but is your sight good?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, sir. I was very lucky not to lose my eye; it’s totally unaffected.’

  ‘Hmm. Very good, very good.’

  Millicent passed them and opened the doors to the auditorium, releasing the sound of the closing bars of a piano piece and a rising hum of conversation as the matinée audience began to spill out into the foyer. People from the balcony seats began to trickle down the stairs and the two streams slowed as they queued for the exit and filed past, their stares making George feel conspicuous.

  Mr Mounsey put his hand on his arm. ‘Let’s get out of this crowd,’ he said and led George through a door marked ‘No entry. Staff only’. They climbed a narrow, steep stair lit by a tiny window on the side of the building.

  ‘We’ll go and see what Thorny has to say about you. That’s the projectionist, Mr Thornthwaite to you,’ Mr Mounsey said. ‘I’m an old soldier myself. Served in the African war, y’know.’ He glanced back at George. ‘Bad business, this war, a very bad business.’

  George said, ‘Thank you, sir. It’s much appreciated.’

  Mr Mounsey tapped on the door at the top of the stairs and went straight in, so George followed behind him. The room was dim with thick walls, painted a very dark grey. Two large, box-like machines with wind-up handles stood on tripods looking unstable and top-heavy, like travelling trunks laid on edge on a camera stand. They were set up at apertures to project the film and cables snaked from them and tangled on the floor. Metal boxes stood under a workbench on the other side of the room, which was cluttered with disc-shaped metal tins, a lamp, scissors and a magnifying glass. At one of the projectors, an oldish man in shirtsleeves and waistcoat, with close-cut white hair and spectacles that sat on the end of his nose, was laboriously turning a handle to rewind the film on to a reel.

  George found the room rather close and oppressive. He wished there was a window. A square hatch between the projectors had a sliding shutter that was closed but George thought that it must open for the projectionist to see the screen, and that looking through it would help you not to feel so shut in.

  ‘I have someone to meet you, Gilbert,’ Mr Mounsey said. ‘This is George Farrell, ex-army, interested in cinematography.’

  Mr Thornthwaite stopped winding and stretched with his hands against the hollow of his back.

  ‘Arthritis bad today?’ Mr Mounsey said. He turned to George, ‘Thorny’s getting a bit long in the tooth for cranking the machines; he needs an apprentice to provide a bit of elbow grease. Suit someone not afraid of hard work.’

  George stepped forward to shake hands and saw that Thorny’s sharp eyes had spotted his limp. His heart sank.

  Thorny grinned at him. ‘Don’t worry, lad. It’s the halt and the lame here. Long as you’ve got a strong back and a good pair of arms … here, have a go.’ He gestured to the other projector. ‘It’s all laced up for the next showing. Go on, give it a try.’ He turned on the lamp, saying, ‘The most important thing is to keep up a good steady speed. Prints are nitrate based, you see, so if the film runs too slow the heat of the lamp can make ’em catch fire.’

  George rubbed his palms together, took hold of the cranking handle and began to turn. It was much lighter than he’d assumed; it flew out of his hands and spun round with a clicking noise. Thorny caught hold of it and kept it turning. ‘Have another go – it’s not the weight of it you need your strength for, it’s the length of time you have to keep it going.’

  George started again.

  Thorny said, ‘That’s it. Just a little bit faster.’ He put his hands over George’s and showed him the speed. ‘Now, can you keep that up steadily? It needs to be the same speed the film was shot at, see? Sixteen frames a second.’

  ‘Or twenty on Saturdays when you’ve got two showings to get through,’ Mr Mounsey said and both men laughed.

  Thorny said, ‘What am I thinking of? You’ll want to see the fruits of your labours.’ He leant past George’s shoulder and lifted the shutter on the hatch beside him. George looked down the wide shaft of light, alive with dust, over the shadowy depths of the auditorium and rows of empty seats. Magically, on the screen, jerky figures moved: on a wide balcony, a man in a tuxedo dancing with a woman, her dark mouth moving in speech, her long scarf fluttering in the breeze. Fascinated, he cranked faster and their movements became a little more natural and fluid. He turned back to the others, his face registering his delight.

  ‘Looks as though I’ve got myself an assistant,’ Thorny said. ‘Be here at eleven o’clock sharp tomorrow and I’ll teach you how to change over at the end of a reel.’

  On Sunday afternoon, George and Kitty, bundled up in overcoats, hats and mufflers, set out to take advantage of the bright, clear February day. They walked the field path at the head of the lake listening for the chaffinch trying out the first notes of his song and watching the first sailing boats of the season tack across the water between the islands.

  It had been so long since they’d had an outing together that at first there was shyness between them; at times they both fell silent and then both started to speak at once. When they met couples, arm in arm on the narrow path, and had to draw close to let them through, their movements were self-conscious: stepping apart again as soon as they had passed, Kitty turning a little pink.

  Once they had left other walkers behind, gradually the conversation gathered momentum. Neither of them spoke of the war. When George’s thoughts turned to the guilt he felt to be walking somewhere peaceful and beautiful when Haycock and Turland were still ‘out there’, he didn’t speak them out loud. When Kitty remembered the newspaper she had read the day before, full of the rebuilding work going on in Scarborough and Whitby following the bombing of previous months, she talked instead of harmless church gossip or asked him to tell her the stories of the films they had been showing at the Alhambra. They were tender with each other’s feelings, each instinctively mindful that the other needed a place of safety, however temporary, away from all the awfulness.

  George cut himself a thumb stick from a hazel bush and managed to walk as far as the second landing stage. Kitty said that they should keep on the flat but walk a little further each time, but he found it frustrating to be walking at the foot of Cat Bells, its green slopes beckoning, and not to be able to climb the winding sheep path as they used to do. He wanted the sense of openness, the uplift of the view from high above the lake. Kitty, growing more comfortable and finding her old tone, told him that he must be patient and build up to it. When he could walk the distance between the boat-hire shed and the third landing stage at the foot of the fell, then they would try the easiest path on the lower slopes. ‘Just a little way, mind, at first,’ she said. George observed that she would make a good nurse – that she was certainly bossy enough, and she replied that if all patients were as cussed as he was, they would deserve all the bossing they got.

  When George tired, they left the path and scrambled down the stony shore to sit side by side on a weathered grey stump. Weak sunshine lit glinting patterns on the cold lake and picked out the bright green lichened trunks of the island trees and the tinge of colour from buds and catkins. Every part of the scene was overlaid with memory for George. He drew them to him, the ghosts of their former selves: children building dens on the islands, wigwam shelters of wood and bracken against the rain; Kitty in petticoats and he with his trousers rolled up, sitting, legs dangling, on the landing stage throwing crusts to the ducks; later, Kitty demure in longer skirts and he with rod and reel, taking an oar each and almost losing them as the pleasure boat caught them in its wash. For a moment he held the pictures clear, and recognised who he used to be; then they slid away, dissolving into gleams on the water.

  Kitt
y said, ‘Do you remember the first time we climbed Cat Bells? And we decided to carry on to Maiden Moor?’

  George smiled, remembering the long hot climb, the way that they had grumbled at each other about blisters and feeling thirsty, and the satisfaction of finally reaching the top with the world spread out before them. ‘Whose idea was it anyway?’

  ‘Yours, I think. You wanted to reach the cairn. Our stones must still be there. Do you remember? We scratched our names on them and put them on the top in such a ceremonial way!’

  George nodded. ‘They must be far down the pile by now; the cairn looks twice the size it was.’

  Kitty said, with a catch in her voice, ‘When I told Arthur what we’d done, he went up with Fred Anstey to do the same. So his must be in there somewhere too.’ She stared out over the lake.

  George laid his hand gently on her back. ‘In a way that’s a good thought, isn’t it, Kit? That Arthur left his mark and that it’s there still?’

  She blinked hard. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you’re right.’

  ‘One day we’ll go up there, if you’d like. We could put another stone on or pick some flowers and lay them there … I’ll keep working on my leg, I promise, and even if I’m slow, as soon as we could make it up and back in a day, we’ll do it. How would that be?’

  She made a wobbly attempt at a smile. ‘I’d like that. Thank you.’

  George felt a warmth steal through him. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to be able to help, to be needed. It made him feel proud to be relied upon. Worthwhile. Gazing out at the boulders strewn in the shallows and the breeze-combed ripples on the water, he thought of all the times that they had done this walk before and how glad he was, despite everything, to be here again: to be feeling the wind on his face, to be with Kitty, to be alive.

  He picked out a flat stone from the pebbles at his feet, went a little way towards the water’s edge and, with a deft flick of his wrist, skimmed it over the water. It hopped once, twice, three times and hit one of the boulders with a clip.

  ‘Bravo!’ Kitty said, coming to join him. ‘I’ve never really mastered that.’ She picked up a stone and threw it low over the water to splash once and disappear. They both laughed. ‘As you can see, mastery is a long way off.’

  ‘Here.’ George picked out a good stone and gave it to her. ‘You have to hold it really flat, see, and flick it – like this.’ He stood behind her, took her hand from beneath and moved it in an arcing motion. Instead of stepping forward to make her throw, Kitty stood still letting her hand rest in his. George felt acutely aware of their physical closeness, their bodies touching, his arm supporting hers, the flat stone between their palms, warmed by her hand. He had the strangest desire to put his other arm around her, to encompass and hold her and simply lay his head against hers. As if she sensed his mood, for just a moment, Kitty let her head rest back against him and her shoulders drop. Then she twisted round and looked up at him. ‘I’m so glad you’re back, I can’t tell you how much I missed you,’ she said, putting her hand on his arm and giving it a squeeze.

  She stepped away and went forward to the edge of the water, swung her arm back and released the stone. It dipped and jumped over the water, clipping drops from the surface that shone as they flew.

  ‘Encore!’ George called out. ‘Encore!’

  She looked back at him triumphantly with a wide smile: the expression he had known since she was eight years old; yet here was Kitty, a grown woman, with a different kind of challenge in her eyes, a flash of awareness of the effect her smile could have. It touched George in a way he couldn’t explain and sent him looking for more stones, just to see that look again.

  There was no matinée at the cinema on a Tuesday so George took the horse-bus to see Violet again, vowing that this time he would do better, would try to bring her some comfort, at least give her the chance to unburden herself. He must carry whatever weight he could. He stood under the porch with its grand pillars, steeling himself to take hold of the bell-pull and shatter the peace of the place, where the only sounds were those of birds calling from the woods. He rang and Mrs Burbidge answered the door once again. She stopped straightening her apron as soon as she saw him, and said, ‘You! Back again!’

  ‘I was wondering if I might see Miss Violet,’ he said.

  ‘Miss Violet is not at home. Good day to you,’ she said firmly and shut the door.

  George didn’t believe her. As he turned and walked back past the front of the house, he saw the flash of her white apron as she stepped back from the dining-room window.

  He walked a little way into the wood so that he was hidden from view, picking a spot where he could see the door, in the hope that Violet would take her customary walk. The horse-bus wouldn’t return for some time so he could afford to wait and watch. He sat down at the foot of one of the big Scots pines, where the massive roots spread above the earth in complicated inter-lacings of polished wood.

  After half an hour of shifting position between sitting and standing, in order to ease the stiffness of his leg, the front door opened and Violet came out wearing a shapeless brown overcoat that was too big for her and a pair of muddy button boots. She cut across the gravel sweep in front of the house, as if she intended to avoid the path and walk directly down across the fields towards the lake. If he followed her, he would be in full view of the house so he stepped quickly forward and called her name.

  She turned slowly, as if she couldn’t believe her ears, her body tight with tension. Her shoulders dropped as she recognised him and she hurried over. A strand of her dark hair trailed loose at the side of her face, emphasising her pallor.

  ‘Are you all right?’ George asked. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘It was just … well, a man’s voice calling my name. I thought it was another one of my imaginings. Never mind.’

  They fell into step together and took the path that led through the trees, away from the lake. Violet kept her eyes on the puddles and grit of the track. George glanced at her anxiously: her face had lost its softness; the curve of her cheekbones was more angular, her chin more pointed.

  As if wrenching herself from her thoughts, Violet said, ‘So, tell me about your war. How did you get injured?’

  An image of the shell hole flashed upon his memory: the flares rising, the desolation, his certainty that he would die there. He could almost feel the paper of her letter between his fingers. ‘A sniper,’ he said. His hand went to the mask in an instinctive movement to check that it was in place.

  Violet looked directly at him. ‘Well, we’re two poor broken things, aren’t we, George. How are you finding settling back into civilian life?’

  George thought of his avoidance of public places, of the tremors that came with the slightest shock and the way that there was no escape from dreams. He said carefully, ‘Oh, it’s not so bad.’ He recounted how he had met a reverse in being refused his old job at the post office, and how no one wanted him anywhere near their customers, but that he had eventually found a place at the cinema. He told her about the work, finishing by saying, ‘I find it difficult being so much indoors but at least I don’t have to see people.’

  ‘The family must be glad to have you home,’ Violet said gently.

  ‘Oh yes. Kitty too …’

  Violet looked at him curiously. ‘You’ve never mentioned Kitty before.’

  George found himself unaccountably embarrassed. ‘She’s an old school friend,’ he said; then, feeling that this was too small an expression to describe his relationship with Kitty and that he had somehow been disloyal, he added, ‘My oldest friend, actually.’

  ‘Ah,’ Violet said.

  From up in the evergreen woods on the slope of the fell, the sound of an axe rang out, its sharp report making George flinch. Violet looked at him in concern.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Not too good with loud noises.’ In his pockets, he made his hands into fists to stop them trembling. The sound of the blade chopping a V into the trunk of a la
rch echoed, ricocheting among the other trees. Its top shivered with each blow.

  ‘They’ve stepped up the felling,’ Violet said.

  ‘That’s a shame.’ George noticed for the first time that there were indeed gaps in the dense cover of fir and larch.

  A pause in the axe-fall was followed by voices shouting, and a creaking, straining sound. The conical crown of the tree shifted to the side as it began to lean; then, with a splitting, splintering rush, it tumbled, branches bouncing and catching on its neighbours, on its way to the ground.

  ‘They’re taking them for pit props,’ Violet said, and George felt the reach of the war fall even here, its grasping hand gathering and spending.

  They walked on under arches of branches where, in places, a mist of green seemed to hang: the faintest haze of first buds. The sky beyond was blue with small clouds forming and shredding in an easterly breeze. Clumps of daffodils and narcissi were scattered along the margin of the wood and George pointed out that the first green shoots of bluebell leaves were beginning to show in its interior.

  ‘Does it seem strange to you that everything goes on as normal, as though nothing has happened?’ Violet said suddenly. ‘I feel as though it should have all cracked apart, yet here we are: another spring, all this growth. It seems so …’

  ‘Indifferent?’

  ‘Heartless.’

  They reached the road and crossed over to join the path that meandered through the woods where the foresters were at work.

  ‘Did you see very much of Edmund?’ Violet asked.

  George felt his heart beating faster. ‘B company was his, so he was responsible for us: inspections, orders, discipline, making sure we had supplies and knew what we were doing, that sort of thing.’

  ‘But you never saw him on his own?’

  George cast about for an answer. ‘Well, I did, actually. Rooke and I got into a spot of bother because we got lost and were missing overnight. Edmund … Lieutenant Lyne saved my bacon with the captain, who was a rather “hang ’em and flog ’em” type.’