by Liz Trenow
‘Not yet. Let Kit try it out first,’ I said, holding him back.
The little boat looked so frail and was clearly as light as a feather. But when Kit lifted it into the water and jumped in, fitted the oars into the rowlocks and began rowing around on the lake, it seemed to work beautifully. I remembered reading in a history book about round boats that early man used, called coracles, made of sticks and animal skins. Robin was a modern version of a coracle, in a more boat-like shape.
‘She’s brilliant,’ he called. ‘Who wants a ride?’
Jimmy put his hand up. Kit came back and helped him climb in, instructing him to step carefully, only on the wooden base, and not on the canvas sections.
‘Don’t go too far,’ I shouted, praying that Jimmy wouldn’t try to stand up and capsize them. ‘Look after my brother, Kit.’
‘I will, don’t worry,’ he called. As they rowed way, with Kit singing, ‘Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum’, Jimmy waved back, his face a picture of delight, and I loved Kit all over again for his kindness.
‘Why don’t the rest of you go for a dip?’ Mr Waddington suggested. He was still clutching the champagne bottle and I’d spied him swigging from it, when no one was looking. ‘You can all swim, can’t you?’
The swimming platform had a ladder, so that you could climb gracefully into the water without having to jump in or wade through the reeds. There was even a little hut for changing in, not that the boys bothered. They simply changed there and then, and immediately leaped straight into the water and began shouting and larking about.
How can I describe the feeling of plunging into that lake for the first time? I was used to the turbulence of the sea, to leaping over waves or, on calmer days, floating on my back, enjoying the buoyancy of the salty water and watching the clouds. But I had never swum in fresh water before. I was immediately out of my depth and the cold made me gasp at first, but it was no worse than I’d known in the sea, and I was already warmed up by the time I’d swum a few yards.
The boys were still messing about, so I carried on swimming out into the lake until their voices receded and I could enjoy the relative peace. The water felt wonderfully silky on my skin and had a very slight, but not unpleasant, smell of vegetation. It was clear enough to see my feet, although it gave them a greeny-brown tinge. There was no weed in this area – presumably it was too deep to grow here. I wondered briefly about fish and other creepy-crawlies, but the sensation of being immersed in that cool, silky water was so delightful I put the idea from my mind and carried on.
It was after I’d gone thirty yards or so and was circling back towards land that I saw the ‘monster’. Actually, it was only a smallish snake swimming along the top of the water, but coming literally face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, with such a creature is quite as terrifying as meeting a monster. I let out a yelp and the snake slithered away so fast that afterwards I wondered whether I had simply imagined it.
Feeling shaken, I started to swim back towards the shore. Just a few seconds later I felt something brush against my leg. Not the snake – something bigger and rougher-textured. I yelped again and swam away from the area as fast as I could. My heart was beating so fiercely in my chest that it was hard to catch my breath. What on earth could it have been? A fish, or an otter, perhaps? No, it felt solid, larger than that. It couldn’t have been a log, because this was clear water, not close to any land. Anyway, a log would float, wouldn’t it?
Whatever it was, I didn’t fancy bumping into it again. By the time I’d dried off and changed, Kit and Jimmy were back.
‘Anyone else want to have a go in Robin?’ he asked. ‘What about you next, Molly? Come on, she’s a sweet little thing. You’ll love her.’
‘What about Jimmy?’
‘You’ll keep an eye on him, won’t you?’
I looked at Robert and his friends, now out of the lake and sitting around wrapped in towels. They murmured their agreement, although none of them met my eyes, and of course it didn’t occur to me until much later that Robert might have been jealous of Kit.
‘He mustn’t go in the water, though. It’s too deep. Promise me, Jimmy?’
He nodded. Even so, I dithered for a long moment: my conscience told me I should stay with my brother, but the temptation of going with Kit was too great.
‘C’mon, Molly. He’ll be all right for a little while,’ Kit said. I succumbed to selfishness. Why shouldn’t I have a bit of fun?
‘She’s so light to row,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you have a go?’
Rowing must be like riding a bicycle: once you’ve learned, you never forget. I was surprised to find it so easy – in fact, easier than before, because the lightweight boat seemed to skim across the surface of the water like those insects Kit called ‘water boatmen’. It was harder to keep it in a straight line than the big wooden boat, but I got the hang of it soon enough; you just had to keep an even, equal stroke on both sides.
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘The Retreat,’ Kit said. ‘Let’s check out the summer house.’
‘Will Jimmy be all right, do you think?’
‘We’ll only be gone twenty minutes.’
Entranced by the moment, I quickly forgot to worry. My arms worked rhythmically to pull the little boat through the water, the lake spread out before us, and a handsome boy was grinning at me from the stern. It was like a daydream.
We landed and pulled Robin up onto the shore. ‘Don’t want her floating off,’ he said, tying the rope to a tree. I wouldn’t have minded. Cast away on an island with Kit: what could be more romantic?
The summer house was a large shed painted in peeling eggshell-blue, with French doors and windows all round, in which hung sun-faded blue gingham curtains. Kit retrieved the key from under a stone and opened the door.
‘Welcome to my humble abode, sweet maiden,’ he said, giving an exaggeratedly dramatic bow.
The shed was furnished simply but charmingly with a small table and chair, also in eggshell-blue, and a scruffy settee covered in soft rugs along the back wall. On the table was a jam jar with pens and pencils, and a notebook browned and curled from the sun. I longed to open it.
A bookshelf held faded paperbacks and magazines, and on the walls were pinned amateur watercolours and children’s drawings. It smelled cosy, of warm cedar and dried leaves. A butterfly rested on the windowsill, long dead but its colours still iridescent. If only there was some kind of stove, I thought to myself, you could live here forever. Like Eli.
‘It’s so pretty,’ I gasped. ‘The perfect place for writing.’
I sat at the table, took up a pen, pretending.
‘Do you write, Molly?’
‘Just my diary and a few stories. I’d like to be a proper writer one day, though.’ I wasn’t going to tell him about the dragon book, not yet.
‘Then you can come here any time you want, and we’ll be able to say it was where the famous author wrote her bestseller,’ Kit said, resting back on the settee.
‘Don’t tease.’ I wanted to move beside him, but decided it was best to wait until he asked.
‘I’m deadly serious.’ His eyes twinkled in the most unserious way.
‘Does anyone come here much?’
‘Not these days. Except me, when I want to get away from things.’
‘Is that often? I mean, that you want to get away?’
‘When it gets too difficult at home.’
‘What do you mean, difficult?’
‘Pa’s a bit of a brute, you know. They argue a lot. It gets ugly sometimes. It’s better when he’s in London.’ Kit stopped and stared at the floor. I was curious to know more, but didn’t want to press him. ‘I like you, though,’ he said suddenly. ‘You’re quiet and calm. You talk about interesting things. And your brother’s a great kid.’
‘You’ve been so nice with him. I really appreciate it. Not everyone is kind to people who are different.’
He stood and moved towards me. I stood too. We were so close, with
barely a foot between us. This is it, I thought, holding my breath, he’s going to put his arms around me, and then he’s going to kiss me. Her heart began to thud as she looked into his tanned face and saw her reflection in his eyes. What greater happiness could there be than this?
My first kiss was just seconds away, inches away. And I couldn’t imagine a more romantic place for it. But that is not what happened. Kit moved past me to the door. ‘Suppose we’d better get back now,’ he said. ‘They’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.’
He’d said he liked me. He thought I was pretty. Was my breath not sweet? Did I look at him the wrong way? Did I say something that put him off? I couldn’t imagine what I had done wrong.
15
When we returned to the shore the others were lounging about on the grass, drying off, but Jimmy was nowhere to be seen.
I didn’t panic, not at first. ‘Anyone seen my brother?’ I asked.
‘He was here for a while, watching us,’ Robert said casually. ‘But then I looked and he’d gone.’
‘Did you see where?’
He looked blank, and the others all shook their heads. Had they not thought to check?
‘I’ll help you find him,’ Kit said. ‘He can’t have gone far. Come on.’
We looked in the boathouse and along the path leading round the edge of the lake, calling Jimmy’s name all the time. I wondered whether he might have followed the path into the woods to find Eli, but then we reached a great iron gate, locked with a padlock and chain.
‘He’d never have got through there,’ Kit said.
We checked the moat and then retraced our steps through the knot garden and through a door in a long red-brick wall into the largest kitchen garden I’ve ever seen. None of the gardeners working there had seen a small boy. By now, I was beginning to worry.
‘He’s probably back in the house with Ma,’ Kit said.
We found Jimmy helping to put away the birthday tea. He turned to us with a guilty look, his mouth full of biscuit. I should have guessed that was where he would be.
My first response was to hug him tightly, my face in his biscuit-smelling hair. My second response was fury. ‘For heaven’s sake, Jimmy. You mustn’t run away like that without telling people,’ I shouted. ‘We had no idea where you were. We were worried stiff.’
My third reaction was to feel guilty; sickeningly, gut-wrenchingly guilty, and ashamed at myself for leaving him alone with the boys. I’d been cross with them, but Jimmy was hardly their responsibility. He was mine.
Perhaps it was the guilt that made it hard to stop being angry. As we walked back to the village I continued to berate him. ‘Why did you go back to the house? You know I told you to stay with the boys?’
No reply.
‘You must do what I tell you, Jimmy, or you can’t come here with me again.’
‘Don’ want to.’
‘You like Kit, don’t you? He’s been lovely to us. Teaching you to row.’
‘They said . . .’
‘Said what?’
No reply.
‘Kit? Was it something Kit said that upset you?’
No answer.
‘Who? Was it Robert?’
‘Not Robert. The others.’
We were nearly home. I stopped and made him sit on the low wall of the churchyard. ‘What did they say, Jimmy? Come on, this is important.’
‘I wanted to play . . .’
He sniffed. I looked at him, shocked to see a tear on his cheek. Jimmy hardly ever cried. I threw my arms round him, holding him tight. It didn’t matter what had been said, and who’d said it. I would defend my brother to the death, however annoying he might be.
Through his sobs I heard, ‘They said . . . I’m stupid.’
His words were like a stab to my heart. ‘You’re not stupid, Jimmy,’ I shouted. ‘You’re different, that’s all. Whoever said that is the stupid one, because they don’t understand what a lovely, special person you are.’
‘Said . . . go ’way.’
‘They told you to go away?’
He nodded. ‘I wanted to play.’
‘And they said you couldn’t play with them?’
His little face crumpled. I felt helpless, unable to make things better. How wrong it is, that old saw: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. In my experience, words can cut deeper and hurt for longer, and no amount of sticking plaster will heal the wound. The only remedy is distraction. ‘Come on, let’s get home. Are you hungry, even after all those biscuits?’
Jimmy nodded, smiling now.
‘Okay. I’ll make you a sandwich – how’s that?’
‘Honey?’
‘Honey it is.’
It must have been like this all his life, I supposed – feeling different – although I could never be entirely sure how aware of it he was. The only time Jimmy felt really at home was with me and Pa, and with his pals at the special school. And now, of course, with Kit. In other company he was always at a bit of a loss.
And that evening in bed, thinking over the events of the day, it came to me with a clarity I hadn’t felt before: Jimmy might seem self-sufficient in many ways; he didn’t ask for much, and seemed content with simple pleasures. But when it came to going out in the wider world and meeting new people, he needed to be protected. And that was my responsibility. I’d been so absorbed in thinking about Kit that I had failed to protect my brother.
16
The following Sunday, Pa was due to tell the congregation that he’d got the go-ahead from the diocese for the stained glass. Melissa Blackman arrived in a particularly fetching dress and fancy hat, ready to bathe in glory. Mrs Waddington was there too, unusually, but her husband was missing and so was Kit.
Pa’s sermon that day was one of his more engaging ones, I thought. It was all about the importance of cherishing traditions – something the church did very well most of the time – alongside valuing the beliefs of others, something the church was sometimes not very good at. The choice of subject was so transparent I had to lower my face to conceal my smile.
One of the benefits of being in the church choir was having a grandstand view of the assembled congregation. From here, we could spy any new faces and whether anyone was missing; who was attentive and who had a tendency to fall asleep. We saw discreet smiles being exchanged, eyebrows raised, sideways glances. Weddings were rare, but the one service I sang for during our time in the village offered us a special treat, since we were perfectly placed to see the expressions on the faces of bride and groom, ranging from blissful joy to utter terror, sometimes in the same minute.
After the final blessing Pa moved forward between the front pews – his ‘I’m a man of the people’ position – and invited everyone to be seated for the final notices. ‘We are truly grateful to Mr and Mrs Waddington for offering to pay for new stained glass in our beautiful old church. The window will be dedicated to the memory of all those who fell in two world wars, and in particular to Jane Waddington’s brother, Captain David Burrows, who died in 1944 while fighting to liberate Italy. I am pleased to tell you that Mrs Blackman’s charming design has been given the go-ahead by the diocese. They share our view that the story of the dragon is an important part of our shared history and sense of community. Something we should be proud of, even.’
A familiar voice – Blackman’s – boomed a self-important ‘Hear, hear’. Mrs Waddington smiled modestly.
Pa went on, ‘You only have to look at the medieval carvings on this very church to acknowledge that throughout the centuries we have always incorporated the beliefs and symbols of other, earlier religions and cultures. And this design pays tribute to so many things: medievalism, the history of the Crusades and, not least, Wormley’s legitimate claim to its very own dragon. We consider ourselves to be blessed – and our thanks to everyone who is helping to make it happen.’
As we filed out of church I watched people shaking Pa’s hand to congratulate him, as well as stopping to thank Mel
issa Blackman and Jane Waddington. Pa’s face was lit with a genuine happiness we’d rarely seen since Mum died. I should have been pleased for him, but at the same time I felt heavy with foreboding: all this hard-won acceptance would disappear in an instant if the matter of the missing church funds wasn’t cleared up soon.
It was so hot, that summer, that we’d almost come to dread the sun rising every day. The heat hung over the countryside like a heavy blanket, stifling the breeze and deadening the birdsong. The farmers were afraid the corn would never fill and prophesied an early harvest with poor yields.
Jimmy and I flopped around, seeking every spot of shade or hint of breeze we could find. The garden was drought-stricken and brown, save for the twirling stems and white flowers of the still-rampant bindweed, and the fields on either side of the valley gleamed like bleached gold. Two elderly parishioners had succumbed to the heat, but their burials had to be postponed because the ground was too hard to dig the graves. Pa was even more preoccupied than usual, spending hours alone in his study or at the church, praying.
The heat seemed to compound my state of feverish anticipation about Kit. There had been no word from him since the birthday party five days before. I longed for just a little sign before the school term started again. In my imagination we would exchange witty and erudite letters and then, at Christmas, he would return home to whisk me away in a whirl of glamorous country-house parties.
So when Rob called around to say they were going swimming and would I like to join them, I eagerly agreed. ‘Is Kit coming?’
He shrugged. ‘Might do,’ he said.
‘I’ll go and get Jimmy, shall I?’
Robert’s smile faded. ‘The thing is . . .’ He hesitated.
‘What?’
‘Jimmy.’
‘What about Jimmy?’