‘Okay,’ Harry conceded. ‘It’s been a while since we ate.’ Drawing into a little gravelled area, he got Tom out of the Hillman. ‘Come on, then. Let’s see what they’ve got.’ To tell the truth, he welcomed the stop. His back was aching, and he had a real thirst on him.
At the van Harry lifted Tom into his arms. ‘Right, big man. What d’you fancy?’ He pointed to the items arranged on glass shelves behind the counter. ‘And don’t get anything too messy,’ he cautioned. ‘I don’t want it all over you … or the car!’
Tom chose a ham roll. Harry chose ham and tomato; and each had a bag of potato crisps, a Wagon Wheel chocolate biscuit, and a bottle of orange juice. On the way back to the car, they chatted about this and that, the main topic being the little man who could hardly see over the counter to serve them.
With only a short distance to Fisher’s Hill, Harry was still questioning the situation. Was Kathleen only acting out of loyalty by writing back in response to his letter, and saying they could stop with her? And would Judy’s life be turned upside down again, because of him?
He could not go home, and he had no other family, so if he didn’t go to Kathleen, where would he go? All the same, wouldn’t it be better if he let sleeping dogs lie? He could take them to a hotel; maybe arrange to rent a house until he found something more permanent.
‘I think we’ll pull off the road for a while, Tom,’ he told the boy. ‘After all, we’re in no hurry.’ He felt the need to slow everything down.
Taking a left turn, he found himself in what looked like a lane to nowhere. ‘I remember this place.’ He and Judy had been here many times on their bikes. ‘I used to go fishing in the stream at the bottom,’ he said. ‘Me and … my friends.’ The pictures were so alive in his mind – of him and his mates – climbing trees, chasing rabbits, and doing all the usual stuff that growing boys do.
And then, later on, there were the quieter, more memorable times, when he and Judy came walking hand-in-hand down this very lane, wide-eyed and starstruck; hopelessly in love.
Now, when the guilt poured in, he deliberately pushed the memories to the back of his mind.
Parking the car, he collected Tom and the food, and the two of them meandered down the bank, to follow the splashing sound of water.
Overhung with ancient willows, the stream was magical. The frothy white water tumbled over the boulders and wound its way down to the valley, and all around the birds could be heard singing.
Mesmerised, the two of them stood for a moment, just watching, and listening. The graceful willows swayed ever so gently in the teasing breeze, and the sound of water against stone was uniquely soothing.
Harry allowed the memories to flood back. ‘Shall I tell you something?’ he murmured to Tom.
Intent on the little bird hopping from boulder to boulder, the boy nodded. ‘Mmm.’
‘When we were your age, me and my friends used to leap across this stream.’
Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, Tom gave his father his full attention. ‘Did you?’
‘We did.’
‘And did you get a smack for being naughty?’
Harry laughed out loud. ‘We did, yes! Every time we fell in and got wet, our mams got cross and our dads gave us a clip round the ear.’
Deep in thought, he grew quiet for a while. ‘We still came down here though.’ He pointed to an old oak tree on the other side. ‘We even made a den in the branches of that tree.’
Stretching his neck, Tom strained to look into the tree branches. ‘I can’t see it.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you?’ Harry felt a pang of sadness. ‘It was a long time ago. It’s probably rotted away by now.’
‘Can we see?’ Having caught the excitement in his father’s voice, Tom was curious.
Harry considered Tom’s request, and he too began to wonder. ‘Yes, why not? Let’s go take a look.’
‘How can we get across?’
‘We’ll paddle – would you like that?’
Tom threw his two arms up in the air. ‘Yes, I would!’
So they kicked off their shoes, rolled up their trousers, and dipped their bare feet in the stream, with Tom screeching at the shockingly cold water which lapped over his ankles.
For the first time in an age, Harry laughed out loud. ‘Wow! That’s a good feeling, don’t you think so, Tom?’
‘It’s freezing, Daddy!’
‘Do you want me to carry you?’
‘No! I want to paddle!’
So with Harry holding tight to Tom’s hand, the two of them paddled across the stream and clambered out on the other side, all wet and refreshed, and much lighter of heart. ‘D’you know what, Tom?’ Harry took a deep invigorating breath. ‘I’d forgotten what that felt like.’ It had taken him right back to another time, one without responsibility or worries.
‘We might do that again some day?’ he suggested, and Tom was all for it.
After rummaging about in that big old tree, they found remnants of Harry’s childhood. Amazingly, the main plank which had forged the base of their den was still virtually intact. ‘Lift me up, Daddy!’ Tom was beside himself with excitement.
Warning him to stay very still, because of the rotting wood, Harry lifted him up to stand on the plank, and when the boy looked down on what had been Harry’s kingdom, Harry felt deeply nostalgic. He could see himself up there, not much older than Tom was now, being master of all he surveyed.
The most surprising find of all, was when Harry lifted his boy down. He was not consciously thinking of it, so it must have been a deeper instinct that brought his gaze to the widest girth of the trunk.
‘Good Lord!’ His heart soared in his chest when he saw the outline of two entwined shapes deeply engraved in the timber.
‘What is it, Daddy?’ Tom wanted to know.
Seeming not to have heard, Harry went forward, with Tom right behind, and there, crudely carved within the two entwined hearts, so faint he could hardly read it, were the names of Harry and Judy.
An unexpected storm of emotion flooded Harry’s being; for a moment he had to turn away, so Tom would not see.
‘Daddy, show me! Show me, Daddy!’
Taking a deep breath to compose himself, Harry snatched the boy into his arms and strode away. ‘It’s nothing … just some old carvings, that’s all.’ But it wasn’t all. It was wonderful, and shocking, and the strongest reminder yet, of how it had been between him and Judy.
He remembered it now, as if it was yesterday.
It was the summer after Judy’s family had moved into the street, when they were just childhood friends, riding their old bikes around the countryside, coming here and making their mark on the world.
As they hurried away from that place, Harry could hear his son chatting about the tree and the stream, telling his dad how he wanted to come back again. Harry had nothing to say. He was being drawn back into another world, one from which he had flown long ago.
Having paddled back to the other side, Harry tried desperately to shut the images out of his mind. ‘Hungry now, are you?’ he asked Tom.
‘Starving!’
‘Right.’ They dried their feet on their socks, then put their shoes back on, and Harry unwrapped the food.
‘There you go, son. Time to tuck in.’ He handed the boy his bread roll, relieved that Tom had got back his appetite. ‘Good, is it?’ These past few weeks, neither of them had felt much like eating.
With his mouth full, Tom nodded.
‘I didn’t realise how hungry I was,’ Harry commented, tearing off another chunk of his bread roll. ‘When we’ve finished, we’ll get back on the road.’ He swallowed the last bite. ‘There’s a box of tissues in the back of the car. We can finish drying our feet on them.’
The boy looked up. ‘Daddy?’ he asked.
Harry didn’t hear. He was thinking of that carving, and Judy. Then he was thinking how much Sara would have loved this beautiful place.
‘Daddy!’ Tom repeated, more loudly this time.
Startled, Harry turned, his glance softening as he gazed down on that small, innocent face, ‘Sorry, son. I was miles away.’
‘What town is that?’ The lad pointed across the bank, towards the swathe of houses.
‘It isn’t a town, son. It’s a village – name of Heath and Reach.’ This whole area had been his stamping ground. ‘The nearest town is Leighton Buzzard,’ he pointed towards the curve of the canal, ‘about four miles in that direction.’
‘Leighton Buzzard? That’s a funny name. So, is that where we’re going?’
‘Nope.’ Harry shook his head.
‘Where are we going then?’
Again, Harry turned away, his mind filled with things belonging to the past. Things that had never really left him.
The boy tugged on Harry’s sleeve. ‘I’m tired.’
Smiling patiently, Harry slid an arm round his narrow shoulders. ‘I know,’ he conceded. ‘It’s been a long journey, but we’re not far off now.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Oh, Tom, I already told you three times on the way here. We’re going to a place called Fisher’s Hill. The place where I grew up.’
‘Oh yes.’ The boy dropped his quiet gaze to the water’s edge. He didn’t want to go somewhere strange. He wanted to go back to his own house. He wanted his mammy, and the garden where he played at soldiers behind the trees.
But it was gone now. All gone, and the child’s heart was heavy.
‘Will I like it in our new place, Daddy?’ he asked tearfully.
‘I hope so, son.’ Harry was anxious, for both of them. ‘Yes, I believe you will like it. I know you’ll like Kathleen. She’s a lovely person. When I was growing up and something really bad happened, Kathleen was very good to me.’
‘Was that when your mammy and daddy got burned?’
Shocked, Harry swung round. ‘Tom! Who told you that?’
‘I heard you talking with Mammy,’ Tom answered candidly.
‘Oh, I see.’ In an odd way, Harry was strangely relieved, though he wondered how a small boy could have remembered something like that.
‘Mammy asked you to promise you would go back, and you said you didn’t want to, because you had those bad memories.’
‘That’s right, son. I did say that.’ He was sorry that Tom had been living with those thoughts, and then felt the need to clarify something. ‘Can you remember anything else – apart from the bit about the bad memories?’ he asked.
Tom shrugged his shoulders, but gave no answer.
‘Well, when I told Mammy that I didn’t want to go back to where I grew up, she reminded me that I shouldn’t just remember the bad memories, because there were good memories as well. Memories of love, and friendship, and of that kind lady called Kathleen, who took me in after I lost my parents. That’s really why Mammy wanted us to go back.’
‘Because she was going away, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes, son,’ Harry said in a choked voice, ‘because she was going away, and she did not want us to be without friends.’
Tom considered that, before, with the innocence of a child, he asked, ‘Will Kathleen really like me?’
Harry smiled at that. ‘Of course she’ll like you. She won’t be able to help herself.’
There followed a brief span of silence while each of them took stock of the situation, ‘Daddy?’
‘Yes, son?’
‘Kathleen won’t pretend to be my real mammy, will she?’
‘No. She would never do that.’
‘I wish Mammy could be with us.’
‘I know, son.’ Harry’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘But she can’t. I’m sorry, Tom, but we have to get used to that.’
‘I miss her.’ The tears threatened.
‘I know you do, and so do I.’ He drew the boy close. ‘If there was any other way, you know I would make it right. But I can’t, so from now on, it’s just the two of us.’
‘Will Mammy be all right without us?’
‘Don’t worry. She’ll be fine.’
‘Is she with the angels?’
‘I imagine so. Yes, that’s where she is … with the angels.’
The boy’s next question shook Harry to the roots, for it echoed his own deepest fears. ‘We’ll never see her again, will we? Not ever.’
For the moment, Harry could not bring himself to answer. The truth was, he still had not come to terms with her loss.
He looked down on that small, bewildered face, and he felt helpless. ‘We have no way of knowing if we’ll ever see her again, Tom,’ he answered quietly. ‘But even if we can’t see her, I bet she can see us. Wherever we go, she’ll be keeping an eye on us; wanting us to be strong, wanting us to look after each other.’
Tom was amazed. ‘Does she know I got my feet wet in the stream?’
Harry smiled. ‘Maybe she does, yes.’
‘When we go back to the car, will she come with us?’
‘I don’t know, son.’
Tears were inevitable as they tumbled down the boy’s face. ‘I want my Mammy … I want her now!’
Grabbing the boy into his arms, Harry pacified him. ‘Hush now. I want her too, but we can’t have her back, except in our hearts and minds. That’s something, isn’t it, Tom? That really is … something.’
Sensing his father’s desolation, the boy wrapped his arms round his neck. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy.’
‘I’m sorry too, son.’ Brushing back the boy’s brown hair, he put his hand under his chin and lifted Tom’s face to him. ‘I love you, Tom. I’ll take good care of you, just like Mammy wanted.’
After a while he led the boy by the hand and together they walked back across the field and over the bridge. ‘We’d best make tracks.’ He didn’t want it to be dark when they got there. ‘Kathleen will be wondering where we are.’ It was so long since he’d seen that kindly soul, he had almost forgotten what she looked like.
‘What if she doesn’t like me?’ Tom began to fret again.
Harry gave the boy a loving glance, observing the eager eyes and the endless mop of brown hair, and the little face that could never be described as handsome, but was honest and giving. In that moment, he saw the mother in the child, and the pride was like a flame burning his chest.
‘Will you stop worrying!’ he said fondly. ‘She’ll love you to bits!’
‘She’s not my mammy though.’ A familiar little frown crumpled the boy’s forehead. ‘You have to tell her.’
‘I will, of course I will, but she already knows that. Look, son, trust me. Kathleen would never try to take your mammy’s place. But she is a kind and wonderful person who is sure to want your happiness, every bit as much as I do.’
‘Is she young and pretty, like Mammy?’
Harry shook his head. ‘No, she’s not young. But as I recall, she did have a pretty face … kind of warm and smiley.’
‘Is she very old?’
He laughed. ‘Old enough, I suppose.’
‘Grandad was old, wasn’t he?’
‘I don’t know that he would have agreed, but yes, I dare say he was.’
‘Are you old, Daddy?’
Harry thought on that for a moment. ‘Well, thirty-six isn’t really meant to be old,’ he had been shaken by the realisation of how short life could be, ‘but yes, today, I do feel old.’
‘Am I old?’
Harry laughed at his innocence. ‘God, yes! You’re as old as Methuselah.’
‘Who’s Musoothella?’
Chuckling, Harry settled the boy into the back of the car. ‘He was a very wise person.’
‘Am I a wise person?’
His father gazed on him tenderly for a moment. ‘You know what?’
‘What?’
Harry gave a wistful smile. ‘I think you’re probably the wisest person in the whole wide world.’
‘Wise as Kathleen?’
‘Well, nobody’s as wise as Kathleen, but near enough, I reckon.’
Harry gave an involuntary shive
r. Today had been a typical late-summer day, with long spells of bright sunshine and a warm, gentle breeze. Now though, with the onset of evening, the clouds hung menacingly low, and there was a sudden nip in the air. ‘We might just get there before dark,’ he muttered, covering Tom with the tartan travelling rug and pressing Loppy into his arms.
He then gazed back a moment to where they had been. Only the fleetest of moments, but he held it safe in his mind for all time.
Quickly now, he climbed into the driving seat and glanced in the mirror, to see the boy’s head lolling to one side. ‘That’s right, son,’ he murmured. ‘You get some sleep.’
Before starting the engine he glanced at the sleepy boy, ‘Aw, child! You give me so much joy … and I have nothing to give you in return.’
Driving away, he wondered what lay in store for them both. In the wake of recent events, he had made a hasty decision. Now with every mile that took them closer, the doubts grew stronger.
He had been a youth of eighteen when he left Fisher’s Hill. He didn’t altogether leave because he wanted to; war was in the air, and joining up seemed like the right thing at the time. He had left his home under a cloud, trailing with him a deal of heartache and regrets, with the intention of returning.
In the eighteen years between, he had never forgotten the place that he loved so much. He moved away, travelling far and wide, and eventually settled after the war in Weymouth, with his new sweetheart, Sara, but Fisher’s Hill and Judy remained a part of him, with the bad memories always overshadowing the good.
Even now, it was hard to believe that he was just a heartbeat away from Fisher’s Hill.
When he had first contacted Kathleen after Sara’s funeral, he was amazed and reassured to find that she was still alive, still the same lovely, homely person, and that she would welcome him and young Tom with open arms.
In his grief, he had needed something familiar and comforting, and it did his heart good just to see her familiar handwriting.
How many of his old mates might still be living there? He was thinking especially of Phil Saunders. Had he stayed? Had any of them gone back after the war – if they got through intact – and if they had, would they welcome him with open arms, or would they reject him, as he had rejected them all those years ago …
Born Bad Page 4