Red Sky in the Morning

by Margaret Dickinson

  As he drove his tractor and trailer back towards the farm to fetch bales of hay for his sheep, Eddie was still smiling.

  The following morning Anna walked across the meadow in front of the cottage towards the next field, where she could see the sheep contentedly munching long stalks of kale. She moved stealthily. Sheep were nervous creatures, easily panicked and bunching together in the face of danger and most of Eddie’s ewes would be in lamb; the last thing she must do was to startle them.

  Shading her eyes, Anna glanced round the edge of the field. There were several gaps in the hedges where the sheep could easily push their way into the neighbouring field. Anna began to smile. Here was something she could do to repay the farmer for his kindness. When the tractor and trailer chugged down the track later that morning, Anna was waiting for him.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve left those holes in the hedges for a reason, have you?’

  ‘No, lass,’ Eddie said wryly. ‘I just haven’t had time to repair them.’

  ‘Right, then. You can bring me a billhook and a hedge knife too. Oh, and a few stakes.’

  Eddie laughed. ‘You’re not going to try plashing, are you?’

  Anna nodded.

  Now he eyed her sceptically. ‘Are you sure you can do it?’

  Anna gave him one of her rare smiles. ‘That’s for you to say when I’ve had a go. I’ll do one small gap first and then, if you’re not satisfied, you can say so and I’ll let well alone. All right?’

  Eddie looked mesmerized. To him hedge-laying was a skilled art and one, he had to admit, that he had never been able to master properly.

  Whilst he fetched the tools, Anna chose one of the smaller holes and began to clear the hedgerow of weeds and long, dead grass. By the time Eddie brought back the items she had asked for, Anna was ready to position two stakes in the gap. Then, taking up the billhook, she chose the thickest stem she could find in the existing hedge to the right of the hole and began to chip off all its side shoots.

  ‘I’ll – er – leave you to it, lass. I’ll – um – come back later and see how you’re getting on. Only don’t tire ya’sen, will you?’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Mr Appleyard. It’s nice to have something to do.’

  Concern was still plainly written on the man’s face, though whether it was for the pale waif who had come into his life or for his hedge, even Eddie could not have said. He glanced at her again and now his anxiety was wholly for her, but he was gratified to see a healthy pink tinge to her cheeks this morning. And the way she was wielding the billhook showed no sign of any ill effects from the cold night she must have spent in the cottage.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ he said again, still reluctant to leave his hedge. He sighed as he turned away. Oh well, he was thinking, I don’t suppose she can make a much worse mess of it than I would.

  A surprise awaited Eddie on his return to the field with Rip trotting beside him, pink tongue lolling, eyes ever watchful and alert. They stopped before the hole in the hedge – or at least where the hole had been. The thickest stems from the existing growth had been cut diagonally a few inches from the ground to a depth of about three-quarters of the thickness and bent carefully over so that the stem did not break. The branches then lay one above the other at angles of about thirty degrees across the gap in the hedge and were neatly woven in and out between the stakes. In time, new shoots from the old wood would form a thick hedge once more. Even the top had been neatly finished off.

  Eddie stood gaping. He took off his cap, scratched his head and then pulled it on again, whilst Anna stood by, smiling quietly. ‘By heck, lass, it’s as good as I could do. No, if I’m honest, it’s better. Where on earth did you learn to lay a hedge like that?’

  Anna’s smile faded and she turned away, but not before Eddie had seen tears fill her eyes.

  ‘I had a good teacher, Mister,’ she said huskily. ‘A very good teacher.’ Then she took a deep breath and called to the dog. ‘Come on, boy.’

  As she bent to pick up her tools and move on to the next gap, Rip bounded alongside, leaving Eddie staring after her and then, glancing back to his newly repaired hedge, marvelling again at the young girl’s workmanship.

  Tony came each night after school to see her, always managing to bring something useful for her. And every night he ordered his dog to ‘stay’ with her.

  ‘We’ve broke up from school today,’ he told her near the end of the week following her arrival. ‘It’s Christmas next week.’

  ‘Is it?’ Anna said, surprise in her tone.

  The boy stared at her. ‘You hadn’t forgotten?’ he asked. To the boy, who had been counting the days, it was incredible that anyone could not know it was almost Christmas. Even his mam, who usually scorned merrymaking at other times, always loved Christmas. She had been mixing the puddings and baking mince pies all this last week. And last night she had helped him put up paper chains, looping them along the picture rail around the best parlour, which they would use on Christmas Day.

  In answer to Tony’s question, Anna shrugged. ‘I’ve been travelling. I’d forgotten what date it is.’

  ‘How long have you been travelling?’ he asked with a boy’s natural curiosity. ‘Where d’you come from?’

  Even the ten-year-old boy could not fail to notice the fear that sprang into her eyes at his question. She bit her lip and turned away. ‘Oh, a long way away. You wouldn’t know it.’

  ‘I might,’ he insisted. ‘We’ve been doing geography at school on the British Isles and learning where lots of places are. I might know it.’ He was trying to wheedle an answer from her, but now the girl said nothing and deliberately turned her back on him and his questions.

  A few days before Christmas Tony brought her a hot mince pie. ‘Me mam’s just finished baking. She didn’t notice I took an extra one.’

  Anna bit into the light pastry with the warm juicy mincemeat inside. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said. ‘I wish I could send a message to your mam.’ She smiled and suddenly some of the pain that was always in the depths of her violet eyes, lightened. ‘But I’d better not.’

  Tony was staring at her. ‘You’re ever so pretty when you smile,’ he said with the innocent candour of a young boy. ‘Haven’t you got funny coloured eyes? I mean,’ he added hastily, ‘they’re nice, but I’ve never seen anyone with eyes that colour before.’

  At once the smile fled from her face and the anguish returned. Her words came haltingly, almost as if she were trying not to speak them, but an innate politeness was forcing her to do so. ‘They’re the same – colour as my – mother’s.’ The last word was spoken in a strangled whisper and, to the boy’s horror, tears welled in her eyes.

  ‘I’ll be off,’ he said gruffly, pushing his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. There was an embarrassed pause before he said, haltingly, ‘I’ll have to take Rip back with me tonight.’

  He bit his lip. He didn’t want to explain to the girl that there had been an awkward moment at home the previous evening. He had been sitting in his pyjamas in front of the kitchen range drinking cocoa when his mother, coming in from the outside privy, had said, ‘Where’s Rip? He’s not chained up.’

  Tony had felt his heart miss a beat and then begin to pound. He licked the line of chocolate from his upper lip and said, ‘He – he wouldn’t come home with me. He – he went off chasing rabbits, I think.’

  ‘At this time of night? That’s not like him. He’s a very obedient dog usually. Specially with you, Tony. Oh well, mebbe it’s not only rabbits he’s chasing,’ she added dryly. ‘He’s male, after all.’

  Tony buried his nose in his mug to finish his drink. Then he stood up. Going to his mother, he put his arms around her and gave her an extra tight hug, trying to assuage his guilt at lying to her. ‘Night, Mam.’

  She had kissed his hair and patted his back. ‘Night-night, love.’

  Now, in the cottage, he commanded, ‘Come on, Rip. Home, boy.’

  The dog wagged his tail, but made no move to foll
ow. Instead, Rip glanced at Anna and then sat down.

  Tony slapped his own thigh. ‘Come on, Rip.’

  The dog flattened his ears and lay down, crawling on his belly, not towards his young master, but towards the girl.

  Now it was the boy who had tears in his eyes. ‘He’s my dog,’ he said. ‘Not yours. I only lent him to you.’

  ‘I know you did,’ Anna said quietly, her own misery forgotten for the moment. ‘Rip is confused, that’s all.’ She bent and stroked the dog’s head and he licked her hand. ‘Good dog. Go with your master now, boy. Go with Tony.’

  As if understanding he had been released from any obligation, Rip sprang up, barked and ran to the boy, leaping up to lick his face. Tony knelt and put his arms around the dog, hugging the wriggling body to him. Without another word, he turned and began to run up the hill, the dog racing ahead and then coming back to him.

  Anna heard the boy’s joyful laughter and the dog barking. As she closed the door against the dusk of approaching evening, she was already missing Rip’s comforting presence in the cottage.

  Six

  Anna did not see the boy for the next three days, but each morning, when she opened the side door of the cottage to visit the privy, a small pile of wood was neatly stacked against the wall just outside. Later in the day Eddie would come to check on his sheep and would bring her food.

  ‘All right, lass?’ was his usual greeting and, as he left, he would say, ‘Now, don’t you go overdoing it, love.’ It was the closest he ever came to referring to her advancing pregnancy.

  Anna was surprised how much she missed seeing Tony, but there was plenty of work for her to do. She was kept busy collecting more wood to keep her fire burning through the cold nights and cleaning the inside of the one room in the cottage. She swept the floor and cleaned the windows and scrubbed out the bread oven. But, apart from the brief visits from Eddie and Rip, she saw no one. She had thought that solitude was what she wanted. She had believed she wanted to hide herself away from the world and all its cruelties, yet the farmer’s kindness, and especially the boy’s, had melted her resolve. Besides, she reminded herself, she had been desperate. Standing in the marketplace that night with nowhere to go, no money and hunger gnawing, she had known she could not hold out much longer.

  If the man had not brought her to this place that night, she doubted she would still have been alive by now. When she felt the child within her move, and in the moments of despair that still racked her, she wondered if it wouldn’t have been for the best if she and the child had not survived. But the tranquillity of this place was already seeping into her wounded heart and bringing her a measure of peace. She was not happy – she doubted she would ever feel real happiness again – but she was no longer in the depths of misery. The instinct to survive was strong again within her. And now she had a place to stay. It was only when darkness closed in and she was alone in the cottage that the fear threatened to overwhelm her once more. Maybe she should ask Eddie for strong bolts for the two doors into the cottage. Perhaps then she would feel safe.

  ‘I bet you thought I’d forgotten all about mending the walls,’ Eddie called to her one afternoon, as he climbed down from his tractor and went to the trailer behind it to unload tools, wood and what looked suspiciously like a pile of wet mud.

  Seeing her looking at it with a puzzled expression on her face, Eddie said, ‘It’s subsoil. I dug a hole ovver yonder near the stream. It’s just right for this.’

  Anna leant closer. ‘What are all the bits in it?’

  ‘Chopped-up pieces of barley straw. Now, all we need to do is mix it with a bit of sand and water and we’ll be ready.’ He smiled at her. ‘Good, ain’t it, when you can provide your own building materials? And it dun’t cost me a penny,’ he added, to reassure her that her presence in his cottage was not costing him a fortune.

  Fascinated, Anna stood watching him nailing the thin laths of wood into place and then plastering the mud mixture onto the wooden framework.

  ‘I could do that,’ she murmured, after watching him for a while.

  He glanced up at her. ‘Now, leave me summat to do, lass, else I shall start to feel I’m not needed.’

  ‘Oh, you’re needed, Mr Appleyard,’ she murmured softly, thinking what might have happened to her by now if it hadn’t been for this kind and generous man.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Eddie said. ‘You’ll be able to do the whitewashing when the mud’s dried enough. How about that?’

  By the time dusk came creeping across the field, the other downstairs room was already weatherproof.

  ‘Joe Wainwright’s promised to come early in the New Year to see to the roof,’ Eddie said, straightening up to ease his aching back. ‘That should make the upstairs rooms inhabitable if you should want to use them.’

  Silently, Anna thought: I won’t be here by then, but she did not want to seem ungrateful. Instead she asked, ‘Do you think you could spare some whitewash for the inside walls? I hate asking for anything – you’ve been so good, but—’

  ‘Course, lass. I should have thought of it mesen.’

  ‘And – and could I have a snare? I could catch rabbits in the woods then.’

  Now Eddie looked doubtful. ‘I’m not too keen on setting traps or snares for wild creatures, love. I don’t like to think of poor animals suffering, you know?’ He pulled off his cap, scratched his head and then replaced his cap. Anna was beginning to notice that this was a habit with him when he was perplexed or anxious, or maybe even embarrassed in some way. ‘Oh, I know I’m a farmer and I raise animals to be killed for meat, but that’s done in a humane way.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Anna said swiftly. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

  On Christmas Eve, in the late afternoon, there was a knock at the door. Anna’s heart beat faster and her throat was dry as, standing in the shadows, she edged close to the window to see who was standing outside. When she saw the slight figure of the boy, she let out the breath she had been holding and opened the door with a genuine smile of welcome that widened when she saw the expression of apology on his face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he blurted out.

  ‘Whatever for?’ Anna said, pretending not to understand and, so that he would not have to explain his earlier childish petulance, she added swiftly, ‘I know you can’t come every day to see me.’ She pulled the door wider, inviting him inside. ‘But it’s nice to see you when you can.’

  She became aware that his coat was bulging, as if he was carrying something clutched to his chest.

  ‘I’ve brought you a Christmas present,’ he said.

  ‘You shouldn’t have . . .’ Her voice faded away as she realized that the ‘something’ he carried was wriggling and pushing its way out from beneath his coat. A tiny wet nose appeared and then the silky black and white head of a collie puppy.

  ‘Oh!’ Reaching out with trembling hands, she whispered, ‘For me? Is it really for me?’

  The boy nodded, grinning broadly now, his earlier awkwardness forgotten. ‘Me dad knows this farmer whose bitch had puppies a while back. It’s all right. It’s ready to leave its mother.’ He handed the squirming creature to her.

  Anna held the puppy against her breast and stroked its head, whilst it licked at her hand. ‘Oh thank you, Tony, thank you,’ she murmured. ‘He’s lovely.’

  ‘You’ll have to think of a name for him and when he’s bigger you can train him to be a good sheep dog. Rip is,’ he added proudly. ‘Me dad trained him. He’d tell you what to do.’

  For a brief moment, the girl’s eyes clouded and seemed to take on a faraway look.

  ‘What are you going to call him?’

  Without even stopping to give thought to her choice, she said at once, ‘Buster.’

  ‘Buster,’ the boy repeated, trying out the name aloud. Then he grinned and nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s a nice name. Buster. I’ll bring you an old basket out of the barn tomorrow and—’

  ‘It’ll be Christmas Day. You mustn’t come tomorrow. Your
mam—’ Her voice trailed away.

  ‘Well, as soon as I can then.’

  Rip was barking outside the cottage and the boy said, ‘I’ll have to be off.’

  The puppy made all the difference to Anna. He demanded her constant attention and his antics brought the long-forgotten smile more readily to her mouth.

  Tony landed with a thump on the end of his parents’ double bed. ‘Wake up. Wake up. It’s Christmas Day.’

  There were grunts and groans from both his mother and father.

  ‘Whatever time is it?’

  ‘It’s not light yet. Go back to bed for a bit. There’s a good lad.’ Eddie was burrowing further beneath the covers, trying to recapture sleep.

  ‘But I want to open my presents.’ A plaintive note crept into the boy’s tone. ‘Don’t you want to see me open my presents?’

  Bertha roused herself and threw back the covers. ‘Course we do, love. Come on, Eddie, stir ya’sen. T’ain’t Christmas every day.’

  She pulled on her old dressing gown and pushed her feet into well-worn slippers. ‘I just ’ope Father Christmas has remembered to bring me summat an’ all.’

  ‘Oh Mam,’ Tony laughed. ‘There isn’t a Father Christmas.’

  His mother pretended to look scandalized. ‘What do you mean? Course there is. Who else do you think brings you all them presents? Enough to fill a pillowcase?’

  Tony grinned and bounced up and down on the end of the bed. ‘You do, Mam.’

  ‘Well, I believe in Father Christmas,’ she declared, her slippers flapping across the linoleum-covered floor. ‘Not much else to believe in,’ she muttered in a low voice so that the boy would not hear. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go an’ see what he’s left you.’

  As the woman descended the stairs, grunting with each heavy tread, the boy scrambled to the top of the bed. ‘Dad, Dad!’ he whispered urgently. ‘What about the girl? She’ll be all alone. And it’s Christmas. Are you going to see her today?’

  Eddie yawned and stretched. ‘I’ll try, lad. But don’t you go. Not today. Your mam’ll want you to stay here today.’