I shook my head. She handed me the white plastic tub which had been emptied of all its dirty cargo. ‘Let’s get things finished now.’
If I took my time, they would all be gone and I could collect up the glasses. His glass. Her glass. The ones they’d their hands around so easily in the sunshine.
Last Walk
I walked home exhausted from the pub, changed clothes, stared at the dark end of my room.
Algie? Algernon?
I sat on my bed. What an idiot I was. Maggie was right.
Total idiot, you are Abes. You just threw yourself at him. I blew my nose. I needed Algie.
‘Algernon Keats? Where are you?’ He was here somewhere.
I just couldn’t see him. Finally I spotted a hand poking out from under my bed.
‘Miss Budde?’ His voice sounded thin and gravelly, far away.
‘Algie, what are you doing under there? Come out.’
Algie coughed violently. He was still lying half under my bed, his whole body trembling, his forehead covered in sweat.
‘Oh, you poor thing. Let me help you.’
He pulled himself out and sat up leaning against the bed.
‘What’s wrong, Algie? I know I’ve hardly seen you recently but I’m all right now.’ I’m all right now. ‘I’m going to spend much more time with you.’
‘Miss Budde. Tonight. Walk with me.’
‘All right, I will, Algie, but please, call me Rebecca, won’t you?’
‘Rebecca.’
The room was colder than I’d ever known it, my breath hung in front of my face, despite the warmth of summer. It was July the 24th, 1974. Poor Algernon, his hands were icy cold, his skin as pale as moonlight. He looked at me with his sad lovely eyes. ‘Rebecca,’ he said, slowly, softly. ‘Rebecca.’ The way he said my name nearly broke my heart.
We ate. I don’t know what.
‘Complete and utter bastards,’ said my father. ‘They have bombed the Tower of London and achieved what? Nothing at all, except misery.’
‘We’ll call Maggie tonight. See how she’s going with all of this.’
‘Yes, we’ll call her. I’m sure she’s fine. It’s a pity everyone else isn’t.’
‘Eat up, Rebecca.’
How could I eat? Everything felt sad.
I helped my mother with the washing-up without complaining. I went back up to my room.
Emily came in and bounced on the bed a few times.
‘You’re no fun anymore, Rebecca.’ She walked out again. I went downstairs.
Eight o’clock, still light. I felt nervous, skittish like a horse, something was coming my way. I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t want to know but I knew somehow that I couldn’t avoid it.
Standing on the dry dusty path opposite the house was Flora Shillingham. I walked over to see her, an awful feeling growing inside me.
‘Hello, Flora, I haven’t seen you for a while.’
‘Hello, dear.’ She stared at me, sniffed the air like a dog.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Well now, dear, it’s one of those times.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s not well, is he?’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘The energy’s changing, dear, and, well, it comes to us all.’
She bowed her head. She was waiting for Algernon. There was a crow perched on the balcony, cocking its beady eyes one way, then the other.
I will not come. I have seen this once before.
No, Augusta, I will not listen to you now.
‘No, Flora, not now, some other time—later, later in the year, or next year.’
‘No, dear, it has to be this way. He knows. He’s had his time. Come on now. Don’t start crying. Here he comes.’
Algie walked slowly through the gate and over the road to where we stood. I could see the effort straining his face, his skin white like fog, cold like frost.
No, don’t be silly, we’re just going for a walk, like we always have done, him and me, walking in the evening air.
He held my arm and I held his, barely able to feel his thinness.
I didn’t know what else to do so I patted the back of his thin cold hand. I swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump in my throat. For the first time I could see the lines appearing on his precious face, his slow measured steps scuffing the dust over his black boots. Flora squeezed my hand as we passed by, but I said nothing. She walked behind us, an escort through the trees.
As we walked, the world knew Algernon was dying. His bones felt light, like the bones of a fragile bird. The weight of his body against mine was lighter still. Sadness seeped through me. My heart ached, literally ached inside my chest. Through the midsummer wood, deep under the trees we walked. Every minute or so we had to stop so Algie could get his breath.
He was filling the place up with mist, with fog.
‘We don’t need to go on. Let’s stop here.’ His face was whiter than I’d ever seen it.
He shook his head. ‘Keep going. Walk.’ He knew where he wanted to go.
Flora stopped, waited, her look was tender, concerned, she was trying to make this as easy as she could but there was nothing easy about it.
Algie and I stumbled down the rocky path to the field.
Ears of yellow wheat leaned forward to touch his hand.
Swallows darted high above our heads. Home, they said, home, Algernon is going home. The sky lay over us, huge and dark and everywhere.
I opened the five-bar gate and closed it again behind us.
Algie sank back into me. It was enough. He could go no further.
I held him lightly in my arms, leaning against the gate. I didn’t know how to do this. ‘What do we do now? What do we do?’
‘Lay me down,’ he said. ‘Rebecca, lay me down.’
‘I can’t.’ I was still holding him, struggling with him in my arms. ‘No, Algie, no.’
‘Lay me down.’
Flora was nowhere to be seen, it was just Algie and me.
Sweat poured down his body he was shaking uncontrollably.
‘Help me with this. Please’.
I tugged his stick-thin shoulders from his jacket and he lay on the ground, chest rising and falling. Deep breaths in, slowly out. His hair stuck to his face. I pushed it away. Gently, gently in my arms like a dying bird. Trembling in his clothes: his shirt, his trousers, his so-familiar boots.
He whispered my name. Rebecca Budde.
I felt the weight of his thin body in mine. I was shivering now and could not stop.
He pressed his hands into mine. Now you are ready.
Tears and snot dripped down my face. ‘Not yet,’ I said, barely able to speak for crying. ‘Not yet.’ He took a huge deep breath and began to shake violently all over.
‘Don’t go, Algie, please. Don’t go.’
His large eyes looked at me, his breath came awkwardly.
‘This is my last unsung horizon. These are the last words I will speak.’ His chest heaved up and down.
‘It’s all right, Algie, shh, don’t try and speak.’
Another laboured breath.
‘It’s all right, my darling, shh, I will say them, Algie. I will say them for you.’
His chest rose up and down one more time, then he gave a last terrible shudder and was still. His hand clenched mine and stayed clenched, not moving. His chest did not rise again.
His fingers did not move. Trees bowed their great green heads.
Gusts of wind howled over the field. Cloud shadows fled across the grass. From the trees the crows called in melancholy voices to the sky. With every second that passed he slid slowly from my arms. I tried and I tried to hold him but my arms were shaking and small drops of rain pelted the ground. Tears ran down my face. For a second the world stood still. There was no one beside me. Alone and alone and alone. I buried my face in the grass and wept. Choking and gulping on sadness. I lay on his jacket for a long time, wet and crumpled on the
ground.
How long I lay there I did not know. A strange light hung in the sky, a light growing from the corner, moving along the whole field. The breeze grew warmer and warmer, the light growing stronger, and there was Flora, in the middle of the field, arms outstretched, calling all the spirits of the earth to join me weeping in the corner of a field.
Void
My mother spoke into the void. ‘Breakfast is ready. Please come down now.’
But I didn’t feel like eating. I stayed in my room.
All that time my mother asked me, ‘Do you want supper?’
All that time I replied, ‘No thank you. I’m not hungry.’
Sometimes I heard the telephone ring, but it was never for me. And if it had been, I wouldn’t have had anything to say. I walked around inside myself. Nothing beside me. I breathed and the world expanded, I closed my eyes and he became real again, but when I opened them there was nothing.
I sat on the floor leaning against the edge of my bed.
Eventually my mother poked her head around the door. ‘Everything all right?’ She knew she had to tether me back to earth. ‘Have an early night. Read a book. A thriller. Something different. Maybe you’re coming down with something. Here’s some extra vitamin C. The ones you like.’
I sat on the balcony for hours that night scouring the sky for shooting stars, but there were none. I felt as if someone had taken the lid off me and there was nothing inside. I was empty, rattling around in my room. I didn’t want to go to work. What was the point of it? Doing the same things again and again for the rest of my life. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I didn’t want to think about Alex March. Or his fiancée. Or Italy. Or anything. It all made me feel worse. I cleaned out my desk.
Another week went by. My fingers crept over to the wardrobe with the usual mess. A slight indent on my clothes where someone may have sat. So many twigs and leaves, and the shoebox with his stones. I ran my fingers through them; they were warm, something he had never been. How could they be warm sitting in a shoebox in my wardrobe? I put all my clothes into neat little piles, swept out all the twigs and leaves and put the shoebox back in the bottom of my wardrobe. I found no hidden notes, no inky pieces of paper, my pen was right where he had left it on the desk. I wasn’t going to read my journal. That could wait. I left the wardrobe door open, half hoping he might appear again. I sat at my desk with a head full of nothing.
A voice was coming up the stairs. ‘Hello, hello?’ Flora’s darting foxy head popped round my bedroom door. ‘Your mother said it would be all right to come up. May I sit here?’
‘Sure.’
She sat on my bed. ‘I’ve brought a little something for you.’
‘Nettle tea?’
‘Oh no, dear, something much nicer than that. This is what I call my better rub.’ Flora produced a small plastic pot covered with silver foil held in place with a rubber band. ‘Smell.’
A strong smell of mint and hedge and grass and thyme and something really strong, like whisky—or was it brandy?—crept into my brain through my nostrils.
‘God! Flora, what is in there?’
‘You rub a little on your temples—just a little, mind—and on the insides of your wrists, and it makes you feel better. It works like magic.’
I sniffed it again. ‘But it’s not magic, is it?’
‘Well, strictly speaking, no, but it will have a beneficial effect.’
I let Flora rub some on my wrist and sniffed it a few times.
‘Now then,’ she said, ‘all this will pass.’ Then she whispered in my ear, ‘Do you know where the other one is?’
‘No, I don’t—and to tell you the truth, I don’t really care. Maybe she’ll go too, maybe her time’s up and she’s gone.’
‘You could be right. Let me know if you need any help with anything, though, won’t you, dear? Mind how you go now. Nice seeing you again. Pop around any time.’
She left behind a wild smell of fresh thyme and mint.
‘It smells lovely in here,’ said Mum when she came up to my room later. ‘I’ve brought you a nice bowl of chicken soup; that always makes you feel better.’
I sipped it slowly.
Emily came in carrying a parcel under her arm. She looked happy and excited so I tried to ignore her. ‘Alex March left this for you. He said to open it when you felt like it.’
‘When did he bring it?’
‘Last week. When you wouldn’t come out of your room. He said, “I’ve brought her a present.”’
‘Careful! You’ll break the bloody thing.’
She handed me the parcel. Wrapped in brown paper. A thin gold frame. A painting. A field. Deep green foreground, dark green smudges that looked like trees, if you took five steps back from the painting. They looked exactly like the great oaks in the corner of the field. In the centre of the canvas was a girl in a long dark dress, her long dark hair surrounded by a huge white wash of mist. Her face was turned away, looking down, at the ground. The longer I looked the more I could see pale shapes stepping through the paint. The Brightley Lights. This was how he told his secrets. Not all of his secrets, though. Not all. Some he didn’t tell at all.
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘He said he’d come and see you before he goes so he can say goodbye and thank you for all your help.’
‘Where’s he going?’
Emily shrugged. ‘Italy. He said he’s taking his dog with him now. And his fiancée. Bet you didn’t know he had one. Flora says he goes there every summer. She says it’s the perfect place for him.’
‘She’s Italian,’ I said, as if that was what really mattered.
Mum and Dad came in to my room and inspected the painting. ‘Well that is lovely,’ said Mum. ‘But I don’t think he’s painted you very well. Is that meant to be you, Rebecca? That’s not your hair, is it? Too long, not enough curls.’
My father had never liked Alex March and tried hard not to like his painting. ‘Well, he’s captured something.’ I knew what my father was thinking. Was that a painting of his daughter at night walking through a field? And what did they get up to?
‘It’s the donkey field,’ said Emily. ‘Why hasn’t he painted the donkeys?’
‘You don’t have to paint everything you see,’ I told her.
‘You have to leave something for people to imagine.’
‘It would still be better with the donkeys.’
My parents left me to it. They weren’t asking too many questions. They could see by my face that I didn’t know the answers. They went down to their solace at the bottom of the garden. I watched them from Emily’s room. They were chatting to the lettuces, occasionally flapping their hands in the air to shoo away the midges and the evening circus of insects that tumbled around our faces in the summer.
I went back to my room and propped the painting on my desk and stared at it. He hadn’t promised me anything, had he?
A large black crow perched on the balcony. Augusta? Was it her? I wasn’t sure.
‘What’s wrong with you, why are you always moping about?’ said Emily.
‘I’ve been sick.’
‘No, you haven’t been sick. Mum said you were sad, that’s all. There’s a difference. Anyway, I’ve got something important to tell everyone.’
‘What?’
‘Guess.’
‘Tell me.’
‘No. Guess who’s coming to open the Brightley fete at the end of August. It’s sorted. I can tell it now.’
‘Emily, I don’t actually care who’s coming to open the stupid fete.’
‘Just one guess?’
‘Oh, all right. Rod Stewart?’
‘Yuck.’
‘David Cassidy?’
‘I asked him but he didn’t reply to me,’ said Emily, clearly disappointed.
‘He’s vile anyway.’
‘Someone really exciting is coming. You’ll never believe it.’ She bounced up and down.
‘Stop bloody bouncing.’
&nb
sp; ‘You guess and I’ll stop.’
‘ABBA?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t care.’
Emily sat back against the wall and crossed her arms.
‘Rebecca, come on, I’m finally allowed to say. It’s so exciting.’
‘I am tired so shut up and leave me alone. The only person Dad wants to open the stupid fete is the Queen.’
She jumped up and down, clapping her hands. ‘Well, guess what, guess what, guess what?’ She danced around my room flapping a piece of paper.
When I’d read it I flew down the stairs into the kitchen with Emily yelling behind me.
Mum was back in from the garden and making a cup of tea. Emily was practically screaming at her over the kitchen table. ‘You’re never going to believe it!’
‘Please, Emily, quieten down.’
‘Guess who is going to come and open the Brightley fete? Guess!’ The veins in my little sister’s neck stood out in her excitement. ‘Are you ready? Are you ready for Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips to come and open our fete?’
My mother calmly sipped her tea. ‘I’m sure that’s a lovely idea.’
Emily was bright red in the face and still dancing about the kitchen waving her letter. ‘They said they would love to come to the beautiful village of Brightley. It will give them great pleasure to attend. We have to please understand that the Queen can’t come, but they can and they’re going to come to Brightley. THEY’RE COMING HERE!’
‘What? I don’t believe you!’ Mum snatched the letter from Emily. She read it, looked at Emily, read it again, looked at me, stood up, sat down. ‘Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips? Coming here? Why would they want to do that?’
‘I asked them. I wrote to them ages ago and asked them and they said yes.’
‘Is this letter real? You didn’t write this as some kind of joke on Emily did you, Rebecca?’
I shook my head. ‘No I did not.’
‘Well goodness me—that’s wonderful,’ said Mum, still looking bewildered. ‘Emily. Are you sure? You’re not just making this up?’ She reread the letter. The paper was thick and creamy, like all the best paper, and at the top, in the middle, unmistakably, was the royal crest. Mum clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘They’re coming! They’re coming here!’ She stood up. ‘Where’s your father? Do either of you know where your father is?’
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