The Boy with No Boots

by Sheila Jeffries

  ‘You’re a nice pony, Polly,’ he said. ‘In fact you’re lovely. I didn’t know how lovely a horse could be.’

  He leaned on her for a moment, his arm across her warm back, and wondered what it would be like to ride. Better not push his luck, he thought, especially after what Polly had been through that morning. A sense of togetherness settled into Freddie’s heart as he plodded on with Polly. He liked the quiet way she walked beside him; it had an ambience of trust and acceptance. Freddie felt he had been walking alone all his life through lanes and fields and streets, and now he was no longer alone. It wasn’t just Polly’s company. It was Kate. He carried her now, in his soul. They had shared that shining sanctuary of peace, for a moment when time had stood still, and even though Kate was unconscious, he felt that she knew. They had bonded in spirit. Freddie was concerned for her, but he wasn’t worried. He knew in his prophetic mind that she was going to recover.

  The distant chimes of the Hilbegut Court clock interrupted his thinking. Twelve o’clock. Lunchtime at school. He must be home at the usual time. He planned to say nothing to his parents about his secret day, unless they asked, and then he would tell the truth. The time was coming when he would have to detach from them, stand up for himself. He was nearly fourteen, old enough to work, and he didn’t want to be a baker.

  The chimneys of Hilbegut Farm were coming into view now, and Polly had lifted her head, pricked her ears and was stepping out with new energy. Freddie walked with that thought going like a chant in time with his footsteps: ‘Won’t be a baker. I won’t be a baker. I won’t . . .’

  The stone lions stared beyond him into the distance as he passed through the gate. After many secret visits in his childhood, he knew them well. They were old, and slightly different, covered in cream and soot-black lichens, both were snarling into the landscape, so alive that Freddie imagined them shaking the rain from their curly manes filling the air with droplets made fiery by the sun.

  Passing through the gateway was a different sensation, as if the lions guarded a world from which he had been banned. Now Polly was taking him through, eagerly, and he felt a sense of gratitude, as if he had broken a seal, a way into fields of gold.

  Ethie sat miserably in the hospital waiting-room on a brown leather chair. She felt grubby and unfeminine in her farm gear, her hair matted and dirty, her skin so prickly that she longed to run to the river and plunge her head into cool water. She wanted to strip naked, hurl her farm clothes into a dustbin, and wash and wash until the sweat and the pimples and the guilt had gone. The river would sweep her far out to sea, under the waves like a water baby, and transform her into a beautiful being whose captivating charm would guarantee eternal forgiveness.

  Her parents would never forgive her for what she had done to Kate, and to Polly. She hadn’t done it by mistake. She’d done it with a hatred, so strong it had driven her mercilessly like a demon on her shoulders. Ethie felt suicidal, and she didn’t know how to deal with it.

  She’d wanted to sit with Kate, be there when she opened her eyes, and say sorry, and Kate would forgive her like she always did. But the nurses had refused, stiffly, and Kate had been wheeled away on a squeaking trolley into the mysterious disinfected interior. Hours passed while the hospital clanked and rustled around her and every time the door opened Ethie jumped nervously, but nurses and other patients came and went, taking no notice of her.

  At last her mother arrived with Joan, and Joan looked at Ethie kindly.

  ‘Any news?’ she asked.

  ‘No. They won’t tell me anything,’ said Ethie.

  ‘And are you feeling better, my dear?’

  Ethie looked at Joan gratefully. No one usually called her ‘my dear’. But she’d cried all her tears. She looked apprehensively at her mother, reading the darkness in her eyes as anger.

  ‘I couldn’t help it,’ she said. ‘We just got there and Polly was startled by the train. She . . .’

  Sally gave Ethie a hug, patting her back reassuringly. ‘Don’t you distress yourself, Ethie. We’ll talk about it tomorrow when you’ve had a bath and a rest. We just have to keep calm now and everything will be all right.’

  Her kind words soothed her troubled daughter like hot cocoa.

  ‘Kate’s going to be all fine, you’ll see,’ said Joan.

  The door opened again and a doctor in a white coat came in with a nurse fluttering beside him.

  ‘Are you Mrs Loxley?’ he asked.

  ‘I am.’ Sally’s eyes flickered with anxiety.

  ‘Your daughter is basically all right,’ he said. ‘She’s conscious now. She’s got a cut at the back of her head which we’ve stitched and bandaged. We’ve checked her thoroughly and everything is fine. She needs rest, that’s all, to get over the concussion.’

  Sally collapsed into a chair. ‘Oh – thank God. Thank God,’ she wept, and seemed incapable of saying anything else until she’d composed herself.

  ‘You can see her in just a few minutes,’ said the doctor. ‘The nurse will fetch you.’

  Sally nodded, her eyes misty. ‘Our beautiful Kate,’ she whispered. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose her. She’s such a – a light – a shining light.’

  ‘Freddie was right, wasn’t he?’ said Joan. ‘And he’s such an extraordinary young man.’

  And Ethie glowered, thinking again of how she might float away in the river and become a beautiful sea nymph.

  Kate lay quietly in the starched white bed, her eyes roaming around the unfamiliar hospital ward, her head tightly bandaged and her dark plaits, still with the red ribbons, over her shoulders. She was glad to be lying so comfortably, against a stack of pillows, and glad to be opposite a window which looked out on a clump of elm trees and the rooftops of Monterose. Hundreds of sparrows fussed on the roof tiles, and she could hear them chirruping, reminding her of the farmyard at home. Her school uniform was neatly folded on the chair next to her bed, and someone had put a jug of water and a glass on the table for her. She was fascinated by the nurses who glided to and fro like sailing boats. To find that someone so strict and efficient was also kind and cheerful was inspiring to Kate. Once she felt well enough to talk she asked so many questions that eventually the ward sister told her to be quiet and rest.

  ‘She’s a chatterbox,’ she heard her saying.

  ‘Where have I heard that before?’ Sally came into the ward and straight to Kate’s bed. Tears poured down her cheeks.

  ‘Don’t cry, Mummy. I’m all right.’

  ‘I know. Silly, aren’t I? These are good tears, Kate. Oh, I’m so, so thankful you’re all right.’

  ‘What about Daddy?’ asked Kate.

  ‘He’s not very well, dear. He’s got to stay in bed for two weeks. Doctor’s given him some medicine – let’s hope it works. Hope and pray.’

  ‘And Ethie? Was Ethie hurt like me?’

  ‘No, she wasn’t,’ said Sally carefully. ‘But she’s deeply upset, and sorry too.’

  Kate was quiet. It wasn’t the first time she’d puzzled and soul-searched over Ethie’s behaviour. She decided not to say anything further, sensing that her mother had enough to deal with.

  ‘I want to be a nurse, Mummy,’ she said seriously, and then another question surfaced. ‘What about Polly? Poor Polly, she was exhausted. She was sweating and she lost a shoe, and Ethie made her – made her gallop on the road when she didn’t want to . . .’

  Seeing her daughter close to tears Sally just hugged her quietly, rocking her a little.

  ‘You stay calm, dear. Polly is fine. A nice young man brought her home, walked all the way with her. Freddie, he said his name was.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kate’s eyes widened. ‘I know him.’

  ‘No, you don’t. He’s a big boy, not anyone from school that you know.’

  ‘Oh, but I do,’ said Kate. ‘He was with me when I was lying in the road.’

  ‘But how would you know that, Kate? You were out cold for two hours.’

  ‘I saw him, Mummy. I did. He was with me, and he
held my hand between his hands, and he had the bluest of blue eyes,’ insisted Kate, ‘and he . . .’

  ‘He what?’

  ‘Don’t think I’m being silly, Mummy, but – he was like a guardian angel in ordinary clothes, a brown coat and a cap, and he made me better.’

  Chapter Ten

  THE LONELINESS OF BEING DIFFERENT

  Freddie lay awake that night, his face turned towards the sky. The harvest moon whitewashed the flaking paint on the open window, and lit up the treasures he kept there, his collection of bird’s feathers, a chunk of alabaster, his tins and matchboxes, and Granny Barcussy’s nature book. The night air smelled of cider and soot. As always, Freddie was listening to the owls in the distant countryside, his mind filtering out the sounds of the town. The owls made him feel at home again, where he felt he belonged.

  But he did pay attention if a motorcar drove past the bakery, sometimes even getting out of bed to watch the beam of headlights cutting through the darkness.

  Engines fascinated him and he studied them at every opportunity. Today he’d had his first ever ride in one. Joan had driven him back from Hilbegut in her majestic Model T Ford, with its polished burgundy bonnet and silvery headlamps. She’d let him crank it for her, to start it, and he’d felt a buzz all up his spine when the engine responded, first with a splutter, then settling into a business-like rhythm.

  ‘When you’re old enough, you can have a go,’ Joan promised, and Freddie was in awe of her as she confidently handled the huge metal beast, her bony arms steering it wildly through the lanes. He’d never been so fast in his life. Seeing hedges and trees whizzing past was strange and different, feeling the wind on his cheeks, and his legs vibrating as the car hurtled along the stony road.

  He sat next to Kate’s mother in the back, but they didn’t talk. Sally clutched her hat with one hand and the back of Joan’s seat with the other, sitting straight and alert as if she was driving herself. When they swept to a halt outside Monterose Hospital, Sally turned and looked at him.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for bringing Polly home. I don’t know who you are – but I’m very grateful.’

  Aware that he was playing truant from school, Freddie chose not to tell her he was Freddie Barcussy from the bakery. He just said, ‘Kate is going to get better, I know it.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I just do.’ Freddie looked directly into Sally’s surprised eyes and said no more. He thanked Joan for the ride, allowed himself one glance at the hospital where Kate was, and sprinted home through the wide streets of Monterose, reaching the bakery at his usual time of ten past four.

  Sad that he couldn’t tell his parents about this secret day, he’d gone to bed with his mind on fire.

  The sound of the Model T Ford had set up home in his mind, a sound that was both satisfying and disturbing, like a new voice on earth.

  The wooden clock in his bedroom seemed to tick faster and faster, and at two o’clock in the morning he got up, lit a candle and counted the clump of money tied in his hanky. It included the precious florin Joan had given him and he spent some time examining it in the candlelight. There were a few sixpences too, and in total he had earned ten shillings and ninepence. Breathing hard with excitement he prised open the floorboard under his bed and added the money to his hoard which was tied in a grey woollen sock, now so heavy that it had to be picked up with both hands.

  Nothing had happened for years, and then so much had been packed into one day. His first experience of leading a pony, his nostalgic walk back to Hilbegut, the stone lions, the motorcar. All these events were stacked precariously in his mind and right in the middle was a window of honey-coloured light where he kept the memory of Kate.

  Freddie sat on his bed in the candlelight and thought about her. The more he stared at the flame, the brighter it shone, growing tall with an edge of sapphire blue. Deep in its orange heart was an inviting archway. In his imagination he stepped through it, the flame was behind him, and he stood alone in a world of dazzling light. It was unlike any place he knew and yet he felt instantly at home there. The light energised and refreshed him, and in the bright core of the blaze was the face of an angel. He tried to see the wings, but the shifting patterns of iridescence were too swift. The eyes of the angel were all the colours of water, their expression imbued with wisdom and patience.

  A voice called to him out of the light, its resonance infusing every shimmering strand like the wind blowing through wheat fields. He listened, and let the voice echo through him, through his hair, his skin, and the tips of his fingers.

  ‘Many years will pass. Be patient. Be true to yourself. And, when the golden bird returns, you will meet her again.’

  Drawing a breath from the night air, he returned with a jolt to his candlelit bedroom.

  The words soaked into him, but Freddie had no idea what they meant. A golden bird? What golden bird? Mentally he ticked the ones he knew – a yellow hammer, a goldfinch, a canary. None of them fitted. He reached for Granny Barcussy’s nature book which he kept by the bed. It was navy blue with the title embossed in gold letters, and inside was a cornucopia of painted illustrations and descriptions. Now he could feel her next to him, eagerly turning the pages in the dim candlelight, turning them faster and faster until a golden bird was there on the page, eating rowan berries from a branch. A golden oriole! He had it. Oriole Kate. She was named after a golden bird, and according to the text it was a rare visitor, and that described Kate perfectly, he thought, satisfied.

  He’d never seen Kate properly, never looked into her eyes. He wanted to go down to the hospital with a bunch of roses. Red roses he’d give her. He drifted to sleep, threading the angel’s words into the fabric of his life.

  In the morning he awoke disturbed by a sense of foreboding. Mechanically he got up and helped Levi with the bread. They worked silently together putting batch after batch of risen loaves into the ovens, cottage loaves and tin loaves, French bread and the heavy lardy cake. He looked just once into his father’s eyes as he packed the bicycle basket.

  ‘You do your best at school today,’ said Levi.

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  ‘Don’t go telling no lies.’

  ‘No, Dad.’

  ‘You know what I mean, Freddie. If you can’t tell the truth, then keep quiet.’

  Levi’s drooping eyes looked at Freddie for a long moment, a moment he was to remember for the rest of his life.

  ‘And look after your mother.’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  Freddie cycled off on the cumbersome bicycle into the misty morning. He didn’t feel like going to school after yesterday’s excitement. School seemed totally irrelevant. He didn’t want to go, ever again.

  Everyone in Monterose was gossiping about the accident at the station, and people came to look at the broken cart which was still lying there next morning with ‘Gilbert Loxley, Farmers, Hilbegut Farm’ painted proudly on the side of the cart.

  ‘A disgrace, that’s what it is.’

  ‘It was the older daughter. Etheldra Loxley. She drove that poor pony like a mad woman. And her little sister in the back. Shame on her.’

  ‘Could have killed someone.’

  The gossip went on circulating until it reached the bakery.

  Annie was coping happily with the queue. She loved being in the shop with the warm fragrance of freshly baked loaves. She enjoyed taking them down from the shelf and wrapping them in clean paper, then taking the money and chatting pleasantly. It was her ideal life. She didn’t have to go out. Levi was there, and he was proud of what he had achieved, the bakery business was thriving. Freddie was nearly fourteen. Once he left school the business would do even better. Annie was satisfied that her son’s life was mapped out for him.

  Until it all changed.

  ‘I saw your Freddie was there yesterday, at the station,’ said a woman in a brown and white gingham dress.

  Annie frowned at her. ‘What do you mean, Gladys? Freddie is at school tha
t time of the morning.’

  ‘He wasn’t yesterday.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ Gladys had a piercing voice that filled the shop. ‘Your Freddie was there. I saw him myself. And he was a good lad too.’

  ‘What time was this?’ Annie asked, and the sudden sharpness in her voice brought Levi out from the bakery, brushing the flour from his hands.

  ‘Half past ten.’

  ‘Half past TEN?’ said Annie in astonishment. ‘Freddie should have been in school.’

  ‘Oh – well.’ Gladys winked. She stood there with her hand on the loaf she had chosen, the rest of the queue listening. ‘You know what these lads are. Boys will be boys, won’t ’em?’

  ‘And what was he doing? Are you sure it was Freddie?’

  ‘’Course it were. I know Freddie, he brings the bread round,’ said Gladys, relishing the story. ‘Well, I looked after the older girl, she was in a proper state, and Freddie was with the little ’un who got hurt so bad. And then he offered to lead the pony home, all the way to Hilbegut. Good of him.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘And I’ll bet he enjoyed his lift back in Joan Jarvis’s posh new motorcar!’

  Levi spoke then and the whole shop fell silent.

  ‘Are you telling me that our Freddie was down there? And that he took some pony out to Hilbegut?’

  ‘That’s right, Sir.’ Gladys looked staunchly at him over her brown and white gingham bust.

  Levi’s face went purple.

  ‘Right.’ With his big hands trembling he took off his baker’s apron and hat and turned to Annie. ‘You mind the shop. I’m going up the school, right now.’

  The queue parted like the Red Sea to let Levi pass through, the whites of his eyes gleaming angrily. He took two strides into the street, and crashed to the ground, groaned and lay still, his huge body stretched out on the cobbles.