The Boy with No Boots

by Sheila Jeffries

  ‘Oh Freddie.’ Kate reached out and touched the back of his wrist, looking into his face with compassion. ‘Go on.’

  ‘’Tis a miserable story,’ Freddie said, suddenly afraid that he had caused a cloud to drift over their summer picnic. ‘You don’t want to hear all that.’

  ‘I do,’ said Kate, and her eyes never left his face.

  ‘Well – I’m coming to a better bit now.’ Freddie remembered the storytelling tradition in his family, the exaggerations, the silences, and the laughter. He wanted to do that for Kate, turn his miserable tale into something entertaining and positive. ‘I’ll tell you how I got that lorry. Well, one frosty night in the middle of February – hard as diamonds the frost was – I gets up, quiet as a mouse . . .’

  Kate sat spellbound, not moving a muscle as she listened to his story, holding her breath in the silences. She let go of Freddie’s wrist so that he could gesticulate with his long fingers, his eyes beginning to twinkle, his voice still slow and quiet. Then he came to the part where he had escaped down the steep dark street on his bike.

  ‘The bike had no brakes, see? So I went whizzing down there, in the pitch dark, with my legs stuck out straight and sparks flying from my boots . . .’

  He was rewarded with a scream of laughter. Kate doubled over, clutching her stomach with one hand and wiping her eyes with the other. She laughed and laughed as if she would never stop, and Freddie managed to stay po-faced.

  ‘Well ’tis true,’ he said, and that set her off again. Secretly pleased, he continued his story, restraining himself from smiles as he related how he had paid his money into the bank.

  ‘As soon as the doors opened, I went in with my flour sack, dragging it along the floor. Then I stood at the counter taking out the old socks full of money and some of them blue and mouldy, and the hankies, all dusty they were and bursting with coins. And the bank clerk, he didn’t like it. He looked me up and down as if I was a tramp, and he said, “You can’t bring that dirty old stuff in here.” So I looked him in the eye and said – quite politely – “Excuse me Sir, but I can, I’m sixteen and this is legal tender,” and he didn’t like it, but he had to count it all. Took him three quarters of an hour jingling and cussing, and there was a queue behind me right out the door, and they were all grumbling. But I had the last laugh. I came out of there with my money in crisp new bank notes, then I went flying down to the motor yard on me bread bike, and I had that Scammell lorry.’

  He paused to take a breath, and saw that Kate was wanting to say something.

  ‘What a WONDERFUL story, Freddie,’ she said passionately, ‘so funny, and inspiring. Tell me again. I loved it.’

  ‘Well ’tis true. True as I’m sitting here,’ said Freddie, and his smile stretched right to the edges of his face.

  ‘I love to see you smile,’ said Kate and she kissed him impulsively on his smiling cheek.

  Startled and moved by her response, Freddie slipped his arm around her shoulders, feeling the silky dress and her warmth underneath, and she put her hand on his shoulder. For a moment they were both still, feeling each other’s heartbeat, and Freddie buried his chin in the soft lustre of her dark hair. The moment filled with light and stretched into infinity as if it had registered in some ethereal archive.

  He held her in a shell-like hug, afraid of his own strength and of the sudden rush of energy through his body. His pulse wanted to race like a wild horse, yet his mind stayed calm, his inner voice telling him to slow down and savour the intoxicating feel of her satin dress, the way her dark curls were hot from the sunshine as they slipped over his bare arm.

  ‘This is only the beginning,’ he heard himself whisper, but he held back from speaking the words that echoed in his heart, words that Granny Barcussy had fed into his soul. ‘When you love, you must love wisely and slowly.’ Nothing in his life had felt so exquisitely precious as the warm bright silk of Kate in his arms.

  A flock of small birds came bobbing and bouncing out of the woods, their voices tinkling like bells, and the grass around them came alive with fluttering wings.

  ‘Goldfinches,’ whispered Freddie.

  But Kate was listening to something else.

  ‘I can hear your tummy rumbling,’ she said, laughing, and sat up. The goldfinches vanished with a burr of wings. ‘I think it’s time for our DELICIOUS picnic.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE STONE GATEPOST

  Freddie stood in the stonemason’s yard, staring in disbelief at a load of stone which had appeared there. It wasn’t stacked neatly as Herbie would have liked, but tipped in a jumble of old saddle stones, and blocks of golden sandstone, some still joined together with mortar. The stones gave Freddie a strange feeling, as if they had voices and stories to tell, stories locked into the grains of sand and crystal. He looked at the wheel marks in the mud and saw the large hoof prints of a Shire horse, as if the heavy load had been delivered by horse and cart, probably early in the morning before it got too hot. Seeing the hoof prints increased his inexplicable sense of doom.

  Right in the middle of the heap were two round domes of stone carved with curly patterns and covered in moss and lichen. Carvings! With a terrible sense that he was going to discover some unforeseen tragedy, Freddie climbed over the blocks to investigate. Gingerly he cleared a space around one of the domes until he could see a face glaring out at him with blind stone eyes and snarling lips. Shocked, he sat down on a chunk of sandstone, reached out his hands and touched the stone lion’s curly head. It was warm from the August sunshine, but under its chin it was cold as a tomb. Silently he uncovered both the carvings and sat studying them, not wanting to believe the thought that hammered insistently at his mind.

  ‘Mornin’, Freddie!’ Herbie came padding into the yard in his leather apron and dust-covered overalls. ‘’Tis hot,’ he remarked, taking his cap off to let the top of his bald head dry in the sun.

  ‘Mornin’,’ said Freddie.

  ‘You’re looking uncommonly serious,’ observed Herbie. ‘Has your mother been at you again?’

  ‘No,’ said Freddie. He looked at Herbie’s challenging grey eyes. ‘Where did this lot come from, Herb?’

  ‘Hilbegut.’

  Something swept over Freddie like a gust of hot air, charged with emotion. He rubbed the backs of his hands over his eyes, brushing away the tears that prickled in there.

  The stone lions from Hilbegut Farm.

  Something had happened to Kate.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’ said Herbie. ‘The Squire of Hilbegut died weeks ago. And he didn’t have an heir. So his place is just left empty, that great big place with the turrets. And all his tenants in the farms and cottages have got to move. Tragic, ain’t it? Those poor families. Got nowhere to go.’

  ‘So who’s done this?’ asked Freddie. ‘These two stone lions were on the gateposts to Hilbegut Farm.’

  Herbie’s prominent eyebrows drew together in a frown, and he shook his head. ‘Can’t say I know that,’ he said, ‘I only knows what I hears, see? Maybe ’tis gossip, but they say his sister and her family have come over from Canada, and they don’t care nothing about the place. They’re stripping out the carvings and the stone and anything they can sell. They just want the money, see. Then they’ll go off back to Canada and leave Hilbegut to go to rack and ruin. That’s all I know, and ’tis none of my business.’

  Freddie began to shake inside. He made an instant decision. He would unload the stone he’d brought down from the quarry for Herbie, then drive out to Hilbegut and find out for himself. But first . . .

  ‘What about the stone lions?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh – I’ve not really looked at them properly yet,’ said Herbie, ‘but they’ll fetch a lot of money. Rich folks with money to burn buy that sort of stuff.’

  ‘I’d like to buy them,’ said Freddie.

  ‘You couldn’t afford them, Freddie. Come on. What d’you want ’em for anyway? Stick one on the front of your lorry!’ Herbie gave one of his wheezy laughs tha
t went on and on until it ended in a coughing fit.

  Freddie thought about his savings. He’d done well with the haulage business and was planning to buy a second lorry. To blow it all on two stone lions would be foolish.

  Herbie was leaning forward, his eyes looking curiously into Freddie’s soul. ‘So tell me – why do you want them?’

  ‘I’m interested in carving. I’ve watched you a lot,’ said Freddie. ‘I’d like to do it myself.’

  ‘’Tis hard,’ said Herbie, ‘a hard, dusty old job. Makes me cough. And look at me hands. You don’t want to do that, Freddie. You stick to your lorry, if you take my advice. Anyway, I doubt whether you could do a decent stone carving; it’s not as easy as you think.’

  ‘I could,’ said Freddie with unexpected passion. ‘I know I could.’

  ‘So what do you want to carve?’

  ‘An angel.’

  ‘That’s about the hardest thing you could choose.’

  ‘I know I could,’ insisted Freddie, thinking of Kate’s beautiful bewitching young face. ‘I can see it in my mind exactly.’

  Herbie’s eyes looked thoughtful under the bushy brows. He began moving the blocks of stone around as if searching, and heaved out a big lump of sandstone from the Hilbegut gateposts.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, Freddie. This here, this is Bath stone, and it’s easy to carve. If you like, I’ll give you this block, and I’ll bet you can’t carve an angel out of that ’cause I couldn’t.’

  Freddie’s eyes lit up. The angel inside the stone shone out at him. He could see its curved wings, its praying hands and flowing hair, and the tranquillity of its gaze.

  ‘How much d’you bet then, Herbie?’

  ‘A pound.’

  ‘Right. You’re on.’

  The two men shook hands, their eyes glinting at each other. Together they heaved the block of Bath stone into the back of Freddie’s lorry.

  ‘You got any tools?’ asked Herbie.

  ‘A few.’

  ‘Chisels?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’d better lend you some.’ Herbie rummaged in his workshop and came out with a wooden box full of chisels. ‘I don’t want ’em back, Freddie. I got plenty.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Freddie. He itched to take the chisel out and begin to carve the angel still shining in his mind. He had another job to do, hauling timber, and then he would go to Hilbegut.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Kate, stop that crying,’ said Sally briskly. She stood very upright, dressed in her best navy blue dress and hat, the breeze ruffling a few wisps of grey hair that had escaped from her tightly coiled bun. ‘We’ve got to make the best of it.’

  ‘I’m trying to stop,’ said Kate.

  ‘That’s my girl.’ Bertie gave his daughter a fatherly pat on her proud young shoulders.

  ‘I’m not crying,’ gloated Ethie. But she was. Inside her mind, a weather front was coiling itself into a hurricane with storm force winds and rain, just waiting to come sweeping across her new life.

  Together the Loxley family stood on the jetty, watching the ferry boat chugging towards them with its load of passengers. The brown waters of the Severn Estuary swirled with fierce energy, the tide sweeping the boat sideways as it reached the middle of the river. And Bertie said what he always said when they were in the queue at Aust Ferry.

  ‘Fastest tide in the world, they say, except for one in South Africa,’ he said. ‘I’ll warn you girls now. Never, ever go swimming in the Severn. If the mud doesn’t get you, the tide will.’

  ‘Look at that boat,’ cried Ethie. ‘It’s having a real fight to get out of the current.’

  ‘Now it has,’ said Sally, seeing the boat turn and head for the jetty, sending a wide creamy brown wave fanning across the calmer water. ‘Come on now, Kate, you usually enjoy the trip.’

  Kate nodded. Her throat felt dry and sore from unaccustomed crying. She couldn’t believe they were leaving Hilbegut. Everything there was so dear to her. The swing in the barn door, the happy chickens, the sweet-smelling haystacks and the shady elm trees. The beautiful avenue of copper beeches where she’d skipped and played on her trips to deliver milk to the Squire. The home paddock where white Aylesbury ducks, geese, sheep and chickens pottered happily under the branches of the walnut tree. Her lovely bedroom with its window peering out under a brow of thatch where swallows and sparrows nested under the eaves.

  She’d been used to leaving home and going to boarding school, but home had always been there for her to come back to. Now, unexpectedly and with merciless speed, it was gone. Her father was suddenly jobless, homeless and in poor health, her mother stoically trying to hold them all together. The only person who seemed intact was Ethie. But Ethie, Kate thought, hadn’t got a boyfriend to leave behind.

  Kate was breaking her heart over every single duck, chicken and cow. All had gone to auction, except for Polly and Daisy who were loaned to the farm next door until they could be transported to Gloucestershire. Bertie had insisted on the four of them travelling together in a friend’s motorcar, and Kate had been terribly sick all the way to the ferry, giving Ethie another opportunity to say scathingly, ‘For goodness’ sake, Kate, can’t you stop being sick?’ It was either ‘stop crying’ or ‘stop being sick’ or ‘stop mooning over that BOY.’

  Nobody knew how Kate felt about Freddie. Since the day on the hills she’d respected the depth of his artistic soul, the determined pragmatism that had driven him to save his money and build a business, and her admiration for him had grown. She’d found herself longing to be looking into his eyes. They reminded her of the sea, so blue and sparkling, but so deep and so full of immense perception. Freddie hadn’t had an education like she’d had, yet she felt he knew so much more, and when he looked at her she felt a steadiness and a kindliness, a feeling of guardianship, as if Freddie was a harbour and she a boat coming home from a storm.

  Kate was seventeen, and she loved to flirt and laugh with the local lads on the farm, but she had boundaries. Her sexuality felt to her like a secret jewel she must not wear. She made sure that no man touched her, and if they tried she would deflect them in a firm but humorous way, and she felt confident of her ability to do that. It was something Ethie didn’t understand. Ethie ragged her constantly, berating her for being a flirt and a shameless hussy. Kate rarely reacted. She felt sorry for Ethie who seemed cursed with unpleasantness both in her dour appearance and her mood.

  Freddie had only held her for a few moments, but Kate had heard his deep slow heartbeat, and smelled the tweed of his jacket, and sensed the gentleness of his big hands on her back, holding her as if she were a fragile shell. She’d felt a tiny movement as his fingers explored the curls at the ends of her hair, and that had been strangely electrifying, as if her hair itself was sensitive, as if he was touching her whole being. Wary of the intensity, she had pulled away. Now she wished with all her heart that she’d kissed him.

  The throbbing engine of the incoming ferry boat had a finality about it, yet on previous trips it had excited her and set her dancing around on the quay. Something else was pulling at her mind. Kate didn’t want to be a cheese-maker and a farm girl. She wanted to be a nurse. Sally had taken her one day to Yeovil Hospital to enquire about training, and the matron had liked her and said to come back when she was seventeen.

  The boat was pulling in to the jetty, with much hauling of ropes and shouting.

  ‘Stand back. Stand back. Let ’em off,’ shouted the pier attendant, as the ramp was lowered and the first passengers disembarked. Next came the motorbikes and bicycles.

  ‘They say that one day they’ll build a boat that will carry motorcars,’ said Bertie, ‘think of that. A great heavy motorcar being driven onto a boat. But that’s years ahead – years ahead.’

  ‘You say that every time we come here, Daddy,’ Ethie said and strode ahead of them onto the boat. ‘We can get on now.’

  ‘Come on, Kate.’ Sally saw her daughter hanging back, white-faced, and she was sad. She’d never
known Kate so uncannily silent. ‘Come on, dear,’ she encouraged. ‘We’ve got to make the best of it. You stick with your family, girl. Come on – chin up.’

  ‘You’ll feel better when we get settled in,’ said Bertie. ‘And it won’t be easy for Don and his family, having us lot. We’re lucky to have a place to go. Don will be waiting for us over there at Beechley, in his motorcar.’

  ‘At least it’s a farm,’ said Ethie, making a rare attempt to be cheerful. ‘At least we haven’t got to live in a town.’

  Kate squared her shoulders and stepped onto the boat. She went to stand by herself at the back, leaning on the rail so that she could take a last gaze at the land she was leaving. And she thought about the secret letter she’d left tucked into a crack in the wall by the front door. He had to find it, he just had to. Freddie would think she had just abandoned him.

  The sky was plum dark over Monterose as Freddie unloaded the last pine plank into the furniture-maker’s warehouse. Coppery lightning was playing in the distance, illuminating clouds and hilltops. It hadn’t rained for weeks, the earth was cracked, and a haze of dust hung in the air above the streets.

  ‘Cuppa tea, Freddie?’

  ‘No thanks, Bill. I’ve got to go somewhere else before dark,’ said Freddie. He took out his wallet and added the two crumpled pound notes that Bill had paid him. It was four o’clock on a Saturday, and he had a few hours of daylight left. Part of him wanted to go home and start carving the block of stone, but going to Hilbegut seemed more important. He’d been due to see Kate tomorrow, after she’d been to church and had lunch with her family, then she had a few hours before milking time. Since the picnic they’d been meeting most Sundays, spending the time strolling in the lanes around Hilbegut, or sitting by the river. Precious hours for both of them. In the busy lives they had, work came first.