‘Is the platform safe?’ Linn asked.
‘Safe as houses,’ Charlie said.
‘I’ve never swum in my life,’ Robert said. ‘How can I swim if I can’t move my legs?’
‘The chap at the garage said you could and I’m going to teach you,’ Charlie said. ‘You’re not frightened, are you, Rob?’
The boy gave a grin.
‘When are we going to start?’ he asked.
‘We’ll start tomorrow if the weather’s still fine. I’ll come home in my dinner-hour and we’ll get you down into the pond for your first lesson. We’re going to show those ducks a thing or two, you and me, in the water out there. We’re going to make them sit up and stare!’
Here Jack put in a word.
‘It ent only the ducks that’ll stare if you go swimming in that pond without a stitch of clothes on,’ he said. ‘Mrs Ransome’ll have a fit.’
‘Tell Mrs Ransome to stay indoors!’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Linn said. ‘You can’t go swimming in the nude.’
So the first lesson had to wait until she had been into Overbridge and had bought two costumes for them to wear. It was a joke to the man and the boy. They pretended to get their costumes mixed and there was a lot of laughter between them before they were ready for their first bathe.
But underneath all the laughter, when Charlie carried the boy to the pond and stepped with him into the water, there was a certain stillness of thought; a stillness and silence in their hearts as though hope, having secretly gathered there, was lying low, afraid to be heard. And that was the way of it, every day, while Charlie bathed with the boy in the pond: a great many jokes and much merriment; sometimes even a great deal of noise; but underneath it a stillness and silence; a gathering of unspoken thoughts.
The summer was fine and dry that year. It was 1932. There were weeks of sunshine, without any rain, and the long days of June were very hot. And every day, without fail, Charlie would bathe with the boy in the pond, either in his dinner-hour, or in the evening after work.
Robert had no fear of the water, even at the very beginning; he put himself into Charlie’s hand and trusted him absolutely; and within three days he knew how to swim. It mattered not a jot that his legs were useless, floating behind him like two sticks; his arms were strong and they did it all; and whenever Linn came out to watch, he always had some new trick to show her. He would disappear under the water and come up again some distance away or would swim into a bed of reeds and bring her an iris in his mouth.
‘Isn’t the water cold?’ she asked.
‘No, it’s as warm as warm!’ he said.
‘Well, do take care, won’t you?’ she said. ‘Don’t stay under too long at a time.’
But Charlie was always close at hand, watching over the boy as he swam. He never left anything to chance and would haul him out afterwards, up onto the wooden platform, where a clean dry towel hung on the rail.
‘Come on, you porpoise, out of that! You’ve had enough for one day, my lad, and I’ve got work to get back to, mind!’
The boy would hold on to the wooden rail, his hands upon it and his elbows stiff, supporting himself by the strength of his arms. Charlie would pull his wet costume down, until it hung about his waist, and would rub him hard with the rough towel. Then he would wrap him round in it and carry him indoors to get dressed.
Once when they were alone together, sitting on the bank in the warm sun, each drying his hair, Charlie said casually:
‘Is it doing you any good? D’you feel any difference in your legs?’
‘I dunno,’ Robert said, and there was a frown between his eyes. The question had brought a stab of fear and he shied away from it, inwardly, wishing Charlie had never asked. ‘I dunno,’ he said again. ‘I suppose it’s too soon to expect much change.’
‘Ah, that’s right, it’s early days yet. How long’ve you been swimming now? Five weeks? Six weeks? That’s no time at all!’
‘I’ll tell you this much!’ Robert said, and gave a quick laugh, trying to drive the fear away. ‘I’ll tell you this much ‒ I’m enjoying it!’
‘You don’t need to tell me that, my lad. You’d stay in that water all day long if I didn’t drag you out of it. Now you hurry up and dry that hair or you’ll have your mother after you.’
All through that summer, people who passed along the road grew used to seeing Robert and Charlie splashing about in the pond, throwing a big rubber ball to each other or swinging from the ropes that Charlie had hung from the willow trees. Sometimes Mrs Ransome would stand at her garden gate and watch, and her little white terrier dog, excited at seeing the ball tossed about, would run to and fro along the road, yapping shrilly; frantic to join them in their games but too nervous to take to the water.
‘That boy of yours! He swims like an eel!’ Mrs Ransome said to Linn. ‘The things he gets up to in the water there, you’d never dream he was paralysed.’ And once she said hesitantly: ‘Is it doing him any good?’
‘I don’t know. I wish I did.’
Charlie himself had no doubts at all.
‘Of course it’s doing him good,’ he said. ‘He’s enjoying it and it’s making him strong. Why, you’ve only got to look at him to see how strong and healthy he is.’
‘But he still can’t walk,’ Linn said.
‘No, well, these things take time.’
‘How long do you mean to go on?’
‘As long as it takes,’ Charlie said.
‘What about when the summer’s over? It’ll be too cold for swimming then.’
‘I’ll take him to the baths in Overbridge.’ Charlie, turning to glance at her, caught the ghost of a smile in her face. ‘What’re you smiling at?’ he asked.
‘You,’ she said simply. ‘You never give up. You do so much for that boy of mine … You give up so much of your time to him …’
‘I’d give up a whole lot more than that to see our Robert walking again.’
‘Yes, I know you would,’ she said.
Charlie never seemed to lose faith that he would get Robert to walk again. If he ever had any doubts, he kept them carefully to himself. ‘I’ll get you out of that wheelchair even if it kills me!’ he said, and every day, swimming with Robert in the pond or exercising his legs indoors, he watched for signs of change in him.
One day when they swam in the pond the sky was somewhat overcast and a sly wind blew from the east. Charlie, hauling the boy on to the platform and putting him to lean on the rail, saw that he was shivering.
‘Are you cold?’
‘Well, just a bit.’
‘I’ll soon fix that!’ Charlie said.
He snatched the towel from the rail and began rubbing the boy’s body, peeling his bathing-suit down to the waist to get at his shoulders, his back, his chest.
‘I’ll give you gooseflesh!’ he exclaimed, and, stooping, he towelled the boy’s thin legs, rubbing at them with all his strength till the white skin turned red on the calves and thighs.
He put so much energy into the rubbing that he made himself breathless and red in the face, and Robert, supporting himself on the rail, had to grip harder with his hands, bracing himself, his arms stiff and straight, as Charlie’s vigorous work with the towel threatened to rock him off his feet. His head was thrown back; his shoulders were hunched; he gave a sudden laughing shout.
‘That’s enough! I’ll have no legs left!’
‘Why, can you feel it?’ Charlie said.
He stopped rubbing and stood erect, the towel hanging between his hands. The boy turned his head to look at him. Their eyes met in a still, steady stare.
‘Could you feel me rubbing you?’
‘I dunno. Maybe I could.’
‘You made enough fuss,’ Charlie said.
‘Yes, well,’ Robert said. ‘I’m only flesh and blood, you know.’
‘You must’ve felt something, shouting like that.’
‘I dunno. I’m trying to think.’ The boy looked down at his legs and fee
t. He gave a little shaky laugh. ‘You was going at me so hard … I thought you was going to have me over …’
‘Look, I’m telling you,’ Charlie said. ‘You felt something, I’m sure of that.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes, of course you did. You hollered at me to stop rubbing you. You’ve never hollered about it before.’
‘You’ve never rubbed so hard before.’
‘Here!’ Charlie said. ‘Let’s get you indoors.’
He wrapped the towel round the boy and lifted him into his arms. He ran with him into the house. Linn had just come in from work. She was putting a match to the fire in the range. When Charlie ran in with the boy in his arms she looked at them in some alarm because they were both unusually quiet.
‘Is anything wrong?’
‘No, far from it,’ Charlie said. He sat the boy in an upright chair. ‘Rob’s got some feeling back in his legs.’
Linn’s face became very pale. She could not believe what she had heard. She turned from Charlie towards her son and dropped on her knees in front of him. He sat wrapped in the big white towel and Linn, taking hold of it with both hands, drew it tightly across his chest, feeling its wetness, absently. She looked at him with hungry eyes.
‘Is it true what Charlie said? The feeling is coming back at last?’ Her hands moved over his legs, touching his thighs, his knees, his feet. ‘Can you feel me touching you?’
‘No,’ Robert said. He shook his head. ‘I can’t feel anything in them now. It was just something … Out there on the platform … I’m not sure if I felt it or not …’
‘I was rubbing his legs,’ Charlie said, ‘and he suddenly shouted to me to stop.’
‘It’s supposed to begin in the hips,’ Linn said. ‘That’s what they said at the hospital.’ She looked at Robert slumped in his chair. ‘Was that where you felt it? In your hip?’
‘Yes, I think so. The right one, I think.’
‘What was it like, this feeling you had?’
‘Oh …’ Robert said. He tried to think. ‘It was a sort of buzzing,’ he said. ‘Like when you hit your funny-bone … But I can’t be sure if I felt it or not. It could’ve been just my fancy, that’s all.’
‘No,’ Charlie said, ‘you felt it, I’m sure.’
‘Then why can’t I feel it now?’
‘Those legs of yours have been dead for ten months. It’s bound to take a bit of time for them to get back to normal again. But at least it’s started, that’s the main thing. At least we know there’s life in them.’
‘Yes,’ Linn said, ‘at least we know that.’
She rose from her knees and took a dry towel from the string above the hearth. She draped it over Robert’s head.
‘It’s time we got you properly dried. You’ll catch a chill if we don’t watch out.’ Briskly she turned towards Charlie who stood dripping water onto the mat. ‘You, too,’ she said to him. ‘For goodness’ sake get dried and dressed.’ There was some sharpness in her voice and later, when Charlie had eaten his lunch and was going back to work again, she followed him as far as the gate.
‘Did he really feel you rubbing him or did you put the notion into his head?’
‘The boy felt something. I’ll swear to that.’
‘Robert himself is not so sure.’
‘No, and neither are you, it seems.’
‘I think it’s wrong to build up false hopes. You can see how worried he is by it all. It’s all very well to talk about faith but don’t you ever have any doubts?’
‘I never let myself have any doubts ‒ and neither should you.’
‘Knowing how slim his chances are, how can I help it?’ Linn exclaimed.
‘At least you can keep them from Rob,’ he said.
The following morning, as usual, he took Robert to the garage with him. Then, at twelve, he brought him home and they swam together in the pond. It was Friday September the tenth. The day was fairly sunny and warm. Robert lay on his back in the water, letting it lap softly over him.
‘I’m making the most of it while I can. The summer will be over soon. It’ll be too cold to swim here then.’
‘There’s always the swimming-baths in the town.’
‘It’ll take too long, going all that way. You already give up a lot of your time. Then you have to work late at night.’
‘We’ll fix something up. You leave it to me.’
‘Is it worth it?’
‘Of course it is! What about that buzzing in your leg?’
‘I ent felt it since yesterday. If I ever felt it at all.’
‘Give it time, boy. Give it time.’
Together they floated in the water. Then Charlie did a roll.
‘Come on, young Rob, it’s time we were out. I reckon you’ve had your whack for today.’
They swam back to the platform and Charlie scrambled up the steps. He lifted Robert out of the water and set him to lean on the wooden rail. And then Mrs Ransome’s little dog, always alert for a chance of mischief, ran eagerly onto the platform and pulled the towel from the rail.
‘Hi!’ Charlie shouted. ‘Come back, you tyke!’
But the dog was already running away, trailing the towel over the grass, uttering little deep-throated growls, and Charlie had to go after him. He chased the dog along the bank and out into the road itself. There the rough gravel cut his bare feet, slowing him down, but he caught up with the dog at last and, with Mrs Ransome’s help, managed to wrest the towel from him.
He was on his way back round the edge of the pond when Robert gave a sudden cry and he saw that the boy, although leaning forward against the rail, was no longer holding on to it. Instead he stood with his elbows bent and his hands spread out in front of him.
‘Charlie! Look! I can stand by myself!’
Charlie, for an instant, stood transfixed. Then he began to run again and was just in time to catch the boy as his brief strength gave out and he clutched at the rail. Flinging the towel over him, Charlie caught him up in his arms, and the boy gave a little gasping sob, half laughing, half crying, against Charlie’s neck.
‘Charlie, I stood! Did you see me stand?’
‘I saw it all right! You bet I saw!’ Charlie held him close-wrapped in his arms. ‘You damn nearly gave me a heart-attack, standing like that when my back was turned! You just about gave me the fright of my life!’
‘My legs are all right ‒’
‘Of course they are!’
‘I’m going to walk! I know I am!’
‘Well!’ Charlie said, in a gruff voice. ‘Haven’t I said so all along?’
And Mrs Ransome, having seen and heard everything, ran along the road in her carpet slippers, her little dog yapping at her heels, going towards Herrick St John to meet Linn coming home from work and carry the miraculous news to her.
Chapter Six
By the end of September, Robert was walking: carefully at first, with the aid of crutches; but then, as his strength and confidence grew, the crutches were discarded and he walked by himself.
The wheelchair, no longer needed, was presented to the hospital and towards the end of October, Robert was told that he need not attend for treatment again: he had made a full recovery. Mr Tate and the nurses shook hands with him and he walked out with Charlie and Linn.
It was a fine autumn day and together they walked home across the fields. When they had to cross the brook, Robert leapt it from bank to bank, turning to watch as they crossed by the bridge.
‘You can go on if you like,’ Charlie said. ‘You don’t have to stick with us old folk.’
‘Oh, it’s all right,’ Robert said.
But gradually, as they walked along, his stride lengthened and he left them behind. His youthful energy knew no bounds, now it had been released again, and whenever he came to a gate or a stile, he would vault over it in one bound, just for the joy of using his legs.
‘I wish I could meet that chap again,’ Charlie said, watching him. ‘The one who told me to teach Rob to swim. If
he could see that boy today! He’s the one I’d like to thank.’
Linn made no answer. Her heart was too full. And Charlie, seeing her overcome, drew her arm into his. They walked slowly along the path, enjoying the warmth of the autumn sun, and Robert strode ahead of them, covering the ground with his long, loping stride.
‘There’s no holding him now,’ Charlie said. ‘He’ll be home before we’re even half way.’
Robert was always on the move these days. He meant to make up for the year he had lost. He was attending school again now and whatever the weather he always walked. To sit at a desk was galling to him but at least there was football twice a week. He had always been a keen player but now he played with such passion and verve that he was almost unbeatable. No one could take the ball from him once he had it at his feet.
Movement was all he cared about and he wanted to do everything. If he saw his grandfather splitting logs, he itched to take the axe from him. If he saw that his mother was washing clothes, he would hurry to turn the mangle for her. And out in the fields, whenever he saw a man at work, ploughing the stubble or drilling corn, he longed to be in that man’s shoes. But in this he had to contain himself: he would not leave school for another year.
Autumn was very wet that year; the three ponds overflowed their banks and remained flooded for weeks on end; so that when winter came and brought hard frosts, the water was one great stretch of ice. And this time, when children came to skate there, Robert was among them, leading the way, skimming along in a zig-zag course, between the straggling beds of reeds, while Mrs Ransome’s little dog slithered behind him on the ice, snapping and snarling at his heels.
Leaning forward, swinging his arms, in a rhythm that matched the thrust of his legs, he would go faster and faster still, his skate-blades cutting along the ice and making a loud hissing noise. The trees that divided one pond from the next would loom up tall in front of him and he would go weaving between their trunks, leaping over the up-jutting roots, and so out to the next open stretch.
Seedtime and Harvest (The Apple Tree Saga Book 5) Page 9