The Boy with No Boots (11 page)

‘Cracked ’er ’ead,’ said someone. ‘’Ell of a crack it were.’

‘She must not be moved,’ Joan said. ‘She might have broken her neck, or her back. We must get her to hospital.’

Freddie was horrified. He began to go pale himself at the thought of the serious injuries Kate might have. He felt nauseous and giddy.

‘You stay calm, lad,’ said Joan, noting his white face. ‘You’re doing really well, Freddie. Are you her brother?’

‘No.’

‘Just take some deep breaths.’

Freddie sat back, determined he wasn’t going to pass out, and he didn’t. The feeling passed. He felt detached from Kate now, the image of her forever imprinted on his soul. There
seemed to be little he could do to help her, except sit there and pray his prayer.

The shrill jangle of a bell announced the arrival of an old Model T ambulance with a red cross painted on it. Everyone moved aside to allow it free passage down the street. In a daze, Freddie
watched the driver and his crew of one nurse in a starched white hat. They brought a stretcher and carefully manoeuvred Kate onto it, immobilising her neck with big pads of brown leather. She
didn’t stir at all.

‘Like the Sleeping Beauty, ain’t she?’ said Charlie who still had his rolled-up green flag in one hand.

‘Someone should go with her,’ said Joan, looking at Freddie.

‘Her sister,’ he said.

‘She’s in a bit of a state. Of course she is.’ The motherly woman in brown gingham brought Ethie over to the ambulance. ‘I’m Gladys,’ she said,
‘I’ll go along with both of them. Someone’s got to see to the pony. She’s worried about it.’

And Freddie heard himself saying, ‘I’ll do that. I know where Hilbegut Farm is. I can lead the pony home.’

‘She’s called Polly,’ said Ethie.

‘I’ll go ahead of you in my motorcar, and explain everything,’ Joan offered. ‘I know the way.’

Joan brushed herself down, and Freddie gingerly picked up the fox fur and handed it to her. They both stared after the ambulance as it revved and roared up the station road with Kate inside, its
bell ringing urgently. Freddie felt as if his whole life had been turned upside down and shaken violently, displacing his usual codes of behaviour.

‘You’re a very helpful young man, Freddie,’ said Joan. ‘I wish you were my son.’

With those encouraging words ringing in his ears, Freddie then found himself being given Polly’s reins to hold. He’d never led a horse in his life but he tried to act as if he was
used to it. Polly had been caught and disentangled from the cart, she’d had a rest and was munching grass from the bank.

‘Take her gently,’ advised the man who had caught her. ‘She’s very shaken, and a bit lame. It was a disgraceful way to treat a pony. I shall be lodging a complaint to
that girl’s parents. Headstrong young hussy.’

‘What about the cart?’ asked Freddie, eyeing the wreckage lying on the side of the road. One wheel had come off and was propped against a wall. ‘I could get the wheelwright to
fix it.’

‘We’ll do that,’ said the man. ‘You go on, ’tis a long walk to Hilbegut.’

Freddie set out awkwardly, surprised to find Polly walking meekly beside him. He remembered how Kate had been talking to the Shire horse, so he thought he would try it. What should he say? He
wasn’t used to talking non-stop the way Kate did, and he felt embarrassed. So he waited until they were out in the country and then started on ‘Innisfree’ and a few other poems he
knew. Polly seemed to enjoy them. She flicked her ears and gave him a gentle nudge with her soft nose. He walked with his hand on the crest of her mane, scratching her gently, and he began to enjoy
her company.

It was six miles to the village of Hilbegut, through beautiful countryside that Freddie knew well. Across the Levels, over the river bridge and through the peat-cutting fields where the
‘ruckles’ of cut peat stood in the hazy sun like a prehistoric village. Then through the withies, tall forests of willow stems shimmering red and gold, reflecting in the water. A pair
of bitterns fishing, and vast flocks of lapwing with their strange wobbly flight that made their wings twinkle against the sky. The September meadows were full of the seed heads of knapweed, sorrel
and thistle.

After the years in town, cooped up in the bakery, stuck all day in school, the walk into his old haunts was an unexpected delight for Freddie. He saw people working in the fields, cutting peat
or bundling willow and it felt good to nod and touch his cap as he passed by, feeling proud to be leading Polly. He stopped by a stone water trough to let her have a drink, amused by the way she
stuck her face in and sucked noisily at the water, then shook herself all over sending bright drops flying out.

‘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.’

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.