‘Ah!’ George’s eyes sparked with suspicion. ‘That’d feel like money. You got a sack of money, baby brother? Where d’you get that from? Been stealing it, have you? Stealing the takings. Pilfering. What you gonna do with it, baby brother? Run away to London?’
‘I earned it,’ said Freddie quietly. ‘Every penny. Carrying luggage at the station. I’ve saved it up for three years. It’s mine. And I’m doing what I like with it, George.’
He looked George squarely in the eyes. Creaking, shuffling sounds of Annie getting up came from the stairs. Both men looked up at the faint strip of light under her door.
‘Now,’ thought Freddie. ‘Do it now.’ With his freezing hands he grabbed the sack and heaved it into the bicycle, seized his coat and flung it on top. Puffing and wheezing from the effort, he shoved the back door open, and grappled the heavy bike outside.
‘Good riddance,’ shouted George, standing on the mat in his socks.
Freddie mounted the bike and pedalled into the darkness, the handlebars swinging awkwardly with the weight of his sack of money. With no lights front or back, he was glad of the moon’s brilliance which cast a lattice of shadows across the street. Everything looked black or silver, the frozen puddles on the rough road had yellowish curls and flaked white edges to their mirror-like surface. The church clock struck five, its chimes slicing through the sub-zero air. It was a Monday in February, Freddie’s sixteenth birthday, and his plan had gone badly wrong. Instead of working in the warm bakery, he was out in the hoar frost. It wouldn’t be light for two hours, and he’d got nowhere to go.
The frost burned his ears and crystallised under his collar, between the buttons of his jacket and up his sleeves, which were too short for him. It grazed the back of his throat and etched its sharpness deep into his lungs. He paused in the market square to blow on his hands, which were now completely numb and locked onto the handlebars. Obviously he couldn’t stay out there for two hours. He had to find a warm refuge for himself, his bike and his bag of money.
No lights shone from any of the houses or shops, and the square which was so busy during the day was deserted except for a bunch of rats scuttling along the base of the church wall. Freddie inspected the church porch. It was clammy and unfriendly. He thought about the station waiting-room which usually had a welcoming fire, and decided to go there.
The old bread bike had no brakes and with the heavy bag of money in the front it careered down the station hill like a toboggan. Freddie stuck his long legs out straight, his hobnailed boots striking sparks along the road, making a lot of noise, and he arrived breathless at the station railings. He felt like laughing out loud. No one was around as he wheeled the bike onto the platform, and the moonlight gleamed on the rails. He turned the brass knob of the waiting-room door and, to his great joy, it was unlocked. The smell of coal and leather lingered in the air and it felt warm as he pushed the bike inside and stood there in heavy darkness. A faint red glow came from the embers of the fireplace.
Freddie carried the clanking coal bucket outside and helped himself to some chunks of the silvery coal stacked in the yard. Then he re-lit the fire and sat toasting his face and hands against its cheerful flame. The first train was not until eight o’clock, so he had plenty of time to luxuriate by the roaring fire, guard his bag of money, and reassemble his daring plan.
Annie was distraught when she discovered Freddie had gone. She ranted at George as they made the bread together.
‘How could you let ’im go out in the frost and the dark like that, George? What were you thinking?’
‘I couldn’t stop him,’ protested George as he stoked the coke oven vigorously.
‘He’s not strong, our Freddie, he suffers with bronchitis,’ said Annie. ‘He’s not like you, George. He never had what you had, a healthy childhood and good food. He grew up in the wartime and he suffered – oh you should’ve seen his little feet. Covered in blisters, all septic they were, from wearing clogs. You never had to do that, did you?’
‘No,’ agreed George shortly, ‘but you’d no business having another baby at your age, Mother, and with the war coming.’
Annie bristled. ‘Don’t you dare tell me that. We didn’t know the war was coming. And Freddie was born easy. He’s a lovely boy, lovely, been so good to me he has. You were always jealous of him, George, don’t ask me why. And the girls – they never wanted to be bothered with Freddie, had their heads full of fancy hats and silly dancing. My Freddie, he’s done more for me than any of you lot.’ She pounded a batch of dough, flapping it over on the floured tabletop and digging her knuckles into it. All the time she was watching the door and listening for Freddie to return.
‘He wouldn’t have gone out like that – in the DARK – without breakfast, George. What did you say to him?’
‘Nothing much. Just asked him about the sack of money he had. He woke me up, banging it down the stairs. What was he doing with a hoard like that, smuggling it out at that time of the morning? Looks suspicious to me. Very suspicious.’ George plunged his hands into a bowl of water, took the bar of Sunlight soap and started washing the coal dust from his arms. ‘There’s something odd about that boy, Mother. You can’t see it.’
Annie’s cheeks flushed with frustration. ‘Freddie is not odd,’ she said, frowning at George. ‘You’ve never taken the trouble to get to know him. He’s clever, and he’s artistic’
‘Artistic!’ George’s voice went up an octave. ‘What good is that?’
‘Who are you to judge? Freddie’s been miserable in this bakery, I know that. It’s not what he wants. He wants to be a mechanic. And surely you could have helped him? Fine brother you’ve been, and now look at you – boozing and wasting your money. Shame on you.’
George shrugged.
‘And don’t you shrug your shoulders at me.’ Annie was getting more and more upset. She felt like a kettle about to boil over with two years of unexpressed grief at losing Levi. Two years of extreme anxiety when Freddie had quietly gone on helping her the way he always had. Suddenly she felt engulfed by remorse. She’d never even told Freddie how much she appreciated him, she’d never said thank you to him, and today it was his birthday. She looked at his present sitting on the dresser, wrapped in brown paper. It was a pair of gloves she’d knitted him. How badly he would need them now, out there somewhere in the deathly cold. Annie began to tremble with anxiety.
‘Don’t treat me like a child, Mother. I’m a man now,’ said George, and then he added something that demolished the remains of Annie’s self-control. ‘I expect he’s run away to London. You’ll probably never see him again.’
Annie collapsed into a chair with a howl of anguish. She put her head in her hands and the tears erupted from her hot face, the sobs deep, deep down in her body. Her crying was loud and harrowing in the bakery, as if her sorrow was going everywhere, across the table, into the neat trays of uncooked loaves and buns, into the waiting ovens and the listening stones of the cottage walls.
George was shocked. He’d never seen his mother cry, even when Levi had died. She’d always been rock solid and in control. And now she was crying – over Freddie! He walked over to her, and put his hand on her humped shoulders.
‘There – don’t cry. I didn’t mean to . . .’
‘Yes you did,’ accused Annie and her eyes burned up at him like two cracks of sapphire. ‘Freddie’s left because of you. You’ve treated him bad – BAD. And he won’t come back when you’re here, George. You’ve made him hate you. I wouldn’t treat a dog like you’ve treated him.’
George picked up a tray of loaves and started to slide them into the oven, and Annie cried even louder.