THE WATER IS WIDE
‘How much is this map?’
‘Ninepence,’ said the postmistress, peering at Freddie through the iron grille of her domain. ‘And they’re good ones. You won’t find better. It’s got all the roads, and the railways and even the hills and valleys in Great Britain.’
‘What about the rivers?’ Freddie asked.
‘And the rivers. They’re shown in blue squiggly lines,’ she said, hanging on to the tightly folded map.
‘I’ll take it, please.’ Freddie delved into his pocket and produced a sixpence and three pennies. He wasn’t used to shopping, and it had taken him about ten minutes to decide to buy the map which he wasn’t allowed to look at first. Ninepence seemed expensive for a bit of paper.
‘Going travelling, are you?’ The postmistress raised her eyebrows, teasing him as she took the money and slid the map over the counter. ‘Now, is there anything else? We’ve got a long queue behind you.’
Freddie hesitated.
‘Well – a box of writing paper and envelopes please – and a book of stamps.’
‘Ah!’ she grinned knowingly. ‘Got a young lady to write to, have we?’
Freddie could hear some girls giggling in the queue behind him, and he felt his neck going red as he stood there, his trousers too short and covered in dust and oil.
‘That’ll be another shilling.’
He had a shilling but chose to rummage in his pockets again, the postmistress rolling her eyes as he slowly counted out twelve pennies. Then he paused to put the map into his inner jacket pocket, and turned to pad thoughtfully out of the post office, his eyes staring at a kestrel hovering in the sky outside. He didn’t want to look at anyone. The pain of losing Kate stung in his throat and he wanted to go home, spread the map out on the scullery table, and see where she had gone to live.
‘Hello, Freddie!’ Joan Jarvis was at the back of the queue, dressed up in her fox furs, a brand new willow basket squeaking on her arm.
‘Oh – hello, Mrs Jarvis,’ said Freddie, respectfully. He looked down at the hand she had put on his arm and saw long red painted nails. Bird’s claws, he thought with a shudder.
‘Joan,’ she insisted. ‘How’s business?’
‘Pretty good. Busy.’
‘I hear you’ll be getting a second lorry soon,’ said Joan brightly. ‘You are doing well.’
Freddie knew that Joan liked and admired him. She’d often stopped to talk to him in her encouraging way, but right now he didn’t feel like talking, especially as her voice carried all over the shop and out into the street.
‘You remember Susan, my daughter.’
Freddie glanced at the slim girl with bobbed blonde hair who looked as if she didn’t want to be there.
‘This is Freddie Barcussy, Susan. You know – he used to help you over the bridge. Oh, you were silly.’
‘Hello.’ Freddie looked briefly at Susan. She didn’t interest him, but he remembered the frightened little girl she had been, and thought she still looked frightened, of her mother, he guessed. ‘I won’t shake hands,’ he said, ‘I’m covered in stone dust.’
‘Stone dust? What have you been doing?’ asked Joan.
‘I’m having a go at a bit of stone carving,’ said Freddie.
Joan looked at him with keen interest, and to Freddie’s relief the queue moved forward. ‘I shall come and see what you’ve made one day.’ Joan looked back at him perkily like a bird on the lawn. ‘Bye now.’
‘Bye.’
He walked home without looking at anyone, carrying the box of writing paper. The bakery was busy with customers, Annie in the shop and Gladys making scones in the back. Freddie escaped upstairs and spread the map on the table in his bedroom window. He found Monterose, and followed the road with his pencil stub, along the ridge of the Poldens where he and Kate had picnicked, on through Glastonbury and Wells, then over the Mendips. Kate had vividly described the River Severn to him, but when he found Aust Ferry and saw how wide it was, Freddie’s heart sank. He’d visualised an ordinary river, a bit wider than the Cary or the Brue, not such an expanse of water coloured blue like the sea. He took his ruler, looked at the scale of the map, and measured, once, then again in disbelief. The Severn was a mile wide at Aust Ferry. Freddie had never even seen the sea, and he couldn’t imagine a mile of water. All that space, hills and valleys and a wide, wide river separating him from Kate.
Kate’s letter was in his inner pocket next to his heart. Extracting it from the silky lining of his jacket he read it again.
Dear Freddie,
I will always treasure the time I have spent with you, such a happy time, and I thank you for sharing it with me.
Sadly, I must tell you that we are leaving Hilbegut. The Squire has died, and his family from Canada are ruthlessly reclaiming his estate, and we were given two weeks’ notice to leave. I didn’t want to go, of course, but I must support our family, Mother and Dad and Ethie. We are all broken-hearted, but we must make the best of it. Luckily we have somewhere to go. We shall be living with Dad’s brother, Uncle Don, at Asan Farm on the banks of the Severn River. He’s said we can live in the gatehouse cottage. It’s derelict but we can make it nice and we shall all help with the farm. Polly and Daisy are still in Hilbegut, on the next-door farm, and they are being looked after there until we can find a way to transport them to Gloucestershire.
I still want to be a nurse, and perhaps one day I can, but for now I must stay and help the family.
I’ll never, ever forget you Freddie, and I hope with all my heart that we will one day meet again.
All my love,
Kate xx
PS. Write to me!
A small sepia photograph on a square of cream cardboard was enclosed. It was a portrait of Kate’s face, a serious image of a young woman with bright caring eyes. Freddie placed it on the map, in Gloucestershire, and was suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of the space between them. His heart was no longer in his haulage business. He felt unsettled and disconnected from everyone; he needed time alone to think about his life, and how to disentangle himself from his present commitments. The biggest of these was his bond with his mother. He loved her, yet she drained his energy and his time. Since Levi’s death he’d felt sorry for her, and her agoraphobia had intensified. She was totally dependent on Freddie, and on Gladys who she now employed for a few hours a day.
When he had finished his haulage job, Freddie felt an old familiar feeling – he couldn’t stay at home. He filled the lorry with petrol and headed for the Polden Hills in the balmy afternoon, driving past orchards where the trees were laden to the ground with ripening apples and the hawthorns heavy with berries. He drove slowly along the hilltop until he reached the gap in the hedge where Kate had taken him for the picnic. He parked the lorry tight against the hedge and walked up to the ridge of hill, aware that the grassland around him was now bobbing with seed heads, the orchids had died, the thyme had turned brown, and the trefoil was covered in tiny black pods of seed. Summer was over. And so was his life, Freddie thought gloomily.
He sat down in the spot where they’d had the picnic, and touched the earth where Kate had been sitting. It was warm and crisp like fresh bread, but there was an emptiness, a hollow place in his soul where Kate should have been. His eyes roamed the landscape, scanning that empty strip of silver sky between the Mendips and the Quantocks. Far away he could see the islands of the Bristol Channel floating in some shimmering misty place, and beyond was a whisper of an outline of high and distant hills. Was he seeing over that mile-wide estuary into Gloucestershire where Kate was now? It comforted Freddie to think that he could come up here and gaze directly towards her.