‘Go on.’ Granny Barcussy’s cheeks were wet with tears. The tears ran into the deep wrinkles and made her skin glisten.
‘Don’t cry, Gran.’ Freddie was alarmed. What had he done? Then he remembered he wasn’t supposed to talk about the spirit people he saw. His father had forbidden it. ‘I’m not allowed to—’
Granny Barcussy saw the shadow steal into Freddie’s eyes.
‘Don’t you be afraid. You can tell me anything. Anything you like.’
But Freddie looked at her as if he was peering out through prison bars, the sparkle gone from his eyes.
‘You saw my William,’ she said warmly. ‘He’s often around. William, your grandfather. He’s been dead a long time, before you were born. Oh he’d have loved you, Fred. He liked to make things with his hands like you, clever he was, and a heart of gold. Heart of gold.’
Freddie was silent. He looked again at the seat next to him, and the man had gone. ‘I’ve got it wrong,’ he thought. ‘Grandfather William wanted to say something to me and I didn’t listen.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with seeing a spirit,’ said Granny Barcussy. ‘I can see Levi’s been hammering you down – and that schoolteacher, he’s a pig. Don’t you let ’em bring you down, Fred. You’re a good ’un. And I’d fight for you, I would.’ She clenched her fist and grinned. Freddie smiled at her gratefully. William would come back, he knew it. If he went to sit under that lime tree again, or if he sat quiet and waited. It was the first time he’d seen a spirit person who belonged to him, and the feeling clung around him like a blanket.
‘I like coming here,’ he said. ‘I feel happy.’
‘Good. You deserve to be happy.’ Granny Barcussy was still on the music stool, giving him her undivided attention, another luxury he wasn’t used to.
‘Mother and Dad don’t think so,’ said Freddie. ‘They think everybody’s got to suffer because of the war.’
‘Pah!’ said Granny Barcussy passionately. ‘Never mind the war. Let ’em get on with it. Nothing to do with me. Yes, there’s poverty, but there’s beautiful life all around us.’ And then she said something that Freddie never forgot. She tapped her heart fiercely with one finger, and her eyes were full of fire. ‘I make my happiness inside myself, in here, in my heart, and nothing and nobody can take that away from me.’
A golden bubble drifted through the silence that followed, and came to rest in Freddie’s soul.
Then Granny Barcussy jumped up and whirled around, turning the music stool over with a crash. She pointed at Freddie’s feet.
‘You still got those blimin’ clogs!’ she cried. ‘How big are your feet? Big, aren’t they, for a seven-year-old? I’ve got some BOOTS for you!’
She tore upstairs, startling the chickens from the bottom step, pulling herself up energetically with the banister, and Freddie heard her crashing around upstairs. Then he heard a cry.
‘Got ’em! The little beauties.’
She reappeared, clambering downstairs with a pair of black boots in her hand. They looked new, the soles thick and clean, the long laces unfrayed. Freddie eyed them dubiously.
‘Are they girls’ boots?’
‘No. I wouldn’t give you girls’ boots, Fred. These were mine, yes, but they were men’s boots my William got me for working on the farm, and I never did wear them, too tight they were. But I’ve looked after them, kept rubbing in the saddle soap, kept the leather nice and soft. Go on – try them.’
Her excitement was infectious. Freddie beamed as he slipped his feet inside the boots and stood up. Immediately he felt taller and more important. He gave Granny Barcussy a hug.
‘Thank you.’
‘Are they too big?’
‘A bit.’
‘Right – that’s a good thing. You’ll grow into them. And if they’re too big we’ll stuff ’em with sheep’s wool.’
She produced some of that, too, from a box next to her spinning wheel, and soon Freddie was marching around in the garden, feeling as if his feet were in bed. He felt like a normal person who was worth something. He wanted to stay with Granny Barcussy forever.
‘When I’m grown up,’ he said, ‘I want to find a wife just like you. She’ll have long black hair and her name will be Kate.’
Chapter Five
A RED RIBBON
Freddie had always given horses a wide berth. He didn’t dislike them, he was just wary. Annie often told him the story of how her brother had been killed in a horse-and-cart accident. The horse had bolted through the market, scattering pedestrians and overturning traders’ stalls. Annie had been there and she relished the telling of the story, each time adding a detail and exaggerating more. The horse went faster each time, the screams were louder, pots and pans and boots and shoes from the overturned stalls were strewn far and wide, the fruit barrow toppled and hordes of apples rolled wildly down the street. When the cart finally crashed, her brother was thrown even higher into the air and was even more dead when he landed. Freddie always listened, wide-eyed, fascinated not so much by the story but by the effect it had on Annie’s normally dour appearance. Telling a story brought her to life, her eyes sparkled and her cheeks flushed redder and redder as she galloped through the story. There were pauses too, crisp silences where Freddie held his breath, his eyes fixed on Annie’s face.
The storytelling became a ritual. Round the fire on a rainswept evening, or under the apple tree on a balmy afternoon. Despite his difficulty with communication, Levi had stories too, and when he started in his gravelly voice, Freddie was transfixed. Most of Levi’s tales were funny, but Levi never smiled or laughed. He would tell the story, po-faced, and his silences were longer than Annie’s. Being part of one of Levi’s silences was like pole-vaulting over the river, that moment of uncertainty in the air when you didn’t know which way you were going to fall. Then Annie and Freddie would scream with laughter while Levi remained po-faced, only the occasional spark of pleasure straying into his eyes. Finally he would add, ‘I don’t know what you’re laughing at. ’Twere true as I’m sitting here.’
Some of Levi’s stories involved horses, usually casting them in a negative role, and Freddie’s wariness of horses evolved from the storytelling rather than from actual experience.
So when he found himself facing a massive Shire horse in a narrow lane, Freddie’s heart almost stopped.
Annie had sent him to the village of Hilbegut, a two-mile walk, with a cracked white basin in his hand and some pennies tied in the corner of his hanky. The faggot man was coming to the village. He had a barrow piled high with pork faggots which disappeared rapidly as soon as he started selling.
‘Get three, if you can. And don’t drop them,’ Annie had said. Now that he had boots, Freddie was sent on longer and longer errands to neighbouring villages. He was eleven now, and still wearing Granny Barcussy’s boots which were now too tight. There were holes in both the leather soles, letting in the water and the stones, and his feet were again sore and blistered. It was November now, nearly time for Christmas. He was hoping for a present, just one, and what he wanted most was a penknife, his own knife so that he could whittle sticks and carve owls and monkey faces out of the wood he’d collected.
‘If I run, I’ll drop the basin,’ thought Freddie, so he stood still, facing up to the Shire horse. It appeared to be loose in the lane with only a leather halter on its head. Freddie looked at the horse’s knees, which were the size of two dinner plates. Its coat was a lustrous black, with four creamy white skirts of long hair around its hooves and a white stripe down its face. Its mane was so thick that he could hardly see the eyes, but he knew the horse was looking at him. He considered flinging the basin in the ditch and making a run for it.