The Boy with No Boots (13 page)

He hung back as the coffin was unloaded – to the tolling of the bell, the jingle of the horses’ harness, and the shuffle of footsteps. The way the coffin was carried high on the
shoulders of the pallbearers gave him a strange feeling of finality. His father’s body was inside. There was no going back. It was grim, and it was glorious. The majesty of the church was
there for Levi, the stained glass and the brass eagle, the tapestries and the music. After all Levi’s work in the corn mill, his arthritis, his uncontrollable tempers, the broken china, the
crying, the po-faced storytelling, the years in the bakery. After all that he was paraded into this magnificent building.

Freddie was last to go into the church, and he noticed that Gladys was there, looking at him with a blend of concern and disapproval. Ignoring her, he lifted his eyes to appraise the wood
carvings in the roof, and to gaze at his favourite window which had a saint with a halo underneath a tree of the richest emerald greens, a white curly lamb at his feet, a scarlet cloak and a golden
sword at his belt.

‘You should sit with your family. Up there,’ Gladys whispered loudly, but no one looked round. Freddie ignored her, and walked to the back of the church where he sat down on the
stone step leading into the bell tower. From there he could see the entire church, his father’s coffin and the backs of heads. The vicar’s voice droned, the congregation stood up to
sing, but Freddie closed his eyes, touched the stone floor with his hands, and went into a trance.

Through his sensitive fingers he could feel the earth below the church. It had energy like an arrow of light fired into the rocks, a sound that resonated for miles and miles through the land,
through churches and castles and monuments far away. And he could feel water down there, the secret wells and springs winding, branching like arteries of silver through the dark of the earth.

The drone of the funeral service cushioned his senses like moss. Freddie stayed in his blessed trance, and then he saw something so amazing that he wanted to leap to his feet. Shining in the
gloom of the church was an angel of light stretching from floor to ceiling. Its wings were rays of gold fanning out from wall to wall. Its skirt was a cone of radiance covering the whole
congregation. The face was so bright that the features were invisible, only a feeling of omnipotent mysterious love emanated through the angel’s resplendent being. Under its brightness, the
people sat like dominoes, wooden and unresponsive.

Freddie held his breath. He longed to shout out in a loud voice, a voice louder than him. But all his young life he’d been told: No. You mustn’t. You shouldn’t. Don’t you
dare.

The shades came down, the angel vanished, and the words of his father’s favourite hymn reclaimed his consciousness:

Freddie thought about the words: ‘Let me hide myself.’ Wasn’t that what he’d been doing all his life? Hiding himself. Hiding his soul. And why? Because of Harry Price.
Because of Levi smashing china over the accusation of his son telling lies. It hadn’t been lies.

As the hymn progressed into the final verse, Freddie felt rebellious. Sad as he was to lose his father, Levi’s death had liberated him. He was nearly a man now, his voice was deepening and
he longed to use it, to feel its new full rumbling power in the echoing church. He hadn’t joined in the singing, but now he stood up and waited for the silence that would follow the hymn.

Empowered by his solitary stance and his golden vision, Freddie took a deep breath and felt his voice rise up from the bowels of the earth. He didn’t need to shout. The voice was
effortlessly resonant.

‘I saw an angel,’ he declared. ‘A golden angel shining over all of you, here in this church.’

The heads turned, the mouths dropped open, a hundred accusing eyes stared down the church at Freddie. Even Levi’s coffin seemed to tremble, the feathers of the brass eagle bristled, and
someone’s hymnbook crashed to the floor like a shot pigeon.

Once he started, Freddie couldn’t stop.

‘I’m not a liar,’ he said quietly.

The ‘shades of the prison-house’ began to crack around him, letting in chinks of light, bright glimpses of the kind of life that freedom could bring.

‘And,’ he added, his voice gathering strength as he let go of his final issue, ‘I am NOT going to be a baker.’

He’d said it. The shades of the prison-house collapsed into rubble, and through the rising dust, George crossed the church like a leopard, seized Freddie by the collar and frog-marched him
outside.

Out in the sunshine he slammed Freddie against the blue-lias stones of the porch.

‘Don’t you bring shame on the Barcussy family.’ The words came spitting and sputtering from between George’s big yellowy teeth, and with each word he shoved Freddie
harder into the wall. ‘I am the head of the family now. You’ll do as you’re told – BOY.’

Shaken, Freddie looked into George’s furious eyes, and saw that Levi was right inside him, looking out.

On the morning of Freddie’s sixteenth birthday, he got up in the dark as usual, climbed into his clothes and lit a candle. He held it up to the window to observe the way
it glistened on the fern-like patterns of ice on the inside of the glass. With his fingernail he scraped out a peep hole and peered outside at the moonlight shining on frosted branches and
rooftops. His heart was thumping with excitement. Today was the day. He must keep his nerves steady, act as if everything was normal. He’d worked it all out beforehand, choosing a time when
George had gone to the pub. First he’d smuggled an empty flour sack upstairs and hidden it.

George wasn’t good at early starts. He slept heavily, often after a night out drinking, leaving the early morning bread-making to Annie and Freddie. This morning Freddie had made sure he
was up first.

He slid the flour sack from under his mattress, snagging it on the rusted metal springs which groaned and twanged in the silent house. Gingerly he lifted the floor-boards and a musty mouldy
smell was released into his room. Reaching inside he withdrew his bundles of coins, all twenty-six of them, tied into old socks, hankies and bits of rag, glad that he’d tied them tightly to
stop the coins jingling. Over the years he’d counted and recorded each bundle on a strip of cardboard, and he knew approximately how much he had. Enough for what he was going to do. The only
things he’d bought for himself were a pencil, a drawing book and a penknife.

Freddie paused to listen. Only one lot of snoring, and it was Annie. He didn’t know if George was awake or not, so he waited, the raised floorboard propped in his hand. George was too
close, just next door in the back room overlooking the garden. Reassured by the silence Freddie stuffed the bundles of money into the flour sack and gathered the top with a piece of string. He
lowered the floorboard back into its slot.

Heaving the sack with both hands, he struggled down the steep stairs, bumping it on every step. He was breathing hard and the tips of his fingers ached with frost. The candle was left flickering
in its metal holder at the top of the stairs.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ George’s voice rumbled out of the dark, and the sofa springs twanged and creaked. Freddie could see the shadow of him rising,
throwing his blanket aside. A sour stench of alcohol filled the room, a bottle glinted on the floor.

Freddie hadn’t expected George to be downstairs on the sofa, and awake. What could he say? Tell George how sick he felt at the way he was spending the bakery’s hard-earned profit on
booze? Tell him to mind his own business? He set his mouth in a stubborn line and locked his mind into the power of silence. Moving calmly, as if he had all the time in the world, he fetched the
candle down the stairs and put it on the scullery table.

George was standing at the bottom of the stairs, yawning, and looking at the sack of money.

‘What you got in there, baby brother?’ He gave the sack a kick with his toe and Freddie noted he didn’t have his boots on. That gave him a chance. He thought quickly,
unravelling his carefully laid plans. His intentions had been to put the money sack into the front box of the bicycle, camouflage it with loaves of bread and appear to set off on his rounds as
normal. That wouldn’t work now.

‘I said – what’s in that sack?’ hissed George putting his beer-soaked face close to Freddie’s cheeks. His breath steamed in the candlelight. ‘Answer me, baby
brother.’

He pushed Freddie against the wall and a picture fell down with a crash. It was a sepia photograph of Levi which Annie was proud of, and now the whites of his eyes gleamed up at them through
cracked glass. Freddie ignored George and calmly picked up the picture, propping it on the scullery table. He could feel the anger in George’s clenched fists, and he just looked at him
steadily. George had tried many times to get him to fight, but Freddie wouldn’t. He’d stand there, silent and still, and something in his gaze always stopped George in his tracks, a
becalming blend of obstinacy and peace, something George didn’t have. Freddie knew it confused him, and that he would cover the confusion with a volley of verbal abuse.

George bent down and fumbled with the neck of the sack. He had clumsy hands like Levi, and in the ice-cold air his fingers were too stiff to untie the string, so he patted the Hessian sides. It
jingled a little, and a puff of flour dust rose into the candlelight.

‘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.