The Boy with No Boots (18 page)

‘Goldfinches,’ whispered Freddie.

But Kate was listening to something else.

‘I can hear your tummy rumbling,’ she said, laughing, and sat up. The goldfinches vanished with a burr of wings. ‘I think it’s time for our DELICIOUS picnic.’

Freddie stood in the stonemason’s yard, staring in disbelief at a load of stone which had appeared there. It wasn’t stacked neatly as Herbie would have liked, but
tipped in a jumble of old saddle stones, and blocks of golden sandstone, some still joined together with mortar. The stones gave Freddie a strange feeling, as if they had voices and stories to
tell, stories locked into the grains of sand and crystal. He looked at the wheel marks in the mud and saw the large hoof prints of a Shire horse, as if the heavy load had been delivered by horse
and cart, probably early in the morning before it got too hot. Seeing the hoof prints increased his inexplicable sense of doom.

Right in the middle of the heap were two round domes of stone carved with curly patterns and covered in moss and lichen. Carvings! With a terrible sense that he was going to discover some
unforeseen tragedy, Freddie climbed over the blocks to investigate. Gingerly he cleared a space around one of the domes until he could see a face glaring out at him with blind stone eyes and
snarling lips. Shocked, he sat down on a chunk of sandstone, reached out his hands and touched the stone lion’s curly head. It was warm from the August sunshine, but under its chin it was
cold as a tomb. Silently he uncovered both the carvings and sat studying them, not wanting to believe the thought that hammered insistently at his mind.

‘Mornin’, Freddie!’ Herbie came padding into the yard in his leather apron and dust-covered overalls. ‘’Tis hot,’ he remarked, taking his cap off to let the
top of his bald head dry in the sun.

‘Mornin’,’ said Freddie.

‘You’re looking uncommonly serious,’ observed Herbie. ‘Has your mother been at you again?’

‘No,’ said Freddie. He looked at Herbie’s challenging grey eyes. ‘Where did this lot come from, Herb?’

‘Hilbegut.’

Something swept over Freddie like a gust of hot air, charged with emotion. He rubbed the backs of his hands over his eyes, brushing away the tears that prickled in there.

The stone lions from Hilbegut Farm.

Something had happened to Kate.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ said Herbie. ‘The Squire of Hilbegut died weeks ago. And he didn’t have an heir. So his place is just left empty, that great big place with the
turrets. And all his tenants in the farms and cottages have got to move. Tragic, ain’t it? Those poor families. Got nowhere to go.’

‘So who’s done this?’ asked Freddie. ‘These two stone lions were on the gateposts to Hilbegut Farm.’

Herbie’s prominent eyebrows drew together in a frown, and he shook his head. ‘Can’t say I know that,’ he said, ‘I only knows what I hears, see? Maybe ’tis
gossip, but they say his sister and her family have come over from Canada, and they don’t care nothing about the place. They’re stripping out the carvings and the stone and anything
they can sell. They just want the money, see. Then they’ll go off back to Canada and leave Hilbegut to go to rack and ruin. That’s all I know, and ’tis none of my
business.’

Freddie began to shake inside. He made an instant decision. He would unload the stone he’d brought down from the quarry for Herbie, then drive out to Hilbegut and find out for himself. But
first . . .

‘What about the stone lions?’ he asked.

‘Oh – I’ve not really looked at them properly yet,’ said Herbie, ‘but they’ll fetch a lot of money. Rich folks with money to burn buy that sort of
stuff.’

‘I’d like to buy them,’ said Freddie.

‘You couldn’t afford them, Freddie. Come on. What d’you want ’em for anyway? Stick one on the front of your lorry!’ Herbie gave one of his wheezy laughs that went
on and on until it ended in a coughing fit.

Freddie thought about his savings. He’d done well with the haulage business and was planning to buy a second lorry. To blow it all on two stone lions would be foolish.

Herbie was leaning forward, his eyes looking curiously into Freddie’s soul. ‘So tell me – why do you want them?’

‘I’m interested in carving. I’ve watched you a lot,’ said Freddie. ‘I’d like to do it myself.’

‘’Tis hard,’ said Herbie, ‘a hard, dusty old job. Makes me cough. And look at me hands. You don’t want to do that, Freddie. You stick to your lorry, if you take my
advice. Anyway, I doubt whether you could do a decent stone carving; it’s not as easy as you think.’

‘I could,’ said Freddie with unexpected passion. ‘I know I could.’

‘So what do you want to carve?’

‘An angel.’

‘That’s about the hardest thing you could choose.’

‘I know I could,’ insisted Freddie, thinking of Kate’s beautiful bewitching young face. ‘I can see it in my mind exactly.’

Herbie’s eyes looked thoughtful under the bushy brows. He began moving the blocks of stone around as if searching, and heaved out a big lump of sandstone from the Hilbegut gateposts.

‘I’ll tell you what, Freddie. This here, this is Bath stone, and it’s easy to carve. If you like, I’ll give you this block, and I’ll bet you can’t carve an
angel out of that ’cause I couldn’t.’

Freddie’s eyes lit up. The angel inside the stone shone out at him. He could see its curved wings, its praying hands and flowing hair, and the tranquillity of its gaze.

‘How much d’you bet then, Herbie?’

‘A pound.’

‘Right. You’re on.’

The two men shook hands, their eyes glinting at each other. Together they heaved the block of Bath stone into the back of Freddie’s lorry.

‘You got any tools?’ asked Herbie.

‘A few.’

‘Chisels?’

‘No.’

‘I’d better lend you some.’ Herbie rummaged in his workshop and came out with a wooden box full of chisels. ‘I don’t want ’em back, Freddie. I got
plenty.’

‘Thanks,’ said Freddie. He itched to take the chisel out and begin to carve the angel still shining in his mind. He had another job to do, hauling timber, and then he would go to
Hilbegut.

‘For goodness’ sake, Kate, stop that crying,’ said Sally briskly. She stood very upright, dressed in her best navy blue dress and hat, the breeze ruffling a
few wisps of grey hair that had escaped from her tightly coiled bun. ‘We’ve got to make the best of it.’

‘I’m trying to stop,’ said Kate.

‘That’s my girl.’ Bertie gave his daughter a fatherly pat on her proud young shoulders.

‘I’m not crying,’ gloated Ethie. But she was. Inside her mind, a weather front was coiling itself into a hurricane with storm force winds and rain, just waiting to come
sweeping across her new life.

Together the Loxley family stood on the jetty, watching the ferry boat chugging towards them with its load of passengers. The brown waters of the Severn Estuary swirled with fierce energy, the
tide sweeping the boat sideways as it reached the middle of the river. And Bertie said what he always said when they were in the queue at Aust Ferry.

‘Fastest tide in the world, they say, except for one in South Africa,’ he said. ‘I’ll warn you girls now. Never, ever go swimming in the Severn. If the mud doesn’t
get you, the tide will.’

‘Look at that boat,’ cried Ethie. ‘It’s having a real fight to get out of the current.’

‘Now it has,’ said Sally, seeing the boat turn and head for the jetty, sending a wide creamy brown wave fanning across the calmer water. ‘Come on now, Kate, you usually enjoy
the trip.’

Kate nodded. Her throat felt dry and sore from unaccustomed crying. She couldn’t believe they were leaving Hilbegut. Everything there was so dear to her. The swing in the barn door, the
happy chickens, the sweet-smelling haystacks and the shady elm trees. The beautiful avenue of copper beeches where she’d skipped and played on her trips to deliver milk to the Squire. The
home paddock where white Aylesbury ducks, geese, sheep and chickens pottered happily under the branches of the walnut tree. Her lovely bedroom with its window peering out under a brow of thatch
where swallows and sparrows nested under the eaves.

She’d been used to leaving home and going to boarding school, but home had always been there for her to come back to. Now, unexpectedly and with merciless speed, it was gone. Her father
was suddenly jobless, homeless and in poor health, her mother stoically trying to hold them all together. The only person who seemed intact was Ethie. But Ethie, Kate thought, hadn’t got a
boyfriend to leave behind.

Kate was breaking her heart over every single duck, chicken and cow. All had gone to auction, except for Polly and Daisy who were loaned to the farm next door until they could be transported to
Gloucestershire. Bertie had insisted on the four of them travelling together in a friend’s motorcar, and Kate had been terribly sick all the way to the ferry, giving Ethie another opportunity
to say scathingly, ‘For goodness’ sake, Kate, can’t you stop being sick?’ It was either ‘stop crying’ or ‘stop being sick’ or ‘stop mooning
over that BOY.’

Nobody knew how Kate felt about Freddie. Since the day on the hills she’d respected the depth of his artistic soul, the determined pragmatism that had driven him to save his money and
build a business, and her admiration for him had grown. She’d found herself longing to be looking into his eyes. They reminded her of the sea, so blue and sparkling, but so deep and so full
of immense perception. Freddie hadn’t had an education like she’d had, yet she felt he knew so much more, and when he looked at her she felt a steadiness and a kindliness, a feeling of
guardianship, as if Freddie was a harbour and she a boat coming home from a storm.

Kate was seventeen, and she loved to flirt and laugh with the local lads on the farm, but she had boundaries. Her sexuality felt to her like a secret jewel she must not wear. She made sure that
no man touched her, and if they tried she would deflect them in a firm but humorous way, and she felt confident of her ability to do that. It was something Ethie didn’t understand. Ethie
ragged her constantly, berating her for being a flirt and a shameless hussy. Kate rarely reacted. She felt sorry for Ethie who seemed cursed with unpleasantness both in her dour appearance and her
mood.

Freddie had only held her for a few moments, but Kate had heard his deep slow heartbeat, and smelled the tweed of his jacket, and sensed the gentleness of his big hands on her back, holding her
as if she were a fragile shell. She’d felt a tiny movement as his fingers explored the curls at the ends of her hair, and that had been strangely electrifying, as if her hair itself was
sensitive, as if he was touching her whole being. Wary of the intensity, she had pulled away. Now she wished with all her heart that she’d kissed him.

The throbbing engine of the incoming ferry boat had a finality about it, yet on previous trips it had excited her and set her dancing around on the quay. Something else was pulling at her mind.
Kate didn’t want to be a cheese-maker and a farm girl. She wanted to be a nurse. Sally had taken her one day to Yeovil Hospital to enquire about training, and the matron had liked her and
said to come back when she was seventeen.

The boat was pulling in to the jetty, with much hauling of ropes and shouting.

‘Stand back. Stand back. Let ’em off,’ shouted the pier attendant, as the ramp was lowered and the first passengers disembarked. Next came the motorbikes and bicycles.

‘They say that one day they’ll build a boat that will carry motorcars,’ said Bertie, ‘think of that. A great heavy motorcar being driven onto a boat. But that’s
years ahead – years ahead.’

‘You say that every time we come here, Daddy,’ Ethie said and strode ahead of them onto the boat. ‘We can get on now.’

‘Come on, Kate.’ Sally saw her daughter hanging back, white-faced, and she was sad. She’d never known Kate so uncannily silent. ‘Come on, dear,’ she encouraged.
‘We’ve got to make the best of it. You stick with your family, girl. Come on – chin up.’

‘You’ll feel better when we get settled in,’ said Bertie. ‘And it won’t be easy for Don and his family, having us lot. We’re lucky to have a place to go. Don
will be waiting for us over there at Beechley, in his motorcar.’

‘At least it’s a farm,’ said Ethie, making a rare attempt to be cheerful. ‘At least we haven’t got to live in a town.’

Kate squared her shoulders and stepped onto the boat. She went to stand by herself at the back, leaning on the rail so that she could take a last gaze at the land she was leaving. And she
thought about the secret letter she’d left tucked into a crack in the wall by the front door. He had to find it, he just had to. Freddie would think she had just abandoned him.

The sky was plum dark over Monterose as Freddie unloaded the last pine plank into the furniture-maker’s warehouse. Coppery lightning was playing in the distance,
illuminating clouds and hilltops. It hadn’t rained for weeks, the earth was cracked, and a haze of dust hung in the air above the streets.

‘Cuppa tea, Freddie?’

‘No thanks, Bill. I’ve got to go somewhere else before dark,’ said Freddie. He took out his wallet and added the two crumpled pound notes that Bill had paid him. It was four
o’clock on a Saturday, and he had a few hours of daylight left. Part of him wanted to go home and start carving the block of stone, but going to Hilbegut seemed more important. He’d
been due to see Kate tomorrow, after she’d been to church and had lunch with her family, then she had a few hours before milking time. Since the picnic they’d been meeting most Sundays,
spending the time strolling in the lanes around Hilbegut, or sitting by the river. Precious hours for both of them. In the busy lives they had, work came first.

Annie hadn’t met Kate yet, but Freddie had tried to tell her about their friendship. Her reaction had been ominous.

‘You’re both too young to be courting,’ she’d warned.

‘We’re not courting,’ said Freddie, annoyed.

‘Well, what do you call it then?’

‘We’re just friends.’

‘You should be helping me on a Sunday, not running round with the likes of her.’