The Breaking Point (40 page)

On again, but slower now, standing between his father’s knees, and at last the rutty, bumpy road came to an end and a light was in front of them.

‘It’s not raining, that’s one blessing,’ said his mother. ‘Don’t ask me what we’ll do here when it does.’

The small house stood alone, light in the windows. Ben, blinking and shivering still, climbed down from the car. He stood looking about him as the luggage was lifted out. For the moment he was ignored.The small house faced a green, smooth as a carpet in the dark, and behind the house, which was thatched, were humped black hills. The sharp sweet smell he had noticed on leaving the station was stronger still. He lifted his face to sniff the air. Where were the moors? He saw them as a band of brothers, powerful and friendly.

‘Come on in, my handsome,’ said a woman from the house, and he did not draw back when she bore down upon him, welcoming and large, and led him into the paved kitchen. A stool was drawn up to the table and a glass of milk put in front of him. He sipped it slowly, his eyes sizing up the flagged kitchen, the scullery pump, the small latticed windows.

‘Is he shy?’ asked the woman, and the whispers began, the grown-up talk, something about his tongue. His father and his mother looked embarrassed and awkward. The woman glanced back again, in pity, and Ben dipped his face in his glass of milk. Then they forgot him, the dull talk passed him by, and unwatched he was able to eat bread and butter without hindrance, help himself to biscuits, his sickness gone and appetite returned.

‘Oh yes, watch out for them,’ the woman said.‘They’re terrible thieves. They’ll come by night and raid your larder, if you leave it open. Especially if it continues cold like this. Watch out for snow.’

So the moors were robbers. A band of robbers wandering by night. Ben remembered the comic paper that his father had bought him, with the ogre’s face upon the cover.Yet they could not be like that, for the woman was saying something about their fine looks.

‘They won’t hurt you,’ she said, ‘they’re friendly enough.’ This to Ben, who watched her, puzzled. Then she laughed, and everyone got up to clear the tea, to unpack, to settle.

‘Now then, don’t wander off,’ said his mother. ‘If you don’t behave you’ll go straight to bed.’

‘He can’t come to harm,’ the woman said. ‘I’ve latched the gate.’

When they were not looking Ben slipped out of the open door and stood outside. The car that had brought them had disappeared. The silence, so different from the noise of the street at home, was like the silence that came when his parents were not angry. It wrapped itself about him. The little lights winking from the other cottages, away down the green, were distant as stars. He went and rested his chin on the gate, and stared into the peaceful darkness. He felt himself at rest. He had no wish to go indoors, to unpack his toys.

There must be a farm somewhere close, for the smell of manure mixed with the cold air, and a cow lowed from a stall. These discoveries were pleasing to him. Mostly he thought about the moors, the thieves of the night, but somehow they did not frighten him: the reassurance of the woman’s smile and the way his parents had laughed showed that the moors were not to be feared.Anyway, it was to come to the moors that they had packed their things and left home. It was this that had been discussed now for so many weeks. ‘The boy will like the moors,’ people had said, back at home. ‘He’ll grow strong, up there. There’s nothing like the moors for giving appetite.’

It was true. Ben had eaten five pieces of bread and butter and three biscuits. Already the band of brothers had shown power. He wondered how close they were to the house, if they lurked, smiling encouragement, beyond those dark humped hills.

A sudden thought occurred to him. If food was put out for the thieves, they would not steal. They would eat it and be thankful. He went back inside the kitchen, and voices from upstairs told him that his parents and their helper were unpacking and out of the way. The table had been cleared, but the tea-things, unwashed, were piled in the scullery. There was a loaf of bread, a cake still uncut, and the remaining biscuits. Ben filled his pockets with the biscuits, and carried the loaf of bread and the cake. He went to the door, and so down the path to the gate. He set the food on the ground, and concentrated upon the task of unfastening the gate. It was easier than he had expected. He lifted the latch and the gate swung back. Then he picked up the loaf and the cake and went out on to the green. The thieves made for the green first, the woman had said. They prowled there, looking for odds and ends, and if nothing tempted them, and no one shouted and drove them away, they would come to the cottages.

Ben walked a few yards on to the green and set out the food. The thieves could not miss it if they came.They would be grateful, and go back to their lair in the black hills well satisfied. Looking back, he could see the figures of his parents moving backwards and forwards in the bedrooms upstairs. He jumped, to try the feel of the grass under his feet, more pleasing than a pavement, and lifted his face once more to feel the air. It came, cold and clean, from the hills. It was as though the moors knew, the thieves knew, that a feast was prepared for them. Ben was happy.

He ran back to the house, and as he did so his mother came downstairs.

‘Come on, bed,’ she said.

Bed? So soon? His face protested, but she was not to be moved.

‘There’s enough to do without you round my heels,’ she complained.

She pulled him up the steep little stairway after her, and he saw his own bed, miraculously brought from home, standing in a corner of the small room lit by candlelight. It was close to the window, and his first thought was that he would be able to look out from his bed and watch when the thieves came. This interest kept him quiet while his mother helped him to undress, but she was rougher than usual. Her nails got caught in a button and scratched his skin, and when he whimpered she said sharply, ‘Oh, be quiet, do.’ The candle, stuck in a saucer, threw a monster shadow on the ceiling. It flounced his mother’s figure to a grotesque shape.

‘I’m too tired to wash you tonight,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to stay dirty.’

His father’s voice called up the stairs. ‘What did you do with the bread and the cake?’ he called. ‘I can’t find them.’

‘They’re on the scullery table,’ she answered. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

Ben realized that his parents would search for the food to put it away. Instinct warned him to make no sound. She finished undressing him, and he went straight to his bed without delay.

‘Now I don’t want to hear any more from you tonight,’ she said. ‘If you make a sound I’ll send your father to you.’

She went downstairs, taking the candle with her.

Ben was used to darkness, but, even so, the room was unfamiliar. He had not yet had time to learn the shape. Was there a chair? A table? Was it long or square? He lay back in bed biting at the blanket. He heard footsteps underneath his window. Sitting up, he looked between the curtains, and saw the woman who had welcomed them walk down the path, through the gate, and away down the road. She was carrying a lantern. She did not cross the green. The lantern danced as she moved, and soon she was swallowed up in the darkness. Only the bobbing light betrayed her passage.

Ben lay back again in bed, disturbed by the flickering lantern and voices raised in argument below. He heard his mother come upstairs. She threw open the door and stood there, holding the candle, the monstrous shadow behind her.

‘Did you touch the tea things?’ she said.

Ben made the sound his parents understood as a denial, but his mother was not satisfied. She came to the bed and, shielding her eyes, stared down at him.

‘The bread and cake have gone,’ she said. ‘The biscuits too. You took them, didn’t you? Where did you hide them?’

As always, the rising voice brought out antagonism. Ben shrank against his pillow and shut his eyes. It was not the way to question him. If she had smiled and made a joke of it, it would have been different.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll settle you, young man.’

She called for his father. Despair seized Ben. It would mean a whipping. He began to cry. Explanation was beyond him. He heard his father stump up the stairs and come into the room, his shadow monstrous too. The pair of them filled the small, unfamiliar room.

‘Do you want a hiding?’ his father asked. ‘Now then, what did you do with the bread?’

His father’s face was ugly, worn with fatigue. The packing and unpacking, all the hustle of removal, of starting the new life, had meant strain. Ben sensed this, but he could not give way. He opened his mouth and yelled.The cry roused the full fatigue and anger of the father. Resentment, too. Why must his son be dumb?

‘That’s enough of that,’ he said.

He jerked Ben out of bed and stripped the pyjama legs. Then he laid the wriggling child across his knee. The hand found the flesh and hit hard, with all its force. Ben screamed louder still. The relentless hand, so large and powerful, smote and smote again.

‘That’s learned him, that’s enough,’ said his mother. ‘There’s neighbours across the green. We don’t want trouble.’

‘He must know who’s master,’ said his father, and it was not until his own hand ached with the force of the blows that he gave up and pushed Ben from his knee.

‘Now hoiler if you dare,’ he said, rising abruptly, and Ben, face downwards on the bed, his sobs long ceased, heard them withdraw, felt the candle go, knew that the room was empty. Everything was pain. He tried to move his legs, but the movement sent a warning message to his brain. The pain travelled from his buttocks up his spine to the top of his head. No sound came from his lips now, only a trickle of tears from his eyes. Perhaps if he lay quite still the pain would go. He could not cover himself with the blanket, and the cold air found him, bringing its own dull ache.

Little by little the pain numbed.The tears dried on his cheeks. He had no thoughts at all, lying there on his face. He had forgotten the cause of his beating. He had forgotten the band of brothers, the thieves, the moors. If in a little while there could be nothing, let nothing come.

He awoke suddenly, every sense alert. The moon shone through the gap in the curtains. At first he thought that everything was still, and the movement from the green outside told him they were there.They had come. He knew. Slowly, painfully, he dragged himself across his bed and so to the window. He pulled at the curtains. The white night showed him the wonder. The thieves were there, the lordly ones. Not as the woman had described them, but more beautiful. A little group, intent upon his offering. There was the mother, with two children, and another mother just behind, with a taller child, playing by himself. Two others ran round in circles, delighting in the snow, for with them the snow had come, turning the green white.That must be the father, watching. But he was not angry, like Ben’s father: he was beautiful like the mothers and the children, beautiful and wise. He was staring at the window. He had already seen Ben, and then, to show his appreciation of the cake placed ready for him, he touched it gently and moved away, letting the son play with it instead.

It was the time of night when no one moves. Ben knew nothing of time, but instinct told him that his parents had long been in bed, and that morning would not come for many hours. He watched them, the moors, the lordly ones. They were not thieves at all, they were far too proud. They ate with delicacy what Ben had given them, and they did not attempt to come near to the house, or prowl, as the woman had said. Like Ben, they did not speak.They talked by signal.The father, in command, moved his head, and leaving the food the mothers summoned their children, and the whole company settled themselves on the green, in the snow, to wait for morning. Their supreme disdain of the sleeping houses showed itself to Ben as contempt of authority. They made their own laws.

Ben lowered himself from his bed. His buttocks and back were still very sore, and the cold night had stiffened him, lying as he had done without a cover. Nevertheless, he began to put on his clothes. He dressed slowly, not yet accustomed to doing it quite alone, but finally he satisfied himself that he was ready, although his jersey was back to front. Luckily his wellington boots were in the scullery. They had been among the first things to be unpacked.

He could see his room clearly now, for the moonlight turned it to day. There were no strange bulges or shapes. It was just a room, small and plain. The door-latch was high above his head, so he dragged a chair beneath it and stood on it to lift the latch.

Cunningly he crept down the narrow stair. Below in the kitchen it was still dark, but instinct led him to the scullery, and to the corner where his boots waited. He put them on. The larder was only a cupboard, part of the scullery, and the door was ajar. His mother, in her anger, must have forgotten to close it. Deliberately he took the last loaf, intended for breakfast, and then repeated his performance with the chair beneath the latch of the front door. There were bolts here too to be withdrawn. If his parents heard him, he was lost. He climbed down from the chair.The door lay open.The white night was before him, the great moon benign, and the lordly ones were waiting on the green. It was green no longer, but glistening white.

Softly, his boots lightly crunching the snow, Ben tiptoed down the path and lifted the latch of the gate. The sound roused the watchers on the green. One of the mothers looked up, and although she said nothing her movement warned the father, and he too turned his head. They waited to see what Ben would do. Perhaps, thought Ben, they hoped for further gifts: they had not brought food with them, and were hungry still.

He walked slowly towards them, holding out the loaf. The mother rose to her feet, and the children too. The action roused the others, and in a moment the little company, who had settled themselves for sleep, seemed ready to march once more. They did not try to take the bread from Ben. Some sense of delicacy, perhaps, forbade it. He wanted to show generosity to them and to flout his parents at the same time, so, tearing the loaf in two, he went to the smallest child, not much taller than himself, and offered him part of it. This surely would be understood.