The Stony Path (11 page)

Frederick’s face was as red as a beetroot and the mood in the kitchen had turned dark. Polly knew a little of the ins and outs of what the others had been talking about, and she sensed there was none of the normal Sunday jollication flowing, and that her Uncle Frederick looked more than a little upset. And if he was upset that would mean another bout of her mam and da’s quiet fighting and her mam being impossible for days, besides which – she looked across at the big burly figure sitting next to her mam on the saddle – her uncle had been very kind to her of late. The severe winter had meant she and Ruth had got to school even less than normal, but it hadn’t mattered so much because her Uncle Frederick had taken to bringing her books and newspapers from Stone Farm when he visited. This had become more frequent, often encompassing an evening or two in the week. And he usually sat and talked with her, discussing what she had read and explaining all manner of things. She liked those times and she was glad they had continued even when the winter had finished.

So now, aiming to diffuse the electricity in the air as much for Frederick’s ease of mind as to avert her mother’s wrath from her father, she reached for a plate of sliced buttered fruit loaf and walked across to the saddle, offering her uncle the plate as she said smilingly, ‘I don’t know if you dare try a shive, Uncle Frederick, ’cos I made it meself. Gran’s rheumatism has been playin’ her up so me an’ Ruth did the cookin’ yesterday.’

For a moment she didn’t think it was going to work, and then, as her uncle brought his eyes from Luke’s grim, tight face to her own, Polly watched him take a long, hard pull of air before he relaxed, saying, ‘Did you now? Well, I’ll have to be trying a piece in that case, won’t I?’

‘Gran thought I was a sight over-generous with the fruit, but I like it nice an’ claggy.’

‘Nice and claggy, eh?’ A smile was spreading over his face, widening his mouth and giving his eyes the crinkled look she liked best. ‘We’re two of a kind then, you and me, because there’s nothing I like more than a sticky fruit loaf. Betsy, bless her heart, is a mite sparing with the currants.’

‘I can make you one any time, Gran won’t mind.’

‘No?’ His voice was soft now, and low. ‘Well, that’s right nice of you, lass. And what do you think of your reading for this week? Is
Nicholas Nickleby
to your taste?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Her voice was bright now, and eager. ‘It’s more cheerful than
Great Expectations
, isn’t it, and I can understand it better.’

‘Good, good.’ He nodded, his eyes wandering over the sweet face in front of him. ‘We’ll discuss it in the week, eh? Maybe Tuesday? Would you like that?’

Polly glanced at her mother. Hilda had subjected her daughter to a ten-minute lecture the previous week on the merits of being seen and not heard when visitors were present, but she had known it was only one visitor in particular her mother had had in mind. Ever since her Uncle Frederick had started to bring books to the farm and tell her about literature and the classics and such, her mother had played up. She had even made Ruth sit with them every time her uncle called, and her mam knew how much Ruth disliked reading and writing. Ruth hated all that stuff as much as her sister loved it. ‘Can I, Mam?’ Polly said now.

Hilda’s voice was as low as her stepbrother’s had been when she said, ‘Can you? You don’t have to ask me, girl, you know that. If your uncle is kind enough to spare his time, the least we can do is to be grateful.’

Oh, her mam. Always twisting things round.

Polly could feel the colour flooding into her face as she turned away from the saddle. Mam had made it seem as though she had asked permission because she didn’t want to sit with her uncle and learn about everything, and that wasn’t the case at all. Uncle Frederick had told her numerous times that he looked forward to their discussions, and that she was a bright, intelligent lass, and much as she loved her grandparents and Da, it was nice to have a grown-up listen to her like her uncle did.

They’d read
Great Expectations
throughout the winter months, along with a book of poems for what her uncle termed ‘light relief’. He’d told her he had been pleasantly surprised at how quickly she’d taken to Dickens, and when he encouraged her to discuss and comment on different newspaper articles and such, he never laughed at what she said or made fun of her, but said her slant on things was refreshing. She liked her Uncle Frederick. And her mam would like to spoil those precious times if she could.

Polly’s small chin rose at the thought, her blue eyes darkening as she watched the others filling their plates. This had been a horrible afternoon up to now. Well, she was going to take her plate outside and she wasn’t going to ask
anyone
to come with her. If they wanted to, then that was fine, but if no one followed her ... She’d know. Quite
what
she would know, Polly wasn’t absolutely sure, but it was all to do with Michael’s fascination with the others’ conversation and his obliviousness to her presence beside him on the cracket.

Once outside in the cobbled yard in front of the house, Polly stood still for a moment, the hot sun beating down on her uncovered head and the smell from the pigsty at the back of the building wafting on the summer breeze as it was wont to do when the wind was in the wrong direction. She glanced down at her plate of food and then back towards the farmhouse door, which was slightly ajar. She could hear Ruth laughing inside, which meant one of the lads was teasing her, probably Michael. Ruth always made up to Michael.

This last thought, along with the smell of the pigs, brought Polly skirting the edge of the yard and passing through the small opening into the area beyond. She passed the stable, rubbing Bess’s velvet nose and then Patience’s, as the two horses peered enquiringly out, then continued past the empty cow byres and on to the barn beyond. The air was fresher here, clean, carrying the scents of the hedgerows and the apple trees and fruit bushes which bordered her granny’s vegetable plot. Her da had once told her that when he was a boy, and the farm had employed some four or five men, Gran’s little orchard and plot of land had been a picture, but it was mostly overgrown now, and a couple of the trees were diseased and needed cutting down.

Nevertheless, she never came this way now without thinking about one of the poems in Uncle Frederick’s book. Like so much of what she read, it made her feel sad and happy at the same time.

I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

There were more verses, all about flowers and trees and birds, but the melancholy running through the poem always made her think of her granny.

The barn door was wide open, and Polly sat down on a bale of hay a couple of feet inside and gazed at the view. Past the tangle of the orchard and unkempt ground there was the lane, and beyond that a field of grazing cows and then more fields. It was peaceful and quiet, nice, but she didn’t feel nice inside. She closed her eyes and shook her head. She was barmy. Ruth had called her that the other night. She had been leaning out of their bedroom window and looking up into the night sky, and she’d said she’d like to make a necklace of the stars and give it to her granny, and Ruth had laughed and called her barmy.

‘Got you!’ As Arnold’s voice sounded loud in her ear, the start Polly gave almost sent her backwards off the bale of hay, and as her legs flew up and the plate fell from her lap it was only Arnold’s hands shooting out and grabbing her shoulders that saved her. ‘You can’t hide from me, you know.’

‘I wasn’t hiding!’ Her voice was indignant.

‘No?’ He was laughing, but his brown eyes were hard on her face and he hadn’t let go of her, and when she wriggled in his grasp he said, but softly now, ‘You sure about that, Polly?’

‘Of course I am.’ Her tone was still strident, but inwardly something deep inside registered that there was an element of truth in his accusation. If she had thought Arnold was following her she would have made sure he didn’t find her. Since that day last summer at the stream she had become aware of this older cousin in a way that made her slightly afraid. She had shot up in the last six months – her granny had done nothing but bemoan her sudden growth and the fact that her hems had been let down as far as they would go and still her two dresses were only just below her knees – but Arnold was a good head taller than her, and broad with it.

He seemed to tower over her now as he said, ‘Funny, but I got the idea you think you’re too good for us now you’ve got a bit of book learnin’. Am I wrong?’

‘Yes, you are.’ Her voice was quieter; she sensed something here that wasn’t right and instinctively knew she needed to keep her wits about her.

‘Prove it.’

‘What?’

‘Prove it.’ His voice had a slight tremble to it now and his fingers tightened on her shoulders, his thumbs stroking the soft, warm skin of her neck above the collar of her dress.

‘Let... let go of me.’ It wasn’t as forceful as she would have liked, but her stomach seemed to have curdled in the last few moments.

‘You’re a pretty lass, but then you know that, don’t you? Oh, aye, you know it all right.’ He gave a low laugh deep in his throat. ‘Blossomed out just as I expected. You ever kissed a lad, Polly? You kissed Michael?’ His tongue came out and wetted his fleshy lower lip.

‘No.’

‘I don’t think I believe you.’

‘I don’t care what you believe, Arnold Blackett.’

‘Don’t see anything of life stuck on this bit farm, do you?’ His upper body was bending forward, and although she had her hands either side of her thighs in the hay, her balance was precarious with his fingers pressing her slightly backwards, and she knew without thinking about it that she mustn’t fall on the floor. ‘If you’re kind to me I’ll take you to the Olympia in Borough Road, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? It’s got roundabouts and gondolas and a big menagerie, it’s right bonny.’

‘Gran ... Gran wouldn’t let me.’

‘Oh, aye, she would, if we played it right. We could all go, you and me and Luke and Ruth and Michael, see? Or there’s the Victoria Hall, they’re doing moving picture shows. You ever bin to a moving picture show, Polly?’

‘You know I haven’t.’

‘No, that’s right, stuck on this bit farm you don’t go nowhere, but you’re not as ignorant as you make out either, not with all the animals around, eh? Bin brought up with it, haven’t you? No, you know what’s what all right.’

Polly didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about, but from his tone she knew he wouldn’t talk this way if her da or any of the others were present. He was acting like he had that day when Luke had gone for him – nasty. Her neck was aching from the strained position he’d pressed her into, and then suddenly he moved with a swiftness which caught her unawares. He jerked her forwards so she was forced to slide off the bale and on to her feet in front of him, whereupon she found herself enveloped by his brawny arms.

Polly lowered her head instinctively as his mouth sought hers, and then all her fighting instincts rose in an angry rush and she thrust outwards with both hands, taking Arnold completely by surprise. He reeled backwards, almost losing his footing, and then when he would have come at her again they both heard a voice calling her name. Arnold glanced about him and then sat on one of the sacks of taties at the side of Bess’s harness, which her father had been cleaning when everyone had arrived, swinging one leg idly as he surveyed her from under glowering brows.

Polly continued to stand exactly where he had left her for the simple reason that her legs felt weak and she needed the support of her buttocks resting against the bale of hay, but she glared back at him, determined to hide every trace of the trembling in her stomach.

‘What’s been going on here?’ It was Luke who walked round the side of the barn door a second later, his dark eyes flashing from Polly’s white face to Arnold sitting on the sack.

‘Nothing.’ Arnold’s voice was casual – too casual – and when Ruth and Michael appeared at the barn’s entrance Luke was already hauling his brother to his feet, his face close to Arnold’s as he growled, ‘I warned you, didn’t I, and I meant it.’

‘Pack it in, man.’ There was only a year between the two brothers, and although Luke was the younger, he matched Arnold in height and breadth. ‘I didn’t do anything, I tell you. Ask Polly.’

Luke’s hand was gripping the front of Arnold’s shirt as he turned to glance at Polly, and now her brain was racing. If Luke and Arnold fought, her grandda would want to know why, and then this whole thing would mushroom like a snowball rolling downhill.

‘We were talking,’ she said flatly. ‘That’s all.’

‘See?’ Arnold jerked himself free.

‘Oh, aye, I see all right,’ Luke said grimly. ‘I see a frightened little lass, that’s what I see.’

‘You all right, Poll?’ Michael had sidled to Polly’s side, and now, as he took her hand, she felt sufficiently recovered to smile at him and say in a normal voice, ‘I’m fine, I am. There’s nothin’ wrong, really.’

‘You dropped your plate.’

This was from Luke and an accusation in itself, and now Polly said quickly, ‘It was a rat. It ran right in front of me an’ made me jump.’

‘We’ve bin havin’ trouble with rats.’ It was Ruth who unwittingly gave credence to the lie. ‘Da was tellin’ us the other night he was workin’ in here when one squeezed itself under the barn door, then another an’ another until they were passin’ through in a line. They crossed right in front of him and then out that hole’ – she pointed to a broken timber at the bottom of the barn – ‘to go down to the pigsty. Gran said when she empties the pigs’ food into their trough there’s three or four rats in it afore she’s finished sometimes. Da’s bin meanin’ to get another cat since Kitty died an’ Uncle Frederick’s lettin’ us have a couple of kittens from one of his cats in a week or two.’