A Stone's Throw

Fiona Shaw
is the author of three previous novels,
The Sweetest Thing
,
The Picture She Took
and
Tell it to the Bees
. She has also writen a memoir,
Out Of Me
. She lives in York.

FIONA SHAW

A complete catalogue record for this book can
be obtained from the British Library on request

The right of Fiona Shaw to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988

Copyright © 2012 Fiona Shaw

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any
similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not
intended by the author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published in 2012 by Serpent’s Tail,
an imprint of Profile Books Ltd
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London
ECIR OJH
website:
www.serpentstail.com

ISBN 978 1 84668 831 7
eISBN 978 1 84765 777 0

Designed and typeset by Crow Books
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays, Bungay, Suffolk

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In memory of Nigel Greenwood, 1941–2004

They left the house, father and son, by the back door. The day was bright, but bitter cold. The boy was well-wrapped with a mother’s eye for detail – scarf tucked into his jacket, hat over his ears, mittens. On the man everything was adrift. He carried a fishing bag over his shoulder and he held his son by the elbow as if his life depended on it.

The man walked fast and his boots rang out. The boy ran beside him like a hobbled colt. This was how they went along until they reached the church; then the man let go of his son’s elbow to unlatch the gate. Through the gate and beneath the spreading yew they walked, the man less sure now, his boots quieter.

Inside the church, the man dropped his bag on a pew and put his clothes in order, buttoning and belting. The boy stood at the head of the nave and waited. He felt beneath the scarf for the chain, and ran his finger down to St Christopher, warm against his skin. His breath made little clouds. He banged his feet for warmth and the thin air swallowed up the sound. The boy tucked his arms about himself and turned around slowly. He looked at the bright eagle and the slitty-eyed men and dragons near the door. His stomach growled with hunger. He looked at the stained glass picture with Mary carrying Baby Jesus, his halo like a cushion behind his head. Underneath, the boy made out the names of Robert and William and the date,
1918, which was before he was born.

‘So –,’ the man said. ‘Ready?’

‘I’m hungry,’ the boy said. ‘Can we have breakfast now?’

They sat in a pew and the boy chewed some bread.

‘Look.’ The man showed the boy four squares of chocolate. ‘I saved it.’

‘For our adventure,’ the boy said.

They walked across the flat graves to the kissing gate in the corner of the churchyard. The father went through first, then the son. They walked down beside the first beet field, and the second. The boy stepped on the hummocks when he could; but sometimes he couldn’t and the snow was deeper in between, and it made his socks wet above his boots.

‘This is too deep for Meg,’ the boy said. ‘She’d need carrying.’

At the end of the second beet field they were into the woods. The snow was heavier and wetter here, so the boy trod in his father’s footsteps, jumping a little to get from one to the next.

‘D’you think there’ll be a cake when we get there?’ he said.

The woods were quiet except for the slops of snow that fell from the branches. The sun made streaks through the trees.

‘And will Aunt Ada be standing with the lantern? Like she did at Christmas?’

‘We’ll get there before dark if this weather holds. But Ada doesn’t know about us coming, so there likely won’t be cake.’
They walked on through the woods, father in front and son behind, the father sometimes stopping for his son to catch up, a finger drumming on his thigh.

The boy watched his feet in the snow. He’d found a stick for balancing. He didn’t want to fall over again. They were making a trail through the woods, like the animals. If somebody hunted for them, they’d follow the trail and find them easily. Unless it snowed again, or melted.

‘The bigger boys come here,’ he said.

‘We’ll be going further than them,’ his father said. ‘It’s a long way.’

‘It doesn’t matter if they can see where we’ve been on the adventure, because we’re not escaping,’ he said.

His father didn’t reply.

‘Is it the time I’d be going to school?’

His father checked his watch.

‘About that.’

‘And you’d be at your work.’ The boy swiped his stick at a branch to see the snow fall. ‘You’d be making a table, or a cabinet, or a chair.’

‘I’ll have no trouble,’ the father said to himself. ‘Ada said there’s plenty of work in the city.’

‘Did you tell Fred?’ the boy said. ‘Did he want to come too? Or he might be tracking us.’

‘Stop that with the stick,’ his father said. ‘You’re slowing us.’

They came to the edge of the trees. It was bright on the snow and they blinked in the glare. Beyond the fence the white stretched away to the horizon.

‘It’s like a big sea,’ the boy said.

‘There’s a bridge down the far side, then the road,’ said the man. ‘We might get a ride after that, if we’re lucky.’

The man set off wading the sea. He took sweeping strides to clear as much of the snow as he could for his small son. The boy stood and beat his stick at the snow.

‘Meg can’t walk to school without me,’ he said.

‘We’ll be there right before dark if we can get a lift,’ the man called back. ‘Before the snow starts up again,’ he added to himself.

‘She’s too small,’ the boy said. He looked down at his boots, sodden with snow. It was cold, just standing.

‘Come on, Will.’

‘But Ma can’t take her, so then Mrs Pierce will punish her.’

His father stopped and turned.

‘Meg’s fine,’ he said, ‘and you’re fine. But we’ve to keep moving.’

‘She can’t go across the big road on her own,’ the boy said quietly.

He stepped out into the sea, a wide, playground step, arms out for balance, then his stick planted.

‘I’ll show her about going over the snow. How you have to have your arms out, and not to stand still too long if your boots are wet.’

They walked in the middle of the road where the snow was at its firmest. The boy watched his father’s boots. He was weary: his legs ached and his feet and hands were cold. He counted steps and told himself they would stop after ten, then after twenty, then on till he forgot the number he had reached and began again. It was quiet, not even the black birds rawing in the empty trees. He heard an engine sound and far down the road, at least ninety steps away, a lorry came towards them, lumbering and high. The boy looked up, two bright spots in his cold cheeks.

‘It might be going back home,’ he said. ‘We could wave and stop it.’

His father moved to the edge of the road. The sun shone hard and the light beat up in pulses.

‘We could ride on the lorry,’ the boy said, ‘and I could tell Ma about our adventure.’

The lorry roared up and the driver raised his hand; then it was gone.

They stopped just after and the man hoisted the boy to the top bar of a gate and brought a couple of apples out of his bag, wizened and liver-spotted. He gave them to the boy, one after the other; for himself he took a plug of tobacco from his pouch that he chewed and spat, chewed and spat onto the white snow, all the while pacing a line from the gate to the road and back. The boy ate the apples down to the shrivelled pips, splitting them between his teeth for the taste of almond.
When he had finished, his father stopped pacing and turned to him. His face was a furious colour and he spoke in a rush.

‘We’re not going home,’ he said.

The boy licked the last of almond from his lip.

‘Ada’s is just for now. We’ll stay with her tomorrow, then I’m going to the city. Once I’ve got work and some digs, I’ll come back for you. We’ll find a school; you’ll get new friends.’

The man paused. The boy was sitting very still. Finally he looked down at his lap, then up at his father.

‘We’ve got a house, and I’ve got a school, and friends.’

‘So they’ll be different, is all.’

‘But I have to walk with Meg. And Ma needs me to fetch in the water.’

‘We’re not going home.’

The boy poked at the snow on the gate top, drilled a hole down to the wood with a finger.

‘I don’t want to go to Ada’s any more, or the city. And anyhow my legs are hurting.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake…’ The man flung his bag at the silent snow and walked away; then he stopped and turned.

‘We can’t stay here, Will,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘We’ll freeze before the night’s done. We’ll get to Ada’s and then…’

‘Ma doesn’t know where I am. Nor Meg.’

‘Your ma does know where you are.’

The boy shook his head, just a small movement, and then more fiercely, side to side.

‘No,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t.’

‘She knows you’re with me,’ his father said.

‘No,’ the boy said. ‘She wouldn’t have let me.’

His father walked back towards him and the boy stared past him. Then he turned away, swung his legs over the gate and dropped into the field. The snow lay deep in the furrows; he sank down to his thighs. But the ridges were blown clear, and he scrambled up and ran free and high along the iron earth. He ran fast, as if his tiredness and the heavy land had let him go. By the time his father had climbed the gate, the boy was half way to the trees that lined the near side. By the time his father reached the trees, his son had disappeared between them.

‘Will!’ the man shouted. ‘Come back!’ But the snow swallowed the sound and he ran on into silence.

Will ran through the trees and over the shadows till he came to a place like a smooth, round field where the trees stopped and the sun made the snow shine. He stood still and listened. Pulling off his mittens, he picked up a handful of snow, cupped it in his palm. It turned to ice and dripped into his cuff. He sipped at it, wincing at the cold and listened again. From somewhere in the trees there was the crack of a branch breaking. Will dropped the snow, his body still as an animal’s. A moment later there was the packed thud of someone running.