Children of the Archbishop (59 page)

“Might as well sleep round 'ere,” he said. “Gotter sleep somewhere. It's a good sorter place. Nobody won't expecter find us 'ere. That's why I brought you this way.”

There was the dark outline of a barn farther up the road, and they made their way towards it. But a dog began barking when they tried the door, and they went on farther up the road. It was under a hayrick that they finally dossed down. Ginger chose the hayrick because he had heard that hayricks were warm. But perhaps this was the wrong kind of hayrick. Because it wasn't warm at all. It was cold and damp. And when he lay down beside it, he found himself up against wet, icy spikes. Sweetie felt the cold,
too. She was shivering again. He could hear the noise that her teeth made, chattering. He moved up nearer and put his arm round her.

“Gitcher warmer this way,” he said.

“You are nice,” Sweetie answered.

She was almost asleep by now.

It is very sudden waking up in the open air. There are no degrees to it. At one moment you are asleep and, at the next, you are wide awake with the sun splitting your eyes open. The sun itself too is brighter, with no blinds and curtains and window-frames to drain it on the way. That is, if you go to sleep facing East. And Ginger hadn't known enough to choose the West side. If he had done so, he would have found it warmer. Tramps choose the west side, always.

Sweetie wasn't awake yet, because Ginger's body had been protecting her. She was lying there, her head supported on one arm and her hair tumbled across her face. It was raven-black hair and, in the morning sunlight, it gleamed and shone at him. Suddenly, he wanted to stroke it. It was the first thought of that kind that he had ever had about Sweetie, and it surprised him. He got up stiffly and moved away.

“I must be going barmy,” he told himself. “Clean barmy, or I wouldn't never have wanted to do it.”

Then a different kind of thought came to him.

“Good thing I don't have ter shave,” he reflected. “If I did, I'd look awful.”

Because it was quite light by now—broad daylight, in fact—he went back and roused Sweetie. And the same curious feeling about her came over him. He didn't know where to touch her; suddenly felt shy about touching her at all. But he couldn't just let her lie there: that would be asking for trouble. So he used his boot, pushing it under her and poking her ribs and wriggling it. …

They moved on almost straightaway. But they couldn't go so fast as they had done on the previous night. Where the heel had come off Sweetie's shoe, the nails had been left showing and they had worked their way right up through the leather. Her heel was swollen now. It was as much as she could do to take the first few steps at all.

There was a stream at the bottom of the field and Sweetie stopped there, resting her foot in it. The water was as cold as though it had come from ice-bergs just melted. It was clear, too. Sweetie
could see the pebbles on the bottom. And there were reflections of the trees on the surface of the water.

“Isn't it beautiful?” she said at last.

That remark made Ginger suspicious of her again. He was close beside her, squatting on the bank. And he had been thinking. Thinking hard. The one job that he had managed to get, he'd lost again before he had been paid anything. And the police were after them: he knew that from the paper. Being among fields wasn't so good, either. It was easier to find you when there were only a few people anyhow. A town, like Doncaster, was the proper place to get lost in—if you didn't make the mistake of going up to nosy clerks in Labour Exchanges. Only with Sweetie's bad foot he didn't see how they would get to the right sort of place. What with Sweetie and her foot, he reckoned that he might just as well never have run away at all. It was all Sweetie's fault, and all that she could think of to say was how beautiful it was.

“Gotter to be gittin' on,” he said savagely.

“I'm ready,” Sweetie answered, and squeezing her foot back into her shoe before her heel could begin to swell again, they started off.

It had been Ginger's idea that they should cut across country so that they could avoid any posse of policemen who might be lying in wait for them at the cross-roads. But with Sweetie's bad foot that was impossible. And, in any case, the precaution proved unnecessary. The roads were unguarded. It was a fine, golden, empty sort of morning and they could have gone anywhere.

Because it was still so early, there was not much traffic about. Just small stuff mostly, going back into Doncaster. And the big ones, the six-wheelers, ignored them. They simply swept on at a steady forty, massive and imperious, as though they were driving themselves, and hadn't got any flesh and blood and human feelings inside them anywhere.

“When we git to a shop I'll buy some biscuits,” Ginger said at last. “We can eat 'em while we're still goin'.”

The fear of Doncaster and its police force was still on him, and he felt anxious and apprehensive as soon as they stopped anywhere. Not that Sweetie seemed put out about missing her breakfast.

“Thank you,” was all she said. “I like biscuits.”

Then they had a piece of real good fortune. Without even having to ask for it, they got a lift. It was a lady who offered it to them. You could see at once that she
was
a lady, even though
it was only a very old Austin Seven that she was driving. And from the way she spoke you had to be respectful to her.

“Jump in, boys,” she said. “It's a bit of a squeeze. But we'll manage it. Careful there with that parcel. And mind the doorhandle, it's broken. Don't bother about the back seat, it's always been like that.”

And that they found was her trouble: she wouldn't stop talking. She was inquisitive, too—which was awkward. She wanted to know everything about them—how old they were, where they were going, whether they liked the pictures, what radio programmes they listened to, did they ever read books, or was it only magazines—anything on earth, in fact, just to keep the conversation going.

Ginger summed her up quite early. She was barmy; harmless, but definitely barmy. Perhaps it was because she was barmy that she was so kind: there was some milk chocolate in the front of the car and she gave them the whole of it. Just told them to divide it between them, like that.

They had a nasty shock at the end of the ride, however. Because she drew up right outside the Police Station.

“Here we are, boys,” she said. “This is as far as we're going. No farther.”

Ginger felt his mouth suddenly go dry.

“Wodjermean?” he asked.

But the lady didn't seem to notice any difference in his tone.

“You didn't know that you'd been driving with a magistrate, did you?” she asked cheerfully. “If you were local lads you'd have known it all right. Well, good luck, boys, keep smiling. Best foot foremost. No dawdling. …”

“Come on,” Ginger whispered hoarsely to Sweetie. “Don't hang around 'ere. They're not all barmy.”

That was the only lift they got that day. And the food wasn't so good, either. Just biscuits. They bought the broken kind at one shop they came to because they were cheaper. But the broken ones were a mistake: there were too many sweet ones among them. And when you are hungry, really hungry that is, it isn't the sweet ones that you want most. It is something plain, like bread-and-butter. Or potatoes. Or meat. Sweetie and Ginger thought about all of those as they walked. And they thought about things to drink,
too, like cocoa and milk or lemonade. Altogether they covered about five miles, thinking of food and drink all the way.

And they weren't so fortunate in the people they fell in with that day. It was a sour, bitter colony that they had stumbled on as though someone had just done the folks there a disservice. When they went into a field to rest, they were ordered out again by a man with a dog at his heels and a gun. He said that he had met their sort before, and didn't want to see any more of them. And then, when they went on down the road and came to an inn, the publican who was standing in the doorway regarded them through dubious half-closed eyes, and stood looking after them until they were out of sight again. He hadn't actually said anything. But he didn't have to say it. From the look on his face Ginger wouldn't have cared to ask him even for a drink of water. And a drink of water was what they both happened to be wanting at the moment.

The stops that they made by the roadside had grown longer, and the stretches of road between them had grown shorter. Sweetie just hadn't got the strength to keep going any farther. It was getting on for four o'clock by now, and they hadn't covered more than ten miles since the old lady had dropped them. That worried Ginger. All the time they were resting he could feel the police catching up with them. And once they had to crouch down in the hedge while a slow policeman cycled past them. He was out searching, Ginger reckoned; scouring the countryside for the two of them. And he made Sweetie pull his cap lower down over her head so that even the little stray bits of hair at the side wouldn't show.

Because he was tired himself, Ginger's manners were growing a bit ragged.

“Yer oughter cut it off before we started,” he said, after the second attempt to get the cap on properly. “It's potty muckin' everythin' up because of a lot of 'air.”

“I'm sorry,” Sweetie answered. “I didn't think.”

“Well, yer should of,” he told her.

And it was that last remark that made Sweetie cry. Ginger knew that she was crying. But he was determined not to take any notice, because he hoped that she would stop soon. Besides, he hadn't said anything to make her cry. Nothing at all that could have made anybody cry. But he felt ashamed about it all the same. And awkward, too. It was difficult walking with someone who was two paces behind him, and in tears.

When he could stand it no longer, he stopped and waited for her.

“Wot you crying for?” he asked.

“It's nothing,” Sweetie answered. “I'm just sorry. I've made things difficult for you. I shouldn't never have come.”

Ginger softened.

“Thassalright,” he said awkwardly. “Dontcherworry.”

Now that she was close to him, he could see how pale she was. Her face was dirty with dust, and the tears had run down it leaving channels. But, even under the dust, the skin still showed white—whiter than he remembered it.

“Yer not ill, are yer?” he asked.

“I'm all right,” Sweetie said. “Only … only just a bit tired.”

He put his arm round her.

“Got to go on a bit furver,” he said. “Can't stop here. I'll git yer some real food soon. Then yer'll feel better.”

It was another three miles before they came on the next village. And Ginger kept his arm round her all the way. He could feel now how thin she was. There didn't seem to be anything to her inside that overall. He was surprised now that she had even been able to walk as far as this.

“Git yer some real food now,” he said again. “Git yer the kind of food yer like.”

But he was cautious all the same. He didn't want anybody in the village to get suspicious. So he made Sweetie wait on the outskirts, and he went into the village shop alone. It was a very nice little shop and it seemed to sell everything. He could have bought cough-cures and hair-brushes and leather bootlaces, and bunion plasters if he had wanted them. But he saw straight away what it was that he really wanted. There was a dish of real food on the counter, a thick rich-looking black pudding. At the thought of Sweetie waiting somewhere up the road he suddenly became extravagant.

“Threepennorth of that,” he said, pointing. And, looking round the shop, he saw another of those thick, wonderful slabs of fruit-cake that he had met first at his Piccadilly coffee-stall. “And threepennorth of that,” he added.

That was sixpence gone out of his one-and-a-penny. All at one go, too. But he still didn't feel that he had done enough for Sweetie—not after making her cry like that.

“Anner pennorth of those,” he said, pointing.

It was bulls'-eyes that he had ordered that time. Then as the
shop-keeper handed him the screw of paper, a wave of coldness passed through him. He realised what he had done: all the money that he now had left was the sixpence that wasn't really his. But he forgot about it again in thinking how excited and happy Sweetie was going to be when she knew what he had bought her for supper.

“Come on,” he said. “Let's git goin'. Let's git goin' somewhere we can eat this.” He paused. “An' you'd better walk in front,” he added. “So that nobody won't know that we're together.”

Because it was getting late there were lights in the cottage windows. Bright lights they seemed against the greyness of the sky, and Ginger could see everything that was going on inside. There was one room in particular that he looked into. It was quite a small room with a lamp standing in the middle of the table. The chairs were drawn up round the table and, as he passed, he could see the faces of the people who were sitting down there—warm, comfortable, smudgy faces, all eating. The top of a loaf of bread was showing just over the edge of the window-sill and he could see the teapot, too, a big, coloured, fancy one. Ginger paused, for a moment, because he felt envious. Not envious because of the loaf of bread and the teapot, but simply because everyone in that room looked so happy and secure. It was like peering into another world altogether, seeing them sitting down there. And he would have been ready to go on standing there, simply gaping.

But, remembering Sweetie, he started off again: she was still trudging on in front of him. The road in front led straight on to the moors. And as Ginger followed up behind he noticed how slowly Sweetie was moving. She might have been ill the way she was walking. It was her heel, he supposed. Perhaps it had got bad again after she had bathed it this morning. Then he noticed that she had stopped walking altogether: was simply standing there waiting for him to catch up with her. And that was silly, because it would naturally give the whole show away. He was all ready to tell her about that, too.