My Friend Walter (5 page)

He was fascinated too by the farm machinery, the mower, the four-furrow plough, the baler, the hay-elevator and the corn-drill. He wanted me to explain the working of each one, and I found that difficult, for although I loved driving the tractor I had never much interested myself in how the farm machines actually worked.

It was the tractor in particular that took his fancy. If I do nothing else remarkable in my life it will be enough to claim that I, Bess Throckmorton, taught Sir Walter Raleigh to drive a tractor. Cars he said were ‘but insects compared with the majesty of a tractor'.

One misty morning I drove the little Massey Ferguson 125 (the only one Father would let me drive) to the little meadow below the wood where no one could see us, and Walter climbed up into the seat. I showed him what was what and off he went, his laughter ringing above the chugging and spluttering of the engine. He made figures of eight through the long grass and then rumbled away down towards the gate to the marsh field and the river beyond. I called for him
to come back, for the ‘horrible Barrowbills' might well have been fishing on the far bank, and to them or to anyone else the sight of a tractor driving itself along might be a little upsetting (not that I minded upsetting the Barrowbills, but there would be bound to be telephone calls and questions and difficult explanations). Anyway, Walter obediently turned and at full throttle bore down on me, his black cloak flying out behind him. It occurred to me for a moment he might forget what he was riding and where the brake was, that he might be expecting the 125 to rear up on its hind legs and paw the air and whinny. He was riding it just like a horse. But he stopped it in time and patted it on the chimney. It took all my persuasive powers to get him off so that I could drive it back to the sheds, but in the end he rode up beside me on the step and laughed like a boy all the way home.

We made hay until dark that evening – all of us there. Mother turning and Father baling, and Walter and me standing them up in castles of four in case of rain. Gran kept bringing out the orange juice and the tea and the buns and grumbled about her creaky knees (she could be an old misery sometimes) and Mother kept telling me not to lift the heavy ones. ‘Bad for your
back,' she said. ‘They're lighter in the middle of the field. I'll manage the wet ones along the hedges.' But of course she need not have worried, for I had all the help I needed that evening. Hay bales had never felt so light to me.

‘You're working well Bess,' Father called out. ‘We'll make a farmer of you yet!' And I glowed inside. I had a sudden longing to introduce him to my friend Walter. I wanted very much for them to like each other, but a secret is a secret and I kept it. I was hot and I was dusty and I was tired, but at that moment I was as happy as any lark. Why is it, though, that the good times never seem to last for long?

Will returned home later that night, and came and sat on my bed and talked about the miles they had tramped, the mountains they had climbed, the secret cigarettes he had smoked, and all about Peter Munns from school who had fallen out of a tree and broken his leg, and how it served him right anyway. But, to be fair to Will, it wasn't his coming home that spoiled everything. To be honest, I was quite pleased to have him home again. He kept everyone happy and he made everyone laugh. Even Father cheered up a bit. I don't like to admit it but if truth be told we need Will in our
house. He's the glue that sticks us all together, if you know what I mean.

‘Did you go to that party with Aunt Ellie?' he asked after he'd finished telling me all about his camp.

‘Went to the Tower of London,' I said.

‘See the Crown Jewels? Wicked, aren't they?'

‘I saw the Bloody Tower,' I said, ‘where Sir Walter Raleigh lived. He's a distant relation of ours, you know.'

‘Relation?'

‘Ancestor then.'

‘How d'you know?'

‘Aunty Ellie said, so did Miss Soper.'

‘Who's she?'

‘Cousin of Aunty Ellie's.'

‘I done him in history.'

‘Who?'

‘Walter Raleigh. When we did the Armada at school. Had his head cut off, didn't he? Traitor, wasn't he?'

‘No he wasn't!'

‘Well they cut off his head, didn't they? Must've done something wrong.'

‘They shouldn't have done. He didn't do anything wrong.'

I might have said more than I meant to if the argument had had a chance to get going. But it didn't. There were sudden loud voices downstairs in the kitchen. We looked at each other, Will and I. We could hear Father banging the table and shouting.

‘What's up with them?' Will asked. ‘Arguing about Gran are they?'

It's true that Gran was the only thing they ever argued about, and that was rare enough. ‘Don't think so,' I said. ‘Father's not been like himself. Something's wrong, I think, but I don't know what.' I had a sudden tickle in my throat, it must have been from the hay dust. I coughed twice. My blue elephant fell off the chest of drawers and landed at Will's feet. I spoke without thinking. ‘I didn't mean it like that,' I said, and then I clapped my hand to my mouth.

‘Didn't mean what like what?' Will asked as he picked up Elephant. ‘What are you on about?' And he pulled Elephant's trunk and tied it into a knot like he always did.

‘Nothing,' I said, bouncing out of bed and snatching it out of his hand. ‘Didn't mean nothing.' But Will was canny and he knew when I was lying. He always did.

‘You're up to something, Bessy,' he said, looking around him. ‘What little mystery have you been hatching up in here while I've been away?'

‘Nothing. Don't know what you mean.'

‘We'll see,' he said and went towards the door. He stopped and sniffed the air. ‘Smells of tobacco in here. You been smoking, have you?' I shook my head vigorously. He sniffed again. ‘Funny,' he said. ‘And there's another thing, you've been down in my chemistry lab, haven't you?'

‘No.'

‘You sure?'

‘Course I haven't. I hate your smelly chemistry lab. Anyway I never go down the cellar. I'm frightened silly of the spiders. You know I am.'

He seemed to accept that. ‘Well, someone's been down there, that's all I know,' he said. ‘Someone's been down there messing about. I know they have.'

‘Well, it wasn't me,' I said, knowing quite well who it was. Who else could it have been? Will seemed satisfied with that and he went out leaving the door open. He always left my door open. I shut it and listened to be sure that he was gone. I coughed four times and nothing happened, not at first.

‘You there, Walter?' I whispered. And he appeared just where I thought he was, sitting in my chair. He seemed to like my chair. ‘It was you wasn't it? You've been down in his chemistry lab, haven't you? Why? What for?'

He held up his hands and chuckled. ‘I confess it freely, chick,' he said. I liked it when he called me ‘chick'. ‘You must excuse me but I have a passion for a knowledge of science, and for chemistry in particular. I was a man of science in my lifetime and did many experiments with plants and herbs and, though I say it myself, I was not entirely unsuccessful. Science to me is like the world – there is much to explore, much to discover. One gains such a paltry slice of knowledge in just one lifetime.' He bowed his head. ‘Your pardon cousin. Henceforth I shall not indulge myself without greater caution. That much I promise.'

‘It's not going to be so easy now that Will's back,' I said. ‘And you'd better stop smoking in the house. He's suspicious already. I know he is.'

‘If you say I must not, then I will not.'

‘He's cunning as a weasel, eyes in the back of his head,' I said.

‘What a weasel cannot see a weasel cannot catch,'
said Walter. ‘Do not trouble yourself, sweet Bess. All will be well.'

But I knew my big brother Will a lot better than he did, and I wasn't quite so sure.

NOW THAT WILL WAS BACK HOME I SEEMED TO see less and less of my friend Walter. That's not to say that he wasn't there. He was, but not so often. Before he had stayed by me almost all day and every day. I only had to cough to be sure he was there. But more and more now my coughing signals brought no response and I began to wonder where he was and what he was doing on his own.

It didn't help that when he was with me we could no longer be sure of being alone anywhere. However hard we tried, Walter and I could not lose ourselves for very long. Somehow, wherever we went Will would appear sooner or later, and all too often he had caught me talking to myself, or so he thought.
This everlasting game of hide-and-seek upset both Walter and me. Perhaps that was why he stayed away. I made every effort to winkle out of Walter what he did when he was alone – I was curious, that's all – but the most he ever revealed was in these few cryptic words: ‘A ghost knows well enough how to pass the time,' he said. ‘He's had time enough to learn.' And he said no more. However, I was to find out soon enough how my friend Walter was passing his time.

One morning just before breakfast Will came storming into the kitchen waving his fishing rod like a weapon. He was crying with rage. ‘Who said you could borrow my rod?' I gaped at him. He appealed to Mother. ‘Look what she's gone and done. The line's all caught up and the reel's jammed.'

‘I never touched it,' I protested. Right away I knew who the culprit was. ‘Honest I never. I haven't been fishing since you came back.'

‘P'raps your father took it,' said Mother, trying to calm the storm. ‘You'd better ask him before you go accusing your sister like that.'

‘I
have
asked him,' Will shouted. ‘And he told me he's been too busy to go anywhere near the river for
weeks. It was you. Couldn't be anyone else, could it?' And he waved the rod in my face.

‘I never touched your silly rod,' I screamed, knocking it aside. ‘Only that once while you were away. I didn't think you'd mind, just once.'

‘I'm not talking about then, am I?' Will said. ‘You messed up my rod, and you're going to pay for it. The whole thing's jammed solid.'

At that very moment Gran came in from the pantry carrying a plate and on the plate were four gleaming silver trout. ‘Well someone's been fishing,' she said. ‘And I can tell you it's not me. Fresh as daisies, these are. Found them on the kitchen table when I came down this morning. Straight out of the river, I'd say.' She put the plate down on the table and wagged her finger at me. ‘I've told you before, Bess. Neither a borrower nor a lender be.' And she had told me – often. It was one of her little sayings – Gran had hundreds of them and she trotted them out whenever she could.

Father came in from milking and kicked off his boots by the door. ‘What's all the fuss about?' he said. ‘You two been at each other's throats again?' And Will told him the whole story and pointed in triumph to the plate
of fish on the table. He picked it up and carried it across the kitchen and presented it to Father as evidence. ‘Sea trout again – couple of pounds each. Nice fish. Well?' Father said, looking down at me. ‘What have you got to say to this, my girl? Could hardly catch 'em without a rod, could you?' There was nothing for it but to confess. I made the best of it I could.

‘I thought you'd like the fish, that's all,' I cried. ‘You're always saying money's short and we've got to go careful, and so I thought I'd try and catch a few fish.' And the tears flowed as freely as I could manage.

‘She didn't mean any harm, Will,' said Mother, putting her arm around me and drying my eyes with the dishcloth.

‘All right,' said Will. ‘But she's got to ask, that's all, or get her own. What am I going to do about this line? I'll never get it undone.'

‘I'll give you a hand with it later, Will,' said Father, and he ruffled my hair. ‘You went out and caught these?' he asked. ‘Last night?' I nodded. ‘Should've been in bed, shouldn't you?' There was some consolation at least in the admiring look he gave me, but things were getting out of hand and I knew I'd have to speak to my friend Walter, and soon.

I found him that evening out in Sally's field. I'd been coughing for him everywhere, increasingly angry at the predicament he had landed me in. When I told him he just roared with laughter. ‘I commend you, Bess, for your quick wit,' he said. And then he went on. ‘Did you see the moon last night, chick?'

‘I was asleep last night,' I said, wondering what that had to do with anything.

‘Had you seen the moon, and the mist rising from the valley floor, you could not have stayed abed.' Walter went on. ‘Fish rise on such a night, dearest cousin. I could not but go. And what a night it was, filled with the cries of owls and foxes, and the piping and splashing of otters. On such a night a soul can be at peace – even one such as mine.'

‘How did you mess up his reel?' I asked.

‘Alas, I became entwined with an unfortunate overhanging branch,' he said. ‘One of the perils of fishing at night. I did all I could, cousin. I climbed the tree to retrieve it, and that was no easy task for a ghost of my years. Despite my best endeavours however I ended up with a bird's nest for a reel and had to come home. I ask you, what was I to do? Was I to leave the fish I had caught for the otters and the herons? I wanted to keep
them for you, so that we might cook them again by the river as we did once before, remember? Would you scold me for that, dear cousin? I brought them back for you. I was in the kitchen with the fish laid out on the table and trying to unravel the infernal line, when the door opened.'

‘Gran?'

He nodded. ‘She made at once for the stove to put on the kettle for her morning tea. She always rises with the birds for her cup of tea, and I had forgotten it. She took one look at the fish and straightway scooped them up and set about washing them and gutting them. I thought it best not to steal them away from under her nose. The shock of such a thing I thought might indeed have grave consequences. So there you have it all, cousin. I own the fault was mine, and if I have harmed you, dear Bess, then I beg you humbly to forgive your wretched cousin, who loves you tenderly and would have you love him as well.' How could I be angry with him for long? ‘Am I forgiven, cousin?'