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Authors: Nick Christofides

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BOOK: The Border Reiver
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“Or, until I feel like stopping, yes,” he replied.

Claire looked at him puzzled, dumbfounded by his fatalistic tunnel vision. She rolled her eyes and shook her head again.

“You’re an idiot or you're not thinking straight, what if you get killed? What about Amber?”

“What about Amber? What about you? Look what happened to Esme; these bastards killed my wife. They abused their position, and they have started a war.”

“What do you sound like, man? Also, where is Amber?”

“She’s safe, with Stuart.” Claire’s eyes flicked up at Nat when he mentioned Stuart. Their romance had started twenty years ago and the roller-coaster had been running ever since, neither settling with anyone else because no one else measured up to each other. But they never managed to commit because they were both pig-headed: Claire loved Northumberland and Stuart had his farm.

Claire gently placed a heavy duty plaster over the fresh stitches and smoothed the edges over his unbroken skin, silent for a moment.

Finally, she looked into Nat’s relaxed but melancholy eyes and she put a hand to his cheek,

“I’m so sorry, Nat, you poor man. I do understand.”

She leant forward and they hugged, that much needed human contact, safe, reassuring and good for the soul. He choked up again in the embrace; but, as they parted, his mind moved back to survival. He wanted to get away from Claire as soon as he could so that she would remain safe.

Claire cooked some food for him and Nat showered and dressed in dry clothes that Stewart had left over the years. They were slightly bigger than Nat would have liked but not noticeably. As he wolfed down the food, he thought about his next step.

“Can I borrow your car?” He mumbled through a mouthful of food.

“No, you can’t, Nat. That would be great for me, wouldn’t it, if they caught you driving around in my car? And, anyway, I need it!” She thought for a second. “My brother’s scrambler is still in the garage, but I don’t even know if it works…”

“That’ll do, I’ve just got to get back to the farm.”

He walked out into the cold early morning. It was near four, still dark for a good three hours. He had plenty of time to get back to safety and get some sleep in the field shelter. The weather was reassuringly settled.

Claire’s driveway was a rustic cobbled affair and her big wooden garage doors were framed by ivy which twisted and tangled its way up the sides and across the roof of the garage. The lush green of the leaves complimented the weathered and flaking red paint adorning the doors.

He opened one side of the old rotting double doors. The wood was a mushy pulp where it leant on the ground and the hinges were giving very little support - he rubbed another couple of centimetres of door pulp away as it scraped open. He stepped into the dusty garage and turned the light on; it flickered to a dim light. The light was enough to make him raise his hand, to visor his eyes, although more through natural reaction than need.

He shook his head as he looked at the clutter in front of him. He cast his eye methodically over the jumbling until he glimpsed the rubber grip of one side of the handlebars of the bike. He moved in, but it took a while, as there was no end of potentially useful junk - all to be shifted to free the motorbike from its tomb of household goods. Finally, he liberated the machine and now he wondered at the likelihood it would start.

He checked the fuel tank: half full. Then the spark plugs and the battery: life in both. He opened the throttle, pushed off down the drive, and put it into gear; the engine puttered to a start, and he was good to go.

He took some bread and fruit from Claire, and she had washed his clothes - although she had not had time to dry them. He took a small rucksack from the garage and put his old and new supplies in there and set off in the dark. He took the Beaufront Road north out of Oakwood, a steep climb up to the military road running parallel with Hadrian’s Wall.

A few hundred yards before he hit the junction with the Military Road, as the little bike puttered up the long incline, he passed Rowell’s farm. There, at the end of his drive, stood the familiar high beech hedge and grandiose stone gate pillars. He was re-assured to see that the old man had barricaded his gates with the trailer from his articulated lorry on which he had welded side panels fashioned from corrugated iron, probably from his shed’s roof or sides. It was like something from a war zone. Nat realised he was not entirely alone.

He turned right onto the long, straight, undulating road running east to West across the country, following the Roman Road that ran along the southern side of Hadrian’s Wall. There was no sign of headlights in either direction so he revved the engine, put his head down, and took the bike to its top speed, heading east towards home. He had no headlight on the bike, but his eyes were used to the dark and there was some moonlight. Within ten minutes, he was skidding into his driveway.

There was no one on the roads, no early commuters, no night shift workers returning home, no farmers getting a march on the hours in the day. A chilling testament to the change: if previous governments had survived by capitalising on the nation’s fears, this new regime was creating fear to dictate to the population.

Nat wasted no time in getting his head down while it remained dark. He slept well, numbed by brandy, full of food, and bolstered by the kindness of his friend.

SIX
 

Amber had been exhausted by the time she arrived at Stuart’s whitewashed farmhouse. Waking from a deep sound sleep, she had no memory of getting to bed.

Her room was big and beautiful, not through design but the amalgamation of age. She perched on the side of a solid wooden bed, which was painted a nautical colour that some would call blue, others green. Her scruffy rucksack rested on an ivory coloured chest of drawers, the sun burst across the room illuminating an ancient rocking chair with the richest sheen from decades of varnishing. The curtains draped across the large window and the throw resting over the bed were a bohemian tapestry of vibrant patches sewn together. Amber loved the room; as she padded out of bed, the silence was broken by the creek of the bare floorboards.

She opened the curtains and breathed in as she absorbed the view. To the front and left of the house stood an old fir tree, robed like a pontiff in needles. This and the rough stone path leading up to the front door gave perspective to the breath-taking backdrop of the meandering valley beyond. The burn frothed and boiled over huge boulders smoothed and rounded by the constant abrasion. The valley sides were steep, and in many places the land had slipped, giving it the look of a furrowed brow belonging to a green giant. Other than the lush grass and the occasional heather bush, vegetation in the valley was sparse with rocky outcrops piercing the surface. There was a coniferous forest at its head which looked as though it were charging over hillside like a wild army consuming everything that stood in its way.

Amber could see Stuart in the distance laying out hay for his cattle. She stretched, yawned and shook her thick head of hair as if to ready herself for the day ahead. She could not have felt safer, more at home than she did at Stuart’s, unless she had woken up in her own bed, of course. However, as her thoughts focussed on her mother and father, she felt uneasiness in her belly and was impatient to get up.

As she padded through it, the old house massaged her senses at every step. There were thick velvety rugs laid over bare floorboards under her feet. The walls and furniture were a cacophony of colour and design. The smell of open fires wafted through the spaces, while the silence was only broken by the random creak of floorboards and the harmonic tick of an old clock that she couldn’t see.

The metallic thud of the latch reverberated through the wood of the kitchen door. The room was no less enchanting, but obviously where Stuart did most of his living, as it was chaos. The huge slab of oak that was the kitchen table had a mug and a plate with bread next to it at one end and a motorcycle engine at the other. Every surface was covered with paperwork, tools or foodstuff (animal or human). The rest of the motorbike stood upturned and wheel-less on the flagstone floor.

Amber skipped quickly over the chilly stones and like a cat warmed herself in front of the Aga. She saw tea bags in a jar to her right. She reached the spiralled handle of the Aga’s hotplate lid and lifted the heavy covering to a familiar yawn from the hinges and heat washed over her face. She gently put the pot onto the heat and moved along the units to the right in search of a mug. The swoosh and clap of the cupboards opening finally revealed the mugs. She threw a tea bag to the bottom of the cup and followed it with a brimming, heaped spoonful of sugar. Habit dictated that she add an extra dab of sugar, which she did.              

The kettle whistled as she clanged two thick slices of bread under the grill to toast. She would call her parents shortly. She stirred, then removed the tea bag and added some milk, not too much but probably more than most people. She turned the toast in short, sharp movements before her fingers burnt.

She saw the cordless phone, which must have been forty years old at least, lying next to the motorbike engine. She imagined Stuart taking her father’s call the day before. She picked it up and slipped it into the oversized pocket of her thick woollen cardigan. Carrying her tea and toast she crossed the room to the big old armchair nestled in the corner. She kicked two coats and some newspapers onto the floor. She placed her drink on one arm and her toast on the other then sank into the forgiving chair. She absorbed the quiet. The sun had broken the clouds and a bright stream of light cut across the room, illuminating the dust floating through the air.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and took the phone from her pocket. She dialled her home number. It took no time at all before the monotone shrill of a dead line came back down the receiver. She dialled again and again until she was taking a discernible amount of time over each number to make sure it was correct. The same bleak tone came back at her every time. Finally, she pressed the red button once more and tapped the receiver to her chin as she thought. She wasn’t overly concerned at that moment, but she could feel her stomach tightening with worry as she tried to find a reason for their phone being down.

She dialled Bob and Jean’s number then, just to see, knowing the old couple were most probably still with her parents. Her nerves grew as she heard a dial tone; she listened to it for minutes, her mind elsewhere, being drawn into the void of dark thoughts about what was happening to her parents. The lack of answer from Bob and Jean’s confirmed only one thing: the phones were not down.

Her stomach tightened and turned as she registered the situation and realised how out of character it was that she had not received a call from her father this morning, or even last night, for that matter. She felt sure that he would have been keen to know that they had arrived safely.

She put her mug of tea down gently on the corner of the table and looked around the room as though it were in the kitchen in which she might find answers. She saw a pair of wellies at the back door and moved towards them. Pulling the large, mud-encrusted boots on, she opened the door and ran out into the fresh, invigorating morning air which was still heavy with dew. She crossed the thick grass lolloping in the oversized boots. It was a still brisk morning, birds were singing and the livestock were in animated conversation.

The beauty of the morning was missed by Amber as her worry turned to panic - it was her own feet that she concentrated on.

She shouted down the hillside to her startled host, “Stuart, Stuart! I can’t get hold of Mum and Dad, their line is dead…”

Stuart turned to see the teenager stumbling down the hill. He waved her back to the house.

“Get back in the warm, lassie, I’m coming up now.”

“But we need to…”

“Don’t do this to me now, Amber, no one knows what’s best…” As he had been working, similar thoughts had been swimming in his head.

“I know that sitting here won’t do any good.”

Stuart looked at her with resignation in his dark eyes.

“Make me a brew, and we’ll work out a plan.”

Amber stopped, her head dropped, and she turned dejectedly back toward the house. She began trudging back up the hill. Stuart grabbed another bale of hay as if it were a pillow, broke it in his hands and spread the grass quickly in front of him. He wiped his massive hands on his jeans and with commanding paces he moved towards the house, confident his old mate would get through this latest scrape, but also allowing himself to contemplate the worst.

As he entered the kitchen, he kicked his work boots off and stood for a second or too as the warm air washed over his damp clothes. He pushed aside some of the mess on the kitchen table and sat down, looking at Amber who was making him tea.

“Milk? Sugar?”

“Milk, two sugars, please, Amber.”

She knew how he took his tea. It was an instinctive comment, breaking the silence, but skirting the topic that her mind couldn’t escape.

She placed his mug of tea down in front of him. Within seconds, it was swept up in one of his shovel-like hands, while the other coursed through his greasy mop of shoulder-length hair, clearing the strands from his face and exposing the greying areas around his temples and ears. His soggy socks and jeans steamed in the warmth of the kitchen and his sinuous muscles heaved at the material of his plaid shirt. Amber spoke first as she sat back down in the big armchair, folding her legs underneath her as she did so.

“I want to go back home. I can’t just wait!”

“That’s exactly what we are going to do, Amber. I’m hoping your Mum and Dad will turn up here at any minute. But, if they don’t, I made a promise to your father, Amber.”

“That’s ridiculous, Stuart. The rebels need every one who is capable!”

“Forget the rebels, Amber. Your parents are our only concern.”

Amber rolled her head and looked at the floor. She wasn’t going to wait for long.

Stuart looked thoughtfully at the dust particles dancing in the sun’s beam and allowed the tick of the clock to pace his mind. He was himself unsure how long he could remain without news of his friends. A week? Two? Even those stretches of time were too great - he knew it in his heart: he would not be able to stand back and wait.

His mind moved to the girl: he loved her like she was his own daughter. At eighteen, she was a young woman - could he leave her here if he had to go across the border? He thought to himself: she is too headstrong, too wily. She would be behind him in no time but not with him…no, he would take her with him if he went, at least then he could look out for her. He knew it was not a perfect plan, but what else could he do? And, he knew that she could look after herself if it became necessary. Nat had taught Amber to hunt and shoot and live off the land at a very young age. She was far stealthier than either of the men; they used to joke that she could stalk a roe deer and catch it with her bare hands.

He looked across at Amber, her eyes burning a hole in the rug as she chewed on a fingernail nervously. He wouldn’t say anything of his newly hatched plan as he thought it better to sleep on it. If there was no news in the morning he would leave for Nat’s farm then.

He stood up. “I’ve got to get back to the beasts. Help yourself to whatever you need, and I’ll be in the bottom field if you feel like working off the worry.”

With that, he quietly slugged the last of his brew, moved to where his boots lay, tugged them back onto his feet and left the house.

Amber stared at the floor as a tear trickled down her cheek.

BOOK: The Border Reiver
3.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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