The Line Between Us (6 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I remembered a few days after that, my temple still bruised like a rotten plum, work done, I made my way home to find that Ma didn’t have my dinner on the table. I washed as usual, and waited, and she said nothing, though she made funny expectant faces from time to time, until I could bear it no longer.

“Ma –” I began, but I broke off because in the distance I could hear the unmistakably haphazard sound of the Daimler. I thought it might be you, on your way somewhere, so I hurried to the parlour window in time to see the car draw to a halt outside. Brown dismounted and came down our path to the front door. He was in full fig, medals and all.

“Answer it for me will you, Ifor?” said my mother.

I opened the door and Brown saluted, gesturing for me to climb into the motor. I looked back at Ma.

“Go on, off you go,” she grinned.

I sat in the back of the car with a rug over my knees like royalty, while Brown perched rigidly up at the front negotiating the hazardous route between Morwithy and Newland, lurching round bends, slewing his way up hill and down again so that I was obliged to hold on to the armrest for dear life. We skidded into the village and came to rest beside the lych-gate into the churchyard – the Cathedral of the Forest. Brown took off his hat and fanned himself.

“The beast’s got a mind of its own,” he shouted at me through the glass partition. “At least with a horse you know where you are.”

I was feeling as sick as a dog.

Brown opened the door for me, “Right, lad,” he jerked his head in the direction of the pub opposite. “The Ostrich keeps the best pint of Brains for miles around.” He was as animated as I have seen him. “Their steak and kidney pudding isn’t so bad, either.” He clapped me on the back. “This one’s on me, because, well –” he glanced at my bruise. “Least said, soonest mended, eh?”

I made it into the pub and we settled ourselves into the inglenook, although it was a summer’s evening and the grate was empty, and I managed to drink half of my half pint and to keep down the first few mouthfuls of the pud, but the kidneys got the better of me, so that without warning, knocking my stool over as I fled, I bolted out of the saloon and threw up into a flower bed at the front.

“I’m awfully sorry, Mr Brown.”

He was an extraordinarily kind man. He gave me his handkerchief so I could mop myself up, then fetched me a glass of water. We went back into the pub so he could finish his supper – they whisked mine away before I could do more damage – and afterwards he ordered an apple crumble with two spoons, in case I felt up to it. And it turned out that I did.

We walked round the village after, “To aid the digestion,” Brown said with a wink, and we talked a bit about the Olympics in Paris and whether Eric Liddell would run the hundred metres, given that the trials were being held on the Sabbath.

“He’s bound to,” Brown said, fishing a tobacco pouch and pipe from his pocket. “Smoke?”

I shook my head.

“It’d be unpatriotic for him not to.”

On the way home I sat up at the front with him, “For the fresh air,” I said, winding the window down. As we crested the hill at Withy End and saw Nanagalan glimmering in the setting sun, he slowed the car and glanced in my direction. There was a sombre expression on his face. “All those years,” he said, “when I was away at the war …” he tailed off and we bumped along a hundred yards or so in silence. “Mrs Brown was on her own, you see,” he said, his eyes creased up as if the light were bright, although the sun was almost gone. “A man does wonder.”

“Mind where you’re going, Mr Brown,” I said, for I was young and there were certain things I didn’t want to hear. Without warning, he swerved to avoid a pothole.

“The House of Lords wants to introduce a driving test,” he said ruefully, when we were back on the straight and narrow. “That’ll really put the kibosh on things, if they do.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I remembered there was a brief period when we were in our late teens and hadn’t yet kicked away the ladder leading back to childhood, when I never knew which Ella I’d be confronted with: Ella the girl, Ella the girl pretending to be a grown-up, or Ella the young woman. You confounded me every time. One moment you’d be contemplating me through the sophisticated haze of your cigarette smoke and the next you’d appear in the kitchen garden at the end of the working day carrying two old jars tied around the rim with string and a hunk of stale bread and announce that we were going fishing for minnows in the Drowning Pool.

“I’ve got cousins in Scotland,” you said, when I gaped at you in surprise. “Distant ones,” you added as you went speeding down the hillside. “They showed me how.”

I went running after you. When we reached the gritty shoreline of the pool, I let you induct me into the innocent arts of fishing with a jam jar, although I’d been doing it myself for years with the boys from the village.

“It’s easy. You tear off a piece of bread and you put it in the jar and you drop the jar in the water.” You stood at the edge of the pool, suddenly uncertain. You hitched up the hem of your dress: it was green check, with a yoke and capped sleeves and you had on a pair of kid ankle boots. Frowning, you let it fall. You looked at me, but I was already delving into the undergrowth and I straightened up, brandishing a long forked stick.

“This’ll do the job.” I hooked your jar onto the end and handed it to you, then watched as you dunked your jar into the water.

“Sshh,” you said conspiratorially. “You’ll frighten the fishes.”

I stood at a respectful distance from you, and solemnly we watched the bread swell and disintegrate in the tea-coloured water until it was nothing but cloudy particles, but no fish came. Disappointed, you tugged at the string. “They come for the bread in no time,” you said, “in Scotland.”

“Try over there,” I jerked my head, “Where it’s deeper.”

You contemplated your dress again, then my jam jar lying between us in the leaf mould. “Why don’t you try?”

I unlaced my boots and whipped off my socks before you could see that the heels were worn to threads, then rolled up my trousers and waded into the Drowning Pool. I let the string slip through my fingers and watched the jar slide beneath the surface and the scud of ripples as the glass neck disappeared.

We waited.

You crossed your arms and gazed in the direction of the rope swing, then you switched your attention to the boulders which lined the far side of the pool. You crossed your arms the other way. “Perhaps we should –” you began, but I put my finger to my lips.

“You’ll frighten the fishes.”

A smile stirred the corner of your mouth. After a second or two you pressed your lips together. Above us, I could hear the throaty call of a collared dove. I watched some water boatman skating to and fro across the slick surface, conscious that your gaze was resting on me. When I turned my head around a fraction to see, you averted your eyes. I made an ostentatious study of the jam jar lying in wait beneath the water. I towed it a few inches in one direction, then the other, creating a lazy current and in an instant two tiddlers, tiger-striped and stealthy, flitted into the jar and before they could flit out again I scooped it high into the air, drips of water running down my arm.

“Let me see!” You stood on one foot, then the other, tugging off your boots, then with your dress hoiked up any old way you came scrambling through the shallows towards me. Our heads almost touching, in wonderment we watched the fish butt their way around the jar: small splinters of glass at acute angles, flashes of quartz and agate.

“They’re blowing kisses at each other,” I said slowly, tilting it this way and that for you to see the pop, pop, pop of their tiny mouths opening. “Fish kisses.”

I shouldn’t have said that. There was a line between us drawn by you that I could never see. “We could make a fire and cook them for our tea,” you said, after an embarrassed pause.

“Too small for that …” I said quickly, eyeing the little creatures, their hectic spirals.

Tiring of the game, you stretched, making your shoulders rise and fall so that your dress untucked itself from under your arm and slid into the water. “I’ve done it now,” you exclaimed. The material billowed round you, the green cloth folding and unfolding itself, spreading, sinking. “Well, I can’t get much wetter, can I?” You started to run as best you could through the water, dragging the weight of your dress in your wake, exuberant and unguarded. “Can’t catch me,” you called and you threw your head back, laughing. “You can’t catch me …”

Oh, but I could.

Quick as a fish, I was bounding after you, splashing wildly, the gales of your laughter urging me faster. I could have caught you sooner, as your dress twisted and twined around you slowing you down, but I didn’t want to spend all my happiness in one go so I made it last and let you run until I had no option: I caught one trailing arm and you spun around so fast that I reeled you in without quite meaning to and there you were, a minnow in a jar shimmering in my grip. I let you go at once, as if I were pouring you back into the Drowning Pool and we stood there, thigh-high in the water, panting.

I remembered the day you found me reading, when I carried you back to the shore in my arms and I think you must have remembered it, too. The laughter and the breath went out of us and the silence which followed recalled us to ourselves. You looked down at your soaking clothes.

“Oh well,” you said, wistfully. You started to wade towards dry land and I hesitated before I followed you. Your mother gated you for spoiling your dress and I didn’t see you for a whole fortnight.

Soon after that I bought my bicycle. Proper old bone-shaker it was, I got it second hand from a knife grinder living in Wyesham who was selling up and retiring. He wanted me to take his whetstone too, but it had been a struggle to save up enough for the bike itself. The brakes squeaked and the chain rattled and the cracked leather saddle was designed with medieval torture in mind, but that first ride home through Monmouth then along the lanes to Morwithy took my breath away. I could feel the thrill of perfect alignment: how the lean and list of my body made the bike turn then straighten as if by magic. I swooped round corners and thundered up hills, then came soaring down the drive into the valley singing hymns at the top of my voice, with my hair standing up on end and the antiseptic sting of the wind against my cheeks and my chest bursting with alleluias.

Later that day when work was done, before I set off up the hill to home, I rode it round the courtyard at infinitesimal speed, seeing how slowly I could go without falling off, seeing how many circuits I would have to make before your curiosity got the better of you and you came to see what I was up to. Round I went, and round, and round, wobbling away, clicking the pedals so the chain moved one link at a time and the handlebars threatened to jack knife. I knew you were watching me from some window or other. I could just tell.

You appeared eventually with a trug over your arm. As you set off in the direction of the wildflower meadow, I went shooting after you, sketching a flashy curve across the flagstones and then skidding to a halt in front of you, so that you had to stop.

“Got a new bike, miss.”

“I can see,” you said, not looking. Dust from my skid still hung in the air.

“It’s a beauty, isn’t it?”

You slid the trug from one arm to the other.

“It’s a Beeston Humber, an ancient one, but all the same ...”

“Yes, it’s very nice, Ifor. I can see,” you said, but you did look at it, for a moment, and then you looked away. “I was going to pick some blackberries, as it happens.”

“There’s a rare crop on the road to the village …” I glanced up the drive, waiting to see if you would take the bait.

“Hmm.” You were eyeing my bike. I caught you red-handed! You were giving it the once over because you couldn’t help yourself. You ducked your head, then the better part of you observed, “Actually, it’s top notch, Ifor. It really is.”

Though nothing was said, we set off together, you walking sideways to watch me wheel and loop around you. I must have cycled several miles up that drive, doing figures of eight, doubling back, spinning in ever tighter circles. I let go of the handlebars and went no handed, my arms spread wide with the gladness of being.

“I wish I was a boy,” you said enviously.

I swung back round. “Girls can ride bikes too.”

“Not all girls.”

I came to a halt beside you, my tyres spraying chippings in all directions. “Don’t you know how to ride a bike, miss?” I asked incredulously.

You didn’t reply, but I could tell from the defensive set of your shoulders what the answer was.

“Blimey,” I said. “My Dad taught me when I was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

“I don’t think Papa …” you tailed off.

“It isn’t difficult, you know. I could show you how,” I ventured.

You shrugged and resumed walking up the drive.

“It’s the next best thing to flying …” I said persuasively, dismounting and wheeling my bike beside you.

You smiled at that. You had a way of looking sad and amused at the same time, a complicated mix of detachment and enjoyment that I could never quite unravel. You didn’t say anything though, and we trudged up the drive together as far as the lane.

“You were right about the blackberries,” you said. The hedgerows were glossy with them, the brambles barbed like green-thorned wire, the berries slick with juice.

I wasn’t especially interested in gathering fruit. “It’s a nice flat stretch along here,” I said casually. “And there’s nobody around to see.”

You were reaching up into the hedge, starting to pick.

“Of course, if you’re scared …”

You dumped the trug on the grass verge and the blackberries rolled together fretfully at the bottom of it. “I am not scared,” you exclaimed. “It’s not that.”

“What, then?”

You looked as prickly as a bramble yourself. “It’s just –”

“Anyone can do it,” I said, daring you to prove me wrong.

“Alright then. Show me how, if you’re so good at it.”

“I am good at it, Miss Ella,” I said softly.

Still a little disgruntled, you swung your leg over the saddle and found a way of sitting so that most of the material of your skirt was folded underneath you. Your weight and the weight of the bicycle were resting against me. I put one hand on the handlebars within touching distance of your own. “I’m going to have to –” I felt tinged with heat as I regarded the saddle, your behind resting on it, “– hold you like this,” I said in a rush, latching on to the metal springs coiled beneath the leather. A fold of your skirt, overhanging, skimmed my fist. I swallowed. “Then we’ll just go a little way, ever so slowly …” I walked beside you, wheeling the bike, your body leaning into me, so that suddenly I found I didn’t want you to make too much progress. I didn’t want you to go off without me. I’d have been happy to wheel you along the lanes until dusk came breathing down around us and we could no longer see the sheen of the road ahead. Your hair smelled freshly washed, my nostrils full of the scent of expensive soap. You were so unblemished.

After a hundred yards or so, you straightened up. “Let’s go a bit faster, shall we?” you grinned and all the awkwardness between us evaporated as I broke into a run and we went bowling along side by side. As we rounded a bend in the lane I took my hand off the handlebar and you shot me a look of alarm.

“Keep pedalling!” I cried, gripping the stem of the saddle. “I’ve still got you. I won’t let go.”

You were pounding the pedals so hard that one of your feet skidded clear, making the bike lurch. “Ifor!” you squealed, but I had you, I had you safe. “Keep going,” I yelled. You found your footing again and off we went, faster, faster, so that I was panting to keep up with you, couldn’t keep up with you. You were launched.

“Look at me!” you crowed, your eyes full of the harvest light of that early autumn afternoon. “Look at me going! Look at me!”

“Careful!” I called, watching you flee the harbour of my arms.

“Look –” you sang, then in a panic, “How do I make it stop? What do I –?”

“Stop pedalling,” I shouted, “Stop pedalling!”

“But I’ll wobble if I do that,” you cried, illustrating the point. “What do I – ? Help! Ifor – ! Help!”

It was a graceful fall, as falls go, or the slow inevitability of it made it seem so. You landed in a heap in the middle of the lane, the Beeston Humber skewed at an awkward angle next to you, its front wheel spinning tickety-tick.

“Are you alright?”

I suspect you wouldn’t have told me even if you weren’t.

“Turn around, don’t look,” you said, shaken but still in one piece, apparently. I turned my back and waited. I could hear the rustle of your skirt and I wondered if your knees were grazed and pictured you examining the skin, all scraped and sore. I felt a wring of tenderness at the thought of you being hurt.

“Do you need a handkerchief?” I called.

“I’ve got one.” A minute passed, then I heard you scrambling to your feet.

“Can I turn around now?”