Lob

by Linda Newbery

  ‘What does Lob do in winter?’ Lucy took off her muddy shoes, and stowed them under the bench.

  ‘Oh, he don’t do much when winter comes,’ said Grandpa Will. ‘Not once all the leaves are swept, and the logs in, and we’re tucked up snug. He likes to lie by the fire, night-times. He’ll stir himself to do a few jobs on warmer days, but mainly he sleeps. Rests. Gets his energy back. He’ll have earned it. He’s worked hard this year.’

  Sometimes Lucy saw Lob as a bent old man; sometimes as a flitty green thing like a dragonfly, quick and agile, young as herself, or younger.

  ‘Will he be around for ever and ever?’

  Grandpa nodded. ‘I hope so. He never gets older, see. Every year he comes back, full of spring. Full of growing.’

  After tea, the dusk drew Lucy outside. She sneaked out of the cottage when no one was looking. Down the garden she went, along the mown path.

  There was a rustle by the compost heap, a ripple through the long grass. Lob was there. Lucy couldn’t see him, but she knew he was pleased and boastful, full of pride in the glory of the garden and its harvest, his work well done. He darted and scurried and skittered ahead and alongside, he chivvied her from behind. Lucy laughed, and pretended to be frightened.

  She crossed the stream, treading carefully on the stepping stones. It would be too cold to fall in now.

  Knowing she shouldn’t, she took the leafy path into the woods, and stood in the thick of the trees. No one knows where I am, she thought: only Lob. And there was a deliciousness about that, salted with fear. She could run back, if she wanted. In the kitchen the light was on behind drawn curtains; Dad was washing up, and Granny Annie putting things away. Or had they finished now? Would they come looking for her?

  The gap between indoors and out, tameness and wildness, lightness and dark, stretched wide and wider in the flittery dusk. Lucy didn’t want to go in, not yet. Stars were pricking the sky, tree branches stretching out to muffle them.

  It was colder than she’d realized. A thorn snagged her sleeve. As she tried to free herself, her foot sank into soft mud. She jumped back as a stinging nettle seared her wrist. Perhaps she didn’t like it here after all, not on her own. Where was he? Where was Lob?

  A face was looking down at her, a face in the trees – a gnarled, knobbled, grizzled face. It scowled and grimaced, but no, that couldn’t be Lob. Lob was farther on, laughing at her for being scared. He dared her to go on.

  But I won’t, Lucy decided. He’d get her into trouble. It was all right for Lob; he didn’t have to think about getting told off, or being lost in the dark. She pulled her foot out of the mud with a plotch, and began feeling her way back to the stepping stones. Which way? This way? Or was that farther into the wood?

  ‘Lucy?’ came Grandpa’s voice, through the trees.

  ‘Lucy-Lu?’ called Dad’s. And she saw the bobbing light of a torch beam.

  ‘I’m here!’ she shouted back, trying to sound brave.

  And by the time they reached her, she’d crossed the stream and was back in the orchard, pretending not to have been far.

  Dad was cross with her for going out in the dark on her own. She didn’t make excuses, didn’t try to blame it on Lob or on anyone but herself.

  ‘You’re all right,’ Grandpa said, but she heard the shakiness in his voice, as if he was the one who’d been frightened. Indoors, he made hot chocolate for everyone.

  Lucy was glad to be back by the warmth of the fire, but she hugged to herself the thrill of being out in the dark, with Lob and the trees and the stars. Her wrist burned with the sting of the nettle.

  ‘What’s Lob made of?’ she asked Grandpa, on the last morning, while they were eating breakfast.

  ‘Ah, well now.’ Grandpa sliced the top off his boiled egg, then paused. ‘It’s hard to say. But I’ll try.’

  Granny Annie, on her way to refill the kettle, tutted and looked at Dad, who shook his head in a weary must we? way. Lucy waited. Grandpa leaned towards her, as if to share a secret.

  ‘See, he’s made of rain and wind,’ he told her. ‘And sun, and hail. And light and dark. There’s fire in him too, and earth and air. He’s made of grit and stones, and stardust.

  And time gone and time waiting. Come to think of it, that’s the same as all of us.’ He looked surprised to have said so much, then added: ‘That’s all I know.’ And he reached for the pepper pot.

  ‘Very nice, Dad,’ said Lucy’s dad. ‘If Lob existed, I’m sure that’s how he’d be.’

  ‘How he is,’ said Lucy, and she looked across the table at Grandpa. He grinned back, then sprinkled pepper on his egg, and dipped a finger of toast.

  Soon, too soon, the getting into the car, the waving goodbye. The Look after yourselves and the Bye-bye, lovey and the See you at Christmas. Lucy didn’t know whether she was happier or sadder. She was going home, and that was where she belonged, with Mum and Dad. But she was leaving Clunny Cottage, and she belonged here too. Couldn’t she split herself in half, and be in both places at once?

  As the car pulled away, she looked out of the window for the very last glimpse of Clunny Cottage, and Granny and Grandpa at the gate, and maybe Lob as well. They waved, and she waved back until the car turned a bend in the lane and she couldn’t see them any more.

  Dad knew it made Lucy sad to leave, so he said, as he always did, ‘We’ll be back soon as soon, Lucy-Lu.’

  End of November

  Then, four weeks later, the news: the awful, unbelievable news. The news that meant nothing would ever, ever, ever be the same again.

  A phone call, from tearful Granny. Grandpa Will had been pulling leeks in the morning, and by afternoon he was dead.

  A heart attack.

  Lucy’s mind froze in bewilderment.

  Grandpa had died.

  Gone.

  Gone.

  Gone where?

  She’d never see him again, never hear his voice.

  Never.

  Grandpa Will. Her Grandpa.

  They couldn’t move away from the phone. Dad sat on the stairs and cuddled Lucy and Mum both together. Lucy was too numb to cry until she saw Mum and even Dad crying. Then they all cried together, sharing a box of tissues.

  ‘It’s the way he’d have wanted,’ Dad said, in a voice that wavered. ‘Dropping dead with his boots on, pulling up a good crop of leeks. He’d have hated to get old and ill and have to go into a home or a hospital. He’d have hated not being able to grow his veg, or hear his birds.’

  Next day they went back to Clunny Cottage to help Granny Annie with everything that had to be done.

  The cottage felt so different without Grandpa Will. Sad. Silent. Empty, even with Granny and Mum and Dad and Lucy there. There was something different in the way they spoke to each other. A strange echo. An emptiness that should have been filled with Grandpa.

  And Lob? Where was he?

  Lucy stood outside in the vegetable garden. The soil was dug and weeded, the sprouts and onions in neat rows, the watering cans full and ready. Lob-work, surely.

  ‘Lob!’ Lucy called, in a whisper, not wanting the grown-ups to hear.

  He must be as sad as she was. As lost. What would he do without Grandpa?

  ‘Lob!’ she called again. ‘Are you there?’

  Did she see a shiver in the beech hedge, a quiver of dry leaves?

  She waited, but Lob didn’t appear. It was too cold to stand outside for long.

  Indoors, the grown-ups talked and talked. People came to visit, speaking in hushed, solemn voices. The postman brought cards.

  There was a funeral in the village churchyard. Grandpa, in his coffin, was lowered into the ground.

  No, no, you can’t do that! That’s my Grandpa! Lucy wanted to shout. It was all a terrible mistake.

  She stood holding Granny’s hand, while tears ran down her face and splashed off her chin. It was a golden winter’s day, long-shadowed, a day Grandpa would have loved. An afternoon for sitting on his bench with a mug of tea, looking with sat
isfaction at the work he’d done. Rooks cawed high in the trees.

  Why wasn’t Grandpa here? Where was he?

  Lucy caught sight of a gnarled face peeping from the shadows of the yew tree.

  She’d thought Lob was always at Clunny Cottage, in the garden or down in the woods. But, yes, the churchyard was a Lob-place, full of growing: the twisted yew tree that was hundreds of years old, the tall nettles by the compost heap, the holly bright with berries.

  Carved in the church porch was the stone man that someone had made hundreds of years ago. Chip, chip, chip, he went, Grandpa had said, someone as here as you and me. And the face in the stone would last for ever and ever.

  January

  Everything was changing, all the things Lucy had thought would always be the same. Granny Annie decided that she didn’t want to stay at Clunny Cottage by herself.

  ‘I’d be lonely without Will, all by myself. And the garden’s too big to manage.’

  Instead, she moved to a smaller cottage in the village, with friendly neighbours on each side, and a shop across the street. Early in the new year, Mum and Dad and Lucy helped her to pack up and move.

  Lucy hated seeing Clunny Cottage bare and empty. All her Grandpa Will thoughts had nowhere to be.

  ‘We could come and live here!’ she told her parents. ‘Couldn’t we? It’d be nice and close to Granny.’

  Mum gave her a cuddle. ‘Sweetheart, you know we can’t. Yes, it’d be lovely, but Dad and I have to be in London. We couldn’t get jobs here, miles from anywhere.’

  But what about Lob?

  Lucy needed to know, but there was no one to ask – no one who understood. There’s only Grandpa, she thought. So Grandpa was the person she asked, silently, standing outside the back door.

  The weather had turned so cold and wintry that summer seemed impossible. The dug beds were frozen into hard clumps. Every leaf, every blade of grass, had a rim of frost, like icing sugar.

  Grandpa Will, Lucy said, in her thoughts, what will Lob do when spring comes and you’re not here?

  He’ll walk, said Grandpa’s voice in her head. He’ll walk the roads. He’ll look for his special person. When he finds that person, he’ll stay.

  It was a comfort, the way she could bring Grandpa back. Hear his voice so clearly, and the things he’d said. But she hated to think of Lob finding someone else.

  But I want to be Lob’s special person! I don’t want him to find someone new!

  And this time Grandpa didn’t answer.

  ‘Lob,’ she whispered, and her breath plumed up in a cloud. ‘Are you there? Are you listening? Come to London. I’ll be your person.’

  But what if Lob was hibernating? Not there to listen? When he woke up, he might think she’d gone away without even saying goodbye.

  In her rucksack she had a little notebook with a pen attached. She sat on the bench to write a letter. Her fingers were almost too cold to grip the pen, but she wrote as neatly as she could.

  Here she stopped and thought. Lob could come with them in the car, but she was quite sure he wouldn’t – Grandpa said he’d walk the roads. Besides, he had a habit of flicking and darting away when you tried to look at him properly – you couldn’t get nearer than he wanted. He’d never let himself be trapped in the back seat of a car.

  She wrote:

  She whisper-read it aloud, just in case Lob was listening.

  Then, carefully, she pulled the page loose from the notebook, folded it up very small, and tucked it under one foot of the bench, where no one but Lob would find it.

  Grandpa’s ash tree was bare, but already its coal-black buds were about to burst into leaf. The yearly miracle, Grandpa called it.

  ‘Lucy! Are you out there? We’re ready to go,’ Dad called from indoors.

  ‘Goodbye, Lob,’ Lucy whispered. ‘I’ll be looking for you.’

  Part Two

  Early February

  Winter. Hard-frozen, deep-shrunken resting time. Twigs bare, earth clodded, grass bleached pale. Early dark, early to roost. Moon sails high, star-map glitters cold over the hills. Fox-shape slinks through the dark.

  Change is coming. The smell of change spikes the air.

  Lob was older than anyone could know. Not as old as the hills, but much older than the trees. Not as old as life, but much older than anyone living. Not as old as death, but far, far older than anyone born.

  Although he’d lived in a lot of different places, he didn’t change willingly. He might well have stayed longer at Clunny Cottage before setting off to find a new person. But something happened to make that impossible.

  When Granny Annie moved to her new home in Clunton, the landlord sold the cottage and its garden to a builder, making himself a lot of money. A SOLD notice went up, and a sign saying that four brand-new houses were to be built.

  It was a grey, bleak February, and Lob spent much of the time sleeping in the cottage eaves. With no fire to lie by, he’d gone shrunken and small, weakened by winter and cold weather.

  Usually, at this time of year, on the days when it wasn’t quite so cold, he’d look after the cabbages and the purple-sprouting broccoli. He’d turn over the leaf mould, and make sure Will’s tools and pots were clean and ready. But now there were no tools. They’d been taken away when the cottage was emptied.

  Lob waited.

  After a while, a digger arrived, and moved with dinosaur slowness into Will’s vegetable beds. Into Lob’s vegetable beds. Lob watched, outraged.

  Roaring yellow monster, slow moving, quick turning. Treads crush life. Head rears high, giant teeth gape. Fangs gouge, wrench, tear. Stems and roots and leaves mashed and mangled in monster jaws.

  Run at it, shout, batter with fists.

  Monster trundles on. Clumsy blind brute.

  The digger driver wasn’t the sort of person who could see Lob. His radio was on in the cab, and he whistled cheerfully while he worked. He had no idea of the fierce little figure that rushed at him, green eyes glittering.

  At last the digger trundled off down the road, scattering strips of pressed mud.

  Lob stood looking at the devastation. If he’d been given to despair, he would have despaired now. Instead he began tidying as best he could, collecting bits of twig and root, heaping them ready to be burned.

  But it wasn’t finished yet. Two days later, more strangers came to Clunny Cottage.

  Some were smartly dressed, and carried boards with papers clipped to them; others wore helmets and bright yellow jackets. They went inside the cottage, making loud remarks that echoed emptily. Then they surrounded the ash tree, and one of the men chalked a red cross on its bark.

  The ash tree that had stood for more than a hundred years, shading Clunny Cottage, was in the way of the new houses, so it had to go.

  Next day the executioners arrived, three of them. One slapped his hand against the mark on the tree’s trunk, then rubbed the chalk off his palm. Another carried a heavy saw with crocodile teeth. Lob flung himself at them, waved his arms, shouted and stamped, but no one noticed.

  The saw whined and screamed. Sharp teeth bit into bark. The shock juddered deep into the ground.

  The tree tried to stand tall, but was wounded too badly. Soon it surrendered. Groans shuddered through every twig. Its leaves twitched and writhed, its branches sagged. The core of its trunk screeched in agony.

  At last the butchers had finished their work. They drank coffee from their flasks; they laughed and joked together.

  When they’d gone, leaving the wreckage of branches and twigs strewn over the ground, Lob crept away.

  Now? Where?

  He stood by the gate and heard the call of the road. He hadn’t walked for many years, but roads were deep inside him. His feet knew their tread and their hardness, their forks and their bends, their uphills and downs, and their long reach into places he didn’t know yet.

  The soles of his feet were starting to prickle. Time to go.

  Lob walked away from Clunny Cottage without looking back.r />
  February

  At home in London, Lucy wasn’t well. She felt dizzy. She had a high temperature. Her throat was sore, and her head ached.

  ‘Better stay home today,’ Mum said, shaking the thermometer.

  Lucy wasn’t often ill, and didn’t like to miss school. But she felt peculiar. When she stood up, her head went floaty and her legs seemed to have no bones in them. She clambered back into bed.

  She dozed and she dreamed. Sometimes she lay awake.

  ‘Would you like a book to read?’ Dad asked when she woke up. ‘Shall I read a story?’

  Lucy shook her head. What she wanted was Grandpa to tell her a Lob story. And those were stored in her memory.

  Oh yes, there’s always been Lob. He’s hundreds and hundreds of years old, said Grandpa’s voice in her head. Old as the hills.

  No, Lob won’t die, said Grandpa. He’ll go on and on living, as long as the Earth is green.

  Green-fingered, that’s Lob, said Grandpa. You know how people say that? Lob’s got greener fingers than anyone. What he does is, he collects seeds and keeps them in his pockets. Then he scatters them as he walks. That’s why you sometimes see wild flowers sprouting out of pavements and walls. Lob-work.

  Yes. Yes. Lucy listened to the stories in her head. She smiled and she dreamed and she gazed at nothing till her eyes went funny.

  ‘It’s shock, I’m sure,’ Mum said. ‘The shock of losing Grandpa.’

  When Lucy felt a bit better and could sit up in bed, she asked for her coloured pencils, and paper for drawing. She tried to draw Lob, but that was difficult, as she’d had only glimpses. She drew a jumble of green and brown leaves, and bright eyes peering.

  LOB, she wrote underneath.

  ‘Yes, it’s a nice way of remembering Grandpa,’ said Dad, looking. ‘He was good, wasn’t he, with his stories? Almost made us all believe in Lob.’

  ‘Lob’s real,’ Lucy said fiercely.