Above Us the Sky

by Milly Adams

  He carried on along the lane, the ice still slippery under the snow and his nose almost numb. He saw shadowy movement on the ice and shook his head. Bryan and Ron, it had to be. Everyone else had more sense. He wouldn’t look because Ron had been worse after the Christmas party. Jake dug his hands further and further into his pockets, and kept his head well down. He grew almost hot from the shame, remembering his words. He shouldn’t have said it, but it had all come out before he could stop. It must be horrid to know your mother didn’t want to come. It wasn’t like his own mum …

  He concentrated on the way the snow was squeaking beneath his boots when he walked, and prayed that the two of them wouldn’t see him. It didn’t work. As he came abreast of the pond Ron called, ‘Well, if it isn’t little Mr Yid. And how are you today as you sneak away to your horses? Farmer Bartlett’s little favourite, aren’t you?’

  Jake snatched a look. He’d been almost right, but it was only Ron, skidding about on the ice, which was the same colour as the grey-white sky. Why didn’t he listen? Phyllie and Miss F had said people went through into the water. For a moment he thought of the future if Ron plunged right through the ice. Then he’d be gone. There’d be no more …

  ‘Come on then, little Master Perfect, do yourself a good turn and break a few rules. It feels good. Look at this.’ Jake sneaked a look as Ron flung his arms in the air and half ran, half slid towards the centre of the ice, his knees bent, his arms in the air. ‘Whee,’ he yelled, sliding to a stop. He ran and slid back, jumped, turned, ran and slid again, getting right down on his knees, then again, and again.

  They both heard the crack at the same time; but it wasn’t a crack, it was a sort of long tired sigh. Ron slid to a stop, and straightened slowly. He was looking at his feet and there was a black line, a funny jagged one, growing, and then others.

  Jake stared too, and then they looked at one another, frightened. Ron shouted, ‘Help me.’ He had a scarf on. It was Bryan’s so why was Ron wearing it? ‘Help me, I said.’ Ron was almost screaming now. The ducks flew up from behind the fence. Jake couldn’t move his feet. He couldn’t move at all, he just watched the lines, spreading out, creaking. ‘I said, help me. I can’t swim.’

  Jake didn’t want to help him, he really didn’t, but he must. He eased himself down the slope to the pond, slipping and sliding, gripping the long snow-crusted grass to slow himself but his hands slipped. He slid on, and on. The snow had gathered in great clumps on his woollen gloves, which were now wet and freezing. He was at the bottom of the slope. ‘Stand still,’ he called, because Ron was walking towards him, the ice cracking more and more.

  Ron yelled, ‘Get a move on, then.’

  Jake made himself ease out onto the ice, slowly, slowly. He held his breath. It helped him hear. The ice cracked. He didn’t know what to do, so he leapt the crack, landed, crashed through, into freezing water almost up to his knees, but not over the top of his boots. He was stuck in the mud, and fell forward, onto the unbroken ice. He worked his way upright, then dragged one boot free, and knelt on the ice. He pulled up the other and went a yard on all fours. It cracked again, and down he went, through into the water, all of him. He swallowed some. It was cold and horrid. He floundered, coughing, then straightened, standing still, the water up to his thighs, his clothes much heavier now they were wet, and very cold. ‘It’s no good, I’ll get Mr Andy. He’s ditching. He’ll have a rope. Stay still.’

  He dragged himself back through the water, breaking the ice as he went. It floated in jagged slabs. Ron shrieked, ‘Don’t leave me, you bastard. Don’t leave me.’

  Jake was on the bank now, his boots full of water. ‘I’ve got to get help.’ He could hardly talk, he was so cold. He ran down the lane, the water sloshing in his gumboots. He slipped, whacked to the ground, clambered up, took to the verge where the snow was deeper, the going tougher, but not as slippery. He was freezing, he couldn’t feel his legs.

  He reached the entrance to Haydock Field and halfway along the ditch he could see Mr Andy slashing at the brambles that choked it. The cart was piled high with soggy weeds, roots and more brambles. Rooks were wheeling. A few gulls were clustered in the snow-covered furrows. The young winter-sown kale showed through. He called, ‘Mr Andy. Help, Mr Andy.’

  He struggled along the edge of the field, shouting, ‘Mr Andy, please. Please. Listen.’ He wanted to cry, but he mustn’t. His lips felt funny, sort of heavy and they didn’t work properly. His whole body was shivering but he couldn’t feel his feet, or his legs, or his hands and arms.

  Destiny neighed. Mr Andy turned, clambered from the ditch, irritation showing as he yelled, ‘What the hell’s up with you?’

  Jake stopped. ‘It’s the ice. Ron. It’s breaking. I couldn’t … Please.’

  Mr Andy grabbed the rope he kept beneath the seat. It was always there, just in case … Just like Miss F’s just in case but Jake’d never asked him what his just in case was because no grown-up ever replied.

  Mr Andy was running now, waving him back. ‘Go back to him, I’m following, but I’m slow, my leg. Keep him calm.’

  Jake turned, and ran as fast as he could, but Mr Andy overtook him after all, so he wasn’t that slow. At the edge of the pond he waved Ron down, ‘Keep still, you ruddy idiot.’

  He saw the broken ice. ‘What’s this, then?’

  ‘I tried …’ Jake began.

  Ron yelled, ‘He took off, and left me; he did, Mr Andy. We was here together and he ran for it, went through just there.’

  Mr Andy swung round. ‘For God’s sake, what’s the matter with you bloody kids? Why in hell don’t you do as you’re told? And you, Jake, you help your mates, you don’t run away, that’s cowardly. Come here.’ He was panting, and cursing as he pulled Jake close, bending down, their faces inches apart. ‘You’re going to have to go back on the ice; I’m too heavy. You need to take the rope with you. Slide on your belly to distribute the weight. You’ve got to do it, lad, or you’ll never forgive yourself if he drowns.’

  Jake stared into those grey eyes, the colour of the sky, and the ice, and there was such rage in them, but he hadn’t really been on the ice. He had left Ron, though. Yes he had left him, and he’d been thinking about if Ron went through …

  Mr Andy was tying the rope around his middle, knotting it with his right hand and his teeth. ‘Now, get on there quick, and grab the silly little sod. I’ll pull you both back across the ice. Go in where it’s broken, because it’s no thicker anywhere else and you’re wet already.’

  Jake waded out through the water, feeling it surging back into his gumboots, and washing up against and round him. He reached the edge of the unbroken ice, and bent over, lying down. Somehow he pulled himself forwards until his legs were on the ice too, but not his boots. They were stuck in the mud. It was so cold, and the ice cut his hands and tore his trousers and hurt his knees. He kept Ron in sight; crawling and sliding closer and closer. Ron was crying, his nose was running. He was wiping it with the scarf, which was revolting. Besides, Jake wished he’d stay still because the ice was creaking. Mr Andy shouted, ‘Just keep still, Ron; do you want to drown?’

  Ron stopped moving, at last. Jake was almost there, but he wanted to cry too, because he was so cold, and his knees really hurt, even though he thought he couldn’t feel anything. Well, he could and he was really frightened. The ice was creaking, badly, and then he felt it move, sort of sag, and there was one huge crash, and the ice split, and he slid into the cold dark water. His head went under, but one arm was still on the ice. He lifted his head and hung on, coughing. There was nothing under his feet, and his arm was sliding, he was going to drown.

  He heard Mr Andy yelling. ‘Grab Jake, Ron; just grab him, for God’s sake, what’s the matter with you? Get him, and I’ll pull you both just a bit to the left of where you are now. Jake, kick your legs in the water, and try to get up onto the ice.’

  Jake felt Ron’s hands on his arm. He was kneeling, pulling him, and suddenly it was easier. He kicked, got hi
s other arm up. He felt Ron take that hand. It hurt. There was blood dripping on the ice. Ron pulled, hard. The edge of the ice dug into Jake’s stomach, caught on the string around his raincoat but then he slipped past, kicking, and throwing his weight forward. He shook off Ron’s hands, and used his elbows and nails to claw his way out, until he lay full length. Beneath him the ice was creaking badly. Ron was still kneeling, his long trousers stained wet from the ice. ‘Lie down,’ Jake croaked, shivering so much he could hardly speak.

  Mr Andy called from the edge. ‘Jake, keep facing Ron, ease yourself onto the rope. Then I can pull you back in a straight line. Ron, do as Jake says. Lie down, grab Jake’s hands, I’m going to pull you both in now. If the ice goes, hold onto one another and I’ll continue pulling. You will be safe. So keep calm, both of you.’ They gripped hands, lying down, facing one another. ‘I’m pulling you now.’

  How? Jake wondered. How can he pull, he’s only got one hand? But his back was to the shore, he was facing Ron, their hands were clenched, he couldn’t turn to look. He asked, ‘How’s he pulling?’

  Ron said, shivering, ‘The rope’s round his waist and he’s sort of pulling with his hand, and he’s squeezing the rope between his elbow and his body. Pull, squeeze, that’s how.’ They were moving. Their eyes met, and then fell away. Jake stared across the ice. Ron’s eyes were the colour of summer, so bright, so blue. He couldn’t remember what summer was like. The ducks were circling and landing. They’d be warm in the hide. Jake couldn’t think what it was like to be warm.

  Mr Andy shouted, ‘Nearly there, but you’ll have to go in the water now. The ice is in bits.’

  He slid backwards into the water. Ron clung to his hands and followed. Their feet sank into the mud. ‘It’s not deep,’ Jake said. ‘You can let go, now.’ He dragged himself round, and began to wade through the water. The bank looked funny, it was jiggling, but perhaps it was because he was shivering so much his cheeks hurt. He felt and heard his teeth banging together. He could hardly struggle to the bank but Mr Andy got in the water and pulled, and then he was unknotting the rope from around Jake with his teeth and one hand. He was saying, ‘I told that damned teacher of yours to tell you to stay off the ice. What the hell’s the matter with her?’

  Jake wrenched free of him, and almost fell. ‘She did tell us, again and again she told us, and don’t you swear about her. Don’t you dare.’

  Ron was standing there now, shaking. ‘Jake said it would be all right, he said it would.’

  ‘I never did. You liar.’ He launched himself at Ron, his arms flailing, but he slipped and fell. Ron laughed.

  ‘Shut up, the pair of you.’ Mr Andy was coiling the rope. He threw it down. ‘I suppose I have to get you both home, but we’ll have to walk. The cart’s full and we can’t mess about. You need to get warm.’

  Jake’s teeth were chattering, his balaclava was wet, everything was wet, and he felt like an icicle. ‘Will Destiny be all right alone?’

  ‘You should have thought about that earlier, instead of causing trouble.’ Mr Andy was striding down the lane, and the boys hurried along after him, Jake in socks but his feet didn’t hurt because he really couldn’t feel anything, not his feet, not his cut knees, not his cut hand. But he walked like a robot, all a bit funny and wobbly. His blood was bright on the snow.

  Mr Andy stopped and looked back. He stared at the trail of blood. ‘You can’t walk like that.’ He went back, and swung Jake up and over his shoulder, like a sack of coal. They walked on in silence now, and Jake’s knees were rubbing on Mr Andy’s old mac, but they weren’t sore, they weren’t anything. He said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Andy. Your mac will be dirty.’

  ‘Typical …’ Ron started to say something, but now Mr Andy roared, ‘I don’t want to hear another bloody word from you, boy. Just shut it.’

  As they walked, Jake felt the breath jog in his chest. Mr Andy’s arm was strong around him, and he began to feel warm across the back of his thighs where he was held. They dropped Ron at his house. Mrs Campion took one look at him, and yanked him in. ‘Thanks, Andy. I don’t know how many times he’s been told. That Miss Saunders even sent a letter round.’

  ‘I told you not to swear at her,’ Jake said, as Mr Andy left the house, still carrying him, but perhaps he didn’t say it aloud, because Mr Andy didn’t reply. They continued down the snow-covered road. Jake felt very sleepy. His eyes were closing, they just wouldn’t do as he wanted and stay open. He couldn’t stop shivering. He bit his tongue. That hurt because it wasn’t numb, and he could taste the blood but it kept his eyes open. He knew they’d stopped at Myrtle Cottage when Mr Andy opened the gate, and walked up the path. Mr Andy knocked, and waited. Then at last he heard her voice, his Phyllie, saying, ‘Oh my God.’

  Mr Andy swung him down, and steadied him. Phyllie lifted him up. ‘Oh my God,’ she repeated. ‘His feet, his knees, his mouth, and he’s bleeding. He’s so cold.’

  Mr Andy said, ‘You need to keep these bloody boys under control. They were on the pond. I don’t want him near the horses again until I know he can be trusted. Water can kill, you know, Jake Kaplan. It drowns people but you townies don’t have the sense you were born with.’

  Phyllie carried Jake into the house, through the cold hall, and up the stairs, calling to Miss F, but then she remembered she was out at Mrs Symes’s. She wrapped him in a towel, and ran the bath, urging him out of his clothes, shouting at him when he said, his voice shaking with cold, ‘I don’t want you to see me.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I must get you warm.’

  She stripped him, tested the water and lifted him in because his legs wouldn’t work. The blood from his knees and feet coloured the water, she bathed his hands, and that blood darkened the water further. She felt a thickening of her throat, as she ran more and more hot water. He cried out, ‘It hurts, Phyllie.’

  Downstairs in the kitchen Francois was barking, and clawing at the door into the hallway.

  ‘It will hurt as the circulation gets going again, and it will hurt a damn sight more when I tan your backside. How dare you go on the ice? How many—’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he wailed. ‘I was walking past, and Ron was on it, and it started to crack. He told Mr Andy I had been on it with him and had run away. I wouldn’t go on the ice with someone who hates me. Why would I? I went on to help and the ice broke. Then I went for help because I heard Mr Andy doing the ditch in Haydock Field.’

  Phyllie turned off the taps and wiped his face with her wet hands. ‘Shh, it will be all right. I’m sorry, of course you weren’t. I don’t know what I was thinking. Lie down, let’s get that noddle of yours under the lovely hot water.’

  ‘I’m not a baby, Phyllie.’

  ‘To me, you are, just for this moment.’ She didn’t know how to show this boy how much she loved him, how much she worried.

  She dressed him in two pairs of pants, the second baggy pair of trousers. She made him wear two pairs of socks, and two vests, a sweater, and covered him with two blankets on the sofa. She remembered that Sammy had said that if one of them fell in the water, their mate would bunk in with him, to give him warmth. She let Francois lie with him, while she boiled the kettle to heat him up from the inside.

  She rattled about in the pantry, looking for something special to go with the pot of tea she was making. He could have her ration of sugar. When she returned to the fireplace he was gone, so were his school shoes, and his new school mackintosh, and Francois.

  She made herself think. Where? Where? She rushed upstairs. No. Not there. She tore down again, and saw the front door was ajar. She flew into the kitchen, hauled on her boots, mackintosh, scarf and woollen hat, ran down the hall, and out to the gate. She looked to the left and the right. She thought she saw him, disappearing towards the pond. It was certainly a shape, a small one.

  She ran but slipped and fell. She scrambled to her feet and half skated, half walked because, of course, he had returned to the pond, where else would he go if not to face his demons?
‘Get back on the horse,’ she and Miss F told the children. The wind was like a knife, the sky was heavy with snow. If it fell now it would be a blizzard.

  There he was, ahead of her, standing at the pond’s edge, staring out over the damaged ice, and at the black dull water. It looked like a scar. Francois was sitting beside him, licking his hand. She ran on, her gumboots slopping, and finally stood next to him. Without speaking he slipped his hand in hers. ‘Mr Andy said I couldn’t be trusted, and until I could be I couldn’t go to the horses. I don’t know how to show him, Phyllie. I was in the water, you see. I can’t swim and I had to get help, because I couldn’t do anything on my own. Mrs Campion told him you had sent a letter to everyone.’

  She squatted down beside him, her arm around him. ‘Tell me exactly what happened.’ He did, even telling her that he had been thinking what would happen if Ron went through, explaining that for a moment he thought how nice it would be without him. On and on he went, and then he said, ‘Water kills. He said it drowns people, but I knew that. But I didn’t really know it until today. It’s so cold and dark when you are in all that water, Phyllie, and you can’t help yourself. My daddy’s down there; Sammy is, too. They’re in something like this water but much worse, much deeper. There’s no one to help if it goes wrong, only Germans wanting to hurt them. They drop bombs on them, but they don’t call them bombs. I can’t remember what the name is.’

  Phyllie hugged him. ‘Nothing will go wrong.’

  He pulled away. ‘We can’t know that. War kills, water kills, and it’s horrid and it’s frightening, and …’ He trailed to a stop.

  She shook her head. ‘Submariners know what to do when those people come to find them. They do, truly they do.’ She was trying to convince herself, as much as him.