by Pauline Fisk
Mum laughed. 'You're an opportunist,' she said. 'Do you know what that means? You can look it up in the dictionary when we go in. It can be your first task. Of course I'm not letting you off school. It's important and you've got to do it. You'll understand how much it matters some day.'
'I hope it's a boy this time,' Arabella said.
'I don’t mind what it is,' said Mum.
They sat very quietly. The sun rose in the sky. Mosquitoes hovered over the well. An apple fell off a tree, thudding in the long grass. Florence began to crawl again.
'Every life changes the world,’ Mum said suddenly. 'It's frightening really. It makes you cling to what you've got. It makes you fear the future.'
'That doesn't sound like you, Mum,' Arabella said.
Mum stretched and smiled and got up. 'Oh, I'm not so different from you. Impatient for change, yet anxious when I see it coming. Sometimes I want to make time stand still. Sometimes I can't wait for tomorrow to happen. Funny, isn't it?' She picked up Florence. 'Let's go and get that harvest supper ready.'
When they returned indoors, Dad had the trestle tables down from the attic and in pieces all over the living- room floor.
'It's the same every year,' Mum said. 'Dad can't remember how to put the bits together, and I can't believe how dusty the place has got.'
She disappeared and returned with a vacuum cleaner, then mops and buckets, tins of polish and dusters. 'It always gets like this,' she said to Bonnie. 'It's because we hardly ever use the living-room in the summer months. It's a great room for the winter, though. We always have the Christmas tree in here. And it's certainly the only place on Highholly Hill that's big enough for a supper like this.'
'Who's coming?' Bonnie asked. The first trestle table was up. It looked very big and there were two more to come. Dad had gone back into the attic to find the missing bits.
'Oh,’ said Mum, 'there'll be Henry and Ned and Evans and Mrs Evans, and friends from the village and all the people who still live up behind Roundhill and Mr and Mrs Onions, of course… In fact, has either of you seen Mrs Onions? Dad said she'd be down first thing. I haven't seen her for days.'
The girls shook their heads. They stood on either side of Mum's dilapidated vacuum cleaner, surveying the size of the task in hand. Bonnie clutched a feather duster.
Arabella valiantly said, 'We can do all this. You ought to rest.'
Mum smiled. She had a feeling it was the first of many times she'd hear those words. 'That's very kind of you,' she said. 'I'm going to take you up on that. But there's a lot of cooking I ought to do before I rest.'
Distantly, they heard the kitchen door scrape open, and a voice call. It was Mrs Onions. 'Good,' said Mum. 'Now I can get on. We're in here,' she called back.
Mrs Onions' footsteps rang on the kitchen floor. Her face peered round the door. There was something flustered about it. 'I meant to come down earlier,' she said. 'I meant to come down yesterday as well. I'm really sorry.'
'That's all right,' said Mum. 'Don't worry.'
'I... I want you to meet someone,' Mrs Onions said. 'I've got him out in the kitchen. He'll be very helpful. You could do with another pair of hands. He'll have those tables up and scrubbed in no time.'
Mum stared curiously. There was something odd about Mrs Onions this morning. Mrs Onions turned her head and called.
'Jim!'
Bonnie, not knowing why, slipped secretively into the shadows of the inglenook. As she did so a boy appeared. He sidled round the doorway as if afraid of meeting people. Mrs Onions hovered over him, proud and strangely nervous. He wore grey trousers and what must have been one of Mr Onions' checked working shirts which had been cut down. He had shiny, brown, untidy hair, rosy cheeks and bright brown eyes. He looked wild and strong and shy, like Mrs Onions' badgers and rabbits and wounded birds. His gaze went round the room, but passed by Bonnie in the shadow of the fireplace.
'I've found a boy,' Mrs Onions said. 'He hadn't got anywhere else to go, so he's staying with Mr Onions and me. He’s been making himself really useful. He can do all sorts of things. He’s really quick and strong. I've never seen anything like it. He says he doesn't even have a name, you know. So we’ve called him Jim, after Mr Onions' dad.'
Mum smiled a welcome. She didn’t hesitate. She crossed the room and took the boy's hand. He tried a shaky smile in return, but didn't speak.
'What a crowd we're becoming. Boys and girls appearing from all over the place,' Mum said. 'Well, Jim, you couldn't find a better place to stay than with Mrs Onions. I'm sure you'll be very happy there. Now if you really would be prepared to help us... '
She led the boy off to the trestle tables. Mrs Onions said she'd get on with the pies and Arabella volunteered to help her. Once he’d got something to do, the boy seemed to relax.
'What world is this,' thought Bonnie from the inglenook, 'where children like us can be plucked off the hill and no questions are asked?'
'We'll be in the kitchen if you want us,' Mum said when she was sure the boy had everything he needed. She headed for the door, leaving behind the distant echoes of other words at another time: 'This isn't like anywhere else you've been. It doesn't matter where you come from. We don't ask questions here.'
When the room was quiet, Bonnie came out of the shadows. The boy stared at her as if he’d known all along that she was there. Close up, he seemed all muscles and flesh. Real blood ran through his veins. He looked so different.
'I've never put a table together before,' he said. 'You'll have to help me.'
He was, of course, the shadowboy.
22
Bonnie took him in from head to foot. 'You've changed so much,' she said. 'I hardly recognize you.'
He looked down at his own hands with their lifelines and branching blue and pink veins. 'I hardly recognize myself… '
'I came for you,' Bonnie said. 'I came up to the holly grove. You must have heard me call. I swore after that I'd never look for you again. I'd never speak to you again. I’d needed a friend and you wouldn't answer me…'
Her voice shook. She was surprised at herself. Was it anger? Or was it the unexpectedness of it all?
The boy sighed. 'That seems so long ago,' he said. 'You went away. I was so lonely. I did want to be friends, but the wanting frightened me. I'd never felt anything like that before, you see. The hill seemed cold and empty and hard after you had gone. And I was frightened. I could feel things in me changing, changing! I didn't feel like the same boy any more and I couldn't stop it happening…'
'It sounds like being born,' Bonnie said, thinking of Mum and the hidden baby she was having, locked away in a secret, dark world inside herself. No choices, no understanding who he was, or where he was, or where he came from or why he did the things he did. 'It sounds like growing up as well. Don't ask me what I mean. I don't really know, but Maybelle always said growing up was terrible. How did Mrs Onions find you?'
Jim’s face lit up like a real boy's, with no shadows anywhere. 'I was walking down towards the cottages. It was very early. Mr Onions was going to work and Mrs Onions came down to the gate to see him off. She turned to go back in, and then she saw me beyond the wall. I couldn't get away from her. She leapt on me and called me a poor little thing — I suppose I must have been damp with dew or something, and pale and cold — and she dragged me in.'
'Dragged you in? Mrs Onions?'
'Well, I suppose I could have got away from her if I’d wanted. But I was curious, and so lonely. Before I knew where I was she'd got me inside and fed me. I kept telling myself I'd go next time she turned her back, but I liked the ticking clock and the smell of fire and food, and the warmth, and by the time she'd rubbed me with a towel and got me into clean clothes I wasn't afraid of human hands any more. I don't know what happened then. I think I slept.’
'And all the time the blood was moving through your veins and you were changing?'
'Well, yes, I suppose so. I looked at myself before we came down this morning. I couldn't recognize the bo
y I saw. Mrs Onions asked if I had anywhere else to go and I shrugged as if to say ‘no’ and she said, “You can be our boy, then. Mine and Mr Onions'. You can stay with us. We'll call you Jim.”’
'I wanted to be warm too,' Bonnie said. 'And stay in the same place forever and belong. So it looks like we've both got what we wanted.'
'I don't want to go back to how things were.'
'Nor do I. I don't even want to talk about it.'
'Nor do I... '
The table was heavy with decorated glazed ham pies, huge bowls of salad, crusty rolls, slices of cold lamb and beef and steaming baked potatoes dripping with butter. Bonnie stood looking at it all. There were voices behind her. Visitors were coming through to eat. She stared between the long candles at the blackberry and plum tarts with their criss-crossed latticed tops, and the jugs of thick cream and the huge cake that Mum had made this morning. She didn't want the visitors to come in. She didn't want to share this special moment. What had Mum said out in the orchard?
Bonnie looked at the chains of elderberries and leaves strung up between the beams, making extraordinary shadows in the candlelight… 'Sometimes I want to make time stand still.' That was what Mum had said.
The door burst open. Dad led everybody in. There was a rush of conversation and the room was suddenly full. 'Ah, Bonnie,' said Dad, coming towards her. 'You sit over here.' He led her to the table and sat her down. 'You look beautiful,' he said. Then he was away again, showing all the others where to sit.
Bonnie settled herself. She wore Arabella's long party frock and for the first time in her life she actually felt beautiful. She could have been one of the ancestors in the paintings on the stairs. She stroked the jewels on Godda's necklace, which she still, strangely, couldn't get off. The frock framed it perfectly against her neck and if sometimes she asked herself why Godda hadn't wanted it back, she certainly wasn't doing so tonight. She was glad she'd got it, glad to show it off.
Jim, down the table, looked at her with admiration. Evans, the grain man, smiled and said he was pleased to see her well again. She smiled, pleased with herself, and began to help herself to Mrs Onions' glazed ham.
Everybody else began to eat as well. They laughed and drank and told jokes. Mum sat in the soft light at the end of the table, beaming upon them all. Dad sat at the far end where the wine was kept. His jokes were the worst of them all; he was always full of fun but Bonnie had never seen him quite like this. In no time at all the cream jugs were empty, the latticed tarts were gone, the logs had burned low and new logs had been piled onto the fire. Mum lit fresh candles. Arabella had a blob of blackberry juice on the end of her nose. The laughter now was waning.
It was the perfect moment for Dad to get up and make his speech. 'I think I might have drunk a bit too much,' he said. 'I think we all have, but we've got so much to celebrate.' He looked round at them all. Mum sat back behind the candles. Her face was soft in the warm light. Everyone became very quiet.
'It's been a good year,' Dad said. 'We've had the best harvest for years. The flock's in good shape. We won some prizes at the Show. But there's more than that. Much more…'
He looked down the table. His eyes rested on Arabella, on Bonnie, on Florence, who had crawled into Mrs Onions' lap, on Mum. 'Where the old farms are falling into disrepair,' he said, 'and the old ways are dying and the young folk all go away to work in the cities and only the old ones are left, we've got young blood. We've got young life. We've seen the safe birth of Florence. She's even walking now. We've seen the coming of Bonnie, and now of Jim too. We've watched Arabella blossom forth with all the benefits of friends at last. And, to add to all of this, we're waiting for another child in the spring.'
Mum smiled at him. He reached for his glass and lifted it. Mum got to her feet and lifted her glass as well. 'God bless the children!' Dad said, eyes fixed on Mum.
'And God bless us too!' Mum said.
They drank, and their eyes never left each other's faces and there was not a person at the table who would have joined with them. This toast was just for them. Then Dad lifted his glass again.
'God bless Highholly Hill!'
They all clattered to their feet.
'God bless us all!' said Mum.
Their glasses rang against each other as they repeated the words and drank the toast. Then they all fell back into their seats. Only Mr Onions remained standing. He wore a dark, ill-fitting best suit. Bonnie realised she'd never really looked at him before. He had soft grey hair in a thatch all over his head, a drooping moustache and huge, calloused hands which looked strangely out of place beneath his narrow shoulders.
'I'll sing you a song,' he said.
He folded his huge hands over his chest and closed his eyes. Bonnie expected something rough and tuneless and strong but the fragrance of his song rose like smoke and curled around the shadowy beams, lingering long after the words had gone. Her eyes filled with unexpected tears. It was a perfect ending to the supper. His voice was sweet, and as fresh as roses.
23
The last of the summer days tumbled like ripe plums, and everything changed. Dry leaves fluttered down the fields into heaps along the bottoms of hedges. Days became darker and shorter, and patches of dank, cool fog crept into the valley. Dad ploughed and did his winter planting. He pulled up decaying garden debris and lit huge bonfires in the orchard.
Mum began school lessons again. Now she had a class of three, for Jim came down and joined them. 'You can't even read,' Mum would say. 'I can't understand it. You don't seem to know anything. It's as if you've never been taught. And yet you're such a bright boy.'
On good afternoons, after school, they'd run up with Jim as far as Roundhill, and wave him off as he blew down the other side. On wet, cold days, they'd sit with him in the inglenook and read to him, and draw and play and listen to the wind outside.
Some days the wind blew so hard and angrily that the whole house shook. Soot blustered down chimneys and the wind got under doors and through cracks in window-frames. It lifted carpets, shook curtains, forced them all to huddle between the stone walls of the inglenook while blast after blast hit the house like waves against a shore.
Some nights Bonnie would lie awake and listen to the wind. She'd pull the curtains back and watch arthritic trees tremble violently. She'd hear branches creak all over the hill, hear them crash down. She'd wonder how Highholly House took it all, how it still stood there, year after year, against such batterings.
Then the weather would change. The fog would come down, not like the delicate mists of summertime with their pastel shades and mysterious shapes, or even the dank coolness of autumn mornings, but lifelessly, murkily, a nasty blanket that settled upon house and hill and wouldn't go away again for days.
Then, unexpectedly, the sky would become clear and freezing blue and Bonnie would feel as if she could reach up and put a finger on it and it would crack like icy puddles and there would be jagged patterns all over it. There would be sunrises that took her breath away. The meadows would creak with frost and Dad would ferry in provisions, in case of snow. Jim would slither on polythene sacks down the ice-encrusted meadow for school. He'd look like a huge sack himself, wrapped from head to foot in layers of clothing with his pinched, steaming face hardly showing at all.
It was really winter now. Mrs Onions helped with Christmas cakes and puddings. Mum conducted lessons sitting in a chair with a cushion against her back, her feet up on a small stool and her hands folded over the growing bulge that took over her lap. After lunch, she would go to bed and Jim would go home, or the three of them would run together up the hill to play.
'Let's go up to the Throne,' Arabella suggested one restless, boding, blustery afternoon. They flung on their coats. 'Why don't you take Jake?' Mrs Onions called, but they shook their heads and rushed away.
‘Poor Jake,' Mrs Onions said. ‘No one seems to want him any more.’ The dog stared at her coldly. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn't much want him either. It was almost as if somethi
ng about him had changed.
The children climbed the hill. Arabella, carried by the wind, rushed ahead. Jim struggled behind her. His cheeks were red with exertion and he shivered and wrapped his coat round himself. The wind beat at the back of his head and his hair blew into his eyes. 'I can't stand this,’ he said. 'I feel so cold.'
Bonnie, blowing up behind him, laughed. 'Arabella says that this is nothing. She says it'll get a lot worse before winter's through.'
'I never used to feel cold or hot. The wind never pushed me over. I didn't used to feel a thing,' Jim said.
'It's the price of being human,' Bonnie teased. She looked up. Above them Arabella had found the crack between rocks which led to the seat of the Throne. Bonnie remembered the deep drop on the other side of it.
'We all ought to stay together,’ she said. 'Come on!'’
When they reached the Throne, Arabella had disappeared. Bonnie found the crack between rocks and squeezed her way in too. 'Arabella!' she called, but the wind whipped her voice away and there was no reply. Bonnie struggled through the long crack with Jim behind her. Finally she came out on the white, smooth stone where Edric was meant to sit above the valley.
'There you are,' she said. 'I was worried the wind might have blown you over the edge.'
Arabella stood alone and thoughtful. 'Do you think they really caught you?' she said. 'Edric and Godda, I mean. You know, when you fell. Do you think they really want to help us? Perhaps I shouldn't say it up here, but could we simply have imagined it?'
Bonnie felt the necklace beneath her coat. It was real enough, but Edric and Godda seemed far away now. 'Even up here they seem far away,' she said.
'I’ve always hoped I might see them, especially here. But I never have,’ Arabella said. 'I even wonder if they're real. They could be just a made-up story.’
Jim appeared behind them, his teeth chattering. 'I've never felt so cold. I can't stand it. I can't bear it up here. I'm going back.'
