Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone

by Phaedra Patrick

  Benedict was more practical. He couldn’t afford to dream, or allow his imagination to run wild. He had to be strong, steadfast and provide routine. Benedict didn’t think about his own needs when he cared for Charlie, only about keeping his brother safe and well looked after.

  And, in his mind, when the two brothers grew older, they would both marry women from the village and have children. They’d all live close together and the two families would mingle happily. The Stone family would flourish again in Noon Sun. He’d never imagined the mess that might ensue.

  As he watched Gemma, Benedict also felt guilty about another thought that crept into his mind. He tried to banish it, but it kept on coming back, like mold on a freshly painted wall. Had his niece feigned her headache to avoid chasing up the whereabouts of her passport and phone? Was he a bad uncle for thinking such a thing?

  Gemma sighed, opened one eye and batted a stray lock of hair that had fallen across her nose. She wrinkled her brow as she saw Benedict standing there. “What are you doing?” She raised her head slowly. “What time is it?”

  Benedict glanced at his watch. “Almost four in the afternoon. You’ve been asleep for a couple of hours. How is your head?”

  She reached up and dug her fingers into her hair. “A little better.”

  “You still look a bit pale.”

  “Hmm. I feel kinda wobbly.” She looked around her and spied an unopened bottle of water at the back of Benedict’s workbench. “Can I drink that?”

  “Yes.”

  She yawned and unscrewed the top off the bottle. “I need to get some fresh air.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll lock up the shop early. We can walk home along the canal.”

  She shook her head. “I want to go farther than that.”

  Benedict racked his brains for somewhere else to walk close by. “How about the high street, then the canal?” he suggested.

  Gemma took a big gulp of water. “No. You need to get fitter for WEB. We talked about going for a walk on the moors, so let’s go up there.”

  Even the thought of climbing the hill, up to the moors, made Benedict’s calves ache. “You’ve been poorly,” he said. “We should get you home.”

  Gemma threw the bottle in the bin and pulled on her stray boot. “I’ve decided,” she said. “I need to be outside.”

  “But it’s almost teatime,” Benedict tried weakly, knowing that his argument stood no chance.

  “We agreed that part of WEB is for you to get fitter,” Gemma said firmly. “No trying to get out of it.”

  “I’m not trying to,” Benedict said, even though he was.

  “Good.” Gemma glanced out of the window. “It looks like it might rain. I’m going to need a coat with a hood.”

  * * *

  Benedict took Estelle’s old purple anorak out of the store cupboard and handed it to Gemma to wear. It had a slight tear to the sleeve so had been relegated as emergency wear. “Do you need to put some tights on? Your legs are bare.”

  “Panty hose? Nope, I’m fine like this.” Gemma flapped her arms like a penguin, the tips of her fingers peeping out from the bottom of the sleeves.

  They left the shop and bought ham sandwiches from Bake My Day, then walked down the high street to the car park. A small pyramid of wood was taking shape on the expanse of tarmac for Bonfire Night. The admission fee for the bonfire would help to raise funds for the community center roof.

  Benedict and Gemma walked past the bonfire stack to the foot of the biggest hill that overlooked Noon Sun.

  “We should get you home,” Benedict tried again. “I’ve got some paracetamol back at the house.”

  “I don’t take pills,” she said, looking up at the dome of patchy grass. “Quit fussing. I’m okay.”

  They started to hike up the hill. Gemma didn’t zip up her coat, and she crossed her arms to hold it fastened. Her hood kept blowing off and her hair danced in the air like ticker tape. Benedict walked a few steps behind her, taking the walk slow and steady in his burgundy loafers. The ground was concrete hard underfoot. The grass, flattened by the wind, had faded to a desert yellow.

  When they reached halfway up, Benedict felt a stabbing pain in his sides. He clutched them and stood, panting and looking up at Dinosaur Ridge, still at least a fifteen minutes’ climb away. “I think that’s all I can do today,” he gasped.

  “No way, Uncle Ben.” Gemma poked him in the side. “Rest a minute and keep moving.”

  “I really don’t think I...”

  But Gemma had already set back off without him. “You’re as slow as a snail,” she called over her shoulder.

  Benedict looked back longingly at Noon Sun Village. The high street was the shape of a crooked arm, with the dilapidated community center like a red boil on its elbow.

  A cloud drifted over the setting sun, and banded shadows swept across the moorland, reminding him of Lawrence Donnington’s bloody striped T-shirt. And Benedict told himself that he had to do this. No matter how ridiculous WEB was, it seemed like his only hope. He couldn’t let Estelle fall into the slimy gallery owner’s arms. Benedict flipped up his hood and began to march after Gemma. “Hold on,” he shouted out. “Wait for me.”

  When they got a little closer to the ridge, Benedict pointed it out to Gemma. “You have to lean your head to the side to see the rocks. They’re supposed to form the shape of a stegosaurus.”

  They both cocked their heads ninety degrees clockwise.

  “I can see his scales,” Gemma said.

  “We’ll climb up to there. And then we’ll go home.”

  Gemma sighed at him and reached down to readjust her boot.

  * * *

  By the time they reached the top of the ridge, the sun was sinking fast. It sparkled fluorescent white behind the hill, and Benedict imagined Estelle up here, on her own, with her sketchbook, lost in her thoughts. Did she think about him as she walked, or did she plan her future without him?

  He read once that you should have a plan for when your kids leave home, to avoid empty-nest syndrome. It was something that he and Estelle had never discussed—what they’d do if they definitely couldn’t have children, and how they would live. He’d always assumed that she was content with their life as it was, but when she started to paint, he realized that she needed something else.

  After a day in his shop, Benedict was happy to laze around and watch TV, or go for a beer at the Pig and Whistle. He hadn’t considered if that was enough for Estelle, and now he knew that it wasn’t. Just as his wife had found something that she was passionate about, he needed to find it, too. But he didn’t know what that was.

  “I’m standing on the dinosaur’s head.” Gemma hopped around and broke his thoughts. She lifted one leg in the air, and as her boot waggled on her ankle, Benedict couldn’t help but smile.

  They sat on the stegosaurus scales and rested their chins on their fists. The streetlamps in the village twinkled below them, gold, orange and red, like underwater sea creatures. The clouds overhead were inky gray and the sky was turning deep mauve.

  Benedict cast a sideways glance at his niece. They were up here alone without any distractions. There was no Lord Puss to interrupt, no customers and no journal. It felt like a good time to try to talk to her.

  “You don’t say much about where you live...” he said.

  “No.” Gemma picked up a small stone and threw it down the hillside, where it bounced down the rocks. “There’s not much to say.”

  “Is your farm in the middle of nowhere, or are there shops and houses around it?”

  Gemma shrugged. “I suppose it’s on its own.”

  “With fields around it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Benedict felt like he was getting nowhere.

  “When I think of the farm, I always think of yellow
,” she said.

  “Yellow?” he asked, surprised by her word. “Like the color? Like citrine?”

  “Yeah, like citrine quartz. The hay is yellow, and the sun is yellow, and there are yellow chicks. We have horses and cattle and there’s always something going on, and Dad is always whistling. When my grandparents died, he took over running the farm.”

  “So you have no grandparents left?” Benedict realized.

  “No.” She stared off into the distance. “All I’ve got is my dad, and my mom when I see her. And you and Aunt Estelle... That’s why it’s special that I’m here.”

  Benedict opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t think of what to say.

  “There’s this one horse.” Gemma threaded a piece of hair into her mouth. “He’s as white as an opal, but real feisty. Whenever Dad tried to saddle him, he kicked hard. I don’t know what it was, but that horse liked me and let me get close. It’s kind of easier with animals than it is with people, huh? They just like you or they don’t.”

  Benedict thought of how Lord Puss hated him. “Do you miss him?”

  “Duh, how can I miss a horse? It’s not like he could come with me.”

  “I meant your dad.” Benedict tutted. He remembered the initials Gemma had penned in the notebook—DJ. He wanted to know more about her words on lapis lazuli and who she didn’t trust. “Do you have a boyfriend back home?”

  “I did. Kinda.” She picked up a triangular-shaped stone and began to scrape marks onto the rock she was sitting on.

  “What was his name?” Benedict waited until he realized that she wasn’t going to answer and he asked something else instead. “What about school?”

  “What about it? I finished last quarter.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “No way. It sucked, though I guess I miss my friends. We used to hang out a lot, before...”

  “Before what?”

  “Nothing. I feel like I’m on some kind of quiz show.”

  He tried again. “So what do you want to do when you grow up?” The question sounded like something he’d ask Charlie when his brother was five years old. A fireman, Charlie used to say. I want to be a policeman, or a stuntman. He never said that he wanted to be a farmer.

  “I am grown up.”

  “I mean when you get older. Do you want to study more? Get a job?”

  “Now you sound like Dad,” she said sharply. “You ask too many things. I mean, it’s not like I have choices...”

  Benedict frowned. He picked up a stone, at first thinking it was a piece of Blue Jack. When he saw it wasn’t, he threw it down the hill. “You’re only sixteen. You have lots of options.”

  “Hmm,” Gemma said.

  Benedict felt like he was interrogating her, so he didn’t ask anything else. They listened to the wind howling around the dinosaur scales.

  “I like rock music, too,” she volunteered after a while.

  Benedict didn’t want to embarrass himself by saying cool, or coolio, as Cecil might do. He didn’t listen to music that much, unless he and Estelle went over to Applethorpe to watch a band, and they’d not done that for a long time. Estelle listened to the radio when she painted, but that was with the door closed.

  “There’s a few bands I like,” Gemma continued. “The 678s, Orange Jackets, Restore the Hope...”

  Benedict sat up a little taller. “I’ve heard of Restore the Hope...”

  “You have?” Gemma squinted with disbelief.

  “I think they’re playing a gig over in Applethorpe.”

  “When?”

  “I’m not sure of the dates.”

  Gemma grew quiet. “How far away is that?”

  “Around ten miles from Noon Sun. Not too far.”

  “I’d really like to go...” she said.

  What would Charlie say, Benedict thought, if his daughter asked him if she could go to a gig? He’d probably be really liberal and say yes. If he didn’t mind Gemma traveling to the UK on her own, then he’d certainly agree to her going over to Applethorpe.

  But was Benedict in a position to grant such permission? Was it the norm for sixteen-year-olds to go to concerts? He couldn’t ever remember Charlie going to one. He could hear in Gemma’s voice how much she wanted to go, but he wasn’t her father. If he had a daughter then he’d insist on taking her there and waiting outside the venue, like an embarrassing but loving dad.

  “I could perhaps take you...” he started.

  “You?” Horror flashed across her face.

  “Well, I could wait outside for you.”

  “Hmm.”

  “We can ask your dad when he gets in touch.”

  He waited for her to say something else, but nothing came.

  The wind blasted their hoods up over their heads and they looked at other, laughed and pulled them back off again. “Are you warm enough?” Benedict asked.

  “Uh-huh.” Gemma stood up. She lifted her arms out to the sides and tilted her chin up toward the sky. Then she began to turn. She twirled slowly at first then grew faster and faster. Round and round she went, the purple coat flying around her like a cape.

  Watching her spin, the shape of her Stone family chin, her legacy of red hair, made Benedict’s gut wrench. It could be his and Estelle’s child up here, dancing in the wind.

  He had always been able to picture himself and Estelle as elderly, with crooked backs and hair the color of snow. He could imagine the laughter in their house on Christmas day as their grown-up kids arrived. And there would be opening presents and cheeks growing too red from the fire, and perhaps even grandkids sitting on his knee.

  And the thing was, Estelle could still have that. She was a little younger than Benedict. It might not be too late for her. If he let her go, didn’t persuade her to come back, she might find love and happiness and be able to have children with someone else.

  He hated that idea. What if he bumped into her in five years’ time and Benedict hadn’t moved on? He still lived in the same house, ran the same shop, made the same jewelry, and time hadn’t changed anything for him, except he didn’t have Estelle. And she could be living with a new man, in a new house, with a child, and be immersed in making outfits for school plays and baking cakes.

  Perhaps it was kinder to let her go.

  He knitted his hand into his hair and tugged at the roots.

  He looked over at Gemma and she was so unselfconscious, lost in the moment, laughing as she twisted. She was unaware of anything else. And Benedict wondered when he had last felt that free. He’d always been a big brother to Charlie, then his guardian. He was a shopkeeper and a husband. As an adult, life was all about planning and responsibility and thinking things through. Of being careful and of wanting things you couldn’t have.

  He felt envious of Gemma’s ability to not care, to jump on a plane if she wanted to, to spin around on the top of a hill at dusk. When did he ever do something on the spur of the moment? He’d spent all his life focusing on something in the future, trying to attain it—a child, getting his wife back and for the shop to perform better. He never thought about anything in the here and now, and enjoyed what he had at this exact moment in time. When he was with Estelle, they’d lost the art of just being together and relishing their friendship, love, jokes and togetherness. They both longed for something to make their lives complete when what they had was pretty perfect. To him, anyway.

  More than anything, Benedict had forgotten how to be spontaneous.

  “Come on, Uncle Ben. Join in,” Gemma called out.

  “No, I...”

  “Come on. No one’s watching.”

  Benedict rose slowly to his feet and stood for a moment. Then he slowly lifted his arms out to the sides. He looked over at Gemma, who was still a whirl of purple. Oh, why not? he thought, and he began to t
urn, too, gradually at first then picking up speed. It felt strange to be doing this, a grown man, dancing on top of a hill. What would the villagers say if they saw him? They’d think he’d gone mad. But he banished thoughts and questions from his mind as he turned even faster. The greenery surrounding him became a blur. His head grew light and the wind whistled in his ears. He was a whirling dervish, a spinning top, a bloody big dancer. He almost lost his footing but still he turned until he was dizzy and felt a bit sick.

  His feet stumbled, taking him in a wavy line, and he laughed as he used his hands to feel for a rock. When he plonked down, his head lolled and his eyes watered. Looking over at Gemma, he saw that she had flopped down, too. His vision made it look like she was still moving even though she was still. They looked at each other and laughed.

  Benedict tilted his face toward the inky sky. He closed his eyes and waited for the swirling feeling in his brain to subside. He felt the rock beneath him with his cold fingertips, to anchor him back to reality, before he shouted over to Gemma. “I’ll tell you about Blue Jack stone.”

  “Yeah?” She stood and staggered closer to him.

  “They used to mine it in the nineteenth century, but supplies ran low. No one is allowed to dig for it any longer. It’s a blue-and-violet stone and used to be popular in Victorian jewelry. The old quarry is still there, but it’s not used now. It’s about half a mile down from the ridge.”

  “Can we go there?”

  Benedict looked at his watch. “It will be dark soon. We should head back.”

  “We agreed that you need exercise.”

  “I didn’t sign a contract with you, and I’ve done enough,” he said firmly. “We have to walk all the way back home yet.”

  He didn’t expect her to agree so readily but she nodded her head. “We can come another time, right?”

  “Yes.” He walked toward her, studying the ground as he went. “If you look closely, you can still find bits of Blue Jack.” He crouched down and picked up a chip of stone. He wiped it with his thumb and held it out. “Here.”

  Gemma took it from him. She held it up to the darkening sky. “It’s translucent.”