Authors: David Wingrove
‘Come, Boy,’ he said, standing, shouldering his gun.
They paused at the ruins, baring their heads, paying their respects, then walked on. Cooper and his family were buried in the churchyard. Long buried now, along with the rest of those who had
died that winter. Six years it had been. Only it didn’t seem that long. To Jake it seemed like yesterday.
And there too was another truth. That back in the old days they would have survived. Most of them, anyway, if not all. A jab of something and a week in bed and they’d have been right as
rain.
Only these weren’t the old days.
Jake pushed the thought away, then looked to his son once more.
‘Come, lad. Let’s go bag some more before breakfast.’
Two hours had passed and they had just decided to turn back, when Jake spotted the strangers, some distance off to the north-west, out on the Ware-ham Road.
His satchel was bulging with dead game. That, and the sight of strangers on the road made up Jake’s mind to leave. Now, before they were spotted.
There was an old barn, partway up the slope. There they hid, Jake perched in the gaping stone window, the Zeiss-style glasses – a pair of Bresser Hunters his father had bought more than
fifty years before – to his eyes as he checked out the newcomers.
It was as he’d thought. They were refugees. Just a small party, eight strong. Five adults and three children, all of their worldly possessions either on their backs or on the sled one of
them dragged along.
He moved from face to face, seeing the tiredness there, the fear. They were a peculiarly shabby lot, with an emaciated, almost haunted look. As far as Jake could make out, a small, fussy little
man was leading them; stocky and balding, he never seemed to stop talking. Alongside him was a much taller woman. She was a pale, consumptive-looking creature with lank hair and a pair of broken
spectacles that gave her a slight academic air. There were two other men – nondescript fellows with shaven heads and the kind of faces you instantly forgot, they were so generic.
Working
men
, Jake thought, seeing those faces. At least, they would have been, once upon a time. But these two were barely into their thirties. They’d have been ten at most when things fell
apart.
The last of the adults – another woman – was perhaps the most interesting, and he took his time, studying her. She didn’t seem part of this party. She had a distracted air to
her and an uncertainty – a lack of ease – that suggested she had joined them somewhere along the way. For protection, maybe. The look of her – the quality of her clothes –
did not go with the others. And there was one other thing. She was pretty.
Jake switched his attention to the children. The eldest was a tall, spindly boy of adolescent age. The clothes he was wearing looked thin and ragged. He seemed to hug himself against the
morning’s chill. Most noticeable, however, were his eyes – pale eyes that were dark-rimmed and fearful, like he suffered from bad dreams.
His siblings, if that was what they were – a boy and a girl, one perhaps five and the other eight or nine – shared the same, dispirited look.
It made him wonder just how long they had been on the road. Three days? Four? Had they eaten in all that time? Were they hungry?
They certainly
looked
hungry. Hungry and afraid. As always, something in him responded to their plight and wanted to help; only he couldn’t. He had learned that lesson long ago
– not to trust
anyone
in these untrustworthy times. Not strangers, anyway.
Even so…
Jake focused again on the little man, the fussy one, trying to get some clue to it all. A lot of people made the journey west. He’d been told that life was a lot better out here. Only this
party didn’t seem to be driven by the desire for a better life. No. They looked as if they had been chased out.
Jake lowered the glasses. ‘They’re no threat,’ he whispered. ‘But let’s get back anyway and warn the others, just in case.’
Peter nodded, then turned to Boy. Boy had been laying there, silent, patient; now he jumped up, eager again.
Peter leaned in close, speaking in a whisper to the dog. ‘Hush now, Boy. We’re going home, right?’
Normally Boy would have given off a bark – an eager response – but Peter had trained him well. When he used that hushed voice, Boy was to keep quiet.
Jake, looking on, smiled. He was a lovely dog. One of the best. He hadn’t known how good it was to have a dog until they’d had him. He put out his hand and Boy came across at once,
nuzzling him, licking his fingers and giving off the faintest whine.
‘Come…’
They moved quickly, purposefully, up the steep grassy slope and along the Ridgeway, the castle – a massive thing of fallen tawny stone, huge chunks of which were embedded in the grassy
hillside – directly ahead. Beyond it, beyond the broad green slope of the castle’s enclosed lower field, nestling in the curve of the valley, was Corfe itself. A V-shaped spill of
grey-brown two-storey cottages that hugged both arms of the forking road, the parish church with its square tower thrusting up from amidst that great sprawl. It was a sight Jake never tired of, and
as always he paused, to take it in, sensing a connection that was beyond his own lifetime. For some reason this was his place and he had come here out of instinct when it had all gone wrong. Here
and nowhere else. Because here was where he belonged.
Some of the locals were at the Bankes Arms Hotel already, despite the early hour, unloading carts and carrying bits and pieces through to the gar -den at the back of the big coaching inn. They
were preparing for the evening ahead, it being their custom, once a month, to hold a gathering of all the surrounding villages. It was a celebration – of life and friendship, and of the Past,
of the quite astonishing fact that any of them had survived these past twenty or so years.
Jake’s best friend, Tom Hubbard, was there, with his youngest daughter Meg, who was Peter’s age. While Peter ran across to talk to her, Boy at his heels, Jake sidled over to his old
friend.
Tom met his eyes. ‘Somethin’ up?’
Tom spoke with the same Dorset dialect as Jake’s son, Peter, and even as he answered him, Jake was conscious at some level of the lack of that same richness in his own voice. He had been
here for more than twenty years, but he was still, in some important way, an outsider. This place, home as it was to him now, was still foreign parts.
‘Strangers… on the old Wareham Road. No threat, I’d judge – they’re a bit of a ragtag assortment – but we ought to send a warning round.’
Tom nodded, then turned and whistled through his teeth. ‘Alec! Young Billy!’
Two young heads appeared from behind the cart. ‘
Yeah?
’
‘Leave that for now. There’s strangers on the Wareham Road. Best put out a warnin’ to Stowborough and Furzebrook… oh, and East Holme while you’re at it.’
He turned to Jake again. ‘How many was it, Jake?’
‘Just the eight. Three men, two women and three kids. It’s just that they looked hungry, and hunger makes thieves of us all.’
Tom turned and gestured to the two youngsters, who ran off at once. He turned back, then nodded towards the bulging satchel.
‘It’s a wonder there’s any rabbits left, what with you and the lad.’
Jake grinned. ‘Thought I’d bag a dozen or so for the do tonight.’
‘An’ the rest?’
But it didn’t need to be said. Tom knew who Jake had bagged them for. Old Ma Brogan, down on the East Orchard. If Jake hadn’t brought her a brace of rabbits every now and then
she’d never have tasted meat at all, now that her son had run off.
‘How’s Mary?’
Tom looked up again. ‘She’s fine. Lookin’ forward to tonight. Like a bloody teenage girl, she gets. Can’t get no sense out of her or our eldest pair. You’d think it
were Christmas.’
The two men laughed, then fell silent. There were shadows over everything they said these days.
They were living on borrowed time and they both knew it. But life had to be lived, not feared. You had to get on with things, no matter what was headed your way. And sometimes that was enough.
Only it made it hard to plan anything, hard to look beyond the immediacy of things, and that, so the more astute of them realized, robbed the experience of something precious. When you didn’t
have a future, what
did
you have?
Jake turned, taking it all in – the castle, the village, all of it unchanged for centuries – and felt a shiver pass through him. It was like living in a vacuum some days. There was
Peter, of course, and his friends, but what was it all for? What was the point if it could all be swept aside in an instant?
He patted the bulging satchel, conscious of the smell of the dead creatures which hung upon him.
‘Anyway… I’d best deliver these.’
Tom smiled. ‘You know what? I’m glad it happened… cos if it hadn’t…’
He reached out, holding Jake’s arm.
It wasn’t like Tom to comment on the past. Nor was it like him to be quite so tactile.
‘You all ready for tomorrow?’
‘Packed up and ready to go.’
‘Good.’
Jake walked away. He ducked through the narrow entrance, stooping beneath the low-silled door and out into the garden. Stepping back into the sunlight, he called out to the little group of wives
who were gathered around the big trestle table halfway up the grass.
‘Bessie… Mell… who wants the job of skinning these little fellas?’
There was laughter and for a moment the shadow passed. But walking home afterwards with Peter at his side and Boy trailing them, he saw Tom’s face again, saw something there behind the
eyes, and wondered what it was.
Old Ma Brogan was working in her vegetable garden when Jake came calling.
Straightening her thin, age-worn frame, she raised a hand to shield her eyes, straining to see who it was. Stray wisps of long grey hair lay across her deeply-lined face. There was mud on her
boots and on the hem of her long, green velvet skirt.
Elegance gone to seed
, Jake thought, studying her a moment before he unlatched the gate and stepped through.
‘It’s all right, Mother. It’s only me.’
‘Ah, Jake, my love. Come give me a kiss. Been a while.’
He went across and gave her a hug and a kiss, then stepped back, admiring her handiwork. For a woman in her eighties she was something else. Frail she might have been, but there was no sign of
that frailty in her vegetable garden. Nothing but straight, healthy rows of carrots and beans. The last of the season.
‘I’ve brought you some conies, Ma. Skinned ’em and prepared ’em, I have. Where d’you want me to put ’em?’
A smile beamed out from that ancient face. It made him realize how beautiful she must have been as a young woman.
‘Ah, you’re a good boy to me, Jake Reed. A better son than that good-for-nothing boy of mine.’
‘Now, Ma… he had his reasons.’
‘
Reasons!
’ She spat the word out contemptuously. ‘You’re too kind to him by half. Let his cock rule him, more’s the truth!’
Jake smiled. He was used to Ma Brogan’s foul mouth. Besides, it was true. Her son, Billy, had been infatuated with a girl, and she only half his age. ‘Cock-struck’ was how Ma
Brogan had termed it at the time, and so he was. When she left, he went after her, leaving his aged mother to fend for herself. It was cruel, but it was also life.
‘So… where d’you want these?’
‘Through here,’ she said, turning and leading the way along the brickwork path towards the back door. ‘You goin’ along tonight, lad?’
‘I am.’ And he smiled again as he said it. He liked being called ‘lad’, as if he were Peter’s age again. And he liked being mothered. More than that, he liked Ma
Brogan’s irreverent approach to life. Some didn’t, but he did.
In the kitchen doorway she half turned, looking to him. ‘You want a brew, boy?’
‘I’d love one, Ma. If
you’re
having one.’
‘I am. Now put those conies down on the side, then take a seat and rest your legs while you tell me all the latest gossip.’
Which is precisely what he did for the next hour, sat there in that low-ceilinged, heavily-shadowed kitchen, among the overflowing shelves and the clutter.
Back in the old days he might have scorned it as a waste of time, but now he knew. This was what life was for. Not for accumulating wealth, nor making an impression. It was for this. The old
lady –
Margaret
, she insisted, flirting with him – made him laugh. Not only that, but she made him think, and if she’d been thirty years younger he might even have slept
with her.
He knew a great deal about her life, about her work as a painter and as a potter, and the children she had raised, never to see again. But aspects of her history were still a mystery to him,
even after coming here these past twelve months.
‘Margaret?’
‘Yes, my love?’
‘Can I ask you something deeply personal?’
She turned to face him. ‘You may.’
‘How many lovers did you have?’
Her smile broadened, stretching the thin parchment of her skin. ‘You cheeky boy. That
is
personal. But as it’s you…’
She hesitated, searching her memory, the smile fading then returning as she remembered something, or someone. ‘My god, it’s years since I thought about it…’ She gave a
little shrug, then. ‘Twenty? Thirty, maybe.’
Jake feigned shocked surprise, which made her laugh.
‘You wanted an honest answer, you got one.’
‘For which I thank you. But now I want to know something else. Who was the love of your life?’
She stared back at him and for an instant, her eyes were still young in that otherwise ancient face. It made him think of the old saying – that the eyes were the windows of the soul.
‘What’s got into you today, my boy?’
‘I don’t know… It’s just that I’ve been missing her these past few days.’
‘Ah…’
A faint, wistful smile had come to her lips. She met his eyes again.
‘His name was Matthew. Mattie, I called him. My beautiful Mattie. Ah, he could stoke the fires, that one.’
‘Was he your husband?’