Читать книгу Long Way Home - Michael Morpurgo - Страница 7

CHAPTER 2

THE CAR RATTLED OVER A CATTLE GRID, AND MRS Thomas slowed down to a crawl, struggling with the gear lever.

‘This is it, George,’ she said. ‘Just down the bottom of the drive,’ and the car bobbed and rocked in the craters and ridges of the farm track that led downhill towards a cluster of buildings. George was thrown violently against the door as the Mini keeled over in a rut.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Mrs Thomas, who was clinging to the wheel rather than driving. ‘You all right? It’s worse every time I come here.’

George rubbed the side of his head and stiffened himself for the next crater. It was then that he caught sight of a dark-haired girl, sitting on a gate-post in front of the buildings.

Storme watched the car rocking down the track towards her leaving a trail of dust rising into the air behind it. She hadn’t been waiting long. She’d become bored with standing in the sun, holding gates for Tom; and anyway she always liked to see the foster children first – a sort of sneak preview so that she could run in and tell everyone what he was like. She jumped down off the gatepost and tried to make out the features of the boy in the passenger seat, but there was too much dust and the car was still too far away.

‘Who’s that?’ George asked.

‘That’s the girl I told you about, remember? That’s Storme. Looks as if she’s been waiting for you.’

The car ground to a halt in the gravel and Storme came towards the car, waving the dust cloud away from her face. She bent down by Mrs Thomas’ window.

‘Is that him?’ she said.

‘Hullo, Storme,’ said Mrs Thomas, smiling at Storme’s bluntness. ‘This is George. George, this is Storme.’

Storme peered across Mrs Thomas and scrutinised George, who stared back. Like a parcel, he thought, it’s just like a postman delivering a parcel.

‘Your mum and dad?’ Mrs Thomas felt for George. ‘Are they in the house?’

‘Think so,’ said Storme, who was beaming at George by now. ‘You drive up. I’ll go and tell everyone he’s here.’

George watched her run off shouting at the top of her voice. ‘Always the same,’ he muttered. ‘They always stare at you.’

‘Come on, George,’ said Mrs Thomas. ‘She’s only young. She’s interested, that’s all; and after all, you are a new face.’

The car bumped across the farmyard scattering ducks and chickens in all directions and disturbing a sparrow that was having a dust-bath in one of the ruts. The car pulled up with a jerk. She turned off the engine.

‘Do try to enjoy yourself, George,’ she said before she opened the door, but George wasn’t listening. He was absorbed by a white duck that was waddling away from the car, sideways like a crab, keeping one eye on him and the other on the chorus of indignant hens in front of her. The main flock of ducks huddled together in noisy confusion against a brick wall: this one quacked out her own special defiance. George winked at her. She seemed offended and waddled off, bottom-heavy and cumbersome, towards the pond.

And then he was standing beside the hot car and Mrs Thomas was smiling thinly and making the introductions. Storme was clutching her mother’s hand, pulling her forward, and her father trailed along behind. They were all smiling at him. No one said anything. There were some sheep bleating in the distance and a chicken jerked its way between George and the car, pecking at the dust and warbling softly to herself. George felt hot and wondered what to do with his hands.

‘I saw him first, Mum. I told you I would,’ said Storme, still beaming at him.

‘Hullo, George,’ said the smiling lady in the apron. ‘You’re a bit early. Caught us on the hop – but no matter, it’s lovely you’re here.’

‘Better early than late, lad,’ the man said, taking George’s suitcase from Mrs Thomas. George’s white duck had come back and was standing by the car, watching. George was relieved to have something else to look at. ‘Tom’s not here at the moment,’ Storme’s father went on. ‘Still out with the calves, I shouldn’t wonder.’ George stared back at his duck and wondered if ducks ever blinked.

‘Shall we go and get him?’ said Storme, trying to make George look at her. She wondered what he saw in the duck.

‘That’s a good idea,’ Mrs Dyer said. ‘He’s down in the water-meadows somewhere, and we’ll give Mrs Thomas a cup of coffee – all right?’ George nodded and tried a smile that didn’t happen.

Storme didn’t have to be asked twice. ‘Come on,’ she said, and ran past him. George looked at Mrs Thomas who smiled and then walked away with Mr and Mrs Dyer. They’d be talking about him. ‘Come on,’ Storme was shouting at him from the gate. They climbed over and walked down the dusty track towards the water-meadows.

‘Mind the cows,’ said Storme, pointing at the ground by George’s feet. The warning was only just in time and George managed to lengthen his stride and avoid the huge cowpat that was spread out at his feet. He looked at her and they both laughed together. Then a fly was after him, buzzing round his ears. He swiped at it, but that just seemed to encourage it.

Storme was prattling on. ‘Tom’s been chasing calves around all morning.’ She was chewing a long piece of yellow grass. ‘Last time I saw him, he was all hot and cross. He came back in for a drink just before you came – grumbling about the flies. And do you know? He said his favourite meat was veal. I don’t think that’s very funny, do you?’

George looked down at her and listened; she never gave him a glance. She could have been talking to herself, until she said suddenly, ‘The girl we had last year, she didn’t like it here very much.’

‘What girl?’ George asked.

‘Jenny. She was the one we had last time. Mrs Thomas brought her as well. She always brings them. Do you like her?’

‘Who?’

‘Mrs Thomas,’ Storme said, scuffing her feet in the ruts and creating a dust storm round her ankles.

‘She’s all right,’ George said. ‘You have someone every summer, do you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she went on. ‘I don’t mind much, but Tom doesn’t like it.’ George shook his head against the fly and swiped at it again.

‘I hate flies,’ he said.

‘Lots of them here,’ said Storme. ‘They like the animals, see. You’ll get used to them.’ She pointed ahead of her and George followed her arm. ‘There he is,’ she said, and she ran down the track, leaping like a goat from rut to rut. George could see only the top half of Tom; the rest was hidden by the calves that were milling around him.

‘Tom! Tom!’ she shouted, leaning over the gate and cupping her hands to her mouth. ‘It’s George! He’s here!’ Tom waved back from the bottom of the field.

George looked at Storme standing on the bottom rung of the five-barred gate. This was something he had not met before: someone who was completely natural and open. She said just what came into her head; there were no pretensions, no inhibitions. He transferred his attention to the boy in dark jeans who was walking slowly towards them across the field followed closely by a small black and white calf.

‘Still looks cross,’ said Storme. ‘And that’s Jemima behind him. Only three months old she is, and she sucks anything she can get hold of.’ And she laughed as Tom slapped out behind him at the calf that was doing its best to suck the shirt out of his trousers.

Tom had seen them coming before Storme shouted to him. He’d been brooding about George all morning. His mind hadn’t been on the job. That was why he’d taken so long to bring the calves down into the water-meadows. Somehow Jemima had separated herself from the herd and skipped off before he could stop her. He’d herded the rest of them into the field and had to go back for Jemima. He’d found her munching away happily near the cattle grid at the top of the drive. All the way back down to the water-meadows he’d cursed Jemima and the heat and the flies, and particularly George.

And now here he was tramping reluctantly towards George and Storme, followed by the adoring Jemima who didn’t seem to understand that she wasn’t wanted. Tom hated meeting people anyway and by the time he got to the gate he still hadn’t thought of anything to say. But Storme solved that problem.

‘You caught her then?’ she grinned at him.

‘Yes,’ he said. The two boys looked briefly at each other, and then looked away. Neither could bring themselves to say anything.

Then Jemima was at his shirt again, and he turned and pushed her away. He was grateful for the intrusion – it gave him time to think of something to say.

‘Don’t do that,’ said Storme. ‘She loves you – you’ll hurt her feelings.’

‘She hasn’t got any,’ said Tom. ‘If she had, she wouldn’t have had me chasing up and down in the heat all morning, would she?’ He talked deliberately at Storme, but it was Jemima that finally forced the two boys to acknowledge each other. Repeatedly rejected, Jemima left Tom’s shirt and swayed towards George and before he could move, he felt a sharp tug at his trouser leg and looked down. He was being sucked at noisily. He pulled his leg away from the gate, but Jemima pushed her head further through the bars so that George had to step back quickly to avoid her. Storme leaned across offering her hand to Jemima who took it and sucked on it hungrily.

‘Like sandpaper, her tongue. Almost sucks your hand off,’ said Storme, pulling her hand away and wiping the saliva off on the grass.

‘I didn’t know they were so friendly,’ said George, now safely out of reach of the grey tongue that was still curling out like a tentacle in search of something or someone to suck.

‘They’re not,’ said Tom. ‘This one’s odd – doesn’t like cows at all, just people.’ They looked at each other as they spoke and then back at Jemima. Jemima pulled her tongue in and looked up at them with her great gentle eyes. ‘Do I look like your mother?’ Tom asked Jemima. ‘Is that it?’ They were all laughing now. Jemima blinked dreamily up at him, stretched her neck upwards and out came the tongue again, but Tom sidestepped her and climbed the gate. They left her forlorn and disappointed, her white head thrust through the gate.

By the time they reached the house, Mrs Thomas had gone. George half-expected it anyway – it was a favourite trick of hers that he knew well by now. She would leave without really saying goodbye, but this time it didn’t seem to matter to him that much.

After lunch Storme took him up the dark, narrow staircase to his room at the top of the house, and during the afternoon he helped to unload hay-bales from the trailer and stack them in the Dutch barn with Tom, Storme and Mr Dyer. Storme didn’t do much – she just talked. The sun shimmered hot behind a layer of cloud, and as the afternoon went on the air became heavy and the work more exhausting. Storme gave up her chatter and went inside; the hay was tickling her and she couldn’t stop coughing and spluttering in the dust thrown up by the bales as they hit the ground.

George worked on, the sweat trickling down into the corners of his eyes. Every time he picked up a bale he winced as the string bit into his fingers. But he was happy listening to Tom and his father chatting. They didn’t talk to him much. What he dreaded was when people forced themselves to talk to him – he could always tell. Once or twice he caught Tom looking at him strangely, but then he was doing the same to Tom – sizing him up.

The clouds built up above them as they worked and in the distance there was the rumble of thunder. Shortly after, the rain started, falling in huge drops, slowly at first. Mr Dyer drove the tractor and trailer under cover of the half-filled Dutch barn and they ran back to the house, closing their eyes against the rain that pounded down on them, plastering their hair down flat on to their heads. They burst in laughing through the kitchen door, the water pouring from their noses, their shirts clinging to their backs.

‘Not before time,’ said Tom’s father, shaking his arms. ‘We could do with it. First rain for over a month. Things never happen by halves, do they?’

‘We got most of it done, anyway,’ said Tom, and he grabbed some drying-up cloths from the rail by the stove. Mrs Dyer rescued them and handed out warm towels instead.

‘We should finish stacking next week,’ Tom’s father said, emerging from the folds of the towel that covered his head. ‘Got it done twice as fast with George here. I don’t suppose you’ve got much skin left on your fingers, eh? They’ll harden up, don’t you worry.’ George looked down at his raw hands. He’d forgotten they were hurting. He pulled his shirt off like the others and dropped it over the back of a chair. Then he set to work rubbing his hair dry. The kitchen smelt a bit like a launderette. George screwed up his eyes and rubbed the warmth back into his head.

‘And I suppose you’ll want paying as well,’ Tom’s father mumbled from underneath his towel.

George stopped rubbing and lowered his towel. ‘Paying?’ he said. He looked from Tom to his father, but they were both hidden by their towels. He was confused. It had been a wonderful afternoon; he had felt at ease with everyone. There had been no special treatment. He had begun to feel that he belonged there working with them. And now, suddenly, Mr Dyer was offering to pay him money – just to him, not to Storme or Tom, just to him. He was to be paid for the work like all the other foster children who came there every summer. ‘I don’t want to be paid,’ he said quietly, and he turned away from them and walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the privacy of his room.

He sat down on his bed under the window and threw his towel angrily into the corner. It was the same after all, just like all the other families, maybe even worse; no one had ever treated him like a hired worker before, and at least you knew where you were with them. He got up and retrieved the towel. He was not going to stay on those terms, not for Mrs Thomas, not for anyone. He took out his dry clothes and pushed his wet trousers and shirt down to the bottom of his case. He would leave during the night; it was easier that way – no arguments, no explanations. He’d done it before. They could find another foster boy to work for them. This time tomorrow, he’d be back in the Home, and maybe Mrs Thomas would listen to him from now on.

There was a knock on his door. ‘You in there, George?’ It was Storme. George pushed his suitcase under the bed. The latch clicked up. ‘You still look wet,’ she said. ‘Mum said to come down – tea’s ready.’ George nodded and stood up. Storme ventured further into the room. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you like it here? You liked it out in the barn this afternoon – I was watching you. I bet it was Tom. Did he say something? Don’t take any notice of him – he’s like that. You mustn’t take any notice – I don’t.’

‘I’m all right,’ said George.

‘Dad said he thought you were cross about something,’ she went on.

‘Well, I’m not!’ George spoke abruptly and Storme was surprised at the harshness in his voice. She led the way downstairs but said nothing more.

All through tea George felt Storme’s eyes on him while the others talked among themselves. Occasionally he looked up at her to try to find out what she was thinking, but each time she looked away quickly. It was almost as if she knew what he was planning to do that night. Mr Dyer didn’t mention the money again and Tom spoke only once to him to ask him for the tomato ketchup for his fish fingers.

‘Been pouring now for some time,’ said Mr Dyer, turning round to look out of the window. ‘If it goes on like this, we’ll have a river down the bottom of the water-meadow instead of a trickle.’

‘We’ll have the fish back,’ said Mrs Dyer. ‘You ever been fishing, George?’ George shook his head and chased a pea across his plate until he trapped it up against his last fish finger. ‘We get brown trout and rainbow trout, all sorts down there,’ she said.

The thunder crashed right above them, rattling the windows and bringing the conversation to a halt. The lights flickered nervously. They stopped eating and listened to the rain hammering down on the corrugated roof of the shed outside. It sounded like hailstones.

‘The calves won’t like this much,’ said Tom, going back to his food and dipping some bread in his tomato sauce. ‘And that mad Jemima – she’ll do her nut.’

‘Bound to be lightning. You can feel it in the air,’ said Mr Dyer, standing up. ‘I’m off to shut up the chickens.’

He was right. There was lightning later that night. Lying on his bed, George watched the sky outside flash white. He knelt up and pressed his face against the teeming window pane above the bed and waited for the next flash. When it came, the countryside turned from black to a lead grey and then back to a deeper black. He watched for some time, wiping the window with his sleeve whenever it became steamed up. Then he climbed into his bed, still fully dressed, and waited. Mrs Dyer called goodnight up the stairs, and Storme came up in her green dressing-gown and matching slippers and said she’d see him in the morning. She waved at him from the door and was gone. He was alone.

He planned to wait until the storm had passed its peak and everyone was asleep. He looked at his hands and examined the red weals and blisters of the day’s work. It could have been so good here, he thought. He leaned out of bed and arranged his shoes so that he could find them easily later on. He pulled his case out from underneath the bed and stood it up so that he could find the handle in the dark. He switched off the light and lay back. I should have taken that money, he thought; at least it would have paid my fare back to the Home. Now I’ve got to hitch all the way.