Fresh Fields (17 page)

No, they would not say things like that to each other, or perhaps would only say such things now and then. Mostly they would talk like fellow warriors, planning their raids or tending each other's slight wounds. They would cling together in desperate relief after every action. The danger of their lives would make every minute together sheer joy. But then he thought of Meredith really getting hurt, getting slashed with swords or hit with battle-axes, and it was too distressing. No, she wouldn't do that sort of fighting. She would be a brilliant archer and pick off Normans at a distance. And she would have deep knowledge of herbs and potions, and about the phases of the moon, and about ways of setting spies to find out the enemy's doings. That's the kind of warrior she would be—graceful and smart and able to avoid getting any hurt worse than a scratch. And there would be lots of times when there wouldn't be any action. They would have their life in their favourite forest glade, with fruit to eat and the music of lutes or harps and a twinkling campfire to sit at with their companions, laughing and cuddling and being happy together.

The youth cut Paxton's Pea every day. It left him exhausted by the evening, but it was a good exhaustion, especially the feeling of being daydreamed out, of having imagined his way through everything that had occurred to him. In the evening after the meal, he would go straight back to his garage room and turn the radio on to the hit parade and sit outside and watch the evening sky with its huge play of colours and cloud patterns. Most evenings Meredith came out and sat there too. They listened to the music and watched the sky and did not say anything much. A couple of times Greg tried to join them, but Meredith told him to get lost. The first time he tried to argue, but Meredith got more hostile and said she'd beat him to a pulp if he didn't piss off. Mrs. Blackett put her head out the door to ask Meredith if anything was the matter. Meredith called back sharply that nothing was the matter except that a person wasn't allowed to have a minute's peace around here. Mr. Blackett came out a bit later to go to the shed for something. He looked across at them and made a gesture as though to say, sorry to intrude, and he hurried back inside as soon as he came out of the shed.

“They think we're having a deep and meaningful talk,” Meredith said. “So they're tiptoeing around to show me how understanding they are.”

“We can have a deep and meaningful talk if you want to,” said the youth.

“Christ no!” Meredith retorted.

“That's okay,” said the youth. He'd been wondering whether to tell her of his vision of the two of them in the forest, dressed in green and harrying the Normans. He was relieved that she'd answered in such a definite way. It was a risky thing, telling your daydreams to someone, especially someone who was in them.

“I shouldn't do that,” said Meredith after a moment.

“Do what?”

“Make the Lord's name a profanation.”

“What's a profanation?”

“A swear word. I disagree with a lot of what my parents believe—well,
most
of it, actually—but I don't believe in insulting the Lord.
Their
Lord, I mean.”

“No,” he agreed. “It's probably best not to.”

“But Christ!” she snorted. “The way they behave! The way they control me all the time! You see it, don't you?”

“Them controlling you?”

“Yes.”

“Not all that much. But then I'm not sure what to look out for.”

She was taken aback. “They do it in their own special way,” she explained. “Or they get other people to do it. Like Pastor Eccles.”

“Who's he?”

“The church pastor, in town. They used to get him to give me little talks for spiritual guidance. It was so awful. This little buck-toothed man, you wouldn't believe how buck-toothed he is. It's like being talked to by a big rabbit or beaver or something. He won't speak to me now.”

“Why not?”

“He asked one day where I would seek succour when the Lord's face was turned from me. I said I'd ask Beelzebub. I shouldn't have said it, but I was really angry.”

“No-one is religious in my family,” said the youth.

“That's why you keep so calm. You aren't being hounded all the time about the state of your soul and whether you'll be ready to go before the Throne of Judgement at the drop of a hat.”

The youth felt amazed by the bit about him being calm.

“Do I seem calm?”

“Yes, incredibly,” said Meredith. “That's why you have a beneficial effect on me, I suppose.”

The youth couldn't speak for a minute or two. He felt so full of amazement and gratitude. No-one had ever told him before that he was beneficial.

“How do I seem calm?” he asked after a while.

“Oh, I don't know, you just do,” Meredith said. A song she liked had just come on the radio and she started singing along with it. It was called “Honey Bunny.” The youth hadn't especially liked it before, but Meredith's liking it made it seem the finest song in the world. She looked across at him in the last of the sunset light.

“It's as though you're always thinking of something else, something really big and interesting, and so you're not bothered too much by what's happening around you. As my father said, ‘One never has his full attention.'”

“He said that?”

“His exact quote. Except that it isn't completely right, is it?”

“Isn't it?”

“I don't think so, because I think I have your full attention sometimes.”

The youth stared past her.

“Isn't that true?”

The youth said nothing.

“I know you like looking at me when you think I don't know.”

The youth kept staring past her.

“You don't have to admit it if you don't want to,” she said. “I know how much you keep your feelings to yourself. I don't mind you being keen on me. I mean, assuming you are. We're the wrong ages for each other, of course. You'd need to be older, but if we were the right ages we might have got together. I mean, if it turned out that way and neither of us was tangled up with someone else.”

The youth said nothing. He was so full of feelings that he could hardly breathe. After a while Meredith got up to go inside. As she went past him she touched him lightly on the arm.

“It's alright,” she said softly. “Don't get anxious about it.”

“I'm famous for being calm,” said the youth. “Haven't you heard?”

 

HAVING SOMEONE
in your life made springtime happen. That was the phrase that came to mind. Meredith made springtime happen, the way Romeo and Juliet must have done for each other. Meredith had studied
Romeo and Juliet
at school and gave the youth an outline of it. She liked it because it showed the star-crossed lovers refusing to be controlled by their parents. The youth wanted to find out more about the idea of being “star-crossed.” It had struck him deeply when Meredith remarked, “I think we're all star-crossed in some way.” It made sense of a lot of things.

Each Sunday morning the Blacketts had asked him whether he'd like to go to town with them, but he hadn't taken up the offer. He was nervous about Meredith's invitation to Con's cafe. It was one thing to be with her on the property, but another thing in town. There might be other people at Con's—friends of hers, people she knew from school. Then again, Meredith had only mentioned Con's that one time and the youth wondered if she had changed her mind. It could all be horribly embarrassing, either way. He wished he could go to town by himself and quietly reconnoitre, the way Diestl would. The youth hadn't thought about Diestl for a while. The thing with Meredith had replaced Diestl for him, at least on the property.

The next Sunday he accepted the offer to go to town. It was very quiet in the car. The youth was on the far side of the back seat from Meredith, with Greg and the toddler between them. She stared out the window and did not speak. They got to town and slowed at a corner.

“Will this do you, sweetie?” Mr. Blackett asked Meredith. Meredith nodded yes and got out. The youth assumed she was going to spend the church time at Con's. He looked at her for a sign that he should come too, but there was none.

“Bye, darling,” said Mrs. Blackett. “See you in a while.”

Mr. Blackett was looking at the youth in the rear-view mirror, as if to see whether he intended to go with Meredith, but Meredith was already walking away. They drove along the street and came to a church with groups of people out the front. They parked and got out of the car. The youth didn't know what he was supposed to do. It must have shown on his face.

“Would you like to come and worship with us?” Mrs. Blackett asked. “You'd be very welcome.”

The youth mumbled that he felt like a stroll and would see them later. He walked quickly off in no particular direction. He looked back and saw them turning the corner to where the church was and greeting another family that was heading that way. He didn't know how long the church thing took and what time he should come back. He half-thought to return and ask them but didn't want to face them again just now.

The streets of the town were very quiet. The railway tracks ran past nearby. He reckoned the station was along to the right and he knew the main street was near the station. He began to notice things and think about them, the way he did. He came to some old stone buildings with narrow doors. He paused in front of one and looked at the details of the windowsills and the doorknobs, and the marks on the woodwork. He reflected on all the people who must have gone in and out over the hundred years or so that the building had been there. There was a folk song about this town. The youth had heard it sung. It told how a bushranger was shot on the outskirts. He had been on his way to visit his sweetheart, who was the shanty-keeper's daughter, but a jealous rival had tipped off the troopers and they laid an ambush. The song said the bushranger had stood his ground, returning fire, but had been riddled with a hundred bullets. There was more to the song but the bit about the hundred bullets had stayed in the youth's mind. He felt tears welling up. How sad everything was. As the tears ran down his face, he thought of all those across the ages who'd gone down under the weight of their enemies, but whose memory lived on.
In our tears
, thought the youth.
They live on in our tears.
It seemed a tremendous insight. Yes, the heroes live in the deep moments of our tears. He walked on, hardly seeing where he was going. He could have walked for hours, the way he often did when his heart was full.

There was a horse in a vacant lot and the youth stopped and the horse ambled over to him and he patted it across the fence. It was a pale creamy colour, with a long flowing mane. He could see into the depth of its eyes, and he felt that the horse understood what he was feeling. The Bushranger's horse might have been just like this one, or even King Harold's horse. There was something regal about it, and dignified. A horse that understood the gravity of things. The youth thought of the thousands of years that horses and people had been together. Maybe horses had a folklore of their own, and knew about events in the past, but from the horse's point of view. Maybe the horses' history was full of its own heroes—like Traveller. Traveller was Robert E. Lee's horse, and had carried him through the Civil War, with the South always outnumbered and outgunned yet returning blow for blow as it slowly went down. There was a photo of Lee mounted on Traveller in the final days, and the pity of it all is as much in the horse as the rider, the way the horse is standing, full of fortitude in spite of all being lost.

The youth gazed into the horse's eyes and they became more lustrous, as though there were tears in them. The horse heroes live in the tears just as the human ones do, thought the youth.

He heard his name being called. He thought at first that it was a voice inside him, but then he turned and saw a car at the kerb and Meredith looking at him from the passenger-side window. There was a young man at the wheel.

“Are you alright?” asked Meredith.

The youth nodded.

“Are you sure? You look upset.”

“No,” said the youth, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “I got dust in my eyes and they're sore.”

Meredith kept looking at him as though she didn't believe what he said and wanted to ask him more about it. But the young man in the car said something to hurry her.

“Listen,” she said. “Could you do something for me? Would you tell my parents I've gone to Auntie Pat's place in the city, that I'll get in touch with them tomorrow, and that there's no need to worry. Can you tell them that?”

“Yes,” said the youth. “If you want me to.” He had stopped feeling emotional and the wetness on his face was drying. “But shouldn't you tell them yourself?”

“No,” she replied. “I have to just go and then talk to them about it afterwards. It's the only way I'll be able to get out of here. I have to get away from everything here. I'll go mad otherwise.”

“I'll tell them, then,” said the youth.

“Thanks for everything,” said Meredith.

“I didn't do anything.”

“Yes you did. It made things a bit better, having you around lately.” The young man in the car said something again. Meredith waved her hand to the youth and the car pulled away. She called back: “I'll probably see you when I come back for holidays.”

Then they were gone around a corner.

“Well, what do you think of that?” the youth said, turning again to the horse. The horse looked gravely back at him.

 

CON'S CAFE
was in the main street. It had a milk bar on one side with a cafe section with tables and chairs on the other. There was a jukebox. The youth looked at the list of songs it could play and saw that “Honey Bunny” was there. He would have liked to play it, but he didn't know how to, and anyway it was quiet in Con's and the youth didn't want to be the one who broke the stillness. He ordered a milkshake and sat at one of the tables and imagined being there with Meredith.