Jubilee (17 page)

‘We wouldn’t get there before he did, not if Robert’s on his bike.’

The farmhouse door squeaked. ‘You kids out there? Don’t be scared. I think they’ve gone now.’ Footsteps crossed the far side of the farmyard. Evie and Charlie clutched
one another, frozen like statues. The Norton’s engine rumbled into life.

He knew every inch of the village. There was nowhere down there they could hide. Evie felt her legs pin themselves to the ground at the same time as her heart pumped cold fear round her body.
Charlie tapped her on the arm, pointing at the open window at the rear. They were up and out in seconds, running towards the field which ascended sharply towards the top of the down. Evie prayed
the slope would be too much for the motorbike. To the left was the track leading to Martha’s blacked-out cottage. Charlie glanced at its shadowy square outline.

‘No!’ she hissed. ‘Not there. She . . .’ The gasp of air she needed to keep up with her brother swallowed the end of the thought.

‘The Ridgeway, then,’ he whispered. ‘I know a place along there we can hide.’

Thank God they were fit. Charlie was the fastest boy in his class; nobody could beat him. But she was falling behind. He slowed for a second and grabbed her arm. ‘Come on.’

Below them she heard the motorbike purr through the farmyard. The engine throbbed intensely and then there was silence. Had he stopped so he could listen out for their footsteps? Charlie surged
forward, fear seeming to propel him up the incline. ‘We need to get up there before he works out where we’ve gone.’

But once on the white surface of the Ridgeway they’d be visible like black chess pieces on white squares. Evie could hear the motorbike again. He’d be cruising the lanes, stopping at
each alley. Perhaps he’d think they were hiding out in a barn or shed; there were probably scores of them down there in gardens and allotments; it would take him all night to search them all.
The moon passed behind a cloud and Evie uttered silent thanks.

Charlie was slowing, unable to maintain the pace now that the hill curved upwards into a convex. To their left was Dragon Hill, where the mythical beast was said to have been slain. Above them,
somewhere, the strange chalk White Horse ran across the hillside, still camouflaged from the war. Evie was tired. They could conceal themselves in one of the hollows dotting the springy turf, like
sheep in treacherous weather. But if he came up there he’d find them easily. Robert knew each bump in the ground up here and the moon still shone.

Her knees jarred with each step she took and each breath of cool autumn air felt as if it was bruising the insides of her lungs. She pulled at Charlie’s sleeve. ‘I can’t run
any further.’ She doubled over.

‘We’ll walk for a moment.’ They were above the White Horse now. Charlie pointed out the stile beyond which the white ribbon of the Ridgeway curled east and west. ‘Here we
go.’

‘Noi,’ she said when she’d drawn breath. ‘That’s what he was shouting to me back there. Not “No, no.” I wish I knew who Noi was.’

‘I couldn’t care less. Whoever she is she’s certainly made him go mental.’

She winced. The moon came out from behind a cloud and she could see her brother’s face, pale like a pearl. She looked down at her white and blue pyjama trousers. Robert would be able to
spot them. He’d come up here on his motorcycle and he’d pursue them.

They were crossing a track running straight up the hill. Charlie glanced down it. Somewhere in the vale the motorbike engine purred, audible in the cloudless night. ‘It’s him. We
need to run again.’

‘We could still take shelter somewhere in the village. The vicar—’

‘Robert Winter’s from an old village family. We’re incomers. Who’re they going to believe, Evie, him or us?’ Charlie sounded bitter as he pulled her into a run.
He’d never felt at home in the village the same way she had. The local boys had fought him when they’d attended the village school and he’d been relieved to move on to grammar
school in town.

‘Of course they’d believe us if we tell them he’s running around with a gun.’

‘It’s just under a mile now, Evie, you can do it. In the morning we’ll ask for help.’

She dropped her head and ran beside him. She’d never been this far west along the track before, preferring the grassy slopes above the village for walks. Beech trees each side of the track
waved at her, their clumps containing shadowy pools. ‘Couldn’t we just hide here?’

Charlie raised a hand to silence her. She heard it too, the purr of the engine now much nearer, perhaps just a quarter of a mile behind them.

‘It’s not far now.’ Charlie was almost dragging her down the track. Her legs throbbed. They must have run nearly two miles already. He slowed for an instance and then shot
right, pulling her through a gap in the beeches. ‘He’ll never come in here, never.’

Evie made out four pale shapes ahead of her. Ghosts. She shrank back.

‘They’re just the Sarsen stones, silly.’ Charlie sounded proud. ‘They guard the entrance.’

He pushed her towards a gap between the two middle Sarsens. ‘Climb up and then you’ll see the opening.’

They were standing outside what appeared to be a cave. Waves of panic rippled through her. ‘I can’t, not in there.’ She sounded shrill.

Charlie shook her. ‘He’s close now. Hurry.’ Evie closed her eyes and let her brother push her up into the entrance and through into a chamber behind. She could see nothing. The
cave smelled of dead leaves and damp stone.

The motorbike engine purred outside. Then there was silence. ‘If he finds us in here there’s no way out,’ she whispered.

‘He won’t come in here.’

She remembered the conversation about spies hiding in here and what Robert had said.

Feet trampled through leaves and swished through long grass. Robert coughed once. She held her breath. The flicker of a torch beam shot across the chamber entrance.

‘Evie!’ he shouted. ‘Sweetheart, are you in there? You can’t stay in there all night. Not in a hole.’ His voice shook on the last word. ‘The guards have
gone.’ His voice sounded thin and tired, somehow more frightening than it had done when he’d been shouting at them. ‘I promise I won’t let them hurt you.’

Her mouth felt bone-dry. She couldn’t have answered him even if she’d wanted.

‘Come out!’ he called again. ‘Please, Noi.’ Something calm and despairing in his tone now. She opened her mouth to respond but Charlie’s fist dug into her ribs and
she said nothing. Seconds passed. Dead leaves crackled as he trudged back to the Norton. The engine fired and the bike hummed away. Evie’s heart quietened its pace. She squinted at the
shadows.

‘What did they do in this place, Charlie?’ she whispered. ‘Was it something to do with horses?’

He was silent.

‘Tell me.’

‘You must have heard the rumours.’

‘Not really.’

He hesitated. ‘It’s a burial mound,’ he said at last.

She put a hand to her mouth. He held her back as she lurched towards the entrance. ‘We’re in a tomb?’ She lurched towards the entrance.

‘The bodies will be below us.’ He grabbed her arm and shook her. ‘Listen, Evie, there’s nothing to be scared of.’

‘I want to get out!’

‘It’s fine. I come here all the time.’

So this was where he disappeared to with his sandwiches. He was still holding her tight.

‘Robert Winter’s listened to too many old wives’ tales in the Packhorse. Or to Martha. She probably thinks that Wayland lives here with his apprentice.’

She remembered the old legend about the ghostly blacksmith, a Saxon god or something similar, who hurled boulders when angered.

‘Martha says the White Horse gallops over here from its hill once a century to be shod.’ Charlie snorted. ‘If it can escape from the camouflage, that is. And she believes that
Wayland and his apprentice go drinking in the Packhorse once a century or so. She doesn’t know the difference between legend and real history.’

Evie stared at the shadows, which could contain anything.

‘It’s just an interesting historical site, that’s all. And Martha’s a peasant who talks rubbish,’ Charlie said. She closed her eyes so that the shadows
wouldn’t worry her and leant back against the stone walls of the chamber. He explained about Neolithic people, their burial habits, about the later-coming Saxons and the blacksmith legends
they’d learned from the Danes. To distract herself from what was outside, Evie let him talk on and on until her head bowed down to her chest.

In the morning she woke with a stiff neck. She winced as she straightened it. Charlie had fallen asleep with his head in her lap and stirred as she moved. He yawned, stretching
out a hand to look at his watch. ‘Seven. The drink will have worn off by now. We should get back. But just in case . . .’ He put a hand into his pyjama pocket and pulled out a coin.
‘That’s lucky.’

‘What is?’

‘I’ve got a sixpence.’ Feeble light penetrated the chamber. Evie saw her brother push the coin against the stone wall and scoop earth over it. ‘That should keep him
happy.’

‘Who?’

‘Wayland.’

‘The mythical blacksmith? The one you don’t believe in.’

‘It’s like church, Evie, you keep going just in case there’s something in it. And donating the coin is like Roman Catholics lighting candles for their intentions.’ He
shifted position, grimacing. ‘I’ve got pins and needles.’ Then his brow creased. ‘Robert’s never been as bad as that before. He must have drunk a lot.’

‘He thinks we’re suffering.’

‘So he wants to put us out of our misery or something?’ He sounded scornful.

‘It was that camp. It did something to his head.’ In the chilly dawn it suddenly seemed impossible that Robert Winter would have tried to kill them. Hysteria. That was what
Evie’s form teacher called it when the girls were overcome by extreme emotion. Had she and Charlie been hysterical last night? Perhaps Robert had just been badly drunk, ranting. But then she
saw the image of the shotgun in his hand.

Charlie grimaced as he stood. ‘C’mon.’

She followed him out into the light. She saw that what they’d spent the night in appeared to be little more than a cave. ‘He could have come in here and dragged us out. He
didn’t want to hurt us, you know.’

‘The poor devil,’ Charlie said, making for the track. She followed, looking out for the motorbike, ears straining for sounds of its engine.

‘Charlie . . .’

‘What?’

‘I think we’ve made it all worse. We should have talked to him.’

He halted. ‘You think you could reason with a man waving a loaded gun? What else did he have to do, Evie? Fire it?’

‘All the same . . .’

He gave an angry shrug and marched off. Evie followed him, wincing as the blood returned to her cold limbs.

They headed east, sunlight in their eyes. Still there was nothing. Charlie kept a brisk pace, almost a run, and in less than twenty minutes they were skimming the top of White Horse Hill. No
sign of Robert. Sheep bleated in the fields beside them. They were within sight of the farm, spread out beneath them like a child’s toy, trees sheltering the house, horses in the paddock,
pigs in one field, hovering round their food troughs. Evie looked for Carlo, who should be feeding the pigs by now, having already done the milking. She could hear the cows mooing. They
shouldn’t be clustering round the gate like that. Foreboding gripped her.

They climbed the stile into the top field above the farmhouse. From here they could see the duck pond. Charlie sniffed the air. ‘Can you smell that?’

She picked out the burning aroma just as a horse neighed: a high-pitched, panicked sound. ‘It’s the barn.’

The barn was full of hay, tinder-box dry.

‘C’mon!’ And they were hurtling down the hill, risking ankles in rabbit holes and sending sheep flying from their path towards the smoke beginning to curl up from the roof of
the barn.

Rachel

March 2003

On this clear early spring afternoon the Vale was almost flattened by the light, spread out below me in detail in shades of green and brown. I thought I could detect the
faintest hint of the new season – an electric-green tint to the edges of branches, a softness to the contours of slopes. While I cursed myself for my soppiness I couldn’t prevent myself
from admiring the lambs in the field, which belonged to Winter’s Copse and was rented out now. Once these would have been Evie’s lambs. How she’d loved this time of year. It had
been a sadness to her when she’d had to admit that it made no sense for her to continue with the sheep and it would be better for her to rent out the grazing. She should be with me on this
walk, showing me the fences she’d repaired, commenting on ewes, pointing out a pair of red kites riding the air currents.

The scene was one of fertile promise. How unlike me. I couldn’t resist a dry laugh. Despite my attempts to forget the vocabulary of the last years – follicles, ovaries, hormones,
drugs – my dreams last night had been haunted by images of baskets left outside Evie’s kitchen door. I’d thought they would contain babies but when I looked inside I found they
were empty. A powerful symbol to tell me my dreams of becoming a mother were dead.

Then the little lead knight in the Coronation mug climbed down from the dresser and took on full size and I saw that he was in fact King Arthur, but with long-dead Uncle Matthew’s
features, locked into an expression of sorrow.

I shook these dreams – closer to nightmares – out of my mind. I noted that my toes ached and wondered whether Evie’s boots were too small for me. But they felt roomy enough. My
head felt unusually heavy, too. I walked a few more paces and realized what the cause of these ailments was: I was hunched over, weight too far forward.
Sit up straight, Rachel,
I heard Evie
call across the years. I was nine again, riding Jessamy’s pony, practising for the handy pony competition at the gymkhana held every year alongside the agricultural show. My depression had
literally bowed me over. I swallowed hard and forced myself to walk with a straight back and head up, concentrating on the landscape ahead.