The Stone Book Quartet Page 10

  ‘Well, one night, they’d had a right good night round the farms, and they were on their way back from The Bull’s Head at Mottram, very fresh, and they come to a quickthorn hedge, and the other side of it was a potato hogg as belonged to Jesse Leah.

  ‘Now old Jesse, he’d stuck a twothree pieces of stove pipe through the top, with a little cowl on it, to ventilate the middle of the hogg, you see.

  ‘Well, just then, up comes the moon behind the hogg and the bit of stove pipe, and Grandfather, he says, “Wait on,” he says. “Some there are going to bed. Let’s give them a tune!” And they serenaded that potato hogg till morning. But Grand mother! Didn’t she give him some stick, at after!’

  Grandad turned the whole frame over, picked up the two strips of iron and fitted them. He took a screw, held it in one of the countersunk holes and drove it home. Now, for the first time, Grandad could be seen to be working. He grunted and sweated, and didn’t talk. His grip on the screwdriver made his spark-pocked hand white, and once a screw started to bite he kept it turning without rest until its head was flush with the iron.

  But when he stood back, there was a sledge.

  He sawed off the ends of the bellows handle that was now two runners level with the end of the iron that shod them.

  Grandad left the sledge and came to sit in his chair by the fire. He rubbed his forehead.

  ‘You mustn’t let them screws stop turning,’ he said, ‘else they’ll stick for evermore, and you’ll not shift them. They’ll shear, first.’

  He examined the poker. ‘Keep him that colour,’ he said. He opened the corner cupboard above his chair. It was full of string and rope. He chose a length of rope, sashcord, like the sashcord that held the counterweight of the yard door above the cellar.

  Grandad spat on the poker, tested its whiteness with his thumb, pressed it against the upcurve of one of the runners. The wood hissed and smoked, and the poker sank through. When it cooled, Grandad reheated it and pressed again. The room was full of the sweet smell of ash. There was a hole in the curve, like a black-rimmed eye.

  Grandad burnt through the other runner, threaded the cord into both eyes, knotted the ends, and the sledge was complete.

  ‘Is that for me?’ said William, not daring to.

  ‘Well, it’s not for me!’ said Grandad.

  ‘For me own? For me very liggy own?’

  ‘Ay. Get that up Lizzie Leah’s and see what Allmans have to say. Loom and forge.’

  Grandad threw the scrap wood on the coals. It sent flames of every colour into the chimney. ‘They’ll take no harm,’ said Grandad. ‘It’s sparks you must watch. Once they set in the thatch the whole roof can fly on fire.’

  William leaned over the hearth to look up the chimney. The sparks spiralled and died in the blackness. But there was something bright, reflecting flame.

  ‘Grandad?’

  ‘There’s two horse shoes hanging in the chimney.’

  ‘I know there is,’ said Grandad.

  ‘But they’re clean. There’s no soot on them.’

  ‘I know there isn’t.’

  William reached into the chimney with his hand.

  ‘Leave them,’ said Grandad. ‘They’re not for you. Not yet.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Me and your Grandma’s wedding.’

  ‘Up the chimney?’ said William.

  ‘Of course they’re up the chimney,’ said Grandad. ‘Of course they’re clean. I put them there forty-two years ago, and I clean them of a Sunday. What are you staring like a throttled earwig for?’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ said William.

  ‘You didn’t know?’ said Grandad. ‘A high-learnt youth like you didn’t know? Your Grandma and me, we’d have let every stick of furniture go first, and the house, before we’d have parted from them. They’re our wedding. They’re your Father and your Uncles. They’re you. Do you not see? They’re us!

  ‘Your friends and your neighbours give them to the wedding. No one says. It happens. And it happens as the smith’s at his forge one night, and happens to find the money by the door. And he makes the shoes alone, swage block and anvil: and we put them in the chimney piece. Mind you, I’d know Tommy Latham’s work anywhere. But we don’t let on. It’s all a mystery. Now get up them fields.’

  There were voices in the road. William put on his balaclava and mittens.

  Grandad lifted the sledge down. ‘She’ll stick a toucher at first,’ he said, ‘while the iron finds a polish. But then she’ll go, with that bevel to her. And at after, all she’ll want is a spot of oil, against rust in summer.

  ‘I feel the wind’s bristled up,’ he said. ‘I’ll not come out.’

  William went down the path from the house: Grandad closed the blackout behind him.

  The sledge jerked a little at first, and left stains that showed in the moonlight, but the curved, strong iron, countersunk screwed, rode on the frost better than the tin runners of the broken crate had done. The swage block down in the cellar worked on the hill.

  Lizzie Leah’s was crowded. People were coming from both directions along the road. William pulled the sledge up the bottom field. It was heavy, but the rope didn’t cut, and it was all strong and in balance and carried a lot of its own weight.

  There were more of the bigger boys at night, and they racketed over the hump. William had to dodge through the gateway between runs. There was the flurried rattle of approach, the gasp in the air and the beat of the landing. William set himself above the hump; but before he could start, a sledge came at him from above, veered to the barbed wire, and the rider skidded off, over the hump and through the gate.

  It was Stewart Allman.

  They were coming in twos and threes and even in packs; starting together and racing for the gate.

  Stewart Allman whistled through his fingers. ‘Wait on!’ he shouted up the hill. ‘We’ve a betty!’

  William sat on the sledge, looked over his shoulder, but there was no one coming, so he heeled himself forward.

  The sledge moved gently, surely, sensitive to touch. He could steer it, and just as he had felt the road and the bicycle through the slow movement of Grandad’s coat, he felt the hill through the sledge, as if he flowed over it, never left it. There were no jolts. The sledge crushed ruts and ran only on the true hill.

  ‘Where’ve you got that from?’ said Stewart Allman.

  ‘Me Grandad,’ said William. ‘He made it.’

  ‘Let’s have a go,’ said Stewart Allman.

  They were walking back. The axle grease on William’s clogs let no snow gather. Now Stewart Allman was trying to keep up.

  ‘Barley mey fog shot no back bargains,’ said William.

  ‘I only want a go; just one.’

  ‘You pull it, then,’ said William, and gave the rope to Stewart Allman.

  ‘Eh! What’s it made of?’

  ‘Oak, mostly,’ said William.

  ‘It weighs a ton,’ said Stewart Allman.

  He was out of breath when they reached the middle of the top field.

  He lay on the sledge, with the rope tucked under him, and gripped the runners where they curled up at the end of the forge bellows handle. The sledge was longer than he was.

  ‘Give us a shove.’

  But the sledge began to move as soon as Stewart Allman lifted his feet. It didn’t snatch or creak or waver. It moved straight down and across the hill, and so marvellously that it was only when the other sledgers, climbing back, stopped to watch it pass them that William realised how fast it was going.

  Stewart Allman made no noise. The sledge hit the hump and reared and stood on end. William heard the runners twang the barbed wire, and the sledge and Stewart Allman disappeared.

  William jumped down the field sideways, using his clog irons to grip. He found the sledge. It had snapped the wire. Stewart Allman was in a snow drift.

  William grabbed the sledge. ‘You’re not safe!’ he yelled. ‘You might’ve bust this one, too, you daft beggar!
’

  He ran up the hill, pulling the undamaged sledge. He staggered and ran, angry, unthinking. But he had to stop when he came to the corner post of the top of the field: the top of the top field, where nobody went.

  William turned the sledge against the hill, and sat down.

  He watched the others. They couldn’t see him by the stump. He watched moon and starlight and shapes gliding. Another cloud was coming from the north, but it was a long way off.

  The air raid sirens sounded the alert, village after village, spreading like bonfires. He settled down to watch. As soon as the bombers were heard, the searchlights would be switched on and the guns would start to fire.

  They were in Johnny Baguley’s field, less than a mile away.

  ‘Eh! You! Public Enemy Number One! We’re waiting!’

  It was Stewart Allman.

  William looked down. The next highest sledge was a long way below him. He could crawl under the fence and down the other side of the hill, but Stewart Allman would know. William would be ambushed.

  The field was waiting. Dark patches looking at him. He stood up and tugged the sledge round. As soon as it was in line with the slope it began to move. He shortened the rope.

  William sat astride, his heels braced. He let out the rope, lay back, and eased the pressure off his heels. He felt the sledge start, and then he felt no speed, only a rhythm of the hill. The sledge found its own course; a touch corrected it. As he went faster, William used his clogs for balance. The steering moved into his hands and arms, then his shoulders, and then he was going so fast and so true that he could steer with a turn of his head.

  The watching groups were a flicker as he passed, and his speed grew on the more trampled snow.

  He saw the hump and the gate, but saw nothing to fear. He took in more rope, gripped, and the forge bellows runners breasted the air without shock. He pulled on the rope and kiltered his head to the right. His weight had brought him forward and the curved runners were at his shoulder. Then the trailing corners of the loom iron took the weight, the front of the sledge dropped away, and William was lying back again, coasting along the bottom field.

  He put down his heels and stopped at the hedge.

  Stewart Allman arrived.

  ‘Any bones broken?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said William.

  ‘We thought you’d be killed.’

  ‘Get off with you!’ said William. ‘It’s dead safe. Me Grandad made it.’

  ‘Will you go again?’ said Stewart Allman. ‘From the top.’

  ‘It’s a heck of a climb,’ said William.

  ‘I’d give you a pull to half way,’ said Stewart Allman.

  ‘What about your sledge?’

  ‘It’s no weight. Honest. Will you?’

  ‘OK.’

  Stewart Allman took both sledges and floundered up the field. William dusted off the snow powder that had sprayed over him in a plume.

  ‘He’s going again!’ said Stewart Allman when they reached the others. ‘Stand back!’

  He handed over the rope to William, and William went on alone.

  ‘I was going to, anyway,’ he said when he was at the top.

  He set off. It had not been imagined. He was not alone on a sledge. There was a line, and he could feel it. It was a line through hand and eye, block, forge and loom to the hill. He owned them all: and they owned him.

  ‘Good-lad-Dick,’ said Stewart Allman after the second run, but he didn’t offer to pull the sledge, and the others had lost interest. William shouted whenever he was ready to go from the top, and the way was left clear; but that was all.

  The Dorniers came in from the east and the Heinkels flew overhead. The search-lights swivelled around the sky, but never saw anything, and the guns began to fire. William watched from the top of the field.

  A battery of guns opened up, the flash and then the noise. Everybody stopped sledging when the shrapnel began to fall. It was easier to find on Lizzie Leah’s than it was in the village. The fragments zipped and fizzed into the snow. William collected until his pockets were full. He needn’t have swapped his incendiary. He had more shrapnel than he could keep.

  The others soon began sledging again.

  They were having pack races to the gate. If everybody arrived at the same time it was a calamity. If someone got there first but lost control, he had to escape from his own crash before he was hit by the rest.

  William pushed off from the top when he heard Stewart Allman shout, ‘On your marks!’ At ‘Get set!’ he was lying back. By ‘Go!’ he was coming down at thirty miles an hour, the spray from his heels hitting his face like freezing sand. He curved round the pack on a new course, and cut in to beat them to the hump. The moment in the air was worth any climb.

  He found he could leave at ‘Get set!’ and still have the freedom of the gate. To wait until ‘Go!’ was dangerous.

  William was holding on his heels for the next run when he saw how like bombers the pack were in their tight group. He started off. They had opened formation by the time he reached them.

  He came in on the bombers from above and out of the sun. Two crossed his sights and he gave them a burst. They went down together. Another tried to dodge him, and crashed. He raced through the pack and settled on the leader’s tail. The leader climbed hard at the hump, but William caught his fusilage with a runner and the leader spun out of control and hit the tree.

  William landed. The leader was struggling in a thorn hedge. ‘You’re flaming crackers, you are!’ said Stewart Allman.

  ‘Look what you’ve done!’

  The field really was littered. The sledge had sent the pack careering all ends up.

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ said William. ‘I was a Spitfire.’

  ‘He was only being a Spitfire!’ Stewart Allman shouted. He limped over to the dump and dropped his broken sledge. ‘And I’ve got a sprained Heinkel.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ said William.

  ‘Come on, you daft oddment,’ said Stewart Allman.

  ‘We were packing in now, anyroad. That shrapnel’s brogged the snow. It’s busting the sledges.’

  ‘Mine’s all right,’ said William.

  ‘Well, ours aren’t,’ said Stewart Allman. ‘But play again tomorrow, when it’s snowed.’

  ‘Play again,’ said William. ‘l told you that black cloud was snow.’

  ‘It wasn’t,’ said Stewart Allman.

  ‘It was!’

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  ‘It snowed a blizzard!’ said William.

  ‘Yes, but that wasn’t the cloud.’

  ‘Where did the blizzard come from, then?’

  ‘Out of the sky,’ said Stewart Allman. ‘The white bits.’

  ‘But the cloud went at the same time as the blizzard,’ said William.

  ‘That’s why,’ said Stewart Allman. ‘There was a wind in the cloud, and it blew the snow away. Now there’s a proper snow cloud for you.’

  He pointed to the north. The moon shone on billows, reflecting light. ‘See, clever-clogs?’

  ‘Play again,’ said William.

  ‘Play again.’

  William set off for home. The guns were still firing. Stewart Allman had been right. It was going to snow.

  He came to Grandad’s house. There was a bicycle propped against the wall. The Air Raid warden often called for a cup of tea if it wasn’t too late in the night.

  The sledge runners had taken such a polish that the sledge kept banging William’s ankles; so when he stopped he had to swing the rope past him in an arc.

  There was more than one bicycle. There were several, against the wall under the thatch. William pulled the sledge up the path and lodged it by the door. He opened the door, went in and closed it, and drew the blackout curtain aside.

  The room was empty, but the lamp was lit. There were too many unexpected smells: facepowder, whisky, cigarette smoke. But the room was empty. William listened. He felt and heard the house heavy above him. Nobody was tal
king, but there was a weight in the room overhead.

  Lamplight and shadow were on the bent stairs. William climbed up until he could see.

  The bedroom was thatched rafters down to the floor, and it was full of people, still wearing their coats, and standing, pressed by the roof, around Grandad’s bed.

  William worked between the gathered legs towards the bed.

  Voices were whispering, and he was sure he knew the people, but now they were figures darkening him.

  He moved a coat hem, and looked straight into Grandad’s eyes. The blue eyes and the sharp nose. There was such a clearness in the eyes that William felt that they were speaking to him. Of all the people crowded there, Grandad looked only at William. He must be speaking to him.

  ‘Grandad.’

  The eyes answered with their fierce blue.

  ‘Grandad, I’ve been up Lizzie Leah’s, and it’s a belter. The irons have got a right polish on them now.’ Someone turned against William as he was kneeling. Grandad sighed, or spoke. ‘What, Grandad?’

  The fierce, kind eyes were still urgent, but that small movement had taken William out of their sight. They were looking at what was before them, at nothing more.

  William pushed away from the bed. The coats fell like a curtain. He went backwards to the stairs, and down.

  It was a big room. He had never known it empty. William stood in the room and listened to the weight in the house up-ended. All in the bedroom, no one below. The table cleared, but with sawdust in the cracks.

  William stood at the chimney. He saw the corner cupboard, the chair.

  He spilled the shrapnel across the floor, and when he was rid of it and had only the key in the pocket, the pipe in the tin, he reached into the darkness, and closed his hands.

  ‘Tom Fobble’s Day!’

  William held the two gleaming horseshoes.

  ‘No back bargains!’

  He ran from the house. The horseshoes pulled his jacket out of shape, but their weight was light as he ran with his sledge to the top of Lizzie Leah’s.

  The line did hold. Through hand and eye, block, forge and loom to the hill and all that he owned, he sledged sledged sledged for the black and glittering night and the sky flying on fire and the expectation of snow.