Harvest Georgina Harding (the gingerbread man read aloud .TXT) 📖

ran about in it and called it freedom but acted as if they were trapped. They ran wildly through the house, bowling imaginary balls with windmilling arms. How about making one of those model aeroplanes Uncle Peter gave you, she would say. I don’t think you’ve made them yet. But sit still, indoors; how could they do that? They were too wild to sit still. She was angry with them for being in the house, though she had longed to have them home, their urgency pressing on her like the weight of the day outside. Angry as if they were prisoners together, in this echoing house which was home, with the lovely garden outside bounded by the hedges that she herself had planted, and the wide empty spaces beyond.

When this brief shower ended she would go out into the garden again, however wet it was. She would kneel on a pad placed on the wet grass and tear at the weeds, which were lush and came out with the wet soil clinging to their roots, and the process of it would calm her, the seeking of the weeds among the plants, the touch of them in her fingers, and at last she would rake up the green mess into the barrow and wheel it to the compost heap that smelled of grass and decay. But as the afternoon went on the sky would clear. The evening might again be fine. These past few evenings had tended to be clear, with always in them the hope of a dry day to follow. Before she went indoors she would go back around the garden, looking at where she had worked and where there was work yet to be done, inspecting buds of whatever was flowering and breaking off deadheads between her muddied fingers.

Burying Billy

He was fourteen or so, home from his public school. The boys went to different schools now and it set them apart from each other. They didn’t even come home on the same day. Jonny came first. He was already settled in by the time Richard came back. Jonny was lucky in that there were boys his age in the village. There didn’t seem to be any of Richard’s age around.

Can I go shooting with Billy?

I suppose so. If he says that’s all right.

Maybe it was what he needed. She’d let them have air rifles but they hadn’t up till then done any more shooting than that. She’d let Billy keep Charlie’s guns for them. She might have got rid of them altogether but she hadn’t. It had been a part of staying on, carrying on the life that Charlie had left.

Billy wasn’t to be put off by a boy’s silence. Billy didn’t speak that much himself.

They walked out side by side. The youth was far taller than the man, and the man’s coat was too long for him, reaching almost to his knees. It was still one of Charlie’s old coats that he wore, an old green waxed jacket – she would never have thought it could have been kept so long, old when she had given it to him, worn and torn after all these years, and shiny with the wear. Possibly Billy had shrunk in that time. His hair was quite white now beneath his cap and he had grown a grey fuzz of beard. His old black Lab, Rosie, walked at their heels, slow now, she too grey at the mouth. She saw the three of them coming back, Richard carrying a hare, its two hind legs tied with string, his hand holding the legs and the string, putting it down on the old mounting block in the yard behind the kitchen. Not speaking. The hare had been a big one so its head hung down off the edge of the block, awkward and staring. Had they talked at all? Billy didn’t enter the house. He turned away, nodding goodbye, with Rosie lagging at his heels. C’mon, old girl, was all she heard him say. You could see Rosie wouldn’t be walking with Billy much longer. When the old dog died, she thought, Billy would be alone.

How was it? she asked, when Richard had taken off his boots and come in the kitchen.

We got a hare. His look was bright but exhausted.

I thought you were after rabbits.

Billy says rabbits aren’t sport any more. They’re all myxy, the rabbits. Dying of disease whether you shoot them or not. Had a shot at a woodcock though.

The brightness was there under his words but he wasn’t showing it to her. He went past her and poured a glass of water, drank it where he stood.

It was nice of Billy to take you.

Yeah.

Perhaps he’ll take you again.

Serious now, glass put down. A tone of voice that indicated he was about to ask her something. But, Mum, Rosie’s getting old. Billy says the vet says she might have to be put down. Can I take Jess with me next time?

That’s a good idea.

When Rosie dies, will Billy get another dog?

I don’t know. Maybe he’ll think he’s too old to get a young dog.

If he got one and he died, then we could look after it, couldn’t we? I could tell him that. Then he’d feel OK about getting one.

Well yes, I suppose so.

After that he went out with Billy and Rosie and Jess, and then only with Jess.

When Rosie finally died – not at the vet’s but at home, where Billy wanted her to die – he said he’d help dig her a grave.

That’s kind, she said. She had never seen him so kind to anyone.

Can we put her out on the farm?

So long as you don’t get in Jackson’s way.

I thought we could put her somewhere they used to shoot. I thought of a good place.

Yes, that’s fine.

He took a spade to dig the grave, and the old man came with the dead black dog slung like a shot