The Moon Field

George shuffled up the bed and slowly lowered each leg to the ground, wincing as he did so. He had stiffened up and his ribs felt as though someone had taken a hammer to them whilst he slept.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Ted said grumpily. ‘When you’ve gone, I’ll be able to use your fishing rod. And your cricket bat,’ he added meanly.

George said, ‘If I show you, will you promise not to tell?’

Ted nodded.

George pulled up his shirt and Ted said, ‘Holy Mother!’ – an expletive that he didn’t fully understand but knew to be Very Bad.

George pulled his shirt back down again. ‘Not a word, now.’ He gave Ted a nudge. ‘And I don’t mind if you use my rod and my bat as long as you catch all three-pounders and only hit sixes.’

At teatime, the atmosphere was strained. Lillie was fractious after having spent too long in the sun, which had made her arms and legs pink. She scrambled up on to her mother’s lap and then down again, and wouldn’t be comforted. Ted started asking George more about how he had come to join up but soon realised from George’s frowns and his mother’s hurt silence that this was not a topic to pursue at the table. Finally, overwrought with tiredness, Lillie took to throwing herself backwards in Mother’s arms so that it was all Mother could do to hold on to her, and she decided to put her to bed early.

‘She’s about done up,’ Mother said, standing and hefting Lillie to her shoulder, ‘and I know just how she feels.’

George began to stack the tea things on to a tray. His mother turned at the door. ‘Oh, I forgot to say, George, Kitty called round while you were sleeping to see if you were all right; she’d been concerned since you didn’t drop back to the post office after your round yesterday. I told her you were home safe …’ She tailed off as though uttering the word ‘safe’ brought all her fears once more to the surface. Lillie wriggled in her arms and began banging her head rhythmically against Mother’s shoulder. ‘I told Kitty your news, and I’m sure she’ll pass it on,’ Mother said, holding Lillie tighter and stroking her hair.

George appreciated his mother’s attempt to break the news to Mr A. on his behalf; he hadn’t been relishing the prospect of telling him himself. ‘How did Kitty seem?’ he asked.

‘She looked rather stricken, to be honest. It seemed a bit of a shock to her. Well, I expect it was, Arthur having gone so recently and now they’ll be another man short.’

George felt a stab of anxiety as another uncomfortable consequence spread from his action, a ripple from the stone he had dropped into the calm pool of his own ordinary life.

‘You know you must go and see Mr Ashwell anyway, don’t you? It’s only polite,’ his mother said abruptly and, shushing Lillie, carried on upstairs.

‘Well, it’s very inconvenient,’ Mr Ashwell said. He stood with his arm resting on the mantelpiece in their best room ‘above the shop’. George was seated, along with Mrs Ashwell and Kitty, on the pretty, floral parlour chairs that Mrs Ashwell draped with antimacassars to protect the treasure of her upholstery from Mr Ashwell’s hair oil.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Ashwell,’ George said with downcast eyes.

Mrs Ashwell said in a mild tone, ‘I expect your mother and father are very proud of you – making a stand for poor Belgium and supporting the King.’ She risked a glance at her husband.

Mr Ashwell snorted. ‘It’s all very well, everyone gallivanting off, but why on earth couldn’t you go about it in the proper manner, like Arthur? You could have applied to the Post Office Rifles. We could have had time to plan!’

Mrs Ashwell opened her mouth to suggest that she make a cup of tea but Mr Ashwell held up the flat of his hand and continued: ‘As it is, I’ll now have to take the cart to the station as well as all my other responsibilities, and from tomorrow we shall have to put two of the younger boys on to your duties until we can get a replacement, that’s if we can get one at all.’

George made a great study of the rug. It was a proper woven one, not like the lumpy rag rugs they had at home but smooth and with a trellis pattern and twining, stylised roses.

The lack of an answer from him seemed to annoy Mr Ashwell even more. ‘You realise that your hot-headed decision will mean extra work in the sorting room for Mabel and for Kitty?’ he asked.

George shot a quick look at Kitty, who had her hands clasped in her lap and was looking miserable.

Mr Ashwell, feeling that he had scored a winning point, said, ‘And what if I’m ever ill? Are we to send Kitty out with the horse and cart? Whatever next?’

Mrs Ashwell felt that her husband had breached the bounds of propriety in speaking in that manner to a guest in their home. Seeing that her husband had worked himself up until his eyes were staring and his face was red, and knowing that these signs meant that she would be treated to a reiteration of these arguments until bedtime and probably beyond, she stood up. ‘Kitty,’ she said in a louder voice than she had meant, ‘perhaps you and George should take the opportunity to have a walk, as the evening is so lovely and George’s time with us so short.’

Kitty and George both rose. Mr Ashwell, still watching George with a hawkish expression, picked up his pipe from the mantel and began to tamp tobacco into it. Mrs Ashwell ushered them to the door and George turned back into the room to mutter ‘Goodnight, sir’, as they left. Mrs Ashwell nodded. ‘Give my best to your parents, George.’ She glanced back at Mr Ashwell, who had lit his pipe and was now sucking so hard on it that he was working up a fearsome glow in the bowl. She said, ‘And we wish you the best of luck in your endeavours,’ loud enough for her husband to hear. ‘Keep safe,’ she said, quietly, as she shut the door softly behind them.

‘Where would you like to go?’ George asked as they walked out into the balmy air of the warm evening.

Kitty shrugged. ‘Down to the lake, I suppose. That’s where we always seem to end up.’ They walked across the market place, where cabbage leaves and bits of torn paper were strewn from the Saturday traders’ carts earlier in the day, and then on past the shops. When they came to Abraham’s Photographic Studio, George found himself stopping and peering into the window at the pictures of climbers roped to walls of rock and postcards of lake views, fells and waterfalls. He had seen them all a million times before and yet today his feet had simply refused to pass them. It’s because of Violet, he thought, that’s why, and he pictured her with her camera over her shoulder, setting off on her walk alone, and felt that his heart would break.

‘Are you coming?’ Kitty had stopped a few yards further on and was now looking at him impatiently.

George hurried to catch her up. ‘Are you angry with me too, Kitty?’ he asked. ‘Is it because of the work, as your father said?’

Kitty made a tutting sound and gave George a look which seemed to say: ‘Don’t you understand anything?’ They turned down Paraffin Alley past the ironmonger’s shop, Kitty striding away from him until they reached Lake Road where she slowed down a little to match her pace to that of the couples and families, tourists and locals strolling down towards the lake and its surrounding circle of quiet hills.

George held out his arm to her but she didn’t take it. Instead, she said, ‘You didn’t come back for tea. We waited, but you didn’t come. I thought you’d had an accident or something.’

‘Oh, is that all!’ George said. ‘I’m sorry, by the time I remembered it was too late to get back, I was in Carlisle you see …’ Too late, he realised that he had meant to keep off that subject.

‘What took you to Carlisle, then?’ Kitty said.

‘Oh, I don’t know, I’d heard about other chaps joining up and I thought I’d just go and see. Just find out.’

‘It was a bit sudden, wasn’t it?’ Kitty said, looking at him with that look she had which seemed to go right through you. ‘You never said a word about this before.’

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