While the Storm Rages, page 18
The girl stopped, looked almost guilty that she’d said so much so quickly: like she’d betrayed someone in doing so. ‘Who are you two anyway? You’re not from round here.’
‘We’re not,’ Noah replied. He didn’t want to say anything he didn’t need to.
‘Well, you’d better keep moving then. Instead of coming round here, upsetting my brother.’
Clem stepped in. She could see Noah’s blood rising.
‘I’m Clem.’ Noah frowned at the mention of her name. ‘And this is Noah.’
‘Why don’t you just tell her everything!’ he spat, exasperated. ‘Honestly!!’
‘It’s fine, Noah,’ Clem replied calmly, before turning her attention back to the girl. ‘We honestly didn’t do a thing to Matthew. He just came haring out of the bush from nowhere. He seemed a little... upset.’
‘Well, he would do,’ the girl replied. ‘He had a bit of a shock earlier.’ She lowered her voice and beckoned Clem closer.
‘His rabbits died this morning. Well, not so much died. They were murdered.’
‘Murdered?’ Noah stepped closer now.
‘Keep your voice down, will you?’ she hissed. ‘Last thing I need is him running off again. Ma would hit the roof!’
‘What happened to the rabbits?’ Clem asked.
‘Foxes got ’em,’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t have been a surprise, I suppose, living where we do. We did pen them in good and proper. But foxes? Well, they’re wily, aren’t they? They always find a way.’
‘Gosh, I’m sorry,’ Clem said.
‘We only got them to see if it would help him. Matthew’s... different. He’s quiet.’
‘Quiet?’
Well... silent, actually. All his life.’
Noah looked confused. ‘He can’t talk?’
‘Well if he can, he’s done a good job of hiding it. The words just never came. He’d find other ways to communicate what he wanted, but then, four months ago, our brother Tom enlisted. It came as a shock to us all. He didn’t tell Mum or Dad in advance. And, well, they both hit the roof when he came home with the papers signed. They shouted, he shouted. He cried, they cried. Well, Dad didn’t. I thought he was going to blow the roof off the house he was yelling so loud. But the person it hit hardest was Matthew.
‘He loves Tom more than anything see. Always has. Idolises him. Followed him like his little shadow. They’d slept in the same bed ever since Matthew was born. Every night of his life. So when Tom marched off, Matthew just seemed to curl up into himself.’
Noah and Clem didn’t know what to say either. All Noah could think of was his own dad marching away.
‘When Tom left, Matthew chased after and caught him. We had to prise them apart. Matthew cried, wailed in fact. But then he seemed to close down, wouldn’t look us in the eye, picked at his food. We tried everything – toys, sweets, the doctor. None of them worked. Which is why Mum bought the rabbits.’ The girl had really hit her stride. She talked nineteen to the dozen, sentences rattling one after another like she’d not spoken herself in a long, long time. Noah had trouble taking it all in. Luckily, Clem worked quicker than he did.
‘It must have been horrible then, to find them... well, you know... dead.’
‘He just ran. Bolted like a racehorse. If he hadn’t run into you, I don’t know if he would’ve stopped.’
‘Oh, so you’re thanking us now?’ Noah couldn’t resist. It earned him a dig in the ribs from Clem.
‘Are those two yours?’ the girl asked suddenly.
They turned to where she was pointing and there, sitting on the floor, was Matthew. He was no longer looking distressed though. Instead, he wore a smile so wide that no words were necessary to express his happiness. On his lap, lay two kittens. And they weren’t raising Hell. They were sleeping so blissfully that they actually looked cute, even to Noah and Clem.
48
Noah and Clem were on a mission to save their animals, but not for the first time on this adventure, it was the animals that saved them. Forty minutes later, as darkness fell, they found themselves not hunkering down under the stars, but in a barn.
There had been a lot of explaining to do on the way, much of it against Noah’s better judgment, but as Clem told their story and the girl, Esther, listened open-mouthed, it became clear that they had a new, and incredibly helpful ally.
There was only half a roof on the barn, and it smelled awful, but there was straw and enough corrugated tin above them to keep them dry should the rain return. Most importantly, they had water. A bucket of it in fact, brought to them by Esther, who now couldn’t do enough to make them happy.
‘I’m sorry there’s not enough milk for everyone,’ she said as the kittens lapped blissfully. ‘But dad’s a bit eagle-eyed that way.’
Noah waved her away as he tried to moisten his lips. ‘This is perfect.’
Esther had only brought one tin cup, but Noah passed it to Clem, fighting the temptation to drink the water straight from the bucket’s jagged rim.
He could have wept when he finally tasted it on his lips, but refused to be emotional now. What would be the point in wasting what he’d just drunk? Instead, they passed the cup back and forth, licking their lips and sighing like they were supping the finest of wines. As ridiculous as it sounded, they felt refreshed, even their hunger abated slightly as their brains whirred back into life. Esther hadn’t let them down on the food front either. A folded tea towel revealed two thick doorsteps of bread smeared with the reddest jam, and a large home-baked biscuit broken evenly in two. It didn’t matter that the bread came from the crusts of the loaf, it smelled wonderful and as the jam hit his tastebuds Noah worried his head was in danger of exploding, such was his joy and relief. And that was before he even thought about the biscuit.
‘This is fantastic,’ he spat clumsily, catching the crumbs that escaped before throwing them back into his mouth. He wasn’t going to waste even the tiniest amount.
Clem was eating slightly more daintily and, as usual, had important details to think about.
‘Are you sure no one will find us here?’ she asked. ‘We’ll be safe until morning?’
Esther nodded her head. ‘Dad hasn’t been out here for months. Too busy. Mum neither so, as long as your dogs don’t give you away, you’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t think there’s much danger of that,’ Noah replied, smirking at the sight of Winn, submerged in so much hay that only her tail could be seen. ‘I don’t think we’ll hear a peep out of them till morning. Or the kittens.’
Noah hadn’t a clue what powers Matthew possessed, but since his sudden arrival, the kittens had been nothing but docile. Gone were the mischief and devilry, to be replaced by a sleepy obedience, even though the little boy obviously hadn’t said a single word to them. They had trailed after Matthew on the way to the barn, then laid in his lap and snoozed as he stroked them in tandem, head cocked on one side in adoration.
‘Only thing that might give us away,’ said Noah, ‘is him crying if you try and take him in for bed.’
Esther looked at her brother and shook her head. ‘I don’t know how a farmer’s son can be so soppy about animals,’ she said. ‘Dad always says they’re not pets, they’re our livelihood. That we’ll get nothing from adoring them. Looking at this, he clearly got it wrong.’
‘Will Mathew get upset when you take him inside?’
‘Not if I explain he can see them again in the morning. That is all right, isn’t it? You won’t be leaving before dawn?’
‘It’ll be early, but it’ll depend on the dogs and how they are. Especially Frank. Today was nearly the end of him.’
‘Oh, Matthew will be in here as soon as the cockerel crows. So if you can wait that long... well, it would make a big difference to him... and to me too.’
‘Then that’s what we’ll do,’ replied Clem, and even Noah nodded in agreement, realising, as he bit into his biscuit, that they had struck the luckiest of gold when they met Matthew and Esther.
They slept soundly. More than soundly, as not even the cockerel woke them. The first they knew of dawn’s creep was the sound of the barn door. By the time they’d wiped their eyes, the kittens were already in Matthew’s lap, batting at his fingers and making the most joyful noise.
‘Do you think we could take Matthew with us?’ Noah yawned, feeling keenly the sting and bite of the burns that lined his wrists. They didn’t look the healthiest of colours. Yellowing around the edges and slightly oozy.
‘It’d make things a lot easier,’ Clem agreed. ‘Though I’m not sure Esther would agree to it.’
‘Couldn’t feed him either, could we? Can barely feed ourselves.’
Eight hours on, their hunger had come racing back, but Noah refused to start the day on a negative note. Come on, he told himself, today is the day when we reach the Duchess’.
So after waking the dogs, frowning as they saw the stiffness in Frank’s hind quarters, they divided up the potted meat and bread roll that remained from their shoplifting, eating like it was the greatest feast ever assembled. Even the water tasted sweeter than normal.
‘We can do this,’ Noah told Clem, with a smile, ‘we really can.’
‘I know that,’ came a new voice from the doorway. It was Esther, in the same dress as yesterday, but sporting long pigtails. ‘But I think I’ve worked out a way that I can help you.’
‘Is your dad going to drive us to Windsor?’
Esther smiled, but shook her head. ‘Hardly. But I was thinking about what you told me about the Duchess. It reminded me of something. About this place we went to a few years back, all of us, to a fair at this big house owned by a rich lady.’
Noah sat, intrigued. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, I don’t remember all of it cos it was ages ago. But I know she had a load of animals, this lady. There were peacocks on her lawn and loads of dogs, some ponies and a goat. She had one of those posh-sounding names too.’
‘Douglas-Hamilton?’
‘I don’t know but it was definitely two words together like that.’
‘Double-barrelled,’ said Clem.
‘What?’
‘Double-barrelled. It’s what you call it when people have two names in their surname. It’s a posh thing.’
‘Well, yes, this woman had one of those names and she was definitely very posh.’
Clem and Noah looked at each other. It sounded too close to be a coincidence.
‘Can you remember where it was?’ Clem asked. ‘How far it was from here?’
‘Not exactly, but it was by the river, her garden backed right on to it. And I remember us driving towards Windsor to get there. You could see the castle from the lady’s house, I remember that bit clearly. And there was a little church next to it.’
‘It has to be the Duchess’, doesn’t it?’ Noah said excitedly. But Clem was still diving into the detail.
‘So how far is it do you think? From here.’
Esther frowned. ‘Hard to say. On foot as you are? Another eight miles or so, if you stay by the river.’
It sounded like a long way, and Noah thought he heard Frank sigh from his bed. The pair of them frowned.
‘Don’t look so defeated,’ Esther cajoled. ‘Because actually, I think I’ve got an idea that could make your journey there a lot easier.’
She gestured to her brother and the kittens, then back at Noah.
Noah just looked confused, then shocked.
‘You’re not suggesting we take Matthew to look after the kittens, are you?’ He didn’t want to offend her or anything, but when he’d said it to Clem he really had been joking.
‘I don’t think Mum would agree to that. Don’t think the police would like it either. Especially if they’re already looking for you.’
‘Then what do you mean?’ Clem asked.
The girl took a deep breath as if nervous. ‘Let us take the kittens off your hands. You said it yourself, they’re lively. Difficult even. And if you’ve still miles to go then they’re hardly going to sit quietly while you walk.’
‘But what will you do with them?’
‘I’d have thought that was obvious,’ she replied. ‘I won’t do anything with them, but Matthew here will love them every second of every day. They’ll have the best lives imaginable.’
‘I’m sorry, but we can’t do that,’ Noah answered quickly and firmly. Clem looked shocked and as though she completely disagreed.
‘Why not?’ Both she and Esther said together.
‘Because... well... because they’re our responsibility. We found them, didn’t we? Saved them and made a promise that we’d keep it that way.’
‘But they’ll be safe here,’ said Esther. ‘And you can see how loved they’d be.’
‘They’d be loved at the Duchess’.’
‘Well, yes, but there’ll be loads of other animals there.’
‘And this is a farm!’
‘Please, Noah,’ said Esther. ‘Think about it for just a minute. Think about how little they are, and lively they are.’
‘Not to mention how far we’d have to carry them,’ added Clem.
‘Without proper food,’ said Esther.
‘Are you two ganging up on me?’
‘We’re trying to make you see sense,’ said Clem. ‘I know why you don’t want to give them up. It’s because of Samson, isn’t it? And Col and Delilah.’
‘They’ve got nothing to do with it!’
‘Oh I think they have,’ she went on. ‘You think you failed them and that by leaving the kittens here you’ll be breaking your promise again, but that’s not right. In fact, the opposite is true. If we take the kittens, then we have less chance of reaching the Duchess.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘It’s not nonsense, it’s true. I’m tired, Noah. So are you. And so are the dogs. I’m going to have to carry Frank a lot of the way today, and will probably need your help. And you can’t give me that if you’ve the kittens to keep under control. Please, Noah, listen to what I’m saying to you.’
He was listening and the thing he was finally hearing was that she was right. On all scores.
‘But what about your parents?’ Noah said to Esther. ‘What if they don’t want the kittens here?’
Esther smiled. ‘Dad will barely notice, and Mum will be fine as long as they keep the mice out of the larder.’
‘But you can’t just turn up with two kittens out of the blue!’
The girl smiled again, coyly this time. ‘That’s just it, I already mentioned it last night. Told her the farm down the road had a litter needed homes. Told her Matthew fell in love as soon as he saw ’em.’
‘So she said yes?’
‘She didn’t say no,’ Esther replied honestly. ‘And once she sees how happy it’s made Matthew, then she’ll never turn ’em away. Not in a million years.’
Noah sighed and rubbed at his forehead.
‘Come on, you fool,’ Clem laughed. ‘They’ll have the best life ever here. Mice on tap, fields to prowl in, and a boy who doesn’t care how mischievous they are.’
‘Please?’ said Esther, mock-begging.
‘All right! All right!’ Noah replied, throwing his hands in the air. ‘Anything to shut you both up. Just don’t come crying to me if it all goes wrong.’
‘I’ll have a job,’ said Esther. ‘I don’t know your surname, never mind where you live.’
Once he’d accepted that the kittens were staying behind, Noah could see no point in hanging around, but as much as he’d found them difficult to handle, he didn’t want to say goodbye. He still felt that in some small way he was breaking yet another promise.
‘Come on now, don’t be silly,’ Clem told him. ‘Remember when you first had this brainwave, we were only trying to save Frank and Winn. And we can still do that. In fact, there’s more chance of that than ever.’
‘I know, I know...’
‘Well, try telling your face that!’ she said, digging him in the ribs.
In the end though, the thing that got to Noah wasn’t the kittens at all. They were hardly going to be interested in a weepy farewell. It was little Matthew and the way he attached himself to Noah with the biggest of bear hugs. For the second time in their short meeting, Noah found himself knocked off his feet with the little man on top of him.
This time though, Noah didn’t throw him off. This time he hugged him back and although the boy didn’t say thank you, Noah knew with absolute certainty that Matthew was so very very grateful.
‘You’re welcome,’ Noah said quietly, before whispering into his ear, ‘Your brother will be home soon. Just like my dad.’
And with that, Noah let the boy go and watched him scurry to Joseph and Mary.
There were now only four of them left.
So they took a deep breath, said a final farewell to Esther and marched purposefully on.
49
Noah spent the morning doing something unusual: thinking.
That’s not to say he didn’t usually think. He always had lots of thoughts. He just had a habit of acting on them before weighing up whether they were sensible or not.
But after the drama of the last few days, the fatigue he felt in his bones and the pain in his throbbing burns, he was happier to live in his head for a while.
He thought about a lot of things, some of which took him by surprise. He thought about having a bath (which was a first) and how nice it would be just to lie there for a few minutes in the old tin tub in front of the fire, with his mum topping up the hot water.
The only problem was this threw up thoughts of Mum, and he couldn’t help but picture her, either pacing angrily, or sobbing in fear. It was a horrid thought, the worst, but it wasn’t enough to see him stop and walk in the opposite direction back to her.
‘Keep going,’ he said to himself. ‘Keep your promise. Keep it.’
Clem had been pretty quiet all morning herself. Conserving energy in the knowledge that Frank was fading in front of her eyes. It might not have been as hot as the previous day, but it soon would be when her little friend needed carrying. His front legs today were nearly as stiff as his back ones, giving him a strange walk like a clockwork toy, that to other people might have seemed comical but not to her. To Clem, it was simply worrying.
