Born Bad. Josephine Cox
nerves were getting the better of him.
Twenty minutes later, as Harry negotiated his way through the lanes and backways, Tom spotted a food van in a lay-by. ‘I’m hungry, Daddy,’ he said.
‘Okay,’ Harry conceded. ‘It’s been a while since we ate.’ Drawing into a little gravelled area, he got Tom out of the Hillman. ‘Come on, then. Let’s see what they’ve got.’ To tell the truth, he welcomed the stop. His back was aching, and he had a real thirst on him.
At the van Harry lifted Tom into his arms. ‘Right, big man. What d’you fancy?’ He pointed to the items arranged on glass shelves behind the counter. ‘And don’t get anything too messy,’ he cautioned. ‘I don’t want it all over you … or the car!’
Tom chose a ham roll. Harry chose ham and tomato; and each had a bag of potato crisps, a Wagon Wheel chocolate biscuit, and a bottle of orange juice. On the way back to the car, they chatted about this and that, the main topic being the little man who could hardly see over the counter to serve them.
With only a short distance to Fisher’s Hill, Harry was still questioning the situation. Was Kathleen only acting out of loyalty by writing back in response to his letter, and saying they could stop with her? And would Judy’s life be turned upside down again, because of him?
He could not go home, and he had no other family, so if he didn’t go to Kathleen, where would he go? All the same, wouldn’t it be better if he let sleeping dogs lie? He could take them to a hotel; maybe arrange to rent a house until he found something more permanent.
‘I think we’ll pull off the road for a while, Tom,’ he told the boy. ‘After all, we’re in no hurry.’ He felt the need to slow everything down.
Taking a left turn, he found himself in what looked like a lane to nowhere. ‘I remember this place.’ He and Judy had been here many times on their bikes. ‘I used to go fishing in the stream at the bottom,’ he said. ‘Me and … my friends.’ The pictures were so alive in his mind – of him and his mates – climbing trees, chasing rabbits, and doing all the usual stuff that growing boys do.
And then, later on, there were the quieter, more memorable times, when he and Judy came walking hand-in-hand down this very lane, wide-eyed and starstruck; hopelessly in love.
Now, when the guilt poured in, he deliberately pushed the memories to the back of his mind.
Parking the car, he collected Tom and the food, and the two of them meandered down the bank, to follow the splashing sound of water.
Overhung with ancient willows, the stream was magical. The frothy white water tumbled over the boulders and wound its way down to the valley, and all around the birds could be heard singing.
Mesmerised, the two of them stood for a moment, just watching, and listening. The graceful willows swayed ever so gently in the teasing breeze, and the sound of water against stone was uniquely soothing.
Harry allowed the memories to flood back. ‘Shall I tell you something?’ he murmured to Tom.
Intent on the little bird hopping from boulder to boulder, the boy nodded. ‘Mmm.’
‘When we were your age, me and my friends used to leap across this stream.’
Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, Tom gave his father his full attention. ‘Did you?’
‘We did.’
‘And did you get a smack for being naughty?’
Harry laughed out loud. ‘We did, yes! Every time we fell in and got wet, our mams got cross and our dads gave us a clip round the ear.’
Deep in thought, he grew quiet for a while. ‘We still came down here though.’ He pointed to an old oak tree on the other side. ‘We even made a den in the branches of that tree.’
Stretching his neck, Tom strained to look into the tree branches. ‘I can’t see it.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you?’ Harry felt a pang of sadness. ‘It was a long time ago. It’s probably rotted away by now.’
‘Can we see?’ Having caught the excitement in his father’s voice, Tom was curious.
Harry considered Tom’s request, and he too began to wonder. ‘Yes, why not? Let’s go take a look.’
‘How can we get across?’
‘We’ll paddle – would you like that?’
Tom threw his two arms up in the air. ‘Yes, I would!’
So they kicked off their shoes, rolled up their trousers, and dipped their bare feet in the stream, with Tom screeching at the shockingly cold water which lapped over his ankles.
For the first time in an age, Harry laughed out loud. ‘Wow! That’s a good feeling, don’t you think so, Tom?’
‘It’s freezing, Daddy!’
‘Do you want me to carry you?’
‘No! I want to paddle!’
So with Harry holding tight to Tom’s hand, the two of them paddled across the stream and clambered out on the other side, all wet and refreshed, and much lighter of heart. ‘D’you know what, Tom?’ Harry took a deep invigorating breath. ‘I’d forgotten what that felt like.’ It had taken him right back to another time, one without responsibility or worries.
‘We might do that again some day?’ he suggested, and Tom was all for it.
After rummaging about in that big old tree, they found remnants of Harry’s childhood. Amazingly, the main plank which had forged the base of their den was still virtually intact. ‘Lift me up, Daddy!’ Tom was beside himself with excitement.
Warning him to stay very still, because of the rotting wood, Harry lifted him up to stand on the plank, and when the boy looked down on what had been Harry’s kingdom, Harry felt deeply nostalgic. He could see himself up there, not much older than Tom was now, being master of all he surveyed.
The most surprising find of all, was when Harry lifted his boy down. He was not consciously thinking of it, so it must have been a deeper instinct that brought his gaze to the widest girth of the trunk.
‘Good Lord!’ His heart soared in his chest when he saw the outline of two entwined shapes deeply engraved in the timber.
‘What is it, Daddy?’ Tom wanted to know.
Seeming not to have heard, Harry went forward, with Tom right behind, and there, crudely carved within the two entwined hearts, so faint he could hardly read it, were the names of Harry and Judy.
An unexpected storm of emotion flooded Harry’s being; for a moment he had to turn away, so Tom would not see.
‘Daddy, show me! Show me, Daddy!’
Taking a deep breath to compose himself, Harry snatched the boy into his arms and strode away. ‘It’s nothing … just some old carvings, that’s all.’ But it wasn’t all. It was wonderful, and shocking, and the strongest reminder yet, of how it had been between him and Judy.
He remembered it now, as if it was yesterday.
It was the summer after Judy’s family had moved into the street, when they were just childhood friends, riding their old bikes around the countryside, coming here and making their mark on the world.
As they hurried away from that place, Harry could hear his son chatting about the tree and the stream, telling his dad how he wanted to come back again. Harry had nothing to say. He was being drawn back into another world, one from which he had flown long ago.
Having paddled back to the other side, Harry tried desperately to shut the images out of his mind. ‘Hungry now, are you?’ he asked Tom.
‘Starving!’
‘Right.’ They dried their feet on their socks, then put their shoes back on, and Harry unwrapped