‘I WANT you to help me in the garden.’
‘What, just me, Dad? What about the girls?’
‘It’s man’s work, Robbie,’ said Jess. ‘Anyway, we’re going shopping with Mum.’
‘You’re going shopping, and I’m helping Dad?’ But it was no use.
The garden had become his dad’s new obsession. He was finally tackling the long grass, hoeing it first and then mowing it fine, and he was buying books about garden practice and design that were beginning to fill the gaps left in the bookshelves by Sheila’s raids for her stall. The beds were being dug over and manure applied. His dad had found a favourite nursery where he bought car-bootfuls of new plants, and old ones were uprooted and thrown on the bonfire. Robbie thought this was probably a good thing, though he wasn’t sure about the way his dad seemed to want him to share it all.
So he cut grass and dug holes in a border along the hedge by the road that his dad had cleared for roses, singing to himself to keep his spirits up. The roses were going to be underplanted by lots of other things, Robbie lost track of the names.
And it was hot. The clouds were low and grey and dry, and he felt stifled, as if his breath was being sucked out of him. He didn’t say anything to his dad all day if he didn’t have to, but his dad didn’t seem to notice.
When the girls and Sheila got back they were carrying enormous carrier bags. They had been to a big shopping centre in Yeovil and were very cheerful about their purchases, the air suddenly full of their delight. Robbie kept mutinously silent, aware of their nervous, irritated glances, as if they were worried his sulking might lead to something worse.
‘Dinner, Robbie,’ called Sheila later.
‘I’m not hungry,’ he replied.
‘You’ve got to eat something.’
‘No, I don’t. I don’t have to.’ Then he relented, but not entirely. ‘Okay. But I’ll have mine in the other room.’
Sheila opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind.
Robbie sat eating quietly, trying not to seethe too much, listening to the murmur of voices next door. Jess was laughing.
Books were lying on the floor. Robbie remembered his dream about his mum, and the books flying off the shelves, and it came into his head to look at his dad’s maps, to see if he could find the one they had been looking at, the one with the Strickland farm on it.
The maps were jammed so tight he had to pull hard to get them out, and when they did they came with a rush and a couple of books flew out with them, falling to the floor, just like in the dream.
One of them lay open, revealing something long and lean tucked into its pages. A letter. He stooped closer. The book was old, with faded colour photographs of animals and birds and their descriptions. He looked at the pages the letter had been nestling between. Then he picked the book up and read more closely.
‘The mountain hare is reputed to moult three times a year, its coat changing from white to brown in the spring. Because the coat often takes on a blue hue when this happens it is also known as the blue hare. In winter the coat turns white again. As the seasons turn the hare is naturally vulnerable, for it may be white against the hillside or brown against the snow.’
Lepus timidus scoticus. The mountain or blue hare. It lives in Scotland and the Lake District and the Peak District.
Not from round here, then.
So was that all it was, a mountain hare, a long way from home, at the end of the season, fearful and lost?
He picked up the letter, and turned it over. ‘For Robbie,’ it said. He recognized the handwriting. His heart skipped a beat. For a moment or two he couldn’t understand what was happening.
He opened it. He was right. It was from his mum.
Words flung themselves off the paper at him like a driving blizzard.
Five stood out.
‘I know all about Sheila.’
And then he ran.
Into the dining room, where they were all sitting.
‘Why did you hide it?’
His voice was quiet and controlled, masking his mounting fury.
Bewilderment crowded his dad’s face, and he half-turned, as if he had been hit, his eyes fixed on the letter in Robbie’s hand.
‘Robbie, I …’ he began.
‘I said, why did you hide it?’ Robbie’s voice was louder now, steelier. ‘Don’t move,’ he said to the others, as they began to push their chairs back from the table.
‘I … wasn’t sure what to do with it.’ His dad’s voice was faint, as if he was desperately searching for an answer. Then something in him changed. He turned back, and looked steadily at his son. ‘Robbie, I’m sorry. Some things just aren’t that easy to work out.’
‘You were scared, weren’t you? You’re pathetic. Just because you didn’t know what she wrote, you hid it. I’m surprised you didn’t burn it, though even you wouldn’t do that. But it wasn’t yours, was it? It was mine, mine from Mum when she knew she was dying.’
His dad stood. His face had turned crimson, though there was determination in him too. ‘Please don’t talk to me like that, Robbie. Life may not have turned out the way you wanted it to, but you’re not the only one in this. Yes, I put that letter out of reach. Maybe I should have put it further out of reach, or maybe some part of me wanted you to find it. But we were going through enough, you and me both, and then what happened with you … I mean, what might that letter have sparked off in you? She asked me to give it to you, and with everything that was going on, I guess I forgot. And then I came across it again and remembered, but by then you were in no condition to be reading letters from your mum who was no longer there.’
‘You forgot! This was for me. How could you forget?’
‘Robbie, you’re getting hysterical. You see, I was right. You’ve got to move on, you’ve got to put it all behind you.’
‘Stop talking in clichés.’
‘I’m not, I mean it. Look at what it’s doing to you.’
‘You don’t understand.’ Robbie shook his head slowly. ‘You’re so stupid.’
He turned, still clutching the letter, ran out of the house, and kept on running.
I’m not going back, he thought.
Never.
Running through the village, running up into the hills.
Leaving them, leaving everything behind.
Never going back.