23
Summer of Love

Shonk! Ker-r-ack! Thwack!

On the morning of his fourteenth birthday Pip woke to the pleasant rhythm of logs being split in the yard.

It would be a good day. The signs were plain to see – no Jeep parked below his window; instead, old man Zachery cheerfully chopping wood on a perfect summer’s day.

Shonk! Ker-r-ack! Thwack!

Of course, ‘cheerfully’ for Zachery did not mean whistling or breaking into dance moves as Pip’s papa used to do, but Pip had learned to read Zachery’s mood by the position of the dog: when the old man was calm, Amigo would sleep nearby in a splash of shade. When Zachery was surly and snappy, the dog would make himself scarce entirely.

As he looked out on that sparkling morning, Pip noticed something he had never seen – Zachery had tossed his old jacket on the ground and Amigo was curled peacefully upon it, not three feet from where his master was swinging a sharpened axe.

Shonk! Ker-r-ack! Thwack!

Pip pulled on his clothes, slid down the ladder and stepped outside.

‘Morning, Mr Zachery,’ he said, snapping open the tobacco tin to fix the old man a cigarette.

‘Ye know how t’ split wood, son?’

‘No, sir,’ said Pip, lighting the cigarette and handing it to him as he had been instructed. To a teenage boy there are few things as alluring as a pile of wood and a gleaming axe, and Pip eyed them greedily.

There was indeed something different about that day because, to the boy’s amazement, Zachery began to teach him patiently how to swing the long-handled axe.

‘Slaide yer hand back to th’ end, see. Naice an’ long. Then the axe do th’ work, not you. Git it raight an’ ye c’n split it in one. If yer don’, jes’ raise the log on the axe an’ bring it down ag’in.’

Pip raised the axe and the old man stood behind him, almost like a kindly grandfather, showing him how to place his hands on the hickory handle.

‘Keep yer feet back, darn it, or th’ dawg’ll be pickin’ up yer toes.’

Within ten minutes Pip had the hang of it, and as he worked his way through the pile, Zachery sat smoking on the throne of an upturned bucket.

‘Hoo-aah! Now y’ got it, boy!’

The satisfaction of the leaping logs and the splicing blade was hard to beat. On top of that, in recent months Pip had discovered brand-new muscles and sinews in his back and shoulders which loved to work. Now he felt them stir and grow. He was taller and stronger, like the man his father had been.

Seeing that he knew what he was about, Zachery wandered away. His parting words – ‘Tha’s faine. Jes’ stack ’em there when yer done, boy . . .’ – felt as good as any heartfelt praise Pip had ever received.

As the sun rose above the wind turbine, the pile of neatly chopped logs grew and the boy gloried in the sensation of his labour.

Shonk! Ker-r-ack! Thwack!

Noticing that his shirt was growing damp, Pip stripped to the waist. There was no one about, and in any case, the feeling of the sunshine on his torso intensified the feeling of liberation.

The screen door of the farmhouse opened and Hannah stepped out; shyly, furtively.

In one hand she carried a mug of coffee and in the other a wooden plate. On the plate lay two slabs of homemade cornbread, smeared with creamy butter, and between those slices a rasher of bacon, still sizzling from the pan, and an egg, yellow and round as the sun itself.

In an ideal world Hannah would have sat beside him in the sunshine and shared that meal, and they would have talked – at least, Pip to her – and maybe her sweet toes might have inched towards his working man’s boots . . . but that was just a foolish daydream brought on by his loneliness, because in reality Pip had barely thanked her before she was gone.

But since the night he had saved her from the horseman and the time she held his hand while he was in trance, Pip was sure she no longer despised him. And now her absence was compensated for by the pleasure of that food. Indeed, Pip had never tasted anything so good as that simple birthday breakfast.

When he had drained the last sweet drop of coffee and wiped the faintest glaze of egg yolk from his plate, he completed the task that Zachery had given him and washed himself at the pump.

Then he heard Jack calling as he walked across the track. ‘Pip, I’ve got a little something for you! It’s not much, but I couldn’t let a birthday pass without a gift . . .’

‘Jack! How did you know? I didn’t tell no one!’

‘I’m a hypnotist, Pip – I know everything!’

‘Really, Jack . . .’

‘You wrote your date of birth on your exercise book. Now, here you are – I hope it’s something you’ll like.’

And Jack presented him with a cardboard box. When Pip lifted the lid, he found a layer of tissue paper, and when he unwrapped the tissue paper . . . there they were! A squeaky pair of white sneakers.

Pip was overwhelmed with gratitude. But that was only the beginning of that wonderful day. When he presented himself at Lilybelle’s bedside, he found her painting happily; the curtain was open, the window was wide, and Lilybelle seemed brighter and calmer than ever before.

‘Oh mah, Pip! Where in th’ world you get them fancy shoes? It’s laike you bounced in here!’

And when Pip confessed that it was his birthday and the shoes were a gift from his tutor, Lilybelle was mortified that she didn’t have a present for him too.

‘But thar’s one thang ah can give you, Pip, an’ tha’s a day free from chores. You get in th’ kitchen an’ pack yerself a picnic . . . Ah don’ wanna set ahs on ye till you’ve had a day in the sunshaine! Take Amigo too, and Hannah if she’s mainded.’

‘Thank you, Lilybelle, I would like that very much. But you know I ain’t going no place till I’ve read to you . . . Now where did we get to?’

‘You are a precious boy,’ said Lilybelle. ‘Come an’ sit by ma saide.’

So Pip snuggled against her and opened his book, but just as he was about to begin, the door opened softly, and there was Hannah with Lilybelle’s morning snack. She set down the tray and was about to leave when Lilybelle said, ‘Hannah, ’less ah’m mistaken, Pip would enjoy your comp’ny on his birthday too! Ain’t that raight? You come an’ hear th’ tale – boy reads laike he was born wi’ a book in his hands. It’s maighty sweet on th’ ear.’

Although Pip squirmed with embarrassment, he was overjoyed when Hannah settled attentively by his side. Then, to his surprise, she pulled out one of her dreamcatchers, and her agile fingers began weaving the web as she listened to the story.

Pip’s weeks of practice had paid off because now his reading was clear and confident; and strangely, the antiquated language of Great Expectations seemed to mirror the situation in the pink bedroom and express the words that he could never say . . .

‘“Estella,” said I, turning to her now, and trying to command my trembling voice, “you know I love you. You know that I have loved you long and dearly.” She raised her eyes to my face, on being thus addressed, and her fingers plied their work, and she looked at me with an unmoved countenance . . . “I am ignorant what may become of me very soon, how poor I may be, or where I may go. Still, I love you. I have loved you ever since I first saw you in this house . . . You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then . . .” ’

Pip heard a sobbing, and when he raised his gaze from the page, he was astonished to see tears streaming down Lilybelle’s face and Hannah staring in wonder as he warmed to the part.

‘In what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words out of myself, I don’t know. The rhapsody welled up within me, like blood from an inward wound, and gushed out. I held her hand to my lips some lingering moments, and so I left her . . .’

‘NO!’ cried Lilybelle. ‘He ain’t gonna leave her, Pip! He cain’t do that!’

But Pip read on, his voice growing louder. He even acted the parts of the different characters, giving Miss Havisham an old and croaky tone.

‘“Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!” ’

‘Oh mah!’ sobbed Lilybelle at last. ‘Ah cain’t take no more! Go on, you two – run free – leave me now – skedaddle!’

Within ten minutes Pip and Hannah were running out of the farmhouse and through the back gate, with Amigo flying at their feet. They dawdled to pick apples on the hillside, and wandered through the wispy wavering grass that was alive with bees and birds and crickets.

Pip felt as if he had left all his troubles behind and his heart would burst with happiness – until he saw the huge pyramid of the electricity tower and the menacing shape of the red barn, and he was overwhelmed with terrifying memories.

‘Where we going, Hannah? I didn’t wanna come this way.’

But it was clear that the wild child had a plan, and that she knew every inch of the countryside. She grabbed Pip’s hand and led him round the back of the barn where a hidden trail lay. The trail was so narrow they had to walk in single file, but after a few minutes they came to a dancing copse of birch trees at the top of a ridge and, looking down, Pip saw a secret valley spread below, filled with sunshine like a bowl of gold. He followed Hannah, slipping and sliding down the snaking track until they reached a dry river-bed. Then, to his amazement, she reached into the roots of a willow tree and produced a transistor radio wrapped in polythene. Clearly this was her hideaway – a mossy animal’s lair with bars of sunlight streaming through the leafy roof.

When you are young, a summer day can go on for ever, and as they lay side by side, music poured from that radio which seemed so sweet, Pip would spend a lifetime searching for those songs. Above them, in a sweeping curve around the valley edge, leaves rustled and whispered like waves around a shore and the sky was a turquoise ocean, through which swallows swooped like flying fish.

They lay lost in the music until Pip turned on one arm and looked down at Hannah’s face, as smooth and brown as nutmeg, and her shining raven hair. Summoning his courage, he lifted her hand as Pip had lifted Estella’s, and kissed each fingertip in turn. He half expected Hannah to glare at him and rush away, but no – she just closed her eyes and sighed. And then, to Pip’s astonishment, she stretched up that hand and clutched the ringlets at the back of his head. She pulled him firmly towards her and kissed his lips. Pip lost himself in that kiss, which seemed as deep as any trance, and he found himself trembling uncontrollably at the sensation of her soft mouth and breath as sweet as apples.

To Pip, the girl seemed to be part of Nature herself – a flawless part of the sunshine and the breeze and the birdsong of that sublime summer’s day. He could find nothing about her that was not perfect – her delicate collarbone, the silkiness of her limbs, even the moons on her nails and the smallest pink scar on one shoulder . . .

On his fourteenth birthday Pip would almost have endured the hardships and fears of his life all over again, just to lie with Hannah in that soft grassy valley, where he fell . . .

down,

down,

down . . .

He fell so deeply in love.