At night he kept the curtains open to the starlight, watching and learning to read the night sky. His room faced west and he lay on his side and watched for the planet Venus, as Granny Barcussy had taught him in his childhood. ‘Venus follows the sun,’ she’d said, and her eyes had sparkled. ‘And – it’s the planet of love.’
So Freddie stared at it, and wondered if Kate was seeing it too. He’d shown it to her once, at Hilbegut Farm in the twilight when the western sky flushed pink, then duck-egg green smoothly blending into indigo, and they’d gazed at the big bright star together.
Thinking of Kate was too painful most of the time, but he had to do it. He had to plod his way through the pain until he had overcome it with his own strength. There was a molecule of hope in Levi’s words, ‘He’s lying,’ but Freddie didn’t cling to it. Kate had stopped writing to him, she was far away making a new life, and, worse, she had cut her hair. That news in her last letter, had upset Freddie. He couldn’t imagine Kate with short hair, yet she’d said it made her feel liberated. Liberated from what? Was being beautiful such a burden? Supposing he had carved a stone angel with short hair? It bothered Freddie in an inexplicably sensitive part of his soul, and when he dreamed of Kate it was always with the sensual memory of her hair twined in his fingers. At least, he thought, Ian Tillerman wasn’t going to have that particular delight.
One morning just before Christmas, on the day of the winter solstice, Freddie sensed a change. At first light he got out of bed and stood at the window, watching the sunrise reflected in the windows across the street. The weather was mild and spring-like. He opened the window and breathed deeply, smelling the steam trains and the flooded Levels beyond. A song thrush was singing with its whole being, like an opera singer filling the awakening town with exuberant music. ‘The first bird to sing at the turn of the year,’ thought Freddie, his eyes searching until he saw the slim shape of the thrush high on the apex of a roof, the sun gilding its speckled breast, its beak lifted to the sky. It filled him with longing to carve a singing bird. But how would he put the song inside the stone?
Though his legs were weak, Freddie climbed into his clothes and dragged himself downstairs and out into the yard. There was his stone angel, illuminated by the sunrise, and it startled him to see it. Had he done that? He stood in front of it, filled with an overpowering sadness as he looked at Kate’s beautiful face, captured in the stone, forever frozen, no longer laughing, no longer turning her big eyes to gaze into his face.
A maelstrom of negative feelings gusted through him. Bitterness, vengeful thoughts towards Ian Tillerman, a slow burning fury that made him want to raise an axe high in the air and smash the stone angel into hundreds of pieces. He let the thoughts pass through like a crowd of people stampeding to some event that didn’t interest Freddie. He could turn his back and walk away. Those thoughts did not belong to him.
Blessed with the gift of peace, he stood thinking, his eyes exploring the blocks of stone waiting to be carved, and the red roof of his lorry still parked outside the garden wall, waiting for him. ‘I gotta get on with it,’ he thought. ‘With or without Kate.’
And as he thought those words he was suddenly remembering another pair of eyes. Ethie’s eyes. They were pale, pale blue with a cluster of yellow in the centre of the iris, yellow like the eyes of a sparrow hawk. Her eyes were focused on him, compelling him to interpret some silent message coded within that ring of yellowness.
Since his visions were usually of spirit people, Freddie was surprised to see Ethie in such a way. He frowned, concentrating on the deeper meaning, and saw that Ethie was lying on her back, looking at him, trying to ask him some question that smouldered on her mind. She was floating, and the river glistened as it carried her away, her face glaring at the sky.
‘Freddie!’ Annie cried out in surprise. ‘You’re up and dressed. At last.’
He turned to see his mother emerge from the bakery, drying her hands on a towel.
‘Don’t you get cold now,’ she tried to hustle him inside.
‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘I gotta get on with it now. Earn some money.’
Annie looked tired out, he thought, sitting with her to share a breakfast of lardy cake and cocoa at the scullery table.
‘It’s been hard for you,’ he said, ‘having me laid up.’
Annie nodded. ‘But worth it to see you better. I had enough disasters in the past so I can deal with this one. We shall get over it.’
‘Thanks.’ Freddie looked at her eyes and detected a subtle change, a shimmer of hope which hadn’t been there before. ‘Are you managing all right?’ he asked.
‘Joan’s been helping me,’ Annie said, speaking faster than usual, almost bubbling with some secret. Then she shut her mouth, brushed the crumbs from her apron, and looked at Freddie expectantly. ‘You still want to do the stone carving, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well – Joan made such a fuss over your stone angel, and she dragged the vicar down here to see it. Can’t say I like the man, but there – he’s a vicar. And he came in and sat down with me at this table and he ate a huge piece of lardy cake, got crumbs all over his whiskers. I’ve never seen a man make such a mess! He left me this letter to give you.’ Annie went to the dresser and rummaged in the drawer. ‘Here ’tis.’ She handed him the white envelope, her eyes twinkling like they did on his birthday, watching him unwrap her hand-knitted present.
‘The VICAR wrote me a letter? What the hell does he want?’
Freddie took a knife and slit the envelope, unfolded the letter and sat back sceptically against the chair to read it, his eyes getting rounder and rounder. Momentarily speechless he stared out the window at the stone angel.
‘Did you know about this?’ he asked.
Annie nodded and she had tears on the rims of her eyes.
‘I got a commission,’ said Freddie, incredulous, ‘to carve a statue of St Peter. And they are going to PAY me – how about this, Mother? Twenty pounds!’
Annie gasped. They sat together smiling like two children.
‘Can you do it?’ she asked.
‘I can do that standing on me head,’ said Freddie, and the joy came in a huge dollop. He threw the letter up in the air and laughed out loud. ‘I got a commission. Yippee!’
‘You should say yes, Kate,’ said Sally forcefully. ‘Have some sense, girl.’
Kate sighed. She squared her shoulders and looked back at her mother with good-humoured assertiveness. ‘I’m not going to marry for money. I shall marry for love.’
‘You might never get such a chance again,’ warned Sally. ‘Ian Tillerman is a real catch. You’ll want for nothing. And think of your children.’
‘My children, when I have them, will be loved,’ said Kate, ‘and that’s more important than being rich.’
‘Well, you know what they say. When poverty comes in the door, love flies out of the window.’
‘It’s never flown out of our window,’ said Bertie who privately thought that Kate was right. He didn’t like the way Sally was pushing her to accept Ian Tillerman’s proposal. In his opinion his beloved daughter had lost her sparkle since she’d been working at the racing stables. ‘Leave her alone, Sally.’
‘I only want what’s best for her, and for Ethie,’ said Sally, raising her voice a little. ‘And it’s madness to turn down an offer like that.’
‘Better than that lorry driver,’ hissed Ethie. ‘Anyway Kate is too young to get married. I should get married first.’
‘Who to? You’re not exactly encouraging anyone, are you?’ said Sally sharply. ‘What is the matter with you, Ethie?’