Read In the Springtime of the Year for Free Online Page A

and porcelain of the sink and bath, the glass of the window, were too bright, burning her eyes, she wanted to put up a hand to shield herself from the glare of them, and the towel felt coarse and grainy, chafing her skin as she dried it. She had emerged from a dream in which there had been warmth and safety, into this bleak room. It was too real to be borne.
    *
    ‘We could play a game,’ Jo said. ‘Draughts, or dominoes, if you like.’
    Outside, it was raining a little, a fine, misty rain, the sky was seagull grey. It was afternoon, she thought, or a bit later, she could not tell. Jo had eaten some cold meat and she had drunk milk, and then tea again; the hours seemed to be filled up with the sound of the hissing, boiling kettle, the taste and smell of the dark, soaked leaves. When she was not drinking tea, her mouth was dry as chalk.
    What had Jo said? She looked at his face, trying to remember. No. The rain slid like silk down the window-pane.
    ‘Jo, I don’t want them to come here again. Not anyone. I don’t want to see them.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘If they come here…’ She clenched her fist tightly until the nails hurt her palms.
    ‘It’s all right. I’ll tell them.’
    ‘But will you stay, Jo?’
    ‘Oh yes.’
    ‘Yesterday … last night …’ She took a deep breath, forming the words with care, inside her head, before speaking them aloud.
    ‘Were you there? When they came to Foss Lane, after it happened? Did they tell you?’
    ‘I opened the door. It was Mr. Rankin.’
    She tried to picture it.
    ‘My mother fainted, they had to give her brandy and the smelling salts. They had to put her to bed.’
    He spoke of her with detachment, as though of a stranger.
    ‘And you? What did you do?’
    She was afraid that no one had thought to look after him, give him comfort.
    ‘I went out. I walked, right up on to the ridge and over the other side. I walked a long way.’
    ‘By yourself?’
    ‘Yes. I was thinking. That was all. I didn’t want to cry. I wanted to be by myself and think.’
    He remembered it. In his pocket, there had been the bone handled pen-knife Ben had given him last birthday, and he had pressed it with his fingers, every so often, for reassurance.
    The countryside, over the ridge, had been quite empty and peaceful, in the last of the sun. He had lain down on the grass on his stomach and looked over the small fields, rising one upon the other like green pillows, and at the bitter, brown clumps of woodland between. In the far distance, mauve and blue-grey, and receding as the light faded, the downs and barrows of the next county.
    Jo said, ‘It seemed …’ But stopped, for how could he explain to her, that odd sense of rightness he had had, as though something had fitted together – it had been missing, like the piece of a puzzle, and was now in its proper place. He had never thought of death like that. It made no sense, how could it? He ought to feel anger and loss, and that everything had disintegrated, there was no point or purpose anywhere discernible. How could he tell her?
    ‘I knew when it happened,’ Ruth said. ‘I was in the garden, and I thought … it was as though I was dying, myself. I was afraid. I knew something terrible was happening.’
    ‘People do know, sometimes. Animals know, as well.’
    ‘How, Jo? How did I know?’
    But she did not really need his answer. Loving Ben had meant being able to read his thoughts, to tell, wherever he was, however far away, what he was feeling, if he were happy or not. And so it had been with his dying.
    Jo got up and drew the curtains.
    ‘Don’t they want you back? Shouldn’t you go home?’
    ‘Do you want me to?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well … they don’t bother.’
    ‘You told them where you were?’
    ‘I left a note. But it’s nothing much to them, what I do.’ It did not seem to trouble him.
    He found the board and they played draughts, sitting close up to the fire, hearing the rain. Ruth felt as though she was outside of