Another part of the wood Read Free

and stepped back to her rightful place behind Joseph and in front of the blocked Kidney.
    ‘George is making tea in Hut 2,’ called Balfour.
    ‘Hut 2, Hut 2,’ echoed Joseph, somewhere behind him on the path which had grown steeper and more waterlogged.
    The girl said something then, but her words were inaudible to Balfour, as he hastened up the slope hampered by his self-imposed
Monopoly burden. He hoped she hadn’t remarked on his acne. One foot after the other, keeping his balance with difficulty on
the uneven ground, he strained to reach the summit of the path.
    Roland began to sing. He piped shrilly under the dripping trees:
    ‘Bobby Shaftoe’s gone to sea,
    Silver bottles on his knee …’
    ‘Buckles, buckles,’ corrected his father, trampling mud underfoot, swinging his elegant luggage high above the damp grasses.
    ‘He’ll come home and marry me-e,
    Bonny Bobby Shaftoe-O.’
    ‘We’re there,’ Balfour shouted. He jogged thankfully down the home path, heart thudding in his breast.
    Hut 2 was made of wood without embellishments of stone or slate: one long room with bunks at the end and an iron stove opposite
the door, the kitchen through an opening to the right of the stove. There was a bench outside the hut and two wooden steps
at the door. Red curtains hung on either side of the end window. Laid down on the bench outside was a hammer and some nails.
From the path the mountain wasn’t visible. Nor was George.
    Balfour put down his Monopoly box on the scrubbed top of
the table and told them apologetically that he couldn’t imagine where old George had got to. He went into the kitchen but
found it empty, and the kettle empty also, the cups still on their hooks above the sink. ‘Must have gone to look at something
or other,’ he said. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen, resentful that he should be left in such a position, looking at
Kidney still outside the hut, arms full of groceries. He was aware that no one save himself felt any embarrassment. The girl
had seated herself in the rocking chair by the stove, rugs in a heap on the floor where she had dropped them, arms folded
across her chest. Joseph had found a pocket mirror on the shelf. He was holding it cupped in one hand, face twisted as he
studied his image.
    ‘I’ve got another cold sore coming. I can’t bear a marked face,’ he told Balfour bitterly, dabbing at his erupting skin with
his mud-stained handkerchief.
    Balfour, only partly shielded by the doorway of the kitchen, raised an arm to cover his blemished complexion but dropped it
again: after all, he couldn’t spend the next six days with his face hidden. Though the journey from the entrance of the woods
to Hut 2 hadn’t been a noticeably merry one, he was conscious that the visitors’ spirits had fallen.
    Roland came in from his search for George and flung himself against the rocking chair, pushing his head, still in its pom-pom
hat, against the girl’s face. ‘Why don’t we do something?’ he asked. Already he was bored.
    His father glanced once about the room and yawned loudly, thinking of all the preparation: the denim outfit bought to make
Dotty feel secure, the choice selection of paperbacks, the sheets freshly laundered, Roland’s kite, all the business of stopping
the milk and leaving the caged bird with the people downstairs. Now that they were here, it was as he had suspected: nowhere
was either better or worse than anywhere else. Most of all he thought of his good intentions. He shrugged his shoulders, trying
to rid himself of dejection, looking at the girl fondling the child’s cheek. Making a determined effort for Roland – for Dotty,
for
himself – he said, ‘Well, troops. Action stations. We better get settled in.’
    ‘You’re in Hut 4 on the other side of the stream,’ mumbled Balfour. But Joseph was already nodding his head in a business-like
way, picking up rugs and cases in readiness for departure. ‘Come along, Dot-Dot. Mustn’t be lazy.’
    ‘I