He felt a rush of relief. ‘Perhaps we should book a room now, just in case?’
She took his hand again. ‘No, we’ll take a chance.’
‘We’re in proper country now, aren’t we?’ he asked after about another half hour’s walking. ‘I can see better now than I could before; and I can smell the sea.’
‘Your eyes have adjusted,’ she said, ‘and you might be able to smell the saltiness of the estuary as we’re not all that far away. Not much longer now. You’re doing very well.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Really well.’
They were passing fences and fields, thickly wooded copses and an occasional dark wooden building or barn; they crossed a bridge over water which his mother told him was the haven, and he thought that if she hadn’t been with him he might have been very frightened. A grey-white shape skimmed alongside them and he let out a startled gasp. His mother gave a small huff of amusement. ‘Only an owl,’ she said. ‘Hunting for his supper.’
He’d never been in such a quiet and lonely area and wasn’t sure if he would like to live in such a place as this, even though the idea of living by a river had at first seemed appealing. He looked up at the sky and it was filled with so many stars that he felt dizzy.
‘Mr Crawshaw told me that when there’s no street lighting you can see stars called the Plough. Do you know which they are?’
She stopped and pointed. ‘You see that line of seven stars that tips up like a tail? That’s the Plough. There are millions and millions of stars; too many to count. Navigators find their way by learning which is which and following them to get safely home.’
He didn’t answer. He’d seen a light ahead. He pointed into the darkness. ‘I saw a light. I think it was moving.’
‘Maybe atop a ship’s mast,’ she said. ‘We’d be able to see the estuary if it were daylight. We’re nearly there. My parents’ cottage is this side of the village.’
‘Oh, good,’ he breathed. ‘Are they farmers? Do they have cows and sheep and things?’
‘No, it’s a smallholding, not a farm. They’ve only got a few acres. They keep ducks and hens mostly, and goats. Or used to,’ she added.
He heard her wavering voice, and knowing she was nervous he squeezed her hand. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said softly.
‘Do you know why we’ve come, Jack?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘So they can get to know me? Cos you’ve not seen them in a long time?’
‘Something of the kind,’ she sighed. She was clutching at straws, she knew, but she had run out of choices of how to continue. Ahead of them he could see only a few lights and shapes of buildings which he thought could be houses or possibly farmsteads; after another quarter of an hour or so he saw a gleaming white tower which she said was a lighthouse but didn’t think was used as one any more, and in another ten minutes, when he could barely see his hand in front of him, she stopped by a field gate and looked over it. An unlit cottage or small house was at the end of a short track. ‘This is it,’ she murmured. ‘Nothing’s changed.’
They walked to a smaller gate and she lifted the iron ring and pushed it open; the gate screeched as she did so and she gave a half smile, half grimace. ‘It always did need oiling.’ A dog in its kennel began barking furiously as the gate grated on its hinges when she closed it behind them. ‘They don’t oil it so that they can hear if intruders come through. As if they had anything worth stealing,’ she muttered as if to herself. ‘Nor do they ever think that someone might vault the gate.’
A curtain was opened an inch and lamplight showed through. ‘Somebody’s home,’ Jack murmured; he was beginning to feel nervous.
There was no knocker on the unadorned plank door and his mother curled her fingers into a fist and knocked with her bare hand.
‘Who is it?’ a woman’s voice called out, and the dog continued barking.
Jack looked up and saw his mother’s hesitation. He nudged her.
‘Dorothy,’ she called back in a croaky voice.
Jack’s mouth opened. Dorothy? Not Delia then?
‘Dorothy who?’
‘Your daughter Dorothy. Remember me?’
‘We ’ave no daughter.’
‘Come on, Ma,’ Jack’s mother pleaded. ‘Open ’door, for pity’s sake. I’ve got the boy with me.’
There was no answer for a minute and then they heard the bolt being drawn back and the door was opened a crack. ‘You can’t come in. You know that.’
Jack came closer to his mother and peered through the opening. A heavy chain kept them out. Someone, an old woman, he thought, with a shawl over her head, was backlit by lamplight as she peered out into the darkness.
‘What do you want? Your father’s not in; he’ll be back soon and you’ll not want him to catch you here.’
‘He’ll be at the hostelry, I suppose. Some things don’t ever change.’ The boy heard the bitterness in his mother’s voice as she added, ‘Don’t you even want to meet your grandson?’
‘Why would I?’ the woman said.
‘I’d like him to meet his family.’
‘He has no family, not here at any rate. And it’s more’n my life’s worth to let you in, you know that.’ She began to close the door. ‘Try the other folk. Mebbe you’ll have better luck with them.’
The door shut and they heard the bolt being drawn across. A moment later the curtain was closed at the window and they were left in darkness.
‘Come on.’ Jack pulled on his mother’s sleeve. ‘Let’s go. We didn’t want to stay here anyway, did we?’
‘I should have known better,’ she muttered as they walked away. ‘Why did I expect anything different? But I want you to be settled. I want
