‘All right, Freddie? How are you?’ she asked.
‘Good thanks, Mrs Smith,’ said Freddie.
‘And your mum and dad?’
‘Good,’ said Freddie.
‘Take this,’ said Mrs Smith, offering Freddie an apple.
Freddie started patting his pockets. ‘But I don’t have my ration book.’
Mr Smith snorted as he carried a tray of vegetables back into the shop. ‘Ration book.’
‘Here,’ said Mrs Smith, forcing the apple into Freddie’s hand.
Freddie took it and pocketed it, not knowing what to say. Both he and Mrs Smith turned when they heard the familiar tap on the footpath.
Alfie Parkin was making his way towards them.
‘Hello,’ Alfie said to them, his voice quiet as he made his way past. He gave a wan smile.
‘Hello, Alfie. Lovely afternoon.’
They watched him make his way down the street.
‘That poor boy,’ said Mrs Smith quietly.
Mr Smith was now standing in the doorway, his hand on the door jamb. ‘At least he made it home,’ he said. Mrs Smith’s lip trembled and Freddie remembered her sons Arthur and David, and turned away, to save her embarrassment.
To Freddie it sometimes felt as if a great pall lay over the village.
As soon as he crossed the boundary between the village and the trees, Freddie began to feel airy and light again. He always felt freer here. The sun was shining, and the sound of the breeze in the trees was restful. That great pall would lift. He could forget his father’s simmering rage, the dark haunted hollows of his eyes, the way his mother would occasionally stop during the washing-up and just look vacantly out of the window.
Freddie heard someone talking away to his right. He followed the sound of the voice.
He rounded a tree and smiled when he saw Kevin Bennett kneeling on the ground. There was no mistaking his unruly shock of blond hair.
‘All right, Kev? What have you got there?’
Kevin turned round, his eyes big and round behind his thick-rimmed glasses.
‘It’s a bird,’ he said.
A tiny wagtail was wheeling around in circles on the ground in front of Kevin, dragging a broken wing behind it. Freddie approached slowly, not wanting to panic it any further.
‘What should we do?’ asked Kevin.
Freddie kneeled beside Kevin and picked the bird up gently. He could feel the panicked thrumming of its tiny heart, and for one second he was terrified it might burst, so he moved as slowly as possible, shushing the bird, stroking its feathers as gently as possible.
‘It needs a splint,’ he said.
Kevin pushed his glasses up his nose and squinted hard at the bird.
‘Will it die?’ he whispered, as if afraid to say the words out loud.
Freddie smiled at him. He took in Kevin’s moth-eaten tank top and his battered black shoes, which were one size too big for him.
‘It won’t die,’ he said.
‘Can I?’ said Kevin, reaching out a hand to pet the bird. ‘Course you can.’
Kevin stroked the bird gently, while it cheeped and fluttered between Freddie’s palms.
‘We’ll look after you, little birdy,’ said Kevin, his voice filled with awe.
Freddie felt a sudden warmth, a rightness. They would take the bird to his house and nurse it back to health. Everything would be . . .
‘Hello, boys, what have you got there?’
Freddie froze with the bird cupped in the palms of his hands. He didn’t want to turn round. He wished the bird’s wing could magically heal itself right now, and that it could fly far, far away from this place, become a speck in the sky.
‘Let me see,’ said the voice.
Freddie turned to find Mr Pheeps standing a few feet away from them, his head tilted in curiosity.
‘It’s nothing,’ said Freddie.
‘Nothing?’ said Mr Pheeps, his lip curling.
‘It’s just a bird,’ Kevin blurted.
Freddie could hear Kevin’s breath coming in short panicked gasps. Mr Pheeps leaned forward with his hands on his knees.
‘And who do we have here? What’s your name, young man?’
He smiled that impossibly wide smile. Kevin shook his head frantically.
‘His face,’ Kevin whispered to Freddie, ‘what’s wrong with his face?’
‘Run,’ Freddie hissed at him.
Kevin didn’t need to be told twice. He pelted away, while Freddie positioned himself between Mr Pheeps and the fleeing boy.
Mr Pheeps advanced towards Freddie with the slow, steady steps of a predator. Freddie wanted to run too, but he fought the urge. He wanted to show this man . . .
This thing, this thing.
. . . that he wasn’t afraid of him.
Mr Pheeps waved him forward. ‘Let me see.’
Freddie moved towards the man . . .
This thing.
. . . because he would not give him the pleasure of showing any fear. But his legs were shaking, and he just wanted to run.
Mr Pheeps cupped his own hands and Freddie laid the bird in them, immediately feeling like a traitor as it chirruped.
Mr Pheeps looked at it with feigned concern.
‘Blessed little thing.’
He stroked its feathers gently with his index finger.
‘Tell me, Freddie. Were you proud of him?’
Freddie’s voice felt tight and strangled.
‘What?’
Mr Pheeps shook his head patronizingly. ‘Oh, Freddie. Your brother, of course. Were you proud of him?’
Freddie swallowed. ‘Yes, I was . . . I am proud of him.’
Now Mr Pheeps gave him a look of mocking pity. ‘I am? I am?’
Freddie felt tears spring to his eyes.
Mr Pheeps turned his attention back to the bird. The bird was trembling, even as it fought to stay as still as possible.
Mr Pheeps sighed. ‘Is it true that he never came home?’
Freddie swallowed hard. The world was starting to blur. He nodded.
‘But you, in your quietest moments, you imagine that’s he’s simply lost, don’t you?’
Freddie looked at the ground.
‘You imagine that he was merely injured and that he’s forgotten who he is, and that some day he’ll remember, and on that day he’ll come home. That’s what you imagine.’ Mr Pheeps leaned over him. ‘That’s what you hope.’ Pheeps made a mocking popping sound with his lips on the word ‘hope’.
Freddie ran a sleeve across his eyes.
‘I just think that’s the saddest thing I’ve
