Free Red Sky at Sunrise: Cider with Rosie, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, A Moment of War by Laurie Lee Page B

right…’
    ‘Dr Green came up to the shop this morning. Wearing corduroy bloomers. Laugh!…’
    ‘Look, Ma, look! I’ve drawn a church on fire. Look Marge, Doth! Hey, look!…’
    ‘If
x
equals
x,
then
y
equals
z
– shut up! – if
x
is
y…’
    ‘O Madeline, if you’ll be mine, I’ll take you o’er the sea, di-dah…’
    ‘Look what I’ve cut for my scrapbook, girls – a Beefeater – isn’t he killing?’
    ‘Charlie Revell cheeked his dad today. He called him a dafty. He…’
    ‘… You know that boy from the Dairy, Marge – the one they call Barnacle Boots? Well, he asked me to go to Spot’s with him. I told him to run off home.’
    ‘No, you never!’
    ‘I certainly did. I said I don’t go to no pictures with butter-wallopers. You should have seen his face…’
    ‘Harry Lazbury smells of chicken-gah. I had to move me desk.’
    ‘Just hark who’s talking. Dainty Dick.’
    ‘I’ll never be ready by Sunday…’
    ‘I’ve found a lovely snip for my animal page – an old seal – look girls, the expression!…’
    ‘So I went round ’ere, and down round ’ere, and he said fie so I went ’ack, ’ack…’
    ‘What couldn’t I do to a nice cream slice…’
    ‘Charlie Revell’s had ‘is ears syringed…’
    ‘D’you remember, Doth, when we went to Spot’s, and they said Children in Arms Not Allowed, and we walked little Tone right up the steps and he wasn’t even two…’
    Marge gave her silky, remembering laugh and looked fondly across at Tony. The fire burned clear with a bottle-green light. Their voices grew low and furry. A farm-dog barked far across the valley, fixing the time and distance exactly. Warned by the dog and some hooting owls, I could sense the night valley emptying, stretching in mists of stars and water, growing slowly more secret and late.
    The kitchen, warm and murmuring now, vibrated with rosy darkness. My pencil began to wander on the page, my eyes to cloud and clear. I thought I’d stretch myself on the sofa – for a while, for a short while only. The girls’ muted chatter went on and on; I struggled to catch the drift. ‘Sh!… Not now… When the boys are in bed… You’ll die when you hear… Not now…’
    The boards on the ceiling were melting like water. Words broke and went floating away. Chords of smooth music surged up in my head, thick tides of warmth overwhelmed me, I was drowning in languors of feathered seas, spiralling cosily down…
    Once in a while I was gently roused to a sound amplified by sleep; to the fall of a coal, the sneeze of the cat, or a muted exclamation. ‘She couldn’t have done such a thing… She did…’ ‘Done what?… What thing?… Tell, tell me…’ But helpless I glided back to sleep, deep in the creviced seas, the blind waters stilled me, weighed me down, the girls’ words floated on top. I lay longer now, and deeper far; heavier weeds were falling on me…
    ‘Come on, Loll. Time to go to bed. The boys went up long ago.’ The whispering girls bent over me; the kitchen returned upside down. ‘Wake up, lamb . .. He’s whacked to the wide. Let’s try and carry him up.’
    Half-waking, half-carried, they got me upstairs. I felt drunk and tattered with dreams. They dragged me stumbling round the bend in the landing, and then I smelt the sweet blankets of bed.
    It was cold in the bedroom; there were no fires here. Jack lay open-mouthed, asleep. Shivering, I swayed while the girls undressed me, giggling around my buttons. They left me my shirt and my woollen socks, then stuffed me between the sheets.
    Away went the candle down the stairs, boards creaked and the kitchen door shut. Darkness. Shapes returning slow. The window a square of silver. My bed-half was cold – Jack hot as a bird. For a while I lay doubled, teeth-chattering, blowing, warming against him slowly.
    ‘Keep yer knees to yerself,’ said Jack, turning over. He woke. ‘Say, think of a number!’
    ‘’Leven-hundered and two,’ I groaned, in a