Free What Was Promised by Tobias Hill

– towards the sunken ground.
    ‘What do you mean?’ Dora says, but her voice is weaker, now: she has an inkling; she isn’t sure she wants an answer.
    The boy bounces his feet again, looking by turns at them and at her. Then he jumps off the wall and begins to trudge off, down towards the sunken ground.
    ‘Wait,’ Dora says, ‘wait –’
    When she catches up with him he’s standing by the flooded pit. The water is rank in the sun. It smells of sewage and decay.
    This is silly, Dora thinks. I don’t like this any more. And she is going to tell him so, she has already turned to speak, when . . . is there something there?
    Down the hole, above the water, she sees a slit of darkness. She can make out bricks, burned bricks, and, to one side, the black foot and angle of a timber prop. There is a bit of cellar there, or a shelter. The owner of the house might have dug another chamber, for the neighbours or the servants. Now the roof is almost collapsed, and nothing is left but a last bit of space.
    Dora goes closer. She squats down in the weeds. The space is not as small as she’d thought. As her eyes adjust she begins to see shapes deep inside. Huddles. Nothing moves. She thinks they must be heaps of blankets or old tarpaulins.
    ‘Oh,’ Dora says. ‘You poor boy.’
    She puts out her hand, but he shies, the way an animal would duck away from an insect or a blow.
    ‘It’s alright,’ Dora says, ‘it’s alright, I didn’t mean to touch you.’
    And then for a while she says nothing. She stays, squatting by the hole, with the boy standing beside her. He doesn’t look at her, but neither does he move away.
    He’s little, Dora thinks. He could be seven or eight, younger than Bernadette’s boy, but his looks are somehow older. It’s hard to tell, with the dirt and scars. She thinks perhaps he’s small for his age.
    ‘This is where you live?’ she asks finally, and when the boy nods, ‘For how long?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ he says.
    ‘Alone?’
    ‘Yes. It’s mine,’ he says, and cuts his eyes at Dora, as if she might mean to take the pit from him.
    ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘Pond.’
    ‘Just Pond? Don’t you have another name?’
    ‘Moon.’
    ‘Moon Pond? That’s a strange name for a boy! It sounds like a Chinagirl,’ she says, and – just for a second – the boy’s face wrinkles in amusement.
    ‘Not Moon Pond,’ he says. ‘I’m just Pond.’
    ‘But Pond is a family name. You must be Something Pond. Don’t you remember your first name?’
    He shakes his head, then wipes his face.
    ‘I’ve looked for it. I’ve looked, but I haven’t found it yet. It’s hot today.’
    ‘Yes, isn’t it! Very hot. Pond,’ Dora says, ‘are you thirsty?’
    But he only shrugs his shrug: a practised, dumb equivocation.
    ‘Or hungry?’ she asks, and is glad when he nods.
    ‘Mostly,’ Pond says.
    Dora stands. She brushes herself down. A thrill runs through her. In her mind something has been decided.
    How extraordinary, she thinks. How mad. It is so unlike her, this decision, it is such a brave and sudden thing. But she wants to do it, she needs to it, and she will: it is hardly even a choice. Her mind has been made up for her.
    ‘Well,’ she says, ‘you know, I have food at home. There’s enough for three. If you’d like to come and have something with me . . .’
    The boy, Pond, examines her. It’s more than watchfulness. His face is expressive again. His eyes are green and narrow.
    ‘What is it?’ Dora asks, and smiles to encourage him; but Pond’s eyes stay the same.
    ‘Three,’ he says.
    ‘Oh yes!’ Dora says, ‘well, because there is my husband.’
    ‘What’s his name?’
    ‘Solly,’ Dora says, and she thinks, My God, what will Solly think? But Solly loves her, doesn’t he? That has never changed, however hard things have become. Solly will do anything for Dora.
    ‘And I’m Dora,’ she adds, ‘Dora Lazarus.’
    The boy looks her up and down. He nods, as if content with