Free Beyond the Green Hills by Anne Doughty Page A

great stone pillar and studied every detail of the fields and orchards that covered the little humpy hills all around them. The old cottages, long and low, white painted, were tucked into their hollows on the south-facing slopes, sheltered from the north and west by plantings of trees. There was the odd new farm building, and a few two-storey houses, edging thelittle lanes that turned and twisted, dipped into valleys and climbed over their smooth, well-rounded shapes.
    The blue tractor finished its work. The driver unhitched the plough and drove off down the lane below them. Gleaming in the sunlight, the newly ploughed field was left to the gulls, which hunted up and down the straight, newly turned furrows.
    ‘You love this place, Clare, don’t you?’
    ‘Yes, I do,’ she said firmly. ‘I’d be heartbroken if I thought I’d never stand here again.’
    She paused, remembering a summer Sunday long ago when she’d climbed up to the obelisk for the first time. Uncle Jack had been there and various aunts and uncles she couldn’t quite sort out. She was nine years old. She’d looked all around her and made up her mind that she was going to stay with Granda Scott, even if Auntie Polly wanted to take her with them to Canada.
    ‘I think I do belong here, Andrew, like you do. But I’d be sad all my life if I never saw anything of the world out there, beyond the green hills.’

7
    ‘L adies and gentlemen, you have five minutes left. May I remind you to ensure that you have numbered all loose sheets and that they are enclosed within the folder provided …’
    Clare didn’t listen to the remainder of the announcement. She knew it by heart. She went on reading the last of the four essays she’d written in the preceding three hours, added missed-out commas, sharpened a wobbly acute or grave accent, clarified the odd word where sheer speed had run the letters together. As the gowned figure began to collect scripts at the back of the room, she checked her loose sheets, sealed the pink flap of her folder and had her paper ready to hand over while the invigilator was still three desks away. Five minutes later, the examination hall broke into uproar as the tensions of the afternoon exploded in an outburst of scraping chairs, squeals of laughter, and hurrying feet.
    ‘Fancy a coffee, Clare?’ said Keith Harvey, classmate and friend, as she turned round and grinned at him.
    By virtue of his surname, Keith had sat behind her in every class test and exam they’d done in the fouryears of the Honours French course. Long ago, they’d made a pact never to discuss a paper afterwards, just get away as quickly as possible before anyone could waylay them.
    ‘Love one, Keith, but Andrew’s probably waiting for me. He’s not in court today,’ she said, as she zipped her pencil case and caught up her cardigan from the back of her chair.
    ‘Are you coming to the party tonight?’
    ‘No, not tonight. We’re heading for the hills. I told him the other day I felt like a troglodyte, only coming out of my small cave to scuttle across the road to a large one.’
    ‘Well, it’s all over now,’ Keith said, laughing, as they worked their way slowly towards the crowded foyer of the Whitla Hall. ‘Really over, Clare,’ he went on, as they caught the first glimpse of sunlit lawns and the red brick front of the main building beyond. ‘So when shall we two meet again?’
    ‘Graduation Day, if not before,’ she shouted, over the rising crescendo of sound. ‘I’ll be working at the gallery till we get the wedding organised and our passages booked. We’ve got our passports but that’s about all we’ve managed.’
    ‘Not surprised,’ he said. ‘God, it’s been a sweat, hasn’t it? I’ll pop into the gallery and see you next week. I want to give you my sister’s address in Toronto. She says she’d love to see you. She’s a real fan of your cousin Ronnie. Apparently he signs himself “Ron” in Canada.’
    ‘Ron McGillvray. Sounds