Free Hunger by Susan Hill Page A

down to the point where the hard surface turned to mud.
    ‘What’s that?’
    Adrian stood sideways, head cocked.
    ‘Sounds like singing.’
    ‘Not singing.’
    It was quiet again, apart from the occasional shushing of the leaves.
    ‘There.’
    ‘Sounds like chanting.’
    Paula hesitated.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Maybe we shouldn’t . . . disturb them.’
    ‘Disturb who?’
    He went crashing on through the undergrowth. The noise stopped.
    Eventually, she followed him.
    There was a clearing. The ground was level, covered in leaf mould and twigs. Paula smelled burning wood.
    They were a few yards away: four children, nine or ten years old down. Two girls, two boys. They were crouching or kneeling, and bending forwards to look into something from which a thin spiral of smoke was coiling.
    ‘What are they doing?’ She did not know why she whispered.
    ‘Whatever it is they shouldn’t be lighting fires in a wood,’ Adrian said. But he was whispering, too.
    ‘What have they got?’
    They went forward a pace.
    The children had started to half-sing, half-chant softly again. They had an old enamel bowl and a stick each; the bowl was balanced on a nest of twigs, which was alight and smoking feebly. Each child took a turn at stirring whatever was in the bowl, while the others watched; then another took over, on and on, stir and stir.
    Paula smiled.
    ‘Damn silly,’ Adrian said.
    ‘It’s hardly alight. The sticks will be quite damp. They’re OK.’
    Eventually, two of the children lifted the bowl and the oldest child banged on the sticks to extinguish the smouldering. They had a bucket and they poured a greenish liquid into it from the bowl. The two smaller children had lost interest and wandered away.
    ‘Great,’ Adrian turned to her, eyes bright. ‘Isn’t it? Great.’
    ‘But you said – ’
    ‘No, no. It wasn’t dangerous. There was hardly a spark. No, I meant it’s great for kids, playing out in the wild like this, making up their own games.’
    ‘Boy Scouts?’
    ‘No, not Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts are organised – by adults. This is all the kids themselves. I think it’s great. It’s what they should be doing. It’s why we’ve come here, Paula.’
    ‘We’re not kids.’
    But she could see he was impatient.
    The children had trailed away, two trying to carry the bucket between them.
    Adrian stretched, arms high, fingertips splayed out.
    ‘Don’t you think that’s what they ought to be doing? No dangerous roads, no mindless computer games, out in the fresh air.’
    ‘I was wondering why they aren’t at school.’
    Adrian was keen on proper schooling.
    ‘When we have our own . . . ’
    But they did not have their own.
    ‘It’ll be some holiday or other. Country holidays, you know. May Days and so forth.’
    ‘It’s the end of June.’
    He turned. ‘Why do you always have to pick me up when I say anything? Why do you have to pour cold water? You agreed we should move to the country. You wanted to move here.’
    Which was true.
    They hauled themselves back up the muddy path.
    She needed to think about it. Yes, she had agreed. Was that the same as wanting to? She wasn’t sure. She agreed to a lot of things.
    She thought of lying in bed, looking at the green leaves. Grey sky. Listening to the silence.
    ‘You’re not the one having to get a train at seven every morning, commute for over an hour, walk at both ends, rain or shine, leave in the dark, get home in the dark.’
    ‘Well, in winter.’
    ‘You’re not the one.’
    Was she the one who had wanted to move to the country? After a time they both had, but she couldn’t remember where it had begun.
    You are not the one left alone here in a cottage at the end of a lane in a hamlet without anything, without a shop, a pub, a school, a bus, a . . .
    Not that she needed the pub, school or bus.
    Knowing nobody.
    ‘You’ve always said you prefer your own company.’
    Had she?
    ‘Those kids,’ he said, taking her hand and swinging it as they went back