Free Out of Time by Ruth Boswell Page B

took their turn keeping watch at night, with the exception of Joe and Otto, the latter spared most physical activity. Joe had offered, although he had no idea what to watch for. He hoped that they might tell him. They turned him down without thanks, excluding him from an activity they clearly considered important. He felt it keenly.
    His sense of isolation grew, greater now than during his solitary period in the cave. There he had been his own man, here he was merely tolerated, an outsider in a close and tightly knit community.
    Joe longed for home with a with a painful ache in his heart.

Chapter Five

    S U S I E is still in her cell but her circumstances have changed. Her food has improved, small extra morsels appear on her plate. She looks forward keenly to her meals. Then one day her guard points at the slop bucket and motions Susie to follow. Susie can scarcely lift the overflowing bucket but manages to take it as far as a small room of overwhelming stench. She almost passes out. She lifts a wooden lid and empties the contents into the foetid hole below.
    She is led to a small paved patch. It is not closed in. There is sky, there is light. It is blissful. The guard, expressionless, hands Susie a skipping rope. Susie skips though she is weak and cannot skip for long. But the routine is repeated daily. She is allowed to empty the slop bucket and then to skip. Her strength improves.
    She never sees another person but the tapping through the wall has continued. She makes up what she cannot understand and imagines the other prisoner is a child, older than herself. She does not know for certain.
    *
    The days grew shorter. Sheds were repaired, roofs checked for leaks and loose tiles, more logs cut and piled against the house. Making good took up most of the time. Joe felt as if they were preparing for a siege; which indeed they were.
    The trees shed their leaves. One morning sheets of rain battered at Joe’s window. Struggling into his clothes in the cold room he went downstairs, to find Otto in the kitchen, twigs and tinder box in hand, before an unlit stove.
    ‘Doesn’t Randolph usually do that?’
    ‘He won’t be here today.’
    ‘Where has he gone?’
    Otto looked stricken but said nothing.
    Kathryn was sometimes ahead of him at the farm. Forced to work together over the long weeks he had been at the Manor, they had arrived at an uneasy truce. While she tolerated him, he had grudgingly learned to respect her resourcefulness and skill. Her close relationship with the animals, closer than with the humans with the possible exception of Belinda, intrigued him. He imagined it hid other, deeper entanglements.
    A cacophony of noise met him. Hungry beasts stood impatiently at gates. No need to look for Kathryn. Clearly, like Randolph, she had gone elsewhere. Nor was there any sign of Belinda or Meredith. He was alone.
    It was not a day to linger. He fed the animals, milked the cows, cleaned the stables and dealt with essential jobs; little else was possible in the deluge of rain that seeped through his clothes, trickled into his boots and ran down his neck. He returned to the house wet and cold.
    He again asked Otto where the others had gone but knew it was a waste of time. These people only answered questions if and when it suited them and stopped their conversations at his approach. He had been worked hard and now felt they owed him some trust and loyalty. But no matter what he did or how conciliatory he appeared, they regarded him with the same wary suspicion as the day he walked in. Joe wondered for the hundredth time if he should leave and for the hundredth time was met by the same impenetrable barrier. There was nowhere to go. Helplessness and frustration brought the blood pounding into his head. His Furies were once again in command. He kicked hard at a wall. It hurt his foot but altered nothing. What was, was. Randolph, Meredith, Belinda and Kathryn had left farm and house without prior warning and for all he knew they