A Field Full of Folk by Iain Crichton Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

ever done for him? Except send him photographs of themselves.
    No, that couldn’t be right, she had a kind heart.
    â€œDo you know what I’m going to do?” she said and before he could stop her she was wearing his helmet. She was parading up and down in front of the mirror trying to make him laugh. His heart almost turned over with the pity of it, the terror of it, her face looked so young and yet so stern with its steel-framed glasses. Her appalling youth frightened him: for a moment there she had looked like an angel, an angel with glasses.
    â€œDo you like me in my helmet with my National Health glasses?” she said laughing.
    And he didn’t know how to answer her.
    Her youth and her clear bones affected him so much that he trembled.
    She laid the helmet down on the table and shook her hair out.
    â€œAh, well, maybe I’ll take it up to Mary Macarthur and she can wear it in bed.”
    She prepared to leave and he said, “I think I’ll repair the window today.”
    â€œYou do that. Keep it up. That’s the spirit.”
    And then she was away again in her small bubbly blue car on an errand of mercy to someone else. She waved to him like an officer from a staff car acknowledging his salute on a morning in France.
    The grey cat came and sat on his lap purring contentedly. Its green slanted eyes stared at him unwinkingly while he stroked it. Then he put it down on the floor and said, “Well, cat, I’ll have to do something about that window.” As he worked he saw Annie heading steadily east on her one mile walk which she took every day except Sunday, her staff in her hand. My God there’s a woman for you, he thought, there’s a woman for you. As she walked along she beat at the tops of the bushes with her stick and at one point when forced into the ditch by the driver of a racing car turned and waved it furiously and angrily.

8
    I N THE MIDDLE of the field little Hugh and Alisdair, guns at their sides, stared at each other. They had worked their way past the Indians and now their wagons were simmering in the sun.
    â€œYou go for your gun first,” said Hugh.
    â€œNo, you go first,” said Alisdair. “I’m the sheriff. The sheriff isn’t s’posed to go first.”
    â€œThe sheriff is,” said Hugh. There was a wasp humming past his ear and disturbing him. He flicked at it with his hand, keeping his face stern and steady. The wasp zoomed and planed away.
    â€œIt’s not the sheriff goes first,” Alisdair insisted.
    â€œRight,” said Hugh. “I’ll count up to ten and we both go.” And he began to count. “One, two, three,” and the wasp returned. Four, five, and he swiped at it again. Bloody wasp, he heard a phantom voice say. Six, seven, and his face tightened. He could feel it tighten. Eight, nine, ten, and he went for his gun, and he saw Alisdair going for his gun and the two of them were staring at each other and Alisdair was shouting, “I beat you, I beat you.”
    â€œBloody wasp,” he heard the voice again. No, Alisdair hadn’t beaten him. He was stunned by the drench of sun around him, he wanted to run, to dance. “I’ve got better sandals than you,” he shouted. And the larks trilled around him and the bushes flamed with red.
    â€œNo, you haven’t, you haven’t,” shouted Alisdair. The wasp had cleared off to wherever wasps went. He should have killed it.
    â€œSee,” said Hugh and he was bending down and holding a ring in his hand. They stared at it in fascination.
    Alisdair tried to take it and Hugh said, “It’s mine, it’s mine, I found it.” He put it in his pocket.
    They went and looked at the calf which was feeding in the green, damp grass.
    It raised its head and mooed softly.
    They saw Mrs Berry coming down with a pail and later the calf burying its hard bony head in the mash. It boxed at the pail, butting at it with its