‘Granny Barcussy’s money?’ Freddie’s eyes stung with the threat of tears.

‘Ah. Granny Barcussy’s money.’

Freddie stood up. Even the soles of his feet burned with anger. But I won’t be like Dad, he thought. I won’t lose my temper. I won’t. I will not. His face went hard with the effort, hard as glass, and his fists ached in his pockets. He looked at Levi who was sitting with his back against the apple tree, his hands idly collecting petals from the fallen blossom, scooping them into his palm and blowing them playfully at Annie.

He’s got no idea what I want, Freddie thought. I’ll have to tell him, somehow.

And then he saw her. Granny Barcussy. Floating like steam, and radiant as sunlight, in the air next to Levi. She wore a robe that glistened with the colours she’d loved, he could smell the honeysuckle and lavender she had grown, and sense the warmth of her. She didn’t look haggard and old now, her skin was smooth and her eyes full of life and compassion. She looked directly at Freddie and her smile melted his anger. It was the same mischievous smile she’d always had, and now she held a finger to her lips and shook her head. He heard her voice.

‘Don’t tell him,’ she said. ‘Not now. You keep the peace.’

She disappeared gently, like salt dissolving in water, and Freddie became aware that Annie was looking at him with an alarmed expression on her face. He wasn’t allowed to tell her, but she knew, Freddie was sure. The hours of eye contact he’d had with his mother on those long difficult walks, the way their souls had been linked by her panic, as if he was her anchor forever chained to her, and she was his lifeboat, safe, but blotting out the light.

‘I’ll talk to him,’ she said to Levi. ‘He just needs time to think about it.’

‘Aye. ’Tis a big thing. For a lad,’ Levi nodded, struggled to his feet and brushed the apple blossom from his trousers. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

Freddie sat down again, close to his mother’s bottle-green dress and the white apron she wore so proudly. They were better dressed since the war had ended. He had a new shirt and shorts, socks without darns and new brown boots, a warm jacket and a cap.

‘Did Harry Price like the queen wasp?’ asked Annie.

‘No.’

‘More fool him,’ said Annie. ‘The old misery. Well, now you can wave him goodbye. You can go to a new school in town. They’ve got four teachers there, and one of them is a lady. A Miss Francis. She takes the top class, and they say she’s very nice, and clever.’

‘But Mother – I don’t want to be a baker. I want to make aeroplanes.’

‘I know.’ Annie put her arm round Freddie. He was twelve now, tall for his age, his white blond hair had darkened a little. She looked at his long fingers. ‘You’ve got hands like your dad. Do you know what he wanted to do when he was young?’

‘What?’

‘He wanted to be a jeweller.’

‘A jeweller?’ Freddie stared at her in surprise. ‘Why wasn’t he, then? What stopped him?’

‘His hands were too big. He couldn’t do the delicate work, so he had to give up his dream. Just as I had to give up my dream.’

‘Your dream? You had a dream? What was it?’

‘I wanted to be florist – to grow flowers and make them up into bouquets and wreaths. I was good at it. But then the family came along, needed me to do the washing and the baking and the scrubbing and the nursing, and then the war came. We’ve all had to make do, and do things we don’t want, Freddie. And you will too. This bakery idea, it’s perfect for your father. He won’t have to go out in the cold and the wet with his arthritis, he can work at home in a warm dry bakery. It’s perfect. We’ve gotta help him, Freddie. Give it a chance.’

Freddie sighed.

‘But all my life I’ve been doing things I don’t want to do.’

‘I know,’ said Annie kindly. ‘But your turn will come. You’ll see.’

‘It hasn’t so far.’

Freddie looked gloomily at his mother. Her grey curly hair was scattered with apple blossom petals, her red cheeks shining with excitement. The hope in her dark blue eyes was underlaid with layers and layers of old fear and old pain going deep into the distances of her soul, and right at the far end was a little child full of love who only wanted to pick flowers. He felt sorry for her.

‘You’ve had a hard life,’ he said.

She nodded slowly. ‘But the hardest thing,’ she said, ‘is my fear, Freddie. Night and day it’s with me. I’m a strong woman, got to be, but that fear is stronger than me. It’s like an illness, but it’s invisible. No one knows, Freddie, only you. No one knows what I go through.’

‘Isn’t there a medicine for it?’ Freddie asked.

Annie shook her head vigorously. ‘Even if there was, I daren’t tell the doctor, daren’t ask for it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because – he’ll think I’m mad, and they lock you up, in these terrible places. Asylums, they call them. I’m not going to one of those, ever. I’d rather be dead,’ she said fiercely, wagging her finger at Freddie. ‘And don’t you let them take me.’

‘’Course I won’t. I’ll take care of you,’ said Freddie, now feeling the weight of the shadow that hung over his shoulders, darker and denser as he thought about what was to come. A shadow over his dreams. Instead of making aeroplanes he was expected to be a baker and he couldn’t bear the thought of standing there making bread, shut away from the world. Instead of marrying a brave bright girl, like the girl on the horse, he’d have to be his mother’s guardian. For how long?

People kept telling him the war had been fought, and all those soldiers had given their lives, so that he, Frederick Barcussy, could be free. But he wasn’t free. He wondered if God had got it wrong.

He undid his school satchel and took out a piece of paper which he unrolled and showed to his mother.

‘We had to copy this poem,’ he said. ‘It’s a long poem but we’ve got to learn this verse of it by heart and say it to Mr Price. Shall I read it to you?’

‘Yes please. You know I like poetry.’

Annie sat back to listen. She loved to hear Freddie read.

‘This is another William,’ he said. ‘William Wordsworth.’

‘Oh – Daffodils?’

‘No. This is different. Listen.’

Freddie spread the paper out and began to read, the words falling like the apple blossom petals into Annie’s troubled mind. But as he read on, he got tense and emotional, hardly able to read at all.

‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star

Hath had elsewhere its setting

And cometh from afar;

Not in entire forge fulness

And not in utter nakedness

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing boy . . .’

Freddie stopped, unable to continue.

‘That’s it then. Isn’t it? Shades of the prison-house – that’s my life – and yours.’

Chapter Seven

THE GOLDEN BIRD

The young girl with the red ribbon in her hair carried the billycan of fresh milk out through the gates where the two stone lions watched her pass below in the September sunlight. She crossed the road and walked up the village street until she came to another stone gateway, two pillars with a coat of arms carved on each and painted in blue, black and gold. Inside the gates a magnificent avenue of copper beeches led to Hilbegut Court, residence of the Squire of Hilbegut.

Built from Bath stone, with turrets and minarets between the tall golden chimneys, it was an ornate and imposing place. Although fully occupied by the Squire and his servants, it still seemed to belong to the hordes of jackdaws who nested in the complex chimneys and cubbyholes of the roof. At dusk, the blue-eyed birds performed a spectacular ritual of formation flying, swooping to roost and covering the entire roof with their fluttering black bodies. Today they knew, by the arrival of the girl with the billycan, that it was nine o’clock in the morning, and just before the clock tower reverberated with its nine chimes, they flew down and strutted around the lawns.