Josephine Cox - Born Bad

After rummaging about in that big old tree, they found remnants of Harry’s childhood. Amazingly, the main plank which had forged the base of their den was still virtually intact. ‘Lift me up, Daddy!’ Tom was beside himself with excitement.

Warning him to stay very still, because of the rotting wood, Harry lifted him up to stand on the plank, and when the boy looked down on what had been Harry’s kingdom, Harry felt deeply nostalgic. He could see himself up there, not much older than Tom was now, being master of all he surveyed.

The most surprising find of all, was when Harry lifted his boy down. He was not consciously thinking of it, so it must have been a deeper instinct that brought his gaze to the widest girth of the trunk.

‘Good Lord!’ His heart soared in his chest when he saw the outline of two entwined shapes deeply engraved in the timber.

‘What is it, Daddy?’ Tom wanted to know.

Seeming not to have heard, Harry went forward, with Tom right behind, and there, crudely carved within the two entwined hearts, so faint he could hardly read it, were the names of Harry and Judy .

An unexpected storm of emotion flooded Harry’s being; for a moment he had to turn away, so Tom would not see.

‘Daddy, show me! Show me, Daddy!’

Taking a deep breath to compose himself, Harry snatched the boy into his arms and strode away. ‘It’s nothing … just some old carvings, that’s all.’ But it wasn’t all. It was wonderful, and shocking, and the strongest reminder yet, of how it had been between him and Judy.

He remembered it now, as if it was yesterday.

It was the summer after Judy’s family had moved into the street, when they were just childhood friends, riding their old bikes around the countryside, coming here and making their mark on the world.

As they hurried away from that place, Harry could hear his son chatting about the tree and the stream, telling his dad how he wanted to come back again. Harry had nothing to say. He was being drawn back into another world, one from which he had flown long ago.

Having paddled back to the other side, Harry tried desperately to shut the images out of his mind. ‘Hungry now, are you?’ he asked Tom.

‘Starving!’

‘Right.’ They dried their feet on their socks, then put their shoes back on, and Harry unwrapped the food.

‘There you go, son. Time to tuck in.’ He handed the boy his bread roll, relieved that Tom had got back his appetite. ‘Good, is it?’ These past few weeks, neither of them had felt much like eating.

With his mouth full, Tom nodded.

‘I didn’t realise how hungry I was,’ Harry commented, tearing off another chunk of his bread roll. ‘When we’ve finished, we’ll get back on the road.’ He swallowed the last bite. ‘There’s a box of tissues in the back of the car. We can finish drying our feet on them.’

The boy looked up. ‘Daddy?’ he asked.

Harry didn’t hear. He was thinking of that carving, and Judy. Then he was thinking how much Sara would have loved this beautiful place.

‘ Daddy! ’ Tom repeated, more loudly this time.

Startled, Harry turned, his glance softening as he gazed down on that small, innocent face, ‘Sorry, son. I was miles away.’

‘What town is that?’ The lad pointed across the bank, towards the swathe of houses.

‘It isn’t a town, son. It’s a village – name of Heath and Reach.’ This whole area had been his stamping ground. ‘The nearest town is Leighton Buzzard,’ he pointed towards the curve of the canal, ‘about four miles in that direction.’

‘Leighton Buzzard? That’s a funny name. So, is that where we’re going?’

‘Nope.’ Harry shook his head.

‘Where are we going then?’

Again, Harry turned away, his mind filled with things belonging to the past. Things that had never really left him.

The boy tugged on Harry’s sleeve. ‘I’m tired.’

Smiling patiently, Harry slid an arm round his narrow shoulders. ‘I know,’ he conceded. ‘It’s been a long journey, but we’re not far off now.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Oh, Tom, I already told you three times on the way here. We’re going to a place called Fisher’s Hill. The place where I grew up.’

‘Oh yes.’ The boy dropped his quiet gaze to the water’s edge. He didn’t want to go somewhere strange. He wanted to go back to his own house. He wanted his mammy, and the garden where he played at soldiers behind the trees.

But it was gone now. All gone, and the child’s heart was heavy.

‘Will I like it in our new place, Daddy?’ he asked tearfully.

‘I hope so, son.’ Harry was anxious, for both of them. ‘Yes, I believe you will like it. I know you’ll like Kathleen. She’s a lovely person. When I was growing up and something really bad happened, Kathleen was very good to me.’

‘Was that when your mammy and daddy got burned?’

Shocked, Harry swung round. ‘Tom! Who told you that?’

‘I heard you talking with Mammy,’ Tom answered candidly.

‘Oh, I see.’ In an odd way, Harry was strangely relieved, though he wondered how a small boy could have remembered something like that.

‘Mammy asked you to promise you would go back, and you said you didn’t want to, because you had those bad memories.’

‘That’s right, son. I did say that.’ He was sorry that Tom had been living with those thoughts, and then felt the need to clarify something. ‘Can you remember anything else – apart from the bit about the bad memories?’ he asked.

Tom shrugged his shoulders, but gave no answer.

‘Well, when I told Mammy that I didn’t want to go back to where I grew up, she reminded me that I shouldn’t just remember the bad memories, because there were good memories as well. Memories of love, and friendship, and of that kind lady called Kathleen, who took me in after I lost my parents. That’s really why Mammy wanted us to go back.’

‘Because she was going away, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes, son,’ Harry said in a choked voice, ‘because she was going away, and she did not want us to be without friends.’

Tom considered that, before, with the innocence of a child, he asked, ‘Will Kathleen really like me?’

Harry smiled at that. ‘Of course she’ll like you. She won’t be able to help herself.’

There followed a brief span of silence while each of them took stock of the situation, ‘Daddy?’

‘Yes, son?’

‘Kathleen won’t pretend to be my real mammy, will she?’

‘No. She would never do that.’

‘I wish Mammy could be with us.’

‘I know, son.’ Harry’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘But she can’t. I’m sorry, Tom, but we have to get used to that.’

‘I miss her.’ The tears threatened.

‘I know you do, and so do I.’ He drew the boy close. ‘If there was any other way, you know I would make it right. But I can’t, so from now on, it’s just the two of us.’

‘Will Mammy be all right without us?’

‘Don’t worry. She’ll be fine.’

‘Is she with the angels?’

‘I imagine so. Yes, that’s where she is … with the angels.’

The boy’s next question shook Harry to the roots, for it echoed his own deepest fears. ‘We’ll never see her again, will we? Not ever.’

For the moment, Harry could not bring himself to answer. The truth was, he still had not come to terms with her loss.

He looked down on that small, bewildered face, and he felt helpless. ‘We have no way of knowing if we’ll ever see her again, Tom,’ he answered quietly. ‘But even if we can’t see her, I bet she can see us. Wherever we go, she’ll be keeping an eye on us; wanting us to be strong, wanting us to look after each other.’