Judith Allnatt - The Moon Field

The girl returned with four tankards on a tray and Haycock suggested that they ‘down them in one’ so she stayed for the empties, standing with arms folded and wearing an amused expression. Rooke put George’s tankard in his hand, folding his fingers around the handle and ribbing him a little. Haycock counted them in, ‘One, two, three …’ and they lifted their elbows as one and threw their heads back.

With the first few swallows, George knew that this was a step too far. A horrible gurgling started up in his stomach and he set his glass down and put his head in his hands, trying to still the sensation that the room had begun to spin and that his stool was at the centre of the turning and seemed to be trying to buck him off. He heard the boys thump down the tankards and burst into a cheer at the same time as he felt the girl’s hand on his back; he smelt a mixture of sweat and face powder as she bent over him.

‘Not feeling too good?’ she said in his ear. ‘You come along with me.’

George was afraid to move or even look up, convinced that he would disgrace himself by either falling over or being sick.

‘Come on now, gently does it.’ She slipped her arm under his so that his whole forearm was supported. Once on his feet, she gripped his hand and he stumbled beside her, aware of a shout of, ‘Steady, Farrell!’ and the sound of his fellow drinkers drumming their fists on the table ever louder and faster. The girl ignored them and led him to the passageway that took them to the back door.

Outside, the air felt cool: his shirt and waistcoat were chill and damp with sweat. His upper lip prickled and his legs wanted to buckle beneath him as they walked into the yard. ‘Here,’ she said, pushing him towards the privy. ‘In there.’

He went in and pulled the door shut behind him. The smell of piss rising from the hole in the wooden bench seat of the closet was the final straw. He barely had time to sink to his knees and brace himself against the plank before he threw up what felt like everything he had drunk or eaten that day. Eventually, he rested his forehead on his arm, exhausted. It was wholly dark in the privy. George couldn’t abide dark, close places. Ever since his father had taken him, as a child, on an adventure down into the mine where he worked George had feared small spaces: the suffocating sense of enclosure, the tomb-like dark and the stale air pressing in on him. The tunnels, narrowing as they had gone further into the mine, were a source of wonder and admiration to his father, but they had terrified him. Their lowering roofs made his father stoop, casting a crooked shadow that stretched and shrank on the wet rock as he shuffled along in the nodding light of his lamp. Ahead and behind, the darkness was solid, as if they were moving through black treacle that parted for a moment before them only to ooze back behind them as they passed. He had known, even at seven years old, that he could never work in such a place, exiled from the sun and rain and wind, had felt that the earth and rock around him and the weight of the mountain above were pressing on his chest and stealing away his breath.

George stayed very still, waiting to feel a little better before attempting to stand up. Outside, there was a rustling noise, a shuffling against the wall, as if someone was trying to squeeze between it and the bushes. He thought of the bike, hidden behind the laurels, and hoped it was safe, but he hadn’t the strength to do anything about it. After a while, he took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth with a wobbling hand. He realised that he was kneeling on an earth floor. He levered himself up, steadied himself against the bench seat and tried to dust down the knees of his uniform trousers. Having got himself upright, shakily he felt for the door latch, lifted it and went outside.

The girl was leaning against the wall of the privy, her hands behind her back. George felt a sharp stab of embarrassment to think she had been there all the time. ‘You needn’t have waited,’ he said. ‘I was perfectly all right.’ Then he thought that he had sounded ungrateful and added, ‘Thanks for bringing me out.’ He stuffed the handkerchief in his pocket.

‘You still look pretty poorly,’ the girl said, peering at him. ‘You should stay in the fresh air a bit.’ She took hold of his sleeve and moved along the wall, drawing him beside her. ‘That’s right, breathe it in.’ George drew in a breath that smelt of damp leaves, the pitch on the privy roof and a faint tang of tobacco as though someone had ground out a cigarette butt nearby.

She took his hand and began to rub it between hers, at first as if to bring life back into his fingers but then she put her thumb in his palm and moved it in a circle, pressing it into the concavity of his hand. George felt a hot current run through him, a disturbing reflex reaction, as though his body recognised an urgent message that his mind was too slow to decipher. His fingers closed around her hand. In a sudden movement, she swung herself round to face him and her arms reached up to entwine his neck as she leant the whole length of her body against him. The soft, yielding feeling of her body beneath her light clothes undid him. He put his arms around her and bent to kiss her but she turned her head away, instead nuzzling her face into his neck, kissing and licking. She took his hand and guided it to her breast, slipping it between the sticky cotton of her blouse and the warm heaviness beneath which George cupped, trembling, his head spinning, his body taking over. She pressed against him, moaning softly and he felt suddenly afraid, unable to stop himself, and thought that this was what she wanted him to feel. She was taking his hand again, pulling up her skirt. Oh God, he could feel the clip of her suspender beneath her petticoat. She was moving his hand up and down over the silky material, over her thigh and up to her buttock …

Suddenly a blinding light was in his eyes, so bright that at first they both turned their heads away.

‘Well, what’s going on here then?’ a man’s voice said, dropping the torch beam a little and running it over the girl’s open buttons and the curve of her breast. George, blinking in the light, couldn’t understand why she didn’t move away, didn’t cover herself. In his shock, George had the bizarre notion that they were caught in some music-hall tableau of static nudity, where the slightest movement would bring down the force of the law. Then, as if a moment of posing for a photograph were over, she pulled away and began expertly restoring her clothes to order.

‘That’ll be five shillings,’ she said matter-of-factly.

‘I’m sorry?’ George said, not understanding.

‘Five shillings,’ she said slowly as though explaining to an idiot. ‘You’ve had your pleasure, now pay up, there’s a good boy.’

‘But I didn’t ask …’ George started. ‘You …’ The sudden change of circumstances left him floundering. He couldn’t grasp what was happening or quite believe what was being requested of him. He felt weak and pressed his head back against the wall as if its cool solidity could give his mind focus. He started to tuck his shirt in and then stopped, feeling ashamed.

‘Come on, pay up,’ said the man, and this time George raised his head as he recognised the voice of the chap who had sat in the corner with the newspaper earlier in the evening; he squinted against the light, trying to see him. In an instant the torch was thrown down – he heard it hit the gravelly ground with a crunch – and the man was on him, slamming his head back against the wall and punching his fist into his gut. George doubled over, retching, a dry acidic heaving from the depths of his empty stomach. He sank down against the wall and slid to his knees, winded, unable even to shield himself against the man’s boot as it met his ribs and tipped him on to his side. He lay groaning, his eyes scrunched up in pain. He felt, rather than saw, the girl bending over him and then, with her small fat fingers, quickly feeling into his jacket pockets, pulling all their contents out on to the ground and picking through them. He heard a heavy and a lighter tread as both of them walked away.