he ran away.
He picked apples on a cider farm, and then he picked raspberries. The other pickers were Poles, mostly students, flown in by a contractor of labour, jolly young people determined to have a good time in spite of the long hours they had to work. Ben was silent and watchful, on his guard. There were caravans to sleep in, but he hated that closeness, and the bad air, and when he had finished eating with them, at night, listening to their songs and their jokes and their laughter, he took a sleeping bag into a wood.
When the picking was finished he had a good bit of money, and he was happy, because he knew that it was having no money that made him helpless. One of the singing and joking young people stole his money from his jacket that was hanging above him on a bush where he lay asleep. Ben made himself go back to the farm, thinking of all that money in the drawer, and half of it belonging to him, but the house was locked, the animals were gone, and there were already nettles growing close up around the house. He did not care about Matthew, who had scarcely spoken to him except for unkind remarks such as when the old dog died – ‘We don’t need another dog, we’ve got Ben.’
He went home to find his mother but she had moved again. He had to use his wits to find where she was. A house, but nothing like the one he thought of as home. He could not make himself go in, because he saw Paul there, and the rage that was his enemy nearly overcame him.
So he took the old, old road to London, rich London, where surely there must be a little something for him too. There he did find work, was cheated again, lost heart, and Ellen Briggs found him starving in a supermarket.
On the dark pavement outside Mimosa House there seemed to be no one about, but Ben knew how at night a shadow could lengthen and become an enemy, and, turning a corner, he nearly ran into a drunk who was lurching about and swearing and muttering. Ben swerved past and ran across empty streets, not bothering about lights. Not until he reached Richmond did he begin using the crossings, telling himself, Go on green, Stop on red. There were people about now, quite a lot. On he went, following instincts that worked well if he didn’t confuse them with maps and directions, and then he was in a high street and he was hungry. He went into a cafe that said ‘Breakfast All Day’, and, as always in a new place, looked hard at faces for that surprised stare that might turn out to be dangerous. But it was too early for people to be noticing much. He was careful to eat his breakfast slowly and attentively, and left the cafe feeling pleased with himself. Off he went again, and by midday was crossing fields with the sun spreading warmth everywhere. Then he was in a wood. A thrush was riffling about in last year’s leaves. He caught it easily, had its feathers off, and ate it in a couple of crunches. The mate came to investigate. The two birds and their hot blood stayed a craving that was always with him and then he went on, fast, though not running because he knew that brought people after him. In a service station he bought a bottle of water and came out of the shop to see a motorbike roaring to a stop. Ben went to it, pulled by his love for the shining, bright, powerful machine. He stood grinning – his little smile of pleasure. The youth on the machine suppressed any doubts he might have had about this odd-looking bearded man, because he recognized a compatriot in his country, a lover like himself, and he said, ‘Watch it a minute,’ and went into the shop. When he came out Ben was stroking the handlebars, with a look on his face that compelled this young man who normally would let no one so much as touch his machine, to say, ‘Get on, then.’ And Ben leaped up and off they went.
‘Where are you going?’
‘This way,’ Ben shouted into the wind.
The great machine growled and roared and bounded along, they were whisking through the traffic, and Ben was roaring too: it sounded like a song, a shout of triumph, and the youth driving, hearing all this exultation just behind him, laughed and yelled too, and then began singing a real song, which Ben did not know, though he joined in.
Now there was a little town. There the motorbike turned sharply left, and in a moment had left streets behind for country, but Ben was shouting, ‘Put me down, I’m going wrong.’
The youth yelled, ‘Why didn’t you say?’ and turned the machine in a dangerous swoop in front of cars and lorries, and they sped back to the town centre. ‘Here?’ yelled the youth, and Ben shouted, ‘Yes.’
He was on the pavement in the middle of the town, and the bike was speeding away, and the youth was giving him the thumbs-up.
Ben set his face to where he knew he must go and walked on, thinking of the motorbike, and his teeth were showing white in his beard, from happiness. They had covered a good distance. Ben would reach where he would have to be hours before he had thought; and in fact he was walking into the road he knew so well by mid-afternoon. There was the house, the big wonderful house, with the garden all around it and there… He was looking at windows that had bars on them, and at once a cold but vigorous anger was taking hold of him. Bars: the bars had been for him. He had stood up there shaking those bars with both of his strong fists, and they had not given way at all; only where the bars were set into the walls were bits of paint flaking from all his shaking, showing how little use his strength was. But the anger he felt now was being driven away by a stronger need, pulling him towards the house. His mother, he wanted to see his mother. Because of the kindness of that old lady, he had remembered that other kindness, and understood that that was what it had been: she, like the old lady, had not hurt him, she had come to rescue him from that place… And out of the front door came small children, running. He did not know them, and thought, Of course, they’ve moved. His mother wouldn’t be here now. He turned away from the house, his home, and began walking this way and that through the streets, like a dog nosing for a scent, but it was not a scent he was after; he had actually seen the other house, the one the family had moved to… but wait, there had been another house, after that, and it was the address of that house his mother had put on the big card. It was that house he was moving towards, but it was not what he needed. He had never been to the house where they lived now. He had no way of finding it: he did not have in his mind a pattern of streets, smells, bushes, gates. What now? A desperation like a howl made his chest hurt, and then he thought, Wait, the park, that’s where she’ll be. And he went to the little park where he had played so often with his brothers and sisters. Or rather, where he had watched them play, because they complained he was rough. When he played it had been by himself, or with his mother.
There was a bench he knew well. His mother loved that park, and that bench, and she would sometimes sit there all afternoon. But the bench was empty. Ben understood one thing, that if he walked about a place for too long people would start noticing him. He did walk about for as long as he dared, glancing into people’s faces for ‘the look’, and then sat on a bench from where he could see the bench, which he thought of as his mother’s. He waited. He was hungry again. He left the park to find the little cafe he had used with his gang of mates, the gang he had bossed and led, but the cafe had gone. He bought a meat sandwich from a machine, and returned to the park, and there he saw her, he saw his mother, sitting with a book in her hand. Her shadow lay across grass almost to where he stood. He was repeating in his mind all the things he must ask her, her new address, his exact age, his birth date, did she have his birth certificate? A loving happiness was filling him like sunlight, and then, ready with his questions, ready to greet her, he saw coming towards her across the park grass – Paul; it was Paul, the brother he had hated so terribly that thoughts of killing him once and for ever had filled hours of his childhood. There he was, a tall, rather weedy young man, with long arms and bony hands, and his eyes – but Ben knew those eyes without having to see them: large, hazy blue eyes. Paul was smiling at his mother. She patted the bench beside her and Paul sat down, and the mother took Paul’s hand and held it. A rage so terrible that Ben’s eyes darkened and seemed to bleed was shaking him. He wanted to push him down and… There was one thing he knew, and he knew it very well, because of so many bad things… There were certain feelings he had that were not allowed. Until this rage, this hate, left him alone he could not go anywhere near his mother, near his brother, Paul. But the feelings were getting worse, he could hardly breathe, and through a red glare he watched his mother and that tormentor, that impostor who had always stood between him and his mother, get up