Solace of the Road by Siobhan Dowd

Author:Siobhan Dowd [Dowd, Siobhan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-375-89365-0
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2009-02-06T17:00:00+00:00

Twenty-four

Emmy-Lou of Eynsham Lock

You can’t run for ever and soon I slowed. The morning silence was thick like soup. The houses stopped, then the pavement. There was only a bumpy, grassy verge. My ankles got a dew shower every step. Instead of gardens and buildings there were fields and pylons and trees and more green than I’d ever seen. There were yellow and blue flowers. There were bird coos and rustles and the smell of leaves.

And the road kept on going. More houses, then long grass, and a field with sheep.

It was open country, nearly as pretty as Ireland, and I could breathe. Was I glad I hadn’t jumped off that bridge, even if my belly felt like somebody was strangling it and I was raging with thirst, and even if I wanted to murder the birds on account of they wouldn’t shut up. But the morning was cool and alive and calm and my feet just kept walking without me telling them to. I imagined Mam on a hill, waiting, watching me get closer every step.

I put two or three miles under me. Three cars and one truck rumbled by but there was no sign of the police. Maybe I’d panicked for no reason. I hadn’t said my name. But I’d said Templeton House. They’d check it out and soon put two and two together, bound to …

My eyes teared up but I kept walking.

Then ahead, the road went over a little bridge with an empty toll-booth. I crossed halfway and there was a blue-green sparkle either side, a river, thin and quiet. I thought of Miko crossing the Thames, heading north, miles away, in a whole other world. Then I saw a path by the water’s edge and long narrow boats parked.

River water in a city is filthy, but out here I reckoned you could drink it. I stepped off the bridge and down some steps to the bank and along by the boats, trying to find a spot to lean over and scoop up a palmful.

There was a building and a wall with water pouring over it. I didn’t know what the place was, but I found a spot to splash my face. The water was dark and probably full of fly eggs but I took a mouthful. It tasted like slop from a bucket when you’ve just washed a floor and I nearly threw up. There was a bench and I flopped down.

I saw a curl of smoke coming from one of those funny long boats and frowned.

Whoever heard of a fire on a wooden boat?

Then I heard Trim cackling at me in my head. You can have a fire on a boat. They had them in the Titanic down in the engine room, right?

Yeah, I mentally answered him. And look what happened. It sank.

Yeah, but that wasn’t fire. That was an iceberg.

But these boats are tiny. Nothing like the Titanic. And they’re made of wood. One spark and they’d be finished.

I stretched out along the bench, yawning.

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