The Wall by William Sutcliffe

Author:William Sutcliffe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-02-21T05:00:00+00:00

On Fridays, school is only a half-day. Friday afternoons are the time for sport and games and visiting friends, but not for me. Not any more. Every week, now, I hurry straight to the olive grove. After school on Monday or Tuesday I sometimes sneak out there, too, just to do an hour or so of work and put on a little extra water.

From the bottom of the understairs cupboard, I have dug out and taken Liev’s winter gloves, which are made of brown leather. I’ve never actually seen him wear them, so it’s unlikely they’ll be missed. They feel big on my hands, with floppy ends at the tip of each finger, as if I need one more joint to fill them, but they’re perfect for pulling out weeds and taking on thorn bushes.

Watering the trees of the lower and middle terraces is now just the start. It’s laborious and surprisingly tiring to fill and carry the heavy bucket so many times, but once I work out a good system, with half a bucket for each tree, I can get this done reasonably fast. After emptying the pool I don’t rest, but pull on my gloves and set to work at restoring the ground of the middle terrace to look as neat and clear as the one below.

The weed that has the firmest hold is a bush with thorns as long as matchsticks. It’s impossible to touch them without gloves, and even with them you have to grip carefully, laying the thorns flat to avoid drawing blood. The tallest bushes reach my thigh and take hours to hack out of the dense, dry soil.

Today, Friday 2 June, I’m almost skipping with excitement as I hurry towards the grove. It’s the first Friday of the month, the day Leila’s father gets his pass. This is only my fifth visit to the grove, but I’ve already transformed the middle terrace, restoring it to something approaching the condition of the one below, spending more time there in three weeks than Leila’s father would be allowed in several months. And today, he’ll see for the first time what I’ve done.

As soon as I’m outside Amarias I toss aside the tennis racket I carry as a cover story and hurry on, wondering if Leila’s father has been expecting me to keep my word, wondering if he’s on his way at this moment, perhaps in line at the checkpoint, anticipating thirsty trees and cracked, dry soil. Or perhaps he could be there already, staring open-mouthed at his watered, weeded terraces.

It seems unlikely that he’d have much faith in me or my promise. Even in his most optimistic moments, he surely never hoped for anything like what he’ll find today, when he arrives and sees all the work I’ve done on his fields. My heart twinkles and aches with pride as I try to imagine his reaction.

A darker, mirroring pleasure glows inside me at the thought that Liev will never know, and how angry he’d be if he did.

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