If You Go Away by Adele Parks

Author:Adele Parks [Parks, Adele]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2015-06-03T14:00:00+00:00

28

OH GOD, HOW he’d missed it. It was almost painful to look at, in all its glorious perfection. How could he have ever found the village dull? The land flat? This life boring? Now he worshipped every inch. Clean, good land that sprouted crops, not corpses. Children playing, running and squabbling in the streets. Bootless and grubby but smiling and natural, not twisted, haunted. He noticed everything as though for the first time. Sparkling drops of dew like necklaces on young, smooth skin. Lettuces were strangely beautiful: greens and yellows, blossoming and swelling at the same time; they put him in mind of the rosettes given out at the country fair. He breathed in deeply. No stench of burning skin, blood or bombs. No hint of the acidic tang of decay. The air was beyond fresh, it was raw, as was his head. Noise unsettled him. Crowds and shouting made him wary. Birds singing, cows mooing, sheep bleating, however, there was nothing to cause alarm there.

Largely he was alone, and he liked it. He wasn’t sure if Vivian Owens had assigned him to the furthest fields from the village out of spite or consideration. He often had to walk five or six miles before he could begin work, but at least then he was left to it. It was true that whilst he was buoyant about being back in Blackwell, not many of the villagers were pleased to see him. Besides his brother, six of their boys were dead already, and two left with no legs. Of course they hated him, with his principles, limbs and life. He inadvertently taunted the grieving mothers and fathers, the wives and children. His strength and vitality were torture to many, so he didn’t assume people would want to pass the time of day with him in the street or the store, he didn’t expect to get served in the pub and he got used to the children interrupting their games to throw stones or dried manure at him.

Today she’d sent word via his mother that she’d like him to walk around the boundaries, patching up the fences where he could, identifying the gaping gaps that really demanded the highly coveted wood and expensive wire. Some might think it humiliating that he received his orders from a woman and via his mother, like a schoolboy earning a penny or two for doing odd jobs, but Howard had no debilitating hubris about this matter. Yes, he was a proud and ethical man, but he picked his battles. He didn’t know if agreeing to come back to Blackwell was wrong or right. He didn’t know if it mattered either way. The thing was done. There was no point in making it more awkward than it had to be by finding fault in how it was here. After all, the army had been relieved to get him out of sight; ultimately the Powers That Be thought that this war couldn’t afford objectors to be either shot or tolerated; they were in an impossible, tenuous position.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.