Noah Barleywater Runs Away (16 page)

Noah was sure he wouldn’t get any sleep that night, but as it turned out he was so exhausted by the time he got into bed, his head had barely touched the pillow when his eyes immediately closed and he drifted off into a dark dream from which he was very happy to wake when a hand shook his shoulder some hours later.

The room was still dark so he knew it wasn’t morning yet, but he could sense a person sitting on the bed next to him, breathing very quietly, and he jumped up, frightened, and turned on the bedside light.

‘Mum!’ he cried, finding it hard to open his eyes as they adjusted to the sudden brightness. ‘You’re back.’

‘I said I’d be back, didn’t I?’ she asked quietly. ‘I shouldn’t really be here but I couldn’t stay away any longer. From you, I mean. I don’t know what your father will say when he wakes up and finds that I … that I came home.’

‘I missed you,’ said Noah, throwing his arms around her, and despite how pleased he was to see his mother again, he was still very tired and would have liked to have gone straight back to sleep and talk to her in the morning when he was up and dressed. ‘What time is it anyway?’

‘It’s still the middle of the night,’ she replied, leaning over and kissing him on the top of his head. ‘I wanted to show you something, that’s all.’

Noah glanced across at his bedside clock and pulled a face.

‘I know, I know,’ said his mum before he could say anything else. ‘But trust me, it’ll be worth it.’

‘Can’t we do it later?’ he asked.

‘No, it has to be now,’ she insisted. ‘Come on, Noah. Please. Just get up. I promise you won’t regret it.’

Noah nodded and climbed out of bed, and the two of them went downstairs and out of the front door and over to the far corner of their garden, where they could see right through the trees of the forest towards the horizon ahead. The grass felt
damp under Noah’s feet but he quite liked the sensation, and he twisted and turned his toes in the soil to let it spread around every one of them.

‘Now watch,’ said his mum, holding his hand, and he stared into the dark distance now, unsure what he was supposed to be watching out for. He swallowed and yawned, and then yawned once more, wondering when he could go back to bed. He heard a rustling in the grass to his right, and a dark brown fox with a striking white stripe along his back appeared for a moment, glanced at him, held his gaze for the longest time, and then disappeared into the tall grass that separated their house from the forest.

‘What else am I supposed to be watching out for?’ asked Noah, turning to his mother, and she shook her head and pointed into the distance again as she glanced at her watch.

‘Just watch,’ she said, holding his hand even tighter now. ‘Any minute now.’

He narrowed his eyes, wondering what was going to happen.

‘Here it comes,’ said his mother after a moment. ‘Now don’t take your eyes off the horizon. Keep watching, Noah. It’ll knock your socks off.’

‘But I’m not wearing any socks,’ said Noah, looking down at his bare feet, wet and green beneath him.

And then, a minute later, the most extraordinary thing happened. The darkness that covered
the forest floor was suddenly illuminated by a bright sheet of golden sunlight which flooded through the dew-soaked leaves of grass and the branches of the trees, turning the whole world from night to day in a few short moments.

‘You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the dawn break over the forest,’ said his mum, pulling him close to her. ‘My dad brought me out to see it just before … just before he left us. And I never forgot it. It’s one of my happiest memories of him. So I wanted us to see it together, just you and I, Noah. What did you think? Wasn’t it wonderful?’

‘It was nice,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Do I have to stay out here?’ he asked after a moment. ‘I’m freezing.’

Noah’s mum looked at him a little sadly and shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, you can go back in if you want. I just wanted us to see it together once, that’s all. Now, any time in the future you ever see the dawn break, maybe you’ll think of me.’

Noah nodded and ran back to the house, charged upstairs and threw his dressing gown on the floor. Just before he got back into bed, however, he took a quick look out of the window and was surprised to see that his mother was still out there where he’d left her, about halfway along the fence, but she’d climbed the two wooden rungs like a ladder and was standing a few feet off the ground, the only person he could see in the great expanse of
forest ahead – the only person awake in the whole world, he thought – her arms stretched out wide into the bright sunny morning, her head thrown back to receive the warmth of the sun on her face. It was an extraordinary sight.

A moment later he got back into bed, but despite how tired he was, he couldn’t get back to sleep. Only when he heard his mother returning through the front door and walking slowly upstairs did he feel safe.

And that’s when he heard her cry out, a great loud cry of pain, and he sat up in bed, not wanting to move, as he heard the door of his parents’ bedroom open and his father go rushing down the stairs, calling her name.

‘I think I’m starting to understand,’ said the old man. ‘It can be a very lonely life, leaving all the people you love behind. You need to be very sure about what you’re doing. The point comes, after all, where it’s too late to go home.’

‘But you came home,’ said Noah. ‘You kept your promise. Once you received the letter saying your father was ill. You came home again.’

‘It’s not quite as simple as that,’ said the old man sadly, reaching for another piece of wood and staring at it for a long time before beginning to carve a pair of legs in the base of it. ‘I haven’t finished my story yet, after all. But look at the time,’ he added. ‘Don’t you think it might be an idea not to run away after all? You could still get back home before dark if you wanted to.’

‘I think I’d be in far too much trouble to return home now,’ said Noah, looking a little regretful of his actions. ‘I’d better stick with my original plan.’

‘I’m sure your parents would forgive you,’ said
the old man. ‘They’d just be glad to have you back.’

Noah thought about it. Even though he’d only been gone from home for a few hours, he was already starting to miss it a little. But every time he thought of it, he also thought about the fact that to go back there was to face up to what was going to come next, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for that.

‘But why not?’ asked the old man, surprising Noah, for he was sure he hadn’t spoken out loud. ‘What comes next?’

‘Bad things,’ he replied.

‘What kind of bad things?’

‘Did you really never have a mother?’ Noah asked the old man.

‘No,’ he replied sadly. ‘Just a father. I often wished I had a mother, of course. I always thought they seemed like very nice people, most of them. Until today, that is.’

‘Why?’ asked Noah. ‘What’s so different about today?’

‘Well,’ said the old man with a laugh, ‘you’re telling me all these wonderful stories about your mother, about how kind she was to you, how thoughtful, but still you’ve run away from her. I can only assume that she’s not as nice as you make her out to be.’

‘But that’s not it,’ cried Noah in frustration, standing up and walking over to the window. ‘Look,’ he said after a moment, noticing a great to-do
taking place outside on the street. ‘There’s a lot of people gathering outside.’ He looked down to where a small crowd was standing, staring across at the toy shop and taking notes. The dachshund who had been so helpful to him earlier in the day was among their number, and he seemed to be growing quite energized as he discussed something with a red-faced, middle-aged man, who appeared to be in charge – for he was waving his arms in the air a lot and telling the people to keep quiet so he could think. The donkey was eating a banana that a woman had unpeeled but was still holding in the air as she stared across the road. ‘What do they want?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t mind them,’ said the old man, refusing even to bother looking. ‘Every so often they stand over there and write things down. Then they compose articles denouncing me to the village newsletter that everyone receives but no one ever reads. It’s not that they have a problem with me. Or with this shop. It’s really that tree they object to,’ he said, pointing towards the branches, which were swaying a little in the late afternoon breeze and stopped the moment they realized they were being observed. ‘They say it’s not normal, what goes on here, but I say I don’t care. Who asked for their opinion anyway? The dachshund will be on my side, not to worry. And the donkey. They’ll keep the troublemakers at bay. Now, what do you think of this?’

Noah turned round and took the puppet the
old man had just finished carving. It seemed to be some sort of mongoose. ‘It’s very good,’ said Noah. ‘How did you do it so quickly?’

‘I have a lot of experience,’ said the old man.

Noah watched the crowd again for a moment longer before sitting down on the window seat.

‘Dad says that the doctors are going to make Mum better,’ he said a few moments later. ‘At least, that’s what he used to say. Now he says that I have to be very brave.’

‘And your mum?’ asked the old man. ‘Would I be right in thinking that she’s in hospital?’

‘She was,’ said Noah, turning away so the old man wouldn’t see the tears forming in his eyes. ‘She’s back home now. In bed. She came home yesterday, you see. She insisted on it. She said that was where she wanted to be when she – when she—’ He found that he couldn’t get the words out now, and scrunched up his face and hands to keep himself steady.

‘But if she’s at home and she’s not well, shouldn’t you be with her?’

Noah turned back and looked at the old man. ‘You ran away from home too,’ he said.

‘But I came back,’ said the old man, ‘when I found out that my father was ill.’

‘Did it take you long?’ asked Noah, standing up now and helping him to clear the last of the cups and the glasses from the table. His stomach was full at last, and even though there was a tray of after-
dinner chocolates standing on the counter next to him, he only glanced at them for a moment before shaking his head and looking away, leaving them to shuffle off despondently back to one of the cupboards. ‘Did you get there in time, when you got the letter about your father being ill? Did you get home before he … before anything …’

‘Before he died?’ the old man said. ‘What’s the matter, boy? Can’t you say the word? It’s only a word, you know. Just a group of letters strung together in a random order. The word itself is as nothing compared to the meaning.’

‘Yes, that,’ said Noah, looking down at the floor and clenching his jaw and fists so tightly he thought his fingers might go right through his palms and out the other side if he wasn’t careful. He noticed there was one last puppet in the box, and he took it out and looked at it – it appeared to be the puppet of an elderly rabbit whose whiskers twitched when you pulled his string – before placing it next to all the others. ‘Did you get home before he died?’

When I reached the toy shop (said the old man), everything seemed to be exactly as it was when I left it. The walls were still lined with toys, the floor was still scattered with sawdust, and behind the counter a few pots of paint were left with their lids half off, a gloopy rainbow of colours forging trails down the sides. A few cobwebs hung off the cash register. ‘Hello?’ I whispered, looking around, expecting my father to appear out of the shadows at any moment. ‘Poppa?’

But there was no answer and I bit my lip, wondering what I should do next. The hospital was only a few miles away – I could be there in seconds if I put my mind to it – but something told me that Poppa would never have gone to a hospital. He had built this toy shop himself, after all. He had created it from the ground up, not just the misshapen bricks and misplaced mortar that held the thing together, but all the contents too, every one of the toys that ran along the counters and stood on the
shelves. He would never leave here; I was sure of that.

A creaking sound from behind the counter made me look up, and I saw that the door had placed itself in position and was standing slightly ajar.

‘Henry,’ I cried. ‘Henry, my old friend! You’re still here.’

The door stared at me with an accusatory expression, allowing none of the former warmth and friendship that had once been between us to reappear. Instead it simply stood there quietly, allowing me a view of the dimly lit staircase beyond. I walked towards it and looked up at the spiral of wooden steps above my head and began to climb. Sensing the urgency of the moment, Henry soon brushed past me and fitted himself into the wall, this time remaining firmly closed but allowing me to turn his handle. A light was on inside the living room and I stepped inside, the floorboards creaking beneath my feet as I entered.

Nothing had changed. The chairs were in their usual places before the fireplace, although they immediately turned their backs on me when they saw who had stepped inside. The plates and cups were arranged on the sideboard, but they turned their handles round, unwilling to be picked up. The coat stand was still in the corner, but it tiptoed away on its four legs and disappeared into what had once been my boyhood bedroom, closing
the door behind it.