Fireweed by Jill Paton Walsh Page B

with me she was the only thing in the world in focus, laughing, with her hair flying out sideways, still heavy with damp from the shower. Green and blue, red and black … A smudge of khaki, seen and then not seen, as the roundabout turned. A soldier was walking along the road, behind the palings. And my heart jumped. We were turning a little more slowly now, and even though he was blurred by speed, even though the glimpse of him walking was snatched away and then shown again, I knew him. I jumped to the ground. And the twist I had given that damned machine seized me by the head, and my head spun, and I stumbled blindly.
    â€˜Oh, don’t stop, Bill!’ cried Julie, disappointed.
    â€˜Oh, Julie, Julie, get off!’ I cried in agony. ‘That’s my Dad, that was my Dad!’ It was already nearly too late. He hadn’t seen us. He was walking swiftly away, and as my vision steadied I could see that it was a long way to the next gate in the fence, and he was already nearly at the corner. I took a running jump, and landed on top of the fence, balanced precariously on the top, between the spikes.
    â€˜I’m going after my Dad!’ I called to her, still sitting on the slowly revolving boards.
    â€˜Goodbye, then, Bill,’ she said, and gently the roundabout turned her face away.
    At the sound of emptiness in her voice I stopped. I froze there, suspended. And it came to me very clearly that if I went after my father it was goodbye; it was just another way to Wales for me, and Canada for her. Or somewhere else for both of us, but wherever we went, not together. And there was Dad, hands in pockets, walking away, so far that I could no longer see anything of him but a figure in the crowd at the far end of the street, and if I looked away for a single minute I would lose him, and unless I jumped and ran now, now …
    And there was Julie, in the park, all by herself, with a grubby rucksack, and two blankets, and nowhere to go, and nobody to go with …
    I jumped down from the fence. I jumped back into the park.
    I went and put my arms round a tree, and leant my forehead against it, pressing against the bark till it hurt. I was shaking, and bitterly ashamed of myself for that, and I didn’t want anyone to see me, not
anyone
. So I stayed there a good while after the shaking stopped. She sat on the roundabout with her head bowed down, and it went very slowly and stopped, and she just sat there.
    Then after a long while she came up and spoke to me. She said, ‘I didn’t mean it, Bill, really, I didn’t mean to stop you, I didn’t mean …’ There were tear-marks smudged on her cheeks.
    â€˜You didn’t stop me,’ I said, as brightly and firmly as I could. ‘Of course you didn’t. I wanted to stay with you.’ And after all, that was true. But my mind kept throwing up a picture of my father’s back, receding down the street, and my thoughts bounced back from it, wincing.
    It began to rain, then. First small heavy drops, then a downpour. We ran for a little wooden shelter on the far side of the swings, and sat in it, watching the rain make sulphurous yellow puddles in the sandpit, and dimple the undulating sand. We sat at either end of the bench in the cold little shelter, each separately looking out, silent. We listened to the busy noise of falling rain. And I was plunged into misery, and fear.
    I wanted the houses I knew to be back up again; I wanted grown-ups to be there, I wanted to be told what to do; I wanted to be worried about, I didn’t want to have anyone else to care for, I didn’t want anyone to need me at all; I wanted to be back in Wales being yattered at, and given hot buns for tea; I wanted to be safe; I wanted my own father, I wanted my father, my Dad.
    I couldn’t bear to be responsible for anyone. But there I was, there we were. And I couldn’t leave her. And we had nowhere to go. I couldn’t think where it would