Taking Shelter

The cows were grazing in the field just as granddad had said. There had been sheep here before – the time when Jay had come here with his mother, when Gran was dying.

He’d only been nine, but his mother had allowed him to walk to the bottom of the hill behind the house and feed the sheep grass over the barbed wire fence. Not that they needed feeding – there was plenty of grass for them to eat on their side of the fence.

He’d told the sheep about his gran.

“She’s had a stroke. Granddad keeps saying how much better she’s looking, but she doesn’t. She’d grey and her mouth is all wonky.”

He thought about telling the cows about being left with Granddad. How his father had barely stopped in the driveway before screeching off to his business conference. But it seemed stupid now.

Thunder boomed, quickly followed by lightening. Jay cursed and turned towards the house. Rains cascaded down with sudden ferocity.

“Damn!” Jay was already drenched. He scanned the surrounding area. An old barn stood around thirty metres away. It was much closer than his grandfather’s house. Jay ran towards it, shoulders hunched, head down, as if this posture would somehow keep him dryer.

The two wooden doors to the barn were locked together by a padlock, but the wood of one of the doors had rotted and broken away, leaving a big enough gap for Jay to crawl through. He sat with his back to the wall of the barn, breathing in the smell of damp wood and old straw. The rain assaulted the barn roof. The sound was overwhelming.

He thought again of how his father had dumped him at his grandfather’s — like a pet. No, even a family dog would have been treated with more compassion.

“Go on – go and hug your grandfather.” He’d shoved Jay, not that gently, towards the open door of the car. He’d already taken Jay’s bag from the backs seat and placed them on the driveway.

Jay had eyed his granddad, hovering on the doorstep of the dishevelled farmhouse, obviously as unsure as Jay about how this greeting should pan-out.

“I don’t want to hug him,” Jay had whispered, turning to face his father, who was already glancing at his watch. “He smells like Pizza Express from all the raw garlic he chews.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t do that anymore.” Another, even less gentle shove had followed.

Granddad had begun edging down the dirt track towards the car, hesitant, his expression like someone straining to hear a distant tune. His hair – still thick despite his seventy-five years – billowed around his small head like the white of an egg. In the moonlight, it had shone like an aura.

“Dad, please take me home. I can look after myself. Go to the States and just leave me on my own. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re thirteen, Jay. I’d be locked up.”

“No-one would know. I can be quiet”

“Since when? Now, go and hug your grandfather, Jay - or shake hands with him or give him a high-bloody-five, just get out the car. I need to go.”

“Dad?” He’d proffered a lingering, desperate stare, his father glancing at his watch for the third time in less than a minute.

“Fine, but don’t stay longer than a week. There’s nothing to do here. Why would anyone build a house in the middle of a field?”

“It was a farmhouse, Jay, it was built in the middle of a farm.”

“If you leave me here for more than a week I’ll divorce you,” Jay had threatened. Although thinking about it, his father would probably welcome that.

Jay had barely vacated the car when his dad leaned out of the window, calling out to the old man. “Thanks so much for this Brian. I really appreciate it. Sorry I can’t stop. I have a plane to catch.”

He’d sped off, giving a sharp wave over his shoulder. Jay had watched the car until it turned, disappearing behind the thick hedgerow that bordered most of the dirt track down to the road.

Granddad had been standing just a few feet behind Jay, still hesitant, misty blue eyes slightly sad as he watched his son-in-law drive off. “I think he’s scared to talk about...”

“Pardon, Granddad?”

“Not to worry,” Granddad had said, taking Jay’s bag. “Come on in. I’ve made some sandwiches.”

Jay remembered taking a final desolate look at the endless rolling hills, forestland and meadow, then following the old man inside.

He’d been glad to go to bed and end the strained conversation. Jay had slept in his usual bedroom, where the smell of mildew tainted the air and the sheets always felt clammy.

There was a lighter patch of wallpaper above the bed in the shape of a cross. Jay remembered a crucifix hanging there before. When Jay’s grandmother had died four years earlier, Grandad had claimed not to believe in a God; and when two years later Jay’s mother had been left comatose by a hit-and-run accident, he’d confirmed this conviction, and Jay had shared it. The crucifix had disappeared soon after.

A large window filled one wall of the bedroom, offering a view of the surrounding wilderness. As he’d lay only half awake that morning staring at the framed countryside, depression had filled him like an alien parasite.

His grandfather had been pottering for hours – pottering without actually achieving much, Jay suspected. Jay’s head had felt overloaded with depression. It had made him woozy just to think of lifting it, and the potential act of twisting round and placing his feet on the carpet had seemed like a mammoth task way beyond his capabilities.

He still felt it now. He’d hoped a walk would help ease it at least. He hadn’t felt this bad since his mother had been killed. She’d been comatose for weeks, then finally – most said mercifully – dead. Jay hadn’t seen it as a mercy – eleven years old and no mother, he’d seen it as murderous to switch off that machine. While it had whirred and hissed and his mother’s chest had risen and fallen, there’d been hope. Then a huge gap had opened inside him - one the alien quickly filled.

Jay had noticed as his granddad talked to him across the small table in the kitchen a little later, that the old man didn’t smell of garlic anymore. He’d always sworn by it, claiming it kept the blood thin – which was a good thing, apparently.

“Any plans today then?” The old man had asked, between spoonfuls of porridge. Jay had stared into his own steaming bowl before dutifully eating, each mouthful filling his throat like paper mâché.

“Like What?” He’d eventually replied. He felt bad now for being so brusque.

“Could go for a walk. Lovely walks around here. I’d come with you, but my hips been bad lately.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Old age.”

The concept was so far removed from his own sphere of knowledge, Jay hadn’t pursued the conversation. He wished now that he had. It wouldn’t have killed him to show a bit of sympathy for the man. He was doing his best.

“I’ll go for a walk later,” he’d said. “Say hi to the sheep.”

“Cows.”

“What?”

“There’s cows in the field down the bottom of the hill now – not sheep.”

Jay had laughed. “I can’t keep up with this place.”

“I like things slow,” his grandfather had replied. “I lived in London for fifty years. Getting up early five days a week and forcing my way onto a bloody train. You’ll appreciate places like this once you start work. What do you want to do?” He’d focussed his misty eyes on Jay, who filled his mouth with more porridge and shrugged.

“Should start thinking about it. I was working in the post room at Jenkings when I wasn’t much older than you. That’s how it was then – you worked your way up from the bottom. You earned your place in a company. These days all you need to do is drink yourself stupid at some university, turn up for a couple of exams and you go straight in as a manager.”

“Right.” Jay had decided it was easier just to agree.

“Your mother was bright.” The old man’s eyes had darted to a spot somewhere beyond Jay’s head.

Was she?”

His grandfather had nodded, gaze still distant. “She liked to write stories. She wrote some fantastic stuff. Me and your gran thought she might become a writer. Never understood why she didn’t achieve something more than…”

“Working in a shop.” Jay had completed the sentence for him then stood, the

wooden chair legs screeching across the stone floor.

“I’m going to go for that walk,” he’d said.

I should have stayed and talked more about Mum, Jay thought, as the hammering rain grew even louder. He glanced around the barn. He couldn’t see much, just shadows. It didn’t look used. There were no hay bales piled high like in all the films that featured barns. Just darkness. Jay felt his depression seep out and begin to fill the space. The depression and shadows mingled and became one mass.

“Jay?”

His grandfather was standing outside the barn, peering through the gap between the doors.

“I brought an umbrella,” he said.

Jay began to cry. Quietly at first, but these almost silent sniffles soon turned into raucous sobs.

“Jay?” His grandfather pulled at the door, his efforts growing more frantic as Jay’s sobs grew louder. Finally the inept padlock thudded to the ground and his grandfather was crouched beside him. An open umbrella cartwheeled across the barn.

“What’s wrong?” the old man asked, pulling Jay towards him, stroking his hair, just as his mother used to do when he was upset or sick.

“I miss Mum!” The words were out. They echoed around the barn like a confession in a church.

His grandfather held him close. “Me too, Jay. I miss her every day.”

His grandfather smelled musty and damp.

“Why did you stop eating garlic?” Jay asked, as his sobs subsided.

The old man shrugged. “I guess I wasn’t bothered about keeping healthy anymore. Why prolong things?”

“That’s terrible, Grandad.”

“First your gran, then your mother…”

Jay looped an arm around his grandfather’s shoulders. The rain had eased to a drizzle.

“Shall we go back to the house?” Jay asked. “Maybe have some more of that delicious porridge to warn us up.”

Hi grandfather laughed. “My porridge is disgusting.”

Jay laughed too. “Yes, Grandad, it is.”

His grandfather stood, groaning with the effort, and retrieved the umbrella.

“Come on then,” he said, as Jay stood too, and he held the umbrella over them as they pushed through the bar doors.