Chapter 29
The rain is on our lips,
We do not run for prize.
But the storm the water whips
And the wave howls to the skies.
The winds arise and strike it
And scatter it like sand,
And we run because we like it
Through the broad bright land.
—Charles Hamilton Sorley
The Song of the Ungirt Runners
Returning to the real world was every bit as hard a crash landing as Ash had been afraid it would be, and she sank lower into her anxiety-laden blue devils.
Without Rook in her bed she hardly slept, haunted day and night by the specter of the gas mask in the corner and now the pair of rubber-soled running shoes she’d bought but never worn.
She should have attended the service at Temple Church the day after their return, but she’d stayed away, mired in feelings, clinging to memories of their sojourn in the country until holding on felt harder than throwing herself full force back into the everyday.
True to her word, Susan had tended the classroom garden, and even after Ashley’s return, she kept coming. Soon the other children began turning up to help, but they lacked their usual light-heartedness, sensitive to the clouds of war drifting ever closer.
Ash tried to tease them out of it and get them singing silly songs, until, reflecting on her earliest days in France, she came up with a plan to lift their spirits. She wore those wretched canvas shoes to school the very next day.
“Right. Now listen up. There are sixteen of you. How would you divide that evenly?”
“Four fours, Miss,” Walter told her.
“Very good. Why don’t you choose the sets of four?”
She was pleased with the way he grouped the other children—older and younger, boys and girls—as even as any four sets could ever be.
They spent the rest of the day running foot races and three-legged races, jumping rope, and playing tug-of-war until they were all laughing and breathless and muddy from their exertions, not a trace of glum spirits lingering upon their smiling faces.
It may not have made everything better, but for a moment it had helped.
Instead of returning home, Ash found herself meandering towards the river and across London Bridge. She wandered just to wander, sorting out the feelings that threatened to drown her, the fear of having something good in her life lest it all be taken away.
When she saw a tram to Battersea Park, she stepped aboard as though it might carry her back in time and not just down the banks of the muddy Thames.
Despite the workers on their dinner breaks and the children playing ball, when she reached the park, she took off running in her old brown skirt.
She ran until she didn’t see heads turning to discern what monster chased her.
She ran until her mind was clear of worries, until the only thing tightening her chest was the breath pushing through her tired lungs.
She ran until her ghosts stopped running with her.
She ran and ran and ran and ran and ran.
When she couldn’t take another step, she flopped down in the grass, chest heaving, staring up into the pink-streaked sunset sky.
It didn’t make everything better. But for a moment, it certainly helped.
Too spent to face the walk back home, she caught a bus outside the park, changing to the Underground when she reached Sloane Square.
As the car slowed at Temple Station, she stared, exhausted, out the window. This was Rook’s stop, and it felt wrong not to go to him despite being a rumpled, perspiring heap, as though not getting off the train proved she’d been avoiding him since their trip.
And then she saw him, like a specter, staring back at her from the opposite platform after the departing westbound train. His eyes looked haunted and hollow, his posture stooped in defeat.
She stood to go to him, too late. Her train was moving once again, whisking her on to Blackfriars, towards Whitechapel, and yet somehow away from home.
Ash stayed standing for the short trip to the next stop and found herself stepping off the train there, which was ludicrous. What exactly was her plan? Cross over to the other platform and take the next train back to Temple to try and track him down?
Already a sore ache was settling into her muscles making it difficult to move, let alone decide the next right thing to do.
Commuters rushed around her, going and coming, and she let herself be dragged in their impatient wake until she found a bench along the wall and took a seat.
Her train left and the tunnel cleared and still she sat there on her own. Would she always be alone? She’d waited years for Rook’s resurrection, and then she had him, and then she ran—afraid of what having him at last might actually mean. Afraid of the next inevitable parting.
The platform filled up and another train arrived, and still she sat, frozen, staring at the ground. The crowd thinned out once more with the rhythm of the Tube, nothing but the sound of footsteps and a solitary tapping cane.
Ash looked up to find one lonely figure walking towards her, a sad smile upon his beautiful face.
“It’s you,” he said.
“It’s you,” she replied, surprised and yet somehow not at all surprised.
“Have you been running?” he asked, taking in the state of her, from her damp, disheveled hair down to her rubber-soled canvas shoes.
She nodded, scooting over so he could join her on the bench.
“How was it? Did it help?” he asked, settling in beside her.
“It was wonderful. And terrible.” She sighed. “I may have overdone it. My legs feel like jelly, and everything started to hurt the moment the adrenaline died down.”
“All or nothing, eh? You’re not eighteen anymore, Little Bird,” he teased.
“I told you it’s not the done thing.”
“I suspect you’ll pull through.”
“Not sure I’ll be able to move for a week. Where were you going?”
“I’d been to see you.”
Her heart warmed and fell all at the same time. “I’m sorry I’ve been distant.”
“Real life gets in the way,” he said, peering at her like he’d never seen a prettier sight, despite her draggle-tail state.
She nodded. “I’ve been going to the school every day.”
“What, in summer?”
“The garden needs tending, and they want to do it.” She shrugged. “I decided today I might as well teach them something useful. Skills they may need when they’re sent away.”
“Like what?”
“How to put on those ghastly masks for a start.”
Rook stroked his chin. “Suppose I’ll have to get fastidious about shaving again.”
“You’d better. You promised I wouldn’t have to go through it all alone.”
He smiled. “Every day then.”
“Twice on Sundays.”
“Twice on Sundays?” he exclaimed, imitating her students. “For you, I will.”
He held out his hand for hers, and Ashley took it, feeling as though together they were on the precipice of some great leap.