The Gateway - Chapter II: Moving Day

My eyes started to adjust to the sights of my bedroom and my ears to the sounds that my shrieking mother emitted from her mouth.
‘Get up, we’ve got to go, it’s half past five you lazy urchin!’ My mother said this playfully, but she was serious when it came to the priority of getting up; missing the train would be a disaster. I sat up in my bed and lifted my hands to rub the sleepy-dust out of my eyes. My mother, humming to her-self, went about dusting my bedroom. She did it in such a way it was almost like she was programmed like machines in the factories - like she did it subconsciously. Of course this sub consciousness may be due to the routine of doing chores around the house.

My family was a traditional one. My father had worked whilst my mother stayed at home. She would look after me and my mother so far had been responsible for much of my upbringing, and thus her personality had a major impact on myself. I felt she was slipping into depression. By the time I was home from school she would have finished the housework and would sit at the kitchen table drinking cheap gin and staring into space - emotion absent from her face, and she would seem very abject at other times. I was sure she was falling prey to darker emotions than the ones she portrayed to the world purely for my benefit. Perhaps the air of the country would refresh her senses and bring her happiness once more.

My father was happier now than perhaps he had ever been, for he need not work in the cramped factories being paid little for the hours of manual labour he worked, for now at least there was no pressure. Surely only happiness could lie in store in the countryside? We would live off the land and if there was to be a surplus then it could be sold at the village. I was also so much happier with the knowledge that the country awaits me. Father had warned me though, the farm would be no picnic, there would be lots of hard manual work for me, but at least it would be in the open air. My father believed very much so in manual labour as his grandfather had died whilst my grandfather was a little boy and he had been forced to provide for his mother and two sisters.

I got out of bed and got dressed when my mother had left the room, I had lots of energy all of a sudden; I wanted to run around. I think it was purely excitement, this journey would change my life forever, as I am sure I will probably live the rest of my life and die in the countryside and the city will become nothing more than a distant memory. I rushed downstairs and hugged my mother.
‘When are we going Mummy?’ I smiled.
‘Probably in about half an hour dear,’ she answered.
She rubbed her eyes and yawned, again I noticed she was quite detached as wave of tiredness had hit her; maybe she was worrying about moving and leaving everything she had ever known behind for a sister in law she had only ever met once. However, I’m sure the fact that my father had been sacked and there was little left for us in the city anymore would help reassure her.

It was strange, father said most people from rural areas were moving to the urban city but we were doing the opposite. Apparently there is a river near Blackberry where we can catch fish. It is called the Red River because centuries ago there was a skirmish there and the men’s blood ran into the river making it the colour red - not that is still red with blood now though of course. I sat down to the table as my mother put a bowl of porridge in front of me that she had been warming.
‘Eat up dear; we’ve a long journey ahead of us.’ She said encouraging me to eat everything, as I would usually leave food on my plate.

I really like eggs, though we rarely have them, because of the taste of the yolk. I never used to understand eggs really until I met William as I knew nothing of fertilization and thus assumed that somehow the chick was removed from the egg.

After I had finished breakfast and everyone was ready I went out the house and hoisted the backpack, which carried all my belongings, up onto my back and waited for my father to lock up the house. As we walked to the train station I was more excited than I had ever been. I had a strange feeling about the country now, like something was going to happen to me, something important.

I got onto the train with my parents; I wanted to sit in a compartment on my own to think so I went into empty one while my parents went into one adjacent from mine. Minuets went pass and we still didn’t start moving. An old man stood outside my compartment.
‘Can I sit down son? All the rest of the seats are taken.’ He said a little apologetically.
I nodded shyly.
He studied me; he could sense something was troubling me.
‘Where are you heading?’ he inquired.
‘Blackberry,’ I answered.
‘The village?’
‘The farms nearby.’ I replied.
‘I have some grandchildren that are moving there, I’m just making sure they get there safe and sound.’ The old man said quite sadly, I supposed he wouldn’t see them again for a long time.

I got the feeling someone was watching me and as I looked to outside of the compartment my gaze was met with piercing blue eyes, which were cold, unsympathetic and unforgiving, but the owner of them was somewhat urbane. A lock of blonde hair fell over his left eye.
‘How long will it take to get to Blackberry grandfather?’
‘A few hours Andrew.’
A young man - presumably the old man’s grandchild - stood in the doorway. He looked about seventeen years old. He smirked as he walked away.

Shortly after Andrew had left I fell asleep and prey to the dream that came to me every night. The flowers swayed and danced in the breeze. A butterfly flew towards a bush. I followed it curiously. As I walked towards the bush something came into view I had never seen before. Excitement rose up in my stomach as I walked towards it. It looked like a cave or something alike. I pulled back the bush and fell back in shock; a figure stood in front of me, he had a white top with a hood on and his face was wrapped up with bandages, similar to a mummy, but there were holes for the eyes, nose and mouth. Its hands were bandaged also
‘What are you?’ I said disbelievingly.
‘A soldier,’ it answered in a rasping and eerie tone.
‘Are you a German soldier?’ I asked.
‘Of course not! How insulting! I daresay your bluntness and pure judgement comes as a consequence of your inferior breeding,’ said the soldier. He was a child, which was a certainty because of his height and build.
‘Why are you here?’ I said becoming more and more confused.
‘To stop you entering this tunnel,’ he thrust his head towards what I had previously thought was a cave, ‘this tunnel is the answer to all your questions about this gateway. My fellow soldiers will help you reach the answer but only when the time is right. This place is a completely different place to the one you live in when you’re awake, this tunnel is the link, and if you manage to discover what the link is… well it would interfere with our design for you.’
I backed away from him feeling vulnerable, how did this creature know so much about my dreams and me? It followed me. I suddenly lost my footing and fell backward into the pond. The silver fish swam in frenzy; the shock of their secluded world colliding with the outside one that they had been blissfully unaware of had scared them. It looked down at me with a supreme smile.
‘I’ll be seeing you soon John.’

I awoke from my dream sweating; my hair and the back of my neck were damp.
The old man’s eyes twinkled kindly.
‘I think you had a nightmare,’ he took something out of the brown jacket draped around his shoulders and broke it in twain, ‘here, have some chocolate,’ he offered.
I took if gratefully; chocolate was a rare luxury, one of which my parents could never afford. I thanked him. I supposed the man and his grandchildren must be rather well off, especially when one considered how Andrew had been attired.
‘How long have I been asleep?’ I asked him, wondering if we were near to our destination by now.
‘A couple of hours,’ he said and, sensing the reason why I asked, he added; “we’re nearly in Outset Village now.”
‘What are your grandchildren called?’ I inquired trying to make polite conversation.
‘The eldest is Andrew, then it’s Susan, Peter and finally Felicity,’ he replied with a note of sadness.
‘Why are they moving to Blackberry?’ I asked, trying to keep the conversation going.
‘Its difficult to explain to a child; their father, my daughter’s husband, is a very religious man. He seems to think they need to be somewhat re-educated because of a few of their ideas, and their tendency to blaspheme. They reject the thought of God; I’m sure even you realise the seriousness of what they are proclaiming. Consequently their father has arranged for them to move here, Blackberry, where they will be forced to change their views of God, or so my son-in-law hopes. By Reverend Osborne. I fear they will be too arrogant and too stubborn to change their ways even if it ends up being their downfall. They will not change to fit in; the world must change to be like them, the world must fit in, or that’s how they see it,’ he looked away.
‘So they’ve been thrown out of home until they obey the Church?’ I said trying to confirm the barrage of information the old man had just told me.
‘Yes,’ the old man sighed, ‘I truly fear though that they will refuse to change. It is shame as they are gifted children and have great potential. I swear Andrew has the makings of a Prime Minister.’

Presently the train grinded to a halt and I knew we had arrived in Outset Station. Outset Village was on a hill; if you were to go down it you would reach the Red River, and if you crossed it and walked for roughly three miles you would reach Blackberry.

I said goodbye to the old man and went to find my mother and father. I found them searching in the carriages for me.
‘Come on, William and your Auntie Laura are bringing us horses, we don’t want to keep them waiting, do we?’ My mother said condescendingly, it was also one of her rhetorical questions where you weren’t supposed to answer back.
I murmured a ‘yes, mother,’ and followed my parents off the train and out of the station.
Outset Village was a lot smaller than London; I found it very strange how small it was. There was a public house near the centre named the Black Lion. A small church lay to the right of the pub. The smell of fresh bread diffused in the air, its source being a bakery adjacent to the station. Looming trees cast much of the village square in shadow. If you were to stand on the peak of the hill you would be able to see the Red River and the whole of Blackberry, our destination.

We had arranged to wait in the Black Lion until William and Aunt Laura came. We sat down at a small table and my father ordered a beer for him and a gin for my mother. I was given a glass of orange juice; ‘full o’ vitamins,’ my father would say, ‘good for ya.’ I suppose it did not occur to him that at my age things that were considered good for one were, at best, treated with indifference.

It was about three quarters of an hour before William and Aunt Laura arrived at the Black Lion. William, with his scruffy brown hair and farm clothes, led a stallion, huge and powerful. Its name, as I found out later on, was Equestrian. My Aunt led a small horse, Grace. My father rode Equestrian, my mother rode Grace and I sat on the back of my Aunts horse. It was a pleasant ride down to Blackberry, we passed through many fields, most of them unused and there was a pathway for us to travel on so we didn’t disturb those which had crops growing in them at this time of year such as potatoes.

My father and mother talked to Aunt Laura as I sat in silence with William riding beside me. My father and Aunt Laura were reminiscing whilst my mother and Aunt Laura started to get to know each other again. I myself had got on quite well with William two years ago when we had first met but those two years had put a certain uneasiness between us now as absence often does. I looked around my aunt to see Blackberry was now visible since we were near to it and were on flat land, perfect for crop growing. It was bigger than Outset village but much smaller than London; I could see that from where I was. Father said it was more of a town than a village and that it would have many things for me to do there in my spare time, though not as much as London. He also added if I was truly bored he was sure Aunt Laura would let me have a patch of land in which to grow my own crops, to which I tried to smile as sincerely as possible, as the thought of waiting for crops to grow did not hugely appeal to me. I was most looking forwards to seeing if they had any animals, I would be more than happy to look after the horses rather than the crops, which is an activity that is distinctly tiresome. I imagined myself grooming Equestrian and then being able to ride him majestically through the fields like the knights who had lived here long ago would have done. Outset Village used to have a castle on the top of it where the King’s nephew had lived long ago and those of Blackberry had been his people. Still as much as I would like to imagine it the likeliness of me being able to ride a horse as large as Equestrian was unlikely until I was much older and bigger. William was only fourteen but he was large in build for his age for he had been manually working on the farm for most of his life and those born and bred in the country tend to have a bigger build than city folk. My mother had warned prior to coming to the farm that horses; although useful and usually co-operative creatures, could also be very dangerous and that I should never annoy one or indeed approach one from behind. This had been hammered into me again and again and so I was quite wary of Equestrian because of his size as much as I did want to ride him. William’s father had named the horse Equestrian because of its bad temper and so anyone who had the ability to ride him would have to be a skilled horse rider and since I had no experience of riding horses I would have to start most likely with riding Grace. My father had learned to ride when he was about William’s age before he had moved to the city when he was twenty for work. William had been riding Equestrian pretty much ever since his father had died. One reason for this was because Aunt Laura sometimes needed him to get general food supplies from Blackberry village. Another reason was Equestrian needed a rider and Aunt Laura wasn’t as good as William at riding and so it had made sense that William took Equestrian as his horse.

After another hours ride we finally arrived at the farm. It was bigger than I expected as when one has lived in the city all one’s life one becomes used to a very small amount of space allocated to each house. Also we had lived in terraced housing, which had been built close to the factories solely as a place for employees at the factory to reside. This meant that our house had been rather mediocre in size anyhow and my old room had only an area of about eight foot squared in size.

Upon arrival William gave me a guided tour of the farm. First he showed me where we would all be living and my room, which I would be sharing with him. It was fairly large, more long than it was wide. He then showed the pantry, which was quite a large room where the milk and eggs were kept. We then went to the shed, which I gleefully noticed was attached to the barn. I didn’t take a huge amount of notice to as what William was talking about when we were in the shed as my mind was fixed on the animals. I do remember him showing me what a sickle and hoe was. He also showed me his fishing rod, which he said we would use sometimes to catch fish from the Red River. Finally we went into the barn. William and Aunt Laura had two cows; Cream, who was a sort of beige and cream colour, hence her name, and Daisy who was white with patches of black here and there. They also had a bull named Taurus, which was apparently Spanish for bull that was completely black. They also had a sheep called Kevin and another horse named Isaac. After ten minuets of admiring the animals William got fed up and dragged me over to the hen house where nine hens and one rooster were kept. He then briefly showed me the fields where some potatoes and carrots were growing.

We headed back to the house and ate a meal of ham and boiled potatoes that Aunt Laura had prepared. I then retired to my room to get some sleep while the adults and William sat talking. I fell asleep before I heard them come up to bed.