Rock Me Gently
One for sorrow
two for joy
three for a girl
four for a boy
five for silver
six for gold
seven for a secret never to be told...
chapter 1
The trees seemed to be closing in on her. Watching and listening. Aware of her every move. Aware of the shouts still ringing in her ears.
"Mangy Angie! Mangy Angie! Hey, Mangy Angie!"
It felt like she'd been running like this forever. With hot tears stinging her eyes and a stitch in her side and the shouting still inside her head. Only now she was ten she could run faster. Faster, ever faster, with only the steady stomp of her shoes, the quickened rhythm of her breath, the thud of her heartbeat. And the echoing memory of the taunts.
The downwards slope was steep, the pressure of descent pulling painfully on her badly cut knees. But finally she reached the clearing, where the breath from the river was friendly and cooling, blowing on her face in gentle greeting and playfully riffling through her hair. Her shoes squelched noisily through the soft mud, her arms reaching for the branch and the branch stretching out towards her.
A final heave, lifting herself upwards, sidling along till she nestled against the trunk. And then, at last, she was safe, away from the world, watching the swarming life of the river bank, listening to the familiar splashes and squeaks, the general rustling and bustling of fish and fowl and small river rodents.
Angie smiled to herself as she watched a soaking wet rat emerge from the long grass and scurry along by the river's edge. Rats didn't bother her. That was where she had the edge on her cousin Josie. Josie was terrified of creepy crawlies and rodents. Especially rats and mice. Angie knew because of the field mouse on the day of her father's funeral.
Angie and Josie's fathers were brothers, but they had never been close. The day of the funeral was the first time the cousins met.
They stared at each other, a little shy and awkward, and six years old. Both stunned into silence by the fact they were so amazingly alike it was just like looking into a mirror except...
Angie's hacked blonde curls were tangled and dull while Josie's perfectly cut hair fell neatly on her shoulders. Josie's gaze was bright and dancing but Angie viewed the whole world with a hostile suspicion. Josie looked pretty in the newly bought, black clothing that her mother had dressed her in. Angie's baggy slate grey skirt and top (there wasn't the time and there wasn't the money to buy black, even if he'd been worth crying over, Angie's mother had said) unflatteringly emphasised her pale skin.
Angie had twisted curiously round from the table on hearing their visitors and, acutely aware of their differences, she scowled now at her cousin, absently rolling her tongue round a loose tooth as she often did when thinking things over. But Josie took the scowl to mean "the-grown-ups-are-talking-heaps" and she giggled at Angie's daring, showing small, white, even teeth. Then, remembering this was a funeral and people were meant to be miserable, even if she didn't know the person who died and was thoroughly enjoying her unexpected time off school, she tried to turn the giggle into a spluttering cough and look suitably sad.
But it was too late. The giggle/cough reminded the olds she was there and Josie's mother paused from the solemn, polite chit-chat to gently propel her small daughter forward. "We've got a while yet. You two kids may as well go play in the garden."
"And don't you go far and don't you dare get dirty - or else!" Angie's mother lifted a lipstick-stained cigarette from her mouth as she spoke and, without ceremony, hooked Angie up under the shoulder (the little girl sat at the table, finishing off the last remnants of her own concoction, thickly-smeared-jam-and-lumps-of-cheese-on-toast, surveying their newly arrived visitors from over the back of her chair) and almost threw her in the general direction of her cousin.
Josie stepped back automatically, slightly startled. But perhaps Auntie Pam, Angie's Mum, was being rough because she was upset over her husband's death.
And she had noticed a single tear trickling slowly down Angie's cheek, though Angie tried to hide it. Her warm heart snapped in two. It was all very well for Josie having the day off school, but Angie and Auntie Pam were sad and Josie hated anyone to be sad.
She caught hold of her cousin's hand as, like tiny mountaineers, they carefully negotiated their way down the exceptionally high stone steps that led out to the garden, whispering sympathetically when they had reached the end of the long path and paused by the garden shed, "I wish your Dad hadn't died. My rabbit Harvey died and I cried till I was sick. My Dad found him dead in his hutch and my Mum said he went to a big field in the sky to run and hop with heaps of rabbits."
Angie snatched her hand out of Josie's grasp, suddenly remembering where she was, angry that in a moment of weakness she'd allowed herself to be led when she had made up her mind never to trust anyone again. Not ever.
Not ever, ever, ever.
"Who? Your Dad?"
The sarcasm sailed blissfully over Josie's head. "No, silly. Harvey."
"Yeh, well, my Dad didn't cark it in a rabbit hutch."
"Oh, I know that!" Josie said confidently, quite sure of her facts. "My Mum and Dad said he'd been crook and he died in hospital. My Mum and Dad tell me everything," she added proudly.
"Is that right? Well, I bet they didn't tell you this." Angie looked her square in the face and waited for the reaction. "My Dad died 'cos he put a gun to his head and blew his brains out."