Lob Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Poem

  Part One

  Early June

  August

  Late October

  End of November

  January

  Part Two Early February

  February

  February

  March

  May

  May

  May

  Late May

  Late May

  Late May

  May–August

  August

  August

  August

  Late August

  Late August

  Late August

  September

  September

  September–Winter–Spring

  Part Three April

  September

  Also by Linda Newbery

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  LOB

  Linda Newbery

  Illustrated by

  Pam Smy

  For the man who walks the roads

  First light, first misted light. Spill of dawn along the valley fills woods with birdsong. The cottage sleeps. Out here, the scritch and creep and slither, the skitter and croak of being, bee-ing, beetling, of spider, of mouse, of frog. Listen. Listen.

  The song of the earth.

  Part One

  Early June

  ‘Lob?’ said Grandpa Will, in the summer garden. ‘Oh, he’s older than anyone can tell. Older than the trees. Older than anybody.’

  ‘And what does he do?’ asked Lucy. She knew the answer, but liked Grandpa to tell her.

  ‘Lob-work, that’s what he does. Odd jobs around the place.’ He always said it like that – Lob-work. Whenever he and Lucy were out here, Grandpa would look at a well-tended onion bed, or a watering can filled and ready, and he’d smile. And sometimes he’d look towards the hedge, as if someone was there. When Lucy looked too, she’d see only a quiver in the leaves; a mouse, perhaps, or a spider. The thing about Lob was that not everyone could see him. Most people couldn’t.

  ‘How long has Lob been here?’ Lucy asked. She knew the story, but liked hearing it over and over again.

  ‘Oh, a long, long time. Long before you were born. Before your dad was born,’

  Grandpa said, his voice settling comfortably into the telling. ‘It was just after your gran and I got married, and came to live here. I was chopping wood one evening, when all of a sudden I knew I was being watched. So I stopped chopping and turned round. In the corner of my eye I saw him. There he stood’ – he turned round to look – ‘just there, by the bench. But I could only see him sidelong. When I stared straight at him, he faded away. Still, I knew who he was, knew at once. I’d heard about Lob from my grandfather, and he’d heard from his grandfather, and so on, back and back and back. There’s always been Lob. He walks the roads, that’s what he does. He walks and he walks, and he looks for the right person. When he finds that person, he stays around for a very long time. So I hoped he’d stay with me, and when he did I knew how lucky I was.’

  ‘Lob chose you!’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Will he always stay?’

  ‘Till I die, I hope,’ said Grandpa, looking round as if he wanted Lob to hear.

  ‘But you’re not going to die, are you, Grandpa?’

  ‘We all will, in the end,’ Grandpa said. ‘But we needn’t worry ourselves. I’m not expecting it for a while yet.’

  They walked down to the end of the vegetable garden. Just the two of them, or perhaps it was the three of them.

  ‘Is he here now?’ Lucy asked, peering into the thicket of raspberry canes. ‘Can you see him?’

  ‘He’ll be around somewhere. He don’t always choose to be seen, Lob doesn’t.’

  ‘Will I see him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ said Grandpa. ‘You’re good at seeing.’

  Lucy wanted and wanted and wanted to be a Lob person. She squeezed her hands into fists with wanting; she clenched her eyes tight shut, and hoped that Lob would be there when she opened them.

  He wasn’t. But she was sure that one day he would be.

  The others – Mum and Dad and Granny Annie – thought Lob was just a game, though Grandpa often mentioned him.

  ‘It’s lucky I’ve got Lob,’ Grandpa would say, sitting down on the bench for a rest. ‘I’d find it all a bit much, these days.’ And always he said, ‘Thank you, my friend’ – first thing in the morning, and every time he finished work and went indoors.

  ‘Don’t fill the child’s head with your nonsense!’ Granny would tell him, tutting. And she’d look at Lucy and shake her head, smiling, as if Lucy was old enough to know better, and Grandpa was the child.

  Whatever the grown-ups said, Lucy knew there was special magic here.

  She knew it whenever she came to Granny and Grandpa’s. On summer mornings, early, when the grass glittered with dew. On winter nights, looking through the window of her attic room. The darkness out there was giddy with stars, and she heard the cry of an owl, or a fox, or a something, from down in the woods.

  Garden magic tingled through her, from her hair to her toe-nails.

  Mum said that the magic was in Grandpa’s fingers. Green fingers, Mum said he had. And Lucy giggled, imagining Grandpa with green pointy fingers like an elf. In fact his hands were square and stubby, with tough, cracked nails, from all the garden work he did. He had to do a lot of scrubbing to get his hands clean when he came indoors.

  Every day, Grandpa Will worked on his vegetable patch. He grew peas and runner beans, raspberries and gooseberries, carrots and parsnips, lettuces and onions and potatoes: all in neat rows, in beds that were perfectly dug and weeded.

  It was a lot for him to do, all by himself. But of course, according to Grandpa, he didn’t do it on his own; he was helped by Lob, in all sorts of ways. When Lob wasn’t skittering about the woods or sleeping in the hedge, he found jobs to do. He collected logs, swept up piles of leaves, cleaned the tools, weeded the beds and picked off slugs and snails.

  Lob only did it when no one was looking, Grandpa said. And only when he wanted.

  ‘You can’t give him orders, tell him what to do,’ Grandpa told Lucy. ‘He does what he likes, Lob does.’

  Often, Lucy tried to spy on Lob, hoping for just a glimpse. She’d dart out of the back door, or stalk round the corner of the cottage. But she’d never seen him, no matter how hard she searched or how cold she got, lurking in wait.

  It was the beginning of June. The sky stretched high and higher, streaked with cloud. Lucy and Grandpa Will were down in the garden, planting out runner beans.

  These leafy little plants had grown from the beans they’d sown in small pots, last time Lucy stayed. That was magic, if anything was!

  The mottled pinkish beans had been dry, rattling from their packet as Grandpa shook them into his hand. Lucy couldn’t believe there was life in them, but Grandpa soaked them overnight, and next day showed Lucy how they’d plumped up, how a tiny tip of root was starting to feel its way. Now – now look! There were leaves, and stems that twined up their sticks, reaching for the sky.

  Grandpa (and Lob, he said) had made the soil ready, digging and digging, adding dark compost, till the earth was as rich and moist as fruit cake. He’d put up wigwams of canes for the bean plants to climb. Now he and Lucy worked together with trowel and watering can. Lucy carried the plants to Grandpa, who tipped each one out of its pot, settled it in its hole, then pushed and firmed the soil with the tips of his fingers.

  Lucy sprinkled water, making a small puddle round each plant.

  ‘Will they grow?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, they will, sure as ninepence,’ said Grandpa.

 
Just then, Granny Annie shouted and waved at them from the back door. Someone had come from the village to see Grandpa.

  ‘Want to carry on, Lucy love?’ Grandpa straightened, and wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘You know what to do.’

  Lucy felt important. She had to do it right.

  She crouched by the canes and reached for the trowel. When she’d dug the right-sized hole she filled it from her can; then, when the water had drained away, she copied Grandpa, tapping a plant free from its pot and holding it carefully in her hands. She put it in the hole, and felt which way it wanted to face. Then she trowelled the earth around it, and pressed it close with her fingertips, as if tucking the plant up in bed.

  ‘Grow!’ she told it.

  Had she done it well? Would the roots reach down, and the plant grow strong? Did she have magic in her fingers?

  When she’d planted them all, she went to the water-butt by the shed to refill her can. It was heavy to carry, and she sloshed water into her shoes. Concentrating hard, she didn’t notice at first, but then she did.

  In the gooseberry bushes near the cane wigwams, there was a flicker of movement. A tremor of greeny-brown. The flash of an eye, a bright green eye. It looked at her and seemed amused by what it saw; then blinked, and was gone.

  ‘Lob?’ she whispered.

  All she saw now was leaves and grass. The gooseberry stems prickled her hands as she pushed them aside. Her ears caught a rustle that could have been laughter; then no more. Whatever it was, it was gone.

  Lucy knew from Grandpa Will that Lob was a wild thing, who wouldn’t let himself be caught or touched, or even stared at for long. But she’d seen him at last – seen him, all by herself! – and that made her feel special. Lob magic, garden magic – she was part of it now. It was part of her. She danced a little jig of celebration. When Grandpa came back to see how she was getting on, she rushed up to him.

  ‘Grandpa, Grandpa! I’ve seen Lob!’ She pulled at his sleeve, guiding him towards the gooseberries. ‘There! He was sort of greeny, and he was looking at me. I think he was laughing.’

  Grandpa was delighted. ‘Yes! That’s him, all right. Excellent! You’re learning to see. I thought so. Most people don’t. They look straight at Lob and have no idea he’s there.’

  Lucy soon realized that she wouldn’t always see Lob; only sometimes, and only quick glimpses. Once she saw an old face, gnarled and barky; sometimes there was a shiver in the long grass, as if a snake was sliding through.

  But even without seeing, Lucy knew he was there, from the way she felt inside. There was a sparking of mischief in her head, a tingle of energy in her arms and legs. She wanted to run, jump, climb, be everywhere at once. And she knew that Lob made Grandpa feel the same, even though he didn’t run, or jump, or climb. He just moved around the grass paths and the tool shed in his usual way, slowly, surely and a little stiffly.

  ‘Oh, you and your Lob!’ the others would say to Grandpa – Dad, and Mum, and Granny Annie. They’d exchange grins that said Let him play his little game.

  Lucy had to feel sorry for them. They had no idea. And she and Grandpa Will exchanged secret smiles of their own.

  In the car on the long journey back to London, Mum said, ‘You know Lob’s not real, don’t you, Lucy-Lu? It’s just Grandpa’s story. He likes making up special stories, just for you. There isn’t really a Lob.’

  ‘But there is, there is! I’ve seen him!’

  ‘No, Lucy, you haven’t. Not really. You just think you have.’

  Lucy began to fear they might be right. Was Lob just a game she played with Grandpa?

  Next time she went to Clunny Cottage, she was afraid that the Lob feeling wouldn’t be the same.

  But – yes! As soon as she got out of the car, and stretched, and hugged Granny and Grandpa, she felt Lob-magic everywhere. In the quiver of a leaf. In the deep shadows of the ash tree. In the small breeze that stirred the leaves. Here he was. Her heart lifted; she felt it rise and swell in her chest, warming her with happiness. She felt bigger and more alive here than anywhere else.

  ‘Hello, Lob,’ she whispered.

  Of course he was here. Of course he was real. Now, and for ever and ever and ever.

  August

  In the summer holidays, Lucy went to stay with Granny and Grandpa by herself. She loved that. She liked London and home, but she loved Clunny Cottage. Dawn crept early through her bedroom window, and the air outside was full of birdsong and baaing. Hedges ran greenly between fields dotted with sheep. When she looked out, she saw the trees all hazed with mist.

  She heard the laughing yaffle of a woodpecker, invisible in leafiness. Or was that Lob?

  Later she went down into the garden with Grandpa to pick peas, choosing the plumpest pods. She liked to slit them with her thumb, and see the peas packed inside, like little green baubles.

  The stream, close by, ran along the bottom of the garden. Sometimes it was a full brown swirl, sometimes just a shining thread. Lucy thought of all that water, how it knew which way to go. How it made its own pathways, deep and sure.

  ‘Where does the water keep coming from?’ she asked Grandpa. ‘Won’t it run out one day? What if it does?’

  She heard a chittering laugh from the bushes that fringed the stream.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of Lob,’ said Grandpa. ‘He’s being rude.’

  ‘But will it?’

  ‘No, Lucy-Lu. It never runs out. It comes from the rain on the hills. It trickles down the hillsides and into the stream, and the stream flows into the river, and into the sea. And the winds pick up water and make clouds and then it rains some more. And so it goes on.’

  ‘For ever and ever and ever?’

  ‘For ever and ever and ever,’ said Grandpa. ‘We’d better go in now, Lucy-Lu. We need to get ourselves spruced up.’

  They were going to a wedding that afternoon, in the village two miles away. After lunch they all got dressed in their best clothes. They stood in the kitchen looking not quite like themselves: Granny Annie in a flowery dress and a hat, and Grandpa smarter than Lucy had ever seen him before, in pressed trousers and a jacket and a waistcoat and tie, and shoes polished to a high shine. Lucy wore her blue dress, and a hat with a rosebud pinned to its ribbon.

  ‘Don’t we look smart!’ said Granny Annie, and she giggled as she looked down at her feet, in pink sandals.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘My feet,’ Granny Annie explained. ‘They don’t look like mine, all bunched up in posh shoes.’

  Lucy crouched to look. ‘I think they are yours, though.’

  A horn beeped outside, and off they went in someone’s car.

  Lucy thought the wedding was lovely, especially the bridesmaid’s dress and posy. As she came out of the church, blinking in sunlight, Grandpa called her back. He wanted to show her something.

  The stone arch of the door was all carved into leaves and acorns, berries and twining stems. Grinning down at Lucy, was a small carved face – a face masked by leaves, a face as old as the years and as young as Lucy.

  She could easily have thought it winked at her. It reminded her of someone.

  ‘Oh!’ went Lucy, and then she whispered, ‘Is it him?’

  Grandpa nodded. ‘See, someone knew him. Knew him well.’

  ‘Someone a long, long time ago,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Yes, but someone as here as you and me.’ Grandpa’s fingers touched the smoothness of stone. ‘Chip, chip, chip, he went, and he made that face. Brought it out of the stone.’

  ‘So is it Lob? our Lob?’

  ‘What have you found there?’ said a man with hairy ears and a shiny purple tie, peering up. ‘Ah! A Green Man. Rather a good one.’

  No! It’s Lob, Lucy thought. And the man was talking too loudly. Everyone would hear.

  ‘But he isn’t green.’ She spoke very quietly, so that the man had to bend his head to listen. ‘He’s stone.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s still a Green Man,’ said th
e man, who obviously thought he knew what was what, and didn’t expect anyone to argue. ‘See the leaves? one does come across them occasionally.’

  Grandpa only nodded and smiled. Lucy frowned.

  ‘D’you mean you’ve seen one in real life?’ she asked sharply. Surely this loud, confident man wasn’t a Lob kind of person.

  ‘Of course not!’ The man looked down his nose at her; it was the kind of nose that made her think what a peculiar thing a nose was. ‘They’re only make-believe. No more real than fairies and leprechauns. You see them carved in wood or stone.’

  He glanced at Grandpa, who only smiled, and gave Lucy a look that said we know better.

  Lucy felt sorry for this man who could see carvings in wood or stone but not the real thing, so she gave him a pitying look as everyone lined up for the photographer in front of the church. She was pleased about the make-believe. People might talk knowledgeably about Green Men, might see stone faces – but the real, living Lob was her secret. Hers and Grandpa Will’s.

  The photographer waved his hand to make them all huddle up tight. ‘Ready, everyone? Don’t say cheese, say sausages.’

  There they all are, in the wedding photo in Granny Annie’s album. Everyone’s doing sausages grins at the camera. Lucy’s smiling, too, but she’s glancing off to one side. Looking back at that Green Man, to see if he’s trying to catch her eye.

  Late October

  At autumn half-term, Lucy and Dad stayed three nights at Clunny Cottage.

  The days were golden, long-shadowed. Down in the orchard, the boughs of the apple trees were heavy with fruit. The branches were so low that, without even stretching, Lucy could hold an apple in her hand and give a little twist to make it drop. Wasps buzzed and drowsed, making fruity caves in fallen apples and plums.

  Granny Annie made apple pie, and plum crumble, and blackberry jam. Dusk came early, and the cottage seemed to shrug into itself. Grandpa chopped wood and lit a log fire.

  They’d picked and eaten the last of the runner beans that Lucy had sown and planted; now she and Grandpa collected potatoes. Grandpa thrust his fork into the ground, wriggled it and lifted. Potatoes tumbled free, smooth as eggs, clodded with soil. Lucy gathered them, brushed off the earth, and dropped them into a bucket. Grandpa dug up carrots too, but he said the parsnips would be best left a bit longer.