Matty Doolin by Catherine Cookson Page A

for you. You others nip over the side; I’m not coming round.’
    The next minute Matty and Joe were standing in the roadway watching the lorry carrying their now smug-faced pal towards the farm.
    ‘I bet she gives him tea.’ This was from Joe.
    ‘Aye, I bet she does,’ said Matty. ‘And he’ll play his sore heel as if it was his guitar – not that he’s any hand at that.’
    They laughed weakly as they went into the field and Joe said, ‘Talkin’ about guitars, when his mother wouldn’t let him bring it he was a bit wild, but he brought his mouth organ.’
    ‘He did!’ Matty stopped. ‘Well, he’d better not play it after ten o’clock, that’s all. Come on.’
    With a spurt of energy they ran towards the camp which had suddenly taken on the appearance of home to them both.
    Matty lay in his sleeping bag, his hands behind his head, staring at the roof of the tent. To his side, Joe, resting on his elbow, peered towards him. They were both listening to Willie’s voice coming from his tent, for at least the tenth time, explaining to them about his late return.
    ‘It wasn’t my fault, man, I tell you; I couldn’t refuse the tea, could I? And then, when they had company and they got talkin’ and . . . ’
    There now came the concerted chorus from Matty’s tent, as both he and Joe cried, ‘And I made them laugh.’ This was followed by a derisive: ‘Tell us the old, old story.’ Then Matty added, ‘All right. You’ve told us a dozen times, so let it drop. What’s wrong with you is not only a sore heel but a sore conscience. As I said afore, you were stuffin’ your kite with fancies knowing we just had bread and jam and the end of me mam’s cake.’
    Silence followed this remark, and the two boys, looking at each other in the reflected light from the bright moonlight outside, nodded their heads once, then burrowing down in their bags, they lay quiet.
    It must have been ten minutes later when Matty, almost on the point of sleep, heard Willie’s voice as if he were talking to himself, saying in self-pitying tones, ‘I get the backwash of everythin’. It’s Willie this, an’ Willie that. I’ll likely get the blame for the hole the morrow.’
    On this last remark Matty pressed his lips tightly together to prevent himself from making a retort, for the matter of the hole still rankled.
    It hadn’t been Willie’s staying at the farm until nine o’clock that had got his back up so much as their finding the hole, the new hole, on their return, and the sausages lying in a heap near the ashes of the fire. The hole was just over a spade’s width each side and about a foot deep, and it was a beautifully cut hole. As he had stood looking down onto what he later learned was called a grease pit, the top neatly criss-crossed with twigs and covered lightly with bracken, he had felt the hole to be a personal affront. SHE was showing him up.
    The feeling did not lessen with the knowledge that she was right . . . And then those sausages. He should never have left them lying about; he should have put them on the fire in the first place. Still he wasn’t going to take it from her. She was only a kid, and too bossy by half. She should mind her own business, and he would tell her so. Aye, he would, when he saw her.
    All evening he had waited for a visit from her, but when she didn’t put in an appearance his feeling of annoyance grew. Joe had wanted them to go across to the farm, but he had been firm against that. They weren’t going to do any sucking up; there were enough at that game already, he had said.
    But Matty was tired now, and not a little footsore, so, soon, defecting pals, bossy girls, and the worries of life in general slid from him as he fell into a deep, untroubled sleep . . .
    What the time was when the sound of a scream brought him sitting bolt upright, and Joe into spluttering, frightened awareness, he didn’t know. Before the second yell ended they had both tumbled out of their bags, and as