Read Online A Greater World by Clare Flynn - Free Book Online Page A

as comes my way. I suppose it were being deprived of books for so long. They taught us well enough at the local school. The mining company saw to that. Believed in good works and education. God knows why, when it were no use to most of us as went underground. We had no books at home apart from the Bible. I got into reading in the War. My commanding officer had been studying Classics at Oxford University when the war started. Read all the time. Shells going off all around and he kept his head buried in his book.'
    'When he was supposed to be fighting?'
    He smiled and rolled a cigarette. 'We didn't do much fighting. Not where we were. None at all really. We sat around until it were time to go and dig a big hole in the ground, then we'd sit around again waiting to be told where and when to dig another big hole. We talked and smoked, wrote letters back to Blighty and read the ones we were lucky enough to get.'
    He looked thoughtful and she could see he was mentally back there. He carried on speaking, drawing on his cigarette. 'He were called Rockhill - Greville Rockhill. He weren't like the rest of us. All he ever wanted to do was study. Some of his books was in Latin and Greek, but he loved novels too. Dickens, Trollope, Henry James. Used to get a few books sent every week. I don't know how he pulled it off – must have 'ad a mate or a relative in the War Office. When he were done, he'd pass the books on to the rest of us and I always got first crack.' He drew on his cigarette again, watching the smoke curl in the air. 'He didn't make it.'
    'He died?'
    'Aye. Day after he were killed another parcel of books came. They kept us going till the War were over – it were only five or six weeks more, though we didn't know that then. I took some of his books back to Blighty. Read 'em again and again. Trouble with books is they put ideas in yer head and make it hard to put up with what you've got.'
    'What do you mean?'
    'When I got back to the dale, I wanted more. I wanted to see something of the world.'
    'So what do you want, Mr Winterbourne? What are you looking for?' She leaned forward as she spoke and he moved away slightly and looked out to sea, frowning.
    'I'm not sure as I know any more, Miss. The world doesn't seem quite so enticing once you're out in it.'
    'Feeling homesick? Do you want to go back?' She raised an eyebrow.
    'I'll never go back. What's done is done.'
    'You make it sound as though you've done something terrible! Are you running away, Mr Winterbourne?'
    He frowned and his eyes darkened. 'Mebbe I am.'
    She folded her hands in her lap and looked up at him earnestly. 'Maybe we all are. The whole ship! I can't imagine what else would possess so many people to give up everything, pack their bags and sail across the oceans into the unknown. Not if they didn't have to.'
    'They? Or you?'
    'Me too, I suppose. I certainly never planned to do this. I didn't lie awake dreaming of seeing the world or going to Australia. I'd have been happy to see my days out in Northport.'
    'So why are you here?'
    There was a tremor in her voice when she spoke. 'My father needs me. My mother's dead and he misses her. There's nothing for me at home. Not any more.'
    'What'll you do in Australia?'
    'Try and make the best of things I suppose. I play the violin and hope to make a living teaching it and I'll keep house for my father of course. Who knows? Maybe one day we'll have saved enough to return to England?'
    'To go back?'
    'Yes. Why not?'
    'It's never right to go backwards. You have to keep moving forward in this life. To keep going. To move on.'
    She smiled at him. 'Quite the philosopher, Mr Winterbourne?'
    'I'm just a survivor is all.'
    They fell into an awkward silence and then Elizabeth picked up the threads of their conversation again. 'So, what book are you reading now?'
    'The War of the Worlds . You'd think I'd have had enough of wars wouldn't you? But it were on the shelf in the general room so I thought I'd give it a go.'
    'Any