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Summary: A story about Polly's youth. Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with Terry Pratchett or Discworld.
Walking Out
See the girl
with the golden hair She supposed that she should have been excited. Most
of the girls her age had been walking out for over a year, and Ella Weis was actually
married now. The wedding had been under a white canopy that blotted out the blue
of the sky, and Ella had looked so proud and joyful, wearing her dark hair loose
for the last time, white flowers crowning her head. And now it was Polly's
turn to go a-courting. The boy beside her, Thomas Tillard, had come ‘round
to the Inn to drop off an order of sausages from his father's shop, and had cautiously
asked her father if he might walk Polly home from the sermon on Friday. Of course he'd said yes. She was fifteen already, and Thomas was the first to have asked after her, so he wasn't about to turn the boy down even if he'd only had two brain-cells to rub together which, unfortunately, was turning out to be the case. See the boy of seventeen While their mothers strolled
ten paces behind them (slowly, in the case of her mother, who leaned heavily on
a cane these days), and their fathers and Paul strode ten paces in front of them,
because you couldn't let young people go walking out un-chaperoned, she tried
to make conversation with Thomas. "Lovely weather we're having,
isn't it?" She said. "Wh--? Oh, yeah, yeah. Sunny." "Not
too humid..." He kept trying to hold her hand in his large, clammy one. Thomas
smelled of sweat and turnips. It wasn't that this was an odd combination, even
in a town as big as Munz, but wasn't she supposed to be catching undertones of...
musk? Manly wosnames? Wasn't she supposed to find him attractive? Or at least
less repulsive than she was finding him? "So... Are you training
to be butcher?" "Oh yes," he said, suddenly more animated,
"I'm getting really good at sausages." He grinned, a strange mixture
of awkward bravado and sickly hope, and leaned close to her ear, "Really
good with sausages." "That's... good..." What did she care how good he was at stuff tubes full of mushy meat? Well, maybe it
was more difficult than she thought. Perhaps she was supposed to be impressed
by this revelation. "That's very... good." He was going to stay to dinner, that much she knew already. Her mother had insisted on that point, even when she'd mentioned that if they didn't get on well, dinner would be horribly awkward. Her mother had been certain that everything would be fine as long as Polly didn't do anything abominable. Her mother mustn't have been too up on the current Book of Nuggan if she thought that was likely... See the girl
with the golden hair "So," he said, "do you like dresses?" What?
How the hell was she supposed to answer that? "What do you mean?"
She hedged. "Well, you're a girl. Girls like dresses, don't they?" "Well...
It's what we wear..." "I could get you dress," he said,
taking her answer as an affirmative. "A nice one with lace on or something." "You
don't have to get me anything, I don't think," she said, although, just in
case she was wrong, she added: "A new kitchen cleaver wouldn't be amiss,
though." "Oh, I couldn't get you a cleaver, Polly!
Those are men's tools!" Polly gave him a long look. It wasn't that
she hadn't been expecting this kind of thinking, she'd just expected it to come
at a more sensible target. "You have been inside a kitchen, haven't
you?" "Only the cutting room at the shop," he said, "And
that's not even really a kitchen, right? I mean, I wouldn't go into a kitchen,
what with me being a man and all." Oh, yes, thought Polly.
Kitchens were Places of Women, and so no boy who wanted to be seen as a man
would ever set foot in one. Her father, of course, had got over that mental
border years ago when her mother had started having her poor spells but Polly
had still been too small to lift the big knives and the heavy cuts of meat that
— hah! — Thomas's own father had probably handed through the back kitchen
door without so much as a blink. "Right," she said quickly,
"What was I saying?" "It's a nice dress you're wearing
today," Thomas replied. Polly thought about this. The dress was
her sermon dress and, as such, it was both her best dress and her most plain and
shapeless. Women showing their figures was an Abomination unto Nugan from way
back. "Thank you," she said. "I really like the high
collar. It, uh, shows of the length of your neck." The length of
her neck? "Thanks," she looked him up and down. "It's a nice suit." Thomas
grinned. "It was mine from new. Now that I'm working in the shop, I don't
have to get them from my brother anymore." So this is manhood in Munz, thought Polly, An unwillingness to set foot in kitchens and a pair of pants you don't have to share... See the boy of seventeen The rounded the bend in the road, and the Inn came into sight. "It's
a good place, the Duchess, isn't it?" Thomas asked. "It's
the best," replied Polly with pride and her first real smile of the walk.
"Best inn outside of the capital." They walked up the road
in silence. Polly could faintly hear their fathers, ahead of them, talking about
the war — there was always a war — and the rations that were in place.
They made their way up the walk, towards Polly's house, which was separated from
the main Inn by a wall and door, but was still part of the same building. "How
many kids do you want, Polly?" "Uh— I hadn't really thought
about it, actually." "I think seven's a good number. With
lots of boys for the shop." Polly thought about Ella Weis, Ella
Crampon now, who was pregnant already, bulging with the baby inside her small
body, walking to market on swollen feet, one hand on her lower back. "You don't say," she managed. See the girl with the golden hair, They went inside the house, where Polly's mother invited them all
to sit, as she eased herself into a chair. "Polly," she said, "Would
you mind going to the ice-house for me? There's a jug of sour-apple wine that
I've been saving. Would you get it, please?" Polly nodded. These
days, her mother was spending a lot of time not being able to get out of bed.
The only time she left the house was when she went to sermon, and usually she
came home and slept right afterwards. This was taking a lot out of her. "I'll
help," Thomas volunteered, suddenly. "Not without a chaperon!"
cried his mother. "Oh, Deirdre," said Polly's father, "the
ice house is eight feet away, and we can see it from the window. They'll be fine." Polly headed out the door and towards the ice house, while Thomas, grinning widely, followed after her. See the boy of seventeen, He followed
Polly into the ice house. She wasn't sure why he'd volunteered to come. It wasn't
as if the jugs were heavy, and she waitressed in the Inn most nights and could
carry them just fine... She hefted the jug and turned to leave, but Thomas blocked
her way. "We— We don't have to go back just yet," he
suggested. Polly's heart beat faster. Although probably not for the
reason Thomas was hoping for. Her eyes narrowed. "Get out of my
way, please." "Why? We're alone together, you know? We could
have a little fun while no-one's watching." He smiled encouragingly, and
tried to brush her face with his fingers. She leaned out of the way. "I
don't think so. Excuse me." "No, now wait a minute, Polly,"
he said, taking her arm rather more roughly. "This is how it works. Why do
you think they let us go alone? They know what's gonna happen and it's fine!" She
kicked him in the shin, and the blow he leveled at her in return knocked her against
a wall, the thick, stoneware jug dropping from her hands to the floor with liquid
glug though, thankfully, without a crash. Damn, she remembered,
too late, He carries dead pigs around by himself, doesn't he? She raised
her hands to fend him off, but he was big, and his weight alone pressed her into
the wall so that her shoulder-blades scraped under her dress. "Come
on, Polly," he said, sour breath against her mouth, sweaty hands groping
for her breasts. "You know you want this." "Get off me!"
she growled, low, turning her face away, trying to push him off of her. He took one of her hands in each of his, and splayed her arms against the wall. "Didja think I wasn't good enough, Polly? Now you'll find out just how good I am!" See
the girl with the golden hair He was trying to get
his knee between her legs, trying to force them apart, and he was succeeding.
However what that meant was that, for a moment, Polly found her own knee between
Thomas's legs. Thinking of Gummy Abbens, the old sergeant who sometimes came and
drank with her father, she took the chance she was offered and kneed Thomas squarely
in the sausages. She kicked him in the head when he went down, and then ran for
it, leaving the jug behind. She burst into the house, wine-less and
with a bruise reddening on her cheek. "Your son has fallen down,"
she said pointedly to Thomas' mother. "I don't think he'll be able to stay
after all." Mrs. Tillard looked shocked, and Mr. Tillard looked
down-right murderous as he strode towards the icehouse to retrieve his son. "Wh-What
happened?" asked Mrs. Tillard. "There was water on the floor,
and he slipped," she said, and saw Mrs. Tillard grasp the lie like a roped
tossed to a drowning woman. "Of course. Accidents do happen, don't
they. We'll, uh, we'll take him home now. Perhaps we can have dinner another time."
Although it was clear that she knew that wouldn't be happening. Thomas was led away by his parents, and Polly watched them go, fierce and angry, until they were out of sight. See the boy of seventeen, |