‘We’re going to Spain, but not till August too. I mostly hang out at Baxter Park. Do you go there?’ Ryan asked.
‘Sometimes,’ I said, though it was right the other side of town and I’d only been there once or twice, when I was Jonnie and Dorry’s age.
‘It’s got a new skateboarding bit near the entrance. It’s great. Do you like skateboarding, Katy?’
‘You bet!’ I said. ‘I’m ace at it.’ I had been, until Dad and Izzie confiscated my skateboard simply because I’d careered into Elsie by total accident and knocked her over. I’d meant to swerve at the last second, truly.
‘And they’ve got those recumbent bikes – the ones like little cars that you pedal? Do you know what I mean?’
‘No, but they sound really cool. I used to have a real little pedal car when I was small,’ I said. I closed my mouth tight to stop myself blabbing about my mum.
‘Then come over to the park next week and we’ll go skateboarding and maybe have a bike race. Yeah?’
‘Sure.’
‘Monday, late morning.’
‘It’s a date,’ I said, and we high-fived each other.
Then we saw Eva and her entourage returning, the famous hairstyle resurrected. We raised our eyebrows at each other and sloped off in different directions.
‘Get you!’ said Cecy, when I joined her. ‘What were you and Ryan saying? You’ve gone as red as your skirt!’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know!’ I said, and laughed.
11
We couldn’t go to the secret garden on Saturday. We had a visitor. It was Dad’s friend Helen.
We’d never met her before, not even Izzie, but we’d all heard about her. She was one of Dad’s first patients, ages ago. She was in her teens then, but she couldn’t run or dance or do any of the normal teenage things because she had rheumatoid arthritis. Not the ordinary sort of arthritis that old ladies get, when they hobble a bit and say their knees are giving them gyp. This was a full-blown arthritis that attacked her whole body, distorting her and practically snapping her head off her shoulders. She was in and out of hospitals, but when she was home Dad often visited her.
‘She was such a fantastic kid,’ he’d tell us, eyes shining. ‘She’d moan sometimes – she was only human – and she could be bloody-minded in certain moods, but she had the most amazing courage and resilience. It was a privilege to know her.’
We’d listen to Dad’s Helen stories, half fascinated, half bored. She was held up to us as an example, because no matter how ill she was she always studied hard and read difficult books and came top in all her exams. This made us thoroughly dislike her. She went to Cambridge University, wheeling herself to lectures and joining all sorts of societies, and she got a first, and stayed on to study further, and now she’s Dr Helen Spencer. She’s had academic books published, and always sends a copy to Dad: To dear Dr Carr, with many thanks for all your care and encouragement. Love Helen.
And now she’d sent an email to say that she’d been having treatment for her lungs at the Brompton Hospital in London, but was feeling much better now, and it would be lovely if she could meet Dad for a coffee before she went back to Cambridge. Just a coffee. But Dad invited her to stay with us for the whole weekend!
For once Izzie was completely thrown.
‘For goodness’ sake, Alistair, you could have asked me first! I don’t know how on earth we’re going to manage an invalid in the house,’ she said.
‘Oh, lighten up, Izzie. Helen’s not an invalid! She’d hate it if you tried fussing round her. Just treat her like any normal guest,’ said Dad.
‘She uses a wheelchair, doesn’t she? She won’t be able to get upstairs, but she’ll have to sleep somewhere. And what about when she uses the bathroom? It’s all very well for you to invite her, Alistair, but I’m the one who has to rearrange everything and try to cope. You’re impossible at times!’ Izzie stormed off to see if she could possibly get a single bed into the little library room downstairs.
I didn’t know what to think. I was usually pleased the rare times Dad and Izzie quarrelled. I hated it when they were all lovey-dovey together because it seemed such an insult to Mum. But this time I couldn’t help feeling on Izzie’s side.
We didn’t want this saintly academic ill person to come here either, especially as we couldn’t go off and play. We all had to have a bath and wash our hair (Clover and me supervising the littlies) and be dressed in our best, waiting for Helen to arrive at eleven o’clock. I wanted to wear my new red skirt and black sparkly T-shirt but Izzie perversely said they weren’t suitable and insisted on the blue dress.
Dad rushed off to fetch Helen from the station. We crowded to the living room window to get a first glimpse of her when she arrived.
‘She uses a wheelchair. Dad said,’ said Jonnie.
‘Hasn’t she got any legs?’ asked Phil.
‘Yes, but they don’t work,’ I said, wondering fleetingly what it must be like to be stuck in a wheelchair all the time.
I tried to imagine what Helen would look like. I pictured her as a little fierce figure with scraped-back hair and glasses, maybe even wearing a black academic gown.
The real Helen was a revelation. She looked wonderful, a little like a tiny Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen. She had long shiny black hair in a pageboy bob and big brown eyes made even larger by dark eye make-up. She wore a green silk dress and silver sandals showing her toenails, which were painted bright blue. She had a silver seahorse pendant round her neck and bangles on each small arm. If you looked closely you saw her fingers couldn’t work properly any more, and she was of course in a wheelchair, but she looked so dynamic it was hard to realize she’d been very ill.
‘Oh, I’ve been waiting ages to meet all of you!’ she exclaimed. She held out her arms to Izzie. ‘Hello! You’re just as beautiful as Alistair said!’
Clover and I bristled a little, because Izzie wasn’t beautiful at all, nowhere near as naturally lovely as our own mother, but I suppose it was a tactful thing for Helen to say.
Then she looked at me.
‘So you’re Katy, the eldest!’
I waited for her to say something about my height. Everyone did when they met me for the first time.
‘You’re the one who makes up stories and gets into scrapes. You’re a girl after my own heart! Come and give me a hug,’ said Helen.
I was a little afraid of hugging her, just in case I hurt her in some way. But her arms were strong around me so I relaxed and hugged her back. She smelled of wonderful perfume, orangey and exciting. I hoped a little of it would rub off on me.
Dad must have told her all about us, because she didn’t once have to be told who we were.
‘Hello Clover. Look at your blue eyes! I bet you can wind your dad right round your little finger.’
‘You must be Elsie. You’re so delicate, just like a little fairy.’
‘Hi Dorry! What are we having for lunch today, hmm? I hope it’s your favourite meal.’
‘Hello Jonnie. I’m longing to meet all your family, especially Zebby.’
‘Come and sit on my lap, Phil. I’ll give you a ride up and down the path in my wheelchair. We’ll go as fast as a car and you can pretend to be the driver.’
In less than five minutes we felt as if we’d known and loved Helen all our lives. We all clamoured to talk to her. Dad had to help manoeuvre her wheelchair into the house and park her in the living room by the big sofa, so we could all squeeze on to it and chatter properly. The littlies kept running to fetch their favourite treasures to show her. Jonnie of course dragged Zebby down from her bedroom and Helen stroked him solemnly and admired his stripes. Dad and Izzie sat with us and attempted proper conversation with Helen. They tried to shoo us away several times, but we were determined to stick to Helen’s side.
Izzie got up reluctantly to go to the kitchen to start preparing lunch.
‘I’ll help, Izzie,’ Helen said immediately. ‘I’m surprisingly good at chopping vegetables and mix
ing salads even though I have hopeless hands, and I love stirring sauces. Please let me come.’
We ended up all trooping into the kitchen, even Dad, because we didn’t want to miss a moment with Helen. Clover and I usually whined and made a fuss if we had to help Izzie, but now we rushed around happily like little under-chefs. Helen suggested Elsie set the big kitchen table for everyone, as she knew she’d be really careful with the china and glasses.
So Elsie started laying the table, with Jonnie and Dorry in charge of the knives, forks and spoons. Phil wanted to help too, though he kept getting in the way and dropping things, so Helen eased him on to her lap again and gave him a raw carrot to nibble.
‘You don’t have to help, Phil, because you’re a little rabbit now and you’re eating your favourite food,’ she said, stroking his curls.
Phil twitched his nose like a rabbit and said, ‘I’m Bunnyhop!’
‘I think you’d better move in with us permanently, Helen,’ said Izzie. ‘You’ve certainly got a magic touch with the children.’
‘Ah, but I don’t have to be with them all the time,’ said Helen. ‘I don’t know how you cope with six, Izzie, but you’re clearly doing a grand job.’
Helen had the knack of paying everyone compliments, but in such a sincere merry way it didn’t sound at all smarmy. She was like a splendid fairy godmother waving her wand for all of us.
She even turned a simple meal like fish pie and broccoli into a positive feast. She talked all the while she ate, including the littlies in everything, and she managed to get picky Phil to eat the very first sprig of broccoli of his life and declare it delicious. It was fruit and ice cream for pudding, and she had us all inventing new flavours. Dad and Izzie joined in happily, though we all thought their ideas (single malt and marmalade ice cream?) pretty lame. Dorry invented the most elaborate flavours, as you can imagine. Some were totally disgusting (roast potato and crispy pork crackling ice cream!) but occasionally they had potential (lavender and honey ice cream or banana and plum jam ice cream).
We wanted lunch to go on forever, but Dad said Helen had to have a rest.
‘I’m not in the habit of taking a rest, Dr Carr!’ she said.
‘A rest from all the children, at the very least,’ said Dad. ‘Izzie’s prepared you a room downstairs, and there’s a shower in the downstairs loo, so consider it your own personal bathroom while you’re here.’
We were curious to see how Izzie had turned the library into a bedroom. I had a peep into the room while Helen was in the loo. Izzie had put several piles of books against the wall, so there was plenty of room for Helen’s wheelchair. She’d declared that Phil could sleep with Dorry in Dorry’s bed for just one night, and taken Phil’s bed downstairs, making it up with the pretty rose-patterned sheets she used for Elsie. She’d put a little table near the bed, with a pretty white lamp in the shape of a lady and a glass vase filled with roses from the garden. She’d cleared two low shelves of books, and set out a stand-up mirror just at the right height for Helen. There were three padded coat hangers hooked on to the other shelf and space for Helen’s extra clothes too.
I had to admit that Izzie had done a marvellous job of turning the library into a lovely guest room for Helen. She was good with Helen too, quietly asking if she needed any help lying down on the bed.
‘You’re totally spoiling me, Izzie. You are a dear,’ said Helen, cheerfully accepting her help and making it easy for everyone.
I badly wanted to stay and help as well, but I got shooed away with all the others.
‘You can go and play now if you like,’ said Dad.
We didn’t like. We wanted to be there the minute Helen emerged from her room. Cecy came round, curious to see our visitor too. When Helen came out at three o’clock, hair freshly brushed and smelling of her wonderful orangey scent, we proudly introduced her to Cecy.
‘You girls are so lucky to live next door to each other,’ said Helen. ‘When I lived with my parents there were just elderly couples on either side, and though they tried to be kind to me they were very off-putting.’ She did a wicked imitation of them shaking their heads over Helen and clucking their tongues. ‘They thought it such a shame I was practically crippled and expected me to be pathetic and saintly, like the little invalids in Victorian storybooks.’
‘Didn’t you mind being crippled?’ Elsie asked.
‘Elsie! You mustn’t say that word!’ I said, giving her a shove.
‘No, no, it’s fine, Katy,’ Helen said quickly. ‘I used the word after all. And yes, of course I minded, Elsie. I still do. But I try hard not to think of all the things I can’t do and concentrate on all the things I can.’
‘Like being ever so clever,’ said Clover.
‘Well, cleverness is often just a willingness to work hard,’ said Helen. ‘And I absolutely love reading, so it’s no hardship for me to pore over books.’
‘We all love reading too – Katy most of all. She even reads some of Dad and Izzie’s books now because she’s read all her own,’ said Clover.
‘Then you’re obviously very clever too, Katy,’ said Helen.
I beamed at her, feeling a great golden glow.
‘Oh no she’s not!’ said Elsie. ‘She’s always in trouble at school and I know for a fact that her teacher moaned about her to Dad last parents’ evening.’
‘You shut up, Elsie, you little tell-tale!’ I said indignantly.
‘Hey, hey, girls! Would you like me to read to you now?’ said Helen. She looked round the shelves. ‘Where are your own books? Run and bring me your favourites!’
We thought Dad the best storyteller in the world, but Helen proved the best storyteller in the entire universe. She read us picture books first, to keep Phil and Dorry and Jonnie amused, and we found we loved hearing them too. When she read Where the Wild Things Are she turned us all into wild things, roaring our terrible roars and showing our terrible claws, and when she came to the wild rumpus part she had us doing a mad dance all around the room.
When she read The Tiger Who Came to Tea she pretended to be the tiger and whizzed round the room in her wheelchair eating everything in the cupboard and drinking all Daddy’s beer with a great smacking of lips and tigery growls of appreciation that made us all roar with laughter.
Dad came in to see what we were all laughing at, and then he joined in and found an old battered copy of a Just William book, his favourite when he was a little boy.
‘You read it, Helen,’ he said, and he sat cross-legged on the carpet, as if he were still a little boy now.
Helen was exceptionally good at William’s voice, magically turning herself into a ten-year-old boy with tousled hair and falling-down socks, but she was positively brilliant at being Violet Elizabeth Bott with her lisp and her ferocious scream.
Izzie crept into the room too, and as soon as she finished the William chapter Helen turned to her.
‘Now, Izzie. You have to find your favourite children’s book,’ she said.
‘Well, I’ve always loved Little Women,’ she said.
Clover and I groaned. Izzie kept trying to make us read it but we’d resisted so far.
‘It’s such a lame title and it’s so goody-goody,’ I said. ‘I’ve read the first chapter and it’s awful. Those sisters have to give up their entire Christmas dinner to feed a poor family and then the only Christmas present they get is a Bible!’
Dorry gasped at the idea of anyone having to go without Christmas dinner.
‘Let me read you my favourite chapter,’ said Helen.
She read about Jo, the tomboy sister, writing a story and Amy, the youngest, throwing it in the fire. I listened, my face burning, because Jo sounded quite a lot like me, and Amy seemed as annoying as Elsie. Then there was a very dramatic part where they go skating and Amy very nearly drowns and Jo feels dreadful.
I decided it was actually a really interesting book after all, and when Helen finished reading her chapter I asked if I could have it to read myself. Izzie looked quietl
y triumphant.
Then Helen asked to go in the garden for a while, so Dad carefully helped ease her wheelchair out through the French windows. She admired all the flowers, making Dad beam, because he loved his garden and spent hours out there pottering about.
She even managed to be complimentary about our children’s patch at the end. Dad had cleared a small bed specially for us, and I’d been ultra enthusiastic at first, determined that we’d grow a wonderful red garden, full of roses and poppies and geraniums and salvias and sweet williams and fuchsias and dahlias. I could see them all blooming hotly when I closed my eyes. I wanted them to be there altogether, all at once. I found it boring, digging the earth and then fiddling around with seeds and bulbs and tiny weeny bushes. I didn’t always remember to water them all and I didn’t see the point of thinning out the little green shoots, because I wanted a mass of flowers.
The littlies lost interest too because they’d wanted to grow food. Dorry was particularly keen on growing bananas, and even I knew that wasn’t possible in chilly England. So Izzie suggested they grow mustard and cress on an old flannel. I can’t say anyone liked the taste of mustard and cress, even Dorry, but at least their gardening project was a success.
Mine wasn’t. Only a few of my flowers flowered, and then they got attacked by slugs or snails and wilted, all-over holes.
Dad tried not to say ‘I told you so’. He’d given us all this boring gardening advice and we hadn’t really listened. But now Helen looked at the sad, weedy patch and the fuchsia that had actually managed to flourish and said she absolutely loved fuchsias with their bright, drooping heads. My own head stopped drooping and I felt pleased that I hadn’t managed to kill off absolutely everything in my garden.