Black Maria

  “Doesn’t she ever wear anything but that black mac?” Chris asked loudly as the back door clicked shut. “Perhaps she grows it, like skin.”

  We all hoped Elaine had heard. But as usual she had conquered. Mum got out best tea things when Hester Bayley and three Mrs Urs turned up soon after that. Aunt Maria would not let me help because she wanted to introduce her “dear little Naomi” and when Chris tried to help, Aunt Maria said it was woman’s work. “I don’t trust him with my best china,” she added in a loud whisper to Phyllis Forbes and the other Mrs Urs. Mum ran about frantically and Chris seethed. I had to sit and listen to Hester Bayley, who was actually quite sensible and nice-seeming. We talked about pictures and painting and how horribly impossible it is to paint water.

  “Particularly the sea,” Hester Bayley said. “That bit when the tide is coming up over the sand, all transparent, with lacy edges.”

  I was saying how right she was, when Aunt Maria’s voice cut across everything. How can Elaine think Aunt Maria would rather die of shame than say anything?

  “Oh dear! I do apologise,” Aunt Maria shouted. “This is bought cake.”

  “Oh horrors!” Chris promptly said from the other side of the room. “Mum paid for it herself too, so we’re all eating pound notes.”

  Poor Mum. She glared at Chris and then tried to apologise, but Selma Tidmarsh and the other Mrs Urs all began shouting that it tasted very wholesome, it was very good for a bought cake, while Aunt Maria pushed her plate aside and turned her head away from it. And Hester Bayley said to me, “Or a wave, with green shadows and foam on it,” just as if nothing had happened at all.

  She gave me a book when she got up to go. “I brought it for you,” she said. “It’s the kind of pictures a little girl like you will love.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mum said to Aunt Maria after they’d all left.

  I think she was meaning she was sorry about Chris, but Aunt Maria said, “It’s all right, dear. I expect Lavinia has put the baking tins in an unexpected place. You’ll have found them by tomorrow.”

  For a moment I thought Mum was going to explode. But she took a deep breath and went out into the rain and the wind to garden. I could see her savagely pruning roses, snip-chop, as if each twig was one of Aunt Maria’s fingers, while I put Hester Bayley’s book on the table and started to look at it.

  Oh dear. I think Hester Bayley may be as dotty as Zoë Green underneath. Or she doesn’t know better. Mostly the pictures were of fairies, little flittery ones, or sweet-faced maidens in bonnets, but there were some that were so queer and peculiar that they did things to my stomach. There was a street of people who looked as if their faces had melted, and two at least of woodlands, where the trees seemed to have leering faces and nightmare, twiggy hands. And there was one called ‘A naughty little girl is punished’ that was worst of all. It was all dark except for the girl, so you couldn’t quite see what was doing it to her, but her bright clear figure was being pushed underground by something on top of her, and something else had her long hair and was pulling her under, and there were these black whippy things too. She looked terrified, and no wonder.

  “Charming!” Chris said, dropping crumbs over my shoulder as he ate the last of the pound-note cake. “Mum’s being told off again, look.”

  I looked out of the window into the dusk. Sure enough, Elaine was standing over Mum with her hands on the hips of her flapping black mac, and Mum was looking humble and flustered again. “Honestly—” I began.

  But Aunt Maria was calling out, “What are you saying, dears? It’s rude to whisper. Is it that cat again? One of you call Betty in. It’s time she was cooking supper.”

  This is the sort of reason I never got to speak to Chris, and never got to write in my notebook either. When I went to guide camp, it was more private than it is in Aunt Maria’s house. But I have made a Deep Religious Vow to write something every day now. I need to, to relieve my feelings.

  The next day was the same, only that morning I went out with Mum and Chris obeyed Elaine’s orders and stayed with Aunt Maria. Would you believe this? I have still not seen the sea, except the day we came, when it was nearly dark and I was trying not to look at the piece of new fence on Cranbury Head. That morning we went round and round looking for cake tins, then up and down and out into the country behind, where it is farms and fields and woods, looking for the launderette. In the end Mum said she felt like a thief with loot and we had to bring the bundle of dirty sheets home again.

  “Give them to me,” Elaine said sternly, meeting us on the pavement outside the house. She held out a black mackintosh arm. Mum clutched the laundry defensively to her, determined not to give Elaine anything. It was ridiculous. It was only dirty sheets after all.

  Elaine made her two-line smile and even laughed, a whirr without the chimes! “I have a washing machine,” she said.

  Mum handed over the bundle and smiled, and it was almost normal.

  That afternoon Zoë Green turned up for best china and cake, and so did Phyllis Watsis and another Mrs Ur – Rosa, I think. Mum had made a cake. Aunt Maria had spent all lunch-time telling Mum it didn’t matter, to make sure Mum did, but she called out all the same while Zoë Green was kissing her, “Have you made a cake, dear?”

  Chris said loudly from his corner, “She. Has. Made. A. Cake. Or do you want me to spell it?”

  Everyone pretended not to hear, which was quite easy, because Zoë Green is quite cuckoo. She runs about and gushes in a poopling sort of voice – I can imitate it by holding my tongue between my teeth while I talk. “Stho dthis iths dhear dithul Ndaombi!” she pooples. “Ndow don’d dtell mbe. I dlovbe guessthing. You dwere bordn in lade DNovember. DYou’re Sthagitharius.”

  “No, she’s not, she’s Libra,” said Chris. “I’m Leo.”

  But no one was listening to Chris, because Zoë Green was going on and on about horoscopes and Sagittarius, loud and long – and spitting rather. She wears her hair in two buns, one on each ear, and long traily clothes with a patchwork jacket on top, all rather dirty. She’s the only one who looks mad. I tried several times to tell her I wasn’t born in November, but she was in an ecstasy of cusps and ruling planets and didn’t hear.

  “Such a dear friend,” Aunt Maria said to me.

  And Phyllis Ur leaned over and whispered, “We love her so much, dear. She’s never been the same since her son – well, we won’t talk about that. But she’s a very valued member of Cranbury society.”

  They meant I was to shut up and let Z.G. go on. I looked at Chris and he looked back at me and then up at the ceiling. Bonkers, he meant. Then I sat there listening and wondering how it was I never seemed to talk to Chris at the moment, when I did so want to know if he really meant that about the ghost.

  Then Mum brought in the cake. Chris looked Aunt Maria in the eye and got up to pass the cake round.

  Aunt Maria said, in a sad low voice, “He’ll drop it.”

  If that wasn’t the last straw to Chris, it was when Zoë Green dived forward and peered at the slice of cake he was trying to pass her. “What’s in this? Ndothing I’mb adlerdjig to, I hobe?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Chris said. “Those things in it that look like currants are really rabbit’s do’s, so if you’re allergic to rabbit’s do’s, don’t eat it.” Everyone, including Zoë Green, stared, and then began to try to pretend he hadn’t said it. But Chris seized a cup of tea and held that out too. “How about some horsepiss?” he said.

  There was a gabble of people talking about something else, in the midst of which Mum said, “Christian, I’ll—” Unfortunately, I’d just taken a mouthful of tea. I choked, and had to go out into the kitchen to cough over the sink. Through my coughings, I heard Chris’s voice again. Very loud.

  “That’s right. Pretend I didn’t say it! Or why not say, ‘He’s only an adolescent, and he’s upset because his father fell off Cranbury Head’? He did, you know. Squish.” Then I heard the door slam behind him.

  Outcry. It was awful. Au
nt Maria was having a screaming fit. Zoë Green was hooting like an owl. I could hear Mum crying. It was so awful I stayed in the kitchen. And it went on being so awful. I was coughing my way to the back door to get right away like Chris had, when it shot open and Elaine strode in, black mac and all.

  “I’ll have to have a word with that brother of yours,” she said. “Where is he?”

  All I can think of is that she has a radio link between her house and this one. How could she have known? I mean, she may have heard the noise, but how could she have known it was Chris?

  I stared at her clean, stern face. She has awfully fanatical eyes, I couldn’t help noticing. “I don’t know,” I said. “Outside somewhere probably.”

  “Then I’ll go and look for him,” Elaine said. She went out through the door and said over her shoulder, “If I can’t find him, tell him from me he’s riding for a fall. Really. It’s serious.”

  I wish she hadn’t said ‘riding for a fall’. Not those words.

  When the noise quietened down, I went back to the dining room. Both the Mrs Urs patted my arm and said, “There, there, dear.” They seemed to think it was Chris who upset me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Now I feel as guilty as Mum. It got dark and Chris still hadn’t come back. Aunt Maria was really worried about him. “Suppose he’s gone down on the beach and slipped on a rock!” she kept saying. “If he’s broken his leg or twisted his ankle, nobody will know. I think you ought to ring the police, dear, and not bother about getting supper.”

  Who wants the police, I thought, with Elaine after him? And Mum said, in the special high, cheerful voice she always uses to Aunt Maria, “Oh, he’ll be all right, Auntie. Boys will be boys.”

  Aunt Maria refused to be comforted. She went on, low and direful, “And the pier is dangerous in the dark. Suppose the current took him. Thank goodness little Naomi is safe!”

  “That makes me want to say I’m going out for a swim,” I said to Mum.

  “You dare!” said Mum. “Chris is bad enough without you starting too.”

  “Then shut her up,” I said.

  “What’s that, dear?” said Aunt Maria. “Who’s shut up?”

  It went on like that until the back door crashed open and Elaine marched Chris in, swinging her torch. She had hold of Chris by his shoulder, just as if she had arrested him. “Here he is,” she said to Mum. “I’ve given him a talking-to.”

  “Really? How very helpful you are!” Mum said and took a quick anxious look at Chris’s face. He looked almost as if he was trying not to laugh, and I could see Mum was relieved.

  By then Aunt Maria cottoned on. “Oh, Elaine!” she shouted. “I’ve been ill with worry! Have you brought him? Where did you find him? Is he all right?”

  “In the street,” said Elaine. “He was on his way back here. He’s fine. Aren’t you, my lad?”

  “Yes, apart from a squeezed shoulder,” Chris retorted.

  Elaine let go of Chris and pretended to hit him with her torch. “Don’t let him do that again,” she said to Mum. “You know how she worries.”

  “Stay with me, Elaine,” Aunt Maria bawled. “I’ve had such a shock!”

  “Sorry!” Elaine bawled back. “I have to get Larry his supper.” And she went.

  It was ages before I could ask Chris what Elaine had said to him. Aunt Maria made him sit down next to her and told him over and over again how worried she had been. She kept asking him where he had been and not giving him time to answer. Chris took it all in a humorous sort of way, so different from the way he had been before, that I thought Elaine must have hit him on the head with her torch or something.

  “No, she just grabbed me,” Chris said. “And I said, ‘Do you arrest me in the name of the law?’ And she said, ‘You can be as rude as you like to me, my lad. I don’t mind. But I’m not having your aunt worried.’”

  “What’s that?” said Aunt Maria. “Who’s worried?”

  “Me,” said Chris. “Elaine worried me like a rabbit.”

  “I expect Larry’s been out shooting,” said Aunt Maria. “He often brings home a rabbit. I wonder if he’s got one for us? I’m fond of rabbit stew.”

  Chris looked at the ceiling and gave up. He’s playing his guitar at the moment and Aunt Maria is pretending not to hear that either. It looks as if All Is Forgiven. And that’s what makes me feel guilty. Mum and I have put Aunt Maria to bed and she’s sitting up on her pillows, all clean and rosy in her lacy white nightgown, with her hair in frizzy pigtails, listening to A Book at Bedtime on Mum’s radio. She looks like a teddy bear. Quite lovable. Mum asked her to say when she wants the electricity off, and she gave the sweetest smile and said, “Oh, when you’re ready. Let Naomi finish that story she’s writing so busily first.”

  And I feel horrible. I’ve read through my notebook and it’s full of just beastly things about Aunt Maria and she thinks I’m writing a story. It’s worse than Chris, because I’m being secret in my nastiness. I wish I was charitable, like Mum. I admire Mum. She’s so pretty, as well as so cheerful. She has a neat little nose and a pretty forehead that comes out in a little bulge. Her eyes always look bright, even when she’s tired. Chris takes after Mum. They both have those eyes, with long curly eyelashes. I wish I did. What eyelashes I have are butterscotch-colour, like my hair, and they do nothing for plain brown eyes. My forehead is straight. I am not sweet at all and I wish Aunt Maria would not keep calling me her “sweet little Naomi”. I feel a real worm.

  I felt so bad after that, that I just had to talk to Mum before we blew out the candle. We both sat up in bed. Mum smoked a cigarette and I cried, and we both expected Aunt Maria to wake up and shout that the house was on fire. But she didn’t. We could hear her snoring, while downstairs Chris defiantly twanged away at his guitar.

  “My poor Mig!” said Mum. “I know just how you feel!”

  “No, you don’t!” I snuffled. “You’re charitable. I’m worse than Chris even!”

  “Charitable be damned!” said Mum. “I want to slay Auntie half the time, and I could strangle Elaine all the time! At first, I was as muddled as you are, because Auntie is very old and she can be very sweet, and I only got by because I do rather like nursing people. Then Chris did me a favour, behaving like that. He was admitting something I was pretending wasn’t there. People do have savage feelings, Mig.”

  “But it’s not right to have savage feelings,” I gulped.

  “No, but everyone does,” said Mum, lighting a second cigarette off the end of the first. “Auntie does. That’s what’s upsetting us all. She’s utterly selfish and a complete expert in making other people do what she wants. She uses people’s guilt about their savage feelings. Does that make you feel better?”

  “Not really,” I said. “She has to make people do things for her, because she can’t do things for herself, can she?”

  “As to that,” Mum said, puffing away, “I’m not convinced, Mig. I’ve been looking at her carefully and I don’t think there’s much wrong with her. I think she could do a lot more for herself if she wanted to. I think she’s just convinced herself she can’t. Tomorrow I’m going to have a go at making her do some things for herself.”

  That made me feel better. I think it made Mum feel better too, but she hasn’t made much headway getting Aunt Maria to do things. She’s been trying half the morning. Aunt Maria will say, “I left my spectacles on the sideboard, but it doesn’t matter, dear.”

  “Off you go and get them,” Mum says, in a cheerful loud voice.

  There is a pause, then Aunt Maria utters in a reproachful gentle groan, “I’m getting old, dear.”

  “You can try at least,” Mum says encouragingly.

  “Suppose I fall,” suggests Aunt Maria.

  “Yes, do,” says Chris. “Fall on your face and give us all a good laugh.” Mum glares at him and I go and find the spectacles. That’s the way it was until the grey cat suddenly put in an appearance, mewing through the window at us with its ugly flat face almost pressed
against the glass. Aunt Maria jumped up with no trouble and practically ran to the window, slashing the air with both sticks and shouting at the cat to go away. It fled.

  “What did you do that for?” Chris said.

  “I’m not having him in my garden,” Aunt Maria said. “He eats birds.”

  “Who does he belong to?” Mum asked. She likes cats as much as I do.

  “How should I know?” said Aunt Maria. She was so annoyed with the cat that she took herself back to the sofa without remembering to use her sticks once. Mum raised her eyebrows and looked at me. See? Then we unwisely left Chris indoors and went out to look for the cat in the garden. We didn’t find it, but when we got back Chris was simmering. Aunt Maria was giving him a gentle talking-to.

  “It doesn’t matter about me, dear, but my friends were so distressed. Promise me you’ll never speak like that again.”

  Chris no doubt deserved it, but Mum said hastily, “Chris and Mig, I’m going to make you a packed lunch and you’re going to go out for some fresh air. You’re to stay out all afternoon.”

  “All afternoon!” cried Aunt Maria. “But I have my Circle of Healing here this afternoon. It will do the children such a lot of good to come to the meeting.”

  “Fresh air will do them more good,” said Mum. “Chris looks pale.” Which was true. Chris looked as if he hadn’t slept much. He was white and getting one or two spots again. Mum took no notice of Aunt Maria’s protests – it was windy, it was going to rain, we would get wet – and bullied us out of the house with warm clothes and a carrier bag of food. “Do me a favour and try and enjoy yourselves for a change,” she said.

  “But what about you?” I said.

  “I’ll be fine. I shall do some gardening while she has her meeting,” Mum said.

  We went out into the street. “She’s martyring herself,” I said. “I wish she wouldn’t.”

  Chris said, “She needs to work off her guilt about Dad. Let her be, Mig.” He smiled in his normal understanding way. He seemed to go back to his old self as soon as we were in the street. “Shall I tell you something I noticed about this street yesterday? See that house opposite?”