“Never mind,” whispered Fiona Perks as Polly lay miserably at her feet. “Nothing’s broken.”
Polly gazed up at Fiona’s made-up face and thought that this was exactly the irritating sort of thing Fiona Perks would say. “Nothing! Only my spirit!” she retorted as she struggled to her feet.
“Wasn’t it awful!” she wailed to Granny afterward.
“So-so,” said Granny. “I enjoyed most of it. And it’s no more than you’d expect on a Friday.”
Granny, Polly thought, was probably the most superstitious person in the world. Even the Superstition Club at its height had not been a patch on Granny. She tried to smile. “I wish you’d come tomorrow instead. I bet we get it perfect tomorrow.”
And of course they did. Everyone was ashamed of Friday. The delinquent boy spent all Saturday learning his part. Algy and Ernest came early in order to rehearse their sandwich scene. The Science master worked on the lighting for hours, and Mrs Jefferson put Kirstie’s dress back together with tape to make sure it stayed. Even the orchestra tried to pull itself together.
The show went like a house on fire, as Nina kept saying. Nina’s parents were there that night, to her great glee. She kept going to the curtains and looking out at them, and getting in the way of all the people waiting in the wings. Polly was rather nervous. She was meanly glad when, just after the first interval, Mr Herring took Nina by the scruff of her clown suit and threw her into the girls’ dressing room.
“I was only looking!” Nina grumbled at Polly. “It’s interesting seeing everyone. Your strange man is sitting near the back. Did you know?”
Cold fear hurt Polly’s throat for a moment. “Seb? Or Mr Leroy?”Then she had a feeling that all this had happened before. “You mean my Dad?”
“No, stupid, the one you sent the tickets to,” said Nina.
“What!” Polly exclaimed. She shoved Nina aside and sped to the stage. The audience was rows of dim pink blobs, but she saw Mr Lynn’s glasses glinting near the back. There was no mistaking the angle of them as they sat on his nose. “Good heavens!” she heard herself say.
“What do you expect – if you go and send him tickets?” Nina said behind her.
Polly turned round to tell Nina to keep her mouth shut about that and found Mr Herring bearing down on them. Both of them fled back to the dressing room, Polly laughing like an idiot. She could not remember ever having been so pleased, or so flattered, or so nervous about anything in her life before. And she was sure she was going to make a worse mess of the pantomime even than Friday.
But when the time came and the orchestra started the clown music, a sort of steely goodness came upon Polly. She suddenly knew she was going to be excellent. She came drooping on to the stage exactly right, and this time the girl playing the melancholy tune on the violin got it exactly right too. Polly turned slowly through Pierrot’s first cartwheel, with her legs drooping just as they should, and she had a sudden sense, as she turned, that she was part of a transparent charmed pattern in which everything had to go in the one right way because that was the only way it could go. She came out of the cartwheel and went on her knees to Kirstie Jefferson, with her drooping sleeves imploringly raised. The violin sang along. And the audience began going “O-oh!” half jeering at Pierrot, but half on his side too. They went on doing it, and that was right as well. The pattern had been there always, even though they were all making it just at that moment.
Polly went through her part in it with a sort of wondering, alert stillness inside. It was right. It was even right when Kirstie laughed at her and went off with Harlequin. Polly mourned, and the clowns whirled round her, making another part of the pattern. And the audience cheered so much when Fiona Perks came and offered her pink paper heart to Pierrot that Polly felt a real gush of liking for Fiona. She swapped pink paper hearts with her, both of them laughing lovingly, like people enormously relieved about something.
As soon as the curtains closed on their last bow, Polly burst off the stage and struggled through crowds of people getting changed, out into the cold, stinging dark of the car park, to catch Mr Lynn. He was unlocking the door of the horse-car, about to get in. Mary Fields was with him. Polly slowed down and approached rather hesitantly. But they were clearly expecting her. They both turned round.
“Hello, Polly!” they both said.
“Did you like it?” Polly asked.
Mr Lynn nodded. Mary Fields said, “Oh, enormously! You were terrific, Polly. You ought to take up gymnastics seriously – or acting, for that matter. Shouldn’t she?” she asked Mr Lynn.
“Quite possibly,” he said. Polly knew he did not really agree. She thought it was because he knew there were other things she could do better than those, but she wanted to make sure.
“Frankly,” Mary said to Polly, “I wasn’t too keen when Tom insisted on coming all this way. You know the way he drives. But it was worth the sacrifice. Really.”
“Thanks,” Polly said. She did not like Mary Fields, and she could tell Mary still did not like her, but she could tell Mary was truly meaning to be generous. She smiled warmly at her, and felt the white make-up on her face crinkle. “What was wrong?” she asked Mr Lynn.
“Nothing,” he said. “It was sheer magic, mostly because of you. But do you really want to be called Pierrot?”
“A joke,” Polly explained, embarrassed because Mary Fields was standing there with her hands in her pockets, shivering. “A mixture between Polly and Hero.”
“Yes I got that,” Mr Lynn said. He laughed, and put out a hand and rubbed Polly on the top of her little black cap. “Good night, Pierrot. You were splendid. But we have to go. See you.”
Polly stood back while the horse-car started with a snarl. She watched its headlights come on like angry eyes and watched it leap into motion as if someone had kicked it in the rear. She waved a drooping sleeve after it and went in to change.
Changing took quite a while. Polly’s clothes had got scattered by numbers of people all too excited by success to be careful. By the time she had found them, everyone else had gone. Polly came out with her hair down, but still with a chalk-white face, to find the last people distantly banging car doors and shouting “Good night!” She felt dejected. She did not feel like walking all the way to Granny’s alone. Some of the roads were quite dark. But it was too late to cadge a lift now. She set off, turning left out of the school gate, under the streetlight.
Immediately there was a tall person walking beside her. Polly could see him, sideways from behind her hair, and hear his feet heavily hitting the pavement. But she could not bring herself to look properly. She knew it would be Seb. The trick with the tickets had not worked and Seb knew. Her heart banged and she walked faster.
The heavy walker beside her kept up with her. Polly could feel him waiting for her to be scared enough to look round. She put off looking, and put it off, until she came to the next streetlight, and then she could not bear not looking any longer. Her made-up face with its black teardrop turned almost helplessly towards the left. Her black-rimmed eyes met the heavy face and black-pouched eyes of Mr Leroy.
Polly rather thought she stared at him like a rabbit. Mr Leroy stared back sarcastically. His expensive coat made him look big as a bear. He smelled of fine cloth and expensive living. Instead of an umbrella this time, he was carrying one of those shooting-sticks with big rings for a handle that unfold into a seat. He swung it while they stared, gently and unpleasantly.
“You keep ignoring warnings, don’t you, little girl?” he said. “Why?”
“And why to you too!” Polly retorted. She was so frightened that she seemed to have gone right out the other side, into bravery again. “Why? You tell me!”
“Laurel,” said Mr Leroy, gently swinging his stick, “my wife, is rather a special person. What’s hers is hers for keeps. So, to put it bluntly, keep your thieving hands off, little girl. This is the last warning you’ll get.”
“What about Mary Fields?” Polly asked angrily. “Do you giv
e her warnings too?”
“Mary Fields,” said Mr Leroy, “hasn’t been inside Hunsdon House. Or,” he added, with a specially hard and sarcastic look, straight into Polly’s face, “taken anything away from there.”
Polly knew then that Mr Leroy knew all about the Fire and Hemlock picture hanging in Granny’s house above her bed, and maybe about the stolen photograph too. The jolt of guilt that gave her, and the jolt of yet more fear, seemed to shock a lot more courage into her. “You’ve no right to keep warning me,” she said. Her voice sounded so firm it surprised her. “It’s none of your business what I do. You don’t own people – you or Laurel.”
Mr Leroy’s stick stopped swinging and poised, raised. Polly flinched, thinking he was going to hit her with it, but she managed not to cower away. “Do you think you’re safe or something?” Mr Leroy said. He sounded almost astonished. “Do you truly think that pendant you wear is going to keep you safe?” Polly’s hand dived to make sure of the opal pendant. It was still there, a well-known little lump under her sweater. “It won’t,” said Mr Leroy. “I got its measure a while back. Now will you heed my warning?”
“No,” said Polly. She meant it. But one part of her mind suddenly stood away from the rest and wondered. Is this me saying that? What’s so worth getting in a fight with Mr Leroy about?
Mr Leroy’s stick swung and stopped, pointing at Polly. “In that case,” he said, “prepare to regret it, little girl. Believe me, you’ll regret it. You haven’t even begun to see what can happen to you yet.” The pointing stick poised, not quite hesitating. “You’re very young,” Mr Leroy said. “You’ve got angry and decided to be defiant. Change your mind.”
Polly found she was shaking her head. Why? asked the other part that found her doing it. He’s right.
“Or perhaps you don’t understand?” suggested Mr Leroy.
The part of Polly which seemed to be questioning everything at once agreed. No, you don’t understand, do you? You could have got it all wrong. He’s probably only accusing you of stealing pictures. So you’ll give them back before he goes to the police. But the main part of Polly had no doubt at all. She said challengingly, “Then you make me understand. You say what it’s about.”
“All right,” said Mr Leroy. “We are talking about Thomas Lynn. Now, for the third time, will you do as you have been told?”
“No!” Polly almost shouted. The two parts of her came together into a pillar of white anger. “I told you no, and I mean no!”
“You silly little girl!” said Mr Leroy. The stick swung a little further, to point properly at Polly, and then swept contemptuously away. Mr Leroy turned as the stick swung and walked off down the street, a triple rhythm of two heavy feet and the sharp tweet of the stick hitting the pavement.
Polly hurried home to Granny’s, expecting horrors to jump out at her at every corner. She made herself walk, though, and not run, because she did not want Mr Leroy to know how terrified she was. She was sure he knew everything she did.
“What’s up, love?” Granny asked while she was helping Polly take the white off her face. “Didn’t it go well again?”
Polly did not dare talk about Mr Leroy in case he knew and did something to Granny.
“It was magic!” she said. “And I was superb!”
“That sounds like your friend Nina, not you,” Granny said. “Didn’t Mr Lynn come after all, then?” Polly stared at her. Granny chuckled. “No. I’m not a mind-reader. He rang up and asked if you’d really like him to come. I told him about yesterday, and about Ivy being away, so he said he would.”
So was this how Mr Leroy knew? Polly wondered. Or was it through Nina somehow?
“Didn’t you see him there?” Granny asked.
“Yes,” Polly said grumpily. “Mary Fields came too.”
“Who’s Mary Fields?” asked Granny.
“Mr Lynn’s girlfriend, of course!” Polly snapped.
“I’m glad to hear he’s got one,” Granny said. “And you look worn out. Go straight to bed and I’ll bring you up some cocoa.”
6
And pleasant is the fairy land
For those that in it dwell,
But at the end of seven years
They pay a tax to hell.
TAM LIN
For a long time Polly waited in real terror for Mr Leroy to carry out his threats. But nothing seemed to happen. Ivy and David came back, and Polly went home. Mr Lynn did not send her a Christmas present, but that was the only unusual thing.
School started, with its usual feeling of this term being the dead end of the year. After a fortnight of it, when nothing still had happened, Polly decided that Mr Leroy was either bluffing or trying to play on her nerves. She gave up worrying. If something happened, well, it did. If not, how silly she would be worrying about nothing.
So, as a way of defying Mr Leroy, Polly began compiling a book called Tales of Nowhere. First, she made a list of all the things she and Mr Lynn had made up about Tan Coul and Hero. Then she drew a map of Nowhere. She did a tracing of a real map of the Cotswolds and gave the places different names, except for Stow-on-the-Water. This seemed right for the way Nowhere was supposed to mix with real life. It rather pleased her to write DRAGON over the farm where Mary Fields lived. Then, rather thoughtfully, and a little frightened, she put Hunsdon House in too, right in the middle. That seemed right also. The next stage was to paint illustrations for the book she was going to write. Then she settled down to write it. This part of the plan went very slowly.
Nina meanwhile had given up acting and the guitar for boys. She and Polly were out of step again. Nina had come back to school with a figure. It seemed to have grown overnight – or, at least, over Christmas. All the plumpness which had hitherto been all over Nina had somehow settled into new and more appropriate places, and then dwindled, to make a most attractive shape. Nina looked good, and knew it. She spent perhaps half her time with other girls who were in the same happy state, comparing bosoms, talking of diets and discussing clothes. The rest of the time Nina pursued boys. The boys in her own year were considered quite uninteresting. Nina and her friends mostly went after boys in the Third and Fourth Years, but enough of the hunt spilled over into the Second Year for the boys there to start diving under desks whenever Nina appeared, shouting, “Help! Here comes Nympho Nina!”
“It’s a shame she’s started so early,” Fiona Perks remarked to Polly. “What will she have left to do when she’s an old woman of fifteen?”
Polly liked that remark. It was the kind of thing Granny said. “Nina has to be where the action is,” she explained. “She always did.” And she looked upon Fiona with a great deal more friendship after that. She and Fiona were rather thrown together that term anyway. They were both put in the Under Fourteen athletics team, and they both seemed to remain skinny and rodlike while the other girls burst out into hips and bosoms.
“We may be late developers,” Fiona said, “but when it happens, everyone watch out!”
Polly took to Fiona more and more. They were not quite at the stage of sitting together in class, but Polly went once, timidly, to have tea in Fiona’s house. Fiona’s house was quite grand – not as grand as Hunsdon House, but a little on the same lines. Polly wished she dared ask Fiona round to her house in return. But things had become really difficult there.
Ivy had decided David was deceiving her. Their Christmas holiday seemed to have done very little good. Sacrifice in vain! Polly thought bitterly. They could have come to the pantomime for all the good it did! Now, whenever David was out, Ivy telephoned all the people she knew and asked them where David was. One day Polly came in from school to find the kitchen a white fog from the kettle, and Ivy, red in the wet heat, busy steaming David’s letters open.
“I know. I’m insecure,” Ivy said defensively to Polly. “But he’s so secretive. How can I trust a man who doesn’t tell me anything?”
This made things awkward for Polly, because she was still taking notes from David to Mr O’Keefe. S
he had thought David would stop asking her to take them after the row before the pantomime. She was astonished when he stopped her, the first day of school, and handed her another note.
“Be an obliging wench,” David said pleadingly. “Don’t stop up my only outlet, there’s a gorgeous. I’ll do the same for you one day.”
He seemed to mean it so much that Polly’s annoying tenderheartedness was aroused. Besides, she liked Mr O’Keefe and the way he called her his darling. She agreed to take the note, and a good many others after that. All that term, even after the kettle incident, Polly was taking notes for David.
Then, towards the end of term, she came in from a cycle ride with Fiona to find Ivy opening a parcel. Polly could see the address, because it was on a label and very black, first the name of a book shop in Exeter and then MISS POLLY WHITTACKER… “Hey!” said Polly. “That’s mine! It’s from Mr Lynn.”
Ivy’s answer was to thrust the half-opened parcel across the kitchen table at Polly. “Is it?” she said. “Then show me. Open it right out. Go on.”
Under Ivy’s suddenly ominous stare, Polly rather resentfully finished undoing the brown paper. In it was a fat book called The Golden Bough. The typed slip of paper with it said it was from Mr Tea-Gell. Polly grinned. But her pleasure was a good deal spoiled by Ivy taking the book by its covers and shaking it, and then spreading the brown wrapping out to make sure there was no other message.
“It’s all right, Mum,” she said. “I know it’s from Mr Lynn. That’s the way he always does it now.”
“Yes, but I don’t, do I?” Ivy said. “Where does it say it’s from him?”
“The name he gave the book shop,” Polly explained. “It’s a joke. His initials are T.G.L.”
“It makes a good story,” said Ivy.
“What do you mean?” said Polly.
“Mr Lynn, Mr Lynn!” said Ivy. “You may be always on about this Mr Lynn of yours, but I don’t believe he exists. I’ve never set eyes on him!”
“Yes you have!” Polly cried out. “In London – the first time you went to the lawyer.”