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by Michelle Magorian

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I shall just have to have a look at it.’

  He jumped out of the par, pulled up the collar of his trenchcoat, and folded back the bonnet.

  Outside, the rain began to beat heavily on the roof.

  ‘Mummy,’ said Charlie, ‘why don’t you mend it?’

  Mrs Dickinson Senior turned around sharply. ‘Don’t talk nonsense, child. Your father is going to fix it.’

  ‘But that’s what mummies do,’ he stated. ‘They’re the ones that fix cars.’

  ‘Where on earth did you pick that idea up, Charles?’

  Charlie was confused. He tugged at his mother’s sleeve. ‘Mummies do fix cars, don’t they?’

  ‘Some do,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Not all of them. Auntie Ivy doesn’t, does she? And she’s a mummy.’

  Charlie thought for a moment, then sat back. ‘Oh yes,’ he said simply.

  Within minutes he sat up again.

  ‘But you do, don’t you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So why don’t you mend this one?’

  ‘Well, I expect Daddy would like to do it himself.’

  ‘Is he really my daddy?’

  ‘Yes, of course he is.’

  ‘But Uncle Harvey said that my real daddy would play with me.’

  ‘If you’re nice to him, I expect he will. But you haven’t been very nice, have you?’

  ‘But I don’t like him,’ he said. ‘So he can’t be my real daddy, can he?’

  Half an hour passed. Rusty could see that her mother was growing tense. She’d already smoked several cigarettes. Suddenly she stubbed out the one she was smoking and climbed out of the car.

  ‘Margaret!’ said Rusty’s grandmother. ‘What are you doing?’

  Before Rusty could stop him, Charlie said, ‘She’s going to mend the car.’

  Mrs Dickinson Senior turned around slowly and glared at him. ‘Charles, if I hear one more word out of you, you will be going to bed early and without any tea.’

  Very slowly, Rusty turned the handle under her window so that she could eavesdrop on what was going on outside.

  Her mother was standing beside her father.

  ‘It’s all right, Margaret,’ he said, irritated. ‘Just be patient.’

  ‘Let me have a look. I did a course in car mechanics with the W.V.S.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you did, dear,’ he said. ‘I suppose they taught you how to put petrol in it and clean the windscreen.’

  Boy, thought Rusty. And she had been sent up to her room for sarcasm! He should be sent to the moon.

  ‘No, Roger,’ said her mother politely, ‘but I know this type of car very well. You’re probably used to army vehicles. At least let me have a look. It might only be water in the juice. It’s quite common in these cars.’

  ‘Margaret, I am quite capable of dealing with a car engine.’

  ‘I know you are, Roger. But so am I.’

  There was an awful silence.

  Rusty drew herself away from the window. She could feel her heart pounding, only she couldn’t figure out why. I mean, no one was shouting. No one was throwing their arms up in the air, or hitting the car with their fists. On the contrary, both of them were being as polite as anything.

  Through the spattered windshield Rusty watched her mother peer under the bonnet. Her father stood back, his hands on his hip.

  ‘All right, Margaret,’ she heard him say. ‘Have your little look, but then please leave me to deal with it.’

  Rusty’s mother threw off her coat, pushed up her sleeves, and then, very gracefully, she put one leg up on to the wing.

  ‘Well, really!’ exclaimed Mrs Dickinson Senior. ‘What does she think she’s doing?’

  ‘She’s mending the engine!’ said Charlie, exasperated.

  Just then, her mother gave a cry.

  Rusty hurriedly rolled down her window and peered out. ‘What is it?’ she yelled.

  ‘Same old problem,’ Peggy said over her shoulder.

  Rusty saw her look up and smile at her husband. Rusty couldn’t see his expression, since he had his back to her, but, from her mother’s hurried dive back into the engine, she imagined it wasn’t too wonderful.

  As she tinkered with the engine, her mother grew visibly more relaxed. Even when her father refused to fetch something from the boot, she appeared quite unperturbed, and went and fetched it herself.

  Rusty noticed that although her father was great at giving orders, he was terrible at receiving them. Her mother had to ask him several times to turn the engine over and give the self-starter a push before, with very bad grace, he flung the door open and turned on the car light.

  ‘What on earth is she up to, Roger?’ said his mother. ‘Really, you know how hopeless she is.’

  Charlie sprang forward angrily. Rusty quickly grabbed his teddy and moved the legs up and down. ‘Say, look at Teddy, Charlie. He’s dancing.’

  He swung around and sat down with a bump.

  ‘I’m singing in the rain,’

  she sang,

  ‘I’m singing in the rain.

  What a glorious feeling, ‘I’m happy again.’

  And she threw the bear up in the air.

  Suddenly the engine spluttered into life. Her mother gave a thumbs-up sign and began wiping her hands on a rag. Her father sank into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

  Outside, her mother folded the bonnet back into place, snatched up her coat and the tools, and ran around to the boot. Inside the car, Charlie was jumping up and down excitedly.

  ‘See? I told you. Mummies always mend cars.’

  Peggy opened the door and stepped in.

  ‘Ugh!’ cried Charlie. ‘You’re wet!’

  Her hair was dripping down her face in rivulets and her clothes were clinging to her in dark damp patches.

  ‘Oh, Mother,’ said Rusty.

  She put a finger on her lips.

  ‘Was it water in the juice again?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘That’s right, darling. And a bit of grit.’

  As soon as her mother had closed the door, her father turned off the light and the car moved forward. In the half-light, Rusty was acutely aware of the silence. Her grandmother was staring stiffly ahead, her father the same, while her mother gazed out of the window. Meanwhile, Charlie was making his teddy-bear sing and dance, only now it wasn’t ‘Singing in the Rain’.

  ‘ There’s water in the juice,’

  he sang,

  ‘ There’s water in the juice,

  Ee aye the addio, there’s water in the juice.

  There’s…’

  He stopped. ‘I’ve forgotten it,’ he said. ‘What’s the next line, Mummy?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten too.’

  He turned to look at Rusty.

  ‘Uh, let me see,’ she said.

  ‘ There’s dirt inside the gas, there’s dirt inside the gas,

  Ee aye the addio, there’s dirt inside the gas.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I can’t remember. Uh.

  ‘ The jets are all fouled up,’

  she sang.

  ‘Yes,’ he cried. ‘I like that one. Fouled up.’

  ‘O.K. Ready, set, go!’

  ‘ The jets are all fouled up,’

  they sang,

  ‘ The jets are all fouled up,

  Ee aye the addio, the –’

  ‘That will do,’ thundered her father. ‘I don’t want to hear one more word from either of you for the rest of the journey!’

  They fell silent.

  Over his shoulder, Rusty noticed that he was gripping the wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white.

  ‘Why can’t we sing, Mummy?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Because Daddy has to concentrate on his driving and he can’t drive if you make such a –’

  ‘Margaret!’ he roared. ‘I am quite capable of driving a vehicle in any conditions. The reason is quite clear. It is because I say so. And that is t
hat.’

  ‘Come on, darling,’ Peggy whispered. ‘See how dark it is now. You lean back and close your eyes for a few minutes.’

  Charlie wriggled back into the seat and drew his teddy close to him.

  Peggy lit another cigarette. In the flicker of the match-flame, her hands shook.

  28

  Rusty attempted to explain to Lance how awful it was at her grandmother’s and how her parents were like strangers with one another; but she soon gave up, because it upset him so much that he couldn’t even look at her. And she remembered then that his own parents weren’t living together.

  As the weeks progressed, Rusty managed to smuggle odd bits and pieces – like her trapper cap and Wind-breaker – back to the school, and lived for clear nights.

  Lance began to grow more cheerful, but he tended to come, weather permitting, always on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so that sometimes Rusty visited the Cabin on her own. It took him some time to pick up the knack of making fires. It wasn’t easy learning in the middle of the night when he was tired and it was freezing cold; but Rusty never gave up encouraging him, because doing so took her mind off her own troubles.

  And Lance tutored her in Latin, although progress was slow, since the lessons couldn’t start until the fire had been lit. Rusty still disliked the language, but it seemed to cheer Lance up. Unlike Rusty, he liked his Latin master, who was apparently so enthusiastic about his subject that Lance had grown to love it.

  As November blew icily into December, Rusty lived in a strange, dark sort of tunnel. The girls continued to ignore her, the teachers continued to dislike her, and the weekends grew more nightmarish. Soon she grew so adept at daydreaming that she could turn off her surroundings and enter her own private cinema in seconds. Every day she looked anxiously out of the window at the sky. If it was the slightest bit overcast, her stomach shrank so much that it seemed to fold itself back to the base of her spine. Rain was her jailer.

  One weekend she discovered, quite by accident, that her parents did not sleep in the same room, and it worried her. After all, Aunt Hannah and Uncle Bruno even slept in the same bed. When she and Skeet and Kathryn were little, they used to crawl into it with them at weekends and romp around on Uncle Bruno’s knees.

  Her mother grew distant and began to work again at the nearest W.V.S. centre and, although it was never said in Rusty’s presence, she knew that her father and grandmother disapproved.

  And Charlie began to throw tantrums. He reminded Rusty of a cat she knew, which hissed at you when you approached it, but, as soon as you stroked its chest, it became all soft and friendly again. But Rusty was prevented from hugging him. Her father said that he was a boy, not a baby, and that he’d have to learn to act like a man.

  One evening she and Lance were sitting in the Cabin in the Woods, talking. At about 1 a.m. it had started to rain, so they couldn’t leave. It was their last evening together before the Christmas holidays.

  ‘Funny,’ said Rusty, ‘I usually hate the rain, but now that I’m here, I like it. Means I get to stay longer.’

  ‘If it doesn’t stop, we’ll have to leave in it and get wet,’ said Lance anxiously.

  Rusty shrugged. ‘Oh well.’ And she threw another branch on to the fire. ‘I wish we didn’t have to have a vacation. It’s so long, too. Over four weeks!’ She groaned.

  ‘I thought you hated school,’ said Lance. He gave the fire a prod with a branch. ‘Do you think you’re getting used to it?’

  ‘To school? Are you kidding?’

  ‘Well, Fit be glad to get back to school.’

  Rusty was astounded. ‘Are you nuts?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s far better than tiptoeing around and being polite at my aunt’s. At least at school you’re not miserable on your own. There’s plenty of other people there as miserable as you are.’

  She pulled one of the old blankets around her shoulders, like an Indian squaw. ‘It’s this place I’ll miss,’ she said. ‘I feel like it’s my home now, don’t you?’

  He stared into the fire. T told you,’ he said. ‘School’s my home, really.’

  ‘But, Lance,’ she said, leaning forward with intensity, ‘if you come with me to America, Aunt Hannah and Uncle Bruno, they’d let you live with us, I’m sure they would.’.

  He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. ‘You’re not really going to America, are you, though?’

  ‘I certainly am,’ said Rusty hotly.

  ‘So why not now?’

  ‘Because it’s too darned cold, that’s why. I’m going to wait till it gets warmer.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t?’

  ‘I don’t know. When I’m good and ready.’

  He looked away.

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘You wait,’ she said, huddling closer to the fire. ‘As soon as I have some money, I’ll get a train to Exeter, catch the Plymouth train, and then smuggle on board a ship.’

  They fell silent. A large gust of wind howled through the trees outside.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Rusty quietly, ‘I wonder what everyone back home is doing. I can’t imagine Christmas without them. No Thanksgiving was bad enough. But no Christmas…’ She lowered her head.

  Lance turned away, embarrassed. Hastily, she brushed the tears aside.

  It was past three o’clock when the rain stopped and they left the Cabin. By the time they had emerged from the woods, Rusty’s sneakers were caked with mud, and although it was no longer raining, a mist-like drizzle spattered their faces and seeped into their dressing gowns. After she and Lance had wished each other a hurried Merry Christmas, Rusty pulled the flaps of her trapper cap down over her ears and began climbing the wall.

  The lacrosse pitch squelched noisily under her feet. As soon as she reached the hard ground under the scaffolding, she scraped the mud from her sneakers and wiped them in the grass.

  She stared up at the scaffolding, gripped one of the bars, and hauled herself up quickly. Her foot skidded along it. She stopped. Funny, she thought, less than two months earlier she was trying to throw herself off this scaffolding. Now she was struggling to stay on it.

  By the time she managed to reach the dormitory window, she was damp all the way through to her pyjamas. She pulled off her sneakers and two pairs of socks and carried them, together with her uniform and sponge-bag, out of the dormitory and down the stairs to the washroom. She didn’t dare turn on the light. Instead, she propped her torch on the small window-ledge above one of the sinks. Her teeth chattering, she stripped and hung her Windbreaker, cardigan, pyjamas and underwear over all three radiators. Shivering and naked, she washed, put on her uniform, minus her cardigan and socks which were slowly steaming. She undid her plaits, rubbed her hair vigorously with a towel, brushed and replaited it and then desperately began cleaning her sneakers with a wet handkerchief.

  She was shocked to hear the morning bell ringing. She hurriedly pulled on her cardigan and a pair of socks,

  stepped into her sandals, grabbed the rest of her clothing and sneakers, and wrapped them in her dressing gown. Already she could hear footsteps coming down the stairs. She turned the light on, ran back to the windowsill, and flung her torch into her dressing-gown bundle. Then, as casually as she could, she picked up her sponge-bag and towel and sauntered towards the door, where she met Judith Poole and the three girls from her dormitory.

  ‘Order mark,’ growled Judith Poole sleepily. ‘You know you’re not supposed to get up before the bell rings.’ She glanced up at Rusty’s head. ‘Have you washed your hair?’

  ‘Uh-huh. It was getting itchy.’

  ‘Oh, leave her,’ said her friend, Reggie. ‘If you give her any more order marks, the House’ll do badly.’

  ‘There is such a thing as honour,’ snapped Judith. ‘You know I don’t like giving order marks.’

  I bet, thought Rusty, sneaking quickly out of the door.

  ‘But it’s my duty to report any…’
r />   Rusty was already out of earshot.

  It was during assembly, when the form places were being announced, that Rusty learned to her surprise that she had come in tenth in her form. Second from the bottom. From all the comments made about her school-work, she had expected to be last. But her English was reasonably good, and by the end of the term she was beginning to pick up the mathematics and scrape through the history tests. What was even more surprising was that she was not the worst in the form when it came to Latin. Just the next to worst. That was thanks to Lance’s testing her vocabulary and verb declensions. However, in French, geography, scripture and botany she was still hopeless.

  She was so numbed with tiredness that it all passed over her head. All she was conscious of, as she sat there with the other girls, was her damp cardigan and socks clinging to her.

  They stood up to sing the school song. When they had finished, Rusty was amazed to see that some of the girls were quietly dabbing their eyes. Rusty gazed, stupefied, at them. Boy, they had actually been moved by the words of the song; about the glory and honour of the school and all that stuff. She shook her head. At least she had survived the first term. Now all she had to do was find a way of surviving the holidays.

  As soon as Mrs Grace had opened the door of Rusty’s father’s house, Peggy sent her upstairs to wash her hands. On the way up, she leaned over the banisters and saw her mother go towards the study. She was carrying the envelope with Rusty’s school report in it.

  In the bathroom Rusty stared at her face in the mirror. It surprised her to see how much thinner she had become. She took a good look at her teeth. When Lower Four A had to visit a dentist, she was the only one who didn’t have to have any fillings. When the dentist said she had teeth like a race horse, someone had commented, ‘And the brains of one.’ And Filly had actually said, ‘Horses are jolly clever, if you want to know.’ Rusty had been surprised. For a moment she thought Filly was sticking up for her. But she wasn’t. She was sticking up for horses.

  Rusty dreaded meeting her father. She had hardly finished having her tea when the summons came. Her grandmother strode in, poker-faced, and asked her to go and see him immediately.