The Exiles

by Hilary McKay

  Rachel wrote to her parents:

  Dear Sir / Madam,

  The sausages here are not like the sausages at home they are all one long one that you have a bit of. We had sausages for tea. Ruth is writing to you and so is Naomi and so is Phoebe. We are having a nice time. [‘That’s a lie,’ Naomi said, reading over Rachel’s shoulder.]

  Love from Rachel

  P.S. Do you miss me?

  Phoebe’s letter was very short and she wouldn’t accept any help with the spelling so no one knew what it was about. She wrote it lying on the floor with the paper shoved under her stomach, and after a long and painful time she had accomplished one line which simply remarked:

  I hop you will send my muny son.

  The rest of the page she filled with kisses, and she drew a picture of money on the back.

  After a lot of staring at the ceiling Ruth began:

  Dear Mum and Dad,

  I hope you are well. I will have to buy another suitcase to put my bones in. I do not know how much they cost. I don’t know what Phoebe is writing – she will not show anyone. Please could you send us some books to read. We have read all of Big Grandma’s and there is no library in the village. Please send as many as you can – it doesn’t matter which. We climbed a huge mountain the day Mum went away and the next day we went to the beach, but it has done nothing but rain since. Big Grandma makes us go out even if it is raining because she doesn’t want us under her feet all day. We have been doing all the work, and washing up after every meal. Big Grandma says there are badgers living near here. I’m going to see them if it stops raining. Sometimes (but not often) she is quite nice to us. I hope the books come soon.

  Love, Ruth

  P.S. There are a lot of things I would like to say but am not saying, so this is a rather short letter.

  Naomi wrote:

  Dear Everyone,

  Will you write and tell us when we are coming home so I can count the days off? Every day Big Grandma forces us out in the rain and we have to go and stand in the shed until she lets us in again. She thinks we go for walks, but she cannot make us. We have not got anything to read, but we have to work all day so we do not have much spare time.

  We talk about Uncle Robert in front of Grandma – she doesn’t care. She says she doesn’t believe in living in the past.

  One of us has been taking stuff from the garden, two people (or it might be three) have been stealing my socks, one of us is wearing nearly the same clothes that they wore when we came here. They have not worn anything else in-between. Two of us have learnt rude language off someone (me and one of us knew it already but at least we did not use it). Do you think we sound like we are getting worse? I heard Big Grandma tell you on the phone that we were all well. Well, some of us could hardly walk that day.

  Love, Naomi

  P.S. I hope you enjoy spending all that money.

  P.P.S. I do not mean to sound nasty.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘Beastly boring to you!’ sang Rachel to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday’. ‘Beastly boring to you, Beastly Boring, Beastly boring, Beastly Boring to you!’

  ‘When is it going to stop raining?’ asked Phoebe.

  ‘Never,’ said Naomi.

  In this, as in so many other matters, she proved to be wrong. After four days of pouring rain they awoke one morning to a world of bright sunlight. Everyone’s spirits rose tremendously at this transformation, and Ruth, looking out of the window, voiced all their hopes when she said, ‘Perhaps the washing will dry today.’

  They had reached the stage when everyone’s clothes were equally dirty, and even Phoebe had taken to wearing her own again.

  The sunshine went straight to Big Grandma’s head.

  In celebration of the weather she cooked them fried egg sandwiches for breakfast, and sang, as she slapped the eggs onto the bread, French words to a tune so eerie, so desolate and disturbing, that the hairs curled on the back of Ruth’s neck as she listened.

  ‘What’s that song?’ she enquired.

  ‘Lili Marlene,’ answered Big Grandma and swapped over to the English words.

  ‘It’s awful,’ said Ruth admiringly, and was disappointed when Big Grandma refused to continue.

  ‘Nobody could sing with Rachel eating fried egg sandwiches right under their noses,’ she said in excuse. Rachel, who with complete lack of foresight, had just taken a large and disastrous bite into the middle of her sandwich, smiled unconcernedly and licked the front of her T-shirt.

  ‘How poor Noah,’ said Big Grandma, ‘survived forty days cooped up with his relations in that ark is past my understanding.’

  ‘He probably had plenty of books with him,’ said Naomi.

  ‘And he could always go and sit with the animals,’ pointed out Ruth.

  ‘True,’ agreed Big Grandma, ‘and speaking of animals, you lot of gorging gluttons have eaten me out of house and home. What will I do with you while I go shopping?’

  ‘Why don’t you take us with you?’ asked Rachel.

  ‘Why should I?’ asked Big Grandma reasonably. ‘Much quicker and less embarrassing without you, I should think. But what will my poor little grandchildren do without their Big Grandma all day, especially as I intend locking them out of the house?’

  ‘Well, we’ll smash a window and come back in,’ said Phoebe in a moment of inspiration.

  ‘Oh really?’ asked Big Grandma. ‘It’s not that easy to smash a window in cold blood, my sweet little Phoebe!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Try it and see,’ said Big Grandma, and smirked complacently after Rachel had rushed outside, grabbed a large stone, and then, to her surprise, been unable to do more than grin weakly and slink back in again.

  ‘Mind over matter,’ explained Big Grandma arrogantly.

  At that moment Phoebe, who had been carefully selecting a likely looking missile, turned and chucked it through the kitchen window where it smashed a neat, but rather large hole in the dead centre.

  ‘Matter over mind,’ said Naomi. ‘Quite a good shot too!’

  ‘It’s easy,’ explained Phoebe modestly, coming in to view the damage from the other side.

  ‘You horrible child,’ snarled Big Grandma. ‘I should never have judged you by human standards! Witless! Leave that glass alone, Rachel, you’ll cut yourself ! And you two stop laughing,’ she ordered Ruth and Naomi. ‘Get on with the dishes while I clear this mess up.’

  ‘You said I could,’ Phoebe complained, disappointed at not being praised for her achievement.

  ‘Can you glue it together with see-through glue?’ asked Rachel, without much hope.

  ‘Are you still locking us out all day?’ asked Naomi, wondering if brute force had caused Big Grandma to change her mind.

  ‘I certainly am,’ said Big Grandma crossly, ‘and you’ll be lucky if I don’t leave you outside all night as well.’

  ‘Can we have some food if you do?’ asked Rachel, who wisely believed her Big Grandma to be capable of anything. ‘And sheets and blankets and pillows and torches and our pyjamas, and umbrellas in case it rains?’

  ‘I’ll see how I feel,’ replied Big Grandma as she wrapped up pieces of broken glass in newspaper. ‘You might not even survive till night. What are you going to do all day? Have you an idea between you?’

  ‘If we’re going to be out all day,’ suggested Ruth, ‘we could make a fire and cook our dinner on it. We don’t like sandwiches.’

  ‘Do you know how?’ asked Big Grandma. ‘Have you ever done it before?’

  ‘You learn it in the Guides,’ replied Ruth cautiously, and none of her sisters gave her away by pointing out that she had been thrown out of that noble institution after only two weeks’ membership, on a charge of non-cooperation.

  ‘It’s perfectly easy,’ added Naomi. ‘Dozens of books tell you how to do it, and anyway, we’ve been reading cookery books all week.’

  ‘I suppose I could let you try, if you did it on the beach,’ Big Grandma said. ‘There’s nothing
to set fire to down there. I don’t see why you shouldn’t manage. Keep Phoebe and Rachel away from the flames though, and don’t forget you’ll have to carry down everything you need yourselves, and you can thank Phoebe for that. I haven’t time to take you as well as get this window patched up.’

  ‘Oh, there won’t be much to carry,’ said Ruth.

  An hour later they set off for the beach completely bowed down under the weight of their equipment. Not only had they food, in vast and bulky quantities, but also a saucepan, a frying pan, two litres of fresh water, and a bucket to be filled with sea water and stood near the fire, just in case.

  ‘Don’t you trust us?’ asked Naomi, when Big Grandma produced this.

  ‘Not entirely,’ said Big Grandma.

  As well as all this they took newspaper to help get the fire started, swimming things in case they went in the sea, and an assorted bundle of knives and forks. Ruth, very alarmed already at the size of the heap on the kitchen floor, said she thought they could do without plates.

  ‘What about a table and a few chairs?’ asked Big Grandma when she saw the stack of essential equipment, ‘or perhaps you could choke down sandwiches just this once?’

  This was exactly what they had been thinking themselves, but nobody had any intention of saying so. Between them they shouldered the load and headed off for the shore, trying to walk as if their backs and arms were not breaking because Big Grandma was standing at the front door, gleefully watching and waving goodbye.

  All through the village people stared at them.

  ‘Haven’t they ever seen anyone carrying a frying pan before?’ muttered Naomi.

  ‘It’s Phoebe’s bucket,’ grumbled Ruth. Phoebe was carrying (among other things) an orange plastic bucket half full of fruit. Unable to lift it properly, she was trailing it along the ground behind her, the apples and tomatoes bumping and rattling about inside. At the village shop they stopped to buy fizzy pop, and they put that in the bucket as well.

  ‘It’s too heavy,’ complained Phoebe.

  ‘I’ll take it then,’ said Naomi, ‘and you take this blasted awful frying pan.’

  Phoebe, already burdened by a small sack of potatoes held strained to her chest by her aching arms, found that the addition of a frying pan obscured her vision completely.

  ‘Stop dragging it,’ ordered Ruth, a few minutes later, when Phoebe had resorted to towing the frying pan along the road behind her. ‘It’ll get scratched. Carry it properly. You’ve destroyed enough for one day.’

  The road led through the village, past fields of sheep on either side, and down to the very edge of the beach. Few people visited this part of the coast, mainly because there was nowhere to park a car, and none of the usual seaside rubbish shops. Instead the salt-scorched grass sloped down to the shore and ended in an expanse of rough stone and shingle. When the tide was up you could not see any sand at all, but when it was down it left a shining flatness of golden beach, stranded shells and rock pools.

  ‘Gosh!’ said Naomi, gazing in delight over the rim of her bucket, ‘why didn’t you tell me it was this good?’

  The tide was out, and in the far distance the sea sparkled along the edge of the sand. Except for a few groups of people sitting on the stones just in front of where the road ended, the beach was empty.

  ‘Let’s get away from them,’ said Ruth, looking at the people. ‘We’ll go where no one can see what we’re doing if anything goes wrong.’

  They trudged a long way before Ruth and Naomi were satisfied with the distance between themselves and the rest of the world.

  ‘My feet are bleeding,’ said Rachel sadly. ‘My socks are full of blood. I can feel it squidging in-between my toes. Can’t we stop?’

  Heartlessly Ruth and Naomi hurried on, until the people on the beach disappeared into the blur of the heat haze.

  ‘Should be safe here,’ said Ruth at last, dumping her burdens to the ground. ‘It’ll be lighter going back when we’ve eaten all the food,’ she added thankfully, for the pile on the shore looked even bigger than it had done on the kitchen floor.

  ‘I can’t walk,’ said Rachel, collapsing on the wet sand. ‘You’ll have to carry me down to the sea.’

  Already her sisters were pulling on their swimming costumes.

  ‘Come on,’ said Ruth to Rachel, ‘you’ll feel better when you’ve got your shoes off.’

  ‘I’m sure my socks are full of blood.’

  ‘Let’s see then,’ said Naomi.

  Rachel slowly pulled off her socks while her sisters stared at her bare feet in silence.

  ‘It’s disgusting!’

  ‘Get them away from the food!’

  ‘Blood?’ asked Phoebe in amazement. ‘That’s not blood! Blood’s not black! That’s …’

  ‘Shut up,’ Ruth told her. ‘We all know what it is.’

  ‘Aren’t you sorry for me?’ asked Rachel, shamelessly regarding her feet, but instead of answering her the same thought struck all her sisters at once, and they rushed to get into the sea before Rachel, as Naomi put it, mucked it up.

  Ruth and Naomi had read between them a fair number of books describing how to make a campfire, and they had noticed that most of them seemed concerned to point out the enormous problems of it all, laying great stress on the need to identify the sorts of wood that burned best, the troubles that could arise when the wind blew in the wrong direction, the special skills required to build a fire-proof circle of stones, and the best (and only) way to sharpen a stick on which to spear your food.

  ‘I’m sure they write like that to put people off trying,’ said Naomi, who regarded these accounts as pure fiction. Cooking on a sharpened stick she dismissed as impossible, and as for the building of the fireplace, well, any one could make a circle of stones, especially if they were lucky enough to have someone else to do the carrying for them. In this Ruth and Naomi were very lucky, since they had Rachel and Phoebe.

  ‘We need two more,’ dictated Naomi, ‘long, flattish ones to balance the saucepan and the frying pan on.’

  ‘Big Grandma said we weren’t to go near the fire,’ Phoebe pointed out.

  ‘She meant when it was alight, not now,’ said Ruth, who was arranging the stones. ‘Anyway, you don’t usually do what she tells you. Go and get some dried seaweed; there’s heaps of it piled further up.’

  The stones were arranged in a neat circle in the sand, with screwed-up newspaper in the middle and sticks and seaweed on top. With immense care they lit the newspaper, and the campfire burned with flames that were almost invisible in the bright sunlight.

  ‘One match,’ said Ruth proudly, ‘and Big Grandma made me bring two boxes!’

  Rachel and Phoebe were sent off to the sea with the bucket to wash the potatoes, which were then cut up (unpeeled) and put in the saucepan.

  ‘We forgot the salt,’ said Naomi.

  ‘The sea is salty,’ answered Ruth. ‘And boiling will kill the germs. Go and rinse the bucket, Rachel, and get us a bit of sea. A clean bit. Don’t get it from where you were paddling!’

  ‘Stand on the edge and get it,’ said Naomi. ‘Don’t put your feet in.’

  While the potatoes boiled in a mixture of salt and fresh water on one side of the fire, Naomi fried bacon on the other, holding the pan as far away from herself as possible because the flames were so hot.

  ‘Shall we fry the tomatoes too?’ asked Ruth, feeding the fire with bits of driftwood that Rachel and Phoebe were collecting.

  ‘They’d be much cooler raw,’ decided Naomi, feeling she had quite enough to manage with the bacon alone.

  ‘This cooking is dead easy.’ Ruth prodded the potatoes. ‘I knew it would be. These are soft enough to eat now. What about the bacon?’

  ‘I’ve cooked it all. Smell it. I wish you could get perfume that smelt that way. Call Rachel and Phoebe and let’s get started. I’m starving!’

  They were all starving. Rachel and Phoebe came tearing up like hungry dogs the minute Naomi yelled ‘Food!’ And it was,
as Rachel incredulously remarked, real food. The potatoes, freshly dug that morning, steamed gloriously, nutty and buttery. The tomatoes were sun-warm. The bacon was crisp. There was heaps.

  For the first few minutes nothing much was said. Hot things were waved about to cool, tomatoes bitten cautiously.

  ‘Good thing there isn’t anyone watching,’ commented Ruth, looking across at Rachel. Rachel was holding a slice of bacon in one hand and a large potato speared on a fork in the other. Tomato juice ran unconfined along her forearm and dripped off her elbow.

  ‘It’s jolly good,’ said Rachel happily. ‘I didn’t know we could cook.’

  ‘You didn’t cook,’ Naomi pointed out. ‘Ruth and I cooked. You did all the work, but we were the brains. Chuck me another tomato, someone! Someone, not everyone!’

  ‘Is it The One who Eats Least Washes Up?’ asked Phoebe, ‘or The One Who Finishes Last?’

  ‘Neither,’ said Ruth indignantly, reaching over to pick another slice of bacon from the frying pan and spitting out potato skins. ‘We’re not at Big Grandma’s now! This is civilisation! Have you forgotten what it’s like?’

  There was a happy feeling in the air, a feeling of slowly regained control. It seemed a very long time since they had felt so peaceful. Lincolnshire, school, the fortunes they had gained and lost so quickly, all seemed very far away. Here they were, not starving or food poisoned, doing what they had set out to do and doing it well.

  Fate, in the form of a stocky, sheepskin-jacketed boy, was already hurrying towards them, but of that they were unaware.