by Hilary McKay
Graham, looking across the fields from his father’s farm to the sea, saw that some daft holiday-maker had lit a fire. Being the son, grandson, and great-grandson of Cumbrian farmers, he had been brought up to regard all holiday-makers with great suspicion. Very early in his life he had been taught the holiday-maker rules. He knew, for instance, that if they walked through a field you should go after them and check the gates. That their picnic spots must be constantly patrolled and their dangerous rubbish removed. It was to be expected that they would park their cars in gateways, feed your horse with sandwiches, and lose their dogs in fields of sheep. And although they rarely meant any harm – the majority of them treasuring the countryside as much as any farmer (but Graham could never have believed that) – they must always be watched. Just in case.
It wasn’t the remains of a successful dinner party that Graham saw on the beach. He saw smoke, and a great heap of goodness knew what, and reckless people mucking about poking the fire with long sticks. He heard wild and awful singing and he didn’t know that it was only Ruth, teaching her sisters the words of ‘Lili Marlene’. He drew closer, slightly shocked, and realised that it wasn’t any old mad holiday-makers, but those grandchildren of Mrs Sayers on the hill, and he knew for a fact that they were soft in the head, because she had told him so herself.
Remembering this he lost no time in running across the field, hauling himself over the wall that kept the sheep from straying onto the beach, scrambling over the rocks, and completely spoiling the campfire by emptying the orange plastic bucket of sea water right in the middle of it.
‘You shouldn’t be mucking about with fires!’ he told his flabbergasted audience through the thick smoke that was now billowing around them. ‘Not unless you’ve got someone responsible with you! I’d have thought your gran would have had more sense than to let you!’
‘It’s that boy,’ said Ruth, as she struggled to hold Phoebe back, ‘that boy we saw the other day. Don’t you dare, Phoebe!’
‘The one that said it would rain,’ added Rachel, as if the rain had been all his fault.
‘The one that I said smelled and you shoved me,’ supplemented Phoebe, wriggling free from Ruth’s grip. ‘All right, I’m not going to do anything to him!’
‘He seems somewhat lacking,’ remarked Naomi, recalling a favourite phrase of Big Grandma’s.
‘What do you think you’re doing then?’ asked Graham, considerably unnerved to find he was surrounded by a circle of half dressed, wholly threatening females, at least two of them as tall, if not taller than himself. There seemed to be every possibility that he would have to fight his way out.
One of the girls, the least skinny and ferocious looking, said (in a very pleased voice), ‘Look, he’s going to cry!’
‘Him cry?’ asked another. ‘Him cry? It’s us that should be crying!’
The smallest, and most dreadfully threatening of them all said, ‘He’s only little. Do you want me to fight him?’
‘Little yourself,’ replied Graham defiantly. ‘I’m older than you lot!’
‘How d’you know?’
‘Your gran told me. She told me all about you before you came here.’
‘Why did she tell you about us?’
‘Why shouldn’t she?’ asked Graham unwisely. ‘She told a lot of folk. Everyone knew you were coming.’
The eldest two glanced at each other and then sat down again, inviting Graham, rather earnestly, to tell what else he’d heard. Rachel, suddenly spotting a tomato that had been overlooked earlier, settled down to consume it, and Graham, seeing that he must either sit down too, or remain confronting Phoebe alone, squatted uncomfortably beside the wet ruins of the bonfire.
The conversation got off to a bad start.
‘What’s your name?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Well, we’ve got to call you something. We’ll call you Emily then. Did Big Grandma tell you our names, Emily?’
‘You pack in calling me that.’
‘Tell us your name then.’
‘Graham.’
‘That’s Rachel,’ said one of the girls, nodding to the one who had said he was going to cry. ‘I’m Naomi. That’s Ruth. That one walking round you holding her nose is Phoebe …’
Take no notice of what she’s doing,’ interrupted Ruth civilly. ‘She hasn’t had a bath for a week.’
‘Did Big Grandma tell you we were horrible?’ asked Rachel.
‘She didn’t say anything about you like that.’
‘She must have said something. Why did you come tearing down here?’
‘I saw you playing with the fire and I came to stop you before you got into trouble.’
‘Why should we get into trouble?’
Graham shrugged. ‘What she said about you.’
‘What?’
‘She said you were soft in the head,’ said Graham, throwing tact and caution to the winds. ‘She said you weren’t fit to be let out hardly.’
There was silence. Phoebe let go of her nose and looked at Ruth and Naomi for guidance, not knowing who was attacking whom any more.
‘Huh,’ said Naomi eventually.
‘Well,’ said Ruth, pulling herself together, ‘d’you believe everything you hear? And who isn’t fit to be let out, you or us? Look at our fire! Look at our towels! Lucky we’d finished our cooking, that’s all!’
‘Lucky for him!’ said Phoebe.
‘She said you have no manners,’ remarked Graham, dispassionately.
‘Yes.’ Ruth had to agree with Big Grandma here. ‘Yes, well, Phoebe hasn’t got any manners, it’s true. Neither has Rachel,’ she admitted honestly, ‘probably they’re not really fit to be let out! Shut up. Rachel! But me and Naomi are managing them …’
‘How d’you do that then?’ asked Graham, looking at Rachel and Phoebe as if they were some unusual form of livestock.
‘Bribery mostly,’ Naomi told him.
Graham looked blank, so Ruth and Naomi proceeded to demonstrate.
‘You two go off and fill that bucket with sea water and rinse the knives and stuff in it,’ ordered Naomi, ‘and we’ll wash up tonight when we get back.’
Rachel, who was trying to think of a way of proving she had manners without being rude, took no notice. Phoebe raised one eyebrow.
‘And we’ll set the table for tea as well.’
Phoebe’s eyebrow lowered fractionally and Rachel looked up.
‘And we won’t make you carry any of this cooking stuff back when we go.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
‘Promise on Big Grandma’s deathbed?’ said Rachel suspiciously.
‘Oh, all right.’
Convinced by this awful oath, Rachel and Phoebe set off with the bucket, leaving Ruth and Naomi regarding Graham cautiously, wondering if he was impressed, what else he knew, and if he had any books that he might lend them.
‘How d’you know Big Grandma?’ asked Ruth at last. ‘Do you go up to the house ever?’
‘I go to help in the garden now and then. Why?’
‘Well, do you know anything about it?’
‘What she means is,’ Naomi put in, ‘is it haunted?’
‘Might be,’ replied Graham. ‘Lots of places round here are.’
‘Where?’
‘Churchyard.’
‘Is that haunted?’
‘Bound to be,’ said Graham, who hated conversations like this. ‘All those corpses! Bound to be … Is that what you told them to do?’ he added, looking towards Rachel and Phoebe on the water’s edge, who were hurling seaweed at each other and flinging water about.
‘Yes,’ said Naomi complacently, ‘told you we could manage them.’
‘You got a lot of work to put in yet,’ commented Graham. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to be off. Tell your gran I’ll be coming up to your place with the eggs tomorrow.’
‘Bother,’ said Ruth looking after him as he hurried away, ‘I wanted to ask if he’d lend us some books.
Look at him! Almost running! It’s Phoebe’s fault! I know Rachel’s pretty awful …’
‘I’m not!’ said Rachel, returning in time to overhear this remark.
‘But Phoebe’s awful on purpose!’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ asked Phoebe cheerfully.
Ruth had a brilliant idea when it came to packing up to go home.
‘We’re bound to want this stuff again,’ she pointed out. ‘We’ll leave it here. We can’t keep carrying it up and down the hill with us.’
‘Somebody will steal it or it will wash away,’ said Naomi.
‘Not if we bury it!’
‘Big Grandma will kill you,’ remarked Rachel, but was overruled by the majority. Using the knives and the frying pan they dug a deep hole under the rocky bank that Graham had slid down to save their lives. The knives and smaller things went into the bucket, and they left the saucepan handle sticking out to mark the spot when they came to dig them up again.
‘Better bring back Big Grandma’s rucksack,’ said Naomi. ‘She’ll go mad if we bury it too.’
‘She’ll go mad anyway,’ said Rachel, and she was right.
It didn’t take long for Big Grandma to spot the empty rucksack and make her attack.
‘What have you done with everything?’ she demanded.
‘They buried it,’ said Rachel, who wanted no part in the matter.
‘Half wits!’ stormed Big Grandma. ‘Go back and dig it up again!’
‘We’re fed up of you calling us names,’ said Naomi resentfully. ‘You told everyone in the village we weren’t fit to be let out!’
‘Well, you’re not,’ snapped Big Grandma. ‘Look at you! Buried it! I’ve a good mind to make you go back and fetch everything right now! I would do if it wasn’t teatime. I don’t suppose you’ve had anything to eat all day. Did you bury the food as well?’
‘We ate it,’ said Rachel. ‘It was lovely. We’ll cook some for you tomorrow if you like.’ She yawned. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Did you have the sense to mark the place?’ asked Big Grandma.
‘Yes,’ answered everyone, thinking of the saucepan handle sticking up out of the sand.
‘Well,’ said Big Grandma, dropping poached eggs onto slices of toast so hard that they burst on impact, ‘well, it had better be there in the morning. Or else.’
‘Or else what?’ asked Phoebe.
‘Or else there’ll be trouble,’ said Big Grandma.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Postcards arrived for the girls the next morning, one each (to avoid quarrels), but all sent in the same brown envelope, so as not to waste stamps. Mrs Conroy wrote to Rachel:
Rachel Darling,
Thank you for your nice letter. You KNOW you change your clothes every day, don’t you, except for jumpers and big things. And pyjamas every three or four days perhaps. And take the grubby ones down for Grandma to wash. Yes, we do miss you, very much!
Lots of love, Mummy and Daddy
and she wrote:
Hello, Phoebe!
You will have to get someone to help you read this. Thank you for your letter. We wondered what the picture was, but your writing is getting nice and neat. Hope you are being VERY GOOD! Of course you are! Ask Rachel to show you her postcard.
Bye bye sweetheart, Mum and Dad xxx
Naomi’s was rather more terse:
Naomi!
What a letter! I’m sure you did mean to sound nasty! Hope the weather is better and you have cheered up again. Do make sure the little ones change their clothes, if Grandma does not notice. She says you have been quite good, so perhaps a lot of your letter was exaggerated! I hope so! Write us a nice one!
Love and kisses, Mum and Dad
Ruth read:
Dear Ruth,
Daddy and I did laugh at your letter! A suitcase for your bones! I’m sure you haven’t read all Grandma’s books! Anyway, books are far too heavy to post! Do help Rachel and Phoebe about clothes, etc. I have said the same to Naomi. Glad to hear you are helping so much.
Love and kisses, Mum and Dad
‘She’s not sending any books,’ Ruth passed her card over to Naomi and took Rachel’s to read.
‘She seems worried about your clothes,’ commented Big Grandma, ‘which is not surprising. Still, you all know where the linen basket is, so I shall leave what you wear to your own consciences.’
‘Our clothes are all the same,’ said Ruth, ‘clean and awful or dirty and awful. Show me your postcard, Naomi.’
‘S’private,’ said Naomi.
‘So is mine,’ Rachel remarked, ‘but you all went and read it.’
‘Because we knew you had nothing to hide,’ Big Grandma told her.
Phoebe listened in silence while her postcard was read aloud to her, and later, when the others were washing up, she inspected the correspondence again, and carefully turned the brown paper envelope inside out. Eventually she was forced to conclude that her parents had once again forgotten to hand over her money. How they could forget, Phoebe found difficult to imagine. She remembered it all the time.
She sought out Naomi for advice.
‘What d’you think has happened to it?’
Naomi was inspecting a pair of shears in the garden shed, snapping the blades together with a professional air.
‘Stand still while I see if these are sharp enough.’
Phoebe obligingly stood still while Naomi sheared off a few of her curls.
‘Sharp as sharp,’ Naomi said. ‘They’ve prob’ly spent it.’
‘’Course they haven’t. Give me a go.’
Naomi handed over the shears and turned her back. ‘Only a bit then, like I chopped off you.’
‘I can’t reach. Bend down.’
Naomi bent down and Phoebe sliced off an extremely large hunk of her hair.
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Naomi, grabbing the handful as it fell. ‘That’s ten times what I chopped off you.’
‘My hand slipped.’
‘Well, you’ve got to give me another go to make it fair. Stand still in case I slice your ears.’
Phoebe clutched her ears in delicious horror while Naomi opened the shears to their widest extent and then snapped them suddenly shut as she glimpsed Big Grandma coming down the garden path.
‘Have you done it?’ Phoebe let go of her ears and opened her eyes.
‘No. Buzz off quick. Here’s Big Grandma!’
Phoebe buzzed off by way of the broad bean rows, while Naomi hastily stuffed strands of hair into a bag of potting compost and tried not to look guilty. She always felt guilty when she met Big Grandma in the garden. Big Grandma had a hold over Naomi, and she had it because Naomi had eaten all the strawberries. Like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime, so Naomi would wander down to the vegetable garden and stare at the plundered plants, willing more berries to grow and ripen. They never did. It was the end of the season for strawberries; those had been the very last. Always after Naomi had stared at the strawberry bed her attention would be caught by other things: raspberries and loganberries, peapods and radishes. And then Big Grandma would appear from nowhere and, whether Naomi was guilty or not, she always felt herself turning a bright, incriminating red.
Big Grandma never said, ‘You ate the strawberries and trampled the plants into the ground.’ She never exclaimed, ‘Caught you at it!’ when she came across Naomi with her mouth full of raw carrot, or in the act of sampling the red currants. What she would say was, ‘I wish I could get my parsley weeded.’ Or, ‘How about raking all those potato tops together and putting them on the compost heap?’ and Naomi would find herself in for another spot of hard labour.
This time Big Grandma cheerfully remarked that the edges of the lawn needed clipping and that she had two dozen young lettuces in the greenhouse that needed planting out before they got too big.
Naomi received this information without flinching, and by the time Ruth found her half an hour later she was already hard at work, meeting Big Grandma’s challenge.
�
��Aren’t you coming with us?’ asked Ruth. ‘We’re going paddling and making sure that stuff is still where we left it.’
‘I’m doing this,’ replied Naomi, clipping and clipping on her aching knees. ‘Oh, damn these horrible shears. They’re all the wrong shape!’
‘What’s wrong with them?’
‘They twist my wrists. If you see that boy again, you know, what’s his name? Graham. Ask if he’ll lend us some books.’
‘Why don’t you come with us? You don’t really have to do that. We’re going to get ice cream at the shop.’
‘Yes, you leave it if you want to,’ Big Grandma called, overhearing them.
‘I’m doing it,’ replied Naomi crossly. ‘I don’t want to go to the rotten beach anyway,’ and she turned her back on them and continued to hack off chunks of stiff grass, all mixed up with dandelions and weeds. Disturbed ants crawled over her hands, and once she chopped a big fat slug into two soggy halves before she noticed it.
The morning slipped away without her.
‘Stop if you want to,’ dared Big Grandma.
‘I said I’d do it,’ Naomi answered. ‘I’ll plant the lettuces when I’ve finished this.’
‘I could do them myself,’ offered Big Grandma. ‘Now, if you like.’
‘I like planting things,’ said Naomi grimly.
Phoebe and Rachel bought plastic sea-side spades at the shop, but the handle of Phoebe’s snapped off in the first ten minutes of digging. Over and over again one or another of them would go back to the end of the road, and carefully pace along the beach the distance they thought they had gone the day before, and then they would search that patch for the protruding saucepan handle. Other times they hunted for the remains of the bonfire, but the tide had covered the part of the beach where they had picnicked and washed all traces of the ashes away. They tried lying on their stomachs, hoping to see the handle rise up on the horizon before them. They walked miles and miles in circles, quarrelling.
In the end they gave it up and went paddling, reluctantly deciding that if Naomi couldn’t remember the place they would have to find Graham and ask his help. They didn’t want to do this.
