This Is Midnight: Stories

by Bernard Taylor

  My mother is a writer. She writes books and things like that. Nothing for children. Just for grown-ups. All very boring stuff. We lived in this big house out in the country, all surrounded by fields and trees and streams and things like that. There’s just houses and streets here in the city, with sparrows and pigeons. I hate it. But there you saw everything. All kinds of things that you wouldn’t dream of. And Janie knew all the best places to look.

  Janie wasn’t with us very long – but, you know, I can remember her so clearly. Yet it was simply ages ago. I was at least five. Perhaps I was even six. Yes, I was six: I can remember because Janie was at Rick’s party on his fourth birthday. And that was a lot of fun too. Oh, it was so much nicer when Janie was with us.

  Before Janie came Mummy used to get cross a lot of the time – so it seemed, anyway. When she had to stop working to get lunch for us or something she’d really get impatient. Or if one of us got into trouble when we should have known better – things like that. And we never seemed to go anywhere: I mean, not really get taken anywhere. And we weren’t allowed to go wandering off on our own – not far anyway, not far from the house. We had to stay around. There were all those fields and things and we couldn’t go out in them. School-time wasn’t so bad, but the holidays were really boring. Just hanging around that big old house and playing in the garden. I mean, there’s a limit to what you can do in a garden, isn’t there? And all the time Mummy would be tapping away at her typewriter, and if you interrupted her at the wrong time she’d get all irritable, and blame you if she made a mistake. And sometimes, even when I did get the idea to go off to explore somewhere on my own it never worked out. Rick would always see me sneaking off and he’d call out. Then if I tried to creep off without him he’d just yell and yell his silly head off. ‘Take me with you, Carolyn,’ he’d say. And I’d say, ‘No,’ so he’d say, ‘All right, then, I’ll tell Mummy you’re going off.’ He would, too. He’d run indoors and the next minute there Mummy’d be, leaning out of the window, saying I was not to go off, and I was not to torment Rick, and – you know – how could she expect to get any work done with us two kicking up such a fuss. And she’d end up telling me, ‘Now do be a good girl, Carolyn, and don’t let me have to speak to you again.’ Then she’d go back to her typewriter and those deadlines and things she used to moan about. I don’t know. Anyway, as I said, it was all very, very boring. Until Janie came, that is. She changed all that.

  Janie was this big sort of country girl with red cheeks and big hands. Everything about her seemed big, in a way. Her nose, her mouth, her eyes and ears. I make it sound as if she was ugly, but she wasn’t at all. She was quite pretty, really. I remember her as pretty. Anyway, I don’t think I could ever love anyone who was ugly, and I loved Janie.

  Janie came because Mummy had to have help, and right from the very start we loved her – Rick and I. She was with us all day long. And at night she slept in the room next to the nursery. So she was the first thing we saw in the mornings and the last thing we saw before we went to sleep. Even when Mummy came up to kiss us goodnight and tuck us in Janie would come after and tell us a little story. She knew so many stories. I never met anyone in my whole life who knew so many stories. I think she came from Wiltshire, or one of those places like that. And just before she came to us she’d been living somewhere in Africa. I was very glad about the Africa thing because for one thing it would stop my friend Frances from keeping on about her nanny, who only came from the Isle of Wight. Janie said she’d been in Africa living with a family there and looking after two little boys. She used to tell us stories about the little boys, and in the end we almost felt we knew them. It was sad, though, too, because the boys died – both of them. Well, after all, they were in Africa, a strange, far-away land, and everyone knows you can get all kinds of diseases in foreign countries and places like that. We always had almost to beg her to tell us much about the boys, because really she didn’t like talking about them. Well, it upset her; you could see that – she’d loved them so much, and she was heartbroken when they died. Mind you, she told us lots of happy stories too. And exciting ones – real adventures. And she told us about how it was in Africa.

  I never minded going to bed when Janie was with us. She was a godsend. That’s what Mummy said. When Janie came, Mummy hardly ever got cross. She was able to get on with her writing work and we never ever bothered her. I heard Mummy say to Janie once, ‘Janie, you’re a godsend. I don’t know what we’d do without you.’ And we used to tell Janie that too, afterwards, Rick and me. ‘You’re a godsend, Janie,’ we used to say to her. ‘A godsend, that’s what you are.’ Well, she was. I can picture her now, sitting on my bed as she told us a story. (She took it in turns: one night she’d sit on my bed, the next night on Rick’s.) She always looked so big. But it was a nice, cuddly kind of bigness. Mummy used to say she didn’t know how on earth Janie could stay so well – she didn’t eat enough to satisfy a sparrow. But she did – stay well, I mean. It was true, too; she never seemed to have much appetite – mind you, Rick and I were sometimes glad about this because we’d always get to have some of the things she didn’t want. And I was always hungry. Rick used to say he was, too, but boys will say that just for something to say.

  As I said, Janie had the room next to the one that we had. Really, it was practically like being in the same room, because she never closed her door, so we always knew that she was near in case we ever wanted anything in the night. And once when there was a storm we got into her enormous bed with her until the storm was over. And we stayed all night. Janie just let us stay there when we fell asleep. The next morning we woke up, surprised to find where we were, until we remembered how we got there. Janie just laughed and said something like: ‘Don’t you make a habit of it, you children, now.’ But she was never cross with us. A couple of times, too, I went and got into her bed even when there wasn’t a storm – maybe because I couldn’t get to sleep very well. She’d say all soothey things and I’d go right off just like that. Then in the morning I’d wake up in my own bed. Rick went to her once or twice too, but that was usually because he was afraid of something, some stupid dream or something, but then, he was a boy. I was never frightened. Not really, anyway, not when Janie was there. Janie . . . Janie . . . Janie . . . Oh, Janie, I still don’t know why she went – or where.

  She came to us in the early spring. I think it was spring. I can’t be sure of the exact time, because it was long ago, but I remember the three of us all going out on the day after she arrived. We spent the morning in her room, watching her as she arranged all her own things there. She didn’t seem to have many things, and I remember feeling sorry for her, and I offered her my doll that I got two Christmases before, but she didn’t take it. No, but she picked me up and kissed me, and said I was a sweet child, or something like that, and I knew right then that I was going to love her and love her and love her. Of course, Rick had to come round then to be kissed as well, though he didn’t offer her anything. But she kissed him just the same. She was like that.

  It was after all her clothes and other things were put away that she took us out for a walk. Yes, that’s how I know it was spring; there were buttercups out. Yes, and celandines and daisies and those flowers like that. She knew the names of all of them. I don’t think there was anything she didn’t know about nature and growing things and living things and all those things. She always knew where to look for nests and where to look for badgers’ earths and rabbits’ burrows.

  I picked some flowers that afternoon, I remember, and on the way home they wilted and I got tired of carrying them. I wanted to throw them away, but Janie said no, I had picked them, so I must look after them. And if I didn’t love them enough to carry them then I should have left them in the ground where they were. But she never said it in an unkind way. She said it in a way that I understood. I must have – I can still remember it.

  We had lots of outings in the fields and the woods. We learned something new ev
ery day. Mummy said she had never seen us look so healthy and that it was all due to Janie. It was, too.

  Then, of course, things had to start going wrong. Why then? Why couldn’t they have gone wrong at some other time? No, oh no, they had to start just when she was with us. It spoilt it all. And it just got worse. I felt sorry for Janie, and I was afraid that she’d get fed up and leave us. I was afraid that she might think we always had that kind of trouble. I mean, how could she know it had never happened before? I’ve only thought of this lately – I didn’t at the time – but perhaps one of the reasons she’s gone is because she got upset. I know she was upset. She must have been.

  Anyway – she hadn’t been with us very long when it started. At the time I didn’t know anything had started – not then; it was only later that I came to realise.

  We were out in the fields. We’d been for a very long walk and Janie had shown us all kinds of things. It was very hot and we’d been out for hours and hours. We were so tired, and we lay down in the grass, I remember, all three of us. I think Janie must have fallen asleep quite soon; she started to make a faint little funny snoring sound, like some grown-ups do, the air whistling slightly as it came out of her wide nostrils. Rick was lying down near her. He had a magnifying glass – it was new – and he was examining the grass and the ants and things. After a while I turned over and closed my eyes against the sun. It was so peaceful and comfortable.

  The next thing I remember is waking up very suddenly at the sound of Rick’s voice. He was saying, ‘Oh! Oh!’ very loudly – as if something had hurt him and frightened him. I sat up, and saw Janie wake up at the same moment. Rick was rubbing his leg. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘You made me jump.’

  He was nearly crying (mind you, he was only little), though he was trying to be brave; I could see it in his mouth – it was all quivery. It was like he wouldn’t let himself cry. Janie put her arms around him and cuddled him.

  ‘What is it, darling?’ she said. ‘Tell Janie all about it.’

  Rick went on rubbing his leg. ‘Something bit me,’ he said. ‘I think it was a grasshopper. I saw it on my leg and I knocked it off.’

  Well, everyone knows you don’t get grasshoppers that early in the year, and anyway, even if you did, they don’t bite. I told him so.

  ‘It was!’ he said. ‘I saw it!’ Of course he didn’t believe me. He had to ask Janie. ‘It could be a grasshopper, couldn’t it, Janie?’

  Janie didn’t know what to answer, you could see. Anyway, she got round it by saying, ‘Let’s have a look at your leg,’ or something like that.

  He had been bitten. There was a little red, bloody spot on his leg. He scratched at it.

  ‘No, don’t do that,’ Janie said, and she took her clean white handkerchief and dabbed at the spot. ‘Don’t scratch it,’ she said. ‘Just leave it, and it’ll be all right.’

  I don’t think it could have hurt that much, anyway, because when we got home he went to tell Mummy about it looking proud. He told her, too, that a grasshopper had done it. Of course she told him there were no grasshoppers about at this time of year. Of course she did.

  That night, while he was asleep, Rick got bitten again. It was such bad luck, I thought. But it was worse this time, because it wasn’t just one bite but quite a lot of them. I asked him if he remembered being bitten. He said no, but he thought he’d had a bad dream that nearly woke him up. He showed the bites to Mummy and Janie, and they both agreed that something must have flown in through the window, or else whatever it was he’d brought it back with him from the fields in his clothes. Mummy said, ‘Well, if you will roll around in the grass and the hedges you must expect to get bitten or stung, darling.’ She was nice when she said it.

  And that Janie – oh, she was nice too. Do you know that for supper that night she made a big cream jelly, just because it was Rick’s favourite. It really was, too. After his own helping he ate Janie’s as well. She wasn’t hungry. It was funny, even Rick ate more than Janie did sometimes. That day she didn’t even touch her potatoes or greens, and she only nibbled at her meat. Mummy said she had given up worrying whether Janie was getting enough to eat – obviously she was as she always looked so well.

  And again that night poor Rick got bitten. When he awoke in the morning his legs were all covered with funny-looking lumps, and there were smudges of blood on his skin and on the sheets.

  Mummy and Janie stripped the bed right down and got new sheets and blankets. Then, before they put them on they looked really closely at the mattress – in all the corners – to make sure there were no things hiding there. But there was nothing, nothing at all.

  Rick didn’t want to go to sleep that night. He was afraid. He didn’t say he was afraid, but I could tell he was. You could see. Janie tried to cheer him up and said that if he got into bed like a good boy she’d give him a surprise. He went then.

  After we were both in bed, and after Mummy had kissed us good night, Janie came in. I couldn’t wait to see what the surprise was. It turned out that she could do tricks. And they were really marvellous. I watched as she took a coin in her hand and waved her other hand over it. The coin just seemed to vanish. Then she leaned down and seemed to take it from behind Rick’s ear. It was so exciting. Rick felt behind his ear to see if he could find some more money there. He didn’t realise it was just a trick. I did, of course.

  After finding a penny behind my ear, then finding a sixpence behind her own ear, she started to make them drop from her mouth and her nose. They fell into her palm. It seemed that it was really magic. Rick believed it was. Oh, that Janie! She was so clever! I think she could do anything.

  Next morning, Rick’s legs were worse and now the funny bite-things were on his arms and chest as well. Mummy looked at him, standing over his bed for a long time. Then she went to phone the doctor.

  When the doctor had been and gone I asked Mummy what was wrong with Rick. She said the doctor didn’t really know. I’d never seen Mummy look quite like that before; she looked really worried.

  I went up to see Rick as he lay in bed. I walked into the room very softly, just in case he was asleep. He wasn’t. ‘Hello, Rick.’ I whispered it. He just turned his head and looked at me. He used to be smiling all the time, but he wasn’t smiling today. He seemed sort of sad, and somehow – smaller . . . I don’t know.

  ‘I feel funny, Caro,’ he said. His voice was little too.

  ‘You’ll soon be all right,’ I told him to cheer him up. ‘Sometimes things have got to get worse before they can get better.’ I’d heard Janie say that once or twice.

  ‘I keep dreaming about those grasshoppers,’ he said.

  ‘What grasshoppers?’ I said.

  ‘Like that one in the field that time. The one that bit me. Only now there’s lots of them. I’ve seen them hopping round on my bed in the night.’

  ‘I thought you said you were dreaming,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Mummy says I must be. But it’s so real. I get scared, Caro.’

  ‘Well, you get bad dreams when you’re ill,’ I told him. ‘Everybody does.’ It’s true, you do. ‘You should have had my dreams when I had the measles,’ I said.

  He didn’t say anything to that, but just started on about the grasshoppers again.

  ‘They’re really big,’ he said, and he held his hands about two inches apart. ‘As big as that.’

  ‘You can’t get grasshoppers as big as that,’ I said. ‘Grass­hoppers are little things.’

  I tried, but I couldn’t cheer him up. When I left him he was crying, so I told Mummy. She asked me if I’d been upsetting him, and of course I hadn’t. I mean it wasn’t me.

  From that night on Mummy went round and made sure that all our windows were closed so that nothing could get in during the night – if something was getting in. But nothing made any difference. Every morning Rick looked a bit more weak. He kept on about hi
s grasshopper dreams all the time, and he kept crying, too. He seemed to cry a lot at that time.

  I just wished he’d hurry up and get better. It made everybody miserable. Mummy went around looking all worried, and I had to be so quiet, and so careful what I said in case I said the wrong thing. Even Janie was different. I felt sorry for her, too. All the time Rick was ill she had even less appetite than ever. It really put her off her food.

  Mummy and Janie thought in the end that the lumps on Rick’s legs and arms were some kind of pimples. Well, they had to be. He kept saying they were bites, though, and he’d go on about his dreams again.

  ‘Those grasshoppers are big, very big,’ he said. ‘And they’ve got big green fat bodies.’ He began to shake, sort of, and held on to Janie’s hand. Mummy said to Janie, ‘I think we’ll let him sleep in my room tonight,’ and Janie said, ‘Yes.’

  Rick’s bed was moved to Mummy’s room that night, and he slept there. He seemed glad to be moving out of the nursery. I remember he smiled a bit as Janie carried him in her big, strong, country arms and laid him down between the soft sheets.