by Hilary McKay
Indigo stepped outside and picked it up.
Tom had folded his jacket so that the inside was still dry. He could have thrown it in a wet angry heap, but he hadn’t.
The rain that had fallen all day had stopped at last, and all at once, while Indigo stood there, the sun appeared.
Reflected light leaped upwards from the puddled playground, dazzling Indigo’s eyes. The unexpected brightness made him suddenly light-hearted. He put his jacket on and went to look for Tom.
Chapter Six
Indigo searched everywhere, but he was not able to find Tom in school that Friday afternoon. Eventually he gave up, and caught the bus home with Saffron and Sarah. They all came into the kitchen together just as Rose was thumping down the telephone receiver.
‘Who was that?’ Saffron asked her.
‘Stupid Daddy.’
‘Oh?’
‘Asking about soup. He says I wrote him a letter all about soup. I didn’t. I only put the soup in at the end. It wasn’t the important part. Anyway, he’s not coming home. So.’
‘Never mind, Rosy Pose,’ said Sarah consolingly.
‘I don’t mind! Good! That’s what I say! Whose jacket is that, Indigo?’
‘Tom’s. He left it at school. I’m going to take it to his house for him.’
‘Can I come? Where does he live?’
‘I know,’ said Sarah. ‘In the house with the yew trees next door to my old school. His grandmother talks to my mother sometimes. She’s turned her house into a cattery. It’s full of cats.’
‘If it’s a cattery,’ observed Saffron, tipping a huge pile of weekend homework on to the kitchen table, ‘obviously it will be full of cats! What’ll we start with? French, Spanish, Maths? Not IT. We’ll do that on your computer, when we’ve taken Rose into town.’
‘I don’t want to be taken into town,’ said Rose ungratefully. ‘I want to go with Indigo.’
‘Not now,’ said Saffron. ‘Tomorrow morning. To get your glasses checked. Sarah’s mother says you ought to, and ours says you can.’
‘It’ll be fun,’ said Sarah. ‘Anything might happen! But go with Indy now while Saffron and I get started on this lot. Come on, Saffy! Worst first! Maths. Let’s see if we can get it done before Indy and Rose come back. If they come back! I always used to be afraid of that house when I was little. I don’t know why.’
‘It’s spooky!’ said Rose.
She stood on the pavement regarding Tom’s house while Indigo read aloud the notice by the gate.
THE YEWS
BOARDING CATTERY
Loving Care and Attention in Luxury Surroundings
Vaccinated Cats Only
‘It’s very spooky,’ said Rose, clutching the bundle that was Tom’s jacket and school bag.
‘It’s just quiet,’ said Indigo, but secretly he agreed with Rose.
From the road all that could be seen were dark yew trees, with tall chimneys rising above them, but as Rose and Indigo set off down the weedy drive they caught glimpses of a garden as untidy as the Cassons’ own.
‘And it’s full of cats,’ said Rose.
That was true. Their progress was watched by at least half a dozen pairs of greeny-gold eyes, blinking among the shadows. Halfway along they caught sight of a person moving across the grass near the back of the house.
‘That must be Tom’s grandmother,’ said Indigo. ‘We’d better go and say “Hello”. Come on. Smile. Be polite…Hello, Mrs Levin?’
‘Yes. Can I help you?’
Rose, smiling and polite, remarked, ‘It’s like a cat zoo here. Cats everywhere.’
‘And who might you be?’ enquired Tom’s grandmother, looking intently from Indigo to Rose, and then back to Indigo again.
‘I’m Indigo Casson,’ he explained, laying a hushing hand on Rose’s shoulder. ‘Tom’s in my class at school. We’ve brought some things he left behind this afternoon. This is my little sister, Rose.’
‘Little sister?’ repeated Tom’s grandmother, looking again at Rose. ‘How very interesting! I must tell Tom!’
‘Is he in?’
‘I couldn’t say,’ said his grandmother, rather impatiently. ‘He comes and goes as he pleases. No sense of responsibility…just like his mother…Has he told you about his mother?’
‘Bears?’ asked Rose hopefully.
‘Bears!’ said Tom’s grandmother scornfully, ‘I ask you! At her age! I really do not know what to make of her…’
‘Don’t you like bears?’ asked Rose, wriggling under Indigo’s hand.
‘Of course I like bears,’ said Mrs Levin, looking at Rose as if something amused her. ‘But not to the exclusion of all else! Now, I’m afraid I must get on. I must see to the cats. The side door of the house is not locked. Open it and call Tom if you like.’
She gave them a little nod of dismissal, and then headed off in the direction of a row of breeze block and wire enclosures at the back of the house.
‘She’s a witch,’ said Rose, much too soon.
‘Rose!’
‘Poor Tom!’
‘What if she had heard you?’ demanded Indigo.
‘Then she’ll know I know. Listen! Listen a minute!’
Indigo, who was steering Rose firmly away from the back of the house, paused for a moment.
‘Music!’ said Rose.
It seemed to be coming from high above them, a phrase of melody with chords underneath, repeated, then stopped, then repeated again, carefully, several times.
‘Somebody’s playing something,’ whispered Rose.
Single notes sounded, very fast like a shower of stars.
‘They are playing in patterns!’ said Rose, entranced. ‘The notes are in patterns!’
Then the melody came again, stronger and clearer.
‘I think it’s a guitar,’ said Indigo. ‘It must be Tom.’
As quietly as they could, he and Rose made their way to the side door of the house.
‘I’ll open it,’ whispered Rose.
The music paused at the opening of the door, then continued once more, but now very slowly, one note at a time, as if the player was listening intently.
‘Tom!’ called Indigo.
The playing stopped in a moment and silence fell on them like a slab from the sky.
From the garden behind Tom’s grandmother called, ‘Tom’s room is at the top of the stairs, if you want to go up.’
‘Thank you,’ Indigo called back, but he grabbed Rose and said, ‘No, Rose! Don’t go up!’
‘Why not? She said we could!’
‘He knows we are here. He’d come down if he wanted to see us.’
‘But I’ve got his jacket and his bag for him! Let me go. I’ll knock. I won’t just go in.’
Before Indigo could stop her she had pulled away, hurried up the stairs, and was knocking on the door of the room at the top. It swung open at her touch, and there was Tom’s room, bare and tidy and empty. No Tom, no guitar, nothing but the wind blowing through the open window.
‘Leave his things and come down right now!’ ordered Indigo, and began walking away before she could begin to argue.
Rose did as she was told. As he reached the end of the drive he heard her come running up behind him.
‘Don’t be mad,’ she said, ‘I only wanted to see him.’
‘I know.’
‘I wonder where he is.’
As if in answer a few notes floated down from the sky.
Indigo put his finger to his lips to warn Rose to be silent, and turned back to scrutinise the old grey house behind its screen of trees. After a minute he found what he was looking for and motioned to Rose to come and see.
Rose followed the direction of his pointing finger with her eyes, but could make out nothing unusual.
‘He’s right up there,’ murmured Indigo. ‘On that little flat roof over the front door…listen!’
The drifting notes were coming together to become the intricate background to a melody.
‘He’s humm
ing!’ whispered Rose. ‘Playing his guitar and humming on the roof. Isn’t he?’
Indigo nodded.
They listened together until the melody stopped, and the guitar tailed away into quietness.
‘Home, Rosy Pose!’ said Indigo at last, turning away. ‘We’ve been ages!’
‘I love people who play guitars on roofs!’ said Rose, hopping along the pavement in one of her sudden happy moods. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Never knew anyone else who did it!’
‘Don’t you like Tom?’
‘Of course I do. But I don’t know about all the other guitar-on-roof players! They might be really awful people, with just that one good thing about them. Playing guitars on roofs…Or bagpipes…Or drum kits…Sarah would like that, and Saffy could have the bagpipes! Caddy could have a harp…What about Mum?’
‘One of those gourds filled with beans!’ said Rose at once. ‘And Daddy could have a grand piano. On a flat roof. With a balcony, and pink flowers in pots round the edge! And I’ll have a very loud trumpet! What about you?’
‘I’ll just listen,’ said Indigo.
The following morning Rose went into town with Saffron and Sarah. Sarah, whose legs would only hold her up for very short distances, was in her wheelchair. Today she was in one of her wild moods when she bowled along at a terrible pace with cries of ‘Push faster!’ The journey into town became a mad scurry, with breathless pauses during which they had to extract the wheelchair from the various obstacles into which it had been accidentally steered. Rose enjoyed it all very much.
However, once they reached the main shopping area, it was a different matter. Saffron and Sarah were dedicated shoppers. All their favourite shops had to be checked, and any new stock subjected to their detailed and critical scrutiny. Progress grew slower and slower. By the time they reached the department store that held the optician’s, Rose was completely bored.
Rose’s glasses and eyes were checked again, and she was told they were the exact prescription she needed, nothing wrong with them in any way.
‘But she said she couldn’t see anything through them!’ protested Saffron.
‘I didn’t,’ said Rose. ‘I said I could see too much. Anyway, I don’t want to change them. They work all right in the dark.’
‘You will get used to them in time,’ said the optician kindly, and turned away to talk to Sarah, who was going through a display of Italian sunglasses, just in case summer should ever come again.
Rose wandered over to the window, and while she was there she heard Saffron remark casually to Sarah, ‘There’s Indigo’s Tom,’ and nod at a boy crossing the road just in front of the store.
‘Mmmm,’ said Sarah. ‘Look at these. Red lacquer. Too red?’
‘Not sure. Let me try them.’
‘Much too red. Try those ones with tiny gold specks…’
Rose slid towards the door. Saffron and Sarah, completely absorbed in designer labels, took no notice at all.
Rose slipped out of the store. Then she dodged across the crowded pavement, glanced behind her to check she had not been followed, and sprinted in front of six lanes of Saturday morning traffic.
Cars braked, horns blared, people shouted and a bus driver swerved and swore. On the far pavement Tom turned to see what all the commotion was about. He was just in time to catch Rose as she landed triumphantly on the kerb in front of him.
From high up on some nearby scaffolding a small group of workmen broke into applause.
Tom looked up at them with a quick, unwilling grin. Rose took no notice at all, but beamed at Tom and announced, ‘I wanted to see you!’
‘Certainly seems like you did!’ agreed Tom, looking meaningfully into the road where the traffic was just beginning to untangle itself again. ‘Do you usually cross the street that way?’
‘I was in a hurry.’
‘There must be someone round here who’s supposed to be in charge of you?’
‘I don’t need anyone to be in charge of me!’ said Rose scornfully.
‘I bet you’ve escaped from your mother!’
‘I haven’t. She’s at home.’
‘She know you’re in town?’
‘’Course she does.’
Tom gave up. Clearly Rose had a very careless family somewhere, but that was not his problem. He began to head off down the street again. Rose hopped cheerfully along beside him.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
‘Music shop round the corner.’
‘To buy something?’
‘Just to look.’
‘All right,’ said Rose.
At the music shop Tom stopped again.
‘You still here, whoever you are?’
‘I’m Rose,’ said Rose, sounding very surprised that he did not know this. ‘Indigo’s my brother.’
‘Ohhhh,’ said Tom, beginning to understand.
‘We came to your house last night, we brought your jacket and your school bag.’
‘Yes. Thanks.’
‘And we heard you playing. On that little high-up roof over the front door.’ Rose moved past Tom to gaze into the shop window, which was full of guitars propped up on stands. ‘Which one of these is like yours?’
‘None of them.’
‘We saw your grandmother.’
‘She’s a witch,’ said Tom absentmindedly, peering into the shadows at the back of the shop.
‘I could tell. Cats too.’
‘Yep, cats too.’
‘It sounded lovely, your guitar…’
‘It’s a useless guitar,’ said Tom, suddenly gloomy. ‘It’s about as bad as they get. That’s the one I want. Hanging on the wall, right at the back. See?’
‘That black one?’
‘That’s the one. I came and tried it out twice last week. I was afraid they’d have sold it by now.’
Rose nodded, and it seemed to Tom that she at least partly understood how bad that would be. He pushed open the shop door and she followed him in as if trying out guitars was part of her usual Saturday morning routine.
A man behind a counter recognised Tom and came forward to meet them, smiling and asking, ‘Same as before?’
‘Yes please,’ said Tom.
The black guitar was lifted down, and handed to him. Tom found one of the empty stools kept for people who wanted to try out instruments, and began to play.
Nobody took any notice at all of Rose.
Rose did not mind that. She found another stool and sat down in a corner to listen, as the back of the shop was filled with chords and melodies and humming notes. Already she knew why Tom wanted the black guitar. Even Rose could tell that the sounds she was hearing were far brighter and stronger than the ones of the night before.
It was a long time, at least half an hour, before the assistant returned and silently held out his hand.
‘I did you a favour a minute ago,’ he said. ‘I just turned a customer away. Told him I thought it was sold.’
‘Thank you.’ Tom slowly eased himself up from his stool, and undid the strap across his shoulders.
‘It’s too good a bargain to stay here long. If you could get a deposit together we could put it away for you.’
Tom shook his head. ‘I would if I could.’
‘Well, maybe you’ll think of a way,’ said the assistant, and he looked almost as regretful as Tom as he hung the black guitar back in its place on the wall. ‘Next time don’t make it sound so good!’
Tom grinned and went over to the counter where he chose a couple of plastic picks out of a box by the till. The assistant shook his head at the pound coin he offered for them and said they were on the house.
‘You sure?’ asked Tom.
‘Yes. No problem. You come in again if you like.’
‘Thank you.’
‘How much is that black guitar?’ asked Rose, speaking for the first time for ages.
‘Four hundred and fifty pounds,’ the shop man told her.
‘Oh.’
‘
Should be a lot more, only we don’t have the turnover here. It would be well over a thousand new.’
Rose did not say any more, but outside in the street she paused to look at the display in the window again, and asked, ‘Wouldn’t one of those do instead?’
‘No,’ said Tom.
Rose sighed. ‘Oh well. What shall we do now?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tom, raising his eyebrows a little at the ‘we’. He looked around, and then up at the sky, which was a pale cold blue and full of scudding clouds. ‘This town is so flat,’ he said irritably. ‘Let’s get up somewhere a bit high.’
Saffron and Sarah, panicking more every minute, searched the department store. Then the shops along the street outside. Then the market place. Every few minutes Sarah got out her mobile phone and rang Saffron’s home. Nobody answered. Indigo was in the garden, cleaning out the guinea pig collection that Caddy had reluctantly left behind when she went to University. Eve was in the shed, blocking in the background of a painting with the help of a wallpaper sample, because the buyer had requested a picture that would blend in with mint green stripes. She was very glad Bill was not coming home that weekend. She could imagine his comments all too easily. Not exactly Art.
Bill himself was at a London exhibition. (‘Pre-opening drinks, darling,’ he had explained (not to Eve). ‘May meet someone useful. ’‘Off you go then, darling,’ said Darling.)
Caddy was in London too, rallying for peace with another temporary boyfriend (‘Perfectly Harmless Patrick. Mum might like him’.) Peace rallying was a slow business, so Caddy whiled away the boring bits by composing in her head another letter to Michael (Darling, darling Michael…).
Michael also could be accounted for. He was on a first aid course which he knew would be useful one day, perhaps when Caddy, whose future was entwined with his, achieved her ambition of employment on a big game reserve, somewhere hot.
Even Derek-from-the-camp was where he ought to be, lying half in and half out of his sleeping bag, doodling a picture in the margin of his thesis (Physics and the Paranormal). It could have been Caddy, or it could have been Eve. He was no good at art.
