The Outside Child

by Nina Bawden

  But I couldn’t even bear a sore tooth. By seven o’clock in the morning my face was swollen and hot and my whole jaw was burning. I cried out when I heard Aunt Sophie’s step on the landing, and she came running. She had a cup of tea for Aunt Bill in her hand. She put it down and bent over me. She said, “Oh, Jane, you poor darling.”

  *

  The dentist’s surgery opened at nine, and we were there ten minutes early. Our dentist is terrifying, a nine-foot-tall sadist who grins in a devilish way as he fills your mouth with his hideous instruments. But today I was quite glad to enter the torture chamber. And in spite of his evil grin, he was quite sympathetic. He apologised when his probe sent red hot needles shooting through my skull. He said he wished he could do something immediately but that he would rather not touch the tooth until the antibiotics he was going to give me had dispersed the abcess. He patted my shoulder and called me a ‘brave little lady’.

  *

  I was sick into the rhododendron bush outside the surgery door. Aunt Sophie pushed some earth over it and cleaned me up with her handkerchief. She said, “This isn’t our week, is it?” in a grumbly voice that had a laugh running through it.

  Although I felt ghastly, I couldn’t help smiling. Then I remembered the Edinburgh Festival. I said, “I hope my tooth is better by Saturday.”

  “Forget about that,” Aunt Sophie said. “I can’t leave you with Bill, not with her in that state.”

  “I can manage,” I said. “Honestly.”

  Aunt Sophie set her mouth in a pinched, obstinate line. “I wouldn’t think of it. Bill can’t get around without help. And she’s a big, heavy woman.”

  “Please,” I said. “Please. It may have escaped your notice, Aunt Sophie, but I’m bigger and stronger than you.”

  It wasn’t just that I knew how important the Festival was to her. I wanted to do something for somebody as a sort of penance. To make me feel better.

  She frowned. But I could see she was weakening and that once she had thought it over she would give in altogether. She looked at me approvingly. “You’re a good girl,” she said.

  Good girl! Brave little lady! I had my father’s ‘sweet, easy nature’, and my mother’s ‘strength’. I knew that I didn’t deserve all this praise. All the same, it ought to have cheered me a little, or at least made me feel less dark about myself than I had done in the night. Instead, the next two weeks were the most miserable of my whole life.

  My tooth helped to begin with. I didn’t have to pretend to be happy. If I looked miserable the Aunts assumed that I was in pain and didn’t ask questions. Besides, Aunt Bill was in pain herself with her arm and her leg, and Aunt Sophie was busy hiring a van to take her drums and percussion instruments to Edinburgh and going to London to buy a new Vibraslap and Cabassa. And I was either going to the dentist or coming back from the dentist or sitting in his chair having the sort of things done to my jaw that I prefer not to mention. But as my tooth got better, when I was no longer writhing in torment, other things got much worse.

  *

  Plato went to America. He went without saying goodbye to me. His mother said it had all been arranged in twenty-four hours and that he had tried to ring several times. But I knew she was just being kind, and this was a clear sign that he hadn’t forgiven me.

  Plato not writing wasn’t as bad as Annabel’s hand, but it made the load of sadness I seemed to be lugging about with me a lot heavier.

  I thought, if only I could remember. I must have done something dreadful to make Amy hate me so much. But all I could remember was my musical box and the monster in the corner cupboard and HER angry voice. I thought of Hugo’s tiny fingers trapped in the holes of his shawl. They were so frail you could snap them like a dry twig. But if I had broken Annabel’s thumb and forefinger, the doctor would have put them in splints and they would have mended.

  The day before Aunt Sophie came back from Edinburgh, I thought of a terrible answer.

  Plato’s mother came to cook our lunches while Aunt Sophie was at the Festival. “Plato didn’t want to leave me alone,” she said. “And your Aunt Sophie doesn’t want you to look after Aunt Bill by yourself. So it suits all round, Jane, and you’d better show me where everything is in the kitchen.”

  Fat lot of good that will do us, I thought, thinking of Aunt Bill’s likely expression if she was faced with fish fingers and frozen peas every day. But to my astonishment (though not of course to Aunt Bill’s, because she had never experienced Plato’s mother’s cuisine before) the meals were delicious.

  Plato’s mother seemed to have changed in other ways, too. She was still smoking, though not as much as she did in her own home, and she opened the windows and emptied the ash trays. She was fatter, and her skin looked less muddy. And she hardly wailed at all. She wailed when she dropped a carton of eggs on the stone kitchen floor, and slipped in the mess, and knocked a pan of stewed bilberries off the stove. “Oh, I’m so clumsy,” she mourned. “It’s one of the things that used to upset Plato’s father.”

  I didn’t answer this, just set about clearing up, hoping that this wasn’t the beginning of a long bout of wailing. But there was only one other occasion.

  She was making minestrone soup for our last lunch, chopping carrots and turnips and onions and parsnips into tiny squares. I had picked parsley and young green peas in the garden and was sitting at the table shelling the peas. A stock of chicken bones and herbs was simmering on the stove.

  I asked her if she had heard from Plato and she shook her head. I said, “I thought he might have telephoned. Or sent you a postcard.”

  “There’s still time,” she said. “But it’s very wild where they are, on this lake. You have to row across to the store to get to a telephone, and he and Aliki will be busy boating and swimming and talking. They have a lot to catch up on. But I’m sure he’ll send you a card if he can find one.”

  I thought, why should he bother? I was foul to him. And anyway, I am only second best to his sister.

  I said, very casually, “Did a letter come from me by any chance? For Plato I mean, before he went to America? It isn’t important, just part of a game we were playing. I only wondered. It was his turn to answer.”

  She had finished chopping the vegetables. She took the stock off the stove and strained it into another saucepan. She said, screwing up her eyes against the steam, “I think so. Would it have URGENT on it? I thought that it might be from you.”

  “It probably was,” I said. “I can’t be sure, but it sounds like part of our code. It’s a silly game, really. I expect we’re both growing out of it.”

  I laughed to show her how little I cared about letters from Plato. I had shelled all the peas. I stood up, bunched the washed parsley, and reached across the table for the chopping knife she had been using.

  “No,” she said. “No.”

  I was so startled, I dropped the knife. She had gone a funny grey colour.

  I said, “I was going to chop the parsley.”

  She wailed then. “Oh, I’m so sorry, how silly. But the knife is so sharp. I thought you were going to pick it up by the blade.”

  “Of course I wasn’t,” I said.

  She smiled in a shamed, trembly way. “I’m so stupid about children and knives. Plato will tell you. Though of course you’re both old enough—that’s what makes me so silly. I’m so sorry, Jane.”

  “That’s all right,” I said cheerfully, and began cutting the parsley with the kitchen scissors to save further trouble.

  After lunch we played Scrabble. I could only think of words that had one thing in common. Tin. Cut. Glass. Razor. Stab. Sword. Slice. Slash. Gash. Chop. Wound. Knife. All words with nasty, sharp edges.

  Plato’s mother said to Aunt Bill, “I think Jane looks peaky. I suppose that trouble with her tooth has taken it out of her. I hope her Aunt Sophie won’t think I’ve been starving her when she comes home tomorrow.”

  I shook my head and smiled merrily.

  “I’m leaving your supper on the
table, ready to pop in the oven,” Plato’s mother said. “And there’s a moussaka for the three of you tomorrow. But if you need me again, you only have to give me a ring. And of course, Jane, I’ll let you know the minute I hear from Plato. If you get a letter, perhaps you’ll ring me.”

  She said this without any hint of a sly grin or arch look. I hadn’t realised before that she was really quite pretty.

  *

  In bed that night I told myself that Plato had not been able to crack the code in my letter. But I didn’t believe it. Plato could crack any code I could think of. And that code was easy.

  I went to bed and dreamed of knives and blood.

  *

  Aunt Sophie drove overnight and was at home when I woke in the morning. She had had a wonderful time; they had played to packed houses and there had been several good reviews in the papers. She said that Aunt Bill looked better but that I looked pale and mopey. “You need to get out and about, Jane,” she said. “Plato isn’t the only friend you’ve got, is he?”

  I played tennis with Maureen. Once was enough. I rang several girls I was quite friendly with, but one had glandular fever and the others all seemed to be in remote places in Tuscany.

  I said, “Everyone is having a proper holiday except me. Other girls go and lie in the sun and their mothers don’t worry that they’ll get skin cancer. Or that they’ll have an accident if they ride a bike. Or that their teeth will drop out if they drink Coke. Why do I have to be different?”

  Aunt Bill said, “Tuscany must be getting quite crowded, with half your school going there. Dorset would be emptier and rather more peaceful. I’m sorry about my old leg. Would you like to go on your own?”

  “I can’t leave Aunt Sophie to take care of you by herself. And there’s nowhere I want to go at the moment.”

  I thought that I sounded noble and sad. But Aunt Bill said, sternly for her, “If you can’t be happy, you might as well try to be useful.”

  *

  I helped Aunt Bill learn to walk on her crutches. I cut the grass and tidied the flower beds while she watched to see that I didn’t pull up her best weeds. I picked blackcurrants and helped Aunt Sophie pack them for the freezer. I went to the garage to visit Rattlebones and see how close she was to recovery, and was able to come back and tell Aunt Bill that her car was convalescent and would be out of hospital by the end of the week.

  *

  I had a letter from Plato. It had taken ten days to come and was creased up and muddy and torn in one corner, as if it had been caught up in a machine, or left in a sack, or dropped in a ditch. But the letter inside was undamaged.

  KOJIVORI KUTI SQAKX, NKESU.

  It was the same sort of code as the one I’d sent him, but a little bit harder.

  *

  Aunt Bill said, “You look cheerful all of a sudden! I knew it would take you out of yourself to try and think a bit more about other people.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I had two letters in separate envelopes, one from Annabel and one from George. They were the sort of letters you would expect from people their age who had been told to say thank you for presents. I supposed that their grandmother had made them write to me.

  I didn’t show the letters to anyone. I didn’t even tell Plato. I was too ashamed about Annabel. I thought, when she knows what I did to her, she will hate me.

  Plato had grown an inch while he was in America. He said that his asthma had been better there because of the dry climate and that he had been almost eaten by a bear that had prowled round the cottage at night, leaving paw marks near the landing stage where they kept their boat. And Plato, getting up early that morning, had found steaming fresh droppings.

  “You can’t be almost eaten,” I said. “You either are eaten or you aren’t eaten. You’d only be almost eaten if the bear had just left a bit of you, like fingers or toe nails.”

  I ‘almost’ told him about Annabel then. But I didn’t. I was too afraid.

  I thought that I would carry this weight about with me for the rest of my life. But there were days when I forgot all about it. Aunt Bill and Aunt Sophie bought me a second-hand bicycle, and Plato and I went exploring the country beyond our suburb, staying out all day, taking sandwiches with us. There was one good hill, the only steep hill for miles, with several sharp bends and a rubbish tip half-way down, that was wonderful, Plato said, for free-wheeling, but that needed split-second timing if a truck should be coming out of the tip when you passed it.

  Although I tried several times, I always lost my nerve in the end, jamming my brakes on, dragging one foot on the road and crashing into the ditch. I was covered in scratches and bruises and nettle stings.

  “You’re just scared,” Plato said. “When you stop being scared, you’ll be able to do it.”

  I didn’t see how I would ever stop being scared. At night I dreamed about coming down the hill the way Plato sometimes did, with his feet on the handlebars, but I was even scared in the dream, waking up sweating and with my heart thumping.

  “Perhaps it’s because you’re a girl,” Plato said.

  He only meant that because girls could have babies, it was natural that they should be more nervous of dying, but the next time I tried the hill I was determined to show him. I took the first bend all right, then the next—and saw a truck turning into the tip. There was no time to be frightened. I swerved and went round the back of the truck, close enough to feel the exhaust puff hot oil on my leg. After that I was going too fast to brake and I carried on, faster and faster, swooping round the bends like a bird. It was a marvellous feeling, like flying. I turned into a farm gate at the bottom and skidded on mud. But I didn’t fall.

  Plato came after me, brakes juddering on the final slope, and lurched into the gateway beside me. I was glad to see that he was yellow with terror. He said, “It’s not dying you have to be scared of. It’s being maimed for life. Paralysed. Quadraplegic!”

  I thought, now I’ve done it once, I need never do it again, but I didn’t say that to Plato. I said that since I didn’t want him to die of a heart attack, I’d be more careful in future, and all the way home I bicycled just as Aunt Bill and Aunt Sophie had told me: stopping at every junction and sticking out my arms stiff as railway signals when I wanted to turn left or right. Plato kept just behind me. Whenever I glanced back, he was watching me apprehensively. I grinned at him. I felt at peace with the whole world and light as a feather.

  *

  Rattlebones was parked in our drive, looking very well in her new coat of paint. Behind her there was another car that I didn’t recognise. I suppose I thought—if I thought at all—that it belonged to the parents of one of Aunt Sophie’s pupils. Plato and I wheeled our bikes round the side of the house, propped them against the wall by the kitchen, and went in the back door.

  Aunt Sophie must have heard us. She opened the sitting room door. She said, “Jane, just a minute …” but I was too exultantly happy to hear the warning note in her voice.

  Aunt Bill lay on the sofa. Her face was a fiery red plate, and her stiff, plastered leg looked awkward and heavy. Beside her, Amy looked delicate and pure as an angel in a pale, floaty dress.

  She said, “Jane, dear, it’s a bad time to come, I’m afraid. Someone should have told me that poor Bill had had this bad accident. But since I am here, I must do what I came to do. Which is, of course, to apologise to you.”

  She looked at me with a sad, grave little smile, catching her lower lip between her pretty, white teeth. No one spoke, and she went on, “I should have come before, Jane, but this was the first day I felt I could leave Hugo with Mother. I know that I could have telephoned or written. But I thought I ought to come in person to tell you how sorry I am for my behaviour when you came to see us. To beg your pardon very, very humbly, and ask you to forgive me.”

  Aunt Bill said, “Hmmph!” Then she cleared her throat loudly.

  Amy glanced at her and then raised an amused eyebrow at me. Funny old thing, that raised eyebrow implied. S
he said, “Please sit down, Jane dear. And Plato. This is the real Plato Jones, I assume?” She smiled—a mischievous smile this time and waved her hand in an imperious gesture, greeting Plato, inviting him to make himself comfortable. As if this was her house and she was the hostess!

  I sat on the edge of a chair. Aunt Sophie gave one of her little flustered sighs, and sat on the arm. She put her small hand on the back of my neck. I could hear Plato breathing harshly somewhere behind us.

  Amy’s voice was soft as an evening breeze. “Jane, when you are old enough to have your own dear little baby, it will all be so clear to you. But you are almost grown up now, and I think you may understand some of it now. Will you let me try and explain?”

  I nodded. I felt frightened and foolish.

  Amy said, “Hugo is so little, you see. So small and so new. A baby like that is a holy trust to his mother. I know that you didn’t mean to harm him. I’m sure that you love all young, helpless creatures, just as I do.”

  Her big eyes shone at me, bright as lamps. There seemed to be a glowing, liquid point at the centre that drew me towards it. Into it—as if I might drown there.

  She said, “It was so thoughtful of you to bring the children a few things that you had grown out of. Of course, naughty George wanted them all for himself, but we soon sorted that out. They both wanted to come today, but I told them, another time. I had to make things right with you first, explain why I was so foolish and cross.”

  Amy gave a light ripple of laughter and I saw Aunt Bill frown. She said, “Rather more than just cross, from the sound of it.”

  Amy looked solemn again. “Well. Perhaps. Though you must remember that imaginative girls do exaggerate. I’m imaginative myself, so I know. I did lose my temper for a minute or two when I saw Jane with Hugo. But I was ashamed instantly! My mother-in-law said, Forget it dear, Jane will get over it and Teddy wouldn’t want you to worry, but, you know, I just couldn’t. I’m like that, if I feel I’ve been the teeniest little bit in the wrong, I can’t rest until I’ve put it right. I puzzled all evening over what best to do, and even though I was worn out by bedtime, I couldn’t sleep, not a wink. I was up and dressed by six in the morning!”