by Nina Bawden
He stood up, smiling calmly at Noah who took a step back, drawing those strange, heavy eyebrows together. ‘Come on, Poll, time we were moving. You’ll get a chill if we sit here much longer.’
She shook her head dumbly. She was shivering, but not with the cold. All the things she had ever heard or been told these last months, that she had not paid much attention to or only half understood, had suddenly come together in her mind and made frightening sense. They were dependent on Aunt Sarah until Father came home, or made his fortune in America and sent money back, and so they had to be good. If they weren’t, Aunt Sarah might decide not to keep them and they would have to go to the workhouse. And Aunt Sarah’s standards of goodness were unusually high. She had said, stealing is always wrong, even a sweet or a hairpin…
Poll said, ‘She’ll care, Aunt Sarah will care, she will, Theo!’
He shook his head, frowning to warn her, make her see it would be all right if they brazened it out, that if Noah believed they weren’t worried he would most likely do nothing. He was only tormenting: he’d be far too scared of Aunt Sarah to go sneaking to her…
But Poll was scared now. She burst out, ‘Oh, please. Please, Theo, do stop him.’
He looked at her, not understanding her terror, but impressed all the same. Poll was frightened – Poll, who was so much braver than he was about almost everything! It made him feel old and protective. Of course, there was one way to settle the matter. If only he were bigger – or not quite such a coward! He hesitated, measuring himself against Noah, and knew that even if he could screw up his courage to impossible limits the fight would be over in seconds. Noah was only a few months older than he was but it might just as well have been years: he was a child beside this strong, well-grown boy!
Theo said, resigned, ‘Look, I’ll put the egg back. Will that do? If you like, I’ll tell the woman I’m sorry’.
Noah shrugged his shoulders and grinned.
Poll jumped up from the Soldier’s Grave and pleaded with him. ‘Don’t tell Aunt Sarah, please, Noah.’
‘Worth a lot, is it? Well, it depends…’
His green eyes narrowed, sharp as flints, and she shrank against Theo.
He said, ‘Leave her alone, Noah, she’s only a girl, no need to bully her.’ Then, to Poll, ‘I’ll see to this. You go on, I’ll catch up when I’m ready.’
There was a note of command in his voice she had not heard before. She picked up the shopping basket, retreated as far as the churchyard gate, Johnnie trotting beside her, and stood, looking back. The boys were out of earshot but she could see that Theo was doing all the talking, waving his hands about energetically, and that Noah was listening with a surprised but interested expression. She took a Cupid’s Whisper out of her pocket, reading the rhyme before she ate it. Cherry Ripe, With lips so red, With curls so bright, You’ll soon be wed. Sucking the sweet, she crouched down and put one arm round Johnnie’s neck for additional comfort, hugging his warm, solid body and thinking, with part of her mind, that it was amazing how fast he seemed to be growing. Much too big for the copper hole now, he would soon be too big to be allowed indoors all the time. Mother complained that he got under her feet sometimes in the kitchen, and said that when the weather got warmer she would make up a bed for him in the old hen house at the end of the garden. Poll rubbed her chin against the bristly hairs of his neck and sighed. ‘Oh, poor Johnnie.’
It seemed that ages passed but it was only five minutes by the church clock when Noah nodded at Theo and walked away and Theo came slowly towards her.
He was pale faced but smiling.
Poll was relieved by the smile. ‘He won’t tell?’
‘No, I’ve fixed that. But really, Poll, you are a dim wit! You should never give in to a blackmailer!’ His smile grew broader and the colour came back into his cheeks. ‘Lucky he’s a pretty stupid one!’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You must have meant something.’
‘Well. Perhaps. Let’s say it’s nothing you needed to know about anyway. Just that you needn’t be scared any more because I’ve found a way of stopping his mouth that won’t cost me anything though he thinks that it will.’ He looked at Poll, eyes shining with secrets and a faint hint of malice. ‘It’s a bit subtle for you, I’m afraid. You might not understand if I told you.’
And he wouldn’t tell her. Even though she persisted, all the way home and for several days after until she grew tired of asking, all he would ever say was, ‘It’s best you shouldn’t know. Safer, really. It’s between me and Noah, so you leave it like that, and just trust me.’
CHAPTER FIVE
BY THE TIME Easter came Poll felt she had lived in Norfolk for years and knew every inch of the Town, not like a real map with contours and rivers, but like a private one, drawn in her mind. If she closed her eyes she could see a dancing bear in the Market Square, Theo and Noah in the churchyard, a robin’s nest among the primroses in the bank down Tank Lane, herself skipping with her new rope down the avenue of walnut trees at the back of the church, or turning somersaults on the white wooden railings of the Town Pit and hanging upside down to watch the shire horses standing to drink, lifting their great, dripping mouths.
‘Why the Town Pit?’ she asked. ‘It’s a pond.’
‘Ponds are always called pits in Norfolk,’ Aunt Sarah said.
‘I saw an elephant bathe in the Town Pit once when the Circus came,’ Aunt Harriet said. ‘That was a sight and a half! Everyone standing round in their best clothes after church and all of them soaked to the skin when he rolled over and blew from his trunk. And Eel’s Pit is where we went skating, of course, and Bride’s Pit is a good place for frog’s spawn.’
‘Not a place to go after dark,’ Mother said. ‘Have I told you that dreadful tale? How the Pit got its name? One night, long ago, a bride and groom drove out of the Town in a closed coach drawn by two fine black horses. It was a wild night, clouds blowing over the moon, and when the coachman came to Bride’s Pit, he missed the road and turned down the cart track instead, into the water. He tried to turn back but too late, the coach was too heavy to turn and they all vanished for ever, the coachman, the horses, the poor young couple cut off in their prime. On dark nights they say you can hear it happen again, the wheels of the coach on the road, the galloping horses, the terrible screams of the bride…’
‘Just a tale,’ Aunt Sarah said. ‘I think it was called Bird’s Pit originally because there were a lot of birds nesting there, and the name changed over the years, as names do.’
‘Annie Dowsett lives on the road past Bride’s Pit,’ Poll said. ‘I wouldn’t like to be her, going home wintertime.’
‘Don’t you spend too much time with that Annie Dowsett,’ Mother said.
‘Why not?’
‘Just because.’
Annie’s my friend,’ Poll said, but under her breath and so softly that only Theo heard her.
Poll knew quite well why her mother disliked Annie Dowsett because she liked her for just the same reason. Annie was rough, she wore old clothes all the time, she fought with boys and was ready for anything. She even agreed to accompany Poll into the slummy part of the Town, called The Shambles, a tightly packed jumble of narrow streets and old houses that Aunt Sarah said no nicely brought-up girl would walk through, even in daylight, and certainly not after dark. ‘I’d be scared,’ Lily said with a shudder, and so, naturally, Poll wanted to go there.
She and Annie went into The Shambles the last day of the Easter Term, after school. Poll was nervous at first, not knowing what to expect, and then disappointed to find nothing really alarming, only a rather dirty place where vegetable rubbish squelched underfoot and women stood on their doorsteps and gossiped while their babies played around their feet.
Poll thought she had never seen so many babies, fat ones and thin ones, pale ones and rosy ones, crawling in the dirt, clinging to their mothers’ skirts, or sitting, grubby and grumbling, in rickety prams. One b
aby stopped crying and smiled at her when she picked up his rattle from the ground where he’d thrown it. His fat cheeks were solid and shiny. Poll said to his mother, ‘Look, he likes me. Can I take him for a walk, do you think?’
The woman looked at Poll without answering. She was tall and big in the chest with a dark, heavy face and hard glistening eyes, like dark glass. When she started to laugh, throwing her head back, Poll saw that she had a lot of teeth missing and that one of those that were left was long and sharp, like a spike, or a fang. She stared, fascinated, and then realized that the woman was laughing at her. As she backed away, the woman on the next doorstep began laughing too, and the next woman and the next, until the cruel, raucous noise seemed to fill the whole street and press on her ear-drums like thunder. Annie grabbed at her hand. ‘Come on,’ she said urgently, ‘run…’
They ran, mud splashing their legs – and worse things than mud, Poll thought, wrinkling her nose – through mean, twisting alleys, past dark, open-doored hovels and staring, slatternly women, to the safety of the wide Market Square. They filled their lungs with clean air and looked at each other, Poll sheepishly, Annie astonished.
‘Why ever d’you want to speak to her for? Bit daft, warn’t it?’
‘I don’t know.’ Poll felt sick with shame. That horrible, jeering laughter still rang in her head.
‘Lucky she warn’t drunk, or she might’ve clobbered you one for your cheek,’ Annie said.
‘I only asked to take her baby out, didn’t I? That wasn’t rude!’
‘Bit queer-like, though. I spec’ she thought you was mental.’
‘Don’t see why. I like playing with babies. And we haven’t any at home, in our family.’
Annie shrugged. ‘If you want babies, you c’n come to my house and welcome, any time you’ve a mind to.’
‘Thank you,’ Poll said. ‘I’d like to some time. I’ll ask my mother.’ She hoped it didn’t show in her face that she knew Mother would never give her permission.
In fact she went without it, only two days later and in a howling temper.
That was the Thursday before Easter. After midday dinner, Mother made her first batch of Hot Cross Buns, working the yeasty dough with floury hands, marking the little brown cakes with the back of a knife and setting them to rise in front of the fire. She went into the scullery to wash the bowl and her hands – turning her back for barely a minute – and when she came back the buns had all gone. Not a crumb left, only a plumply satisfied pig, sitting on the rag rug and smiling into the fire.
‘Drat that animal!’ she said, and reached for the broom. ‘Hen house for you!’
Poll heard Johnnie squeal and ran to the kitchen. George, who had been sitting reading at the table, looked up and said calmly, ‘Not his fault, Mother. How was the poor fellow to know?’
‘You couldn’t have stopped him, I suppose? Nose in a book as usual.’
‘Not a crime, is it?’
‘Not much help, let’s say. And I’ve got enough to do without pampering pigs! Miss Duval’s dress to finish, now this! I’m just about at the end of my tether!’
‘Hot and cross like your own buns, in fact,’ George observed to the air.
This silly joke didn’t help matters. Mother set her lips ominously, jabbed at Johnnie’s behind with the broom and drove him, grunting, into the garden and down the long cinder path. Poll followed to the hen house, protesting. ‘It’s not fair to shut him up, Mother.’
‘Fair or not, that’s where he’s going and that’s where he’ll stay.’
‘He didn’t mean to do anything wrong. The buns were where he could reach them. Perhaps he thought they were meant for him, as a treat.’
‘My fault, I suppose? Oh well, that’s one good lesson learned! Ridiculous, letting a great pig have the run of the house. A pig is a pig and he’ll be treated like one from now on.’
‘But he’s not used to it, he’s used to being a person.’
Johnnie stood inside the hen run, ears flopping forward over his eyes, looking up with what seemed to Poll a dejected expression.
‘He’s hurt,’ she said. ‘His feelings art hurt. How’d you feel if you’d always been petted and allowed in by the fire and you were driven out suddenly and locked up in prison? Oh, it’s wicked and cruel! You’re cruel, Mother!’
‘That’s enough from you, my girl.’
‘I hate you,’ Poll said.
Mother looked at her levelly. ‘I didn’t hear that.’
And Poll did not dare repeat it. Not to her face, anyway. Nor did she dare to let Johnnie out, although when her mother had gone back indoors, she examined the gate of the hen house and was glad to see the catch was so rotten that he only had to give one good push in the right place to set himself free. She scratched his back to console him, and whispered, ‘Poor Johnnie, you good pig, she’s hateful! I hate her, I hate her so much I’ll never forgive her for this as long as I live.’
She meant it. Hatred swelled inside her like a balloon, as if it might burst her chest open. She wished she could go right away and never see or speak to her mother ever again. Dad had gone, hadn’t he? Now she saw why! He couldn’t bear to stay with such a mean, spiteful person. Where could she go? Well, one place for a start. She said, in a voice hoarse with tears, ‘I’m going off to see Annie, that’s where I’m going, and I may never come back.’
And set off at once on what was to be, by the end of the day, the most frightening journey she had ever made in her life.
Only Miss Mantripp saw her go. Sitting in her window, proudly wearing her new blouse and waiting for visitors, she smiled at the youngest Greengrass girl running by and said to her pet thrush, a fat bird call Kruger who was the only living creature she spoke to, most days, ‘There’s that sweet, pretty child.’
Poll didn’t notice her. Burning eyes fixed on the road, she ran as if there were devils behind her until she was well clear of the Town, out of breath, and feeling better for it. She had run off her temper and when she reached the old road-mender, sitting by his pile of stones on the grass verge, she called out, ‘Afternoon, Mister, how’s the work going?’ and smiled gleefully, knowing what his answer would be because it was always the same. And she was right. He pushed up the dark glasses he wore to protect his eyes from flying flints and said slowly, ‘Waaal, thaaart be a mucky rumman.’ It seemed that these six words were the only ones he knew, and Aunt Harriet said that no one really understood what he meant by them because he used them on every occasion: if it rained, he would look up at the sky, put a sack over his head, and announce, ‘Waaal, thaaart be a mucky rumman.’
Poll laughed and skipped on, staying in the middle of the road because the deep ruts at the side wore your boots out, but keeping a sharp eye on the hedgerows. There were birds’ nests to watch for, and perhaps she might see a weasel with her babies running behind her, nose to tail, for all the world (so Aunt Harriet said) like a string of circus elephants, only smaller, of course. No such luck today; just a cock pheasant, whirring up from the other side of the hedge with a clatter of wings and a spine-chilling yell, just before she came to Bride’s Pit…
Lucky to get away, that old pheasant, she thought, because there was a gipsy camp at the Pit, two painted caravans parked on the green cart track where the bride’s coach had plunged down into the water, washing spread out on the bushes and cooking pot steaming. Barking dogs hurled themselves the length of their chains as Poll passed but the gipsies only stared at her, bold-eyed and unsmiling. She didn’t have the courage to linger although she’d have liked to: it seemed such an enviable life, meals out of doors and no school, and it would have been exciting to get more than a glimpse of the inside of one of those caravans. What she could see, gleaming brass and bright curtains, looked invitingly cosy and comfortable.
By contrast, Annie’s house seemed a poor, gloomy place: a tiny thatched cottage, some centuries old, crouching in the shadow of a densely overgrown wood. As Poll left the sunny road and walked up the short, muddy track, the
air seemed to grow perceptibly damper and chillier and if Annie had not been there, at the open front door, she might have lost her nerve and turned back. Annie said, ‘I didn’t think you’d come, really,’ and ran indoors leaving Poll standing there, feeling awkward, until Annie’s mother appeared, one baby straddling her hip, another peeping out from behind her. She looked more like Annie’s grandmother than her mother, Poll thought, with her scraped-back hair and sad eyes set deep in hollows, but her thin face was friendly when she smiled and invited Poll in.
There was only one room downstairs and although the stone floor was swept and clean and there were pots of geraniums on the window sill, there was very little furniture in it: a table, a few stools, a wheelback chair by the fire and an old sack instead of a hearth rug. No books, no pictures, no friendly clutter of ornaments. This seemed strange to Poll, almost alarming. Surely even very poor people had things in their houses they liked to look at? Thinking this, she was half afraid to look at Annie, but when she did Annie just grinned at her and said, to her mother, ‘Poll likes babies.’
She could not have sounded more disbelieving if she had said, ‘Poll likes sabre-toothed tigers.’
Her mother said, ‘It’s just as well we’re not all like you, Annie, or it ’ud be a poor lookout for the human race. Here you are, Polly.’ She put the baby who was perched on her hip into Poll’s arms and shook her head when he started to whimper and fight to get back to her. ‘I’d be right glad to be free of him for a while, I can tell you. On the grizzle ever since he woke up this morning, poor little tinker. Annie, you take our Archie too, and stay out till tea time.’
Archie was three years old, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed and solid as a little rock. Poll’s baby, Tom, was about a year younger and very much quieter: after a minute or two he seemed content to be carried by this strange girl, and settled with his head on her shoulder and his thumb in his mouth.
‘Like to see our pig?’ Annie said.
