by Lucy Lawrie
‘Old McFarmer had a pig,’ sang Pip softly, clumping a stray T. Rex across the brown plastic farmyard. ‘Ee-a see-a toe.’
Rose joined in, her voice robust. ‘Old McFarmer had lots-of-animals.’
‘What a nice song,’ I said, touching Pip’s head lightly.
‘It’s funny how they have an innate singing thing,’ said Cleodie. ‘Rose was singing before she could talk.’
‘But don’t you just hate Jungle Jive?’ I said in a guilty rush. ‘The diddle-diddle-doos and all that.’
‘I’m tone deaf,’ she said with a grimace. ‘But I should think that anyone with an ounce of musical capability would feel their hair standing on end. Is that you? Are you musical?’
‘I was once.’ For a moment I felt like elaborating, opening a conversational door into the world of Miss Fortune, and the Marlowes and Hattie. But then Pip cried out – a single peal of distress – and vomited all down himself.
‘Oh God! Pip, are you okay? I’m so sorry, Cleodie, there’s a bit on the floor there.’
‘Oh yuck,’ she said, wincing. It was a refreshing response. I’d noticed that Jody and Molly never missed an opportunity to demonstrate their complete ease with bodily fluids. Last week Molly had sat through the entire Jungle Jive session with yellow vomit all down her top, like some kind of Brownie badge of motherhood, as she sang and clapped to the jungle beat.
‘I’ll get a cloth,’ said Cleodie doubtfully. ‘The bathroom’s along the hall. There’s a bunch of wipes and stuff in there. Do you need to borrow some of Rose’s clothes?’
‘It’s okay,’ I said, grabbing Pip’s changing bag and slinging it over my shoulder. ‘I’ve got spare clothes in here.’
‘How organised of you,’ sighed Cleodie. ‘When Rose was sick in the Botanics last week I had to wrap her up in my scarf like a little Egyptian mummy. Whereas you, you’re the perfect mother.’
‘Far from it,’ I said as I lifted Pip under the arms and carried him to the bathroom. ‘Believe me.’
10
Hattie’s Diary
Thursday, November 2nd
I wasn’t feeling well at school today, and went to see Mrs Potts after lunch. She let me lie down in the sick room, in the little bed with smooth white sheets. She felt my forehead and took my temperature with a thermometer, its little metal endy bit poking under my tongue. I must have been hot because she gave me a white plastic cup with some water and two tablets to take.
She left me alone to rest. I kept thinking about her cool hands, the way she’d stroked the hair back from my forehead and tucked me into bed. I heard her on the phone, in her office next door, and thought maybe Mum was coming to collect me. But nobody came. I fell asleep, and missed the bell by miles. By the time I’d got to Miss Fortune’s I was late and Janey had already gone.
Her hair was a slightly darker shade of apricot today. She already had the eye metronome going and she motioned towards the piano. I guessed that she wanted me to play that awful pavane thing, so I got it out of my music case, trying not to touch the rat’s tail music-case handle.
When I’d finished, she sat watching me for a long time as the metronome ticked on.
‘Hattie. Do you know the meaning of the term “pavane”?’
I looked at the floor and shook my head.
‘It’s a stately court dance, popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Stately, Hattie. Do you think you played that in a stately way?’
Her voice was quiet but dangerous. I bit my lip and thought about it for a minute.
‘Or did you play it like a herd of elephants falling down the stairs?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Have you practised even one iota since our last lesson?’
‘Um, well you see, I’ve had a really difficult history project this week . . .’
She stepped over and thrust her withered hand at me, between my face and the piano keys. I tried to look away but she clutched the back of my head with her other hand and held it there so I had to look.
‘I practised several hours a day for twelve years,’ she said. ‘I studied at the Conservatoire in Paris. I was one of the lucky few for whom a career as a concert pianist was a real possibility and not just a distant dream. Then one stupid night after a stupid party I got in a car with a stupid man who’d drunk half a bottle of whisky. It took them three hours to cut us out of the wreckage. My right side was crushed. Nerve damage in the shoulder. And the result was this.’
She dangled the hand in front of my face.
‘And a lifetime of drudgery in a damp flat in Edinburgh, teaching spoilt brats with no talent, but who are at least blessed with a pair of hands that ACTUALLY WORK!’
All of a sudden I felt this great ‘whoosh’ through my head, and I ran to the bathroom because I knew I was going to be sick.
It’s a horrible bathroom: no windows, and the walls are painted yellow. The stink of carbolic soap made me feel even worse.
I was sick into the toilet. After the initial panic, I noticed that Miss Fortune was standing there behind me, breathing loudly through her flarey nose, arms crossed, one toe pointing out in that way she has.
‘Come on,’ she whispered. ‘Get it all out.’ And then she whacked me on the back with the heel of her hand, so hard that I fell forwards and had to catch hold of the toilet seat.
Then: ‘Oh, you poor wee scone! Get up and I’ll make you some orange squash.’
Dinner: crackers and cheese, not feeling well.
REMINDER: Sandra Bowes-Green’s birthday is on Monday. She got me a pencil for mine, so I shall get her something small.
11
Janey
‘Okay, sweetheart. Into bed.’ I shifted in the chair, preparing to lift Pip off my lap and into his cot. I could feel the tension leave my body, the ache behind my right eye ease down a notch, as I anticipated collapsing on the couch with a cup of tea. I could give myself half an hour off before starting work.
‘No. Blue Babar.’ He leaned towards the floor, reaching for one of the books in a pile by his cot.
I stifled a sigh. ‘But we’ve done Yellow Babar, and Green Babar already. Blue Babar is very long. It’s bedtime.’
‘Blue Babar!’ There was a stern frown now.
So I read Blue Babar, struggling to add some expression to my voice, forcing myself to pause and involve him: ‘How is Celeste feeling now?’ ‘How many candles are on the birthday cake?’ ‘Can you see Cornelius over by the trees?’
When I finally deposited his struggling form into the cot, he changed tack.
‘Milky, Mamma. Milky for Pippy.’
I ruffled his hair and went into the kitchen. I’d decided earlier that week to try to get him off his night-time bottles; he was two and a half after all, and bottles were supposed to be dreadful for all sorts of reasons. All of my parenting books agreed on this. I was hoping that cutting down on milky might encourage him to eat something other than jam sandwiches and fish fingers. But with this headache, the withholding of milky was surely a battle for another day. With a heavy sigh, I took two clean bottles out of the steriliser and filled them with toddler milk. I put one on the top shelf of the fridge – for when he woke up in the middle of the night – and took one back through to his bedroom. Grabbing his milky in both hands, he wiggled his fingers in a goodnight wave and shuffled onto his side. He looked so small against the length of the cot.
I went to bed at around eleven, and a couple of hours passed in the darkness. I tuned in to the noises from outside: the gentle roar of buses from the main road, the low chatter of people walking past on the pavement. The heavy tenement door swinging shut and footsteps echoing up the stone steps to the flats above. Murray had always asked how I could stand the noise, living on the ground floor, but I liked the sense of other people being around, especially at night.
*
I woke in blackness, jaw clenched, head pounding, slick with sweat. It always took a minute or so for my waking mind to take control, to remind me what was real. I rubbed my eyes,
trying to dispel the dream. It was just nonsense.
Nonsense, fifty-seven nights in a row.
I snapped on the bedside light and ventured into the bathroom to find some paracetamol.
But I’d woken Pip; a wail sounded from his bedroom. I made for the kitchen, rubbing my eyes as I pulled open the fridge door.
What?
On the top shelf, Pip’s bottle of milky. But lying in front of it, a kitchen knife. The middle-sized one in the set, with a black curved handle and a five-inch blade gleaming against the frosted glass of the shelf.
What?
I was probably still dreaming.
But I knew I wasn’t.
I must have done this. Last week, while making Pip’s dinner, I’d put a packet of digestive biscuits in the fridge, and this was just that kind of mistake.
Except that I hadn’t used any knives tonight. I’d hardly even been in the kitchen after fetching Pip’s bedtime bottle, only once to make a cup of tea. I’d been reading Hattie’s diary at the same time, though, leaning over the work surface to pore over the tiny writing as the kettle had boiled. So I’d been distracted. That would be it.
But I shuddered at a sudden notion that the ‘strange happenings’, as Hattie had called them, might have somehow shifted and transferred themselves from the past to the present, might have peeled off the page as I’d read.
I stood there for a while, unsure what to do, the cold of the tiles seeping into my bare feet. Was this an emergency situation? Should I be telling somebody about it?
But who? I couldn’t call Murray, not at two o’clock in the morning. He might be lying in bed next to Gretel for all I knew, if this was one of her nights for staying over. Or he might even be in the office, presiding over some corporate takeover. Maybe Jody or Molly, or one of the mums I knew from the nursery? Definitely not. They’d be grabbing every precious minute of sleep before their charges woke at the crack of dawn. My mother, crashed out after a busy day’s filming? One of the students in the flat upstairs, who I’d never bothered to introduce myself to? The police? And what would I say anyway? My Jamie Oliver chef’s knife – last used to prepare butternut squash soup yesterday – has moved out of the knife rack and materialised in my fridge?
There was no one I could call. No one.
But Pip, why wasn’t he still crying for his milky? With a shock of fear, I ran through to the bedroom only to find he’d fallen asleep again, his face soft and pinky in the glow from the nightlight.
I checked the doors – the front door onto the street, the side door that led into the tenement stairwell – both were locked. What about the windows? I remembered opening the deep sash window in the kitchen this afternoon when I’d burnt toast, but I was sure I’d closed it later because it was freezing outside. I climbed up onto the work surface by the sink and reached up to check the catch. It was fastened tight.
Looking out at the darkness, I suddenly wondered if I could call Cleodie. Her flat, in the next street along, backed onto the same patchwork space of shared back gardens, or drying greens as people still called them. Maybe I’d be able to spot a cosy lighted window about halfway along the block. She’d said she liked to write at night.
But no, only five lights were on, three on the top floor and two on the first. Maybe they were mothers too, roused from their beds to warm up bottles of milk or tend to sick children, laying cool hands on damp foreheads and carefully measuring out Calpol.
I pulled the duvet off my bed, dragged it through the hall and curled up on the floor beside Pip’s cot. I lay quietly, watching for the first hint of grey to creep in through the cracks around the shutters. And comforted, somehow, by the thought of those sleepy, tousle-haired mothers, awake too through the lonely hours of the night.
12
Hattie’s Diary
Friday, November 3rd
We had to do circuits in PE because of the extreme weather conditions (rain). On the plus side, Hilary Grogan called Janey a spasmo when she fell off the vault box, and Miss Partridge heard, and she got put out.
We seemed to be slower than the others at getting round all the stations. Janey said we shouldn’t count how many step-ups etc. we were doing, because it gives an oppressive feeling of competition.
‘I think I might have something to report about Miss Fortune,’ she said, when we were at the rings and cones station (we hung on there for quite a while, as it is the least strenuous).
‘What?’
‘When I was on my way back from the toilet yesterday, I noticed something.’
(We both take two toilet trips per lesson, any more than that and she cracks down.)
‘I glanced into the kitchen,’ she went on, ‘and the end bits of the kitchen table had been pulled out to make it bigger. And it was set with two places.’
‘So?’ I chucked a ring in the direction of the nearest cone. ‘Hey look! I got one over.’
‘She lives ALONE!’
‘Hmm. I suppose she could have been having a friend round for tea. She was wearing her green and olive dress.’
She stopped and turned to face me. ‘And afterwards, when I was playing that sonatina thing, I heard thumps. Coming from the kitchen. Or it could have been the back bedroom. I think someone was there.’
‘So what are you thinking?’
‘What if she’s kidnapped someone, Hattie? A child?’ Her voice shook with earnestness. ‘I think the time has come for you to grill your mother about Miss Fortune. We need to step up a gear with the investigation.’
‘I think we should. Janey . . .’ I turned to face her, and opened my mouth to tell her about TL. But something else came out instead. ‘I need you to tell me something honestly. Do you secretly like piano now? You’re actually getting quite good at that sonatina.’
She flushed a little bit, and looked down at the yellow ring she was holding.
‘We-ell,’ she said. ‘I hate her, of course. But, to my surprise’ – she looked up and gave a wide-eyed, startled look, as though we were sharing in the moment of revelation together – ‘I think I quite like playing the piano. Is that okay?’
‘Of course it’s okay.’
She solemnly placed the yellow ring on top of my head.
But Miss Partridge noticed us then. ‘Hattie and Janey!’ she shouted. ‘Move on to sit-ups, NOW!’
Monday, November 6th
This afternoon, while Mum peeled the carrots for tea (mince and potatoes), I tried to talk to her. It was cosy and warm in the kitchen. The basement is nicest when it’s dark outside. During the hours of daylight it is gloomy and pointless.
‘Where did you find Miss Fortune?’ I kept doing my drawing – a picture of the Trojan Horse – so she wouldn’t realise the question was important.
‘Where did I find her? Where do you think I found her? Under a rock in Queen Street Gardens?’ She did a little trilling laugh.
‘How did you find out about her? Do you know her? Was it through Dad?’
‘One of the masters at Ramplings gave me the name. That new one, Mr Hickory, that James likes so much. She’s on their approved list.’
‘So why doesn’t she work at Ramplings, then, if she’s so great?’
‘Because she lives here, Hattie. In Edinburgh. And don’t be cheeky. You’d do well to follow your brother’s example. You’ve got a lot of work to do if you’re going to get up to speed. He’d already done his grade eight violin – and flute – by the time he was your age, remember.’
‘So what does Daddy think about Miss Fortune?’
She turned the tap on almost full, and held a carrot under the stream. But it was a carrot SHE HAD ALREADY WASHED. And peeled. Idiot.
‘Mum?’
It took another twenty seconds of tap-gushing for her to come up with this feeble answer: ‘Daddy would be more than happy, I’m sure, with anyone on Ramplings’ approved list.’
‘So Daddy doesn’t know about Miss Fortune, then.’ Scanning back in my mind through my last few phone calls with him, it began
to make sense. ‘Does he even know I’m having lessons?’
‘Yes, of course, darling, we’d been talking about setting it up for ages. We talked about it at Easter, didn’t we?’
So she hadn’t even bothered to BLOODY mention it to him, in other words. When James had started the violin, aged four, Daddy (so the story goes) personally interviewed twelve different teachers, and sat in on the first few lessons to make sure. And then when James took up piano, Mum had taken him on the train to Glasgow every Saturday for his lesson. I’d had to go too, with my princess colouring book and a pack of scratchy old colouring pens that didn’t even work.
The cheek of it! But I could see the opportunity.
‘Mum, she might have been put on the approved list ages ago. She might be a bit past it now. She probably is, actually. I think you should check with Dad.’
She sighed, and thunked the carrot down on the draining board. She didn’t turn round, but just sort of leaned forwards onto the heels of her hands.
‘You can finish this off yourself, Hattie. I’ve got one of my headaches. I’m going to have a lie-down.’
‘But don’t you want to see my Trojan Horse once it’s finished?’
‘Just do your practice, darling. The pavane. I’ll be listening out. Promise.’
13
Janey
I stood lost in contemplation of the yoghurts, trying to decide if it was worth buying the Thomas the Tank Engine kind again. A few weeks ago, Pip had seen Vichard tucking into one at the coffee shop, and he’d reached over, dipped his finger into the bright-pink gloop and licked it. I’d been buying them in hope since then, even though they always ended up splatted on the kitchen tiles.
Pip, sitting in the trolley seat, kicked me with a socked foot. He’d propelled both of his shoes across the floor before we’d even got through the fruit and vegetable section, and they were stuffed into my handbag now.
‘Just a minute, Pippy.’ I picked up the yoghurts and put them in the trolley. Then, on a mad impulse, I picked up the organic, sweetened-only-with-fruit-juice kind, and put them in too.
