Sun Child

by Angela Huth

  Emily had met Wolf some weeks ago in the churchyard. He was kneeling by a gravestone scraping at the ancient crusts of granite with a penknife. Beside him was a jam-jar half full of snails. Emily, to whom the graveyard was a place of some awe (walking through it was a private act of slight courage) and to whom snails were a positive horror, was impressed. She watched him in silence for some moments. With the point of his knife he stripped off a small slither of moss and tossed it into the jar. He looked up, uncurious, at Emily, then returned to his work. Something about his concentration – nose almost touching the moss – gave the impression that he was enjoying his silent audience. But so great was his renewed effort that it spent itself unexpectedly soon. Emily was surprised when he broke the absolute quiet.

  ‘Will you come up the church tower with me?’ he asked. ‘I can never find anyone who likes going up church towers.’

  Half-way up the spiral stone staircase Wolf became aware of a restless tingling in his limbs, a new energy, a nameless pleasure. Here at last was someone to come with him. She might not like it, but at least she was there. Exuberant, he climbed fast to the top, leaving Emily far behind. When she joined him on the roof he felt the slouch of anti-climax uncomfortable within him. Perhaps it wasn’t so great after all. Emily didn’t look that impressed. They stood far apart. Diffident, Wolf pointed out the chimneys of his house.

  ‘We’re quite high up, really,’ he said, knowing he lacked conviction. Emily made a quick decision not to observe that it was nothing compared with the Eiffel Tower, where she’d once been, and agreed. They listened to the crows for a while, then went back to the stairs. There, with a gallantry that surprised him, Wolf suggested he should go down first, knowing every step as well as he did, in case Emily should fall.

  Since then they had become devoted companions, meeting for as long and as often as they could. Now, they were in the act of carrying out a major plan they had been plotting for some time.

  Wolf took from his pocket a small, steamed up polythene bag and untied it. Gently he lifted out a bunch of watercress. Some of the leaves, limp for all their careful preservation, were freckled with small spots of congealed gravy.

  ‘Wolf!’ Emily sighed. ‘Where on earth?’

  ‘They had steak last night,’ Wolf said. ‘I sneaked it off the plate afterwards.’

  ‘Golly gumdrops,’ said Emily, quietly. She never ceased to be impressed by Wolf’s ingenuity and imagination and, further, by his apparent casualness in face of his own achievement. For several days they had been planning to plant a watercress bed which would bring them riches, employment, and perhaps even a certain fame in the village. The stream was the ideal location: the procuring of the first bunch of watercress the only problem. They had immediately rejected the idea of a packet of seeds because of the slow time they would take to grow. Waiting for fruition, they just might become bored by the idea, or just might have established some other kind of project which would then leave them no time for the watercress. What they desired was instant results and immediate occupation of a serious nature. And in anticipation of their end product they were not idle. Emily had collected a variety of old paper bags and carefully printed on them the words Wolf em’s Watercress Farm: directors Emily Harris and Wolf Beasly. Underneath she had drawn a single watercress leaf which might also have been a four-leaf clover, as Wolf observantly pointed out. It should bring them good luck, he said. Meantime he spent two weeks’ pocket money on cash books in which he neatly went through the pages marking them Paid In and Paid Out. But still they found no watercress in the village shop or even the local town. Its scarcity was frustrating, but to have requested grown-up help would have spoilt the surprise the mature watercress farm was going to be. As the days went by their hopes wavered a little. Alternative plans were even being considered to ward off increasing dejection. And then their lucky break: the sudden steak for dinner in Wolf’s house.

  ‘Will the gravy matter?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Course not, silly.’ Wolf was rarely scathing to Emily, whom he respected in many ways, but the fragility of his plan combined with the excitement of having at last acquired the watercress made him nervous this morning, irritable.

  ‘What exactly are you going to do?’

  Wolf rubbed his short, freckled nose, thinking. Now the time had come he was not entirely clear.

  ‘I’ll put it in a ring of stones so that the current can’t carry it downstream. Why, can you think of a better plan?’

  ‘No.’ Emily was positive.

  ‘Let’s find some stones, then.’

  They sank their hands into the icy water, wetting their sleeves, their fingers prying through the soft cold mud for large stones. They drew several on to the bank and made their choice. Then, in the shallowest water, Wolf formed a small circle of the stones. Carefully, he placed the bunch of watercress in the middle, splaying out the leaves like flowers in a vase. When he withdrew his hands the moving water of the stream bent the leaves a little, but not enough to dislodge them. Wolf sat back on the bank, contemplating. He ran a muddy hand through his long, matted hair, gold on top from last summer’s sun, sable coloured beneath.

  ‘How exactly will it grow?’ Emily was careful to eliminate any note of doubt from her voice. She appreciated Wolf knew best about things like biology. She hoped he wouldn’t think her silly, wanting to know the facts.

  ‘Well.’ Wolf’s arms were folded over his knees. He shrugged, moving his whole body. ‘I expect it’ll just germinate, in the water, somehow.’ He paused for a moment. ‘On the other hand, it might not. In fact we shouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t.’

  ‘No,’ said Emily.

  ‘We’ll be able to tell in a few days, I should think.’ He looked down at the bunch of watercress still firmly lodged in the stones, the gravy washed from its leaves now. ‘As a matter of fact, I think it’s flourishing.’ Emily followed his gaze, to see if she could see what he meant.

  ‘What’s flourishing?’ she asked eventually. Wolf released his knees from his arms and lazily stretched a leg over the stream. He slowly lowered it till the water whirled round the heel of his boot.

  ‘According to my stepmother, everything’s flourishing. “How are you, darling?” people say – (he imitated a woman’s high voice) – “flourishing,” she says. She tells people my father’s business is flourishing and the new puppies are flourishing and the rhodedendrums are flourishing.’ Emily giggled. ‘Flourishing,’ added Wolf, ‘is anything that flourishes.’

  He stood up, suddenly, legs planted astride in the stream, muddying the water.

  ‘What shall we do now?’ asked Emily. ‘I mean there’s no point in just sitting watching it, waiting for it to spread.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Wolf, ‘especially as I don’t think it’s going to. In fact I’m sure it’s not.’ He kicked at the circle of stones, tipping the bunch of watercress on to its side. A few stray leaves escaped their enclosure and sailed downstream to clearer waters. Wolf bent down and picked up the remains of the bunch. With a violent gesture he threw it in the same direction, then kicked at the stones, splitting their carefully constructed circle. Then he stepped back on to the bank, not looking at Emily.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked. A sense of failure too soon: the wet wool of her sleeves stung her wrists.

  ‘Anyone could see it wasn’t going to work. We didn’t think it out well enough.’ He didn’t sound as if he much cared: he never minded if things went wrong. It gave him a chance to replace the idea with a new one.

  ‘I suppose. But what shall I do with all those bags?’

  ‘They’ll come in useful some time. You could put your sewing in them.’

  ‘That’s being sarcastic. I don’t sew.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll learn.’ He sounded quite cross – with himself more than with Emily. A pause between them. Emily felt no inclination to take offence. A new project, perhaps, would cheer him up. She asked him what they should do next. Wolf folded his arms, st
ared into the haze. In the moments while he waited for inspiration he went a great distance from Emily. His silence was formidable, not to be interrupted. Emily waited patiently.

  ‘A bird table, I think,’ he said at last. ‘A really interesting bird table that would amuse the birds.’

  ‘That’s a good idea.’ Emily was glad now they had abandoned the watercress, really glad, not just pretending to herself.

  ‘A kind of Gothic bird table.’ Wolf made an elaborate design in the air with his wet muddy hand. Emily wondered the meaning of the word Gothic, but decided to ask another question instead.

  ‘How would we carpenter it all ourselves?’

  ‘We wouldn’t. We’ll get an old wooden tray from somewhere and then make turrets and towers out of old boxes and papier mâché. Then we’ll stick them to the tray. They’ll have doorways and windows and everything, and private places for the birds to go. It’ll be more of a bird town, really.’ Wolf looked at Emily’s excited face. She deserved some gesture of generosity to make up for his past unkindness about the paper bags. ‘You can paint all the buildings,’ he said, warm, magnanimous. ‘You’re good at that.’

  The luminous field and shadowy trees shimmered in Emily’s delight at the prospect. She jumped up and pulled at Wolf’s sleeve.

  ‘Come on. Let’s start straight away.’ Her enthusiasm was always rewarding, but Wolf had learnt from watching his father that to keep up an appearance of coolness in face of female exuberance was the wisest reaction.

  ‘Hang on a bit,’ he said, shaking her off, still thinking. ‘And then we’ll get my father to nail the whole thing to a pole.’

  ‘Whose garden shall we put it in? Yours or mine?’ So far Emily had never been to Wolf’s house: so far there had been no invitation.

  ‘Yours. And I dare say your mother’d give us bits of bacon and stuff.’

  ‘What about your stepmother?’

  ‘Oh, her. She never has leftover bits. She’s so careful.’ With one accord, they began to walk slowly up the slope of the field towards the house.

  ‘Why have you got a stepmother anyhow? What happened to your mother?’

  ‘She died.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Having me.’ Wolf jerked his head in the air so that his tousled hair moved all in one bundle. ‘So my father married Coral. Coral. What a name. Can you imagine?’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  A crowd of epithets came to Wolf’s mind. He picked those that would seem least disloyal.

  ‘She’s not too bad, I suppose. Very fussy though. Always patting the cushions when you get up, and telling you to wipe your feet. She makes those dried flower arrangement things and sells them in London. Once, she sewed blue bows all over the bedspread, but my father was furious and made her take them off. She cried quite a lot.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Emily. The drizzle, harder, more visible now, was cold on her face.

  ‘Also,’ said Wolf, struggling with his conscience, ‘she’s not very brainy. She can’t begin to help me with my homework.’ One day, when he knew Emily better, he might tell her a lot more.

  As they reached the garden they saw Fen driving the Morris shooting brake through the front gate. There was a woman in the passenger seat beside her.

  ‘I forgot to say,’ said Emily, ‘my father’s got some secretary woman coming down for the weekend to help him.’ She and Wolf and Fen had had many a happy Saturday lunch together: it wouldn’t be the same with the addition of a strange woman. Emily hoped Wolf wouldn’t be cross.

  ‘We can always mob her up if she turns out to be an old faggot,’ said Wolf, and Emily, relieved, giggled.

  Fen, getting out of the car, opened her arms to her daughter. Emily ran towards her. She was suddenly in a whirling hug, spinning round, her feet off the ground tangled in Fen’s long flowery wool skirt; she smelt the brief familiar smell of stephanotis on warm skin, heard the squeak of a rubber boot as her mother slipped in a puddle, laughing. Firm ground again: Fen’s hands still on her shoulders, steadying her, looking at her.

  ‘You’re soaked, you nut. And Wolf too.’

  ‘We’ve been in the stream.’

  ‘Go and get changed quickly. But first come and meet Miss Burrows. She’s coming to work for Papa.’

  Miss Burrows walked stiffly towards Emily, spindly legs beneath a longish brown mackintosh. On her head she wore one of those folding plastic rain hats that spends most of its life compressed into a remarkably small plastic sheaf and is often described by its owners as handy. Through its pleats, only half unfurled, Emily could see Miss Burrows’ hair was a similar colour to the mist: a small clump of it had escaped the cap’s protection at her temples and seemed to be of the same indeterminate texture as the drizzle that swept about them. Miss Burrows extended her hand to Emily.

  ‘How do you do,’ said Emily.

  ‘What a cold hand,’ said Miss Burrows. Her own was small, warm, papery.

  ‘And this is Wolf who lives nearby.’ Fen was pushing him to Miss Burrows. He shook hands silently, suddenly subdued by the suitable smile that the woman arranged on her face.

  ‘And now you two hurry up and wash before lunch.’ Fen was sweeping towards the house, a child each side of her, anxious to get things going. She didn’t look back at the reticent figure that followed her.

  Upstairs, his arms deep in warm brown water that left interesting different ridges round the basin as it moved, Wolf said:

  ‘I should think she could do with a going over.’

  ‘You bet,’ said Emily, snatching the soap from him and lacing it through her fingers.

  ‘Still, to be fair, we’d better just give her a chance.’

  ‘Just one chance, then.’

  ‘And after that,’ said Wolf, taking the clean white towel and hand printing it with perfect brown finger marks, ‘and after that, well, she better be warned. Anything could happen to her.’

  The children came slowly down the stairs that led into the kitchen, observing Miss Burrows before she saw them. She stood stiffly by the dresser, pretending to lean against it, holding a small glass of sherry in one hand. A thin, pale, rigid figure, she gave the appearance of slipping from youth directly into old age. Youth was not as yet entirely gone from her: its signs were in the narrowness of her hips and the soft curve of her powdered neck – but it was on the decline. Two deep clefts of real old age appeared between her light eyebrows, and the skimpiness of her frazzled grey hair reminded Emily of her grandmother. She wore a neat grey worsted skirt and a pale blue blouse, intricately tucked and pleated, and fastened with a dozen pearly buttons. In the kitchen full of warm colours, bright fruits, flames, vivid wools, Fen’s energetic shape radiating from stove to sink, hands full of steaming casseroles, Miss Burrows was an almost pathetic contrast. It was as if she was a brittle manifestation of the dark climate outside: a pale stalagmite of mist broken off and set in an alien place. She stood, aware of her own incongruity, waiting to melt.

  ‘Boo,’ said Wolf mildly, uncertain how his joke would be received. Miss Burrows, against her will, gave a small start.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s you.’ She laughed slightly, showing teeth that matched the pearl buttons.

  ‘Come on and sit down.’ Fen was terse. Her voice said they had to behave. Miss Burrows dabbed at her bag, a very neat square navy blue bag with a gilt M stuck in one corner. She took out a small gold-mesh sack of chocolate coins wrapped in gold paper.

  ‘I’ve brought something for the child,’ she said, handing it to Emily. ‘I’m sorry’ – to Wolf – ‘I didn’t know there were two of you.’

  Wolf was abashed by her decency. Then, on a sudden inspiration, he pulled out her chair for her, contrite. It was the kind of extravagantly polite gesture that caused Coral overwhelming pleasure. If it worked on her, it was worth trying on Miss Burrows.

  It succeeded. Smiling, charmed, she sat at the table opposite Emily. She looked vaguely about her, for a napkin perhaps. Then, quickly, acclimatising hersel
f to this unfamiliar atmosphere in which serviettes represented laughable formality, she let her hands fall into repose on her lap.

  While Fen dished out plates of stew and baked potatoes Emily studied Marcia Burrows’ face. In close-up it had a soft, hairy bloom, like that of an English peach. It was heavily powdered with old-fashioned loose white powder and the flat mouth, neatly lipsticked with unshining plum, was minutely jagged at the edges due to the powdery down that encroached on the lips. The eyes were grey, bland, stamped into the face one at a time rather than as a pair. They were younger than the mouth, unclouded with powder, clasped by nice wrinkles when she smiled. Emily couldn’t stop looking. She wondered, when it came to the gravy of the stew, if the lipstick would run. She stared, waiting.

  ‘Eat, for heaven’s sake.’ Fen was kicking her under the table. Miss Burrows, aware of the friction she caused, did her best to make a go of things.

  ‘And do you two go to school together?’ she asked neither child in particular. Wolf, always bored by such questions but feeling he still owed Miss Burrows a small measure of politeness, dismissed it as quickly as he could.

  ‘No, but we met, and this afternoon we’re going to make a very complicated sort of bird table. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the zoo didn’t want to copy our idea.’

  ‘It’s going to be more of a bird town, you said,’ Emily corrected him.

  “Well, yes, a bird town with streets and squares and things. And a hotel, where they can fly in and out of the windows for the night. And a restaurant with a bag of peanuts outside.’ He enjoyed being carried away by his own flights of fantasy.

  ‘Goodness me,’ said Miss Burrows. Fen spluttered over a mouthful of stew. Emily giggled. Everyone but Miss Burrows felt easier.

  For her the time had come when, in her napkinless state, she was acutely ill at ease. She either had to search in her handbag for her paper handkerchief, thus underlining Fen’s oversight, or let the threads of lipstick, loosened by the greasy stew, course down her chin, veining it with red. In her predicament she paused, digging at a carrot, dreading to eat it for fear of increasing the wild state of her mouth. Had she not then been rescued by Wolf, she did not know what polite action she would have taken. But he, remarkable child (as she then immediately assumed him to be) suddenly sensed her despair, and decided it a propitious moment to exert a little of the tact he knew he possessed.