‘Who’s this?’ she said. ‘Your husband?’ There was a photograph on top of the television, of a soldier, very smart and proud in his uniform. A bit young, though, surely. Perhaps he was only a cadet.
‘No, I never married. That’s my brother Freddie. Just sixteen when that was taken. He died in the Great War.’
‘Oh. Sorry . . .’
‘Stupid . . . stupid business.’ Aunt Celandine was looking down into her lap and shaking her head. ‘All those poor boys . . .’ She stopped talking and stared into the fire.
‘Sorry,’ said Midge. Again.
She continued her tour of the room. There were a couple of other photographs – one of a middle-aged Aunt Celandine sitting at a huge wooden desk, with lots of medicine bottles arranged on shelves behind her. Presumably this was taken at the clinic. And there was another of two young women on a beach, arm in arm, each holding onto their hats and laughing. There were donkeys in the background, and a pier. Weston-super-Mare?
Some of the objects in the room seemed slightly out of place: a glass case containing a dusty and faded collection of birds’ eggs; a very old-looking cricket ball perched on the end of a shelf; a rusty penknife . . .
It was interesting, but Midge reminded herself that she wasn’t here just to look at birds’ eggs. She needed somehow to re-introduce the subject of the Various.
Aunt Celandine was still staring into the fire, her mouth moving as though she were chewing on something, or talking to herself. Midge sat down opposite, in the wing-backed chair, and looked at the plate of toast that lay on the little table between them. She hadn’t yet been offered anything to eat, but she really wasn’t hungry. Elaine had been present to oversee the making of the toast, and Midge had got the impression that this was some sort of daily ritual. Perhaps the new jar of jam had been brought out in her honour – or perhaps it was placed there every day, the paper seal remaining unbroken.
‘Aunt Celandine – how old were you when you were at school here?’
‘Hm? Oh . . . thirteen, I would think. Twelve or thirteen. It was a horrible place. I ran away, you know.’
‘No! Did you? What, properly ran away?’
‘Oh yes. Ran away and never came back. There was a lot of trouble.’
Midge remembered the letters she had seen, detailing the damage to school property, and the bills for expenses. Had that been connected to this running away episode?
‘Did you do something wrong?’ she said. ‘I mean, were you caught . . . I don’t know . . . caught smoking or something?’
‘Smoking? No, I’ve never smoked. I did light a cigarette once, but only once. Dreadful. It was for someone else.’
‘So why did you run away?’
‘I poured paint everywhere, you see. I was so upset. All around the dormitory, over people’s clothes and into their shoes. On the bed linen . . . oh, it was a mess. Two bucketfuls that the decorators had left behind.’
‘What? You poured paint . . .?’ Midge was struggling to grasp this picture.
‘Round and round. All up the walls . . . all over the floor’ – Aunt Celandine was rocking from side to side, her voice a little sing-song of remembrance – ‘in the laundry bag, in the locker drawers. Ooh no. I haven’t forgotten that, dear. Do you know – I never got a splash on me.’
‘Blimey. So . . . then you ran away?’ Midge felt a little surge of glee, envy almost, at the thought of performing such an act of outrage.
‘Oh yes. Never came back. Well, I did come back years later. To live here. Isn’t that funny?’
‘So when you ran away, where did you go?’ Midge tried to keep her voice calm. She was beginning to think that perhaps she could guess the answer to this.
But Aunt Celandine was silent then. She turned back towards the fire, and shook her head. After a while she said, ‘I told Mama about how I’d gone to Burnham Common, to stay with the gypsies, and how they’d looked after me. Kind people, who never did me any harm. They come there every year, for the fruit picking. They used to.’
‘Oh.’ Midge was disappointed that she’d apparently guessed wrong, but she continued to be intrigued – it was such an amazing story. She backtracked a little, and said, ‘What were you so upset about that made you do all that damage?’
‘I had a letter from my father. It was about my brother, Freddie. How he’d been killed in France. I don’t think I knew what I was doing – but I knew I couldn’t go home. They’d have just sent me back again. And I hated it here.’
‘Oh. And so’ – Midge could see it then, could almost feel what that lonely schoolgirl might have felt, all those years ago – ‘so you ran away, and stayed with some gypsies. Were they friends of yours? Did you already know them?’
‘Eh? Know who, dear?’
‘The gypsies.’
‘Gypsies? There were never any gypsies. That was just a story I told my mother. She was so worried about what had happened to me. Didn’t know where I was, poor woman.’
Midge’s head was going round and round. ‘But you said . . .’ She tried again. ‘Then where did you go?’
‘I don’t know.’ The words were out almost before Midge had asked the question, and there was exasperation in Aunt Celandine’s voice. Anger even. ‘I don’t know.’ She said it again, a little more softly. ‘And that’s the trouble. I’ve tried to remember, but it’s all gone now. Disappeared years ago. The silly thing is, I used to know. That’s what makes me so cross. I remember that it was all a secret, something that I wasn’t supposed to tell, and so I never did. I never even told my dearest friend. But I think I must have kept it a secret for so long that in the end it became a secret from me too.’ Aunt Celandine gazed over Midge’s shoulder, the light from the window reflected in her watery eyes. ‘I had my work, I suppose, and a new life once I’d left home. I tried to forget about the war, and school, and Freddie and, oh . . . all the unhappy things. I had to put everything behind me, and I did just that. But now there are bits that won’t come back, even though I want them to.’
‘Is that why you came to live here?’ said Midge. ‘To see if it might . . . remind you?’
Aunt Celandine blinked at this, and her head jerked back, a little spasm of movement.
She turned to stare at Midge, and after a while she said, ‘You’re a very perceptive child, my dear. Midge. How old are you?’
‘Twelve.’
‘Twelve. Yes, I always thought you’d be about twelve.’ Aunt Celandine leaned forward, reaching out across the little coffee table. ‘Let me hold your hand for a moment. Don’t worry, it’s nothing to be frightened of.’
Midge shuffled to the edge of her seat, and stretched out her arm. She swallowed, nervous all of a sudden, but allowed her fingers to be found and enfolded by Aunt Celandine’s own searching hand. Warm and dry, the skin felt, against her own. The pressure of the thumb firm and steady on her palm.
‘I really can’t see you very well at all, you know,’ Aunt Celandine said. ‘My eyesight’s so poor nowadays that I’m more or less blind. And yet I know what you look like, because I remember you so well. I know that you have blue eyes, and a few freckles, and fair hair – quite long, but with a spiky fringe. Now then: why do I remember a girl I could never have really seen, and still can’t see properly, and yet not remember things that I truly did see? Why can I recall things that never happened, and not recall those that did?’
Aunt Celandine closed her eyes. Midge sat in silence, staring at her great-great-aunt, wondering how she ever came to be in such a strange situation as this. She became aware that her hand was starting to feel curiously warm – not on the surface, but somehow from within.
‘I spent hours of my life like this.’ Aunt Celandine’s voice was no more than a murmur. ‘So many hands I’ve held . . . dozens and dozens, over the years. And all of them with stories to tell.’
Silence again.
Midge said, ‘Is that what you’re doing now? Reading my hand?’
‘No. I’m hoping you might be able to
read mine.’
‘What? But I can’t do that.’
‘I think perhaps you can. I think perhaps that’s why you’ve been sent to me.’ Aunt Celandine half opened her eyes, just fleetingly, then allowed them to close once more. ‘Let me tell you what I remember, and then we’ll see if you can see more. So. I ran away from school, as I told you – this school, yes? – and I went to the railway station at Little Cricket. See if you can picture me there, on the platform. I caught the train home, and got off at Withney Halt. Then I walked across the fields to Mill Farm. Close your eyes, dear, and watch me walking across the fields. I know that I was carrying a heavy bag, and it was getting dark. I stopped when I reached Mill Farm and looked at the lights, but I didn’t go in. I was sure that there would be no welcome for me there. Instead, I put a letter on the gatepost and I weighed it down with a stone. It was a letter to my mother, telling her that I would be staying with friends and not to worry about me. I started to climb Howard’s Hill. Do you know it – the big hill? Well that’s where my memory disappears. All of it just fades away. I don’t remember ever getting to the top. Later they told me I’d fallen down the hill, and hurt my head. I think I must have broken my ankle as well. I do recall being on sticks, and that it took me a long time to get well again. There were bad dreams too, although I can’t remember what they were about. And I wouldn’t speak for days and days after they found me. So they said. But I don’t know why that was.’
Midge didn’t close her eyes. She didn’t need to. She thought she could already see where that runaway schoolgirl had gone on that dark night so long ago.
‘I did get better, in the end,’ Aunt Celandine said. ‘Yes, in the end. I remember sitting by a fountain. I think it must have been the one in the gardens of Hart House – the clinic where my uncle worked as a doctor. It was so long ago, now, but I can see myself there, throwing things into the water. Pennies for luck, perhaps. And then I was lucky. My uncle brought me to work at the clinic, just as an assistant at first. But he encouraged me. He said I had a gift. A touch, he said. They called me Witch, you know, when I was at school.’
Aunt Celandine’s eyes opened again, and Midge wanted to take her hand away. The bones of her fingers felt as though they were being heated up from the inside. It didn’t hurt, but it was just so strange – and she didn’t like this talk of witches. Weirder still was the sudden image that came to her, of Aunt Celandine as a girl. She saw it, like a video clip, a real picture, flashed in front of her eyes and then whisked away. A girl, sitting by a fountain, holding something. Dropping something into the water . . .
Orbis. That word again. It floated into her head, and remained there, teasing her. The fountain at the Butterfly Farm. Could this thing be hidden there, buried deep in the mud?
Perhaps she was looking too far ahead.
‘So when you fell down the hill,’ she said, ‘and they found you . . . how long had you been gone for? That wasn’t the same night?’
‘No. I’d been missing for ages. Weeks, I think. The thing is, I believe I knew at the time what had happened, but I had to keep it a secret for some reason. It was only later that it all started to fade, like somebody rubbing out a pencil drawing, until there was nothing left to see any more. It’s been ninety years, now. All that time . . . wondering . . .’
Midge could feel her hand being squeezed tighter.
‘Where did I go? What happened to me?’ Aunt Celandine’s voice had become louder and more agitated, almost panicky.
Midge didn’t know how to begin. This poor old woman might have a heart attack or something if she said the wrong thing. The responsibility was frightening. But the truth would have to come out somehow, and who else was there but her to tell it?
She withdrew her hand, as gently as she could, and said, ‘I think I know where you might have gone, Aunt Celandine. But it’s scary to talk about. I was scared when I . . . when I first saw what I saw. You know the woods on top of Howard’s Hill? I think you went there.’
‘What? That tangled-up old place? No. No, I don’t think so . . .’
‘You did. I know you did. The people who live there can still remember you. They talk about you.’
‘People who live there? What people?’ Aunt Celandine was staring at her, obviously still at a loss.
‘I’m not the only one who’s seen them,’ said Midge. ‘My cousins have too – George and Katie. They’re real. Honestly they are. And if I brought George and Katie here, they’d tell you so too.’
‘But who on earth are you talking about, dear? What people?’
Here it was again, then. Well, there was no other way of saying it.
‘Little people, Aunt Celandine. The little people. There are tribes of them, living up there in the woods.’
‘Oh, what nonsense! Little people? Do you mean fairies? No, no. You surely don’t believe in that kind of thing at your age?’
Well, at least the news hadn’t brought on a heart attack. Aunt Celandine seemed likely to survive a little longer. But of course that was because she didn’t yet understand, or believe, or remember. Midge persevered.
‘No, they’re not fairies,’ she said. ‘Although some of them have . . . well, they have wings. But no, they’re just little people. About this big.’ She held her hand a couple of feet above the carpeted floor. ‘There’s two tribes that live in caves, and another lot that live in the trees – the Ickri – and some of them fish. And they grow beans and things. Potatoes . . .’ She stopped talking, aware of how ridiculous the words sounded. But how could she make it believable?
Aunt Celandine put her head back and gazed at the ceiling. Something had apparently occurred to her. ‘You know, I do remember going up there’ – Midge’s heart gave a little lift – ‘but that was another time. With my brother Freddie. Yes. I could only have been about seven or eight. I was following Freddie, and we were walking and walking – right the way round the wood, I think – all through the long grass and the nettles and dock leaves. It was hot, and I was very tired and thirsty. We couldn’t get in there. That’s right! Freddie was trying to find a way in. But there were so many brambles and briars that there just wasn’t a way in. I’d forgotten all about that.’ Aunt Celandine nodded to herself. Then the concentration faded from her expression for a few moments, as though she’d lost the thread of what she’d been saying. She squeezed her eyes shut, and pinched the bridge of her nose, obviously tired now. ‘So you see, I really don’t think I would have gone to those old woods when I ran away. Not if I already knew that there was no way in.’
There’s a tunnel. The words hung there, in Midge’s head, but she didn’t say them. There’s a tunnel, and I bet that’s how you got in. Same as me. But you just don’t remember, do you? And there’s no point trying to force it. She looked at her watch.
‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘I’m supposed to be meeting my uncle at five.’
She was disappointed – not just because she was getting nowhere in her search for the Orbis, but also because she had so hoped to be able to talk to someone who had shared her own experience.
‘I’m sorry.’ Her Aunt Celandine was reaching out for her hand again. ‘I simply can’t . . . simply can’t . . . get it back.’
‘I wasn’t making it up, Aunt Celandine.’ Midge felt that she had to get that clear. ‘I know it seems impossible, but it’s the truth. There are people living there, on Howard’s Hill. I’ll try and come over again next Sunday, and then maybe I could tell you more about it.’
‘Yes. Do come and see me again. It’s lovely to talk to you, even if . . .’ Aunt Celandine didn’t grasp her hand in parting this time. Instead she just patted it, and said, ‘Well, even if I can’t make any sense of it. But I’ll try. Yes. I know that I have to try to remember more. Would you do me a favour before you go, and tilt my chair back? I’m suddenly feeling rather tired. There’s a lever . . .’
‘What, this chrome one? How does it work – like this? Is that far enough back?’
‘Yes
, that’s lovely. Thank you, dear.’
‘You’re very quiet, Midge,’ said Uncle Brian, as they drove back home in his rattly old estate car. ‘Everything OK? How was Aunt Celandine?’
‘Oh, she was fine. Quite chatty this time.’ Midge made an effort to perk up, although all she really wanted to do was think. ‘How about you?’ she said. ‘Successful day on the auction site?’
‘Yes, not bad at all. It’s taken a while to get things organized, but we seem to be more or less up and running. I think I may have already sold the Fergie.’
‘What, your old tractor? That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes it is. Funny thing, though – I sort of miss the old gal already.’
Yeah, thought Midge. I know what you mean. Already she was thinking ahead to next weekend, trying to come up with some way of jogging Celandine’s memory. Today had been a setback, but she was not going to give up. Not when she’d come this far.
‘Miss Howard?’
Her name. But she ignored it. Not now. Not now, not now . . .
‘Miss Howard, are you OK? Having a little nap, dear? That’s right. I’m just going through to rinse the tea things, and then I’ll run your bath. Won’t be long.’
Elaine. Fussing around as usual.
Celandine kept her eyes tight shut, and tried to hang onto the memory of whatever it was that she had seen . . . or dreamed. Freddie. They were walking around the woods on Howard’s Hill. And they were shouting, calling out. Halloooo! Are you there? We’ve brought you some food. But she didn’t want to be doing this. There was nobody to hear them, and she was tired of walking, and her head still hurt from falling down the hill. Her temples throbbed and she wished she was lying in the baby carriage, the bassinet . . .
The bassinet! She remembered it! Oh, what bliss that had been, to lie beneath the shady trees, her head on a pillow, and to gaze up at the pretty green patterns of the leaves. All the birds singing, and the cheerful sounds of voices drifting towards her from below. The Coronation party. And cake! Yes, she could see a piece of cherry cake, floating through the air, as she held it aloft. Dark red cherries against the fluttering green of the foliage. And the skinny arm that came to take it from her . . . tiny brown fingers, desperately reaching down towards her own pale hand . . .
Winter Wood Page 14
