The House Martin

by William Parker

  ‘Quiet boys, please,’ he said which was dead silly, really, because no one was saying anything at all.

  ‘Mr. England’s not going to be with us for the rest of the morning, so I want you to open your copybooks and write an essay which I’ll be collecting from you in three quarters of an hour. I want about eight hundred words on the subject of our walk in the forest yesterday.’

  ‘Where’s Mr. England, Sir?’ Theo said.

  ‘He’s had a slight bump in his car. Nothing very serious. He’ll be in later on this morning. Now not a peep out of any of you, please. Macer-Wright, you’re in charge, and I’m leaving the door open.’

  I wrote my essay about the secret bit of the forest that I’d discovered, but I don’t think it was very good because I couldn’t help thinking all the time about what might have happened to Mr. England, and his car, and all the stuff that he keeps in it.

  He was back by the time we went into lunch, and I made sure to sit right at the end of the bench next to his chair at the top of the table. He had a little plaster on his forehead and another on his hand.

  ‘What happened, Sir?’ I said.

  ‘A little old lady not looking both ways properly, I’m afraid. She pulled out straight in front of me so I couldn’t avoid hitting her.’

  ‘How horrid…’

  ‘Not to worry, Ben. These things happen. I’ve only a little scratch. Car’s in a terrible state, though. I’ll probably have to get a new one…’

  ‘Where is it, Sir?’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your Mini. Where is it now?’

  ‘They had to tow it away, I’m afraid. It’s very badly damaged.’

  ‘Are all your things still in there, then? All your books and other stuff?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll have to arrange a visit to the garage to collect it all, won’t I?’

  He didn’t seem at all worried, so then I was thinking that he must have taken some stuff out of the car before the crash, because he couldn’t just have forgotten about it.

  But I knew it was still in there.

  I’d seen it again the day before, when Miss Carson asked us to take the tin trays out of the car for the picnic. That’s why I wanted to make sure I didn’t get too close again. It was still in the back, mostly hidden under a pile of books—the blue folder, the same one that I’d seen the day we went to Bristol.

  Q

  ‘My Only One! I’ve come for you…’

  Mummy walks towards me very slowly and stretches her arms out as though she’s feeling in the dark in case I’m not there. I put my arms around her. It’s horrid that I didn’t want her to come, and suddenly I’m trying not to cry because of it. She’s as small and delicate as one of the baby house martins, and I think that I might crack her bones and squeeze the breath out of her unless I’m really careful. It’s as though I’m holding her up. She is getting tinier and tinier. I notice it every time I’ve been away from her, and one day it might be that she could just about disappear forever.

  ‘Hello, Mummy. I’ve been waiting ever such a long time for you. For ages and ages, actually…’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sweetness. I got here far too early so I’ve been waiting in the King’s Arms in the village.’

  I can smell the peppermints but not too much of the sherry, so I don’t think she’s had enough to make her wobbly.

  ‘You have come by yourself, haven’t you, Mummy? Trotsky John’s not outside, is he?’

  ‘Just me, Darling. All by myself. And I’ve got a secret to tell you…’

  ‘Okay, Mummy, but you can tell me about it after, when we’ve gone out.’ I want to go before anyone comes along the corridor and starts talking, because sometimes Mummy likes to keep a conversation going on for ever and ever, especially when she’s not very good.

  And I really don’t want anyone to see her. She’s got on a blue dress and a white jacket both made out of something called cheesecloth, which she’s liked ever since she came back from Crete. She’s wearing lots of her jangly bracelets and a huge pair of earrings made of tiny blue stones that are dangling right down nearly to her shoulders. She’s got white slip-on shoes with great big yellow daisies on the strap, but at least there are no fishnet stockings today. She’s put black rims round her eyes and smells of a perfume which is called ‘patchouli’. I know that because Trotsky John gave it to her when he came the day after Boxing Day when my dad had gone back to work. Mummy winked and said, ‘One of our secrets.’

  She takes me by the hand, we walk straight out of the hall into the street, and it’s a bit of a relief to be gone after all the waiting. But suddenly I remember I’ve left my boater on the floor by the big chair, and it’s absolutely forbidden to go anywhere without it so I run back inside to get it. As we’re walking away, I look back and see that the front door is still open, so I let go of her hand and rush back to close it, which is quite a struggle because the wind is so strong.

  ‘Where are we going, Mummy?’ I ask her when we start to walk along the road. She smiles at me and squeezes my hand one moment and holds it lightly the next. ‘…because I have to be back for high tea. I think the special concession only lasts till then. It’s really nice of Mr. Burston to let me come out at all in the middle of lessons, actually. It’s very unusual… But I must be back quite soon, Mummy.’

  ‘You’re not going back, My Only. Never. I’m taking you away…’

  It must be one of Mummy’s jokes. She doesn’t have a suitcase or anything—not an umbrella or even a coat to keep her warm if it gets chilly in the night. All she’s got is a bag with a long strap over her shoulder made out of jeans material without even a zip on it with probably only her sherry bottle with the peppermints, and a purse, and some cigarettes, and some tissues inside. And I’ve got nothing with me except my silly old boater, which is no use at all. I haven’t got a pair of pajamas or a toothbrush, or clean underpants, or anything at all, and I don’t like to go anywhere without Jollo anyway, and I think she must know that after all this time. It is a joke she’s telling me. It must be.

  When we lived in Beirut and travelled to England for the holidays, Mummy used to start packing days and days before we were going, and Aisha—who was her maid—and Miriam would empty drawers all over the house, washing and ironing, and folding things in tissue paper. The house had to be cleaned from the top to the bottom although it was just going to be nothing but an empty house when we’d gone. She would give tons of instructions to Abdul the gardener about making sure the geranium pots were watered every day. The pool was to be kept clean even though no one was going to swim in it till we came back; the well had to have its lid on so nothing could fall in, and the big garden door in the cherry orchard had to be kept bolted at night. Abdul was my grown-up friend when I was little, and it was silly telling him to remember all those things when he was so good at his job. On the way to the airport Mummy would ask my dad if he had the passports safe and he would say ‘You’ve already asked me that,’ but it wouldn’t make any difference because she would very soon say again, ‘Are you sure they’re in your jacket pocket?’ and he’d say ‘Oh Pamela—for heaven’s sake!’ and carry on staring out of the window without even looking for them.

  That must be where I got my worrying from. From Mummy. And now it’s exactly this very same person who doesn’t seem to be the least bit bothered about going away without any packing at all! That’s how much she’s changed.

  When she says the thing about going away, I start walking a little bit quicker so after a bit I’m the one that’s leading the way, although I don’t even know where we’re going. I’m trying to think whether I should say anything about her plan and really, I’m hoping that any minute she’s going to start laughing and say, ‘Only joking, Only One—had you worried, didn’t I?’ But I’m very worried about it now, and I think it’s best not to mention it at all.

  There’s going to be an
other shower of rain. I can feel the first few drops even before the sun goes in again. There’s a high garden wall that’s got a door with its own little roof over it that we quickly run to for some shelter. Mummy laughs about it, but I don’t see what’s so funny, and I’m thinking about what I might say to stop her joke about going away, because I know she’s going to talk about it again. Then there’s a huge rainbow that I’m staring at while I’m thinking about it all, and suddenly Mummy giggles and kisses my forehead. I can smell the dampness of her hair when it touches my lips. She’s loving the adventure as though she’s a little girl.

  She starts walking again as soon as the sun comes out but before the rain has properly stopped, and I’m worried that we’re going to get completely soaked. I nearly have to run just to keep up with her.

  ‘But where are we going now, Mummy? I mean right now this minute… Where are we walking to now?’

  ‘To the park, My Only. We’re going to the café in the park to watch the river for a little while and to enjoy the sun coming back out and to make a plan.’

  This is the same street that we walk along nearly every day to get to the school playing field. There is a small park at the end when you get to the main road that goes to Gloucester. Right in the middle of the park there’s a broken down old café where you can buy sandwiches and things and sit on picnic benches for a view of the river. Mr. England’s told me that soon they’re going to knock down the café and bulldoze the park away so you can see the river from your car without having to get out. I’m not surprised about that because no one has looked after it for a very long time.

  I’ve been to the café before—one time when Mummy and my dad brought me back to school. I think it was one of the times when my asthma was so bad that I couldn’t come back on the train. We stopped there because we were too early. It was raining that day, too, so we had to sit inside and my dad bought me a coke and a Mars bar as a special treat. I pretended to be pleased but it all got stuck in my throat. The bubbles went up my nose, and I just couldn’t swallow the chocolate because my stomach was already full up of homesickness and worry.

  When we get there, I push the door quite hard but it doesn’t open and I think the café must be shut, although through the window I see that there’s a man behind the counter and an old lady sitting at a table. She’s leaning over a cup of tea and an iced bun with a cherry. I push the door again, although I don’t want to go in, and I’m just about to say to Mummy ‘Let’s not bother with it’ when the man sees me and makes a pushing sign with both his hands. So I push it hard with both my hands, and it opens and scrapes the floor with a terrible noise like Mrs. Marston using the chalk on the blackboard when she’s in a temper with us. Then it gets stuck halfway, and I have to give it another big push before it opens properly, but it carries on making a juddering noise for a bit.

  Inside, the café’s hot and stuffy and smells of old cigarettes and the same disinfectant they use at school when someone’s been sick. The man must have just mopped the floor. It’s wet, and shiny, and sticky when we walk on it, and some of the chairs are already upside down on the tables. There’s a poster stuck on the wall behind the counter of a lake with very blue water and very blue sky. It’s got a rip in it that starts in the middle at the top, and another one which starts in the middle at the bottom and quite soon they are going to meet up and the poster will be in two pieces then. It says ‘The Italian Lakes’ in big white slanting letters. It’s very bright in the café because there are neon lights on the ceiling.

  It’s the same man that was here when we came before, which was a long time ago. He looks fed up to see us and was probably expecting to go home because of the rain and the floor being clean, but instead we’re here. He’s got a bald head, a red nose with a small pair of glasses right at the end of it, and a thin moustache like the fat man in Laurel and Hardy. He’s wearing a dirty white apron with his tummy resting on the counter, and there’s a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. I don’t want anything to eat here, not even an ice cream.

  ‘Have an ice cream, Only One…’ When she says that I know she’s forgotten that I was waiting for her for so long that I haven’t had any lunch. The thing is that although I haven’t eaten anything since my breakfast, I’m completely not hungry, just like the last time I was here.

  ‘No thank you, Mummy. I don’t want anything. I’m really not hungry.’

  Mummy orders two cups of tea and a piece of coffee cake for me even though I said I didn’t want anything. The man picks up a massive teapot using a tea cloth that’s even dirtier than his apron and begins to fill it with water from a great big urn. Then he swooshes it around and pours the tea into the cups as though he’s watering two pot plants—back and forward, back and forward till they’re both full up with a lot of it spilled. He’s definitely fed up that we’re here, but he’s the one who told me to push the door to get in, so it’s plain silly if he’s angry, and anyway, the little old lady who’s sat all by herself doesn’t look as though she’s nearly ready to leave because she’s not even started on her bun. When I sit down she twists her head round very slowly to look at me without straightening it up so she must be seeing me half upside down. I smile at her, but she looks puzzled, and a bit cross, and turns away again and makes a ‘tut-tut’ noise.

  I wonder why the man’s wife hasn’t told him that he looks like Oliver Hardy with that silly moustache. Perhaps he might be too stern to tell something like that to. He doesn’t look as though he would ever find anything funny. I don’t think he looks like someone who would like Laurel and Hardy, actually.

  ‘Sugar?’ the man calls out.

  ‘Two for me please,’ I say, ‘but none for my mother. She doesn’t take sugar in her tea.’ He spoons the sugar in very quickly and stirs it so that it makes an angry clinking sound. He comes towards our table, shuffling along with a cup and saucer in each hand and balancing the cake plate on his wrist. He nods his head up and down when he gets to us; then he stops and waits. He nods his head up and down very quickly again, and I see that he wants me to move my boater that is taking up all the room because it’s a small table. I say ‘sorry,’ and I put the boater on my lap.

  Mummy must be about to say something because it’s exactly the sort of tea that she would never ever drink at home. It’s white from too much milk in it and not nearly strong enough. I get a bit worried because the fat man already looks like an angry enough person, and I don’t think he’d like it one little bit if he’s asked to take the tea back. How funny to have a job making tea all day long and to have years of practise and still make it so horrible!

  But she doesn’t say anything, thank goodness. I pick up my cup, but I don’t like it that I didn’t put my own sugar in. I think that it’s unnecessary that he did it for me. There’s a brown chip in the rim of it, and I think of the old lady at the next table with her scraggy wet lips. I put my bottom lip right over the edge of the cup so that I’m touching it as little as possible. It’s a cold cup of tea as well as being too milky. Mummy picks hers up with both hands. I wait for her to say something, but she settles her elbows onto the table and holds it in front of herself. She takes a sip and closes her eyes all dreamy-like and smiles as though it’s just the best cup of tea in the whole wide world. Then she looks out of the window.

  ‘My God,’ she whispers, ‘the river! It’s like something from a fairytale! Look at it, Only One! Oh my God!’ She shakes her head from side to side. ‘It has such an extraordinary, ethereal beauty… It’s so, so beautiful.’

  She turns round suddenly in her chair to face the man and forgets that she has the cup in her hands. The tea spills out onto the table and splashes her dress and some of it goes on my boater. She shouts, ‘You’re so lucky!’ as if she’s angry and jealous and then pulls a long sulky face as though she might do pretend crying. ‘This beautiful view all day long. You lucky, lucky people. How can you bear it? How can you bear it?’

  She
puts her cup down and slowly stretches her arms out to the side, like you see ballerinas do when they’re about to do their curtsey at the end of the show. She leaves them frozen like that for a long time, and I watch the man as he stares at her and then looks out of the window all puzzled as though he’s never seen the view before. I look at the old lady at the next table. She puts her face even nearer to her cup of tea, and then she goes ‘tut-tut’ again.

  I look out at the view too. The rain’s running down the steamy window, and outside it’s like one of my paintings in art class when I’ve mixed too much water in with the colours, the paper’s got wet, and everything’s blurring together. I can’t see the river, just a flower bed with no flowers, long grass that hasn’t been mowed, and a waste paper bin so full that it’s overflowing with soaking rubbish covering the ground all around it. There’s an old motor scooter that’s fallen over and is rusting away. It reminds me of the pictures you see in the newspapers of dead cows turning into skeletons when there’s a famine in Africa.

  The Oliver Hardy man doesn’t say anything, but he’s staring at Mummy. His lips are moving ever so slightly like he’s not very good at reading, and I know he’s telling himself that there’s something odd about her.

  I put my hand on the window and wipe away the steaminess so that I can see up towards the sky, and I pray there’ll be the tiniest bit of blue so we can go out and sit on a bench overlooking the river even if it’s still raining a bit. I want to get out of this café and away from the man with his dirty apron, and red nose, and horrid tea who’s looking at Mummy and is right on the edge of deciding that she’s a bit funny. If we go now, he’ll stop thinking about it, and he’ll have forgotten all about her in a few minutes.

  ‘We’re chained to such futile lives, you know. We never really, truly look at anything. Our eyes are closed to real beauty because of the banality of our existence…’ Mummy’s talking out loud like an actress in a Shakespeare play. Her arms are still up in the air, and she’s moving them back and forward very slowly.