Caddy's World

by Hilary McKay

  “You have to shake it up first,” said Ruby, still reading. “With the top on! Oh well, it’s only a drip! Let me do it!”

  “Take your top off and put your towel round you,” suggested Beth. “Gloves . . . you forgot the gloves!”

  It was harder than it sounded. Random splashes appeared on everyone. The smell was so awful that Treacle took himself away to the far side of the field, and Beth’s Norman diet could not cope with it. She lay on a hay bale, faint and giddy, while Caddy took Treacle’s shampooing bucket to the house for hot water.

  Beth’s mother was there, and Juliet, too, eating green apple peelings and doing splits.

  “Is it true,” demanded Juliet, looking up from the floor, “what Indigo and Saffron are saying at school? About the baby?”

  “What about the baby?” asked Caddy.

  “Something about how if anything awful happens to it . . .”

  “Juliet!” warned her mother ominously.

  “. . . if it does, about burying it in your garden . . .”

  “Of course that’s not true!” Caddy exclaimed indignantly. “Indy and Saffron said that? I don’t believe it!”

  “I didn’t say they said exactly that,” said Juliet warily.

  “I’m sure they didn’t!” said her mother. “And don’t ever let me hear you repeating such a thing again! How is the baby, Caddy?”

  “I think it’s all right,” said Caddy uncertainly. “The same as it was. We haven’t been to see it because Saffy and Indigo got awful colds and they’re still all sniffly, and I’ve caught it, too, a bit.”

  “There’s all sorts going round,” agreed Juliet’s mother. “You can’t be too careful.”

  “Saffron and Indigo said the baby was all purple because it was too young,” continued Juliet, hooking another curl of apple peel, “and they were going to dig—”

  Juliet’s mother reached down under the table and slapped Juliet with her spoon.

  “There was a baby bird,” said Caddy, crimson-faced. “A baby bird that we buried in the garden. You must have heard them talking about that.”

  “Baby, they said,” repeated Juliet stubbornly, crawling out of reach of her mother’s spoon. “Nothing about birds. Is that pastry left over? Do you mind if I . . . ?”

  Just in time, Juliet’s mother rescued her pastry. Juliet stuck her thieving fingers in the sugar jar instead, sucked them, and pushed them back, and was whacked on her bottom with the rolling pin.

  “That’s twice you’ve hit me,” said Juliet smugly. “What if I ring ChildLine? Then you’ll be sorry.”

  “I dare say I will, but it’s a very good idea,” replied her mother. “Go on, off you pop! You haven’t had a proper long chat with them for days!”

  Juliet flounced out, flounced in again for a handful of raisins, and knocked the sugar off the table.

  “Out!” roared her mother, so loudly Caddy jumped. “Go on, out! Sometimes, Juliet, you are an absolute pest!”

  “You should criticize the behavior, not the child,” Juliet told her primly as she left the room. “We learned it at school in Personal and Social Education. And they definitely said ‘baby.’ Definitely.”

  “I’m sorry, Caddy,” said Juliet’s mother apologetically. “I’m afraid she’s showing off. Now, that bucket is very full! Shall I get the door for you? Has Beth got Treacle’s shampoo with her there?”

  “It isn’t for—” began Caddy, crimson again.

  “Wait till you dunk his tail,” said Juliet, reappearing. “It’s disgusting! He lifts it up and he does big . . .”

  That was all Caddy heard before the door closed behind her. She heaved up the bucket and ran, and two minutes later was engrossed in the astonishing business of washing sugar-pink bubbles from Alison’s hair. And after that there seemed to be a tremendous amount of pink clearing up.

  “Do you mind if I don’t help?” asked Alison. “Only there isn’t a proper mirror here . . .”

  Alison vanished.

  “I’d better go as well,” said Ruby. “They worry if I’m late.”

  “Mum says ‘supper,’ ” Juliet told Beth, appearing out of the twilight. “She’s in a mood, I don’t know why, but you’d better come quick.”

  “Is everybody going?” asked Caddy in dismay. “You can’t! We haven’t worked out what to do about that man coming to Alison’s house! It’ll have to be us! She’ll never do anything herself! I’ve had a sort of idea, but it might be too hard. Ruby! Beth! Can’t you stay and talk?”

  But Ruby was already leaving, with Beth and Juliet after her. “Baked potatoes,” Juliet was saying. “Ham salad. Apple pie. I helped make it. Hurry up!”

  “Make sure the gate is shut.” Beth’s voice came floating back to Caddy.

  “Oh, but . . .”

  It was no good. They were gone.

  It’s nearly dark, realized Caddy, as she turned back to check the gate. The grass in the lane was damp with dew. In the streets the lights in the house windows shone yellow and homely. What a long day it had been, thought Caddy, trudging home. Pink everywhere, and Beth’s mother’s kindness. Juliet’s awful conversation. Lost Property, where was he now? And what about their own fragile baby that they hadn’t seen for days? Plus the worry about Alison’s house . . .

  Here it was now, with its For Sale board bumping in the wind. As Caddy passed she glimpsed the unusual sight of someone vacuuming a ceiling. Getting ready for tomorrow, she guessed. There was no sign of Alison, and her bedroom curtains were closed.

  I’ve thought of something, Caddy told herself, thinking of the viewer expected at Alison’s in the morning. And perhaps it will be better if I manage on my own.

  “What have you done to your hands?” Saffron and Indigo and Bill demanded as soon as she pushed open the door of home. “What? What?”

  “AlisonRubyanBethanme,” said Caddy (to Saffron’s complete enchantment), “dyed Alison’s hair today.”

  “That color?”

  “No. Much brighter.”

  That night Alison was grounded. Utterly and completely. World without end. No hope of freedom ever again.

  But not before Dingbat had seen the complete glory of her long, radiant, glimmering fuchsia-colored hair.

  Chapter Seventeen

  BILL ON THE DOORSTEP

  A WINDY AUTUMN NIGHT AND A DAMP, DRIZZLING DAWN. NINE o’clock in the morning, and nobody at the Casson house dressed. Saffron and Indigo in their pajamas eating toast and watching TV. Bill in his beautiful blue dressing gown making wonderful coffee from freshly roasted beans. Caddy safe in bed, wondering what would happen next.

  So far not a soul had glanced out a window.

  Just as well: The view was frightful. Newspaper blown all over the street. Sheets of it burrowing under hedges and wrapped round fences and railings. Soggy grey lumps on the road, squashed into pulp by the traffic. Nothing compared to the sight of the Casson garden, though, from which the litter clearly originated. Not just newspaper, either, but old clothes, abandoned toys, and even a couple of tarnished, tatty Christmas trees. Every now and then, and horribly prominent, an empty green bottle or two.

  It looked for all the world as if someone had thrown the contents of the attic out the attic window, let loose half a dozen newspapers in a gale, got drunk among the wreckage, and crawled back inside to bed.

  Alison’s mother, raving on the Casson doorstep, eyes bright with fear, dredged up a word from the backmost corners of her memory and hurled it at Bill.

  “Slummocky!” she screeched.

  “Good Lord in Heaven!” exclaimed Bill, cradling his coffee cup. “What on earth has happened? I shall take this very seriously. Thank you so much for your concern.”

  “Slummocky!” she screeched again. “Look at it! A disgrace!”

  “It certainly is,” agreed Bill, picking up a sheet of newspaper between his fingertips. “Yesterday’s Telegraph! I hardly had a chance to look at it.”

  “Bottles!” she continued, still raving. “Mucky old clothe
s! Do something! I’ve someone coming, any moment . . .”

  At that point disaster in the form of a brand-new silver Ford pulled up at the curb.

  “Oh, I could howl!” moaned Alison’s mother, and howl she did while the owner of the car climbed out, picked up The London Review of Books trampled at his feet, and said, “Ah.”

  So Bill (still in his Jaeger dressing gown, still cradling his fragrant coffee) stepped forward, introduced himself, shook hands, observed that a violent but highly localized newsprint whirlwind (of rather distinctive quality) appeared to have hit the neighborhood, and reassured his new silver Ford–driving admirer of the unique nature of the event. By the time Alison’s mother had recovered enough to join them, they were discussing French red wines, the dismal nature of regional art galleries, and the train service to London as if they had known each other for years.

  “You will miss your neighbors,” commented the silver-Ford man as he followed Alison’s mother to her house, and Alison’s mother knew then that, as far as the house sale went, it was a done deal.

  “You have no idea,” she said, smiling bravely, and led him up to Alison’s room, which would make a rather nice study, being, as Alison’s mother explained, exceptionally quiet and catching the morning sun. It caught a beam just as she spoke, proving all she said was true.

  “A lovely, tranquil room,” agreed her listener, and so it was, the lovely tranquility having been achieved earlier that morning by the ruthless exclusion of pink-headed teenagers. Alison had been whisked off at dawn (“We don’t want him to think we’re hippies”) for a Saturday drive with a bag on her head. “I suppose you would like me to put a bag on my head!” she had snarled at her father, and he, equally unpleasantly, had snapped back, “Yes, I would!” and regretted it later when the police pulled him over. (But by then, as Alison’s mother said jubilantly, nothing mattered.)

  Meanwhile, at the Casson house, Bill was making an announcement.

  “I am offering,” he said, laying a roll of trash bags down on the table, “five pounds for the first one filled, and three pounds each for all subsequent offerings. Nobody touch the glass, I’ll deal with that. Caddy, you can take the road, but stay on the sidewalk and watch out for traffic. You have fifteen minutes to get some clothes on, get outside, and make your fortunes. After that time no further payments will be made.”

  Then he looked at Caddy and added, “There will be no recriminations.”

  That was typical of Bill. No one was more at home than he in a disgraceful situation. Nor did he apportion blame, sinner that he was. Never, Caddy knew, would he question her involvement. And he was enjoying himself. He enjoyed being irresistible. He liked spending money. He hadn’t even minded being screeched at from the doorstep. He smiled when he caught Caddy gazing at him, dropped one eyelid, and murmured conspiratorially, “I’d say we carried that off!”

  The litter was all gone long before the silver Ford was driven away. Bill and its owner exchanged glances as it left. They smiled at each other in mutual comradeship and congratulation, Bill raising his coffee cup, the silver-Ford owner raising his eyebrows, each saluting the other’s ability to spend money rapidly and well.

  Alison’s mother never told anyone what she said to Bill on the doorstep that morning, and she never, ever used the word again.

  Alison remained invisible.

  Chapter Eighteen

  STARRY EGGS AND MOON TOMATOES

  FOR CADDY, THE WEEKEND WAS REDEEMED FROM COMPLETE disaster by the arrival of her mother on Sunday afternoon. Owing to Bill’s belief that everyone should stick to doing what they did best, this happened very rarely, Bill’s best not being the ability to spend time alone in special-care baby units without going mad. Still, every now and then he abandoned his principles and did it, and then Eve would rush home to see how they were managing without her.

  “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!” they shrieked, engulfing her.

  “Darlings, darlings, darlings,” she cried, gathering them in.

  For the first hour it seemed that there were not words enough to explain to her all the things they had to say. Saffy and Indigo, especially, had to supplement them with action, dragging their mother by her arms to peer into the fridge, inspect the graveyard, gasp at Lego constructions, and examine scraped knees, crumpled schoolwork, Old Panda washed within an inch of his life and now slowly recovering in the airing cupboard, the bags of rubbish piled by the back door, the faint pink still visible on Caddy’s hands. It was a long time before they were exhausted enough to listen to their mother’s news, and still longer before they were calm enough to look at the photos on her camera.

  However, the photographs came out at last, and there was the same old hospital scene, same nest of tubes and wires, same purple occupant.

  Only not the same.

  “Is that the right one?” asked Indigo.

  “Yes.”

  “Is that thing a bandage?”

  “It is, actually.”

  “That huge thing?”

  “We didn’t tell you in case you worried, but she had a little operation, earlier in the week.”

  Saffron and Indigo gave each other a look. A thoughtful look. “We must be more vigilant,” it said. “We should have found out about that.”

  “A little operation?” asked Indigo suspiciously.

  “Well, not huge.”

  “On her side?”

  “Well, no, that’s where they . . . that’s where they worked. On her heart, as a matter of fact.”

  Caddy, who had been listening in shocked silence, gave a little sob of horror.

  “Her heart?” repeated Indigo, and Saffy said, “But isn’t her heart inside?”

  “Yes, yes it is.”

  “So under that bandage is there a hole? And her heart?”

  “Goodness no! Nothing like that! It’s all beautifully closed up and she is doing wonderfully!”

  “What did they do to her heart?” asked Caddy in a very small voice.

  “Oh, Caddy!”

  “Cut it?”

  “No. Well, yes. There was a part that was not working properly.”

  “So did they mend it?”

  “Yes! Yes! In a way. They took it out, and made a join. It’s not uncommon. You’d be surprised. And now she is already much, much better! Look at the photos! See how she has changed!”

  Except for the bandage, Caddy could see no change.

  “She’s breathing on her own now,” said Eve. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “Is it?” Caddy was not convinced. After all, even her fledgling bird had breathed on its own.

  “You wait till you see her! You could have done sooner, but it would have been such a risk, with those colds. Never mind, she’ll be home before you know it.”

  “Then we will have fireworks,” said Indigo, although less certainly than before.

  “Oh yes! Rockets! How many rockets did you say?”

  They shook their heads, they couldn’t remember, although they knew it was a lot. Still, Eve’s words were encouraging. The rockets had not been forgotten.

  “Is she still the firework baby, then?” asked Indigo, and Eve said yes, certainly, of course, what did you think and what shall I cook for supper before I go back to the hospital? Starry eggs with moon tomatoes?

  That cheered even Caddy, because starry eggs with moon tomatoes were the thing Eve cooked best, and enjoyed cooking most, and as far as anyone in the family had ever been able to discover, no other mother in the world had ever cooked them. “No wonder,” said Eve. “I invented them myself.”

  “Daddy won’t like them, though,” remarked Saffron. “He only likes healthy food.”

  “Who says they’re not healthy?” asked Eve. “I’ll make some for him as well. He can have a surprise.”

  She said that, but in the end she did not make them. It was Saffy who, with a star-shaped cutter, cut star-shaped holes in slices of brown bread. It was Indigo who broke eggs in a little jug and stirred them until they were smooth a
nd yellow. It was Caddy who fried the star-cut slices in olive oil until they began to brown, and then carefully, carefully, a little at a time, poured yellow egg into the stars, just enough to fill them, and after a breathless wait while the egg turned solid, flipped them gently over to brown on the other side. All Eve did was slice tomatoes into tomato half-moons and wash some lettuce leaves.

  Star after star Saffron cut, egg after egg Indigo broke, slice after slice Caddy cooked, until they had the large blue platter full of yellow stars in golden skies, trimmed with tomato moons and lettuce leaf clouds, and all, as Saffron pointed out triumphantly, made out of the horrible health food Bill kept in the fridge.

  At the moment of perfection Bill came home, stared in surprise at their stellar creation, managed not to exclaim, “But you don’t eat brown bread, or omelettes, or salad!” and said instead, “Is this a miracle or just an illusion?”

  It was an illusion, Caddy thought, an illusion like a bubble of sunlight, enclosing them and holding them safe. All through supper it seemed to expand and grow warmer. All through supper Caddy was careful not to shatter it, and she could feel the others being careful too. They talked of gentle things, like the astonishing whiteness of Old Panda’s newly washed face and Indigo’s recent haircut, begun by Saffron, interrupted by Bill, and concluded by a hairdresser. (“I like it now,” said Indigo heroically, although he had been far from pleased at the time.) They talked most carefully of all of the firework baby, discussing possible names, not heart surgery. (“Everyone has a name,” said Saffron. “Even if they’re . . . Anyway. It’s a pity she’s not a dog ’cos we could call her Rocket. That would be a good firework name.”)

  They talked of their wonderful supper.

  “Starry eggs!” said their father as they ate together. “Starry eggs are wonderful! How is it that we have never had them before?”

  “We often do,” said Caddy.

  “When you go back to London we have them,” said Saffron.

  “To cheer us up,” explained Indigo.

  “What!” exclaimed Bill, immensely pleased and feeling fonder of his children than he had for days. “Do you need cheering up when I go to London? I never knew that! Do you need cheering up when I go to other places too?”