She lifted the flap of the tent. Yes, they were both there! What a cheek. Why should Amelia get the prize of sleeping all night in the tent, and not just sleeping in the tent but sleeping with Olivia and Rascal? It wasn’t fair, Sylvia was the eldest, she should be in the tent. Rascal climbed out from beside Olivia and wagged his tail and licked Sylvia’s nose.
They were both sleeping on their backs, dead to the world, like corpses. Sylvia shook Amelia’s feet but she wouldn’t wake up. She squeezed herself into the tent, between the two of them. It was incredibly hot in the tent, probably hot enough to kill them. The hottest place on earth – was it the Atacama Desert? Death Valley in America? Somewhere in Mongolia? They weren’t dead, were they? She pinched Amelia’s nose and Amelia muttered something and rolled over. She should wake Olivia up and take her out of this hothouse. The Black Hole of Calcutta, the people who died in there died from the heat, not the lack of air – a common misconception. Misconception was an excellent word. The afterthought – there was a misconception if ever there was one. Hah. Their mother really should stop breeding, it was very base. Perhaps she was a secret Catholic. That would be wonderful, then they could have long, clandestine conversations about mystery and ritual and the Virgin Mary. Neither the Virgin Mary nor Jesus had spoken to Sylvia. She didn’t think that Jesus actually spoke to people. Joan of Arc was another matter, Joan of Arc was downright chatty.
Sylvia rubbed Olivia’s earlobe because Rosemary had once said that was how they roused sleeping patients when she was a nurse. Olivia stirred and then fell helplessly back into sleep. Sylvia whispered her name and she struggled to open her eyes. She was bewildered with sleep but when Sylvia whispered, ‘Get up, come on,’ she followed Sylvia out of the tent, carrying her little pink rabbit slippers in her hand. Sylvia said, ‘Don’t bother about your slippers, feel how wet the grass is between your toes,’ but Olivia shook her head and put her slippers on. Sylvia said, ‘You have to learn to be rebellious. You mustn’t do everything Mummy and Daddy tell you. Especially Daddy,’ and then she added, ‘Except me, you should obey me.’ She wanted to say, ‘because I have heard the word of God’, but Olivia wouldn’t understand. Nobody understood, except for God, of course, and Joan of Arc.
The first time God spoke to her she was sitting on the sidelines during a hockey match. Sylvia, an inventive right wing, had been sent off for hitting her opponent around the ankles with her stick (the whole point being to win, surely?) and she was sulking furiously when a voice close by said, ‘Sylvia,’ but when she looked round there was no one there, only a girl called Sandra Lees who spoke in a squeaky Cambridge accent so unless Sandra Lees was practising ventriloquism or had changed into a man it couldn’t have been her. Sylvia decided she had imagined it, but then the voice said her name again – a deep, mellifluous voice, a voice that bathed her in warmth, and this time Sylvia whispered, very quietly on account of the proximity of Sandra Lees, ‘Yes?’ and the voice said, ‘Sylvia, you have been chosen,’ and Sylvia said, ‘Are you God?’ and the voice said, ‘Yes.’ You couldn’t get a much clearer message than that, could you? And sometimes she felt so transformed by the holy light that she simply swooned away. She loved it when that happened, loved the feeling of losing control, of not being responsible for her body or her mind. Once (perhaps more than once), she had swooned in Daddy’s study – blacking out and crumpling to the floor like a tortured saint. Daddy threw a glass of water in her face and told her to pull herself together.
Sylvia whispered to an almost sleepwalking Olivia, ‘Come on, let’s go and play a game,’ and Olivia said, ‘No,’ and sounded whiny and not at all like her usual pliant self. ‘S’night,’ she objected, and Sylvia said, ‘So what?’ and took her hand and they were halfway across the lawn when Olivia exclaimed, ‘Blue Mouse!’ and Sylvia said, ‘Hurry up and fetch him then,’ and Olivia crawled back into the tent and re-emerged, clutching Blue Mouse by one arm, Rascal bouncing happily at her heels.
Joan of Arc had spoken to her when she was sitting high up in the branches of Mrs Rain’s beech tree. Joan of Arc talked into her ear, for all the world as if she was sitting companionably on the branch next to her. The funny thing was that after these conversations Sylvia could never really remember anything that Joan of Arc had actually said and she had the impression that she hadn’t spoken at all, she had sung, like a great bird perched in the tree.
God had chosen her, he had noticed her, but for what purpose? To lead a great army into battle and then burn in the fires of purification like Joan of Arc herself? To be sacrificed? From the Latin sacer which meant sacred and facere to make. To make sacred. She was holy, like a saint. She was special. She knew no one would believe her, of course. She told Amelia, and Amelia said, ‘Don’t be silly.’ Amelia had no imagination, she was so dull. She had tried to tell Mummy but she was baking a cake, watching the paddle of her Kenwood mixer going round and round as if she was hypnotized by it, and when Sylvia said, ‘I think God has spoken to me,’ she said, ‘That’s nice,’ and Sylvia said, ‘A tiger’s just eaten Julia,’ and her mother said, ‘Really?’ in that same dreamy, abstracted way and Sylvia had stalked out of the room.
God continued to speak to her. He spoke to her from the clouds, from the bushes, he spoke to her as she was dropping off to sleep at night and he woke her in the morning. He spoke to her when she was on the bus and in the bath (her nakedness was nothing to be ashamed of in front of God), he spoke to her when she was sitting in the classroom or at the dinner table. And he always spoke to her when she was in Victor’s study. That was when he said to her, ‘Suffer the little children,’ because she was still, after all, a child.
‘No,’ Olivia said loudly and started tugging on Sylvia’s hand. ‘Ssh, it’s all right,’ Sylvia said, pushing open the wooden gate in the wall of Mrs Rain’s garden. ‘No,’ Olivia said, dragging her feet, but she had the strength of a kitten compared to Sylvia. ‘The witch,’ Olivia whispered. ‘Don’t be silly,’ Sylvia said, ‘Mrs Rain isn’t really a witch, that’s just a game we play.’ Sylvia wasn’t actually sure if she believed that. But did God create a world that contained witches? And what about ghosts? Were there ghosts in the Bible? She was having to drag Olivia along now. She wanted to take her into the beech tree, she wanted to show her to Joan of Arc, show her how pure Olivia was, what a holy child she was, just like the baby Jesus. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get Olivia up in the tree, there didn’t seem much chance that she would actually climb it. Olivia started to cry. Sylvia began to get annoyed with her. The old witch would hear. ‘Be quiet, Olivia,’ she said sternly, and she yanked on her arm to pull her along. She hadn’t meant to hurt her, she really hadn’t, but Olivia started to cry and make a fuss (which wasn’t like her, really it wasn’t) and Sylvia hissed, ‘Don’t,’ but Olivia just wouldn’t stop it so Sylvia had to put her hand over her mouth. And then she had to keep it there for the longest time until Olivia was finally quiet.
Suffer the little children to come unto me. A sacrifice. Sylvia had thought that she was going to be the sacrifice, martyred because God had chosen her. But it turned out that it was Olivia who was meant to be given up to God. Like Isaac, only, of course, he hadn’t actually died, had he? Olivia was sacred now. Pure and holy. She was pure and holy and safe. She couldn’t be touched. She would never have to go into Daddy’s study, she would never have to choke on Daddy’s stinky thing in her mouth, never feel his huge hands on her body making her impure and unholy. Sylvia looked at the small body lying in the long grass and didn’t know what to do. She would have to get someone to help her. The only person she could think of was Daddy. She would have to fetch Daddy. He would know what to do.
28
And Julia Said
Au revoir tristesse. JACKSON DROVE WITH THE TOP down, the Dixie Chicks playing loudly on the car stereo. He picked them up at Montpellier airport. They were dressed ready for the convertible, in chiffon headscarves and sunglasses, so that Julia looked like a 1950s movie star and Amelia didn’t.
Julia had said on the phone that Amelia was a lot more cheerful these days but if she was then she was keeping it to herself, sitting in the back seat of his new BMW M3, harrumphing and grunting at everything that Julia said. Jackson suddenly regretted not buying the two-seater BMW Z8 instead, then they could have put Amelia in the boot.
‘Cigarette?’ Julia offered, and Jackson said, ‘No, I’ve given up,’ and Julia said, ‘Well done you, Mr B.’
They drove into Montpellier, where it was very hot, and where they ate little silver dishes of ice cream – glaces artisanales – in a café in the town square. Julia ordered and Jackson was impressed by her proficient French.
‘She used to be a poodle,’ Amelia said (unfathomably), and Julia said, ‘Don’t be such a crosspatch, Milly, we’re en vacances,’ and Amelia said, ‘You’re always on holiday,’ and Julia said, ‘Well, I can think of worse ways to live your life,’ and Jackson wondered if he was in love with Julia and then the sky suddenly darkened to the colour of ripe Agen plums, thunder growled in the distance, and the first drops of heavy rain thudded on to the café’s canvas awning and Julia shrugged (in a commendably French way) at Jackson and said, ‘C’est la vie, Mr Brodie, c’est la vie’.
BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM
Kate Atkinson
‘An astounding book … without doubt one of the finest novels I have read for years’
The Times
Ruby Lennox was conceived grudgingly by Bunty and born while her father, George, was in the Dog and Hare in Doncaster telling a woman in an emerald dress and a D-cup that he wasn’t married. Bunty had never wanted to marry George, but here she was, stuck in a flat above the pet shop in an ancient street beneath York Minster, with sensible and sardonic Patricia aged five, greedy cross-patch Gillian who refused to be ignored, and Ruby …
Ruby tells the story of The Family, from the day at the end of the nineteenth century when a travelling French photographer catches frail, beautiful Alice and her children, like flowers in amber, to the startling, witty and memorable events of Ruby’s own life.
‘Little short of a masterpiece … fizzing with wit and energy, Kate Atkinson’s hilarious novel made me laugh and cry’
Daily Mail
‘Enchanting. It hops with sprightly omniscience from past to future and back again … takes in tragedy, history, mystery and comedy through the sarky, perky, pessimistic voice of Ruby Lennox’
Sunday Times
ONE GOOD TURN
Kate Atkinson
‘Very funny … that rarest of things – a good literary novel and a cracking holiday read’
Observer
It is summer, it is the Edinburgh festival. People queuing for a lunchtime show witness a road-rage incident – a near-homicidal attack which changes the lives of everyone involved. Jackson Brodie, ex-army, ex-police, ex-private detective, is also an innocent bystander – until he becomes a murder suspect.
As the body count mounts, each member of the teeming Dickensian cast’s story contains a kernel of the next, like a set of nesting Russian dolls. They are all looking for love or money or redemption or escape: but what each actually discovers is their own true self.
‘The most fun I’ve had with a novel this year’
Ian Rankin, Guardian (Books of the Year)
‘Delivers everything a good book should have. It’s a fantastic detective story and a wonderful piece of writing … has taken the crime genre to another level’
Daily Express
‘Thrillingly addictive … quite unique in her ability to fuse emotional drama and thriller’
The Times
‘A detective novel packed with more wit, insight and subtlety than an entire shelf-full of literary fiction’
Marie Claire
WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?
Kate Atkinson
‘Genius … insightful, often funny, life-affirming’
Sunday Telegraph
In a quiet corner of rural Devon, a six-year-old girl witnesses an appalling crime. Thirty years later the man convicted of the crime is released from prison.
In Edinburgh, sixteen-year-old Reggie, wise beyond her years, works as a nanny for a G.P. But her employer has disappeared with her baby, and Reggie seems to be the only person who is worried. Across town, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe is also looking for a missing person, unaware that hurtling towards her is a former acquaintance – Jackson Brodie – himself on a journey that is about to be fatally interrupted.
‘Funny, bracingly intelligent … Kate Atkinson is that rarest of beasts, a genuinely surprising novelist’
Guardian
‘An exhilarating read. Her wry humour, sharp eye and subtle characterisation are a constant joy’
Daily Mail
STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG
Kate Atkinson
A day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a purchase she hadn’t bargained for. One moment of madness is all it takes for Tracy’s humdrum world to be turned upside down, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn.
Witnesses to Tracy’s Faustian exchange in the Merrion Centre in Leeds are Tilly, an elderly actress teetering on the brink of her own disaster, and Jackson Brodie who has returned to his home county in search of someone else’s roots. All three characters learn that the past is never history and that no good deed goes unpunished.
Kate Atkinson dovetails and counterpoints her plots with Dickensian brilliance in a tale peopled with unlikely heroes and villains. Started Early, Took My Dog is freighted with wit, wisdom and a fierce moral intelligence. It confirms Kate Atkinson’s position as one of the great writers of our time.
Case Histories Page 31
