by Nina Bawden
Simon said, ‘The bridge is tricky. I’ll take the rucksack first.’
They followed him on to the first half of the bridge where the planks were rotten and shuggly, but held them. The second half was almost gone. Only a single beam remained, about five inches wide.
The water underneath was running fast. Mary looked down and felt giddy. ‘It’s shallow,’ she said. ‘Can’t we wade instead?’
Simon shook his head. ‘It’s quick-mud. You’d be sucked down.’
He went across like a tight-rope walker and came back for the cat basket. Noakes had begun to stir, and thump against the sides. ‘Leave the bags,’ Simon said. ‘You’ll need your hands to balance.’
Even with nothing to carry, it was an alarming exercise. ‘Don’t look down,’ Simon warned, as Mary took her first step on the beam, but she found it impossible not to. She saw the racing water and felt her stomach lurch. She said, terrified, ‘I’ll fall—Simon … and at once he was there, coming halfway across the beam to take her hand and steady her. He led her safely across and called to Krishna, ‘Come on, it’s all right, really. Just that girls are hopeless at balancing.’
He winked at Mary, and she knew he wasn’t sneering at her, just stiffening Krishna’s pride.
It worked. Simon stood at one end of the beam and Krishna walked straight across, his eyes fixed on his face. Safe on the island, he beamed with pleasure. ‘I was not scared like you, Mary. It was easy.’
‘Don’t boast then,’ Simon said. If something’s naturally easy, it’s nothing to boast about.’
He went back for the bags. Even to watch him, made Mary feel giddy, so she turned her back and opened the cat basket.
‘Don’t let him out now,’ Simon said, putting the bags down. ‘Wait till we get there.’
‘Get where?’
‘You’ll see.’
Simon looked different, Mary thought. His worried look had gone and his eyes were bright as stars. He said, It’s a marvellous place—you just wait and see!’
He was so excited and happy that Mary felt nervous for him. As they climbed up, across the island, she hoped that this place was as special as he believed it to be, so that she wouldn’t have to pretend and hurt his feelings.
She didn’t have to pretend. It was better than she could have imagined. They came down the side of a mossy bluff to a small inlet where the lake ran into a cave—but not an ordinary cave! The walls and arching roof were encrusted with millions of tiny, crystal spikes, glinting where the sun shone in and reflecting the moving water, so that they seemed to move and shimmer, the colour changing with the light, now purple, now pink, now gold. Off the main cave, up crooked, rocky steps and along twisting, narrow passages, were other caves, or chambers, each with its intricate pattern of crystals. Here and there clusters hung down, like swarming bees, or tiny chandeliers.
‘It’s a grotto,’ Simon said. ‘An artificial grotto. The people who owned the house built it—oh, about two hundred years ago. I read about it in an old book Uncle Horace had in his shop. They copied it from a real grotto, in Italy.’
‘Why?’ Krishna said.
‘For fun, I suppose. For picnics. There’s a landing stage in the main part, only it’s rotted now.’
‘They must have been fabulously rich,’ Mary said. ‘Billionaires. Are these diamonds on the walls?’
Simon laughed. ‘Only quartz, I think. It’s brick underneath. You can see in the places where the crystals have come off.’
They walked round, marvelling. Simon led them into a higher chamber than the others, where the floor was dry, beaten earth and a grilled window let in a leafy, speckled light. In one corner there was a hole, covered with branches and full of tinned food—salmon, sardines, baked beans. ‘I bought them with my newspaper round money,’ Simon said. ‘A few tins, every week. I thought we’d sleep here, Krishna. You’ll be quite comfy. I’ve got my blanket and you can have my sleeping bag …’
Krishna looked at Simon worshipfully. ‘I am so glad you are staying too,’ he said.
Simon glanced rather shyly at Mary. ‘I told my Mum I was going camping. I often do, in the holidays. She didn’t ask any questions.’
Mary said, ‘You didn’t tell me, did you? Not that I care …’
Her throat had begun to ache. It was so unfair. She had found Krishna and rescued him, and now they had arranged this between them, plotting behind her back. Boys were all the same. They would make friends with a girl if there was no one else around, but as soon as another boy came along, they were off and away …
‘I’d better go and feed Noakes, I think,’ she said, and walked straight-backed out of the chamber, down to the main cave. She got out milk, eggs and brandy, and mixed them in a billy with a stick. She hummed a cheerful tune, so that Simon would think she was quite happy.
He came and stood behind her, watching Noakes who was balancing uncertainly on his three legs, and lapping at the milk.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, at length.
‘Sorry for what?’ Mary put on an astonished face.
‘You know
Mary shrugged her shoulders. ‘Two’s company, I suppose.’ Her eyes were smarting.
‘T’isn’t that.’ Simon squatted beside her. ‘I had to, didn’t I? I mean, I couldn’t leave him alone, not to begin with. And there wasn’t time to explain, last night … He paused. ‘You could stay, too. I was going to suggest that. If you want to run away from your Aunt. As she’s so foul …’
He was looking at her rather oddly, Mary thought. As if he were testing her, or something …
What could she say? Not, ‘Aunt Alice would worry.’ That would sound silly.
She found an answer. ‘She’d set the police on to me. Then we’d none of us be safe.’
‘They’d never track you here. I wish you would. It would be more fun with you.’
Mary’s heart lightened. ‘T’isn’t worth risking,’ she said firmly. ‘And I can come every day and bring milk, and anything you want. I’d be more useful, that way.’
He nodded, accepting this. ‘You can always change your mind,’ he said.
After that, it was a perfect day. They built a fire in the clearing above the bluff, and baked some potatoes Simon had brought with him. They were a bit charred and flaky, as they didn’t wait for the fire to burn down to the right kind of glowing ash, but they went down very nicely with lashings of butter, and cold chicken, and the beetroot sandwiches. They drank the bottle of milk and ate the Garibaldi biscuits and the cheese and the fruit; then, stomachs tight as drums, lay on their backs and went to sleep in the sun.
When they woke, Noakes, who had shared the chicken and then curled up in his basket, had vanished. They found him, stalking a grasshopper on the edge of the clearing, crouching low and moving silkily and expertly as if he had been used to balancing on three legs all his life.
Simon bent to touch him and he growled and spat and arched his back like a wild cat. Simon drew back hastily and Mary laughed. This was the old Noakes, come back!
‘He’s better,’ she said. ‘Better already. It’s like magic.’
Simon went pink. It’s a magic place, ‘he said shyly and earnestly.’ I always felt that. Anyone ‘ud get well here.’
‘My foot’s well,’ Krishna said. ‘It was hurting on the walk, but it is better now.’ He unwound the bandage and stretched out his ankle. ‘I feel like playing a game.’ he announced. ‘A running, jumping, playing game.’
*
And they did. They ran, and whooped, and shouted, and laughed, and climbed trees, and splashed in and out of the lake. They were really very silly. Mary hung upside down from a tree and pulled the most frightful faces and Krishna laughed, high and shrill, like a bird. Mary realised she had only heard him laugh like that once before—when she had fallen into the dustbin in the alley. She dropped from the tree and chased him, making madder and madder faces, until he fell in a heap on the ground and clutched his stomach and cried, ‘Stop I shall die.’
&n
bsp; Simon, who was usually so sober and quiet and responsible. made most noise of all. He yelled and screamed and stood on his head, waggling his heels in the air.
He behaved like someone who had been shut up for ages—and suddenly set free.
When they were quite exhausted, they sat down by the remains of the fire, and stretched and yawned.
‘I like it here,’ Krishna said. ‘It is the best place I have ever been. I am glad I came to England. You are so kind to me.’
*
‘I wish I was sure we were being kind,’ Simon said, a little later on. It was time for Mary to go home and he had come with her as far as the road, leaving Krishna behind on the island, to keep the fire going and look after Noakes.
‘I mean, hiding him,’ Simon said. ‘I wish I was sure that was the right thing.’
Mary said nothing. She was thinking about Noakes who had followed them as far as the bridge, but stayed behind when they crossed, watching them and switching his tail. Mary wondered if he thought she had abandoned him.
‘I mean,’ Simon said slowly, ‘there’s usually two ways of looking at something. Looked at one way, you could say we were rescuers …’
‘Aren’t we?’ Mary said.
‘Well. I think we are—at least, I think we are—and you think we are, but some people might think different.’ Simon paused for a minute, frowning. Then he said. ‘Some people might think we looked more like kidnappers!’
It was queer, Mary thought. On the island, Simon had behaved like a normal boy without a care in the world, but now, as soon as he had left it, he had started being solemn again, weighing things up and worrying over nothing.
‘I think you’re just ridiculous,’ she said.
*
Later that evening, though, something happened to make her think again.
She had had her bath after supper and come down to say goodnight. Grandfather was watching the television news, and Aunt Alice put her finger on her lips to warn Mary to keep quiet.
Mary settled down at her feet, feeling pleasantly sleepy—so sleepy, indeed, that she actually leaned her head against Aunt Alice’s boney knee and felt very comfortable there.
Aunt Alice kept very still.
Mary didn’t listen to the news. She closed her eyes and let the sound drift over her head. It was only because Grandfather said, ‘That’s enough. Turn it off, Mary dear, my bones feel old tonight,’ that she heard the last item.
She had her hand on the switch when the announcer said, ‘There is no further news of the boy, Krishna Patel, who disappeared from the London bound charter flight from Nairobi. His Uncle, with whom the boy was expected to stay in England, flew to Paris this morning to assist the French police in their enquiries. At the Airport, Mr Patel said …’
Mary turned the knob, silencing Uncle Patel. After the first, stunned moment, she felt quite calm. Just as well Simon didn’t hear that, was all she consciously thought.
She turned round, smiling, and turned the smile into a yawn.
‘You look tired, dear,’ Aunt Alice said. ‘I hope you didn’t overdo things today.’
‘I had a lovely time,’ Mary said. ‘I’m having a lovely time all the time now. I want it to go on and on …’
‘Is there any reason why it shouldn’t dear?’ Aunt Alice said.
TEN
The Best Place in the World
AND THE GOOD time did go on. Each day dawned bright and still and so hot that the dew dried before breakfast. The first day on the island, the second, the third … After a week, Mary lost count of time; the days seemed to slip, like warm sand, through her fingers.
If her conscience troubled her, it was only the merest twinge, and only at the beginning, when she had thought what would Simon do if he knew?—and decided that he would write to Uncle Patel at the address Krishna had given them. They still couldn’t be sure he lived there, of course, but Simon would say they ought to try, just the same.
She had written a letter one morning, using block capitals—YOUR NEPHEW IS IN GOOD HANDS, HAVE NO FEAR FOR HIS SAFETY—and signed it, A FRIEND. But after looking at it for a while, she had torn it into little pieces and flushed it down the lavatory. If she sent it, the postmark would give a clue, and the police might come, looking.
The island was the safest and most secret place imaginable, but there was a risk. And even the smallest risk wasn’t worth taking.
It wasn’t just that she wanted the adventure to go on and on! Krishna was better off on the island, living free and running wild, than he would be in prison. And even if they didn’t put him in prison, but let him live with his Uncle, stuffy old London was almost as bad as prison, in weather like this. Mary remembered hot summer days in the flat, with nothing to do and nowhere to go except the Park and shopping with her mother.
Perhaps if her parents had been different sort of people, Mary might have thought how Krishna’s must be feeling, not knowing where their son was, or even if he were alive and well. But Mary’s father didn’t write, and although her mother sent her postcards from time to time, Mary knew this didn’t mean a thing. Everyone sent postcards when they went on holiday, and often to people they didn’t care about at all! Darling, Mary’s mother wrote, this is such a lovely place, I wish you were here—but of course, if Mary were there, her mother would be bored to tears! As bored as Mary herself would be, trailing round foreign shops and cafes and having to wear her best clothes and be polite to the dull people her mother made friends with.
Children were a nuisance to parents, Mary considered, and parents a nuisance to children. They were better off apart from each other.
If Simon thought differently, if he worried sometimes about Krishna’s parents, he kept it to himself. Perhaps the truth was that deep down he was more frightened than Mary of what they were doing, and so, quite deliberately, didn’t think about it; just lived for the moment and was happy.
*
‘Simon is much nicer now,’ Krishna said one day.
They had just finished lunch; Simon was digging earthworms somewhere, and Krishna was fishing. This was a pleasantly idle occupation, suitable for a hot afternoon and a full stomach: Krishna had thrown out the line with a bunch of worms on the hook, taken a half hitch round a tin can perched on a pile of stones, tied the end to his ankle, and now lay comfortably on his back, watching the sky.
‘What d’you mean? Simon’s always nice,’ Mary felt obliged to say, though she was too sleepy to be properly indignant.
‘Well,’ Krishna said, ‘when we first came, he was always making me wash. All over at night and my hands before meals. Now he does not say anything about washing, and I like that better.’
Mary giggled until her stomach shook. ‘I expect the habit’s just worn off,’ she said. ‘At home, you see, he’s always doing things like that—teaching Polly-Anna proper manners and making them change their socks and clean their teeth.’
‘In my family,’ Krishna said, ‘men do not look after children.’
‘Things are different in England,’ Mary said. ‘And though Simon’s mother is nice, she’s sort of vague, and she doesn’t bother much. Simon doesn’t have to, either—I mean, no one makes him, and if I was him I wouldn’t.’
‘Nor would I,’ Krishna said.
They turned their heads and grinned at each other.
‘Pull some faces, Mary,’ Krishna said.
‘I’m too tired.’
‘Tell me a story, then. Tell me some more about your Horrible Aunt.’
‘I’ve told you it all.’ Mary felt uncomfortable suddenly. She raised her head to see if Simon was anywhere around. He wasn’t, but the uncomfortable feeling remained. She said crossly, ‘Why do you keep on and on?’
‘I like stories,’ Krishna said. ‘What will happen if she finds out what you are doing? Being with us, on the island?’
Mary pretended not to hear. She stared up at the sky.
Krishna shifted closer, leaning on his elbow so he could look into her face.
‘Will it be something dreadful?’ he said. ‘Will she cut off your hands and feet?’
Mary was shocked. She saw his eyes, shining like lamps.
She said, in her sternest voice, ‘Of course not. I expect she’d just shut me in my room and feed me on bread and water.’
She could tell by his disappointed expression that this was not nearly horrid enough for him, and sighed inwardly. She wished she had never begun on this silly story about Aunt Alice—and not just because she was bored with telling it. It struck her that telling lies was really rather a lot of trouble! Once you started, you had to go on and on. It was like pouring water into a hole in the sand; there was never any end to it, never any finish …
‘Tell me about the time she tried to poison you,’ Krishna said. ‘About the blue bottle marked Poison, and how you found it and poured the poison away and filled it up with water.’
Mary said quickly, ‘You didn’t tell Simon that did you?’
Krishna had promised, but you never knew!
‘I said I would not,’ Krishna said. ‘Besides, he would not believe me. Simon likes things to be true, always.’
Mary looked at him. She wasn’t sure what he meant—whether Simon wouldn’t believe some of the more far-fetched things she had told Krishna, or whether Krishna himself didn’t.
Krishna said, ‘I mean, he would believe about your Aunt being cruel, but not about the poison.’
Mary sat up. She realised that it would be perfectly easy to say, ‘But none of it is true, none of it at all,’—and later on she was to wish she had said that—but then the tin can rattled over and she forgot all about it, in the excitement of landing a fish.
Krishna untied the line from his ankle and began to pull it in, making his way down the bluff to a small beach. He brought in a brown trout that flapped and wriggled on the gravel.
‘Too small,’ Mary said. She unhooked it carefully and threw it back in the lake. Krishna, who was squeamish, turned his back.
