by Nina Bawden
Instead, she blew her nose, looked round the room, and left it, shutting the door softly behind her.
*
‘I’ve run away,’ she said to Simon.
He didn’t answer. He was standing on his head against the wall of the grotto and counting. ‘Hundred and sixty eight, hundred and sixty nine, hundred and seventy …’
‘Simon.’
‘Hundred and seventy three, hundred and seventy four …’
‘Simon, listen …’
He swung right side up, red-faced and annoyed.
‘You’ve broken my concentration,’ he accused her. ‘It’s no good now. You’ve got to keep it up to five hundred or it doesn’t work.’
‘What doesn’t work?’
‘Yogi. For blushing and stammering. I sent off for a book. You have to learn to concentrate your mind. It’s a matter of the way you breathe. Standing on your head and counting is the first exercise. What d’you mean, you’ve run away?’
She said, scornfully, ‘You weren’t concentrating very hard, were you? Not if you heard what I said.’
‘Oh shut up.’ He turned away, kicking a stone. The back of his neck had flushed scarlet. He picked up the stone, walked to the mouth of the grotto, and skimmed it across the lake. It hopped seven times, startling a moor hen that streaked across the water, red legs trailing. Simon said, ‘D’you mean you’re staying here, then?’
Yes.
‘Why? I mean, what made you change your mind?’
Her throat seemed to have dried up. She sucked saliva out of her cheeks and swallowed.
‘I found out something last night. Your Aunt works for my Aunt. Cleaning.’
‘I know. It’s a small world.’ Simon skimmed another stone, but it only hopped twice. ‘Damn,’ he said.
‘You what?’
‘I said, I know. Why don’t you wash your ears sometimes?’ His ears were crimson. He said, affectedly casual, ‘Evening before we came here, she was round at our house and she mentioned your Auntie had a niece staying. Name of Mary. Eleven, going on twelve. So I asked questions. Not too many, just to make sure.’
‘I bet I know the sort of things she said about me.’
‘Well.’ Simon began to grin. Then he caught Mary’s eye.
She said furiously, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Oh, it seemed best left.’ He scrabbled up handfuls of stones and gravel and threw them in the lake. ‘One thing—you might have thought I was trying to catch you out.’
‘Oh,’ Mary said, terribly humiliated. ‘Oh. Yes. I see.’
‘I wasn’t, you know,’ Simon said. ‘It was pure chance. And I didn’t tell her I knew you.’
‘She knows now. I met her at the post office with Polly-Anna. It was awful.’
The memory of how awful it had been swept over her like a wave: she felt as if she were drowning beneath it. She sat against the grotto wall and put her head in her hands. Tears spurted through her fingers. ‘They told her about me being an orphan and starving and she’ll tell my Aunt Alice … and … and … oh. I wish I was dead.’
She heard the crunch of Simon’s feet. Then nothing except the sound of the water in the grotto. He had gone away and left her alone.
She went on crying. Once she had started, it seemed impossible to stop. It was as if a dam had burst inside her and would go on, pouring out water through her eyes and nose until she was dried out and empty. Her hands were clammy, like soaking sponges, and her head had swollen to twice its size.
Simon said, ‘Mary.’ He was trying to pull her hands from her face. She twisted away, bubbling out words like tears.
‘Leave me alone.’
He was trying to push something into the narrow space between her knees and her schest. Something wriggling and furry.
‘Noakes.’ She clasped him, burying her face in his coat. He resisted her stiffly, clawing her legs, and she had to let him go. He sprang from her lap and sat a few feet away, cleaning his ruffled coat and watching her.
‘Everyone hates me. Even Noakes,’ Mary said.
‘It’s only because I grabbed him,’ Simon said. ‘He doesn’t like being grabbed at, you know.’ He waited a minute. ‘Shall I go away?’
‘Yes,’ Mary said, and chewed at her lip. ‘I mean, no. No.’
He squatted beside her, frowning. Neither of them spoke, and after a little, Noakes came up of his own accord and rubbed against Mary’s leg.
She didn’t touch him, just let him rub and purr.
‘You’re the only one he’ll do that to,’ Simon said. ‘Please cheer up, Mary.’
‘I am cheered up. I just feel jellified. Rubbery and flabby. Like an empty hot water bottle.’
‘That’s crying,’ Simon said. ‘It leaves you like that.’
‘I don’t often cry. In fact I never do, usually.’
‘Nothing to be proud of, not crying. Everyone cries!’ Simon chucked a stone at the opposite wall of the grotto. It tinkled on the crystals and plopped into the lake. ‘Why d’you have to be different from other people?’
‘I don’t want them to see I’m unhappy. Crying gives you away.’
‘Them?’
She didn’t answer.
‘D’you mean your Aunt and your grandfather?’
She shook her head. Her stomach seemed tied in knots. She burst out, ‘If your parents were always going off, would you want the rotten things to see you minded?’
‘Do you mind?’ He blushed. ‘I’m sorry. My Aunt told me. But it’s none of my business.’
‘It’s all right.’ She thought for a minute. ‘No, I don’t mind,’ she said, surprised. ‘I did, but I don’t now. Not anymore.’
She felt peaceful, suddenly, as if the knots in her stomach had loosened.
She said, ‘It’s different now. I don’t know why. Since Krishna, and coming to the island. Where’s he gone? I haven’t seen him this morning.’
‘Nutting,’ Simon said. ‘Thinks of nothing but his inside, that boy.’
*
He hadn’t picked many nuts, though. One small billy can. He was sitting beside it, knees drawn up to his chest.
‘I feel sick,’ he said.
He looked sick. Not pale, of course, because of his skin, but dingy.
‘Too many sardines last night,’ Simon said. ‘I told you,’
‘I’m cold,’ Krishna said.
‘You can’t be. Weather’s changed a bit, but not cold. Just no sun. You want to run about.’
‘I’ve got a pain.’
He looked small and young and miserable. Mary knelt beside him. ‘I’ve brought you a jersey, and some lovely woolly vests. Put them on and you’ll feel better.’
But even with the vest on, buttoned to the neck, and a thick jersey on top, he was still shivery.
It seemed absurd, because although the sun didn’t come out, the day grew noticeably hotter. The sky was dark, woolly grey, pressing down like a soft ceiling on the tops of the trees and seeming to cut off, not only sun, but sound. No birds sang, and once, when a duck took off from the lake, the clapping of its wings was so loud it made them jump. The bird left a spreading wake, but as soon as that had gone, the lake was still again, brown and opaque, reflecting nothing. Even the air seemed different: the sweat formed on their foreheads and the air didn’t dry them. It was so heavy with moisture, so damp and thick, that it seemed as if it could be scooped up in a ladle.
No one wanted much lunch. It was too much effort. Mary and Simon managed a mouthful or two, but Krishna ate nothing. He lay curled up, and seemed to be dozing.
‘Over-excitement last night,’ Simon said. ‘Sardines, and then I thought I heard a vixen. So I took him to look—he’s never seen a fox, and I thought it would be interesting.’
‘Did you find it?’
‘No. We saw Noakes hunting though. Crouching, and wriggling his bottom, and then—phwoooot! Charge. We didn’t see, but we heard something cry. I don’t think Krishna liked that. He doesn’t like things being killed. It k
ept him awake.’
‘I feel hot now.’ Krishna complained.
Simon got up. ‘Best thing you can do is go into the grotto and have your sleep out.’ He put his hand on Krishna’s forehead and looked startled. Then he said,’ ‘Course you feel hot! What d’you expect if you put all those clothes on, a day like this! Vests and jerseys—as if this was the Arctic Circle, or something. You must be raving!’
He spoke in the bothered, grown-up voice Mary had not heard him use for a long time. She wondered if he was worried, but if he was, he didn’t say so. He took Krishna to the grotto and came back, mopping his forehead, and said the best thing they could do, was get in the lake.
It was warm, like bathwater. Too inert to swim, they lay on their backs, paddling idly with their hands, and let an unseen current carry them slowly into the middle of the lake. Mary’s hair floated over her face like seaweed, tickling her mouth, but she felt too lazy to brush it away. She rolled over instead, like a turning log, and opened her eyes under water. Sometimes, on a sunny day, she had seen great clumps of weed, a swaying, watery forest with fish swimming through the branches instead of birds, and once she had seen nine big trout—she had counted them exactly—lying in a little hollow at the bottom of the lake, so still that she had thought it would be quite easy to catch them, until she tried … But today she could see nothing, only a thick, brown murkiness, as if someone had taken a giant spoon and stirred up all the sludge from the bottom of the water, turning it into soup. Mary swam face downwards, holding her breath, until her hands touched the carpet of curly weed that covered part of the lake. Then she lifted her head, gasping, and looked for Simon.
He was nowhere to be seen. The sky was almost quite black now, and it was so dark … Not only couldn’t she see Simon, she couldn’t see the shore …
Then the first lightning came; not a zigzag flicker, but a still, almost blinding illumination, as if a light had suddenly been switched on. She saw Simon’s head like a seal’s, poking up.
She called, ‘Simon,’ and the thunder answered her—a crash, as if the earth were being torn apart. She swam towards him in darkness, but only for a second: there was another flash of lightning that seemed to strike down into the water. She saw weeds twisting and writhing beneath her like trees, tossed in a violent storm, although on the surface no wind ruffled the water, and the rhododendron bushes on the island, white when the lighning flashed, were still as carved stone.
Simon shouted something. She thought he said, Fine old storm, but the words were drowned by thunder that rolled and crashed, and then by the rain: white, steel rods hammering on the water as if on solid glass. It was like swimming through a waterfall. As she reached Simon, something struck her cheek and made her gasp. ‘Hail,’ he said, and she saw it plopping all round her: ice bullets, making neat, round holes in the lake.
They swam into the grotto, their knees grinding on gravel. They dragged themselves onto the floor of the cavern, too spent at first to do more than lie there, looking at the storm. In the lightning, the hail was like a curtain of diamonds falling.
Simon said, ‘My Uncle Horace had his car struck by lightning once. He said everything went blue, and smelt of seaweed.’
‘Seaweed?’ Mary said. She began to shiver and Simon threw her his shirt. ‘Dry on that,’ he said, but the shirt was damp, as if it had been hanging in steam. When they were dressed, they felt almost as wet as they had been in the lake. ‘Ought to jump up and down.’ Simon said, but after one or two half-hearted bending and stretching exercises, they gave up and huddled together, watching the lightning bounce like a skimmed pebble across the lake, and waiting for each cannonade of thunder. These were so frequent now, and so tearingly loud, that it seemed impossible to hear themselves speak, let alone any other sound. When one came, a long, unearthly scream, they stood for the moment, rigid and appalled …
Then Simon shouted, ‘Krishna,’ and leapt for the rocky stair.
But it was Noakes who had made that terrible noise. Lightning lit the tiny room and they saw Krishna, lying on the bracken, the sleeping bag pulled over his head, while Noakes stalked the room like a mad tiger, tail erect, fur bristling, one eye blazing. When Mary bent to touch him, he arched away, gave another blood-curdling cry, and bounded past her.
Simon caught her arm. ‘Let him go, he’ll scratch you to pieces,’ he shouted. ‘He’s fighting wild …’
Thunder crackled, like something solid breaking. When it died away, echoes grumbling through the grotto, they heard Noakes’s high-pitched yowl, growing fainter as he went further away.
And closer, in the room, Krishna weeping …
They knelt beside him. Simon pulled off the sleeping bag and Mary took him in her arms, cradling his head and crooning. ‘It’s all right … all right … only a silly old storm …’
But he continued to cry, twisting in the bracken and jerking his knees up to his chest. His forehead, pressed against Mary’s chest, felt burning hot.
She said, ‘Simon, it’s not the storm. He’s ill. He’s hot as fire. Krishna. Darling. Where do you hurt?’
The boy moaned something. Mary didn’t catch it.
‘I think his stomach,’ Simon said. He felt Krishna gently. ‘It’s funny. Feel …’
Below Krishna’s ribs, his belly pushed out, hard and tight as a football. He cried out when Mary touched him.
‘Perhaps he ate something bad,’ Simon said. ‘Berries. Perhaps he just needs to be sick. If we make him put a finger down his throat … or tickle it with a piece of bracken …’
‘Revolting,’ Mary said, and pulled a face.
‘It’s not a time to be fussy. We got to do something.’
Lightning frayed the room. A feebler flash than before, but it showed Simon’s face, chalk-white. ‘Do you want him to die?’
The word echoed, fading away through the caves and passages of the grotto like the next thunder clap which sounded so gently that it was more like an enormous sigh. As if the whole earth had suddenly grown tired.
‘Storm’s moving away,’ Simon said, glancing upwards. As he spoke, a faint light began to filter into the room through the small window. The ordinary light of day.
‘I will die,’ Krishna said suddenly, and gave a choking gasp of terror. ‘I will die.’
‘Of course not,’ Mary said, holding him close and glaring nastily at Simon. ‘Don’t take any notice of him.’
‘I hurt,’ Krishna wailed. ‘Mary. Oh, please. Make it stop.’
He rolled on to his side and buried his head in her lap. She cupped her hands over his ears and looked at Simon.
‘Get Aunt Alice,’ she said. ‘She used to be a nurse. She’ll know what to do.’
TWELVE
After the Storm
MARY NURSED KRISHNA and sang to him. Whenever he moaned, she felt his pain, like a stab in her own stomach. And also fear …
In between the songs, she questioned him anxiously. ‘Is it better? Just a little bit? Do you feel better now?’ until he said, ‘Oh do stop, Mary. You can’t make me better by asking.’
She was so relieved, she laughed and hugged him. If he had the energy to sound so cross, he couldn’t be going to die!
She went on singing until her voice was croaky and he grew heavier in her arms. When she was sure he was fast asleep, she made him comfortable in the bracken and left the grotto.
The storm had blown itself out and left a fine, windy evening: silver ripples on the lake and bright-edged rags of cloud scudding across a greenish sky. On her way to the bridge she called Noakes once or twice, but there was no sign of him.
Nor of Simon. She sat in the middle of a rhododendron bush where she could watch the bridge without being seen. Her arms ached from holding Krishna, and her heart ached, too. Now the waiting was nearly over she was afraid—not for Krishna, anymore, but for herself. Aunt Alice would come and rescue Krishna, but there would be no rescue for her! She had been a traitor, and by now Aunt Alice would know it! The thought made Mary shudder and hu
nch into herself. She couldn’t face Aunt Alice. She couldn’t …
*
‘I can’t,’ Aunt Alice said. ‘I can’t …’
She stood on the first half of the bridge, looking with horror at the narrow beam. She wore a shapeless raincoat that reached almost to her ankles, and her grey hair, blown loose from its bun, fanned round her face like witch’s locks. Mary thought she looked beautiful.
‘It’s all right,’ Simon said. ‘Long as you don’t look.’
‘Well,’ Aunt Alice said. ‘I don’t know …’
‘I’ll blindfold you,’ Simon offered. He pulled a grubby handkerchief out of his pocket.
Aunt Alice stood still while he fastened it. The tied ends stood up above her head like rabbit’s ears. Pale as a turnip, she took her first, teetering step on the beam.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh, my goodness!’
‘I’m holding you,’ Simon said. ‘All you got to do is put one foot in front of the other. Feel with your toes.’
Aunt Alice lifted her feet high, like a bird stepping through water.
‘You’re doing fine,’ Simon said.
He moved cautiously backwards, clasping Aunt Alice’s hands. They looked very funny, but Mary didn’t smile.
‘We should have waited for the boat,’ Aunt Alice said, and halted suddenly.
‘This is quicker.’
Aunt Alice gasped. ‘Not if we fall off.’
‘You won’t fall if you keep moving,’ Simon said.
Step by shaky step. From time to time, Aunt Alice made small, squeaky sounds of terror. Mary shut her eyes.
‘There,’ Simon said, at last. ‘It’s not far to the grotto now.’
‘I think I remember,’ Aunt Alice said.
Mary wondered what she meant. They passed by her bush, so close that she could have put out her hand and touched Aunt Alice’s raincoat.
When she judged they had reached the grotto, she followed them, creeping a little way up the twisting stair. She heard Aunt Alice say, ‘Oh the poor child, the poor baby,’ and Krishna’s answering murmur.
