Midnight Blue

by Pauline Fisk

  'What is it?' Dad said.

  'Oh, nothing.'

  Instead of going through the kitchen and up the stairs, Bonnie went out into the hall. Something drew her to Mum's sewing-room door. For a moment she stood outside it, then realizing she didn't know what she was doing there, she turned away and began climbing the hall stairs.

  'Are you off to bed? It's very early.'

  A patch of light was thrown across the hall. Mum stood in her doorway.

  'I'm tired,' Bonnie said, and it was true. She was tired of pretending, tired of smiling, tired of the pain inside her. She saw beyond Mum into the sewing-room, saw the thick, velvet curtains. She caught a glimpse of packages and wrapping-paper. Mum pulled the door behind her to keep her secrets hidden. They stood now in semi-darkness. Mum's face was tired too.

  'I feel I've let you down,' Mum said.

  'I don't know what you mean.'

  'I think you do. Something's wrong, isn't it, and once I’d have picked up what it is. I know I'll be myself again when the baby's born, but I hate being like this. What's the matter, Bonnie? And what’s wrong with Arabella?'

  'Arabella's… she’s tired like me,' Bonnie blustered. ‘That's all. Last night we stay up talking till late. There's nothing else wrong.'

  It sounded lame and they both knew it. 'Do you mean I'm worrying about nothing?' Mum said as if she didn't think she was.

  Bonnie felt like spilling it all out but knew she couldn't. 'That's right,' she said. There’s nothing to worry about. Besides, you've got to take things nice and easy.'

  Mum sighed. ‘It's all right. You don't have to tell me if you don't want. You surely know by now that I never pry.'

  Bonnie tried to protest, but Mum changed the subject. 'Did you know, there's soon going to be snow?' she said. 'Dad says that he can read the signs. We've got skis somewhere in the scullery. In a couple of days’ time we’ll have to teach you how to use them.'

  Bonnie felt wretched. 'I like the snow,' was all that she could manage. Mum turned back towards the sewing-room and she felt herself weakening. She wanted to change her mind. Why shouldn’t she unburden herself to Mum and tell her the whole, awful truth?

  'Good night,' said Mum. She shut the sewing-room door behind her. The hall was plunged into darkness again. Bonnie stared wretchedly at the door and wondered what to do.

  'Good night,' she whispered at last.

  It wasn't the farewell she would have chosen.

  30

  In the bedroom, the Arabella-thing was breathing deeply. Bonnie got into bed. She couldn't sleep. She got out again, looked out of the window, up the hill. There was no fire yet. It wasn't time. She dragged her cardboard suitcase out from beneath the bed, opened her drawer quietly and plucked out the few clothes that were really hers. She tossed them miserably into the case, and climbed back into bed. Mum's clock next door struck ten. Still Bonnie was awake. It struck eleven. She tossed and turned, trying not to remember all the good things Highholly Hill had brought her. It struck twelve. Had ever a midnight, ever a dark tunnel out of Batholes, ever a night sky or even Grandbag's coat been as black as this? At last, exhausted, Bonnie fell asleep.

  When she awoke again there was light up on the hill. She saw it straight away, a red smudge between the hollies. She sat up. It was no dream. It was really there, and the sky was the midnight blue colour of the balloon, and morning was on the way.

  Bonnie got out of bed. Her toe stubbed against the cardboard suitcase. Tears sprang from her eyes. Now it had come to it, she couldn't go.

  'There has to be another way,' she whispered. 'There has to be another way. I won't go. I won't.'

  She strode up and down and the Arabella-thing stirred. Briefly her eyes opened, and Bonnie stopped and looked at her. It was as if she was empty - as if nothing was there. Her tongue fell out of her mouth as if there was no active mind at home to keep it in. A silver dribble rolled down her chin.

  'Oh, Arabella, Arabella, Arabella…’

  Bonnie looked up through the window into the lightening sky. Suddenly it seemed as if this was the moment that everything in her life — all those years of dreaming of a land beyond the sky, and all the things she'd done since coming here — had been pointing to. As if this was what she’d been waiting for. Not to jump heroically out of a window, or look for Wild Edric in a thunderstorm, or save Highholly Hill by finding Edric underground — but to perform this boring, quiet, act of self-sacrifice.

  Bonnie almost laughed out loud. So, it was her lot in life to go back to chip papers and orange neon lights out on the street, Maybelle crying when things didn't go her way, and Grandbag…

  'Beat her here and you’ll beat her there too.'

  But could she? Could she really?

  'You know you can…'

  Bonnie dressed quickly and looked at herself for the last time in the dressing-table mirror. Godda's necklace glittered on her neck and she touched it.

  'At least I've got you,' she whispered. 'I've got something that'll prove it all really happened when I get back home. A real treasure of my own. Not one I’d sell or ever give to a museum. It'll be like owning a famous painting. I've never had anything like that. Most people never do.'

  Picking up the suitcase, Bonnie left the bedroom without another glance at Arabella and passed through the house. She was good at creeping now. She knew which floorboards to avoid, which doors creaked, which stairs had to be stepped over.

  Bonnie came down into the kitchen. The Jake-thing lay as still as death. He too was dribbling and Bonnie longed for the real Jake to bound up the hill with her the way he used to do. The cream cats were awake. They watched her with round, yellow eyes. When she lifted the latch they came and rubbed themselves against her legs and miaowed as though saying 'won't we do instead?' and slid out into the scullery ahead of her.

  'Goodbye,' Bonnie said to the kitchen, but only the kettle on the stove hissed back at her. She passed through the scullery, out into a crisp winter frost. The cream cats hung around the door for her.

  'What is it?' she said. 'Why don't you go back in?'

  But she knew why not. They were a reminder of Michael - a first step on the long journey home. Bonnie only had to look at them to remember the flint-faced house with its mushroom shaped roof. She remembered the veranda and Michael's cats. She remembered the thick smoke as it filled the tottering, monstrous balloon, and the flickering shape of the boy Jim used to be, struggling with Michael to straighten the balloon, control it, hold it down over the fire as it filled to capacity and then reached for the sky…

  'You're off then, are you?'

  Someone moved out of the shadows of the house. Someone with still, grey eyes that glistened in the dark, leaning against a wall that glittered with frost. Bonnie dropped her suitcase. She couldn’t take another step.

  'Dad, oh Dad…’

  'I wouldn't let you go without saying goodbye,' he said. His words made great white clouds of breath. Bonnie tried to step towards him but her weak knees began to sink. Dad grabbed her hands to stop her going down, and held her tight.

  'How did you know?' Bonnie said.

  Dad laughed. 'Oh, I mightn’t know the half of it,' he said. 'I mightn’t know what it's all really about. But I do know how you got here. And Jim too. I've smelt the smoke on that balloon of yours, and seen the soot inside. I'm not a fool. I've seen those pits in the holly grove, and the logs piling up and the staves. And I've seen your face, Bonnie, when you didn't know anyone was looking. I watched you tonight, striding up and down… '

  Bonnie hung her head. She'd thought — and Arabella had thought, too — that they couldn't tell Dad things, that they had to keep what was happening to themselves. What fools they’d been.

  'Enough of this,' Dad said. He picked up the suitcase. 'Come on. Let's go. Jim removed the balloon from the barn hours ago. He’s nearly got it full now. There's something very strange about the way that boy can move. Shall we go and join him?'

  For the first time, Bonnie recognized
a smell of woodsmoke about Dad, and understood that Jim hadn’t worked alone.

  'Mum said this place wasn't like anywhere else I'd been,' she said. 'She was right, too. But I'm still not sure what kind of place it is.'

  Dad laughed. 'I don't think any of us knows what kind of place this is,' he said. 'Sometimes it seems like just anywhere else. And then sometimes it's quite different from the rest of the world.' He squeezed Bonnie’s hand. The sky was lightening fast. 'Come on,' he said again and led her along the terrace, through the orchard and up into the meadow where the great shape of the balloon towered above the circle of holly trees.

  ‘If there was a land beyond the sky would you be surprised?' Bonnie looked up at the stars. So did Dad, who wouldn’t be surprised at anything, he said.

  'When I've gone…’ Bonnie said.

  'Don't worry. I'll tell Mum you’re all right.’

  ‘And that I said goodbye?’

  ‘That too.’

  The grass crunched beneath Bonnie's feet. Her breath made great white clouds. She climbed and didn't speak again. As they came to the holly grove, the roaring of the fire reached out to them. Bonnie stood with a cold white world at her back and a furious red one at her front. In the red one Jim dashed back and forth, and there was indeed something very strange about the way he moved. This, Bonnie guessed, had to be the last vestige of his being a shadowboy. He looked like twenty men. He looked as if he was everywhere. All on his own he had the balloon tethered and staved and its mouth over the smoke pit. The smoke was filling it and his hands - which seemed to reach every side of the balloon, all at the same time - struggled to hold it down.

  'Here, let me help you,’ Dad called. He dropped the suitcase and pushed through the trees, leaving Bonnie alone between worlds. She watched their silhouettes as they struggled to complete the final tasks. Her face stung in the heat. Flakes of ash filled the air. She smelt something. What was it? Something beyond the smell of fire. Flakes rained down around her and she found herself remembering the night she'd run away from Grandbag and her home.

  The smell beyond the fire was the smell of home.

  It was like the end of the holiday when you remember where you come from. Bonnie remembered Maybelle. Really remembered her. She remembered the red-and-yellow bedroom and the floppy plant and her raggedy doll, which she'd never left behind before. And she wanted Maybelle. She wanted the long-promised home they'd begun to make together. She picked up the cardboard suitcase, clutched it in her arms and felt surprised. This couldn't be her, could it, feeling like this? For the last time she looked down to the back of the house and across the valley beyond it.

  'Come and help us will you, Bonnie?' Dad called.

  As Bonnie made her final choice, ducking between the hollies, the necklace slipped off her neck. It fell onto the earth, its silver hands unclasped at last. Bonnie stopped and stared. Godda's blue enamel substitute for sky, her diamond stars lay at her feet. She picked up the necklace and held it in her hand. She was going to be like ordinary people after all, who never had a treasure of their own. She should have been sad. She would have cried once at life's unfairness.

  'It's really over,' Bonnie said, and her eyes drank in the necklace, knowing she’d always remember it.

  'Bonnie,' Jim called. 'It's time for you to go. Come on ... '

  Bonnie hung the necklace in the nearest holly tree and struggled into the heart of the grove where everything seemed to be roaring and furious. The balloon was full, raging to be away. Dad, and what seemed like a dozen spinning Jims, had pegged it down and were clinging onto the gondola as it bobbed impatiently, waiting for her to get into it. Jim shouted at Bonnie to come and stand with them beneath the balloon’s great, greedy mouth.

  'It's time,' he said when she got close. His body had stilled to that of an ordinary boy who'd never do a thing like this again, and whose last connection with his old life tore at its tethers to get free. 'Take my hand. I'll help you in.'

  Bonnie threw her suitcase into the gondola. Jim handed her in after it and began to strap her into what she now knew was the safety position for take-off.

  'Sun's up,' Dad shouted. 'Look at the sky!'

  Bonnie's heart began to pound. She gripped the sides of the gondola. The air was perfectly still. Above her the sky was pink, and between the hollies she could see it turning to gold. Dad copied Jim and began cutting ropes free. The gondola bobbed and shook. Jim cut the last ropes and the staves crashed down. Dad didn't say goodbye. He didn't reach out and touch Bonnie, and she was glad. He stood with his arms folded, his face lifted and his steady eyes watching her go. Jim raised a hand.

  Bonnie felt Highholly Hill falling away. First the holly grove. Then Highholly House. Then the sheep's path to the top, and Batholes, and Edric's Throne, and Roundhill and the cottages down the back. Bonnie saw a light in Arabella's bedroom. Saw a figure open the window to look out. She clutched the gondola. For a moment the thinnest veil of tears hid the figure from view. But when she wiped her eyes she knew it couldn’t be the drooling Arabella-thing. Not with a hand raised up triumphantly like that.

  The balloon passed up through the cloud. Briefly Bonnie was unable to make out Highholly Hill among the other hills and valleys. She strained her eyes and finally picked it out again, with its craggy outcrop of white stones. Looking down at them, she thought of Edric and Godda.

  'Everything’s going to be all right, isn’t it?’ she called out loud. ‘Arabella’s back, and Jake as well, and you’ll take care of them like you always have done and you always will…’

  Like an answer, the sun appeared. The last of the cloud was torn away and Bonnie could see the rim of the earth beyond it. 'Oh God in heaven,' she cried out, ‘I can see the Earth's curve.’

  Then, unexpectedly, Bonnie heard music. It was sweet pipe music that she'd forgotten about. The music of the skies. It was up there with the last of the stars. Above her, Bonnie could see the balloon, the richest, darkest blue now in the sunlight, and the planets above them both and summertime right round the other side of the earth. The sky above her parted. It opened for Bonnie and let her through and for a moment the brightness was so great that she couldn't see at all, and then she found that she was falling - that the music was gone, that the brightness had faded and a breeze stirred the gondola as though a change of weather was on the way. The murmur of a different world rose up to greet Bonnie.

  She dropped through an ordinary, early-morning sky into grey clouds. The gondola shivered and the cold bit at her cheeks. She stared and stared, waiting to see what would happen next. Then she smelt something. What was it? It came from below. It was a strange, flat, grubby smell that she couldn't identify and yet it was familiar.

  The clouds parted. Bonnie made out the shape of a new world beneath her, which was an old world too. Sounds drifted upwards. They were the sleepy sounds of early morning traffic on busy roads. Bonnie sniffed again and felt anxious. The sun wasn’t shining down there. It was a dull, grey morning, and she recognized the smell. It was the smell of a city - and she was heading straight towards it.

  PART EIGHT

  Maybelle

  31

  The balloon slipped immaculately between power lines and telephone wires. Only at the last minute did Bonnie recognize the flats and tarmac forecourt of her old home, and the holly trees and Michael's garden and the clearing in the middle of it. The trees around the clearing reached up strong, bony fingers and the balloon became entangled in them.

  Bonnie was jerked about as the gondola swung precariously above the ground. Then branches snapped and Bonnie and the gondola came down. They were both flung onto their side. The monster that had carried them became ripped and deflated. It hung torn among the branches, a wrinkled bag of dull, dark cloth.

  Bonnie struggled with the knots that tied her in. Everything around her in the clearing was very still and the traffic sounded far away. She rubbed her sore bones and looked up at Michael's house. The curtains were tightly drawn. There were no cats on the
veranda. The summer chairs and tables were gone and the veranda was bare.

  As Bonnie untied the last knot, she remembered saying, 'It'll be like stories in books, when people return to find they were only gone for a moment in time… ' She looked around her. The ground was covered with fallen, rotting leaves. Between the bare branches of the trees, she saw the garden wall. She'd got it wrong, hadn't she? This was more than just a moment in time. This was winter – and what was she going to tell Maybelle?

  Slowly Bonnie stood up. She turned away from the flint-faced house and Michael, whom she promised herself she'd see later, and began to make her way between the trees. The world was dull and grey and bitterly cold. A flake or two of snow began to fall. She found the hole in the wall and clambered through. How could she ever get Maybelle to believe her story, she wondered as she pushed between the prickly hollies on the other side.

  Bonnie reached the tarmac forecourt. Beyond the flats she could see traffic lights changing colour on the road, and a row of tinsel-decorated shops decorated for Christmas but closed because it was still early or maybe this was a Sunday. Bonnie saw empty pavements and wheelie bins lined up in front of the flats, waiting for refuse collection day, and stray dogs around the bins at the end next to the orange wall. She saw the sign by the road which said HIGHHOLLY HOUSE Nos. 1-79. It had been graffitied over. It was hard to read the words. She looked beyond the sign at the flats themselves. Which dark entrance hole was hers? She couldn't remember. They all looked the same.

  Then Bonnie recognized the fire escape leading to her balcony, with the entrance directly beneath it. She remembered Grandbag's car parked right there. Of course. She crossed the forecourt. Made for the entrance and headed for the stairs up to her level. They were dark and smelly. Huge rude words were scrawled in fantastic colours up the wall. Bonnie climbed past them to the first floor and began to make her way along the walkway, reading the numbers on the doors.