Snow will fall
Pearl’s father promises snow. She has absolute faith, but still the snow is reluctant. In the shed they pull down the sleigh with its metal runners, Pearl passes the oil and a rag for him to rub each curved, rusting length. Then they go out into the blasted winter garden and hold hands as he sniffs the air. Well, he says, and sniffs again. Pearl doesn’t interrupt. Yes, he says, I think very soon, and he suddenly tightens his grip on her gloved hand. It feels like an electric shock leaping up Pearl’s arm, he is so strong. Which day, Daddy? she asks. This weekend definitely, he says, and shocks her one more time. On Saturday the sky is porridge-coloured. Pearl imagines the blobs of snow teeming against each other as they get ready. She doesn’t want to eat any lunch, even though her mother has made toast soldiers. The brown dotted egg smells funny. A banana has been waiting, curved around half her plate. She gags pointedly on it until her mother gives up and snatches it out of her slack fist. Then she goes to the park and settles herself on a swing. Pearl keeps her eyes shut. She wants to feel the snow first. She sits until her nose tip is wet and her feet are freezing. As the hours go by her hands in their woollen gloves meld to the swing chains. It begins to get dark. Pearl is pale, almost swooning with cold and hunger. The lamp lights come on but Pearl doesn’t see them. Then, softly, softly, snowflakes touch her lips and eyelids and she leaps off the swing. Pearl twirls in the shifting, snow-bedazzled park until her red hat flies away and she falls down.
Bad
There’s nothing to do. Pearl’s friend Fee has gone on holiday. For weeks before she went, Pearl wouldn’t speak to her. They still met every day of course. At first, Fee tried to explain about the place they always went for their holidays; about the sea, and camping, but Pearl wouldn’t listen. On the evening before Fee left they were under the privet hedge in Pearl’s garden. But why? Fee kept on asking. Why won’t you speak, my love? Pearl sat cross-legged, picking a scab on her knee, her face set like a fierce, rosy mask. Fee tried to hold Pearl’s hand. I can’t help it, my parents are in charge, you know that, she told Pearl. They both watched blood ooze out from under the ripped scab. Pearl was silent. She pulled in her cheeks and made her lips like a cartoon fish. As Fee sobbed, Pearl put her own squished-up mouth on the wet, broken scab and sucked. Then she screamed at Fee with bloody lips and punched her in the stomach. Now Pearl looks out of her bedroom window at the children playing in the street, and rests her middle on the windowsill tiles. She can feel a chilly pulse in her belly that comes from her navel. The pulse seems to rise and sit in the tubes of her ears and the cave of her mouth. It’s a wrong, blush-making feeling, but Pearl stays pressed against the sill, thinking of Fee, the way she’d looked after the punch, struggling to close her lips over her sticky-out front teeth. Pearl has known about this pulsing feeling and the windowsill for a long time, but she hated it so much she only did it once, till now. She is going to do it every day, until her best friend Fee comes back.
Scissors
Pearl is making a costume for the doll she was given as a birthday gift. Already the doll’s got a blind eye, a missing hand and a severe haircut. Mostly it lies, splay-legged, under the bed. Pearl’s found her mother’s sharp scissors and is cutting an old jumper, but it won’t keep still. She’s thrown by how hopeless she is; even her mother snips through all sorts of things, all the time, without any trouble. Pearl begins to get more energetic. The Blob holds onto her armchair, watching her fight with the snarled-up wool. Bloody! she shouts, throwing the mess down and making him flinch. Do you see this stupid doll? she asks him as he loses his balance and sits down on the floor. I didn’t want it. She stands over him and tells him that no one ever asks her what she wants. In fact, no one asks me anything, she says. The Blob sucks his thumb and plays with a carpet tuft. Then he wants to get on the chair so Pearl bunks him up. Immediately he starts to scream. She grabs him. Blood is blooming on her dress, leaking from his leg. Pearl slaps her hand over his mouth so violently he stops, and realises that a point of the scissors has gouged a lump of flesh from his bare thigh. She snatches bits of jumper, pressing, and looks around for something better. When she turns back the jumper is wet and scarlet. Her brother gulps, sucking his thumb, his eyes fixed on hers. Make a sound and you’re dead, she says, and tucks him into the chair, covering him with a pile of material. Then she listens at the door. Now she is going to creep out and hide the scissors in the woods, then, maybe, later, come back home.
Punishment
As her mother screws a lock and bolt to Pearl’s bedroom door she explains that, except for school, Pearl will not be allowed out until she considers what she has done wrong and apologises. The Blob whispers under the door as often as he can. Pearl thinks it’s nice, lying with her ear to the gap, listening to his little baby-messages. If she squints she can see the bandage on his leg. She has curled her voice up in her throat, though, and sent it to sleep. In school she is so silent her teacher has even taken her into the Headmaster’s office, but no one can get Pearl to utter a word. After a while she decides to eat only flat food like slices of cucumber and tomato, maybe crisps; things she doesn’t have to open her mouth too wide for. After seven days her mother joins The Blob on the landing outside her bedroom. Pearl lies on her bed, arms behind her head, bare feet resting on the wall above the pillows. Her tummy feels scooped-out and her hip bones sharp. She hears her mother telling The Blob things he must repeat to her, but she no longer bothers to listen. Late one night she wakes to the sound of her mother unscrewing the lock and bolt. At the start of the second week Fee visits with a small plate of cheese slices and apple half-moons arranged like the petals of a flower. From your mother, my love, she says, placing them on the bedside table. Pearl closes her eyes and feels Fee lean over her. When’s your Dad coming home? Fee asks, her thin, reddish hair falling onto Pearl’s face as she kisses her pale lips. Four days’ time, Pearl says. Then she’s silent again.
A new thought
Pearl thinks about how she has only one grandmother. Fee has two, other children have two. She doesn’t mind so much about not having grandads, but her one Gran is so nice, she would like another. She sits on the settee and feels the knobbly cushion under her thighs. Her father is reading the paper beside her. She looks at his crossed leg and brown shoe with its laces firmly tied, and the gap between his fawn sock and cord trouser. The skin she can see is darker than the sock, lightly covered with pretty brown hairs, and she can’t stop herself reaching to touch. He puts the paper down. Are you tickling me? he asks, smiling. Yes, says Pearl, but really she knows that’s not true. Daddy, she says, why have I only got one granny? Her father folds the paper and lifts her onto his lap. My mother would have been your other gran, he explains, while Pearl rests her head on his chest. But she’s not here any more. Where is she then? Pearl says, although suddenly she almost knows. She’s dead, her father says. She was ill, and then she died. And I was very sad. Pearl sits up straight. She feels a new idea taking shape in her head. It’s amazing. Her father looks a little worried. But Pearl, he says, then you came along and cheered me up. You are my little star. Pearl smiles at her father and gives him a long hug. Now that’s true, she thinks. I am star-ish. I have to get going, she says, giving him a kiss on his fragrant cheek. Then she slides down from her father’s lap and runs out into the garden. In amongst the apple trees she feels so excited she wants to float like a balloon. So, mothers can die, she thinks, running from tree to tree. I never knew that.
Bus
There are some people sitting in front of Pearl and her mother, having a snack. Pearl leans over the back of their seat. As she is usually sick on any bus journey, the only thing her mother will give her is a mint, and her mother especially doesn’t like it when Pearl looks at the other passengers too much. I don’t know why you can’t just look out of the window like everybody else, she says, manhandling Pearl into
a suitable sitting position. But these people are opening bags of salted nuts, and nibbling pastries. Pearl twists out of her mother’s grip, climbs down off her seat and edges around so that she’s standing next to the woman, watching as another damp parcel is unwrapped. Pearl sees there are little sandwiches inside. She wonders what sort. She likes ham, or lemon curd, or sometimes, golden syrup in her sandwiches. She takes a good look; they are grated cheese. That’s her favourite. Her eyes follow every movement as the woman and her friend lift the food to their mouths. They chew like robots. Eventually, there is only one delicious square left, and Pearl announces that she really loves cheese sandwiches. She pushes against the woman’s thigh as she says it, and holds out her hand. But no one takes any notice of Pearl. The woman packs the last sandwich away, takes an apple and crunches it. Specks of spit fly out of her mouth. Pearl’s mother takes hold of her arm and says, before you start you can stop, or else, but Pearl is not ready. First, in a firm voice, she tells the people that she hates them. And as her mother pulls her arm Pearl adds that she hopes they both choke.
A good plan
Pearl stands on the bank and looks across to a beach-like area the cows have trampled as they come to drink. Hazy clouds of greenery are reflected in the water. It feels like an island over there, with its alder trees and yellow lilies, the canal curving around, but she knows it isn’t. She lies down on the fringe of the canal and dabbles in the slow water. Just out of reach Pearl can see, resting on the bottom, masses of cloudy, dotted frogspawn. She lowers her chin onto her folded arms and concentrates on it. Each tiny, opaque, black-centred globe is like an eye, and all the eyes are looking her way. Every year she collects buckets of spawn and takes it home to the garden. She can never resist feeling the jelly, combing it again and again. She thinks about her buckets and nets, her plan to take frogspawn home. Even though she enjoys arranging shiny weeds in amongst it, and little sparkly stones, she sees now it’s not a good idea. Her beautiful spawn always changes and dies. After a while, she decides to catch tiddlers instead. Pearl enjoys wading, and jumps a little each time a plant twines around her ankles. But still the buckets remain empty. It feels better, somehow, to leave the quiet spawn and flickering fish alone, here in the cool, barely moving water. Pearl sits on the bank and tries to pick a bunch of kingcups. Their stretchy stems squeak and colour her hands, but she cannot pull them out. Pearl rests in the gnat-rich air, feeling the grass tickling her legs, then gathers all her things. She has decided nothing is leaving the canal today.
New friend
It’s the summer holidays. Pearl has been thinking how all the long, sunny days rest closely up against each other like leaves in a huge book about dust, heat, melting pavements. Today she is going to rip out a page and see what happens. She tries to imagine the winter, and yearns for gloves and steady, slashing rain, even stew. There is a new girl in the street and Pearl has to find some things out. The girl’s called Honey. That’s not a proper name, Pearl says, when they meet for the first time under the hedge; it’s something you put on bread. She sits astride Honey’s stomach, pins her arms down and leans over. I’ll do something bad if you don’t do what I tell you to do, she says. Honey’s eyes are hazel, and her lashes are thick and auburn. Open up, Pearl tells her, and points to Honey’s lips. Wider, Pearl shouts, wide, wide, wide! Honey has strong, square teeth, and her lips stretch as if she is laughing. Pearl gathers spit with her tongue and allows it to fall in a series of slow bubbles into Honey’s mouth. Now swallow, she tells her, or else. Then she lets her up. Can I do you now? Honey asks. Nope, Pearl says. They kneel and face each other. Honey starts to play with the worm casts all around them. Okay, she murmurs, and squeezes a blob of mud in her palms. Pearl watches as she fashions the mud into a little shape. Hold out your hand, she tells Pearl. She has made a mud dog. Pearl studies Honey’s perfect pink cheeks and extraordinary lashes. This could work out, she thinks, cradling the brown mini-creature in her hands.
No
Pearl switches off as she pushes the shopping trolley past the cooked ham and cheese counters. With her mother walking beside her holding on, she begins to imagine what it would be like to stay in the supermarket after closing time. She’d build a tent of cereal boxes and find matches and magazines to make a fire. Then she’d cook sausages and, for afters, eat chocolate with nuts inside. Pearl glances at her mother, who’s in her slippers, nightdress billowing out from her half-undone coat. Pearl thinks the filmy pink fabric looks rude in the shop. As her mother picks up a bag of sugar, Pearl can hear her talking in an undertone, asking the sugar questions. In her tent Pearl would light candles and lie down amongst a pile of cushions. She pictures the glow from inside lighting up the tall canyon of tins she’s below. Pearl lets go of the trolley and slinks off as her mother cradles the sugar and sings to it; the little song fades as Pearl turns in to another aisle. All the shoppers silently walk around, turning their heads from side to side, and Pearl is invisible. She could also climb up the shelves and stand on the top, she thinks, maybe even jump from one stack to another, all alone in the dark of the huge, crammed warehouse. Soon she hears screams. Nothing can stop them, Pearl knows. She weaves through the crowd and sees first a pink slipper yawning on the tiles, and then her mother struggling with a person in uniform. She’s screaming because he wants to take her sugar-baby from her. Pearl stands mutely until someone asks if this is her mother. Then she backs away, shaking her head.
Clump
The kids in the next street have been making an obstacle course in a thick hedge that grows all along the top of a bank. Pearl watches, perched on her bike, until the two boys in charge come over. You’re Pearl, aren’t you? one asks. The boys are holding interesting garden implements. She circles round them silently while they whisper together. You can join, if you like, the boy waving a pair of shears says. Pearl runs through the suitable stuff in her father’s shed. Maybe I will, she calls over her shoulder as she rides off. Now, every day in the summer holidays, she’s hard at it, and her part of the hedge run is going well. She’s constructing a ramp you can pelt up and jump off into a soft pit of grass. Today she’s stripping hazel boughs with her penknife when someone shouts that her brother’s in a fight. Pearl folds her knife, and lays the branches in a heap. Where? she asks, and rides off, standing on the bike pedals. At the playground she parks and has a look. Pearl sort of knows the boy who is punching her brother. Quietly she walks up behind him as he stoops over The Blob and leaps onto his back, hooking her legs around his waist. He whirls and staggers, trying to grab her, while she pulls his head back by the hair and yanks until a wet, tufty clump of scalp comes away in her fist. The boy collapses backwards, on top of her. Want some more? she shouts, as he scrambles up, grunting, and runs away. She gives her brother a long look while putting the clump in her shorts pocket. Then she rides back to the ramp and hazels, her hair flowing behind her like a small silken flag.
Smile
Pearl and her brother are banished to the carpetless back bedroom. A rickety playpen sits in the middle of the room, full of boxes and broken lampshades. Pearl can see they would make a really good den but she can’t be bothered. Their mother has said Pearl is in trouble; one more thing and she won’t be responsible. Now Pearl is thinking about how The Blob’s stupid face deserves a slap. She must make something happen anyway. He’s pushing a toy car around, making a private brumming noise as he drives it over the swirls in the carpet. These bits are the roads, he tells Pearl. Who cares about the stupid roads? Pearl says. Her brother gives her a wary look. In fact, who cares about you at all? she asks him, putting her face up close. No one in this house. I heard Mother say she prayed you’d be run over by a lorry. Her brother starts to grizzle, and Pearl snatches his car, throwing it against the wall. Now what you going to do? she shrieks. The Blob runs down to the kitchen, wailing. Pearl sits on the floor and waits, her fingers quiet, for what wil
l happen next. After a few moments, her mother runs heavily up the stairs and appears in the doorway. And here we go, Pearl thinks, watching her mother shout. Pearl doesn’t listen; she studies her mother’s scarlet face and spitting mouth, the way she clenches her hands and glares. Best of all, the veins in her mother’s neck start to bulge like shuddering blue worms. What have you got to say for yourself, you horrible little thing? her mother yells. Pearl lowers her eyes, soft hands in her lap, but it’s hard, keeping a straight face.
Upside down
Pearl and Fee gaze from the open bedroom window; the field has vanished, trees thrash and the sky above the jerking branches is ominous. They try to stretch their bare arms out into the storm. A soft roar fills the warm room, but the rain doesn’t touch them. Pearl throws some of her best things as far as she can out into the downpour. She wants to go stream-wading, and shuts her eyes to watch herself struggling through the saturated ferns, feeling with wet fingers the little raised buttons on the fern fronds’ undersides. She knows the clear brown water of the stream will be mixing with transparent snakes of rain. She longs to feel her wellies slap against her legs. It’s too dry in this place, she tells Fee. Inside my nose itches. No, Fee says, bouncing on the bed, please let’s stay here. It’s cosy and safe. Then she lands awkwardly and falls down between the bed and the wall. Pearl sighs, looking at the treetops. I know what we can play, Fee says, her voice muffled, Upside Down! There are two beds in Pearl’s room. Fee has The Blob’s. Each girl lies on her back across one and drops her head over the side so she is looking at the other the wrong way up; where a forehead should be, there is a mouth; instead of a chin, two spidery eyes. They laugh in the thrumming room. Pearl thinks Fee’s mouth looks like a dark hole; the uneven row of teeth decorating the edges is the best thing ever. Then Fee stretches out to stroke Pearl’s cheek. I expect you’ve forgotten all about the stream now, my love, she says, smiling. Pearl sits up and shakes herself. No, she answers. I absolutely have not.
Reasons She Goes to the Woods Page 2
