by Hilary McKay
“He was no help at all,” Clarry told Simon, half angry, half tearful, when he arrived back at the house.
“Would a field do?” asked Simon. “I should have thought of it before but I was in such a hurry to get to the station. It’s just a field, no stable or anything, but it’s out at my great-aunt’s, where my mum’s staying. It belongs to the cottage.”
“A field for Lucy? It would be perfect!”
“Come on, then,” said Simon. “Shove some things in a bag and we’ll get the tickets. I pawned Dad’s watch, got another two pounds. The Cornwall train’s in half an hour and the first one back with a horse box is Monday.”
Nothing would have worked without Simon, Clarry wrote to Rupert two days later. He thought of the field and when we got Lucy back here he unloaded her at the station and walked her all the way there. It was nine miles. We stayed in Cornwall on Saturday and Sunday nights and we pretended to Grandfather that Simon had just come with me to visit. But Grandmother knew the truth, and she was so pleased. She helped us get Lucy to the station early on Monday morning, and she said she would manage Grandfather.
“Now perhaps I will be able to sleep at night,” she said.
Before I left she did something she never had before, she kissed me and she said, “Dear Clarry.” And she said that Simon was a wonderful friend, and he is. Will you write to Simon, please, Rupert? He pawned his father’s watch so we had enough money, and I could see he was worrying about what his aunt would say. Vanessa told me that once his aunt said he was soft because he cried when his father went away.
Clarry had almost cried herself when the train left the little Cornish station, so early in the morning. She waved and waved to her grandmother, and Grandmother waved back, alone on the platform with the empty pony trap behind her, and if Clarry could have done one thing then, it would have been to stop the train and leap out and rush back into her arms.
“I liked it there,” Simon said, when she finally retreated from the window and went to sit beside him. “That house and the moor and the sea.” He had spent the weekend being as invisible as possible, but Grandmother had given him Rupert’s room, and Clarry had taken him round the old treasured landmarks: the sunny hollow where Rupert had once found a baby adder, picked it up, and been promptly bitten. “He said it hardly hurt at all, and walked all the way home,” Clarry told Simon. “But by the time he got back we had to cut his sleeve off his jacket to get his arm out and it was swollen for a week.”
She showed him too where the swallows always nested, the spot where Peter had jumped from the train, the bathing place by the cliff path, and the shop where they bought ice creams.
“One day we should come back,” said Simon, and Clarry said, “Yes, you and Vanessa, and Peter and me, and Rupert. All of us.”
“And Lucy,” said Simon. “Did Rupert love Lucy a lot?”
Clarry nodded, suddenly unable to speak. Simon sat twisting the empty watch lace in his big bony hands. His long giraffe face was patchy with shadows, and presently he closed his eyes.
Twenty
Thanks, I knew I could ask you.
R
That was all Clarry heard from Rupert, scrawled on a postcard. Peter told her that Simon had a postcard too. It had arrived at school, said Peter, and Simon had not shown it to anyone, just tucked it in his pocket and walked away.
For a long time after that no one heard anything from Rupert. Clarry turned thirteen with, for the first time ever, no acknowledgement from Rupert at all.
“Don’t be angry with him,” said Peter, unexpectedly.
“Of course not,” said Clarry. She wrote to Rupert every week, with news of Lucy, gleaned secondhand from Vanessa or Simon, and of the grandparents in Cornwall, who, her grandmother reported, were “managing very well with an elderly gray donkey.” Without these things Clarry would have been stuck for much cheerfulness to put into her letters. There was no Cornish holiday that year, and it was a relief to Clarry when the new school term began in September. The war news was dark and there seemed nothing they could do to help. Miss Vane knitted feverishly, and when she wasn’t knitting she was busy at a Red Cross center, packing parcels to go abroad. Mrs. Morgan found a job in a munitions factory, cooking in the canteen. She still appeared occasionally however: she turned up one afternoon when Vanessa happened to be visiting.
“Oh, what bliss to see you!” exclaimed Vanessa, whom Mrs. Morgan always filled with a hilarious joy. “How are you, Mrs. M.? Are you very busy?”
“I’ll give you Mrs. M., my fine lady!” said Mrs. Morgan. “And yes, I’m busy, but in the wrong place. I’m not suited at all in that canteen. I’d rather be filling shells.”
“Perhaps you soon will be,” said Clarry comfortingly.
“I’d better be,” said Mrs. Morgan. “And if it’s not soon it will be never at all. If you ask me it’s only a matter of weeks before the whole place goes bang!”
“Then you should stay safe where you are!” said Vanessa.
“If it goes, it goes,” said Mrs. Morgan philosophically. “Canteen’s attached, so it would make no difference. Mr. Morgan’s in the thick of it, stacking and crating.”
“Poor Mr. Morgan!”
“He’s having a high old time,” said Mrs. Morgan, sniffing. “All those young women that’s there, it’s one long party for him! And how’s your blessed father, Clarry? Still full of the joys of spring?”
“He’s very well, thank you,” said Clarry cautiously. “I don’t see him often. He mostly goes out for supper. I can’t seem to cook the sort of food that he likes.”
“None of us can cook the sort of food that we like these days,” observed Mrs. Morgan severely. “And what about your own meals?”
“We have hot dinners at school,” said Clarry, “so it doesn’t matter so much about me.”
“I thought so!” said Mrs. Morgan, diving into her shopping bag. “Sausage rolls!” she added triumphantly, producing a paper-wrapped bundle. “They was left over at the canteen, being a bit darker than people like. Now don’t go wasting them! I daresay your friend gets fed at her hospital. . . .”
“I do, I do,” agreed Vanessa. “Smoked salmon one day, roast beef the next, ice cream and trifle puddings . . .”
Mrs. Morgan gave her a look as if to say, Just as I expected.
“Well, then, you put them by, Clarry,” she ordered, “and later on you can hot one up and have it with a cup of tea. If your young man turns up you should give him one too; he looks like he could do with a bit of meat on him. All bones, if you don’t mind me saying! Now what?”
“My young man?” asked Clarry, outraged, while Vanessa spluttered with laughter.
“Now don’t go all coy on me,” said Mrs. Morgan briskly. “You’re growing up, no use pretending! I was your age when I first met Mr. M. and I never looked back!”
“Juliet was only fourteen,” agreed Vanessa, solemnly. “But who is Clarry’s hungry young man? Do you mean Simon, Mrs. M.? Simon the Bony One? My brother, Simon? Clarry, you could have said!”
“I misremembered he was your brother,” said Mrs. Morgan crossly. “Yes, him. What other young men do we ever see here? The one she took off to Cornwall, with never a word to her father! Not that I blame her there!”
“How did you know about that?” demanded Clarry, still recovering from “your young man” and “Clarry, you could have said!”
“Little bird told me,” said Mrs. Morgan. “Scraggy old bird what lives opposite and watches every movement in the street! And what did your father say when you came back from your jaunt?”
“It wasn’t a jaunt,” said Clarry indignantly. “It was something I had to do for Rupert. Simon helped me. So did Grandmother. And I don’t think Father even noticed I’d gone.”
“He notices your young man, though,” said Mrs. Morgan, “and he makes no effort to chase him away. My old dad was the same. Glad to get me off his hands. ‘The sooner the better,’ that was what my dad said, and if you ask me, yours’ll be much t
he same!”
“Mine too!” said Vanessa cheerfully.
“I don’t doubt it,” said Mrs. Morgan, picking up her shopping bag and hitching it onto her elbow. “Well, I must be off. Should we not all be blown sky-high, I’ll be back on Monday for the laundry, Clarry love.”
For the sake of the “Clarry love,” and just in case she was blown sky-high, Clarry forgave her and went with her to the front door.
“Thank you so much for the sausage rolls.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I hope the factory stays safe!”
“What will be will be! There’s your old dicky bird, twitching at her window again!”
Clarry waved to Miss Vane, hugged Mrs. Morgan, and went back inside to Vanessa, who said with unusual seriousness, “Are you really so fond of my bony brother, Clarry? If so, may I murmur a few words of gentle warning?”
“I don’t need any gentle warnings, thank you very much!”
“All right, all right, we’ll change the subject! Let’s have something to eat before I go. Not the sacred sausage rolls! I brought cheese. Hospital cheese, very nutritious. We make it into sandwiches and fry ’em in the starving watches of the night.”
“I thought you were all stuffed with salmon and beef and ice cream!”
“I wish. As it is, we are practically vegetarian. Come on, Clarry! Food, before I keel over. Then I must go. I only meant to stop for a minute to check you were all right. I haven’t seen you since Southampton. Promise you’re not falling in love with Simon!”
“Oh Vanessa! First Mrs. Morgan and now you! You needn’t worry. Do you really think I’ve fallen in love with Simon? I just like him. I like him so much; he’s so kind and he tries so hard. We’re friends.”
“Good,” said Vanessa. “I love you liking him! He needs people to like him. He’s hardly ever happy, poor Bony One.”
“He was happy rescuing Lucy from under Grandfather’s nose.”
“Yes, he told me. He does tell me things sometimes. I’m sorry, Clarry. I was interfering with my gentle warnings! I was being like Matron when she tells me things for my own good, about nice girls not needing lipstick, and not getting fond of patients. And about my voice . . .”
“What about it?”
“It gets loud, she says. And loud is vulgar! Does it get loud?”
“Hardly ever.”
“Ha!” said Vanessa. “You too! Never mind, tell me, how is darling school? Do they miss me? Have I been mentioned in Those in Our Thoughts Today?”
“Of course. ‘Let us hold in our thoughts today Vanessa Bonnington. Loud and vulgar but very much missed.’ ”
Vanessa burst out laughing, and then said, “You love it, don’t you, Clarry? School? More than I ever did.”
“Yes, I do,” said Clarry, her face suddenly bright. “I really do. It gets better and better and better!”
Twenty-One
IN CORNWALL, CLARRY HAD FOUND one world of freedom; at school she found another, equally exhilarating. It had the added advantage that she never had to leave it behind; she carried it around in armloads of books. Up in her room she would pile them onto her bed, and curl beside them to read. She slept with them within reach, comforting, solid companions that would see her through the night.
Nothing about school dismayed her. The cold classrooms and the constant demands for quietness which other girls complained about, did not bother her at all. Her home, with its clammy rooms and long silences, made school cheerful in comparison.
Best of all, she had found that she had a brain. A good, quick brain that could see patterns in math and links in history, was entranced by science, and was getting faster and faster at decoding Latin and French. When Peter came home at Christmas and inspected her work he nodded with satisfaction.
“It was you who started me off,” said Clarry, and saw for a moment the secret, hidden Peter, eyes gleaming with pride in their joint success.
“Has Father said anything?” he asked.
“What about?”
“You. School. What you will do afterward.”
“No,” said Clarry, but something in the way she spoke made Peter say, “Somebody has!”
“Yes,” admitted Clarry. “When I got moved up faster than the rest.”
“Did you?”
“Twice, at the beginning. And last year I won a little shield for Student of the Year.”
“Go on.”
“Well, you know how the head invites people to her study?”
“No.”
“For tea. And to talk. When I went I told her about you going to Oxford. . . .”
“If I get a scholarship!”
“You will. And she said that I should think about it too.”
“Your Head thinks you could get an Oxford scholarship?” asked Peter, and then a moment later, he said slowly, “She’s right. You could get an Oxford scholarship.”
“Not for years, though.”
“Well, you need years!” said Peter robustly. “You’re nowhere near yet! And it would be worth it. It would get you out of this place one day, wouldn’t it?” They were in the sitting room, every year more faded and unwelcoming.
“Father doesn’t notice it, I don’t think,” said Clarry. “He’s out so much I hardly see him. But if I didn’t have school to go to, I don’t think I could bear it here. I’ll have to do something when I leave. I was thinking of Vanessa and her hospital but she pretended to be much older than she was to get in. I don’t think I could do that. I don’t look grown-up.”
“You don’t have to look grown-up to go to Oxford. You just have to have brains. Do you ever see Vanessa?”
“Yes, once I went to Southampton and she comes quite often if she’s visiting the cottage. She’s not supposed to do, but she borrows her dad’s car. She makes Mrs. Morgan laugh, and even Father smiles sometimes.”
“Does she ever . . .” Peter picked up a book and began turning the pages very rapidly. “Does she ever ask about . . . anyone?”
“She asks about everyone,” Clarry told him sturdily. “You and me. Simon, if he’s been here, Rupert, of course, and what he’s doing . . . you know, in France.”
“Belgium,” said Peter.
“Is he?”
“Must be. I hate my leg. Don’t say, ‘Does it hurt?’ It serves me right if it hurts. I’m a coward.”
“Peter, you are not!”
“I tell people I fell. I don’t tell them how!”
“It wasn’t your fault!”
“Of course it was! I jumped off a train to get out of school. What would Vanessa say if she knew that?”
“You told Simon, so perhaps she already does. She wouldn’t say you were a coward anyway! How could you have known there would be a war?”
“I wish I could do something to help.”
“Vanessa helps. I think that’s how she stays so happy. She talks about terrible things, awful injuries, and then she tells me about people who get better. And she has fun. She loves it.”
“Dancing,” said Peter gloomily, glaring at his leg.
“Lots of things. She’s either terrifically busy or falling asleep and she smells all the time of carbolic soap. Last time she was here Father said, ‘Good God, what is that appalling smell?’ and Vanessa said, ‘Darling, it’s meeee!’ and laughed and laughed.”
“What did Father do?”
“Oh, he just went away as fast as he could.”
“Typical,” grunted Peter. “Clarry, is there any food? I’m starving! I should like bacon and sausages and grilled tomatoes! All right! You needn’t laugh. I know it will just be toast!”
“It won’t! We have sausage rolls!” said Clarry jubilantly. “From Mrs. Morgan’s munitions canteen! She’s been keeping me supplied with them, every time a batch gets burnt! She came yesterday and brought some more. Come into the kitchen! There are six. Shall we hot them up or eat them like they are?”
“One each as they are now, two more hotted up. I haven’t had anything to eat all day,
and then it was only porridge.”
“One each hotted up,” said Clarry firmly. “I’m keeping two for Father. Toast and apples afterward, and there’s a pot of honey I’ve been saving. A patient gave it to Vanessa and she gave it to . . .”
“Me,” Clarry had been about to say, but changed it to “us” and saw her brother’s face brighten briefly and then grow somber again as he said, “I’ve got to plan what to do after school. I used to think if I could, I’d go to Oxford and study natural sciences, but how will that help anyone?” He got up from the table suddenly and began pacing and rubbing at his leg. “It cramps,” he said apologetically. “It never mended properly. It was badly set.”
Clarry had learned that saying “Poor old Peter” only aggravated him, so instead she asked something she had been saving for a long time to talk about when they were safely alone.
“Can I show you a picture I found in the old dictionary?”
“What sort of picture?”
“A photograph. Wait!”
Ever since she had found the dictionary, Clarry had hardly let it out of her sight. Now she produced it from her schoolbag, carefully unwrapping it from a piece of brown paper. “I’ve been wanting to show you for ages,” she said. “Only I’ve been so afraid it would make you sad. Look!”
Peter took the little picture, stared in disbelief, turned it over, read the back, and then, to Clarry’s great relief, laughed in delight.
“That’s her! I remember! That’s just how I remember! How brilliant, Clarry! Doesn’t she look like you?”
“That’s what Vanessa said.”
“You showed it to Vanessa?”
“Yes, that time I went to Southampton. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. But why?”
Rather hesitantly at first, Clarry told him about Mrs. Morgan, and her description of their mother’s illness, and how afterward she, Clarry, had needed to talk to someone who would understand, because all her life it had been dreadful, believing—
