Love to Everyone

by Hilary McKay

  “ ‘Oh, Danny boy,’ ” sang Rupert, “ ‘the pipes, the pipes are calling from glen to glen . . .’ ” This song had been the best of all to rouse Michael. He turned scarlet with rage at the first syllable of “Danny”; you might as well have set fire to his bed to see him move. It had been a guaranteed crowd-pleaser; people used to come running to witness the redheaded Irish temper at its uncontrolled worst.

  “ ‘And down the mountain side,’ ” sang Rupert, quavering deliberately on the long notes, and was ordered from all round to “Shut it, just shut it.” “Shut it you fool.” “Rosy, you’re drunk. Just shut it, now, all right?”

  So he did. Michael hadn’t come running anyway. First time it hadn’t worked. Very odd.

  “This is all a dream?” he asked a stranger he found standing by his shoulder as they set off toward the front, and was reassured to hear that he was right.

  Thirty-Eight

  RUPERT WOKE UP TO BRIGHT blue sky, a feeling of warmth and comfort, and such a fuzzy head that for several minutes he could not imagine where he was.

  And then, like light flashing into his delighted consciousness, he remembered.

  Cornwall!

  For a few minutes he lay quite still, dazzled by the wonder of it. He was free. No more idiots bossing him about. No more sniveling youngsters, tagging after him with frightened eyes, needing a hero to look out for them. No more mud, no more itchy uniform, no more of never a moment alone.

  He was back in Cornwall at last.

  The first day of the holidays; there’d be a train to meet in the afternoon, Clarry with her face all shining, jumping into his arms. There’d be Peter and Lucy and hugs and jokes and laughter, there’d be days and days and days of utter perfection.

  He’d forgotten that skies could be so blue.

  Not a cloud.

  He’d go swimming.

  The glorious race across the moor, the brambles that caught at your ankles, the gorse bushes you dodged, and the boggy patches you leaped—had he ever run it so fast before? Already he could hear the rush of waves against the cliff, and the screaming of the white gulls, and off went his jacket and shirt, and was that the key to the cricket pavilion dangling round his neck? Didn’t need that, didn’t need boots either, didn’t need any of this stuff anymore, and even the sound of Clarry’s bullocks, got loose again and lumbering up behind him, didn’t frighten him in the least because here was the cliff dipping down to the sea.

  Time to leap.

  Over.

  When you enlisted you had to give your next of kin, name and address. These were the people who would be given news of your death. Rupert had hesitated for a moment over this. His useless parents were in India, which left either his grandparents, or Clarry and Peter and their father. His grandparents, at the time he enlisted, had thought him a fool and told him so.

  Penrose, Rupert had written, and then the address of the narrow stone house where his cousins lived. He had no intention of dying, so he didn’t think it would matter much anyway.

  Thirty-Nine

  MISS VANE WAS THE ONLY person with Clarry when the telegram arrived. It was Miss Vane who took it from her hand, wrapped her in a blanket, brought her tea, clattering in its saucer because her hands were trembling, and stayed with her when her father, arriving home to the news, rubbed his neck, said not a word of either comfort or regret, stared out of the window, and disappeared.

  Missing, said the telegram, and also, Presumed dead.

  Snow-cold shock held Clarry motionless, silenced every sound, faded the colors to shades of gray, and diminished her to a fragment of nothingness, a small lost point, rocking in an endless darkness of space.

  And then a sound penetrated, as if from another world, and it was Miss Vane’s cracked, exhausted, quavering voice. “There may be hope, there may still be hope.”

  Clarry found that she could turn her head, and there was poor Miss Vane, looking utterly tear washed, her powder all streaked into mauve and gray, her hair a fallen heap, her eyes pink and alarmed as sugar mice, and yet she was saying again, “All hope is not lost, dear,” and Clarry realized that all the time she had sat in her frozen immobility, Miss Vane had been talking, and she, it seemed, had been answering, because they appeared to be halfway through a conversation.

  “. . . home to my cats . . . then we will think. . . . Many wonderful and astonishing things happen when we least expect them. . . .”

  If shock had been cold, hope was warm. Hope brought Clarry back to life, her blood running again, her courage returning. By the time Miss Vane returned from feeding her cats Clarry was back to herself again and a rhythm like a heartbeat was bumping through her mind: Wonderful and astonishing, wonderful and astonishing, wonderful and astonishing.

  “ ‘Missing,’ ” said Clarry to Miss Vane when she returned. “That’s all we know is true. ‘Presumed dead’ doesn’t mean anything. Not if you don’t presume it.”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” agreed Miss Vane. “We must be patient and believe that one day the dear boy may—”

  “No, we mustn’t!” interrupted Clarry. “You said all hope wasn’t lost, and perhaps it isn’t. And that many wonderful and astonishing things happen and I think they sometimes do, but not in this house.”

  “No,” agreed Miss Vane, startled, but understanding. “Not in this house.”

  “But somewhere else they might,” said Clarry. “There are hospitals in France and in England. There are some in Southampton. That’s where I’ll begin. ‘Presumed’! ” continued Clarry, looking fearlessly at the telegram. “It means they don’t know. If I was writing it, I’d put, ‘Missing, presumed alive’!”

  “You would be quite right!” agreed Miss Vane, finding such bravery contagious.

  “Peter had a train timetable in his room. I’ve been looking up trains. There’s one in an hour. You needn’t worry, Miss Vane. I’ll be quite safe.”

  But Miss Vane lifted her head at this, and her eyes were no longer either pink or alarmed. They were as bright as Clarry’s and she said that she wouldn’t worry, and would be quite sure Clarry was safe, and the reason she gave was that she was coming as well, to deal with porters, or take care of luggage, even to speak French, if necessary, and she finished this declaration with a hug and “Please do not argue,” and so Clarry hugged her back, and didn’t.

  There were bags to pack and money to find. Also messages to be written by Miss Vane to Mrs. Morgan, Clarry’s father, and Violet, now a trusted member of the Red Cross group. These messages consisted of triplicate instructions for the care of Miss Vane’s cats. Each included descriptions of how to deal with the beast heart in the icebox, the individual names of the cats, and a discreet but urgent reference to the “earth box” in the scullery. Mrs. Morgan and Violet were instructed to “obtain the door key entrusted to Mr. Penrose at number forty-six.” The door key was carefully labeled. Mrs. Morgan’s and Violet’s letters were stamped and posted, along with Clarry’s far briefer message to Peter:

  R missing, am sure not dead. Take care of Father.

  Much love, C

  All these things Clarry and Miss Vane managed with miraculous speed. In less than an hour they were out in the street with their bags, and suddenly good luck was with them. Mr. King and his black and white horse Jester appeared round the corner.

  One glance at their faces told him that this was no time for trading insults with Miss Vane. With the utmost gentleness and discretion he offered his assistance in any way they cared to name.

  So their journey began as honored passengers in a rag-and-bone cart, Clarry in the back, and Miss Vane on the seat beside Mr. King, where she had a cheering view of Jester’s black and white rump and intelligently swiveling ears.

  “I fear I have misjudged you far too long, Mr. King,” said Miss Vane earnestly. “I can only apologize and try to assure you that I only ever had Clarry’s interests at heart.”

  “Say not a word,” replied Mr. King, pulling off his hat and holding i
t to his chest. “I should have shown more respect. Now I can see that you are one in a million. I’m glad to do my bit to help and I wish it was more.”

  Then silently, and with great furtiveness and glances over his shoulder, he replaced his hat, drew an old black wallet from its snug pocket over his heart, took from it three warm and well folded notes, all the paper it contained, pushed them into Miss Vane’s hands, and murmured once more, “Say not a word!”

  Miss Vane could not speak at all, such were her sudden tears, but when they were over, her old distrust of Mr. King was completely gone. With no encouragement, she recklessly confided her great concern for her cats, which despite the three sets of instructions, she found already gnawed at her soul.

  “The whole arrangement depends,” explained Miss Vane earnestly, “on whether or not Mr. Penrose will be available to supply my key. Owing to his work, he is seldom at home. And even if he is, I cannot imagine either he or Violet coping with the beast heart properly, and none of them managing the . . . the . . . arrangement in the scullery on which my oldest cat depends.”

  Mr. King said that he well understood, that his old mother had never been without a cat in all her long years, and that he and Jester always had one, knocking about the stable.

  “Company, like,” said Mr. King.

  “Indeed, yes,” agreed Miss Vane, and by the end of the journey her spare back door key was in his pocket and he was helping her down, unloading the bags, and swinging Clarry over the back.

  “Now, then, ladies, good luck and God bless!” he told them, and a moment later was up on the cart again.

  “Lively, Jester!” they heard, and saw his hat wave as he turned the corner.

  “Clarry, that is a very dear man,” said Miss Vane, gazing after him.

  “Yes,” agreed Clarry. “It is.”

  Forty

  SIMON AND VANESSA’S FATHER, WHOM Clarry had named Odysseus, had not been a good prisoner. He found prison camp life uncomfortable and boring and he didn’t enjoy eating rats. So he and some friends dug a tunnel beside the latrines, and one happy morning they allowed it to be discovered, and while it was being thoroughly and indignantly explored they rolled, one by one, under a section of loosened wire, whispered “Good luck!” to each other, and set off to see what would happen next.

  Odysseus made it to the coast, and followed it west through the countryside, traveling mostly by night. In a few days he came to a fishing port, hid under a pile of nets in a boat, and was well on the way to Greece when they discovered him and dropped him over the side to swim. The stars were bright and lovely, and being a sailor, he was used to navigating at night, and so he set off across the Aegean, and presently the sun rose and he saw a long cloud, with a coastline below it, and knew he had nearly reached Greece.

  Odysseus had been to Greece many times, sailed the coast and climbed the hills and danced at the festivals, so he paused there to dry out for a while. He was aided by the kindness of a family, who accepted his help with their grapes and olive trees, and in return gave him a home. They became such friends that it was hard to leave them. Still, he had to go and he promised to return, so one day they waved him good-bye on a fishing boat with a big red sail and a little boy and a man with a broken arm. The red-sailed boat ran so beautifully for him that he might have known her all his life. They fished for three days and three nights, and on the fourth day they took him farther west. They dropped him off at a harbor where the water was as clear as glass. Just as he arrived a very small boy went scampering along the harbor wall and tumbled off into the sea. Odysseus dived in after him and got him out and then sat him on his shoulder and carried him to his father. The boy’s father took Odysseus home for a lot of dinner with grilled fish and bread and tomatoes and pale cheese and dark red wine. With these, and many other adventures, Odysseus passed through the pearly, light-dancing, sea-swirling land of Greece, and then over the Mediterranean in a cargo ship to Spain. Traveling through Spain was not easy, but still better than the prison camp where he might yet have been deciding whether the rat for dinner should be boiled or roasted. Eventually, with the help of some Gypsies who knew the same songs as him, Odysseus arrived in Gibraltar, which seemed practically next door to home. He would have written from there to England, but there happened to be a ship sailing that night whose captain had known him twenty years before, when they were both very young and often seasick. It was too good a chance to waste, so Odysseus didn’t wait, but went aboard and shared the captain’s cabin, all the way to Southampton.

  Odysseus, after disembarking with two borrowed five-pound notes in his pockets and a promise to meet his friend again at the Duke of Wellington on Bugle Street as soon as the blasted war was over, thought, I wonder if my Vanessa is still at that hospital?

  So he went to see, and she was.

  Forty-One

  THE RETURN OF ODYSSEUS TO his loving family could not have been better timed for Clarry and Miss Vane. When they arrived in Southampton they found Vanessa (who was very like him) in a mood to believe that anything was possible. Such was her elation that, unlike Clarry, she ignored the second half of the telegram from the start.

  “Missing! Missing!” exclaimed Vanessa. “Rupert missing! Rubbish! What does that even mean? Hello, Miss Vane, I didn’t see you there! How darling of you to come! Go on about Rupert! I’ve got news for you too, but it’ll wait.”

  “I told you, we had a telegram, early this afternoon. I had to come away. You know what Father’s like, and the house . . . it’s a hopeless house . . . anyway, I couldn’t bear doing nothing and neither could Miss Vane.”

  “So you took to your heels? I would have done too.”

  “I thought straightaway of hospitals, and you.”

  “Does Peter know?”

  “No yet. He will tomorrow; I wrote. You don’t mind us coming, do you?”

  “Of course I don’t mind! Come to our little staff room! It’s a hovel, but never mind. Tell me more, and tell it quickly because I have to be on duty very soon. Whoops! Don’t sit on that cup, Miss Vane! No one has time to wash up.”

  “Vanessa, we’d have heard if he was taken prisoner, but could he be in hospital, and no one knowing his name?”

  “Well . . .” Vanessa hesitated. “Well, Clarry darling, we usually do know their names at least, if not where they’ve come from. But . . . oh, Miss Vane, you don’t have to do that! The sink’s piled! There are dozens . . . well, you’re an angel, that’s all! ‘Missing’ is so vague, Clarry! But what do they really know? Remember when they told us my dad was a prisoner? That wasn’t true for long!”

  “Wasn’t it? What have you heard, Vanessa?”

  “He wasn’t a prisoner for five minutes!” said Vanessa triumphantly. “I’ve been bursting to tell you! I saw him off on the train to Mummy this morning! Tiddly as a fish!”

  “He’s back? Oh, how wonderful!”

  “Escaped, just like we knew he would. Came back through Greece and the Med. Had a wonderful time. So you see!”

  “Yes, I do! Vanessa, listen! You know thousands of people in hospitals. . . .”

  “Hundreds,” said Vanessa modestly.

  “Ask them, and ask them to ask their friends, and ask their friends to ask their friends two things. I’ve worked it out.”

  “Go on!”

  “Have they ever, in say the last month, heard of anyone in a military hospital whose name isn’t known? And, has anyone heard about Rupert? Rupert Penrose. I’ve written down the last address I had, and his regiment and number and anything I could think of that might be useful. He started off in a Devon battalion but then he changed a year or more ago.”

  “I’ll ask people, Clarry.”

  “And I need a list of military hospitals where he might have been sent. But, Vanessa, what if he’s still in France, too ill to move?”

  “Well,” said Vanessa sensibly. “He’ll still be taken care of. And as soon as they can, he’ll be sent over here.”

  Miss Vane, enterprisingly dryi
ng teacups on her handkerchief, looked around to say, “Families of very sick soldiers are invited over to France if they can travel. The Red Cross arranges it.”

  “But if he was in hospital anywhere you’d have been told,” said Vanessa. “Unless he was too ill to talk and had lost his ID. I suppose in that case he might easily not have reached England yet. They have to be stable enough for the journey before they’re sent back home.”

  “Then we need to ask the French hospitals too.”

  “Clarry, do you know how many hospitals there are in France and Belgium?”

  “No.”

  “There must be a hundred. Base hospitals, where they’re brought from the field stations, before they get here. You’d never manage it, you’d need a passport, and if you did, you’d never get round a tenth of them.”

  “I know, but I could write. And if I heard anything, work out a way to get there. And meanwhile there’s still the hospitals here.”

  “I wish I could go overseas,” said Vanessa. “I applied, as soon as Simon went. They won’t let me, though. You have to be twenty-three and they check! Now, listen, Clarry, promise me something. You mustn’t tell Simon about Rupert being missing!”

  “I’ve been worrying about that too.”

  “He couldn’t bear it. He’d believe the worst. I’ll do anything I can to help you, as long as you don’t tell Simon. Promise?”