The First Book of Calamity Leek

by Paula Lichtarowicz

  ‘Naturally, a southerly aspect would have been preferable,’ Aunty said, heading to the glass wall that opened onto the viewing balcony, and snatching the telescope from its hook by the communicating microphone. ‘Face the meadow, catch the evening sun and so on. But mustn’t grumble, apple crumble, we make the best of what we have.’

  The rain had stopped. I could see my white-scarved sisters down in the Icebergs, crawling about like new-hatched maggots, snipping off deadheads and harvesting the year’s last blooms into barrows. A most perfect view, it really was.

  Aunty swung the telescope down. ‘I make that eight. Plus two in the kitchen with the lunatic, and Nancy with the pigs. One in the mending room, the most efficient Pontefracts with the second-winders, you up here. I think that’s all our little piggies safe in the bank. Excellent, we can all relax.’

  Aunty turned and pointed at one of the chairs. ‘That one there will do you nicely,’ and she took the Appendix off me and went to the table and opened it up. ‘My it’s getting hefty! That’s the weight of wisdom for you!’ And she flipped the pages and sprung open the metal hoops and added a new page. ‘N for Nosiness, Calamity. I’m putting it after Nieces. Be a sweetheart and read it out twice daily for a week or so.’ Aunty snapped the metal hoops shut. ‘You’ll take some tea.’

  Aunty went off. The chair swallowed me up in softness. On three television screens on the unglassed walls, the Showreel was playing. Three perfect Operatic Opals were busy laughing and singing happy.

  Aunty came back in with a tea tray and the pink rose cups. ‘You can see what they saw in me. It’s not often a star that bright shoots along. I’ll let you into a secret, Calamity. I once understudied at the Slough Palladium. It’s common knowledge that HRH himself sent me a bouquet after that. Imagine him! Imagine that!’ Aunty sat down and poured out the tea. ‘Goodness, Calamity, just having you up here makes a person jolly, it really does.’

  She leaned over and tapped my ears. ‘And entre nous, about these danglers, don’t take it to heart. I shall make sure you’re taken care of, all the way.’

  I felt my ears starting to heat again.

  ‘You know, I always knew you were the one for me, Calamity, right from the get-go, I knew. Naturally, I adore all my nieces as equally as pennies in a pot, but sometimes with a person, there’s a certain je ne sais quoi. Affinity, I’d call it. Instant and bottomless. And when your Mother brought you in after another of her forays in the Potteries – and heavens, Calamity, you never knew what to expect when she hit the road – could be a mink, a cabbage, or a toddler – any manner of uselessness. It’s a sickness she tells me. Born of neglect, she claims. Like she’s the only one. Like we didn’t both suffer the same. But never mind, when she brought you in, all damp and pongy from the road, and I saw those ears of yours, well, right then – once I’d got over the shock, of course – right then I thought at least it’s an honest face we have here. And an honest face can be more useful than roses, can’t it, Calamity? It certainly can be a better friend.’

  My ears were about red enough to drop off now, they really were. ‘I was held by Mother?’

  ‘Such a forthright face, right from the start. And you’ve been nothing but a forthright little treasure ever since. No trouble – unlike others you and I could both mention. Anyone to mention today? Heavens, I do believe you’re blushing. Well, don’t, my treasure. Take some tea and think about it.’

  I tried hard to remember being held by Mother.

  Aunty sat back, her eye on me, and took a sip from her cup. ‘Goodness, that’s grim. Now, Calamity, I don’t mind telling you, I’m going to enhance my beverage with a little medicinal compound.’ She reached into the cushion behind her and pulled out a medicine bottle, and poured some in her tea. ‘It’s such a shame you’re too young, it really is extraordinarily efficacious – powers the neurons, brightens the eyes. It probably flattens the ears right back, who knows!’

  I looked at the bottle, all shining golden and sloshing pretty.

  ‘I expect you’re wondering what it tastes of.’

  On the television behind Aunty, her unmelted self had been winched in Cinderella’s peachy clothes and was busy being swirled senseless by a demonmale.

  ‘Go on, have a guess.’

  ‘Is it honey, Aunty?’

  ‘Interesting.’ Aunty sipped thoughtfully, ‘One might say there’s a certain hive-ish aftertaste.’ And she sipped her cup all the way down to the bottom. ‘One might say that.’ And she licked her lips and prepared herself another drink. And her eye went up and down and up from the medicine bottle to me. And Aunty leaned forward, ‘So, Calamity, what do you think?’ And she winked her eye.

  On the television, the demonmale was stepping up to seal the deal good and proper with poor Cinderella, or, how they say it so females should know to set off running, if they haven’t already started, Forever and ever OUR MEN.

  ‘Do you know what I think, Calamity? I think we’re having such fun that it would be jolly mean of me to have all this medicine on my own. I think I’d like to share it with a friend. I might just say my best friend.’

  My eyeballs stung hot as my ears at that.

  ‘Now, who do we think my bestest friend might be?’

  They started to water. I kept them watching on my rosy teacup.

  ‘My eye, what a modest little niece I have. Come now, Calamity Leek, let’s have an answer from you.’

  Loud as I dared, I whispered, ‘Is it me?’

  ‘Oh, my darling shy-but-forthright niece, yes, of course, it’s you!’

  And I could have cried a bucketful of tears at this. But I didn’t, because Aunty got busy pouring medicine into my cup. She looked at her watch. ‘We don’t have much time, I’m afraid, so drink it down quick. I’ll warn you it may taste a little grim initially, but you’ll soon get used to it. You have to be brave, Calamity Leek. Only the bravest girls get the flattest ears. Are you willing to be brave?’

  Now, happen if Aunty had said, ‘Are you willing to pop outside and jump off the viewing balcony onto yard concrete, Calamity Leek?’ I would have done it, such was the love smashing up my heart for her. But she didn’t, course. So I took up the cup and drank it down at once.

  The medicine smashed into my stomach and flipped it into a nest of spiders that came leaping back up my throat. I got my hand to my mouth and swallowed them down.

  Aunty looked at her watch and looked at me. ‘Is your head feeling a little dizzy, darling? It looks it. Tell you what, you should see how your ears are shrinking, you really should. Can you feel them?’

  ‘Every second, Aunty.’ And I really could. Every second they shrunk up smaller. And it weren’t just my ears that were busy changing, the medicine was melting every bone in me to butter.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Aunty poured more medicine into her cup. She sat back, sipping thoughtful. She looked at her watch and looked at me. ‘I’ll tell you what, though. I reckon we could get them even flatter.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Ho, ho. I reckon, Calamity, I reckon.’

  So Aunty poured me another cup – of purest medicine this time, because she said tea would only get in the way. On the screen, her Cinderella self was back at the start of the Showreel. Happy and demonmaleless, she was sweeping a kitchen floor and wearing a comfy smock. Two big sisters watched on lovingly, sharpening their knives.

  My stomach flipped over at the smell of this cup, but Aunty twisted tight on my nose and held my jaw until it all stayed down. She clapped and said my ears sure were flatter than a worm’s, and that was a clear medi­cinal triumph, and we just had to wait a bit for the full effect. And she found herself a cream pot under the chair and started coating up her fingers. I hiccuped and was about to say I was pleased to hear it, when I heard myself moan instead. See, right then, the sitting room spun about, and Aunty’s fingers turned to rose stalks, and her empty socket popped out a new eyeball. But that weren’t just it. ‘Aunty, the medicine has turned my tongue into a fish.
’

  ‘That’s excellent news,’ Aunty said.

  I tried to lift my sorry flopping tongue to say, ‘It is?’

  ‘Oh yes, it is. And I know just the cure.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘A talking cure, niece. If you talk long enough, we’ll have you restored in no time at all. Remembering is best. Things that have happened recently. And mind you tell the truth and nothing but the truth, otherwise you’ll spawn fishy babies in your belly that will burst out and kill you. You’ll start by telling me everything you know about Truly’s transgression of Garden rules. Now, did she say whether she managed to climb high enough to see anything outside the Wall?’

  And that is about all I remember of sitting in Aunty’s High Hut.

  Yes, it is.

  TALKING WORDS

  ‘MOTHER,’ I SAY.

  ‘I never forgot you,’ Mrs Waverley says. Her hand comes for mine before I can shift it off me.

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ Doctor Andrea Doors says. ‘That’s really wonderful, Calamity.’

  But it ain’t, course. There ain’t nothing wonderful in this female’s grip.

  THE NEXT DAY

  ‘I NEVER GAVE up hoping,’ Mrs Waverley says, throwing out her hand.

  ‘Aunty Ophelia Swindon,’ I say, keeping my own hands under my bottom.

  ‘Every day I, I, I—’ Mrs Waverley says.

  ‘Easy now, Mrs Waverley,’ Doctor Andrea Doors says. ‘Deep steady breaths.’

  ‘I-I-I thought about you every single day.’

  ‘Anything else, Calamity?’ Doctor Andrea Doors says when Mrs Waverley has dried up. ‘Anything else you’d like to say?’

  I think I would like to say, ‘Where is Jane Jones? Tell me what has been done to her. Is she still protected, or has she been taken, like every female is taken in the end? Where is she? It’s been three days.’

  I would like to say this. But I don’t.

  THE DAY AFTER THAT

  ‘MARIA LIPHOOK, SANDRA Saffron Walden, Dorothy Macclesfield, Annie St Albans, Truly Polperro, Nancy Nunhead, Mary Bootle, Eliza Aberdeen, Evita Thrupp, Millie Gatwick, Odette Pontefract, Odile Pontefract, Fantine Welshpool, Cinderella Galashiels, Adelaide Worthing, Toddler Thurrock, Toddler Pease Pottage, Toddler Gordano, Toddler Gretna Green, Toddler Watford Gap, Toddler South Mimms, Baby Sainsbury’s,’ I say.

  Mrs Waverley says nothing.

  Doctor Andrea Doors says nothing.

  I think I hear a Bootling scream. It might be six walls off. It might be more.

  ‘Mary Bootle!’ I shout. ‘Supercalifragilistic—’ I shout.

  Mary doesn’t expialidocious.

  Mrs Waverley starts to drip into a tissue.

  Doctor Andrea Doors says nothing.

  ‘All right,’ I say. ‘Where is Jane Jones? What have you done to her?’

  Doctor Andrea Doors looks at me. ‘I think Nurse Jones is taking some time off this week. So you’re interested in Nurse Jones, Calamity? I’m interested in that.’

  I think I will pop myself under the sheet now.

  Shrouded up in peace and quiet, I move my potted toes about and flex my throttling fingers in and out to fifty. I think about Jane Jones. If one of His army overheard us talking, and something bad has happened to her – which now looks sad but likely – seems I must get back to preparing for War on my own. I must not waste any more days. No, I must not.

  THE DAY AFTER THE DAY AFTER THAT

  ‘CALAMITY, CAN YOU hear me in there?’ Your voice presses up to my sheeted ear, ‘It’s Andrea Doors. Please could you come out, there’s something important I need to talk to you about.’

  Well, I might come out, Doctor Andrea Doors, but if I do, I ain’t playing at talking in turns no more. Sorry, no. Still no Jane Jones about, so care needs taking. If I come out now, it is only to keep an eye on you. That is all it is. My eye, it is.

  ‘Thank you,’ you say. You are sitting by my bed with a smile fixed neat on your mouth. ‘We’ve made some good progress these past few days, don’t you think, Calamity? You’ve been such a brave girl since you’ve been here. So I’m just wondering how brave you’re feeling today?’

  Course, I ain’t being fishhooked to speaking easy as that.

  ‘So, Calamity, what do you think?’

  No, I am not.

  ‘I’m asking because there’s someone Mrs Waverley would like you to meet. Someone who loves you very much, and who has been waiting to see you for a very long time. Now, I want you to remember you’re perfectly safe. I’m not leaving, and this person is not going to come anywhere near you, they’d just like to pop inside the room for a few moments. So what do you think to that? It’s all right to say no, Calamity.’

  Well, I shut my eyes tight, and I don’t move one bone in my body to say, ‘Yes, all right then, Doctor Andrea Doors.’

  But never mind me, because you’re saying, ‘OK, Mrs Waverley, but just as we agreed – inside the door, absolutely no further.’

  So Mrs Waverley is ripping her bottom off the chair and clomping to the door, and the door is opening, and I can feel the air in the room shuffling round a new breath.

  I pull the sheet over my head to wait till it’s gone.

  I wait.

  I wait a bit more.

  Course, the only reason I pop an eye out of the sheet is to see if it’s gone. That’s the only reason I do it.

  Except it hasn’t, has it? No, it is standing over the lump of Mrs Waverley, gripping her shoulders, four steps away from me. Its mouth is black and hairy. Its ears are square and red. It sees my eye popping out of the sheet, and its arms fly out at me.

  ‘Oh my—’ it whispers. ‘Oh my—’

  It is the demonmale. Come out of my dreams for me.

  And there ain’t no sheet going to stop a demonmale. There is only one thing for it.

  I kick off the sheet and I jump off the bed to make a run for it out the window.

  Only I come off something crooked, and my potted leg goes crunch on the floor, and everything else goes black.

  A PIG IN A BARROW

  ‘CLAM! CLAM, WAKE up!’

  ‘Are you a fish too, Truly?’

  ‘Clam, it ain’t Truly, it’s Millie, Millie Gatwick. Clam, you’ve got to wake up and get in this barrow if you ain’t for walking. It’s Emily’s birthday, and we’re doing a pig and everything.’

  ‘You ain’t a fish, Truly?’

  ‘Mind my smock, Clam! In the bucket, Clam, oh please puke in the bucket! You got took sick at Aunty’s. But hurry up, will you, because Mother’s coming for it, Clam, we’re doing a pig for her, and Aunty says she is sure and certain coming!’

  EMILY

  NOW TRULY POLPERRO was still not certified dead when Emily came to the Sacred Lawn for her birthday party that afternoon. Matter of fact, for most of the afternoon, Truly was alive, and lying quiet as a fish in her barrow next to mine.

  But you probably don’t want to hear about poor old Truly just yet. Not on Emily’s birthday. So let me tell you about my sisters, who were standing in line, neat as a fence, facing the empty plinth in the middle of the Lawn. My sisters, with vinegar-rinsed hair and painted eyes, and their toes pressed against presents in soft Lawn grass. Never mind that I was puking in a bucket, in a barrow next to Truly’s barrow. Never mind that we were both parked up down by the toddlers’ trolleys, on the most important day of the year. Never mind all that if you can, because eleven of my sisters were rose-scented and looking, just like Aunty said, ‘Hot to trot and market-ready in every way.’

  Danny Zuko waited on the butching sheet, shuffling his piglet thighs in readiness. Aunty waited in a shiny red cloak by the empty plinth in the middle of the Lawn, a chimney pot hat jammed on two yellow plaits that stuck out like broke chicken legs. Maria Liphook waited, grub hunting under the southern Crèmes. And up above us, heavy-bottomed clouds waited, stacking themselves protective across the sky.

  Aunty straightened her hat. ‘Wherever is she?’

  A screeching sound
started up in the yew path north of the Lawn.

  ‘There she is,’ Aunty said. ‘ETA – thirty seconds. Voices at the ready.’ Aunty swiped Mr Stick along our line, ‘A-one, a-two, a-one-two-three and—’

  We’re leaning on a lamppost, at the corner of the street, we sang –

  In case a certain little lady comes by.

  ‘Belt it out!’ Aunty yelled, Oh me! Oh my! I hope that little lady comes by!

  And we did belt it out, and Mother did come. Her electric chair screeched through the northern Crèmes and bounced onto the Lawn. It skidded down to the empty plinth and died. And Mother plugged her ears and waited for us to finish up singing.

  Course, you’re wanting to know how she looked, aren’t you? Well, all wrapped up in black blankets, Mother sat skinnier in that chair than any of us sisters. Her head was shawled in black, though one or two Heavenly hairs poked through. She wore black glasses on her face to shield her Heavenly eyes from us, but stretching down to her chin, for us all to see, were two plates of skin – pure and wither­proof as washed bone. There was her teensy mouth and her shrunk-up nose – she had all that like normal females – but it was that cheek skin I always kept my eye on. And I’ll tell you this for nothing, that was Heaven-grown skin, right there.

  We finished off her song and saluted, Aunty curtseyed and Mother unplugged her ears.

  ‘Miss Swindon,’ Mother said – and I don’t mind telling you her voice was purer than kettle steam screeching off to Heaven – ‘one will never understand this insistence on inflicting these common chorus-line caterwaulings on one’s ears. One feels one should not have to persist in reminding you, an army is forged from steel not sentiment.’

  Aunty stood up from her curtsey and threw a kiss at the air near Mother’s cheek, ‘Forgive me, Gennie darling, old habits.’