Private - Keep Out!

by Gwen Grant

  ‘But what about the ghost?’ I yelled and she said, ‘Oh, I don’t think that’ll bother you any more,’ and she shouted to our Lucy and told her to sit with me, and our Lucy moaned and groaned and said, ‘Rotten little thing,’ and our Mam heard her and rattled her one. So then, of course, our Lucy rattled me as soon as our Mam had gone out of the room.

  I thought a bomb had dropped on our house because I heard our lads shrieking and yelling and our Mam shouting and carrying on and yes, you’ve got it, it was them, wasn’t it? Our Joe sat on Tone’s shoulders with a sheet over his head, which fell right to the floor, while our Pete held the candle and opened the door for them. They think they’re so funny. I’ll probably never forgive them till the day I die, but as I can’t see me lasting very long in this madhouse, I don’t suppose it matters very much.

  2

  ‘What are angels, Mam?’

  None of our lads are speaking to me because of last night and every time our Joe comes anywhere near me, he pinches me as hard as he can.

  ‘I’ll tell our Mam,’ I says to him and he starts shouting, ‘Tell tale tit, you’re a skinny nit, and I’m going to bash you with a walking stick.’ So I kicked him and he went hobbling round shouting ‘Oooh! Oooh!’ and our Mam comes rushing into the kitchen and she says, ‘If there’s any more bother with you two, I’ll take a hand,’ and I says, ‘It’s all his fault, Mam,’ and our Joe says, ‘Look at my leg. Look what she’s done to it.’

  Then he shows our Mam the place where he fell down this morning and skinned it and our Mam looks at his leg and says to me, ‘Right, madam,’ and before I can move, slaps me sharply on the arm. So I go, ‘Oh! Oh! The pain! The pain!’ and our Mam says to us both, ‘If you’re not out of here in five seconds flat, you’ll both go to bed for the rest of the day.’ So we got out.

  When we were outside, I said to our Joe, ‘Don’t think you’ve got away with anything because you haven’t. I’ll get even with you and our Pete and Tone if it’s the last thing I do,’ and our Joe says, ‘You try anything and it will be,’ and I said, ‘You can’t scare me,’ and wondered if my guardian angel would hang around and see I was all right. Everybody’s supposed to have a guardian angel. At least, that’s what they tell us at Sunday School. I’m not saying I don’t believe them because if I didn’t have one, I’d be in about a million little pieces by now with our lot. All I’m saying is that mine must have the longest dinner hours in history because every time I get into bother, it’s never there.

  I said to our Mam once, ‘Are angels men or women?’ and she went, ‘Oh! Ah! Yes, well,’ and I looked at her and she looked at me and I thought, that’s not told me very much. So I said, ‘Are they, Mam?’ and she said, ‘I’m not sure,’ and I said to her, ‘They all wear nightgowns,’ and she said, ‘I don’t think they’re nightgowns they wear,’ and I said to her, ‘What are they then?’ and she said, ‘Robes.’ I said, ‘Well, they look like nightgowns,’ and she said, ‘Do you think I’ve got all day to stand here talking about what angels wear?’ And I thought, ‘So! Our Mam doesn’t know whether they’re men or women either,’ and I thought, I must remember to ask at Sunday School.

  When I asked, the teacher went, ‘Good gracious me!’ and looked as if he were going to faint clean away. ‘What a question to ask,’ he says. ‘They’re just angels,’ which as far as I’m concerned is the very worst answer to a question I’ve ever heard and which only goes to show that no grown-ups ever tell anybody smaller than themselves that they don’t know the answer. I expect our Sunday School teacher will get to go to heaven seeing as he already sort of works for them, but I can’t see him in a nightgown.

  I said to our Mam, ‘Do you think haloes are on sticks?’ and she said, ‘Whatever did I do to deserve you?’ and I said to her, ‘Well, if they’re not on sticks on your back, how do they move at the same time as the angels move?’ Our Joe says, ‘They’re like magnets,’ and I said, ‘Don’t be daft. How can they be like magnets? Angels haven’t got iron heads,’ and he said, ‘Well, you’ll never get to be one then, will you, because your head’s solid iron all the way through,’ and, of course, he thought that was very funny.

  I find angels very puzzling.

  Our Joe thinks I’ll forget about them being ghosts but I’ll get even with them.

  Anyway, we all went down to the sand quarry today. All the big lads were there as well with it being a Saturday afternoon. They were all hammering and sawing and banging away at these pieces of wood they’d got from the wood-yard so I went over and says to our Joe, ‘What are you doing?’ and he says, ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ and I says, ‘Yes, that’s why I’m asking,’ and he says, ‘Mind your own business,’ so I went and laid on top of one of the cliffs and watched them for a bit.

  They were nailing all the little pieces to the big pieces and then when they’d finished they were laying them side by side and joining them together. I could see then they were making a raft.

  Anyway, when they’d got all these pieces of wood nailed together, they fetched four empty tin drums from the pile the old watchman kept near his shed and they laid the raft on top of these drums and started tying them on with rope.

  Our Pete shouts to one of the lads, ‘I don’t think we’ve got enough rope to make sure these drums stop on. Shall we fetch some more just to be on the safe side?’ Then all these lads go mutter, mutter, yers, yers, and so they all decide to go and see if the wood-yard man has any spare pieces of rope they can borrow. They went off and left one little lad on guard over this stupid raft they’d made.

  I went down the cliff and I says to this little lad, ‘Do you want a sweet?’ and he says, ‘Why?’ and I says, ‘Oh, never mind, never mind. If you don’t want one, it doesn’t worry me.’ He stood there, and then he says, ‘What kind?’ and I says, ‘Caramel,’ and he says, ‘What I got to do for it?’ I says, ‘Climb that cliff,’ and he says, ‘Cor blimey, that’s nothing.’ I says, ‘That’s what you say, but what do you do?’ and he says, ‘Where’s the caramel first then?’ and I showed it to him, my very last caramel, and he says, ‘All right,’ and he went running across the sand to the cliffs.

  I looked down at the empty tin drums under the raft and carefully unscrewed all the caps and put them in my pocket. Then the little lad comes back and he says, ‘There you are. Told you it was easy,’ and I gave him the caramel and went back and laid on the cliff top again and all the lads came running into the quarry and wrapped about three hundred feet of rope round their stupid raft and I wondered if any of them would notice that none of the tin drums had their caps on. And they didn’t.

  I heard our Tone shout, ‘Right! Ready to launch!’ Boy, they certainly make me sick, thinking they’re admirals or something. Then they all moved the raft into the pond and climbed on board.

  Our Pete was standing there with a long bit of wood and he was paddling away as if they were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and then I heard our Joe shout, ‘We’re sinking!’ and I could see all white bubbles on top of the pond from where the water was filling the empty drums and the raft was sinking lower and lower.

  Our Pete was still paddling away though and he was shouting, ‘Get it back to the bank! Get it back to the bank!’ and all the lads started paddling with their hands. Then our stupid Tone stands up and starts saluting this little scruffy bit of a flag they had flying from a brush handle they’d stuck in the middle of the raft, just like shipwrecked sailors do on the pictures, and then our Joe stands up and salutes and then our Pete and all the other lads, one after the other. That was the last I saw of them, them standing up saluting as the raft slowly sank to the bottom of the pond. When I left, they were up to their waists already. Boys certainly are stupid. I thought I’d fall off the cliff laughing.

  I ran all the way home because I didn’t want to miss what happened when they all trailed in wet through and our Mam saw them.

  Anyway, when they were dried out and our Mam could speak again, she says, ‘Well, what happened?’ and our Joe s
ays, ‘I don’t know. We haven’t got the raft out of the pond yet. Must have been an engineering fault,’ and our Pete says, ‘Can’t think what happened.’

  Then our Tone looked at me and he says, ‘What’s so funny?’ and I said, ‘Funny? Funny? There’s nothing funny,’ and he went all suspicious looking and said, ‘Well, what you laughing at then?’ and I says, ‘I’m not laughing,’ and he says, ‘Yes, you are,’ and our Pete says, ‘Oh, leave her alone. We’ve got enough trouble without her as well,’ and when they weren’t looking, I laid all the four drum caps on the tablecloth and went and sat on our Mam’s knee.

  ‘What’s this in aid of?’ she says and then our Joe sees the caps on the table and he says to our Pete and Tone, ‘Don’t look now,’ and they all follow his finger which is shaking because our Joe’s got a terrible temper. Then they all look at me and our Joe says, ‘I’ll kill her,’ and our Mam says, ‘Here, here. That’ll be enough of that kind of talk.’ Our Pete says, ‘You little devil,’ and our Tone says, ‘I told you. I knew she was at the bottom of this,’ and I said, ‘I liked that bit where you saluted best.’

  Our Mam looked at the caps and at our lads and then at me and she started laughing so hard she couldn’t stop and our Pete says to her, ‘I don’t know about engineering fault. She’s one great big fault,’ and I was grinning that much my face hurt. I says to them, ‘Mind you don’t catch your chins on the floor,’ and our Mam stopped laughing and said, ‘I shouldn’t push your luck, madam. You’ve got to get off my knee sometime.’ So I didn’t say anything else but all the same, I do think this must be one of the happiest days of my life.

  3

  ‘Do I have to go to dancing class?’

  I thought things were going too well to last. We’ve been rehearsing for this concert at my dancing class and last night I was a little Dutch girl. I can hardly believe it myself. I nearly died when I saw the costume they expected me to wear and our Mam and the dancing teacher had to hold me down while they put it on me. It was horrible.

  Our Mam went bright red and the dancing teacher, Fancy Nancy I call her, though her real name is Miss Nancy, kept saying, ‘I don’t know what’s got into you, I really don’t,’ and I was shouting, ‘I’m not putting them frilly knickers on,’ and our Mam said, ‘I can’t see what all the fuss is about. I’m ashamed of you, I am.’ And in the end I had to put them on, and our Mam said I must have torn the elastic or something with all my mucking about because they fell down when I was on the stage. ‘Serves you right,’ our Mam said, ‘for making such a song and dance about nothing.’

  All I know is that I wished I were dead because everybody shouted and cheered when I picked them up and Miss Nancy’s hand came out from behind the curtain and dragged me off the stage. I says to her, ‘Look at these red marks you’ve made round my arm,’ and she said, ‘It’s a pity it was only your arm,’ and I thought, oh yes, very nice I’m sure. Miss Nancy has her dancing lessons in the front room of their house. She sells shoes in the daytime down the town. I know because I’ve seen her in the shop. She never speaks to me though, not even when I stand looking at her through the window. Our Mam says it’s a good job the lessons don’t cost very much because otherwise I couldn’t go. I said to Fancy Nancy, ‘You ought to put your prices up,’ and she said, ‘If I put my prices up, no one would be able to afford to come,’ and she didn’t put them up. I didn’t think she would, but it was worth a try.

  Anyway, we learn tap dancing and ballet and acrobatics at dancing class, and twice a year, in the summer and at Christmas, Miss Nancy takes the Church Hall for two nights and we have a concert. That’s to show the Mams and Dads how brilliant we all are, but everybody else comes as well. Our Mam says she wouldn’t miss one for anything. They all say it makes a nice change, but I bet they wouldn’t think so if they were up on that stage with everybody staring at them.

  There’s this lad who goes to dancing class as well. He was a little Dutch boy in the concert and we had to sing and dance together round this stupid well. It had a handle on it and I was supposed to turn it and a bucket came up. This lad’s called James.

  Fancy Nancy kept saying to him, ‘Naow, James,’ (she talks like that when she talks to James. When she talks to me she just says, ‘Get a move on, will you?’) Anyway, she says, ‘Naow, James. Would you move your foot a little to one side, dear? That’s right. Oh, that’s beautiful, that is.’ And James smirks and flutters his eyelashes at her and so, last night, after my knickers fell down, I turned the handle on that stupid well and took the bucket off it like I’d been told and dropped it on dear James’s beautiful foot.

  You should have heard him yell. And then the horrible thing went on dancing with his teeth grinning at everybody like somebody not right. Of course everybody in the audience clapped and cheered him, so when he took a bow at the end of the dance, I pinched his bottom. That stopped his grinning.

  After the curtains came down, he chased me right round the stage and I could hear somebody in the audience saying, ‘I wish they’d put that curtain up,’ and dear James’s mother came round the back and got hold of one of my ears and said, ‘I saw you, you nasty little girl, pinching our James like that,’ and she started shaking me. Then our Mam came and she said, ‘You’d better let go of her,’ and dear James’s mother said, ‘And who might you be, my good woman?’ And as ‘my good woman’ was our Mam, she pushed dear James’s mother out of the way and dragged me down the stairs.

  She said, ‘I’ll keep you in bed for a week, you little devil, showing me up like that,’ and I stood there scowling at my shoes. I didn’t dare scowl at our Mam because she was as mad as a wet hen. She looked at me and then she started shaking her head and saying, ‘I don’t know where you’re going to end up, madam, I really don’t.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘dear James laughed when my knickers fell down, Mam.’

  ‘If you’d put them knickers on properly when you got dressed in the first place,’ our Mam said, ‘they wouldn’t have fallen down at all. I don’t know how you’re going to live that down, I don’t.’

  And I don’t either. Luckily, it’s not school for another week, so perhaps everybody will have forgotten by then. Anyway, our Mam has put some elastic in them knickers about three feet wide it is and when I put them on, I thought my top half was going to fall off. ‘They’re a bit tight, Mam,’ I said, and she said, ‘I should just think they are a bit tight after that carry on last night.’

  ‘I can’t breathe,’ I said. And she said, ‘What do you want to breathe for? If them knickers fall down again, you’d be better off not breathing anyway, so just keep quiet and let me finish them.’

  I expect I shall go on the stage tonight and when I lean over I shall fall off my waist. Nobody’ll care, I know that.

  I says to our Mam, ‘Why do I have to be a little Dutch girl?’ and she says, ‘Into every life a little rain must fall,’ and I looked at her and said, ‘But, Mam, my life is soaking wet through already,’ and she said, ‘And it’ll get even wetter, madam, if you don’t behave yourself tonight with that little boy.’ I said ‘Little boy! Do you mean James?’ and she said yes, that was exactly who she did mean and I said, ‘He’s not a little boy, Mam. He’s a monkey in disguise,’ and our Mam said to watch my tongue else I might find it being washed with soap and water before I was finished so I kept quiet and didn’t say anything else, but I thought a lot.

  When we got to the Church Hall though, Fancy Nancy wouldn’t let me be a little Dutch girl again. I was really glad. I hate that dear James more than anybody in the world, and when you reckon that includes our Pete and Tone and Joe and Lucy and Rose, you can see just how much I hate him.

  Our Mam was ever so mad about it and she said to Fancy Nancy, ‘I shan’t let her come again, you know,’ and Fancy Nancy said, ‘That, Mrs Hall, would be a blessing undisguised,’ whatever that might mean. Anyway, in the end, she said, ‘She can be a fairy if she wants to be, but I’m not having any more trouble like last night. Poor dear James can hardly walk
today on that foot, and he has a bruise on his bottom the size of a teacup where your daughter pinched him.’

  ‘She won’t do it again,’ our Mam said, ‘will you?’ staring at me as if she were a teacher.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I shan’t do it again.’

  So, Miss Nancy said, ‘Very well then, she can be a fairy,’ and all I can say is that when I grow up, I shall burn every single book about fairies I can get my hands on.

  They always have to have wings, you know, and they’re made out of silver paper and stuff and if you move an inch, somebody shouts at you, ‘Mind your wings.’ I tried them out tonight before the concert. I jumped off the beam over the stage and flapped them as fast as I could but nothing happened. I only flattened another fairy I fell on who was practising her steps. They try and stuff you up with anything, these books and grown-ups between them.

  Our Lucy said after, ‘You knew you wouldn’t fly, you daft thing. What did you have to go and jump for? That poor little girl you landed on is black and blue. You wait till our Mam gets hold of you.’ But I was past caring by then. The only thing was, I bent my magic wand and I had to go on the stage with it crooked.

  Luckily, when the star fell off, it fell on dear James’s head, so the night wasn’t a complete waste after all.

  Miss Nancy was sat crying when we came off. She stood up when I passed her and she said, ‘If ever I see you again, I shall not be responsible for my actions,’ and I said, ‘Well, I never wanted to be a fairy in the first place,’ and then our Mam came up and she just looked at me and said, ‘Home, young lady. You and me have got some talking to do.’ So now I’m in trouble every which way.

  The only thing I know is that I hate dear James, Fancy Nancy and fairies. And as for little Dutch girls, if they wear knickers with as much elastic in them as mine had, I feel sorry for them, that’s all.