The Exiles at Home

by Hilary McKay

  ‘Sorry,’ said Ruth.

  One morning the postman handed Naomi a very scruffy envelope addressed to ‘R.N.R.P. Conroy’.

  ‘Is that you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Boyfriend?’

  ‘NO!’

  ‘I can always tell,’ he said, winking.

  ‘You can’t!’ snapped Naomi, recognising one of the rare, welcome letters from Graham, their friend from the summer holidays at Big Grandma’s house in Cumbria. Graham’s letters, usually written at the kitchen table on his Cumbrian farm, were largely incomprehensible to the girls, but still treasured. They were full of descriptions of football matches, farm machinery and local weather conditions and always began, ‘Mum says I ought to write . . .’

  The postman told Naomi off, the next time she appeared with her hand held out.

  ‘You can’t expect the poor lad to write constantly,’ he said severely. ‘There’s just one for your sister,’ and he delivered the long-awaited brown envelope rather reprovingly. Naomi carried it in to Ruth between her fingertips, as if it might explode.

  ‘I’m glad it’s Saturday,’ she said crossly. ‘You can get the post yourself from now on! It’s too embarrassing!’

  ‘Don’t you want to see what’s in it?’ asked Ruth, seeing that Naomi was preparing to leave again.

  ‘I’m going into town,’ replied Naomi. ‘Anyway, I told you I didn’t want anything to do with it, and I don’t! Will Mum let you out today, do you think?’

  ‘No she won’t!’ said Mrs Conroy, appearing suddenly in the doorway. ‘Don’t stuff things under your jumper, Ruth! You’ll make it go all baggy! No, Ruth isn’t going anywhere today; she can have a quiet weekend before school on Monday. And you two leave Rachel and Phoebe alone. I don’t want them vanishing. I’ve told them they’re not moving one step from my sight until their bedroom carpet is clear!’

  Ruth and Naomi peered curiously round their little sisters’ bedroom door. Rachel and Phoebe were sitting sulkily on their bunk-beds, obviously appalled by the task in front of them. The entire bedroom floor, except for a narrow track leading to the bunks, was covered in toys, books, clothes and bits of paper.

  ‘I can’t find my Snoopy socks,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘I’m surprised you can find your feet in all that mess,’ said Mrs Conroy crossly, ‘and it’s about time that sledge went down to the shed, waking us up every night! I must have the only daughter in England that takes a sledge to bed with her!’

  ‘Does she take it to bed with her?’ asked Naomi, surprised. ‘Is that what the crashes are? I thought it was only Rachel falling out!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Phoebe, ‘every night, and then when it falls out, she gets up and drags it back up again and treads all over my face. And what if it falls on my head, that’s what I say.’

  ‘Tie it to the bed,’ suggested Naomi practically.

  ‘Then when it falls off, it swings down and whacks Phoebe. I’ve tried that,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Everything to be put away before I come back up!’ interrupted Mrs Conroy, closing the door on their squabbles. ‘Or I’ll do it myself and It Will All Go In The Bin!’

  Ruth disappeared to lock herself in the bathroom, where she could read her letter in peace. Naomi, whose Christmas money had been weighing on her mind ever since she had received it, prepared to go in to town.

  ‘Don’t go wasting it all at once,’ advised Mrs Conroy.

  ‘I’m only going to look at things,’ said Naomi, smoothing and admiring her ten pound note. She had no intention of spending it, but on that grey January Saturday, she rashly took out with her. And that was the end of it.

  Some days later, she tried to explain to Ruth what had happened. ‘Glue,’ she remembered. ‘I bought some glue. We never have any; ours is always dried up. And I bought some gold stars, like they used to stick on our books when we were little. Two packets. I took them to school.’

  Ruth remembered the stars. Naomi had stuck them all over her books and subsequently spent a lunch-time detention peeling them off again.

  ‘And some strawberries.’

  ‘In January!’

  ‘And a newspaper. To sit on while I ate them; the bench was wet. And a lamb chop and a packet of biscuits for a poor thin dog that was tied to a post.’

  ‘That was nice.’

  ‘And a football magazine, to try and find out what Graham is always talking about. But Martin’s borrowed it; I’ll get it back though, before we write to Cumbria again. And some stamps. And some dog treats for teaching Josh tricks, but Rachel’s been eating them.’

  ‘That must have been nearly all your money gone, then,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Yes,’ said Naomi, ‘that was nearly all of it. It went fast.’

  ‘What a waste!’

  ‘Well, look what you did with yours!’ exclaimed Naomi, ‘and you’ve said you’ll pay ten pounds a month! What are you going to do? You only get a pound a week pocket money, so even if you don’t spend a penny of it, you’ll be minus six pounds a month!’

  ‘I was wondering if you might like to share with me.’

  ‘Share my pocket money? No thank you!’

  ‘Well, you could just look at the stuff they sent.’ Ruth pulled her envelope out from under her mattress. ‘I’ve even got a photograph of him. He’s ten and he’s called Joseck.’

  ‘Joseck?’ asked Naomi, peering over Ruth’s shoulder to look at the picture of a smiling boy in school uniform. ‘He looks very brainy. That must be his school behind.’

  ‘I looked up where they live in my atlas,’ said Ruth. ‘Do you want to see?’

  ‘In a minute,’ Naomi was still studying the photograph. ‘What are you going to do? You can’t tell someone you’ll sponsor them, then just let them down.’

  ‘I’m not going to!’ said Ruth, indignantly.

  ‘When do you need the next ten pounds for?’

  ‘February,’ replied Ruth, and they both stared thoughtfully out of the window.

  ‘Ten pounds by February,’ said Naomi. ‘That’s not long. It’s not even two whole weeks.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Got anything saved up?’

  ‘Not enough. Not even half enough.’

  ‘Well,’ said Naomi, eventually. ‘I suppose we’d better go and see what Rachel and Phoebe have done with their Christmas money.’

  Rachel and Phoebe were out spending the afternoon in the garden, being taught to groom Josh under Martin’s supervision. Josh had been brushed and brushed until he shone and handfuls of his red-gold fur were floating all over the garden.

  ‘You’ll brush him bare,’ remarked Naomi. ‘He looks thinner already.’

  ‘We’ve cleaned his teeth,’ said Rachel, ‘with dog toothpaste. It’s peppermint, like people’s!’

  ‘Did you eat it?’

  ‘Only a bit.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted a horse,’ said Phoebe, dreamily combing the feathers on Josh’s front legs.

  ‘Yes, but he’s a dog,’ pointed out Martin.

  ‘I know, but I call him a horse in my head,’ answered Phoebe, who could always ignore reality when she needed to.

  Naomi gave Rachel and Josh one each of her dog treats. They both sat up and begged.

  ‘It’s nice for Josh not to be the only one who has to beg,’ said Ruth, watching them. ‘He must feel a fool doing it on his own.’

  ‘More likely feels a fool doing it with Rachel,’ answered Martin.

  Phoebe took two of the dog treats and tried to make Rachel and Josh balance them on their noses, but they both jerked their heads and ate them at once.

  ‘Can I have two more?’ asked Phoebe.

  ‘You should buy some yourself,’ said Naomi, ‘you’ve got all that money that Big Grandma gave you.’

  ‘Yes, but I put it in my train,’ explained Phoebe, ‘before I thought.’

  Ruth and Naomi sighed with frustration. Phoebe’s train, given to her by Big Grandma as a christening present, was very old and, Mr
s Conroy said, quite valuable. Its enormous disadvantage was that although it had a slot to put your money in, there was no way of getting it back out again. Careful shaking sometimes allowed the reckless saver to extract coins from its insides, but paper money would be different. It was already full of scraps of paper anyway; Phoebe had a habit of writing important messages to herself and stuffing them in her train. It had occurred to no one that she might push her Christmas money into it as well.

  ‘Anyway, it’s safe there,’ said Phoebe comfortably. ‘Rachel’s lost hers!’

  Ruth looked at Naomi in despair. Never, it seemed, could forty pounds have been disposed of with so little to show for it.

  ‘I haven’t lost it,’ said Rachel, ‘I’ve put it in a secret place.’

  ‘In the house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In the garden?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not at school somewhere?’

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘Are Mum and Dad looking after it for you, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve lost it,’ said Naomi.

  ‘Why d’you want to know?’ Rachel asked suspiciously.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Naomi. ‘I was just thinking about money. I was wondering how people got it.’

  ‘They go to work and earn it,’ said Martin. ‘My dad says the only money worth having is money you’ve earned yourself!’

  ‘You can sell things,’ said Phoebe, ‘like I will sell you my train for a thousand pounds. Nine-hundred-and-ninety pounds profit for me!’

  ‘The best way,’ said Rachel, scrabbling through a flower bed as she spoke, ‘is to find treasure. Buried treasure. Lumps of gold and rings and diamonds. I’ve found something already! What is it?’

  ‘A tulip bulb,’ said Ruth, taking it off her and inspecting it. ‘Put it back!’

  ‘Treasure,’ repeated Rachel dreamily. ‘People do. Look how I found that bulb without even trying! Gold and diamonds and stuff must be all over the place! Jewellers’ shops are full of it. Even Mum’s got a bit. And what happens to all the old stuff nobody wants any more? It must be lying around somewhere!’

  Everyone stared at Rachel. Obviously she had given the subject a great deal of thought.

  ‘Old stuff gets melted down, I suppose,’ said Martin practically.

  ‘I’ve never heard of anyone melting it down!’

  ‘Or put in museums.’

  ‘I’ve been to a museum,’ argued Rachel. ‘It was full of china and old clothes and boring statues. Hardly any treasure. I looked.’

  At that moment a diversion was created. Mrs Collingwood, Martin’s mother, appeared round the corner of the house with a pushchair. In it, screaming, sat Martin’s little brother.

  ‘Martin, I’m going to have to leave Peter with you,’ Mrs Collingwood announced, parking the pushchair beside them. ‘Dad will be back very soon. Give him his tea and I expect he’ll cheer up. Mrs Conroy says she’s about if you need her, and perhaps the girls will help!’

  Martin’s mother was a solicitor; she was clever and practical, and assumed that everyone else was as well, except those unfortunate people who demanded from the police station that she come and rescue them. Rachel adored Martin’s mother because she always called her ‘My Little Pet’. Phoebe, however, more or less detested her because her name for Phoebe was ‘Sausage’. Phoebe did not like to think of herself as anyone’s sausage.

  Now Mrs Collingwood bent down to Peter’s teary, purple, dripping face and said, ‘Be a good boy for Martin! Smile for Mummy! Smiley-smiley!’ and as Peter’s screwed-up features uncreased for a moment, exclaimed, ‘That’s my precious!’, kissed him, and was gone.

  However, she had hardly closed the garden gate before Peter hiccuped and took an enormous breath to start howling again. Ruth gazed thoughtfully at him. He was not what she called precious. Still a bit chicken-poxy, practically bald although he was nearly two, crimson, pudgy and equipped, Martin had told her, with very sharp teeth. Usually she would have kept as far away as possible, but now she had money to raise. And here was Peter, crying out (literally) for a babysitter.

  Naomi, Rachel and Phoebe had disappeared with a suddenness that was not flattering to Peter. Even Josh had jumped over the garden wall and gone home.

  ‘Do you need some help?’ Ruth asked Martin, above the din that his little brother was making.

  ‘What can you do?’ asked Martin, not fainting with gratitude as Ruth had hoped he would. ‘I agree you ought to do something, considering the number of times I’ve held up the bus for you, but what can you do?’

  ‘I could probably stop him screaming,’ said Ruth. ‘Me and Naomi invented a way to stop Phoebe screaming when she was a baby. It nearly always worked.’

  ‘Well, why doesn’t everyone do it if it works? Peter’s been screaming for nearly two years!’

  ‘Not everyone is strong enough to do it,’ replied Ruth, ‘or they haven’t got a long, straight place to run. We used to do it in the park. Is he strapped in tight?’

  ‘Of course he is. He escapes otherwise.’

  ‘Good,’ said Ruth, wheeling Peter out of the gate and on to the path. ‘Now you come along on the outside, by the kerb, just in case!’

  ‘In case what?’

  Ruth did not reply. Taking a deep breath, she gripped the pushchair handles and began to run, faster and faster, until the hedges went past in a blur and the ground looked like a grey river beneath her feet and they reached the end of the road and swung back round, and Martin no longer had breath to shout ‘What are we doing?’ and Peter, far from screaming, was roaring with laughter and slapping his fat knees. By the time they reached the garden gate again, there was not a trace of a tear on his face.

  ‘See?’ said Ruth complacently, when she got her breath back. ‘It used to work just like that on Phoebe, only Mum could never do it because she couldn’t run fast enough.’

  ‘Good dog! Good dog!’ shouted Peter, his only two words, whacking the sides of his chariot.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Martin.

  ‘Well,’ said Ruth, ‘then it’s the hard bit. You have to do it again only a bit slower, and then again, and then perhaps again until you get down to walking. After that you can stop, because they’re usually exhausted.’

  ‘They’re exhausted!’ interrupted Martin.

  ‘You can push this time,’ Ruth told him, and at the end of the second run, Peter was distinctly drooping. ‘He can’t be as tough as Phoebe was,’ remarked Ruth, surveying him. ‘Take him indoors and feed him quick, before he goes to sleep. You might even be able to get him to bed.’

  Peter looked at Ruth. He could not tell her that he had been bored and frustrated and that she had been fast and exciting but nevertheless, he was grateful.

  ‘Good dog,’ he said approvingly.

  ‘That means “thank you”,’ translated Martin. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Ruth, as Peter was escorted indoors. Possibly, she thought, she would become indispensable and could put her babysitting prices up and up. She might get rich. Perhaps Peter was precious, after all. Visions of herself as a next-door, very expensive, very exclusive Mary Poppins filled her mind.

  ‘That worked quickly,’ remarked Naomi as Ruth, rather pink-faced from running in the cold air, returned indoors. ‘Phoebe didn’t believe me when I told her we used to do that to her!’

  ‘Mum wouldn’t have let you,’ said Phoebe, looking very mutinous.

  ‘Mum wouldn’t have let you what?’ asked Mrs Conroy, opening the dining room door at that moment. ‘Lay the table please, Ruth, and Naomi, pop and make the salad, will you? You two Little Ones, clear up all this mess!’

  ‘Mum, you wouldn’t have let them run me up and down in a pushchair to stop me screaming, would you? Anyway, I didn’t scream!’

  ‘Round and round the park they used to push you,’ recalled Mrs Conroy smiling, ‘I remember now!’

  ‘What if I’d fallen out?’ asked Phoebe,
outraged.

  ‘You were strapped in. Anyway, they didn’t go all that fast. Ruth would only have been about eight. Come on, clear up all that paper!’

  Phoebe had been converting the box her Christmas slippers arrived in into a cage. Cardboard bars were glued across the front, and now she stuck a notice across the top saying,

  ‘BEWAR OF THE RORIN PIGS’

  Between the bars she slid the latest school photographs of Ruth and Naomi.

  ‘I might easily have fallen out,’ she said. ‘And what if people had laughed?’

  ‘Really, Phoebe,’ exclaimed Mrs Conroy, although she could not help laughing herself. ‘It was all a long time ago!’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Phoebe. ‘I’m starting a zoo.’ She fetched her bear from the bedroom and sat him outside the cage so that he could see Ruth and Naomi, the Roaring Pigs, in the zoo.

  Tea-time was unusually quiet that day. Ruth, once again preoccupied by her urgent need for money, ignored all Phoebe’s dark glances towards the zoo on the windowsill. Rachel was depressed by the thought that it was her turn to wash the dishes after tea. Partly to postpone this, she finished off all the bread and butter and took a third helping of salad.

  ‘Can I have some of Phoebe’s sardines?’ she asked. ‘I’ve run out of ham.’

  ‘Is Phoebe eating sardines?’ asked Naomi in surprise. ‘I thought she was a vegetarian!’

  ‘I am.’ Phoebe, carefully shrouding a sardine in a lettuce leaf, looked up defensively.

  ‘Sardines are animals,’ argued Naomi.

  ‘Leave Phoebe alone,’ Mr Conroy interrupted. ‘If she’s happy eating sardines, let her enjoy them in peace!’

  ‘They haven’t got legs,’ said Phoebe, but all the same she unwrapped her sardine and gazed at it uncertainly.

  ‘They’ve got tails,’ Naomi remarked.