The Exiles at Home

by Hilary McKay

  ‘I have,’ said Phoebe smugly. However, the Earnest One need not have worried. A rival company, the posh twins from Rachel’s class, appeared at lunch-time with chicken paté sandwiches, cheese straws, chocolate biscuits, after dinner mints and a large bunch of grapes which they auctioned off to the highest bidder. It went to the Earnest One who consumed them with gusto and hoped that the twins would be there again tomorrow. Nobody bought any of Phoebe’s sandwiches. She stuffed them in the back of her locker and went home, depressed.

  ‘They did look rubbish,’ said Rachel, not entirely sorry to see the collapse of Phoebe’s idea.

  ‘You needn’t talk to me,’ said Phoebe. ‘You’re a traitor! You bought those twins’ sandwiches!’

  ‘Only two!’

  ‘Eating up the profits!’

  ‘They were very good,’ said Rachel unkindly, ‘much nicer than squashed marmalade. I wonder what they’ll bring tomorrow.’

  Phoebe had been wondering the same thing, and so, apparently, had quite a few other people. Great disappointment was caused next day when the twins appeared empty-handed, very sheepish, muttering about their mother, and with school dinners booked for them until the end of term. Phoebe triumphantly retrieved her marmalade sandwiches from beneath her gym shoes, and disposed of her entire stock in minutes. The Earnest One, who had looked very frightened when the twins’ business failed so abruptly, bought several sandwiches and was almost grovellingly grateful.

  ‘What about tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘Thursday’s our day off,’ said Phoebe loftily, ‘nothing till Friday now.’

  ‘How much did we get today?’ asked Rachel that night in bed.

  ‘Two pounds forty, twelve marmalade sandwiches, twenty pence each, but that’s without the sixty pence you gave to the twins, which makes it one pound eighty pence and three pounds ninety from last Friday. Five pounds seventy altogether.’

  ‘It’s a lovely way to get rich,’ murmured Rachel drowsily, and fell asleep planning sandwich fillings for Friday.

  ‘What have you got?’

  That was the Earnest One, seconds after the bell had rung on Friday lunch-time.

  ‘Crisp and tomato ketchup, peanut butter and tomato ketchup, golden syrup.’

  The Earnest One sighed in delight and bought two of each.

  ‘One pound twenty pence,’ said Rachel, who was once again in charge of the money, as well as providing her own brilliant advertising by eating the sandwiches herself as rapidly as possible before they all sold.

  ‘Any chicken paté or chocolate biscuits?’ asked someone hopefully.

  ‘Better ask the twins,’ replied Phoebe.

  That Friday was the beginning of Rachel and Phoebe’s weeks of glory. Although there were some complaints (the unpredictability of quality caused problems, and not everyone could digest the fillings that Rachel invented from time to time) the service still remained popular. Rival companies, springing up with luxury fillings, tended to be so short-lived that they caused no real competition. ‘Conroys’ Homemade Spare Packed Lunches’, wrote Rachel in her notebook. (She was collecting recipes in the hope of eventually having them published.)

  ‘Do you think I really ought to call them homemade?’ she asked Phoebe.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, you know where they’re made nowadays. I just wondered if the publishers would mind.’

  ‘I should think they would mind more if you called them dog kennel-made,’ replied Phoebe, for recently, in order to avoid questions from their relations, she and Rachel had taken to constructing their sandwiches in Josh’s kennel, a large and roomy apartment, easily accessible by climbing over the garden wall. There was plenty of room inside for Rachel, Phoebe, two plates, a loaf of bread, and whatever Rachel had decided should go in the sandwiches that day. Josh obligingly tidied up the crumbs for them afterwards. At first there had been remarks about dog hairs in the fillings, and several clients had disappeared for good, but Rachel and Phoebe had sworn earnestly that they were dog hairs from a very clean dog, and enough customers had remained to keep the business profitable – loyal,good-natured unspoilt people,who would eat anything gratefully, regardless of the fact that it was daily prepared in a dog kennel and stored in a boot locker. It was a happy time for Rachel and Phoebe. They grew very rich and began to talk of going to Africa, as soon as they had time away from the sandwich making.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘Saturday at last!’ said Naomi, reaching over to shake Ruth awake. ‘Let’s go straight to Toby and Emma’s.’

  ‘What about Peter?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I said we’d stop with him for an hour this morning, while Mrs Collingwood takes Martin to football.’

  ‘We’d stop with him!’ exclaimed Naomi. ‘What a cheek!’

  ‘I help you at Toby and Emma’s.’

  ‘Toby and Emma are different,’ said Naomi. ‘They don’t scream. They’re house-trained. They don’t bite, they don’t spit, they don’t . . .’

  ‘He’ll be in the garden,’ said Ruth. ‘Perhaps he’ll be better outside. Mr Collingwood’s built him a playpen, huge, with high sides and a door that locks.’

  ‘Sounds more like a cage,’ remarked Naomi.

  ‘It looks like a cage,’ admitted Ruth frankly, ‘a very posh one; they designed it specially to fit Peter. They measured his head and how far he could reach, so they knew how wide apart to put the bars and how high they had to make it.’

  ‘They should have dug a moat round it,’ said Naomi. ‘All right, we’ll do Toby and Emma this afternoon. What time are they caging up Peter?’

  ‘Ten.’

  At ten o’clock Peter was lifted into his play-pen. It stood in a sunny corner of the immaculate Collingwood lawn, filled with rugs, bouncy cushions, a rainbow collection of beautiful toys and several teddy bears. At two minutes past ten, Peter was hurling himself at the bars and roaring.

  ‘How strong are they?’ Naomi asked Mrs Collingwood apprehensively.

  ‘Very,’ replied Mrs Collingwood, leaning over the side to hug Peter. ‘Very, very strong, my poor baby!’ and she yelped as her poor baby sank his teeth into her shoulder.

  ‘I’ll be straight back,’ she promised. ‘I’m glad there’s two of you!’

  It took two of them to retrieve the missiles Peter hurled over the side at his departing mother’s back. Josh came bouncing up to help too, but departed under a hail of wooden bricks.

  ‘I’m not putting anything hard back in,’ Naomi told Peter sternly, ‘you’re dangerous! Even Phoebe was never as bad as you!’

  ‘He’s not usually this awful,’ Ruth said. ‘I think we ought to just leave everything where he throws it and see what he does.’

  They sat out of range while Peter emptied his playpen and then proceeded to tear up the lawn with his fists and teeth.

  ‘He’s getting awfully dirty,’ remarked Naomi.

  ‘I know, but he’s stopped screaming and they’re used to him getting dirty.’

  ‘Ruining the grass as well.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Collingwood said he would ruin the grass. It’s only that one corner.’

  ‘He’s really strong,’ commented Naomi, looking at the size of the clods Peter was excavating. ‘What do they feed him on? Dynamite?’

  ‘Martin said he was like that even when he only drank milk. Martin says he’s quietened down a lot. He used to scream so loud he could hear him as far as the bus stop. And ringing in his ears all day at school afterwards!’

  At that moment a fat hand shot out from underneath the play-pen.

  ‘He’s tunnelling out!’ said Naomi in horror.

  Ruth jumped to her feet and began picking up toys and putting them back into the play-pen to distract the captive. Peter, looking pleased, plugged up his hole with a plastic telephone and a large yellow duck.

  ‘He just wanted something to play with,’ said Ruth. ‘He’s being good now. Help me collect everything and we’ll put it all back.’

  Naomi obligingly
joined the search for toys. Everything they handed to Peter he accepted with a large grin and piled into his corner. When he had a heap high enough, he clambered on to the top, hauled himself on his stomach on to the top bar and prepared to let himself drop. Ruth caught him just as he crashed to the ground.

  ‘Grazie,’ said Peter, and kissed her muddily on both cheeks.

  ‘There,’ said Ruth, flattered. ‘He was lonely!’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Naomi, and added after a moment’s thought, ‘you’re going to have to go in with him!’

  ‘In with him? In there?’

  ‘Behind the bars,’ said Naomi, and went home.

  ‘It’s a hard way to earn money,’ said Ruth. Naomi was washing up the Saturday lunch dishes and Phoebe and Rachel were drying. By common consent, Ruth had been allowed to sit and watch.

  ‘What did he do,’ asked Naomi curiously, ‘when you got in with him?’

  ‘Nothing much. We played bears for a bit and then he fell asleep all in a heap and then Mrs Collingwood came home.’

  ‘Was she cross when she saw him? What did she say?’

  ‘Why would she be cross?’ asked Rachel. ‘Was Peter all covered in mud like Ruth when she came home?’

  ‘Worse,’ said Ruth. ‘At least he looked worse, but I’ve noticed before that dirt shows up more on Peter than it does on most people.’

  ‘More than on Rachel, even?’ asked Phoebe, astonished.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Ruth admitted. ‘Anyway, all she said was for me to bring my clothes straight round and she’d put them in the washing machine with Peter’s before the stains dried in, and she gave me two pounds. And tea and chocolate cake and a bottle of posh bubble bath she’d had for a present and she said not to hesitate to borrow her books!’

  ‘Not bad for less than an hour,’ said Naomi. ‘What sort of bubble bath?’

  ‘Alpine strawberry and mallow.’

  ‘You’ll smell like a trifle.’ Naomi emptied out the washing-up bowl and handed the last mug to Rachel, who dropped it.

  ‘It’s a waste to drop them after they’ve been washed,’ Naomi told her reprovingly. ‘You should smash them dirty, if you’re going to.’

  ‘It’s only the handle,’ Rachel inspected the mug, ‘we can glue it on again. It’s been glued before, anyway. Did you know we were coming with you this afternoon?’

  ‘Oh no!’ protested Ruth.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Conroy coming in. ‘Can’t leave them alone in the house and I’m going shopping and your father’s got to go back in to work. And I’ve sorted out some seedlings for your garden, Naomi, if you’d like to come and get them.’

  ‘Free?’ asked Naomi, following her mother to the shed.

  ‘Since when did you hear of me charging old people for a few seedlings?’ asked Mrs Conroy. ‘A nice old couple like that, too; I dropped in for a word with them while you were at your Grandma’s. You must be careful not to tire them out. I thought they both looked very frail.’

  ‘Ill?’ asked Naomi, alarmed.

  ‘Just old,’ replied her mother, who had looked at Toby and Emma with experienced eyes and decided that if they really wanted a garden and her daughters could do anything to help, then they should do it, and the sooner the better.

  It was their first visit to Toby and Emma since they had arrived home. The garden that Ruth and Naomi had last seen a month ago, bare and wintery and sprouting nothing much but markers to show where they had planted seeds, had grown quite green and bushy in their absence. Someone (Mrs Reed, they later discovered) had cut the grass, but that was all that had been done. Weed and flower seedlings fought for space in the borders, dandelions lined the path, and the old apple tree, in full blossom, bent even lower over the garden shed.

  ‘I can’t get down to them myself,’ Toby nodded at the weeds. ‘You’ve come back just in time! And who are these two young ladies?’ he asked, winking at Rachel and Phoebe.

  ‘They’re only Rachel and Phoebe,’ explained Naomi, as she unloaded trays of seedlings and the sixteen library books on Africa from her and Ruth’s bicycle baskets. ‘We’ve got to look after them while Mum’s out shopping. I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘The more the merrier,’ said Toby cheerfully.

  ‘I can dig,’ Rachel told him.

  ‘You can that, if you’ve a mind to,’ agreed Toby. ‘Is that more books on gardening you’ve brought?’

  ‘They’re books on Africa,’ said Phoebe. ‘I needed something to read. You can look at them if you like. Have you ever been?’

  ‘I have,’ said Toby surprisingly, ‘fifty-odd years ago! Hot and mucky it was!’

  ‘What were you doing? On holiday?’

  ‘Fighting.’

  ‘You shouldn’t fight,’ Rachel told him primly.

  ‘I don’t any more,’ said Toby. ‘Now you make yourselves at home while I nip in and fetch Emma. She’s been looking forward to you coming all day.’

  Ruth and Naomi settled down to some much-needed weeding. Phoebe piled the library books into a heap, chose the most interesting, and sat down on the rest to read it. Rachel wandered around the garden, looking for a likely spot to dig for treasure.

  Nearly an hour later, Phoebe looked up from her book. Ruth and Naomi had almost met in the middle of the long border. Across the lawn, Rachel had found a bare patch.

  A humpy looking bit, thought Rachel hopefully. Someone must have buried something here a long time ago!

  Someone had buried something there, and not so long ago either. Rachel, industriously scrabbling with her hands, gave a sudden screech of delight and came up with a red feather.

  ‘Rachel!’ Ruth and Naomi dashed across the garden.

  ‘There’s something under here!’ Rachel announced. ‘Quite big and hard, I can feel the edges! What are you doing?’ For her sisters had seized the feather, shoved it back into the hole, and were piling in the earth as quickly as they could, all the while glancing guiltily at the house.

  ‘You idiot!’ said Ruth. ‘Why did you choose that place to dig? That’s where they buried Roger!’

  Rachel looked suddenly very green and asked if Roger was another old man.

  ‘Roger was their parrot,’ Naomi said, ‘and their last gardener got chucked out for digging him up!’ Hastily she grabbed the box of geraniums and lobelias her mother had given them and began planting them over Roger’s much-disturbed remains.

  ‘I was only looking for treasure,’ said Rachel, sniffing her parroty hands and giving them a perfunctory wipe on the grass.

  Toby and Emma arrived just in time to hear her. ‘No harm in looking,’ said Toby. ‘Where there’s life there’s hope!’

  ‘What about where there’s dead parrots?’ asked Phoebe, but fortunately no one heard her.

  ‘Don’t you go digging too deep over there,’ murmured Emma as she sank into the chair they brought her. ‘I used to look for treasure when I was your age.’

  ‘When you were a Guide?’ asked Ruth.

  ‘When I was a girl,’ said Emma. ‘I’ll just get comfy,’ and there was a pause of silence while Emma’s bones and breathing settled into their new surroundings. ‘When I was a girl,’ she continued. ‘You come over here and look at these pictures. These is some of the first Girl Guides!’

  Curious, the girls came to look at the bundle of photographs Toby handed to Emma. A party of girls, long-skirted, wearing straw hats, looked back at them.

  ‘Black and white,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Can you pick me out?’ asked Emma.

  In silence they stared at the group of round faces, tanned hands and arms, bright eyes and blowing hair.

  ‘Are they all old ladies now?’ asked Rachel, but before Emma could reply, Phoebe had planted a grubby, certain finger on to one of the hats.

  ‘That’s you!’

  Involuntarily the girls glanced at Emma. More than eighty years had passed since the photograph had been taken, but even that did not seem time enough to wear any of those faces into one so old as Emma’s,
yet Phoebe said again, quite certainly,

  ‘That’s you! Anyone could tell!’ and Toby and Emma were nodding in admiration.

  It was the beginning of a strange understanding between Phoebe and Emma. It was a friendship of equals, both sides seeming oblivious to the eighty-five years that separated them. Phoebe made no concession to Emma’s obvious frailty. If Emma fell asleep in the middle of a conversation, Phoebe did not hesitate to shake her awake again. She dragged Emma, willy-nilly, through her own convoluted ideas and theories, and when Emma did not understand, Phoebe drew pictures to demonstrate her thoughts, and explained the pictures to Emma. Emma retaliated by ignoring the fact that Phoebe was seven years old, completely poverty stricken, confined to school all day, and hampered by a family who all attempted to bring her up in different directions.

  One summer Saturday they sat together in the doorway of the potting shed, under the apple tree, and argued.

  ‘No good blaming other people,’ said Emma. ‘What’s to stop you going? There’s aeroplanes, isn’t there? Flying over all the time!’ and her head nodded suddenly forward.

  Phoebe glared at Emma and poked her crossly awake.

  ‘You need money. And passports. We’d never be allowed.’

  ‘Flying all the time,’ repeated Emma stubbornly. ‘There’s one now!’ and she pointed to a white jet trail crossing the blue June sky.

  ‘Full of rich grown-ups.’

  ‘You don’t know,’ murmured Emma. ‘I shouldn’t let it stop me if I wanted to go!’

  ‘Why don’t you, then?’

  ‘Don’t want to,’ replied Emma, ‘garden’s full of flowers!’ and she fell so deeply asleep that Phoebe got up and marched away.

  ‘Africa!’ Emma’s voice came scornfully through layers and layers of dreams.

  Phoebe, who never told anyone anything, had told Emma all about Joseck. Toby knew quite a lot too; he must have heard from Emma. Strangely enough, the girls were not at all worried about this. Secrets seemed safe with Toby and Emma. They were no more likely to talk than the apple tree.