The Willows and Beyond

by William Horwood

  “And I denied it you!” cried the Mole brokenly. “It is I who have been insensitive all these years!”

  “Why do you think I have kept myself so busy at my River work if not to forget the wanderlust within me? Why do I grow irritable sometimes, especially when autumn comes and I see all those birds migrating, heading off on journeys I myself will now never make?”

  “But Ratty, if you really wanted to, then surely you could?”

  “No, Mole, not any more. I am too old to follow my youthful dreams, too lacking in energy and enterprise, and I shall never be able to now. And she who has sustained me so long is dying day by day and soon I shall have nothing left, and no hope!”

  The Rat could not continue, but only stared out through the window as the Mole had done, at the grey River and the dull wintry scene beyond, as tears of grief for his lost youth coursed unhindered down his face.

  “O Ratty, please don’t!”

  The door quietly opened and the Badger came in with two steaming mugs of tea. He saw at once how things lay and when the Rat said, “Leave me alone now, please let me be alone!” he understood that it was for the best. There are times when an animal needs solitude.

  “Come on, Mole old chap, I expect Ratty could do with some rest once he’s drunk his tea — and when he has then I’m sure he’d be glad if you would prepare something for him to eat, something bland and gentle, which will not unsettle him once more.

  “Yes, yes, I need to sleep’ said the Rat, not looking at either of them but staring out of the window.

  So there they left him, the door quietly closed once more, with the Mole very much subdued and overcome by the revelations his friend had made.

  “I’m sorry —“ began Young Rat, who felt the crisis must be all his fault.

  “There is nothing to be sorry for,” said the Mole comfortingly, “indeed rather the opposite, for Ratty and I have been made to talk of things too long unsaid and if a friendship is true it should not balk at doing so. Is that not so, Badger?”

  The Badger nodded sagely Then he said, “We have all had enough excitement for one day and I shall go home, and you should do so as well, Nephew, for your uncle and Young Rat here are quite capable of seeing to his needs. I am sure that Ratty will thank Otter and Portly for their help when he is better, but for now.

  “I shall stay here tonight,” said the Mole as Nephew and the others dispersed and Young Rat went out with them to help them on their way Then he stoked the fire, listened for a moment at the Rat’s door and, after examining the books upon the Rat’s dresser, took down his atlas of the world.

  How well thumbed it was, how readily it opened at those central pages that showed the Mediterranean lands. How the Mole sighed as he cast his eyes over all the many names Ratty had underlined over the years: Tangier, Tunis and Syracuse; Crete and Cyprus, Egypt and the Lebanon.

  Then, a good many pages on, he found a torn slip of paper marking the pages entitled “The Middle East:

  Asia, South”. Upon that sheet, written not only in the Rat’s hand but in Young Rat’s too, were those places to which the two had undertaken a culinary journey the night before with such dire consequences: Suez, the Gulf of Aden, and Al Basrah in the Persian Gulf; Bombay, and further off yet, Penang and Kuala Lumpur.

  It seemed that the Rat had as yet marked off only one of these destinations on the map itself, this time in red and recently so, for the crayon he had used lay still upon the dresser: Al Basrah, in the kitchen of whose Caliph the Sea Rat once worked, and whose superlative Shaljamiya Chicken had given the Rat so much pleasure — and discomfort.

  Yet not a discomfort so great as the Mole felt as he saw what the Rat had written on the paper below this list of names: “Places I would have liked to visit but now never shall.”

  “O my, how wrong I was to make Ratty stay at home, how wrong!” cried the Mole disconsolately, throwing himself down into the Rat’s chair and staring at the fire, the atlas open in his hands.

  Which is how Young Rat found him when he returned a short time later.

  “Mr Mole, are you all right?” asked the youngster. “No, I am not and nor is Ratty. I am hungry, for I have barely eaten all day, and as for Ratty, I venture to suggest that his appetite will return when he wakes up. Therefore, I would be much obliged if you would set to in the galley and prepare something, for I am too tired and upset to do it myself”

  “I could make you the stickleback pie you both like.”

  “No, I think something a little more — interesting.”

  “Well then, I suppose I could do coddled eggs — that’s a favourite of Mr Ratty’s, or used to be before — before —“

  “Quite so’ said the Mole, “quite so. But I was thinking that perhaps my cooking has been a little unadventurous of late and that if you could find some exotic yet mild dish, one fit for stomachs used to River Bank food yet in need of appetizing excitement —“My Pa used to make rendangdaging for those who have been ill and indisposed, and I think I have the ingredients.”

  “A raging den gang?” repeated the Mole doubtfully.

  “No, rendangdaging — it’s Malayan and means —“

  “Pray, do not tell me what it means, or what it contains. Does it perchance come from the environs of Penang?”

  “More or less, give or take a few days up a jungle creek in a boat.”

  “Then please make it for us.

  “Of course,” said Young Rat. Then he set to with a will, only later adding that it might be wise to have some sweetmeats to follow.

  “Sweetmeats,” murmured the Mole dreamily, having resumed his perusal of Ratty’s atlas and paused awhile in the Persian Gulf. “What is it you have in mind?”

  “There’s hais, of which I have a stock in the larder, for they keep well. Then there’s honeyed dates, of which the Caliph himself was especially fond, and of which my Pa became a master when he took over the job of Chief Taster to the Court —“

  The Mole waved his hand airily and said, “They sound just the ticket, and I am sure they will help the Rat feel a lot better. But do avoid turnips, aubergines and banana-bean sauce, for at least a day or two, if you don’t mind!”

  VII

  The Uninvited Guest

  In the days and weeks following the Rat’s sudden indisposition grey mists hung almost continually over the fields and dikes about the River, and the days grew dull and tedious. It was not yet as cold as that sudden snap of ice and snow at the start of November, but the feeling persisted that winter would show its harsher face again before too long.

  That the Rat’s sudden and alarming “illness” had proved to be nothing more than a severe bout of indigestion brought on by Young Rat’s exotic cuisine was naturally a source of some amusement up and down the River Bank.

  The Mole was not so easily fooled, however, nor sanguine about those matters which in his hours of greatest discomfort the Rat had so frankly raised.

  In any case, the Rat did not recover quite so well as might have been hoped, as if his gastric trials and tribulations had brought out into the open a deeper lassitude and despondency He tried to seem cheerful and to keep busy, but he did so without much will, and many a time the Mole caught him staring at the River sadly, wistful for past dreams he felt he could not recover, and filled with foreboding for the future of the River he loved so much.

  Feeling somewhat responsible for the Rat’s malaise and disappointment in his life, the Mole took to spending two or three nights each week at Ratty’s home, hoping in that way to raise his spirits, or at least make sure that he did not plunge to yet gloomier depths. In this endeavour he was encouraged by the Rat himself, who asked that he stay close, and who always perked up when, after an absence necessitated by his chores at Mole End, his friend appeared on the far side of the River once more.

  “Young Rat, stir yourself and fetch Mole over here, for he must not be kept waiting in the cold!”

  Which was all very well, as the Mole observed to Nephew, except that in f
ormer days the Rat would have stirred himself to be the ferryman. So, after all, decided Mole, Ratty was really not himself, and whether it was the advance of years, the decline of the River, or something more, a way must be found to put the life and brightness back into his old friend’s eyes.

  Because the Rat rested and slept more than formerly, the Mole found himself in Young Rat’s company a good deal. How impressed the Mole was by the youngster’s own quiet care of his “Cap’n”, his unassuming modesty where his considerable River skills were concerned, and the fond way he would talk of his younger days in his “old Pa’s” company.

  “How long it seems that Ratty has been out of sorts. It’s the first day of December already,” murmured the Mole one morning, “and Christmas is almost upon us.

  “Christmas?” said Young Rat. “My Pa used to mention it from his own childhood, but where we lived we never celebrated it.”

  “Never celebrated the Festive Season!” cried the astonished Mole.

  “We were in hot climes, in strange places, where people celebrated other things at other times.”

  “But that’s terrible. That’s —The Mole could not find the right words to express his dismay that Young Rat, for all his nautical skills and worldly experience, had never celebrated Christmas.

  “Pa said it wasn’t the same in a hot place. Said a decorated tree looked funny in the sun. Said turkey and plum pudding didn’t taste the same.”

  Then, after due pause, he added, “Pa also said his happiest ever times were at Christmas, before he went a-wandering.”

  The Mole was silent awhile thinking, and then a little longer, for till that moment it had never occurred to him just how much Young Rat must still grieve for his lost father.

  “You miss your father, do you not?” he said. Young Rat nodded and replied, “Never had a chance to say goodbye. One moment we were together and the next the Gruesome got him and he had only strength left to get me a berth with the Royal Mail. Gave me this old marlin spike, shook my hand, and said that he’d done the best he could by me and the rest was up to me and I must make my own passage now But — but —“

  The youngster bowed his head, and the Mole, who seemed to have done a good deal of comforting of late, put his arm about him and let him sob as the River rolled by and the dank morning mist began to clear.

  “Pa said — he — he —“

  “What did he say?” prompted the Mole.

  “He used to say he always wanted to celebrate Christmas at home just once more, but now he never will and I will never see him again.

  A little time later, when a further round of sobbing was done, the Mole said, “Well! We’ll just have to see that you celebrate Christmas this year!”

  “And Mr Ratty,” said Young Rat, “he can too.”

  “Indeed, what a good idea, what a very good idea —and Ratty too! We’ll give you both a Christmas that none of us will forget and that will bring good cheer to all of us!”

  The youngster brightened and his eyes lit up.

  “What exactly do we have to do at Christmas?”

  The Mole said, “Do? We don’t have to do anything very much, except think a little of what our friends might want — for we give each of them a gift, don’t you see? — and have about us only those things and people and memories that we like and cherish. Then there’s the little matter of the festive board, which is to say the food and drink, in which department, if I may say so without being immodest, I am regarded locally as something of an expert. Why, my plum pudding —“What’s plum pudding?”

  “Good heavens, there is a lot about Christmas you don’t know For there’s all the speeches and formality —that adds a little extra to the occasion, though you can take it from me that Mr Toad considers himself an authority on such matters!”

  “When does it start?”

  “Starts a long time back, for Christmas is in our hearts and it’s always there, waiting to come forth to lighten the darkness at the turning of the winter solstice. But when does it show its cheerful face once more? Why, I think that’s when the Yule log is lit in the fireplace of each and every home in the land, and those gathered there make three silent wishes, one for peace amongst us all, one for contentment to those who have had a struggle to find it in the year just past, and one for themselves, themselves alone.”

  Thus did the two animals talk, the Mole bringing forth memories of his happy past with which to whet the appetite of Young Rat for a better future.

  “Now let us go and tell Ratty that we intend to enjoy this Christmas, whatever the circumstances! Do not mind if he complains, and says it is all too much fuss, just as he always has in the past, but take it instead as a sign he’s getting better!”

  But Ratty did not complain too much, and it was very soon generally agreed that this year it would be right and proper to celebrate Christmas all together.

  “In which case,” declared the Badger, “there is only one place to do it, and that’s Toad Hall.”

  Toad needed no persuading, and took it as a compliment that they wished to celebrate Christmas with him.

  “Of course, in the days of the old Toad Hall, and my father, when I was young,” said he, “we opened our doors to all the River Bank folk, even the weasels and stoats. But in those days they knew their place and were not insubordinate. Eh, Badger?”

  “In those days, I am beginning to think a great many things were a good deal better than they are now,” said the Badger darkly. “I had a letter today from the Town Hall regarding their intentions to build in the Wild Wood. We shall have to fight them to the very end! However, however… that is for the future. Back to more cheerful matters — let us make this a Christmas feast to remember.”

  “It goes without saying that we can leave the catering in the hands of Mole here, and Nephew!” cried Toad.

  “Hear, hear!” cried the others, as the Mole blushed and raised his hands modestly in protest.

  “My kitchen and its staff will be at your disposal,” said Toad grandly.

  “The invitations will be my department,” said the Badger, “with Portly and Grandson to help deliver them.”

  “Use my letterheads, old fellow, and do not stint on the ink: I have plenty of it!” declared Toad.

  “Now, when it comes to games and so forth,” continued Badger, “this is an area in which Otter excels, if I remember aright, and I suggest he should be in charge!”

  “Let me know what games you’re lacking, Otter, and I’ll send to the Town for it,” said Toad.

  “As for table decorations, crackers and the like,” said the Badger, “I would have asked Ratty, but as he may not feel up to it at the moment, I wonder if—”

  “Sir,” interrupted Young Rat, “may I say something?”

  The Badger nodded.

  “Mr Ratty would be disappointed not to do anything, so as I am his assistant, could I ask him to tell me what to do?”

  “Now that is the Christmas spirit!” said the Badger approvingly. “I am sure that Mole will see that Ratty does not overtax himself for he is a stickler for getting things in their right and proper place.”

  “So am I,” said Young Rat quietly.

  So the day was organized, each animal having his part to play.

  “But what am I to do, Badger?” cried Toad, who was beginning to feel that matters had rather been taken out of his control.

  The truth was that the Badger remembered only too well a particular Christmas, mercifully a very long time ago, when Toad’s father had most unfortunately put the matter of Christmas’s organization into his errant son’s hands. As a result, he had made the Badger promise that when Toad senior passed on he, Badger, would see to it that Toad was never again allowed sole responsibility for Christmas arrangements.

  The Badger blinked, and a dark shadow crossed his face at the memory of the fell consequences of that dreadful hour; a day that had included an Emeritus Bishop being suspended from a chandelier, upside down; the father of the present Senior Commissione
r of Police being wrapped up and given as a Christmas box to the dustmen; and — the injustice of it — the present High Judge’s uncle, then the highest Law Lord in the Land, being confined for a large part of the Christmas meal in darkness in the cellars below, without even a mince pie to his name.

  “You, Toad?” growled the Badger, forbearing to remind him of these grim events.

  “Yes, me’ said Toad in a small voice. “I would like to do something, if you please. It is, after all, my home. And, if I may say so, it would be reasonable if Master Toad had a part to play as well.”

  Badger had given considerable thought to this matter, for whilst it was wise to keep Toad well away from the organization of the Christmas festivities, they could hardly exclude him, and in any case would not wish to do so. Indeed, without Toad, disasters included, Christmas would not be the same. The Badger remembered all too well a certain party at his home that had been gloom itself till Toad had turned up and changed things altogether.

  “Toad,” said the Badger gravely, “I have left you till last because what I want to ask you to do —“

  “Ask it!” cried Toad.

  “What we all want to ask you to consider —“

  “I shall do it for you all,” said Toad magnanimously.

  “— is difficult —“

  “Nothing’s too difficult for Toad of Toad Hall.”

  “— and demanding —”

  “Demanding!Tshaw!”

  “— and will take thought —”

  “Thinking’s my best department!”

  “— and a good deal of time —”

  “I have made time my servant, Badger, old fellow, and that’s why I achieve so much so brilliantly”

  “— and no one here could do it better.”

  “Well, well,” said Toad, strutting about and puffing himself up. “Some lead and others follow, some can do and some can’t, some, and I may say a very few and I am one, can stride the world like a giant, as the poet said, or something like it, while others merely crawl about, don’t you know, and — what exactly is it you want me to do?”