by Hilary McKay
Meanwhile, Mrs Conroy was having the most exciting lunch hour of them all. The post had brought a solicitors’ letter addressed to her husband, and she’d been so worried she’d called him to come home from work.
‘Thank goodness you’re here at last,’ she said, distractedly kissing the air beside his ear and pushing the long white envelope into his hands. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing you’ve done and I know the girls can be naughty, but they’re not so bad that we should be getting solicitors’ letters … For Heaven’s sake, open it and tell me the worst!’
Mr Conroy studied the address on the corner of the envelope.
‘Never heard of them,’ he remarked and began carefully unsealing the flap.
‘Do hurry up, John!’
‘It looks like,’ said Mr Conroy after hastily scanning the first page, ‘my poor old Uncle’s dead …’
‘Well, it’s the first I’ve heard of you having a poor old Uncle,’ replied his wife.
Mr Conroy explained that he wasn’t actually an Uncle, more of a Great-Uncle, who he’d never even met.
‘They’ll have come to us for the funeral expenses,’ he said in the worried voice of someone who has lost an unknown relation and gained a large bill. ‘No, wait, listen to this – bequests! Next-door neighbour, Cats’ Protection, his local library to buy some new books, and … Well, I never!’ Mr Conroy looked up, beaming. ‘Five thousand pounds to me!’
‘To you!’ exclaimed Mrs Conroy.
‘To all of us,’ said Mr Conroy, gallantly. ‘What will the girls say?’
Then they both thought about what the girls would say.
‘There’ll be no peace,’ said Mrs Conroy, at last. ‘They’ll think … well, goodness knows what they’ll think!’
‘Nothing sensible,’ said her husband.
‘Nothing sensible at all,’ she nodded. ‘Perhaps we should just keep quiet until we decide what to do.’
‘Best for everyone,’ said Mr Conroy, and so it was agreed, but all the same, for the rest of the day, they couldn’t help smiling when they caught each other’s eye.
Ruth and Naomi noticed this. They noticed the surprise ice cream at supper time too, and Mrs Conroy’s sudden whisking away of a long white envelope from the table in the kitchen. After the washing-up was done, they both hung around inquisitively, getting in the way until they were chased out to the garden with Rachel and Phoebe.
Earlier that afternoon, Rachel and Phoebe had staggered out of school weighed down not only by a year’s accumulation of artwork in carrier bags, but also a huge paper and balsa wood model of the entire town centre. Despite Mrs Conroy’s protests, they had insisted on carrying it home, dropping it many times on the way, so a lot of the houses and the whole church tower had come loose and fallen in the river, which was a real river, lined with plastic and filled with water.
‘They gave it to us to have forever,’ said Rachel proudly to Ruth and Naomi. ‘My class made it in Geography.’
‘We’re going to use it for maggot racing,’ said Phoebe. ‘They can go up and down the streets.’
Naomi shuddered.
‘Don’t you think it’s lovely?’ demanded Rachel.
‘Perhaps you could mend it,’ said Ruth, looking at it thoughtfully. ‘And paint it better, and fix the river. It’s leaked all over the marketplace. What are those dinosaurs?’
‘Swans,’ said Rachel.
‘Where are their necks?’
‘They had to be short, so their heads would stay on.’
‘The church looks weird, all purple.’
‘If you’re going to be horrible we won’t let you share it,’ said Rachel crossly. ‘Mum’s being horrible too. She won’t let us take it upstairs.’
‘No she won’t,’ agreed Mrs Conroy, arriving just then to look down on them all. ‘As long as it doesn’t rain it can stay out here until the bin men come. I’ll have to ask them to take it specially. We’ll have more than enough mess in the house this summer as it is.’
‘Why will we?’ asked Naomi, immediately.
‘Never you mind,’ said her mother. ‘Rachel and Phoebe, five more minutes, then it’s time you were in the bath, both of you. You’ve got all that green to scrub off. Collect those bags of scrap paper before they get scattered everywhere, and then straight inside and upstairs.’
‘They’re not scrap paper; they’re our pictures and projects,’ said Rachel indignantly, when she’d gone back inside. ‘Here’s my Viking Diary! Here’s my Dragon Easter egg. Here’s my picture of my family that they stuck up on the wall …’
‘What!’ exclaimed Naomi, pouncing. ‘Let me look! Is that me? It’s terrible! Who’s that at the end?’
‘Big Grandma.’
‘Look at her teeth! And her eyes, and that hat!’
‘It’s not a hat, it’s her ears and her hair.’
‘Actually it’s really good,’ said Ruth. ‘She looks a lot like that.’
‘But crosser,’ said Phoebe, coming over to have a look. ‘Much crosser. Big Grandma says I’m spoilt!’
‘She says we all are,’ Naomi agreed, ‘and that we read too much and answer back and never do anything to help. Nothing to help! We slave!’
‘Last time she was here,’ said Ruth, ‘she said we’d soon know the difference if we lived with her and I said, “I expect it would be lovely, Grandma,” and she said “Don’t kid yourself”.’
‘She talks like that to make herself feel modern,’ said Naomi. ‘I don’t blame Uncle Robert a bit for running away. What’s this?’
‘My Christmas Present List,’ Phoebe told her.
It read:
A train set
A donkey
A television
A sack of Ester Eggs
A swiming pool not 2 depe
My own magots
The Easter eggs, swimming pool and maggots were obviously later additions.
‘Imagine anyone keeping a Christmas present list up to date,’ said Ruth. ‘When did you add the maggots?’
‘Yesterday. I tick things off when I get them.’
‘Nothing’s been ticked off.’
‘I know. Give it me back. I still need it.’
‘What for?’
‘Next year.’
Mrs Conroy’s head appeared from an upstairs window. She shouted, ‘Bath!’
‘That’s you two,’ Ruth told Rachel and Phoebe. ‘Listen! She’s got a secret. They both have. Try and find out what it is.’
‘What sort of secret?’
‘Don’t know. Something. Go.’
They went, leaving the garden to their sisters. The talcum powder smell of night-scented stocks drifted through the air. Ruth lay on her back, gazing at the sky and wondering. Naomi read, all hunched up with her cardigan buttoned over her knees, her head bent, and her straight brown hair falling in screens on either side of her face.
‘They’re very pleased with themselves,’ said Ruth at last.
Naomi looked up. ‘Mum and Dad?’
‘Mmm,’ said Ruth thoughtfully. ‘What is it?’
‘Another baby?’
‘Can’t be. They wouldn’t be pleased about that. They think we’re enough.’
‘We are enough,’ said Naomi, and turned back to her book again.
It grew cooler in the garden. The shadow of the wall spread across the lawn and Ruth and Naomi retreated in front of it. When it finally tipped them into the flowerbed they gave up and went indoors.
‘Good night, sweet dreams, go to sleep quickly,’ said their parents absent-mindedly, and when the girls were gone they sat up late, discussing many things.
‘They might enjoy themselves,’ said Mr Conroy, getting up at last and stretching. ‘They’re always wanting to be off somewhere else in summer too.’
‘I know they are.’
‘I think she’d be upset if you refused her.’
‘She would.’
‘Well then.’
‘Well then,’ said Mrs Conroy.
CHAPTE
R THREE
‘Three more days of term,’ remarked Ruth at breakfast time on Wednesday morning.
‘Then what?’ asked Phoebe.
‘Nothing, probably.’ Ruth’s tone of extreme gloom caused Mr and Mrs Conroy to glance at each other. Mr Conroy raised his eyebrows, but his wife shook her head, still undecided. It was Rachel who finally helped her make up her mind.
Last year at the end of term Mrs Conroy had said to Rachel, ‘Don’t you ever dare say that you’ll clear up that horrible paint trolley again!’
Rachel’s school dress had been ruined; covered in paint stains that nothing could wash out. ‘It was brand new!’ her mother had lamented, ‘and would have done next year for Phoebe.’ School uniform and other expensive clothes were often passed between the Conroy sisters; there was a dressing gown that had gone right down the whole line. It had a hood with white furry rabbit ears. Ruth, who had unwrapped it one long-ago Christmas morning, still looked jealously at those ears when she saw them on Phoebe, but ‘It’s nice to share,’ said Mrs Conroy, and share the Conroys did. For a dress to last less than a term had been almost shocking and Rachel remembered very clearly all the fuss that had been made.
Therefore, when this year the teacher said, ‘Let me see who I can ask to tidy up the paint things for us,’ and she, Rachel, had shot up her hand and said, ‘Oh, please, me!’ before any of the other children could speak, she did at least feel guilty.
But not very guilty, because she loved washing the paint things, the bubbles and the glorious way the colours swirled and ran. This time I won’t splash, thought Rachel, and alone in the girls’ toilets with a hand-basin full of water and the paint trolley beside her, she pushed up her sleeves and began.
Very carefully Rachel washed the brushes, and then the jam-jars, and the palettes that didn’t have much paint on them. It was pleasant with the warm water, and the sunshine glowing through the windows and the buzzing sound from the surrounding classrooms. Happily she started on the palettes that contained something worth washing. She lowered a full one into the basin and turned the water dark blue, and then tipped in yellow to make it green. It took a lot of yellow to make it even faintly greenish. Red slipped in and the water went very dark, so she added a lot of other colours, trying to make black. After that she emptied the basin and held the palettes under the tap, watching the colours stream out and swim together and run down the plug hole. She nearly put her finger up the end of the tap to make it spray, but then thought better of it and didn’t. Too soon everything was shining clean and she had nothing left except a yoghurt carton half full of bright red that she had been saving till last. Carefully she poured it into a sink full of clean water, glowing with pleasure at the beautiful pink that resulted. Then she let the water out and dried her hands.
‘Goodness, Rachel!’ exclaimed the teacher, coming in to hurry her up. ‘Couldn’t you have been a bit more careful?’
Rachel looked at her in amazement.
‘Just look at your dress!’ said the teacher.
Rachel looked down and couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She was covered in paint again, just like last year. Just like last year, only worse. There was even paint on her socks, and all over the splashes and drips of colour on her dress she saw a complete set of red fingermarks wiped right down her front. It was like being haunted.
‘Well, it’s a good thing it’s home time,’ said the teacher. ‘Why ever didn’t you put an overall on?’
Rachel didn’t answer. She was suffering from shock. It had been agreed that she and Phoebe could walk home alone together that day, a rare treat that came with lots of instructions about being grown up and sensible and paying attention to the lollipop lady. The freedom made Phoebe chatty with cheerfulness.
‘You’ve got paint on your dress,’ she said.
Phoebe didn’t often notice things about other people.
‘What d’you think Mum’ll say?’ she asked conversationally.
‘Leave me alone!’
‘She didn’t say anything about the grass marks yesterday,’ said Phoebe. ‘Hardly anything. Everybody else’s mum did. Jacqueline’s mum went mad.’
Rachel continued to plod in silence, with Phoebe half skipping, half walking beside her.
‘I bet Mum goes mad this time!’ said Phoebe cheerfully. ‘Do you want me to come with you when you show her?’
‘No!’ growled Rachel, and when home came into sight she waited until Phoebe disappeared through the front door, and then trudged dismally to the back of the house alone. Mrs Conroy was in the kitchen talking to a strange man who appeared to be measuring the walls. Rachel stood in the doorway, scrabbling through her mind for an opening remark, but as it turned out she didn’t need to say anything at all. Mrs Conroy, catching sight of her daughter’s miserable face, and the red streaks, rushed across to her.
‘You’ve hurt yourself,’ she cried in concern.
‘S’paint,’ said Rachel.
‘Ooh dearie me,’ remarked the man, and started writing busily on a little pad so that he wouldn’t have to have anything to do with it.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Conroy straightening up. ‘That’s the second dress this week! Bright green yesterday, paint today! Didn’t I tell you to leave that paint trolley alone! This really is the Last Straw! I’ve a very good mind to …’
‘What?’ asked Rachel.
‘Never you mind!’
‘It’s something awful, I know it is.’
Mrs Conroy didn’t deny it. She snapped, ‘I’m very busy. Go outside and behave yourself and keep that dress on till I come and sort you out!’
Mrs Conroy was so cross that Rachel didn’t protest. Instead, she sat on the grass and wished she could do something dramatic and awful that would make everybody sorry. I’ll faint, she thought, that’ll show them. She held her breath to try and make this happen but as soon as it began to hurt she couldn’t help herself breathing again.
Behind her Ruth said, ‘What’s that man doing in the kitchen? Mum won’t let us in.’
‘Measuring,’ answered Rachel, gasping for air, ‘go away.’
‘Measuring what? Come on, tell us.’
‘Measuring the walls. Leave me alone.’
‘If you’re worried about that paint,’ said Naomi kindly, ‘you’re wasting your time. That dress was horrible, and no one but our family would be seen dead in it. It’s a good job it’s ruined. At least Phoebe will escape it.’
‘Is it ruined?’ asked Ruth with interest.
‘Bound to be,’ said Naomi cheerfully. ‘That paint never washes off. Remember that one she did last year. Mum just threw it out. It’s quite a good way of getting rid of them.’
‘I didn’t want it anyway,’ added Phoebe, doing her bit to cheer her sister up, ‘it looked awful on you.’
‘Are you sure he’s measuring the walls?’ asked Ruth, returning to her original question.
‘No,’ admitted Rachel. ‘I didn’t really look.’
‘It’s no good talking to her when she’s got that dress on,’ said Naomi. ‘Go and take it off, Rachel.’
‘Mum said to stay out here till she comes to sort me out.’
‘Why?’ asked Naomi. ‘You look terrible. Go in through the front, get changed and then listen outside the kitchen door and come back and tell us everything you hear.’
‘Can I say you and Ruth made me if Mum notices what I’m doing?’
‘Of course,’ said Naomi, ‘we are making you! Go on!’
Rachel went, but when she came back she had nothing to tell them.
‘Nothing that makes sense,’ she said dismally. ‘I can’t remember anyway. I tried to wash my dress and now the bathroom’s all painty too. And the towels. And it dripped bright red on the bathmat.’
Naomi groaned and asked, ’Why on earth have you got your pyjamas on? Are you ill?’
‘I thought I’d probably be sent to bed,’ Rachel replied, ‘so I thought I might as well get ready.’
Her three sisters looke
d at her in despair. They believed in behaving as though they were innocent at least until they were proven guilty, and quite often even after that.
‘It was a very weak-spirited thing to do,’ pronounced Naomi pompously, ‘especially when we said you could say that we made you.’
‘Go and get changed again,’ ordered Ruth. ‘You’ve got to learn to stick up for yourself whatever you’ve done!’ She sighed as she watched her sister trudge once more towards the house.
‘No moral strength,’ Naomi remarked.
‘I know,’ said Ruth, ‘but she’s got to be trained.’
‘She’s lucky to have us really,’ agreed Naomi.
Teatime, when the news of the sudden wealth of the Conroy family had been broken, had been rather tense.
‘I am going to make a family announcement,’ Mr Conroy had begun. Ruth and Naomi glanced at each other.
‘What?’ asked Rachel, forgetting she was in disgrace and stabbing a whole sausage onto her fork.
‘Use your knife!’ scolded Mrs Conroy as Rachel bit the sausage in half, ‘and I thought I told you not to get changed! I hope you haven’t left that dress lying on your bedroom carpet?’
‘No,’ said Rachel virtuously, because she had hated looking at the dress so much she had squeezed it out and buried it in the airing cupboard, under a pile of sheets.
‘What sort of family announcement?’ asked Naomi.
‘Right,’ said Mr Conroy, and told them.
For a few moments his daughters sat around the tea table in complete silence, too surprised to move, too surprised to think, staring at their parents in amazement. Phoebe’s mashed potato fell off her fork onto the table-cloth and Rachel picked it up and ate it without even knowing what she was doing.
‘That’s taken the wind from your sails,’ said Mr Conroy. ‘I must say it did mine when I first heard it.’
‘Why’d he leave it to us?’ asked Naomi. ‘He didn’t even know us.’
‘Five thousand pounds!’ repeated Rachel. ‘Five thousand pounds! It’s the first time I’ve ever been rich!’