The Secret Starling

by Judith Eagle

  When she came back down, Peter had let Stockwell out. The cat was jet black, just like the picture of the kitten in the tea shop. Her soft coat gleamed like liquorice, begging to be stroked.

  Tentatively, Clara slid her hand over the smooth fur. Uncle had hated pets. Once, one of the governesses had had a pair of pet mice. Their cage had been like a fairground, with wheels and slides and ladders. The mice had been so sweet, tiny and white, and Clara had loved to hold them in her hands and feel their quivering whiskers. But then Uncle had caught her and the governess sharing their tea with them one day, and he’d flown into a rage and ordered them to be destroyed. The governess had shouted, ‘Over my dead body!’ and left with the mice the next day.

  ‘Where is your uncle?’ asked Peter, showing Clara how to tickle Stockwell under the chin.

  ‘I don’t know,’ answered Clara truthfully. ‘He dropped me off in the village and he never came back. He’s been selling all this stuff and he sacked Cook and our butler, James. I think he might have run away.’

  ‘You had a cook and a butler?’ Peter stared at her in disbelief. He furrowed his brow, which Clara thought made him look like a little pug dog. ‘Why would he say I could come if he wasn’t planning on being here? Where’s the phone? I’d better call and tell Stella.’

  ‘Please don’t!’ said Clara, her heart lurching. ‘I’ll be all right on my own!’

  ‘But the house is for sale,’ said Peter doubtfully. ‘If your uncle’s got money problems, he’s going to have to sell it to get himself out of them. Besides, children aren’t allowed to live on their own. Adults don’t let them.’

  ‘Oh, it’ll be fine!’ said Clara. She wished he wouldn’t look so worried. ‘I’ve got money to buy supplies. And I just won’t answer the door! Honestly, I’ve had enough of being ordered about and told what to do. I’m going to be in charge for a change.’ Peter still looked unconvinced. ‘Has Stockwell been your cat for long?’ she asked to change the subject. It sounded like one of the ‘what to do in polite society’ questions a governess had taught her when she was learning etiquette, but it did the trick and Peter brightened.

  Stockwell was a rescued cat, he explained, found at Stockwell tube station in London by someone called Stanley. ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘what sort of owner abandons a tiny helpless kitten in an underground station? Stanley wanted to call the cat-protection people, but I begged him not to.’ Peter talked and talked. His voice rose and fell, smooth, then staccato, speeding up and slowing down. When he got excited, he talked louder. It was a lovely change from Uncle’s dull monotone.

  ‘Stanley sounds nice,’ said Clara.

  ‘He is. He’s the stationmaster,’ Peter explained, scratching the cat gently between its ears. ‘He said I could keep her as long as Granny didn’t mind. ’Course, Granny would have minded if she was well. She always said cats shouldn’t live in flats, especially as our flat is on the eighteenth floor, but she’s sick, so …’ Peter’s voice trailed off and he turned away from Clara. Then he said fiercely, ‘She’s been in bed for ages. The doctors don’t even know what’s wrong. They just keep saying she needs rest!’

  ‘So what did your Granny say?’ asked Clara. If she’d brought a cat home out of the blue, Uncle would have hit the roof.

  ‘Nothing really,’ said Peter. ‘She feels guilty ’cause I have to do everything, like make breakfast and tea, and tidy the flat. Luckily, when I’m at school, Stella comes to make her lunch. Soup, usually.’

  The cat stretched luxuriously, her paws straight out in front of her and her head down low. It reminded Clara of the yoga one of her governesses had liked to do. When Stockwell had finished stretching, she rolled on her side for Peter to scratch her tummy, then sprang up and trotted after them into the kitchen, brushing against their legs while they searched first for a tin opener and then a saucer.

  ‘Why don’t you know where anything’s kept?’ asked Peter. ‘I thought you lived here.’

  ‘Why should I know?’ retorted Clara, and then before she could help it she said in an Uncle-ish sort of way, ‘The kitchen was Cook’s domain.’

  Peter gave her a look and she didn’t blame him; she sounded rude and awful. They both watched Stockwell tuck into her tea. She ate neatly, from the edge of the saucer inwards. When everything had gone she licked the plate until it shone.

  After that Peter wanted to explore. He ran all over the house, along the first floor and the second floor, exclaiming at the vastness of the rooms, poking his head into every corner, opening cupboards and peering out of windows, even though it was quite dark. When he discovered the turret, his eyes gleamed. Clara had never been very fond of the winding stairway leading up to the room at the top where there was one narrow window that let in only a chink of light. Nevertheless, it had occasionally been a place to flee, to get as far away from Uncle as possible, and to quietly fume.

  ‘This is brilliant!’ Peter said, shoving his head into the narrow recess of the window and peering out at the inky blackness beyond. ‘Your house is massive,’ he said, pulling back into the room, his hair glittering with shards of rain, ‘like something out of a film.’

  They were both starving now. Back in the kitchen, Clara showed Peter the contents of the pantry.

  ‘I know!’ he said, surveying the eggs and the potatoes. ‘We can play The Galloping Gourmet.’

  The Galloping Gourmet was a telly programme that Peter watched with his granny. As you prepared the food, you talked about what you were doing. When the dish was ready, you invited a member of the audience to try it with you and made ecstatic faces when you tasted the first bite. Peter loved cookery programmes. ‘One day I’m going to have a whole cupboard full of herbs and spices, and I’ll make things like beef Wellington—’

  ‘And coq au vin,’ said Clara.

  ‘And prawn cocktail!’ said Peter.

  The first part of the game was to run into the kitchen, jump over a chair and skid to a halt.

  ‘Welcome to The Galloping Gourmet!’ announced Peter.

  Then it was on to the cooking. They filled two pans with water and set them to boil. It took a while to work out how to turn on the electric plates, but eventually they did it and managed to keep up a running commentary throughout.

  Next, Peter peeled the potatoes, round and round so that the peel dropped to the counter in perfect spirals. ‘Potatoes, patatoes,’ he sang. ‘Let’s call the whole thing off!’ When Clara had picked up the tune and some of the words, she joined in. It was easy to get carried along by Peter’s enthusiasm.

  While the pans bubbled and spat, and clouds of steam filled the kitchen, Peter and Clara raised imaginary glasses of wine and shared cookery tips with the ‘audience’. When the potatoes were done, they drained them and mashed them, and then Peter rapped the eggs theatrically on his forehead to crack the shells before peeling them.

  ‘Never tasted anything so delicious in my whole life,’ exclaimed Clara. And it was true. It was even better than the salt-and-vinegar crisp sandwich a governess had once let her try when Uncle had been out.

  At last, after they had demolished everything, and their plates were squeaky clean, Peter leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the table. ‘You and Stockwell aren’t the only ones to be abandoned,’ he confided. ‘I once was too, and if it wasn’t for Granny, I don’t know what would have happened.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Granny’s not my real granny,’ began Peter. ‘I was left on a train when I was a baby, in a basket on the 12.52 into Charing Cross. The guard took me to lost property and luckily it was Granny’s day for cleaning.’ He paused dramatically as if waiting to see what effect his revelation had on Clara. ‘She’s a cleaner,’ he continued. ‘Thank goodness she knew Mr Framlingham.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ asked Clara. She could just picture the squealing baby in the basket, shocked faces peering down at the poor abandoned little thing.

  ‘Lawyer. Granny cleaned his offices. He arranged it so she could adopt me. She said
it was love at first sight.’

  Clara sighed. Peter was a real live orphan. It was just like some of the stories in her favourite books.

  ‘The trouble is,’ he said, and the little pug frown appeared again, ‘I meant what I said about social services. That’s why Stella thinks it’s safer for me to be here. Plus,’ the pug frown deepened, ‘I don’t even know if Granny’s paying the rent because she hasn’t been able to work for ages. What if they kick us out?’

  ‘Well, you can’t go back then,’ Clara blurted out. ‘Not yet anyway. Look …’ she pushed her chair back and clattered away down the hall, enjoying the sound of her feet on the polished wood floor, imagining Uncle’s pained expression at the noise. She delved in her coat pocket for the rolled-up ten-pound notes and then skidded back to Peter. ‘I told you I’ve got all this money. We can be orphans together – I think I count as an orphan if my dad doesn’t even know I exist – and survive on our own. I’ll have to lie low so that the villagers don’t know Uncle’s gone, but you can go to the shop and get supplies! And when your granny’s better, you can go home. And,’ a helpful thought struck her, ‘if you do get kicked out of your flat, you can come here.’

  Peter’s eyes were like saucers as he looked at the roll of notes in Clara’s hand.

  ‘That is a lot of money,’ he said.

  ‘Two hundred pounds! Uncle gave it to me,’ said Clara. ‘It must be guilt money.’

  There was a little silence while Peter gently stroked the velvety space between Stockwell’s ears. ‘You could buy a cruise with that,’ he said at last, ‘or twelve bicycles, or trillions of chocolate bars … but what about when the money runs out?’

  Clara was about to explain that if it did she would start selling some of the house’s belongings, just like Uncle had, when a shrill sound made her jump.

  ‘That’ll be Stella,’ said Peter, and Clara realised it was the telephone, which didn’t ring very often. ‘She’ll be calling to check if I got here safely.’

  Quickly, Clara led the way to Uncle’s study, standing back to let Peter in. The phone, almost buried under a mountain of papers, continued to ring.

  ‘Well answer it then,’ said Peter.

  ‘No, you answer it,’ said Clara who didn’t want to admit that she had never answered a phone before.

  Peter gave her a look and picked up the receiver and Clara held her breath, every muscle in her body clenched tight. ‘Don’t say anything about Uncle,’ she mouthed to Peter. If Peter gave the game away her plan would be finished.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ Peter was saying. ‘Yes, everything’s fine. Is Granny OK? No, no delays … Got a taxi straight away … He can’t talk now, he’s cooking dinner … Yep, bangers and mash … but he says to give you his regards and see you soon. OK, bye.’

  Clara’s eyes widened. Bangers and mash! Give you his regards! Maybe having Peter here would be all right after all.

  ‘I’ll stay tonight,’ Peter said before Clara could get a word in, ‘and I’ll decide tomorrow what to do.’

  Clara wasn’t going to plead. After all, her plan had been to make her own way in the world; she hadn’t bargained for Peter being here, and maybe it would be simpler on her own. And yet there was something about Peter that she liked. His chatter for one thing, filling the house like musical notes running up and down a piano; and then the cooking, which wouldn’t have been half so fun without his game. And Stockwell.

  ‘Ugh! What’s that?’ Peter was wiping his head. ‘Something dripped on me!’

  Clara looked up as another drip splashed down, just missing Peter, who had ducked out of the way, and landing instead with a plop by her feet. How could she not have noticed it? A bicycle-wheel-sized bulge was sagging from the ceiling, while fat, greyish drips of water dropped down to a little puddle on the floor.

  ‘Oh no,’ Clara breathed, feeling a stab of panic. ‘The leak in the governess’s bathroom!’ She thought of James the butler and the dark circles beneath his eyes; the buckets that he emptied on the hour, every hour. A terrible realisation struck her. They hadn’t been emptied for two whole days!

  Clara tore out of the study, raced up the stairs, thundered down the first-floor corridor and into the governess’s bathroom. Sure enough, the steel buckets were full to overflowing and water sloshed across the floor, lapping at the skirting boards.

  Visions of water gushing through the house like a tidal wave flashed before Clara’s eyes. She couldn’t swim. They’d all drown.

  ‘Get another bucket,’ she shouted at Peter, who had followed her up.

  ‘We have to empty them on the hour, every hour,’ shrieked Clara paddling across the floor. She tried to lift one of the buckets, but it was too heavy.

  ‘Where’s it coming from?’ asked Peter, splashing to meet her and grasping the other side of the bucket so that together, they were able to heave it up and whoosh the contents into the bath.

  ‘From there!’ said Clara, pointing at the crack in the pipe.

  ‘Yes,’ said Peter, ‘but where is it coming from before it actually appears? The source of the leak, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Clara. She had asked James that very same question, but he had merely replied that leaks can be mysterious things, which as far as she was concerned meant he didn’t know either.

  ‘We need to direct the water into the bath,’ said Peter. ‘Where’s the hosepipe?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Clara again. Was there a hosepipe? The water was dripping at such a rate that the bucket was already a quarter filled.

  ‘We need to stick something over the crack then,’ said Peter. ‘Sellotape won’t work … I know! What about porridge? That dries like glue!’

  ‘No porridge,’ said Clara. The water was up to her ankles. It was cold.

  ‘It’s got to be something that sticks fast.’ Peter stared worriedly at the bucket. The water had risen to the half-way mark.

  Clara thought frantically. There was the Polyfilla, but James had already tried that and it hadn’t worked. What else stuck? A vision of the little night table in the governess’ room came in a rush. One of the governesses had liked to chew gum before lights out and underneath the table it was rock hard and bumpy, a legacy of all the gum she’d stuck there because she couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed and put it in the bin.

  Clara thrust the bucket at Peter, sloshed out of the bathroom and ran across the hall. In the governess’ bedroom she yanked open the little drawer under the dressing-table mirror. Lipstick, a single earring, a train ticket, an almost empty tube of hand cream, a bent hair clip, half a packet of mints and … Yes! One, two, three, four, five sticks of gum. Frantically, she tore at the green paper and silver foil wrappers and stuffed three of the sticks into her mouth, chewing and chomping them as fast as she could. Running back to the bathroom she gave the remaining two to Peter.

  ‘Chew!’ she instructed. Once the gum was chewed enough she spat it into her hands and worked it into the cracks on the pipe with her thumbs, pressing and moulding it to fill the gaps. When she had finished, Peter did the same. Grabbing her hand, he clamped it over the gum-filled crack. ‘Hold on,’ he said and without another word, ran from the room. Clara heard him thump down the stairs. She pressed her hand hard against the tacky gum. She could still feel water finding its way through minuscule gaps the gum had not quite managed to cover. Then Peter was back, thrusting more gum at her, this time in yellow wrappers.

  ‘Had it in my bag,’ he said, shoving five sticks into his mouth at once. Clara’s jaws ached, but she chomped as hard and as fast as she could before sticking the gum on the pipe, layering it this time, alternating with gum and the little sheets of silver foil. Then Peter held it with both hands while Clara ran down to James’s cupboard in the kitchen passageway.

  The shelves were packed neatly with balls of string, dusters, polish, chalk, vinegar and, right at the back, a large roll of black duct tape. Clara shot back up the stairs and, with Peter’s help, wound the tape as tight as sh
e could, round and round the pipe. When she had used up the whole roll of tape, she sat back with a splash on the floor. The water had stopped dripping. Clara exhaled deeply. The house was safe, for now.

  * * *

  They decided to celebrate conquering the flood by building a den in the study. Clara had always been envious of Uncle’s domain with its conker-brown leather armchairs – all cracked and shiny from years and years of being sat on – the heavy crimson curtains made from a plush velvet that swished as you drew them close, the crackling fire that cast a warm, flickering glow on everything. Now Clara was determined to rearrange it how she liked.

  ‘Granny would have a fit if she saw this mess!’ said Peter, starting to collect the scattered papers and build them into mountainous piles, which they pushed to the edges of the room.

  ‘Lucky she’s not here then,’ said Clara, and Peter laughed.

  They pushed the four chairs together to make a boat-like bed, fetched the nicest quilts and blankets down from the bedrooms and made a blazing fire with some of the papers that Clara deemed unimportant. Peter showed Clara how to make a canopy for the bed, positioning two floor lamps and two brooms at the corner of the chairs and then draping an immense dark blue quilt over the top to make a roof. Climbing into the bed was like entering a blue cave. Through the gaps in the quilt, Clara could see the glow from the firelight. If only they had steaming cups of hot chocolate, it would be perfect.

  Tucked up in the boat-bed, Clara felt like she was queen of the castle. It was all working out. She and Peter had managed to repair the leak on their own. They had cooked their own tea and it was edible. ‘I am going to stay here,’ she whispered to Peter as she drifted towards sleep. ‘It’s my home.’

  Chapter Eight

  Next morning, with the fire dead in the grate, it was freezing cold. Clara hopped out of the boat-bed to turn on the electric heaters, but although they had worked the day before, they wouldn’t now. Neither would the lights come on.