‘Someone close to you? You mean like a son or a daughter?’
‘Oh, no, not quite. A … goddaughter, I suppose you could say.’
I glared at her. ‘What do you mean, you suppose you could say. Either she’s a goddaughter or she isn’t. What about Bailey – he’s kind of your godson.’
‘Hmm. Things are pretty good for Bailey. His mum’s much better. Gone on the internet. You know, networking.’
‘Computer dating?’ I said. ‘Debbie?’
‘Well, the hours she keeps, how else can she meet anyone? Although it won’t work. No, there’s someone else in her future. Serendipity. Now there’s a word for you, Ruby.’
‘How do you know she’s going to meet someone?’
‘I can see him. He’ll be very good for Bailey. You just wait and see if Magda isn’t right. Round about honeysuckle time next year.’
‘So just because you can see that Debbie’s going to meet someone, it’s okay for you to go and just leave them?’
‘It’s not that, Ruby. I’m needed by Charlotte.’
‘That’s the sort of goddaughter?’
‘Yes.’ Magda smiled and touched her hair – which was still quite orange.
‘What about us? We’ve just got to know you. You can’t just leave. What’ll happen to the house? Who’ll live here?’
‘Oh, very nice family. Two kids – you’ll go swimming with them. You’ll get on. Good for a street to have kids in it.’
‘I don’t want kids. I want you, Magda!’ I was nearly in tears. I wanted to hug her, but she kind of sidestepped me as though she didn’t want me to touch her.
‘Oh, Ruby,’ she said and her voice was all warm, ‘you’ll be fine, just fine. Now, off you go – I’ve got an early start in the morning. You and Bailey can wave goodbye, if you get up in time!’
‘So you told Bailey? And not me?’
‘I haven’t told Bailey, yet. I thought you would. In fact, I know you will. You’ll get on to SNM and let him know as soon as you get in the front door.’
‘MSN,’ I said, but I shouldn’t have bothered. Magda never remembered computer stuff.
Which I did, but only because I wasn’t at all sure that Magda was going to tell him herself.
Bailey rang as soon as he read my message.
‘She’s going? Where?’
I told him everything I knew.
‘What time?’ he demanded. ‘What time do we have to get there?’
‘She just said early. Maybe you should get Debbie to call her. She really didn’t tell me much at all.’
I told Mum and Dad but they weren’t as sad as I expected. They were too overwhelmed with the news that Gerald would be allowed home in a week’s time.
‘That is upsetting,’ Mum said, but she was kind of glowing. ‘But think of a family moving in, Ruby. More kids to play with. I think that’s exciting. And Gerald will be home and we’ll be a proper family again, too!’
‘She was my friend,’ I said, ‘don’t you get it?’
‘She’s got her own life,’ Dad said. ‘This Charlotte girl must be pretty close to her, if she’s going to move across to Western Australia.’
‘I don’t think she even knows Charlotte,’ I said, ‘I don’t think she’s even met her yet.’
‘Well, darling, she has to know her to know that Charlotte needs her. I’d say it’s some relative, wouldn’t you, Edward?’
‘Have to be,’ Dad said, ‘you don’t just pack up and move across Australia for someone you haven’t met!’
I remembered Magda once telling me that my father was a sitter-still but that she was a get-up-and-goer. I didn’t think Dad was right. Not about Magda.
Bailey and I were outside by seven the next morning. Debbie was there, too, wearing a short skirt, lipstick and high heels.
‘I can’t stay, Magda,’ she said, ‘breakfast meeting. Ridiculous but it’s what you do these days. We’ll miss you so much. You’ve been wonderful with Bailey and I can never thank you enough. Never in the whole world.’
‘Oh, don’t fuss, Debbie,’ Magda said but she let her cheek be kissed and she patted Debbie’s shoulder.
‘Stay in touch,’ Debbie said, getting back into the car, ‘ring us, won’t you and let us know your number and everything? Bailey and I might come across for a holiday?’
‘I’ll be in touch,’ Magda said, ‘have a good meeting!’
‘Have you got a phone number?’ Bailey said when his mother had driven away. He took out his mobile phone. ‘I can put it straight in here.’
‘No. No, I haven’t got a number yet.’
‘An address then?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Magda, you are going somewhere, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Oh yes. I’m going to the airport. I’m catching a plane. But then I’ll have to play it a bit by ear. It mightn’t be quite the right time for me to turn up yet. I have to stay finely tuned.’
‘So where will you stay?’
‘I’ll find somewhere.’
‘But we won’t be able to contact you. Magda, do you even have our number?’
Magda looked a little shifty, I thought. ‘Probably somewhere,’ she said, ‘on a bit of paper in one of the boxes. But I don’t need a number to stay in touch.’
‘Well, of course you do,’ Bailey was all business-like tapping his mobile phone, ‘that’s how people stay in touch these days. They text each other. They phone each other. What’s your mobile number?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve never had to know.’
‘Well, give me your mobile and I’ll text my mobile. That way I’ll have your number in my phone and be able to give it to you, too.’
‘I haven’t got it.’
‘You haven’t got your mobile?’ Bailey stared at her. ‘But you should always have it. That’s why it’s a mobile phone. Mobile – moving around, you know.’
‘I packed it,’ Magda said. ‘They make you turn them off in the plane anyway.’
‘Magda! How am I going to get your number?’
A cab pulled into the street.
‘Oh, here’s my taxi,’ Magda said. ‘Got to go.’
‘How will we keep in touch?’ I asked, suddenly desperately sad. ‘Look, I’ve brought you the Wish Pony – for Charlotte. Do you need him back?’
‘No, he’s yours. No, Charlotte might need – might need Emperor. That’s what my fingers thought, anyway. I’ve packed him in here,’ she patted her carpet bag, ‘so that’ll be all right. I’ll keep in touch, Bailey, Ruby – there’s always SMN. I’m on that, thanks to you, Bailey, fixing up my notepad like that.’
‘MSN,’ Bailey said automatically, ‘notebook.’
‘Quick hug,’ Magda said, throwing her carpet bag into the boot, ‘then off!’
We were both grabbed up and held for a few seconds that smelled like talc powder and apples. Then she let us go just as suddenly.
‘You’ll both be fine,’ she said and looked at each of us for what seemed a long time. Her eyes were almost green, I realised, or looked it with the orange hair. They were almost green and when she looked at me, I felt somehow washed over by love. The way I felt when Mum or Dad praised me for something I’d done, or talked about how they’d both watched me when I was a baby. It was such a strong feeling I almost closed my eyes, to try to keep it for longer.
Then the taxi door was pulled shut and with a last wave out of the window, Magda was gone.
Bailey and I turned and looked at each other.
‘That was intense,’ Bailey said, ‘did you feel it?’
I nodded. Intense was a good word. Trust Bailey.
‘So this is the Wish Pony?’ he asked, turning my hand over so he could see the little glass horse I was holding. ‘He’s pretty small.’
The taxi came haring back down the street.
‘What? She must have forgotten something!’
‘Sorry,’ Magda sang out, ‘last books from the book basket.’
A book sailed out of the open window
towards Bailey. He caught it and then the second one.
‘Enjoy!’ Magda called – and was gone again, before we could even say thank you.
‘What’s the book?’ I asked. ‘Which is whose do you reckon?’
‘They’re both the same,’ Bailey said, ‘look – she’s given us each a copy of The Three Musketeers. Now she must have bought them specially. She couldn’t have two copies just lying in the book basket. That would be silly.’
I took the book and gave it a sniff. It smelled of sand, old overcoat and apples.
‘We didn’t say thank you,’ I said.
‘She didn’t give us time. But we can, when she’s on MSN. You know, she gave me the Music Box of Happiness.’
Bailey sounded a little sheepish when he told me this. As though it was a secret he didn’t really want to tell anyone.
‘The music box of happiness?’
‘Yeah. It was from her cupboard.’
‘Oh, I saw that. It played a waltz or something.’
Bailey nodded, ‘When you open it two little people dance together while it plays. She said it was really important to remember that … well, you know, that once upon a time Mum and Dad must have been more like that, than always arguing. She said it was really important.’
‘Did it work?’
‘Well, yeah, it plays the waltz and the people dance.’
‘Yeah, but did it work?’
Bailey scuffed the gravel with his shoe. There was a long silence. Finally he said, ‘Well, when I played it at night – and I didn’t want to at first, it seemed too girly – but there was something, you know, something … So I did play it. I could remember – I must have been really young. They took me to the beach and swung me between them. Mum sang. One night I was playing it and she came in, Mum – Debbie – and she sat down on the end of the bed and told me … stuff. You know. The stuff they say. But at the end, she grabbed me out of the bed and kind of waltzed me around for a minute or two. We were laughing. She said, “See, life doesn’t stop. The dance goes on, Bailey.” ’
‘So it did work.’
‘I don’t know if it worked, but I suppose something did.’
I nodded. ‘The Wish Pony worked too,’ I said, ‘once in a really bad way but then I got the hang of it. Do you reckon we will ever talk to her on MSN?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ Bailey said, but he kept scuffing the gravel.
The day before Gerald came home, five pansies came out all at once in my secret garden. I showed Mum and Gerald where they could sit on the handsome wooden chair Dad and I had bought for them. I think Mum got tears in her eyes. She certainly gave me such a big hug that Gerald cried.
He cries a lot. But not that little whimpery sound he made in the hospital. These days he cries big round howls. Mum says she loves to hear them because it means he’s hungry. Or he’s pooed. Baby poo isn’t quite as bad as Grinder’s poo – it doesn’t smell as much. I still don’t change him though. I do enough picking up after Grinder.
The family moved in across the road. It was strange how Magda knew everything about them, but they hadn’t even met her. Well, it would have been strange, if it hadn’t been Magda. She was right – we went swimming all summer and the girl, Fran, taught me to do butterfly. I have the smallest crush on Fran’s brother, Max. No one knows about it except the Wish Pony.
The Wish Pony sits on my dressing table. He’s not doing much these days – doesn’t have to. He’s gone back to dreaming. I’ll keep him probably until I’m as old as Magda. Then I’d like to give him away, like she did, to someone who needs him. I think I’ll know when it’s right – you just do, don’t you?
We’ve never been certain that Magda’s been on MSN. Sometimes, when Bailey and I are chatting, someone invites themselves to the conversation – it’s always a weird name, Foxylady75 or Your grandmother can suck eggs or Married x 3 and loved them all. They never really talk to us, even though we say Hi, hello, anyone there? Then after a couple of minutes, they disappear into cyberspace. Well, Bailey says cyberspace. I don’t know that Magda would need a proper MSN connection to keep in touch with us, in her own way. I know I’ll see her again – but probably not until I’m as old as she is. Then I reckon one day, I’ll be having my hair done, or looking at a pair of purple boots, and I’ll hear her voice, ‘A bit young for an old chook!’ I’ll look up and her eyes will be almost green, the way they were the day she said goodbye.
* * *
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have you noticed that not everyone wishes on the same thing? Here are just a few of the traditional ways you can make a wish:
• when you see a falling star, or the first star of the evening
• by throwing a coin into a wishing well or fountain
• when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake
• when you break the wishbone of a cooked chicken or turkey
• by blowing on a fluffy dandelion flower so that the seeds float away into the air
• if you stand inside a fairy ring – a circle of grass that is greener than the rest
How do you and your friends make wishes? Do you close your eyes? Do you keep it a secret or do you tell people what you wished for?
Let me tell you about what I’ve wished for, and my inspiration for The Wish Pony . . .
If wishes were horses
The idea for The Wish Pony came to me when I was thinking of the old rhyme that begins, ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride’. Versions of this rhyme have been around for over four hundred years and it’s thought that the last two lines were recited to children to make them stop asking questions and do their chores: ‘And if ifs and an’s were pots and pans, there’d surely be dishes to do!’
I’d never heard the last line, but the first line had been told to me time and time again over the years and it had always struck me as a little mean. What’s wrong with wishing for something? When I was a little girl, my mother and I always wished on birthday candles, every slice of a new Christmas cake (which meant that the more people you visited at Christmas time, the better a wish time it was!), when we saw a white horse, or saw the first star in the sky at night, or a falling star. The only rule with wishes was that you couldn’t tell a soul. If you did, they would never come true.
Sometimes they came true and sometimes they didn’t, even if you didn’t tell. That was just their nature. For one whole year I wished for curly hair. That didn’t happen. But others did come true – my mother took up the hem of my new dress, transforming it instantly from daggy to cool. I was bought sandals with a white leather daisy underneath the big toe, just the ones I wanted. I was allowed to paint my bookcase cobalt blue, as blue as the dark sea.
Later, for many years, I had a big, very secret wish I used on every white horse, every birthday candle or slice of Christmas cake and two falling stars. It came true, although it took quite a bit of work on my part.
So what I didn’t like about the old rhyme was the idea that it was somehow foolhardy to wish for things. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t try so hard to make those things happen, would you?
Sometimes that was probably a good idea. There were always some wishes that you didn’t really, in your heart of hearts, want to come true. I might have wished for my classmate to break her arm on the monkey gym when she said mean things about that daggy dress. I might even have felt a moment of triumph if she had. But it wasn’t a good wish.
These thoughts led me to wonder what would happen if one day someone gave you a wish horse, a little horse that rode your wishes home. My step-grandmother had two glass cabinets of precious things while I was growing up. When I stayed with her and my grandfather, I was allowed to help their cleaning lady, Mrs Arnold, dust some of them, those that were less valuable and least breakable.
In one of the cabinets was a marble horse, caught striding out, mane flowing back. I transformed him into my wish pony. I’d already decided my wish horse would be a pony, smaller and friendlier than a horse, t
he perfect size to grant a child’s wishes.
Of course Ruby has to learn – as we all do – to be wise about what she wishes for.
Oh, and what was my big, secret wish? To be a writer – and here I am, writing these words to you!
Finding Magda
I’ve been lucky enough to have a couple of Magdas in my life. In my experience, they’ve been tough, loving older women, difficult and prickly, eccentric and wise. For me, they’ve been associated with my work, turning up when I most needed the kind of honesty and inspiring mentoring they were able to provide.
One, in particular, had the time to ring me when I was home with my new baby, who was ill for all of his first twelve months of life. She told me news of the writing world, a world so far removed from my own life of doctor’s appointments and hospital stays that it seemed as distant and unreachable as a fairytale city. I can’t say that I even missed that city. I was so busy both enjoying being a mother (impossible though that sounds under the circumstances) and keeping everything together when things got rough, I didn’t have time to miss anything. But those phone calls were small blessings on my day and for those ten or twenty minutes I remembered the other person I also was and would be again – the writer.
But what happens when you need a Magda and there’s simply not one around? I’ll tell you a secret – you can make one up.
She has to be older than you. She has to know more things than she tells you. Give her a pair of outrageous boots – Doc Martens with roses or orange suede boots with a fringe. Maybe she’s got a tattoo on her wrist, but it won’t be a butterfly and if it’s the name of someone, you’ll never know who.
Write about your Magda in a journal you bought specially. Write about the questions you ask her and what she tells you back. Just remember, she’s tetchy and trouble, cranky and caring and you won’t always like her honesty. But never forget that you made her up – she belongs to you.
The Wish Pony Page 10