by Nina Bawden
She shook her head in wonder at this amazing feat.
Aunt Sophie said, in a queer, stiff voice, “I’m so sorry you had a bad night. I hope you’ve slept better recently. Can I offer you a cup of coffee? Or something else?”
Although it seemed strange at that moment, I had the feeling that she was trying not to laugh.
Amy gasped, and put a startled hand to her white throat. “Oh, how kind! I would be so grateful, if it’s not too much trouble. Not coffee, perhaps, since I’m a nursing mother! Tea would be perfect. China tea, if you have it, and very weak, not much more than a single leaf passed over boiling water. And a thin slice of lemon, of course.”
“Of course,” Aunt Sophie said.
She closed the sitting room door behind her. Aunt Bill cleared her throat again. She was staring at Amy with her mouth slightly open, as if she had been struck dumb.
Amy’s glowing eyes fixed on mine. I felt like a pin pulled to a magnet. She said, “Jane, there is something you need to know before you can understand. I wonder how much you remember? Not much, I expect, you were only little. You’ve grown so much since then, it’s not surprising that I didn’t know you. I won’t ask you why you pretended to be someone else, though it was naughty, you know!”
I muttered, “I just wanted to see George and Annabel, that was all.”
“That’s what my mother-in-law said. Dear Mother, always the peacemaker!” A little trill of laughter. “But that’s water under the bridge. Least said, soonest mended! It’s something we needn’t think about any longer. I know I’ve put it out of my mind. I shan’t dream of telling dear Teddy, and I’m sure you wouldn’t upset him either.”
“Ah,” Aunt Bill said. “I thought we’d get to the point sooner or later.”
Amy widened her beautiful eyes. The pink colour came and went in her face. She said breathlessly, “I don’t quite know what you mean, and I’m sure Jane doesn’t, either.”
I did understand. But it wasn’t important. I said, the words bursting out of me, “I had my musical box with me. I mean, I had it before. When I came to stay, long ago.”
“Did you?” Amy looked confused; taken aback, as if this was something she had not expected. Then she said, “Oh, I expect you did. I can’t really remember. It was such an upsetting time altogether. Not your fault, Jane. Nor mine, really. I meant to be such a good mother to you, but I was only young, not much more than a child myself, and my sweet Teddy was at sea so much of the time. And you were a headstrong, difficult child, always wanting your own way. I tried my best. I was sure I would be able to manage once the baby was born, and I had stopped being so tired and so heavy. I thought we would be the perfect family for Teddy to come home to. Then Annabel was born and she wasn’t perfect, and it spoiled everything. There you were, Jane, a pretty little girl with all your fingers and toes, and my poor baby so scrawny and ugly. And what made it worse was that you were so fascinated by her sad little hand, always wanting to touch it …”
Her eyes shimmered. Tears splashed on her cheek like watery pearls. She rocked backward and forward, whimpering softly.
Plato started coughing and wheezing. Aunt Bill said, “That’s enough, I think, Amy.”
I said, “So I didn’t hurt Annabel’s hand when I dropped her!”
There was a brief silence. Aunt Bill said, in an astonished voice, “Surely you didn’t believe that? Did you, Jane?”
Amy said quickly, “How could she? Jane, whatever are you talking about? Of course you never hurt Annabel, though I used to be scared sometimes to leave her alone with you. You got upset when she cried. You tried to lift her out of her basket, to love her. It was sweet, really.”
She was trying to smile and to keep her face smooth. But as I watched her it started to crack, to fall apart as it had done in the garden. And behind the cracked face, there was someone else. A cold, frightened stranger.
I said, “That was when I dropped her. Not far, she was in her Moses basket on the ground, but I couldn’t quite hold her. And you shouted and shouted at me. You said, She’ll never be better now, you will have scarred her for life.”
I remembered now, clearly.
I said to Amy, “Don’t you remember?”
Aunt Sophie came in with the tray. She put it down on a small table where Amy could reach it. She had set out the best china. She poured the tea through a silver strainer and added a slice of lemon. She said, “It looks very pale, are you sure that’s how you like it, Amy? Do you want a cup, Bill? Or Plato? Or Jane? It’ll get stronger if I leave it to stand.”
“Leave it to stand all day and it’ll still be no more than water bewitched,” Aunt Bill said angrily.
“I would quite like a cup if I could have some milk in it,” Plato said. He went to stand by the table while Aunt Sophie poured for him. He was looking at Amy. He said, “Mrs Tucker, I once spoke to you on the telephone, though I don’t suppose you knew it was me.” He smiled, very innocently, and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “And I came to Shipshape Street with Jane, the first time. Jane wanted to see Annabel and George, and she was afraid to go by herself, even though I said I didn’t think anyone could possibly mind. In fact, I thought her father would be really pleased. It must have felt very strange to him sometimes, his children not knowing one another.”
This made me feel sorry for my father. I thought, if I were Amy, I would be ashamed. But she didn’t seem to be. She gave Plato a small, distant smile, sipped her tea, and said, “Thank you Sophie, it’s just what I wanted.”
I was staring at her all this time. I was determined to make her look at me. And then, when she did, I wished that she hadn’t. Because I could see that she was afraid. She was afraid of the stranger inside her that made her so angry. And she was afraid I would tell my father the wicked words that stranger had said to me when I had been too young to repeat them to anyone. And that was worse than her hating me. If she had hated me, I could have hated her back. And hating is easy.
She said, her eyes begging, beseeching me, “Jane, dear, as if any woman would say such a dreadful thing to a little child!”
But she had said it. And I knew that she knew I would never forget it. And that Aunt Bill and Plato believed me.
*
And that is the end of the story. The end of my youth, Plato says I could call it. Or the beginning of something much more exciting.
I go to meet my father when his ship comes home. We have a good but short time together as we always did. Sometimes his mother comes later on, and we have tea together in his cabin. She makes a fuss of me and is quite jolly. But she doesn’t feel like my grandmother.
I see my brothers and sister occasionally. I keep a wary eye on Amy even though she is always so sweet to me that I have to warn myself she is not to be trusted. And I can tell from the way Annabel watches her that she knows it, too.
I love Annabel and George and Hugo, but they are ordinary children now—not as interesting as they were when they were my secret people. Aunt Bill and Aunt Sophie are my real family.
And Plato, of course.
I don’t suppose Plato and I will ever get married, not with the way he feels about families. But when we are old and famous and rich, we might buy a big house in the country and bring some outside children inside, to stay with us for a while.
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2013
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
All rights reserved
© Nina Bawden, 1989
The right of Nina Bawden to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under
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ISBN 978–0–571–30931–3