by Gavin Bishop
And underneath all of these items in her suitcase were her button tin and a mending kit with a range of different-sized needles and reels of cotton in a variety of colours. She went nowhere without the kit and the tin.
She liked reading stories to Boy. But when she tried to sing one of her old songs or recite a rhyme to BB, she didn’t get very far. He would not sit still long enough. Down off her knee he would slide to crawl across the floor and grab a handful of the cat’s fur or play in the coal bucket.
She seemed happy to be in Kingston once again with Boy and his family, until she saw my torn paws and dirty fur. ‘What’s up with Teddy?’ she cried. ‘He’s in a terrible state! He’s only a few months old.’
‘Actually,’ said Boy, ‘he’s nearly a year old. He is the same age as my baby brother. And he is almost … one … year …’
Boy’s grandmother gave him one of her looks. She stabbed her knitting needles into a ball of wool and picked me up off the floor. She rose from the couch, carried me into her bedroom and firmly closed the door. From the mending kit in her suitcase, she picked out a needle and threaded it from a reel of brown cotton. She sat on the bed with me across her lap, and set to work mending the tears and rips in my feet and paws.
After a while she stopped. ‘This is no good,’ she said. ‘The holes are too big.’
She stood up and opened the door.
‘Do you have any material I can use?’ she called to the boys’ mother.
‘What colour do you want?’
‘Brown!’ grunted the old woman. ‘How did you let those boys do this to their teddy bear?’
‘I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, Mum.’
‘This bear is special. You won’t get another one like him!’
‘Look,’ said the boys’ mother, ‘I’ve got two kids to look after, a house to keep and a cow to milk. What more do you want me to do?’
Both of the women suddenly went quiet. The two boys were watching them. I peeked up from the old lady’s bed where she had left me.
‘I didn’t do anything to Teddy,’ said Boy. ‘It was his fault.’ He gave his little brother a shove. BB started to cry.
His mother picked him up and said over her shoulder, ‘Have a look in the basket under the sewing machine. You might find some material there you can use.’
Boy’s grandmother spent the next hour patching my paws and feet with some fawn fabric that had been used to make a pair of Boy’s overalls. When she had finished, she came out of the bedroom and gave me back to Boy.
‘Now look after him,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll tell the pixies to take him off to fairyland.’
6
READING LESSONS
A FEW NIGHTS LATER, after tea, when pyjamas were on and teeth were brushed, it was time for a story. BB was already asleep.
‘I would like a different story tonight please, Mamma,’ said Boy. The old lady looked up. She was crocheting around the edge of a pillowcase.
‘I’ve heard all my books over and over again. I want a different book.’
‘Well, I haven’t got anything that you would like.’
Boy turned to his mother. ‘Mum, do you have any more books?’
‘I don’t think so.’ She paused from putting the dishes away. ‘But I’ll have a look.’
A few minutes later she came back with an old book with a dark-green cover.
‘I got this when I was dux of Mossburn Primary School,’ she said in a way that demanded a response.
Boy took the book and opened the thick, soft pages. It had a dry, musty smell like a dusty cupboard full of secrets. He tried to read the title.
‘Ruu … th …’ he said.
‘Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies,’ read his mother. ‘By Alice B. Emerson. It’s a girl’s book. I mean … it’s about a girl, but I think you’ll find it exciting.’
‘It smells exciting,’ said Boy, who wasn’t used to books as thick or as grown-up-looking as this one.
Boy’s grandmother took the book and opened it at the first page. ‘It’s quite long,’ she said. ‘We’ll have a chapter a night.’
Boy tucked me under his arm and climbed onto the sofa beside his grandmother. ‘Mind my crochet,’ she said. He nestled into her, and when he had stopped squirming she opened the book, turned over the first few pages and started to read.
‘Chapter One, On the Lumanu River.
‘The steady turning of the grinding-stones set the old Red Mill a-quiver in every board and beam. The air within was full of dust — dust of the grain, and fine, fine dust from the stones themselves.’
‘Are you sure you are going to like this?’ The old lady put her finger between the pages and closed the book.
‘Yes! It’s really good!’ said Boy.
I was enjoying it too, even though I wasn’t sure what grinding stones were. I was wondering, though, when the story was going to start.
Boy’s grandmother turned back to the book and continued to read. Soon we were introduced to Ruth Fielding, the main character. She lived at Red Mill with her Aunt Alvirah and Uncle Jabez, who was a miller.
‘Now, Ruth Fielding was worth looking at. She was plump, but not too plump. In her tanned cheeks the blood flowed richly. Her cheeks were perhaps a little too round; her nose — well, it was not a dignified nose at all!’
Boy began to squirm. I would have too, if I hadn’t been tucked so tightly into the gap between him and the sofa. The story wasn’t very interesting. But I watched the words as the old lady read to us. I saw that the sounds were echoed in the shapes on the page. I was learning to read.
‘Do you want me to go on?’ asked Boy’s grandmother.
‘Yeah … it’s good.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yep.’
Next we heard how Ben, the hired hand, was away and could not deliver three bags of flour to the baker across the river. Ruth said she could help. So she and her uncle loaded the bags of flour into the old rowboat.
Things were looking up. The story was getting more exciting. Boy was sitting quietly, listening.
Ruth and her uncle rowed out onto the river. Quite quickly, the currents grew stronger and the rowboat was swept too far downstream.
Now, Boy was staring off into a faraway place. I was holding my breath while I listened and watched the words.
Suddenly the boat whirled around and struck a rock. The rotting planks of the rowboat caved in. The old boat tipped and Uncle Jabez fell into the water.
‘Blood-stained bubbles rose to the surface, and the old man struggled to rise out of the water.
‘Although she was a good swimmer, it was doubtful if Ruth Fielding could save both the miller and herself from the peril that menaced them.’
‘Time for bed,’ said Boy’s grandmother.
‘But it’s just getting really exciting!’
‘That’s the end of the chapter. A chapter a night is what I said.’
I wanted her to go on reading too. I wanted to know if Ruth Fielding would be able to save her uncle from drowning. But when the old lady said something, she meant it.
She placed three long pieces of red wool from her knitting bag between the pages of the book. The place was marked. The book would wait for us to come visiting the following night.
Boy quickly fell asleep. He didn’t have time to put my arm in the usual place nor put one of my eyes between his teeth. But his sleep was fitful. He threw his arms above his head. His sheets became tangled around his legs. It was a relief to be tossed out onto the cold lino floor and escape the heat of his dreams.
I lay thinking about Ruth Fielding. She was kind and brave. She reminded me of someone I thought I once knew, before I came to live with the boy. Someone else called Ruth. But how could that be? My life started when the box was opened in Invercargill just after BB was born. Or did it?
7
AFTERNOON STORIES
‘DID YOU HAVE A NICE BIG SLEEP?’ asked Boy’s dad next morning. ‘I had to cover you up when I got home fro
m work last night.’
Boy yawned and stretched. ‘I dreamed that you and I were out on the lake in an old boat and it was going to sink.’
‘It’s that jolly book Mamma was reading you last night,’ said his mother. ‘You won’t be reading any more of it.’
‘Oh no, please, it’s really good! Teddy likes it too.’
‘It’s no good if it’s going to disturb your sleep.’
Boy’s grandmother was spreading some marmalade on a slice of toast.
‘Perhaps we should read some when you get home from school while it’s still light,’ she said.
‘Oh, Mum, you spoil that boy,’ said Boy’s mother.
‘Well, it will give the story time to settle before he goes to bed. Besides, I’m keen to find out what will happen next. And I bet Teddy is too.’ She cast a glance in my direction.
She was right. I was looking forward to the next chapter. Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies was certainly an adventurous book full of excitement and fear. And I wanted to look at some more words while I listened to the sounds they made.
The sun was still high above the house when Boy raced into the kitchen after school. He threw his school bag onto the floor. His mother was cutting up apples for a pie at the kitchen bench.
‘Hang your bag up. And be quiet. Your brother is asleep and Mamma’s listening to something on the radio.’
At this time of the afternoon his grandmother was usually having a nap. She could sleep through an atomic blast, Boy’s dad liked to remind everyone. But today she was sitting on the sofa, awake.
‘Twenty-two thousand men are off work,’ said the radio news report, ‘as disputes on the wharves in Auckland and Wellington go into their second week.’
‘I feel for the mothers and the children,’ the old lady said. ‘Who’s going to put food on their tables?’
Tucked under the cushion by her elbow was the book.
‘Have you already read some?’ asked the boy, ignoring the radio. A row of sweat beads sat on his top lip. ‘I ran all the way home. Nearly got caught in some matagouri by the dry creek.’
The old lady brushed his hair from his forehead. ‘Go and get yourself a piece and something to drink,’ she said.
Boy scooped me up from the toy box. With the other hand he got a pikelet from the cupboard above the sink. He scrambled onto the sofa beside his grandmother and propped me up beside him.
‘Don’t you want something on your piece?’
Boy usually had marmite and raspberry jam, together — his favourite.
‘No thanks, I want to hear the story.’
The old lady turned the radio off and pulled the book out from under the cushion. She opened the pages she had marked with red wool the night before.
‘Chapter Two: Roberto the Gypsy.’
The chapter started quietly enough. We heard how Ruth Fielding’s parents had died when she was a little girl and how she went to live with her mother’s uncle at Red Mill. Ruth and her friends were on holiday before beginning a new term at their school called Briarwood Hall.
All the time I was listening, I was watching the words very closely.
‘When is the good bit going to start again?’ asked Boy.
I was beginning to wonder too.
‘Here it is,’ said his grandmother, who was just as keen as we were to get on with the adventurous part of the story.
‘The hurrying water tugged at her. Her uncle’s body was so heavy that she had all she could do to hold his head above the surface.’
The rowboat was sinking, the flour was getting wet and heavy. Ruth started screaming for help but there was no one at the landing. No one could hear her. Her uncle was still unconscious.
Then suddenly she heard …
‘“Hold on! I’m coming!”’
The person came into sight.
‘He was a wild-looking person. His feet were bare and to Ruth he seemed very bronzed and rough looking. His long hair was tangled like a wild man’s. In his ears Ruth saw small gold rings and his forearms were covered with an intricate pattern of tattooing in red and blue ink.’
The strange boy helped Ruth to get her uncle ashore. He introduced himself as Roberto. Then he jumped up and, without a word, fled back into the woods.
Without the slightest pause, the old lady began to read the next chapter. I think she was enjoying the story as much as we were. Boy looked up at her briefly but she took no notice. He didn’t say a word.
‘That story seems to be taking a long time,’ said his mother from the kitchen. ‘Did you bring a reading book home from school?’
The reply from the sofa was a silent one.
Chapter Three: Evening at the Red Mill had us both squirming with boredom. There was a lot of discussion about whether girls could do the work of men and whether they should if they could, or whether they shouldn’t if they couldn’t. There were no exciting river adventures or mysterious gypsy boys.
There was no need to let this chapter settle before going to bed. Nothing had happened to give Boy bad dreams. And as it ended, BB woke up, ready for something to eat. Time for stories was over.
After tea, Boy took the school reading book from his bag. I looked over his shoulder as he read aloud. We both practised our reading:
‘Look, Janet.
Look at the basket.
One kitten runs to the basket.
Jump in, kitten.
Jump in and play.’
Spelling was next:
‘… date hate plate, bee free queen, fine shine pine …’
The boys’ mother spread their pyjamas to warm on the rack above the coal range, and Boy nuggeted his boots for the next day. Then it was time for bed.
8
RETURN OF THE BEAST
WE CLIMBED INTO BED. Boy tucked one of my arms beneath his neck and placed one of my eyes between his teeth. After a couple of deep, sleepy breaths, he was asleep. His breathing became heavy and his legs kept moving under the bedclothes as if he were trying to run or perhaps pedal. He was obviously dreaming. And I could tell, somehow, he was dreaming of the dairy in Invercargill. He needed my help.
I started to count backwards from ten. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six … five … and I slipped smoothly into his dream.
From the back of the trike, I looked up past Boy’s left leg and watched as the hokey-pokey ice cream slid over his tongue. I could hear the crunch of the cone as he bit into it. But, I could sense we weren’t alone. There was someone behind us. Boy felt it too. He stopped licking and turned. We both saw him at the same time … the beast!
He was right behind us. But why was he there? Boy hadn’t run away from home. He was allowed to go to the dairy on his own now. He would be six this year and he had his own pocket money. I was even more afraid than Boy. I liked having adventures but I didn’t like this one. If the beast attacked me, he would tear me to shreds. Boy’s grandmother would never be able to mend me again. Boy knew this too.
Like a soldier going into battle, he slid off the seat of his trike and charged towards the beast, his ice cream thrust out in front of him. He ran straight at the beast and poked his hokey-pokey ice cream into the beast’s snubby nose. The dog yelped in surprise. The ice cream slid off his face and the greedy animal lost no time in slurping it up off the footpath. Boy jumped back onto his trike and, with his teeth firmly clenched, he took off down the street.
Meanwhile, back in his bed in Kingston, Boy bit down on my eye — snap! My eye came off. Boy swallowed. My eye went down his throat. He woke up. The beast had gone. He was in his own bed with his best friend, his teddy bear. His teddy bear with one eye missing.
Boy called to his mother. She came running in from the kitchen.
‘What is the matter now?’ she cried. ‘Can’t I get any peace?’
‘I’ve swallowed Teddy’s eye.’
Boy’s mother started to laugh. ‘Whatever next?’
She went back out to the kitchen. Boy grabbed me by one arm and followed her.
&nbs
p; ‘I swallowed Teddy’s eye.’ He looked at his father who had just arrived home after working late, and then at his grandmother.
‘I swallowed Teddy’s eye!’
His grandmother put her teacup down onto the saucer.
‘Then you’ll probably die,’ she said, turning away to hide her smile.
‘Maybe,’ said Boy. ‘But I’m not scared of that beast anymore.’
‘And anyway, old Teddy One-eye will look after you,’ said Boy’s dad.
‘Teddy One-eye! Hey, that’s a good name!’ Boy beamed.
‘Teddy One-eye indeed!’ The tiny smile slid from the face of Boy’s grandmother. She grabbed her walking stick and stood up. As she reached her bedroom door she turned and said very slowly and sharply: ‘Treat that bear with respect. He is very special and you’ll never get another one like him!’
9
THE POT CUPBOARD
1952
ON THE LONG DAYS when Boy was at school, I spent my time waiting for him to come home. Both of my arms had been pulled off during fights with his baby brother. BB wanted me for himself, but Boy reminded him that I was his.
So there was always a job for the boys’ grandmother when she came for a holiday from Invercargill. She looked very cross as she stitched my arms back on with grey wool, but said nothing except to mutter, ‘Boys will be boys, I suppose.’