Ordinary Jack

by Helen Cresswell

  “You needn’t worry,” Jack told him, “it’s in the safest place in the whole house. It’s in among my comics. No one in our house would be caught dead looking at them.”

  “That’s true.” Uncle Parker had been present on some of the occasions when the Bagthorpian views on Rubbishy Reading were being aired. “Good thinking, Jack.”

  “Besides, Zero’s guarding them most of the time,” Jack said. Uncle Parker made no comment on this. He changed the subject.

  “How’s Atlanta going on, by the way?”

  “All right. She’s a bit of a bind. You have to keep repeating things and pointing all the time.”

  “Ah.” Uncle Parker looked relieved. “She can’t speak English, then. I wasn’t too sure why she didn’t say anything while I was driving her over.”

  “I think William’s gone on her,” Jack told him. “He wants to take up Danish for his sixth String to his Bow, but Tess won’t let him. They keep having rows about it.”

  “Bit of a fly in the ointment, that girl,” said Uncle Parker, half to himself. “Whichever way you look at it.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Oh. Oh, nothing. We’ve already solved that one, anyway.”

  “Solved what?” Jack was mystified.

  “Off you go, now.” Uncle Parker stood up. “Better get back before Daisy’s up and rooting round for matches. If I can keep her from starting a fire for a few days on the trot, it might break the habit.”

  He hurried off, stooping where necessary under the arched roses, definitely keyed up by Daisy’s alarming new propensity. It could hardly be doing Aunt Celia any good either, Jack reflected. He felt sorry for Uncle Parker, having to live with two such problems. It seemed to Jack that he deserved better. On the other hand, no one knew better than himself that families are really something that just happen to you, nothing to do with choice.

  He broke into a run.

  “Come on, Zero, old chap. I’ll be able to pull in a fry-up before Fozzy gets in, if we hurry. At the double!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jack pulled in his fry-up and the day seemed off to a good start, as so often the really bad days do.

  The Bagthorpe family were bad-tempered and edgy and they were all boasting more than usual. This was a sign that they were feeling threatened. It was not merely that Jack’s totally unexpected and rather alarming new talents looked like overshadowing them all. It was just a general sense that after the last few days anything could happen, and if it did, it would almost certainly be bad.

  Grandma evidently had this feeling so strongly that she was keeping to her room again. She said she felt safer in there. She was obviously not spending the whole time breathing, because she kept sending communiqués to Rosie asking her to hurry up with the Portrait so that she could have her photographs of Thomas back.

  This, in turn, made Rosie feel threatened. She was tempted to make such a horrible mess of the painting that she would lose her reputation for doing portraits and never have to do one again. She decided against this in the end. She liked doing portraits usually, and if she never did any more she would have lost a String to her Bow and have to find another one. So she struggled on. She gave Grandma a nose, eyes and mouth this time, and in fact put in a lot more detail than she had intended, to defer the evil moment when she would have to tackle Thomas. Only when she had added the last possible wrinkle to Grandma’s brow did she face up to the inevitable. She glared at the pictures of Thomas spread before her and thought how ugly and bad-tempered he looked and could understand why everyone had hated him so much alive. He was hateful dead, as far as Rosie was concerned.

  Downstairs William and Tess were battling for Atlanta’s attention. The former was showing her the silver cups and trophies he had won for tennis. He had first taken them into the kitchen with a request that Mrs Fosdyke should clean them. This, in turn, had put Mrs Fosdyke into a bad temper.

  “I’ve no time for that kind of fiddle-faddling today,” she told him. “Mrs Bagthorpe and me’ve got the decorators coming in. We’ve carpets to choose and curtains to choose and lord knows what else though I’m bound to say that room’ll never be what it was. Hairlooms, them chairs was, and even if you could get ’em the same again identical, they wouldn’t be the same.”

  William had cleaned the silver himself, the more to impress Atlanta. He was definitely gone on her. And not only that, word seemed to have gone round, because some of Jack’s friends, and their elder brothers as well, had started turning up at the house on all sorts of pretexts.

  This, in turn, was annoying Mr Bagthorpe. After breakfast he had retired to his study to try out the new microphone, though with little hope of success.

  “I might’ve yesterday. I was on the brink of a breakthrough when that hellhound came pouncing down on me. I can’t sit saying my thoughts out loud. It’s not in my nature. I’m too shy. It makes me self-conscious.”

  The others were so stunned by Mr Bagthorpe’s claim to shyness that they could think of nothing to say.

  “I know what you’ll do,” he went on. “You’ll creep up outside my door and listen, I know you will.”

  They all strenuously denied this. The thought had not even entered their heads, they said, though one or two of them did make a mental note that it would be quite an interesting thing to do to fill in the odd spare moment.

  When William’s friends started turning up, however, and started playing music and laughing loudly, Mr Bagthorpe came out of his room and shouted:

  “What is this? A commune? Turn that thing off! I’ll never write another word. I’m finished.”

  He gave a despairing wave of his white arm and went back in and banged the door, and there was some muffled shouting in there for a time, which was presumably Mr Bagthorpe doing some strong dialogue. Then silence.

  William told his friends they had better go, and they reluctantly went, still staring at Atlanta. William fetched a spare racket and took her out on to the lawn to coach her tennis. Tess, infuriated by this, brought out a mat and began practising all kinds of Judo falls and at the same time talking to Atlanta and pointing things out to her and maddening William. The Bagthorpes were never at their best when out to impress, and once one of them started showing off, they usually went right out of control. It was infectious. Rosie, sitting alone in her room with the Birthday Portrait, stuffed the photos of Thomas into her folio and went out to set her things up in the garden too.

  Atlanta was gratifyingly impressed. She went through all the paintings in Rosie’s folio and exclaimed “Bootiful”, or “Vot Gut”, at everything, and Rosie was so flattered that she offered to paint Atlanta’s portrait when she had finished Grandma’s.

  “Oh ja ja, plees plees!” Atlanta was delighted. William was not. On the other hand, it gave him an idea, and he went and fetched his camera and finished the film in it taking shots of Atlanta.

  By then Rosie had set up her easel and restarted work on the Birthday Portrait. Atlanta came and looked over her shoulder. She frowned a little. She pointed to the row of photos of Thomas that Rosie had clipped along the top of the easel, and then at the indeterminate gingery shape Rosie had so far roughed in on Grandma’s lap.

  “Cat,” said Rosie, and pointed to Thomas up a drainpipe with a mouse in his mouth.

  “Cat,” repeated Atlanta. Then, pointing to the ginger blur, repeated in mystified tones, “Cat?”

  “I can’t do cats,” said Rosie glumly. “Meant to be one. But I can’t do cats.” She shook her head vigorously to convey this. Atlanta’s face instantly lit up.

  “Ah! Me – me – I do cats. Plees?”

  She put out her hand for the brush and Rosie, a trifle dazed, gave it to her. Atlanta moved into position before the easel. It was at this point that Jack came out, armed with the two dowsing rods and followed by Zero. He had hoped to attract some attention, but was not even registered as present. Tess, William and Rosie were all watching with rapt admiration as Atlanta painted with swift, deft strok
es. Intrigued, Jack went over and joined them. He had to join them anyway, if he wanted them to notice his dowsing gear.

  Rosie’s impression of Grandma was in itself spectacular. The formerly missing eyes, nose and mouth were there all right, but so enmeshed in a network of lines and wrinkles that at first sight she looked more like an ordnance survey map than a person. But what was amazing, what riveted the eye, was the gingery bundle on her lap which was becoming, literally second by second, the living image of the late, ill-fated Thomas. Even Jack did not remember the original very well, but he had seen his photographs and heard enough stories about his character and exploits to recognise that this, to the life, was he.

  No one spoke as Atlanta’s brush darted back and forth. The Bagthorpes respected other people’s Strings to Bows, and the likeness was in any case breathtaking, from narrowed eyes to unsheathed claws and stiffened tail. At length Atlanta stepped back from the easel and half closed her eyes and murmured:

  “Ja?”

  “Oh ja!” chorused the Bagthorpes as one. Rosie rushed forward and actually hugged Atlanta. The portrait, the dreadful Birthday Portrait, was finished, and what was more, Grandma was going to like it.

  Grandma not only liked it, she actually wept before it. She said it was as if Thomas had stepped out of time and was there with her again, breathing and purring as ever was. (No one else remembered Thomas doing much purring, but perhaps she did.) She said that she would never be parted from the portrait as long as she lived, and the Bagthorpes half expected her to announce her intention of having it buried with her.

  Now, however, while the Bagthorpes were congratulating Atlanta, and Tess was doing some complicated falls to try to draw attention, Jack himself had a sudden inspiration.

  She’s captured that cat, he thought, even from the grave. What if she could capture Zero? O Zero, old chap – the thought stunned him – you’d be immortal!

  He wasted no time. He stepped forward, tapped Atlanta’s arm, and pointed at Zero with one of the divining rods.

  “Dog,” he said.

  “Dorg,” agreed Atlanta. “Sero.”

  “That’s right. You – you paint dorg?” he pointed first at the still wet paint on Thomas, and then at Zero. Her face lightened.

  “Ja, ja. I do dorg. I do Sero.”

  “Oh, please,” Jack said. “Will you?”

  She nodded.

  “I like to. I like do Sero. Rosie?” She pointed at the easel and paints. Rosie could not at that moment have refused her anything.

  “Now?” Jack felt it best to act while the time was ripe.

  “Ja. Ja.”

  William, disgusted, threw down his racket.

  “I’m off,” he said. “I’m going to have a word with Anonymous from Grimsby.” He went.

  There was a confused period then in which it was established, after much repetition and pointing, that Atlanta would gladly undertake Zero’s portrait, but did not feel up to Jack’s. It was arranged that she should paint Zero, here and now, and that Rosie, who was, after all, the acknowledged portrait painter, should fill Jack in later.

  And this is what happened. Jack put down his rods and sat on the grass with Zero beside him. Tess and Rosie watched, fascinated, as Atlanta clipped up her paper and set to work. Jack himself could not see how the portrait was going but could tell from the expression on the others’ faces that Zero’s was at least as good as, if not better than, Thomas’s. He was enchanted by this entirely unexpected development. Nothing in the world, it seemed to him, would boost Zero’s confidence more than to see a faithful portrait of himself hung in a place of honour in the Bagthorpe residence. Having your portrait painted was a sign that you have arrived, he thought, and wished that he could write poetry so that he could do a fitting epitaph for Zero as Byron had for his dog Boatswain.

  Not that he’s dead yet, he thought, and pushed the thought away because it was one he could not bear to contemplate. He took a sideways look at Zero to see what kind of an angle his ears were set at, but could not really judge from profile.

  Mrs Bagthorpe appeared, followed by Mrs Fosdyke. They both exclaimed extravagantly on the portrait of Grandma and Thomas which was lying in the sun to dry before being taken up and presented.

  “That’s terribly good of Grandma, Rosie,” Mrs Bagthorpe told her. (She would have said this however true or untrue it was. She believed strongly in the power of praise.)

  “It’s the spitting image of that horrible cat of hers,” observed Mrs Fosdyke. “Gives you the creeps to look at it. He looks just like he’s sizing up to take a spring at you.” This was something Thomas had done a lot of, and one of the things that had made him so universally feared and hated.

  “Oh – and look at this!” Mrs Bagthorpe was now peering over Atlanta’s shoulder. “Oh, it’s beautiful, Atlanta.”

  William, who had evidently not managed to make contact with Anonymous from Grimsby, now reappeared. He was carrying the darts and board, which he intended to set up in the summer house and then invite Atlanta to have a game. Playing darts was by way of being a very minor fifth String to William’s Bow.

  “She’s never painting that object,” he said. Then, grudgingly, “It looks like him.”

  Jack could bear the suspense no longer.

  “Stay, Zero,” he commanded, and went round behind the easel.

  Zero had, no doubt about it, been captured, from his round black nose to his great furry paws. Even the colour was exactly right, pale honey shading through to tips of auburn on his tail. Jack actually felt a lump in his throat.

  “Looks that real you could give him a bone,” was Mrs Fosdyke’s judgement, and Jack thought it very handsome of her, even if Atlanta could not understand the compliment.

  “Ja?” Again Atlanta stepped back to survey her work and again the Bagthorpes chorused an enthusiastic “Ja!”

  “Shall we let him dry before you do me?” Jack asked Rosie. “We don’t want to risk smudging him. In any case, there’s something I want to do. I feel as if I’m being drawn to it by an invisible magnet.”

  He picked up the divining rods.

  “You’re barmy,” said William. “They’re divining rods, they are.”

  “I know,” said Jack.

  “You can’t divine,” William told him.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Jack in what he hoped were mysterious tones.

  “Oh dear.” Mrs Bagthorpe was looking worried again by this new evidence of her son’s eccentricity. “Do be careful, Jack.”

  “I will,” he promised. “Come on, Zero.”

  He walked off down towards the wicket gate feeling the gaze of the others following him. Once in the meadow he decided to give the rod from MYSTERIES first try. He fitted the forks into the palms of his hands as Uncle Parker had shown him, and set off, Zero at his side.

  It was not easy, he soon discovered, to walk in long grass over uneven ground and keep your eyes fixed unwaveringly on a point only a couple of feet under your nose. Twice he stumbled in rabbit holes and fell. Matters were not helped by Zero, who evidently thought that this was going to develop at any moment into a new form of the stick-fetching game, and kept prancing excitedly about and getting in the way. Twice Jack found himself about to walk right into a tree.

  I’ll never know whether I’ve covered the whole ground, he thought, because I can’t see where I’m going. I’m like a thirsty traveller lost in the desert and going round and round in circles looking for an oasis.

  The only way round this that he could see would be to fill his pockets with dried peas or rice or something as Hansel and Gretel did, and he thought he would probably have to end up doing this. The sun baked down and Jack found it easy to maintain the illusion of being in a desert. He seemed to be walking for a very long time and his arms were beginning to ache. He had the feeling that no one was even watching him, and that he might be wasting his time. Once or twice he did think he felt the stick quiver but when he stopped to test this, he realised it was only becau
se his arms were tired and beginning to tremble.

  I can’t keep it up much longer, he thought.

  As it happened he didn’t. The thought was barely out of his head when his foot caught in something. The rod flew out of his hand and he fell headlong. There was an almighty yell. Zero was barking madly and had his nose down and Jack glimpsed a long length of black flex. History was repeating itself.

  Jack grabbed at it. It was too late. Zero had it in his mouth and was off. Jack scrambled to his feet and set off after him. Behind him he could hear his father’s yells.

  “Get him! Get the brute before he chews it up again!”

  This time Jack did catch Zero before he got to the mike-chewing stage. He had just settled by the hedge with it between his paws when Jack caught up. He whipped away the flex and saw to his relief that the microphone was intact. Mr Bagthorpe was approaching, breathless, his red face contrasting arrestingly with his white arm. He was not, strangely enough, shouting. He seemed to be past shouting.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Go on – tell me.”

  “No – it’s all right – look!” Jack held out the flex and Mr Bagthorpe examined the microphone.

  “It’ll be broken inside,” he said. “It’s been rattled all over this field. It’ll be broken inside.”

  “I don’t think it will,” Jack told him. “And even if it is, it won’t be Zero’s fault this time, it’ll be mine.”

  “What got into you?” asked Mr Bagthorpe, as if he really wanted to know. “What have I ever done to you that you should walk deliberately on to me and my work? And why have you been half the morning walking round this field like a sleepwalker with a twig in your hand? You know, don’t you, that whatever that numbskulled doctor thinks, I think you need some kind of treatment?”

  “Yes, I know,” said Jack. “And I know it must’ve looked funny to an outsider the way I was walking round.”

  “Funny?” said Mr Bagthorpe. “Funny is right. You don’t by any chance feel that you might be Moses?”

  “No,” Jack told him. “I’m dowsing. Water divining.”