by Nina Bawden
Although Laura had wondered what kind of “trouble”, she hadn’t paid much attention. It was just part of the old, boring argument between her mother and grandmother. Her mother was jealous because Gran made a fuss of Alex and liked to take him out and show him off to her friends. In the weeks after the funeral Laura only went on listening out of habit and because she was always excited when Mum and Gran quarrelled. She liked a good quarrel herself and she had the feeling that however angry they sounded, they rather enjoyed it.
One quarrel, about a month after Mrs Angel had died, was fiercer and more alarming than usual. Alex was out on the Fields, playing with Bob and Ellie, and from her room where she was sitting at her desk and doing her homework, Laura could hear what was being said in the kitchen.
Her mother’s voice, trying—or pretending to try—to be patient. “I know you say she was fond of him, Ma. But Mr Fowles had looked after her all these years, he had a right to some expectations, and if he chooses to make a fuss it could be very unpleasant. For you, as much as for anyone. That’s one of the things George is worried about. The point is, George says, what the solicitors will want to know, is whether there was any excessive persuasion.”
“George” was Laura’s father. Sometimes, when Laura’s mother wanted to say something unpleasant she pretended that he had said it first. Dad says he’s afraid you aren’t working hard enough, you had such a bad maths report last term, she had said today when Laura had asked if she could go to the cinema with Carla and two boys in their class. Which was why Laura was sitting at her desk now with her algebra text book propped up in front of her. She wondered if her mother had forgotten she was in the house. Serve her right if she has, Laura thought. She got up and went to the door.
Her grandmother said, “Persuasion, persuasion—what do you mean? Poor Angel wanted to do something for Alex. What’s wrong with that, may I ask? Why does it upset you that he should have this piece of good luck. Do you resent it, is that it?”
“Don’t be silly, Ma, please. Though of course it does seem unfair on the others.”
“So you do resent it! Poor little chap! Poor little orphan!”
“He’s not an orphan, Ma.” Laura heard her mother’s voice more than angry now, furious, on the edge of tears. She crept a little way down the stairs. Her mother said, spacing her words out deliberately, controlling her anger, “Alex is our son, our child, like the others.”
“Blood is thicker than water,” Gran said.
“That’s a ridiculous thing to say and you know it. If this had happened to Laura, or to Bob, or to Ellie, I would feel the same way. Don’t you understand the trouble this is going to make in the family?”
“George will know how to handle it,” Gran said. “He’s a sensible man. More sense in his little finger than you have in your whole body. He loves the boy.”
“You think I don’t? Oh, how can you!”
“I didn’t say that. Just that you think more about things being equal and fair than you should. That’s what will cause trouble if anything does. Nothing is fair in this life, my girl, none of your children are equal. Laura is more clever than Alex by a long chalk. That’s not fair in your book, is it? Why don’t you lop off a bit of her brain to put matters right? That’s no sillier than wanting to deny Alex this little windfall.”
Laura’s mother began to laugh. She laughed with little screams and whoops, not happily, Laura thought, but as if she were being tickled. Laura ran the rest of the way down the stairs and stood in the open doorway. She saw her mother’s face, round and red as a winter sun with a dark, open laughing mouth in the middle. Her mother said, “A little windfall, Ma! Is that how you think of it? As if she’d left him a few pence for his piggy bank?” Then she saw Laura. Her hand went to her mouth.
Laura thought, she’ll be angry with me for listening. She started to talk very fast, with a babyish whine, pretending to be scared about something else, something childish and silly. “Mum, you won’t lop a bit off my brain, promise me you won’t, I’m sorry, I couldn’t help hearing. I had to go to the bathroom and you were both shouting.”
She saw her grandmother’s knowing smile, her raised eyebrows, and knew that she understood what Laura was up to. But her mother was taken in. She said, “Laura, oh my poor pet, of course not.” She turned on her mother. “See what you’ve done, you’ve frightened the child.”
“Codswallop,” Gran said. “Laura doesn’t frighten that easily.”
Laura was indignant. “It’s not a nice thing to hear, Gran. You wouldn’t like it.” Then she remembered that her grandmother had said she was clever. She accused her mother instead. “It’s not my fault that I’m here. You stopped me going out. I had a bad maths report last term because I’d been put up in the top stream and hadn’t done all the work, and you knew that. You just didn’t want me to go out with Carla.”
“You’re too young to be hanging about with boys,” her mother said—as if Jimmy and Fred were apes, Laura thought suddenly, seeing them in her mind’s eye, hanging about in the trees, swinging long-armed through the branches, scratching their armpits and chattering.
“She’s getting to the age,” Gran said. “If she can’t be open about it, she’ll be off on the sly.”
“Don’t tell me how to bring up my children, please,” Laura’s mother said wearily. Then, to Laura, “You shouldn’t eavesdrop on other people’s conversation but it’s not your fault this time. I was upset, I forgot you were here. I don’t know how much you heard.”
“Most of it. I suppose you think I ought to keep plugs in my ears! How much did Mrs Angel leave Alex?”
“Trust you to ask that, Miss!” her grandmother said.
“I don’t see why not,” her mother said. She looked gravely at Laura. “You can keep a secret, I hope. Your father and I don’t want Alex to know anything yet. He’s only a little boy. It would only unsettle him. So you must promise me.”
Laura nodded impatiently. “Is he going to be rich?”
Her mother sighed. “I’m afraid so. How rich depends on what happens. Mrs Angel left everything, her money, the house and everything in it, divided between her daughter and Alex. But no one knows where the daughter is. She may even be dead. If she doesn’t turn up in the next four months, if the lawyers can’t trace her, it all goes to Alex. Do you understand?”
“Of course. I’m not stupid. But I don’t understand why. I mean, why she left Alex anything. He’s not a relation.”
“That’s a question I’d like to have answered,” her mother said, rather grimly.
“Gran knows,” Laura said. She looked at her grandmother. “You said there was a reason why Mrs Angel should take an interest in Alex. You told me…”
“Did I, dear?” Gran shook her head wonderingly. “I can’t say I remember. I may have said she was fond of him.”
Laura said, “It’s not fair.”
“I was afraid you’d feel that” her mother said. “I’m sorry, Laura.”
Laura said, “I don’t mean about the money. I mean, it’s unfair not to tell him. Keeping it secret! If I was Alex, I’d want to know, I’d be furious.”
“He will know,” her mother said. “When your father and I decide the time’s right. But that isn’t now. Be a good girl, try and put it out of your mind. It really isn’t important. Money isn’t important. The important thing is that you should all work hard and do well. Have you finished your homework?”
“HOMEWORK,” Laura said in a disgusted voice. “Homework! I couldn’t. I’d burst.”
Her mother looked tired. She sank down on a chair and leaned her elbows on the table. She said, “All right, darling…”
It was far from all right, Laura thought. Her mother had tried to sound calm, but she wasn’t calm underneath. She said, “Soon as I go, you and Gran will start quarrelling.”
“No, we won’t.” Her mother smiled at her weakly. “I promise. And you promise about Alex, won’t you? I know you’ll be sensible.”
This wasn’
t worth answering. Laura looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s almost supper time. What’s for supper?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought…”
Gran said sharply, “Can’t you see, your poor mother’s worn out. Supper will be when it’s ready. Meantime, I’m going to make her a good cup of tea.” She stood up and hobbled to the stove. Her ankle was bandaged and she was wearing flat shoes. They made her look smaller, and older.
Mum said, “Laura, darling, it’s time Bob and Ellie came home. They can bath before supper. Will you fetch them?”
Laura said, “You always say Laura darling when you want to get rid of me.”
She stomped down the hall, past the stacked bicycles and Ellie’s old baby buggy, and paused before the open front door to listen. But all she heard was her mother saying, “Let’s have China tea, Ma. You like China, don’t you? There’s a new packet, on the right, in the cupboard.”
Chapter 5
As Laura crossed the Upper Field, Bob and Ellie came racing towards her. Bob was six and Ellie was five; she tried to keep up with her brother but her legs were much shorter. “Wait,” she was panting. “Wait for me, wait.” Bob reached back for her hand and pulled her along and she squealed, “Oh, Bob, my feet’s flying.”
“You’ll pull her over,” Laura said as they reached her, and they both laughed, eyes bright, cheeks scarlet with running.
“Alex wants you,” Bob said. “He sent us home and he said, tell Laura to come. He’s over by Gran’s house, he was playing, and then the man come.”
“What man?” Laura said, but they had run off, hand in hand. Laura watched them stop at the slip road between their house and the Field, looking both ways before they crossed it. Bob opened the front door with the key that he kept, hanging round his neck on a leather thong.
“Six years old is too young for a key,” Laura grumbled out loud. She hadn’t been given a key until she was ten. “Bob is such a sensible boy,” her mother had said when Laura had pointed this out, as if Laura had not been sensible at that age, and Laura felt the unfairness burn hotly inside her. Mum was always on about things being fair, but she wasn’t fair herself, was she? It wasn’t fair to make her keep a secret from Alex, particularly when it was something so interesting. It was making her tell a lie in a way, Laura thought indignantly, turning her into a cheat and a liar!
She couldn’t see Alex at first. There was a small van parked outside Mrs Angel’s house. Her front door was open and, as Laura approached, a man came down the steps carrying a big cardboard box. She saw the raised, white scar on his cheek. He put the box in the back of the van and ran back up the steps. A woman appeared at the front door with another box that he took from her. “Careful,” she called, as he hurried to the van, “some of those things are breakable.” She was the woman with small, angry eyes who had called Laura a spy…
Laura saw Alex. He was crouching—hiding—between two parked cars a little way up the road from the van. She went up behind him and hissed, “What are you doing?”
“Sssh. Be quiet, Laura, he’ll see me.”
“Who are they?”
“Mr Fowles. She’s his wife, I expect. He’s horrible, he saw me with Bob and Ellie and he told me to clear off. He was nasty.”
His lips trembled. “Oh, don’t be a baby,” Laura said, but she put an arm round him. She could feel him shaking. She said, “People are nasty sometimes, you have to get used to it.”
He said sorrowfully, “They’re taking Mrs Angel’s things. I think it’s awful.”
“They’re not burglars. I mean, we know who they are.”
“It’s not that. It’s just, she’s only just dead…” He choked on a sob.
Laura said, “Then it doesn’t matter to her. Nor to you.” She removed her arm from his shoulder. “After all, you didn’t like her much, did you?”
“I didn’t not like her.” He screwed his eyes up, trying to think what he meant and explain it. “I didn’t like going there all the time, Gran making me go, that’s not the same thing. But she liked all her pretty things, and they’re bundling them up and taking them, they don’t care.” His wide, dark eyes looked at her sadly. He said, in an awed voice, “Gran will be mad when she knows.”
“It isn’t Gran’s business. They’re not her things, are they?”
But they didn’t belong to Mr Fowles, either. Mrs Angel had left them to her daughter, to Alex. Fending off the uncomfortable feeling this gave her, Laura said, “I expect they do care that she’s dead. After all, they are her relations.”
“I know,” Alex said. “We ought to say that we’re sorry. I was going to, but then he shouted, and I forgot.”
At this moment, Mr Fowles closed the van doors. His wife came out of Mrs Angel’s house and slammed the front door. She came down the steps and got into the passenger seat of the van. Mr Fowles stood beside it, looking up and down the street.
“Duck down,” Laura whispered. “Keep still.”
She wasn’t sure why she was scared. She and Alex had only been watching. Then she thought, spying, and felt her head spin. When Alex stood up and marched boldly out of their hiding place, she thought she would faint. But she knew she must follow him. Although Alex sometimes seemed timid, it was only because he hated it when people were rude or unkind to him. Once he had made up his mind that he ought to do something he was always brave.
She kept her distance behind him as he marched up to Mr Fowles, hearing him say loudly, if a bit breathlessly, “I’m very sorry about your Aunt, Mr Fowles.”
Mr Fowles looked amazed. He gave an odd sort of laugh with no humour in it. “That’s rich,” he said. “Coming from you.”
“But I am sorry,” Alex said. “I’m sure you must be very unhappy.”
“Unhappy?” Mr Fowles said. “Unhappy?” He spoke slowly and thoughtfully as if he were turning the word over in his mind to make sure of its meaning. Then he gave another strange barking laugh. “I daresay I am, though I’d put it stronger. And not quite in the way that you mean. Never mind. My wife and I have been collecting a few mementoes to keep the old girl’s memory green. It’s not quite what we might have expected but there’s no justice, is there?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Mr Fowles.” Alex sounded politely puzzled. Quaking, Laura moved closer, standing beside him, touching his arm to let him know she was there to protect him.
“Don’t you now?” Mr Fowles said. “Well, of course, you’re the lucky one, aren’t you? Pretty pleased with yourself, I don’t doubt. Cock-a-hoop.”
All the time he was saying this he was smiling, his hare lip stretched shinily, his eyes glistening at both Alex and Laura. She said, “Alex only wanted to say he was sorry.”
“So he should be. If he doesn’t know why, he can ask his grandmother. She’s a wicked old woman, taking advantage of a poor soul whose wits were wandering, turning her away from her own flesh and blood. But you can tell her from me she’s not heard the last of it. Eric Fowles is not a man to sit back and say nothing.”
There was a soapy dribble of spit on his mouth. Alex whispered, “Let’s go home, Laura.”
She pushed him behind her. She shouted, “My Gran isn’t wicked. Mrs Angel was her best friend. She was sorry for her because she was lonely. And… and… you shouldn’t have been taking those things away, they don’t belong to you, that was stealing…”
She was so angry, the words seemed to fly out of her mouth like black birds. And then she was frightened. She grabbed Alex’s hand and ran, fear thudding in her chest, in her head, terrified that Mr Fowles would chase after them, shouting and swearing.
Halfway across the Fields she had to stop, gasping with a sudden stitch in her side, and looked back. The van was being driven away, brakes squealing as it turned the corner by the post-box. “Oh,” she said, “Alex. Why on earth did you speak to him?”
“I didn’t say anything wrong. You shouldn’t have said that about stealing. He might tell the police.”
“He won’
t do that, dummy.”
She looked at his bewildered and innocent face. Of course, he understood nothing. She understood more; like bits of a jigsaw, some of the things she had heard began to fall into place. Mr Fowles had expected Mrs Angel to leave her money to him, but her grandmother had persuaded her friend to “do something” for Alex. Exactly why and how didn’t know—that was a missing part of the jigsaw—but she could make a good guess. She said, “Oh, Alex, if only you weren’t so sweet, always.”
“I’m not sweet.” In protest he thumped her on the chest. It was only a little thump but it enraged her.
“You mustn’t hit girls on the chest, you might give them cancer.”
“I didn’t hit hard, don’t be silly. Just don’t call me sweet. It’s so soppy.” His face creased with anxiety. “Why was he so cross? I mean, of course he was cross when you said he’d been stealing, but he was cross before that. I know he doesn’t like Gran. Why did he say I was lucky?”
She couldn’t explain. She had promised not to. She said, “I don’t know. He’s just a nasty man, that’s all. I told you, some people are nasty.”
Chapter 6
Alex had been twice round the Fields on his roller boots without falling over. On his third round he saw his grandmother sitting with a strange man on one of the benches. As he braked neatly in front of her she said, “Alex, dear, I want you to meet Major Bumpus.”
Major Bumpus had fierce, blue eyes and a stiff brown moustache. When Alex said, “How do you do, Sir?” he nodded approvingly.
“Glad to make your acquaintance. Heard a lot about you from your grandmother. Handsome lad, Amy.”
Embarrassed, Alex did the splits, quite elegantly, but hurting his thighs. He said, “Ouch,” and laughed.
“Don’t show off, dear,” his grandmother said. “You might injure yourself.”
She was looking very pretty, Alex thought. He said, “I like your dress, Gran. I’m glad your leg’s better.”