Sun Child

by Angela Huth

  Fen’s hands rose up from the bowl. An avalanche of flour fell from them, some of it spilling on the table.

  ‘Divorced? What on earth makes you ask that?’

  Emily decided not to give her real reasons. She shrugged. ‘Dunno, really. You seem to be different together these days, and not be so nice to each other. Papa’s away so much …’

  ‘He’s always been away so much. That’s nothing new.’

  ‘And then you and Kevin.’

  ‘What about me and Kevin ?’

  ‘Well, he seems to keep coming here.’

  ‘He won’t any more.’

  ‘Good. Doesn’t Papa like him?’

  ‘Papa doesn’t know him very well.’

  ‘I suppose he must be all right if he’s a friend of Uncle Tom’s, but it’ll be much better if he doesn’t come any more.’

  Fen smiled a little. She pushed the bowl from her, sat down.

  ‘Are you really worried about all this, Em ?’

  Faced with such a question, Emily truthfully did not know the answer. She shrugged again.

  ‘Wolf says people get married and divorced, get married and divorced, just like that.’

  ‘Some people do, of course. And very sad that is, too. Especially for the children. But Papa and I have never discussed divorce. Honestly, darling. Why should we?’ Fen paused. She was soft now, showing a care she usually liked to conceal. ‘I mean it’s true, you’re right, we’ve been having a bit of a difficult time lately. Grown-ups do, you know, just as much as children. They get bad-tempered and tired and irritable and things. They hurt each other and even go through funny times of not trusting each other. They let each other down, dreadfully. You see, growing up doesn’t necessarily mean getting better at things, it just means gathering together more experience to learn from. And then, usually, rejecting – ignoring – the lessons that are learnt. Do you see what I mean?’

  Emily nodded. She didn’t, really, and her hands were cold.

  ‘Grown-ups are as imperfect as children,’ Fen went on. ‘And that’s one of the worst things about being your age. It’s about now you realise just how far from perfect they are. You realise that even your own parents are as hopeless as anyone else.’

  ‘You’re not’ said Emily. ‘You and Papa are best in the world, and I want you to go on for ever and ever.’

  ‘Oh, Em.’ Fen lowered her eyes, her voice unsteady. Emily ran to her, threw her arms round her, buried her face in her neck and hair. Warmth and stephanotis, the unforgettable smell and feel of reassurance. ‘Please be for ever. Mama, Don’t quarrel any more, will you?’

  ‘We’ll try not to. I promise. And anyhow, you mustn’t worry.’

  Emily stood back from her mother, then, a little weak with relief.

  ‘Are grown-ups ever jealous?’

  ‘Of course. Why?’

  ‘Well, I think Papa’s jealous of Kevin, and Kevin’s jealous of Papa.’

  Fen laughed.

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I think they both love you. Like Wolf says, everyone loves you.’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘Anyway, do you think they’re jealous of each other?’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. A little.’

  ‘In that case it’s a good thing Kevin’s gone away because you’re Papa’s. So it should be Kevin to go away.’ Fen smiled. ‘When I get married,’ Emily added, ‘it’s going to be for ever and ever and ever, and anyhow.’

  ‘Quite right. That’s how it should be.’ Fen kissed Emily lightly on the cheek and returned her hands to the bowl of flour. ‘Now, you just stop worrying your funny old head about things, and help me roll out this pastry. There’s enough to make some jam tarts, if you like, and some men with currant eyes. Come on, get one of my aprons.’

  Emily shuddered almost invisibly. A smell of baking came from the Aga: it was warm, quiet, wonderfully normal again. And she’d have to tell Wolf. Tomorrow she’d take him up into the loft and tell him. Now, none of his plans would be needed.

  The next week the pattern was repeated. Marcia Burrows came to stay for three days so that Idle could work at home. On one of these days Fen went to London. In the evening she rang to say her plans had changed: she was spending the night there, after all, but would be back the following afternoon. As her father was at home, Emily had no complaints about her mother being away for just one night. Marcia Burrows made macaroni cheese for supper. It wasn’t at all bad. Afterwards, the three of them played Scrabble by the fire.

  When Fen came home – no funny stories, this time, of what she had been doing – her first act was to open her post. One letter caused her to look concerned, to frown.

  ‘Em, I’ve had a letter from Mrs Riley.’ Emily’s teacher.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She says you’re not trying this term. That your work’s “unsatisfactory in every way”. She says you don’t concentrate and don’t seem interested, and you’ll have to do much better if you want to move up in September.’

  ‘Everyone hates Mrs Riley,’ said Emily. ‘Shes’ always complaining, honestly.’

  ‘She’s never complained to me before. There must be some truth in it.’

  ‘I simply can’t understand maths, so there’s no point in trying any more.’

  ‘She says you don’t try in anything.’

  ‘That’s what she thinks.’

  ‘Is it true ? Don’t you concentrate ?’

  ‘Some of the time. Most of the time she makes it so dull. Ancient boring old Britons and things.’

  ‘But you were doing so well last year. Trying so hard.’

  ‘I don’t feel like trying any more.’

  ‘I think you’d better go back to it. Papa won’t be very pleased by this letter.’

  Emily, who had been playing with the strap of her satchel, looked up in alarm.

  ‘Don’t let’s show it to him.’

  ‘Perhaps he could explain to you how silly it is, what a waste of time it is, not to work. Perhaps he could explain better than me.’

  ‘Please, Mama. Don’t show it to him. I will try.’

  Fen threw the letter on the fire. Already her mind was elsewhere.

  ‘Well, all right. This time. Any more complaints and I’ll tell him straight away.’

  ‘Thank you, Mama.’

  Mr Ragwort, the art teacher, semi-retired and happier breeding budgerigars than painting, came to Emily’s school twice a week. Years ago he’d found the easiest way to go about teaching: give the class a subject to paint, and leave them to it. That way, he could have half an hour’s peace in which to study his Manual of Domestic Birds, only interrupted by one journey of inspection round the class.

  Today, however, he had been inspired. Or at least, to be honest-and Mr Ragwort saw absolutely no reason to be honest with his pupils on this point – it was his wife who had had the inspiration. A Summer’s Day, she had suggested. A Summer’s Day it was to be.

  When Mr Ragwort made his announcement, the whole class sighed in unison. Knowing she had the support of everybody behind her, Sandra Buckle voiced their complaint.

  ‘We’ve done A Winter’s Day, A Spring Day and An Autumn Day, already, Mr Ragwort,’ she said.

  ‘Then A Summer’s Day will nicely round off the whole cycle of the seasons, won’t it?’ Mr Ragwort, unabashed, took his bird book from his pocket.

  Emily had a simple idea. Tomatoes. Nothing but tomatoes. She drew five rows of them, right across the page, taking great care to make them identical in shape and size. Then she painted them thickly scarlet, leaving an oblong highlight on the side of each one. When it came to the time for Mr Ragwort to examine her picture he was, as she had predicted he would be, puzzled.

  ‘Why all these tomatoes, Emily?’

  ‘They’re what I think of on a summer’s day.’

  ‘Nothing but tomatoes? What about picnics, haymaking, a day at the sea, and so on? Those are the sort of thing come to most people’s minds.’ Privately, he didn’
t care a damn what came to Emily Harris’s mind when she thought of a summer day, but at the sight of such calculated tomatoes he felt it his duty to protest a little before returning to his chapter on Rearing and Breeding.

  ‘I just think of tomatoes.’ Emily was sullen. She could hear a few stifled giggles coming from behind her.

  ‘Well, it’s an interesting thought, I dare say. But where are these tomatoes? On a market stall, a plate? In a greenhouse? Couldn’t you give me a little background?’

  ‘They’re just in my mind.’

  ‘Very well. But it makes rather an abstract composition, doesn’t it?’ Unable to approve anything he didn’t understand, Mr Ragwort shuffled on, confident he’d made his point. Behind him, Emily stuck out her tongue. Mr Ragwort always annoyed her: today he annoyed her particularly. She took the painting from her easel and quickly tore the paper into four pieces. There were sounds of exclamation from the girls nearest to her. Mr Ragwort turned round.

  ‘Dear, dear, Emily. That was a silly thing to do, wasn’t it? I hadn’t got anything against your tomatoes, you know. As a matter of fact, they were quite well drawn.’

  ‘Stew,’ said Emily, so that he shouldn’t hear.

  At the end of the lesson Mr Ragwort, ruffled by the small scene, hurried out of the class first. He was worried about one of his broody birds: if she was sitting happily on her nest, that would take his mind off such truculent pupils as Emily Harris. The rest of the class followed him, animated with chatter about Emily’s tomatoes. Emily herself remained at her easel waiting until they had gone.

  When the studio was empty, she took a brush and began to stir a pot of scarlet poster paint. Then she went to the large, bare white wall between the two windows. She raised the brush and quickly wrote, in huge letters: Goats are smelly. She hadn’t worked out what to write: she simply watched the words flow from her brush, as if they were written by someone else.

  She stood back, contemplated her work, added a full stop, and left the room. It was time for Geography now, but she had no intention of going to her class. Instead, slowly, calmly, she made her way to the cloakroom. It was quite empty, rather cold. She sat on a bench, leaning her head back against a pile of mackintoshes. On the floor opposite her was a long row of gym shoes. She began to count them, to give them names, and to divide them into families.

  Some time later, half an hour perhaps, she heard footsteps coming towards her. Mrs Riley, no doubt. Mrs Riley, it was, swollen with disbelief.

  ‘Emily Harris! And what may I ask do you think you’re doing here?’

  ‘Just sitting.’

  ‘Stand up when I speak to you, girl.’ Emily stood.

  ‘Apart from missing your geography lesson, I wonder if you would happen to know anything about the disgusting message written on the art studio wall?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Emily, dully, ‘I wrote it.’

  The admission left Mrs Riley speechless for a moment. One of her fat hands jumped to her stomach, scratched, then crawled on down to a troublesome suspender.

  ‘Well, you’d better come and explain to the Head, is all I can say. She’s waiting for you. Follow me.’

  Emily followed Mrs Riley’s triumphant bottom down a long corridor, across the courtyard and to the Head’s study. Mrs Riley knocked, pushed open the door, and Emily went in.

  ‘Here’s Emily Harris, Mrs Parker. She’s admitted everything.’

  The Head, sitting behind a large desk, looked up with a curious lack of interest.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Riley. Perhaps you would leave Emily and me to it?’

  Mrs Riley, silent in her indignation, left the room backwards.

  When she had gone, Mrs Parker motioned Emily towards a chair. Emily sat down. In the long silence she glanced about the room, which smelt of years and years of tea and biscuits. There was a picture of a man behind Mis Parker’s desk. He wore military uniform and looked hungry. Emily wondered if he was Mrs Parker’s dead husband and, if he was, why his picture wasn’t somewhere easier to see than behind her back.

  Mrs Parker scribbled on her blotter. She had brown hair with a white wave running right through it, from front to back. The skin of her face was pale orange, but her neck was white. Her downcast eyes showed wrinkly lids thick with blue. As most of the girls’ fathers had observed, she wasn’t bad for a headmistress.

  ‘So what happened, Emily?’ Considering her voice could rap out prayers that reached right to the back of the Hall, her tone was now amazingly soft.

  ‘Mr Ragwort didn’t like my tomatoes so I tore them up, then I painted goats are smelly on the wall, then I went and sat in the cloakroom so that I could miss Geography, and Mrs Riley came and fetched me.’

  ‘So I heard. Why did you do all that?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  Outside, there was sun. Emily wondered if she dared ask if she might open the window. It was stuffy in here, with the gas fire.

  ‘I hear you haven’t been doing your best, this term, in general.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Anything on your mind? You’ve plenty of friends, haven’t you? Unhappy about anything?’

  ‘No.’

  Mrs Parker sighed.

  ‘You know you’re one of the girls who can get pretty good results when she tries. It’s a pity to waste your brain.’ Emily remained silent. Mrs Parker put down her pencil at last and met her eye. ‘If you were me,’ she said, ‘if you were in my position, what sort of punishment do you think I should give you?’

  Emily thought for a while.

  ‘I think you should only punish people when they plan out to do naughty things. I didn’t plan anything. I just did it.’

  Mrs Parker smiled.

  ‘Do you know why you did it?’

  ‘No. Honestly. I just did it.’

  ‘And how do you feel about what you’ve done?’

  ‘Nothing much. It wasn’t that bad.’ Emily shrugged. Mrs Parker pushed back her chair and clasped her hands, beautifully painted nails, tomato scarlet, on the blotter.

  ‘I tell you what, Emily, I’m not going to do anything about you this time. I believe what you say. I’m sure your acts weren’t premeditated – thought out before. But I don’t want to hear of anything like this again. Do you understand ?’ Emily nodded. ‘And please try harder for what’s left of the term. Your father, if I’m right in thinking, wouldn’t be too pleased if you had a bad report, would he ?’ Emily shook her head. ‘Well, then, see what you can do.’ Mrs Parker stood up. ‘You can go now, unless, that is, there’s anything you’d like to ask me.’

  Emily too stood up. She nodded towards the photograph on the wall behind Mrs Parker’s head.

  ‘There is. Who’s that?’

  Mrs Parker didn’t turn round, but raised her chin a little.

  ‘That was my husband.’

  ‘What happened to him ?’

  ‘He was killed in the war.’

  ‘How awful. Did you have any children ?’

  ‘No. Now enough questions. Off you go.’ Emily moved to the door. ‘By the way,’ Mrs Parker added, ‘your father, Emily-does he still go away on those long trips to Africa?’

  ‘Not so often.’

  ‘That must be nice for you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Parker.’ Emily ran away.

  In the playground, her class crowded round her. They clamoured to know what exactly had happened. What had it been like, being ticked off by the Head? How had she felt?

  Emily told them the truth.

  ‘I wasn’t ticked off,’ she said, ‘and I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. Honestly.’

  Since the incident of the tomatoes, Mrs Riley did little to conceal her disapproval of Emily. In her opinion the shocking thing was not simply that the child had been naughty, but her message on the art studio wall had revealed that unhealthy thoughts, such as Mrs Riley could not and would not abide in the minds of any of her pupils, were planted deep within Emily. Such a revelation was a strain on Mrs Riley’s meagre charity. In spite of
the fact that she had to admit that Emily was making a little more effort in the last few days, she found her disapprobation difficult to contain. ‘I despair of you, Emily Harris,’ she reiterated most days. ‘You’re not doing credit to yourself or to your family.’

  For her part Emily remained passive. Mrs Riley’s chidings did not touch her. She was protected from them by a barrier of apathy. Mrs Riley could do or say what she liked: she could not make Emily care.

  A week went by. It was a maths lesson. As usual, Emily struggled to understand some problem that the majority of the class seemed to find easy. The problem itself bored Emily profoundly. She did not see that even if she reached understanding it would do her any good. But she made some effort to dislodge the heavy dullness within her, and concentrate. Mrs Riley, however, was unconvinced. To her mind Emily Harris, in her usual stubborn fashion, was not trying. Moreover, her attitude of apparent nonchalance was detrimental to the rest of the class. Emily was sent from the room with a warning of a serious talking-to at the end of the lesson.

  As she stood in the passage, leaning against a window sill, Emily remembered the time when any such admonition would have filled her with fear. Indeed, the very act of having been sent out of class would have caused her shame. But now she felt only relief at being out of the class. Threats of punishment held no fear for her: concern about such things was long past.

  Time went slowly. Bored, Emily walked down the corridor. At the end of it she turned into another corridor that was out-of-bounds for pupils. A few yards along it she found a cupboard door marked Stationery and Stores. Emily looked about. There was no one in sight, no sound. She opened the door. Shelves were well-stocked with exercise books, blotting paper, pencils and blackboard chalk. On the floor stood two pitchers marked Ink. Emily picked one up. Made of brown earthenware, it was heavy and cold. Moving it about, she could hear the gentle slopping of the ink inside. She removed the cork stopper in the neck of the jar, but in the gloom of the corridor it was impossible to see the colour of the ink.

  Emily replaced the stopper and walked back down the corridor. She let herself out of the door that led to the playground. The gardener was chipping at the edges of the grass with his hoe. She nodded at him and walked on. The spring sun was warming: she made for a small rhododendron bush, its buds still hard and closed, and sat on the ground behind it. There she inspected the ink once more. The pitcher was almost full. She dipped in a finger: it came out a wonderful royal blue. Next, leaves: she plucked a dozen or so from the rhododendron bush, submerged them in the ink then lay them in a pattern on the grass to dry. All the while a song shrilled through her head.