by Jane Gardam
‘Henry’s not an immigrant. He’s a ninnygrant. Or just plain innigrant. I’m sick of him if you want to know. It’s a waste of time, my Social Work. At least you get some good food out of yours. You’ve started her cooking again. And you’re teaching her about machines.’
‘Your Chinese will know about machines. I shouldn’t touch the food, though, if you go to them. It won’t be like a Take-Away.’
‘D’you want to come?’
‘No thanks. See you.’
‘Candlelight Mansions,’ said the Social Worker. ‘Here we are. Twelfth floor and the lifts won’t be working. I hope you’re fit.’
They climbed the concrete stairs. Rubbish lay about. People had scrawled ugly things on the walls. On every floor the lift had a board saying ‘out of order’ hung across it with chains. Most of the chains were broken, too, so that the boards hung crooked. All was silent.
Then, as they walked more slowly up the final flights of stairs, the silence ceased. Sounds began to be threaded into it; thin, busy sounds that became more persistent as they turned at the twelfth landing and met a fluttery excited chorus. Across the narrow space were huge heaps. Bundles and crates and boxes were stacked high under tarpaulins with only the narrowest of alleys to lead up to the splintery front door of Henry Wu’s flat. A second door of diamonds of metal was fastened across this. Nailed to the wall, on top of all the bundles were two big makeshift bird cages like sideways chicken-houses and inside them dozens of birds—red and blue and green and yellow making as much noise as a school playground.
‘Oh dear,’ said the Social Worker, ‘Here we go again. The Council got them all moved once but the Wus just put them back. They pretend they don’t understand. Good afternoon, Mrs. Wu.’
A beautiful, flat Chinese woman had come to the door and stood behind the metal diamonds. She did not look in the least like a Black Belt in judo. She was very thin and small and wore bedroom slippers, a satin dress and three cardigans. She bowed.
‘I’ve just called for a chat and to bring you Henry’s kind friend who is trying to help him.’
Mrs. Wu took out a key and then clattered back the metal gate and smiled and bowed a great deal and you couldn’t tell what she was thinking. From the flat behind her there arose the most terrible noise of wailing, screeching and whirring, and Pratt thought that Jackson had been right about machines. A smell wafted out, too. A sweetish, dryish, spicy smell which sent a long thrill down Pratt’s spine. It smelled of far, far away.
‘You have a great many belongings out here,’ said the Social Worker climbing over a great many more as they made their way down the passage into the living room. In the living room were more again, and an enormous Chinese family wearing many layers of clothes and sitting sewing among electric fires. Two electric sewing-machines whizzed and a tape of Chinese music plinked and wailed, full-tilt. Another, different tape wailed back through the open kitchen door where an old lady was gazing into steaming pans on a stove. There were several bird cages hanging from hooks, a fish-tank by the window and rat-like object looking out from a bundle of hay in a cage. It had one eye half-shut as if it had a headache. Henry Wu was regarding this rat.
The rest of the family all fell silent, rose to their feet and bowed. ‘Hello Henry,’ said Pratt, but Henry did not look round, even when his mother turned her sweet face on him and sang out a tremendous Chinese torrent.
Tea came in glasses. Pratt sat and drank his as the Social Worker talked to Mrs. Wu and the other ladies, and a small fat Chinese gentleman, making little silk buttons without even having to watch his hands, watched Pratt. After a time he shouted something and a girl came carrying a plate. On the plate were small grey eggs with a skin on them. She held them out to Pratt.
‘Hwile,’ said the Chinese gentleman, his needle stitching like magic. ‘Kwile.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Pratt. (Whale?)
‘Eat. Eat.’
‘I’m not very . . . ’
But the Social Worker glared. ‘Quail,’ she said.
‘Eggs don’t agree . . . ’ said Pratt. (Aren’t quails snakes?) He imagined a tiny young snake curled inside each egg. I’d rather die, he thought, and saw that for the first time Henry Wu was looking at him from his corner. So was the rat.
So were the fish, the birds, Mrs. Wu, the fat gentleman and all the assorted aunts. He ate the egg which went down glup, like an oval leather pill. Everyone smiled and nodded and the plate was offered again.
He ate another egg and thought, two snakes. They’ll breed. I will die. He took a great swig of tea and smiled faintly. Everyone in the room then, except the rat, the fish and Henry, began to laugh and twitter and talk. The old woman slipper-sloppered in from the kitchen bringing more things to eat in dolls’ bowls. They were filled with little chippy things and spicy, hot juicy bits. She pushed them at Pratt. ‘Go on,’ said the Social Worker. ‘Live dangerously.’
Pratt ate. Slowly at first. It was delicious. ‘It’s not a bit like the Take-Away,’ he said, eating faster. This made the Chinese laugh. ‘Take-Away, Take-Away,’ they said. ‘Sweet-and-Sour,’ said Mrs. Wu. ‘Not like Sweet-and-Sour,’ and everyone made tut-tutting noises which meant, ‘I should just hope not.’ Mrs. Wu then gave Pratt a good-luck charm made of brass and nodded at him as if she admired him.
‘She’s thanking you for taking Henry out,’ said the Social Worker as they went down all the stairs again.
‘She probably thinks I’m a lunatic,’ said Pratt, ‘taking Henry out. Much good it’s done.’
‘You don’t know yet.’
‘Well, he’s not exactly talking is he? Or doing anything. He’s probably loopy. She probably thinks I’m loopy, too.’
‘She wouldn’t let you look after him if she thought you were loopy.’
‘Maybe she wants rid of him. She’s hoping I’ll kidnap him. I’m not looking after him any more if he can’t get up and say hello. Or even smile. After all those terrible afternoons. Well, I’ve got exams next term. I’ve got no time. I’ll have to think of myself all day and every day from now on, thank goodness.’
And the next term it was so. Pratt gave never a thought to Henry Wu except sometimes when the birds began to be seen about the school gardens again and to swoop under the eaves of the chapel. Swallows, he thought, immigrants. And he remembered him when his parents took him out to a Chinese restaurant on his birthday.
‘Oh no—not those,’ he said.
‘They are the greatest Chinese treat you can have,’ said his father. ‘Quails’ eggs.’
‘Aren’t they serpents?’
‘Serpents? Don’t you learn any general knowledge at that school? They’re birds’ eggs. Have some Sweet-and-Sour.’
‘The Chinese don’t have Sweet-and-Sour. It was made up for the tourists.’
‘Really? Where did you hear that?’
‘My Social Work.’
The exams came and went as exams do and Pratt felt lightheaded and light-hearted. He came out of the last one with Jackson and said, ‘Whee—let’s go and look at the river.’
‘I feel great. Do you?’ he said.
Jackson said he felt terrible. He’d failed everything. He’d spent too much time spring-cleaning old Nellie. He knew he had.
‘I expect I’ve failed, too,’ said Pratt, but he felt he hadn’t. The exams had been easy. He felt very comfortable and pleased with himself and watched the oily river sidle by, this way and that way, slopping up against the arches of the bridge, splashy from the barges. ‘What shall we do?’ he asked Jackson. ‘Shall we go on the river?’
‘I’d better go over and see if old Nellie’s in,’ said Jackson. ‘I promised. Sorry. You go.’
Pratt stood for a while and the old lady with the shopping-trolley went by. ‘Lolling about,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry about your flour,’ said Pratt. Filled with happiness becaus
e the exams were over he felt he ought to be nice to the woman.
But she hurried on. Pratt watched her crossing the bridge and found his feet following. He made for Candlelight Mansions.
‘Does Henry want to come to the park?’ he asked a little girl who peered through the diamonds. Her face was like a white violet and her fringe was flimsy as a paint-brush. There was a kerfuffle behind her and Mrs. Wu came forward to usher him inside.
If I go in it’ll be quails’ eggs and hours of bowing, thought Pratt. ‘I’ll wait here,’ he said firmly. Mrs. Wu disappeared and after a time Henry was produced, again muffled to the nose in the scarlet padding.
‘It’s pretty warm out,’ said Pratt, but Mrs. Wu only nodded and smiled.
In the park Pratt felt lost without a book and Henry marched wordlessly, as far ahead as possible. The ice-cream kiosk was open now and people were sitting on the metal chairs. Pigeons clustered round them in flustery clouds.
‘Horrible,’ said Pratt, catching up with Henry. ‘Rats with wings. I’ll get you a Coke but we’ll drink it over there by the grass—hey! Where you going?’
Henry, not stopping for the pigeons, was away to the slope of green grass that led down to the water. On the grass and all over the water was a multitude of birds and all the ducks of the park, diving-ducks and pelicans and geese and dab-chicks and water-hens and mallards. Old ducks remembering and new little ducks being shown the summer for the first time. Some of the new ducks were so new they were still covered with fluff—white fluff, fawn fluff, yellow fluff and even black fluff, like decorations on a hat. The proud parent ducks had large V’s of water rippling out behind them and small V’s rippled behind all the following babies. Henry Wu stood still.
Then round the island on the lake there came a huge, drifting meringue.
It was followed by another, but this one had a long neck sweeping up from it with a proud head on the end and a brilliant orange beak and two black nostrils, the shape of Henry Wu’s eyes.
The first meringue swelled and fluffed itself and a tall neck and wonderful head emerged from that one, too.
Suddenly Henry pointed a short padded arm at these amazing things and, keeping it stiff, turned his face up to Pratt and looked at him very intently.
‘Swan,’ said Pratt. ‘They’re swans. They’re all right, aren’t they? Hey—but don’t do that. They’re not so all right that you ought to get near them.’
‘Get that boy back,’ shouted a man. ‘They’ll knock him down. They’re fierce, them two.’
‘Nasty things, swans,’ said someone else.
But Henry was off, over the little green hooped fence, running at the swans as they stepped out of the water on their black macintosh feet and started up the slope towards him.
They lowered their necks and began to hiss. They opened their great wings.
‘Oh help,’ said Pratt
‘It’s all right,’ said the man. ‘I’m the Warden. I’ll get him. Skin him alive, too, if they don’t do it first,’ and he ran down the slope.
But the swans did not skin Henry Wu alive. As he ran right up to them they stopped. They turned their heads away as if they were thinking. They shifted from one big black leathery foot to another and stopped hissing. Then they opened their wings wider still and dropped them gently and carefully back in place. They had a purple band round each left leg. One said 888. White swans, purple band, orange beaks, red Henry Wu, all on the green grass with the water and the willows about them, all sparkling and swaying.
‘Bless him—isn’t that nice now?’ said the crowd, as the Warden of the swans gathered up Henry and brought him back under his arm.
‘You’ll get eaten one day,’ said the Warden. ‘You’ll go getting yourself harmed,’ but he seemed less angry than he might.
On the way home Henry did not look at Pratt but sat with him on the long seat just inside the bus. It was a seat for three people and Henry sat as far away as possible. But it was the same seat.
Then Pratt went on his summer holidays and when he came back the exam results were out and they were not marvellous. He stuffed miserably about in the house. When Jackson called—Jackson had done rather well—he said that he was busy, which he wasn’t.
But he made himself busy the next term, stodging glumly along, and took the exams all over again.
‘Aren’t you going to see your Chinese Demon any more?’ asked Jackson afterwards. ‘Come and meet old Nellie.’
‘No thanks.’
‘She says to bring you.’
‘No thanks.’
But when the results came out this time, they were very good. He had more than passed.
Pratt said, ‘How’s Nellie?’
‘Oh fine. Much better tempered.’
‘Was she bad tempered? You never said.’
‘How’s Henry Wu? Did you ever get him talking?’
‘No. He was loopy.’
But it was a fine frosty day and the sun for the moment was shining and Pratt went to the park and over the grass to the lakeside where one of the swans came sliding around the island and paddled about on the slope, marking time and looking at him.
It dazzled. The band round its leg said 887. ‘Where’s your husband?’ said Pratt. ‘Or wife or whatever? Are you hungry or something?’
The sun went in and the bare trees rattled. The swan looked a bit lonely and he thought he might go and get it some bread. Instead he took a bus back over the bridge and went to Candlelight Mansions.
They’ve probably forgotten me, he thought as he rang the bell. The bundles and the bird cages had gone from the landing. He rattled the steel mesh. They’ve probably moved, he thought. They’ll have gone back to China.
But he was welcomed like a son.
‘Can I take Henry out?’
Bowings, grinnings, buttonings-up of Henry who had not grown one millimetre.
‘Where’s the rat?’ Pratt asked.
‘Nwee-sance,’ said Mrs. Wu.
‘Neeoo-sance,’ said the fat gentleman. ‘Nee-oosance. Council told them go.’
But the flat was now a jungle of floating paper-kites and plants with scarlet dragons flying about in them, mixed with Father Christmases, Baby Jesuses and strings of Christmas tinsel. In the kitchen the old lady stirred the pots to a radio playing Oh Come All Ye Faithful. Henry, seeing everyone talking together, sat down under a sewing-machine.
‘Has he said anything yet?’ asked Pratt, eating juicy bits with chopsticks. Everyone watched the juicy bits falling off the chopsticks and laughed. Now and then, when anything reached his mouth successfully, they congratulated him. They ignored the question, which meant that Henry had not.
It was cold in the street and very cold as they stood at the bus-stop. Pratt had forgotten that the days were now so short, and already it was beginning to get dark. Far too late to go to the park, he thought. The bus was cold, too, and dirty, and all the people looked as if they’d like to be warm at home in bed. ‘Come on—we’ll go upstairs and sit in the front,’ said Pratt and they looked down on the dreary York Road with all its little half-alive shops and, now and then, a string of coloured Christmas lights across it with most of the bulbs broken or missing. Some shops had spray-snowflakes squirted on the windows. It looked like cleaning-fluid someone had forgotten to wash off. Real snowflakes were beginning to fall and looked even dingier than the shop-window ones.
I should have taken him over the river to see some real Christmas lights in Regent Street, thought Pratt. There’s nothing over here.
But there came a bang.
A sort of rushing, blustering, flapping before the eyes.
The glass in the window in front of them rattled like an earthquake and something fell down in front of the bus.
There were screeching brakes and shouting people and Pratt and Henry were flung forward onto the floor.
&nbs
p; As they picked themselves up they saw people running into the road below. ‘Something fell out of the sky,’ said Pratt to Henry Wu. ‘Something big. Like a person. Come on—we’ve got to get out.’
But it was not a person. It was a swan that sat heavy and large and streaked with a dark mark across its trailing wings in the very middle of the road.
‘Swan, swan—it’s a swan!’ Everybody was shouting. ‘It’s killed itself. It’s dead. Frozen dead with fright.’
‘It hit a wire,’ said someone else—it was the woman with the shopping trolley—‘I saw it. An overhead-wire from the lights. They oughtn’t to be allowed. They’re not worth it. They could have electrocuted that bus.’
‘It’s killed it, anyway,’ said Jackson, who seemed to be with her. ‘It’s stone dead.’
But the swan was not dead. Suddenly it decided it was not. It heaved up its head and wings and lollopped itself to the side of the road and flopped down again, looking round slowly, with stunned wonder, opening and shutting its orange beak, though with never a sound.
‘It was migrating,’ said the man from a chip-shop.
‘Swans don’t migrate, they stay put,’ said a man from a laundry.
‘Anyone’d migrate this weather,’ said a man selling whelks and eels. ‘Look, it’s got a number on it. It’s from the park. Look, it’s put itself all tidy on the yellow line.’
‘Out of the way,’ said a policeman. ‘Now then. Stand aside. We’ll want a basket.’ A laundry-basket was brought and someone lent the policeman a strong pair of gloves.
‘Clear a space,’ he said and approached the swan which proved it was not dead by landing the policeman a thwacking blow with its wing.
‘Have to be shot,’ said a dismal man from a bike-shop. ‘Well, it’s no chicken.’
‘Course it’s no chicken,’ said the woman with the trolley. ‘If it was a chicken it’d be coming home with me and a bag of chips.’
And then a girl with purple hair began to shriek and scream because she didn’t believe in eating animals, which included birds.