by Babs Horton
Romilly blinked with surprise. She wasn’t used to being asked her opinion on anything.
She bit her lip and nodded.
“Romilly and I are quite able to prepare our own lunch and amuse ourselves for the afternoon, aren’t we, ma petite?”
Romilly stared in mounting bewilderment at Madame and waited for Nanny Bea to protest. None of the other governesses had ever prepared lunch before; they’d hardly even been allowed to go into the kitchen without permission.
But to Romilly’s astonishment Nanny Bea did not protest, she merely smiled weakly at Madame Fernaud, nodded her head in meek agreement and said, “I think you are right, my dear, I am a little overwrought and tiredness can overwork the imagination.”
Madame helped Nanny Bea gently to her feet and up the stairs while Romilly hurried into the kitchen, pulled a chair to the window and climbed up on it.
There was no sign of the black man outside. How could there be? He was a ghost and ghosts only ever came out after midnight.
Then she saw die large footprints that led from the sum-merhouse and across the lawn towards the kitchen window. Ghosts didn’t make footprints, everyone knew that. So someone really had looked in at Nanny Bea. Maybe it was the same man that Romilly had seen in the summerhouse? Except he wasn’t black. Or was he? She couldn’t be sure because his face had been in shadow. A frisson of fear jiggled between her shoulder blades; she wasn’t sure if she were terrified or thrilled.
Sometime soon she must sneak out to the summer-house and see if Archie Grimble had left her a note. Archie might know who the man was; maybe he lived in the Skallies?
Madame and Romilly lunched together in the kitchen on toasted muffins spread with butter, biscuits and sweet tea. They ate in an uneasy silence until at last Madame, clearing away the crockery, spoke.
“A walk, I think, would be very good for us while Nanny Bea rests.”
Romilly stared at her. “A walk?” she exclaimed. “But it’s snowing!”
“You don’t like to walk in the snow?”
“I don’t know. Yes, I think so, but I wouldn’t be allowed.”
“Well, I am allowing you. Who is to stop us?”
“But if Papa finds out he will be very angry.”
“Who is going to tell your papa?”
Romilly fell silent.
“Would your mama be angry if she knew you went for a walk in the snow?”
Romilly put her head on one side and her eyes filled suddenly with tears.
Madame Fernaud watched Romilly with interest.
“No. Mama always wanted to go out even in the rain but Papa has forbidden it. We only walk on fine days and then only close to the house.”
“Well, today we shall walk together in the snow,” Madame said with a laugh.
Romilly chewed her lip nervously and brushed away her tears. Madame was a fool. She knew nothing of life in Killivray. The house had big ears. Someone always told Papa. Papa knew everything that went on in Killivray House even when he wasn’t there.
“Well, Romilly, answer me. Who do you think will tell your papa?”
“Why, Nanny Bea, of course!” Romilly cried impatiently.
“But she will not know.”
“She knows everything.”
“I have given her a little powder that will make her sleep and while she sleeps we shall walk in the snow together.”
Romilly felt her eyes widen involuntarily. Nanny Bea always told Papa everything that went on at Killivray but if Nanny Bea didn’t know…
The possibility of walking outside in the snow was too-wonderful but what if she were being tricked? What if Madame just wanted to see if she would disobey Papa’s orders and then go running back and tell him?
Papa would be furious with her.
He was scary when he was angry. His eyes narrowed the way a cat’s did when it caught a bird.
Once when Mama raised her voice he threw a decanter at her. It hit the dining-room wall with a cracking thud and the air was sharp with shards of glass and the smell of whisky.
“Have you the galoshes and a warm coat? It will be very cold outside,” Madame said.
Romilly nodded eagerly and ran to the cloakroom to fetch them in case Madame had a change of heart.
Five minutes later they were hurrying across the lawns of Killivray and fresh snow was wiping away their footprints as if they had never walked that way.
Archie and Cissie Abelson stood together on Skilly Beach looking up at the old Boathouse in wonder. The snow had transformed it from its tumbledown state and it looked like something left behind from a fairy tale. Long icicles dripped from the guttering like chandeliers and shimmered in the late morning light The windows were latticed with frost and sparkled like diamond dust. Drifts of snow had covered the broken roof and swaddled the crumbling chimney on top of which a robin was singing energetically.
A bewildered crab scuttled across the sand looking for the cover of rocks and a gull pecked discontentedly at the frosted skeleton of a fish.
Archie held Cissie Abelson’s hand as they crossed the beach. Nan followed close behind them with a breathless Mrs Galvini in tow.
As they neared the Boathouse, Archie held more tightly to Cissie’s hand. He looked warily up at the window and was startled to see mad Gwennie looking out at them curiously.
He pulled Cissie along impatiently, afraid that at any moment the door would open and mad Gwennie would appear brandishing a gun.
The faint strains of the Donkey Song filtered out into the cold air.
Cissie and Archie climbed the slippery steps that led around the side of the Boathouse and then waited for Nan and Mrs Galvini to catch up.
Archie looked back across the beach towards the wobbly chapel and felt for the keys in his pocket One day soon he was going to get back in there and have another good snoop around, hopefully in daylight if he could do it without anyone seeing him. He wondered if he’d ever find out what the two other keys would unlock?
Nan and Mrs Galvini joined them and they walked on along the cliff path. Suddenly Cissie yanked Archie’s hand and pointed. A short distance in front of them the curious Misses Arbuthnot were hurrying along, both wrapped from head to toe in ancient fur coats and hats. They wore faded galoshes that made a slopping sound as they walked and the smell of mothballs and lavender was strong in their twittering wake.
Archie thought about what Mr Galvini had said about the people in the Skallies. What could two old ladies be running away from? They were a strange pair, that was for sure, and out of place in the Skallies with their fancy music, bone china and butter knives. Mammy always said God help them, they were distressed gentility, down on their luck.
There was only a light fall of snow on the cliff path as it was sheltered by high bare hedges drizzled with ice that glinted in the strange pinkish light that swathed the path before them. Archie felt as though he were walking through a pleasant dream.
For a while he and Cissie pretended to smoke, sucking on imaginary cigarettes and blowing steam into the cold morning air.
Later, while Cissie sang her nonsense songs quietly to herself, Archie’s head was teeming with thoughts. He wondered when he’d be able to go back to the summerhouse and leave a letter for Romilly Greswode. He didn’t have that much to tell her but he really wanted to write to her, keep in contact, and see her again. He couldn’t wait to go back to Killivray, he felt the pull of the house as if it were a giant magnet drawing him towards it.
Cissie jingled the pennies in her coat pocket as she skipped along happily beside Archie. Nan had emptied her penny pot and given them five shillings each to spend. Archie was thrilled; he had no money left after the fat porker had taken all his savings. He’d kept well out of his way ever since but when they did meet his father gave him strange sideways looks and always seemed to have a sly smile on his face as though he was plotting something.
Mammy had been quiet the last couple of days as though she had something on her mind, something heavy that
was squashing out all her thoughts. She had new bruises on her arms too, ugly blue ones, joining up with older yellow ones.
If he could, Archie was going to use the money Nan had given him to buy something for his mammy, something nice that would stop her being so sad.
When they reached the point where the path divided, Archie and Cissie stopped and waited for Nan and Mrs Galvini. To their left a rabbit path led away down towards Skilly Point straight on led around the coast to Nanskelly. While Cissie jumped up and down and clapped her hands to keep warm, Archie gazed out to sea and thought of poor Thomas Greswode and how he’d drowned in the deep cold waters off Skilly Point.
Nan had walked the cliff path many a time since she’d lived in the Skallies and sometimes she’d seen the girls from Nanskelly School out on a walk. They were a quaint-looking bunch in their old-fashioned uniforms and felt hats. Usually there were middle-aged schoolmistresses with them chivvying them along and pointing out the wonders of nature.
The school was in an isolated spot and the inhabitants had little contact with the outside world apart from trips to the station at St Werburgh’s. All sorts of rumours abounded about the place; that the two old biddies who owned it were more than just friends, they were lady lovers. The girls were, it was said, mainly down-at-heel princesses from foreign countries who didn’t have a pot to piss in.
Nan was enjoying being out in the fresh air and away from the Pilchard Inn. She and Mrs Galvini, red-faced and puffing, walked companionably together keeping an eye on Cissie and Archie.
Nan had seen the posters about the bazaar up in the shops in Rhoskilly and thought it might do them all good to have a long walk and a nose round Nanskelly. She smiled now at the sight of Archie and Cissie chattering excitedly together.
“He’s a lovely boy, that Archie,” she said. “He’s good company for Cissie, he’s always patient with her slow ways and never mocks her the way the other children do.”
“He very good boy, that Archie. If I ever has a son I like one like him.”
Nan looked sideways at Lena Galvini and smiled sadly.
It was a bloody shame that Lena hadn’t had any children, she and Alfredo would make wonderful parents.
“I feel sorry for him having a father like that. He’s a pig of a man,” Nan said with feeling.
“Si. I thinks the same. I not like him. He smell like a bad lot Not a good husband. I not like to share my bed with him.”
“Not on your Nelly.” Nan grimaced and went on, “It’s strange, though, he’s never done a day’s work since he’s been in the Skallies and yet they seem to manage for money.”
“You ask me, I thinks Martha Grimble come from good family, family with money,” Lena said, dropping her voice.
Nan looked at her quizzically. Martha Grimble looked as if she didn’t have a penny to bless herself with.
“How do you mean, Lena?”
“You looks at her shoes, her handbag, very old but cost very much money, I thinks. And that watch she wear. Solid gold and worth, how you say, a boomb.”
“A bomb,” Nan said with a laugh. “You’d make a good policeman, Lena.”
“Pah! Where I come from police no good. No difference between police and bad men.”
Nan would love to have asked her more about where she came from but there was a kind of unwritten rule in the Skallies that you didn’t pry too much into other people’s lives. You listened to what they wanted to tell you but didn’t ask for more.
“I seen that Fleep the other day. He come running up from the beach like there is a bear at the behind of him,” Mrs Galvinisaid.
“Did you? I wonder what was up? Sometimes he looks frightened to death,” Nan replied.
“He a nice-looking man if he scrub up a bit.” Lena gave Nan a wink.
Nan blushed. “I haven’t looked that closely.”
Lena chuckled and nudged Nan in the ribs. “You need start looking. You still young, finds you a nice man for cuddling up, keep you feets warm.”
“Lena! If I want warm feet I’ll use a warming pan. Men just bring trouble with them as far as I’m concerned.”
“My Alfredo never bring me no trouble.”
“Alfredo’s a good man, Lena, there’s not too many of them about”
“He have a lot of bad dreams,” Lena said.
“Who? Alfredo?”
“No. No. This Fleep man I talking about. Sometimes I hears him in the nights crying like a bambino.”
“You do?” said Nan with interest.
“And other times he laughing like a bloody fool!”
“Do you think he’s a lunatic?”
“No. Well, maybe a little. I thinks he’s sad, like he needs a good woman!”
“Come on,” said Nan, “lefs catch up with Cissie and Archie.”
They hurried on as a cold wind blew in off the sea and whipped their faces to a healthy pink.
Fleep walked deeper into the woods until daylight barely penetrated them. He stopped when he came to a small clearing, sat down on a rotting log, took out his tobacco tin and rolled a cigarette.
He sat smoking and staring about him for a long time. In the canopy of trees above him rooks called out and a rabbit appeared from behind a tree, watched him for a moment and then skittered away.
The ground beneath his feet was soft and deep with pine needles. He had an overwhelming urge to lie down and never get up again. Maybe if he lay there long enough he would be covered in a blanket of pine needles and he would gradually sink down and melt back into the ground as if he’d never existed.
He remained seated, though, lost in his thoughts until suddenly he pricked up his ears. He could hear the sound of distant laughter, rising and falling on the air. He got stiffly to his feet and walked on through the woods. Eventually the trees thinned out and from the cover of a large tree he watched as a woman and a small child played together in the snow.
The child, a little girl of about nine or ten, was making a snowball, patting it excitedly into shape. She was a funny little thing to look at, all dressed up in very old-fashioned clothes as if she were a throwback from an earlier generation. She lifted the snowball behind her head and threw it clumsily at the woman.
The woman had her back to Fleep and as the snowball flew in her direction, she turned her face towards him. The snowball hit her on the back of her head and she gasped and then burst into a peal of laughter.
Fleep stared at her in wonder. Her face was flushed with exertion and rarely had he seen a look of such pleasure on another’s face.
He watched as the woman threw a snowball back at the child. The child squealed as it struck her on the shoulder and then her laughter rang out in the icy afternoon air.
Such a simple scene to behold, yet there was such an innocence about it that cut him to the quick. He’d abandoned innocence a long time ago, allowed himself to be led willingly into a dissolute life. A life from which now there was no chance of return. He turned away quickly and made off back into the woods. He began to run, feet kicking up the pine needles, snow falling gently from the branches of the trees, the sound of laughter ricocheting inside his head.
Archie helped Cissie over the stile that led into the grounds of Nanskelly School and then waited while Nan helped Mrs Galvini over with much shrieking and wheezing.
Nanskelly must have been a beautiful house in its time but now the paintwork was peeling, the masonry crumbling and the roof was a patchwork of misshapen tiles. To the left of where they stood there was a run-down sports pavilion and in front of it a bumpy hockey pitch, criss-crossed with the prints of gulls.
The door of Nanskelly was ajar and Nan stepped briskly inside, beckoning the others to follow her.
It was drab and gloomy inside the house. The walls were the colour of congealed mustard and the tiles on the floor, though patterned, were worn and faded. A few colourful paintings hung on the walls but the velvet curtains at the windows were washed out and worn thin with age. There was a pervasive smell of old shoes and
worn Wellingtons; of chalk dust and sugar paper; pencil sharpenings and cheap glue.
Suddenly a small girl poked her head round a door on the left and yelled, making them all jump, “There’s more customers, Miss Thomas! Loads of them!” before disappearing again. They followed her hesitantly into a large hall with a stage at one end and stalls set out around the outside.
A handful of girls stood excitedly behind the tables and several more were in charge of a table bearing an enormous tea urn and a mountain of cakes and biscuits.
“I’m parched. I could kill for a cup of tea,” Nan said. “Come on, Lena, you and I’ll have a drink, let these two have a look around first and spend their pennies.”
Archie and Cissie walked shyly around the room looking curiously at the assorted items for sale. Cissie picked up a well-worn teddy bear and clutched it to her chest while Archie sifted through a box full of assorted cars and cigarette cards.
Soon the room filled up as more and more people arrived. Archie recognized Old Willy Spencer from Rhoskilly Village and the Payne brothers from the Peapods as well as the Misses Arbuthnot.
Cissie grew slowly in confidence and went from stall to stall handing over her pennies as if they were going out of fashion. Soon she was exhausted and went to sit with Nan and Mrs Galvini with an enormous pile of old toys lined up at her feet.
Archie spent his money more carefully. He bought a few trinkets that he thought his mammy would like, a few old detective books for himself and lastly a shiny red cricket ball.
When he next looked around, he saw that Nan, Mrs Galvini and Cissie had joined the queue for fortune-telling. They beckoned him over to join them but he shook his head shyly. He wasn’t going to part with his money to be told a lot of old nonsense.
He bought himself a cup of tea and a slice of walnut cake from the two smiling girls and sat down near an old man who was eating an enormous slice of Victoria sponge cake.
“All right, lad?” the old boy called across.
“Yes thanks.”
“Ever been up here to Nanskelly before?”
“No.”
“I first used to come here when I was a nipper. Used to scrump apples from the orchard here. Used to eat too many and end up with a hell of a belly ache. I got a job here in the end. Can’t eat the apples now, though, ‘cos I haven’t enough bloody teeth in my head.”