The Runaway Summer

by Nina Bawden

  The table was laid—at least, it had been laid, but now the older baby was crawling the length of it, picking up knives and forks as she went and dropping them over the edge. The only person who seemed concerned—or even to notice what she was doing—was Simon, who picked her up and strapped her in a high chair. There was a look of intense, frowning concentration on his face as he did this, and gave her a spoon to bang with before picking up the dropped cutlery, and Mary thought that if you were the sort of person who liked things tidy and in their place, this might be an uncomfortable house to live in.

  For herself, she found it very comfortable. No one told her to wash her hands, or asked her what she had been doing all morning. They just piled her plate with roast pork and vegetables and went on shouting at each other, cheerfully but quite inaudibly, until Simon got up and turned off the radio.

  ‘That’s better,’ his father said. ‘Now we can hear ourselves speak.’

  ‘Silence is golden,’ his mother said.

  ‘Cheap, too,’ Simon said. ‘You just have to turn a switch.’

  ‘I didn’t notice it was on.’ Simon’s Mum winked at Mary.

  She was a pale, thin, pretty woman in an apron, and she reminded Mary of someone, though she couldn’t think who.

  ‘Not till it was turned off!’ Mr Trumpet said, and roared with laughter.

  ‘You don’t have to shout now,’ Simon said. ‘Not unless you want to exercise your lungs.’

  But they all continued to talk at the tops of their voices.

  ‘Got enough to eat, Ursula?’ Simon’s father said.

  ‘She’s not Ursula, she’s Mary,’ Poll shouted. ‘She’s a NORPHAN.’

  ‘She hasn’t got any brothers or sisters,’ Anna said.

  ‘Sometimes I wish I hadn’t,’ Simon said. ‘Stop blowing in your milk, Poll, it’s disgusting.’

  His mother smiled at Mary and slipped a piece of extra juicy crackling on to her plate. Mary knew this was because she thought she was an orphan, and, though she smiled back, felt it would choke her.

  Poll went on, noisily blowing bubbles and giving herself a milk moustache. Anna looked at Simon, and giggled.

  ‘It’s sordid.’ He appealed to his mother. ‘They’ve got terrible manners.’

  ‘You can’t keep on, dear,’ she said.

  Simon went red. He fidgeted in his chair and then burst out, ‘But you don’t start. You let them do what they like. Talking with their mouths full, spitting in their milk

  ‘Simon,’ his father said.

  ‘Silly Simon,’ Anna said. ‘It’s because Mary’s come to dinner. He thinks she’s the Queen.’

  Poll cackled insanely and rocked backwards and forwards in her chair.

  Simon drew in a long breath and went redder still. He looked as if he were going to explode.

  ‘Simon, Simon, Simon,’ his father said.

  Simon let the breath out, very slowly and gently. He stood up, not looking at anyone, and began to collect the empty plates. He carried them from the room, closing the door with his foot.

  ‘He thinks we let him down.’ Simon’s father shook his head and pretended to wipe a tear from his eye.

  ‘Hoity-toity,’ his Gran said. She pulled a comic face, squinting down her nose like a shocked duchess, and the twins giggled, their cheeks shiny and solid as polished apples, and their glasses of milk bumping against their teeth.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know where he gets his ideas from,’ Mrs Trumpet said. ‘Mary will just have to take us as she finds us, won’t you, Mary?’

  Mary was not sure how to reply, so she just smiled. She thought, privately, that they were a bit mean, laughing at Simon behind his back, but when he came back, carrying an enormous apple pie, and his mother said, ‘Bless you, love. Whatever would I do without you?’ she knew they were kind and loving as well.

  The pie was sugary brown on the top and oozing pale, slippery juice at the edges. Mary ate a large wedge with yellow cream, and then had a second helping. When she was offered a third, she shook her head, regretfully.

  ‘Are you sure you’ve had enough, dear?’ Mrs Trumpet asked —almost as anxiously as Aunt Alice might have done.

  ‘Quite sure, thank you,’ Mary said. ‘I couldn’t eat another thing.’

  And as soon as she had spoken she realised that she would have to. She looked at her watch. It was just after one o’clock now, and at half past, she would have to sit down and eat another lunch.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’ Mrs Trumpet said. ‘You look quite pale.’

  *

  Half an hour later, Aunt Alice said exactly the same thing.

  ‘Are you all right, dear? You look quite pale.’

  Mary looked at the plate of roast pork in front of her, blonde meat and crisp, brown crackling, and felt her stomach heave.

  Try as she might, she could only pick at her plate.

  ‘I knew you shouldn’t have had those sandwiches!’ Aunt Alice lamented.

  Her grandfather looked over his spectacles. ‘You know, Mary, a lot of children would be glad of that good dinner! Starving children in Africa!’

  ‘I wish you’d give it to them, then,’ Mary said—and thought of one child from Africa, who, though not exactly starving, was certainly hungry enough to enjoy her plate of roast pork. ‘Pack it up and send it in a parcel!’ she said, and the thought that this was just what they could do, if they only knew, made her laugh.

  Once she had started, it was impossible to stop. She spattered half-chewed pork and potatoes all over Aunt Alice’s beautifully polished table. She thought she would die, laughing …

  EIGHT

  The Wild Goose Chase

  MONDAY MORNING WAS so bright and hot that even Aunt Alice could think of no objection when Mary asked if she might take a picnic lunch on the beach.

  She did say, to Mary’s horror, ‘We might join you, dear, it’s such a lovely day,’ but luckily Grandfather sneezed twice at breakfast and Aunt Alice decided it might be unwise, in case he was getting a cold.

  So as soon as breakfast was over, Mary went to the railway station. She had enough money for the return fare, and twenty two shillings and eightpence over, which she hoped would be enough to pay for a taxi from Victoria.

  The meter had clocked up only two and sixpence when the taxi stopped in a street of tall, white houses with big windows and imposing front porches.

  ‘Are you sure this is the right address?’ Mary said, and the taxi driver shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘It’s the one you give me, Miss.’

  He was a sour-faced man with a red lump, like a small plum, on the side of his nose. When Mary got out and paid him the exact fare on the meter, he looked sourer still. She gave him the two spare pennies from her purse and said, ‘Thank you for your kindness,’ which was something she had heard her grandfather say, when he gave someone a tip. The taxi driver looked at the pennies. Then he grinned suddenly, said, ‘Thank you, Your Ladyship,’ flicked up his For Hire sign, and drove away.

  Mary looked at Number Four, Buckingham Palace Terrace. A flight of marble steps led up to a solid, shining, black door. At the side was a row of bells, each with a polished, brass grille beside it. Mary climbed the steps slowly. She knew she had to press a bell and speak into the grille, and somehow this was far more frightening than knocking on a door and waiting for someone to come.

  There were five bells. There were no names beside four of them, but the bottom bell was marked Housekeeper. Mary hesitated; then she pressed this bell, very gently.

  Nothing happened. She waited a minute, and then she pressed again. This time a door in the basement area opened, and someone said, ‘’Allo?’

  Mary looked over the side of the steps. An alarming woman stood there; very tall, with long, black hair, a great, hooked nose, and a black patch over one eye. Like a female pirate, Mary thought. She looked at Mary with a fierce expression.

  Mary said, ‘Does Mr Patel live here?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘No
t understand,’ she said.

  Mary spoke slowly. ‘Mr Patel. He’s—he’s a black man.’

  The woman shook her head again. She smiled, showing a lot of gold teeth. The smile made her look even more alarming. She said, ‘Come,’ and beckoned to Mary. Then she turned to the door of the basement flat, and, as Mary came down the steps, she could hear her speaking in a foreign language to someone inside. Mary lingered for a minute, afraid to follow the woman down to the basement, and began to feel self-conscious and foolish. Of course Simon was right! She had known it, really, as soon as the taxi stopped! This was far too rich and grand a neighbourhood for a poor immigrant to live!

  Simon was so sure he must be poor, and had written home, boasting …

  Or perhaps Krishna had been lying, after all! He was quite capable of it: the account he had given them of his journey to England was too exciting to be altogether true … His Rich Uncle was probably like her Wicked Aunt, Mary thought; a story he had been making up.

  Once she had decided this, she felt panicky. Suppose that forbidding, dark door were to open, and someone come out? Someone who would scream, What do you think you’re doing, ringing bells and bothering people? Of course there are no poor immigrants here …

  Mary called ‘Thank you’, down to the basement, but no one seemed to hear. She began to walk away, and then a foolish fear snapped at her heels, and made her run.

  So by the time the two Portuguese women in the basement had decided that the little girl must mean the Indian gentleman in the top flat, she had turned the corner and was out of sight…

  *

  Mary’s parents’ flat was in a big block near Hyde Park. Mary went up in the lift and got out her key which she always kept in a zipped pocket at the back of her purse. For a minute, just before she opened the door, she felt quite excited to be coming home …

  But the feeling didn’t last. Once she was inside, it didn’t feel like home at all. Not like anybody’s home. The narrow hall was dark and cold and there was a curious, shut-up smell; both sweet and stale; a mixture of polish and dust.

  There were letters on the mat. Mary stirred them with her foot to see if there was anything interesting, but there were only dull, type-written envelopes. Just circulars and bills, she thought, and suddenly, in her mind, she could hear her father’s voice.

  Bills, bills, nothing but bills …

  It was one of the things he said almost every morning at breakfast. When she was younger, Mary had thought they must be dreadfully poor, but as she had grown older she realised that he only complained about money in order to annoy her mother, just as her mother only complained about the dull life she led in order to annoy him. Sometimes her mother would take no notice when he talked about the bills, and would go on, calmly drinking her coffee and reading the newspaper as if he wasn’t even in the room, but sometimes she would get angry and shout at him, and say, what did he expect? Things had to be paid for, didn’t they? And then her father would shout back until her mother got up and went out, slamming the door …

  Mary sighed. She thought it was really much more comfortable living with Grandfather and Aunt Alice, and then she felt ashamed of thinking like that, and sighed again.

  She opened the door into the living room. The blinds were down, and it was as chilly and depressing as the hall. The furniture was there, in its place, but someone had taken all the pictures away, leaving marks on the walls, and the books had gone from the shelves. Mary shivered—but not because she was cold. The room was so empty. It was like a display room in a furniture shop. As if no one had ever lived here. Or would ever live here again …

  Her parents’ bedroom opened off the living room. A dust-sheet covered the bed and the wardrobe door stood open. Mary looked inside and saw that every tiling had gone. Their clothes, their shoes …

  She caught her breath and ran to her own room, flinging the door wide. For several minutes she stood quite still, looking round her. Nothing had gone from here; everything was where she had left it, her rocking horse, her desk, her books, her toys—all her precious possessions—but for some reason none of them seemed to be anything to do with her. It was as if they belonged to someone else. To a girl in a story.

  It was a peculiar and frightening feeling. She gave a sudden, loud laugh to try and shake it off, and tapped the rocking horse on his nose to set him moving. As he rocked, creaking, she remembered how she had ridden him last winter, when her parents were out, holding a wriggling, spitting Noakes on the crupper, to keep her company.

  She said ‘Noakes,’ and ran to the kitchen. This was the nicest room in the flat, with yellow walls and a big window that looked on to the fire escape. There was a cat door fixed in one of the panes so that Noakes could come and go as he pleased.

  She called him again but without much hope. She knew his habits. He roamed wild all night and most of the day, only coming home in the late afternoon for his meal, which he slept off in the early part of the evening before he went out again. Mary’s mother had promised to ask a neighbour to come in while they were away, and feed him daily.

  So though Mary called ‘Noakes’ once more, she didn’t really expect an answer. And when one came, it was so thin and faint that she wasn’t sure if she had really heard it.

  Then there was another mew. She turned, and saw a thin shape, dragging itself from under the gas stove.

  She stared. She could hardly believe her eyes. It was Noakes—but a Noakes so changed! His glossy coat was dull and dusty and he limped on three legs, one front paw drawn up beneath him. She knelt down and he rubbed against her leg, purring rustily. She stroked him—and it was like stroking a skeleton.

  She looked round the kitchen and saw his feeding bowls, one for milk and one for meat. They were both empty and covered with a sticky film of dust. She said, ‘Damn. Oh damn her,’ but though she was angry, she wasn’t, in her heart, surprised. It was only what she might have expected. Her mother had forgotten. She had been so busy packing to go away, that Noakes had gone from her mind.

  Not that it would have mattered, in the ordinary way. A cat like Noakes could normally keep himself sleek and fat on mice and birds and dustbin pickings. But not if he were ill. Not with a damaged leg!

  ‘Oh Noakes, darling Noakes,’ she mourned, and picked him up, alarmed to find that he not only let her do this, but lay quite still in her arms.

  She held him for a minute, then put him gently down.

  ‘You just want something to eat,’ she said, ‘then you’ll feel better.’

  She found a tin of condensed milk in the larder. She opened it, diluted a spoonful with water, and poured it into a saucer. But when she put it beside him, he made no move at all.

  ‘Come on,’ she coaxed. ‘Come on, silly boy.’ She lifted him on to her lap and tried to spoon the milk into his mouth, but most of it dribbled out again, streaking his fur and running over her hand.

  She said, speaking angrily because she was frightened, ‘If you don’t eat, you old fool, you’ll die,’ and he moved his head then and rasped some of the spilled milk off her finger with his rough tongue, almost as if he understood her.

  ‘There,’ she said admiringly—and in much the same tone of voice that Aunt Alice used when Mary had eaten up all her rice pudding—‘Wasn’t that nice?’ She dipped her finger into the milk for him to lick it. A lot got spilled that way, but a little went inside him, and she thought he looked better. When she put him down, he sat up groggily, and began to clean the sticky patches off his fur.

  She hunted for his travelling basket, finding it full of dirty dusters and tins of polish, in the bottom of a cupboard. She tipped the tins and the dusters out on the floor and lined the basket with a clean towel. She would have to take him back with her and Aunt Alice would have to put up with it! She might not like cats, but she wouldn’t turn Noakes away, not once he was actually there, and she might not even want to, now he was so ill. She liked fussing over people, and Noakes needed fussing over …

  The only tro
uble was that when she turned up with Noakes they would know she had been to London. And though she could explain that she had suddenly wanted to see Noakes quite terribly, and they might understand that, they would both be hurt because she had sneaked off without telling them.

  Particularly Aunt Alice! She would probably cry and say, ‘Mary doesn’t trust me! Oh—it’s my fault. I should have offered to have the cat in the first place!’

  Settling Noakes in the basket, Mary groaned aloud. It was a shame to upset Aunt Alice, even though she was so silly. But it couldn’t be helped: Noakes came first.

  And the first thing she had to do for him, was to take him to the vet.

  *

  The vet said, ‘He’s taken quite a battering, hasn’t he? Had an argument with a car, I should think.’

  Noakes lay on the table, limp and still. He looked more like a shabby fur collar than a cat. He had squeaked once, when the vet touched his leg. Since then, he had made no further sound.

  Mary said, ‘Last time I brought him, you had to tie him in a blanket before he’d let you look at him! And even then, he managed to scratch you!’

  ‘Did he? Well he’s past that now, I’m afraid. Poor old chap.’

  ‘Noakes isn’t old,’ Mary said. ‘He’s just been in a lot of fights. He’s a terrible fighter. That’s how he tore his ear and lost his eye.’

  ‘Some of his teeth, too,’ the vet said. ‘It seems he’s led a pretty full life. Nine full lives, in fact. You know, I rather think … He stopped. ‘Do you think you could leave him here, and ask your mother to come and see me?’

  ‘My mother is dead,’ Mary said, without a pause.

  ‘Oh. I see.’ The vet looked doubtfully at Mary. It was perhaps half a minute before she understood what was in his mind. Then all the blood seemed to rush into her head and she felt sick and dizzy with anger. She wanted to fly at him, and kick and punch him, but she didn’t. She held on to the side of the table and managed to speak coldly and calmly.