Saffy's Angel

by Hilary McKay

  ‘Your grandfather,’ said Sarah, ‘has given you an angel! An angel! Stop being sorry for yourself!’

  Saffron said indignantly that she was not being sorry for herself, and added that she would never in a thousand years want stuff like Sarah’s, and could not understand why anyone would. Then there was very nearly a quarrel and the words, Rich Kids’school, Jealous, and Spoilt Only Child hung unspoken in the air between them.

  ‘And,’ said Saffron vehemently, as if they had all been said, ‘it’s nothing to do with you about my angel! I wish I’d never told you!’

  ‘But you did,’ said Sarah calmly. ‘So too late! I’ll help you find it, too. I said I would. I always do what I say I will.’

  ‘You can mind your own business,’ began Saffron hotly, and would have said more if just then Sarah’s mother had not called that supper was ready.

  ‘Pot luck,’ she said, mystifying Saffron, who had never heard these modest words before, ‘and only in the kitchen because it’s just us three.’

  Only the kitchen was as big as the whole of the ground floor of the Banana House, and a place of shining steel and immaculate tiles, nothing at all like the Casson kitchen. Pot luck turned out to be baked cheese soufflé, salad and hot rolls, and pineapple pudding with home-made ice cream. No trace of a pot in sight, Saffron noticed, nor, for that matter, of any other cooking utensil. The whole meal seemed to have appeared as if by magic on the huge pine table, complete with linen napkins, sparkling spring water for the girls and wine for Mrs Warbeck.

  With the food went polite conversation. Mrs Warbeck led this, tactfully avoiding the subject of school and sticking to holidays. Foreign holidays in particular. This limited Saffron to her school trip to Boulogne with the French class just before Christmas, the only foreign holiday she had ever had. Unfortunately there was not much about the Boulogne trip that could be comfortably explained to the headmistress of the private school.

  ‘Did you enjoy the shops?’ enquired Sarah’s mother and Saffron said yes, she had enjoyed the shops until some people had been caught shoplifting.

  ‘Not me!’ she added hastily, and Sarah’s mother said no, no, of course, not you, but it killed the conversation a bit.

  ‘I,’ said Sarah, startlingly, ‘should like to go to Italy. Siena.’

  Saffron, forgetting Sarah had bad legs, kicked her hard under the table.

  ‘Siena,’ said Sarah, not flinching at all. ‘Couldn’t we? Couldn’t we? Couldn’t we?’

  ‘Sarah, darling!’

  ‘Because I long and long and long to go to Siena,’ said Sarah. ‘Couldn’t we, one weekend?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Sarah!’

  Sarah hung her head.

  Saffron glared. While she glared a large tear, a real tear, rolled down Sarah’s cheek and splashed on the table. Followed by another. Saffron had never seen anything like it. All at once she began to understand how so much stuff had accumulated in Sarah’s bedroom.

  ‘Sarah darling, it would be a long, long trip! A holiday sort of trip, not something we could do in a weekend! Anyway, why Siena?’

  ‘I heard about a garden in Siena,’ said Sarah. ‘A little white stone garden, with water in it, and dark pointed trees…’

  ‘I expect there are lots of gardens like that in Siena,’ said her mother, smiling.

  Sarah nodded and picked up her water glass and took a sip. The glass trembled a little against her teeth. ‘There was an angel in the garden,’ she said.

  ‘An angel?’repeated her mother.

  ‘A stone angel,’ said Sarah.

  Saffron stared at her, absolutely outraged, and Sarah gave her a brief, triumphant glance, from tear-sparkling eyes.

  ‘Where did you hear about this beautiful garden?’ asked Sarah’s mother.

  ‘From a girl,’ said Sarah unblushingly. ‘Could we go to Siena for my birthday present? If I never had another present, ever, ever, ever?’

  ‘I can’t just say yes, Sarah! Without even speaking to your father! What do you think about all this, Saffron?’

  ‘I don’t think she should go to Siena!’ burst out Saffron. ‘I don’t think you should let her! Just because she suddenly wants to! Just like that! Why should she?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t she?’ asked Sarah’s mother, quite startled at Saffron’s fury.

  Saffron wanted to shout, Because it is mine! My Siena! My garden! My angel! Sarah has enough already! She has a room full of stuff!

  None of these answers were possible of course. They were all too close to the words Rich Kids’school, Jealous, and Spoilt Only Child. They were too bad.

  Saffron, trying to avoid them, said something infinitely worse.

  ‘Because she’s got bad legs!’

  The moment she had said it she knew it was wrong. Sarah, all traces of tears now vanished, glanced at her in delight. Sarah’s mother said,

  ‘Yes, Saffron, it is true that Sarah’s legs are not so strong as yours. You are quite right to think about that. But so far they have not stopped her doing anything that she really wants do. Anything!’ she repeated with such great emphasis that Saffron half expected her to add, ‘So There!’

  How wrong you are! thought Saffron, remembering Sarah’s talk the previous day of bikes and skateboards and roller blades. It was no good saying so though. She had said too much already.

  ‘I’ve got to go home now,’ she muttered miserably. ‘Thank you for tea. Supper.’

  ‘It was very nice to have you,’ said Sarah’s mother. ‘You must come again. Sarah will go with you to the door.’

  Sarah moved awkwardly after sitting so long, clumsily, like a mermaid on rocks. She seemed to feel awkward too, because at the front door she touched Saffron’s arm and said, ‘Sorry I made you mad, Saff!’

  ‘Huh,’ said Saffron.

  ‘Don’t quarrel! Don’t let’s fight!’

  ‘Spoilt only child!’

  ‘Jealous!’

  ‘Rich kids’school!’

  After that they both felt better.

  ‘Look,’ said Sarah. ‘I’m going to Siena! I bet I’m going to Siena!’

  ‘I bet you are too!’

  ‘You give me the address of the house where you used to live, and I’ll go there!’

  ‘Go to my house!’

  ‘I could find out what happened to your angel!’

  ‘I’ll go to my house,’ said Saffron furiously, ‘and find out what happened to my angel! Not you!’

  Chapter Six

  A most unexpected thing happened at the Banana House. Rose received a cheque, one hundred and forty-four pounds, proving that her grandfather’s will had not been nothing more than kind thoughts after all. It was presented to her by her mother one Sunday afternoon, always the Casson time for important events.

  ‘It will just about buy you another party dress,’ said Bill, who had never recovered from the extravagance of the last one.

  A cheque meant nothing at all to Rose. She read her name on it and asked, ‘Is that me?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said her father, laughing at her puzzled face.

  The cheque was pale blue and looked to Rose like a label. Saffron and Caddy and Indigo all came to inspect it, and seeing it made them feel solemn.

  Caddy said, ‘I wonder what happened to Indigo’s car?’

  ‘Dropped to bits,’ answered her father. ‘Years ago.’

  ‘And my house?’

  ‘Probably over the cliff by now.’

  ‘And Saffy’s angel?’

  The last thing Bill Casson wanted was another Sunday afternoon row about Saffy’s angel. He said, ‘My taxi will be here any minute!’ and disappeared upstairs for his bag.

  Rose did not have a bank account, but Caddy did. She paid Rose’s cheque into it, and immediately took it out again in the form of one hundred and forty-four one pound coins. Then Rose was really pleased with her inheritance. She played with the coins for several days, sorting and stacking them on the kitchen table.

  ‘What are yo
u going to do with them all?’ asked Indigo.

  Rose arranged them into a three-dimensional dragon hoard on thick black card, glued them together, and with Caddy’s help, sprayed the whole lot gold.

  ‘I bet you don’t send that to me in London!’ said her father the next time he came home. He had been quite nice about Rose’s jammy picture. It was just bad luck that he had mistaken it for food supplies from Eve, instead of art from Rose, and had consequently dropped it in the bin.

  ‘Whenever have I ever sent you food supplies?’ demanded Eve, and Bill reminded her of the time she had posted him a home-made sponge birthday cake, labelled hopefully but futilely: FRAGILE and THIS WAY UP.

  Another unexpected thing that happened was Michael announcing it was about time Caddy applied for her driving test.

  ‘But I asked you not long ago if I should, and you just laughed!’ said Caddy.

  ‘Times change,’ said Michael. ‘There’s a written test first, and then the exam.’

  ‘I suppose Diane passed first time?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘It’s all exams,’ said Caddy sighing. ‘Do you know what is in June? All my resits. Five GCSEs and three A levels.’

  ‘About time too,’ said Michael, but added mercifully, ‘That’s all Diane did, three A levels. You’ll cope, easy!’

  Caddy felt unreasonably cheered by this opinion. For several weeks now she had been working very hard, and it was nice to hear she was catching up with Diane a little bit.

  ‘How old is she?’ she asked.

  ‘Diane,’ said Michael. ‘Forty-five.’

  ‘Forty-five!’

  ‘If a day,’ said Michael. ‘There, that was very good! If I’d told you that three weeks ago you’d have done an emergency stop and burst into tears! She’s twenty-one.’

  Caddy sighed because twenty-one was obviously the perfect age for Droopy Di.

  ‘We’ll go and practise parking in very small spaces,’ said Michael. ‘That’ll cheer you up! And you can tell me all about the kids at home. Has your brother fallen out of the window yet?’

  ‘No,’ replied Caddy. ‘Although I think it is just a matter of time. He has been making something in his bedroom which he says will help him. He makes Rose guard the door while he is doing it. Rose is a very good guard.’

  ‘If he wants I’ll sign him in at the gym and start him off on the climbing wall. I’m going tonight. Would your mother let him come?’

  ‘Michael darling,’ said Caddy, brightening up at once. ‘I will come with you to the gym! You can start me off on the climbing wall! You can teach me and I can teach Indigo!’

  ‘Don’t call me darling, I’m a driving instructor,’ replied Michael automatically. ‘No thank you, Cadmium dear! Teaching you to drive is more than enough. I go to the gym to relax.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Caddy. ‘It was worth a try. And actually I told Indigo what you said about the climbing wall in the gym, and he said it would not be scary enough. It’s got to be really scary, he says, otherwise there’s no point. This is a smart road! What are we doing here?’

  Michael said they were looking for a gap to park in, and presently he found one, in behind a white Mercedes and in front of an open-topped Lotus. He ordered Caddy to park in the space between them without touching either.

  ‘I can’t I can’t I can’t,’ said Caddy. ‘I’d never park in a place like that in real life.’

  ‘You can if you just relax,’ said Michael. ‘Go on to automatic pilot. Tell me what your mother thinks of all this scary stuff on the windowsill. Doesn’t she worry?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Caddy as she reversed nervously past the Mercedes. ‘He mostly does it when she’s out. Painting or teaching. Old ladies today. In a home. She makes them paint. Am I too close?’

  ‘No. You’re fine. What do the old ladies paint?’

  ‘Pictures of their past. In acrylic colours, so it all looks much brighter than it really was. It’s good for them, she says.’

  ‘Very nice of her.’

  ‘She gets paid,’ said Caddy. ‘That’s why she does it. Not to be nice. Actually the old ladies don’t like it much at all. They moan, but they still keep coming…There! I’m in!’

  ‘Brilliant! Told you you could do it!’

  ‘Michael darling?’

  ‘Um?’

  ‘If I pass this driving test…’

  ‘When, not if!’

  ‘…Won’t you miss me?’

  ‘You forget,’ said Michael. ‘I have Diane. The gorgeous.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘And intelligent.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Extremely well qualified and rodent free.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Aged twenty-one. The perfect age.’

  ‘Tattooed?’ asked Caddy.

  ‘Heavily,’ said Michael enthusiastically.

  ‘My sister Saffron has just got a nose stud. Gold.’

  ‘Diane has several. Diamond.’

  ‘It always sounds so painful.’

  ‘Diane is very brave. Holes everywhere.’

  ‘Like a sieve?’

  ‘A human colander,’ agreed Michael.

  They arrived home again to a most peculiar sight. The small garden at the front of the Banana House had been transformed. A tidal wave of cushions, bean bags, quilts, hearth rugs, and sleeping bags appeared to have swept up the lawn and broken at the wall. From Indigo’s window a multicoloured rope of knotted bed sheets came snaking out and ended among the cushions. As Michael and Caddy watched, a mattress emerged and fell to the ground, followed a moment later by a rain of pillows.

  ‘Indigo!’ shouted Caddy, jumping out of the car.

  Indigo and Rose’s heads appeared in the window above.

  ‘It’s all right, Caddy!’ Indigo called cheerfully. ‘We’ve been doing it all the time you’ve been gone.’

  ‘We keep finding more stuff to land on!’ added Rose. ‘Look!’

  She stepped aside to make room for Indigo, who, ignoring Caddy’s screams, climbed casually on to the windowsill, rolled over on to his front and slid down the multicoloured snake on to the sea of cushions. Rose followed after, landing with a bounce on the mattress. There she continued to bounce up and down while explaining that the whole arrangement was perfectly safe and that the other end of the rope was being looked after by Saffron, who had tied it to the bed leg, and was guarding the knot.

  ‘What stupid, stupid kids!’ exclaimed Michael.

  Indigo and Rose stopped bouncing and stared at him in astonishment. Saffron appeared at the window above and glared scornfully down.

  ‘Who,’ said Rose, ‘asked you?’

  ‘He doesn’t mean to be rude,’ said Caddy apologetically. ‘He likes to be safe. And it does look highly dangerous!’

  ‘I bet your mother doesn’t know what you’re up to!’ said Michael.

  ‘She does!’ said Indigo triumphantly. ‘Rose told her!’

  ‘What, and she said you could?’ asked Michael in disbelief.

  ‘She said “Enjoy yourselves, chickens, and don’t let go of the rope”,’ said Rose. ‘So there! Are you another of Caddy’s boyfriends?’

  ‘No,’ said Michael crossly, while Indigo and Saffron both loudly explained to Rose that Michael was much too old to be anyone’s boyfriend. ‘No, I’m not! I’m a driving instructor!’

  ‘How twitchy he is!’remarked Saffron as Michael drove away.

  ‘Not always,’ said Caddy loyally. ‘Do you really think it’s safe to help Indigo and Rose climb out of that window?’

  ‘Of course it’s not safe,’ said Saffron. ‘But they’d do it anyway, and it’s safer if I help. Did you come past Sarah’s house?’

  ‘Yes, and I remembered to look, and her mother’s car is there outside.’

  Saffron sighed.

  ‘It’s a lovely nose stud,’ said Caddy comfortingly, collecting up cushions. ‘It looks fantastic. So did Sarah’s! I don’t know what’s the matter with Sarah’s
mother.’

  ‘Says it’s common,’ said Saffron gloomily. ‘Rude old bat! And she said perhaps we’d been seeing a bit too much of each other and Sarah needed time to concentrate on her school work more.’

  ‘She’ll soon forget.’

  ‘Caddy,’ said Saffron impatiently, ‘she is headmistress of the private school! She’s probably never forgotten anything in her whole life!’

  ‘You ought to tell her it was Sarah’s idea!’

  ‘Sarah told her.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said, “Really Sarah, you never thought of such a thing until Saffron came on the scene”!’

  ‘She is a rude old bat then,’ agreed Caddy.

  When Saffron had returned from town on Saturday with a nose stud, nobody at the Banana House had been rude.

  ‘Sweet, Saffy darling! Clever you!’ said Eve.

  ‘I want one,’ said Rose.

  ‘I want an earring,’ said Indigo. ‘If it doesn’t hurt.’

  ‘It hurts,’ said Saffron, not wanting to be upstaged by Indigo and an earring.

  ‘Even Dad likes it,’ remarked Caddy, and her father agreed that he did. In a way. Being a broadminded, tolerant, artistic sort of person. Or so people told him…

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Saffron, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bill, sounding a little bit peeved. ‘So you thank your lucky stars my girl, because in some families you would have come home to very big trouble! A nose stud! At your age! If you come down with blood poisoning don’t blame me!’

  At Sarah’s house her mother was saying much the same thing, and since nobody had ever accused her of being broadminded or tolerant or artistic she was saying it very plainly indeed, and a lot of other things too, all of them about Saffron and none of them complimentary.

  This was a great shame because things had been going very well between Saffron and Sarah until the nose stud afternoon.

  Sarah’s mother had become quite used to seeing Saffron around the house. At first she had been concerned that they seemed to spend almost all their time arguing, but after a while she had decided that it was a good sort of arguing. She was always so terribly afraid that people would patronise Sarah. Saffron certainly did not do that. Also, in a clumsy but well meaning kind of way she tried to look after her a bit.