Saffy's Angel

by Hilary McKay

  ‘You don’t show at all!’ whispered Sarah proudly.

  It was lucky that Sarah’s parents were used (as Sarah had remarked to Saffron), to their daughter having a lot of stuff. It hardly surprised them at all.

  ‘Good gracious, Sarah,’ her father had commented, as he climbed into the front of the car. ‘Will you need all that?’

  ‘It’s not as much as it looks,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Won’t the kite fold flat?’ asked her mother.

  ‘No. It’s glued.’

  ‘What a silly design!’

  ‘I glued it.’

  ‘That jacket will be far too warm.’

  ‘It’s my silver jacket,’ said Sarah, sounding slightly mutinous, and then, to prevent any further objections, remarked, ‘I wish Saffron was coming!’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said her mother, and stopped commenting on the pile of stuff on the back seat.

  It was dark and warm under the bean bag, and after the first fifty miles or so, Saffron fell asleep. She was very tired, having not slept much at all the night before. She did not know who she was most frightened of, Sarah’s father, who she did not know, or Sarah’s mother, who she did. Deciding between them had kept her awake for hours.

  Sarah was rather annoyed when she discovered that Saffron was asleep. She had planned a whole series of silent activities for the back seat, including non-rustling snacks, magnetic board games, and notebooks and pencils so that they could write to each other. It seemed a shame that these things might all be wasted.

  She prodded Saffron.

  Saffron gave a little groan.

  She prodded her again.

  ‘Geroff!’ said Saffron, quite loudly and distinctly.

  ‘Sarah?’ asked her mother.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought you said something.’

  ‘Are we nearly there?’ asked Sarah, a question deliberately intended to drive her mother to such a state of tension that she forgot everything else. It worked, as it always worked, and Mrs Warbeck got quite hot and bothered explaining that of course they were not nearly there, and would not be there for a day and a half at least, and that if Sarah was going to ask silly questions every few miles then they might as well turn back right now.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ suggested her father, and Sarah thought that this might be a sensible thing to do after all. She closed her eyes, and did some pretend snoring, just in case Saffron should make any more noises that needed covering up.

  After a while, pretend snoring became too tiring. Sarah was nearly asleep. Just before she was quite, completely asleep she heard her father murmur,

  ‘Pity we didn’t bring that little friend!’

  Sarah smiled.

  It was a very long time before Mr Warbeck knew that his wish had come true. He nearly found out on the ferry, when Saffron (provided with an extra car key by Sarah) crept furtively up from the car deck to find a much needed lavatory.

  ‘I’ve just seen a girl with a nose stud exactly like Sarah’s!’ Sarah’s father had told her mother.

  ‘You see!’ said Sarah to her mother. ‘I told you everyone had nose studs!’

  He might have found out at the French port where they docked. There, Sarah had insisted on handing in the family passports and had added an extra one to the pile, uncovering Saffron for a moment so that she could be inspected by the French official and enter the country legally. This was a very dangerous moment, but it passed successfully. Saffron was covered up again, and miles and miles of France began to pass by, slowly at first, and then faster and faster. It was evening, and they were on the last stretch of motorway before the French hotel where they were to stay the night when Sarah said:

  ‘Guess what!’ and unveiled Saffron at last.

  ‘Hullo,’ said Saffron nervously.

  Sarah’s mother said, ‘Sarah! Saffron! Saffron! Sarah!’

  Sarah said, ‘It was totally my idea and I worked it all out and I made her!’

  Saffron said, ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  Sarah’s father said, ‘Good gracious!’

  He did not stop the car; he could not, he had forty kilometres of fast French motorway in front of him before he could do that. He looked behind briefly and drove on.

  After a while he said, ‘Liz, dear,’ reprovingly to Sarah’s mother, and she stopped shouting. The car became very silent.

  Sarah’s father’s shoulders began to shake. Tears poured down his cheeks. He took first one hand, and then the other, off the steering wheel to mop his eyes. He drove, weeping and groaning, at a hundred and forty kilometres an hour. Sarah’s mother would not look at him. Sarah and Saffron stared, dumbstruck. Then it gradually dawned on them that he was laughing.

  After that they knew that everything was going to be all right.

  There was still Saffron’s family to be told.

  ‘No problem,’ said Sarah. ‘They know! Well, her sisters and brother know. And I told Saffy to leave a note for her mother…’

  ‘Did you do that, Saffron?’ demanded Mrs Warbeck.

  ‘It was so hard to think of anything to say,’ said Saffron. ‘Without being worrying. So in the end…in the end…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I just came away.’

  ‘Saffron!’

  ‘She won’t mind at all!’ said Saffron.

  This was not true. Eve was, as Rose had informed Michael the next day, very upset. And very bothered. Very bothered indeed. Caddy and Indigo and Rose found it quite difficult to get her safely into her shed that night.

  ‘Paint!’ cooed Caddy. ‘Painting always makes you feel better! I will look after Indigo and Rose.’

  ‘I will make you a cup of tea with gin in it,’ promised Indigo.

  ‘I will get rid of Daddy if he rings and asks to speak to Saffy,’ said Rose.

  Eve allowed herself to be led to her shed, drank her cup of tea, blew her nose on a paint rag, and said she didn’t know what Rose could possibly say to Daddy that would get rid of him.

  ‘I will ask him about Art,’ said Rose placidly.

  ‘Darling Rose!’ said Eve gratefully. ‘Oh, I wish I understood Saffron! I don’t know why she had to go away like that. I have gone terribly wrong with Saffron!’

  ‘She had to go,’ said Rose.

  ‘It was because of her angel,’ said Indigo.

  ‘And because of Grandad,’ added Caddy.

  ‘And because of her nose stud.’

  ‘And because her name isn’t on the colour chart.’

  ‘She’s lonely,’ said Rose. ‘That’s why.’

  Chapter Nine

  It was a long, long way from England to Siena. Sarah’s father did the driving, despite many pleas from Sarah’s mother to be allowed to take a turn while he had a rest.

  ‘Wouldn’t be a rest at all!’ he said. ‘Far from it! You sit back and look out of the window. I’m enjoying myself ! I only came for the drive!’

  They travelled right across France and into the Alps. Then through a terrible tunnel.

  ‘I remember this tunnel,’ exclaimed Saffron, startling everyone in the car, because all across France and into the mountains she had hardly said a word.

  ‘I’ve been this way before,’ she added, and she thought what an endless journey it must have been for her grandfather with his daughter dead, and a three year old who would not stop crying, and a car full of toys.

  ‘You’ve been to Italy?’ asked Mrs Warbeck, astonished, and Sarah said,

  ‘Saffy was born in Siena,’ and went on to tell the story of how Saffron had lost her mother and come to the Banana House, ten years before.

  ‘Have you the address of where you used to live?’ asked Sarah’s mother, sounding quite excited. ‘Do you know where it was? You must want to find it again!’

  ‘She’s got the address written down,’ said Sarah, jumping in before Saffron could speak for herself. ‘I told her to bring it.’

  ‘I should keep well clear if I were you, Saffy!’ said Sarah’s father. ‘Neve
r go back! It’ll not be the way you remember it.’

  ‘I don’t suppose Saffy does remember it,’ said Mrs Warbeck.

  ‘I remember the garden,’ said Saffy, a bit shyly, and she gave Sarah a look that meant, Don’t mention the stone angel!

  Sarah did not need the warning. She had a feeling that securing Saffy’s angel might not be very easy. She was almost prepared to steal it, if necessary, but she thought that this was something her parents would be happier not to know.

  ‘If you had explained to us about Saffron being born in Siena we should have loved to invite her to come with us!’ Sarah’s mother told Sarah a little crossly. ‘Since we had decided to come anyway, it would have been the obvious thing to do! Why ever did you have to make everything so difficult?’

  ‘You were so mad about my nose stud,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Mad about your nose stud?’repeated Mrs Warbeck, and she began to laugh and laugh. She laughed like Sarah’s father had done when Sarah had pulled back the bean bag cover and said, ‘Guess what?’ Sarah’s father joined in.

  Saffron and Sarah looked at them, and then they looked at each other. They were totally mystified.

  They reached their hotel in Siena late on Monday night.

  By this time, back at the Banana House, people were feeling better again. Eve was fast asleep in her shed, curled up on the old pink sofa. She had finished another painting (Sunlight On The Water). In it a tropical sun beamed down on the town park duck pond (miraculously Coca-Cola can free, for once) and a girl who looked very like Saffron (but with no nose stud) smiled contentedly down at the water lilies and showed no sign of running away.

  Rose was still awake, late though it was. She was painting a vast desert landscape on the white landing wall. She had got rid of her father very successfully when he telephoned. Saffron had hardly been mentioned, the discussion had been all about Art. The desert landscape was the direct result of her father telling her to start small and stick to painting only what she knew.

  Indigo was more or less recovered from his reaction to Caddy’s driving and he also was still awake. He was testing Caddy on the Highway Code. At teatime Michael had telephoned to tell them there was a cancellation at the Driving Test centre, and Caddy could take her exam on Friday afternoon.

  ‘You have had ninety-six lessons,’ said Michael. ‘I counted up. It has cost your dad one thousand, four hundred and twenty-five pounds because the first one was free.’

  ‘Michael, darling!’ said Caddy, shocked. ‘Have you actually charged my poor father one thousand, four hundred and twenty-five pounds?’

  ‘Yep! And don’t call me darling, I’m a driving instructor.’

  ‘And has he paid you?’

  ‘Of course. I send a bill once a month. But this afternoon when I got in there was a letter from him saying enough was enough. And he is right. That’s why I wangled the Test Centre to let you in on Friday.’

  Caddy moaned.

  ‘And it works out very well because I am away on holiday next week so I couldn’t take you out anyway. I am off to Spain…’

  ‘With Droopy Di?’

  ‘So when you have passed, (which you naturally will because I am a fantastic teacher and Diane passed after only ten lessons), I shall leave the car with you for the week. Since I won’t be needing it and you are my favourite pupil…’

  ‘Pupil!’

  ‘You can drive yourself off to your college exams. Get in a bit of practice. You will be fine if you don’t panic. So I will see you on Friday afternoon.’

  ‘Michael, you can’t possibly think I will pass my driving test on Friday afternoon!’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘I just don’t pass exams. I never have.’

  ‘Well, you had better start now!’ said Michael robustly. ‘It is either begin passing exams, or a future as a small scale guinea pig farmer living at home with no transport. So think about that, Cadmium darling!’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Cadmium, what?’ asked Caddy at last.

  ‘Well. All right. Darling. Since you insist, darling.’

  ‘Cadmium darling!’ said Caddy, whirling round the kitchen. ‘Cadmium darling! Indigo!’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you see me as a small scale guinea pig farmer living at home with no transport?’

  ‘No,’ said Indigo at once.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Caddy hopefully, ‘you don’t have to drive very well to pass your driving test. Perhaps you just have to be OK. OKish.’

  ‘That must be it,’ agreed Indigo.

  Saffron awoke in a room striped with sunlight. Early morning Italian sunshine was pouring through the gaps in the closed shutters at the window, and making bands of brightness on the walls. In a bed on the opposite side of the room, Sarah was also awake. Saffron saw that there was a look of intense concentration on her friend’s face, and that she was behaving very oddly, struggling on her back as if fighting to throw off some enormous invisible weight. When she saw Saffron looking at her she closed her eyes and went limp against the pillows.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Saffron.

  ‘I’ve got stuck,’ said Sarah, not opening her eyes.

  ‘What?’

  Sarah said resignedly, ‘My back’s so stiff and my legs have gone stupid. I can’t sit up.’

  The long car journey had left Saffron stiff too, but not so stiff that she could not move. She slid out of bed and went across to help.

  ‘If I can roll over and get my elbow under me I can do it,’ explained Sarah. ‘I’m OK when I get started.’

  ‘I’ll push.’

  ‘Good old Super Hero.’

  It was quite hard work. It left them both breathless for a minute.

  ‘It’s gravity,’ explained Sarah, when she was propped up against her pillows. ‘It picks on me! It holds me down more than it does other people! I must have natural magnetism.’

  Saffron thought for a moment and then said, ‘You need vertical take off pyjamas.’

  ‘You are absolutely right,’ agreed Sarah instantly. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Half past seven.’

  ‘Open the shutters and let’s look out. We made it! Siena! I told you we would!’

  Saffron crossed the room, opened the window and pushed back the shutters, and watched affectionately as Sarah tottered across the floor to join her.

  ‘I’m drunk,’ she said, waving her arms to balance herself.

  ‘Try not to fall out of the window, Mission Control,’ said Saffron.

  ‘Excellent advice, Super Hero,’ said Sarah, collapsing beside her.

  The hotel was on one side of a large square of buildings, little shops, and cafés with umbrellas and outside tables. There were red tiled roofs in every direction and beyond the red tiles there were green and blue hills under a blue Italian sky.

  Sarah and Saffron immediately appropriated it all.

  ‘Gosh, look! We’ve got a fountain!’

  ‘And a painted church,’ said Saffron, looking across the square.

  ‘What are the pictures?’

  ‘Angels,’ said Saffron, who always noticed angels.

  ‘They must have known we were coming.’

  ‘We’ve got a lot of flowers.’

  ‘And about ten thousand pigeons.’

  ‘They must have worked hard.’

  ‘Catching them all.’

  ‘Mmmm. In the night.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Well?’ asked Sarah, expectantly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you remember it?’

  ‘No,’ said Saffron.

  ‘No?’

  ‘They must have changed it.’

  ‘Saffron,’ said Sarah. ‘Everything outside this window except the pigeons looks at least six centuries old.’

  ‘I’ve been away a long time,’ said Saffron mournfully.

  Sarah’s mother came in while they were still recovering from this remark.

  ‘I knocked,’ s
he said, ‘but I just heard shrieking! Did you sleep well? Are you all right Sarah? I was afraid you’d be terribly stiff.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Sarah, as cheerfully as if she had never had an ache in her life. ‘Not a bit stiff. Look at the lovely fountain! Squirting dragons!’

  ‘Lions,’ said her mother, after a careful look.

  ‘They’ve got wings,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Those are their manes!’ said Mrs Warbeck, and then both she and Sarah turned to Saffron and asked, Lions or Dragons, as if she was the Siena expert.

  ‘Lions,’ decided Saffron, and Sarah said, ‘OK, lions. You’re the one who was born here. You ought to know.’

  ‘I don’t really remember anything,’ said Saffron, but as the morning went on she found that this was not quite true.

  ‘I remember the voices,’ she said, out in the market square inspecting the lions with Sarah and her mother, while Italian voices were calling and talking all around them. ‘I can’t understand them, but I remember they sounded like that. And I remember the sunshine.’

  ‘It is like best quality English sunshine,’ agreed Sarah’s mother.

  ‘But, Super Hero,’ said Sarah sternly. ‘Don’t you remember where you lived?’

  ‘Of course she doesn’t!’ said Mrs Warbeck, laughing. ‘She was three! But we’ll find it, Saffron. Don’t worry. Perhaps we could get a taxi and go there today.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Hmmm, what?’ asked her mother suspiciously.

  ‘Only I thought Saffron and I could go by ourselves,’ said Sarah. ‘You don’t have to come with us, Mummy dear. We could manage a taxi perfectly well. Everyone here understands English if you shout loud enough…’

  ‘Sarah!’

  ‘I’m only saying what Dad said last night!’

  Mrs Warbeck said she was sure that Sarah’s father had said no such thing, and that if she heard Sarah shouting English at anyone, she would lock her in her room till Friday. Also that under no circumstances would she and Saffron be let loose to explore Siena alone by taxi. She said these things quite cheerfully, however, much less sternly than she would have done at home.