by Hilary McKay
‘She doesn’t have to act like the Private School Head here,’ sarah told Saffron, explaining her mother’s holiday behaviour. ‘She’s just a plain tourist, like everybody else! She changes on holiday. Not like Dad. He stays exactly the same. He finds somewhere to put his lap-top and he buys an English newspaper, and at every meal he passes my mother the menu and says to choose him something plain!’
‘Why does he come then?’
‘He likes driving very fast on the wrong side of the road,’ said Sarah. ‘Which I can completely understand.’
At lunchtime Sarah was proved to be correct. Her mother produced a sheaf of coloured leaflets of all they might do and said, ‘Let’s choose what we absolutely cannot bear to miss.’
‘OK,’ said Sarah’s father. ‘But spare me Art. And History. Is there anything simple on that menu?’
(Sarah smirked and caught Saffron’s eye.)
‘Lots of lovely things. Pasta?’
‘Rubber,’ said Sarah’s father. ‘Dressed up rubber, that’s what pasta is. Everyone thinks so, but no one dares say it except me.’
Sarah’s mother had heard this opinion several dozen times before so she ignored it and said,
‘All right. No art. No history. No pasta. Shopping?’
‘Gosh no!’ said Mr Warbeck, sounding terribly shocked. ‘Shopping! No thank you. I can order everything I want from the Internet.’
‘What about going into the countryside?’
‘Don’t mind a picnic,’ said Mr Warbeck. ‘So long as I don’t have to pretend to admire the view. What are you girls giggling about? Is that supposed to be a plain salad, Liz? You’ve let them put dressing all over it.’
‘You eat salad dressing at home,’ said Sarah’s mother, and Sarah’s father said yes, but now he was on holiday and could do what he liked, and they should go off and leave him to it.
‘Are you just going to stay in the hotel the whole afternoon?’ asked his wife.
‘I may take a stroll out to have a look at those squirting dragons across there,’ said Mr Warbeck. ‘That fountain is very badly set up. It is losing water all the time. I’ve noticed already. It’s the angle of that top jet. You get off and enjoy yourselves and don’t worry about me. They’re setting me up with a phone line and a table that doesn’t wobble this afternoon. Very helpful, I must say. Look them in the eye and shout and they understand every word…’
Sarah and Saffron collapsed with laughter.
‘I brought you a phrase book,’ said his wife crossly, jumping up. ‘It’s in our room. I should have tied it round your neck! I’ll go and fetch it now!’
‘She should have been a diplomat,’ said Mr Warbeck, looking affectionately after her. ‘What do you two want to do this afternoon then? Art? Shopping? History? Admire the landscape? Spot of bull fighting? No, that’s Spain, I think.’
‘We’re going to find Saffy’s home, of course,’ Sarah told him, adding thoughtlessly, ‘that was the whole idea of coming to Siena in the first place!’
‘Was it?’ asked Mr Warbeck, mildly, while Saffron blushed redder and redder. ‘Was it indeed? I did wonder.’
‘Don’t tell Mum!’ begged Sarah. ‘She thinks she thought of coming here! I didn’t mean to say that!’
‘I refuse to be involved in your conspiracies,’ said Mr Warbeck. ‘And you know what I told you, never go back. Still, if you must, you must, I suppose. Good luck, Saffy!’
‘Thank you,’ said Saffy.
That afternoon Mrs Warbeck put Sarah, Saffron and the wheelchair in the back of a taxi, got in the front herself, gave the taxi driver Saffron’s old address in Siena and asked for them to be taken there.
The taxi driver looked at her as if she was mad.
She repeated it more slowly, carefully not shouting.
He still looked bemused.
She handed him the piece of paper on which it was written down and asked if he understood it.
‘Si, si,’ he said nodding.
‘Grazie!’ said Mrs Warbeck, very firmly, and she leaned back against her seat to indicate that she would like to be obeyed, and without any further fuss.
The taxi driver shrugged his shoulders and steered out of the square, down a side road and round a corner. Then he stopped. They had been driving quite slowly for about one minute.
‘Is there a problem?’ asked Mrs Warbeck, politely but quite loudly.
The taxi driver said, no, no, there was no problem, they had arrived.
This took quite a while to sink in, and it was not until the taxi driver had climbed out of the taxi and pointed very forcefully to the sign at the corner Via S. Francesco that Mrs Warbeck would get out of her seat, and pay the bill, and turn and look where Sarah and Saffron were already staring.
‘It’s Number Sixteen,’ said Saffron.
There in the street, outside a faded green door in a brown plastered wall, Saffron began to cry. She did not know why she was crying. Perhaps she was tired. Perhaps she had thought of her angel too much and for too long. Perhaps it was because this was where she had lived with her mother, and one day had walked away from, and had never come back.
Sarah and her mother waited patiently, while the tears poured down Saffron’s cheeks. They did not seem at all surprised, and they did not tell her to stop crying. Sarah sat in her wheelchair doing nothing at all, while her mother silently handed over paper hanky after paper hanky from a seemingly endless supply in her bag.
After a while Sarah moved away to look at the house more closely, searching for the way that would lead round to the garden. It was the corner house of a block of little houses, rather shabby, but with bright flowery window boxes at its upstairs windows. It was built directly on to the street. That meant the windows in two of the walls could be seen. They were painted green like the door and their shutters were closed. It was impossible to walk round the back of the house because it was joined straight on to the one next to it.
Unseen by her mother, Sarah wheeled herself back round the corner into the street they had driven down. At first there seemed to be no way around to any garden on that side either; the wall ran on solidly all down the length of the block. Then Sarah noticed a door in the wall, painted the same faded green as the front door and the shutters. She hurried back to Saffron and waited for a pause between handkerchiefs.
‘I’ve found the garden door!’ she said, when one came at last. ‘But I’m afraid it’s locked…’
‘Sarah! You didn’t try to open it!’ interrupted her mother.
‘Of course I tried to open it. First thing!’ said Sarah. ‘I wanted to see Saffy’s angel…’ She stopped suddenly, remembering that her mother knew nothing about any angels, but Mrs Warbeck had not noticed.
‘You were very rude! You should at least have knocked!’ she told her severely.
‘All right,’ said Sarah cheerfully. ‘I’ll go back and knock.’
‘I’m coming too,’ said Saffron, accepting a last paper hankerchief. ‘Wait for me. I’m sorry I cried.’
Sarah waited, saying encouragingly, while Saffron mopped her nose, ‘I read once that you can only cry thirty-eight tears at a time. Thirty-eight maximum. Then they stop.’
‘Good.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ agreed Sarah. ‘Of course, it’s practically impossible to count…You need a cold-blooded observer to tell you how long you’ve got to go…Look! I bet anything that’s the garden door!’
‘It must be,’ agreed Saffron at once.
It was a heavy old door with a metal latch, set under an arch of wall. It was, as Sarah had already discovered, firmly locked. Nobody came when they knocked. Nobody answered at the front door either. Nor at the next house along in the street. Nobody looked out of a window, or walked past and asked what they were doing, knocking and knocking on all those doors.
In desperation Saffron and Sarah got down on their hands and knees and tried to see under the crack at the bottom of the garden door.
‘Whatever would you say if someo
ne saw you?’scolded Sarah’s mother when she saw what they were doing.
‘We would say “This is the house where Saffron used to live and she wanted to see in the garden”.’
‘We will call again,’ promised Mrs Warbeck. ‘I’m sure we will find someone in another day. Come on now, let’s go back to the square and find Daddy. I hope he hasn’t been shouting at too many people!’
Mr Warbeck was not shouting at anybody, he was peacefully reading a newspaper on a seat by the fountain, looking completely at home. He waved when he saw them, took one look at Saffron’s face, and led the way to one of the little café tables under the umbrellas. There he ordered ice creams and taught them to play a disgraceful game, which consisted of awarding marks out of ten for Italian bottoms.
‘First one to spot a genuine ten chooses the next round of ice cream,’ he said to Saffy and Sarah. ‘Liz can referee.’
‘I’ll do no such thing!’ said Mrs Warbeck.
‘There might not be a ten in the whole of Italy!’ objected Sarah.
‘A ten or a nine then,’ said her father. ‘Be warned though, the ref must agree.’
‘I think eights should count too,’ said Sarah.
‘Oh, all right. Fair enough.’
‘Sevens?’ asked Sarah.
‘Not a hope,’ said her father firmly. ‘Eights are the absolute minimum!’
He and Sarah glared at each other, looking so alike that Saffron could not help laughing.
‘Concentrate!’ Sarah’s father told her sternly. ‘There! Look there! I’ve seen a nine already! OK ref ?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Warbeck. ‘That was not a nine. Far from a nine. Six perhaps…’
It was a very good game, and went on for nearly two hours, and although nobody spotted a ten there were several eights and nines to argue about. Later they went out for a drive and had supper in a place where Sarah’s father said the only thing edible was the bread, and by the time they got back Saffron’s mind was a muddle of hills and olive trees and food and fountains and Italian bottoms.
‘Sweet dreams Saffy!’ said Mr Warbeck, when the girls went up to bed that night.
Saffron dreamt of the garden behind the green door. And her grandfather’s hand in hers. And the angel in the garden, the stone angel from Siena, a long time ago. It was exactly the same dream as always. Nothing had changed.
Chapter Ten
Sarah’s mother had promised that Saffron would ring home every day. This happened, starting the first Sunday evening when Sarah revealed the stowaway in the back of the family car.
That first time Saffron had spoken only to Eve, explaining that she was not, as Eve had supposed until she answered the phone, upstairs in her bedroom, but on the contrary was six hundred miles from home, in a faraway French hotel.
By that time the Banana House already felt to Saffron like somewhere she had known briefly and long ago, in a different life, in a different world. Then Eve answered the telephone and Saffron heard her familiar ‘Saffy darling,’ and it occurred to Saffron for the first time that Eve might mind her going without a word of goodbye or explanation. She might be upset. She might be hurt.
‘Hello,’ said Saffron, uncertainly. It was very bad to think that Eve might be hurt. Angry and worried were nothing in comparison.
‘Saffy darling!’ said Eve again. ‘Saffy darling! Saffy darling, where are you?’
‘Sarah’s father says about half way,’ said Saffron. ‘Didn’t Caddy tell you?’
‘Sarah’s father? Caddy?’
‘Where is Caddy?’ asked Saffron desperately. ‘She could tell you much better than me!’
‘Caddy and Indigo and Rose are all out. The guinea pigs escaped this afternoon. All over the road. So they’re all three out rounding up…Halfway to where? ’
‘Siena.’
‘Siena?’
‘Siena in Italy.’
‘Siena in Italy?’
‘But you needn’t worry…’
‘Needn’t worry!’
Then the conversation had reversed backwards. Needn’t worry! Siena in Italy! Siena! Saffy darling!
‘Sarah’s mother would like a quick word!’ interrupted Saffron, and she pushed the telephone into Mrs Warbeck’s hand, with such an anguished face that Sarah’s mother said, ‘All right, Saffron,’ and proceeded to explain, as best she could, how Saffron had come to be where she was, and how they would bring her straight back if necessary, but would love to have her otherwise, and how they would all laugh about this One Day. And that Eve was not to worry. Not to worry, not to worry, not to worry.
That was the Sunday telephone call. It went on for a long time. The Monday one, however, was answered by Rose, and was very brief indeed.
‘She says she’s got there,’ reported Rose, relaying the conversation across the kitchen, ‘but it’s too dark to see anything! Oh well.’ Night, Saffy!’
‘Rose!’ exclaimed everyone, but they were too late. Rose had already put down the phone.
‘Rose!’ wailed Eve.
‘Mmmm?’ said Rose, absentmindedly licking some paint she had just noticed on the palm of her hand.
‘You shouldn’t have cut her off like that! I would have liked to talk to her! I wanted to tell her I wasn’t cross!’
‘She’ll know that,’ said Rose, licking her hand once more and then rubbing it on her jeans.
‘I wanted to ask what it was like, to be back in Siena,’ said Caddy.
‘Dark,’ Rose reminded her. ‘I told you.’
‘Even so,’ said Eve, ‘You did pounce on the phone very quickly, Rose darling!’
‘I had to pounce,’ said Rose, ‘in case it was Daddy. You might have told him about Saffy by accident.’
‘I suppose I might,’ agreed Eve.
On Tuesday evening, luckily when Eve was safely out and Rose was alone in the kitchen, her father called to say that he had just realised it was half term, and since he had a gap in his schedule he might come home and spend some time with his family. Or pop over to France for some duty free. Whichever.
‘Pop over to France,’ said Rose instantly, having grabbed the telephone at the very first ring.
‘Oh?’ said her father, a little taken aback to be under attack so soon in the conversation.
‘Well, it’s no good coming home. Everyone’s so busy.’
‘Busy?’ said Bill, laughingly, saying without words that Rose should know quite well he was the only one who ever did any work in the family.
‘Caddy just revises for exams,’ said Rose. ‘All those exams you made her do. Remember?’
‘Oh yes. Well, yes.’
‘And Indigo’s doing a lot of cooking.’
‘Yes?’
‘A lot of cooking. To keep Caddy’s strength up, he says.’
‘Right.’
‘And I’m painting my desert mural.’
‘Oh are you?’
‘And Saffron…’ Rose paused. Saffron was quite difficult.
‘Yes?’ said her father, sensing a whiff of conquest, ‘Yes? Saffron?’
‘She’s out all day. With her friend. All day. We haven’t really seen her at all.’
‘Since when?’
‘Saturday,’ said Rose, triumphantly truthful.
‘Mummy won’t be busy,’ said Rose’s father, and Rose sighed with relief because Eve was easy.
‘She is the busiest of everyone. Because of her exhibition.’
‘What exhibition?’ demanded Bill, astonished and a little put out, because he was the one who did exhibitions, not Eve.
‘In the Building Society window.’
‘Oh, that!’
‘People keep buying the pictures so she has to keep doing more and more. It’s a problem, she says.’
It was not a problem that Bill often had with his exhibitions, so he did not say anything.
‘Because the window keeps looking empty and the manager complains.’
‘She shouldn’t let the people take them away,’ said Bill a bit peevishl
y. ‘She is obviously not charging enough. Fetch her. I want to talk to her.’
‘I can’t fetch her,’ said Rose. She spoke quite gently now, because this was victory. ‘She’s gone to the bank. She has to keep going to the bank to put the picture money in. Then when she comes back she has to paint more pictures. So.’
‘I see,’ said Bill, hurt, annoyed and deflated. ‘Well then, I will get back to work.’
‘I thought you were popping over to France.’
‘That was just a thought,’ said Bill, with dignity. ‘I have a great deal of on-going work.’
‘Bye, then Daddy,’ said Rose sweetly, waving into the receiver.
‘Bye, Rose,’ said Bill.
That was Bill sorted out for the week, and they could concentrate on Saffron.
That same Tuesday night she had telephoned to say they had found the house in Siena where she used to live.
‘Oh, Saffy,’ said Eve. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Quite all right,’ said Saffron. ‘Don’t worry!’
On Wednesday she told them about the cathedral that Sarah’s mother had insisted they visit. Also about the way she and Sarah were allowed to explore the square and the little shops around it by themselves, and how already the ice cream man knew their names and remembered which flavours they had tried and said, ‘No! No!’ and made them choose another if they selected the same one twice.
‘She sounds like she’s having a lovely time,’ said Caddy wistfully.
Caddy was not having a lovely time herself. Indigo had pointed out that since she had stopped going into college no physics revision was taking place at all. To counteract this he had helped her stick physics notes on to every window of the Banana House.
The windows had been Caddy’s last refuge. Now each of them held a different branch of physics and there was no direction in which she could look without learning something.
Nor had there been any comfort from Michael. He had turned up unexpectedly on Wednesday morning and taken her out on a surprise mock driving test, which Caddy thought had probably been even more stressful than the real thing itself would be.
At least, she told Indigo and Rose, when she staggered back in again, the examiner taking her on the real test would not be unkindly comparing her with his gorgeous, heroic, talented and hard-working girlfriend at every roundabout and junction. Which had been all Michael would talk about (apart from gear changes).