Midnight Blue

by Pauline Fisk

  At last she stood outside her own front door. Her heart beat very fast. She looked over the balcony rail. Down in the courtyard she saw a mass of washing-lines and a solitary bare tree. Quiet snowflakes were falling out of what was now a nasty, yellow sky.

  Bonnie turned back to the door. It sounded very quiet inside. She rang the shrill bell hard because she knew that, if Maybelle didn't hear, her courage would fail and she'd run away again. Someone moved. Through the little bit of frosted glass Bonnie saw a light go on and a shape come down the hall. She heard footsteps. The door opened. Someone stood there blinking. Bonnie almost thought at first that it was Grandbag.

  'Well, well, well, ' the someone said in Grand- bag's voice.

  'Doreen!' Bonnie said. 'Doreen, is that you?'

  Doreen folded her arms. A cold unwelcoming smile lit her eyes. Dragged around her thin shoulders was the sort of fancy dressing-gown that Grandbag always used to wear. Bonnie remembered Doreen's shapeless, ugly dresses and her nervousness. What had happened?

  'Yes, it's me,' Doreen said. 'So you're back. You'd better come in. It's freezing with the door open. I'll make a cup of tea. I’m useless till I've had my cup of tea.'

  'Where's Maybelle?' Bonnie said uncertainly.

  Doreen didn't answer. She tottered down the hall to the kitchen. Worried that she might be making a terrible mistake, Bonnie shut the front door and followed her. When she entered the kitchen, she couldn't believe her eyes. Everything was as different as it could be. Gone were all Maybelle’s personal things, replaced with clutter which could only be Grandbag’s. Bonnie’s legs went weak at the sight of it all. She moved a pile of newspapers off a chair and sank onto it. There were no pretty, fanciful, silly things. Not a single sign of Maybelle any more.

  Doreen made the tea. She stood by the kettle with arms folded while Bonnie looked around. What had happened? She didn't seem like Doreen any more. Perhaps it was the dressing-gown that did it. Doreen poured a cup for just herself, drank it in a single gulp and said accusingly, 'Where've you been, then?'

  'I…I'd rather tell Maybelle, if you don't mind.'

  Doreen's eyes glimmered. 'You'll have a long wait then,' came her tart reply. 'They’ve had a row and Maybelle’s gone. She said some nasty things. Mother'll never be the same again. You mustn't mention her to Mother. I'll wake her and tell her you're here. I'll take you in to see her, but you mustn't tire her. She's not what she was, you know.' Doreen poured a second cup of tea. 'I have to do everything now,' she said, and marched off with it.

  Bonnie's dread of seeing Grandbag again, and even her anxiety about finding Maybelle, became swallowed up in curiosity. Why was Doreen so different? Where was the meek, nervous person she’d once been? It was as if the world had turned upside down.

  Finally Doreen reappeared. 'Come on,' she said. 'I've woken her up specially. She’s ready for you.'

  Bonnie was hustled down the hall to what had been the door to her own bedroom. Doreen opened it and pushed her in.

  'Here she is, Mother,' she shouted. 'Don't talk to her too long. You'll tire yourself. I'll go and get your breakfast. Don't try and get up. You know it's not good for you.'

  The room was desperately stuffy with the window closed, the curtains almost completely drawn and a little side-lamp by the bed illuminating the dust. Grandbag lay in bed. The black dye had come out of her hair and she wore no make-up. She looked about a hundred years old. She lay back on the pillows. Her nightdress was grubby. She looked so small. The cocky, triumphant look was out of her eyes, but the bitterness was still there. Bitterness and anger.

  'Well, you're back,' she said.

  'Yes, Grandma.'

  'Good. You can make that fool of a woman stops feeding me brown bread. I hate brown bread. She does it just to annoy me. You can bring me the newspapers. I hear them drop through the letterbox every day, but she never lets me have them.'

  'Where's my mother?'

  'Your what?'

  ‘I want to know where my mother is.'

  Grandbag stared. 'Your mother?'

  'I'm talking about Maybelle,’ Bonnie said.

  'Such a pretty name,' Grandbag said, with a humph. 'I used to know a girl called Maybelle… ' She peered at Bonnie cautiously, fumbling for her glasses but she couldn’t find them. 'Do I know you?' she said.

  'I'm Bonnie,' Bonnie said. 'Look, Grandma, it's me.'

  Grandbag began to struggle up in the bed, but she couldn't do it. She clawed unsuccessfully at the covers, but slid back down again. ‘It used to be so different,' she muttered to herself, as if the effort was too much for her. 'I didn't used to be like this.'

  'Grandma,' Bonnie said, moving round the bed, so Grandbag could see her again. 'What's happened to you? And what's happened to Doreen? I don't understand.'

  'She treats me terrible now,' Grandbag said. 'She knows I'm too weak to pay her back. I know what she's doing. She's getting her revenge.'

  'But Maybelle…’

  'We had a row, Maybelle and I. After all the years of things I've done for her. After looking after that child for her. After all my care. She said terrible things. I don't know where she got them from. Terrible things they were. I can't forget them. I dream about them at night. They make me shake when I think about them…’

  'And they're all true, aren't they, Mother?'

  Doreen stood in the doorway gloating. 'You know it, Mother. Every word she said was true. That's why it makes you ill to think of it. I've got your breakfast ready. Come on. Sit up. Here you are. Brown bread and butter.'

  Bonnie pushed past Doreen and ran down the hall.

  ‘Where are you going now?' Doreen called.

  Bonnie struggled with the front door. She stumbled outside. It was snowing properly now, but the cold air was wonderful. Maybe it was full of city smells and noises, but it was fresh and true and Bonnie gulped it down. The stale breath inside that flat was the very air of hate.

  'There she goes. Off again,' said Doreen. 'Isn't that a shame?' She didn't run after Bonnie. She shut Grandbag back into her airless room and closed the door. Then she stood in front of the hall mirror and stared long at her changed face.

  Bonnie clattered down the stairs and sank in a heap on the last of them. So that was her home. That was what she'd come back to. That awful airless room which didn't bear any resemblance to the singing, lively, red-and-yellow bedroom she and Maybelle had painted. And where was Maybelle? Would she ever find her? Bonnie stared out at the thickening snowstorm and began to cry, covering her face with her hands.

  'It's all right,' a voice said. ‘Nothing’s as bad as it seems. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. Come and have some breakfast.'

  Bonnie looked up. It was Michael.

  32

  Michael brought Bonnie toast and coffee on a tray. She sat in front of his paraffin heater surrounded by shelves and books and remembered that other morning when he'd given her breakfast. It all now seemed so long ago. It had been the day he'd told her about the land beyond the sky.

  'You still have the flying book?' she said.

  'Of course I do.'

  He got it down and thumbed through the yellow-edged pages till he found the right one. She peered where he pointed, at the broken pottery with its balloon-and-fire decorations that no longer held any mystery for her.

  'Maybe you'll write your own story one day,' he said.

  'Nobody will believe it really happened.' Bonnie shut the book. 'Do you know, my Aunt Doreen is terrible now. She's terrifying. She's just like Grandbag used to be, and Grandbag's…’

  'Grandbag's had it.'

  'That's right. How did you know that?'

  'It's what Maybelle said. Her exact words.'

  'Maybelle? You've seen her? Where is she?'

  'Oh yes, I’ve seen her,' Michael said. 'I’ve seen her several times, and she called on me before she left. They'd had a big row, she and what do you call her – Grandbag? She thought she'd never see you again, and she blamed your grandma for driving you a
way. She said, "I shouted at Mother. I told her the truth. It's what I should have done long ago. She crumpled, you know. I think she's had it. She'll never be the same again. Not with Doreen looking after her. She’s got all the malice of a liberated prisoner towards her former jailer…”’

  Bonnie didn't care about Doreen any more, or Grandbag, who was just some person from the past. What she cared about was that Maybelle — brave at last — had stood up for herself. 'Where is Maybelle?' she said, looking round as if expecting her mother to spring out of the nearest cupboard.

  Michael laughed. 'She's not here,' he said. Don’t look like that. Finish your breakfast and I'll take you to her. We'll make up a thermos of coffee and it might be a good idea to take hot water bottles too. The heater in my old car's not up to much.'

  Bonnie couldn't bring herself to finish her breakfast. 'Does Maybelle know where I've been?' she said.

  ‘Nobody knows where you’ve been,' Michael said. 'But at least I could explain the means by which you left. It wasn’t a very likely story, but for some weird reason Maybelle believed it. Nearly every day she phones, asking if you’re back. I go and visit her as often as I can, to make sure she’s all right. She’s a remarkable woman, Maybelle. In fact, she’s not unlike you. She believes completely in where you’ve gone, and she believes in you. You may have run away, but she has faith that you’ll return. I’ve never met anybody quite like her.’

  Bonnie leapt to her feet, impatient to leave. Outside demented snowflakes danced through the air. 'We’re in for a bit of a bad journey,' Michael said. 'But I don't mind if you don't, as long as we’re prepared.' He began gathering together scarves, gloves and hats. He found pairs of Wellington boots. 'Pass me those blankets, will you?' he called.

  A couple of tartan travel rugs were draped over a crate. Bonnie picked them up. 'What's this?' she said, looking into the crate.

  'It's my telescope,' Michael said.

  Bonnie remembered Michael's perfect observatory with its glass dome pushing up into the sky. 'But Michael, what’s your telescope doing all packed up?’

  Michael stopped rushing about and looked at Bonnie. 'Things have turned out all right and you're back again,' he said. 'But I never should have let you get involved. I must have been mad. Your mother was heartbroken, you know. After you went off, I swore I'd never look into the sky again.'

  Bonnie touched the telescope. 'You must set it up again,' she said. 'I was meant to go. The way it happened was nothing to do with you. I'll explain it all later when we get to Maybelle.'

  Thick snow blocked two lanes of the motorway. More of the stuff tipped out of the low, grey sky and the wind blew it this way and that like powdery sand dunes on the edge of the sea. The motorway signs flashed that thirty miles an hour was the maximum speed, but the long convoy of traffic limped along much more slowly than that.

  Michael had been right about the heater in his car. It didn't work. As they crawled out of the city and into the countryside, passing between white flanks of fields, Bonnie began to freeze. They stopped at a motorway service station, drank soup and refilled hot water bottles. Then Bonnie climbed back into the car, buried herself under the travel rugs again and clutched the hot water bottles tight. Michael steered a course back onto the motorway.

  'On a good day this wouldn't take much longer,' he said. They were driving through another city now, passing huge cooling towers and a ruined factory with hundreds of broken windows. The snow was still tipping down. It was hard to see through the windscreen.

  Finally they came out the other side, back into the countryside. But Bonnie didn’t see it. An awful thought had come to her. What if Maybelle too - like Doreen – had all the malice of a liberated prisoner? What if her past with Grandbag had made her bitter and cruel and the Maybelle they were crawling towards wasn't the one Bonnie remembered?'

  'This is our junction,' Michael said.

  They slipped off the motorway. The road sign, half covered in snow, told them it was twenty miles to the nearest town. The road was completely empty. Bonnie looked around her. They were driving into an almost alpine landscape of valleys and hills, and the sky was lightening and the falling snow was beginning to thin.

  'Where are we, Michael?'

  Michael hunched over the wheel as if frozen to it, peering through the small gap made by the wobbling windscreen wipers. 'It's special where your mother is,' was all he said. 'Just wait and see.'

  After what felt like hours, Michael turned the car off the main road onto a smaller one. They drove through snowbound villages, between sculpted white banks of hedgerow. A snow-plough passed them on the other side of the road, its lights flashing. It was the first vehicle they'd seen for a while. They drove through a deserted town, then out the other side, down a hill, then up another one. At the top, a whole new valley opened out in front of them. The snow had almost stopped. In the distance, against the brighter sky, Bonnie saw the silhouette of a high hill with a rocky outcrop on the top.

  ‘Is something wrong?' Michael said. 'You're not feeling car sick, are you? It's been a long journey. We'll stop and have another drink if you like.'

  He pulled up the car. Bonnie's face had gone the colour of the sky before the snowstorm hit. He poured out the last of the coffee and coaxed it down her throat.

  But Bonnie hardly noticed. She stared through the windscreen. Watery pink sunlight struggled to break through the snow clouds above that distant hill, lighting up a handful of standing stones which Bonnie recognised. How could she not?

  'Don't know what they call them, but they’re quite a sight, aren't they?' said Michael.

  'Yes,' said Bonnie weakly.

  'That's where your mother’s staying,’ said Michael. 'You wouldn't believe it, would you? Right up there. Do you think you're better now? We ought to get on. The last bit of the journey is definitely going to be the worst. We’re likely to get stuck you know. We could end up walking and it’ll soon be dark.’

  'Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.'

  Michael looked at Bonnie’s pale face.

  'Really,' she insisted.

  Michael started up the engine. In my opinion,' he said, 'they make a better job of clearing these little roads than they do the big ones. The road was gritted for the rest of the way and he drove fast. The sunset behind Highholly Hill said that the day was ending. Michael drove as if he was racing it.

  Soon the hill was right above them. The car spun on a corner but afterwards the road was straight. They passed a village sign and a warning about tractors crossing. Michael slowed down. Bonnie saw a garage that she recognized, and a road down to where a showground had once been, and a lane which she knew led up to the bumpy track to Higholly House.

  'We're here,' she whispered dreamily.

  Michael looked at her. 'That's right,' he said.

  'Turn here,' she said.

  'How did you know that?'

  Michael turned where she pointed. Bonnie didn't answer him. They drove up between cottages. The lane hadn't been cleared and he had to slow right down. The car wheels skidded and they came to a halt. A woman outside a house was shovelling snow. Michael wound down the window.

  'You can't go up there,’ she said, looking the car up and down. 'Leastways, not in that.'

  'I suppose not, but we can't go back,' Michael said. 'We've come a long way.'

  'Then you'd best walk,' the woman replied. 'You won't get lost if you keep inside the lane between the hedges. Long as it don't snow again.' She looked up at the sky, which was darkening, though more from the end of day than from fresh snow on the way. 'Have you boots? Would you like to borrow my spare shovel?'

  They got out of the car. Michael accepted the offer of the shovel but got out their own boots.

  'She's mad up there, you know,' the woman said as he began to change out of his shoes. 'Up there alone. What she’s doing there, nobody knows. But she'll never stick it out all winter.’

  A flurry of wind blew snow against the side of the car and up into Bonnie's face.
Was it just Maybelle up there, she asked herself, or were they all there – Dad and Arabella too, and Jake and the Onions family and all of them? She put on the thick socks that Michael offered her, slipped into his spare boots. She was impatient to get the village behind her, impatient for the hill. She couldn't believe this was happening to her. She wanted to laugh out loud.

  'Put on another pair of gloves,' Michael said. 'It's a long way. We've got to keep you warm. That's right. And how about this blanket?' He tied one of the travel rugs round Bonnie’s shoulders. 'Not too bulky for you?' he said.

  Bonnie shook her head and jumped up and down, banging her hands together. 'It won't be as hard as it looks,' Michael said. 'We'll be all right.'

  'I know,’ Bonnie said.

  They began the climb. At first it wasn't hard at all, despite the big boots and heavy clothes. As the track wound and the hedges bowed beneath the weight of snow, Bonnie caught continual welcome glimpses of Highholly House below the brow of the hill, with a light in a window that beckoned to her like an advent star. Her legs began to ache. She pulled them out of the deep snow, one after the other. There was a wonderful stillness everywhere. They both climbed quietly. The only sound was the crunch, crunch, crunch of their feet.

  At last they dipped down into the Dingle. The banks rose and the trees thickened on either side. Bonnie heard the brook before they came to it. She stopped at the wooden bridge and leaned against its side and banged her numb hands together. Snow fell from a branch. A bird flew up into the sky. She peered down at the fast flowing water. In the world of memory, two girls had waded through that brook…

  They climbed out of the Dingle on the other side. The landscape opened out. 'Look at it all,' said Michael. The sky was that magical midnight blue again. The moon was up and full and shining on the snow. A glittering, pale-blue sheen hung over everything. 'This is a special place, isn't it? Do you know what I mean?'