Matilda searched about for a girl called Angela who had said she was going to bring a pony and Matilda had been so jealous. But there she was, with no animal at all, just wearing a straw hat with a few flowers in it.
“Can I see?” asked a boy called Philip, coming up to Matilda.
Matilda opened the lid of the box and let him look inside, and suddenly it seemed there were a hundred children crowding around and staring at it, poking their fingers, reaching in. Matilda felt a panic rise up inside her, and she thought she might scream and her face and cheeks were hot.
“ATTEN–SHUN!”
Someone had forgotten to ring the bell, there was too much excitement. But the parade was not till eleven o’clock, so they had to go into their classrooms until then. The goat was tied up near the taps so it could lick the dripping water when it was thirsty. It bleated all morning as they sat in the warm classroom, copying things down from the board about the transit of Venus. Then it became very quiet, falling asleep in the sunshine.
When at last it was time for the parade, Matilda couldn’t remember what she’d been doing, only they must have been writing because her tabletop was covered with pencil shavings. She stood with her snail hotel in a line with the other children and felt as though she would faint. She couldn’t eat. She gave her apple to Frederick, a boy with a large and mesmerising chickenpox scar in the middle of his forehead.
Out in the sunny playground, first to march around were the children with hats. It seemed to take forever, all those boring hats. There was Frances and her flowerpot falling off, she didn’t even seem to notice. Matilda’s legs wanted to run fast, as though her feet might take off without her, but she said to herself over and over again, Keep still, keep still.
Finally it was time for the Pet Parade. Now, the headmaster told them, rather than him choosing a winner, the children themselves could vote.
“Just like voting in an election,” he bellowed through a hand-held megaphone. “When you children are twenty-one, you will all be able to vote.”
“If you vote for my snail hotel,” said Matilda urgently to Frederick, “I will give you my lunch every day this week.”
“Now remember, children,” continued the headmaster, “the prize is for the most unusual pet. Not the best-looking or the most obedient. The most unusual.”
“I will give you an Easter egg,” said Matilda to Frederick.
“So have a good look at all the candidates,” said the headmaster. “Mrs Peterson will give you a piece of paper for you to write down which pet you think should win. Then you will put it in here” – he held up a wastepaper basket – “and then I will count them and announce the winner.”
“What about me?” said a boy called Owen. “Do I get an Easter egg?”
“You too,” said Matilda immediately.
“Now!” The headmaster cleared his throat. “Time for the Grand Parade!”
Matilda stood tall with her shoulders back and held up her hotel in front of her, tipped downward, so everyone could see the snails in their magnificent green palace. The line of competitors marched around the playground, while the other children stood in rows at the edges, shouting and clapping.
The boy with the goat went first, pulling it along with the rope, then a couple of dogs also with ropes, a cat in a box that was too frightened to get out, Frances’s friend Gillian with her horrible mice that she put on top of her head so they clung to her yellow hair, then a boy with a white chicken under one arm and a sign on his hat saying “Sunday Lunch”.
Then it was Matilda, with her snail hotel. Matilda could hear clapping and laughter, and she could see Frederick pointing and saying things to the other boys. Past the bell they marched, around the fig tree and then back again to the tune of the school’s wooden flute band playing “The Minstrel Boy”, “Men of Harlech” and “Waltzing Matilda”.
Matilda felt dizzy, the sun was so hot and right above her head. She saw Mrs Peterson handing out the little pieces of paper and everyone writing things down and putting them in the basket, and the headmaster coughing and smiling, striding up and down with his stick, waving it about, the same stick he had used to hit Geoffrey with six times on each hand and six times on the backs of his legs.
The sun was so high in the sky and it was so hot, even though it was nearly Easter. Matilda felt as though her own mind was spinning up into the sun and she couldn’t hear anything.
“Matilda!” said a voice. “Where are you, Matilda?”
She couldn’t even hear it, but someone pushed her forward and then the all-day sucker was placed into her hand and everyone, everyone in the whole world was looking at her and clapping and she had won, she had really won it, and the white chicken squawked and flew up onto the roof of the weather shed.
“I am in a frenzy,” she said to herself, a word she had heard her mother use. “I am in a frenzy,” and it was the best and most wonderful place she had ever been in all her life.
Matilda was in a frenzy the rest of lunchtime, right through the afternoon. She sat very still in class, staring hard at the place on the teacher’s desk where the all-day sucker had been but now was just an empty jar that soon would fill up with scissors and pencils and paintbrushes. The all-day sucker was hers, she had won it, and it was in her satchel, hanging on the metal peg outside the classroom.
The teacher was showing them how to make a bird by folding a square of coloured paper.
“It’s something they do in Japan,” she said, and even Matilda knew this couldn’t be true because the Japanese cut off people’s heads in the war. But Matilda was in a frenzy and she felt light and crisp like a piece of glass.
It was only when the bell went at last for the end of the day that Matilda’s frenzy stopped. She went outside to the line of metal pegs, to get her satchel with the all-day sucker inside it. Her snail hotel was under her arm ready for the walk home. She strapped her satchel to her back, and then she lifted the lid of the shoebox.
“Here I am, snails,” murmured Matilda.
She looked down at the snails in their hotel, moving so carefully over the twigs, so patiently across the leaves and the walls of cardboard. She looked at the shining silver trails of their journeys around and around and around, like the hands on a clock, and suddenly, she didn’t know why, her frenzy stopped.
Her skin turned cold and children clattered past her down the hallway to get out of school. Inside Matilda’s head the cowboys and Red Indians hid in the grey-green bush and there was the smell of the gums, and there was the gun on the table in the dark room, and the black car and the rear-vision mirror, shining and gleaming like the moon.
And then finally, and she never knew why she thought of it, she never knew at all, unless it was the leaves and the streaks of silver like water, and looking down from high above and seeing everything there was, everything, she leaned against the stone wall behind her and she remembered the Basin.
Nine
IT HAD BEEN UNCLE PAUL’S idea to go to the Basin. It was Boxing Day. Because of Christmas, their father was home from his ship for four days in a row. But he slept most of the time, like a bear in a cave.
“He’s tired,” their mother said, holding a finger to her lips. She wanted them to be quiet too, like little ghosts.
Uncle Paul was staying with them and he was not quiet at all. He woke up early, opening windows, banging doors, whistling to the radio. He was there because at his hotel during the holiday they had a famous piano player instead of him, and he got the week off.
“Does he play better than you?” Matilda asked. “The famous man?”
“I play better than him,” said Uncle Paul. “Naturally.”
Early in the morning on Boxing Day they had heard their mother cry out. Matilda came out of her bedroom to see what had happened. But it was only the newspaper.
“What happened?” said Matilda, trying to see the headline, but their mother folded the paper over.
“Nothing, nothing for you to think about,” she sai
d.
Elizabeth took the newspaper from their mother, all the big flat pages, and spread it out on the kitchen table. She told Matilda what had happened in a low voice so their mother wouldn’t hear. A train travelling from Wellington to Auckland had fallen off a bridge into the river, and 166 people had been drowned. On Christmas Day.
“All those poor people,” moaned their mother, who had heard anyway. “All those poor little children.”
Why was her mother so upset? Then Matilda remembered that her mother’s friend, Yvonne, lived in New Zealand. Maybe Yvonne had drowned with all those little children.
“Was Yvonne on the train?”
“Of course not,” said their mother, calming herself. “Yvonne lives in Dunedin. That’s miles away.”
“It says here the Queen is very sad about the train,” Elizabeth read out. “She just arrived in her boat the night before.”
“That Queen’s a jinx,” said Uncle Paul. He was sitting on the sofa, his legs stretched out. “All’s well, she turns up and bang, train in the river. She’d better get out of there.”
Matilda went and sat down beside him. He pushed her onto the floor but she just climbed back on.
“Poor Queen,” said Matilda.
There was a picture of the Queen on the wall in her classroom at school. Matilda didn’t like to think of the Queen being sad, tears dropping out of that nice face all over her lovely yellow dress. The teacher told them that the Queen was coming to Sydney in a boat for a visit, but Matilda didn’t believe it. How could a queen come to Sydney? But maybe it was true, because New Zealand was not so very far away.
“Morning,” said their father, rubbing his eyes as he wandered into the room in his dressing gown.
It was eight o’clock. When he was home, their father always listened to the eight o’clock news. He went over to the radio and switched it on.
“Shhh!” he waved at them.
“Don’t listen,” said their mother. “It’ll upset you. Don’t listen.”
But he was already hunched over the radio, his head bent. There was a soft fanfare of music, then all the news about all the dead people, all the little children drowned in the bottom of the river, came out of the soft black space in the newsreader’s placid voice. Matilda saw her father’s shoulders sag and his hands began to shake. He doesn’t like dead people, thought Matilda, remembering, he doesn’t like them at all. Because of the war, that’s what everyone said.
“I know,” said Uncle Paul, standing up loud and tall. “Let’s go on a picnic! How about it? Let’s go to the Basin.”
The Basin was a bay not far from where they lived. Rich people went with their own boats, but other people took the ferry from the wharf at Palm Beach. Matilda and Frances had been there for school trips. There was a small, lapping lagoon for swimming and a green park for making barbecues and playing cricket, and there was a high hill of bush where Matilda had once seen a waratah flower, like a huge, bright red spider sitting on a stalk. Her teacher had taken a photograph with all the children crowded around it, as though it was a film star they had accidentally come upon, hiding in the gum trees.
“Where’s Frances?” said Uncle Paul. “Where’s my friend Frank? Go and wake her up.”
“What’s high treason?” asked Elizabeth, from under the newspaper.
Their father switched off the news and all the little men inside closed their mouths at once.
“In Russia some people have been shot by a firing squad for high treason,” said Elizabeth. “It says they betrayed the Motherland.”
“There you are, then,” said Uncle Paul.
“Who got shot?” asked Matilda.
“A man called Beria and six other people,” read Elizabeth, pondering. “It says they were ‘reptiles in human masks’.”
“Yuck,” said Matilda.
“Oh, stop it!” snapped their mother, and she snatched the paper away from Elizabeth and squeezed it out of sight behind the bread bin. Their father had gone out into the garden, the screen door swinging shut behind him.
“Come on, girls!” said Uncle Paul, clapping his hands together. “What about our picnic?”
They were going to the Basin! Matilda got dressed quickly, with her swimsuit underneath her shorts. She pushed Frances hard, and told her what was happening. Frances grimaced, but she got out of bed.
Out in the kitchen, their mother was wrapping up pieces of bread, and talking about sausages and steak, how they would build a fire and stay until sunset and take the last ferry back to Palm Beach. Out in the back yard their father was pacing up and down.
“What’s wrong with Daddy?” asked Matilda.
“He’ll be all right,” said their mother. “It’s just his nerves. He’ll come in.”
“Do not forsake me, oh my darling,” sang Uncle Paul.
He was wearing a singlet so you could see his sunburnt arms and his tattoo of an elephant.
“It’s so I don’t forget you,” he explained to Matilda. “Elephants never forget.”
Matilda knew the story, the elephant who remembered the people who teased him when he was young, finally killing them years and years afterwards.
“Can you really remember things that long?” asked Matilda.
“He’s a man, not an elephant,” their mother said. “Men are different. They forget.”
“On this our wedding day,” sang Uncle Paul.
Well, men were different, even Matilda could see that. Their mother’s skin was white as clouds and she didn’t have a tattoo and she always smelt so clean and her fingernails were smooth and pale pink. But you never knew what she was thinking.
“I’ve got such a headache,” she said that morning, biting her bottom lip, and she took a powder with a glass of water.
Their father came inside, and was in the laundry cleaning out the picnic basket. Elizabeth found a blanket for them to sit on, an old tartan blanket from the bottom of her wardrobe. Even Frances was ready, and had finished her toast.
“Let’s go,” said Uncle Paul cheerfully. “Let’s hit the water.”
They set off from the house, laden with bags and hats. Matilda had a big spade under her arm and a bucket for digging. She was planning on building an elaborate giant castle in a secret place away from everyone else, where she wouldn’t be disturbed. She raced ahead of them all. Their father quickened his step, leaving the others behind.
“Wait, Matilda!” called out their mother.
She always wants to be first, thought Frances, in everything. She had a tennis ball and was bouncing it as they walked. Uncle Paul kept trying to snatch it from her.
But Matilda ran ahead not because she wanted to be first but because she wanted to get past the place where the cowboys and Red Indians were hiding. If she rushed past, they wouldn’t have time to shoot at her. They would be sitting round the campfire and hear her footsteps, but by the time they looked through the gum leaves she would be gone.
Their mother was wearing her red shoes with the gold buckles, click click as she walked.
“It’s a picnic,” said Uncle Paul reprovingly. “You’ll ruin those lovely shoes.”
But their mother just smiled faintly. It was a warm day, no wind, no clouds, just sun and sun and sun. Their mother covered her white arms with a pale pink cotton shawl with little butterflies embroidered on it. Their father had brought it back from India. He had sailed on a boat all the way to India, it was hard to believe. But in the war he had sailed even further; he said, India is only halfway for me.
Uncle Paul was still singing.
“I’m not afraid of death, but oh!
What will I do if you leave me?”
By the time they reached the wharf there was quite a crowd of people waiting and they could see the ferry chugging over.
“We’ll miss it! We’ll miss it!” cried their mother anxiously. “Come on!”
Their father broke into a run, taking long heavy strides, holding the picnic basket close to him with his big arms. But the ferry was s
low and it creaked and swung from side to side on the rolling water and their hats blew off and Matilda found herself pushed aside in the crowd and she squeezed up against a blind man with dark glasses and a white stick and one of his front teeth was missing.
“Pardon me,” he said, reaching out his hand.
Matilda felt her heart beating under her swimsuit that was too tight even though it was nearly new and her mother would be cross. I can’t help growing, thought Matilda, I’d stop it if I could.
Once on the ferry she was wedged in by people and bags of meat and bottles of beer and lit cigarettes and she thought she could hear her mother’s voice but she couldn’t be sure and anyway she couldn’t move. The blind man had found a place to sit down and he was smiling to himself. It’s like the opposite of being invisible, thought Matilda. Everyone can see him, but he can’t see anyone else.
She heard the sounds of the ferry casting off, the pulling in of the wooden gangplank, the low hooting, the grind of the engine, the splash of the rope as it fell in the water, to be pulled in dripping by the deckhand. They were leaving, all of them, leaving the world.
“There you are, you monkey!”
Matilda turned. There was Uncle Paul, pushing his way through.
“Your mum thinks you fell overboard,” he said, beckoning. “Come and show her you’re alive and well.”
But if her mother had thought that, she must have already forgotten because when Matilda followed Uncle Paul to the outside deck of the ferry, her mother was sitting next to their father, holding his hand, wordlessly looking out at the ocean.
“Found her,” said Uncle Paul and he lit a cigarette.
Matilda searched the deck for Elizabeth and Frances. They were at the very front of the ferry, their legs hanging over the edge. Frances had put her tennis ball in her pocket and it bulged. Elizabeth’s hair was tangling in the wind.
“Daddy looks funny,” said Matilda, squeezing herself between them.
The Red Shoe Page 5