Careful, He Might Hear You

by Sumner Locke Elliott

  ‘Why not? That’s the loveliest way.’

  ‘You are dropping ash all over the floor.’

  ‘But, Ness, Ness, don’t you want—are you scared of it?’

  ‘Can’t you ever be tidy?’

  ‘Are you? Don’t you want to have—’

  ‘What I want is my own bedroom! And clean sheets every single day. I want to spend hours in the bath without you or Vere knocking on the door. I don’t ever want to wash a cup or a dish as long as I live or stand up in a hot, crowded tram to get home. I want silver brushes with my initials on them and hundreds of pairs of shoes that never have to be resoled. I want kid gloves. I want to see Paris. I want—want—want—!’

  ‘Ness, you’re crying. You do want those things.’

  ‘Put the flowers in this.’

  What flowers?

  She jumped; said, ‘Please don’t creep up on me like that.’ Her neck was covered with funny red blotches. She said, ‘I’m sorry, PS, forgive me.’

  Gave him a nice smile and the roses. He put them in the jar for her and placed them near the cross while all the time she stood not coming any nearer.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that looks jolly nice, PS.’

  ‘This is the cross,’ he said, and she nodded again, not looking at it. ‘George always cuts the grass when we come.’

  ‘Does he? That’s nice.’

  ‘Why didn’t you bring Jocko to cut the grass?’

  ‘Who’s Jocko?’

  ‘The man in your garden.’

  ‘Oh, the gardener. Oh, don’t sit there, PS.’

  ‘But we always sit on the garden to have our lunch.’

  ‘Well, we’ve had our luncheon and graves are not for sitting on.’

  What were graves? He looked up at her.

  ‘This is a grave,’ she said. ‘Your mother is buried here.’

  ‘Buried?’

  ‘Yes. Where did you think she was?’

  He said, ‘Agnes says she’s on the seventh plane.’

  ‘Oh, dear. Haven’t they told you never to listen to what Agnes says?’

  ‘Lila says she went to heaven.’

  ‘People die, PS. She just died. You see, your mother was a little girl.’

  ‘A little girl? Like Winnie?’

  ‘I don’t mean a child. I mean she was little. She only came up to about—here, and she wasn’t very strong. Having a baby was jolly difficult for her and you were late.’

  Late? How could that be his fault?

  ‘Late?’

  ‘Late being born. It made her very tired and she died.’

  So that was it. His fault.

  ‘No, it wasn’t your fault,’ Vanessa said, knowing. ‘Being born is very difficult. For everyone. It was very difficult for my mother with me, or so she used to say whenever she had the chance, which was often.’

  She seemed to be talking to herself now, her face frozen up with annoyance, waving a bee away angrily.

  This was marvellous. Much more fun than when he came with Lila, talking this way, and now he was full of questions.

  ‘Did they put Dear One in a box?’

  ‘Darling, don’t say “Dear One”, it’s not what she would have liked. Say “Mother”.’

  ‘Did they put—is she in a box?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it’s down there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Still?’

  Vanessa cleared her throat. After a while she said, ‘After years—after a long time, nothing much is left.’

  Rainbirds tore across the sky.

  Vanessa said, ‘But you are left. You are what is left of her.’

  That evening he stood in the drawing room and looked up at the picture of his mother over the fireplace and she looked back at him, rather crossly, annoyed with him for being late. But where could he have been and why had he forgotten all about it? She didn’t seem to have anything to do with him whatever so why must people look sad and sorry for him, sorry for her too as Cousin Ettie was doing right this minute, twinkling into the room with buckles on her shoes that shone in the pink lights and with the sparkles of her rings flashing as she moved her little hands towards him, saying:

  ‘Ah, lamb, that’s your little mother.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She was like a lovely little fairy, always laughing, laughing. I wish you’d known her, petkin. Oh, how we all loved her.’ Of course she wanted to comfort him now and he found himself lifted on to her lap and caressed, folded into her, most uncomfortably, because he was too big now for laps, especially Ettie’s, where there was only about enough room for a puppy.

  ‘Do you like this house, dearest lamb?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said politely, wishing it would all end now and be Sunday in a minute. In a flash of pink smoke.

  ‘Do you like your room?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘And the big garden to play in?’

  ‘Mmmmmm.’

  ‘Cousin Ettie wants to get you something nice. What would you like best in the whole world?’

  ‘I’d like to go home.’

  She held him away to look at his face, very startled, and said:

  ‘Are you homesick, lambkin?’

  He nodded and she squeezed his hand, saying, ‘Aha,’ in a squeaky voice. ‘Aha! Now I’ll tell you a secret. Ettie’s homesick too. For her lovely house in London and all her dear sweet friends. But we must be brave together, sweet lamb. Your sweet Aunt Vanessa gave up everything to come back here and look after you and she isn’t complaining and so we mustn’t. Years ago she gave up everything to look after poor old Ettie and now she’s given up everything again to look after you so now we must share her and be good to her and try never to upset her or make her cross, so don’t let her see you’re homesick, lamb, not when we’ve had to come thirteen thousand—’

  Hearing quick footsteps, she whispered:

  ‘Don’t say anything about Cousin Ettie being homesick, promise?’

  She pinched his arm rather hard as Vanessa came in and, finding them huddled together, said, ‘Secrets?’

  Cousin Ettie laughed. ‘Know what we were saying? We were saying how much we both loved our Vanessa.’

  ‘Really?’ said Vanessa. ‘I am touched. PS, chairs are for sitting on, not laps.’

  He got up, glad to be free of Ettie’s clutching, and Ettie said:

  ‘A bit s-a-d. I don’t think you should have taken him to the g-r-a-v-e.’

  Vanessa seemed not to hear; she sat down and looked for a long time at her fingernails. Then she said, ‘Let us have just one cook for this broth, shall we?’ Smiled as she said it.

  Ettie sang a little tune, ‘Tum-tee-tum-tee,’ and looked a long while at Vanessa, then at him quickly, then back at Vanessa, pursed her mouth into a pout and said:

  ‘I think perhaps I’ll have a tiny sherry before dinner.’

  Vanessa said in a charming voice, ‘The bell is there and this is your house. You are at liberty to turn cartwheels through it if the impulse occurs to you.’

  ‘Oh, Ness, are you cross?’

  ‘I’m not in the least cross. I just don’t awfully care for the implication in your voice that I am Simon Legree.’

  ‘Ness—I never suggested that—’

  ‘The only thing I do ask is try to keep it to one, just while le petit is here. I don’t want stories taken back to L and G.’

  She went out of the room and Ettie’s face went down into the great soft folds of skin around her neck until she resembled a sad turtle. ‘Ooooo,’ she said. ‘Ness is cross. Oh, not with you, lamb. Oh, gracious me, how she loves you. You are the favourite. I believe,’ she said, laughing, pressing a bell in the wall, ‘she even loves you more than she loves me! What fun we’re all going to have together.’

  When?

  From the bottom of his sleep, dreaming he had found a puppy, he was being dragged upward, hearing sounds like the big guns firing on Empire Day. Perhaps it was Empire Day because fireworks were bursting in th
e black dark sky and someone was shaking him and saying something in his ear so he opened his eyes and saw Vanessa lit by the bed lamp. Her hair was hanging over the shoulder of her nightgown and her face without any lipstick was as white as clouds.

  He resisted, turning back to the warm pillow, going down again into sleep, but Vanessa wouldn’t allow it, fought him, pulling him up by both arms and stripping the sheets off him, forcing his feet into slippers, his arms into his dressing gown and all the time saying something in sharp whispers which he couldn’t understand because although her lips kept moving all the time, no sound seemed to come from them over the noise from outside. Not guns, thunder. Right on top of them, falling on the house while outside the window the night lit up for a second, bright as noon, and the house shook from top to bottom and Vanessa jumped away from him, covered her mouth and stood there shaking all over, then reached quickly for him and lifting him, carried him from the bed and out the door into the dimly lit midnight hall.

  He moaned, ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Downstairs,’ she whispered, ‘where it’s safe.’

  ‘Why?’

  She didn’t answer, carried him down the stairs to the landing, where she put him down, and sitting beside him, embraced him tightly.

  ‘Now you’re safe,’ she whispered.

  He could feel her shaking beside him and her heart was beating quickly next to his ear.

  ‘Once upon a time,’ she was saying, ‘there were three little pigs …’ Was she going to tell that old story now in the middle of the night with the house shaking all around them and the rain now tearing at the skylight up above them, trying to break it in? But she stopped almost at once and looked at him, holding him away a second, and she was so different that he hardly knew her with her white mouth and her eyes so wide open that at any minute they might fall right out like green marbles. Then she pulled him to her as the thunder came again, and held him, and they lay together on the hard landing floor, arms around each other, and she whispered:

  ‘Don’t be frightened. I’m holding you.’

  Yet it seemed to him, somehow, as though he was holding her. And much later, hours later it seemed, falling to sleep numbed and chilly with the storm ebbing, rumbling away across the harbour towards the sea and with Vanessa very heavy on top of him, he thought she said:

  ‘Hold me, hold me,’ but she must have been asleep and talking in her sleep said the wrong name. ‘Hold me, Logan,’ she said.

  He was surprised in the morning, waking later than usual to the bright day, when Diana came in to help him wash and dress. She opened the window and said, ‘Good-oh, the rain’s made it cooler, love.’

  Vanessa was sitting at the dining room table, smoking a cigarette over her coffee and reading the morning paper. She was as neat as ever. She had pinned a little black velvet bow in her bun of hair. Her lips were red again and her eyes said nothing.

  She smiled. ‘Good morning, PS. What a jolly nice day. The rain has broken the heat wave.’

  She seemed to have forgotten what had happened in the night. Perhaps it hadn’t happened. He had dreamed it. Vanessa would not change into a wild woman in the night just because of a little thunder.

  He ate his egg and watched her as she sipped her coffee and turned the pages of the Sunday paper neatly. She seemed not to notice when he spilled egg on the tablecloth and even smiled at Diana when she came to take away the dishes.

  After Diana had cleared away and he was waiting to be told what was next, Vanessa laid down the newspaper, folding it so neatly that it looked as though it had never been read, got up and looked at herself a long while in the sideboard mirror. She seemed delighted with her reflection and nodded a little, congratulating it. Then she turned and said:

  ‘Look here, I’d rather you didn’t mention about last night to anyone. All right?’

  So it did happen. She was that wild thing with no lips.

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Vanessa.’

  ‘Yes, Vanessa.’

  ‘Especially to Lila and George. Promise?’

  He’d never kept anything back from Lila and George. Even what the little boy across the street had done once. But Vanessa was waiting. She leaned across the table and kissed him on the forehead. ‘Promise,’ she said in her low voice.

  ‘OK,’ he said.

  ‘Just remember,’ she said, ‘that lightning can be very dangerous and can kill you. Especially if you are near a window, under a tree or near steel. And don’t say OK—it’s American.’

  He said nothing.

  Vanessa said, ‘A promise between friends is a very serious thing, PS. It’s sacred.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘We are friends,’ she said, reminding him. ‘Now would you like to play a game?’

  They sat in the little den and played ludo. Vanessa seemed to be very bad at it for he won all the time, which, after a while, was very dull.

  Sunday stretched on and on and Vanessa followed him wherever he went, in and out of the garden, strolling close behind him, sitting near him while he looked through picture books.

  Once he said, ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Are you bored?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Had a good time?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Thank you, Vanessa.’

  Repeated it.

  She seemed to be waiting for him to say something or perhaps do something which would please her but he could think of nothing except that at five o’clock George would be coming. Perhaps Lila would be wrong about the time and send him too early.

  At five o’clock he stood looking out the window and down the drive; began to worry. Suppose it was all a big fib and George wasn’t coming at all. Suppose he had to spend the night again, spend all the long tomorrow and the next day and—

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Vanessa, right behind him.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  But there was George! Plodding up the drive in his blue suit. He ran from the room, out the front door and hurtled down the driveway, throwing himself into George’s waist and hugging him, hard, hard, around the legs.

  ‘Well, well,’ said George, ‘a grizzly bear’s got me. Oh, oh, I don’t often get a good hug like that.’ Gave him a wet and bristly kiss.

  Vanessa was watching them from the front door. She nodded to George and they said a few words to each other, both smiling and agreeing but not meaning it with their eyes. When Diana came with his suitcase, Vanessa bent to kiss him goodbye and whispered, ‘Don’t forget your promise to me. If you break your promise, I shall know.’

  He nodded, not caring about anything but going, went off down the driveway, holding George’s hand, happier at every step and beginning to skip.

  When they got to the bend in the driveway he turned around. Vanessa was standing on the front steps so he waved to her and called out, ‘Bye.’ She lifted her hand. She seemed now as small as he and even with the great, long garden between them he could tell that she was looking sad. He wanted to call out something nice but she was already going back up the steps and into the shadowy house.

  ‘BERESFORD.’

  ‘Present, Miss Pile.’

  ‘Boynton-Jones.’

  ‘Present, Miss Pile.’

  ‘Lawson.’

  ‘Present, Miss Pile.’

  ‘Put away your Yo-yo, Cynthia. We don’t play with our Yo-yo’s in class. MacArthur-Bode.’

  ‘Present, Miss Pile.’

  ‘Marriott.’

  Pause.

  ‘Marriott?’

  Shuffling, giggling, turning of heads.

  ‘Little new boy. What is your name, dear?’

  ‘PS.’

  Smothered laughter now and twenty-four eyes looking at him.

  Miss Pile rapping on the desk for silence.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘PS.’

  ‘Is that the only name you have?’


  ‘In my school—’

  ‘This is your school now, and in this school we answer the roll to our surnames. Is your surname Marriott?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Pile.’

  ‘Yesmisspile.’

  ‘When your name is called you must stand up straight, look directly at the blackboard and call out in a loud clear voice, “Present, Miss Pile.” Now then. Marriott.’

  ‘Presentmisspile.’

  ‘Rutherford.’

  ‘Present, Miss Pile.’

  So on down to W for Wiggham, while he stared down at his brand-new pencil box.

  ‘All right, boys and girls, now “God Save”. Quickly now, we’re late this morning.’

  ‘God save our gracious King.

  Long live our noble King.

  God save the King.

  Send him victorious,

  Happy and glorious,

  Long to reign ov-er us.

  Go-od save the King.’

  ‘… the King.’ He was behind the others.

  ‘All right, children, now that’s enough giggling at Marriott. He’s new and you must make him feel at home. Whose turn is it to be prefect?’

  ‘Mine, Miss Pile.’

  ‘All right, Cynthia. Blow the whistle then. Class, be seated.’

  He sat still, while Miss Pile gave the older boys and girls sums and the younger ones copying games. Then she moved towards him, a large lady in a brown velvet dress and with a moustache like George. When she smiled she had very yellow teeth like his pictures of Brer Fox.

  ‘Now then, Marriott. Have you started copying yet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Pile.’

  ‘Yes, Misspile.’

  ‘How many letters do you know?’

  ‘I know up to—um—up to haitch.’

  ‘Aitch. Not haitch. Aitch.’

  ‘My teacher calls it haitch.’

  ‘Did he? I can’t imagine where he learned the King’s English. What school did you go to, Marriott?’

  ‘Neutral Bay.’

  ‘I see. A state school. Well, now you’re at a nice private school where we pronounce things the right way and take care to keep our vowels nice and open. Say “a piece of cake”.’

  ‘Piece of cake.’

  ‘A peeece of keek. Ai would laike a naice peeece of keeek.’

  ‘I would like a nice piece of cake.’