‘Well, that’s Annie complete and utter done for,’ Nancy grunted.
Weren’t no one shouting over Aunty’s rhetorical to go disputing that.
Mother drove into the yard at twelve o’clock, and must be twenty clouds puffed up to receive her. Sickly Eliza had turned on the patio heaters and Millie Gatwick had set out the trestle table with a cloth, a vase of dried Boules and fresh bread. Evita Thrupp bubbled up Danny Zuko’s trotter stew. And I had laid out the cutlery neat and tidy.
The Communicator bing-bonged us into in line, heels against the dorm wall, quiet as church mice, please, to watch and learn table manners from civilised people. The Pontefracts wheeled down the second wind toddlers from Nursery Cottage. Mary Bootle swaggered along with Baby Sainsbury’s in her blue basket. Henry Higgins shook his ears and tugged against his tethering. And Annie St Albans weren’t nowhere to be seen.
‘Welcome old friend, welcome loved one, on this most momentous occasion!’ Aunty called out, swirling down from the High Hut in skirts wider than a cow, a tiara stuck in curly orange hair, and falling into a curtsey like she was Cinderella-ing at a ball again. ‘Her Most Glorious Ladyship’s Army, standing to attention, please!’
We saluted Mother and Mother parked up her electric chair on the far side of the table from us. Right opposite me, she stopped, looking as Heaven-cheeked, black-glassed perfect as normal, thank goodness. She gave Aunty a sorry nod. ‘Emily would like you to know that peach drains you, Miss Swindon. And one does suspect she’s absolutely right.’
And Aunty shook her finger at the air above Mother’s head, and laughed like something sharp was stuck in her chest. ‘Ho ho ho. You are a one, Emily! Ho ho ho.’
And Mother looked up Heavenly and cheeped like the most perfect chaffinch, ‘Isn’t she just!’
And we all smiled, which is what you must do when people are laughing near you. And Henry tugged on his rope and whined.
‘Stand at ease,’ Aunty shouted out. So we did. She clicked her fingers once and Mary Bootle ran up with the wine bottle. ‘Goodness, this is fun. Mangez à deux,’ Aunty said to Mother. ‘What do you say to starting with a cheeky little Beaujolais, while I spill the beans about my Very Important News?’
Mary poured the wine into Aunty’s glass.
Mother raised a finger. So Millie Gatwick ran up and poured water into Mother’s glass. Perfect dribble-free, she did it, I have to say.
Aunty clicked her fingers twice and Evita Thrupp ran off to the kitchen for the stew. And lined up at ease against the dorm wall, all us others opened our ears for catching something of this news. Aunty said, ‘Cheers’ and drank off her glass, and Mother said, ‘Will you bloody well get on with it, Frumps.’
Aunty smiled. ‘My contact in Kyoto says that subject to guarantees of virginity, he can probably shift three in the first batch. I assured him it wouldn’t be a problem.’
Mother jumped up out of her chair, so her water glass fell down on the table. But happen she hadn’t made up her mind to go anywhere because she just punched up a fist and whispered, ‘At last’ and sat down. Most fortunate she didn’t look to be made wet.
Millie ran off to the kitchen for another glass, and Mother punched up her fist again at Heaven. Aunty sang out, ‘Three little girls from school are we!’
So as silly Sandra sang on, ‘Pert as a schoolgirl well can be.’
So as Aunty shouted back ‘QUIET! Church mice are seen and not heard, Sandra.’
‘This is the best news since I don’t know when!’ Aunty said to Mother. ‘Since a teeny promotion in West Bromwich, probably. It’s quite something, you know, breeding up a nest and watching them fly. Oh, but I mustn’t get emotional, this is not about endings, it’s new beginnings! This means a new lip – possibly a nose – maybe even some sort of prosthetic eyeball. It’s life! Well, a chance at life at least!’ Aunty drank off her glass, and Mary filled it right up. ‘Three now, perhaps another three in a couple of months! At this rate I’ll be in South America in a year! Cheers!’
Aunty looked at Mother, who was smiling at the air. Aunty leaned close, ‘I was going to bring this up later, your Ladyship, but you know how I feel about the toddlers, and that new one. I know it’s a sickness, but please, Genevieve, I beg you, return them now. Fifteen, we agreed, would be all the weapons you required. That’s what we agreed. And now your weapons are primed and there are targets in sight, we are ready to go go go!’
Mother’s chin tipped Heavenly away from Aunty.
‘It’s not as if they’re speaking yet. You could dump them just about anywhere.’
And Mother’s voice hissed out Heavenly without her teeth opening at all, ‘Emily says she likes having them around.’
‘That’s sweet of Emily, but forgive me for wondering, your Ladyship, but is it fair that I squander another decade simply because you have a problem controlling yourself in service stations? A bird born to sing cannot live out its days in a cage.’
Mother said nothing but smiled up to Heaven, ‘Don’t worry, my darling, I will make those demonmales suffer like you suffered. Bone for your bone, blood for your blood—’
‘South America is crying out for my music,’ Aunty said. ‘Don’t you even want to know how much we’re getting?’
Mother said nothing, so Aunty carried on, ‘It hasn’t been finalised, but I expect we’ll get fifty per cent up front, and the rest on delivery. I’ve been told the Japs are top payers. I should imagine we’ll clear one hundred K with this lot.’ And Aunty sat back so happy that she had to sing out ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ and finish off the wine bottle without Mary even doing the pouring.
I looked at Dorothy and I looked at Nancy, and though we needed to be quiet as church mice, my teeth were itching to start sorting meaning from this. Dorothy would know best if all this talk finally meant we were off to War.
Henry butted the fence. Mother turned to look at him. She nodded. ‘Good question, angelkins, I’ll ask. Miss Swindon, darling clever Emily’s wondering how we know they’re ready for it. That when they’re out there alone, they’ll actually—’
Aunty chuckled, ‘Oh, they’re ready all right. Let’s do it now shall we? Nancy, fetch out the butching knives!’ She drank off another glass, and swivelled around on her bale to face us. ‘Step forward, Sandra Saffron Walden, Annie St Albans and Mary Bootle. Congratulations, you are Pick of the Crop! Top of the Pops! Prepare to receive some exciting news! Prepare to demonstrate Full Frontal Throat Slitting! You others, get ready for a chorus of “Congratulations!” A one, a two, a one, two, three and – HOLD IT!’
Aunty’s wineglass came flying over the yard and smashed on the planks above Dorothy’s head. ‘Where is Annie?’
Aunty’s bale went squealing backwards on the concrete. ‘Who has done what to Annie?’
Aunty was up and at us. And what weren’t melted on her face was blotched purple. ‘WHERE HAS ANNIE ST ALBANS GONE?’
It was ‘a sorry old scene’, that’s what Emily said to Mother and Mother said to Aunty, ‘and it’s going to look cataclysmically unprofessional, isn’t it, Frumps, to make our first delivery with a third of the order missing.’
Emily was right about that, I know that for sure. There we were, stood in line with our arms stretched up to Heaven, praying to the Goddess Daughter to find Annie and bring her back quicksharp. And there was Aunty with Mr Stick thrashing between our bodies, in case Annie was hiding somewhere in the line. Which we all knew she wasn’t.
And I can tell you this – it doesn’t take five minutes before this manner of praying seeds pain in a body. First off, your fingers turn to needles, then your blood clots up in your elbows, and after this your shoulders turn to stone. Soon enough, your arms are throbbing like a hundred wasps are stinging them at once. Nancy said this is when your hands may as well get chopped off and taken for pigfood.
Mother’s voice came drifting over. ‘Oh absolutely, Emily, they do blub excessively, don’t they? When, really, they shouldn’t. Really, they should re
alise they are extraordin-arily lucky. It’s quite perfect, this Garden, for minors. Yes, angelkins, Mummy does wish her children’s home had been more like this. Oh yes, angelkins, it is absolutely ideal for minors, fresh air, free-range, men-free.’
All sudden, the air between me and Dorothy whooshed and split apart. Aunty’s eye bulged red and blue and close. Her breath blew medicinal. ‘Calamity, dearest, I recall you promised to keep an eye on Annie for me. All that cake, sweetie. And our little deal.’
Before I could stop them, my eyes went to Mother.
‘Yes, niece, it’s still up for grabs.’
And my eyes looked on Mother’s black glasses, and my mind ran away to thinking on them two eyes kept safe behind. Most probably they were gold like a comb of honey. Or gold like Aunty’s medicine, or like the yolk spilling from a fresh-cracked egg. One of these golds, that’s how Mother’s Heavenly eyes would surely be.
Down the line, Eliza Aberdeen fainted, but Aunty kept her eye on me. ‘So, my little flap-eared friend, what’s it to be?’
And I thought about telling the truth right then, and not just because Aunty’s breath was rusting in my ear, and not just because I was her bestest pal, and not just because my fingers were ready to drop, and every other body’s were too. No, I thought about telling it because everybody knows the truth needs telling, so I got myself ready to shout it. ‘Annie is gone off to the Outside, Aunty!’ that’s what I would shout. ‘Annie is gone through the Wall!’ And like I say, I got my tongue ready for it.
Only my brain said, ‘Stop a minute, Calamity,’ and not just because Nancy’s heel was inching towards my toes. No, see, if I did say on Annie going off Outside, well, Mother would surely spin her chair around and drive off in immediate distress, and nothing would be left but Aunty’s voice swelling with rightful anger. And Aunty would say, ‘Weren’t you watching Annie when she went through the Wall?’ And I would have to say, ‘Not this morning, I wasn’t, Aunty. Sorry.’
‘Dear oh dear,’ she would say. ‘Deal’s off then.’
And she would be right.
And I wouldn’t ever know about Mother’s eyes, would I?
No.
So I kept my face turned down to concrete, and I squeezed up my shoulders and sucked in my belly and bit on my lip, and I waited for Mr Stick to correct me.
‘Fickle as the wind,’ Aunty breathed in my ear, ‘that’s your trouble.’
She spun herself away from me and thwacked Mr Stick into the Boule vase on the table – crash, bash, smash – shouting out about people letting people down, even the ugly ones. Where has loyalty gone in the world? Where? Where?
‘There,’ Mother said. ‘There.’
‘Nowhere,’ Aunty howled. ‘That’s where.’
‘No. Over there, Miss Swindon. There at the gate. What is that thing?’
Annie St Albans, it was, flinging herself into the yard, her smock smeared yellow, her headscarf flapping loose, and a dead hen swinging from her hand. Like that made sense of everything.
Henry jerked his rope and snorted. Mother put a hand to her mouth and hissed like laughter. Aunty shoved up her hair and re-stuck her tiara. She didn’t look anywhere but the table, as Annie skidded up and backed into her place between Dorothy and me.
‘Nieces, not a word from any of you,’ Aunty said. ‘It seems the Goddess Daughter has answered your prayers. You may sit down. You, Annie St Albans, may not. Get yourself over here. Stand behind me, and I don’t want to hear a peep out of you, unless you’d like to receive a sound thrashing.’
Aunty click-click-clicked all her fingers at once and yelled at Evita to fetch out Danny Zuko’s trotter stew. Aunty didn’t bother to look at Annie, because she said she didn’t want some guttersnipe ruining her digestion. Only after Aunty had eaten three bowlfuls, did she turn round on her bale. ‘Niece St Albans, how kind of you to—’
And Aunty’s voice stopped.
For sure, she was a terrible wild sight, Annie was, with Desiree Armfeldt, our top-laying bantam, dangled head-down from her fist. But I don’t reckon it was the sight of deadmeat Desiree that swallowed up Aunty’s words. Nor was it the chickenshit shining on Annie’s smock and hair. No, I reckon it was Annie’s eyes that did it. Annie lifted her face and looked at Aunty, and even from the dorm wall, I could see that something had gotten itself trapped inside them eyes. It was like the tiniest splinters of the sky lid had trapped themselves in there, that’s what it seemed.
Aunty wiped off her mouth on the table cloth and tried her voice again. ‘Well, niece, never mind that you missed the happiest news of your life. Never mind that your sisters’ hands nearly fell off while they prayed for your safe return. Life is too short for blame, and besides, today I find myself in an uncommonly charitable mood. I suggest you make the most of it. Your explanation for this unacceptable absenteeism is what exactly?’
Annie’s face crumpled, ‘Oh, Aunty, I am sorry. Please forgive me. And please, Mother and Emily, forgive me. And sisters, please forgive me too.’ And here’s the funny thing. Every word came out of Annie soaked in sorrow, but when she lifted up her eyes to look at Aunty, well, they just danced and danced and danced.
‘Get on with it, girl.’
‘I know I’ve been foolish, Aunty. It’s just I was cleaning the hen coops this morning, and poor Desiree Armfeldt here—’ Annie lifted that bird so close, Aunty had to slap it away ‘—well, poor Desiree Armfeldt was nowhere to be seen. So I went off hunting for her – I mean only because of her being the top layer – any of the others I wouldn’t bother over, but three-eggs-a-day Desiree is special. And I’m out in the bog looking for her, when I hear the wok-wok-woking. Full of fear it was. And I run back to the orchard, and surprise surprise, there’s Desiree up the tallest Victoria plum. And she looks awful stuck. So I don’t think of the danger and I climb up after her. And Desiree goes flapping to the end of her branch, and the branch breaks and she falls, and I fall – which I know is terrible clumsy of me – and I must have hit the sense from my head in landing, because the next thing I know, I’m waking up feeling something squeaky under me. And, well, Aunty, it seems in landing, I went and squashed poor Desiree Armfeldt to death.’
Well. Weren’t just Desiree Armfeldt open-mouthed at hearing this tale.
Aunty’s eye crept across to the hen, who was looking, to say true, about half the width she was in life. ‘Let’s see.’
Annie held out Desiree.
‘Your head, niece.’
Aunty tugged off Annie’s headscarf and rummaged under her curls. ‘You do feel a little feverish, niece. I guess we shouldn’t take any chances if I’m to have you off my hands asap. Give that bird to Nancy, and get yourself washed off and into the mending room. I will be along to deal with you shortly.’
Aunty’s eye followed Annie to the standpipe.
Mother threw a bread lump at Henry’s rump. ‘Good heavens, Miss Swindon, would you do one the honour of finally getting on with the demonstration? Emily says this side of the table has been extraordinarily patient. And one has to concur completely – she’s right.’
BATH
I ASK JANE JONES for a butching knife today. She has taken me for a wash in a tub. Which I would have said no thanks to, but I am wheeled into another room for it, so we are safe to talk without demonmale ears listening in to what isn’t their business yet.
Jane Jones turns on the taps, and under the water’s noise I ask her.
‘Oh, goodness me, sweetheart, you don’t need a knife,’ she says.
‘I don’t?’
‘What’s there to butcher in here?’
I think about the K pages in the Appendix, with all the pictures stuck in –
Keep a knife in your knickers twenty-four-seven, because you never know when the perfect opportunity will arise. Mother requests you get one asap on arrival Outside. It needn’t be much – a stiletto (see A. below) or even some kind of Swiss Army jobbie (see B.) will probably do.
‘Does Elizabeth Jones not have a knife?�
� I say.
Jane Jones turns off the tap and fixes me with a stare, which she does very well. ‘No, she most certainly does not!’ And Jane Jones huffs and puffs and turns the taps, so they gush the Goddess Daughter’s own steam out. And for a moment, I watch her puffing, and I think she’s going to go up right now, ascending in the steam, leaving me to start the War on my own. And I think maybe I have spoken of things that aren’t to be spoken of Outside.
And BTW, mum’s the word about our plans, nieces! Careless talk costs lives!
‘I am sorry, Jane Jones,’ I say quick. ‘I don’t need a knife.’
‘No, of course you don’t.’ Jane Jones looks at me, and she stops huffing and puffing and smiles. ‘Nasty things, knives,’ she says. And then she adds a wink.
So I wink back, course.
Like that, we are understood without careless talk. Just like it is written. And I wonder what sort she will bring me. And how soon it will come.
Though I am dropped in something like a potato in a pot for boiling, I tell Jane Jones I reckon I could get to like sitting in warm water. Special this water. Because Jane Jones has put gardenia oil in it. Because she says she knows how I like roses. And I know when she says that, really she means she’s making me clean and perfumed as a petal for what I am going to do very soon. It’s very important to smell good, because –
Just as a rose lures the honeybee, a sweet-smelling perfume entices intimacy.
The First Book of Calamity Leek Page 14