Anna-Marie’s lip was stiff, every bit as cross as Mr Kirrin. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’d better just have the jelly babies,’ but then: ‘Oh, shoot,’ she said, ‘I haven’t got my purse. Peter, could you lend me … Sorry, how much is it? Maths isn’t my strong suit.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’ve—’
‘Oh, well, never mind. I’m awfully sorry, Mr Kirrin. It looks like I won’t be buying anything. Today.’
‘Did you hear that voice?’ asked Anna-Marie as we left the shop and poor Mr Kirrin. ‘When we first went in? You know who that was, don’t you?’
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure how I was expected to know.
‘That was Norman.’
‘Norman who?’
Anna-Marie met my blank expression with disgust. ‘Norman Kirrin,’ she said. ‘How many Normans do you know?’
Well, in fact, I didn’t know any.
‘I’d give anything to get that fairy,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘I don’t know why the old ogre won’t sell it to me. He’s very fond of me.’ I must’ve looked doubtful. ‘Why wouldn’t he be?’ she said, tossing her pebble. ‘I’m very two-faced.’
But I was thinking about that ring. I hadn’t seen a price but I was already wondering how many pennies were floating around inside that piggy-bank. It hadn’t sounded like much but it was a start. I thought how good it would be to be able to buy it for Kat. No, not good. It would be better than good.
It would be reprehensible.
As we made our way back towards Everlasting Lane the sun burned like a roaring lion, the fiercest it’d been since raising its head above the horizon that morning. Sunlight bled at the edges of the long shadows creeping across our path. I felt as if I’d woken in one world and crossed into another and never even noticed the two meeting at the border.
‘We’ll go back along the river,’ instructed Anna-Marie, and we descended a steep bank hidden behind trees to the side of the bridge.
And I felt tired. I couldn’t quite remember when I’d last slept. It seemed unreal how the day had stretched, gathering everything like a mystic band.
Anna-Marie asked, ‘Do you like living here?’
‘I suppose,’ I said.
‘But you’d rather be with your mother.’
I picked up a stick and tapped it on the ground as we walked. ‘I suppose.’
‘You really have quite a vocabulary,’ said Anna-Marie.
‘Do you like living here?’
‘Do you know,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘for such a spud, you are reasonably adept at avoiding questions you don’t want to answer, but I wouldn’t want you to think I hadn’t noticed. In answer to your question, however, I can certainly think of a lot worse places to be. I like the lane,’ she said. ‘Everlasting Lane. I like the sound of it.’ She repeated it: ‘Everlasting-Lane,’ letting her tongue curl about its syllables. ‘What if …?’ Anna-Marie stopped and looked at me, weighing me up. ‘What if it really did last forever?’ she asked me. ‘The lane.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Me?’ She threw her head back as she walked along. ‘I don’t mean anything.’
I thought about the lane wondering whether it really could last forever, whether you’d see Australians and kangaroos, Eskimos and igloos, Red Indians and buffaloes. I walked and wondered and, in my mind, tapped out our route around the world with my stick.
As we reached the point along the path that backed onto the trees separating us from Kat’s garden, I saw a strange thing. On the opposite bank was a field, and in that field I could see a man—close enough to see but too far off to see clearly. He was standing right in the middle of the field turning and looking first to the north, then to the east, then to the south and so on, each direction in turn, round and round, as if waiting for something to leap out at him from beyond the horizon.
‘Who’s that?’
‘Who? Oh, him. That’s the Scarecrow Man.’
‘What’s he doing?’
Anna-Marie shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Scaring crows?’
We slipped between the trees and through a rusted old gate into Kat’s back garden. We heard a voice barking: ‘Anna-Marie! Where are you? Come here! Right now, Anna-Marie!’ It threatened to jump angrily over the dividing fence.
Anna-Marie scowled. ‘Now that,’ she hissed, ‘is my mother. I’d better go.’ Half way down the garden path she stopped, turned to face me, and said, ‘I’m sorry about your dad.’ And then, ‘Who’s your favourite Roller?’
‘What?’
‘Roller, numbskull—your favourite Roller? There’s Les, Derek, Eric, Woody or Ian! Who’s your favourite?’
‘Woody,’ I said. I liked the sound of the name.
‘Hmm,’ said Anna-Marie. And then, ‘See you tomorrow, numbskull!’ With that she ran off, her plimsoll slap, slap, slapping on the dry garden path.
I glanced up at the cottage. There was a light on in one of the upstairs rooms and I could see where Kat had stuck that strip of cardboard in place of the broken pane. There was something odd about it but for now I was too tired to think what it was.
I entered the kitchen through the back door only to be swallowed up by smoke and a burning smell rising from the baked beans bubbling on the stove. Leaving the door open and seizing a wooden spoon, I investigated the thick orange lump at the bottom of the pan. I wrapped a tea-towel around my hand and lifted the saucepan from the hot coil.
‘Mum!’ I called, and then, ‘Kat!’ I popped my head into the lounge. No. I went to the stairs and called up: ‘Kat! Kat!’
Perhaps she was asleep. I ran up the stairs, thumped once on her bedroom door and plunged in. No: the room was empty. My bedroom? No. Locked in the lavatory? No.
I returned to the kitchen and attempted to wave the lingering smoke into the garden.
‘Peter?’ At last. ‘What’s that terrible smell?’ Kat was descending the stairs, a teacup in her hand. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she said examining the contents of the pan. ‘I must’ve fallen asleep. Lucky you came home or I might’ve set the whole place on fire.’
She scooped what was left of the beans onto two plates and grated cheese over the top of mine.
‘What’s up with you?’ she said as she put the plates on the table. ‘Cat got your tongue?’
6
‘Is it much further?’
‘No,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘It’s over there.’
I followed Anna-Marie’s finger, through nettles and trees, across the river. I could just make out a … a fence. ‘It’s a fence.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Oh.’
When I’d seen Anna-Marie, wearing a denim skirt and a white T-shirt with tartan trimmings, lurking outside the front door that morning and promising me ‘a secret’ I hadn’t thought of, well, a fence.
‘Come on,’ she snapped, tugging my sleeve.
So, on we went. The fence disappeared but I could see a roof, grey slate, two or three stories up. ‘It’s a roof.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Come on. Come on.’
And now the building itself came into view: red bricks and white-framed windows; the ground floor, also white, jutted out. The fence reappeared, a bit more of the roof and a smooth lawn sloping down towards the river. A little further and a chimney emerged. And then another. And then another.
We reached a point opposite the building where our view of the lawn was blocked by the thickest wall of nettles yet rising as high as our chins. We couldn’t see the chimneys or the fence any more but it was the best sight of the building. Anna-Marie stretched to improve her view, stamping her feet in frustration, as close to the nettles as she dared, willing them apart. But they were so dense and tangled that eventually she sighed. ‘We can sit down a little further up,’ she said grudgingly, ‘but we can’t see as much.’
There was a path, of sorts, where the nettles weren’t so thick and someone, I guessed Anna-Marie, had made their way on previous expeditions.
‘Follow me,’ an
d, arms above her head, Anna-Marie shimmied sideways through the nettles. When I raised my arms, my T-shirt exposed the bare belly above my shorts and I was soon aware of the gentle touch of the poisoned leaves. I followed, smarting and yelping in pain, whilst my companion laughed and laughed at my complaints. By the time we emerged and settled beneath a great Frankenstein’s monster of a tree, I had decided to keep my suffering to myself.
‘Phew,’ said Anna-Marie throwing herself down on the grassy bank beside the living river. ‘I’m crackered.’
I rested on a tree stump, listening to the birds, and watching midges and butterflies playing in the sun. Anna-Marie slipped off her plimsolls and socks and slid her feet into the cold water. It twinkled between her toes.
‘Won’t we get caught?’
‘Not if you shut up we won’t,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘What do you think? Isn’t it beautiful?’
And it was kind of beautiful. The red brick glowed like fire in a grate whilst the lawn and the tall trees that stood to either side produced a splendid light of their own. It was like a deep and peaceful dream far from the distant fury of the waking world.
‘C-c-come on in,’ she said, ‘the water’s f-f-freezing.’ The only water I’d ever put between my toes had been warm and soapy. But she patted the ground beside her. ‘I insist,’ she said. And, once I’d joined her, ‘Well done. Now, take off your sandals and I … will show you some magic.’
Her lips were amused but I couldn’t read the look in her eyes at all.
‘Now, close them—your eyes—tight. And put your feet in the water. Oh, come on, it won’t kill you. Good. Now, keep your feet very still. Now, wait and you will feel the water … turn … to stone. Don’t move or you’ll break the spell.’
‘It’s cold,’ I said. ‘It … It tickles.’
Anna-Marie giggled. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Now, don’t move,’ she warned. ‘It pinches if you move.’
‘What is it?’ I asked meaning the strange building.
‘That,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘is the Lodge.’
I peered at it. ‘But what is it?’
‘Well,’ Anna-Marie paused, ‘it’s a hospital.’
‘A what?’
‘A hos-pea-tal.’
‘A hospital?’
‘Of sorts. Listen, you are English, aren’t you? Should I make sure I use,’ she raised her voice, ‘ea-zee-words.’
I frowned. It didn’t look like any hospital I’d ever seen.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘I didn’t realise you were an expert. When you kept asking what it was, I naturally assumed you were a moron.’
‘Well, what sort of hospital? What are the people patients of?’
‘Oh, very grammatical,’ congratulated Anna-Marie. ‘They are patients,’ she said, ‘of life. It’s a very serious condition. The worst thing is that most of them don’t even know they’re ill. They’re the ones who suffer the most I think. Anyway,’ she explained, ‘they come to take the waters.’ She suddenly smacked me, hard, on the back of my head. ‘Look,’ she snapped, ‘do you think I’m making this up?’
‘No,’ I grumbled rubbing the point of impact.
‘Okay,’ she laughed. ‘Let me show you around. Over there, look, to the left, are the stables. I don’t mean for horses. It’s been … what’s the word?… converted. It’s rooms and whatnot now and you see that clock, well … well, you can’t really see the clock from here, but if you go a little further along, you can just see it. It’s two hundred years old and keeps perfect time. Over there,’ she went on, ‘is a tennis court, but they don’t use it much anymore, at least I’ve never seen anyone play, that’s why there’s no net and all the chairs are scattered about.’
‘What chairs?’
‘Well, you can’t see them. You have to use your imagination … if you have one. There are three floors and the patients either have their own rooms or they share, but they aren’t like hospital wards or anything like that.
‘Those big doors open out onto the garden. Surely even you can see that. And there’s a piano in there and comfy chairs for the patients and a television and everything. The piano may not work. I’ve hardly ever heard anyone play it.’
‘Where are the patients?’
‘They’re in bed, of course. It’s a hospital, not Colditz.’
‘What do they look like?’
‘You’ll see. Oh, don’t look so worried. They’re not deformed, if that’s what you mean. At least not on the outside. It’s life, Peter. No one’s immune.’
‘How do you know so much about it?’
‘Well, I’ve got eyes, haven’t I?’ She put her hands to her face in a panic. ‘I’m sure I remember putting them in this morning. Oh, oh, what a relief!’ she exclaimed. ‘They are there after all.’
The day was warm and getting warmer. Anna-Marie seemed quite content to sit, wait and wiggle her toes in the smooth flowing water, the shadows of leaves drifting back and forth across her face like camouflage. I tried to match her peaceful expression.
‘Look. Someone’s coming.’
The big doors opened from within. A short, fat woman in a pink smock with a horse’s behind came out onto the patio. She scraped two heavy plant pots across the flagstones so that first one and then both of the double doors were wedged open.
‘Who’s that?’
‘Oh, what does that matter?’ barked Anna-Marie and my lips zipped themselves shut.
The woman fetched a garden chair from a pile stacked against the wall of the building and opened it with a snap that echoed in the still air. She positioned it on the edge of the patio facing the river. She then fetched a second and a third and so on until she had placed maybe half a dozen chairs in a row, each a couple of feet from its neighbours.
She disappeared back inside only to return a few moments later, her arm looped through that of an old woman with thin white hair, blinking as she shuffled out into the bright sunlight. She was wearing a nightgown and a knitted top with bright buttons. The fat woman led the old lady down to one of the garden chairs, folded her thin bones into place and then left. Within a minute she was back, this time escorting a younger man with a big round face. Several times the lady in the pink smock departed and returned until she had assembled her patients like battalions on the living room carpet, heads nodding like dandelions in the wind.
Anna-Marie pulled an apple from her back pocket and bit a chunk. ‘So, what do you think?’ she asked mid-chew, gazing across the water and wobbling her toes in the cool river. ‘Do you know I can’t think of anything you could do—anything—that wouldn’t be better if you could do it there. I mean, if I was ill then this is just the sort of hospital I’d want to come to. Wouldn’t you?’ A butterfly appeared, its wings pink and I watched hypnotised as it settled like a ribbon upon Anna-Marie’s silky-smooth hair. ‘I said, wouldn’t you?’ She flapped her hand, her long, delicate fingers, once, and it, the butterfly, scuttered off across the river. ‘Peter, I’m trying to …
‘What are you gawping at, dimwit?’
‘I … I …’
‘You know,’ she said with a yawn, revealing the contents of her mouth, ‘I think this weather’s getting to you. I’m not surprised you’re the first. Your grip on reality seems so … tenuous.’
‘No, I—’
‘How is the weather on Planet Peter? Is it barmy?’
Anna-Marie had gone home for tea. It was school in the morning and her mother insisted on an early night. And that’s how I found myself alone in Kat’s garden among the brambles and tall grass, staring at the upstairs window: the upstairs window on the left with the pink curtains and the broken pane. I could see where Kat had stuck that strip of cardboard. Yes, there was definitely something odd. I counted the windows and then counted them again. It didn’t take long. There were only three of them: the bathroom window, my window and the window with the pink curtains.
Was I the stupidest boy who’d ever lived, I wondered, or just one of the stupid
est?
My mind entered the cottage through the back door, crept through the kitchen where Kat was scrambling eggs and up the creaky stairs. On the landing to the right was her bedroom door and the window that overlooked the drive; to the left, the bathroom and my door. My curtains were blue and the bathroom had a blind and that rippled glass so you can’t look in and spy on people when they’re naked. Kat’s curtains were all flowery and they faced the front anyway. None were pink.
And then I remembered when the beans had been burning and I’d been looking for Kat all that time and Kat hadn’t been upstairs but had been upstairs. And then I remembered the four keys on Kat’s key-ring.
But there were only three doors.
And then I remembered the big, green drape. And then I wondered what it was hiding.
PART II
Every Story Needs a Secret Room
7
Mi name is Peter Lambert. I am 10 years old. I live in Everlasting Lane. Today is mi first day at new mi new school. Mi teacher is Mr Gale who is very nise. The hedmistres is Mrs Crapenter who is very nise. I sit next to Tommie who is very—
My piece of paper was whipped from beneath my pencil. I’d already written ‘ni …’ on the table-top before I realised. Mr Gale adjusted his glasses and stroked his blue tie as he read my work.
‘Well, I can see what you’re getting at … But you’ve got yourself into a bit of a rut, haven’t you, Lambchop? And this handwriting: typical left-hander but how old are you?’ Mr Gale’s meaty fist crushed my work into a ball and tossed it in the direction of—but not into—the bin. ‘Tell me something about yourself, not all this … this … this crap about how nice everybody is. Besides,’ he added, wandering off among the desks, a red tick here, a red cross there, ‘I’m not that nice.’
Maybe he was right. Ten minutes into my first lesson he’d christened me Lambchop and I wasn’t pleased. I didn’t feel like a Lambchop and I didn’t want to be one. It’s like Kat said, a name is important but—
Everlasting Lane Page 4