‘Difficult times, Norman,’ muttered Mr Kirrin. ‘Dreadful times. Greg,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the shop, ‘was in the RAF. Very dashing he was, with a glorious,’ he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together twirling an imaginary, ‘handlebar moustache. Me: I was in the army: eighth army to be precise.’ He shot to his feet, snapping to attention and saluting, cast on the opposite wall, his own thin shadow: ‘Kirrin, Norman, 70th Infantry Division, Sah! Africa and Italy,’ and then he laughed. ‘Your face, Peter, says it all. No,’ he reclaimed his seat shaking his head wearily, ‘I wasn’t much of a soldier then either.’
For a whole minute Norman sat with his forehead resting on the back of his right hand. I took the opportunity to rescue the crunched ball of paper from the mug and sneak it into the pocket of my shorts. When he continued speaking his voice was, at first, a mumble: ‘Her name was Lois,’ he said. ‘What can I say about Lois? There’s nothing to say except that she was … extraordinarily light. I used to tell her she could fly if only she’d flap her wings hard enough. But she never would try. I don’t know why. She never would indulge … She looked like Deanna Durbin, you know? The movie star? Well, of course not. But anyway, she wanted … stability.’ He laughed. ‘Didn’t we all? And I wanted … her. And peace. To me the two … the two concepts … were inextricably linked,’ and he entwined his fingers like a church roof. And then he said:
What matter the decades turned to dust?
Twenty, thirty, forty years a sparkle in your eye.
Kisses preserved and pressed like leaves in the soft cement of time,
Our wanton lips together dance like sun upon the Serpentine.
Ma vie sans tu est finie.
She laughs. What did Horace say, Winnie?
And then he laughed again. And then he stopped short. ‘Do you understand the word “wanton”?’ I shook my head. ‘It’s probably for the best,’ he said with a thin smile.
‘Anyway, I asked Lois to marry me—I proposed—Hyde Park, 1942:
And Eros, melancholy-drunk, somewhat lop-sided,
Peppers Hyde Park with missiles misguided.
‘But she declined the offer. She’d met a man—a butcher, as I recall—who for reasons unknown … Perhaps it was just one of those jobs we couldn’t do without. Butchery! How out of place that would’ve seemed on the battlefield. Perhaps even in the face of the oncoming Nazi hordes we couldn’t do without the great British banger feeding and fortifying the generations. Lord preserve us,’ his voice had begun to climb, ‘from having to face the day without six inches of pig fat and gristle shoved into an intestinal sock,’ climbing like a schoolboy up a tree. ‘ “The rest of you,” says good old Mr Churchill, “are expendable as long as the young ladies of Blighty are getting a regular diet of good old British saus …” ’ Norman, blushing, stopped and looked at me. He certainly didn’t sound like The Archers now. ‘I apologise, Peter,’ he muttered. ‘You are witness to levels of cheap innuendo that would disgrace the business end of a seaside postcard.
‘My point is, and I feel, Norman, that you must hurry to address your point before young Peter is as old and meaningless as you are, is this: Lois had a secret and it was my failure to discover the truth of her secret that threw her towards the faithless arms of the butcher. And that is why I would encourage you to persist in your endeavours. Half a secret, half the truth, is no better than no truth at all and where would we be, Peter, without the truth?’
‘But …’ I waited.
‘Go on. Go on. I know you can do it.’
‘That thing you said about never knowing whether you’d be alive or dead at the end of the day …’
‘Yes. Yes.’
‘Isn’t that always true? I mean, when I woke up this morning I didn’t know whether I’d even be alive at lunchtime. I mean, not really. We don’t even really know whether we’ll be alive at bedtime, do we?’
Norman Kirrin shook his head. ‘You’re right, Peter,’ he said. ‘We don’t know. Not really.’
The afternoon sun grazed my head as I walked back to Everlasting Lane, its gaze finding me even beneath the shelter of the trees.
I unscrunched the ball of paper which I had taken from Norman’s kitchen. It read:
Anna-Marie met Peter in Everlasting Lane.
He said: ‘I have a secret.’
She said: ‘A secret is like another word for what’s true.’
And the consequence was: Peter had to choose!
But choose what? Mr Kirrin hadn’t been as much help as I’d hoped.
As I approached the cottage I could see Anna-Marie perched on the wall waiting for me, her hand sliding along Kitty’s silky back. She looked up but said nothing, occasionally flicking her hair from her eyes as I approached. Eventually I stood before her and prepared myself for the usual—
‘Peter,’ she said softly, ‘I need your help.’
I hadn’t expected that at all. ‘What?’
She glanced back at the cottage. ‘I’ve been up all night,’ she whispered. ‘I knew there was something about the nursery that didn’t make any sense. I mean apart from the fact that it existed at all.’
‘What?’ I didn’t know what she meant.
Anna-Marie growled. ‘Look, Peter, it’s like I said: that nursery didn’t spring into existence the moment you and Kat arrived, did it? I mean you’ve only lived here five minutes.’
‘But—’
‘Oh, give me strength.’ She stood and seized the lapels of my T-shirt, pulling the collar tight around my neck. ‘Do I look like an idiot? You’re not talking to Tommie, you know. That nursery must have been there when the old lady, Mrs Whatnot, Mrs Goodwin her name was, the nursery was there when she lived there. Yes?’
I nodded. Ever so slightly. I didn’t want to encourage her if I could help it.
‘And then I thought but that doesn’t make any sense either because Kat’s still keeping it a secret from you, isn’t she?’
I—
‘Isn’t she, Peter?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then she was next to your Grandma’s grave. So, what I want to know is why is Kat protecting you from some old woman’s secret?’
‘I think,’ I said, and cleared my throat, ‘I think she was my grandma: Mrs What-not.’
‘I beg your pardon.’ Anna-Marie’s fingers had released my collar and were trying to rub the tired shadows from her eyes. ‘Who? What are you talking about?’
‘The old woman,’ I said. ‘I think she was—’
Anna-Marie slapped her forehead with the open palm of her hand. ‘Your Grandma. Of course. It’s so obvious. Now we’re getting somewhere.’
‘And I lived here when I was little.’
‘You lived here? Why didn’t you tell me, Peter? That’s a clue. A really important—’
‘But you said no one even recognises a clue until twenty pages after they’ve seen it.’
‘That,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘is no excuse.’
PART III
Who Digs the Gravedigger’s Grave?
19
We were sat on the riverbank opposite the Lodge. It was early Sunday morning, the day before we went back to school, and a lazy morning mist hung over the nettles and the tall meadows, yellows, blues and reds sprinkled on top. Anna-Marie and I had settled beneath the branches of the great tree. I overturned a piece of bark, still damp with dew, and watched the woodlice scatter for cover. Ants marched backwards and forwards along a branch, bits of leaf or twig balanced on their shoulders, an everlasting stream pushing upwards like the man in that story forever pushing his boulder up a mountain.
I sat beside Anna-Marie, her thin leg close to mine, listening to the rattle of the leaves, the birdsong and the busyness of the insects. We held our breaths and watched a family of wild rabbits appear on the Lodge’s golden lawn, nervous and sniffing the warm air. Time drifted like smoke across the morning, nature unfolding before us, and we watched in wonder as …
Well, actually we got bored and
began unwrapping and stuffing ourselves with sandwiches.
Anna-Marie was saying something about the Bay City Rollers and how much Alice liked them but I wasn’t really listening. It was like I had all these things in my head squeezed together like Mr Gale’s class on the story carpet, all shoving and snapping at each other and saying: ‘Think about me! Think about me!’ and my voice like Mr Gale’s saying, ‘Pipe down, squids, or we’ll never get this bloody story finished.’
It was funny because thoughts are just like words really—words in your head—but bigger somehow. And I had such a lot of thoughts to think about that I didn’t really want to think about. It didn’t seem fair that Anna-Marie’s talking was forcing me to keep everything in my head, so I said, ‘What do you think she’ll do when she finds out about the vase?’
‘What?’ said Anna-Marie crossly. ‘Who?’
‘Mrs Carpenter!’
‘Oh, that,’ said Anna-Marie belching cheese and onion. ‘I don’t know, do I. She can’t do anything to me, can she. I’m leaving in a few weeks anyway. And I’ll be glad too—horrible little place.’
‘But why don’t you like it?’ I asked. ‘School I mean. I thought you were clever.’
‘Cleverer than you anyway,’ she said with a sigh, nibbling the rim of her Jaffa cake. ‘Look, Peter, it’s got nothing to do with what I like. The school, that is the teachers, Mrs Carpenter: they don’t like me. Except Mr Gale. He’s all right. It’s like I told you before: kids do stupid things because they never think about the consequences; adults hardly do anything because that’s all they think about. Mr Gale’s a bit of both. He makes school more interesting.’
‘But Tommie says Mr Gale’s mad,’ I said. ‘He could’ve killed Tommie. Sometimes he’s like a big kid.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ she said with a yawn. ‘Anyway, schools are for sheep.’
‘Sheep?’
‘Of course, mutton-head.’ She popped the centre of her Jaffa cake into her mouth like one of those aspirins my mum used to take whenever her leg was bothering her. ‘If there was a school in the whole of England that taught children anything worth knowing they’d bolt the doors quicker than you could recite your two times table. By which I mean,’ she added under her breath, ‘within the hour.’
‘But why doesn’t Mrs Carpenter like you?’
Anna-Marie gazed over the river to the Lodge. The patients had not yet been assembled and the lawn sparkled with dew like stars on the greenest of nights. ‘Because I’m too clever.’
‘Like a swot? But teachers do like swots.’
Mind you, I thought, Mr Gale didn’t like Melanie much and her handwriting was just like a grown-up’s. I decided not to mention this, what with an invitation to Melanie’s birthday party hidden pink and perfumed between the pages of my scrapbook.
Anna-Marie frowned as I ground a fistful of crisps into crumbs and sprinkled them into my sandwich. ‘Look, the main reason Mrs Carpenter doesn’t like me,’ she explained, ‘is because I’m like that boy in The Emperor’s New Clothes who realises the emperor’s naked.’
‘Mrs Carpenter?’ I sniggered, a dribble of Cresta escaping my nose. ‘Naked?’
‘Now, listen, little boy, you know how Santa Claus is just a man in a suit, don’t you?’
I—
‘Well, you do now. Anyway, he’s not magic. He’s just a man in a Santa hat and a Santa beard. Wearing a peaked cap doesn’t make you Donny Osmond, does it? I mean, how does he fly around the world in one night? Santa I mean. It’s not even possible.’
‘But it’s magic,’ I protested. ‘It could be magic.’
‘Oh, Peter,’ she said, ‘there’s no such thing.’
‘But you—’
‘Hush! Now, take Mrs Carpenter. Every Christmas she and our friend the vicar ask all the children what Santa’s bringing them. Why? There’s no Santa, so why? The woman’s either a liar or a fool and, whilst I’m quite prepared to believe she’s a fool, I strongly suspect that she’s just a ferocious liar. And, when they ask you and you say, “Nothing, Miss, because Santa doesn’t exist,” and all the infants start crying and then they get angry and send you to the office and call your mum to come down and get her all upset …
‘Well, that’s when I realised that teachers aren’t teachers at all. They’re not special or intelligent or even particularly good at teaching. They’re just people,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘wearing teachers’ hats and teachers’ beards.’
‘What?’
‘Look, Peter, can’t you see? Teachers teach you facts. It’s their job. Facts are nice and simple and uncomplicated and don’t cause anybody any problems. They’re just the bits that join up what you understand. Understand?’
I nodded. I really had no idea what she was talking about. ‘What teachers don’t like, because they don’t understand it, is knowledge. It’s beyond them, frankly. If you know stuff, if you understand stuff, then the facts will take care of themselves. They don’t want you understanding stuff they barely understand themselves. It’s the difference between a “what-question” and a “why-question”. Ask a teacher, “What King?” or “What Queen?” and they’re quite happy. They’re on solid ground. Start asking them, “Why?” and see how long it is before their faces change colour.’
‘I—’
‘Have you ever done a jigsaw?’
‘Y—’
‘Facts are like jigsaw pieces. You know, how they’re always scattered across the carpet, disappearing up the Hoover. That’s facts. But understanding is what happens when you start putting the pieces together and you start seeing the joins: “Oh, this fact goes with this fact. And the pair of them join up with this bit over here.” ’ Anna-Marie’s thin fingers mimed the making of a puzzle. ‘And then, gradually,’ she went on, ‘you begin to see the picture—not necessarily the whole picture; I don’t think anybody can see everything—but a bit of it. It’s like the Lodge,’ and she nodded towards the sturdy red walls and shimmering windows. ‘You start off with a pile of bricks and glass but if you put them together properly, you end up with a building. Somewhere people can live and be safe. Anyway, then you begin to get the idea that all these facts aren’t on their own. They aren’t separate. Everything joins together. And the teachers don’t like that because most of them are barely aware of it themselves.’
‘I—’
‘Well, intelligence is like how well you can do the jigsaw, but it’s not about how well you do it or how well you fit the pieces together. It’s how well you can do it when there are pieces missing. Intelligence is about using the pieces you do have to work out the pieces you don’t have: the picture and the shape and everything.
‘Now, take Alice: in this hand I have a nice bit of Alice-shaped jigsaw, and in this hand a nice Kat-shaped bit but when you try to join them,’ Anna-Marie’s face shone with frustration as she attempted to wrestle the two imaginary puzzle pieces together, ‘they just won’t fit. But hang on a mo’, here comes knuckle-head Peter with his last minute revelation regarding the old woman who lived in the shoe.’ She reached forward and stole a third pretend section from my lap and waved it in the air like an invisible trophy. ‘Hurrah, because Grandma fits in between the two and when they’re together,’ she admired her handiwork with a satisfied smile, ‘things begin to make sense.’
Her smile faded as she laid, like a daisy chain, the completed puzzle on the ground beside her. ‘The only thing we don’t know,’ she murmured, ‘is where the Peter-shaped piece goes.
‘The thing is, lots of people think they’re smart because they have lots of pieces. Teachers are like that but they have no idea how to work out what the missing pieces are.
‘Do you know what I mean?’
‘I—’
‘Oh, spare me, Peter,’ groaned Anna-Marie. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘that’s why teachers don’t like me.’
‘Because they’re like Father Christmas?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Because they have beards?’
�
�No, you moron. Because I don’t believe in them either. And that is a fact.’
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I bit on my sandwich and chewed hoping that silence would encourage more wildlife to emerge from the shadows and take Anna-Marie’s mind off jigsaws and Father Christmases before she could start all over again.
I scanned the twisted trees, studied their cruel expressions for … for something. I don’t know what. And then I dug deep into the spaces between: the shadows, the remains of the night: for whatever remains in the dark when the night has gone. I tried to imagine the world that lay within. I had always thought it must be very different from my own and that was why it wasn’t in any book or on any television show and why no grown-up, except perhaps Mr Merridew, had ever tried to explain it or even mentioned it in passing.
But what was most frightening was that I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure any more that this strange, unknown world was actually any different from my own at all. Something was telling me that these two worlds were, in fact, one and the same, like two sides of the same mirror or, as Anna-Marie might’ve put it, two perfectly fitting pieces from the same puzzle. I was scared by how little I knew about things; about how few puzzle pieces I had. And whatever pieces I did have didn’t seem to fit together at all no matter what she said. What pieces were missing? How many of them were there?
And what was that moving towards us now?
Pushing its way through the nettles.
Everlasting Lane Page 15