Between My Father and the King (15 page)

Naida screwed up her face. ‘Because,' she said.

‘Quite right,' the dark man said. ‘Quite right. And what are you going to do when you're married?'

Again she could feel the regret in his voice, but she knew he had to face things, so she told him.

‘Have babies, and give cocktail parties on the terrace.'

The men exchanged glances, and Dr Craig wrote something down, carefully, on a sheet of paper. He held out his hand.

‘Goodbye,' he said.

Their hands touched and clasped; Naida trembled.

The other two men also shook hands with her and said goodbye, and the nurse came in, summoned by a little brass bell on the desk, to take Naida and the sheet of paper away. When they were standing in the waiting room, Naida burst into tears, her thin huddled shoulders moving with the pattern of her sobbing; her tears fell on the blue-stone ring, blurring it, so that she could not see her face or the world in it anymore, and it was secret, like the pearl. She did not know why she was crying. It was just that she had been asked the questions in a pouncing way, and that nothing seemed neat and planned anymore, as it had been; it was all muddled and unclear, with nothing sparkling and shining.

The nurse waited.

‘We're going back now,' she said. ‘Here, put on some lipstick. You're twenty-one, remember. You're not acting twenty-one, crying like that.'

Naida smiled, taking hold of the one thing that mattered. ‘Yes, I'm twenty-one, and after we've gone back past the hills and the gorse, and I pack my things, and get my trousseau ready, I'll be free.'

Naida rushed into the dayroom to retrieve Margella Lucia from the care of the nun, Mary, all in black, who was sitting in the corner praying and telling her beads.

‘Has she been good?' Naida asked, waking the doll with a kiss, so that its blue eyes popped open, flirting with the nothingness in front of them. Then, with the doll kissed and clutched in her arms, Naida sat down, preparing to tell the awed and envious patients about her wonderful journey to town, and how she would be set free next week because she was twenty-one.

In the ward office, the nurse handed to the sister the paper that the three men had signed. The wording on the paper began, ‘Registered under the Mental Defectives Act, 1928. This is to certify that Naida Wilma Tait, aged twenty-one . . .'

And so on. The same thing, over and over; brick puppetry; and gorse is not people.

It was all a great mystery. Fathers and mothers were talking about it, and the people in the streets, and the people in shops, and the teachers at school, and all the girls and boys were talking about it. ‘What can you do,' they said, ‘if you write letters to be delivered by Air Mail, and post them in the bright red letterbox of the new post office, and the same letters fail to reach your mother or cousin or sister or brother? What can you do if they vanish completely, how or why or when or where no one knows?'

Certainly it was a great mystery.

Colly and Margaret were especially proud because they lived near the new post office. They lived around the corner, scarcely a stone's throw away. They had watched the post office being built and painted, and from their house they could almost smell the new paint, and hear the tickety-tacking of many machines, and the chirrup-whirring of telephone bells; and the clip-clop of people walking the tiled floor. In a way they felt it was
their
post
office. They had a share in it, a responsibility. So they decided to try to solve the mystery.

‘It is only the Air Mail letters,' Margaret said when they were talking it over one day after school.

‘I wonder why it is only the Air Mail,' Colly said thoughtfully.

‘Well,' said Margaret, ‘we shall have to keep watch. I suggest we take turns at being on guard.'

So that very evening they arranged to begin their vigil outside the new post office. Margaret promised to watch first, and Colly would watch till teatime; then after tea, when it would be growing dark and the fat summer moths would be flopping and fluttering about, Margaret felt that she and Colly should be on guard together. It is sometimes lonely being all by yourself in the dark.

The first night nothing unusual happened. There was a policeman walking up and down, up and down on the footpath outside the post office. He said hello to them and they said hello back. He was very friendly and they felt safe with him walking there, and the buttons on his blue uniform glistening under the shop lights.

Not a sign did they see of any thief coming to take the Air Mail letters.

Presently it began to grow cold and a wind sprang from the direction of the sea, and Margaret and Colly, feeling tired and disappointed, went home.

‘My word, you do play out late,' their mother said. But she did not scold them. She was too worried about the letter she had written to Aunt Lucy. She had put the blue Air Mail sticker on the envelope and dropped the letter in the box, and listened to the shuffle of it falling. But Aunt Lucy had never got the letter. Nor had Uncle Paul received his, nor Aunty Florence, nor Mr and Mrs Beatty, nor had anyone. Oh dear, their mother thought, I wish the post office had never been built; and yet I can't help posting my
letters there. The boxes are so new and bright-red and inviting.

The next night Colly and Margaret watched again, and again nothing unusual happened. The policeman on his beat said Hello to them, and they said Hello back to him, and the big striped moths came fluttering around the verandah lights, and the same chilly breeze began to blow from the harbour. The children walked sadly home.

Their father met them at the door. ‘You'll turn into moreporks,' he said, ‘out as late as this.'

But he did not scold them. He too was worried about the letter he had written to his brother, Henry, and the one to Mr Smart and Messrs Tooley and Haggitt. Oh dear, he thought, I wish the new post office had never been built. But I can't seem to help posting my letters there. The boxes are so new and bright-red and enticing.

The next night Colly and Margaret took up their places to watch once more. And the next night. And the next. And the night after that. By this time the whole town was in a dither, for nobody seemed to be able to stop themselves from posting important Air Mail letters in the new postboxes; and every letter posted seemed to vanish almost as soon as it was dropped in the box. It was a sorry state of affairs. People began to lose their tempers and quarrel and argue, even with their best friends. Nothing seemed to go right at all.

One night when Colly and Margaret were watching as usual, and were just about to go home, for the cold wind was rising from the sea, Margaret caught hold of Colly and whispered, pointing to something in the darkness.

‘Look!'

A sombrely cloaked figure seemed to have appeared from the sky. The policeman was not noticing. He had stopped at the milkbar to talk to the proprietor. So only Colly and Margaret saw the dark figure wrapped in a misty flowing cloak like a cloud,
which drifted towards the postbox marked ‘Air Mail', and vanished right inside.

The shape was gone for a few seconds. Then it emerged without a sound. As it prepared to take off into the air once more, the cloak was blown apart by a sudden gust of wind, and Colly and Margaret saw what appeared to be hundreds and hundreds of letters concealed in deep cloudlike pockets beneath the cloak.

Margaret and Colly were so excited and curious that they nearly spoiled everything. What should they do? Should they call to the policeman and have the thief arrested? Should they cry out in loud voices, Stop Thief, Stop Thief! as the cloaked figure vanished into the sky?

Suddenly Margaret ran forward and tried to seize the figure by the cloak. Colly ran too, and before they knew what was happening or could cry out for help, they were taken into the deep cloudy pockets and lay there in the dark among the letters. The figure did not stop but flew swiftly on. The children fell asleep. And still the figure flew on and on.

When the children woke they found themselves on a great white mountain that was white not because of the snowfall there, but because of the hundreds of letters spread out as far as the eye could see. Hundreds and thousands of letters. All Air Mail, piled up in great drifts. Colly and Margaret could not walk through them. When they tried to walk there was a sound of rustling and crinkling, and it seemed as if they were walking upon a white bed that was topped by an eiderdown of paper.

As soon as they could stand without losing their balance, they looked about them, and saw not far from where they had been asleep the cloaked figure itself lying fast asleep with its head on a pillow of letters. He was an old man with long grey hair. His mouth was open and he snored as if he were very, very tired.

‘Oh Colly,' Margaret whispered, ‘I'm sure he isn't a real thief.'

‘I don't know,' Colly replied, remembering his father's words. ‘It's a great mystery.'

‘We cannot run away,' Margaret said. ‘There is nowhere to run to.'

‘Nor fly away,' said her brother.

‘Nor call for help.'

‘Nor anything.'

Presently, from the stillness about them they felt a wind begin to blow, a cold wind that made them pull the lapels of their coats closely about them. The wind blew stronger and fiercer. The old man was waking up. He yawned, and was about to fall asleep again, when he noticed Margaret and Colly. He seemed about to cry out at the sight of them. He did not get up from his letter bed but lay looking at the two children.

Margaret spoke very politely, for fear of offending him.

‘You look tired,' she said. ‘Have you had any tea?'

‘I don't eat,' the old man said in a soft whispering voice.

‘Oh,' said Margaret, again very politely. ‘Not even poached egg — or apples or ice cream?'

The old man stood up. The mysterious wind howled and wailed about the great white mountain. And Margaret and Colly realised that the old man was some relation of the wind — a brother or father or grandfather. They saw that his cloak was a fold of grey cloud. Would he talk to them and tell them that he was not a real thief?

The old man told his story — how he had wakened from a wind-sleep of a thousand years to find the seagulls grown to huge metal birds that rushed and roared up and down the roads of the sky.

‘It was strange,' he said. ‘I was a Wind Brother, born of the
air. I always did my task as an Air Brother. But I travelled alone, and one day thousands of years ago I fell asleep on top of this mountain. It was a real mountain then, covered with snow. I woke up suddenly. That was a few months ago when your new post office was being opened. Who can describe my feeling of strangeness when I found the world covered with crawling birds and metal-winged birds, and birds that had grown wheels, and huge lights for eyes? I saw your red building, the massive scarlet bird fixed on the earth, and flew down towards it, thinking it would help me to discover my task in my new age of waking. I saw a large red mouth or beak addressed to me. “Air Mail”, it said. Then I realised that the dressed birds like yourselves that walk upon the earth had, while I was asleep, given me the task of delivering and collecting letters. I could not fail in my task. Hour after hour I flew to fetch the envelopes — I have since learned they are envelopes — from the scarlet beak. But I am old. The task is too much for me. I am cut off from my brothers and sisters and know nothing of their world. Perhaps I should not have woken from my sleep.'

Margaret and Colly listened with sympathy to the old man. They were anxious to help him. It is strange, they thought, he thinks we are birds, and we think he is a man.

Colly thought the best thing to do would be to explain what ‘Air Mail' really meant.

‘It is for aeroplanes,' he said, glad to show his knowledge. ‘People travel in them. The letters are meant for them. We have never asked the wind to deliver letters for us.'

‘Oh no,' said Margaret. ‘Why, you have so many other tasks. You have to carry the seeds and guide the birds. And who would talk to the trees on a hot day? Oh no, we do not ask you to deliver our letters.'