Everlasting Lane (16 page)

‘What is it?’ came the crabby response. ‘What is it?’

I concentrated all my attention on the only picture hung on the hallway wall: a man, tall and stocky, embraced his wife and tiny daughter, and all three smiled as if they didn’t know how to stop.

A door slammed and Anna-Marie’s white socks and sandals appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘I told you: I don’t want to …!’ they roared as they stomped their way down. ‘Peter?’ I looked up into Anna-Marie’s horrified eyes. ‘I told you,’ she said, ‘bog off!’

But even Anna-Marie couldn’t stay mad at me forever. Forgiveness arrived as I left the school gates on the last day before the half term holidays in the shape of a stone. ‘Ouch!’ Right between the shoulder blades. A small stone, yes, but, well, even so. A second pebble clipped my ear. ‘Hey, stupid,’ shouted Anna-Marie just to make clear that these missiles were meant to be friendly, ‘wait for me!’

I waited.

‘Listen,’ said Anna-Marie, seizing me by the arm and pulling me along the grass verge, ‘you’re not going home yet, okay?’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve got a job for you: that’s why. Come on,’ and she was off, towards the church. I had to trot to keep up. ‘I’ve been thinking about Kat,’ she announced. ‘Why is she always bringing flowers up here? What does she do at the church? Does she ever come to church on Sundays?’

I shook my head. ‘No.’

‘That’s what I mean. She’s not really the Christian-type. She’s nice enough but in a normal way. Nice to talk to I mean.’

I shrugged.

‘Heavens-to-Betsy, Peter, without me you’d end up in the soup with the rest of the veg. I mean there must be a reason.’ She meant all that stuff about consequences again, but what if there wasn’t any reason? Surely, sometimes things just happened. Sometimes people just took flowers to churches, didn’t they?

‘I want to know about the nursery,’ went on Anna-Marie, ‘and Alice and I would like you, if it’s not too much trouble, to have a look round and see what you can find.’

‘But what am I looking for?’

‘Clues, of course.’

‘What sort of clues?’

‘What sort of clues?’ she repeated in that voice she did that
always made me sound like a twit. ‘If I knew that I’d find them myself.’

‘But why the graveyard?’

‘Crikey, Peter, have you forgotten every word Mr Merridew said?’

Forgotten? Of course I hadn’t. Not a thing. Even my dreams had been riddled with Mr Merridew’s words. Try as I might I couldn’t quite put the stone he’d lifted back into place; I couldn’t quite keep those squirmy, twisty worms out of my brain.

‘But what are you doing?’ I said. ‘Aren’t you looking for clues too?’

‘I’m busy,’ she answered and again began to walk off.

I was struggling to keep up with her. ‘But
where
are you going?’

‘To the church hall.’

‘Why?’

‘Are you being sponsored?’ asked Anna-Marie. ‘Ten pee for every idiotic question. If you must know,’ she sighed, ‘I’m going for my ballet lesson.’

Looking both ways, we crossed the road, out of the cool shadows into the warm sun. As we walked along, I dragged my hand over the railings of a fence enjoying the ripples in my fingers.

‘What’s ballet like?’

‘It stinks!’ said Anna-Marie.

‘Why do you go, then?’

‘Don’t you ever get fed up poking your nose into other people’s business?’ I shook my head. ‘My mother makes me. I mean, you’re the expert when it comes to doing everything your mother says.’

Well, I didn’t know what that was supposed to mean.

‘Can I watch?’ I said.

Anna-Marie looked appalled. ‘Can you watch? No!’

‘Why not?’

‘I told you,’ she said. ‘It’s stupid. It stinks. Besides Miss Drew would probably have a spasm.’

A dozen or so girls, too young for school, stood on one side of the church hall door, protected by their mothers. Half as many girls, including Melanie Finch, had already walked up from Dovecot and were gathered to the other side chattering in a bunch. Anna-Marie stood alone. The Dovecot girls, falling silent, swapped shifty glances and stared at their shoes. Anna-Marie ignored them right back.

And then, ‘Hello, Peter,’ said Melanie smiling. ‘How’s Tommie?’ One or two of her friends giggled. ‘Are you coming to ballet?’ and they all exploded into laughter.

Anna-Marie winced. And I didn’t feel very comfortable either. Here’s why:

‘Woah!’ Mr Gale had exclaimed, waving his hand in front of his nose. ‘Who let that one off? Crikey, that’s ripe! Was that one of yours, Smelanie?’ Melanie, busy designing her fourth poster for the school fair, didn’t say anything. ‘Ha, ha,’ said Mr Gale. ‘Only joking!’

Melanie’s ears burned so redly that I could see little whispers of steam escaping. She reached into her pencil case. She had drawn this picture of a fortune-teller and needed a yellow to do the gleam in the gypsy’s eyes as they peered into the crystal ball. Melanie’s pencil case was a wonderful, decorated thing, all loops and twirls and pictures of kittens and rabbits, and all the work of Melanie and her fine blue cartridge pen. But that day I spotted a new doodle: a love-heart shape with ‘MF for PL’ written inside.

It made me feel kind of odd. I only half understood what
it meant. Melanie spent more of her time chasing me in the playground and hitting me than anything that might deserve a love-heart. I discovered, however, to my surprise, that I wasn’t completely unhappy about it—whatever ‘it’ was. And my heart went kind of pitter-pat with a chuckle in my tummy whenever I thought about it. I mean about her.

I mean Melanie.

As soon as I’d seen the pencil case she’d pulled it from our table and tucked it into her lap. Her felt-tipped pen squeaked across the paper and Melanie’s ears grew so red they were purple. I scraped my chair backwards afraid that her head might shoot off and swallow the entire room in embarrassment.

Later on, when I was putting my reading book in my drawer I found an envelope. I recognised Melanie’s handwriting straight away. I looked up to see her watching and this time we both blushed. And at lunchtime, when we all played chase, she caught me and hit me harder than ever before.

‘Hey, hey, hey,’ said Anna-Marie punching my arm. The ballet girls had begun to shove their way through the now open doors. ‘Planet Earth to Peter: what are you thinking about?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Oh, wow!’ said Anna-Marie as she pushed her way crossly through the crowd. ‘Sorry I missed that.’ Just before she entered the hall she turned to face me. ‘Get on with it!’ she hissed. ‘Just the main part. Don’t go beyond the oak tree.’

‘Why?’

She looked exasperated. ‘Just because. Now, get on with it! I’ll meet you here in half an hour.’

As the last girls shuffled their way into the village hall I turned away and headed for the graveyard. I really didn’t know what I was supposed to be looking for so I wandered lost
among the headstones. Many of the graves were decorated with flowers: bluebells, big bushy chrysanthemums, tulips tied with ribbons; wreathes of daisies and buttercups; pink roses in a painted glass—

‘Kitty!’ I cried. ‘What are you doing here?’

She lay on the low stone wall, watching me with arched eyebrows, and gave a loud meow. She didn’t seem surprised to see me and allowed me a tickle behind her ear. Then she slid to the ground and swaggered homewards. She didn’t even look back.

Alone again I poked my head around the corner of the church. The road was deserted. The girls had entered and the doors had been shut. I darted from the pavement and hid behind a tree, emerging a moment later to creep around the outside of the building. I sneaked along the pavement, hiding in shadows and looking everywhere but my destination: the church hall. I hummed a tune.

I was James Bond.

I rattled the doors. They were locked and the windows were beyond hopping height. The deadly assassin, I continued around the back of the building to where two dustbins stood. Ignoring the smell, I pocketed my Walther PPK, left my satchel on the ground and clambered up. Perched on my toes, I could see over the window ledge and, using the sleeve of my black tuxedo, I cleared a porthole through the slime and grime. The window, bordered by its blistering frame made the room like a painting: lit by the dusty afternoon sun slicing across the room and the wide brush strokes polishing the halos that shone around the assembled girls.

Wooden chairs and tables had been pushed and stacked to one side, and the would-be ballerinas were bouncing on their toes and heels in the middle of the room. They wore leotards and tutus like a tin of Quality Street. Their teacher, Miss Drew,
stood tall amongst them in a flowery dress, hair tied into a grey bun and glasses hung on her huge chest. She organised her troops with a powerful, high-pitched voice.

‘Swans,’ she commanded, ‘a semi-circular loop around the perimeter of the hall.’ She twirled her finger in the air like a baton. ‘The
edge
of the hall. Yes, you too, Emily. Sugar Plums, would you … I know you’re a Sugar Plum, Alison … Would you construct a straight line to the front of the room.’ Her finger drew maps of this arrangement and she waited as various girls tip-toed into position. ‘A
straight
line. Would Miss Pevensie call that straight, Jessica? I thought not. Now, where is Anna-Marie?… Lorraine! Just put it away, Lorraine! I don’t care where you found it, just put it away!… Fine, dear, you
tell
your mother!… Anna-Marie in the middle.’

With her hair tied back and stretching her scalp, I hadn’t spotted Anna-Marie at first, but there she was, moving into the centre of the room. And there she waited, calm among the itching, scratching, nose-picking rabble. She had one foot placed in front of the other and her hands behind her back. She was elegant like a cat; her eyes closed as if asleep.

The light-shade sent its shadow revolving across the room, whilst the afternoon sun burst silently through the dusty windows. But it was not so much the sun as the effect of its light that grabbed my attention: the room glowed like coloured oils, dazzling and bright; the surface both smooth and rough to the touch.

Miss Drew waited until a shadowy silence had fallen upon her class before sitting, upright, at the piano. Her bayonet-eye jabbed at the dancers one final time as she counted: ‘One, two, three, four. One, two …’

Goodness me, that piano was out of tune: a milk float full of broken spanners crashing into the room. I covered my ears and, watching the fat little girls shuffling around the room, I
wanted to cover my eyes. The more skilful threw legs in the air; others waved their arms about as if greeting distant friends.

In this sea of confusion, Anna-Marie was a desert island of golden beaches and gentle palms. Her arms crossed upon her chest, her hands resting on opposite shoulders, she began to nod as if accepting that some never-ending argument had been settled, finally and beyond doubt, to the agreement of all. Her face wore the expression of a child wandering through dreams, at one with a universe that could not be questioned. As chaos crashed and clashed around her in a clockwise direction, she began to move: slowly, carefully, and with a startling grace. It wasn’t ballet but she danced with a weightlessness beyond the other girls bumping into one another like a waddle of drunken ducklings.

The music became less alarming as Miss Drew found her rhythm. She didn’t do much in the way of actual teaching, barely looking up from her piano keys. Her pleasure came, I thought, only from her music. And as she began to mix trickling ripples with booming waves of sound, her dancers might just as well have been playing hopscotch.

The speed increased, Miss Drew punching the keys, and Anna-Marie responded. Her arms rose into the air, swaying in some heavenly breeze. She stepped backwards and forwards, each step simple and precise like the insides of a watch. Her head tilted back as if meeting the golden light of the sky. I was enchanted: my eyes, my mouth, my heart wide open.

And then something strange happened. Among all the rough material, as quavers bickered with crotchets like some playground fight-fight-fight and the chords quarrelled trying to hack each other from behind, Miss Drew began to weave notes of golden silk. As hammer hammered on wire, soft and loud, and churning bass notes drove her on, the music became, I don’t know, bigger somehow. Important. It began to
stir feelings, and memories too, like Wellingtoned feet stirring banks of autumn leaves, making me sad and happy at the same time: memories of my father, and thoughts of my mother.

I don’t know how. After all, it was only music.

The other girls, dumpy little trolls, disappeared, and, whilst Miss Drew, I imagined, performed for cheering crowds at the Albert Hall, Anna-Marie danced for an audience of one. A secret melody took her by surprise, capturing her, and now she moved like sorcery, the prisoner of some silver spell that led her on in the dance. Her soul shone like eyes as her feet moved across the floor like Miss Drew’s fingers dancing across the keys.

My porthole became a microscope. I didn’t know whether Miss Drew was aware of Anna-Marie, perhaps not, but I saw everything. Everything: the demerara freckles on her shoulders; the fine hairs on her arms; the mole behind her ear; the dimples in her knees; the bruise on her neck, a blue-black island in a milky sea. She leapt and, for an instant, gravity released her from its grip. She climbed and conquered the space about her.