Great Meadow (21 page)

And suddenly, just as I was thinking of going to ask to be excused, I looked down at the floor and right under my foot, well almost, sort of stuck against it by the wind, was money! Paper money, quite big too. My father said it was more money than I had ever handled in my life, and then he looked around to see who it belonged to, which was a bit boring because there were simply masses of people and our mother said, ‘Oh, Ulric! Finders keepers. It could be from anywhere!' So he agreed, but on condition that I shared it with the others! I mean to say, honestly.
What bad luck. That meant that I would have to share with
all
the others, three Chesterfields and my sister. So bang went my idea of the tin clockwork liner I'd seen in a shop near our hotel. It was red and white, with ten lifeboats, a black funnel where the key was and a rudder that you could actually work. But with four people to share, it would have to be sweets. So we went to a very nice sweetshop, and my father came too, to see ‘fair play', he said, and to explain the money part. How much it meant in English money, and how much I had left after I'd bought Angelica a box of crystallized fruit, Beth a sort of doll who had a box of sugar almonds under her skirt, and a packet of lollipops for Paul, who only wanted yellow ones. There was quite a bit left actually, but not nearly enough for the liner. Worse luck.

I could even remember its name painted on the side – it was called
‘Europa'
– in gold letters. Anyway, my father suddenly said that I had exactly enough to buy something for myself and something for poor Aunt Freda lying prostrate in her room at the hotel. It would be a very kind and thoughtful gesture (or something), he said. So I chose a box of liqueur chocolates, which I knew she liked, with lots of little chocolate bottles with coloured labels on them. I got that and then there was just enough left for me to buy a jar of mixed coloured jellies, all in the shape of fish, which I liked. But that was all. I thought it was a bit unfair. All I got out of it were the jellies, and I was sure that Angelica's fruits cost more, and so did Aunt Freda's liqueur chocolate bottles.

But when I took them up to her in her room, she was not terribly excited, she just lay on her bed with a towel
on her head covering her eyes, and when I told her what I'd brought her she groaned, and made a terrible noise like choking and told me to go and find Miss O'Shea quickly. So I did. And that was all the thanks you got for being generous and making a ‘thoughtful gesture'. I mean, it's potty sometimes.

So I remembered all that, sitting in the shade of the trees and watching them set up the stalls, and singing and hammering. Then my sister came back with a bunch of poppies and daisies for Lally which would all be dead before we got up the gully to the cottage in the heat. But I didn't bother to tell her. Remembering Deauville had been so miserable.

Anyway, we set off across the white bridge over the Cuckmere, along the path to the second little bridge where I fished for roach, across the road up the hill and into the gully. For shade. The funny thing was that when we climbed the rickety fence into the garden I saw Lally's apron and the basket she used for vegetables, lying all anyhow by the path, and there was a smallish vegetable marrow lying on the path itself. But no Lally.

She was sitting at the table in the kitchen, with a glass of water, and her hair all taggly (it was quite long now that she had let it grow back again), and she just gave a terrible cry and said, ‘Oh Lord! Are you both all right? Where is your sister, are you safe?' And I said yes, and my sister said what's the matter? And Lally shook her head and closed her eyes. You could see she was in a state. But she drank some water, wiped her forehead and told my sister to go up to her room, quick sharp, please, and get her smelling-salts. ‘They are on my dressing-table, beside my
Film Pictorials,
and hurry. I need a good sniff.'

‘What happened? Was it something terrible?'

‘A turn. I'm having a terrible turn. The good Lord only knows what's loose out there. And here's me having fifty fits, worrying about you coming up from the village. I should never have let you go alone, but how was
I
to know, pray, how was I to know . . .?'

My sister came down with the salts and Lally had a terrific sniff, and choked and coughed. I put the mince, the cheese and the butter in the meat-safe, and Lally said, with a hoarse voice, ‘I can't believe it, never in my life. And you so
exposed.
They could have got you in a flash! How did you come up the field?' So I told her, and she wiped her eyes and put the stopper back on the bottle. ‘This gets to you like a dart. So did the shock. Got to me instantly. I just ran. I don't apologize, I just ran. Without a backward look for you and your sister. Oh, the
shame
of it!'

‘But what was it? What happened?'

‘You didn't see them? Then they're still there . . . they are still there,
lurking.'

‘What are?'

‘I don't know
what
they are! Do you think I'd have had a turn this bad if I knew what they were?'

‘Well, the heifers give you a bad turn, don't they? Just potty old heifers?'

Lally got up slowly, tidying her hair, brushing down her floral. ‘These weren't no heifers, my boy, you can be certain of that! These came up to me when I was getting the marrow for supper. All of a sudden. No warning. Not so much as a by-your-leave or “Here I am.” Just secret, silence, until I heard this dreadful snorting and thudding,
and when I turned round, over the top of the fence, just looking at me, with terrible teeth, all dripping with saliva, – stamping on the ground!' She sat down again quickly, holding her smelling-salts. ‘I shall have another one. The blood has left my head. Oh! Thank the dear Lord you are safe. Your mother would have never been able to forgive me.'

‘But what
were
they?'

‘I tell you! How do I know what they
are!
Not
were!
If I knew, do you think I'd be taken this bad? Huge beasts, they are. Huge. Unnatural!'

My sister was looking a bit nervous. ‘Perhaps they were Aleford's terrible stallions. Perhaps they are loose?'

But Lally got up again, shook herself, and said, almost in her usual sort of voice, ‘I know a stallion when I see one, my lady, and these weren't no stallions. And the smell! The smell of them! It would turn your stomach. Where's the mince?'

‘In the meat-safe.'

‘Once through?'

‘What you wrote. Mr Wood did it all just as you wrote in your note.'

‘Well, you go and get the marrow. It's where I dropped it up there. Unless they have got into the garden. That fence is not safe, not against beasts like those. We are none of us safe. I'll have to speak to your father. Leaving me all alone up on the Downs with savage things everywhere and me responsible for his children. Too much to expect of any mortal . . . too much . . .'

‘There's a letter for you. Miss Maltravers gave it to us. And a card from France from our mother.'

‘Why didn't you say sooner! I've been waiting and waiting for that letter.'

‘You were having your turn.'

‘Well, I'm better now. The salts did the trick. Where is it? And hop it, and get me my apron, the basket, the knife and the marrow. All there – I'm not going out until dusk. And mind how you go! Keep under the trees, over on the orchard side, and if you see anything, run. But leave your sister here. I can't afford to lose you both.'

My sister moaned away and said she wanted to come and see the creatures, but I had to go on my own. I wasn't really worried. I mean, if Lally had had a bad turn with the heifers it could be anything. I mean, even a St Bernard was bad enough, and an Irish wolfhound so frightened her that she locked doors. Really. Women.

It was still hot, and very quiet. I didn't see anything peculiar in the meadow. Just far away, down by the Court in the shade of the elms, there were some heifers. Or little calves. It was just when I was picking up the marrow, apron and basket, and looking about in the grass for the knife, that I realized that two of the heifers down at the Court in the shade were striped. Black and white. Of course! I remembered Tilling's Circus. There
were
two zebra down at the Court and some Shetland ponies, not heifers at all.

I went over to the rickety fence; and down by the hedge, alongside the lane, there were two huge beasts quietly cropping the long grass, shaking their heads against the flies. When I waved, one of them looked up slowly, and then they turned and came slowly ambling towards me with their enormous feet.

Here before me were the two beautiful camels which had given Lally such a turn. She was quite cross when I told them in the kitchen.

‘Camels! Well,
of course
they are camels! I know a camel when I see one – the dear Lord knows how many times I've been dragged round that smelly Regent's Park. But you don't expect to see camels in the middle of the Sussex Downs, now do you? And all by yourself, looking for a marrow to feed two ungrateful children . . . It comes as a shock. You hear the sniffling, the thud, thud, you wonder what on earth, and then turn, like I did – those terrible big heads, all teeth and dribble. Give anyone a turn. Give Dracula or Frankenstein a turn.' And she started to lay the table, unfolding the tablecloth quite crossly.

‘Well, your parents seem to be having a nice time. That's good. My letter was from Mrs Jane . . . she's
not
very good, a bit frail. I'll have to get along and see her soon as we get back.'

‘I don't want to think about getting back.'

‘Selfish boy! All you think of is yourself! Last year you had a whole four months off school with that arm, and not a stroke of work done since you went back to school. Not a stroke.'

‘It's boring.'

‘You'll get “boring”, my boy! I reckon your father will make a few changes very soon. It's a crammer for you this September, remember that. Your last chance.' She left the table carrying the dirty plates and knives and things, clattered them into the bowl in the sink. ‘Very tasty, that stuffing. Rich. A touch of Marmite always perks it up.'
She took a kettle from the Primus and poured it from a height into the bowl. I knew what was next. The drying up. And putting away. ‘On your feet, if you please. Plenty of work to do across this side of the kitchen. And, Miss Fernackerpan, you take the cloth and shake it out of doors, no crumbs on my floor, and please to remember to fold it according to the creases, quick sharp, now! Camels, indeed! Whatever next, I'd like to know?'

I got the breadboard and knife and put them on the dresser. Along with her little bottle of smelling-salts. Well, I hadn't said about the two zebra down by the Court. Yet.

Our father said that it was a Riley Saloon, and it had cost him a fortune,. It was grey with green leather seats inside and big headlamps. I suppose it was all right really, but it wasn't anything like the O.M. It was only a square-sort-of car with wind-up windows and its name,
Riley,
written across the radiator in silver letters. The O.M. had been quite different. It was like a huge boat, all made of aluminium in Italy, with the rivets showing, and there was only one like it in all England. It had huge mudguards and headlamps, and you could fold the canvas hood right down at the back where the big strapped trunk was, where the luggage went. Now it had gone. Just like that. No warning. Just went.

One day our father arrived with this wretched Riley, and where the O.M. had always stood in the little chalkpit down at the end of the path the new car took its place. Our father was sitting in a front seat polishing away at the wooden dashboard and just whistling as if nothing had happened. He was very pleased with the new car, but he liked all sorts of cars anyway. They were his passion. The worst thing (number one bad mark after no O.M.) was no eagle mascot on the radiator. We had
always
had the eagle there, a big silver bird with spread wings. Sitting under the tonneau at the back it was sometimes almost like flying behind him, we went so fast. But now no more. And when I asked our father where it was he just said, ‘perfectly safe in the garage at Hampstead.' He hadn't sold that to
the man who bought the O.M., who was a collector or something. But he didn't say anything else, just went on whistling.

And it was all because of the baby. Lally said that our mother had put her foot down and said she wasn't travelling in an open tourer with a month-old baby. And quite right too, she said. There was not enough room for us all plus a baby. A saloon was far more sensible. Anyway,
they
all thought so.

Ages and ages ago (well, a long time ago), our mother had told my sister and me that she was going to have a baby. It was a bit of a shock, I can tell you. We were up at the top end of the Hampstead garden and she was cutting lilac blossom and she suddenly just said it. Like that.

‘I think you'd better know now that you are going to have a baby brother. He's in here.' And she patted her stomach where the big bump was.

Well, we had seen that she was a bit bulgy for some time, really. But Lally said she was just putting on weight. It showed quite plainly in the coat-thing she had started wearing. It was long to the ground with wide floppy sleeves and all silk with blue and gold flowers everywhere. She had said it was a Mandarin's robe, and she had bought it at the Caledonian Market for ten shillings, and wasn't that amazing? I said yes. But I didn't think it was as amazing as suddenly having a baby. Only, I didn't say. It was a bit of a surprise, I mean, but my sister had squealed and cried and jigged about. (Well, she would.) And said was it
sure
it was a little boy? And our mother said that it was kicking so hard it had to be. Or a footballer. Which I
thought was a bit disgusting, really. I mean, not like rabbits or dogs or even mice. I mean, all the kicking part was a bit awful. Especially when you could actually see the bump. So. There it was. No more O.M., just a measly Riley Saloon with four doors.