Great Meadow (6 page)

I did see what she meant, but I didn't go, so that was all right.

There were no flowers anywhere in the house, just prickly cactus things in big china bowls or square pots, and a ghastly shiny lady made of brass with her arms round a sort of clock, sitting on a tiger or something. And they had a fearful dog, an Alsatian called Hamilcar which had to wear felt bootees on its feet in the house because it might scratch Aunt Phyllis's parquet floors. Which were dreadfully cold and you skidded on.

They didn't eat meat, another bad mark, so my sister and I had a titchy little chicken that she especially cooked for us, which was kind, I suppose, except it was quite cold and was all bloody inside the legs. But there were about fifty different sorts of vegetables like swedes and parsnips and things, and loaves of bread, dark brown, with bits of corn sticking in them. It was all pretty dreadful. After dinner Uncle Digby started to play his gramophone, but not Christmas things like Elsie and Doris Waters or Stanley Holloway, but dreadful serious music which you had to listen to. At least, he did, lying back in his iron chair with leather sides, and his eyes closed, and Aunt Phyllis sitting on a pouf working away at something she said was a rug for the fireplace. Only there wasn't one. I mean, it was just all wonky.

And then Uncle Digby looked at his pocket watch and said, ‘Isn't it about time that our young guests were on their way to slumber-land? Too much excitement in one day is not a good thing, is it?'

Too much excitement!

Thank goodness we went home quite early the next day and our father said never again because he'd only been given two measly watered whiskies before dinner, two glasses of thin Australian wine with, and nothing after but a mug of cocoa. And our mother said it wasn't her fault, because they were his relations, and perhaps the next time he was intent on discovering his family he'd have a thought for his own, and if he ever did it again it would be over her dead body. Which worried us a bit because she looked pretty furious – you could see in the car mirror – and we felt a bit uneasy about the dead body part, but she said she
didn't mean it quite like that. We asked her. And she explained. Sort of. So that was the Ghastly Farnham Christmas, and we never forgot it ever.

And when we saw Lally again the day after Boxing Day she was all smiling and cheerful and didn't even say that she had missed us, but that they'd had a lovely time at Walnut Cottage, Twickenham, with her father and mother, and they'd had a goose and mince pies, a whole bottle of tonic wine, and Brother Harold had played ‘Come, all ye faithful!' on his clarinet, which was Mrs Jane's very favourite.

So that was all right.

We were all in the morning room making paper chains, and Lally was busy mixing a bowl of flour and water paste for us, when there was a terrific crash and we heard our mother calling out, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!' When we rushed into the hall, there she was, sitting all twisty, halfway down the stairs with her hat still on and a white face. Her lips were very red.

Lally called for our father, who was hurrying from his study, and we were sent off to ‘keep out of the way', but before we went back to the morning room our mother said she was all right, to us, and not to be worried. But I heard her say to our father, ‘Get Henderson, darling,' so I knew she wasn't that all right, because Henderson was our lady doctor. And she also said she was afraid that she would ‘lose it', which I didn't understand but thought that perhaps ‘it' was her shoe which was lying at the bottom of the stairs, with no heel. So I said, ‘Here it is, you haven't lost it really. It's
broken though,' and Lally said be off this minute, and so we were.

Of course, it wasn't a very nice feeling in the morning room and the paper chains seemed a bit silly somehow. There was a lot of coming and going, and then Dr Henderson arrived in her man's suit and tie with her bag, and hurried up the stairs. And we just sort of mucked about really, making a few, but not really caring.

‘Is she going to die?' said my sister suddenly, and frightened me.

‘No. Of course she isn't. She just tripped. I expect she was in a hurry to go out.'

‘I mean it would be so terrible if she died, and especially at Christmas.'

‘Well, she won't. So don't go on moaning.'

‘I wasn't moaning. Just saying. That's different.'

And then Lally came in, and she'd changed her overall and was in a starchy fresh white one, and she went into the kitchen and put on the kettle, and banged about a bit and asked us if we were behaving ourselves. Which we were.

‘Is our mother all right now?' I said.

“Course she is. She's as fit as can be, don't you fret. Mind you,' said Lally, pouring boiling water into the teapot, ‘mind you, I wouldn't swap sit-upons with her. She'll be black and blue for a fortnight. Those silly heels she will wear! I've told her and told her. And she's forever in a hurry.' She took a tray of tea and went into the hall. ‘You can come up and see her . . . soon as maybe. She's had a nasty fall, and she doesn't want a whole tribe of children traipsing about her bedroom, you see if I'm right.'
She started up the stairs and then turned and looked down at us.

‘There's no need for you two to stand there like a couple of empty bottles. She'll be perfectly all right and we're all going down to the cottage for Christmas as arranged. See?'

‘All of us?' I said.

‘All of us,' she said, going on up slowly and taking care not to spill the little milk jug. ‘And don't forget tomorrow! Euston Station quick sharp to meet Cousin Flora. It never rains,' she said going on up as if we couldn't hear her, only we could, ‘but it pours!'

Our Cousin Flora was really not bad. Even though she did come from Scotland and was quite difficult to understand when she spoke. Anyway, she was kith and kin, and real not invented. I liked her almost as much as my sister's best friend at the convent, who was Giovanna Govoni and Italian but very easy to understand because she spoke English exactly like us. But Flora was Scots. So that made a difference. Our mother had asked her to come and have Christmas with us all because she didn't have a mother, who had died when she was only a baby. All she had was a brother who was a bit grumpy, and a father who was very frightening and strict, wore rimless glasses and hurt your hand when he shook it and always called me ‘young feller'. So it seemed quite a kind thing to do to invite her to stay with us.

A bit later on, just before we went to bed, we were allowed to go and see our mother in her room, which was all shadowy and very nice looking, only she seemed a bit miserable and hadn't got any make-up on, which looked
sad too. But she said she was really quite all right, and that she would just have to stay in bed for a few days so we'd have to take over all her responsibilities and look after Cousin Flora and make her feel doubly at home. So we promised we would, and was it all right about going to the cottage for Christmas, and she said yes it was and that we'd go down with Lally on the Green-Line bus, which was terrifically exciting, and she and our father would drive down later on in time for Christmas Eve anyway. Then she seemed a bit weary, and kissed us, and said to be good and help Lally and above all make Cousin Flora feel that she was really and truly wanted.

‘How can we do that?' said my sister. ‘Make her feel we really want her?'

‘I don't know. Tell her, I suppose,' I said.

‘But then she might think that if we kept on telling her we did, that we didn't, mightn't she?'

‘Well . . . you could give her something of yours that you really liked. I mean that would prove it.'

‘What sort of thing?'

‘Well . . . that doll of yours, Annabel Lee with the long legs. That.'

My sister gave a terrible screech. ‘I love Miss Annabel Lee! She's my very favourite, Aunt Freda gave her to me! I couldn't.'

‘It would show Flora that you wanted to make her welcome.'

‘But how would she know it was my very favourite thing?'

‘You'd say it was. She'd know.'

‘And what would you give her then? You'd have to give her something too,
your
most favourite thing.'

‘I'm a boy. She wouldn't like my things. Girls don't, you know that. You don't.'

‘Well . . . I quite like your Jesus and his Mother. Everyone likes them. You give her them, why not?'

‘But they're sacred! I couldn't give them away!'

‘Give her your Jesus and Mary, and just see how happy she'll be. That'll make her feel very welcome and wanted. And holy too.'

It gave me a bit of a fright when she said that, so I just finished my Ovaltine and didn't say anything.

‘A silence?' said Lally, coming into the morning room where we were having our supper. ‘Something's up, out with it. What are you two up to?' She had two fat rubber hot water bottles in her arms, but I knew they were not for us. They were to air Flora's bed. She was sharing my sister's room, which used to be our nursery until I was given my own room because Lally said I was growing up and it wasn't suitable. That's why I had to have my bath separately too, which wasn't as much fun at all, but quite decent really.

‘I was just telling him that if he wanted to make Flora feel really happy, and that we were longing for her to come and stay with us, he ought to give her his Jesus and Mary off his silly old altar,' said my sister and slid out of her chair pretty quickly so I couldn't hit her.

‘Well, there's a thing!' said Lally in pretend surprise. ‘And what, pray, do you think your cousin will want his Jesus and Mary for I'd very much like to know? I'm not sure if they really go in for that sort of thing in Scotland.
Come on now, off to bed, I've got a lot before me one way and another.'

‘Anyway,' said my sister, ‘she probably wouldn't because he's made Jesus all muddly. He painted him with a black beard and fair hair – that's silly. And he's given Mary terrible pink cheeks and feet, she looks awful – '

‘You just shut up! And M.Y.O.B.,' I said, because I was suddenly feeling pretty cross and a bit fed up with this Flora.

‘Now then!' said Lally, hitting me on the head with one of the hot water bottles which was a bit hot. ‘No more of that or I'll have that Mr Hitler up to see you off, the pair of you. All you have to give your cousin is good manners and a nice smile and that'll do.'

‘I don't think I'll give her anything at all,' I said. ‘Well, not at first, not until we know if she's brought us anything for Christmas.'

‘What a horrible-minded child!' said Lally, and started clearing up our supper tray. ‘Be off with you, I shan't tell you again.'

‘If she does bring us a present,' said my sister, tying her dressing-gown cord tightly round her waist, ‘bet it'll be flat. They always are from Scotland. Flat.'

‘This minute, Maddemoselle, if you please!' said Lally crossly and dropped one of the Ovaltine beakers, and it broke.

‘Oh, bless my sister's cats!' she cried. ‘Now see what you've made me do! I'm at the end of my patience. Off! Hop skip it upstairs, and not a sound when you pass your mother's door or you'll wish you'd been born next year!'

Flora had fair hair, quite short, in a fringe, and laughed a lot. She wore a kilt on best occasions, with a huge great
safety pin stuck in it and a hairy purse on a chain round her waist called a sporran. But all she had in it, that I ever saw, was one little glass black cat for luck and three pennies. When we met her at Euston Station, she was wearing her ordinary school clothes, so she was just like anybody else. She just looked a bit peculiar in her best, in the kilt and the sporran and all her frills, if you weren't used to it . . . and quite a lot of people in the streets weren't and once a man called out something rude about bagpipes and she stuck out her tongue. Which was pretty terrible, but no one said anything. I mean Lally didn't, because she said she'd been ‘insulted'.

Her rather grumpy brother Alec wore a kilt too. We saw him in it once when he came to stay with us on his own. He was a bit older than me, and bigger, and we all had to go to a terrible children's party in fancy dress where you had to walk hand in hand, if you were two, or just alone, in a long wobbly line with a band playing something potty like ‘In a Persian Market', and people gave you marks for the Most Original Fancy Dress, or the Most Beautiful or something. It was really awful, I can tell you. Except to our mother, who simply loved it. I think that the children's parties at the Lodge were her very favourite thing. I suppose it was because she had once been an actress, so she could do a bit of showing off because she made all our own clothes, and designed them herself, although Lally said she didn't really know a needle from a bodkin.

Anyway, that time my sister went covered in bunches of glass grapes wearing a silly pair of string sandals with a wreath of vine leaves in her hair which prickled like anything.
And she was called ‘Bacchanti'. And I had to wear a really quite stinky old fur rug tied round me, and the same kind of sandals, and carry a wooden sort of flute thing which was all pretend really, because our father had made it for me with some wire and a broken bit of fishing rod. I mean, it didn't play or anything, it was just for carrying. And I was told I was a Greek shepherd. It was really terrible. And what made it more sickening than anything was that boring Alec just went in his ‘best', I mean his kilt and a velvet jacket and a lot of silver buttons. I was pretty fed up because I smelt so rotten. It was quite an old goatskin thing my mother had found in our father's studio, and it tickled as well, and I was all tied up in it like a parcel, with bits of thick string. And what made it worst of all was that Alec won. Of course.

I mean, honestly! Getting first prize for wearing your
own
clothes!

But it was a bit funny later because they made him have a ride on the pantomime horse, all round the ballroom. It wasn't really a horse, you know, it was only two men in a sort of spotted suit with a huge hee-haw head and a funny tail, and Alec went red in the face, and wouldn't. Everyone laughed and pulled him, so he had to get on, but you could see he was pretty fed up and had to hold on terrifically tightly because actually what they were trying to do was to bump him off and make him look silly. And then they did a stupid sort of pantomime dance all round the room, and everyone cheered and clapped, and Alec was looking sort of white and pretty upset because he was afraid that with all the bumping he was getting his kilt would blow up and everyone would see his tartan knickers.