The Forget-Me-Not Summer (7 page)

Miranda sat down on the bed and pulled the magazine towards her. ‘I offered to read to you this morning but you told me comics were pictures and to go and buy me own.'

‘So I did,' Beth said feebly. ‘But I didn't mean it, you know that, Miranda. And anyway, me mam can't read as well as you. She says her glasses steam up so she misses words out and has hard work to read her shopping list, lerralone a magazine story.' She gave a gusty sigh. ‘I telled Ma to send you up as soon as you come home.'

‘And I told your ma that I needed some food before tackling the stairs again,' Miranda said. ‘She let me have a plate of scouse and some bread; I must say it were prime. As for what I've been doing all day, you wouldn't be interested; it was just – just messing around. You know the Mickleborough boys? I know your mum doesn't like them, but they're all right really. One of them – he's called Steve – said he'd take me on a grand tour of the area and he showed me all sorts. Do you know, Beth, there's a huge art gallery quite near the London Road and a marvellous library as well as a museum . . . oh, there's all sorts of things I never dreamed of. While you're laid up I mean to get to know the city as well as he does. Then, when you're better . . .' But Beth's interest in her cousin's doings was already fading.

‘Never mind that. Just you do what my mam says and read me my serial story,' Beth commanded. ‘If you want to go around with some perishin' rough boy, that's up
to you. Oh, and I could do with another drink. Me throat's that sore, even talking hurts.'

Miranda stood up, took the almost empty jug and returned to the kitchen. Presently she was back in the bedroom and sitting down on the bed with the magazine spread out on her knees. ‘Ready?' she said brightly. ‘Well, Louisa Nettlebed is hot on the trail of the mysterious letter, though it is to be hoped that Phyllis, the heroine, will get to it first. I'll read on from there.'

Miranda enjoyed reading aloud, but was rather chagrined to discover, when she reached the end of the episode, that her cousin had fallen asleep. That meant re-reading the story the next day and she particularly wanted to go off early with Steve. Still, when Aunt Vi came up to bed she told Miranda to sleep in the kitchen, which was all to the good. The clock above the mantel has a very loud tick, and if I pull the curtains back so the early light can come in I'll be ready for the off at six, she told herself.

It was a pearly summer morning when Miranda let herself quietly out of the house. As arranged, Steve was hanging around outside, and he greeted her with a broad grin. ‘Ain't it a grand day?' he said. ‘I reckon it's too good to waste poundin' the streets and showin' you where I stash me gelt, so I've took some bread and cheese – Mam won't mind – and we can catch the number twenty-two tram out to Fazakerley and then walk to Simonswood, where we can have us dinners and muck about . . .'

‘Where's that?' Miranda interrupted. She could feel excitement flooding through her at the thought of another
wonderful day with this new – and knowing – friend, though excitement warred with disappointment. Steve had roused her curiosity about the other side of the wall and she longed to see it. However, the prospect of a day in the country was almost enough to cause her to forget what she now thought of as ‘the mystery of the wall'. After all, the wall would be there probably for the rest of her life, whereas a day out with Steve could be ruined if rain fell heavily, or her aunt discovered her intention and forbade her to leave the house.

But Steve was staring at her; he looked annoyed. ‘What do you mean, where's that?' he said rather truculently. ‘Didn't I just tell you? Simonswood's real countryside; there's streams with tiddlers in, ponds for the ducks and geese, orchards full of apples and pears and that . . . oh, everything to make the day real special. But if you don't want to come, of course . . .'

Hastily, Miranda hid her curiosity about the wall and assured him that he was mistaken; she wanted to go to Simonswood very much indeed. As they trotted along to the tram stop, however, she admitted that if she was out for a whole day again there would undoubtedly be reprisals. ‘But I don't care,' she added defiantly. ‘Mostly I'm in trouble for doing nothing, so it'll be quite a change for my aunt to have a real reason to knock me about.'

‘Knock you about? But you're not her kid, and you're a girl . . .' Steve was beginning, but Miranda was saved the necessity of answering as a number twenty-two tram drew up beside them. ‘Tell you what,' he said as they settled themselves on one of the slatted seats, ‘if your aunt treats you bad, suppose we take back something she'll really like – a sort of bribe, you could say. I know
a little old tree what has real early apples; someone telled me they're called Beauty of Bath. Suppose we fill our pockets with 'em? You can give your share to your aunt if you think that'll sweeten her.'

Miranda thought this an excellent idea, and when they got off the tram she chatted to Steve quite happily as they strolled along country lanes whose verges were thick with sweet-smelling spires of creamy coloured flowers, and in marshy places with the delicate pale mauve blossoms which Steve told her were called lady's smock.

Once again Miranda had a wonderful time. She accompanied Steve to a farmhouse where they bought a drink of milk, and were told they were welcome to take as many apples as they liked from the little tree down by the gate. After they had eaten their bread and cheese, Miranda was all set to dam a tiny stream so that she might paddle in the pool she meant to create, when Steve astonished her by saying that he felt like a nap.

‘You don't,' Miranda said scornfully. ‘Naps are for old people. Just you come and help me dam this stream.'

‘I'm too tired,' Steve said obstinately. ‘I dunno why, but if I don't get some sleep I'll not have the strength to walk back to the tram stop. Ain't you tired, Miranda?' As he spoke he had been taking off his ragged pullover and folding it into a pillow, but even as he lay down upon it and composed himself for sleep, Miranda jerked his faded shirt up and stared at the back thus revealed.

‘Oh, Steve, you've been and gone and got the flippin' measles,' she said, her voice vibrant with dismay. ‘I thought you'd have been bound to have had them . . . but you've got them now at any rate. No wonder you're so perishin' tired; I reckon I slept for near on three days
when I first had them, and Beth's the same. She couldn't even stay awake to listen to me reading her serial story.'

Steve sat up, heaved his shirt up and surveyed his spotty skin with a groan of dismay. ‘Oh, hell and damnation, wharra thing to happen right at the start of the summer holidays,' he said. ‘I'll try to keep it a secret from me mam, but I doubt it's possible. I say, Miranda, I'm real sorry, but until the spots go I'll be lucky to escape from the house for ten minutes, lerralone ten hours.'

‘Well, I suppose we ought to be counting our blessings because we've had two great days,' Miranda said. ‘And once you begin to feel better, surely your mam will let you play out? She's an awfully nice woman and I don't suppose she'll want you under her feet for the whole three weeks.'

‘We'll see. Mebbe she'll let you come in, 'cos you've already had 'em, and read to me, or just chat,' Steve said, but he didn't sound too hopeful. He grinned up at her and Miranda saw that already spots were beginning to appear amongst the freckles on his cheeks. Soon he would be smothered in the bloomin' things, which meant that he would be unable to fool anyone; one look and he would be driven back to his own home, though Miranda thought this was yet another example of the stupidity of grown-ups. When a measles epidemic struck, the sensible thing would be to let all the kids catch it. Then the next time it happened they would be safe, since she was pretty sure you couldn't catch the measles twice. So Miranda continued her work of damming the stream and paddled contentedly whilst Steve slumbered, though they had to make their way back to the tram stop in good time. Steve pulled his cap well down over his spotty brow and to
Miranda's relief no one tried to stop them getting aboard, though once they were back in Jamaica Close Steve got some funny looks from the kids playing on the paving stones.

As she had expected, Miranda was met by a tirade of abuse from Aunt Vi, and a storm of reproaches from Beth, since the first resented having to look after her daughter and the second wanted amusing, and was fed up with her mother's constant complaints. As Steve had predicted, the large bag of apples went some way to placating her aunt, but later in the evening, when Miranda went round to Steve's house, she was told politely but firmly that he was feverish, could see no one and most certainly was not allowed out.

Oh well, I've had two wonderful days and three weeks isn't such a very long time after all, Miranda comforted herself as she pushed two chairs together to form a bed after her aunt had gone upstairs. The maddening thing is that Steve had promised to tell me about the high wall at the end of Jamaica Close, only we both forgot about it when we realised he had got the measles. I wonder when he'll be able to explain just what's mysterious about that wall.

DESPITE MIRANDA'S HOPES,
the three weeks of Steve's incarceration felt more like three months. Beth got better and even more demanding than usual, and though Miranda's show of spirit had confounded her aunt for a little while, Aunt Vi soon began to slip into her old ways. If Miranda tried to defy her, a sly clack round the head would be handed out when she least expected it, making her feel dizzy, and though she persisted in saying she would not work unless she got at least a share of the food on offer this tactic was only partially successful. Sometimes her share seemed to consist of gravy, half a potato and some cabbage, though Beth, when warned that her cousin would not wait upon her unless she was decently fed, saw that Miranda got bread and cheese or a conny-onny sandwich in return for reading anything Beth wanted to hear.

She did manage to see Steve from time to time; once she sneaked into his yard when she had seen him making his way to the privy and the two of them exchanged news. Steve, much to his surprise, found that his mother would not allow his stepfather to so much as enter the little room he shared with Kenny, since the older man had never had the measles. She also bought her son special food, and this was probably as well since Steve got them very badly, and was feverish for a whole week.
To be sure, once that week had passed he made rapid progress and was soon eating hearty meals, playing quiet games with Kenny and occasionally sneaking downstairs to meet Miranda in the cobbled yard at the back of the house, but he was careful to keep these activities undemanding since he had no wish to make himself even more sickly.

When Miranda and Steve met, as they began to do regularly, in the little cobbled courtyard of Number Two, he was eager for any news of Jamaica Close and their various neighbours. Miranda had taken advantage of his absence to spend a good deal of time each day with the Madison Players, who were always good for a bit of gossip, but Steve had never been to the theatre and Miranda soon realised that he was not much interested in her mother's friends.

‘When you're better – well, when all the spots have gone – I'll take you with me when I go down after the matinée performance and introduce you to everyone,' Miranda told him. ‘You'll like them, honest to God you will, Steve. And then you can hear what they've been doing to try and find my mother; you'd like that, wouldn't you?'

But though Steve agreed that this would be a grand idea, Miranda had the uneasy feeling that he was not much interested either in the theatre or in the disappearance of her mother and she supposed, ruefully, that she could scarcely blame him. A whole year was a long time in anyone's book and even the Madison Players no longer talked as though Arabella would turn up with some believable explanation of where she had been during the past year. Even the sleepwalking incident had been long
ago. Several times since then Miranda had woken to find herself halfway down the stairs, tiptoeing barefoot across the cobbled yard or actually in the roadway, but she had never again gone out of sight of Jamaica Close. She had mentioned these episodes to no one but Harry, the policeman who had found her on her very first sleepwalk, and though interested he had not thought it particularly important. ‘I've talked about it to me mates, and they say that most folk grow out of it; I reckon you're doing that right now.'

It was unfortunate that as Beth's health improved her temper worsened and she became demanding, fractious and quite spiteful. She had always told tales but now she twisted her remarks to put her cousin in an even worse light, until Miranda was forced to bargain with her. She would refuse to read to Beth or help her with a jigsaw or play draughts unless her cousin would agree to her playing out for at least an hour each day. Beth was well enough to play out herself had she wanted to do so, but on this point at least the cousins were totally different. Miranda thought she would die cooped up in the house, Beth thought she would die if she were forced to breathe fresh air, so arguments were frequent and tempers frayed and grew shorter than ever.

The day came at last, however, when the nurse from Brougham Terrace pronounced Steve free from infection and the next morning the two met outside the front door of Number Six, to gloat over their newly won freedom. ‘Mam's give me a few coppers so we won't have to skip a lecky; we can ride like Christians and go all the way out to Seaforth Sands, like we did before I caught the perishin' plague,' Steve said. ‘Gawd, I hope I never get
the measles again, I'm tellin' you. I scratched, of course – who wouldn't – and when Mam saw me at it, what did she do but trot down to the chemist shop on Great Homer and buy a bottle of pink yuck what the pharmacist telled her was good for spots . . .'