The Runaway Summer (11 page)

‘Who’s using dirty words now?’ Mary said.

*

‘Look at this leaf,’ Krishna said. It was browny-red and crisp, like a cornflake.

‘Autumn,’ Simon said. ‘Witless loon. Leaves change colour and fall in the autumn.’

‘Witless loon yourself,’ Krishna said, and punched him in the stomach. ‘We don’t have autumn in Africa.’

*

‘Tins are running low,’ Simon said. ‘No more baked beans. No more peaches. No more tomato soup.’

‘Peach tins are heavy,’ Mary said. ‘But I can get beans. And soup.’

‘We want more line, too. I put out an eel line last night across the culvert, but it rained and it got washed away.’

‘It didn’t rain last night,’ Mary said.

‘It did, you know. Everywhere was soaked this morning.’

‘Just dew.
It
didn’t
rain
.’

Simon looked at her stubborn mouth. ‘All right, have it your own way. All the same, we need new line, and some tins, and Krishna ought to have another jersey. He’s torn that old one of yours to shreds and it gets a bit nippy now, evenings.’

‘I can get him another,’ Mary said. ‘And some vests too, if he’s cold. I’ve got hundreds of lovely, thick, woolly vests. And I can get the tins and the line. I can get anything you like …’

*

She stood in the queue at the Post Office, fretting. It was five o’clock and the shops closed at half past. Everyone in front of her seemed very slow and old; old men buying postal orders and stamps, and old women drawing their pensions. They took ages, taking their money, counting change with stiff slow fingers, putting notes away in one part of their purses, coins in another. Some of them lingered for a nice little chat with the clerk behind the counter, and some of them had dogs on leads that got tangled up with other people’s legs.

The woman behind Mary said, ‘Goodness, what a time! Patience on a monument!’

She had a pointed, witch-like face.
Simon
s
Gran.
For a moment, Mary’s heart bumped—absurdly, of course, because there was nothing to be afraid of. Or so she thought …

‘How are you, dear?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ Mary said, and added, cunningly, ‘How’s Simon? I haven’t seen him for
ages
.’

‘Away camping. He likes to get off on his own for a bit, and I can’t say I blame him!’ Simon’s Gran smiled, and her face was all lines, like a nut. ‘That family! Monkey house at the Zoo!’

Mary had reached the counter now. She had two pounds and fourpence in her Post Office book, and she drew it all out except for a shilling. She turned to say goodbye to Simon’s Gran—and saw that someone had joined her.

‘Your turn, Mother,’ Mrs Carver said to Simon’s Gran, and then, to Mary, ‘Well, you’re quite a stranger! Always gone now, time I get to your Auntie’s in the morning!’

Mary stared. Mrs Carver’s hair was red and her mother’s grizzled black and white like a shaving brush, but otherwise, seeing them together, the likeness was unmistakable. Two pale, sharp faces …

Mary caught her breath. She had thought Simon’s mother had reminded her of someone! Now she knew who it was. She and Mrs Carver were sisters. Mrs Trumpet’s hair was dark like her mother’s, like the twins. But Simon had red hair, though it wasn’t as bright as Mrs Carver’s. More gingery …

‘… having a lovely time, your Auntie tells me,’ Mrs Carver was saying.

Mary nodded. Her stomach was screwed up. What else had Aunt Alice said?
She’s
found
a
friend,
a
boy
called
Simon
Trumpet?
She had told Simon’s Gran, she hadn’t seen him for ages …

Mrs Carver said, ‘I must say I’m glad to hear it. You know, your poor Auntie was quite worried about you, mooning about on your own. It’s not natural, Mrs Carver, she said to me, a child should have other children to play with.’

Mary fidgeted. ‘Yes. Well. I’ve got to go now …’ She gave Simon’s Gran one last, forced smile, and darted for the door.

Two small, solid figures barred her way, both wailing like fire sirens.

‘Gran.’ G
RAN
. I dropped me lolly.’

‘So she pinched
mine
.’
Poll stamped her foot. ‘Gran, tell her. It’s N
OT
F
AIR
.’

‘It is. You
joggled
me.’

‘Not a-purpose.’

‘You did.’

‘Didn’t.’

‘Liar. P
IG
L
IAR
.’

They fell upon each other in the doorway. Mrs Carver pushed past Mary and separated them.

‘What a noise! I’m ashamed of the pair of you.’

‘I want G
RAN.
’ Poll pushed Mrs Carver’s hands away and opened her mouth to scream—long, high, piercing screams, like a train whistling.

‘Gran’s getting her pension,’ Mrs Carver said, and slapped Poll on her fat, bare leg. ‘Move out of the way now, how d’you think people can get by?’

‘S’not
people
,’
Annabel said. ‘It’s Mary. Poll, look, it’s
Mary.’

Poll’s screams stopped, as if someone had turned a switch. Two dear little faces were lifted, four bright eyes, two red, button noses.

‘Hallo,’ Mary said, gloomily.

‘I didn’t know you knew Mary,’ Mrs Carver said, dabbing away busily at their tear-streaked faces. The twins jerked their heads up and down, like ponies.

‘’Course we know Mary, Auntie.’

‘She came to
lunch
. Just once, though. She didn’t come again.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Mrs Carver said, giving a final, twisting wipe to Poll’s nose, and standing back to survey the result of her efforts.

‘She was hungry,’ Poll said indignantly. ‘She was
jolly
glad
to come and have lunch with us.’

‘Hungry?’ Mrs Carver looked curiously at Mary, who wished the earth would open beneath her.

‘She’s a Norphan,’ Poll said.

‘A poor Orphan,’ Annabel said, in an oozy, sentimental voice. ‘She’s got a strict Auntie, who doesn’t give her enough to eat.’

‘Really?’ Mrs Carver looked at Mary. Her mouth twitched, and there was a bright, sardonic gleam in her eye.

Mary thought of flinging herself to the ground in a fit. Or killing herself. Instead, she ran: out of the Post Office and along the High Street, head down, blundering into people …

She felt she would never stop running. That if she did, something awful would catch up with her …

M
ARY PACKED A
jersey for Krishna, and two of the thick woollen vests Aunt Alice had bought her. She packed a spare pair of jeans for herself, extra socks and shoes, her anorak and her hairbrush. She went down to the kitchen, stepping carefully over the stair that squeaked and took some cheese and bread from the larder. Then she went into the garden to put the bag in the bushes by the gate, ready for leaving.

It was so early that mist lay on the ground in curls, but she had already been up for hours, sitting on the edge of her bed with a hollow feeling inside her.

It came from sadness, not hunger, but now, standing in the cold, pearly grass, she decided that food might help. She went back into the house, into the kitchen; ate four thick slices of bread and raspberry jam, and put the kettle on the stove. The boiler in the kitchen murmured and sang; she warmed her cold hands on the pipe above it, and sucked the raspberry pips out of her teeth.

The hollowness in her stomach persisted. She stared at the faces that seemed to rise up in front of her, and listened to voices in her mind.

Mrs Carver's face, sharp and pointed; Aunt Alice's, rabbity and pale. Mrs Carver saying,
Well
that's
what
she
told
them,
true
as
I
stand
here,
the
wicked
girl!
An
orphan,
living
with
a
cruel
Aunt
…

And Aunt Alice's face, turning a piteous, slow red …

Mary moaned softly and leaned her forehead against the pipe until it began to burn her.

She thought—Perhaps it won't happen like that, after all! But what could prevent it? Only Mrs Carver dying suddenly in the night. Or being run over on the way to work this morning.

She was the sort of woman who would feel it her duty to tell Aunt Alice what her niece had been saying about her, behind her back.

And Aunt Alice would believe that Mary hated her …

The kettle began to sing and Mary looked at the kitchen clock. It was nearly seven-thirty, and Mrs Carver would be here by nine.

She laid a tray and warmed the pot and made the tea, good and strong the way Aunt Alice liked it, but never made it for herself. She said it was a waste to make a pot for one person, and that strong tea was bad for Grandfather's heart.

As she carried the tray upstairs, she thought the house seemed curiously dark. She looked out of the landing window. There was no sign of the mist lifting.

Aunt Alice struggled up in bed, fumbling a woollen bed jacket over her shoulders. She wore a hairnet, and her two front teeth reposed on a grinning, pink bridge in the glass on the table beside her. After one glance, Mary looked politely away. She said, ‘I just thought you'd like some tea, Aunt Alice.'

‘Oh,' Aunt Alice said. ‘Oh! Mary
dear …
'

She blinked her eyes rapidly and gasped. She seemed overwhelmed—as if, Mary thought, suddenly wanting to giggle, she had been presented with a cheque for a thousand pounds, instead of a pot of tea!

‘I hope I made it right,' Mary said. ‘I put in five shovels.'

Aunt Alice poured a cup. It looked quite black.

‘Just right,' Aunt Alice said. ‘Perfect! Tea in bed! What luxury! I feel like the Queen of England.'

Mary stood at the end of the bed. She wanted to go and she wanted to stay.

Aunt Alice looked at the window. ‘Where's the old sun this morning? Chip-chop, weather change …

Mary shifted from one foot to the other.

‘Oh well, I suppose it couldn't last for ever. All good things come to an end,' Aunt Alice said, smiling at Mary.

Mary wished there was something she could say to Aunt Alice, but there was nothing except
Goodbye
and she couldn't say that. So she just smiled, awkwardly and shyly, and walked backwards to the door.

Outside, she stood still for a minute. Her eyes had misted over. Now she had taken the tea, there was nothing else she could think of to make Aunt Alice feel better.

Apart from leaving the note.

She pulled it out of her pocket now, and went into her bedroom to prop it up on the dressing table, where Aunt Alice would see it as soon as she opened the door.

She had written the letter last night, and had spent a long time trying to think of the right thing to say. Now, reading it
again, water came into her eyes and nose. She sniffed and pressed her knuckles into her eyes until coloured arrows shot across the blackness. She thought that in a way it would be comforting to be a crying sort of person; to He down on her bed and howl.

Instead, she blew her nose, looked round the room, and left it, shutting the door softly behind her.

*

‘I've run away,' she said to Simon.

He didn't answer. He was standing on his head against the wall of the grotto and counting. ‘Hundred and sixty eight, hundred and sixty nine, hundred and seventy …'

‘Simon.'

‘Hundred and seventy three, hundred and seventy four …'

‘Simon,
listen
…'

He swung right side up, red-faced and annoyed.

‘You've broken my concentration,' he accused her. ‘It's no good now. You've got to keep it up to five hundred or it doesn't work.'

‘What doesn't work?'

‘Yogi. For blushing and stammering. I sent off for a book. You have to learn to concentrate your mind. It's a matter of the way you breathe. Standing on your head and counting is the first exercise. What d'you mean, you've run away?'

She said, scornfully, ‘You weren't concentrating very hard, were you? Not if you heard what I said.'

‘Oh shut up.' He turned away, kicking a stone. The back of his neck had flushed scarlet. He picked up the stone, walked to the mouth of the grotto, and skimmed it across the lake. It hopped seven times, startling a moor hen that streaked across the water, red legs trailing. Simon said, ‘D'you mean you're staying here, then?'

Yes.

‘Why? I mean, what made you change your mind?'

Her throat seemed to have dried up. She sucked saliva out of her cheeks and swallowed.

‘I found out something last night. Your Aunt works for my Aunt. Cleaning.'

‘I know. It's a small world.' Simon skimmed another stone, but it only hopped twice. ‘Damn,' he said.

‘You
what
?'

‘I said, I know. Why don't you wash your ears sometimes?'
His
ears were crimson. He said, affectedly casual, ‘Evening before we came here, she was round at our house and she mentioned your Auntie had a niece staying. Name of Mary. Eleven, going on twelve. So I asked questions. Not too many, just to make sure.'

‘I bet I know the sort of things she said about me.'

‘Well.' Simon began to grin. Then he caught Mary's eye.

She said furiously, ‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘Oh, it seemed best left.' He scrabbled up handfuls of stones and gravel and threw them in the lake. ‘One thing—you might have thought I was trying to catch you out.'

‘Oh,' Mary said, terribly humiliated. ‘Oh. Yes. I see.'

‘I
wasn't,
you know,' Simon said. ‘It was pure chance. And I didn't tell her I knew you.'

‘She knows now. I met her at the post office with Polly-Anna. It was awful.'

The memory of how awful it had been swept over her like a wave: she felt as if she were drowning beneath it. She sat against the grotto wall and put her head in her hands. Tears spurted through her fingers. ‘They told her about me being an orphan and starving and she'll tell my Aunt Alice … and … and … oh.
I
wish
I
was
dead
.'

She heard the crunch of Simon's feet. Then nothing except the sound of the water in the grotto. He had gone away and left her alone.

She went on crying. Once she had started, it seemed
impossible
to stop. It was as if a dam had burst inside her and would go on, pouring out water through her eyes and nose until she was dried out and empty. Her hands were clammy, like soaking sponges, and her head had swollen to twice its size.

Simon said, ‘Mary.' He was trying to pull her hands from her face. She twisted away, bubbling out words like tears.

‘Leave me alone.'

He was trying to push something into the narrow space between her knees and her schest. Something wriggling and furry.

‘Noakes.'
She clasped him, burying her face in his coat. He resisted her stiffly, clawing her legs, and she had to let him go. He sprang from her lap and sat a few feet away, cleaning his ruffled coat and watching her.

‘Everyone hates me. Even Noakes,' Mary said.

‘It's only because I grabbed him,' Simon said. ‘He doesn't like being grabbed at, you know.' He waited a minute. ‘Shall I go away?'

‘Yes,' Mary said, and chewed at her lip. ‘I mean, no. No.'

He squatted beside her, frowning. Neither of them spoke, and after a little, Noakes came up of his own accord and rubbed against Mary's leg.

She didn't touch him, just let him rub and purr.

‘You're the only one he'll do that to,' Simon said. ‘Please cheer up, Mary.'

‘I am cheered up. I just feel jellified. Rubbery and flabby. Like an empty hot water bottle.'

‘That's crying,' Simon said. ‘It leaves you like that.'

‘I don't often cry. In fact I never do, usually.'

‘Nothing to be proud of, not crying. Everyone cries!' Simon chucked a stone at the opposite wall of the grotto. It tinkled on the crystals and plopped into the lake. ‘Why d'you have to be different from other people?'

‘I don't want
them
to see I'm unhappy. Crying gives you away.'

‘Them?'

She didn't answer.

‘D'you mean your Aunt and your grandfather?'

She shook her head. Her stomach seemed tied in knots. She burst out, ‘If
your
parents were always going off, would you want the rotten things to see you minded?'

‘
Do
you mind?' He blushed. ‘I'm sorry. My Aunt told me. But it's none of my business.'

‘It's all right.' She thought for a minute. ‘No, I don't mind,' she said, surprised. ‘I did, but I don't now. Not anymore.'

She felt peaceful, suddenly, as if the knots in her stomach had loosened.

She said, ‘It's different now. I don't know why. Since Krishna, and coming to the island. Where's he gone? I haven't seen him this morning.'

‘Nutting,' Simon said. ‘Thinks of nothing but his inside, that boy.'

*

He hadn't picked many nuts, though. One small billy can. He was sitting beside it, knees drawn up to his chest.

‘I feel sick,' he said.

He looked sick. Not pale, of course, because of his skin, but dingy.

‘Too many sardines last night,' Simon said. ‘I told you,'

‘I'm cold,' Krishna said.

‘You can't be. Weather's changed a bit, but not
cold.
Just no sun. You want to run about.'

‘I've got a pain.'

He looked small and young and miserable. Mary knelt beside him. ‘I've brought you a jersey, and some lovely woolly vests. Put them on and you'll feel better.'

But even with the vest on, buttoned to the neck, and a thick jersey on top, he was still shivery.

It seemed absurd, because although the sun didn't come out, the day grew noticeably hotter. The sky was dark, woolly grey, pressing down like a soft ceiling on the tops of the trees and seeming to cut off, not only sun, but sound. No birds sang, and once, when a duck took off from the lake, the clapping of its wings was so loud it made them jump. The bird left a spreading wake, but as soon as that had gone, the lake was still again, brown and opaque, reflecting nothing. Even the air seemed different: the sweat formed on their foreheads and the air didn't dry them. It was so heavy with moisture, so damp and thick, that it seemed as if it could be scooped up in a ladle.

No one wanted much lunch. It was too much effort. Mary and Simon managed a mouthful or two, but Krishna ate nothing. He lay curled up, and seemed to be dozing.

‘Over-excitement last night,' Simon said. ‘Sardines, and then I thought I heard a vixen. So I took him to look—he's never seen a fox, and I thought it would be interesting.'

‘Did you find it?'

‘No. We saw Noakes hunting though. Crouching, and wriggling his bottom, and then—phwoooot!
Charge.
We didn't see, but we heard something cry. I don't think Krishna
liked that. He doesn't like things being killed. It kept him awake.'

‘I feel
hot
now.' Krishna complained.

Simon got up. ‘Best thing you can do is go into the grotto and have your sleep out.' He put his hand on Krishna's
forehead
and looked startled. Then he said,' ‘Course you feel hot! What d'you expect if you put all those clothes on, a day like this! Vests and jerseys—as if this was the Arctic Circle, or something. You must be raving!'

He spoke in the bothered, grown-up voice Mary had not heard him use for a long time. She wondered if he was worried, but if he was, he didn't say so. He took Krishna to the grotto and came back, mopping his forehead, and said the best thing
they
could do, was get in the lake.

It was warm, like bathwater. Too inert to swim, they lay on their backs, paddling idly with their hands, and let an unseen current carry them slowly into the middle of the lake. Mary's hair floated over her face like seaweed, tickling her mouth, but she felt too lazy to brush it away. She rolled over instead, like a turning log, and opened her eyes under water. Sometimes, on a sunny day, she had seen great clumps of weed, a swaying, watery forest with fish swimming through the branches instead of birds, and once she had seen nine big trout—she had counted them exactly—lying in a little hollow at the
bottom
of the lake, so still that she had thought it would be quite easy to catch them, until she tried … But today she could see nothing, only a thick, brown murkiness, as if someone had taken a giant spoon and stirred up all the sludge from the bottom of the water, turning it into soup. Mary swam face downwards, holding her breath, until her hands touched the carpet of curly weed that covered part of the lake. Then she lifted her head, gasping, and looked for Simon.