Fire and Hemlock (30 page)

“You
are
being generous,” she said to Granny, out of her new embarrassed rawness. “Arranging to keep me, I mean.”

“No, I’m not,” Granny retorted. “Being generous is giving something that’s hard to give. After I gave up teaching, I’d next to nothing to do and I began to feel no one in the world needed me. Now you need me. It’s a pleasure, Polly.”

“Thanks.” Polly contracted her throat with ice cream, expanded it again with coffee, and asked, “What made the man in that office say ‘Give it her!’ like that?”

Granny chuckled. “Remember that day I was so late home? I had him that day. Refusing this, denying that, saying maybe to the other. And I lost patience. I said, ‘Young man,’ I said, ‘if you don’t give me what I want – and I made you a perfectly reasonable request – I shall just sit here until you do give it me.’ And I did,” said Granny. “I sat in front of him and I looked at him. They couldn’t close the office at closing time.”

Polly laughed. She could just see Granny sitting there, unbeaten, small, a lot smaller than Polly was herself now, filling the office with her personality and her bright, unnerving stare. “How long did he last?”

“Two and a half hours,” said Granny. “He was a tough one. Most of them only last twenty minutes.”

Polly laughed again and looked up in the middle of laughing because the table got dark from the shadow of someone standing beside it. It was Seb. He was standing staring at her in a confused sort of way, awkwardly clutching a camera. “I saw you through the café window,” he said. He seemed as tall as the ceiling. Polly didn’t know what to say, except that she really had not done anything this time. Her hand rattled her coffee.

“And I’m her grandmother,” said Granny. “Are you going to sit down, or have you put out roots in the floor?”

At this, Seb evidently remembered the very polite manners he had been taught. He apologised to Granny and, to Polly’s surprise, slid into a chair at the table. But once he was there, he refused cake and ice cream and coffee, and just sat. What does Mr Leroy think I’ve
done?
Polly wondered, near to panic.

“Talk about photographs,” Granny advised Seb, at which Polly jumped guiltily. “I see you’re carrying a camera.”

Seb took her advice. He talked of shutter speeds and lenses, types of camera and kinds of film. Of lighting, developing, and printing. It was his latest passion. Polly was bored stiff, even through her alarm. At length Seb turned to her and said, “I really came to ask if I could photograph you. Would you mind posing for me outside? It won’t take a minute.”

“And it won’t hurt a bit,” said Granny. “Well, we’ve finished here. Better go outside and get it over, Polly.”

Seb photographed Polly beside the tea-shop railings. Then he photographed Granny too because, he said, she had an interesting face. Granny snorted. “I’ll bring you the prints when I’ve done them,” he said. “You live just up the road from us these days, don’t you?”

Then, at last, he went. Polly realised that Mr Leroy still kept a very close watch on her and turned shakily to Granny. “What did he want?”

“Goose!” said Granny. “You, of course. The poor boy’s smitten pink over you.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Polly.

But it seemed to be true. Seb arrived at Granny’s two days later with the photographs, and stayed all afternoon explaining the exact method he had used to develop and print them. This time he was much less awkward. He told them he preferred not to be called Seb these days, but Sebastian, and that he was doing A Levels next year. After that he intended to be a barrister. He looked at Polly most of the time he talked. Polly tried not to be awkward either, but it was not easy when someone so tall and old and well dressed seemed to admire her so much.

She did not like the photographs as all. Seb had done things with strong light and dark shadows that made Polly and Granny look like two white-haired witches. “Well, you see,” Seb explained to Polly, “you’re not beautiful, or pretty, but your face is interesting, and I’ve brought out the interest.”

“
What
a thing to say!” Granny exclaimed when he had gone. “He’ll go far with the girls, that one, on those kind of compliments! My pretty granddaughter
interesting!
I never heard such stuff!”

“You don’t like him, do you?” Polly said, in great relief.

“When he’s noticed there are other people in the world besides himself,” Granny said, “there might be no harm in Master Sebastian. But I’m prejudiced. He comes from That House.” Granny always called Hunsdon House That House.

Seb came round rather often after that. He lived so near. It was, Polly felt, almost the only drawback that summer to living with Granny. Granny was marvellous. She had only two faults, as far as Polly knew. The first one was surprising – Granny was scared of small animals. Mintchoc, who adored Granny as much as Polly did, was always bringing her mice or frogs or voles and laying them lovingly at Granny’s feet. Whenever she did, Granny climbed on a chair and screamed for Polly. It always amazed Polly, and irritated her too, to see someone as dauntless as Granny standing on a chair clutching her skirt and screaming at a mouse.

“Don’t hurt it!” Granny shouted. “Don’t kill it! It’s somebody’s dead soul!”

Polly was amused and exasperated. “How
can
I kill it if it’s dead anyway?” she said, carrying the mouse or frog to the window.

“You can and it is,” Granny said, quite impervious to reason. “Is it gone?”

“Yes,” said Polly.

That was Granny’s other fault, of course – superstition. It was because of Granny’s superstition that Polly went on wearing the little opal pendant, although she knew Mr Leroy had found a way to get round it. Granny became so alarmed the one time Polly took it off that Polly humoured her and put it on again. There was no arguing with Granny about such things. She had superstition written all through her like the words in seaside rock.

The pendant did not even seem to be able to keep Seb away. He called most afternoons. By the end of the summer Polly was not scared of him any longer, but she was quite bored. One afternoon they were in the garden, where Seb was telling her about the agonies of withdrawal he had suffered when he gave up cigarettes, when he suddenly broke off talking and grabbed Polly and kissed her.

It was the first time anyone had done that to Polly. She should have asked Nina about it, she thought wryly, as Seb’s face met hers and their noses seemed to get tangled up. It was not much fun. She wondered whether to wriggle loose, but Seb was breathing heavily and passionately and seemed to be enjoying it so much that it brought Polly’s annoying soft-heartedness out. She stood there and let him lay his mouth against hers, and tried to decide if you kept your eyes open or shut them, and in the end she settled for one of each. What a funny thing to invent to do! she thought. What
do
people see in it?

“I’ll send him packing if you like,” Granny said when Polly came in pretending nothing had happened. “I didn’t before because I thought he might cheer you up.”

“I’m quite cheerful!” Polly protested. She was ashamed that Granny should offer to manage Seb for her. But Granny was right about her not being cheerful. The time in Bristol seemed to have bitten deep and it took her a long time to get over it. She found it hard to concentrate on anything, even when she was back at school that autumn.

Nina was still into boys. It was, as Fiona said, a lifetime’s obsession with Nina, but Nina was still quite up to running various other crazes side by side with boys.

That term Nina’s craze was protesting. Women’s Rights, Vivisection, Oppressed Ethnic Minorities – Nina went on a march for each one and found a new boyfriend on every march. She was always trying to make Fiona or Polly march too. Consequently, they both thought it was a demo of some kind when Nina came rushing up to them one morning calling, “Are you two coming to the Town Hall or not?”

“What are we protesting?” asked Fiona.

“Moron!” said Nina. “Where’s your memory? We said we’d meet that boy from Stow-on-the-Water there!”

Polly and Fiona had clean forgotten Leslie. Fiona said Leslie had just been having them on. Polly thought it might have been a joke too, but she was suddenly seized with pleasure at the thought of seeing Leslie again. She pointed out to Fiona that three people waiting an hour on the steps of the Town Hall didn’t look nearly as silly as one, or even two. So in the end they all three went.

They approached the Town Hall expecting to feel foolish. But, to their astonishment, Leslie was there. He was standing waiting on the step – a surprising sight in every way, for he was dressed in a spruce grey suit like other Wilton College boys, with a Wilton tie, and his mass of curly fair hair was smooth and short and neat. His skull earring had been replaced by a small gold sleeper.

He was quite as surprised to see them as they were to see him. “There! And I made sure you’d forget!” he said.

After that, they all stared at one another awkwardly, until Fiona, who also had pierced ears, remarked on his sleeper. “Doesn’t Wilton allow earrings?” she asked.

“No way!” said Leslie. “Rules about everything. But I wanted to keep my options open, as you might say. No one’s made me take it out yet. Where is there to go in this town?”

The ice was broken and they went to the Blue Lagoon for chips, talking busily. The girls wanted to know what Wilton College was like inside. Leslie told them it was all made of concrete, got up like a church, with pointed arches, and cold as the grave. “Except Hall – that’s pink marble and done Roman,” he said. Lessons were easy, though all the teachers were mad. The most difficult part was getting on with the other boys.

“Half the time they make me feel like an old man,” he said. “Maybe you grow up quicker being brought up common, the way I am, but it gets me down, the way they all laugh at me.” Seeing how concerned Polly was looking, he said, “It’s OK – nothing I can’t handle – just stupid. Because of me playing the flute. Joke of the century, because my name’s Piper.”

“But I thought—” Polly began. Fiona at once kicked Polly’s ankle and leaned forward to change the subject.

Leslie, however, smoothly changed the subject himself. “Did you know you were famous in our school?” he said to Polly. “Everyone says our Head Boy’s in love with you. Leroy – know him? He’s got a photo of you up in his study. I’ve seen it. It’s awful, but it’s you, definite. Can I say I know you? It’ll do me no end of good with the crowd.”

Polly found Fiona and Nina staring at her, awed. “Oh, Seb,” she said gruffly. “Yes, I suppose I do know him. And so do you know me, so you might as well say.”

“Thanks,” Leslie said. He was obviously grateful. “Now I’ve got a real touch of class!” he said.

Fiona and Polly got up to go soon after that. Nina said, “I’ll be along. I need the Ladies’. You lot go.”

“Why did you kick me?” Polly asked as they walked back to school.

“Broken home of some kind,” Fiona said. “I saw the look come on his face. I know it from you. Sometimes I can see you think, ‘God! Someone’s going to
ask!
’ Nice, isn’t he – Leslie? Do you really know the Head Boy of Wilton?”

“I know Seb Leroy,” said Polly. “I didn’t know he was Head Boy.”

Nina did not come back to school that afternoon. Neither, Polly suspected, did Leslie. The next day it was all over Manor Road School that the Head Boy of Wilton College was in love with Polly Whittacker. People kept coming and asking Polly if it was true. Polly got very gruff about it. But it did make her feel more kindly towards Seb.

The day after that, a parcel came for Polly, addressed in strange writing. In it were several cassette tapes – Bach, Beethoven, Brahms – and a note in small, fat writing:

Tom thought you might like these. He says throw them away if you don’t. We gather he didn’t kill you that eventful night, or someone would have tried to sue him by now. Our show is still on the road – just about. Ann and Sam send love.

Yours, Tan Thare (alias Ed)

Almost on tiptoe, in case Mr Leroy found out, Polly borrowed Fiona’s radio-cassette player and listened to the tapes. She got so addicted to them that Granny promised her a cassette player for Christmas. And Mr Leroy did nothing. Polly relaxed, and then relaxed further, from a tension she had not known she had. Suddenly she could concentrate again. A week after the tapes arrived, she got out her map and the story called
Tales of Nowhere
for the first time in months, and began to compose a long, careful narrative.

It turned out a bit different from the way she had planned it. Remembering how scornful Mr Lynn had been at her borrowing from Tolkien, Polly decided to let her imagination take her where it would. All she knew at the start was that it was an account of how Hero came to be Tan Coul’s assistant, and then their quest together for the Obah Cypt. The result was that the story got huge. Small extra stories sprouted off it everywhere, giving detailed histories of every character who appeared. Hero herself became a king’s daughter who had to run away from home because of the machinations of her beautiful but evil girl-cousin. Tan Coul found her wandering in disguise and made her his assistant, thinking she was a boy. From there it became an epic. Polly was writing at it most of that school year, almost until her fourteenth birthday, on and off, with numerous interruptions from real life.

Seb was one of the interruptions. Polly was continually trying to get rid of Seb, or at least evade his grabbing and kissing her. She was ashamed to ask Granny to help. But each time she tried, Seb got so upset, so humble and miserable, that Polly got soft-hearted and did not send Seb packing after all.