Long Lankin (11 page)

I told Cora what Mum had said about Mr. Aylott — that a shell had exploded right next to him in the First World War and he was the only one of his unit left. It left him rather deaf, so you have to shout at him.

“He’s got a piece of apple in his head,” Pete said.

“What are you going on about?” I said. “What piece of apple?”

“Mum said,” said Pete. “From the war, and forty years later it’s still in there.”

“You idiot!” I said. “A piece of
shrapnel
— not apple. What a dope!”

“What’s shrapnel, then?”

“It’s a bit of metal stuff out of a bomb, like a bullet,” I said.

“Could he go off, then?”

“Go off? Of course he couldn’t go off. The blinking bomb’s already exploded once. That’s why he’s got a bit of it in his head. Sometimes you say the most stupid things, Pete. I don’t know how you’re ever going to get your scholarship. And take that blinking hankie off your head. It’s disgusting.”

We went into Mrs. Wickerby’s to buy a stamp for Cora’s letter. Mrs. Wickerby is like one of those little black spiders that eat their husbands, especially when she’s sitting in her post-office box, waiting for him to bring her a cup of tea. Mr. Wickerby is very quiet.

She kept us waiting and waiting as she did something important with postal orders, even though she knew we were standing there. Then she caught sight of Cora out of the corner of her eye and leaned right over in her box to look her up and down.

“Yes, can I help you?” she said.

“I need a stamp,” said Cora.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to say
please
?
Please may I have a stamp?
”

“I need a stamp,
please,
” Cora said.

We posted the letter in the pillar box outside the shop, then crossed over Ottery Lane.

Our house is up a dirt track called Fieldpath Road, on the left just after the Dairy. The first house is old Gussie Jetherell’s. We tend to run past it pretty sharpish because she often comes out shouting rubbish, with her hair sticking out like a big white brush. She always wears the same grubby skirt, the same men’s checked slippers with holes in the toes, and the same dirty grey cardigan, all baggy in the front so I don’t know where she keeps her bosoms. She’s got millions of cats.

The house joined onto old Gussie’s is Mrs. Campbell’s. She does for the Treasures and cleans the church. I think Mrs. Campbell goes into old Gussie’s sometimes to check on her. She must be mad to go in there, it looks so disgusting. Then, after Mrs. Campbell, across the end of Fieldpath Road, there’s us, and nobody else.

Our house is wooden with a veranda, and we’ve got a smashing garden that goes all the way round. Dad grows dahlias out the front, and we’re not allowed to touch them. In the winter, he digs them up and puts them in a box in the shed. The back garden’s really good because Dad doesn’t have time to do it, so it’s just left, and there are some climbing trees and lots of wild bits with grass snakes and slow worms, and we can ride our bikes around. The grass isn’t all smooth like the Treasures’. Sometimes we get punctures and I have to fix mine quickly before Dad finds out because my bike’s new. It’s a Raleigh. I got it for passing my scholarship.

Mum was out the back hanging nappies on the line while Pamela slept in the big black pram. Dennis and Terry were having a row by the pond.

“For heaven’s sake, let him have the jar, Dennis!” Mum was shouting.

“No, he just gets mud in it!” Dennis shouted back.

“Oh, hello,” she said, catching sight of us. “While you’re there, Roger, can you look in the shed and see if there’s another jar for Terry?”

“Can’t Pete go?”

“I asked you. Now, go on! Or I’ll get it and you hang up the nappies.”

I dragged myself over to the shed to get a jam jar. Of course, by the time I found one and took it over to the pond, Dennis had fished out one of those big newts with the orange belly and spots and was poking it with his finger. He wasn’t bothered about his jar anymore and had given it to Terry, so I needn’t have bothered. I knew that would happen.

Mrs. Jotman put down her empty basket, came over to us, bent over, and looked Mimi in the eye.

“And what’s your name?” she asked.

“Mimi, and this is Sid.”

“Hello, Sid,” said Mrs. Jotman, then looked over at me. “And how about you?”

“Cora — Cora Drumm,” I said.

“They’re staying down at Mrs. Eastfield’s,” said Pete.

“Are they indeed? It’s been a long time since there were any children down there,” said Mrs. Jotman.

Suddenly she wrinkled her eyebrows together. “Unless . . . Roger! Come here!”

Roger obviously knew the tone of her voice, and rolled up his eyes.

At least Mrs. Jotman had the decency not to tell Roger off in front of strangers. She caught hold of his elbow and marched him round the side of the house. We could still hear every word she said.

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times . . .” she started.

Pete and me kept our eyes down and scuffed up the earth, while Mimi went off to see what the boys were doing by the pond.

“You’ve got the woods to play in, the garden. You can even walk into Daneflete to the park, or the pictures!” she was yelling. “Do I have to keep you in? Are you ever going to take notice of anything I say?” Then came a dull thump, but it wasn’t much. “You know I don’t want you going down to the church. You know that, Roger. I had an idea you’d been down to the marshes. You’re covered in gnat bites.”

“We were only down at Mrs. Eastfield’s, not the church.”

“Don’t talk rubbish! I know you’re lying. Your ears are going red. You are absolutely not ever — ever — to go down there again. Do you hear me? I’m not having this sort of trouble all through the holidays! You’re to put your pocket money in Saint Peter’s Pence next time you go to church! Understand?!”

They came back round the house again, Roger trailing behind Mrs. Jotman, eyes downcast and rubbing his arm. As he got nearer, he looked up from under his fringe and gave us a grin.

Baby Pamela started making a noise like a little sheep. Mrs. Jotman went over to look at her and told Roger to take me in and make some tea.

In the kitchen, Roger filled up the kettle, put it on the stove, and struck a match to light the gas. Then he emptied the old tea leaves into a bucket under the sink. Pete took some cups and saucers off the draining board and set them out on the table, then we helped ourselves to some broken biscuits from the tin.

“You know what makes me cross?” said Roger as we waited for the kettle to boil. “Everybody shouts at us for going down the church, but nobody ever says why we aren’t meant to go.”

“Why don’t you ask?” I said, rooting around the tin for something with chocolate on.

“Ooh, no,” said Roger. “You don’t use the word
why
in this house. If we ask Mum
why
anything, she gives us a clout and says, ‘Because I say so, that’s why.’”

“And if you ask Sister Camillus at school
why,
” said Pete, “she says it’s a mystery and you’ll find out when you die. A fat lot of good it’ll do me then.”

“Anything they can’t explain they say is a mystery. Like me passing my scholarship,” said Roger. “Sister Aquinas said it was the biggest mystery in the History of Salvation. Anyway, we never ask
why,
Pete and me, because it just gets you into trouble.”

“I suppose they’re right, though,” I said as the kettle started whistling. “If you can’t explain something, then it is a mystery. Anyway, I’ll ask your mum about the church if you like. I don’t mind.”

Suddenly there was a noise like ten trains roaring around the house. I nearly choked on some crumbs.

“Oh, it’s all right,” said Pete. “It’s just Dennis and Terry having a race round the veranda. I expect your sister’s joined in as well.”

To make matters worse, Mrs. Jotman came in carrying the baby, who was screaming her head off. Not the best time to ask a question.

“I’m just going to feed and change Pamela,” said Mrs. Jotman in a loud voice over the racket. “There are some cakes in the tin. Dennis helped me make them.”

“I’m not having any,” said Roger as she went out. “He’ll never have washed his hands.”

“Yes, I did, and with soap,” said Dennis, running in with Terry and Mimi, and aiming straight for the biscuits. “Blinkin’ heck! You’ve had all the best ones!”

He spat at Pete and poked his tongue out at Roger, and Roger, furious, stood up, took hold of him by the scruff of the neck, and nearly lifted him off his feet. He marched him outside, dropped him on the veranda, then quickly, before Dennis could get up, came back in and shut and bolted the door on him. Terry and Pete laughed and laughed.

Dennis was furious. “I’m gonna break this door down!” he yelled from outside, banging on it so hard that it shook.

“Just try it!” shouted Pete.

All went quiet. He’d gone away, but a minute later, Pete caught sight of him through the kitchen window. He was running back towards the house.

“Flippin’ hell!” yelled Pete. “He’s only gone and got a hammer out the shed!”

“Blinkin’ heck!” shouted Roger. “Out the front! Quick!”

We rushed through the house and out of the front door, but hadn’t even got to the steps before we heard him running along the veranda in our direction.

We tore away from Dennis, shrieking and laughing, round and round, our feet thumping over the wooden planks. Dragging my bad leg, I half turned to shout at Roger that next time we passed the door, we should jump down the front steps and into the road and away, but when I turned back, I stopped dead in shock. There in front of me, on the veranda, was Auntie Ida.

As I stood there panting, not knowing what to do, all the rest shot into the back of me one by one, Dennis, the last one in the row, frozen like a statue, holding up the hammer.

Mrs. Jotman came out of the front door with Baby Pamela over her shoulder. “What on earth —? Oh — oh, Mrs. Eastfield — what a surprise,” she said, really amazed, like the rest of us. “Goodness. Do — er — do come in. Dennis, go and put the hammer away. He’s very fond of woodwork, Mrs. Eastfield.”

Dennis walked off quietly.

Auntie Ida went in through the front door without so much as a look at us, and Mrs. Jotman rolled her eyes sideways in the direction of the back garden, so off we went and sat quietly and played Five Stones on the ground, straining our ears as if they were on stalks to hear what was being said in the house.

Mimi ran off with Dennis and Terry to play a noisy game of commandos. All we could hear was the kettle whistling and the teacups rattling. With a bit of luck Mrs. Eastfield would eat one of Dennis’s cakes and be poisoned. After a while Mum came out, looking serious. She leaned over and gently rubbed Cora’s arm.

“Mrs. Eastfield’s come to take you back for dinner, love,” she said. “Mimi! You’ll have to stop the game now! Your Auntie Ida’s said you can come back and play with the boys tomorrow!”

Mimi got up off the ground and came running up, absolutely filthy with grass stains all over her nice frock.

“Bit longer? Bit longer?” she asked, wringing her little hands together under her chin.

“Sorry, dear,” said Mum. “Come back tomorrow.”

Mrs. Eastfield came out of the house, and immediately we shot up. Without looking at her, Cora took Mimi’s hand and led her round the side of the house to the front. Mrs. Eastfield followed them.

“See you tomorrow!” I shouted after them. “Oh”— I looked at Mum —“is that all right? Are we allowed to play?”

“Yes, yes, you can,” Mum said. “Cora will bring Mimi here first, to play with Dennis and Terry, and you must make me an absolute solemn vow —” She held up her fingers in the Boy Scout salute.

“That we won’t go down to the church?”

“There are plenty of other places you can play. Do you promise me?”

I did the Boy Scout salute, too, and pretended to cut my throat and get hanged as well.

“It’s really important, Roger. It really worries me that you’ve been down there with Peter when I’m always telling you not to. Me and your uncle Bill never disobeyed Granny and Grandpa like you’ve done. We never went there. None of the children did. It’s really naughty of you.”