Long Lankin (22 page)

Flaming girls don’t have any flippin’ idea about cricket. Clevedon Mortimer’s innings was really exciting. Their first man was caught out after only two runs, but Cora was annoying. She would keep trying to get my attention.

You could see time was moving on because the shadows on the grass were getting longer, but everything was going brilliantly for us because Pete and I were changing the numbers on the wickets hook over and over again.

We got them all out for only fifty runs. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet. When it was over, the men came off the pitch, the Clevedon Mortimer team being sporting and shaking each other by the hand and slapping the Bryers Guerdon team on the back. Pete and I whooped at them as they came by. Dad and Graham Crawford put their caps on our heads, then we sorted out the scoreboard with Mr. Bannister and he gave us some Murray Mints out of his pocket.

Back in the Scout Hut, the ladies had done most of the clearing up during Clevedon Mortimer’s innings. Cora still kept pestering me as we helped pile up Mum’s empty plates, then stacked the chairs back against the walls.

“All right, you can tell me when we’ve finished,” I said, “but we can’t chat now or they’ll tell us off for not helping. Honest, I’ll listen when it’s all done.”

But there never was time that evening. Suddenly everything in the Scout Hut went quiet, apart from the rattling of cutlery and the distant murmur of chatting out in the kitchen. Mrs. Eastfield had walked in, holding Mimi by the hand. She looked around and saw Cora.

“Come along,” she said. “It’s getting late. Go and thank Mrs. Jotman for having you.”

As soon as they left, everyone started talking again, but I don’t think it was only the match they were muttering about.

Mimi’s wet the bed again. Auntie Ida gets the copper going for the hot water, and I sort out the clothes from the sheets and blankets. Then Auntie goes down the stone passage to let Finn out for his run and to get the big tin bath.

Mimi is in a silly mood, still excited from the cricket match. I rummage behind the curtain under the sink and find a bag of peanuts. I pull it out, and nibbled empty shells, crumbs, and mouse droppings fall through the shredded brown paper onto the floor.

“The parrot can have some of these for a special treat,” I tell Mimi, putting the few remaining whole nuts into a teacup. “Hold them through the bars of his cage one at a time. See if you can get him to say ‘Hello.’ And you’re not to go mucking about on the piano or a giant’ll come along and tread on you, and I’ll know because I’ll hear you doing it. I’ll make you some squash when you come back.”

Auntie pushes the tin bath through the door. I let her know where Mimi has gone. She switches on the wireless, rolls up her sleeves, and gets stuck in with the washboard and some green soap. I help her wring out the big sheet. We have some tea and a biscuit, and while I’m washing up the teacups, we hear the pips for the hour. The news comes on.

“Is that the time?” I say. “I bet Mimi’s eaten them peanuts herself.”

Suddenly, with a great splash, Auntie Ida drops the heavy wet towel she is scrubbing into the bath. Soap suds wash over the floor.

“It must have been half an hour!” she cries, getting up and frantically wiping her hands on her apron.

“She’s most probably in the toilet,” I say.

“For half an hour?
Mimi!
” Auntie shouts as she rushes down the hall to the front door and checks to see it is still locked. “
Mimi!
Oh, God, did I lock the back door when I let Finn out? Check the back, Cora! Oh, God, is the tide out?”

I run back into the kitchen and down the stone passage. The back door is locked and the key hanging up on the big hook.

When I get back into the hall, Auntie is rushing in and out of rooms, banging on locked doors. “
Mimi! Mimi!
Answer me!
MIMI!
”

I dash up the stairs, the sound of my pounding feet echoing along the landing. I lift the latch on our bedroom door and push it open. Mimi isn’t there.

“You in the toilet, Mimi?” I shout. I stop and listen, then run to the bathroom and check the toilet. The doors stand open. The rooms are empty.

“Auntie! Can I go along the passage up here?” I call down, leaning over the rail. “Am I allowed?”

Auntie comes racing up the stairs. Her face is white. “Yes! No — no! I’ll go!
MIMI!
Where are you?!”

I hear her footsteps on the wooden floorboards, going in and out of the rooms along the landing, opening and slamming doors. When she comes back, her hands are trembling and her wide eyes move everywhere. She rubs her forehead and says, “Oh, God, oh, God . . .” over and over.

“I bet she’s hiding. She does it sometimes — thinks it’s a lark,” I say, trying to be calm, but my voice is shaking like Auntie’s hands. “She’s most probably behind the settee in the sitting room, giggling at us getting all in a lather. I’ll go back and look. I tell you, I’ll give her a ruddy good spanking when I get hold of her.”

I run quickly down the stairs, turn right at the bottom beside the dark panelled wall, and go towards the sitting room.

There is a soft knocking sound, quite close to me. I stand still. It stops. Then comes a scuffling. The knocking begins again, a few little taps. After a few seconds, all is quiet again.

The stairs creak as Auntie Ida comes down.

“Mimi! MIMI!”
I shout. “Stop playing this ruddy stupid game! Are you making that noise? Say something! It ain’t funny!”

I move into the sitting room. Auntie follows me. I lean over the settee to look behind it. The parrot says,
“Hello.”
I glance up, and there is Mimi, standing in the doorway.

Auntie sinks into a chair and covers her face with her hands. I storm up to Mimi and shake her and shake her by the shoulders.

“What are you bloody playing at?” I scream. She starts to cry. Tears fly out as I shake her. I find I’m crying as well.

Then I put my arms around her and squeeze her really tight.

“It ain’t funny,” I say. “It ain’t funny hiding like that. Where’ve you been? We looked all over the blimmin’ place.”

There’s dirt on her dress and bits of spiders’ webs in her hair. “What’s all this?” I say as I pick them off. “Where’ve you been, Mimi?”

She looks over at Auntie Ida, then at me. “Can I have my squash now?” she says.

Auntie Ida goes out into the hall.

“You’re not to play hide-and-seek here!” I say to Mimi. “You’re not to go off on your own!”

“I weren’t on my own,” she says. “I went in this little house.”

“Are you fibbing me, Mimi?”

“I ain’t fibbing. I weren’t on my own.”

I see Sid sticking out of her hand.

“You mean you had Sid?”

“Nah, but she knows Sid. She see’d him before.”

“What on earth you talking about? Who’s seen him before?”

“I ain’t saying,” says Mimi. “I ain’t saying nothing.”

“Mimi, if you don’t tell me, I’ll give you the worst arm burn in the world.” I take her arm in my two hands and start to twist the skin.

“I ain’t saying,” she says, baring her little teeth in pain. More tears drop out of her eyes. I can’t carry on. I let her go.

“I ain’t saying,” she sobs, rubbing her arm. “I promised, hope to die.”

“Don’t say that!”

We go out of the room and back into the hall. Auntie’s standing at the bottom of the staircase with her back to us, her arm clutching the big post. After a minute, she lifts her apron up and wipes her face with it, then, still without turning round, goes into the kitchen.

“Can I have my squash now?” Mimi says.

“Shut up, Mimi,” I say as we follow Auntie. “You’ve been a bad, bad girl. You ain’t having no squash, not for ages.”

Finn is barking at the back door. Auntie goes off to let him in.

“Another cup of tea?” I ask when she returns.

“No,” she says. “Why don’t you take Mimi up to Bryers Guerdon and see if the Jotman boys can come out to play. I’ll walk you up the hill.”

“We’ll be all right,” I say. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, it would be better,” she says, taking her scarf off the hook, “and we haven’t picked up the milk yet.”

Mimi runs on ahead, throwing sticks for Finn. Auntie Ida and I say nothing. Now and then I catch her looking over to where the church is, behind the trees.

By Glebe Woods, Auntie stops for a moment and looks back down the hill with her hand shading her eyes. Then she leaves us to go and pick up the milk from the box and get back to the washing.

Mimi and I walk up to the main road. I’m cross with her for keeping this secret from me.

“Where did you go?” I ask for the umpteenth time.

She looks away from me across the wheat field.

I went with Pete to the top of the lane and put him on the bus to Daneflete. He was going to Pip Bracken’s birthday party. Pip lives on Corsey Island, and his mum was meeting all his friends outside the Longship in Daneflete, then taking them back to their house. Pete said they were going to pick winkles off the mud right outside Pip’s house and pull them out of their shells with a needle and eat them. Wasn’t my idea of a party.

Just as the bus pulled away, I spotted Cora and Mimi coming along by the Thin Man. Cora said Mimi had been a flipping idiot, hiding somewhere, and she wasn’t to have any treats at my house like biscuits or ice cream.

When we got there, I wished we hadn’t gone round the back because Mum saw us and gave us this big basket of washing to hang up on the line. Still, at least we could talk while we were doing it.

“You know,” said Cora, “Father Mansell said the rector before was called Mr. Scaplehorn. He said there was this rectory before Glebe House, but it burned down in this great huge fire hundreds of years ago, and that’s the ruins in the woods. It never was a castle, you know — it never was.”

Cora took a pair of my pants out of the basket and was getting two pegs ready to hang them up. What was worse, they were the pants that were all thin round the back. I snatched them off her and stuffed them in my pocket.

“Pete’s,” I muttered.

When we’d finished pegging up, I showed Roger the piece of paper from Mr. Bannister’s score pad.

“Look,” I said. “
Petrus Hilliardus — Hillyard
. This is what I wanted to show you yesterday at the cricket. Look, the name’s nearly the same. I think that painting is a picture of this Father Hillyard what Gussie was going on about, but the picture’s really really old. He must’ve been dead for ages.”