The Monkey Puzzle Tree (4 page)

Her mother relaxed into the pillows, until she was seized again by another paroxysm of coughing. When she had caught her breath, she said, wheezing, “Grandma was here, you know. She was here for two months before she died.” She shot a look at Gillian. “But as I told you,
I
have no intention of
dying
. I’m going home to my little bungalow, and to my Tweetie-Pie and Sylvester, who are pining for me.”

Neither the cat nor the canary had shown any signs that Gillian could see of decline. “They’re just fine, Mum.”

Her mother pursed her lips and shook her head. “They really feel the separation, you know, animals do. Grandma’s old cat, Twm, died while she was here. I remember her talking about it. It was very sad.”

This could be the opening she had been waiting for. Gillian sat down beside the bed. “Mum,” she took her mother’s hand and stroked the raised blue veins and brown age-spots on its back, “did you and Grandma talk much while she was here?” She could tell her mother that children felt the separation too; that she and Tommy certainly had. After which she could bring up the years when they had been evacuated at her grandparents’ home; and that, perhaps, could lead back to the previous year at Croesffordd, at which point she would be able, at last, tell her mother what had happened there.

Her mother removed her hand. “Yes we did. We talked about old times, and about Grandpa, and about your father of course, and my family, and people in Tregwyr. She talked about you and Tommy too; those years you spent with them, and how happy you were there.” A theatrical sigh brought on a fit of coughing. “As a matter of fact,” she resumed after she had caught her breath, “I always felt that you two loved being there so much, you didn’t want to come back home to live with your father and me.” She shook her head, flicking a sideways glance at Gillian. “It was very hard on me, you know, Gillian, being separated from you children for so long.”

What was that?
Gillian stared at her.
We didn’t want to come home?

She stood up.
It was hard on
you?

“I’ve got to go.” She grabbed her coat and purse off the foot of the bed, and before her mother could raise any argument, was at the door. “I hope you’ll feel better tomorrow.”

Her mother seemed to shrink, suddenly looking even older and frailer. Raising her eyebrows she looked out of the window. “Don’t you worry about me! You go off and enjoy yourself. I’ll be all right.”

“I’ll be back in the morning.”

“If you have the time.” Her mother studied the ceiling.

Hearing the rattling cough as she reached the stairs, Gillian stood still, her hand on the polished banister and her head turned, until she saw Sunita slip into her mother’s room and heard the coughing die down.

She hurried down the stairs and out onto the quiet street, the words
You didn’t want to come home
playing over and over in her head. It had been all they had ever wanted, both at their grandparents’ house, kind as they had been, and of course before that, at Maenordy where she and Tommy had kept a calendar, crossing off the months, weeks, and days of their exile until the great day finally arrived when they left Croesffordd for good.

W

Gillian sat in the shade
on the steps of Maenordy
,
clutching her cardigan around her and staring at a daisy that had struggled through the gravel at her feet while Tommy, panting and red-faced in the August sunshine, galloped back and forth between the steps and the bend in the drive. He was watching for their parents’ car to come into sight and chanting, “We are going
ho
-ome! We are going
ho
-ome!” at the top of his funny, gruff voice.

Gillian narrowed her eyes at him. “Shut up, you idiot!”

He skidded to a wide-legged stop on the gravel and stared at her, his wet, red mouth open.

“What? Whassa matter? Don’t you want to go home?”

“Course I do, stupid! I hate it here. It’s just …” Why did she wish that the car buzzing unstoppably along the road towards them would turn around and go back? It didn’t make any sense.

“You look like a dumdum running around like that,” she said, as Tommy went on staring, his mouth drooping
,
“You’re all red, your socks have fallen down, and your shirt’s hanging out at the back. Mummy and Daddy will think you’re a mess when they come.” She shrugged. “
If
they come. I heard the clock strike one ages ago. They’re late. They’ve probably changed their minds, and they’re not coming.”

“They
are
coming!” Tears filled his eyes. “I know they are! You’re
horrid!”
He picked up a handful of gravel and threw it at her just as a toot came from down the drive.

Brushing off the gravel, Gillian picked the daisy and scrutinized the slender, fuzzy stem and pink-tipped petals while Tommy slobbered over their mother in the front seat.

A crunch of footsteps announced her father’s approach.

“Hello, Gill.” Balding sandy head on one side, he was stuffing tobacco into his pipe. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you glad to see us?”

“Yes Daddy.” She glanced up at the grey flannels, and down again at the pattern of little holes in his polished brown brogues. The fragrance of his tobacco, mixed with that of Imperial Leather soap, brought back the sensation of being held giggling in his arms as he rubbed his scratchy chin against her cheek. In the old days.

“I expected a bit more of a welcome.” He lit his pipe, smiling and frowning at the same time, as she squinted up at him. “But perhaps you’re overwhelmed. Is that it?”

“What does
overwhelmed
mean?” There was comfort in being able to talk the way they used to.

“It means ‘overcome’—feeling it’s all a bit too much for you. Is that the problem?”

“Yes.” She was grateful for the word and stashed it away for future reference. “I’m overwhelmed.”

After the suitcases and bags had been loaded into the boot, Mrs. Macpherson shook hands with their parents and made to kiss the children goodbye. Tommy hid behind their mother, and Gillian, stiff as a post, turned her head away at just at the right moment as Mrs. Macpherson’s long nose and sharp chin approached. Her mother raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.

As her father started the engine, Angus came running out of the barn. “Here,” he thrust Glory Anna at Gillian, panting, “You forgot this.”

Gillian looked at the dirty, straw-covered doll she had not played with since before Christmas, and pushed it back at him. “I don’t want it. Keep it yourself.” She wound up the window and flung herself back in her seat. As they drove away, she saw him watching from under the monkey puzzle tree, the doll dangling from his hand, and thanked her lucky stars she had escaped from him and from what he had said he was going to do the next time.

“That was very rude!” Her mother looked around at her. “I thought it was really nice of Angus to fetch your doll for you. What’s the matter with you?”

“Yes,” her father said, “What was that all about?”

“I’m sick of the stupid doll. It’s babyish.” She wrinkled her nose at Tommy and they drove on in silence.

As they passed through the village, she saw Gladys, weighed down by a full basket, come out of the greengrocer’s shop. Leaning out of the car window, Gillian thumbed her nose and stuck out her tongue. Gladys dropped the basket and ran into the middle of the road to make what Gillian knew was a very
common
gesture after the car.

The silence in the car persisted for a while until Tommy began bouncing around in the back seat, starting up again with his
We are going home!
song. Their mother turned around in the front seat. “You’re not going home, darlings,” she said. “It’s not safe yet for you to come back to Swansea. Grandma’s better now, so you’re going to live with Grandma and Grandpa in Tregwyr! Won’t that be fun? We can come and see you at weekends, and you might even be able to come home for the day sometimes!” She beamed at them, seemingly thrilled with the arrangement.

Tommy shrank like a punctured balloon. Gillian bit her bottom lip and picked the scab off her knee until it bled. Only the day before, Mrs. Macpherson had told them their parents were taking them away. And now they really were leaving Croesffordd, but not to go home.

“Is
underwhelmed
a word?” she asked, lifting her head, but received no reply.

By the time they reached Tregwyr
,
their grandparents’ village, which lay about six miles from Swansea, she was getting her mind around to the idea. Even though they would not actually be at home, they would be closer to it and away from Maenordy anyway, and she would be safe at last from Angus and his terrifying plans.

She remembered helping her grandmother with the baking, putting wings on butterfly cakes and placing glacé cherries just right on queen cakes. Perhaps Grandma would teach her how to knit. Also, school would be taught in English, and, even better, there would be no Gladys. Tommy was cheering up too, asking if Grandpa would take him to the market to see the animals. By the time they got to the brick house on the corner they were ready to run into the arms of their grandparents.

Her grandmother took one look at Gillian. “Oh
cariad
!” She put her arms around her. “My darling! What have they done to my little girl?”

It was all Gillian could do not to burst into tears, but she stiffened her back. She must not allow her grandmother to get too close. She could see too much.

“Look at this child, Iris!” Her grandmother turned her around to face her mother. “She’s as white as a sheet and there’s nothing to her. We’ll have to see what we can do about that, never mind that old rationing. Tommy doesn’t look quite so bad, although he’s not the plump little fellow he was, either.”

Their mother glanced at them. “It’s just their age, Mam. They’re bound to be thinner.”

That evening, after their parents
had left and Tommy had calmed down, they sat in the living room, Tommy sprawled, hiccupping, on their grandfather’s lap in the big leather armchair, and Gillian perched next to her grandmother on the brown velvet loveseat. Their grandmother wanted to hear all about Maenordy, and Tommy cheered up enough to tell her about the horrible pigeon pies which always made him sick, the burnt porridge, and lumpy custard. He started prattling on about the barn but caught Gillian’s eye and veered off the subject, and, when they were asked about Angus, did not contradict her statement that Angus was always away at school and they had hardly ever seen him.

In the morning, while their grandfather took Tommy to the station to see the train come in, Gillian helped her grandmother prepare the dinner. She was shown how to choose the best string beans from those growing up the garden fence; not too little and thin, and not too big and tough. They pulled up potatoes, which she scrubbed clean by herself, and then made Welsh cakes together, Gillian sieving the flour, and watching how to rub in the margarine. When the cakes were done, she was given one to take out into the garden.

Wary of bees droning and bumbling in the hearts of the roses, she inhaled and rated the various fragrances. She rubbed thyme, sage, and rosemary between her fingers and nibbled a sprig of parsley as she watched a white butterfly lazily open and close its wings on a lacy, dark-green cabbage leaf. At the bottom of the garden, she found she had grown enough to sit on a low bend in the trunk of the elderberry tree, now laden with umbrella-like clusters of little black berries. Swinging her legs in the dappled shade, she savoured a handful of the bittersweet fruit along with her still-warm Welsh cake.

That evening they listened to music. Their grandfather wound up the gramophone before carefully lowering the needle onto the old, familiar
His Master’s Voice
records: Madame Adelina Patti, performing something with lots of trills and amazing high notes, and Dame Clara Butt, sounding just like a man at times, splendidly belting out
The Lost Chord.
Finally he put on a record Gillian had not heard before: someone called John McCormick singing,
I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen
.

As the clear notes died away, Gillian saw tears in her grandfather’s eyes. She knew all about homesickness, that piercing, paralyzing ache for the feel of home, and went over to him, putting her hand on his knee. “When were you away from home, Grandpa?”

“I spent a week in London once, with the choir.” He wiped his eyes with a spotted handkerchief. “Nearly killed me.”

“Is that why you’re crying?”

“No.” He put his arm around her. “It’s that voice brings tears to my eyes, Gillian
fach
. The voice of an angel!”

On other evenings, their grandmother would recite poetry by heart. She favoured really sad poems like the one about the death of the miner’s only son, beginning,
The cottage was a thatched one,/ The outside poor and mean.
Gillian, who hated to be seen crying, would be out the door before her grandmother, her voice quavering with pathos, could get to
I feel no pain, dear mother, now/ But oh, I am so dry!

Gillian preferred the funny poems and stories, and the everlasting quotations.
Heat me those irons hot!
her grandmother would exclaim, taking the poker out of the fire and waving it. Or, raising an eyebrow over her flashing glasses, she would hiss,
But Brutus is an
honourable
man
!

There were books too, mostly boring, apart from the heavy, leather-bound Bible, with its fancy metal clasps and bright, tissue-covered pictures; and
Pilgrim’s Progress,
with its embossed cover and scary black and white illustrations. Like most children in the village, they could never have comics in the house or play on Sundays, so they spent much of the day poring over those two volumes, puzzling together over pictures like
The Sacrifice of Isaac
, or
Christian Struggles in the Slough of Despond
,
Gillian doing her best to follow the text. Sundays were not much fun, it was true, but it was a million times better than living at Maenordy.