Cora Ravenwing (12 page)

“It’s so hard to believe …” began Mother.

“We don’t have to believe it,” said Father, “though I’m almost beginning to. That sweet voice—bewitching—for good or evil? Who’s to say?”

“Daddy!” I gasped. “Don’t be daft! Cora’s nice, and she’s honest and good. Mrs. Briggs is lying. She’s
mad
!”

“Go to your room,” he thundered and leapt to his feet. He dragged my chair back from the table with me still sitting on it and my coffee slopped over the floor. I fled upstairs and locked myself in my bedroom.

Later he came up and tried the door. He shouted
furiously
.
I didn’t move and didn’t speak. He hurled himself against the door, but it didn’t give and after a while he went away. My knees were knocking with fright. I could hardly believe that my own father had filled me with such terror. I thought of Georgia Jamieson. I hardened against Father then; I don’t think I every fully softened towards him again. I sat in my room all day. I saw Mrs. Briggs stumping off at noon. Sometimes the boys came running and whooping round the house, once pursued by Father tossing snowballs gently after them. I loved him and knew he was good and right in most ways, but I couldn’t forgive him his total blindness earlier on and his fearsome raging at me.

In the evening, after the boys had been put to bed, there was a soft knock on my door and Mother called through: “Becky, I’ve brought you some tea. Do open up, dear. Daddy’s gone to get cigarettes from the golf club; he won’t be back for a bit.” I let her in. Her face was blotched and swollen. “Becky, please patch this up with Daddy somehow. I don’t care how you do it. But for all our sakes … What kind of a Christmas are we going to have at this rate?”

“I don’t know if
he’ll
patch it up with
me.
He’s so furious.”

“He’s not so bad now. It was just so embarrassing you going for Mrs. Briggs like that after she’d practically killed herself saving you both.”

My fists punched into the pillow beside me. “Mummy, she didn’t, she
didn’t
,” I seethed. “She was just there, that’s all. At most she gave me a hand at the top of the ladder, but Cora she tried to push down. I saw her. She had her hand on top of Cora’s head. She wouldn’t let her get out. And she didn’t collapse because of the smoke. I shoved her out of the way. It was me—I pushed her down the side of
the air-raid shelter so Cora could get out. She tried to
murder
her.”

Mother sat down, white and shocked. She believed me, I thought. “Oh, Becky! What are we going to do with you? What’s got into you? How can you say such things …?”

My heart sank. “Go away,” I whispered. “What’s the use? Nobody believes me.” She went out silently. I sobbed desperately. I longed to see Cora. She knew the truth. I didn’t even know if she was home from hospital.

Much later, after I’d tucked myself in bed—I’d never got out of my pyjamas all day—Mother and Father came to see me together. They were sad and grave but determined to mend matters. I had wept for hours and felt very tired; the intensity of my hurt feelings and my sense of injustice and outrage had dulled. I could understand how they had been tricked by Mrs. Briggs. They weren’t so unusual in that; she had the entire village under her thumb. Father took my hand and stroked it as I lay there. He spoke for both of them. “Let’s draw a curtain over this entire episode, Becky. We’re all upset. We’re never going to see eye to eye. You believe your version and we believe ours. Maybe you’re still shocked; maybe you’ll never have a clear
recollection
of what happened. Let’s leave it at that.”

“O.K.,” I agreed quietly. “How’s Cora? Do you know?”

“Your mother phoned this morning. She’s home and she’s well. Just shocked, like you. But Mother and I have decided, and Mr. Ravenwing agrees, that there’s no good being served by this secret friendship between you and Cora—so it’s got to stop. I do, now, definitely forbid you to have any dealings whatsoever with that child. I think we’ve all learned our lesson now. What do you say?”

“All right.”

I wasn’t going to argue. At least they hadn’t made me
promise. I would keep the peace and Christmas would go ahead in its usual jolly way. But I had no intention at all of keeping away from Cora. We would simply have to bide our time. That was all. The tie that bound us was stronger than ever. I was sure she must feel that too.

I
T’S SURPRISING HOW THE MOST DEVASTATING OF FAMILY
rows can, to all intents and purposes, blow over in a flash. Christmas day was as noisy as ever in our house, with presents, and phone calls from relatives, and church, and turkey. Now and then I would recall Father’s rage and Mother’s woe of two days earlier but both seemed unreal in the light of family carol-singing and party hats. And after Christmas was over it wasn’t so long until the new term started.

I was dreading seeing Hermione and Susan and Barbara again. I hadn’t had a letter or a phone call from any of them over the holidays and wondered why not. Inevitably Mrs. Briggs would have broadcast her version of events at the air-raid shelter but, even if they were angry about my secret liaison with Cora, I was surprised that they weren’t worried about how I was. Heavens! If one of them had come that close to death I’d have been round in a trice.

I met Hermione on the way to school on the first day of term.

She said: “Hello. Are you all right now?”

“Fine. I was all right all along, really.”

We walked on in silence for a bit.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come and see you, Becky.”

“I was hoping you would.”

“Mummy and Daddy weren’t keen. They said it’d be better to let you get everything sorted out with your parents.”

“
What
sorted out?”

“Well, about Cora and everything.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, I suppose that all got sorted out.”

“Why did you do it, Becky?”

“Oh, I don’t know. At the beginning it was really that I thought it would be terribly mean to leave her high and dry after I’d been so friendly with her all summer. And then, later, I began to enjoy meeting her.”

There was another painful silence.

“Who’s your real best friend, Becky? Me or Cora?”

I didn’t know what to say. “Oh … it’s hard … you’re both so different.”

Hermione said sadly: “You’ll have to decide, you know. You’ve been awfully deceitful—worse than Horti with Hector, and that was bad enough. I never lied to you or kept secrets you didn’t know about. If you really promised me you’d never let me down again I might be able to forgive you and things might be as nice again as they used to be, but I’m not certain. I would try. But you’d really have to swear on the Bible.”

I was stuck. I would never be overtly friendly with Cora, that was certain. Mother and Father wouldn’t allow that. How could I forego all other friendships as well? I loved
to have friends. I couldn’t imagine myself as another Georgia or Cora. I cast desperately around in my mind for some formula to cover the demands of the situation. It mustn’t be a lie but it couldn’t quite be all the truth either. Hermione was waiting.

I said: “Mummy and Daddy have forbidden me to have anything to do with Cora.”

“Didn’t they do that before?”

“No, not really. They were in two minds. Daddy quite liked her at one stage, I think. But anyway they’ve
definitely
both decided against her now.”

“And how about you?”

I hesitated.

She burst out: “How can you be in any doubt? She tried to kill you, didn’t she? Mrs. Briggs said if she hadn’t been cleaning at the school and coming home at precisely that moment you’d have been done for.”

Through clenched teeth I said: “Whatever else we
discuss
let’s leave Mrs. Briggs right out of it, shall we? I hate her.”

“But she saved …”

“She did not save either of us.
Please
…”

Hermione was puzzled and hurt by my manner, but I couldn’t help it. Just as she was making demands of me in the name of past friendship so I had to make them of her. In the end, when we met up with Barbara and Susan, I had to promise faithfully never to have anything to do with Cora again. None of them would settle for less. I made my false promise but felt alienated from them all for pushing me into it. I knew I would never keep it. As the term got under way we all pretended that things were as they had always been, but I don’t think I was alone in knowing that they weren’t. We still had fun at school and visited each
others’ houses, but they each had an underlying deep
suspicion
of me. Sometimes, during a lull in conversation, I would suddenly be aware of a strange stillness and I would look up and find myself gazing into three pairs of
unblinking
eyes. They were on the watch.

Thick snow continued to lie over Okefield for most of January, and finally even Jo and Dory became sick of it as Mother grew more and more bad-tempered about puddles and wet footmarks all over the kitchen floor. One morning, while we were all gulping down our cereal before school, Father came in with the milk bottles, looking a bit troubled. “Come and look at this, Jean,” he said.

“What! Right now?” said Mother, peering under the grill to check toast.

Father nodded crossly.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“There you are,” said Father to Mother. “Now
everybody’s
wanting to know. Sit down, Jo. There’s nothing to see. And just you stay put too, Becky, and get on with your breakfast.”

They went out through the front door. After a while I sneaked into the hall and peeped out to see what they were doing. They seemed to be aimlessly tramping round in the front garden, looking hard on the ground and then up at my bedroom window. When they showed signs of being about to come in again I shot back into the kitchen
unobserved
.

“All right?” I asked casually.

“Did you hear anything unusual last night, Becky?” said Father.

“No. Why? What’s out there? What have you seen?”

“It’s nothing, dear,” said Mother quickly. “There’s bound
to be a simple explanation. Perhaps the milkman was looking for one of us to pay the bill or something.”

“Not the same boots,” said Father. “I thought of that one already. The milkman’s footmarks are quite different.”

“Footmarks? What footmarks?”

“There are some strange boot-marks in the snow at the front of the house,” said Father. “They just go along close to the wall—they don’t seem to be going anywhere, really.”

“A burglar, do you think?” I felt quite frightened.

“I can’t really believe it—we’ve nothing worth stealing but …”

When I was ready for school they let me examine the footmarks too. They could see I was alarmed in any case. They were distinct, deep imprints in the snow, and they went right along the front of the house and came to a halt under my bedroom window. There the “burglar” appeared to have paused for a moment or two, making quite a muddle of prints before retracing his steps and leaving by the front gate.

“Strange, isn’t it?” said Father. “Big feet but small steps. Did you notice? Don’t worry, darling. He seems to have thought better of it anyway.”

“Won’t you get the police?” I said. “What if he comes back?”

“Most unlikely,” said Father. “No, I think I’ll just leave it. But we’ll keep our eyes open for a day or two, shall we?”

I certainly did that. I hardly got a continuous hour of sleep for the next three nights. I was constantly starting awake, hearing things, seeing shadows, steeling myself to sit up in bed and peer through a chink in the curtains. There was never anyone there. On the fourth night I slept very deeply and bounced down for breakfast feeling much
happier, only to be confronted by Father, all grey and worried, in the hall, saying: “I’m getting the police in this time, Jean.” Mother agreed and he phoned then and there. The same footprints were outside in the snow again,
treading
out the same track along the front of the house and coming to a standstill under my bedroom window. I felt very unnerved. But at least the police were coming; that would be exciting. Perhaps it’d be the same man who came making enquiries after the air-raid shelter fire. He had been very understanding then and I felt comforted to think he might be in charge of this case. Nobody had come before it was time for school, though. “Same old story,” grumbled Father. “Nobody around when they’re needed. The snow’ll be melted before they get here.” He roared off to the station in the car and Mother was left to handle things.

At school I made a melodramatic tale out of the situation and gathered a crowd round me. In the background I was aware of Cora’s face turned in my direction. I hadn’t spoken to her all term, nor had we dared to exchange secret notes, but often our eyes would meet and I never doubted that she, like myself, was only waiting for the chance to carry on where we’d left off. And this time our secrecy would have to be foolproof.

“Imagine!” exclaimed Susan. “The police again! They’re never out of your house these days, Becky. You’ll be getting a frightful record!”

“Don’t be silly. You’ve got to have done something wrong for that. Last time they just decided to let the matter rest, and this time I’m definitely the injured party.”

“Do you think there’s someone after you?” said
Hermione
. “Have you seen anyone lurking about or following you or anything?”

“No, I don’t, and no, I haven’t!” I said. “Are you trying to frighten me to death?”

“No, but you’ve got to be careful. Mummy says there are funny men on the common.”

“Oh, I know she does. Mummy won’t let me go any more. But I used to go quite a lot and I never saw anyone.”

Barbara could see a quarrel brewing. She said: “Who do you think it is, then?”

“Well—a burglar. I suppose.”

“But why stop outside
your
window?”

“I don’t know. That’s odd. It give me the creeps, actually. Maybe the drainpipe down the wall there looks easier than all the others.”

“That’s a bit feeble.”

“Oh, well,” I blustered, “if he comes again tonight and carries me off I’ll be able to put you all in the picture, won’t I?”

“Don’t say such things, even as a joke, Becky,” said Hermione, all shocked. I was mean enough to think that she wasn’t really scared about the possibility of anything
happening
to me, only in so far as if it could happen to me it could happen to her too. I had begun to see her through Cora’s eyes.

The man didn’t come that night, anyway. In fact he never came back. For the first week or two the police agreed to patrol our area more frequently than usual during the hours of darkness but, bit by bit, their vigilance slackened off and the snow melted and we moved into spring. Everyone seemed happier the warmer it became and by the end of April there was a general air of
relaxation
throughout the village. Doors were left open, people dawdled over shopping and strolled around enjoying the sunshine and blossom. It was the moment Cora and I had
been waiting for. One Saturday morning, as I came out of Copcutt’s, having spent my pocket-money on a stack of cheap sweets, I ran straight into her on the way in. She hurriedly stepped out again and muttered: “I’ll run back up to the church and wait for you.” Then she ran off.

I hung around Copcutt’s window for a few minutes, chewing sweets in the sun, and then I set off after her. On the way I met Barbara and Derek on bikes. They stopped and talked for about a quarter of an hour, and all that time I tingled with the excitement of knowing I had an
assignation
with Cora which they and their like had done all in their power to prevent. I smiled and chatted and shared my sweets and was the model friend. I felt no guilt towards them at all. If I was dishonourable in breaking my promise, then Barbara and the others had been equally at fault in forcing me into it in the first place. At last they cycled off, cheerful and freckly and unsuspecting, and I made my way casually up the lane to the church. I was expecting Cora to be at her mother’s graveside as usual, but when I got there she was nowhere in sight.

“Psst! Becky!” I turned, and there she was, beckoning me from a little door at the bottom of the church tower.

“Good heavens, Cora! What are you doing there?” I hurried over and stepped inside. She pulled the door shut.

“Come upstairs,” she said. “Follow me. Don’t be scared.” She started up the stone spiral stairs which I guessed must go round and round inside the tower right up to the belfry. I went up behind her. We didn’t speak. The scraping of our feet echoed up and down the tower and we were soon panting with the effort of the climb.

At last we came out on to a wooden platform. I flopped on the floor in a heap and looked round. Above us hung a
huge black bell, its clapper dangling motionless. “Good grief!” I gasped. “Does that thing ring?”

Cora laughed. “No, that’s never used. The clock chimes come from somewhere else.”

“Thank heaven for that! Big bells like that can drive you mad, you know, if they start up right in your ears.”

“Oh, relax, Becky! Don’t you think this is a marvellous place for us to meet?”

“What’s that great mess over there?” I asked, indicating a huge heap of sticks, rags and paper which someone seemed to have gone to enormous lengths to carry up.

“It’s a nest, silly.”

“A nest!”

“Yes. Jackdaws. There’s a little nesty bit in the middle at the top, all soft and lined with rags and feathers.”

“Any eggs?”

“Not yet. Should be any day.”

“Doesn’t anyone ever come up here?”

“I’ve never seen anyone. Dad does, now and then, just to check the tower’s not actually falling down. But hardly ever. We’re safe as houses up here.”

I began to feel safe. “How’ve you been, Cora? It’s super to see you again. I knew we would, didn’t you? Have you been forbidden to speak to me?—I’m not allowed near you.”

“Mmmm. Dad said your parents had been pretty adamant about that and he wasn’t bothered. He just told me that he and I were a pair of misfits and I’d find life easier if I took that in once and for all and stopped trying to have friends.”

“What did he say about the fire? Was he scared about what might have happened?”

“Not really. I told him there was never really any chance of us getting killed.”

“Oh, Cora! There was! Don’t you think so?”

She looked at me, surprised. “No, there wasn’t, Becky. You just panicked a bit, that’s all. I could see the way out all the time. I only got a bit burned because I went back for Mum’s book.”