Eight Days of Luke (17 page)

Alan's four sisters had come quietly up by now. They stood in a row, staring at the three old women.

“What are you doing?” said one of them at last.

“Leos for medlars to make little girls wonder,” the spinning-woman answered.

“Run away, dears,” said the washing one.

“Are you witches?” asked another sister, with interest.

“What do
you
think?” said the old woman at the beam, and she put her scissors in her pocket and her hands on her hips and limped forward until she was almost beside David and Alan. “Run away, dears,” she said, looking round at the six of them.

The little girls stared at her. “You've only got one eye,” one of them said.

“You're luckier than me. You've got two,” the old woman said.

“Why haven't the other ladies got eyes?” persisted the little girl.

“Oh bother!” said the spinning-woman. “I wasn't thinking what I was doing, with their chatter. I've a great tangle come in my yarn.”

“Do you want the eye, dear?” asked the one who had it.

“Yes, please, dear,” said the spinning-woman.

David could not help smiling. These four dim little girls had done what he could never have done by himself and convinced the Knowing Ones that the strange children were all harmless. He thought he would never again despise them, or anyone else, for being stupid.

The old woman took the eye out. It came out rather more easily than Astrid's contact lenses and in much the same way. Alan, who had never seen Astrid take a lens out, looked sick. The little girls were astonished.

“I can't take my eyes out like that,” said the eldest.

“What are you going to do with it now?” asked the youngest.

“Give it to my sister,” said the old woman. “Where's your hand, dear?”

“Here,” said the spinning-woman, holding out her strong bent hand.

David moved quicker—and ten times more quietly—than he had ever moved in the slips. He flung himself forward, picked the eye out of the old woman's fingers, and retreated beyond the well before the spinning-woman realized it had gone.

When she did, she raised a shriek which made David's ears quiver. “Where's the eye? Who's got it? Children, who's got the eye?”

“He took it,” said one of the little girls, pointing at David. Of course the old women could not see her point. They wrung their hands and stumbled about, searching frantically.

“Keep it warm, whoever you are!” shrieked the spinning-woman.

“It's our only eye,” whimpered the washing-woman. “Give it to my hand here.” She held her hand out in Alan's direction. “I'll tell you anything you want to know if you put it in my hand again.”

David was appalled at the distress he had caused them. He had half a mind to give the eye straight back. It felt so nasty—rather like a warm, firm oyster, and much bigger than he would have expected. He looked down at it. It looked back, blue and difficult and deep. David jumped. He could have sworn it was Mr. Wedding's other eye and that it could see him. He put it behind his back.

“I've got it,” he called out. “I'll give it back if—”

Without a pause to think where his voice came from, they all turned round and came straight toward him.

David backed away. “Careful. You'll fall in the well.”

But they avoided the well easily and hurried toward him with their muscular arms stretched out to take hold of him. David dashed away sideways and round among the little girls. Alan suddenly backed him up by rushing noisily away in the other direction. The Knowing Ones stopped, confused.

“What are you doing?” a little girl asked David.

That brought the old women after him again.

“Stay where you are!” he shouted. “Or I'll wave the eye about till it's cold. Then I'll throw it down the well.”

They stopped just beyond the well, holding one another's bent hands for support, and he could see he had defeated them.

“What did you want to know?” asked the one who had had the eye.

“How to find the thing that Luke hid,” said David. “But you mustn't tell me what it is or who hid it.”

“Luke hid many things in his time,” said the spinning-woman. “How do we know which you're asking about?”

“That's just putting me off,” said David. “You know. The thing Mr. Wedding wants to find. It belongs to the ginger-haired man who caught Luke on Thursday.”

“That's a difficult question,” said the washing-woman. “It's hidden out of time, you know.”

“Luke told me that,” said David. “But I have to find it.”

“Very well,” said the third old woman. “Go to Wallsey again. Cross the bridge and go into the hall on the island. You must ask the one with the dragon about him where to look. He knows who hid it. That's the truth. Now can I have the eye back, please?”

“Here you are,” said David. “Thanks.” A little nervously, he went up to the three old women and put the eye into the nearest of their three outstretched hands. The one who got it was the one with the scissors. As her crooked fingers closed on it, David retreated smartly in case of trouble.

But all the old woman did was to put the eye in—again rather as Astrid put in a lens—and to stare intently first at David, then at the four little girls, then at Alan, who was coming slowly back from the distant spaces under the root.

“There's a goat, or something, there, eating a root,” he said.

The old woman turned to David again, and very piercing that eye was, worse than Mr. Wedding's. “So it's you,” she said. “You fooled us properly. Well, go in peace, but don't think the rest of your life's going to be easy. You'll see a face tomorrow you won't forget in a hurry.”

“Thanks,” David said doubtfully. “Come on, Alan. Get your sisters. We've got to go.” Quietly and thoughtfully, almost sadly for some reason, he turned and went back to the cupboard door in the middle of the grass, followed by Alan and his string of sisters. The cupboard door closed with a final kind of snap behind the last of them.

In the basement, David said good-bye to Alan and promised to meet him later. He found Astrid and Luke waiting for him when he came up the stairs, and they both seemed very jolly, particularly Astrid.

“I've got a surprise for you that Luke thinks you might like,” she said when they were in the car. “Did you get what you want?”

David told them everything except what the old woman said at the end. He felt that was private.

Luke was delighted, but he also seemed very surprised about the man at Wallsey. “
He
knows!” he said. “I'd no idea—oh, now I begin to see!” He started to laugh.

“Can we go to Wallsey this afternoon?” David asked Astrid.

“No go,” she said. “Tomorrow morning. I have to go out.”

David was rather disappointed, but he felt he could not complain. Luke did not seem worried by the delay, and Astrid had been so kind already that he did not like to grumble.

“Now for it,” said Astrid, as the Wednesday Hill lights turned green. “David, I've been thinking—ever since last Sunday really. You started me off when you suddenly rounded on me and asked me how
I'd
like to be packed off to Mr. Scrum. And I saw your point. Then this morning, when they were all on to Luke, I saw it clearer than ever. I have a bad enough time of it, but you get it even worse, don't you? How would you like it if we both got out—you and me—and lived somewhere else?”

When somebody throws a totally new idea at you, it is hard to know what to say. David's first idea was to swing round and look at Luke. It seemed to him that this might be Luke's way of paying him back for offering to undo the charm.

“Astrid thought of it,” Luke said sweetly, and David knew perfectly well then that Luke had prompted Astrid.

“Those rooms I saw,” said Astrid. “They're really nice—almost a top-floor flat and cheap as things go nowadays. So I took a chance and told her we'd take them. Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping you'd agree, because I can't see myself managing alone and I don't want to leave you to your fate with Bernard and Dot. What do you say?”

David did not say anything, although he did not notice he had not spoken. What a marvelous thing, to live in the same house as Alan! And what a pity he had sworn not to despise Alan's sisters!

His complete silence made Astrid nervous. “I shan't be offended if you say no,” she said hastily. “You may think it's Hobson's choice after all, because you know what I'm like when one of my heads comes on, and I don't suppose we shall have any money and you'd have to leave that school. But I used to earn quite well as a typist, and I daresay I can do it again.”

It dawned on David that he had not yet agreed. “I think it's a brilliant idea!” he said.

“Oh, I'm so glad!” said Astrid.

“You wait until he starts feeding ravens with the week's meat,” said Luke.

A
strid drove home and Luke went into the house with them. As soon as Aunt Dot appeared, they both realized what a mistake this was, but Aunt Dot, to David's amazement did not seem to remember having been convinced that Luke was a criminal. She invited him to lunch. At lunch, Uncle Bernard complained of his liver, and Cousin Ronald that David had left three deck chairs to get soaked and ruin the lawn, and Mrs. Thirsk that she had not been expecting a visitor. But none of them seemed to remember anything else.

David asked Luke about it, and Luke, with a rather secretive smile, remarked that both Mr. Wedding and the Frys were good at making people forget things.

However it happened it was fortunate, because the real Mr. and Mrs. Fry called that afternoon. David was forced to sit in the drawing room and be polite to old Mr. Fry's courtesies. Mr. Fry was interested in David. He talked to him the whole time, which was difficult, because Mr. Fry's interest in cricket was plainly only polite. But it was over in the end. David and Luke wandered off together and both of them forgot that Luke was only free until Sunday night.

Next morning, Astrid announced that she was taking David out on a trip to Wallsey. It caused an immediate outcry from the other three.

“I can't think why you want to take David to a vulgar place like that,” said Aunt Dot.

“On a Saturday, of all times!” said Cousin Ronald. “Why take him anywhere?” said Uncle Bernard.

“If you remember,” Astrid said, somewhat in the same loud, polite way David had told them they could leave him on his own, “
if
you recall, we decided not to go to Scarborough because David was at home. And if you think looking after David means telling him to mind his manners at meals, I don't. I think it means taking him about and taking an interest in him. So I'm going to Wallsey. With David.”

“I can't possibly let you go to a low place like that on your own,” Cousin Ronald said crossly. “You might be annoyed by trippers or—or people. If you insist on going, Astrid, I shall insist on coming too.”

“She won't be alone. I'll be there,” David pointed out.

“Don't talk nonsense,” said Cousin Ronald. “It's Saturday, Astrid, and the place will be crowded out. You'll be jostled. You'll get one of your heads.”

That was attacking Astrid on her weakest side, but, to David's gratitude and admiration, she stood firm in spite of anything the other three said. David thought this must be the first time he had ever been truly and spontaneously grateful to any of his family, and it gave him a rather odd feeling. Then, to his dismay, he found that Cousin Ronald was standing firm too.

“I'm not having you go and waste my good money on trash,” he said, which David suspected was his real reason for standing firm. “Go if you insist, but I shall come too and make sure you don't squander the earth on hot-dogs.”

And come he did. When Astrid backed the Mini out of the garage, Cousin Ronald got into the seat beside her and sat there looking firm and righteous. Astrid gave David a most meaning look as she got out.

“What are you getting out for?” Cousin Ronald demanded.

“To let David in,” said Astrid. “There are only two doors.” She gave David a wink and put a cigarette in her mouth. “Match, David?”

David laughed as he got out his box and struck a light for her. It was extraordinary how much nicer Astrid was than his other relations. Living alone with her promised to be great fun.

Cousin Ronald was in a very bad temper at being forced to come with them. “Put that thing out!” he snapped. “Filthy habit!”

But by this time, Luke was strolling across the road. David blew out the match and Astrid put the cigarette away. “Hallo,” said Luke. “I see the clans are gathering.” He was climbing into the Mini in front of Astrid, when Alan too appeared, riding a bicycle and looking uncertainly at the numbers of the houses.