Pigeon Summer (7 page)

“It’ll be better next week,” said Mary. “Now you’ve got those things.”

“But they won’t give me any more till Friday, and there’s nothing in the pantry but jam and an end of bread, and three and eightpence left in my purse.”

“We could tell Aunty Elsie. She’d help,” said Mary.

“No. I won’t go running to her. We’ll have to manage.”

Uncle Charley came round first thing on Monday as Mary was leaving for school.

“Just to put your mind at rest,” he told Mary. “Though you’ll be home yourself before she is, I’m sure of that. They’ll mostly come in tomorrow. Better, any road, if they lie up and rest today. I reckon we’ll have thunder before morning.”

Mum agreed. “It’s muggy. Thundery weather. So you’ve come to get under my feet, have you, Uncle Charley?” Her voice was friendly. She liked having him around. And the postman hadn’t been yet, so she was still in a hopeful mood.

Mary spent the day thinking about pigeons. At ten thirty, as the bell rang for the end of break and the children began lining up to go in, she was with Speedwell, resting up on the south coast, gathering her strength for the long flight home.

“Go on!” Someone prodded Mary in the back. Miss Lidiard’s class had been told to go in, and the three in front of Mary were off. She scuttled after them.

“Walk, don’t run, Mary Dyer!” bawled bossy Miss Quimby.

I wish I could fly, thought Mary. If I were a pigeon I’d fly over Miss Quimby and mess on her head. The thought pleased her; she smiled.

“You can take that grin off your face, Mary Dyer,” said Miss Lidiard as she came into the classroom. “You’ve done nothing but day-dream all morning.”

Mary glanced across at Arnold Revell, slouching in last from the yard as usual; she was beginning to know how he felt about school.

By the end of the day Mary was dreaming about food. She’d eaten her bread and dripping at lunchtime but it had seemed to go nowhere. If Speedwell wins, she thought, we’ll have meat tomorrow. The thought sustained her as she ran home.

She met Uncle Charley coming out of the passage. He looked odd, she thought; ruffled. “Speedwell?” she gasped.

“No, love. Not yet. Mary –” he caught her arm as she turned into the passageway – “Mary, go easy on your mother. This is a hard time for her.”

Mary looked at him, puzzled. “Aren’t you staying, then? I thought you’d be watching with me.”

“No.” He coughed, leaning on the railings. “No. I’d best get home. Let you talk to your mother.”

He shuffled off, and Mary turned in to the passageway with a feeling of unease. Something was wrong; the conversation had felt strange.

A smell assailed her halfway down the passage: strong, rich, savoury. Something she hadn’t smelt for weeks and weeks. Meat.

She ran indoors.

Meat! How had Mum managed to afford it? Mary stepped into the kitchen. Her stomach was begging for food. The whole kitchen was full of that glorious smell.

And then she saw her mother’s face, and understood. She felt cold.

“Mum! Mum – you didn’t…”

Her mother turned away and brought a dish out of the oven. Meat. Brown, glistening, coated in dark gravy. Three mounded shapes. Unmistakably pigeons.

The hunger drained from Mary. Fury took its place.

“My pigeons! You’ve cooked my pigeons!”

“Your father’s pigeons,” her mother corrected her. She was prepared, ready for battle. Mary, taken unawares, choked on her anger and couldn’t speak.

“We’ve had pigeon before,” said Mum calmly. “Your dad doesn’t give them an old age pension, does he, when they’re past it? They go in the pot.”

Mary found her voice. “But Dad chooses. Dad decides.”

“And Dad’s not here.”

“But you don’t know them! Which ones – which ones have you taken? Did Uncle Charley choose them? Is he in on this?”

“No!” Her mother’s voice was sharp. “Don’t you blame Charley. He didn’t know. Not till it was done.”

Mary darted towards the door.

Her mother called out, defensive now, “Well, it won’t be your best one, will it? That’s in Bordeaux.”

But Mary, running down the path, shouted, “She’s not the only one. There’s Ruby and True Blue, and Bevin, and – and the Gaffer.”

The thought of the Gaffer with his neck wrung and gravy on him was worst of all. The Gaffer, who was so tame, who’d come to you as soon as you went into the loft…

She flung open the door, forgetting to be calm. Birds fluttered upwards, startled; feathers floated down.

“Blériot … Bevin … Lavender… Mary’s glance darted around.

A whirr of wings, and the Gaffer landed on her shoulder. Mary picked him up and began to cry. “I’d have killed her,” she sobbed, “if it’d been you.”

The Gaffer struggled. Mary let him go. She was calmer now. She looked over the birds, checking.

Ruby was gone. Beautiful Ruby, with her dark plumage and deep red eyes. Mum had snatched Ruby from her nest-bowl and wrung her neck. Mary began to shake. The others were still there: Lenin, Trotsky, True Blue, Queenie… Two of the young birds, hatched in March, were gone; two that didn’t have names yet, that hadn’t proved themselves – and never would now.

“If she’d asked,” Mary sobbed, talking to the Gaffer, who sat watching from his perch with his head on one side. “If she’d asked, I’d have chosen her some.” At that moment she believed this was true. “It wasn’t for her to decide, coming in, grab, grab. I hate her!”

She closed up the loft and went indoors. She was still hungry, but the smell of the pigeons made her feel sick.

Her mother had dished up. There was a plate for her: potatoes, slices of pigeon. Slices of Ruby?

Mary gagged. “I can’t eat that.”

“You’ll go hungry, then.”

“You killed Ruby.” Mary’s voice rose. “Ruby!”

“I just took the nearest.”

“You don’t care, do you? Ruby had a squeaker, a baby. And you killed her.”

“I’ve got a baby, too. Your sister. Doreen. Isn’t she more important than a pigeon?” She turned to Lennie. “Eat your dinner, Lennie; don’t cry. What does it matter, any road? One pigeon or another? They’re just birds.”

Her logic infuriated Mary. “I hate you!” she shouted.

Her mother’s face darkened. “Don’t you dare say that!”

“You’d no right!” Mary went on. “No right to take them!”

Her mother turned on her. “I had every right, my girl! It’s my job to feed this family; my job to find food. Lennie has the right to eat. And so do I, because if I starve, Doreen starves. If you don’t want to eat, that’s up to you. You can get out. Go up to your bed. Go on! Out! Upstairs!”

Mary fled. She ran upstairs, into her room, and slammed the door with a crash that shook the house. She sank down on the floor behind it and sobbed noisily.

When her tears subsided she stayed sitting with her back against the door, hugging her anger. The smell of roast pigeon still hung on the air, tormenting her. Her stomach yearned for food; there was a pain in it. And there was pain in her chest caused by crying and anger.

I hate her, she thought. I’ll leave home. I’ll never speak to her again. But she didn’t move. She hugged her knees against her chest and brooded as the sounds of washing-up and voices came from below.

After a while she heard light footsteps on the stairs. Lennie. He scrabbled at her door and pushed. Mary’s back resisted him. “Go away, Lennie,” she said.

He didn’t go. She could hear him breathing. He always breathed noisily through his mouth.

“I want to come in,” he said.

“No.”

“It makes me cry when you cry.”

Mary said cruelly, “But you ate them, didn’t you? You ate my pigeons.”

There was a pause. Then, “They were nice,” said Lennie regretfully.

Mary heard her mother’s step on the stairs, and stiffened.

“Mary! Open that door!”

Mary rose unwillingly to her feet. She flung the door open, confronting her mother with a rebellious stare.

Fear flickered across Lennie’s face. Mary felt sorry for him, but wouldn’t soften because her mother was there, still angry and unforgiving. She pushed past her mother and ran downstairs.

“And where do you think you’re going, madam?”

“Out!”

“Out where?”

“Anywhere!”

She went out, slamming the back door, and ran down the path to the loft.

She took the Gaffer, putting him in the little basket. She didn’t know why she was taking him. It was not any great fear that her mother would kill him, more a feeling that she needed a pigeon with her, for comfort, and the Gaffer was the friendliest.

Her bicycle was kept in the shed now, where Dad’s had been before he went away. She was hauling it out when her mother appeared in the doorway, hands on hips.

“When you come back in and apologize,” she said, “I’ll get you something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” Mary lied.

She wheeled the bicycle out of the back gate, and noted with satisfaction that Mrs Lloyd’s net curtains were twitching.

“You’ll not get far,” her mother said.

“I will!” retorted Mary. Ideas filled her head. Go to Stafford, find Dad. Live wild in the woods. Go to the seaside. Go and see Phyl, tell her everything. Yes. Phyl would see her side of it. She’d sort things out. Mary felt a rush of longing for Phyl.

She pushed the bicycle out and mounted it. Her mother still stood with arms folded by the back door. Mary pushed down hard on the right-hand pedal and cycled away. She hadn’t gone the length of Lion Street before hunger threatened to overwhelm her, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn back.

She turned out of Lion Street towards the centre of town. It had been a hot day, and the air was still heavy, but now she saw clouds darkening in the west and remembered Uncle Charley’s warning about thunder. She should have taken a coat, she realized, as well as food. But she wouldn’t turn back now. Nothing would make her go back and apologize to her mother. She turned on to the road she had taken that first day out on the bicycle with Arnold and Lennie – the road that led to Wendon, and Phyl.

She cycled fast for the first few miles, breathing heavily, her anger giving her strength; but soon she began to flag. She stopped to pick half-ripe blackberries from a hedge, and to snatch apples from an overhanging branch. Gradually she lost heart. It hadn’t seemed far that day in June. But now, alone and hungry, with the temperature dropping and evening coming on, she felt as if the road would go on for ever.

There were few other people about. Occasionally she passed a countrywoman trudging along from one village to another. Twice a pony and trap came clattering up behind her; once a car went by – a doctor, perhaps.

She knew she had to climb Foss Bank before she reached Cheveley. Every time she rounded a bend in the road she expected to see it ahead: the steep climb where they’d had to get off and push the bikes. But every turn of the road revealed another dull, unfamiliar stretch, bordered by endless hedges, endless green verges full of flowers that didn’t interest her now. Ahead, in the west, dark clouds were massing. There was an ominous yellow tinge to their undersides. It was going to rain soon – rain hard. She felt the expectant quiver of wind in the kerbside grass.

The apples and blackberries hadn’t filled her. She had to get food. And she was stuck here in the middle of nowhere. What could she do? Go home? Her pride wouldn’t let her. Go to Olive’s, or Uncle Charley’s? No. They’d only tell her she must go and make peace with her mother.

Arnold’s? She thought of the Revells’ home: the dirty, casual kitchen where people wandered in and out and there was always plenty of food: rabbit stew, big pies from the butcher’s, hunks of bread. The Revells didn’t waste money on shoes or shirts or soap, but they always had plenty to eat.

And they wouldn’t ask questions. They wouldn’t express shock or surprise or concern if she turned up there. Sid Revell wouldn’t tell her mother where she was, or lecture her to apologize. She could go there, be fed and looked after, stay the night.

It was the thought of staying the night that checked her. She’d once glimpsed through an open doorway the room where Molly and the little ones slept. Mattresses on the floor, grey blankets, dust. And Molly, who always had nits, and probably fleas as well. She didn’t fancy dossing down with Molly. Besides, her mother knew she was friendly with Arnold; she might come looking for her there, and make a scene.

A spot of rain touched her face. Better get on, get to Wendon before it came down harder. She rounded the next bend, and there was Foss Bank. Wendon wasn’t far now.

She climbed up the Bank, free-wheeled down the far side, passed the turning to Cheveley, and went on towards that area of trees where Arnold had pointed out to her the chimneys of Wendon Hall.

The Hall lay in the shelter of the valley. For the first time Mary felt nervous at the thought of approaching the place. It was so huge, so totally removed from the world she knew. How would she ever find Phyl there?

Two immense black wrought-iron gates marked the entrance to a tree-lined drive. Mary didn’t dare go in that way. She followed the wall round – miles, it seemed – until she came to a smaller, wooden gate. Tentatively she pushed it. It opened, and she found herself in a kitchen garden. A man in work clothes was hoeing between the rows of carrots and beet.

Mary’s voice was small. “Please, I’ve come to find my sister. She’s a maid here. Phyllis Dyer.”

“You want the scullery door,” the man said, pointing along a path. “Leave your bike. What’s that you’ve got there – a pigeon?”

“Yes.” Mary hesitated, her hand on the basket.

The man smiled. “He’ll be safe here with me.”

Mary propped the bicycle up against the wall, and followed the path. She found the scullery door, but it was closed. Loud voices, laughter, and a clatter of pans came from behind it. Mary hesitated. If she knocked, would they hear her?

Then the door was flung open, and a big red-faced girl bounced out, carrying a pail of vegetable peelings. She stared at Mary.

“I’m looking for my sister,” said Mary. “Phyllis Dyer.”

The girl put the pail down and stuck her head around the door.

“Mrs Coulter,” she shouted, “there’s a girl here asking for Phyllis.”