The First Book of Calamity Leek (10 page)

‘You ain't a fish, Truly?'

‘Mind my smock, Clam! In the bucket, Clam, oh please puke in the bucket! You got took sick at Aunty's. But hurry up, will you, because Mother's coming for it, Clam, we're doing a pig for her, and Aunty says she is sure and certain coming!'

NOW TRULY POLPERRO
was still not certified dead when Emily came to the Sacred Lawn for her birthday party that afternoon. Matter of fact, for most of the afternoon, Truly was alive, and lying quiet as a fish in her barrow next to mine.

But you probably don't want to hear about poor old Truly just yet. Not on Emily's birthday. So let me tell you about my sisters, who were standing in line, neat as a fence, facing the empty plinth in the middle of the Lawn. My sisters, with vinegar-rinsed hair and painted eyes, and their toes pressed against presents in soft Lawn grass. Never mind that I was puking in a bucket, in a barrow next to Truly's barrow. Never mind that we were both parked up down by the toddlers' trolleys, on the most important day of the year. Never mind all that if you can, because eleven of my sisters were rose-scented and looking, just like Aunty said, ‘Hot to trot and market-ready in every way.'

Danny Zuko waited on the butching sheet, shuffling his piglet thighs in readiness. Aunty waited in a shiny red cloak by the empty plinth in the middle of the Lawn, a chimney pot hat jammed on two yellow plaits that stuck
out like broke chicken legs. Maria Liphook waited, grub hunting under the southern Crèmes. And up above us, heavy-bottomed clouds waited, stacking themselves protective across the sky.

Aunty straightened her hat. ‘Wherever is she?'

A screeching sound started up in the yew path north of the Lawn.

‘There she is,' Aunty said. ‘ETA – thirty seconds. Voices at the ready.' Aunty swiped Mr Stick along our line, ‘A-one, a-two, a-one-two-three and—'

We're leaning on a lamppost, at the corner of the street
, we sang –

In case a certain little lady comes by.

‘Belt it out!' Aunty yelled,
Oh me! Oh my! I hope that little lady comes by!

And we did belt it out, and Mother did come. Her electric chair screeched through the northern Crèmes and bounced onto the Lawn. It skidded down to the empty plinth and died. And Mother plugged her ears and waited for us to finish up singing.

Course, you're wanting to know how she looked, aren't you? Well, all wrapped up in black blankets, Mother sat skinnier in that chair than any of us sisters. Her head was shawled in black, though one or two Heavenly hairs poked through. She wore black glasses on her face to shield her Heavenly eyes from us, but stretching down to her chin, for us all to see, were two plates of skin – pure and wither­proof as washed bone. There was her teensy mouth and her shrunk-up nose – she had all that like normal females – but it was that cheek skin I always kept my eye on. And I'll tell you this for nothing, that was Heaven-grown skin, right there.

We finished off her song and saluted, Aunty curtseyed and Mother unplugged her ears.

‘Miss Swindon,' Mother said – and I don't mind telling you her voice was purer than kettle steam screeching off to Heaven – ‘one will never understand this insistence on inflicting these common chorus-line caterwaulings on one's ears. One feels one should not have to persist in reminding you, an army is forged from steel not sentiment.'

Aunty stood up from her curtsey and threw a kiss at the air near Mother's cheek, ‘Forgive me, Gennie darling, old habits.'

Mother knocked Aunty's kiss away with her glove. ‘Your breath, Miss Swindon. One also deduces that you have ballooned. Around the midriff.'

Aunty laughed happy. ‘Dearest Gennie, our very own Ladyship, and one true Leader. Aren't the weapons looking gorgeous? The eldest ones are almost ripe and ready for it, I'd say.'

‘And one would answer, but are they hungry for it, Miss Swindon? What is the size of their appetite, Miss Swindon? One knows all about your appetite, but are they hungry for it? Are they hungry for War?'

Aunty turned to us and sang out, ‘Piggy, piggy, piggy!'

And we jumped in the air and shouted back, ‘Kill, kill, kill!'

‘Just a little routine we've been finessing,' Aunty said.

Mother looked back at the yew path. ‘One hasn't got all day,' she said.

‘I thought you'd like it,' Aunty said. She went over to Danny and started a big old curtsey, ‘Ladies and your Ladyship, the time has come—'

And Mother's voice screamed so kettling Heavenly,
happen her throat was near boiled dry, ‘Bloody well get on with it, if you're going to bloody well do it, Frumps!' Mother stopped and her perfect voice near split my ears in its Heavenly wail, ‘One need not remind you how the sight of blood upsets one's angel!'

Aunty stood back up and straightened her hat and turned around and spat at the southern Crèmes. After this she put a fresh smile on her face. ‘Off you go, Nancy dear.'

Keeping the blade behind her back, Nancy stepped up to the butching sheet.

Danny Zuko snorted and whirled his tail. Nancy sniffed and wiped her eyes and threw Danny Zuko an apple. Danny chewed it up. Nancy brought out the blade, and stuck him in the throat. Aunty waved Mr Stick in the air, and we all cheered. Apple chunks fell out of Danny's screaming mouth. Nancy wiped her eyes and stuck him again.

‘Piggy, piggy, piggy!' Aunty sang out.

‘Kill, kill, kill!' we shouted back loud.

Danny went over on his spotted side. Mary ran to help Nancy drain him into a bucket. The air filled so hot and plummy, I puked. Nancy sniffed and wiped her eyes and started the blade on Danny's windpipe. Aunty waved Mr Stick and we cheered Danny's head off.

‘Well? What do you reckon to that for hunger?' Aunty said.

Mother turned her face back to the yew path. ‘Oh, my own true angelkins, wherever are you?' she said.

Aunty stared at Mother's back a few seconds and then she made a smile at it and said, ‘Would her Ladyship care to inspect the weapons while we're waiting? They're clean.'

‘Angelkins, coo-eeeee,' Mother said.

‘So good of you to express an interest,' Aunty said to Mother's back. ‘Anyway, how the devil are you, Ophelia? Not too lonely down here on your own? No? That is good to hear. Goodness, is that a new frock, Ophelia? Well, it's just your colour.'

Aunty called out loud to Mother, ‘Wasn't that what you always said on our Sunday Best days, Gennie, do you remember? Those awful cast-offs we got given to wear. “Oooh, lilac's just your colour,” you'd say. “Lucky you, Fifi-Frumps, wearing lilac nylon from the rubbish dump.”'

‘Coo-eeeeeeeeeeeeeee,' Mother said.

‘Wasn't that what you said, Gennie? Not that Father Tony gave cast-offs to you, with all your special privileges.'

‘One's eyes do not deceive me, Miss Swindon, you really have puffed up all round,' Mother's voice said, never mind her Heavenly eyes were still fixed on the yew path. ‘Five or six inches one would estimate. One shall have to contemplate a reduction in your allowance. One's always erred on the over-generous side.'

Aunty turned away from Mother's chair and spat at the Glamis Castles.

‘If her Ladyship doesn't fancy inspecting the weapons, and she doesn't want to admire my frock, why doesn't she have a squizz at the Little Chefers while we're waiting?' Which was the name Aunty sometimes gave to the second-wind toddlers, who had started up bawling in their trolleys past Truly and me. ‘One might surprise her. I'm not saying Spitting Image, but why doesn't her Ladyship take a look?'

Mother watched Annie running off north into the yews, and her perfect black-gloved finger pushed up them glasses that kept her Heavenly eyes safe from us. Eyes that weren't
made a common Garden blue or brown, but, like the Appendix says it –
are thought to consist of twenty-four carat gold
.

‘Come to Mummy,' Mother said, staring off into the yews. ‘Mummy's waiting.'

I don't mind telling you something of Mother's tragic dilemma now. Course, you ain't forgotten how she was sent down to raise an army, only – and it is explained more fully in
Ophelia Swindon Volume V: A Country Diary
– how was she ever going to raise an army on Earth, when her only beloved daughter got killed off by a demonmale?

Well, the best answer she came up with was to rescue other daughters already part-grown Outside, ones something imaged like her daughter – if something less than perfect – and to grow them like her own. So that's what Mother did.

Aunty looked at the second-winders bashing about in their trolleys and gave off a merry tinkle, ‘In any case, something has got to be done with them. They're crawling now.'

Mother's voice said, ‘It would appear your face is retaining water as well.'

‘Her Ladyship knows they're not part of the Deal,' Aunty tinkled.

‘As one recalls, slimness was never your forte, was it, Frumps?'

‘Argentina is waiting,' Aunty kept on. ‘South America is crying out for my music. What with the peso plummeting, facial reconstruction rates won't remain low for long. Rhinoplasty's already shot up two hundred per cent—'

And then Aunty stopped tinkling and started staring at
Mother. Aunty stared, because Mother wasn't looking up the yew path no more, her face was turned back to Aunty, and Mother's face was smiling. All up her cheek plates I could see her smiling.

‘One almost forgot,' Mother said. ‘One received a telephone call from a pleasant chap this morning.'

Aunty stared at Mother. ‘And?'

Mother stretched her smile wider. ‘Frightfully pleasant, if a tad plebeian. Claimed to be from the Llandudno
Gazette
.'

‘And?'

‘Just a few questions, he said. Frightfully sweet, considering. Quiet news season, he said. The Unsolved Crimes file gathering dust, he said. That sort of thing.'

Aunty's hand went up to her mouth.

‘Recent reported sightings, that sort of thing.'

‘Recent sightings?'

Mother smiled, ‘One said that's what he said.'

‘But what did you say?' Aunty whispered. ‘What did you tell him?'

‘Oh, one was discreet, Miss Swindon. There was not a peep from me. One's no sneak, Miss Swindon. One was never the one who ran about bleating “Father Tony, Father Tony, Gennie's been stealing again.”' Mother hissed perfect Heavenly, ‘One was never the one for that.'

Aunty's eyeball fixed on Mother like it had got stuck.

She fell down to Mother's chair and set about kissing all over Mother's hand.

‘It would seem you shall have to rely on one's possession of discretion.' Mother took her hand away. ‘Perhaps it's your turn, Frumps, to see if someone can hold their tongue. But one shan't speak further on this. It's Emily's special day, not yours. One does hope there's games.'

And then all sudden Mother spun her chair about and cupped an ear to the yews, and screamed in Heavenly delight, ‘But hark! One does believe one's angel cometh!'

It was actually Dorothy and Sandra who came out of the yews first, heaving on a yoke. The cart came next. Annie came last, pushing from behind.

‘Aaaaaaaaah!' Mother said, spinning circles in joy. ‘Here you are, angelkins. Mummy was beginning to think she had lost you forever.'

Aunty was having trouble standing herself up. She crawled about and got herself up at the plinth. She turned to us and straightened her hat, and never mind her voice was something shaky, it was good enough to shout, ‘Here we go, girls. A-one, a-two, a-one-two-three and—'

We sang out ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You', and Sandra and Dorothy dragged the cart to the plinth. Sandra unwrapped Emily from the plastic and they heaved her upright. And like she did every year, Mother jumped out of her electric chair and ran to Emily's toes, and kissed every one of them.

Aunty once told us it took Mother six months to make a new Emily. She rescued the statues from demonmale marriage-trap churches, sawed off unnecessary wings and repainted the faces into Emily's plump prettiness. On Emily's seventh birthday, if you're interested in knowing, Mother used Sandra for being what is called ‘a live model'. Sandra was six, and still something imaged like Emily then – particularly her nose – and it was looking good for her, it really was. Four days she stayed in Mother's Glorious Abode, with us all thinking that was it for Sandra – life with Mother and a direct pass to Heaven without War. But on the fifth day, Sandra's nose grew too fat, and
she was sent back to the yard. Though having as much sense as a snowdrop, Sandra still thinks herself special.

But never mind Sandra, because eighteen-year-old Emily was stood steady on the plinth, all ready to watch over us now. She wore a blue cloak and yellow hair and was something heftier than her seventeen-year-old self. She didn't have a lamb nudging her knee this year, but a little robin was glued on a finger of her left hand. Course, under her white headscarf, Emily's blue eyes were lifted up something sorrowful, most probably in remembering her tragic end of life. But on her lips she wore the prettiest smile – like she really didn't mind nothing now that her skin was varnished perfect. Tears ran off my face to see that smile, and I promised to fight my hardest for her when I went to War.

Rain began to fall down on us from Heaven. Straight down heavy.

I looked over at Truly. She was sleeping, course. Her smock was blotching wet.

Aunty looked at the sky lid and said to it, ‘Don't suppose there's any chance at all her Ladyship could keep this brief?'

But Mother didn't hear Aunty. Mother was dancing round Emily on her plinth, her Heavenly knees jerking, her back crooked angelic. ‘Come to Mummy, come to Mummy, come to Mummy,' Mother was singing as she danced. And everyone, even Aunty, had to wait quiet now.