The First Book of Calamity Leek (19 page)

Annie's face crumpled, ‘Oh, Aunty, I am sorry. Please forgive me. And please, Mother and Emily, forgive me. And sisters, please forgive me too.' And here's the funny
thing. Every word came out of Annie soaked in sorrow, but when she lifted up her eyes to look at Aunty, well, they just danced and danced and danced.

‘Get on with it, girl.'

‘I know I've been foolish, Aunty. It's just I was cleaning the hen coops this morning, and poor Desiree Armfeldt here—' Annie lifted that bird so close, Aunty had to slap it away ‘—well, poor Desiree Armfeldt was nowhere to be seen. So I went off hunting for her – I mean only because of her being the top layer – any of the others I wouldn't bother over, but three-eggs-a-day Desiree is special. And I'm out in the bog looking for her, when I hear the
wok-wok-wok
ing. Full of fear it was. And I run back to the orchard, and surprise surprise, there's Desiree up the tallest Victoria plum. And she looks awful stuck. So I don't think of the danger and I climb up after her. And Desiree goes flapping to the end of her branch, and the branch breaks and she falls, and I fall – which I know is terrible clumsy of me – and I must have hit the sense from my head in landing, because the next thing I know, I'm waking up feeling something squeaky under me. And, well, Aunty, it seems in landing, I went and squashed poor Desiree Armfeldt to death.'

Well. Weren't just Desiree Armfeldt open-mouthed at hearing this tale.

Aunty's eye crept across to the hen, who was looking, to say true, about half the width she was in life. ‘Let's see.'

Annie held out Desiree.

‘Your head, niece.'

Aunty tugged off Annie's headscarf and rummaged under her curls. ‘You do feel a little feverish, niece. I guess
we shouldn't take any chances if I'm to have you off my hands asap. Give that bird to Nancy, and get yourself washed off and into the mending room. I will be along to deal with you shortly.'

Aunty's eye followed Annie to the standpipe.

Mother threw a bread lump at Henry's rump. ‘Good heavens, Miss Swindon, would you do one the honour of finally getting on with the demonstration? Emily says this side of the table has been extraordinarily patient. And one has to concur completely – she's right.'

I ASK JANE JONES
for a butching knife today. She has taken me for a wash in a tub. Which I would have said no thanks to, but I am wheeled into another room for it, so we are safe to talk without demonmale ears listening in to what isn't their business yet.

Jane Jones turns on the taps, and under the water's noise I ask her.

‘Oh, goodness me, sweetheart, you don't need a knife,' she says.

‘I don't?'

‘What's there to butcher in here?'

I think about the
K
pages in the Appendix, with all the pictures stuck in –

Keep a knife in your knickers twenty-four-seven, because you never know when the perfect opportunity will arise. Mother requests you get one asap on arrival Outside. It needn't be much – a stiletto (see A. below) or even some kind of Swiss Army jobbie (see B.) will probably do.

‘Does Elizabeth Jones not have a knife?' I say.

Jane Jones turns off the tap and fixes me with a stare,
which she does very well. ‘No, she most certainly does not!' And Jane Jones huffs and puffs and turns the taps, so they gush the Goddess Daughter's own steam out. And for a moment, I watch her puffing, and I think she's going to go up right now, ascending in the steam, leaving me to start the War on my own. And I think maybe I have spoken of things that aren't to be spoken of Outside.

And BTW, mum's the word about our plans, nieces! Careless talk costs lives!

‘I am sorry, Jane Jones,' I say quick. ‘I don't need a knife.'

‘No, of course you don't.' Jane Jones looks at me, and she stops huffing and puffing and smiles. ‘Nasty things, knives,' she says. And then she adds a wink.

So I wink back, course.

Like that, we are understood without careless talk. Just like it is written. And I wonder what sort she will bring me. And how soon it will come.

Though I am dropped in something like a potato in a pot for boiling, I tell Jane Jones I reckon I could get to like sitting in warm water. Special this water. Because Jane Jones has put gardenia oil in it. Because she says she knows how I like roses. And I know when she says that, really she means she's making me clean and perfumed as a petal for what I am going to do very soon. It's very important to smell good, because –

Just as a rose lures the honeybee, a sweet-smelling perfume entices intimacy.

Jane Jones presses a button and I am brought back out of the bath. It is like a flying machine. Straight off I think of Truly. Truly who never liked nothing so much as going up high. It is like flying, Truly, I whisper in my head, in this swinging machine.

I listen in my head for a Polperroey giggle. But Truly doesn't say nothing back.

Jane Jones rubs me about in a furred white sheet. ‘That's you squeaky clean,' she says. ‘Would you like to try some gardenia body cream? It smells divine.'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘Lots, please. All over.'

THAT SAME AFTERNOON
of Mother's visit it happened, Annie told us the news I'll remember even when I'm pruning in Heaven.

‘His name is Sam Matthews,' she said.

And nothing in our Garden was ever safe again.

Course, she had already started talking plenty before I found her. It took me a little while, so the first I heard of it was whispering through the door of the end shitting stall in the latrine hut. And when I swung the door back, well, it weren't just Annie in there, but all of my elder sisters, squished in tighter than a nest of earwigs round the stinking drop-hole. Sisters, who, I don't mind saying, were supposed to be hosing off the yard after a ‘roller coaster of a demonstration'. But were they? Course not.

‘His name is Sam Matthews,' Annie was saying.

‘Who?' I said, batting back the dung flies jumping at my face. ‘Whose name?'

‘Oh, hello, Clam,' Dorothy said, her fingers rubbing busy at stains on her smock. ‘We were just talking.'

‘About what?'

No one said nothing.

My eyes prickled. ‘This ain't fair, sisters.'

I watched Dorothy look over at Annie, and Annie give a nod.

‘About the demonmale that Annie met,' Dorothy said.

And I near fell headfirst down the drop-hole at that.

‘I'm sorry?' I said.

Annie looked quick at me. She was wedged in the corner, under the ridge of the metal roof. Even in the latrine gloom, I could see her eyes were shining.

‘His name is Sam,' she said.

‘You spoke to a demonmale, Annie? You spoke to a demonmale? Oh, Annie, you spoke to a demonmale?'

FLAP!
Nancy smacked a dung fly against the wall. ‘Ears not working today, eh, sister Sneak?'

‘But Annie—' I felt every drop of my blood begin to shake ‘—but Annie – well, Annie – oh, Annie. Oh sisters, happen we must prepare right away. We thought we would go Outside for War. But it has come in here for us.' And I turned to run out fast as I could with this terrible news.

Except I didn't move. A fat hand had hold of my smock.

‘Why don't we all sit down in the corridor?' Dorothy said. ‘There's too much stink in here for all this news.'

The corridor inside the latrine hut smelled something sweeter than the shitting stalls, because we kept the floor planks scattered with petal dust and nailed dead bunches to the walls. The light bulb hung low over our heads. It was always a good place for chatting, because one of us could sit her back against the door and stop nosying younger sisters coming in. Which Nancy now did.

Dorothy, Sandra and Eliza slid down the end wall. Mary
sat on the bucket of paper rolls, and Annie went cross-legged in the corner by the sawdust bin. Straight off, she started emptying scoopfuls of sawdust all wasteful onto the floor. But I didn't say nothing to her doing that, I slid myself into the corner opposite, and I kept a watchful eye.

‘Well then, Annie,' Dorothy said. ‘This was out in the trees, you saw him?'

‘The demonmale,' I said, my belly sprouting out maggots at the word. ‘Where she saw the demonmale.'

Annie smiled. ‘Sam Matthews was how he said it. He said, “Oh, I'm Sam Matthews.”'

‘And?' I said.

‘And I spoke back to him, Clam.'

‘But normal demonmales are too scared to wander this close by,' I said. ‘Oh, Annie. Must have been he was an injun. Oh, Annie, you spoke to an injun.'

Annie scooped up sawdust and kept her smile at me. ‘He said he wasn't one.'

‘Well, we can't believe what a demonmale says, can we? And most certain of all, not an injun, we can't.'

Annie sprung her fingers open so the sawdust went draining to the floor.

‘We can't, Annie. Did you check him for feathers or redskin?'

‘I said he wasn't an injun, Clam.' Annie smiled. ‘He didn't look nothing like one.'

‘Happen he painted his skin pink and he hid his red feathers to fool you. Oh, Annie, I think your brain is cooking up!'

Annie looked at me and she snorted.

‘Annie!' I was jumped up. ‘Annie!'

Annie shook her head and her snorts grew to laughter.

And horror squeezed my words to screams and my finger to pointing. ‘Sisters, see her grinning mouth? See her dancing eyes! What does she look like, sisters? She looks like a baby sat in the Sun that's laughing while it doesn't know it's getting scalded, that's what! Didn't I say nothing comes from nosiness but nonsense? Didn't I say that? But did Annie listen, or did Annie go out nosy and get cooked up by a demonmale injun? Didn't I say this would happen? Didn't I say that?'

‘Hush up, Clam. Sit down.' This was Dorothy, come up to me, pressing the shake out of my shoulders. ‘We must all think logical now. Slow and logical.'

But I couldn't stop. I was spinning about after my terrible thoughts. ‘It's too late for logical, Dorothy. But, all right then, very well then, here's logical for you, Dorothy. The Devil spotted the hole in the Wall and brought a demonmale to check us out. Except He made this one not look like an injun, so we'd be deceived. And Annie plum fell into His trap. Headfirst, she did. Look at her burning eyes! Oh, Annie, say goodbye to Japan. We will need to fight them outside our very own Wall. They could come any second. They could be here now.'

‘Now?' Sandra screamed.

‘Oh, there is so much to do!'

My face was slapped twice. Nancy, I think it was. Sandra and Mary were wailing. Eliza fainted off.

‘Calm down,' Dorothy said, never mind her own head was rattling circles. ‘Can everybody please just calm down.'

Only Annie was still smiling unbothered when Dorothy had propped up Eliza in the corner and said, ‘Now, do we all agree it sounds most frightening, and we will have
to do something? Good. But do we also agree we should listen to Annie first? Yes? So, Annie, if he wasn't dressed like an injun, tell us what he looked like, this demonmale.'

Annie dug her fingers deep in her sawdust pile, and smiled. ‘I don't know, really. Like us, but not actually like us. He was young like us, but taller than us, with Sandra's black hair and a drop of grey in his eyes like Clam.'

‘No,' I said. ‘No, thank you.'

Annie let out the sawdust through her fingers. ‘He actually looked like any of the ones we see in the Showreel. Like one of the ones on the barricade, maybe, but without so much hair, and without the demonic obsession with shooting guns.'

‘Indications of their demonic obsessions can be well concealed, Annie, but sure as meat makes flies, demonmales have them.'

Dorothy nodded to that. ‘Did you notice any other Demonic Indicators on him?'

‘Like a Demon-boil bobbling on his neck?' I said. ‘Which the Appendix says is the clearest Indication he's jam-packed full of fire. So jam-packed he's storing extra in his throat. That can't be missed, Annie.'

‘Couldn't really tell.'

‘Can't be missed, Annie.'

‘He was wearing a coat, OK, Clam.'

FLAP!
Nancy jammed a bluebottle on the door frame. ‘Did you see his Thrusting Tool?'

‘No, I didn't.'

‘Well, good,' I said. ‘Because that needs a lot of care looking. Because if he took out his Tool, it would be only a second or two before he shoved you on the ground and thrust it in you, and squirted his fire in you. And then,
Annie, unless you had a knife to hand to cut his throat quick, you'd be certain done for.'

‘I didn't see it, Clam.' Under her speckles, Annie's face was pinking up.

‘Maybe this one didn't have one,' Sandra said.

‘Course this one had one,' I said. ‘Demonmales all have them. It was probably sneaking in his trousers.'

‘Well, I didn't see it, all right!'

‘But there must have been other Demonic Indicators you saw,' Dorothy said. ‘Try to think, Annie.'

‘Well, course, there are plenty Annie should have seen,' I said, doing my best to remember – remembering Aunty, the first time she opened up the big black casing to read out the Appendix to the
Ophelia Swindon Archive
to me. ‘I'm compiling a file for you girls,' she said, pouring out our tea into the rose cups. ‘It's going to reveal how you lot are as joined to me as an appendix to a gut. Umbilically. There may be times in the yard, my little friend, when questions will come to be asked about the purpose of your existence,' Aunty tapped the book's hard edge on my nose, ‘and it's all here, niece. Answers to everything under the Sun. Digest and disseminate this knowledge wisely. I'm counting on you, my flap-eared friend.'

‘There are plenty,' I said. ‘
I
is full of Indicators to watch out for. The first is Female Murder, that's the clearest Indication of maleness. Others are General Impatience and Frequent Warmongering. Course, all demonmales have an Obsession with Fire. They like starting Fires – particularly in Sunny weather. They like to roast flesh on the Fires and pretend they're roasting things down in Bowels.'