The First Book of Calamity Leek (3 page)

After we'd received our correction, Annie and Nancy pushed a barrowful of Truly Polperro back to the yard. Me and Dorothy opened a fresh bale and forked it out in the skinny room built on the other side of our dorm. It was a room made white-bricked and cosy enough for one, with its own door and bolt. The mending room, it was named by Aunty, being a place for mending hearts and minds, and possibly broken-up bodies like Truly's, if she was lucky – it was possible that might happen too.

Annie and Nancy laid Truly out and tucked her fur
coat over her. Annie fetched rabbit scraps from our trunk to keep her feet warm. Dorothy went for the
Reader's Digest Home Medicine Manual
from the schoolroom, which Aunty took off her.

Aunty looked down where Truly lay deadmeat or dreaming in straw. She had a drink of medicine and said, ‘That'll do fussing, nieces, off you pop.'

And we were sent out into the yard and bolted inside our dorm until we didn't know when.

‘GOOD AFTERNOON, DEAR,'
a voice says, coming into this room I have been trapped up in. It is a white room with no shade nowhere, and without one single wormhole for the air to fly away free. Also, my left leg has been potted up like a sick rose, which they say is for mending me, but is to stop me running, I know it. ‘I hope I'm not disturbing you.'

Well, I keep on with my pencil, like to say, ‘I'll thank you to let me be, otherwise I ain't never going to get the truth of everything set down before I leave tonight, what with all these interruptions, am I?'

But the voice keeps on at me. ‘I don't think we've been introduced. I'm a nurse here, my name's Jane Jones, and you must be—'

A hand touches mine, so I have to look up. And my hand drops the pencil.

A female is standing over me, and she is charred like she's taken ten turns on the Devil's spit. Charred like her hair should be shrivelled to wisps. Like all her flesh should be dripping off her bones.

But it isn't.

Her hand is charred all over, but not one bit of a finger is dripping off. Her face is charred from top to chin, but it hasn't even started to melt. Her lips are plump, her eyes are swivelling in their sockets, and her nose is all in one piece.

Well.

‘Is that a diary you've started there?' she says, holding out my pencil, never mind my hand is shaking too fast to take it. ‘Goodness, but you're a neat writer.'

Well, it's some minor miracle how she can even speak, it really is.

I grab for my pencil. Not one scrap of her skin has come off on it. I rip a page from this writing book and I write quick –

YOU ARE DEAD. WHY ARE YOU TALKING, DEAD WOMAN?

‘What's that, sweetheart?' she says. ‘Oh,' she says.

I write more –

HOW DID YOU GET OFF YOUR ROASTING SPIT AND COME BACK UP?

‘Oh,' she says. ‘Oh my.' And her shoes step back quick from the bed.

So I give her a good look over, and try to think logical, like Dorothy would. She is wearing trousers and a smock and a cap. She is only exposing her arms and face and neck. Then I realise it. And if I was speaking, I would have a good old laugh at her.

But I'm not. So I write and tell her I know she ain't really dead, she has just creosoted her exposed parts for protection, like Truly Polperro tried once in the summer, when she got bored of wearing her headscarf.

Except this Jane Jones ain't for answering. She is unpacking a wash box.

Well, I ain't letting her touch me and not say an answer.

I bang my pencil on the bedpost for her attention, and I write –

SHOW ME A PIECE OF YOUR UNCREOSOTED SKIN.

And she reads them words and she stares at me a while. And when she's finished with staring, she says, ‘All right, sweetheart, shall we stop playing games?'

IT WON'T STOP THEM COOKING UP YOUR INSIDES.

‘What won't?'

CREOSOTE WON'T STOP THEM COOKING UP YOUR INSIDES.

IT WON'T STOP YOUR SKIN FROM CRACKING UP NEITHER.

Her eyes see this and they get small with thinking. And then she starts trying out a smile. Like all this might be something funny to her. Like I might be something funny. Which I am not.

‘May I?' she says, and she comes and sits her bottom on my bed, right by my potted leg, even though I didn't ask her to. There is a smell of Gloriana tea roses about her.

‘Listen, sweetheart, I'll tell you what my big sister told me when I was your age. “Black don't crack,” that's what my sister said. That is unless you smoke sixty a day, and sit in the sun drinking rum from morning to night.' This Jane Jones smiles teeth that are white as Icebergs. ‘Black skin doesn't crack, sweetheart, that's just the luck of the draw.'

She pats my leg and stands up. ‘Now, are we done with the silliness? Because I can see five grubby toes peeking out the end of this cast.' She is still smiling, and I have to say, it is uncracking.

And I check all over again, but there ain't one rip on
her face. Not even the skinniest little seam is coming undone under her eyes.

Well.

Well, I think about what it says in the Appendix. And in my head I go back to the Garden and I pull it careful off the schoolroom shelf, just like I did every morning to read out a lesson over our porridge, and every night to read another over our stitching. And never mind it is lost now, in my head I can still open its black casing. I turn the pages through the metal hoops to
O
and find
O for Outside
, but, course, there ain't never been nothing set down nowhere about uncracked females living Outside. And in my head, I go and check on
F for Facts about Females
and also
U for Ugliness, Ungainliness, Unfeminine conduct, also all Unsavoury Urges
– but there was no word on uncracked skin set down there neither.

Dorothy Macclesfield might think up the logical answer. But I ain't heard Dorothy's voice once through these walls, even though they said my sisters were all here. All of them still leftover, that is.

And I hope Dorothy is still leftover. And I think of shouting out to check. Shouting out to say, ‘Dorothy, get ready for going tonight, because I'm off to War and you can come too if you fancy. And by the way, Dorothy, I have a question for you.'

But then I don't.

Either this Jane Jones is a deadmeat wanderer from Bowels, gotten so cooked up her brain's dripped out of her nostrils, dripping her sense out too. Or she has coated herself with creosote, and she ain't telling me the truth about her uncrackable skin.

Or she is.

Well.

Well, I watch her close. She uncovers my unpotted leg and sets to wiping between my toes. The wetness doesn't make her hands go streaky, like Truly's did after Aunty put her under the standpipe for an hour. And all sudden I'm thinking what Aunty said once, ‘My eye, but there's more to you than meets the eye.' All sudden, I'm thinking about me and Annie in the barn, weeks after Truly fell down into the Boules de Neige, and what was said then between us, that couldn't ever be unsaid. And my heart starts battering in its box. I write quick –

ARE YOU PROTECTED WITH BLACK DON'T CRACK SKIN

BECAUSE YOU ARE A WEAPON LIKE ME?

And before I know it, I write –

TELL ME THE TRUTH, JANE JONES.

HOW MANY DEMONMALES HAVE YOU KILLED?

Jane Jones doesn't look at my words until she has done wiping me all over. Then she looks at them words a long old while. Then she looks at me a while. ‘I'm afraid we'll have to wait until tomorrow to carry on with our chat, sweetheart.'

TELL ME NOW.

Because I have to leave tonight, Jane Jones. I have to start the War. It can't wait.

Jane Jones packs up her box, ‘Tomorrow should be a quieter day for me. We'll have plenty of time to chat then. I'll be sure to come armed with some answers, now that I know what kind of a grilling to expect.'

And she gives me a wink.

Well, I saw it good and proper, that wink. Like Aunty says it was ‘a quickie but a goodie'. And then I know it. She didn't just come to wipe me over. Course she didn't.
She came to show me this special skin protection of hers. This Jane Jones has purpose. Just like us. She came to show me that. And just to be sure, she winks her eye again.

And now she is going at the door.

Words rush up my throat. Whole ones that don't melt to nothing on the way.

‘Wait,' I shout out. ‘Don't you want to know my name?' Because happen she will need to know my name. ‘My name is Calamity Leek.'

And this Jane Jones lifts her wash box in a wave at me. ‘Well, it was very interesting meeting you, Calamity Leek. I look forward to catching up tomorrow.'

And she shuts the door behind her, leaving her Glorianas flavouring my air.

‘
WAS IT THE
lid then, Clam?' a voice whispered in my ear.

Little Millie Gatwick, that was, two years and four months my junior, come crawling up the row to me. Gretel rat sat on Millie's head, pink rat fingers knitting up Millie's yellow hair. ‘Only I was thinking, maybe Truly climbed up to the sky lid, and it was what she saw when she opened it that made her fall down dumb.'

Now, you're probably wondering why Millie was asking me. I mean I ain't the most-Spitting-Imaged sister. Nor am I so clever in sums as Dorothy. But the truth is, I do have about the best knowledge of the Appendix that a head could ask for. And like our dear Aunty says it best of all, ‘If my Appendix doesn't answer the big questions in life, nieces, nothing else will!'

And I expect you're wanting to know why I have the best knowledge of the Appendix, but like Aunty also says it, ‘Well, niece, that's a story probably best kept between me and you, and you and me, don't you think?'

Only I will tell you this, I had one problem right now – there weren't no answer set down nowhere from
A for
Aunty Swindon
(see also
E for Eternal Love
) to
Z for Zebra stripes (which are to be avoided during all plump periods in life)
that I could think of for climbing after the sky lid. I sighed and unwrapped my ears from their cloth strips, and sat up in my straw. Wasn't like I'd been sleeping anyway, was it? Not with my Mr Stick-worked shoulders. Not with Truly tramping about my head. Truly and terrible injuns tramping unnecessary everywhere.

‘Well, Clam, was it the lid?'

‘All right, Millie Gatwick, wait on, will you.'

I looked about. Looked like it was day at last. The Sun was shoving Himself sneaky through cracks in the planks, and sizzling holes in our straw. Down the row, most of my sisters were still curled in sleep. Next door the pigs were farting for their breakfast. In the mending room, well, it was really best not thought about what was in there. And down in her Hole, Maria was starting up her howling.

‘Well, Clam?' Millie's eyeballs boggled close. Millie Gatwick, I don't mind saying, had uncommon wobbly eyes. ‘My dear frogspawn friend' was what Aunty most liked to call her. And one day it was most probably true, like Aunty said, that them eyes would plop right out of Millie's face.

‘Well, Millie—' I said. Except then my head filled up with thinking about Truly.

‘Yes, Clam?'

‘Well, Millie—'

Well, first I thought on reminding her what the Appendix says straight off, on the page stuck inside the casing, ‘
Remember! Some truths are for Mother and Aunty to know and for nieces to never find out!
, and happen lid-opening may be one of these, Millie.' Then I thought on trying the easy explanation, ‘Well, you ain't actually old
enough to be told.' Then I thought about saying the sad but likely one, ‘Actually, Millie, Truly was mighty foolish to go climbing, and it is a sad but likely truth that she got too close to His moonstain without her headscarf on. Happen that's why her words burned up.'

But then I didn't say none of these. ‘Well, Millie,' I said loud and clear, looking past Truly's cold straw space to the fur lump along from me, ‘Annie St Albans knows exactly what Truly said she saw up there. Annie knows, and Annie ain't said yet, has she?'

Annie's bushy head popped out of her fur, and two green eyes flashed at me. ‘Will everyone hush up a second, I think I heard something.' She jumped up and raced up the other way, past Dorothy and Sandra, to the wall next to the mending room. She tapped on a plank. ‘Truly Polperro, it's me, Annie. Truly, can you hear me?'

‘It's only wind you can hear,' Dorothy said. ‘That or something knocking.'

‘But what would be knocking?' Annie said.

I lay down, listening to the thumping noises that had started up, far off outside.

‘Why is something knocking out there?' Annie whispered. ‘What could possibly be knocking?'

Well, there weren't nothing set down nowhere in the Appendix about outside knocking, so I flung some straw over my head, and curled up tight. And I shut my eyes and ears, and I shut out Annie's why and what-ing, and that non-stop knocking, and poor deadmeat Truly, and the whole sorry day.

The dorm door stayed bolted up all day. The knocking kept on. Now and then a bored pig snorted next door. At
some point I dreamed. It was my demonmale, tormenting me like they are sent to do to us. Which Aunty said, when I told her, was a ‘sadness', but what wouldn't kill us should make us stronger for War.
D for Demonmales
explains more. Only I should say Adelaide Worthing was rescued youngest, and she don't have no demonmales in her dreams, none at all. Which is a blessed relief for her, it really is. And I'll just say here, the worst, if you're interested, was Nancy's. He was a fat one in her dream, always bubbling pans and sharpening knives. Mine weren't so bad as that, but he did have hair all over his face. Most times mine was laughing at me and grabbing for me, so I had to wake up fighting him off. This dream just gone, I was trapped up in a chair he was pushing through trees. He bent over to rub his demonbeard on me. I grabbed his ears. They were red with cold. He was laughing, and I was laughing.