The House at World's End (16 page)

Carrie was opening the door of the cage. She picked up the monkey and held him close, cuddling him. He had chewed most of the blue ribbons off his dress and put his foot through the hem. He chattered and clucked in a soft pleased way, then sat on her shoulder and began to pick over her long sandy hair as if she were another monkey.

‘Why was she so mean to me and not to you?’ complained Mrs Horrobin.

‘He wasn’t mean,’ Carrie said. He’s a boy, not a girl, and boy monkeys have to practise being top dog, so they
can work their way up in the group. If you’d been his mother, you’d have been pleased that he was being so manly.’

‘Do I look like her mother?’ Mrs Horrobin picked up a mirror from a little table by the sofa and stared in horror at her painted, pouting face. She lit another cigarette, set fire to a bit of the ostrich feather and patted it out, coughing. ‘That beastly Louise doesn’t know her luck, being bought by me. She’s an ungrateful, savage brute.’

‘You can’t change an animal’s instincts by making it live with people,’ Lester explained patiently. This was so obvious to him and Carrie, it was surprising that a grown-up had to have it explained. ‘Every wild animal has to fight for his place in the herd.’

‘This isn’t a herd.’ Mrs Horrobin coughed through a cloud of tobacco smoke. ‘This is sixty-seven Fairview Court. So she’d better make up her mind, either she’s a pet or she isn’t, because I’m going to give her to the University laboratory for research.’

‘Oh no!’ Carrie said. ‘If you don’t want him, sell him to me. I’ve got the money. Not quite what you paid for him, but he’s secondhand now, so—’

‘I’ve already rung up the University.’ Mrs Horrobin lit another cigarette from the gold stub of the last. ‘That useless creature may as well do her bit for medical science.’

Lester came close to her, walking without weight on the white carpet in his grey tattered gym shoes. ‘Did you know,’ he said softly, ‘that they make them smoke cigarettes—’

‘I think that’s dogs.’ Carrie liked to get facts right, but Lester kicked her on the ankle.

‘Did you know that they make them smoke a packet a day to see how dangerous it is for people?’

That’s what I told you.’ Mrs Horrobin would not look him in the eye. ‘It’s for medical science.’

‘And did you know,’ Lester went on, ‘that they make them smoke and smoke until their lungs are like lumps of coal?’

Mrs Horrobin hastily put out her cigarette. ‘Oh, you children.’ She was irritable now, wanting a cigarette and yet not wanting to smoke one. ‘Oh, take the beastly animal and leave me alone!’

‘How much?’ Carrie was holding Joey with one hand and trying to undo the knot of the sock with the other.

‘I’ll
give
her away,’ Mrs Horrobin said, ‘to get rid of the three of you.’

They went down in the lift, with the monkey clinging to Carrie like a drowning man, and sauntered casually out into the street, as if a monkey round your neck was the latest fashion wear.

Carrie was swinging the sock full of money.

‘What are you going to do with it?’ Lester asked. ‘Put it back under the floorboard?’

They were passing a furniture shop as he spoke. For answer, Carrie turned into the shop and bought a new mattress for her mother’s bed.

‘How are you going to get it home?’ The assistant was a pleasant young man, who had not minded Lester and Carrie and Joey trying all the beds by lying down and bouncing on them.

‘On the bus.’

‘The conductress will love you. A monkey
and
a mattress…’

‘I’ll drive in and fetch it.’ Carrie was still lying on the mattress she had chosen, with Joey curled between her
head and shoulder. Lester reclined on a double bed like Mrs Horrobin, smoking an imaginary cigarette.

‘Girls fool me.’ The assistant scratched his head. ‘You can’t be old enough to drive a car?’

‘A horse and trap.’

‘In this traffic? Bit scary for a horse.’

‘My horse John will go anywhere.’

Then don’t ask him to come into this stinking town.’ The assistant smiled down at her. ‘We’ll be glad to deliver - free of charge. Where is it to?’

‘World’s End.’ Into Carrie’s mind came a picture of the old stone inn, with Michael’s painted sign swinging gently over the door, the curving tile roof, a banner of smoke rising from the kitchen chimney, the meadow dotted with animals. Mother in the bed under the window with the breeze blowing the faded curtains, Dad on the floor with his pirate beard, telling her tall tales of the sea.

‘That’s where we live.’ She lay on the new mattress with her hands behind her head and the little monkey falling asleep in her hair. ‘World’s End.’

THE END

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

Copyright © Monica Dickens 1970

First published in Great Britain 1970 by William Heinemann Ltd

The moral right of author has been asserted

All rights reserved
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ISBN: 9781448203093
eISBN: 9781448202768

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