The Peppermint Pig (10 page)

Archie was three years old, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed and solid as a little rock. Poll’s baby, Tom, was about a year younger and very much quieter: after a minute or two he seemed content to be carried by this strange girl, and settled with his head on her shoulder and his thumb in his mouth.

‘Like to see our pig?’ Annie said.

Poll said she would, but regretted it. The Dowsett pig stood knee deep in filth in a ramshackle sty surrounded by nettles. Some pigs have mean narrow faces but his was friendly and blunt and his flat damp nose turned up at the tip, giving him an engaging air of comic surprise. Poll scratched his back pityingly and thought of Johnnie, scrubbed every few days with the garden broom and kept, Mother said, pink and sweet as a clean baby’s bottom. She asked, ‘What’s his name?’

‘Just Pig,’ Annie said. ‘What’s the point, givin’ a name to a pig what’s going to be killed come the autumn?’ She gave a wild snort of laughter. ‘Our last pig didn’t ’alf holler!’

Poll felt dizzy with shock. She said faintly, ‘Our pig’s called Johnnie.’

Annie looked at her sidelong. ‘Oh well,’ she said, after a minute, ‘your pig’s a special pig, like. That’s a bit different.’

They took the babies through a meadow to a shallow brook that chuckled between sandy banks. Archie splashed at the edge of the water, shouting with laughter. Poll put little Tom down on the grass and tickled his stomach to make him laugh too, but although he smiled once or twice he soon started to whine and chew at his knuckles and seemed happier when she sat quiet and he could nestle against her. He felt hot and Poll dipped her handkerchief in the cool water and bathed his head with it. Annie called him a ‘miserable little bugger’ but Poll enjoyed comforting him and while Archie and Annie ran races and threw stones in the river, she rocked Tom and sang to him until Annie said it was time to go back.

Poll had not meant to stay for tea. The Dowsetts were too poor to want to feed visitors. But the table was laid and Annie’s mother had set a place for her. They had boiled bacon pudding and bread spread with dripping flavoured with rosemary that tasted so good Poll ate four thick slices. When she had finished, Tom climbed on to her lap and went to sleep there. Mrs Dowsett said, ‘You’ve got a good way with babies, I can see that with half an eye.’

Poll beamed proudly. She would have liked to stay in the warm, smoky cottage, cuddling Tom while he slept, but dusk was falling outside, bats flitting against the dark wood. She said, reluctantly, ‘I ought to go home.’

‘Annie’ll show you a piece of the way’ Mrs Dowsett said. ‘There’s a short cut, no need to traipse all the way back by the road.’

They went round the back of the cottage, skirting the wood, to a ride through the trees. Annie said, ‘Turn right at the end you can’t miss.’

It looked very gloomy; gloomy and secret. No bird song, no rustles. Only the squeak of their boots on damp grass.

Poll said, ‘Is it far?’

Annie shook her head. She seemed unwilling to stay any longer and Poll was ashamed to admit she would rather go home by the road. She said good-bye as cheerfully as she could manage and set off down the green, grassy way.

Purple shadows around her. Above, a thin strip of navy blue sky with no stars. Poll hummed softly to keep her courage up. She wasn’t afraid: there was nothing to be afraid of, in a wood, and she couldn’t get lost as long as she kept to the ride. But which ride? She came to a fork. Was it here she had to turn right? She decided to keep on what seemed the main path but quite soon it started to narrow and the branches closed over her head. Should she go back? Was this the way through the wood, or only a poacher’s trail? Poll thought of poachers, and her heart thudded. She thought,
man traps
! There was an old man trap hanging outside Nero’s junk shop in Station Street, a hideous contraption with cruel teeth and a notice
above it that said
NERO’S LITTLE NIPPER
. Aunt Harriet said it was just an old curiosity and that man traps were illegal now, but how could she be sure there was not one left in this wood, abandoned and rusty but savagely dangerous still? Poll walked on delicately, straining to see where she put her feet down, and, when the path widened again, held her breath and ran down the centre of it until the trees began to thin out and she came to a road.

She breathed easier out of the wood but the road was not one she knew. She turned right, came to a fork, hesitated, and turned right again. Although the moon had risen now and was bobbing along beside her on the other side of the hedgerow, a wind had got up and ragged clouds blew across it. Poll trudged on with aching legs and sinking heart as the night became wilder and blacker. When she saw a tiny light some way off the road, she laughed aloud with relief and broke into a run.

The light flickered in the upstairs window of a cottage at the end of a farm track. The garden gate creaked as Poll opened it, startling her. She expected a dog to bark but there was no sound except the wind in the tall trees overhead as she pushed her way through a tangle of brambly bushes to the cottage door. She knocked timidly, waited, and then knocked again, harder. No one answered. She stepped back and called up to the window, ‘Please! Is anyone there?’

A long time seemed to pass. The silence unnerved her. Who lived here, in this lonely place? An old witch, perhaps! Should she just creep away? Then curtains were drawn back with a rattle of wooden rings and a head appeared, silhouetted against the pale yellow light. An old man with white hair.

‘Please,’ Poll said. ‘Please. I’m sorry. I’m lost!’

The old man peered down at her. ‘Whar d’yew want to git to?’ he asked, and when she told him, gave a high, thin, rattling laugh that turned into a cough, breath wheezing in and out as if his chest was a dusty bellows. When he could speak again, he said hoarsely, ‘Ah, thaart’s a fair traipse from hare, Mawther. Ah’ve not bin thar this ten year, a rare old traipse like, but if yew kips on the road thaart’ away, yew’ll git thar afore the night’s done.’

He spoke in broad Norfolk, like the old roadman, but Poll understood him – ‘Mawther’ meant girl, or woman – and he was clearly pointing in the direction she was already going. She thanked him politely, feeling a good deal less weary now she knew she was on the right way, and when she got back to the road, hopped and skipped along eagerly, beginning to enjoy what suddenly seemed an adventure, out on her own, this wild night! Theo would have been afraid, but she wasn’t. How she would boast when she got home! That funny old man!

The wind lifted her hair from her scalp and blew her along like a leaf, or a bird. She was flying before
it. She cried, ‘On the road thaart’ away, Mawther, yew’ll git thar afore the night’s done.’

She had not really been lost; she knew where she was now! Just ahead was a familiar bend, and beyond the bend lay Bride’s Pit. She slowed down a little and tried to walk quietly. Once she was past, safe past the bend and the Pit, she would run the last mile…

Then she heard it! Heard galloping horses, and, above the drumming sound of their hooves, the wheels of the coach. Terror seemed to drive the breath from her body but she walked on mechanically, hypnotized by what she knew she would see when she turned the next corner.

And see it she did. First Bride’s Pit. The gipsies had gone and it looked very desolate, the water velvety black against the grey grass. Then the phantom coach with two galloping horses coming towards her, a coachman on the box and carriage lamps lighting the hedgerows. Poll stopped and shrank into a gateway, waiting for what was going to happen; for the horses to turn off the road down the cart track and for the terrible screams that must follow as they plunged into the Pit.

She opened her mouth to scream herself but no sound came out. The coach was so close now she could see sparks flying from the hooves of the horses and the pale gleam of the coachman’s face under his hat. Her legs gave way beneath her and she sank to her knees, covering her eyes with her hands.

The ground shook; the iron sound of wheels deafened her. She froze to the ground like a hare as the coach passed Bride’s Pit. Not a ghostly conveyance, but the Mail Coach that left the Market Square every night as the church clock struck nine! She looked up as it passed her, watched it sway round the bend, listened as the sound of wheels and hooves died away.

It was some time before she moved. She had never felt so cold in her life nor so vulnerable. As if nothing would ever be safe and solid again. Although she had not in fact seen a ghost, she had met fear of a kind she had not known before. And that frightened her. Her own fear frightened her.

As she walked slowly homeward she tried to give this fear shapes – there was a donkey that haunted Tank Lane and a black dog local people had seen that was sometimes bad, sometimes good – but the thought of these friendly ghosts did not frighten her now. Nor ever would, ever again, she realized suddenly. The fear that walked with her was a dark dream in her mind and had no shape at all.

When she heard running footsteps approaching,
they
did not frighten her. She marched steadily on, head held high.

Theo had been running so fast, he was wheezing. He gasped, ‘I thought you might come this way. Mother was in such a state! Then I remembered
Annie and I guessed you’d gone there!’ He giggled and wheezed like the old man at the cottage. ‘Teaching Mother a lesson!’

‘She shut Johnnie up!’ That seemed years ago.

‘Silly ass.’ But he squeezed her hand fondly.

‘Has she let him out?’

‘Of course! You know Mother! Up in the air one minute…’ He stopped. ‘She’s pretty angry with you, though.’

Poll nodded, paying no heed to this warning. ‘I was at Bride’s Pit when the Mail came. I thought it was the Bride’s Coach.’

‘Oh, Poll! Were you scared?’

‘Just a bit. Not for long, though!’

He gave an excited groan. ‘I’d have
died
.’

‘No you wouldn’t. It wasn’t like that.’

But she couldn’t explain what it was like, couldn’t find the right words. She was too tired, suddenly; longing for home, for the comfort of her mother’s warm lap. Perhaps, as a special treat, Mother might give her a cup of hot elderflower wine with fingers of toast.

The front door stood open. She ran down the passage and threw open the door of the kitchen.

Mother and Aunt Harriet were standing there, waiting. There was no comfort in their expressions, no loving welcome. Their faces loomed over her, their voices rose. ‘
You naughty girl
…’

Poll closed her ears and her mind and let the waves of their anger break over her. When they seemed to have tired themselves out, she said calmly, ‘I’m all right, what’s the fuss about?’

Mother let out her breath in a sigh, and sat down. She looked sick and exhausted and Poll wanted to run to her but Aunt Harriet stood in the way. Her eyes glittered and her mouth was down at the corners. ‘Is that all you can say when your poor mother’s been half out of her mind with the worry?’

Poll shrugged her shoulders. What could she say with Aunt Harriet standing there between her and Mother? She muttered, ‘Not my fault if she’s stupid.’

Aunt Harriet’s face was red as fire – as if she might breathe out flames and smoke in a minute! ‘You wicked child! If you’re not ashamed of upsetting your mother, then think of Theo! Rushing out after you in this weather without his coat on and in his delicate health! Mark my words, if he catches his death, it’ll be at your door!’

Mother said, half laughing, ‘That’s enough, Harriet,’ and got up from her chair to come towards Poll, arms outstretched. But she was too late: Poll pushed her hands away, shouting, ‘Damn you, damn the whole blasted lot of you, damn you to hell!’ and ran upstairs, weeping.

CHAPTER SIX

T
HEO CAME TO
no harm from that chilly spring night but Poll caught scarlet fever from little Tom Dowsett and nearly died of it.

She was so hot in church Easter Sunday. Her cream alpaca dress weighed her down, her starched knickers cut into her, and the elastic that held on her new, floppy hat was a steel band under her chin. When they stood up for the hymn her legs bent like a rag doll’s legs and she whispered to Lily beside her, ‘I do feel so queer.’ But Lily was singing her heart out. She was in love with the Vicar, a handsome man with a wooden leg, and in church she saw and heard no one but him. Poll tried to sing but her throat hurt. The organ boomed in her hollow head and made her feel giddy. She looked up at the high roof of the church and it seemed that the carved wooden angels were flying above her, dipping and swooping like
swallows. The next thing she knew, she was sitting outside the church on the Soldier’s Grave, her mother’s hand on the back of her neck and cold stone beneath her.

Then she was at home, in her bed, and the doctor leaned over her. He had a black curly beard and his breath smelled of onions. She turned her head away while he examined her chest and her stomach but when he made her open her mouth so he could inspect her throat she got the full blast of his oniony breath. It made her sick and Mother cleaned her up and sprinkled her pillow with lavender water. The doctor stood by the window, huge body blocking the light, and Poll heard him say, ‘Hospital’s the best place. I’ll send the fever cart for her.’

Poll screamed. Screamed and screamed, although the pain seemed to slice her throat open, until the doctor put his hands over his ears and her mother gathered her up in her arms stroked her damp hair back and said, ‘Hush, my lamb. D’you think I’d send you to any old hospital?’

She hung a sheet soaked in carbolic over Poll’s door and put the tin bath just outside so she could wash and change all her clothes whenever she left Poll to look after the others. For the first nightmarish days and nights that wasn’t often: whenever Poll woke she was there to change her nightdress and bathe her hot head. Sometimes Aunt Sarah sat with her but no one else came except Lily once, creeping in when
Mother was busy downstairs, thinking Poll was asleep.

Poll was dreaming. She dreamed someone had kissed her and when she opened her eyes she saw Lily there, lovely face serious, eyes wide and dark in the candlelight. She put her finger to her lips. ‘Don’t make a sound, I shouldn’t be here. Darling Poll, please get better.’