The Runaway Summer (7 page)

‘They were quite kind to me on the boat,’ Krishna said. ‘I had never been on the sea before and it was terrible—great waves and miles of cold, grey water, and no land! But the Frenchman gave me some brandy to stop me feeling sick, and the men said that when we got to England, they would take me to London, on a lorry, and I could find my Uncle. But when we landed, they ran away …’

‘I expect they got frightened,’ Mary said.

Krishna nodded. ‘I was afraid too. It was not as I had expected. I thought there would be lots of tall buildings and soldiers in red jackets and fur hats. My Uncle had sent a picture postcard to show me.’

‘Busbies,’ Mary said. ‘That’s what the fur hats are called. But you only see dressed up soldiers like that in London. At Buckingham Palace where the Queen lives.’

She wondered what she would expect to find if she suddenly landed in Africa. Lions, she thought, and giraffes, and miles of desert, and naked black men waving spears.

She said, ‘I don’t suppose Africa’s like what I think it is, either.’

‘It is beautiful,’ Krishna said. ‘Where I live, it is beautiful.’
He smiled sadly at Mary and then looked at Simon, who was sitting on the end of the couch and staring impassively at the ground. Mary wondered if he was upset because she had called him dull and pernickety, or if he didn’t believe Krishna’s story. She wasn’t sure that she believed it herself—it seemed too exciting to be altogether true—but she thought it was mean of Simon not to pretend to! ‘I wish I hadn’t left,’ Krishna said, and his voice shook. ‘I wish I hadn’t come.’

Simon looked up. ‘Well you have, haven’t you? So there’s no point in crying over spilt milk. What we got to do is to think what to do
now
.’

‘
You
have to do nothing!’ Krishna swung his legs off the couch and stood up, stiff and proud, although his lips were quivering. ‘My Uncle Patel is rich! He will come and fetch me in his Cadillac! There is no need for you to help me, if you don’t want to!’

He stamped his foot, gave a little moan, and staggered. He would have fallen if Simon had not jumped up to catch him, and sit him down again, on the sofa.

‘My foot hurts …’ Krishna said, with a sob, and although this was certainly true, Mary guessed that he had only said it to cover up the fact that he had been hurt in quite a different way.

A little to her surprise, Simon seemed to understand this too.

He said, ‘Of course I want to help, softie! That’s what I’ve been thinking about! What’s the best thing to do. I mean, we don’t want to do the
wrong
thing. Not just for you, though that’s most important, but for us, too. If you get caught for being an illegal immigrant, then we’ll get into trouble for hiding you, specially me. I mean it’s Uncle Horace’s shop, and Uncle Horace is my Dad’s brother, and my Dad’s a policeman
—it would look awfully bad for
him.
They mightn’t believe he didn’t know.’

Mary saw this was true. Simon had more to worry about than she had. It explained a lot—all his grumpiness and gloom.

Not that he seemed gloomy now. Perhaps sitting and thinking had done him good, because his voice sounded cheerful and confident.

‘You can’t go chasing up to London on your own because the police might catch you. But we can telephone this Uncle of yours and tell him you’re here. I expect he’ll know what to do.’

He said this as if he had thought of it for himself. Just as if it hadn’t been Mary’s idea in the first place! She felt indignant for a minute; then she saw the funny side, and smiled to herself.

Krishna smiled too. ‘I do not have his telephone number but I remember his address. It is near Buckingham Palace. The street is called Buckingham Palace Terrace and his house is Number Four.’

Simon was looking at him rather oddly, Mary thought. ‘Are you sure?’

Krishna’s smile faltered. ‘I think so. It was written down in a little book in my suitcase. But I left that behind in France.’

‘Oh,’ Simon said. ‘Hmm.’

‘We could write a letter,’ Mary said.

Simon shook his head. ‘A letter’s dangerous. It might fall into the wrong hands. Specially if …’ He stopped and blushed.

Mary said, ‘We can look up the telephone number. We’ve got the address, and the name.’

‘I suppose so,’ Simon said. He was looking depressed again, and he sighed before he went on. ‘There’ll be telephone directories up in the shop. You go and get the right one, and
I’ll see to his ankle. I took a bandage out of our medicine chest. If I wind it round good and tight, it won’t hurt so much when he stands on it.’

‘I wish you would not speak about me as if I was not here,’ Krishna said. He lay back on the sofa and extended his foot. ‘But you may bandage it if you wish,’ he went on, speaking graciously and kindly as if he were a little king, and Simon one of his courtiers. Of course he couldn’t really be a king, Mary thought—rather reluctantly, because it would have made a marvellous story if he had been! Much more likely that he was a spoiled, if good-mannered only child.

‘Have you got any brothers or sisters?’ she asked, and they both turned to look at her with such surprise that she giggled inside.

‘No brothers. I have five sisters, but it is sad for my father to have only one son,’ Krishna said. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘No reason. I was only asking,’ Mary said.

Five
sisters,
she thought, as she climbed the stairs from the basement. That would explain the lordly air! In India, girls waited on men. Krishna’s sisters probably waited on him hand and foot!

Simon’s voice floated up behind her. ‘The desk’s in the corner. Far side of the window.

*

But she didn’t see the desk at once. The shop was dim and full of dust—not only on the furniture, but floating in the shafts of sunlight through the grubby window. And there were so many other things to see—Mary thought she had never seen so many interesting things in one room in her life. An old musical box with little drums inside that began to rattle and beat when she lifted the lid; a clock built into the middle of a wonderfully
coloured china castle with turrets and battlements; a miniature rocking horse with a tiny, scarlet saddle, and what felt like real hair for its curling mane; a big, old harp that made a bubbly sound, like music under water, when she ran her fingers along the strings.

The desk was behind the harp and had been half-hidden by it; an ordinary desk covered with papers, some of them held down by a glass paper weight that had a strange, purple flower in the centre. She picked up the weight and it felt heavy and cool in her cupped hands. She looked into it, turned it, and the purple flower changed shape, swelled, or grew small. She held it up to the light so that she could see her hand, holding it; through the rounded top it looked huge, and she could see the lines on her fingers.

She had quite forgotten she could be seen from the street, and when someone tapped on the window, she almost dropped the weight. For a second, this was all that concerned her—she might have broken this beautiful thing, and nothing and nobody could have mended it. But as she put it back, safe on the desk, a different fear struck her.

Someone was outside the shop, watching her. And she had no business here …

A
T
f
IRST, SHE
dared not turn her head, or could not, rather—she stood, staring at the paper weight, as if she had been turned to stone.

Then a small voice shouted, ‘Stand on your liver or die!’ and the spell was broken. She looked and saw the twins, Poll and Annabel, their noses pressed into flat, white blobs against the window.

She flew to the door. There was a bolt high up. The twins watched her, giggling and nudging each other, while she stood on a chair to reach it.

‘What are you doing?’ Annabel said, as soon as she had let them in.

‘Stealing again,’ Poll nodded solemnly. ‘She’s a stealer.’

‘Stealing’s wrong, isn’t it, Poll?’

‘We stopped her, though.’

‘She’s a poor orphan girl,’ Anna said sorrowfully. ‘No one’s ever told her what’s wrong and what isn’t.’

Mary drew a long breath and hissed it out slowly. This must be what Simon had told them. It was humiliating.

Poll smiled kindly. ‘It’s all right, poor Orphan Mary. Don’t be scared. We won’t tell.’

‘I wasn’t stealing.’

Mary spoke so fiercely that they backed away, their round eyes suddenly timid. She went on, more gently, ‘I know it looks
funny, me being here, but it’s all right. Simon wanted to show me some of your Uncle’s things. The harp and the musical box …’

She daren’t go down to fetch him, in case they followed her. She stood at the top of the stairs and shouted, ‘Simon.
Simon.
Polly-Anna’s here.’

‘What?’ He came along the passage and looked up at her. ‘What did you say?’

‘Poll and Anna are here,’ she repeated helplessly, hoping he had closed the door of the basement room and that Krishna wouldn’t take it into his head to follow him.

Simon ran up the stairs. ‘Why didn’t you tell me,’ stead of just shouting?’ he said unfairly. He pushed past Mary and shoo-ed the little girls back into the shop.

‘What did you come for? You know you’re not allowed. You touch things

‘
She
let us in,’ Poll said. ‘An’
she
was touching.’

‘Picking things up.’

‘
Looking
at them.’

‘They thought I was burgling,’ Mary said.

Simon looked at her, as if wondering, for a minute, if she had been. She met his gaze steadily and he blushed and said, ‘Sorry!’

‘Sorry for what?’ Anna said.

‘Nothing.’

‘But you must be sorry for
something
.’ Anna stood between them and looked, first into Mary’s face, then into Simon’s. ‘You didn’t tread on her, or anything?’

‘No.’ Simon grinned at Mary shyly.

She grinned back, and Anna had to pull at her sleeve to get her attention. ‘Do
you
know why he said sorry?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘It was just something he thought for a minute.’

‘Did he tell you?’

‘No. I guessed.’

‘What did you guess?’

‘That’s a secret.’

‘I like secrets.’ Anna slid her warm, rough hand into Mary’s and squeezed it tight.

‘So do I,’ Poll said.

‘Well, we’ll have a secret sometime, just you and me,’ Mary said, smiling at Simon and thinking, suddenly, how nice it would be to have two funny little sisters to tease and have secrets with. And to tell stories to …

‘Tell us a secret now,’ Anna said. ‘Please, Mary,’

She caught Simon’s eye. He nodded at her, and while she settled in a chair, the twins pressing against her knees, he took a telephone directory from the desk and went quietly downstairs.

‘I’ll tell you a story that’s a sort of secret, if you like,’ Mary said.

‘We don’t like stories about fairies,’ Poll said. ‘Only about people.’

‘All right,’ Mary said. ‘Once upon a time, there was an orphan girl. Her mother and father had died in a terrible plane crash—there was nothing left of them except their teeth and a few burned bones—and she had to go and live with her blind old grandfather and her cruel Aunt …’

‘Was she
strict
?’

‘Oh, much worse than strict! Really wicked. She knocked her about and only gave her scraps and things to eat …’

Mary sank her voice to a thrilling whisper and told them about the blue bottle marked Poison, and how the wicked
Aunt stole into the orphan’s room to look at her when she thought she was asleep, and watched her when she was ill, hoping she’d die, and wouldn’t let her make friends with anyone, and took her toys away …

The twins listened, solemn-eyed and breathing heavily.

‘Does she kill her in the end?’ Poll asked suddenly. ‘I mean, does the girl kill the Auntie?’

‘I would if I was her,’ Anna said. ‘I’d shoot her—bang, shee-ow!’

‘Bloodthirsty!’ Simon said, from the back of the shop.

‘Well. No. I don’t think so.’ Mary hoped Simon hadn’t been listening long. ‘I think what happens is, she runs away in the end, right away where no one can get her. A desert island, or somewhere good and safe, like that.’

‘Are you going to run away, Orphan Mary?’ Poll said.

‘The only person who’s going to run anywhere is you,’ Simon said. ‘D’you know the time? Nearly twelve, and Mum’ll be expecting us home for Sunday dinner.’ He looked at Mary. ‘Would you like to come too? I mean, if you’re hungry …’

Since she had told him Aunt Alice didn’t give her enough to eat, she could hardly say ‘no’, straight out.

She said, ‘I’ve got to be back, about half-past one.’

‘That’s all right,’ Simon said. ‘We eat early, Sundays.’

*

‘Trouble is, people are always making up stories,’ Simon said, when they were walking along the front and the twins were running ahead, out of earshot.

Mary felt uneasy, but only for a second. He wasn’t talking about her, but about Krishna. There were a great many Patels in the London telephone directory, but not one in Buckingham Palace Terrace.

‘That doesn’t mean his Uncle doesn’t live there,’ Mary said. ‘He may just not be in the telephone book.’

‘It was an old one,’ Simon admitted. Then he sighed. ‘But Buckingham Palace Terrace is in Belgravia, where all the Embassies are. You’d have to be pretty rich to live there.’

‘Krishna says his Uncle is.’

Simon snorted. ‘I don’t believe
that
, for a start.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘All immigrants are poor,’ Simon said scornfully. ‘Everyone knows that. That’s why they come here.’

‘He might have got rich since he came.’

Simon shrugged his shoulders.

‘D’you mean Krishna’s telling
lies
?’

‘Well, not exactly. More that his Uncle is.’

‘How d’you mean?’

Simon didn’t answer for a minute. He slouched along, hands in pockets, forehead creased. Then he said slowly, ‘I expect he’s
got
an Uncle all right, but all that about him being rich and having a Cadillac is just nonsense! I expect what’s happened is that his Uncle’s written home, telling lies about how rich he is, and boasting … People
do
that sort of thing, sometimes! Make things up to look big

Mary, who should have known this was true if anyone did, felt indignant. ‘It’s you who’s making things up! You don’t
know,
do you? I think you’re
mean.
I’ve half a mind to tell Krishna what you said!’

‘That ’ud be meaner still, wouldn’t it? What I said was private. Between you and me.’

Mary looked at him, at his nice, honest, troubled eyes, and felt ashamed. She said, ‘Is that why you said we couldn’t send a letter? Because you don’t think his Uncle lives where he says, and someone else might get hold of it?’

Simon nodded miserably. ‘It’s the sort of address he might make up. I expect he thinks everyone in London lives near Buckingham Palace.’

Simon was probably right, Mary thought. He seemed to know more than she did, about a lot of things. On the other hand, her parents’ flat was in a block quite near the Palace, and
they
weren’t so very rich! Buckingham Palace Terrace might be quite a poor street, after all …

‘I could go and see,’ she said. ‘I could go to London tomorrow. I’ve got enough money in my Pig, and I can ask my Aunt for a picnic lunch and say I want to spend the day on the beach …’

Simon kicked at a stone on the pavement. ‘It’s a bit of a wild goose chase, isn’t it? Suppose he isn’t there?’

He looked so crushed and worried, so bowed down, as if he were carrying a great weight on his shoulders, that Mary felt impatient. ‘Well, if he isn’t, we’re no worse off! Don’t
worry,
Simon

And Poll who had stopped to wait for them, and had heard this, said suddenly, ‘Old worry-guts. That’s what our Mum calls him.’

‘She says she don’t know where he gets it from,’ Annabel said.

*

When they got to Harbour View, Mary wondered too. It was clearly not the sort of house in which anyone worried very much about anything; certainly not about noise or muddle. The narrow hall was littered with prams and toys, a number of large cardboard boxes and a brimming bucket of water, as if someone had been setting up an obstacle race. The family were in the room at the back: the two babies, Simon’s Mum and his Gran and a big man in shirt sleeves whom Mary
supposed was his father. With Simon and herself and Polly-Anna, that made nine people, all squashed into one tiny room round a big table and all shouting, both at the same time and at the tops of their voices, in order to make themselves heard above the radio, which was belting out military music from what sounded like several brass bands. In spite of the shouting, Mary couldn’t hear what anyone said, but she must have been introduced, because the three grown-ups nodded and smiled at her, and Simon’s Mum took a pile of rumpled clothes off an extra chair and pulled it up to the table.

The table was laid—at least, it had been laid, but now the older baby was crawling the length of it, picking up knives and forks as she went and dropping them over the edge. The only person who seemed concerned—or even to notice what she was doing—was Simon, who picked her up and strapped her in a high chair. There was a look of intense, frowning concentration on his face as he did this, and gave her a spoon to bang with before picking up the dropped cutlery, and Mary thought that if you were the sort of person who liked things tidy and in their place, this might be an uncomfortable house to live in.

For herself, she found it very comfortable. No one told her to wash her hands, or asked her what she had been doing all morning. They just piled her plate with roast pork and vegetables and went on shouting at each other, cheerfully but quite inaudibly, until Simon got up and turned off the radio.

‘That’s better,’ his father said. ‘Now we can hear ourselves speak.’

‘Silence is golden,’ his mother said.

‘Cheap, too,’ Simon said. ‘You just have to turn a switch.’

‘I didn’t notice it was on.’ Simon’s Mum winked at Mary.

She was a pale, thin, pretty woman in an apron, and she reminded Mary of someone, though she couldn’t think who.

‘Not till it was turned off!’ Mr Trumpet said, and roared with laughter.

‘You don’t have to shout now,’ Simon said. ‘Not unless you want to exercise your lungs.’

But they all continued to talk at the tops of their voices.

‘Got enough to eat, Ursula?’ Simon’s father said.

‘She’s not Ursula, she’s
Mary
,’ Poll shouted. ‘She’s a
NORPHAN
.’

‘She hasn’t got any brothers or sisters,’ Anna said.

‘Sometimes I wish I hadn’t,’ Simon said. ‘Stop blowing in your milk, Poll, it’s disgusting.’

His mother smiled at Mary and slipped a piece of extra juicy crackling on to her plate. Mary knew this was because she thought she was an orphan, and, though she smiled back, felt it would choke her.

Poll went on, noisily blowing bubbles and giving herself a milk moustache. Anna looked at Simon, and giggled.

‘It’s sordid.’ He appealed to his mother. ‘They’ve got terrible manners.’

‘You can’t keep on, dear,’ she said.

Simon went red. He fidgeted in his chair and then burst out, ‘But you don’t
start.
You let them do what they like. Talking with their mouths full, spitting in their milk

‘Simon,’ his father said.

‘Silly Simon,’ Anna said. ‘It’s because Mary’s come to dinner. He thinks she’s the
Queen
.’

Poll cackled insanely and rocked backwards and forwards in her chair.

Simon drew in a long breath and went redder still. He looked as if he were going to explode.

‘Simon, Simon, Simon,’ his father said.

Simon let the breath out, very slowly and gently. He stood up, not looking at anyone, and began to collect the empty plates. He carried them from the room, closing the door with his foot.

‘He thinks we let him down.’ Simon’s father shook his head and pretended to wipe a tear from his eye.

‘Hoity-toity,’ his Gran said. She pulled a comic face, squinting down her nose like a shocked duchess, and the twins giggled, their cheeks shiny and solid as polished apples, and their glasses of milk bumping against their teeth.

‘I’m sure I don’t know where he gets his ideas from,’ Mrs Trumpet said. ‘Mary will just have to take us as she finds us, won’t you, Mary?’

Mary was not sure how to reply, so she just smiled. She thought, privately, that they were a bit mean, laughing at Simon behind his back, but when he came back, carrying an enormous apple pie, and his mother said, ‘Bless you, love. Whatever would I do without you?’ she knew they were kind and loving as well.

The pie was sugary brown on the top and oozing pale, slippery juice at the edges. Mary ate a large wedge with yellow cream, and then had a second helping. When she was offered a third, she shook her head, regretfully.

‘Are you sure you’ve had enough, dear?’ Mrs Trumpet asked —almost as anxiously as Aunt Alice might have done.

‘Quite sure, thank you,’ Mary said. ‘I couldn’t eat another thing.’

And as soon as she had spoken she realised that she would have to. She looked at her watch. It was just after one o’clock now, and at half past, she would have to sit down and eat another lunch.