Aunt Maria (18 page)

“Everybody enter the woods.
Now
!” bellowed Mr. Phelps.

We all walked slowly downward among the twisted trees. Most people swished their sticks and shouted. I didn't. I wanted to sneak away, but there was always at least one man with a gun tramping slowly down behind me, and I was never out of sight of Selma Tidmarsh on my right or the orphan with the sling on my left. Every so often Mr. Phelps came bounding past behind us, calling, “Ten feet apart, now. Keep that line straight there!” You could tell he was loving every moment. I wanted to shout to him that he had no business to be hunting Chris, who had only tried to help him, but I could see it would do no good.

We went on down, going sideways and back round twisted tree trunks, bending under twisty branches loaded with yellow-green buds, stumbling on logs and cracking twigs. At first it was hot. There were midges out, circling in slants of misty sunshine. I remember us tramping through a band of those bright yellow shiny flowers and then across spindly white windflowers. We stamped on toadstools and crunched down acres of crusty gray-green moss stuff. The orphan on my left took his arm out of the white sling in order to hold on to branches in the steep bits.

We disturbed all the birds and lots of animals. The first time the first rabbit sprang up and pelted away downhill my insides gave a sick surge, even though I could see it was small. Some of the farm men took potshots at the things we disturbed. The first time the first bang came echoing along the trees, the wood went kind of gray round me and swung about. But I got used to it and just felt dull.

“Only a rabbit. Keep on, keep on!” Mr. Phelps would shout, pelting past. Sometimes messages to stop were passed down the line, when people got behind or too far in front. Selma Tidmarsh and the orphan fetched things out of their lunch bags and ate them when this happened. I couldn't. I fetched out a dry-looking sandwich the first time and had to throw it away. During one stoppage, when Selma Tidmarsh was talking to the person on the other side of her, I went sideways over to the orphan.

“Is your arm very bad?” I said.

His sling was hanging round his neck. He looked at his right arm, then his left, and finally, in a puzzled way, he rolled up his left sleeve. There was nothing wrong with his arm at all. He looked surprised.

An illusion, like the car, I thought. “Don't worry. Just checking,” I said, and moved back to my place.

On down we went. The sun slanted away to the twisted top of the trees. Dampness came up round our legs, smelling of leaves and earth and mushrooms. By this time I was kind of dulled to the shouts and calls and occasional bangs. When there were three loud bangs and a lot of shouting over to my left, I took no notice at first.

Then Mr. Phelps sped past yelling, “Keep the line, keep the line. We've got it, but we don't want it doubling back!”

Everything went suddenly tense. There was a briskness to the way everyone walked down. Before long, I could tell there really was quite a large animal down ahead of us. There was swishing and twigs snapping. Once I caught sight of a heavy gray shadow as something fled desperately along the hill, trying to find a way round the line. Oh, Chris! I thought. Chris, I warned you!

Down we went. Quite suddenly we were at the edge of the woods looking over a field of new corn where the sun was going down misty pink, and birds we had disturbed were going round and round in the sky, black birds from the woods and white birds from the sea, cawing and crying. Mr. Phelps was cawing and crying instructions, but I don't remember what they were. I only remember the line of men facing us on the other side of the field. Some were kneeling, some standing. I think some were even lying down, but they all had guns aimed at the wood.

And I remember the gray dog-shaped thing that ran out from the trees way over to the left of me. It stopped when it saw the men, turned back to the wood, realized it couldn't, and began to run sideways along the field in a terrified low snaking dash. The guns began going off.
Bang
and
bang
. White smoke came in blots in the blue air. And the wolf sprang into the air, twisted two ways at once. Then it fell down with its legs threshing.

There was a great shout from the other side of the field. “
Bull's-eye
. I
got
her!” I could see Larry Mr. Elaine dancing about there, waving his gun over his head, as I began to run toward the wolf. It had stopped moving before I got halfway. Mr. Phelps was running after me, roaring to me to keep back. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the tall black shape of Elaine running, too. But I took no notice and ran until I came to the wolf, spread out on its side with its eyes staring.

It was huge, much bigger than I expected, and much, much thinner. I stared stupidly at the stiff arch of its stomach and the two rows of little nipples on it. I stared at its jaws, open in a snarl, and the pink foam on its gray, broken teeth. I thought, I don't
believe
it! It's not Chris, after all!

“Aha! Old she-wolf!” Mr. Phelps said, rubbing his hands together.

The men with the guns were all shaking hands and shouting congratulations to Larry and one another. Someone was coming trotting along the hedge with mugs of beer for them.

“Well, that's a relief,” Elaine said behind me. She had her two-line smile. “Come on. I'll drive you home.”

We didn't say anything to each other the whole way. I felt unreal, as if the top of my head had come off and let my brains out. I couldn't stop smiling. Elaine stopped the car outside Aunt Maria's garden gate and marched me in through the kitchen. Aunt Maria and Mum were in the dining room. When she saw us, Aunt Maria hoisted herself eagerly forward on her sticks.

“Well, dear? Did they get him?”

“They shot an old she-wolf,” Elaine said.

Aunt Maria fell back into her chair and stared. “Naomi,” she said, in a feeble gasping voice. “Not my Naomi!”

“Well, you told them to shoot a wolf,” Elaine said, and she turned on the heel of her green boot and marched out of the house again. I heard her slam the back door through the noise Aunt Maria was making.

She was screaming by then, in a way that made Mum and me feel sick. “Naomi! Oh, Naomi!” she yelled.

“But Mig's
here
!” Mum kept saying. “Do stop, Auntie!”

We couldn't get her to stop, whatever we said. For once in my life I was glad when the doorbell rang and the Mrs. Urs began trooping in. “Oh, the poor dear!” they said when they heard the screaming, and they ran up the hall in their muddy boots. “You can't blame the men,” Adele Taylor said to me as she passed me. “They only did as they were told.”

There was such a crowd in the dining room, and still such a noise from Aunt Maria, that Mum and I were trying to back out when Zoe Green pushed the front door open and stood scraping the mud off her boots on the doormat. She was wrapped in an old knitted blanket. She was the only one who cleaned her boots. She stared at us and arched her head to the noise. “Taking on, izs zshe?” she said. Mum nodded, even though it was obvious. Zoe Green nodded back in her mad way and shuffled up the hall, sort of sidling toward us. “Good,” she whispered. “The men meandt to do it, too!” I had to wipe spit off me.

While I did, Zoe Green banged the dining-room door open and shouted out, “Oh, poor dhear! Ndow you know how I feel!”

Aunt Maria screamed back, “Curse you, Zoe Green! I
curse
you, you uncharitable woman!”

“Now, now, now, dear!” everyone else said. Mum and I went into the living room to get away.

“Was it very awful, love?” Mum asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I thought it was Chris at first. But I think Zoe Green was right. I heard Larry shout ‘I got her!' when he was much too far away to see.”

Mum gave me a soothing, bewildered smile and picked up her pea green knitting. “I shall be glad to leave this place,” she said. That made me feel almost hopeful.

C
hris didn't turn up that night. I'm sure he was scared to. And I didn't wake up and Lavinia never moved from Mum's neck the whole night. In the morning, the food I had put out was still there. I gave a lot of it to Lavinia, and I felt very lonely.

Aunt Maria was still in a terrible state. Her face was white and baggy. She kept grabbing me with her shaky old hand and saying, “Dear little Naomi. You make it up to me, don't you, dear?”

I didn't know what she was on about, so I just said, “I suppose so,” and got free as soon as I could each time.

Then she wanted me to come to church with her. Luckily by then I really hadn't any clothes that weren't muddy. Mum said I was to stay behind. I was glad. It wasn't just that Aunt Maria going to church is a sham—and it isn't quite a sham, or at least it's a muddled sham, because I can see Aunt Maria really believes she is good and charitable and religious. The important thing was that I had to see Miss Phelps. Secretly, if possible. I knew I had to talk to someone neutral who understood.

Larry came along with the wheelchair. “Elaine's got a headache,” he said. He still looked twice as jolly as I've ever seen him before, almost jaunty. He and Mum loaded Aunt Maria and her dead fox into the chair, and they set off.

I was halfway across the kitchen on my way out when the back door opened. Elaine stood there. “Oh, no, you don't,” she said. “I'll let you feed him, but that's all. Go back inside and sit down.”

She marched me into the living room and made me sit on Aunt Maria's roped sofa. She sat opposite in my usual chair, where she fetched a little white piece of embroidery out of her pocket and a thimble and scissors, and sat with her legs neatly together sewing. It looked very unsuitable. She kept snipping tiny holes and embroidering round them.

“What are you doing that for?” I said.

“I haven't come to talk,” Elaine said. “Get on with something of your own.”

I couldn't get on with writing. Aunt Maria doesn't bother to look at what I'm doing, but I knew Elaine would. I knew I was trapped for the morning with nothing to do, so I didn't care what I said. “Who was that she-wolf?” I said. “Aunt Maria's daughter?”

Elaine didn't answer, but I knew I was right.

“Why do you like Chris so much?” I said.

“I like all men,” Elaine said. I could see a big grin on her face, even though she bent over her sewing to hide it. “I like making them like me. Chris likes me.”

“Even Mr. Phelps?” I said.

Elaine did her clock-strike laugh. “Nat Phelps is scared of me, because he knows I'll get him in the end,” she said.

“That's greedy,” I said. “You've got Larry.”

“Yes,” said Elaine, and stopped smiling. “I've got Larry.”

“It's your fault he's so boring. You've made him that way,” I said.

She put her head up and positively glared at me for that. “Shut up,” she said.

I didn't care. I knew she hated me, anyway. “Did you get Antony Green, too?” I said.

Elaine's head was still back and the way her fanatical eyes gazed at me made me wish I hadn't asked. But she bent back over her sewing and said calmly, “Before my time, that one. But I've heard he wasn't easy to deal with.”

“Why?” I said.

“Why—y—y?” Elaine whined, imitating me. “Lord, aren't children boring! Because, they tell me, the silly innocent refused to believe other people were different from himself.”

“What's wrong with that?” I cried.

“Nothing, provided you're the same as other people to start with,” said Elaine. “
I've
no wish to be treated in the same way as Larry, thank you.”

I didn't understand. I began to ask, but she snapped, “I
told
you I didn't come to talk. One more word and I'll
make
you shut up. Do you think I can't?”

I didn't think she couldn't, so I stopped talking. The morning dragged on for several years, until Larry and Mum hoisted Aunt Maria back into the hall. Elaine gave me a grim look and left when she heard them opening the front door.

So I had to wait until the afternoon, when I knew everyone would be sitting behind lace curtains spying on me. But it wasn't as bad as that, because Aunt Maria gave Mum the afternoon off.