Beswitched (26 page)

“Thank you, that would be lovely,” said Baroness Hooper. She was small and spry, and pulled up her own chair.

Flora stared at the two of them, searching for the girls she had hugged goodbye that morning. Mrs. Enderby, when you looked over the stack of chins, was a lot like Lady Badger. But she still radiated an air of innocent kindness and slight daftness that was totally Dulcie. And she stared back at Flora in a typically Dulcie-ish way. As for wiry, wrinkled little Baroness Hooper, she was more like Pogo every minute—Flora would have known those shrewd eyes anywhere.

The moment Mum closed the door behind her, Flora burst out, “Pogo—Dulcie?”

“Good grief,” said Baroness Hooper, “nobody’s called me Pogo for years! I’ll be perfectly honest, when Pete phoned me and started going on about magic, I thought she’d finally lost her remaining marbles.”

“Oh, charming!” Granny said. “Can’t you see I’m right? Don’t you remember?”

Pogo suddenly grinned at Flora. “Yes, I can see it now. It’s all rushing back to me. I somehow managed to persuade myself that the magic business had only been a game. Hello, Flora.”

Dulcie leaned towards Flora. “I knew you at once. How priceless that you shared a dorm with your own grandmother!”

“And the awful little Fox boy, who bothered me at Sheringham, was your grandfather,” Pete said. “I’m glad to think you met my dear old parents that time—well, your great-grandparents, of course.”

“I found myself remembering all sorts of things about school,” Dulcie said. “Those vast knickers they used to make us wear! I described them to my granddaughter the other day, and she absolutely howled with laughter.”

Flora had a sudden mental picture of Dulcie as she had seen her that morning, standing in her vest and knickers while she carefully stowed her rabbit in her overnight bag, saying, “In you go, Mr. Bunny!” and giving him an entirely serious kiss. It was enormously odd to think of her with a granddaughter.

“I remembered the toad-in-the-hole we had on Sundays,” Pogo said. “And the Army and Navy biscuits in my tuck
box. And did we really crawl along a gutter, or did I make that up?”

“No, you didn’t,” Flora said. “And you didn’t imagine the magic—none of it. Remember the spell we did for Ethel?”

To her disappointment, the three old ladies looked blank.

“Ethel—you know—who bought us illegal sweets!”

“Of course!” cried Dulcie. “She married King Cophetua—the Carver’s father! Come on, of course you remember!”

“I saw her again,” Pete said, “in Monte Carlo, after the war. She was as pretty as ever, and had a string of little Carvers. I do hope her mother forgave her for not getting married in church.”

Flora asked, “What about Neville? Did he marry Virginia?”

Her three old friends were silent for a moment.

Pogo said, “You don’t know—why should you? Neville died in 1936, in the Spanish Civil War.”

“Oh.” Flora had been prepared to hear that Neville had died as an old man. It was a shock to know that it had happened the year after she met him.

“He went to Spain to fight the Fascists,” Pogo said, with the remnants of her old pride in him. “He was shot by a sniper, while trying to help the wounded.”

“Oh.” Flora could see him in her mind, as she had seen him only a couple of months ago, laughing and vigorous, throwing sticks into the sea for the dogs. Tears rushed to her eyes.

“My dear,” Pogo said, her voice gentle, “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“Sorry.”

“No, you mustn’t be sorry. It’s ancient history to me, but I can’t help being glad there’s someone left to cry for him. Good old Nev!”

“You did enough crying at the time. I remember how awful it was when the telegram came,” said Dulcie.

Pogo sighed. “Old Peepy was very decent. She told me I should be proud of him, because he died for his principles.”

“How did Virginia take it?” Flora asked.

“Oh, poor thing, she was quite brokenhearted! But she got over it, because people do, and she ended up marrying someone in the Foreign Office.”

The door opened. Mum came in with a tray of tea and biscuits. Flora hastily wiped her eyes, so her mother wouldn’t see that she’d been crying. When the four of them were alone again, Pogo changed the subject by giving Flora a brief history of her career. She had gone to Cambridge, and then to the Houses of Parliament, where she had been a Labour MP. She was now a baroness and worked in the House of Lords, which she said was quite a lot like school.

“And in between all that, I found the time to get married and have three children.”

“I didn’t go for more schooling or become an MP—I just got married,” Dulcie said happily, her mouth full of chocolate biscuit. “I’m sure you’re not at all surprised to hear that—you remember how thick I was at St. Win’s. I spent the last year of the war working as a Land Girl on a farm in Gloucestershire, and married the farmer. We had five children.” She added, “We only meant to have three—the twins
were a mistake.” This was such a Dulcie-ish comment that they all burst out laughing again.

The old ladies mostly wanted to ask Flora questions about their old school.

“Didn’t Mademoiselle Whatsername—Mornay?—marry someone?”

“You’ll remember, Flora—who was the girl who played the violin?”

“The girl with the teeth—what was her name? We took her out for half-term once.”

“Was it you that slipped in the bath and bled all over it, like Marat? No, that must have been the other Flora.”

The time flew by. The four of them talked and laughed, and Flora hardly knew what year this was, until her mother put her head round the door to say the taxi had come.

It was like a spell breaking. Her three schoolfriends turned back into three very old ladies.

Dulcie heaved herself to her feet, huffing and puffing. “Before we go, I must have a picture of us all together—I promised the children.”

Flora was startled. “You didn’t tell them the truth!”

“Of course—why not? They were fascinated, and they very much want to meet you. I live with my oldest son and his family, and we’re still at Merrythorpe. I hope you’ll come down this summer.”

“To Merrythorpe? The same one?” The sadness lifted. This had been the place she missed most from the past, and the thought of seeing it again was so blissful, it almost hurt.

“Yes, the very same one. It hasn’t changed much. Some things don’t.” Dulcie peered through her spectacles at her phone. “Bother and blow, I’ve forgotten what you do! I’m sure my grandson’s explained how to take a photo with this a thousand times—”

Mum came into the room in time to hear this. “I’ve got one of those phones. Shall I do it for you?”

“Oh, thank you! And then I’ll ask someone to send you copies. Where shall we stand?”

“Let’s form a group around Pete’s chair,” Pogo said, taking charge as usual.

Dulcie and Pogo arranged themselves on either side of Pete’s chair, and Flora hung over the back.

“Say cheese, chaps!” muttered Pete. “All for one and one for all!”

Mum took the photo of three very old ladies and a lanky girl of twelve, all in fits of giggles. She seemed a little surprised by the way Flora hugged Mrs. Enderby and Baroness Hooper when they left.

“We’d better leave Granny to rest,” Mum said. “She’s exhausted—what on earth were you all doing?”

“Oh, just catching up,” Flora said. “It’s incredible to be back, Mum.”

Mum smoothed her hair affectionately. “It’s great to have you back, darling.”

“What should I be doing now?”

“What are you talking about?” Mum was laughing at her. “You’re not at boarding school anymore—you can do anything you like.”

It was truly heavenly to have a long, hot shower in her own shower room, reveling in the gorgeous products she found in the other Flora’s luggage. Goodbye, carbolic soap—and good riddance!

Afterwards, she put on her tracksuit, which was as comfortable as wearing nothing. At school it was bedtime. This time yesterday, more than seventy years in the past, she had put on a flannel dressing gown and gone to brush her teeth in the cloakroom. She had returned to the bedroom to find Pete and Dulcie dancing the cancan because it was the last night of term. It had been so recent that their voices rang in her mind’s ear.

Those girls were now old and frail. But they hadn’t vanished—it was important to remember that. Time passed, but there was a sort of microchip of a person’s unique character that could never change.

Downstairs, the door of her grandmother’s room stood open. Flora saw that Granny was now lying on the sofa, with a duvet over her legs. Dad was beside her, putting bottles of pills on a tray.

She raised her head. “Is that Flora?”

“Yes,” Dad said. “But I think you should go to bed now, Mama.”

“Rubbish,” said Granny. “Flora, come in at once.”

Flora went into the room. The old Pete glinted at her in her grandmother’s hooded eyes.

“Flora and I have to do the same as we always do, on the first evening that we’re together again. Tell him, darling.”

This was completely new to Flora, yet somehow she knew
the surprising answer. “We—we eat popcorn and watch a DVD.”

“Correct,” said Pete. “Please choose our entertainment.”

“Mama, shouldn’t you—”

“Go and make the popcorn.” Pete could still rap out orders.

But Dad only laughed, and said, “You never did grow up!”

“No,” Pete said. “And it’s a bit late to start now, don’t you think?”