Castle Of Bone (18 page)
Authors: Penelope Farmer
They turned off the radio and heard another, though differently excited voice coming from their hall. “Hugh, Jean.
Lunch
. You said five minutes.” “Coming,” Hugh yelled back, to placate it temporarily.
Penn had to believe this now, that it was Friday; but immediately shut the knowledge out, or rather the fact that it meant anything peculiar. When Anna said “You were a
lovely
baby, Penn,” mocking him, and Jean followed in all seriousness “Oh yes, you were smashing
really
, Penn,” he lowered his head again and shook it again violently, as if he was trying to shake something from his eyes.
“Shut up. Shut
up
.” His voice tailed off – Hugh had never seen him less in command of things. That made him feel less safe, less protected too, and again he felt cheated.
He got Anna, alone, into a corner.
“What happened? Did you understand?” he asked. “Why, didn’t you?” “I suppose I did,” he said. “Glad we got Penn back then?” “Yes . . . aren’t you?” “Of course. Or I guess so.” There was not doubt exactly in what they said, but a kind of dissociation certainly.
“It would have been different without Jean,” Anna said.
“Yes,” said Hugh. Then he added, remembering suddenly, “The old man said she was important. Maybe that was what he meant.”
“Maybe the old man didn’t want us to stay,” said Anna.
“Maybe he was warning us against it,” said Hugh. “Maybe he didn’t like living for so long.”
“Maybe he’ll die now,” said Anna, “Without the cupboard.”
“Maybe he’s dead already,” Hugh said. But Anna, he saw, wasn’t listening any more.
“Oh blast, I’ve broken my sandal,” she said, taking it off to examine it. “Do you think it’s mendable?” The strap had parted from the sole itself, Hugh thought it would be difficult. “Well if it isn’t going to be any more use
anyway
,” Anna said, and she marched to the cupboard, put the sandal on the shelf and shut the door. The attention of the others centred on to her. They stood and watched in silence, even Penn. Hugh felt properly that he ought to be alarmed but was not alarmed at all, and when Anna pulled open the cupboard door and the sandal lay there unchanged, he knew why, that he had not expected it to change. Penn was smiling now with Jean. He looked more confident already.
“I’m going for a pee,” he said, and disappeared downstairs. Jean began putting Hugh’s clothes on the cupboard shelves.
“Well that’s it then,” she said, at last closing the cupboard door. “You won’t have any excuse now, Hugh, not to keep your clothes tidy.” At which he felt a surge of mindless, maniacal anger. “Can’t you think of anything except tidying?” he bawled at her. It was a relief to feel so angry, yet afterwards again, almost immediately, he felt nothing.
“Hugh, Jean,
lunch
!” Their mother’s voice sounded frantic. They went downstairs and Penn took Anna home.
But that was not quite all. In practical terms there was still plenty to be done. Hugh did it with boredom, but glad in a way that his mind was not required. The litter from the baby and from the other transformations of the cupboard had created an extraordinary jumble, which he sorted alone, rejumbled and threw into the dustbin. Jean seemed reluctant to help him. He saw less and less of Penn and Anna.
For almost the whole of that holidays things kept on turning up, pieces of stone or metal, dried up pine-needles, wood shavings, other traces of what had passed. He even found eventually, in the pocket of his jeans, the apple he had picked for Jean. It was mummified, quite dry, as if centuries old, and stirred in him a curious and not at all pleasant unease. Everything he found stirred him in some way, gave him pain, a sense of loss; yet it was a fading progression, each time the pain was a little less. He did not like this, tried to reanimate the feeling, but to no avail, logic opposing memory with increasing efficiency. He could not feel the loss of magic because, almost, he did not believe in it any more. Yet in an odd way he was still afraid of it, of magic.
He did not go back to the shop. He avoided even going past it, though his father told him once that it had closed. “I suppose the old boy must have died,” he said.
The living evidence remained, of course. The kitten, Humbert, had to go once more through all the processes of growing-up, including neutering. He mewed piteously the night he came home from the vet’s, as well he might, poor beast, thought Hugh sympathetically, just think of having to have that done to you twice, but nothing now would impede his progression to old age; after a while everyone seemed to forget that he had repeated his beginning.
As for the tortoise Hugh found a box for it to live in and fed it on lettuce and let it out sometimes on the lawn. He became quite fond of it, and so did Jean. But after three or four weeks it vanished from the garden, mysteriously and they never saw it again. “I haven’t even got my box,” mourned Jean.
Hugh gave his mother the lemon soap, and on that same day, towards the end of the holidays, he was wrapping rubbish in an old copy of the local newspaper when his eye fell on a heading.
PARK PIG MYSTERY
Mr Frederick Jameson (40) Chief Ranger employed by the Parks Commission was surprised last Sunday to find a large white pig roaming in the park near Fenn lakes. The pig, a sow, and by her appearance recently a mother, had not been reared in the park. To add to the mystery, the mark stamped on the animal’s back proved to be that of a farm in North Shropshire no longer in existence.
Neither Mr Jameson nor other park officials could explain the pig’s sudden appearance. Nor has any other explanation been forthcoming. The only clues to the mystery lie in reports of a pig having been seen earlier in Regina Road, passers-by wrongly assuming that the animal had escaped from the park.
“Pigs have not been reared in the park within living memory,” stated Mr Jameson. “We can only assume that someone locally has been keeping a pig in unapproved premises, and has not come forward to claim the animal for fear of prosecution. The Police have been informed.”
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