The Outside Child (9 page)

“I only wanted to look,” George said in a sulky voice.

“He thinks there might be a present for him,” Annabel said. “He’s silly, isn’t he, Granny?”

She sounded so smug I felt sorry for George. He glanced at me shyly, and muttered, “I’m not silly, An’bel. Oh, I hate you.”

“That’s enough, George,” the grandmother said, and he flung himself down on the floor behind my wicker chair. I looked round and saw him, scrooged up very small.

The grandmother smiled at me. She said, “He’ll be all right in a minute.”

“Not George in a tantrum again?” Amy said, coming into the conservatory with a tray, a jug of lemonade, and several tall glasses.

“He was being silly, Mummy,” Annabel said virtuously.

“And you had to tell him, of course,” Amy said. She put the tray on a table and picked up the jug. “Who wants lemonade? I’ll pour some for George and he can come when he feels like it. Do you want a full glass, Annabel darling?”

I thought she was clever and nice, as well as pretty. She had called Annabel
darling
to make up for telling her off, and made it easy for George to stop sulking without fussing over him.

The lemonade was delicious, as she had said it would be, with just enough sweetness to stop your mouth wrinkling up. She asked where I lived and I told her in Ilford, which was several stations from Bow on the Underground. I told her that Plato and I lived with our father and mother and our mother’s grandmother in a big house with a croquet lawn and a tennis court. I told her that Plato was better at croquet than I was, but that I usually beat him at tennis. I told her that we had one cat and five dogs, all Great Danes, and that I bred white rats as a hobby. Then she asked me what I was doing in Bow, and although I was taken aback for a minute,
my tooth began aching again and gave me an answer. I said that my mother had lived in Bow years ago when she was young and that our whole family went to the dentist who had looked after her teeth all her life. His name was Mr Savage, and he was old now, so he only took very few patients, but he was a good dentist, well worth the journey.

She seemed to be interested in what I was telling her. At least, she kept an interested look on her face. I thought that Plato would be proud of me!

All the time I was talking, George was creaking my wicker chair from behind, but no one except me seemed to notice.

Annabel said, “I think the pram’s moving a bit. Hugo’s waking up, Mummy.”

Amy laughed. “Oh, all right, darling. Take Aliki to inspect the miracle if you want to.” She looked at me with amusement. “I hope you won’t be disappointed, Aliki. He’s really a very ordinary baby.” She raised her voice a little. “Much smaller than George was when he was born. George was a big boy—twice Hugo’s size and with a great deal more hair.”

Behind me George gave a little giggly snort, quickly stifled. He was busy sliding my backpack into his hiding place, inch by inch, very slowly. I didn’t see any reason to stop him. Even if it seemed a bit odd that I was carrying this collection of toys and books around with me, no one would be rude enough to say so, and it would be nice to have a chance to give George one of the presents that had been meant for him anyway.

As I stood up, I gave the backpack a little shove with my heel, helping it on its way.

“Come on,” Annabel said impatiently. She was jigging up and down with excitement.

I followed her across the lawn to the tree. The baby, wrapped in a shawl and lying on his side, was looking about him with an eye that seemed all black pupil, no white
showing. His tiny mouth was opening and closing as if he were a fish.

“He’s beginning to be hungry,” Annabel whispered. “If he wasn’t all wrapped up, he’d wave his fists about.” Very gently, she unwrapped the shawl, using her good hand. With her other hand, with the pink lump where her thumb should have been, she stroked Hugo’s cheek.

I said, “Hallo, Hugo.”

“He doesn’t know his name yet,” Annabel said. “Sometimes I call him Horatio, just in case. Which name do you like best?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t really know him well enough yet.”

I had a wonderful idea. If I went on being Aliki Jones, I would be able to get to know them all better. I was old enough to travel about on my own, so Amy would be unlikely to question me. If she did get doubtful, Plato could telephone and put on his deep voice and pretend he was my father and say that he hoped I wasn’t being a nuisance. He could talk about Mr Savage, the dentist, and explain that I had to have a lot of work done on my teeth these summer holidays, so I would be coming to Bow several times a week. He could even suggest that I would be happy to help with the children if Amy needed a rest, or free time to go shopping with her mother. I couldn’t baby-sit at night, or not late, anyway, but I could bath them and put them to bed and read them a story …

I wanted to laugh and jump. I was so happy, suddenly.

The wind had got up and the sun had come out, slanting over the storm clouds that were sailing away, high up in the gusty air. It glinted on the glass extension at the back of the house and shone on Amy and George in the conservatory. Amy had her arm around the little boy and their heads were bent over something that he was holding, that he was showing her. The grandmother was standing just outside the door, looking in at them.

The musical box started playing its tinkly tune. Annabel said, “That’s the same music they play on the telephone.”

I had been prepared for this. I said, “Oh, it’s a common tune. What musical boxes often play. It’s a lullaby. They play it on the telephone to send people to sleep.”

Amy was on her feet now, in the doorway, talking to her mother. She began waving her arms about. George was holding the musical box close to his chest. They were all looking towards us.

Hugo began to struggle and cry. One little hand appeared, fingers snaggled up in the holes of the shawl. I tried to free them, and he cried louder.

Annabel said, “He’s not comfortable. You have to pick him up and give him a cuddle and straighten the sheet.”

She sounded confident that this was the right thing to do. I picked him up carefully and held him with one arm while I smoothed out the bottom sheet. He was hot and damp and wriggly, and heavier than I had expected.

I said, “Hush, Hugo. Hush, Horatio. It’s all right, I’ve got you.”

In the conservatory, Amy began to scream, a high steady whistle, like a train in a cutting.

It frightened me. I thought, I am going to drop the baby! I clutched him with both arms and squeezed him tight. He arched his back and turned scarlet, holding his breath.

The grandmother was running towards me. Her face was like crumpled paper. She said breathlessly, “Give him to me, Jane.”

“Jane?”

I knew I had done something dreadfully wrong. Not by pretending to be someone else—though how she had found out, I couldn’t imagine: It was much worse than that. As if I had dropped the baby. But I hadn’t dropped Hugo. I was holding him close and safe.

She took him from me. She said, “There, babykins, all right, my flower, stop crying will you?” And she gave him
a little shake, almost as if she were angry with him for making such a fuss about nothing, and plonked him down in his pram and joggled it fiercely. She looked at me and said in a soft, hurried voice, “What are you doing here? Oh, you silly girl! You poor, silly child!”

I said, “I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to hurt him.” I had no idea why I said that. I hadn’t hurt Hugo. It was as if someone else spoke inside me.

“No. No, of course you didn’t. It’s not your fault that he cried, babies cry when they’re hungry,” she said. And then, sounding shaky, “Don’t be frightened, dear. Amy’s just …”

She stopped. She looked frightened herself; her soft mouth loose and quivering.

Amy was coming across the lawn. She was thumping her chest with clenched fists. She looked utterly different. A stranger I had not seen before. Her face had fallen apart, as if a mirror she looked in had broken, shattering her reflection into savage pieces. Her eyes stared at me out of this stranger’s cracked face. She said, “You wicked girl. Get away from my baby. Oh, how could Teddy have done this to me. Oh, how cruel! As if you hadn’t done enough damage to my poor little family.”

I had heard that voice before. It was a voice from a nightmare, from a bad dream I used to have when I was little, from which I woke screaming …

The grandmother put herself between me and Amy. “Darling Amy, stop it now. Everything’s all right. You’re all right. Hugo’s all right. Come into the house and sit down. I’ll see to everything. She’s going now. Jane is going. You mustn’t be angry. She’s just a child, she didn’t mean any harm.”

“It’s you meant the harm, mother,” Amy said, in the same terrible voice. “It’s your doing. You brought her here, you and Teddy between you, what a vile thing to do. How you must hate me.”

She flung herself backwards and forwards. The grandmother held on to her firmly. Although she was old, she must have been strong. Or perhaps Amy was only pretending to struggle against her.

Annabel said,
“Mummy.”
She was sobbing, her face twisted up, hands to her ears. “Oh, please stop it, Mummy. It’s not Aliki’s fault. She didn’t pinch Hugo like George does. She didn’t do
anything.
”

“Go indoors, Annabel,” the grandmother said. “Take George upstairs and watch television. That’s the most helpful thing you can do for your mother. And for Aliki.”

She looked at me then and, surprisingly, raised her eyebrows and smiled. Quite an ordinary smile, as if she were deploring some small piece of rudeness. She said, “Go with Annabel, dear. I’ll come in a minute.”

But Annabel was already running across the grass to the house.

I said, “No, I’ll go away now. I’m sorry I came.”

I started to cry. I was ashamed to be crying in front of my grandmother. I had always thought that if I met any relations, I would be smiling and poised and make them feel happy to know me.

“Let me go, mother,” Amy moaned. “Hugo’s crying.”

The grandmother released her, and Amy dived at the pram and picked up the baby and sank to the ground with him. She undid her blouse and one full breast tumbled out. She said, “There my lamb, there my sweet Hugo.” And then, without looking up, “Send her away, mother. Make her take that hateful music box with her.”

I ran to the house. The musical box was in the conservatory, on the floor, where George must have dropped it. I thought of him, scared and running to hide, and how I had meant to be a kind and loving big sister. I found myself sobbing, deep in my chest. I picked up the box and ran into the hall. Suddenly I wanted to pee very badly.

The front door had a funny catch that I couldn’t open, and
the grandmother was there, in the hall. She said, “Jane, I’m so sorry.”

She put her hand on my arm. I said, “I can’t open the door.”

She said, “Wait a minute.”

She was holding my arm very firmly. I had been right; she was strong. But my other hand was free. I undid the catch and jerked the door open.

She said, “Jane. Listen.”

I said, “Why does she hate me?”

“She doesn’t. Oh, dear. She was shocked. Upset. Oh, it’s so difficult.”

She wasn’t holding me any longer. She was hugging herself as if she were cold. She said, “Turning up suddenly, pretending to be someone else. Whoever put that idea into your head? I can’t believe it was Sophie!”

“It was my idea,” I said. “No one else’s.”

She sighed and shook her head and then said reproachfully, “Well, you shouldn’t have done it, dear. It was naughty!”

I thought that was a silly word in the circumstances. As if I were a baby who had dropped a sucked biscuit over the side of her high chair. Or spat in her milk. I pushed past her without answering. Out of the house, up the path to the gate.

She called after me. “Jane. It isn’t your fault. Let me explain.”

I looked back. She was peering after me anxiously.
My
grandmother! She hadn’t known me. She hadn’t wanted to know me. She would never have known me if Amy hadn’t recognised me.

My tooth was hurting again. I needed a lavatory. I was very angry.

I shouted, “I know what happened! You don’t have to tell me!”

I knew some of it, anyway.

I sat in the swaying Underground train, my tooth aching, my bladder bursting, and watched my ghostly face jigging up and down the other side of the window.

I held the musical box on my lap, the lid open. The tune had stopped playing. It was all broken now, not just the small drummers.

George must have broken it when he dropped it. But it had played well enough before that to remind Amy of me. I had had the musical box all my life.

I tried to remember. It was like catching water. Slipping away the second you grasped it.

I was very small. A bed in a strange room. In the half-dark. There was a cupboard in the corner, the door slightly open. There was something in the cupboard, a witch, or a monster. I was lonely for Aunt Bill and Aunt Sophie. I opened the lid of the musical box and the pretty tune started playing.

And SHE had been angry.
“Go
to
sleep.”

That was all. The rest was just guessing. I had done something wrong. SHE had screamed. Just as Amy had screamed when I picked up the baby.

I pulled an ugly face at the ghost in the window and it grimaced back, as if it were mocking me.

*

At Waterloo, I ran to the Ladies. I chucked the musical box in the rubbish bin. I used the Disabled lavatory because it was free. I only had one ten pence piece for the telephone.

I thought, perhaps they know where I live! The old woman who was my grandmother might telephone Aunt Bill and Aunt Sophie!

My heart came into my mouth. At least, that’s what it felt like; a lump rising up in my throat that throbbed like a heart beating. I prayed,
Oh
please
God,
let
me
get
to
them
first.
Aunt Bill said you shouldn’t ask God for small things, using Divine Intervention as a convenience, but this didn’t seem a small thing to me.

I hoped that Aunt Bill would answer. Aunt Sophie would ask too many questions.

But the phone rang and rang. There was no one at home. I thought that was strange at first. Then I realised that it was only four o’clock in the afternoon. Aunt Sophie was rehearsing. Aunt Bill had gone to London, to the exhibition. Although she had left early this morning, she might have gone to the Tate or the National after she had been to the Hayward Gallery. Or perhaps Rattlebones had broken down on the way home.

I was feeling more and more frightened. I had to tell someone.

I rang Plato. His mother said, “Hallo, Jane. Do you want Plato? Hang on a minute, I’ll get him.”

I said, “I’m at Waterloo. And I’ve only got ten pence.” My voice had gone high and wobbly.

She said, “I’ll tell him to hurry. But if you run out, you can reverse the charges.” She sounded crisp and practical, not at all waily.

While I waited, I felt in my jacket. Something round that I had thought was a button was actually a pound that had slipped through a hole in my pocket into the lining. The telephone box was a new one that took all the coins except pennies.

“It’s all right,” I said, when Plato picked up the phone. “I’ve found some more money.”

“Is that what you wanted? My mother said you were at
Waterloo and quite destitute. Didn’t you buy a return ticket?”

I had forgotten that he had a good reason for sounding so chilly and dignified. And he couldn’t have had my letter yet. It had only been posted this morning.

I said, “No, it wasn’t why I rang. And if that’s how you feel about me, I’d rather
walk
home than ask you.”

He said, “Don’t be silly.”

Water came into my eyes and ran down my nose. I snuffled, “Oh, Plato, it’s awful, I went to the house and they guessed who I was. And I rang Aunt Bill and there’s nobody home.”

He said, “If you hurry, you can get the four twenty-seven. I’ll be at the station.”

*

He was standing by the barrier. I had never been so glad to see anyone in my life.

He said, “My mother’s brought the car. She’ll drive you home or back to our flat, whichever you like.”

“What have you told her?”

“Most of it.”

“Oh,
Plato
!”

“She heard what you sounded like. I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t important. And it’s all right. She’s being sensible. She usually is sensible when something real happens.”

“Is she angry?”

“Why should she be? What happened? Were they horrible to you?”

I nodded. I couldn’t bear to remember. I said, “Oh, Plato, I left my backpack behind. I took all these things for the children.”

He said, “Don’t cry. I mean, don’t cry for
that.”

“They’ll telephone Aunt Bill and Aunt Sophie. Oh, Plato, I want to
die
.”

“They’ve got to know somehow.”

“It’s the worst thing that’s happened in my whole life.”

“If that’s the worst thing, you’ve been lucky.”

“They’ll think I don’t love them. I told all those
lies.”

“I expect they’ll live through it. But it’s not what you’re crying for, is it?”

“Oh, Plato,” I said. “You don’t know!”

“Then you’d better tell me,” he said. “And my mother.”

*

“Pandora’s box,” Plato’s mother said. “You know what happened to Pandora, don’t you?”

“She had a box that she was told not to open?”

“That’s right. A Titan called Prometheus stole fire from Heaven. And to punish him, the gods sent Pandora to Prometheus with this precious box that she was warned not to open. Prometheus distrusted any gift that came from the gods, so he gave Pandora to his brother. And some people think that the brother opened the box, but I think it was more likely Pandora who was curious to know what was inside. So she lifted the lid, and all the miseries of the world flew out!”

“You mean, all this is
Jane
’s
fault?” Plato said indignantly. “That’s not fair!”

“No, not her
fault.
Just that some girls are inquisitive, like Pandora. Jane’s aunts, and her father, must have known what Amy was like, so they tried to keep Jane away from her. To protect her. But once Jane found there was a secret, she was determined to find out what it was. So she opened the box, and this crazy woman …”

I said, “She wasn’t crazy to start with. At first she was lovely. It was afterwards, when she knew I was me, that she changed.”

It was easier talking to Plato’s mother than I would have expected. She had asked a question occasionally, but until she thought of Pandora she had listened in silence, sitting on the end of the couch she had made me lie down on to ‘rest’ as if I were an invalid. Plato was sitting on the floor, back against the wall, hugging his knees, and listening with a
broody expression. I had told them what had actually happened. What I hadn’t told them was how I had felt when Amy had started to scream. That once ages ago I must have done something dreadfully wicked. It seemed too shameful to mention.

I said, “It was as if she had turned into a quite different person. As if she was under a spell. Like an enchanted princess.”

I thought Plato’s mother might laugh at this, but she considered it carefully, as if it was a perfectly natural, grown-up thing to say. She lit another cigarette and coughed, fanning the smoke away from my face. She said, “I can see that she might have been angry. But to turn on a child—excuse me, Jane. I mean, to turn on a girl in that way for no reason …”

“Perhaps I once did something awful to her,” I said. I spoke in a deliberately small and sorrowful voice, and then shook my head sadly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Plato sit up and look interested.

“What could you have done?” his mother said, as I had known she would. “She sounds hysterical, at the least. And your aunts must have known it.”

Plato said, “They ought to have guessed that once Jane knew she had a brother and sister, she’d want to find out more about them. Brothers and sisters are pretty important. Particularly when they are younger than you are. You need to know how they are, or you can’t look out for them properly. And you get lonely for them.”

His voice shook. I said, feeling embarrassed suddenly, “I did want to find out, but it was only
wanting,
not
needing.
It was partly a game. I didn’t know them so I couldn’t really miss them, could I? I mean, not like Plato misses Aliki.”

“Mmm,” Plato’s mother said. “No, I suppose not.” She was looking at me, but her eyes had gone vague and
unfocused. She stubbed out her cigarette and said, “I’d better ring your house again, Jane. Someone ought to be there by now, and they’ll be worried. You look so tired, dear. Close your eyes and try to rest a little.”

When she had left the room, Plato said, “You shouldn’t have said that about Aliki. She’ll only sulk over it.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“It’s not always sensible to say things that are true,” he said sternly. “I know you think that I’m horrible to her, but what you just said about me and Aliki will make her more miserable than I’ve ever done.”

I didn’t know if this was true or not and didn’t care very much either way. He had only said it to get his own back. He had every right to be angry with me, but because I had sent him that loving letter I was hurt, even though I knew he hadn’t received it. I said, “You are being
mean
to me. I know I was mean to you, but I’ve had this awful time …”

“Poor little you,” he said coldly. And then, with a sudden nasty gleam in his eyes, “I wonder what you really did to upset your stepmother.”

“I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew,” I said. “Oh, I could kill you. I could boil you in oil! Though I’m not sure that’s horrible enough! Wrap you in breadcrumbs and roast you
very
slowly
over the barbecue. Roast Plato! It sounds like a
fish.”

I had almost made him laugh. He was fighting it, but he would have given up in another few seconds, if his mother had not hurried in with the news that Aunt Sophie was on her way to pick me up in a minicab. Rattlebones had had an accident on the Embankment, and Aunt Sophie had just fetched Aunt Bill from the hospital.

*

“Poor Rattlebones is more wounded than I am,” Aunt Bill said. “Intensive care ward for the old girl, I’m afraid. It’ll teach her to argue with a Post Office van.”

She lay on the sofa, one leg in plaster, one arm bandaged
close to her chest, and one eye “coming up nicely”, as Aunt Sophie put it.

“All colours of the rainbow tomorrow,” Aunt Bill said. “Now, what have you been up to, my poor chickadee?”

I groaned. “Aunt Sophie said Plato’s mother had told her.
She
didn’t ask me to tell her all over again!”

“I didn’t hear what Plato’s mother said, did I? And Sophie was off like a bullet to fetch you the moment she’d put the phone down.”

Somehow it didn’t seem so awful this time. It was partly because Aunt Sophie was out of the way in the kitchen and it was just Aunt Bill listening, but it was also because telling the story a second time seemed to make it less painful. I even found myself giggling when I told her how mad Amy had looked when she ran across the lawn, thumping her chest with her fists and yelling blue murder.

Aunt Bill didn’t laugh. She said, “That terrible woman.”

Her grim expression sobered me up. I said, “What did I do, to make her so angry?”

Aunt Bill went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Of course, Sophie would stick up for her, I daresay. Not Amy’s fault that she’s extra sensitive. Some people are born a skin short, that’s all.
Phooey
is my answer to that! Though you can understand Sophie. She thought she and Edward might make a match of it, everyone thought so, until this girl came along, twenty years younger and pretty as paint.”

I could hardly believe I had heard this. “Aunt
Sophie
?” I said. “Do you mean
Aunt
Sophie
was going to marry
my
father
?”

“It wasn’t out in the open. Your mother had only been dead a year, and Sophie has a delicate nature. But he came to see us, see you, of course, too, and I’d go off and dig in the garden and leave the three of you together. And I’d think, face up to it, Bill, you’re going to end up on your own, without human company, only plants to talk to!” She cackled with laughter. “One thing you can say for
vegetables. They don’t lose patience with each other or moan and make themselves miserable. Not that Sophie made much of a to-do about losing Edward. That’s not her way. She clamped down her feelings and suffered. But I knew she was terrified that Edward would realise how she felt. It was a kind of discipline to her to stand up for Amy. Or pride. You can put a lot of things down to pride.”

I said, “Why did you let me go and stay with them if you didn’t like Amy?”

Aunt Bill grunted as she tried to shift her plastered leg on the sofa. I fetched a cushion and propped her foot on it and she nodded to say that was better. She said, “Well, I was on my own, you might say. Your father over the moon with his lovely young wife, and Sophie determined to see only good in her. For her own sake, and Edward’s. And there was nothing to put your finger on. Amy was sweet as sugar to us. Just longing to be a good mother to darling Teddy’s motherless baby! Very touching. All I had against her was this funny
feeling.
And that could have been because I was so unwilling to lose you.”

I said, “Did they—my father and Amy—just take me off with them? Didn’t I make a fuss?”

“Didn’t seem to. You loved your Daddy. You trotted off happily with him and his pretty lady. Edward was back to sea shortly, but his mother had promised to stay for a while to help Amy in case she got tired looking after you, with the new little one coming.” Aunt Bill threw back her head in her horsy way and said, “Ha! That’s typical Amy. Too fragile a creature to manage alone.”

I said, “She’s there now. My grandmother. You’d think she’d have known me.”

“Did you mind about that? Oh, of course you did. Don’t let it bother you. Your Granny is nice enough, but she’s like her son. No real grit. No
backbone.
She rang up just before you and Sophie got back to check that you were home safely. I knew there’d been trouble, or she wouldn’t have
rung, but you’d never have guessed how bad it was, the way she was twittering on. Poor thing did her best, I suppose. She’s scared stiff of Amy.”