The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (2 page)

The Armitage stories in fact begin during the Second World War, when, having been sent to board at a small school in Oxford, Joan was unable to return home. When the school was forced to close down, she took what turned out to be an appallingly dull job ruling lines on cards for the BBC in an evacuated office in the middle of nowhere, as London was being bombed. Aiken's “The Fastness of Light” in the collection
A Creepy Company
describes this period fairly vividly, and “Albert's Cap” in Michael Morpurgo's anthology
War
describes London in the Blitz, but these are rare examples of her using material directly from her life. Although there are oblique references to wartime difficulties, for example the requisitioning of the Armitage house in “The Frozen Cuckoo,” or her brother David's enthusiasm for planes during National Service with the R.A.F. in “Dragon Monday,” it was her fantasy that sustained her during these bleak years. In fact the next fifteen years were to be almost impossibly difficult as she dealt with war, work, marriage, motherhood, and then becoming widowed, homeless, and insolvent all in quick succession. What did she do? She wrote, and by 1955 she had published her second fantasy collection,
More Than You Bargained For
, including four more Armitage stories. Although these might have to be written on trains, while feeding chickens, or, as she said, while peeling potatoes with the other hand, she described how they always came almost out of the blue, in a terrific and wonderful urge to get themselves written.

By 1960, she was at last settled in a house of her own, back in Petworth, and was able to plan and write full-length novels; she produced eight in quick succession. The Armitage stories, when they appeared again over ten years later, revisited happier memories from the village, adventures with her cousin Michael on holidays from Northumberland, the exploits of her older scientist brother and much admired older sister on their visits home, actual events like the lady gardener who tried to buy the quince tree, and finally, in “Milo's New Word,” the arrival of David the baby brother and the delight of having a smaller creature to care for. Written long after the death of her mother, Jessie, this has some of the most tender descriptions of “Mrs. Armitage,” perhaps to make up for a previous and uncharacteristically drastic piece of writing. In
The Way to Write for Children
, Joan writes about the degree of tragedy permissible in a work for children:

Children have tough moral fibre. They can surmount sadness and misfortune in fiction, especially if it is on a grand scale. And a fictional treatment may help inoculate them against the real thing. But let it not be total tragedy. Your ending must show some hope for the future.

One Armitage story stands out as unforgettable for many readers, and clearly Joan, too, felt she had to return to “The Serial Garden” and offer some hope of a happier ending, not just to poor Mr. Johansen and his lost princess, but perhaps also to those who, after reading the description of the appalling but unwitting destruction wreaked by Mrs. Armitage, are still reeling with shock that this kind of thing can indeed happen. Mr. Johansen reappears here in two more stories, and although clearly what was done cannot be undone, hope is offered for a solution. It was Joan's suggestion that this collection be called
The Serial Garden
, perhaps wishing to alert those readers who were still waiting for the promised “happily ever after” that she had not forgotten them.

Lizza Aiken, 2008

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I used to wish for an Armitage Monday, a day when unicorns would overrun the garden, or I would be enlisted for aerial combat against a dragon, or that every potato in the house would turn into a beautiful Venetian glass apple. I also hoped that if these things did happen, my parents would accept it as a natural consequence of Mondays, and if they were turned into beetles they would just get on with their lives. I, of course, would ensure that everything would come out all right by the end of the day.

These marvelous Mondays never did happen for me, except in my imagination. Nor did I ever calm a storm with a model weather ship, or make a magical garden out of cardboard pieces from a breakfast cereal box. But I could feel as if I did have these experiences, because I read about all these things and more as they happened to Harriet and Mark Armitage in the wonderful stories by Joan Aiken, collected here all together for the very first time. In fact, some of the stories have never been published before, and when I was sent them to read, I felt like I'd won the lottery, and a prize far better than mere money. A new Armitage family story is worth more than rubies to me, or even a gold piece combed from a unicorn's tail.

I have often returned to Joan Aiken's books and stories over the years, enjoying them again and again. I have a particular fondness for her novels
Black Hearts in Battersea, The Cuckoo Tree
, and
Midnight is a Place
. But of all her work, I think it is her short stories I love the most, and foremost among her short fiction it is the tales of the Armitage family that are closest to my heart.

Before writing this introduction I never paused to wonder
why
I love these stories; I just ate them up, so to speak, and wanted more and wanted to repeat the experience.

Reflecting on why these stories appeal to me so much, I think it is because they so skillfully blend a relatively normal 1950-ish English childhood with the fantastic, and Aiken makes the fantastic an everyday thing while still retaining its mysterious and mythological power.

It is very difficult to mix everyday life and the things of myth into a story. Often you end up making the myths ordinary and the ordinary stuff even duller than it was already. Aiken manages to do it without a false note, and creates a world—an Armitage world—that feels true and is a delight to visit.

But as I never needed to know this before, you don't need to know it now. It is enough that these are great stories. If you start to read one, you won't be able to stop, and now here is this wonderful volume that means you won't have to stop, but can visit the Armitages again and again.

But be careful if you're reading on a Monday....

Garth Nix, 2008

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Once upon a time two people met, fell in love, and got married. Their names were Mr. and Mrs. Armitage. While they were on their honeymoon, staying at a farm near the Sussex coast, they often spent whole days on the beach, which at that point was reached by a path over a high shingle ridge. The sea was beautifully empty, the weather was beautifully warm, and the beach was beautifully peaceful.

One hot, sleepy afternoon the Armitages had been bathing and were lying on the shingle afterwards, sunning themselves, when Mrs. Armitage said,

"Darling, are you awake?"

Her husband snored, and then said, “Eh? Whatsay, darling?"

"This business of living happily after,” she said rather thoughtfully, “it sounds all right but—well—what do we actually do with ourselves all the time?"

"Oh,” Mr. Armitage said yawning. “'Spose I go to the office every day and you look after the house and cook dinner—that sort of thing?"

"I see. You don't think,” she said doubtfully, “that sounds a little
dull
?"

"Dull? Certainly not.” He went back to sleep again. But his wife turned restlessly onto her stomach and scooped with her fingers among the smooth, rattling brown and yellow and white and gray pebbles, which were all warm and smelled of salt.

Presently she exclaimed, “Oh!"

"Whassamarrer?” Mr. Armitage mumbled.

"I've found a stone with a hole.” She held up her finger with the stone fitting neatly over it—a round white chalk-stone with a hole in the middle.

"'Markable,” said her husband without opening his eyes.

"When I was little,” Mrs. Armitage said, “I used to call those wishing-stones."

"Mmm."

She rolled onto her back again and admired the white stone fitting so snugly on her finger.

"I wish we'll live in a beautiful house in a beautiful village with a big garden and a field and at least one ghost,” she said sleepily.

"That's Uncle Cuthbert's house,” her husband said. “He's just left it to me. Meant to tell you."

"And I wish we'll have two children called Mark and Harriet with cheerful energetic natures who will never mope or sulk or get bored. And I hope lots of interesting and unusual things will happen to them. It would be nice if they had a fairy godmother, for instance,” she went on dreamily.

"Here, hold on!” muttered her husband.

"And a few magic wishes. And a phoenix or something out of the ordinary for a pet."

"Whoa, wait a minute! Be a bit distracting, wouldn't it, all those things going on? Never know what to expect next! And what would the neighbors think?"

"Bother the neighbors! Well,” she allowed, “we could have a special day for interesting and unusual things to happen—say, Mondays. But not
always
Mondays, and not
only
Mondays, or that would get a bit dull too."

"You don't really believe in that stone, do you?” Mr. Armitage said anxiously.

"Only half."

"Well how about taking it off, now, and throwing it in the sea, before you wish for anything else?"

But the stone would not come off her finger.

When they had pushed and pulled and tugged until her finger was beginning to be a bit sore, Mrs. Armitage said, “We'd better go back to the farm. Mrs. Tulliver will get it off with soap, or butter. And you're getting as red as a lobster."

When they reached the top of the shingle ridge, Mrs. Armitage turned round and looked at the wide expanse of peaceful, silky, gray-blue sea.

"It's beautiful,” she sighed, “very beautiful. But it would be nice to see something come out of it, once in a way. Like the sea-serpent."

No sooner had she spoken those words than a huge, green, gnarled, shining, horny head came poking out of the sea. It was all covered with weeds and bumps and barnacles, like the bottom of some old, old ship. And it was followed by miles and miles and
miles
of body, and it stared at them with two pale, oysterish eyes and opened a mouth as large as Wookey Hole.

With great presence of mind Mrs. Armitage said, “Not today, thank you. Sorry you've been troubled. Down, sir! Heel. Go home now, good serpent, I've got nothing for you."

With a sad, wailing hoot, like a ship's siren, the monster submerged again.

"For heaven's sake!” said Mr. Armitage. “The sooner we get that stone off your finger, the better it will be."

They walked on quite fast across the four fields between the beach and the farm. Every now and then Mrs. Armitage opened her mouth to speak, and whenever she did so, Mr. Armitage kindly but firmly clapped his hand over it to stop her.

Outside the farm they met four-year-old Vicky Tulliver, swinging on the gate and singing one of the songs she was always making up:

"Two white ducks and

Two white hens

Two white turkeys sitting on a fence—"

"Do you know where your Mummy is?” Mr. Armitage asked.

Vicky stopped singing long enough to say, “In the kitchen,” so the Armitages went there and Mrs. Tulliver gave them a knob of beautiful fresh butter to loosen the stone. But it still wouldn't come off. So they tried soap and water, olive oil, tractor oil, clotted cream, and neat's foot oil. And still the stone would not come off.

"Deary me, what can we try next?” said Mrs. Tulliver. “Your poor finger's all red and swole."

"Oh, goodness, I wish it would come off,” sighed Mrs. Armitage. And then, of course, she felt it loosen its hold at once. And just before she slipped it off, she breathed one last request. “Dear stone, please don't let me ever be bored with living happily ever after."

"Well!” said Mrs. Tulliver, looking at the stone. “Did you ever, then! Vicky, you've got the littlest fingers, ‘spose you take and drop that stone in the well, afore it sticks on any other body the same way."