The Outside Child (11 page)

I had two letters in separate envelopes, one from Annabel and one from George. They were the sort of letters you would expect from people their age who had been told to say thank you for presents. I supposed that their grandmother had made them write to me.

I didn’t show the letters to anyone. I didn’t even tell Plato. I was too ashamed about Annabel. I thought, when she knows what I did to her, she will hate me.

Plato had grown an inch while he was in America. He said that his asthma had been better there because of the dry climate and that he had been almost eaten by a bear that had prowled round the cottage at night, leaving paw marks near the landing stage where they kept their boat. And Plato, getting up early that morning, had found steaming fresh droppings.

“You can’t be
almost
eaten,” I said. “You either are eaten or you aren’t eaten. You’d only be almost eaten if the bear had just left a bit of you, like fingers or toe nails.”

I ‘almost’ told him about Annabel then. But I didn’t. I was too afraid.

I thought that I would carry this weight about with me for the rest of my life. But there were days when I forgot all about it. Aunt Bill and Aunt Sophie bought me a second-hand bicycle, and Plato and I went exploring the country beyond our suburb, staying out all day, taking sandwiches with us. There was one good hill, the only steep hill for miles, with several sharp bends and a rubbish tip half-way
down, that was wonderful, Plato said, for free-wheeling, but that needed split-second timing if a truck should be coming out of the tip when you passed it.

Although I tried several times, I always lost my nerve in the end, jamming my brakes on, dragging one foot on the road and crashing into the ditch. I was covered in scratches and bruises and nettle stings.

“You’re just scared,” Plato said. “When you stop being scared, you’ll be able to do it.”

I didn’t see how I would ever stop being scared. At night I dreamed about coming down the hill the way Plato sometimes did, with his feet on the handlebars, but I was even scared in the dream, waking up sweating and with my heart thumping.

“Perhaps it’s because you’re a girl,” Plato said.

He only meant that because girls could have babies, it was natural that they should be more nervous of dying, but the next time I tried the hill I was determined to show him. I took the first bend all right, then the next—and saw a truck turning into the tip. There was no time to be frightened. I swerved and went round the back of the truck, close enough to feel the exhaust puff hot oil on my leg. After that I was going too fast to brake and I carried on, faster and faster, swooping round the bends like a bird. It was a marvellous feeling, like flying. I turned into a farm gate at the bottom and skidded on mud. But I didn’t fall.

Plato came after me, brakes juddering on the final slope, and lurched into the gateway beside me. I was glad to see that he was yellow with terror. He said, “It’s not dying you have to be scared of. It’s being maimed for life. Paralysed.
Quadraplegic!
”

I thought, now I’ve done it once, I need never do it again, but I didn’t say that to Plato. I said that since I didn’t want
him
to die of a heart attack, I’d be more careful in future, and all the way home I bicycled just as Aunt Bill and Aunt Sophie had told me: stopping at every junction and sticking
out my arms stiff as railway signals when I wanted to turn left or right. Plato kept just behind me. Whenever I glanced back, he was watching me apprehensively. I grinned at him. I felt at peace with the whole world and light as a feather.

*

Rattlebones was parked in our drive, looking very well in her new coat of paint. Behind her there was another car that I didn’t recognise. I suppose I thought—if I thought at all—that it belonged to the parents of one of Aunt Sophie’s pupils. Plato and I wheeled our bikes round the side of the house, propped them against the wall by the kitchen, and went in the back door.

Aunt Sophie must have heard us. She opened the sitting room door. She said, “Jane, just a minute …” but I was too exultantly happy to hear the warning note in her voice.

Aunt Bill lay on the sofa. Her face was a fiery red plate, and her stiff, plastered leg looked awkward and heavy. Beside her, Amy looked delicate and pure as an angel in a pale, floaty dress.

She said, “Jane, dear, it’s a bad time to come, I’m afraid. Someone should have told me that poor Bill had had this bad accident. But since I am here, I must do what I came to do. Which is, of course, to apologise to you.”

She looked at me with a sad, grave little smile, catching her lower lip between her pretty, white teeth. No one spoke, and she went on, “I should have come before, Jane, but this was the first day I felt I could leave Hugo with Mother. I know that I could have telephoned or written. But I thought I ought to come
in
person
to tell you how sorry I am for my behaviour when you came to see us. To beg your pardon very,
very
humbly, and ask you to forgive me.”

Aunt Bill said, “Hmmph!” Then she cleared her throat loudly.

Amy glanced at her and then raised an amused eyebrow at me.
Funny
old
thing,
that raised eyebrow implied. She said,
“Please sit down, Jane dear. And Plato. This is the
real
Plato Jones, I assume?” She smiled—a mischievous smile this time and waved her hand in an imperious gesture, greeting Plato, inviting him to make himself comfortable. As if this was
her
house and she was the hostess!

I sat on the edge of a chair. Aunt Sophie gave one of her little flustered sighs, and sat on the arm. She put her small hand on the back of my neck. I could hear Plato breathing harshly somewhere behind us.

Amy’s voice was soft as an evening breeze. “Jane, when you are old enough to have your own dear little baby, it will all be so clear to you. But you are almost grown up now, and I think you may understand some of it now. Will you let me try and explain?”

I nodded. I felt frightened and foolish.

Amy said, “Hugo is so little, you see. So small and so new. A baby like that is a holy trust to his mother. I know that you didn’t mean to harm him. I’m sure that you love all young, helpless creatures, just as I do.”

Her big eyes shone at me, bright as lamps. There seemed to be a glowing, liquid point at the centre that drew me towards it.
Into
it—as if I might drown there.

She said, “It was so thoughtful of you to bring the children a few things that you had grown out of. Of course, naughty George wanted them all for himself, but we soon sorted that out. They both wanted to come today, but I told them, another time. I had to make things right with you first, explain why I was so foolish and cross.”

Amy gave a light ripple of laughter and I saw Aunt Bill frown. She said, “Rather more than just
cross,
from the sound of it.”

Amy looked solemn again. “Well. Perhaps. Though you must remember that imaginative girls do exaggerate. I’m imaginative myself, so I know. I did lose my temper for a minute or two when I saw Jane with Hugo. But I was ashamed instantly! My mother-in-law said,
Forget
it
dear,
Jane
will
get
over
it
and
Teddy
wouldn’t
want
you
to
worry,
but, you know, I just
couldn’t.
I’m like that, if I feel I’ve been the teeniest little bit in the wrong, I can’t rest until I’ve put it right. I puzzled all evening over what best to do, and even though I was worn out by bedtime, I couldn’t sleep, not a wink. I was up and dressed by six in the morning!”

She shook her head in wonder at this amazing feat.

Aunt Sophie said, in a queer, stiff voice, “I’m so sorry you had a bad night. I hope you’ve slept better recently. Can I offer you a cup of coffee? Or something else?”

Although it seemed strange at that moment, I had the feeling that she was trying not to laugh.

Amy gasped, and put a startled hand to her white throat. “Oh, how kind! I would be so grateful, if it’s not too much trouble. Not coffee, perhaps, since I’m a nursing mother! Tea would be perfect. China tea, if you have it, and
very
weak, not much more than a single leaf passed over boiling water. And a thin slice of lemon, of course.”

“Of course,” Aunt Sophie said.

She closed the sitting room door behind her. Aunt Bill cleared her throat again. She was staring at Amy with her mouth slightly open, as if she had been struck dumb.

Amy’s glowing eyes fixed on mine. I felt like a pin pulled to a magnet. She said, “Jane, there is something you need to know before you can understand. I wonder how much you
remember?
Not much, I expect, you were only little. You’ve grown so much since then, it’s not surprising that I didn’t know you. I won’t ask you why you pretended to be someone else, though it
was
naughty, you know!”

I muttered, “I just wanted to see George and Annabel, that was all.”

“That’s what my mother-in-law said. Dear Mother, always the peacemaker!” A little trill of laughter. “But that’s water under the bridge. Least said, soonest mended! It’s something we needn’t think about any longer. I know
I’ve
put it out of my mind. I shan’t dream of telling dear Teddy, and I’m sure you wouldn’t upset him either.”

“Ah,” Aunt Bill said. “I thought we’d get to the point sooner or later.”

Amy widened her beautiful eyes. The pink colour came and went in her face. She said breathlessly, “I don’t quite know what you mean, and I’m sure Jane doesn’t, either.”

I did understand. But it wasn’t important. I said, the words bursting out of me, “I had my musical box with me. I mean, I had it
before.
When I came to stay, long ago.”

“Did you?” Amy looked confused; taken aback, as if this was something she had not expected. Then she said, “Oh, I expect you did. I can’t really remember. It was such an upsetting time altogether. Not your fault, Jane. Nor mine, really. I meant to be such a good mother to you, but I was only young, not much more than a child myself, and my sweet Teddy was at sea so much of the time. And you were a headstrong, difficult child, always wanting your own way. I tried my best. I was sure I would be able to manage once the baby was born, and I had stopped being so tired and so heavy. I thought we would be the perfect family for Teddy to come home to. Then Annabel was born and
she
wasn’t perfect, and it spoiled everything. There you were, Jane, a pretty little girl with all your fingers and toes, and my poor baby so scrawny and ugly. And what made it worse was that you were so fascinated by her sad little hand, always wanting to touch it …”

Her eyes shimmered. Tears splashed on her cheek like watery pearls. She rocked backward and forward, whimpering softly.

Plato started coughing and wheezing. Aunt Bill said, “That’s enough, I think, Amy.”

I said, “So I didn’t hurt Annabel’s hand when I dropped her!”

There was a brief silence. Aunt Bill said, in an astonished voice, “Surely you didn’t believe that? Did you, Jane?”

Amy said quickly, “How could she? Jane, whatever are you talking about? Of course you never hurt Annabel, though I used to be scared sometimes to leave her alone with you. You got upset when she cried. You tried to lift her out of her basket, to love her. It was sweet, really.”

She was trying to smile and to keep her face smooth. But as I watched her it started to crack, to fall apart as it had done in the garden. And behind the cracked face, there was someone else. A cold, frightened stranger.

I said, “That was when I dropped her. Not far, she was in her Moses basket on the ground, but I couldn’t quite hold her. And you shouted and shouted at me. You said,
She’ll
never
be
better
now,
you
will
have
scarred
her
for
life.
”

I remembered now, clearly.

I said to Amy, “Don’t you remember?”

Aunt Sophie came in with the tray. She put it down on a small table where Amy could reach it. She had set out the best china. She poured the tea through a silver strainer and added a slice of lemon. She said, “It looks very pale, are you sure that’s how you like it, Amy? Do you want a cup, Bill? Or Plato? Or Jane? It’ll get stronger if I leave it to stand.”

“Leave it to stand all day and it’ll still be no more than water bewitched,” Aunt Bill said angrily.

“I would quite like a cup if I could have some milk in it,” Plato said. He went to stand by the table while Aunt Sophie poured for him. He was looking at Amy. He said, “Mrs Tucker, I once spoke to you on the telephone, though I don’t suppose you knew it was me.” He smiled, very innocently, and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “And I came to Shipshape Street with Jane, the first time. Jane wanted to see Annabel and George, and she was afraid to go by herself, even though I said I didn’t think anyone could possibly mind. In fact, I thought her father would be really pleased. It must have felt very strange to him sometimes, his children not knowing one another.”

This made me feel sorry for my father. I thought, if I were
Amy, I would be ashamed. But she didn’t seem to be. She gave Plato a small, distant smile, sipped her tea, and said, “Thank you Sophie, it’s just what I wanted.”

I was staring at her all this time. I was determined to make her look at me. And then, when she did, I wished that she hadn’t. Because I could see that she was afraid. She was afraid of the stranger inside her that made her so angry. And she was afraid I would tell my father the wicked words that stranger had said to me when I had been too young to repeat them to anyone. And that was worse than her hating me. If she had hated me, I could have hated her back. And hating is easy.

She said, her eyes begging, beseeching me, “Jane, dear, as if any woman would say such a dreadful thing to a little child!”

But she had said it. And I knew that she knew I would never forget it. And that Aunt Bill and Plato believed me.