The Peppermint Pig (17 page)

Mother said, ‘Oh, Poll.’ There were tears in her eyes.

Poll’s tongue was clumsy and dry in her mouth. ‘Where’s he gone?’

Mother shook her head, apparently speechless. She put Mac down and went to the dresser to get a plate for Annie.

Lily was braver. ‘He went to the butcher this morning.’

Poll said nothing.

Lily said, ‘Darling Poll, we couldn’t keep him for ever. A great pig, eating his head off! You knew that, didn’t you?’

‘I don’t think she did!’ George’s voice shook with anger. He looked at his mother, accusing her. ‘You should have explained. Oh, that was
wicked
…’

‘Shut up, George,’ Lily said.

Mother put the cup and plate on the table, and sat down again. She said pitifully, ‘It never seemed the right time. She was so ill, and then it got harder. I was sure she must know, all her friends keep pigs, don’t they? You’ve got a pig haven’t you, Annie?’

Poll said slowly, ‘Johnnie was different. You always said he was different.’

‘I told you, Mother!’ George said.

She looked at Poll. ‘I’m sorry. I truly am sorry. It’s been hard for us all. We all loved the old pig…’ Her voice trailed away. Her head drooped but she lifted it with an effort, smiling sadly. ‘I should have talked to
you, Poll. But I thought – well – I thought it might be easier for you, this way. For me too, I suppose. You know what you are! I’m sorry if I was wrong and I hope you’ll forgive me. Sit down now and have tea.’

Poll shook her head.

George said, ‘I don’t suppose she’s exactly hungry I know I’m not! And I know another thing, too! I’ll never eat bacon again as long as I live.’

‘I’m going to be sick,’ Theo said. He got off his chair and ran from the table.

‘Nor pork, neither!’ George raged. ‘Nor
sausage
. If any bit of Johnnie comes into this house, even so much as a
trotter
, I’ll never eat at this table again! I’ll leave home, so help me, and go to Australia!’

Lily said coldly, ‘There’s not much chance of your eating Johnnie, George. We owe the butcher.’

‘Oh.’ George looked down at his plate. He muttered, ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Well, you know now,’ Lily said. ‘How d’you think poor Mother’s been managing? Have you ever
asked
? I’ve not noticed you holding back!’

George was silent.

‘Just like a man,’ Lily snorted, and went round the table and put her arm round her mother. Mother took her hand and held it against her cheek.

George cleared his throat. ‘I could have left school. I could have got a job and brought money home.’

Mother whispered, ‘Your education is important, dear. Sarah thinks you may get into Cambridge.’

‘To hell with Cambridge,’ George said. ‘To hell with Aunt Sarah!’

No one answered that shocking remark. Mother patted Lily’s hand and sat straight in her chair. Lily went back to her seat and poured tea. She said, ‘Even if Poll isn’t hungry, perhaps Annie is. Sit down, Annie.’

Lily didn’t look at Poll. None of them looked at her. Poll moistened her lips and said in a soft, amazed voice, ‘Annie said Johnnie was different.
Everyone
said he was different.’

She sat on the log pile at the end of Aunt Sarah’s garden. She stared straight ahead of her. Her eyes were hot and dry; the burning lump in her throat too solid for tears. When Annie came, finally, she made room for her on the logs but took no more notice of her.

After a while, Annie said, ‘I don’t like it when our pigs get killed, either.’ And added, after a pause, ‘But there’s always plenty to eat, pig-killing time.’

Poll looked at her then. Annie’s face was thin, like her mother’s.

She said, timidly, ‘Are you angry, Poll?’

‘Not with you,’ Poll said, and knew, suddenly, that she wasn’t angry with anyone. She had thought for a bit that she hated her mother but there was no point in that. People ate pigs and so pigs had to be killed. If they weren’t, people went hungry.

Annie said, ‘I’ve got a bit of cake for you, Poll. Do you want it?’

‘Thank you,’ Poll said.

She ate the cake, every crumb, because Annie had brought it, but it tasted like ashes.

As all food did from that moment. Like ashes or sawdust; horrible, choking stuff that dried up her throat. Even the thought of putting something in her mouth and swallowing it down to her stomach began to disgust her.

She ate no supper that evening, no breakfast the next day, no midday dinner. For tea, Mother cooked her an egg in the way she liked it best, coddled in a cup with thin strips of toast to go with it, but even this favourite dish made her sick as she looked at it. Mother said, ‘You’ll sit at that table until you do eat it, my girl,’ but when Poll was still there, half an hour later, she took the cold egg away without saying a word and sat down and started to make a rag doll for Mac out of an old shirt of George’s.

Lily came to her room after she’d gone to bed and said, ‘Please, Poll, you haven’t eaten for days, don’t punish Mother this way, it’s so cruel.’

Poll said, ‘I’m not! I
can’t
eat, not
won’t
.’

‘Will you drink a glass of milk, then?’

She brought the milk and Poll tried to drink it but
the first sip made her gag. Lily took the glass as she doubled up, retching. ‘My inside’s closed up,’ she sobbed. ‘Really, Lily!’

Theo said, ‘You’ll die if you don’t eat. How d’you think Father will feel, when he comes home, if you’re dead and buried?’

‘He’s not coming.’

‘Of course he is. Mother’s had a letter.’

Poll shrugged her shoulders. Father would never come back.
Blood will out
, was what Mrs Bugg said. And Aunt Harriet,
Some people are foot-loose
. Father had left them like Grandpa Greengrass had left him when he was young. She didn’t blame Father any more than Aunt Sarah had blamed Grandpa Greengrass, but the knowledge was like a sad weight in her chest. Heavier because only she knew it.

She sighed and said, ‘Poor Mother.’

Aunt Sarah took her for a walk. She was weak because she had not eaten for seven days and was glad to hold Aunt Sarah’s hand. They went down Station Street and Aunt Sarah stopped in front of the butcher’s and said, ‘Look, my dear, those are dead creatures hanging there and you must face up to it. They have to be killed so that human beings can live and grow strong. We are carnivorous animals. Do you know what that means?’

‘Yes,’ Poll said. ‘We eat meat.’ And fainted dead away.

She rather enjoyed all the fuss. Someone bathed her forehead with water and when she got home she lay on the old sofa in the front room and George brought Mac to amuse her. The puppy made her laugh when he played with his rag doll, running round the room, growling, its head in his mouth and then bringing it to her and looking up, head on one side, eyes bright as buttons, inviting her to play tug-of-war.

George said, ‘You should take him for a walk, the poor chap needs exercise. There’s a blue leather collar and lead in the saddler’s. You could buy that.’

‘I haven’t got any money.’

‘Earn some, then!’ George laughed as if a bright idea had just struck him. ‘Tell you what, you eat this pear and I’ll give you twopence.’

It was quite a small pear, yellow, with a red blush where it swelled out at the bottom.

George said, ‘We could draw up a scale of charges. Twopence for a pear, threepence for a glass of milk. Sixpence if you eat a whole plate of dinner. Though you’ll have to work up to that gradually or you’ll make yourself ill. People’s stomachs shrink when they’ve been starved for a bit.’

She ate the pear and George gave her two shiny new pennies. The next day she had another pear and a glass of milk and a sticky bun which made
sevenpence altogether. She ate her dinner and George paid her eightpence for that because she had a second helping of pudding.

By the time she had earned enough to pay for the collar she had begun to feel ordinarily hungry again and went on eating without being paid because George said he had run out of money. The collar fitted the puppy and although he hated being on a lead to begin with, sitting down front paws braced when she tried to get him to walk, she coaxed him gently and quite soon he was scampering along, dragging her after him until she was quite out of breath. ‘Silly dog,’ she scolded, ‘why can’t you be sensible and walk to heel like old Johnnie?’

Mother said, ‘Pigs have more brains than dogs, didn’t I tell you?’

She looked at Poll shyly. She had often been shy with Poll since Johnnie was killed. As if she felt she had done something wrong and was afraid Poll would never forgive her. It made Poll feel uncomfortable and ashamed as if
she
had done something wrong. She wished she could think of something to say to comfort her mother, and not just about Johnnie, but about something much worse that she knew and that Mother didn’t. Father had left them and one day when they all grew up and went away too, Mother would be quite alone. Sometimes, when she seemed especially happy, singing while she was washing up in the scullery, or laughing at some joke of George’s, it
made Poll’s heart ache to think how lonely and sad she was going to be. She wanted to hug her and hold her close then, but she didn’t. Mother would only say ‘What’s
that
for, all of a sudden?’ and she wouldn’t be able to tell her for the same reason that Mother hadn’t explained what was going to happen to Johnnie. You kept the saddest things hidden from people you loved.

Poll said, ‘Do you remember when you put Johnnie into that pint beer mug, how funny he looked?’ and her mother laughed as if she was relieved about something and touched Poll’s cheek with her finger that was rough-tipped with sewing.

The walnuts were ripe in the avenue at the back of the church. An old woman sat there during the week to chase the boys off, but on Sundays she stayed at home and after church they lagged behind their aunts and their mother and filled their pockets when no one was looking.

Lily said, ‘Dad likes walnuts, we’d better save some for him. I wonder if he’ll be home in time to see me in the school play. Oh, I do hope so. Why are you pulling that face, Poll?’

‘I’m not pulling a face.’

‘Yes you are.’

‘I am
not
!’

Lily said angrily, ‘Do you think I’m not going to be worth seeing? Is that it?’

‘No, of course not.’

But it was partly that. It seemed to Poll, suddenly, that everyone was always looking forward to something wonderful that might never happen. Lily to being a famous actress, Mother to Dad coming home, Theo to being grown up, not an odd and lonely little boy but a person with friends, Father to making his fortune…

It was a dangerous way to go on. The only safe things to be happy about were things that were over and gone. Poll felt cold; as if she had been turned to cold stone.

‘What’s the matter?’ George said. Then, more urgently, ‘What’s the matter, Poll?’

They were all staring at her. She couldn’t speak. Aunt Sarah had stopped and was coming back. She said, ‘What’s wrong with you, Poll? You look as if you’d seen a ghost.’

‘I can’t move,’ Poll whispered. If she took one more step something dreadful would happen.

‘Go on,’ Aunt Sarah said to the others. She knelt, in the dust, in her best dress, and put her arms round Poll.

Poll leaned against her. After a minute, Aunt Sarah said, ‘Just growing pains. That’s all wrong with you.’

Poll said, ‘All this – all this
looking forward
…’

She couldn’t explain more than that. But it was no good telling Aunt Sarah. She was worse than anyone,
looking into the future and hoping for so much for them all. ‘I’m frightened,’ she said.

‘Oh, you have to be brave to look forward,’ Aunt Sarah said. ‘Come on now, hold my hand.’ She stood up and brushed her dress down and looked at Poll keenly, as if she saw into her mind. ‘Things do go right sometimes,’ she said.

And one most important thing did. Poll went out to tea one day after school and when she came home Father was sitting by the fire, cracking walnuts.

She stood in the doorway and stared. For a second he looked like a stranger, quite an old man with grey in his hair, and the next he was just as he had been before he went away. He held out his arms and she ran and sat on his lap and hid her face in his shoulder. He said, ‘Oh, my baby!’ but she couldn’t speak. She was too embarrassed even to look at him and he held her tight and went on talking. They were all talking: she heard his voice, and Mother’s, and George’s, and Lily’s, and Theo’s, all running into and over each other like instruments in an orchestra playing a fine, happy tune. Father’s fingers stroked the back of her head, feeling the bone of her skull and the hollow at the back of her neck in the way he had always done. She began to feel foolish, sitting there with her face hidden, but dared not look up in case they all laughed at her.

At last, Mother said, ‘Lily, come into the scullery
and help me get supper. I want some potatoes peeled. George, you’ve got homework, haven’t you? Take it into the front room and get on with it and don’t waste any more time. And Theo – you run next door and tell them Father’s ship docked earlier than expected and he decided to turn up without sending a telegram. Just to catch us all on the hop! Isn’t that typical!’

Doors closed. Silence, except for the creep and hiss of the fire and small, squeaky sounds as Mac dreamed in his basket. Father lifted her head away from his shoulder and said, ‘Well, what’s been happening to you?’

She tried to think. So much – but she could only remember one thing. A little pig, sitting in a pint beer mug and squealing. A bigger pig, trotting behind Mother when she went shopping. A naughty pig, stealing Hot Cross Buns and next-door’s gooseberries. A famous pig, the talk of the Town, sitting good as gold in the drawing-room of the Manor House with his head in his hostess’s lap. A portly pig, snoozing on the doorstep in the sun…

Johnnie, the peppermint pig, gone now like this whole, long year of her life, but fixed and safe in her mind, for ever and ever.

She said, Johnnie’s dead.’

Father looked at her, puzzled, but smiling. He cupped her chin in his hand and said, ‘My darling, who’s Johnnie?’