Eight Days of Luke (2 page)

“Five wickets for fourteen runs,” said the radio.

“Quiet,” Cousin Ronald said severely. “I have to know how England are doing against the Australians.”

To David's secret indignation, no one made the slightest objection. Everyone stopped talking while the radio told them that England were 112 for eight when rain stopped play. By this time Uncle Bernard had tottered in, still frail from finding David had come home, and Mrs. Thirsk was bringing in a tray of thick brown soup. Everyone sat down and began to eat. The thick brown soup tasted thick and brown.

David was very quiet and very careful of his manners. He did not want Aunt Dot to notice he was still in the same clothes, and he did not want Uncle Bernard to notice him at all. For a while he was lucky. Uncle Bernard and Astrid were busy with their usual contest to see who could be illest. Uncle Bernard began it by asking Astrid in a gentle, failing voice how she was.

“Oh, not too bad, Dad-in-law,” she answered bravely. “It's only one of my heads this evening. How are you?”

“I never complain,” said Uncle Bernard untruthfully, “but I am forced to admit that my lumbago is very troublesome tonight—though it's these fluttering pains in my chest which are the greatest nuisance.”

“I get those too,” said Astrid. “Dr. Ryder gave me some tablets for them, but they've made no difference. I've been fluttering away all afternoon. Do they make you breathless? I can hardly breathe with them.”

“I gasp for air all the time,” retorted Uncle Bernard, gently and sadly. “My lungs have been in a bad way for years.”

“Oh, so have mine!” cried Astrid, not to be outdone.

At this stage in the contest, David had awarded Astrid four points, and Uncle Bernard three, with a bonus point to Uncle Bernard for never complaining. He rather hoped Astrid would win for once.

“I don't know how I shall get through the summer,” Astrid said. David gave her another half-mark for that. “These shooting pains in my shoulders just get worse too.” That was another full point, making Astrid five-and-a-half. “Particularly,” she said peevishly, “as it looks as if we aren't going to Scarborough after all.”

She looked at David then, and David, terrified that Uncle Bernard was now going to notice him, finished his soup as quietly as he could and wished he had not given Astrid that extra half-mark. But Uncle Bernard was moving in to score heavily and had no attention to spare for David just then.

“My dear,” he said, “I was always against your going to Scarborough. You'd never stand the journey.” That made another bonus point. “And for myself,” said Uncle Bernard, “you could take me to Scarborough any number of times and it would do me no good. It would do me no good even if I lived there permanently. No—I prefer to live out my few remaining days quietly here in Ashbury.”

That made a good eight points. Uncle Bernard had flattened Astrid and sat back to enjoy his victory. Astrid had not a word to say, but Aunt Dot, who was never ill and had no patience with anyone who was, snapped crossly: “I must say, Bernard, I wish you'd told me before that you didn't want to go to Scarborough.”

“My dear, how could I, when I knew a holiday would give you such pleasure?” said Uncle Bernard, scoring a further bonus point for martyrdom and self-sacrifice—though David rather thought that the contest was now over and it was against the rules to go on scoring. But then, he remembered, Uncle Bernard never did play fair.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Thirsk took away the soup bowls and handed out plates of thick brown meat covered with thick brown gravy. David, nibbling it, wondered why people ever complained of the meals at school. School food never tasted this bad, and there was always plenty of it. Mrs. Thirsk had never been known to provide enough for a second helping. David thought that perhaps she knew one helping was all anyone could take. Here he looked up and saw Uncle Bernard staring at him. Having polished off Astrid, Uncle Bernard was about to begin on David.

David tried to prevent him, by saying brightly to Aunt Dot: “Aunt Dot, may I go round and see the Clarksons after supper?”

“No, David,” Aunt Dot said, with satisfaction. “I'm glad to say those dreadful Clarksons have moved at last. They tell me the new people are a very much better class of person.”

“Oh,” said David. He felt as if his last hope of enjoying this holiday had now gone. But hope dies hard. “Have the new people any children?” he asked despairingly.

“Good heavens no!” said Aunt Dot. “The Frys are an elderly couple. Mr. Fry retired some years ago.” David said nothing. The last hope was truly gone. There was nothing to do but sit and wait for the various miseries in store for him. And they were not long coming. “David,” said Aunt Dot, “I thought I told you to change your clothes.”

David tried to explain that he had now no clothes that fitted him any better. Aunt Dot swept his explanation aside and scolded him soundly, both for growing so inconsiderately fast and for arriving in advance of his trunk. It did no good for David to point out that people of his age did grow, nor to suggest that it was the railway's fault about the trunk. “When I want your opinion,” said Aunt Dot, “I shall ask for it. This is most vexing. And tomorrow is Sunday, so that it will be Monday before Astrid can take you into town for new clothes.”

This brought Astrid and Cousin Ronald out against David too. “No one,” said Cousin Ronald, “no one objects less than me to spending money when it's necessary, but this is sheer waste, David.”

Since David was now goaded to the point where he wanted to say that Cousin Ronald always, invariably, objected to people spending money, it was perhaps fortunate that Astrid got in first.

“Town always brings on my head!” she complained. “And shops make me feel faint. You might say you're grateful, at least, David.”

“I am. Truly,” David protested. “But I can't help growing.”

All this while, Uncle Bernard had been hovering on the edge of the action, waiting for an opening. Now, just as Mrs. Thirsk came to bring pudding, he pounced. “Growing,” he said. “And I suppose you can't help your hair growing either? You must have it cut at once, boy.” The odd thing about Uncle Bernard was that when he attacked David he never seemed in the least frail or ill. “Hanging round your ears in that unmanly way!” he said vigorously. “I'm surprised they haven't made you have it cut at school.”

Mrs. Thirsk shot David a malicious, meaning look, and David was naturally forced to defend himself. “The other boys all have hair much longer than this,” he said. “No one minds these days, Uncle Bernard.”

“Well I do mind,” said Uncle Bernard. “I'm ashamed to look at you. You'll have it all off on Monday.”

“No,” said David. “I—”

“What?”
said Uncle Bernard. “Do you have the face to contradict me? Boys do not decide the length of their hair, let me tell you. Their guardians do. And boys do not contradict their guardians, David.”

“I'm not really contradicting,” David said earnestly. Because Mrs. Thirsk was there, he was desperately set on winning, but he knew that he dared not seem rude or ungrateful. “It's just that I want to grow my hair, Uncle Bernard. And it'll cost less money if I don't have it cut, won't it?”

“Money,” said Uncle Bernard unfairly, “is no object with me when it's a question of right and wrong. And it is
wrong
for you to be seen with hair that length.”

“Not these days,” David explained politely. “It's the fashion, you see, and it really isn't wrong. I expect you're a bit out of date, Uncle Bernard.” He smiled kindly and, he hoped, firmly at Uncle Bernard, and was a little put out to hear Astrid snorting with laughter across the table.

“I never heard such a thing!” said Uncle Bernard. Then he went frail and added pathetically: “And I hope I shall never hear such a thing again.”

David, to his amazement, saw that he was winning. He had Uncle Bernard on the run. It was so unheard of that, for a moment, David could not think of anything to say that would clinch his victory. And while he wondered, Mrs. Thirsk turned his success into total failure.

“Yes,” she said, “and did you ever
see
such a thing as this, either?” Triumphantly, she placed a small mat with crochet edging in front of Uncle Bernard. In the middle of the mat, very thoroughly stuck to it, was a wad of something pink and rather shiny, with teeth-marks in it.

Uncle Bernard peered at it. “What is this?” he said.

“David can tell you,” said Mrs. Thirsk, throwing David another malicious look.

Uncle Bernard, frail and puzzled, looked up at David.

“It's chewing gum,” David confessed wretchedly. How it had got stuck to the mat on his dressing table, he could not imagine. He supposed he must have put it down there while he was hunting for clothes. But he knew it was all up for him now.

“Chewing gum? In
my
house!” said Uncle Bernard.

“How simply filthy!” said Aunt Dot.

Astrid and Cousin Ronald closed in again then too, while Mrs. Thirsk, looking like the Triumph of Righteousness, briskly planked a plate of stiff, cold chocolate pudding in front of David. Such of it as David managed to eat tasted as thick and brown as the rest of supper. As the row went on, as all four of his relations continued to clamor how disgusting he was and Mrs. Thirsk to shoot smug looks at him, David resolved bitterly, vengefully, that if it was the last thing he did, he would tell Mrs. Thirsk how rotten her food was.

It ended with David being sent up to bed. By that time he was quite glad to go.

T
he next day was hot and sunny. David got out of bed deciding that he would walk the three miles to the recreation ground after breakfast. There were almost certain to be boys playing cricket there, and a little artful hanging around fielding stray balls should earn him a game quite easily. He was half dressed when Mrs. Thirsk came in. She was carrying an armful of clothes.

“Your Aunt Dot had me look these out for you,” she said. “Your Cousin Ronald is too well-built for them these days. The trousers won't fit too bad if you turn them up round the waist. You can hold them up with a belt, can't you?”

David eyed the armful with horror as Mrs. Thirsk dumped it on the bed. “I suppose so,” he said, and decided he would rather die than wear Cousin Ronald's castoffs.

“And don't say you will and then not wear them,” said Mrs. Thirsk. “I know you. You'll do what your Aunt wants for once, you will.”

“All right,” said David.

“It had better
be
all right, or I'll tell your Uncle,” said Mrs. Thirsk turning to go.

By that, David knew he was condemned to wear the things and misery made him angry. “Your food isn't,” he said to Mrs. Thirsk's back.

“Isn't what?” demanded Mrs. Thirsk, turning round quickly.

“Isn't all right. It's horrible. I never tasted such horrible stuff,” said David.

Mrs. Thirsk's blunt face went purple. She said not a word, but she slammed the door as she went out. David laughed.

He stopped laughing when he saw himself in Cousin Ronald's clothes—though he was afraid that most other people would laugh their heads off. The trousers were far too loose, belt them as he would, and the large fawn sweater flared out over them like a ballet skirt. Cousin Ronald had been what Mrs. Thirsk called well-built most of his life. David blushed when he looked in the mirror. The only comfort was that the wide trousers were not at all too long—it was pleasant to think that he was suddenly the same height as Cousin Ronald and going to end up taller—but the rest of him was so grotesque that he knew he would have to give up going to the recreation ground. He dared not show himself to anyone looking like this.

He was so ashamed of his appearance that he dashed down to the dining room before anyone else was up and—in a great hurry to get away before Astrid or someone came in and started to laugh at him—shook all the toast out of the toast-rack on to the tablecloth. He put butter on all of it and marmalade on half, and quantities went on the cloth because he was in such a hurry. He arranged it in a stack that he could carry, seized the radio from the sideboard to provide entertainment, and made off with the lot through the French window to the end of the garden where he could keep out of sight. There was a tall hedge there. Behind the hedge was a steamy compost heap with baby marrows growing on it and a spade stuck in the compost, and a strip of gravelly ground where Cousin Ronald always meant to have a carpentry shed. Beyond that was the high brick wall that ended the garden.

There David sat, with his back against the compost heap and the radio among the marrow plants, and spent the kind of morning most people would rather not spend. It got very hot in the sun, and David was able to take off the fawn ballet-skirt sweater for an hour or so; but the gravelly space was quite without interest. David saw forty-two birds and listened to the morning service, a review of records, a concert and to someone promising to tell him about sport in the afternoon. Then the dinner gong went, and he had to hurry to put the radio back so that Cousin Ronald could hear the news during lunch.