Enchanted Glass (14 page)

Her fat hand patted gently at the side of Andrew’s head. Andrew squirmed. He could feel his face heating up and see Aidan trying not to laugh as Aidan imagined Andrew with a hairstyle like Shaun’s.

Fortunately, the back door opened at that moment and Stashe breezed in. Andrew felt boundless relief. Joy! Now he could get on with his book. Stashe was like a gust of fresh air, driving Trixie away from his head. She was looking lovely too, in a short green dress that showed off those fine legs of hers. He found he was smiling before she was halfway into the room.

“Morning all,” said Stashe. “Hi, Trixie. I was going to phone you. Can you fit me in for a hair appointment late on Wednesday? Ronnie Stock needs me until five.”

“Can do,” Trixie said cheerfully.

Stashe turned to Andrew then. “Professor—”

“Oh, please remember to call me Andrew,” Andrew said. Aidan looked shrewdly from him to Stashe and thought, If those two get together, they won’t want me
around. He sighed, thinking of the Arkwrights.

“Andrew,” Stashe corrected herself. “If you’re not needing me to take notes or do letters, I’ll make a start on old Mr Brandon’s papers for you.”

“Yes, do. But I don’t know where the papers are,” Andrew said.

Mrs Stock tut-tutted. “World of his own! I
told
you, Professor. They’re in the little room off your study that used to be the pantry when your study was the kitchen.” She said to Stashe, “Men!”

Stashe said, “Good. Then I’ll be nearby if you need me — er — Andrew.”

Trixie said, agreeing with her sister, “Men. I’ll be off then. Wednesday, late then, Stashe. Now, Shaun, you be good and work
careful
, see.” Shaun nodded humbly.

“Right.” Stashe took hold of Aidan by one shoulder. “Come on, my lad. You promised you’d help me go through those papers.”

“Oh — I …” said Aidan. “I said I’d play football—”

“With Jimmy Stock. I know,” said Stashe. “But you promised
me
before you even met Jimmy, and it’s wrong to break promises, you know that.”

Aidan sighed and went away with Stashe. Trixie left. Shaun departed, grinning joyously. Mrs Stock took herself to the living room, where she gave all the furniture a sort of
tweak towards the traditional places, just to show she had not forgiven Andrew.

Left to himself, Andrew picked up the newspaper Mrs Stock had brought and turned to yesterday’s racing results. He knew he was being as superstitious as Stashe, but he could not somehow resist. There turned out to have been only one racecourse that had not been flooded by yesterday’s rain, and the winner of its first race had been Parsnip’s Pleasure. Meaningless. I knew it! Andrew thought. The second horse home was called Dogdays and the third, Heavy Queen.

“That proves it’s all nonsense,” Andrew said. He threw the paper aside and was just in time to jump up and hold the back door open as Mr Stock stalked in and dumped a box down on the newspaper.

“You still letting that looby work for you?” Mr Stock said. “Don’t let him come near my veg, or I won’t answer for what I’ll do.” He stalked out again.

Andrew looked into the box. It contained two gigantic parsnips, each of them big enough to have been Tarquin’s missing leg.

“Oh,” Andrew said.

H
elping Stashe, Aidan discovered, involved a lot of running about. He had to find Stashe a rug to kneel on while she sorted through the three boxes in the bare little room. Then he had to find more boxes, one for throwing stuff away in, one for things that
might
need throwing away after Andrew had seen them, and several more to hold things to be kept. Aidan thought carefully about this mission — “using his noggin” as Gran would have said — and decided there was going to be a need for extra boxes when Stashe invented more categories. He went daringly to Mr Stock’s box store in the garden shed and brought Stashe as many as he could carry.

“Nice one,” said Stashe, kneeling on the rug and looking rather daunted. The boxes to be sorted through were huge.
Three of Mr Stock’s finest, Aidan thought. Expect earth in the bottoms of all three.

When Stashe started on the actual sorting, she said, “What did he keep all these paid bills for? This one goes back twenty years! Throw away, Aidan.”

Aidan obediently stuffed several hundred paid bills into the rubbish box. He yawned.

Stashe caught him in mid-yawn when she said, “
All
his pipe cleaners!
Layers
of packets! You want them? You can make models out of them.” And when Aidan managed to shut his mouth and shake his head, “No?” said Stashe. “Rubbish box then. Now what’s this layer? Oh, he seems to have written notes to himself. The prof —
Andrew
will definitely want to look through these. Give me a special box, Aidan.”

Aidan brought up a clean, empty box and helped Stashe pack scores of little tattered notes in it. The notes were written on pieces torn off letters, old magazines and even raggedly torn pieces of new paper. Old Mr Brandon’s writing was black and crotchety and full of character. Aidan noticed one that said,
If Stockie brings me any more carrots, I’ll pull his head off!!!
Another said,
O. Brown is talking
nonsense.
Counterparts
not
dangerous.
And a third said,
Trouble in London again. Sigh.

Then they were down to ordinary letters from different
people, all of them pitched anyhow into the box in a great slithering heap. Stashe scooped up a sheaf of them and held them to the light, frowning. “New box,” she said.

Aidan slid a new box forward, congratulating himself on bringing so many, and looked into the big box to see if this box was large enough. Half the letters in the heap were in his grandmother’s writing. Aidan would have known her writing anywhere, neat and light and slanting, with dashes instead of any other kind of punctuation. Gran always said, “I’ve no patience with commas and full stops and things. Folk have to take me as they find me.”

Aidan’s heart banged heavily. His eyes suddenly felt hot and full. He found he had to stand up.

“What’s the matter?” asked Stashe.

“Those letters,” Aidan said, pointing. “They’re from my gran.”

Stashe had no trouble knowing how Aidan felt. After her mother had died — when Stashe herself was not much older than Aidan — there had been times when small, silly things — like Mum’s favourite egg cup, or just a whiff of Mum’s perfume — had brought her loss back to her as if Mum had died only yesterday. At those times, Stashe had had to be alone. Usually she had locked herself into her bedroom, often for hours and hours.

“You want to go away?” she said to Aidan. “Go on. I won’t mind.”

Aidan nodded and stumbled away to the door with tears pouring out from under his glasses. Stashe surprised herself by starting to cry too.

Aidan raced for the living room as the nearest way outside. “My goodness!” said Mrs Stock, as Aidan fought his way out through the French windows. “What’s up with
you?
”

Aidan didn’t feel like answering. He stumbled out on to the lawn and then round past the woodshed and through the hedge into the fields beyond. He took his glasses off, but that didn’t help. His nose ran as well as his eyes, and he still didn’t have a handkerchief. He could still see Gran, just as she had been, coming out with her clipped little sayings and usually — unless the saying was a grim one — grinning as she said them. He could smell her, feel the shape of her on the rare occasions when she hugged him. He could hear her voice…

And he was never going to hear, feel or see her again.

Aidan could not forgive himself. He had been behaving just as if he was on holiday, having fun, noticing new things, playing football, exploring, living on the surface of himself, and almost forgetting he had lost Gran forever. He had never even told her how much he loved her. And now
he couldn’t ever tell her anything ever again. He had lost her for good.

“Oh, Gran, Gran!” he sobbed, stumbling among Wally Stock’s cows and hardly noticing them. When he had walked this way with Andrew, he had, to tell the truth, been quite alarmed by the size of those cows and the way they stared. But they stared now and he couldn’t care less. Gran was dead. Gone. Lost.

Aidan was not sure where he went after barging past those cows. He wandered for hours in his misery, just wanting to be alone. When his sorrow began to slacken a little, he made for Mel Tump and wandered among the bushes there. “Groil?” he called out after a while. “Groil?” He couldn’t bear to meet anyone else, in case they sympathised with him. But he thought Groil probably wouldn’t be sorry for him. He could bear Groil.

But, as before, there was no sign of Groil. Aidan wandered down the hill and off towards the wood, thinking that, to be fair, Stashe hadn’t sympathised with him. Nor had Andrew really. But they had both understood how he felt and had been careful not to upset him. Aidan badly wanted someone who didn’t
understand.
Someone who couldn’t care less. His football friends? No, they would be like Stashe or Andrew and — worse! — embarrassed with it.

He wandered along the edge of the wood. Suppose he went in as far as the broken-down wall and deliberately ran into Security? Security was not likely to be understanding. Nor was his dog. There was quite a chance they would kill him. They were both pretty scary. On second thoughts — and third and fourth thoughts — Aidan was not sure he wanted to be killed. He supposed he ought to be hungry, though he felt as if he’d never want to eat again, and he turned away from the wood. Oh, Gran, Gran!

There were eager crashing noises from inside the wood.

Aidan whirled round. A big, dim shape was bouncing and charging towards him among the trees and bushes. Help! It’s a
lion!
Aidan thought. It certainly looked like one. The animal was the right colour for a lion, sort of yellowish. But then the creature uttered a glad yelp and Aidan realised it was only a dog. It bounced and crashed its way through the last of the trees and came lolloping towards Aidan on long legs that flopped all over the place, ears flying, big pink tongue draping out of its mouth and its tail passionately wagging.

Really just a puppy, Aidan thought.

The dog bounced up to him, panting out glad little whimpers, put its paws on Aidan’s chest and tried to lick his face. Aidan turned his face away and couldn’t help laughing. Its large, feathery tail didn’t so much wag as go
round and round like a propeller. Aidan found himself laughing at that too. After that, in the most natural possible way, Aidan found he was kneeling in the grass with his arms round the beast, stroking its silky ears and talking all sorts of nonsense to it.

“What’s your name then? No — don’t answer that. I think it’s Rolf. You look like a Rolf. You’re big, aren’t you? Does your tail always windmill like this? Who do you belong to? Where have you come from?” The dog had no collar, yet it was clear it had run off from someone. Whoever it belonged to must have looked after it quite well. Though its yellow coat was full of burrs and goosegrass, it shone with health. The dog’s big black nose that it kept dabbing at Aidan’s cheek was cool and wet and its teeth were white and perfect. Its big brown eyes, staring gladly at Aidan, were clear and bright.

It wanted to play.

Aidan went to the edge of the wood to look for a stick to throw. The dog dashed past him in among the trees and came back with an elderly tennis ball. It dropped the ball by Aidan’s feet, where it went down on its fringed elbows and encouraged Aidan with a bark. Well, here was someone who wasn’t sympathetic or even understanding, Aidan thought. That’s a relief! He picked the ball up and threw it. The dog dashed off after it delightedly.

They played fetch-the-ball up and down the edge of the woods for what seemed hours, until Aidan was quite tired. By that time Aidan’s sorrow for Gran had gone down to a sore place some distance back in his brain somewhere. It still hurt and he knew it would always be there, but it did not cause him the frantic sadness he had been feeling earlier. He looked up and around and realised that he and the dog
had
played for hours. The sun was behind the wood, making long shadows of trees stretch across the field towards Melstone House. The sight turned Aidan quite hollow inside. He had missed lunch. He might even have missed supper too.

“OK,” he said to the dog. “Time to go home.” He hurled the ball far into the wood and, as soon as Rolf rushed off after it, Aidan set off for Melstone House.

Here his troubles began. Aidan had gone barely ten steps before Rolf was beside him again bouncing, wagging and whining, obviously determined to come too.

“Oh no,” Aidan said. “You can’t. You don’t belong to me.” He pointed sternly at the wood. “Go on home!”

Rolf swerved away towards the wood and then stood there, looking desolate.

Aidan pointed to the wood again, and again said, “Go
home!
”

Rolf lay down, whining miserably. And as soon as
Aidan turned and began to walk towards the house, Rolf was beside him, strutting bouncily, pretending to be
so
glad that Aidan was taking him too.

“
No!
” Aidan said. “You don’t
understand.
You belong to someone
else.
Go back to your owner. Go
home!
”

The trouble was, Aidan was sure that Rolf
did
understand, perfectly. He just preferred Aidan to whoever he belonged to.

This happened ten more times. Aidan would turn round, point and sternly tell Rolf to “Go home!” and Rolf would sheer off, looking miserable, and then chase after Aidan as soon as Aidan was walking again. It was worse if Aidan ran. Rolf was after him in a flash. He threw himself down in front of Aidan’s feet and gazed at him with big brown, pleading eyes.

By this time they were halfway across the field. Wally Stock’s sheep ambled sedately out of their way, quite unworried by Aidan’s efforts, or Rolf’s. They were not afraid of Rolf in the least. Rolf was treating Aidan like a sheep, Aidan realised, herding him towards the house. Clever, Aidan thought. He really was a superb dog.