O Caledonia (5 page)

At noon, when they were putting on their coats to go home for lunch, Janet offered to take the apple cores from the waste-bin to the pig Beatrice who lived in a pen behind the school. The children often visited Beatrice; she was a friendly black pig, a white stripe encompassed her stout middle and her eye was bright and roguish. She would come hustling out of her shed with gleeful snorts, stand motionless with a meaningful twinkle, then pick up her bucket on one deft twist of her wrinkled snout and hurl it over her shoulders to clatter down upright on her other side, and repeat the performance. Today Miss Mackie was pleased to let Janet feed her, and to let Bobby and James go with her. Janet had not told the boys about her plan; she did not want them to know about her fear of the witch in case they said they didn
'
t believe in witches. So when they reached Beatrice
'
s pen, she grabbed the bucket and flung the cores straight in. Beatrice, about to perform her trick, stared in disappointment; the twinkle faded from her eye; grumpily she rootled after the cores and subsided back into her house.

‘
Quick!
'
said Janet,
‘
Quick! There
'
s a wee lost kitten crying up in the loft. It will die up there. We
'
ve got to get it before Miss Mackie sees.
'
The boys were off in a flash, racing up the path and across the grass. Janet followed more slowly, feeling a tiny twinge of compunction at their trusting rush into danger. She stationed herself behind a flowering currant bush, redolent of tomcats, and watched. Up the steps they sprang, two at a time, James just in the lead; for a second they paused at the top and looked round to wave to her; then they were gone into the black gulf. Immediately there was a rending crash and a dreadful scream, a moment
'
s silence and then howls and shrieks. Janet flung herself face down on the grass; she dug her nails into the earth and, holding on to the slippery grass, shut her eyes while the world spun and rocked about her and the screaming went on. She heard Miss Mackie hurtle past her making gasping noises; the yelling stopped, there was only Miss Mackie
'
s voice. She raised her head a fraction of an inch and saw them coming out of a door at the side of the barn; Miss Mackie led them by the hand. James was limping and Bobby
'
s face was covered in blood, blood which poured from his nose, saturating his Fair Isle jersey, splattering the white crocuses. Janet started to scream.
‘
Come out of there at once, Janet,
'
yelled Miss Mackie.
‘
I
'
ll deal with you later. And stop that ridiculous noise.
'
Janet stayed where she was, screaming and hanging on to the ground. Nanny came and walloped her and marched her into the school. Miss Mackie was sliding a great black iron key down the back of Bobby
'
s shirt to stop his nosebleed. Mothers and nannies stood by in pregnant silence. His nose stopped bleeding. His bloodstained jersey was removed and replaced by a spare and girlish cardigan. His face was washed. James
'
s knee was bandaged. Only the crocuses bore witness to the horror that had been.

‘
Now,
'
announced Miss Mackie,
‘
it
'
s time to ask some questions. And about time too.
'
Janet found a voice, unusually high and staccato,
‘
Where
'
s the witch gone?
' ‘
That
'
s quite enough, Janet. We
'
ll hear from the boys first. Come along, James, tell us the truth.
'
The moon face of James
'
s large and masterful mother hung above him.
‘
We were only trying to fetch the wee cat for Janet.
' ‘
What wee cat?
' ‘
She said there was a wee lost cat there,
'
James sobbed anew.
‘
She said it was going to die,
'
Bobby mumbled, clutching his mother
'
s hand, tears pumping down his cheeks.
‘
So what
'
s this cat, Janet?
'
Janet wept silently; she shook her head about and wept.
‘
You
'
ve just been up to your tricks, haven
'
t you? There was never a cat up there; you were teasing the boys. And now look what
'
s happened. It
'
s a lucky thing they fell on the straw. It
'
s a lucky thing for you there
'
s not a broken leg. All those rotten floorboards. You know fine none of you can go up there. I
'
m ashamed of you, Janet, you
'
re the oldest in the school. I thought I could trust you.
'
Janet had a dim memory of hearing these words before, then she remembered; it was after Rhona had risen from her tomb. Anger and outrage welled within her: she would speak the truth.
‘
It was because, of the witch. I wanted them to see if the witch was there,
'
she wailed.
‘
Don
'
t talk such nonsense; you know as well as I do that witches are only in fairy stories; and you read far too many of those, if you
'
d like my opinion.
'
The mothers exchanged satisfied glances: they all thought Vera went too far in her choice of children
'
s reading; and she smoked cigarettes and wore slacks.
‘
So if you sent them to look for a witch, why did you say it was a wee lost cat?
'
demanded manly Mrs Marriot, her faint but dark moustache moistly atremble, her eyes beadily accusing. Janet put her thumb in her mouth; she saw the mothers in their circle around her and each face was stiff with distaste, anger, scorn. They were like a whole coven of witches, but she did not feel afraid of them, only cold and angry; there was no point in telling them the truth. She had tried; a waste of time.

Home she went in mutinous silence, with Nanny and a chastened Francis, to face the wrath of Vera and Hector. In the late afternoon she sat sullen and alone in the chill damp of the spring garden; she watched the pale bright sky dim and deepen to luminous blue while the birds
'
jostling voices faded into sudden single notes of sweetness. In the air was sadness and excitement. After a little Rab came and sat beside her and she wrapped herself about his golden shoulders and felt warm. Dandelion
'
s form looped through the dusk, back arched, tail aloft, uttering his monotone triumph call. He settled before her to devour his sparrow and she heard the brittle crunch of splintering beak and bone. It was time to go in. And to her surprise the indoor house was warm and bright with forgiveness. Nanny and Vera were clanking about in the kitchen; they smiled when they saw her and Francis and Rhona treated her with special politeness, as though she had returned from a long journey. There were tomatoes for tea, their tops sliced off and sprinkled with sugar so that they could be eaten with a teaspoon. Vera shook green crystals into the bath and the water changed to dazzling emerald and the steaming air was sweet with lily of the valley.

Janet almost abandoned the vengeful plan she had made earlier, which was to read illicitly under the bedclothes with the big black bicycle lamp she had removed from the garden shed. But in the end this pleasure was too great to be forgone, with its added comfort of prolonging the day and creating a cavern of light in the windy darkness. However, it proved extremely difficult to focus the light on the large thick pages of Arthur Rackham
'
s Grimm
'
s, to cope with the tissue covering each illustration and to stop the sheet sagging down - all in silence under the blankets. Soon the lamp crashed to the floor and went out. Another crime, another strategy for the next day. Meshed in guilt Janet lay awake for a long time; she worried about the lamp and she worried about the forgiveness in which she had basked all evening; in the dark she knew that it had been offered because they thought she was sorry for what she had done, and she wasn
'
t sorry at all. In fact, she was angry with the boys for falling through the rotten floor and failing to clear up the matter of the witch and for telling their mothers about the lost cat. Her power had been broken; she would not be wanting them as suitors any more. She shut her eyes and prayed for help with the bicycle lamp. In the morning it was clear that God had answered her prayer, for Hector and Vera were away and Nanny was busy ironing baby clothes.

Later in the day, Hector reappeared and told the children that they had a new little sister, Louisa, born early, before they had expected her. He took them to the nursing home and Janet was moved by the baby
'
s tiny crimson feet, delicate and soft as silk or rose petals. None the less she would have preferred a new little dog or cat, but at least she had been able to replace the lamp in the shed and no one would be likely to care about it with this new confusion in their lives. Vera and the baby came home. The scent of baby powder pervaded the house, visitors came with flowers, tender little white garments were constantly airing over the nursery fireguard and an exuberance of nappies billowed in the sea breeze. Vera
'
s room was in contrast to the bustle everywhere else; it was the baby
'
s sanctuary, profoundly still and warm. The dogs, the cat, Francis, Rhona and Janet were all drawn to it, edging the door open, tiptoeing in, only to be seized and expelled by the sentinel form of Nanny. Once a day was the decree, and once a day only did they gain admission to its mysteries. Then they could watch the baby being fed, or bathed, or even hold her. Janet found this boring; it was the sacred atmosphere of the room itself which she enjoyed.

She and Francis were usually sent out quite soon because they were fidgeting but Rhona loved helping with the baby and was allowed to stay. She was a peaceful, self-contained child; her black hair was smooth and shiny and it hung in a neat curve about her pointed face. Vera took great pleasure in her
‘
piquant little features
'
and her neat, nimble ways. Francis, like Janet, was naturally untidy, but then as Nanny would say to Vera,
‘
He
'
s a real boy.
'
Janet had no hope of ever being tidy: her hair grew wilder and frizzier, escaping from its pigtails, tangling in everything it touched; her hair ribbons fell off, her buttons pinged to the floor, she tripped over and collided with objects so often that she had to have a special eyesight test. There was nothing wrong with her eyes. Soon after this she had a hearing test too, occasioned by her habit of not answering because she was reading or day-dreaming. People didn
'
t mind the reading so much, but the day-dreaming really annoyed them.
‘
Wake up! For goodness
'
sake wake up!
'
they would suddenly yell in her ear, causing her heart to lurch, almost to stop, and thrusting their cross faces into hers; and always for some meagre purpose: the setting of a table or the grim afternoon walk. One afternoon she was told to bring the baby in from the garden. Reluctantly she trailed
out into the still early autumn air. The pram was on the lawn some way from the house. With clumsy fingers Janet undid the stiff navy cover, pulled back innumerable blankets and scrabbled under the hood for the swaddled occupant, who began to roar, fixing Janet with an unblinking glare. It was difficult to pull her from under the hood; Janet tried to lower it and cut her finger in its joint so that blood dripped on to the baby's shawls. Louder came the roars. It began to rain. The shawls were unravelling and catching on the metal parts of the hood; she pulled at them and tore a great hole in the lacy cobweb. In desperation Janet seized the infant by her head and dragged her out, clutching at corners of shawl and looping them over the flailing torso. The whole bundle slithered through her hands and lay shrieking frantically on the dank grass. Janet could not lift it up; it was far heavier than she would ever have guessed; when she had held the baby before, she had simply been deposited on her lap; she had never carried her. So she grabbed such projections as she could find, a shoulder and a fiercely resisting arm and dragged the whole mass, shawls trailing, through mud and snagging on leaves, over the grass and across the gravel and at last to the kitchen door where Vera and Nanny greeted her, first with horror and then with fury.

‘What in the world have you been doing? What have you done? Where's the pram? You were told to bring the baby in, in the
pram
of course. You've no business to try to carry her. How dare you?' Not one word of Janet's explanations did they hear. Once again it was spanking and disgrace and a distant overheard muttering of ‘... simply can't be trusted', ‘We should have known better', ‘After what she did before', ‘Keep her away from the little ones'. Good. But then, ‘Best not to tell her grandfather, it'll break his heart.' A BROKEN HEART. Nanny's sister had died of a broken heart. She crept away to the glory-hole under the stairs and sat howling in an abyss of guilt among the boxes of candles and dusty jars of lentils and syrupy bottled gooseberries and raspberries, until she could
howl no more. Then she went to the nursery and lay on the floor and read stories of princesses with broken hearts. She was bad and she knew she was bad and she could see no end to it.