Playing Beatie Bow (2 page)

When the Kirk family lived in a two-car garden suburb, she had been a fearful packrat, a collector of almost everything. Abigail remembered wet days when big cardboard cartons and wooden tea-chests were thrown open to her and her playmates, and they had turned the entire house into a gorgeous mess of twinkles, spangles, seashells, faceless calico cats; old shoes; a real clown suit still stained with red and black grease-paint; Victorian postcards, some rude; and books and books of dried ferns, painted rosebuds, and autographs with silly poems.

After Abigail’s father went away, Kathy had given a last decisive sniff, washed her face, which was somewhat like that of a fat-cheeked finch with a finch’s shiny dewdrop eyes, raked her hair up on top of her head in a washerwoman’s knot, and rented a black hole of Calcutta in a Paddington lane. This she turned into a treasure-house of trendy trivia. She called the shop Magpies, and soon other magpie people flocked around to shriek and snatch and buy.

What with Kathy being a success, and Grandmother getting more interested in Bridge and less of a carper, Abigail and her mother achieved a kind of happiness.

Now she jumped up with a scowl, banged the door on the empty place, and went to visit the Crowns, her neighbours.

That unit was in its customary state of theatrically awful mess. Justine Crown didn’t believe in housework. She said the children came first; but she hadn’t made a gold-medal job of them either. Usually Natalie, the four-year-old, was at kindergarten, and Vincent, the high-rise monster, at school. But as it was holidays they were both at home, and Vincent, who was in Abigail’s opinion the grimmest kid two agreeable people could be cursed with, was at his usual game of worrying Natalie like a dog with a bone.

Natalie aroused in Abigail a solemnly protective feeling. This rather embarrassed her. The little girl was prone to sudden fevers, nightmares, fears, and had a kind of helpless affection for the frightful Vincent that did not allow her to defend herself against him.

Vincent was a bundle of bones with a puzzling smell, as though he’d wet himself six weeks earlier and not bothered to bathe. He was as sharp as a knife and had his parents sized up to the last millimetre. Abigail did not see that his face was wretched as well as cunning, and she was sincerely flattered that he hated her more than he hated everyone else.

‘You’ve got Dracula teeth,’ he greeted her.

Justine shouted from the kitchen, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake don’t start on Abigail, you little beast.’ She came out, bashing around in a basin with a fork. ‘He’s been dark blue hell all day.’

‘Dracula teeth,’ said Vincent. ‘Big long white choppers. See them, Fat Nat?’

‘Don’t call your sister that, and if Abigail’s teeth are too big it’s because her face hasn’t grown up to them yet.’

Instantly Abigail imagined herself with this thin nosy face and fangs sticking out over her lower lip.

She was very depressed with her looks as it was, and had given up hope of developing fascinating high cheekbones or eyelashes an inch long. She liked her eyebrows, which were black and straight, and her long brown hair, which glistened satisfactorily. But although her mother assured her that her figure would arrive some day, she often despaired. Most times people took her for twelve, which was humiliating.

However, she was not going to be bugged by any six-year-old dinosaur like Vincent Crown. She glared at him.

‘Knock off the wisecracks!’ To Justine she said, ‘It’s freezing outside, but would you like me to take them down to the playground till it starts to get dark?’

Justine was so jubilant at the thought of being free of Natalie’s unexplained tears and silences and Vincent’s whining that she had the children into their anoraks and woolly caps before Abigail could think, ‘Curse it, why am I such a sucker?’

The high-rise tower was called Mitchell, after a famous man who had been born just where it stood many years before. He was the Mitchell who founded the Mitchell Library. High-rise buildings near by were called Dalley, Campbell, and Reiby, after other celebrated people, though Abigail didn’t know for what they were celebrated.

Mitchell stood amongst charming landscaping, which included a covered swimming-pool and a children’s playground. In spite of her resentment against her father, Abigail could never hate the building, standing up there severe as a sword, slitting each wind into two streams, reflecting fish-scale seas, and cherry-red sunsets, and a city which, when stretched and crinkled by curved windows, grew itself steeples and domes and trees like minarets, and escarpments floating in cloud. On the lobby wall in polished brass were the letters:
Architects: Weyland Kirk, Casper and Domenici, Sydney, San Francisco, Oslo, Siena
. Abigail tried never to look at it, for, try as she might, she couldn’t help feeling proud: she knew that this particular high-riser was all the work of Weyland Kirk.

Now Mitchell was haughtily slicing up a barbed westerly, which did not seem to bother the children climbing the monkey bars, brawling thunderously inside the concrete pipes, or fighting like tom-cats inside the space rocket. Thankfully Abigail released Vincent’s hard, sticky paw, and he flitted off to torment a group of fat bundles climbing the stone wall about the playground. Let the fat bundles look after themselves, Abigail thought callously. Likely they’d have parents with them, anyway, who would pluck Vincent away from their darlings and, with any luck, half-strangle him in the process.

The noise was shattering. Most of the children came from Mitchell, but others probably lived in the cottages round about. Abigail observed that those racing dementedly back and forth performed their charges in a certain order. They were playing a group game.

‘Would you like to play it, too, Natty?’

Natalie shook her head. Her big grey eyes were now full of tears. Abigail sighed. Justine was for ever trailing Natalie off to a doctor who was supposed to be miraculous with highly strung children, but he hadn’t brought off any miracles yet.

‘Now what’s the matter, little dopey?’

‘They’re playing Beatie Bow and it scares me. But I like to watch. Please let’s watch,’ pleaded Natalie.

‘Never heard of it,’ said Abigail. She noticed Vincent rushing to join in and thought how weird it was that in the few years that had passed since she was six or seven the kids had begun to play such different games. She watched this one just in case Vincent murdered anyone. She could already hear him squealing like a mad rat.

Natalie took hold of a fistful of her shawl, and Abigail held her close to keep her out of the wind. The child was shivering. Yet the game didn’t look so exciting; just one more goofy kid’s game.

First of all the children formed a circle. They had become very quiet. In the middle was a girl who had been chosen by some counting-out rhyme.

‘That’s Mudda,’ explained Natalie.

‘What’s Mudda?’

‘You know, a mummy like my mummy.’

‘Oh, Mother!’

‘Yes, but she’s called Mudda. That’s in the game.’

Someone hidden behind the concrete pipes made a scraping sound. The children chorused, ‘Oh, Mudda, what’s that?’

‘Nothing at all,’ chanted the girl in the centre. ‘The dog at the door, the dog at the door.’

Now a bloodcurdling moan was heard from behind the pipes. Abigail felt Natalie press closer to her. She noticed that the dark was coming down fast; soon it would rain. She resolved she would take the children home as soon as she could gather up Vincent.

‘Oh, Mudda, what’s that, what can it be?’

‘The wind in the chimney, that’s all, that’s all.’

There was a clatter of stones being dropped. Some of the younger children squawked, and were hushed.

‘Oh, Mudda, what’s that, what’s that, can you see?’

‘It’s the cow in the byre, the horse in the stall.’

Natalie held on tightly and put her hands over her eyes.

‘Don’t look, Abigail, it’s worse than awful things on TV!’

At this point Mudda pointed dramatically beyond the circle of children. A girl covered in a white sheet or tablecloth was creeping towards them, waving her arms and wailing.

‘It’s Beatie Bow,’ shrieked Mudda in a voice of horror, ‘risen from the dead!’

At this the circle broke and the children ran shrieking hysterically to fling themselves in a chaotic huddle of arms and legs in the sandpit at the other end.

‘What on earth was all that about?’ asked Abigail. She felt cold and grumpy and made gestures at Vince to rejoin them.

‘The person who is Beatie Bow is a ghost, you see,’ explained Natalie, ‘and she rises from her grave, and everyone runs and pretends to be afraid. If she catches someone, that one has to be the next Beatie Bow. But mostly the children
are
frightened, because they play it and play it till it’s dark. Vincent gets in a state and that’s why he’s so mean afterwards. But the little furry girl doesn’t get scared,’ she added inconsequentially. ‘I think she’d like to join in, she smiles so much. Look, Abigail, see her watching over there?’

Before the older girl could look, Vincent panted up, scowling.

‘We’re going to play it again! I want to! I want to!’

‘No way,’ said Abigail firmly. ‘It’s getting dark and it’s too cold for Natalie already.’

The boy said bitterly, ‘I hate you!’

‘Big deal,’ said Abigail.

Vincent pinched Natalie cruelly. Tears filled her eyes. ‘You see? Just like I told you,’ she said without rancour.

‘What a creep you are, Vincent,’ said Abigail scornfully.

Vincent made a rude gesture and ran on before them into the lobby. As they waited for the lift, Abigail saw that his whole body was trembling. She made up her mind to have a word with Justine about the too-exciting game.

‘I saw the little furry girl, Vince,’ said Natalie. ‘She was watching you all again.’

He ignored her, barged past them into the Crown unit, and flung himself down before the TV.

‘I’ll stay a little while if you like, Justine,’ offered Abigail. ‘Mum won’t be home till nearly seven. She had to go and look at some old furniture at St Mary’s near Penrith.’

Justine was delighted at the prospect of concluding dinner preparations without the usual civil war between her young. She suggested that Abigail help Natty make new clothes for her teddy-bear.

Abigail enjoyed sewing, and made some of her own clothes. She did not do a professional job, but she did her best; and somehow she loved her clothes more because of the sleeves that wouldn’t quite fit, the seams she had unpicked over and over again. At the moment she was fond of long dresses and shawls and hooded sweaters. Her favourite belt was a piece of old harness strap, polished deep brown and fastened with the original brass buckles. It had a phantom smell of horse which her grandmother said was disgusting.

‘You look like a gipsy or a street Arab,’ she said.

‘The Arabs own all the streets nowadays, Grandmother.’ Abigail smiled. ‘You’re not up with things.’

‘Don’t be impertinent!’ snapped Grandmother. She appealed to her perm. ‘Katherine, are you going to stand there and permit this child to speak to me like that?’

‘You criticised her clothes, Mother,’ answered Kathy, flushing. ‘She didn’t say a word about yours.’

‘About mine?’ gasped Grandmother, as though it had never occurred to her that she was not wearing the only type of garment in the world. She swept out – she really did sweep in some extraordinary way – and Kathy looked rueful and fidgety, for she hated to be at outs with anyone.

‘All right, don’t be sarky,’ she said to her daughter. ‘You can dress any way you like. But please try not to aggravate her deliberately. She’s old and …’

‘Oh, Mum,’ said Abigail impatiently, ‘she enjoys a little set-to. It improves her circulation or something. That’s why she always used to pick on Dad. Don’t you remember how her eyes used to sparkle …’ She stopped dead. Why had she brought Dad into it? She sneaked a sidelong glance at her mother, and saw that Kathy’s eyes were full of tears.

‘I was pretty dumb in those days,’ said Kathy. Then she laughed, and began to peel vegetables for dinner. But she was still flushed.

Now as they rummaged in the ragbag, trying that piece and this against Teddy’s stubby form, Abigail told the little girl that she had almost finished making herself a long dress from an Edwardian curtain that her mother had found in a box of old fabrics bought at an auction. The curtain was still unperished, a heavy cotton with strong striped selvages, which Abigail had wangled around to use as borders for sleeves and skirt.

‘It’s a very funny colour,’ she told Natalie. ‘A mucky brownish-green, like pea soup.’

‘It wouldn’t suit Teddy,’ observed Natalie.

‘And Teddy is not going to get it either,’ said Abigail.

They cut out a pair of red shorts, and Abigail tacked them up for Justine to sew. Then they upended the ragbag to find something spotted for a waistcoat. Tangled amongst all the scraps and remnants and outgrown garments was a strangely shaped piece of yellowed crochet. Abigail smoothed it out, trying to distinguish the pattern. It was very fine work, almost like lace.

Justine came in, battled with Vincent about his bath before dinner, and dragged him away. She came back.

‘What have you got there? Oh, that old rag! It’s been around for ever. Give it to me, Abigail, and I’ll use it for a dishcloth or something.’

‘If you don’t want it,’ said the girl, ‘I’d really like to have it.’

She spread the crumpled fabric. ‘See, it’s a yoke for a high-necked dress. Just right for my new greeny one.’

‘It’s yours,’ said Justine cheerfully. ‘Probably fall to bits the first time you wash it.’

The children were quiet and, since Mr Crown was due home, Abigail said good-bye and went. She was very taken with Justine’s gift. She decided against bleaching the crochet piece, for the chemical might be too harsh for the old thread. Besides, she liked the creamy colour against the murky green of the dress. She carefully washed the yoke and dried it with a hair-dryer, stretching the fabric as she went. The pattern showed itself at last as a recurrent design of a delicate plant with a flower like a buttercup rising out of five heart-shaped leaves.