The First Book of Calamity Leek Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  The Starting of Things

  Injuns

  Jane Jones

  Our Dorm

  C for Creation

  Making a Body Beautiful

  Spitting Image Maria

  Heat

  No Worms

  Happy Birthday, Emily

  Talking Words

  The Next Day

  The Day After That

  The Day After the Day After That

  A Pig in a Barrow

  Emily

  X-Ray

  Showreel

  Gretel’s Babies

  How are Rat Babies Made?

  Role Play

  The Meaning of Elizabeth Jones

  Purpose

  The Wall

  The Demonmale

  Pigs

  Japan

  Bath

  Sam

  Birmingham

  Calamity Jane

  A Demonmale Visitor

  The Good Fight

  Emily

  Breakthrough

  The Devil-in-Annie

  Fished out too Soon

  A Letter

  Outside

  Betws

  Disappointment

  Emilys

  Mother’s Eyes

  Bowels

  Leaving

  After Everything

  Going Home

  Copyright

  About the Book

  This is the place where you expect to be told about the novel. Who the characters are, where it’s set, what happens – that kind of thing. And, whatever it says you’ll probably believe because, well, why would someone lie?

  People lie for all kinds of reasons. Some lies become so vast and so complicated and so tenacious that they become the truth. And if they’re all you’ve ever known, why would you question them?

  Let’s assume a group of girls, Sisters, are living in Wales. They are busy preparing themselves for Mother’s War against the demonmales. One night Truly Polperro looks over The Wall of Safekeeping. She can’t see any Injuns and she wants to know why. Because there are always Injuns lurking outside the Wall, aren’t there? Truly’s Sister, Calamity Leek knows that ‘nosiness doesn’t lead to nothing but nonsense.’ She knows that they have ‘the Appendix for all the answers we need in life’. But doubt is contagious. And frightening.

  You’ll find THE FIRST BOOK OF CALAMITY LEEK inventive, disturbing and wild. You’ll feel sorry for its damaged narrator and be a little scared of her. You’ll understand that there are two kinds of people – those who tell stories and those that believe them.

  But don’t take our word for it.

  About the Book

  Before becoming a writer, Paula Lichtarowicz worked in the City and in television production. She is studying Psychology and lives in London under the tyrannous rule of a young border collie called Mrs Pankhurst.

  The First Book of Calamity Leek

  Paula Lichtarowicz

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am hugely grateful to my friends for the support they have given me over the years. Special thanks to Anna, Queen of Blips, and Denise and Richard for the Borat swim wear. Thank you Gabrielle for the Betty’s excursions, Helen for the San Marco’s nights, Kitty and Neil for keeping me topped up with white wine. Thank you Tara and Andy for sharing your home with me, Nicola for your honest critiques, and Malcolm for your proof reading. Marek, Emma and Michelle – I’m proud of all of us. And thank you Simon for shipping forecasts and round houses, and for making me smile.

  Thank you, Clare for your wisdom in matters editorial and practical. Thanks also to Gillie and Cassie at Aitken Alexander for your enthusiasm and support, and Emma and the team at Hutchinson for your hard work in making it happen. And a big fat thank you to Jocasta, who believed in this book, improved it, and made the whole process a heap of fun.

  For my parents, and for Lydia

  THE STARTING OF THINGS

  IT WAS PLAIN-COOKED perfect, the night Truly did it. There was a good stack of cloud cover above the Wall, and the first apples of autumn for supper. The Pontefracts were off in Nursery Cottage like usual, and we thirteen other sisters were cleansed and moisturised and shut up safe, with only seams to finish on cushions. I don’t even remember much bothering from the pigs next door.

  The light bulb went off like usual. The High Hut went dead above us. And along the row, thirteen bodies nestled down for beauty sleep. Safe as corpses, just like usual. Until we were woken in the night by a scream. Which was most unusual.

  It went something like this –

  ‘AAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII.’

  ‘Oh?’ A body sat up along from me, puffing out steam in the dark. Annie St Albans, that was, scratching her bushy head. ‘Did I just hear something?’

  But before I could answer, a crash landed far off.

  ‘Truly?’ Annie flashed green eyes up and down our row. ‘Truly Polperro?’

  I sat up and patted about next to me. ‘There ain’t nothing between us, Annie.’

  ‘Oh, Truly,’ Annie said.

  ‘Her fur’s gone,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, Truly, you didn’t, did you?’ Annie said.

  And Annie was answered by a far-off moan, ‘UUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.’

  Annie’s green eyes turned black. And my own heart flipped over.

  ‘I’m coming,’ Annie said. ‘Oh, Truly, I’m coming.’

  And while the rest of us were still shaking yawns from our throats, Annie was jumping up and buttoning up.

  ‘No, Annie,’ I said, low and warning. ‘Don’t, Annie.’

  She ran down the row and pulled a torch from the trunk. She snatched her headscarf from her hook, and went yanking at the door.

  ‘Better not, Annie.’ I got up quick. ‘Out of Bounds at night and all.’

  But Annie didn’t hear me, being busy staring into the night. ‘Oh, Truly, did you really do it?’ Annie was shaking like a bag full of lice. ‘Please say you didn’t.’

  And away, long and lonely as a sad cow’s fart, it came again – ‘UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.’

  And Annie ran off into the yard.

  Well.

  Well, keeping safe under the eaves, I watched her go, chasing her torch puddle and leaping her feet over sleeping hens. Racing through the gate and into the Glamis Castles, without even checking the sky lid for safety once.

  Oh Annie.

  I looked quick about. The Garden was blanketed black, thank goodness, all over the yard and the roses, right up to our Wall of Safekeeping. The High Hut sat snug and protecting as a shell on a snail on top of us, and thankful, there weren’t a bark to be heard. But when I checked the night above the Wall, well, my heart stopped jumping and all my breath died in me too. Because it was then I saw it – swollen and stinking and gobbling holes in the clouds – a full-grown Demonmoon.

  I spun back inside. Except before I could slam the door and keep us rest in safe, every one of my ten sisters was racing down the row.

  ‘Stop, sisters!’ I said.

  My sisters were buttoning furs and flinging on headscarves.

  ‘This is foolsome, and deadly dangerous, sisters!’ I said.

  ‘Come back to bed, sisters,’ I said.

  But, weren’t no matter what I said, my sisters went turning on torches and bumping past me to go flapping their feet after Annie.

  Well.

  Well, I had to have a quick spit then. Nothing left in our dorm but empty straw.

  Empt
y straw and a PAM PAM PAMing noise starting up.

  PAM PAM PAM – which weren’t none other than our lunatic sister, Maria Liphook, banging her head in her Hole below us, after joining the commotion.

  Which was all I needed now, it really was.

  PAM PAM PAM went Maria, so the pigs thought to start up next door, bashing their snouts about like they were keeping time – and wanting the High Hut waking too.

  So, there really wasn’t nothing for it now – I knotted my headscarf, and poked my head out low and careful into the yard. Past the gate, the rose crop acre spread peaceful and pale as a mighty cloud, and still nothing to be heard shifting in the High Hut. So then I did it, I did. I took out a torch and I raced round for the Hole door. And far off in the sleeping roses, somewhere beneath that stinking Demonmoon, Truly let out her moan.

  ‘Come on, Maria,’ I whispered, sliding back the bolts and cracking open the best smile I could find. ‘Quiet as you can now. Hope your belly’s set steady for what we’re going to see.’

  We ran east, me and Maria, down the path between the rose rows, me gripping her big potato hand, Maria whirling her big potato feet. Our heads tucked in, our breath puffing ice clouds, the soil slipping cool and wormy beneath our running heels.

  Out of the Glamis Castles and into the Silver Anniversaries we ran, the blooms shut up tight and white as shrouded mice, oozing out their perfect perfume against his Demon stink up there. Halfway along, I stopped and turned up an ear for sisterly commotion. But there was nothing to hear but that sorry UUUing.

  Squeezing elbows between protecting thorns, we kept on down the rows, hunting Truly. Truly, who had been so busy at supper, pinch-measuring the holes in the sky lid and giggling into Annie’s ear, that her soup turned cold. Truly and Annie, who wouldn’t do nothing but giggle, ‘Tell you later,’ when I went and asked them why.

  Out of the Silver Anniversaries, into the nosy Icebergs, the roseheads waking to nod and nudge behind us. I popped up for a breath and a look. Eleven yellow lights were grubbing about beneath the Eastern Wall. ‘They’re only in the blessed Boules, Maria!’

  We raced east into the Boules de Neige. And there, in the plumpest and palest, most Heaven-scented crops in all the Garden, in the black shadow of our Wall of Safekeeping, we found a circle of gorming faces, a fallen ladder, and flung on a bush like slapdash laundry – our sister, Truly Polperro.

  ‘Oh Truly,’ I said, and I dropped my hold on Maria and shoved in to get a proper look. Truly wasn’t wearing her headscarf, nor her fur. Her dangled arms were milkskin in the torchlight. Her throat was pale as the sorry petals she’d crushed and killed. And her face was flopped back in broke-up thorns. Yes, Truly’s face was exposed bare bone white beneath that Demonmoon.

  Bare bone sick, that’s how I felt at that.

  ‘Mind out,’ Annie said, shoving me back, and throwing her own fur over Truly.

  ‘Oh, Annie,’ I whispered, ‘she went and did it, didn’t she?’ And words came tumbling out of me all unstoppable, like they do sometimes, ‘She went up that ladder bare-faced and unprotected, didn’t she? Oh, Annie, look at her face. She wasn’t – she didn’t – oh, Annie – what if she—’

  But Annie wasn’t saying nothing for shaking. And none of my other sisters were saying nothing. And Truly wasn’t saying nothing either. Oh no. Dangled on that sorry bleeding bush, Truly wasn’t bothered with nothing but moaning. ‘UUU,’ she moaned. ‘UUU.’

  And I am sorry to say it, but a punch landed on my ear then.

  It was my sister, Nancy Nunhead, doing that. And you might as well know it here, Nancy was not the most well-mannered sister we ever had. Most probably on account of being too close a friend of pigs.

  ‘Devil’s pubes,’ Nancy said, her pig eyes shrunk to pus spots in the torchlight. ‘Like that’s a clever idea.’ She pointed her torch where a shadow lump of Maria Liphook was off, bouncing potatoey through the Boule rows, crashing into perfect roseheads, and howling all senseless at their protecting thorns. ‘Like bringing the lunatic was about the cleverest idea there is.’

  ‘Shut up, Nancy,’ I said, and I thought about a spit at her. But we already had a sackful of trouble to shift tonight, and we didn’t need no more. ‘Stay close, Maria,’ I called out. ‘Stay close.’

  Nancy snorted, ‘Like the mashhead can understand you.’

  So then I did, I did shoot Nancy some spit.

  So Nancy flung me a fist.

  So Annie forgot to be all shaky and turned and stamped her foot. ‘Devil take a dump on the two of you, will you both just SHUT UP!’

  But Truly was the one that did.

  And right then was when it started. Yes, the ruination started right then, with Truly Polperro shutting up when she shouldn’t, just after she’d gone climbing where she shouldn’t, exposed like she shouldn’t. So, really, ain’t like it should have been a surprise that Truly would get ruined, was it?

  But, see, the real surprise was, it wasn’t just Truly who got ruined, but us all.

  Yes, down in the Boules, all our Garden’s ruination was about to start right then. And there weren’t one thing a body could do to stop it. Not one thing at all.

  INJUNS

  NOW, TRULY POLPERRO didn’t die right there and then. No. Just after her UUUs turned off, just when we were all shivering in our furs and shifting on our heels, and trying not to listen to our eldest, prettiest but most chicken-brained sister, Sandra, wailing out what was sneaking up on all our tongues – ‘Is that Truly done for? Is a demonmale going to jump over the Wall to take her down to Bowels?’ – well, just then, Annie shone her torch on Truly’s mouth and said, ‘Her lips are moving.’

  Course, we all gasped.

  And course, Annie St Albans was straight up then. Before anyone could stop her, Annie was throwing back her curls and sticking her ear to Truly’s lips. So it weren’t like anyone else heard what Truly said. And that needs remembering. On account of the ruin that happened after, it really does.

  ‘Yes, Truly,’ Annie said. She stepped back and frowned, ‘Are you sure, Truly?’

  ‘What is it, Annie?’ I asked, stepping up quick. ‘Do you need me, Annie? Shall I ask her a question from the Appendix, shall I?’

  But Annie was too busy bent over Truly’s lips to hear from me.

  Annie frowned and nodded, and frowned and nodded some more. And then halfway to a nod, she stopped and stared down at Truly’s mouth.

  ‘What is it, Annie?’ I said.

  Annie swallowed down a long old breath before she found some words. ‘No injuns, you say? But I don’t understand you, Truly, I don’t understand.’

  And all the air flew out of my throat and black fear flew in.

  ‘Definitely no injuns?’ Annie said. ‘None at all?’

  And all my sisters cried out, and I did too, ‘Injuns? What’s she saying about the injuns, Annie?’

  And Annie went, ‘Tell me again, Truly. Tell me more about the injuns.’

  But Truly didn’t.

  No, I am sorry to say, her lips fell loose, and no matter how many times Annie went at her with, ‘Truly, it’s Annie. Your Annie. You can talk to me.’ And no matter how Annie waggled her torch, or jiggled Truly’s arms, it seemed that Truly Polperro, having spoken such terrible things, wasn’t for bothering with talking to no one, no more.

  Up on the Wall rim, an owl screeched watchful at the Demonmoon.

  ‘We should take her down right now,’ someone said.

  This was Dorothy Macclesfield, course, come grasshopping up to the bush. ‘Dear, unfortunate Dorothy’ was what our Aunty liked to call her, seeing as she had grown twitchy and twiggy and disappointing. ‘Abandon hope all who enter here,’ was what Aunty liked to say. Which was going to be sad for Dorothy when she went to War, but we never minded because she had a brain busy with good ideas. It was so busy it never stopped rattling. And right now, Dorothy’s head was near rattling itself off her neck.

  She lifted up Truly’s wrist and watched it flop down on broken b
ranches. ‘You know how in the Showreel, Marius gets stuck on the barricades and Aunty runs up and helps him onto a stretcher?’ Dorothy said. ‘Well, we should make a stretcher from two fur coats and lay Truly on it like that, watching out for her neck.’ Dorothy looked out across the roses to the black clot of yard. ‘We should do it right now. We’ve been Out of Bounds far too long as it is.’

  Clever Dorothy, like I said.

  ‘Eldest sisters take up a corner of Truly with me, nice and gentle.’

  Except before even one of us had grabbed a leg, the Silver Anniversaries let off a scream. It went on loud and forever, like a pig being gutted chin to tail.

  And all my bones turned to jellymeat. And two smacks stung my ears at once.

  ‘Devil’s pubes, Flap-ears, I said she’d be trouble. Didn’t I say don’t bring Maria the mashhead? Didn’t I say that?’

  ‘Not now, Nancy,’ Dorothy whispered. ‘Maybe Maria’s just having herself a shout at the thorns, maybe it’s just that.’

  But it wasn’t. Because the scream started running towards us. And then we heard something coming after. Yapping. Chasing after Maria Liphook’s scream came yap-yap-yapping, that meant only one thing on this terrible night.

  ‘We’re done for,’ Sandra wailed.

  ‘Sure are,’ Nancy said.

  We sure were, because chasing after screaming Maria Liphook, and that nasty yapping, came something else then – the only sound ever known to hatch instant maggots in a body’s stomach –

  I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and bright –

  Sandra gave a sob. Annie ran to cover Truly’s face with fur. Nancy flung me a third thump. And all our youngest sisters started to wail.

  ‘Quiet down!’ Dorothy hissed. ‘Turn off your torches, we’ll have to run.’ She spun about, and faced nothing but the Wall of Safekeeping.

  And though I wanted to spit at Nancy, and shout it wasn’t my fault that Maria Liphook had been woken by a herd of sisters with their brains in their chicken feet, Dorothy was right, there weren’t no time at all, because over the crops that song was swelling –

  I feel charming, oh so charming, it’s alarming how charming I feel –