The First Book of Calamity Leek Read online

  So I shouted to watch the roseheads, please, Mary, and that she could wipe Maria Liphook’s bottom if that’s what she was after. Because not one second after I’d got her head pointing straight down the Anniversaries path, I am sorry to say, Maria had turned and run off grub-hunting in soil.

  ‘Nancy says she doesn’t know why you even bother learning a mashhead,’ Mary said, swinging her plaits all scornful, ‘“Why does Clam even bother?” That’s what Nancy says.’

  ‘Well, Nancy can go talk to her pigs,’ I shouted up. ‘Happen she’s learned her manners from them. Every niece in the Garden is a Valuable Asset – that’s direct from page N of the Appendix, Mary Bootle, in case you forgot it – every niece. If Maria was allowed in our lessons, happen she’d be less of a mashhead and more of an Asset.’

  ‘Well, Nancy says you’ve gotten loonheaded yourself, for bothering.’

  Millie Gatwick came panting up the path behind us with the barrow, Gretel rat sitting up on the shovel handle, her white belly out. ‘Bothering what?’

  ‘That rat’s gotten herself fat with riding about all these days,’ I said. ‘I am only telling Mary how Maria Liphook was once reckoned to be as brimful of brain fibre as Dorothy Macclesfield before.’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Before she started hitting the Wall. Hitting her head on it so hard that Aunty had to mend her. Aunty had to – Maria being the first-rescued and first meant for unleashing. You can’t go to War all covered in bruises.’

  ‘But Sandra Saffron Walden says she’s off first.’

  ‘That’s what she thinks, but don’t forget, Maria Liphook was rescued a whole year before Sandra. It wasn’t months after Emily returned to Heaven, that Mother got Maria. “My Miracle Baby,” she called her. And you know why she called her that?’

  ‘Spitting Image,’ Mary flung back from where she had swung off into the Icebergs. ‘Everyone knows that.’

  A red admiral flapped past. Maria Liphook dived off after it.

  ‘But what about Sandra?’ Millie said. ‘Ain’t she Emily’s Spitting Image? She says she is.’

  I watched Maria crashing through Iceberg bushes, petals falling off wasted as latrine paper scraps, and I shook my head. ‘Fact is, it was Maria who started the most Spitting Image of all of us. She was some years older than us when she was rescued. And she wasn’t grown in the yard – not for months, she wasn’t – no, first off she lived up in Mother’s Glorious Abode. But when Maria started with the Wall-banging, well, Aunty realised the mistake right there and then. Never mind that Maria was a Spitting Image of Emily, happen her brain was already fried up from having lived too many years Outside. “Over-cooked with Outside ideas” is how Aunty said it. Least a hundred mending room days it took for giving Maria a little more heart and a little less head. And in some ways it worked out. I mean her heart ain’t questionable now, is it? Come on, Maria.’ I went in after her, squeezing my tummy careful between the thorns, and pulled her out by her smock bottom. Don’t ask me how, but she had a snail oozing in her fist. ‘Wipe off that poor creature, Maria, it can’t play with you now. Just you follow the bug jar, Maria. Follow the bugs.’

  That most nasty piece of work named the Sun had finally dragged Himself over the new Wall top, and was sizzling angry by the time we got Maria to Truly’s Boule bush. And it was a sore sorry sight, that bush, it really was. Truth be told, and as I did tell Mary and Millie, taking the pruners from the barrow to get straight to work, ‘This is about the worst place Truly could ever have chosen for landing. Must be ten heads lost, maybe even the whole bush.’ The perfume of them ruined blooms was leaking sweet as honey tears. I plucked one of Truly’s hairs off a thorn and sliced the cane three inches below, ‘But if we take cuttings from the strongest, we may get some re-growth next year. Millie, you’ll still be around for that harvest. What do you reckon to that?’

  Well, seemed no one was for answering me but a passing bee.

  I popped up and squinted about. Maria Liphook was squatted down stroking a dead beetle, an Outside plane was roaring all high and mighty above, but there weren’t one snip of my sisters’ tools going on.

  Then I heard it, the eastern Wall, wailing.

  Except Walls don’t wail, do they? Only one kind of body does that. I dropped my pruners and hurried over.

  And sure enough, there were Mary and Millie at the Wall, sitting their bottoms beneath Truly’s scuffle marks, busy with nothing but crying.

  ‘What are you two fussing about here for, when there are bleeding Boules to care for?’ I said.

  Mary looked up, her blue eyes dripping. ‘Golly, Clam, as if you didn’t know.’

  Now babies-on-the-brain Mary was known to turn on the waterworks most days. So I said I didn’t, actually. ‘Dry up, sisters,’ I said, ‘and come on back to your work. Aunty’s over in the Glamis Castles. She’s heading back to the yard.’

  And she was.

  Twenty-four-seven, three-six-five, that’s how the Appendix sets down the size of Aunty’s Tender Loving Care for us. And like Dorothy will tell you about numbers, they ain’t never wrong.

  But Mary didn’t budge a finger. ‘I ain’t getting up just because you tell me to, Clam. I’ll jolly well sit here and cry if I choose so. And I do so. So there.’ And she wedged the end of her plait between her front teeth and sawed it about, like that was a way for a Heaven-intended body to behave.

  ‘I see,’ I said, though I didn’t. ‘And what about you, Millie Gatwick?’

  Now, like I may have said, Millie’s got the wobbliest eyes ever poked out of a face. Some said there were frog parts gotten in there, but that weren’t really true. Except when she was crying. When she was crying, you’d think she lived under water. Millie shook her head at me and two tears plopped out at once. ‘I’m sorry, Clam, it’s just I keep on thinking about Mother. Oh Clam, if Truly goes and dies, Mother might have to rescue another sister. Like after Carmen died from the flu and Mother went and rescued all the second-winders. Only what if she goes out and – and—’

  Gretel rat came scrambling up Millie’s smock, and set to licking up her tears.

  I sighed. ‘Happen I don’t know, Millie. But Aunty does say the second-winders were an unnecessary acquisition. So why would Mother want to go out for more?’

  ‘But Clam—’

  ‘Yes, Millie,’ I said, thinking on Aunty’s telescope, sat out on the balcony of the High Hut, sweeping round and finding our lack of labour, thinking on saying, ‘Hurry up the waterworks, Millie.’

  ‘Oh, Clam, me and Mary were thinking—’

  ‘What, Millie?’

  Mary Bootle wailed so loud her plait popped out from her teeth.

  ‘Oh, Clam, what if Mother does go Outside, and she’s gone so long we leave for War, and well – and well – and well – and well—’

  ‘HEAVENS, Millie!’ I gave her a slap before she drowned herself, and never mind the damage being done to her tear ducts.

  ‘Oh, Clam, what if Mother’s gone so long that we’re sent to War, and we never get to see her eyes.’

  Well. Well, I sighed out slow as a dying dog before I could answer that one. ‘Listen, Millie, I don’t know nothing for sure. But I do know that Mother, being Motherly, she will probably want to be around to see us making our goodbyes. And being Motherly, she might not say no, if we ask her to show us them eyes on our way out.’

  ‘Is it promised in the Appendix then?’

  ‘I’m afraid I ain’t ever read that in there for sure. But her last goodbyes to Emily, now they are written down, aren’t they?’

  Millie gulped and a tiny smile crept about her lips.

  ‘And I’ll tell you what, they went on for years, them goodbyes. “Years and bloody years” is how Ophelia Swindon Volume V: A Country Diary says it.’

  Mary wiped up her eyes with her plaits. ‘I remember.’

  ‘And I’ll tell you another thing. Look up at the Wall rim. See them glass jewels sparking off His heat. Finer than My Fair Lady’s tiara, I�
��d say. Would Mother have topped off the Wall with what looks like her own jewels, if she didn’t want to say “I’m going to stay around to say goodbye”? I think not. So come on, dry up. Them poor Boule heads ain’t going to heal up themselves, are they?’

  Well, I’d just about heaved my sisters to standing when the communicating post at the top of the Boule row hissed. A magpie sitting on top yelped and flapped off.

  BING BONG, the Communicator said, BING BONG.

  I went to land Mary a punch, but happen it wasn’t us being caught dawdling on duty. It was an announcement.

  ‘An announcement. Eldest nieces – that’s Sandra, Dorothy, Annie, Calamity, Nancy and Mary only – may run along to the mending room to visit their dearest sister and their loving Aunty’s loveliest charge, Truly Polperro, who is currently lying in the recovery position. One never likes to tempt fate, but this does sound like promising news, doesn’t it? This offer is solely for eldest nieces. As a consolatory treat for the rest of you, your loving Aunty has generously agreed to perform a little ditty. It’s called “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Answers on a postcard, please!’

  Mary jumped up, ‘Supercalifragilistic!’

  I laughed and spun her around in a dance. ‘Expialidocious!’

  The Communicator started on Aunty’s ditty. And Mary and me kissed Millie Gatwick farewell, and raced ourselves back to the yard before Aunty’s offer ended.

  HEAT

  AFTERWARDS, WHEN WE had left Truly alone to receive Aunty’s Tender Loving Care, I tried to keep my snivelling stoppered up inside me. I did try.

  Nancy flicked my ear as we walked out into the yard. ‘Nearly did it again, eh? Sister Sneak,’ she whispered. ‘Very nearly.’

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Annie said, coming up behind and giving my shoulder a quick squeeze. ‘Clam didn’t say nothing.’

  ‘No, Annie, I didn’t.’ I wiped my nose on my sleeve, and I headed for the standpipe and calming water. It was a tricky enough job to keep my words from breaking up. ‘But you should have, Annie. You really should have said something.’

  Annie shrugged. She came along after me and leaned against the latrine wall and started kicking at a loose clot of yard concrete.

  I pulled off my headscarf and jammed my head under the tap to let cold water drown me out. But all I saw was Truly lying deadmeat in straw. Truly looking so ready for her shroud, that when Mary Bootle opened the mending room door, she screamed, ‘She’s dead! Truly’s jolly well gone and died, and a demonmale’s going to come and drag her down to the Devil’s Bowels any second now!’

  I shivered, but I kept that water pouring its cleansing chill on me. ‘You should have said on the injuns, Annie. For Truly’s sake, you should have told Aunty.’

  Annie flipped the concrete out of the ground with her toe. She spun round and kicked it hard at the latrine wall.

  Wham.

  ‘Sit down, if you’re staying.’ That’s what Annie said, when me and Mary stopped dead at the mending room door, our happy giggles turning to screams. ‘Sit down and hush up.’

  Annie, Sandra, Dorothy and Nancy were all squished along the wall next to Truly, who was all clean for once, in a fresh smock in fresh straw. Annie was kneeling by Truly’s head, stroking Truly’s hair which was laid out all neat. She wasn’t taking her eyes off Truly’s closed ones. ‘And don’t talk on dying, because she can hear you.’

  Sandra looked up, her pretty pink cheeks puffed damp. ‘Truly is crying.’

  ‘And deadmeat never manages that,’ Nancy said, jabbing at a wart on her toe. ‘Left eye. Take a look.’

  Well, sure enough, the eyelashes on Truly’s left eye were wet. And even though her eyelid was shuttered up, a tear slipped out of the corner and rolled sideways over her cheek, and plopped off into straw.

  ‘She’s been at it since we came in, and who knows how long before.’

  I whispered the only thing I could think, ‘Is she turned Liphook?’

  ‘No!’ Annie hissed.

  ‘Well, Annie—’ I felt my own eyes filling up, watching Truly’s left one pop out another tear, ‘—well, I am very sorry, Annie, but this carcass lump don’t look much like our giggle-mouthed, bendy-boned, non-stop-chatterbox sister to me.’

  ‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong, Clam,’ Annie flashed back. ‘All wrong. She can hear me and she can answer me. The only thing she can’t do yet is talk. Which she will do soon enough.’

  I looked at Truly, who weren’t saying nothing to this, nor looking like she was even bothering thinking it. Nor bothering thinking any other blessed thing for that matter. ‘But Annie—’

  ‘Take her hand.’

  ‘But it ain’t doing nothing, Annie.’

  ‘Just take it.’

  So I squeezed myself up the other side of the room, and took up Truly’s hand from where it was laid on her belly. And though its palm was warm, I am sorry to say her fingers were about as lively as stale bread.

  Annie’s eyes sizzled at me. ‘Now ask her if her name is Truly Polperro.’

  I looked around my sisters. Dorothy nodded.

  ‘Go on,’ Annie said. ‘Ask her.’

  ‘Very well, Annie.’

  And I tell you this for bone marrow truth, next thing happened was Truly’s fingers started to curl up round mine. Sure, they went at it slow as slugs shifting a leaf, but they did curl up. Felt like I felt the tiniest squeeze before they fell loose again.

  ‘Now ask her another question,’ Annie said. ‘Ask her the other question.’

  Well, my mouth dried to dust at that.

  ‘Ask her.’

  I kept my eyes on Truly’s hand. ‘Truly Polperro, listen to me carefully. When you went climbing did you see injuns outside the Wall?’

  Not a finger budged. Not one.

  It was all I could do not to gasp. ‘Are you sure, Truly? Are you sure?’

  And Truly’s fingers stayed flopped.

  ‘Oh, Truly!’

  ‘Now you know,’ Annie said.

  ‘But Annie, that ain’t possible,’ I said. ‘Look at her, how can she know what she’s saying?’ And my own eyes fogged up, and happen I didn’t want to look on our deadmeat sister no more, with her flopped-out fingers, and her eye full of tears. I didn’t want nothing more than fresh yard air pouring into me. I laid down Truly’s hand on her belly and I scrabbled for the door.

  ‘Going somewhere, niece?’

  Aunty, that was, arrived behind me, so I near enough fell into her shoes.

  ‘Morning, ladies. What a pleasant surprise to find you all here. May I say it makes for a very touching scene. Act one. Scene one. The death bed. Or should I say sick bed? What do you think, nieces? Death has more drama, but with sickness there’s always the hope of a cure.’

  Aunty wasn’t in her gown no more, but dressed up in white, with a belt like a tyre gripping her tummy and shiny black tights holding on to her legs. She had taken off her moisturising gloves, and she held the Reader’s Digest Home Medicine Manual all careful between her creamy fingers. A cherry-red smile was painted where her lips used to be.

  ‘You seem to be in a hurry to leave us, Calamity. Not a fan of sick rooms? Perhaps you’d like to pick yourself up out of that draughty doorway and get back inside toute suite. That’s spelled S-U-I-T-E, nieces. Think Hyde Park Hilton, Nancy, rather than those nasty sugary things that pile on the pounds. You others, budge up. It is a tight squeeze in here, but trust me, ladies, you’ll always have room for a small one.’

  I shuffled back in next to Nancy, and wiped off my eyes.

  ‘Come along, Calamity. I said “Going somewhere?” It’s your line. Need a teensy prompt? Very well, you were about to shed some light on what provoked this emergency exit of yours, how about that? After all, any information is useful when we’re fighting the Devil’s heat.’

  Annie’s green eyes flashed up, ‘Is that what you think Truly’s got, Aunty?’

  ‘Why, niece? Don’t you?’

  And Annie shook her head for
yes and then for no, which was something muddling. And quicksharp, I looked over at her, and I thought, ‘Tell her now, Annie. Tell Aunty about the injuns, and Aunty will sort it out. Aunty always sorts it.’

  But Annie didn’t.

  Aunty said, ‘Curious child,’ and turned her eyeball back on me. ‘So where were we? Oh yes, darling little Calamity here was going to get the ball rolling by spilling the beans. Because it really is time we got to the bottom of what happened to poor old Truly, isn’t it, and I just know you girls have your sister’s best interests at heart. And you, Calamity – my most compliant of dollar dolls – have clearly got something to get off your chest. A nice, clear voice now, because a lady should always annunciate, articulate, implicate.’ Aunty smiled at me. Her top teeth row was creamed with cherry.

  Well. Well, what could I say?

  See, Aunty’s eye was joined by my sisters’ ones, and every one of them eyes was pinning me down, until it got to seeming it wasn’t the mending room I was stuck in, but a roasting corner of Bowels. But instead of demonmales with skewers for the spit, it was Aunty waiting to tear me one way, and my sisters another.

  Well, my eyes were gushing and my nose was gushing, and all I could hear was words gushing out of me, ‘No, no, I don’t know. It ain’t fair that it’s always me that has to say things. Annie knows, Annie knows, ask Annie.’

  ‘Annie? Annie St Albans?’ Aunty sighed. ‘I might have known. Well then, Annie, my sweetie-niecey-pie, do stop picking holes in the plasterboard, straighten that spine, and let’s be having it.’

  And Aunty stared at Annie, and Annie looked straight back at Aunty and shrugged all her bones at once. ‘None of us knows anything,’ she said. ‘We found Truly on the bush and Truly hasn’t said a word since.’

  And Aunty went, ‘Nothing? Not a squeak, not a peep, not a sausage?’

  And loud and clear and cold as water, Annie said, ‘Nothing.’

  I looked up quick, and there was Annie looking straight at me. And there was Aunty’s eye starting its swivel over us, one by one, steady as a crow after the first twitch of a worm.

  ‘Any thoughts on the matter, dear unfortunate Dorothy? You didn’t eat Truly’s voice box, did you, Nancy? Calamity Leek, for heaven’s sake, wipe that nose. Snot is unsightly in anyone, and nothing less than nauseating in nieces. Thank you. Now I’m going to give you all one last chance to add illumination to Annie’s bobby-dazzler of an explan­ation. One very last chance, nieces.’