The First Book of Calamity Leek Read online

  Mother knocked Aunty’s kiss away with her glove. ‘Your breath, Miss Swindon. One also deduces that you have ballooned. Around the midriff.’

  Aunty laughed happy. ‘Dearest Gennie, our very own Ladyship, and one true Leader. Aren’t the weapons looking gorgeous? The eldest ones are almost ripe and ready for it, I’d say.’

  ‘And one would answer, but are they hungry for it, Miss Swindon? What is the size of their appetite, Miss Swindon? One knows all about your appetite, but are they hungry for it? Are they hungry for War?’

  Aunty turned to us and sang out, ‘Piggy, piggy, piggy!’

  And we jumped in the air and shouted back, ‘Kill, kill, kill!’

  ‘Just a little routine we’ve been finessing,’ Aunty said.

  Mother looked back at the yew path. ‘One hasn’t got all day,’ she said.

  ‘I thought you’d like it,’ Aunty said. She went over to Danny and started a big old curtsey, ‘Ladies and your Ladyship, the time has come—’

  And Mother’s voice screamed so kettling Heavenly, happen her throat was near boiled dry, ‘Bloody well get on with it, if you’re going to bloody well do it, Frumps!’ Mother stopped and her perfect voice near split my ears in its Heavenly wail, ‘One need not remind you how the sight of blood upsets one’s angel!’

  Aunty stood back up and straightened her hat and turned around and spat at the southern Crèmes. After this she put a fresh smile on her face. ‘Off you go, Nancy dear.’

  Keeping the blade behind her back, Nancy stepped up to the butching sheet.

  Danny Zuko snorted and whirled his tail. Nancy sniffed and wiped her eyes and threw Danny Zuko an apple. Danny chewed it up. Nancy brought out the blade, and stuck him in the throat. Aunty waved Mr Stick in the air, and we all cheered. Apple chunks fell out of Danny’s screaming mouth. Nancy wiped her eyes and stuck him again.

  ‘Piggy, piggy, piggy!’ Aunty sang out.

  ‘Kill, kill, kill!’ we shouted back loud.

  Danny went over on his spotted side. Mary ran to help Nancy drain him into a bucket. The air filled so hot and plummy, I puked. Nancy sniffed and wiped her eyes and started the blade on Danny’s windpipe. Aunty waved Mr Stick and we cheered Danny’s head off.

  ‘Well? What do you reckon to that for hunger?’ Aunty said.

  Mother turned her face back to the yew path. ‘Oh, my own true angelkins, wherever are you?’ she said.

  Aunty stared at Mother’s back a few seconds and then she made a smile at it and said, ‘Would her Ladyship care to inspect the weapons while we’re waiting? They’re clean.’

  ‘Angelkins, coo-eeeee,’ Mother said.

  ‘So good of you to express an interest,’ Aunty said to Mother’s back. ‘Anyway, how the devil are you, Ophelia? Not too lonely down here on your own? No? That is good to hear. Goodness, is that a new frock, Ophelia? Well, it’s just your colour.’

  Aunty called out loud to Mother, ‘Wasn’t that what you always said on our Sunday Best days, Gennie, do you remember? Those awful cast-offs we got given to wear. “Oooh, lilac’s just your colour,” you’d say. “Lucky you, Fifi-Frumps, wearing lilac nylon from the rubbish dump.”’

  ‘Coo-eeeeeeeeeeeeeee,’ Mother said.

  ‘Wasn’t that what you said, Gennie? Not that Father Tony gave cast-offs to you, with all your special privileges.’

  ‘One’s eyes do not deceive me, Miss Swindon, you really have puffed up all round,’ Mother’s voice said, never mind her Heavenly eyes were still fixed on the yew path. ‘Five or six inches one would estimate. One shall have to contemplate a reduction in your allowance. One’s always erred on the over-generous side.’

  Aunty turned away from Mother’s chair and spat at the Glamis Castles.

  ‘If her Ladyship doesn’t fancy inspecting the weapons, and she doesn’t want to admire my frock, why doesn’t she have a squizz at the Little Chefers while we’re waiting?’ Which was the name Aunty sometimes gave to the second-wind toddlers, who had started up bawling in their trolleys past Truly and me. ‘One might surprise her. I’m not saying Spitting Image, but why doesn’t her Ladyship take a look?’

  Mother watched Annie running off north into the yews, and her perfect black-gloved finger pushed up them glasses that kept her Heavenly eyes safe from us. Eyes that weren’t made a common Garden blue or brown, but, like the Appendix says it – are thought to consist of twenty-four carat gold.

  ‘Come to Mummy,’ Mother said, staring off into the yews. ‘Mummy’s waiting.’

  I don’t mind telling you something of Mother’s tragic dilemma now. Course, you ain’t forgotten how she was sent down to raise an army, only – and it is explained more fully in Ophelia Swindon Volume V: A Country Diary – how was she ever going to raise an army on Earth, when her only beloved daughter got killed off by a demonmale?

  Well, the best answer she came up with was to rescue other daughters already part-grown Outside, ones something imaged like her daughter – if something less than perfect – and to grow them like her own. So that’s what Mother did.

  Aunty looked at the second-winders bashing about in their trolleys and gave off a merry tinkle, ‘In any case, something has got to be done with them. They’re crawling now.’

  Mother’s voice said, ‘It would appear your face is retaining water as well.’

  ‘Her Ladyship knows they’re not part of the Deal,’ Aunty tinkled.

  ‘As one recalls, slimness was never your forte, was it, Frumps?’

  ‘Argentina is waiting,’ Aunty kept on. ‘South America is crying out for my music. What with the peso plummeting, facial reconstruction rates won’t remain low for long. Rhinoplasty’s already shot up two hundred per cent—’

  And then Aunty stopped tinkling and started staring at Mother. Aunty stared, because Mother wasn’t looking up the yew path no more, her face was turned back to Aunty, and Mother’s face was smiling. All up her cheek plates I could see her smiling.

  ‘One almost forgot,’ Mother said. ‘One received a telephone call from a pleasant chap this morning.’

  Aunty stared at Mother. ‘And?’

  Mother stretched her smile wider. ‘Frightfully pleasant, if a tad plebeian. Claimed to be from the Llandudno Gazette.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Just a few questions, he said. Frightfully sweet, considering. Quiet news season, he said. The Unsolved Crimes file gathering dust, he said. That sort of thing.’

  Aunty’s hand went up to her mouth.

  ‘Recent reported sightings, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Recent sightings?’

  Mother smiled, ‘One said that’s what he said.’

  ‘But what did you say?’ Aunty whispered. ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘Oh, one was discreet, Miss Swindon. There was not a peep from me. One’s no sneak, Miss Swindon. One was never the one who ran about bleating “Father Tony, Father Tony, Gennie’s been stealing again.”’ Mother hissed perfect Heavenly, ‘One was never the one for that.’

  Aunty’s eyeball fixed on Mother like it had got stuck.

  She fell down to Mother’s chair and set about kissing all over Mother’s hand.

  ‘It would seem you shall have to rely on one’s possession of discretion.’ Mother took her hand away. ‘Perhaps it’s your turn, Frumps, to see if someone can hold their tongue. But one shan’t speak further on this. It’s Emily’s special day, not yours. One does hope there’s games.’

  And then all sudden Mother spun her chair about and cupped an ear to the yews, and screamed in Heavenly delight, ‘But hark! One does believe one’s angel cometh!’

  It was actually Dorothy and Sandra who came out of the yews first, heaving on a yoke. The cart came next. Annie came last, pushing from behind.

  ‘Aaaaaaaaah!’ Mother said, spinning circles in joy. ‘Here you are, angelkins. Mummy was beginning to think she had lost you forever.’

  Aunty was having trouble standing herself up. She crawled about and got herself up at the plinth. She turned to us and
straightened her hat, and never mind her voice was something shaky, it was good enough to shout, ‘Here we go, girls. A-one, a-two, a-one-two-three and—’

  We sang out ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’, and Sandra and Dorothy dragged the cart to the plinth. Sandra unwrapped Emily from the plastic and they heaved her upright. And like she did every year, Mother jumped out of her electric chair and ran to Emily’s toes, and kissed every one of them.

  Aunty once told us it took Mother six months to make a new Emily. She rescued the statues from demonmale marriage-trap churches, sawed off unnecessary wings and repainted the faces into Emily’s plump prettiness. On Emily’s seventh birthday, if you’re interested in knowing, Mother used Sandra for being what is called ‘a live model’. Sandra was six, and still something imaged like Emily then – particularly her nose – and it was looking good for her, it really was. Four days she stayed in Mother’s Glorious Abode, with us all thinking that was it for Sandra – life with Mother and a direct pass to Heaven without War. But on the fifth day, Sandra’s nose grew too fat, and she was sent back to the yard. Though having as much sense as a snowdrop, Sandra still thinks herself special.

  But never mind Sandra, because eighteen-year-old Emily was stood steady on the plinth, all ready to watch over us now. She wore a blue cloak and yellow hair and was something heftier than her seventeen-year-old self. She didn’t have a lamb nudging her knee this year, but a little robin was glued on a finger of her left hand. Course, under her white headscarf, Emily’s blue eyes were lifted up something sorrowful, most probably in remembering her tragic end of life. But on her lips she wore the prettiest smile – like she really didn’t mind nothing now that her skin was varnished perfect. Tears ran off my face to see that smile, and I promised to fight my hardest for her when I went to War.

  Rain began to fall down on us from Heaven. Straight down heavy.

  I looked over at Truly. She was sleeping, course. Her smock was blotching wet.

  Aunty looked at the sky lid and said to it, ‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance at all her Ladyship could keep this brief?’

  But Mother didn’t hear Aunty. Mother was dancing round Emily on her plinth, her Heavenly knees jerking, her back crooked angelic. ‘Come to Mummy, come to Mummy, come to Mummy,’ Mother was singing as she danced. And everyone, even Aunty, had to wait quiet now.

  We held our breaths, and I checked on Truly in her barrow, in case she felt like starting a moan and ruining everything, but she still lay quiet as a fish. And I looked up at eighteen-year-old Emily, and I sent over a request. If she was planning on doing any miracles this year – which might be nice for us – well then, what about starting on her very own birthday and sorting out Truly?

  Mother started some kissing up Emily’s shins, and Aunty spat in the grass and pointed Mr Stick at us. ‘Let’s get on with it, nieces, before we all catch our deaths.’

  Two by two, my sisters went up and laid down their strawdolls and apples at the base of Emily’s plinth. Nancy went last with Danny Zuko’s head. And up in Heaven, the Goddess Daughter sure was sad about something, because the rain kept on coming.

  We were in the middle of singing Happy Birthday to Emily, when I heard a thumping noise next to me. It was Truly’s heels banging in her barrow.

  ‘Aunty—’ I said.

  ‘Games,’ Mother said, turning round. Rain was stuck on her black glasses like dead tears. ‘Emily says she wants party games.’

  ‘Aunty—’ I said a bit louder.

  ‘And they’d better be bloody good ones, Miss Swindon.’

  ‘Then bloody good games Emily shall bloody well have!’ Aunty yelled out cheery. ‘Musical statues all right with you, Emily? I’ll sing the music.’

  ‘One will judge the statues.’

  I watched Truly’s heels rattling busy next to me, and I tried to catch Aunty’s eye. But she was busy starting on ‘Hopelessly Devoted’ again.

  I tried to catch the eye of Odette Pontefract, but she was being a statue patting a toddler in the trolley. I tried to hiss at Fantine Welshpool at the bottom of the row, but she was busy being a one-legged statue praying to Emily. So you see, I did try.

  ‘STOP!’ Mother shouted.

  And I thought that was good, because now everyone would hear Truly’s heels. But the barrow was quiet, so I reckoned Truly must have stopped rattling and started joining in with statues. Which would be easy for her this year, wouldn’t it? And I had a little smile, thinking about Truly at last year’s birthday party – trying to keep herself upside down in a one-handed cartwheel statue. That was Truly Polperro for you.

  Emily won the game. Mother kissed her pink toes. ‘Well done, my angel,’ Mother said. ‘What’s that, my angel? You want more?’

  Hailstones came jumping down onto the Lawn. It sure wasn’t just Truly feeling the cold now. But Mother flung off her black shawl to go skipping about, her hair flapping Heavenly in excitement. ‘That one’s out! That one’s out! They’re all out! Well done, Emily! Marvellous! Again?’

  Sometime in the next game, Maria Liphook screamed like a proper loonhead, and went running off to the yard. But Mother didn’t mind because Emily was winning, and Aunty didn’t mind because she was holding tight onto a big smile at Mother. After ten more games, Mother got back in her chair and sat patting on Emily’s feet. There sure weren’t no cold in the rain for our Heavenly Mother.

  Then it was time for us to clear the area to give Mother and Emily some Quality Time. Which weren’t such a bad idea, because my sisters’ eyes were bleeding paint down their cheeks. Their lips dribbled red off their chins and onto their smocks.

  I climbed out of my barrow with my sick bucket, and helped Nancy and Mary heave Danny’s corpse in. Annie ran up to take Truly’s barrow.

  It was when she went to tuck a fur over Truly that Annie jumped back, her finger pointing at Truly’s lips, her mouth moving without words.

  I went to look closer and gave out a yelp – least Nancy says I did, because Nancy said, ‘What is it, Clam?’ and came to see, and went, ‘Oh no.’

  Dorothy ran up and blinked ten times, and turned away.

  Sandra barged down the line to us, and, course, she screamed it loud, ‘Truly’s lips are blue!’

  So everyone came running, and Aunty came too.

  Aunty jabbed fingers in Truly’s neck. ‘Cold as cod,’ she said.

  She kept her fingers dug in, turning her head like she was listening for something. ‘Nope. Nothing doing,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Annie whispered.

  Aunty took her fingers away. ‘Nothing doing, I said.’

  ‘Can we not try wheeling her up with Emily?’ I whispered.

  ‘Rather too late for miracles, niece.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Annie said.

  ‘Hyperthermia,’ Aunty said.

  ‘What?’ Annie said.

  ‘You heard me.’ Aunty prodded Truly’s tummy. She put her ear to Truly’s heart, and shook her head. ‘Hyper – thermia. Overheated insides.’

  Eliza Aberdeen fainted off into the Glamis Castles.

  Aunty slammed her hat down low. ‘Well, that’s ten grand down the spout, I’d say. That’s a new top lip flushed down the pan.’ Aunty fixed her eye on Mother, but she couldn’t put a tinkle with it. ‘Nancy, pick up Eliza at once, we don’t need any more casualties.’ Aunty spun round and stomped off south through the Glamis Castles, spitting and thwacking roseheads off bushes as she went.

  Well.

  Well, we stood round Truly’s barrow, dumb as worms.

  Annie tried to shake Truly’s shoulders awake. She tried Truly’s arms.

  The rain slowed. Annie tried Truly’s legs.

  The sky lid went dark.

  The rain stopped. Dorothy stopped Annie’s hands.

  One by one we turned the waterworks on.

  Only Annie stayed dry-eyed. ‘No, this ain’t so, Truly. No, come on, Truly, quit fooling,’ Annie said, like she was waiting on someone to shout out it was just a demonmale
dream we were all in, nothing more.

  Mother had driven her chair down the Lawn to us before we heard her. She stopped a safe distance off, and waved her handkerchief in front to keep her Heavenly eyes double-safe from us. ‘Attention, weapons!’

  We swallowed our tears and saluted.

  ‘The weapons are making an obscene amount of noise,’ Mother said. ‘Emily abhors crying on her birthday. The weapons had better get back in their box at once, before Emily’s afternoon is completely ruined.’

  Mother spun her electric chair about and drove back up the Lawn, to get back to kissing Emily’s toes.

  We roasted Danny Zuko’s head on a spit in the yard that night. We ate him with Evita Thrupp’s best rosemary loaf, and he tasted good. Nancy had herself three helpings, which might be why she is more pig than sister. Annie St Albans didn’t eat nothing. She kicked away the ear I saved off Nancy for her, which everyone says is the best bit.

  We left Truly with Emily on the Sacred Lawn, it being late and all the sky being emptied of rain.

  X-RAY

  IT IS HEAVY, this new pot. And I am pinned in it, which roses never are. That is because there is now a compound fracture inside. That is what they say. Doctor Andrea Doors shows me the photograph.

  ‘That’s an X-ray,’ she says, ‘of your femur.’

  Only it isn’t really me. It isn’t good and proper me, like the photograph Aunty took against the schoolroom wall a few days after Truly died. The one which meant we eldest would soon be flying over the clouds to War.

  ‘Line up, line up, heads up. No sloppy fringes, double chins or cheeky grins for Her Majesty’s Government,’ Aunty had said. ‘One at a time.’

  She went as far as Eliza Aberdeen.

  ‘Millie Gatwick, you’ll be advertised in the next batch,’ she said. ‘Those boobs’ll take a touch more ripening before you’re ready, so there’s really no point hanging around here. Goodness, it’s exciting, isn’t it?’

  After that, Aunty measured us for what she called our burkas. Of course, we wouldn’t be wearing them to fight in, they were just for flying us to War. Because we had to get there safely, and Aunty said we’d be pleased to hear there wasn’t a demon body alive could touch us in these things.