Great Meadow (9 page)

‘He'll have my presents,' said Flora.

‘He simply
hates
Edinburgh rock. All he really likes is wine gums or Rowntrees Fruit Gums. The clear ones,' said my sister, nodding her head.

‘Who does?' asked Flora, looking worriedly at me because I had had to lumber her wretched ‘presents' all the way from Ted Deakin's cart.

‘Well, our father. He's particular, he doesn't like sweet things.'

Lally got up and began stacking the plates, scraping off the bits into a bowl by the pickled onions. ‘Now, come along! We've all had a tiring day, the bricks are in the oven, and all your beds are made down. And they don't
lie, my children, their father can't abide sweet things.' She started off towards the sink, making head signs to us to follow. So I scraped my plate, and stacked my sister's, and reached for Flora's, who hit my hand and said she'd take it. And Lally said, ‘
No
. No sweet things . . . except of course your actual Rowntrees Fruit Gums, clear, in a tube, and your actual Maynards Wine Gums.
Those
he likes. For all the port wine is green and the sherry is black. But those he likes . . . and hand me over a kettle quick as may be.'

Flora offered her dirty plate. ‘It's nothing sweet . . . they are two lovely haggis. And a Black-Man's-Ear!' she said.

Lally had soap suds up to her elbow. ‘Black-Man's what?' she said, and you could see she was alarmed.

So I said, because I already knew, from being up in that dreadful country, that she really meant a black pudding. So that was all right, and our father loved haggis, although Lally said it had taken her a little time to ‘get used to them'. But she only had them once a year, and the getting-used-to was a bit of a shock every time. ‘As long as you don't dwell on what they are made of, you'll come to no harm,' she said. ‘There is a very big difference between the words “composed” and “de-composed”, and that'll do for the moment. Savoury, that's what your father says, and savoury they certainly are.'

When we finished the washing-up, and put the plates and things back on the dresser, had a game of Snakes and Ladders, and two of Happy Families, we had to take the bricks out of the oven in the range, wrap them in bits of an old flannel shirt which had belonged to her father, Mr Jane, and put them in our beds. My sister and I were in our room, the first one, Flora had the second one, and
Lally was right at the end, in hers. But we all had doors between each other, so when Lally called out ‘Goodnight, be good!' we all heard her. But this time she called out and said to remember that in two days' time it would be Christmas Eve, and that our father and mother would be with us, and they'd bring Minnehaha our cat, and a goose and presents, and that we had to be quiet with our mother because she had had a ‘nasty time of it', and so we were to be respectful and kind. And did we hear all that? And we all yelled through from our rooms, ‘Yes!', so that was all right.

My sister huffled and fuffled about in her bed across the room.

‘Whatever are you doing?'

‘Trying to find the comfortable part. I've forgotten since last time. Do you like Flora? I mean really
like
her?'

‘Not much. But whisper. She's next door, and it's open.'

‘What is?'

‘The door.'

She huffled and fuffled a bit more. Then she said suddenly, ‘Did you show her her potty? With the pheasant on the bottom?'

‘Yes. She looked worried. I think she'll save it all up until morning.'

‘Save what all up?'

‘Widdle.'

‘Oh. I see. These Scots people. Really. But it's good about no books or socks and just haggis. Isn't it?'

‘And our father and mother and Minnehaha . . . I am a bit worried about Sat and Sun. They drive him wild. He can smell them.'

‘Well, put them on a shelf in the lean-to.'

‘It's cold there.'

‘I think it's very nice being back again. Don't you . . .?'

But her voice was getting a bit faded, so I just agreed. But I did feel it was very nice, the candlestick with Australia on the chair beside my bed, the Weekend safe, fed and watered, on the shelf by the stairs, Flora asleep in the next room, and being with Lally. Because, apart from our parents, Lally was the best person in all the world, even if she did cuff me a bit and make me cart the water up in buckets and bury the Bindie Bucket and everything. She made it all feel safe, and loving.

Just through the wall I could hear her snoring. It was very nice indeed.

I was just lying there: it was very warm and safe-feeling. I knew it was still dark because there was no ragged line of light round the curtains and I could hear Flora snoring, or moaning, in her bed. My sister was probably curled up with her head under the quilt. She always slept like that, only this time I couldn't see her because it was dark. But if I turned my head and looked through Flora's room I could see the orange glimmer round Lally's bedroom door, and that was her getting up. So, worse luck, as soon as she'd got on her pinafore, tidied up her hair and shaken her alarm clock (she always did this to see if it was still working even though she could hear it ticking, but it was just something she did anyway, to be quite certain), I knew the door would creak open and she'd come through the rooms and tell us to start waking up, quick sharp, and that another day was starting and there was this or that to do if we wanted any breakfast. I knew it by heart, I suppose.

‘Time to wake up! Lots to do before breakfast!' she said. (You see?) And then she saw I was awake ‘There's a surprise for you all outside . . . better get your skates on before it goes.' She was holding her candle high so that shadows danced across the bumpy plaster walls and made the beams black and wavery. She had her indoor shoes in her other hand, so as not to wake us up, except that she had already woken us.

‘What is it?' I said and sat up, and felt the cold slither right down my back.

‘Been a fall of snow overnight. Still as still . . . but it won't lie. Best put on your woolly stockings from the top drawer. It's a very cold morning.' And then she opened the door to the stairs and went rustling down while I reached for the box of Swan Vestas by the candlestick.

When we all got down to the kitchen, and after I'd looked to see if all was well with the Weekend (which it was), the light was goldeny brown from the paraffin lamp and the candle, and the range was crackling and Lally was pumping up the Primus . . . the other one had a singing kettle on it – well, not exactly singing, but sighing really. It was still dark outside, but if you pressed hard against the cold glass, and shaded your face against the lamplight with your hands, you could see, as clear as clear, that everything outside was white.

‘It'll be light in a few minutes, near eight o'clock, and as soon as it is, and as soon as you've had a good hot drink, taken your Virol, got on your Wellingtons, then it's off with you all to do a bit of wooding for the kindling pile while I get the toast and porridge ready. And I want no arguments!' She looked very serious, one hand on hip, bread knife in the other. I mean, it was sticking up! You couldn't argue with her.

‘What's for breakfast?' I said, pouring milk from the milk-can into a jug.

‘Tea, toast and six eggs! And out of my way, I've a busy day today.' She wagged the knife at me, ‘Toot de sweet, now!'

My sister came clumping down the stairs doing up her snake-belt. It was her most favourite thing, and she'd pinched it from me, but I had a second, so it didn't worry
me really. But she wore it even with her good flannel skirt from school. Not just her shorts, like she did in summer. ‘You said it was snowing!' she grumbled. ‘That's what you said,' and she began to pull up her school socks which were woollen and awful-looking things. Wrinkled grey worms.

‘It
was
snowing! I said there had been a light fall, if I'm right – and no one try to correct me. It's stopped now, and you'll come to no harm and I reckon you won't see a polar bear, no more a penguin, where you are going. And please set the sugar on the table. Flora! Flora! Come along now, do. Breakfast is about to begin. Flora! Do I have to bang a gong?'

‘She wouldn't know what a gong was,' I said. ‘And the wood will be all snowy, all the kindling and everything.'

‘So what's the use?' said my sister huffing about looking for the Tate and Lyle on the dresser.

‘The use is that I need the kindling, so shake the snow off – don't dare bring it into the house and make all the rest sodden!'

‘But there is masses of kindling, we got piles yesterday!'

‘And you'll get piles today! Or else my name is not Ellen Jane

My sister looked at me across the table and made a twisty face, and we both began to snort a bit, and Lally suddenly got a bit red in the face, the way she did when she thought we were being rotten behind her back but she didn't know. Like the Bindie Bucket business.

‘What's all the sniggering in aid of, pray? That range uses the kindling like straw, and there's the sitting-room fire to be lit to air the room for your parents, and I want
the copper lit this afternoon . . .' She started to slice up the big cottage loaf for toast. You could see she was being a bit huffy about the sniggering part because she suddenly said, quite crossly, ‘Your grammar! Upon my word! What would your father say? “Good Grammar Teached Here Gooder Up The Stairs.” That's what. “Is” and “are”, remember. And now out of my way.'

But you could see she was fretting, and then Flora came down the stairs looking pretty silly in a raggedy woollen red and yellow tartan hat which she said was her Tarn o'Shanter. And it had a stupid pom-pom on the top which wobbled about. She looked really jolly funny, wandering about the kitchen pulling the hat this way and that.

Lally took the kettle off the Primus and poured it into the big brown teapot. ‘I want no more private laughter from you two,' she said, ‘and no
quibbling!
No quibbling at all. Wooding after your tea and Virol, breakfast
after
. Then you all get washed and do teeth.' And looking at Flora she said, in her Polite-to-Guest voice, ‘Flora dear, what are you about? Not in the house dear, not in the house.' And then she set the jar of Virol on a saucer and put three spoons round it, like the spokes in a wheel.

Flora pulled out her chair and sat down. She wasn't a bit afraid of Lally, mostly because Lally was always so terribly sweet to her. When she spoke to her, anyway.

‘It's against the cold,' she said firmly. I thought she was very brave. ‘My father says that our heads are like yon chimney. All the heat in your body just rises up and goes out of the top of your head. And he was a soldier in the war and he should know.'

‘Well . . . quite right. But your head will be nice and
warm in my kitchen, now I've got it all cosy and comfy for you, so I'll be obliged if you'd remove your hat at my table, please. You'll lose nothing through the top of your head except your brains. Off with it, please, Madam Caledonia!'

So Lally won. Well, she nearly always did. So the silly Tarn o'Shanter came off and we drank our tea, had the Virol and licked the spoons.

Lally poured herself another cup of tea. ‘I' m not washing all that money down the drains! You lick it clean. Cost your parents a lot of money to keep you healthy. Lick now! Quick sharp! It's just like caramel!'

She was being really quite bullying, but it was now light outside, and she was in a hurry. ‘I'll need milk today. So when you've done the wooding and washed, and if the snow isn't too thick, I'll thank you to hop skip it down to the dairy and ask Miss Aleford, if she's there, or Len Diplock if he's in the yard, for two pints of fresh –' and then she stopped and said we'd never remember, and so when we came back from the wooding she'd have a list. And to hurry up about it.

The snow wasn't really thick. We left footprints, but it wasn't right up to our knees or anything wonderful like that, or even up to our ankles. It was just white. But everything was very still and early morning. Down at the Court, where we had to go for the milk, there was a waver of thin smoke meandering up in the air, and my sister said that at least
someone
else was up at dawn, and not just us.

Flora stood looking at the whiteness. The sky was grey with little orange specks in it like the back of a plaice. The
Downs were smooth and soft, and you couldn't even see the white horse on High-And-Over because he was covered, and so was the gorse. Everything was smooth and clean like big fat pillows. I almost really liked Flora when she said that the cottage looked like a ‘wee ship' in a white sea. But I
knew
it looked like a ship, I just found the ‘wee' part boring: it was the way she spoke. And the cottage did look strange up on the very top of Great Meadow with nothing, except the elms round the church, for miles and miles. We started wooding away, but secretly I was a bit worried that perhaps our parents wouldn't be able to get up the road. The O.M. was the best car in the world, but the lane to the cottage was deep in snow. Only I didn't say anything, except to tell Flora not to pick up any old bits of elderberry bush. She was stuffing the wooding-sack full with it, and I had to take it all out and explain to her why not.

‘Well!
Why
not? It's as dry as dry. It just snaps –'

‘And it smells terrible on the fire. All the house smells if you burn it.'

‘Smells of what? What does it smell of?'

My sister looked at me with a squinty smiling face. ‘You tell her,' she said.

‘No, you. You're the girl.'

‘Whatever has
that
got to do with it?'

‘Well. You are both girls. It's easier to tell a girl if you are a girl.'

‘My feet are cold, thank you kindly,' said Flora. ‘So what
do
I gather if I don't gather the easy stuff. Elderberry. And why not? You haven't said.'