Fire And Hemlock Part 15

But at that stage they were interrupted by Mr. Partridge, in a mood which made him at least as unpleasant as Mr. Piper, striding across the square and shouting to know where the three of them had been.

4.

They'll turn me in your arms, lady, Into a deer so wild, But hold me fast, don't let me go TAM LIN.

David Bragge left Ivy soon after Polly was thirteen. Polly knew because Ivy came round to Granny's house at the start of the holidays and told her about it. "I'm not saying it was all your fault," she said to Polly. "But it was partly through your slyness and meddling. I couldn't trust him after that. I was only trying to get a little happiness for us both and now it's gone."

Polly squirmed. Her time in Bristol had left her raw and embarra.s.sed. Ivy did not seem to her to be telling the truth any more than Dad did.

"Is that all you have to say?" Granny said to Ivy, after an hour or so.

"Well she can come back now," said Ivy. "She's not coming," said Granny.

"She's my daughter," said Ivy.

"And you sent her off without making sure she had anywhere togo to," Granny said. "But not once-not once once!-have you mentioned that this afternoon. You haven't even asked how she got back here to me. She stays here, Ivy. That's my final word."

Granny was altogether warlike that summer. She was determined that Polly should be legally allowed to live with her, and that there should be money for her keep from both Reg and Ivy. She sailed out, like a small upright army of one, to do battle with offices and banks and solicitors. She got her way too. When Polly went to be interviewed with Granny at one of the offices, she heard a man in a side room say, "Oh, my G.o.d, it's Mrs. Whittacker! I don't care what she wants-just give it her!"

After that interview they went to a tea shop for a treat. Granny loved treats. They had coffee and cakes, and Polly had ice cream as well. She had taken to coffee after the coffee from Ann Abraham's flask. It had seemed like the perfect drink then, and it still did. She still thought ice cream was the perfect food. The difficulty of drinking one while eating the other fascinated Polly.

"You are are being generous," she said to Granny, out of her new embarra.s.sed rawness. "Arranging to keep me, I mean." being generous," she said to Granny, out of her new embarra.s.sed rawness. "Arranging to keep me, I mean."

"No I'm not," Granny retorted. "Being generous is giving something that's hard to give. After I gave up teaching, I'd next to nothing to do and I began to feel no one in the world needed me. Now you need me. It's a pleasure, Polly."

"Thanks." Polly contracted her throat with ice cream, expanded it again with coffee, and asked, "What made the man in that office say 'Give it her!' like that?"

Granny chuckled. "Remember that day I was so late home? I had him that day. Refusing this, denying that, saying maybe to the other. And I lost patience. I said, 'Young man,' I said, 'if you don't give me what I want-and I made you a perfectly reasonable request-I shall just sit here until you do give it me.' And I did," said Granny. "I sat in front of him and I looked at him. They couldn't close the office at closing time."

Polly laughed. She could just see Granny sitting there, unbeaten, small, a lot smaller than Polly was herself now, filling the office with her personality and her bright, unnerving stare. "How long didhe last?"

'Two and a half hours," said Granny. "He was a tough one. Most of them only last twenty minutes."

Polly laughed again and looked up in the middle of laughing because the table got dark from the shadow of someone standing beside it. It was Seb. He was standing staring at her in a confused sort of way, awkwardly clutching a camera. "I saw you through the cafe window," he said. He seemed as tall as the ceiling. Polly didn't know what to say, except that she really had not done anything this time. Her hand rattled her coffee.

"And I'm her grandmother," said Granny. "Are you going to sit down, or have you put out roots in the floor?"

At this, Seb evidently remembered the very polite manners he had been taught. He apologized to Granny and, to Polly's surprise, slid into a chair at the table. But once he was there, he refused cake and ice cream and coffee, and just sat. What does Mr. Leroy think I've done? done? Polly wondered, near to panic. Polly wondered, near to panic.

"Talk about photographs," Granny advised Seb, at which Polly jumped guiltily. "I see you're carrying a camera."

Seb took her advice. He talked of shutter speeds and lenses, types of camera and kinds of film. Of lighting, developing, and printing. It was his latest pa.s.sion. Polly was bored stiff, even through her alarm. At length Seb turned to her and said, "I really came to ask if I could photograph you. Would you mind posing for me outside? It won't take a minute."

"And it won't hurt a bit," said Granny. "Well, we've finished here. Better go outside and get it over, Polly."

Seb photographed Polly beside the tea-shop railings. Then he photographed Granny too because, he said, she had an interesting face. Granny snorted. "I'll bring you the prints when I've done them," he said. "You live just up the road from us these days, don'tyou?"

Then, at last, he went. Polly realized that Mr. Leroy still kept a very close watch on her, and turned shakily to Granny. "What did he want?"

"Goose!" said Granny. "You, of course. The poor boy's smitten pink over you."

"I don't believe it," said Polly.

But it seemed to be true. Seb arrived at Granny's two days later with the photographs, and stayed all afternoon explaining the exact method he had used to develop and print them. This time he was much less awkward. He told them he preferred not to be called Seb these days, but Sebastian, and that he was doing A Levels next year. After that he intended to be a barrister. He looked at Polly most of the time he talked. Polly tried not to be awkward either, but it was not easy when someone so tall and old and well dressed seemed to admire her so much.

She did not like the photographs at all. Seb had done things with strong light and dark shadows that made Polly and Granny look like two white-haired witches. "Well, you see," Seb explained to Polly, "you're not beautiful, or pretty, but your face is interesting, and I've brought out the interest."

"What a thing to say!" Granny exclaimed when he had gone. "He'll go far with the girls, that one, on those kind of compliments! My pretty granddaughter a thing to say!" Granny exclaimed when he had gone. "He'll go far with the girls, that one, on those kind of compliments! My pretty granddaughter interesting! interesting! I never heard such stuff!" I never heard such stuff!"

"You don't like him, do you?" Polly said, in great relief.

"When he's noticed there are other people in the world besides himself," Granny said, "there might be no harm in Master Sebastian. But I'm prejudiced. He comes from That House." Granny always called Hunsdon House That House.

Seb came round rather often after that. He lived so near. It was, Polly felt, almost the only drawback that summer to living with Granny. Granny was marvelous. She had only two faults, as far as Polly knew. The first one was surprising-Granny was scared of small animals. Mintchoc, who adored Granny as much as Polly did, was always bringing her mice or frogs or voles and laying them lovingly at Granny's feet. Whenever she did, Granny climbed on a chair and screamed for Polly. It always amazed Polly, and irritated her too, to see someone as dauntless as Granny standing on a chair clutching her skirt and screaming at a mouse.

"Don't hurt it!" Granny shouted. "Don't kill it! It's somebody's dead soul!"

Polly was amused and exasperated. "How can can I kill it if it's dead anyway?" she said, carrying the mouse or frog to the window. I kill it if it's dead anyway?" she said, carrying the mouse or frog to the window.

"You can and it is," Granny said, quite impervious to reason. "Is it gone?"

"Yes," said Polly.

That was Granny's other fault, of course-superst.i.tion. It was because of Granny's superst.i.tion that Polly went on wearing the little opal pendant, although she knew Mr. Leroy had found a way to get round it. Granny became so alarmed the one time Polly took it off that Polly humored her and put it on again. There was no arguing with Granny about such things. She had superst.i.tion written all through her like the color in the most expensive candy canes.

The pendant did not even seem to be able to keep Seb away. He called most afternoons. By the end of the summer Polly was not scared of him any longer, but she was quite bored. One afternoon they were in the garden, where Seb was telling her about the agonies of withdrawal he had suffered when he gave up cigarettes, when he suddenly broke off talking and grabbed Polly and kissed her. It was the first time anyone had done that to Polly. She should have asked Nina about it, she thought wryly, as Seb's face met hers and their noses seemed to get tangled up. It was not much fun. She wondered whether to wriggle loose, but Seb was breathing heavily and pa.s.sionately and seemed to be enjoying it so much that it brought Polly's annoying soft-heartedness out. She stood there and let him lay his mouth against hers, and tried to decide if you kept your eyes open or shut them, and in the end she settled for one of each. What a funny thing to invent to do! she thought. What do do people see in it? people see in it?

"I'll send him packing if you like," Granny said when Polly came in pretending nothing had happened. "I didn't before because I thought he might cheer you up."

"I'm quite cheerful!" Polly protested. She was ashamed that Granny should offer to manage Seb for her. But Granny was rightabout her not being cheerful. The time in Bristol seemed to have bitten deep and it took her a long time to get over it. She found it hard to concentrate on anything, even when she was back at school that autumn.

Nina was still into boys. It was, as Fiona said, a lifetime's obsession with Nina, but Nina was still quite up to running various other crazes side by side with boys. That term Nina's craze was protesting. Women's Rights, Vivisection, Oppressed Ethnic Minorities-Nina went on a march for each one and found a new boyfriend on every march. She was always trying to make Fiona or Polly march too. Consequently, they both thought it was a demo of some kind when Nina came rus.h.i.+ng up to them one morning calling, "Are you two coming to the Town Hall or not?"

"What are we protesting?" asked Fiona.

"Moron!" said Nina. "Where's your memory? We said we'd meet that boy from Stow-on-the-Water there!"

Polly and Fiona had clean forgotten Leslie. Fiona said Leslie had just been having them on. Polly thought it might have been a joke too, but she was suddenly seized with pleasure at the thought of seeing Leslie again. She pointed out to Fiona that three people waiting an hour on the steps of the Town Hall didn't look nearly as silly as one, or even two. So in the end they all three went.

They approached the Town Hall expecting to feel foolish. But, to their astonishment, Leslie was there. He was standing waiting on the step-a surprising sight in every way, for he was dressed in a spruce gray suit like other Wilton College boys, with a Wilton tie, and his ma.s.s of curly fair hair was smooth and short and neat. His skull earring had been replaced by a small gold sleeper.

He was quite as surprised to see them as they were to see him. "There! And I made sure you'd forget!" he said.

After that, they all stared at one another awkwardly, until Fiona, who also had pierced ears, remarked on the sleeper. "Doesn't Wilton allow earrings?" she asked.

"No way!" said Leslie. "Rules about everything. But I wanted to keep my options open, as you might say. No one's made me take it out yet. Where is there to go in this town?"

The ice was broken, and they went to the Blue Lagoon for chips, talking busily. The girls wanted to know what Wilton College was like inside. Leslie told them it was all made of concrete, got up like a church, with pointed arches, and cold as the grave. "Except Hall-that's pink marble and done Roman," he said. Lessons were easy, though all the teachers were mad. The most difficult part was getting on with the other boys. "Half the time they make me feel like an old man," he said. "Maybe you grow up quicker being brought up common, the way I am, but it gets me down, the way they all laugh at me." Seeing how concerned Polly was looking, he said, "It's O.K.-nothing I can't handle-just stupid. Because of me playing the flute. Joke of the century, because my name's Piper."

"But I thought-" Polly began. Fiona at once kicked Polly's ankle and leaned forward to change the subject.

Leslie, however, smoothly changed the subject himself. "Did you know you were famous in our school?" he said to Polly. "Everyone says our Head Boy's in love with you. Leroy-know him? He's got a photo of you up in his study. I've seen it. It's awful, but it's you, definite. Can I say I know you? It'll do me no end of good with the crowd."

Polly found Fiona and Nina staring at her, awed. "Oh, Seb," she said gruffly. "Yes, I suppose I do know him. And so do you know me, so you might as well say."

"Thanks," Leslie said. He was obviously grateful. "Now I've got a real touch of cla.s.s!" he said.

Fiona and Polly got up to go soon after that. Nina said, "I'll be along. I need the Ladies'. You lot go."

"Why did you kick me?" Polly asked as they walked back to school.

"Broken home of some kind," Fiona said. "I saw the look come on his face. I know it from you. Sometimes I can see you think, 'G.o.d! Someone's going to ask ask!' Nice, isn't he-Leslie? Do you really know the Head Boy of Wilton?"

"I know Seb Leroy," said Polly. "I didn't know he was Head Boy."

Nina did not come back to school that afternoon. Neither, Pollysuspected, did Leslie. The next day it was all over Manor Road School that the Head Boy of Wilton College was in love with Polly Whittacker. People kept coming and asking Polly if it was true. Polly got very gruff about it. But it did make her feel more kindly toward Seb.

The day after that, a parcel came for Polly, addressed in strange writing. In it were several ca.s.sette tapes-Bach, Beethoven, Brahms-and a note in small, fat writing: Tom thought you might like these. He says throw them away if you don't. We gather he didn't kill you that eventful night, or someone would have tried to sue him by now. Our show is still on the road-just about. Ann and Sam send love.

Yours, Tan Thare (alias Ed) Almost on tiptoe, in case Mr. Leroy found out, Polly borrowed Fiona's radio-ca.s.sette player and listened to the tapes. She got so addicted to them that Granny promised her a ca.s.sette player for Christmas. And Mr. Leroy did nothing. Polly relaxed, and then relaxed further, from a tension she had not known she had. Suddenly she could concentrate again. A week after the tapes arrived, she got out her map and the story called Tales of Nowhere Tales of Nowhere for the first time in months, and began to compose a long, careful narrative. for the first time in months, and began to compose a long, careful narrative.

It turned out a bit different from the way she had planned it. Remembering how scornful Mr. Lynn had been at her borrowing from Tolkien, Polly decided to let her imagination take her where it would. All she knew at the start was that it was an account of how Hero came to be Tan Coul's a.s.sistant, and then their quest together for the Obah Cypt. The result was that the story got huge. Small extra stories sprouted off it everywhere, giving detailed histories of every character who appeared. Hero herself became a king's daughter who had to run away from home because of the machinations of her beautiful but evil girl-cousin. Tan Coul found her wandering in disguise and made her his a.s.sistant, thinking she was a boy. From there it became an epic. Polly was writing at it most of that school year, almost until her fourteenth birthday, on and off, with numerous interruptions from real life.

Seb was one of the interruptions. Polly was continually trying to get rid of Seb, or at least to evade his grabbing and kissing her. She was ashamed to ask Granny to help. But each time she tried, Seb got so upset, so humble and miserable, that Polly got softhearted and did not send Seb packing after all.

"I don't know how Nina does it!" she sighed more than once to Fiona. Nina was always sending people packing, except, perhaps, Leslie.

Leslie kissed Polly too, at Fiona's Christmas party, a soft, moist kiss which Polly preferred to Seb's grabbing and hard-breathing kind, even if it was not so valuable. Leslie was turning out to be a great kisser of people. It was around then that Fiona took to calling him Georgie-Porgie. And he seemed to be surviving Wilton rather well. Polly asked Seb how Leslie was doing, and Seb rather loftily admitted that Piper was a popular little beast.

More tapes arrived for Polly for Christmas, With love from the Dumas Quartet With love from the Dumas Quartet, in Ann's writing-Britten, Chopin, Elgar. Ann had put her address at the top, which Polly carefully kept. She was going to need that. There was another parcel of tapes a month later, this time from Sam-Faure, Handel, Haydn.

"Going through the alphabet, isn't he?" Granny remarked. "What does he do when he gets round to Webern? Go back to Bach?" She, like Polly, had no doubt who the tapes were really from.

Polly finished her huge narrative during the summer term. The day after she had finished it, she went round with the oddest mixture of feelings, pride at having got it done, sick of the sight of it and glad it was over, and completely lost without it. By the evening, lost-without-it came out on top, and she began to make a careful copy in her best writing. That too suffered interruptions. Polly was put in the athletics team again, and she was also a courtier in the school summer play. This was Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Twelfth Night. Polly was much struck by the similarity of its plot to her own story of Hero and Tan Coul. She would have given a great deal to act the part of Viola, but that went to Kirstie Jefferson, and Polly consoled herself by going on copying her story. Shakespeare, she discovered, borrowed plots for his plays from all over theplace-so there, Mr. Lynn! Her story was all her own. The longer she spent copying, the more she admired it. Some parts were really good. The part, in particular, where Tan Coul is wounded in the shoulder and Hero has to dress the wound. She strips off Tan Coul's armor and sees "the smooth, powerful muscles rippling under the silken skin of his back." Wonderful! Polly went round whispering it admiringly to herself. "The silken skin of his back!"

She was still wonderfully pleased with that bit when she finished copying it at last. Oh, well done! Polly packed it in a vast envelope addressed to Ann, with a note asking her to give it to Tom. I seem to have lost his address I seem to have lost his address, she wrote, to fool Mr. Leroy. For the same reason, she got Fiona to write Ann's address and post it for her. Then she waited for signs of applause and admiration from Mr. Lynn.

Nothing happened for quite a while. And when it did, it was clear Mr. Lynn felt strongly on the matter. He had risked writing himself. Maybe this was because he was far away. Or maybe not. The postcard was from New York. It had two words written on it.

Sentimental Drivel. T.G.L.

Polly stared at it in outrage. She could barely believe it.

"What's up, love?" asked Granny.

"Oh nothing. Only one of the famous Lynn postcards," Polly said bitterly. "I hope he treads on his cello."

She went to school, furious. That day she went without lunch so that she could put the money in Granny's telephone jar. Granny worried a lot about the size of her phone bill. Polly walked home in the afternoon, still furious. He can't can't have gone off hero business! she kept thinking. What's the have gone off hero business! she kept thinking. What's the matter matter with him? He used to with him? He used to like like it! He told me he was hooked on it. What's wrong? it! He told me he was hooked on it. What's wrong?

Seb crossed the road and tried to walk beside Polly.

"Oh stop bothering me!" Polly snapped.

"Polly! That's not like you!" Seb said in a huffy, pleading way.

At this, Polly was angry enough-and hungry enough-to turn round and say, "Yes, it is is like me! You just don't know what I'mlike. I told you to stop bothering me. Go away and don't come back for a year. I'm too like me! You just don't know what I'mlike. I told you to stop bothering me. Go away and don't come back for a year. I'm too young!" young!"

Seb stood and stared at her. He was even angrier than Polly was, and fighting so hard to control it that for just a moment he almost looked like Mr. Leroy. Like Mr. Leroy, he said, "You're going to regret that." Then he walked away.

Polly went home without another thought for Seb except a mild relief that he seemed to have been sent packing at last. She put her lunch money in the telephone jar and dialed Mr. Lynn's number. She was answered by the robot, sounding a bit old and scratched these days, but she had been expecting that. "Polly," she said crisply. "What the h.e.l.l do you mean-sentimental drivel?" And slammed the phone down again.

Again it was some time before anything happened. During that time Polly had been taken out of the Hurdles and put in the Relay and the 400 Meters, and asked to be a sailor as well as a courtier in the play. Also during this time Ivy kept telephoning to tell Polly all about her new lodger, Kenneth Curtis. She had had a couple of girls before that and had not got on with them. Kenneth, she wanted Polly to know, was different. "It's quite Platonic," she said, "but I feel so peaceful now. I think I may have got my hands on a little happiness at last." She wanted Polly to come round at least for a visit.

"Don't you," said Granny.

At last, the Sat.u.r.day before Polly was fourteen, a letter arrived from London. It was in the spiky, flowing writing of Sam Rensky.

Dear Polly, Tom wishes you, for some reason I can't understand, to consider the human back. He says there are many other matters you should consider too, but that was a particularly glaring example. He invites you, he says, to walk along a beach this summer and watch the male citizens there sunning themselves. There you will see backs-backs stringy, backs bulging, and backs with ingrained dirt. You will find, he says, yellow skin, blackheads, pimples, enlarged pores and tufts of hair. This is making me ill, but Tom says go on. Peelingsunburn, warts, boils, moles, midge bites and floppy rolls of skin. Even a back without these blemishes, he claims, seldom or never ripples, unless with gooseflesh. In fact, he defies you to find an inch of silk or a single powerful muscle in any hundred yards of average sunbathers. I hope you know what all this is about, because I don't. I think you should stay away from the seaside if you can.

Yours ever, Sam This, if possible, made Polly angrier still. She hurled the letter in the waste-bucket and stormed off for a walk. And, having walked some way in that direction, she decided angrily that she would, in spite of Granny's advice, go and visit Mum. Poor Ivy. She did so deserve a little happiness.

"Good Heavens!" Ivy said, opening the door to her. "I never expected your grandmother to let you near here. Well, come in, now you've come."

It was not very welcoming, but Polly went in and followed Ivy to the kitchen. The new lodger was sitting at the table over the same sort of substantial breakfast that Ivy used to give David. He was a stringy, quiet little man, with not very much hair brushed over to make it look more. When he saw Polly, he jumped up with such violent politeness that his chair fell over.

"Sit down, Ken," Ivy said soothingly. "She's only Polly."

Ken sat down guiltily. He had, Polly noticed, a mole on the side of his nose with a tuft of hair growing out of it. A vision came to her of how Ken would look on a beach. But Ivy seemed to like him well enough. She and Polly sat and chatted until Ken had finished eating. Then Ivy sent him to the living room to look for the newspaper Polly could see on the other chair.

When Ken had shuffled off, Ivy said, "You haven't quarreled with her her too now, have you?" too now, have you?"

"No," said Polly. "Of course not!"

"You do quarrel with people," said Ivy. "It's your besetting sin, Polly." Polly opened her mouth to protest, then shut it, almost with a snap, like Granny. She let Ivy go on, "But don't think you're goingto come back here. It wouldn't do at all. I can't have Ken upset."

When Ken came shuffling back to say there was no paper in there, Polly got up to leave. He looked puzzled. Polly said goodbye to Ken politely, because it was not Ken's fault, and left. As she walked back to Granny's house, it began to seem to her that she knew what Tom meant. She had Ivy's example to show her that there were ways of thought that were quite unreal, and the same ways went on being unreal even in hero business. Her first act on getting in was to rescue Sam's letter and shake the tea leaves off it. Her second act was to get out her own first copy of the huge narrative and look at it carefully.

She found she knew exactly what Tom meant. She writhed. Oddly enough, it was all the bits she had been most pleased with that now made her writhe hardest. She would have torn it up-except that it had taken such months to write. She wondered what she could do to show Tom she understood now. The book of tickets she was supposed to be selling for Twelfth Night Twelfth Night caught her eye, piled on a heap of other notices from school. caught her eye, piled on a heap of other notices from school.

She hesitated. Was it worth risking more reprisals from Mr. Leroy? "Why not?" she said. "He probably won't come."

Without giving herself time to regret it, she wrapped the tickets in all the other stuff-notices about uniform, the price of dinners, Sports Day, the Swimming Bath Appeal, and choir practice-and stuffed the lot in an envelope. Perhaps Mr. Leroy would think it was a bundle of wastepaper. She addressed the bulging envelope to Old Pimply Back at Sam Rensky's address and went daringly out and posted it herself.