The Rope and Other Stories Page 2

  Ginger said nothing.

  Shirley said nothing. She was looking at Mike, and Mike knew that, because she was his sister, she knew things about him that nobody else did.

  He just wanted to go home – to his own home. But that was impossible: he had to go back with the others to Gran's home, with his mother promising a hot bath and dry clothes, and his grandmother promising a tea with a very special summer treat. Apparently, while he and Shirley had been in the village buying comics, their grandmother and mother had been to a pick-your-own strawberry farm. There were strawberries and cream for tea. (The thought of it made Mike feel sick.)

  Surprisingly, Ginger was coming, too. Mike supposed that his grandmother had bullied Ginger into that; or perhaps Ginger really wanted to come. Anyway, arrangements had been made about dry clothes and shoes or sandals or flip-flops for Ginger as well as for himself.

  So they went home together. Shirley danced ahead in the triumph of her performance on the rope; then Gran, holding Ginger by her side in conversation; then Mum trailing a little behind, to encourage Mike; lastly, Mike – miserable Mike.

  Later, Mike and Ginger were in the bath together. This had not been their idea, but by now Gran spoke of them together as ‘the boys’. Because of her, they lay one at either end of her large bath, relaxing into the kindliness of hot, clean water. (They needed only to rinse off the river water, they had been told.) Now and then they shifted their limbs a little to start the ripples; they did not speak to each other.

  Then, slyly, Ginger splashed at Mike, and Mike splashed back; and then they fooled around with the bathwater, until Mike sat up and looked over the side of the bath and wondered whether his grandmother would be pleased at the mess. Ginger also sat up to look, and said that his mother would have been furious.

  Now they sat up at either end of the bath, facing each other, and Ginger said, ‘Your mum said you were going home tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you come again?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I thought it was really good, that “Whoops!” when you fell in. I fell in once, when I was caught in the middle, early on. I wish I'd thought of “Whoops!” then.’

  Mike said, ‘If we come again, I shan't go on the rope again… I don't want to… I didn't want to, this afternoon…’ He repeated fiercely, ‘I tell you, I didn't want to!’

  ‘You could have said,’ said Ginger.

  ‘No. I couldn't. I just couldn't.’

  Ginger accepted this in silence, but thoughtfully.

  The bathwater was cooling. Ginger, who sat at the tap-end, refreshed it with more hot water. Then he said, ‘I'll tell you something about my dad.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He's got a chain-saw. He cuts up wood. And once he nearly cut his thumb off. He had to go to hospital.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘He nearly cut his thumb off.’ Ginger began giggling uncontrollably. He was rocking with laughter, backwards and forwards in the bathwater, making waves that hit against Mike with a splash. He was almost screaming with laughter, and tears were running down his cheeks. He gasped out: ‘There was an awful lot of blood everywhere, and when I saw it, I – I fainted.’ On the last word, he became quite still and quiet, staring at Mike. He said, ‘I haven't told anyone. You don't live here, and you're going away tomorrow.’

  ‘We'll be coming back some day,’ said Mike, ‘because of our gran.’

  ‘You won't tell,’ said Ginger.

  ‘No,’ said Mike. He pondered. ‘Blood – that's funny. Shirley fell out of a tree once and cut her head. She howled a lot, but she didn't mind the blood; nor did I.

  ‘Much blood?’

  ‘Quite a bit. But I didn't mind.’

  Ginger patted the surface of the bathwater with his hand. ‘Funny…’ he said.

  Mike fished around in his mind for something his mother often remarked – nothing very witty or original, but just true: ‘People are different,’ he said.

  Shirley came hammering on the door to tell them the tea was made and the strawberries were on the table and she wanted to begin.

  So they got out of the bath and dried and dressed as best they could and went downstairs together, to the kitchen. Tea was laid in the kitchen, on a table with a white cloth, and in the middle of the cloth was a huge bowl piled high with strawberries, ripe and red and shiny; there was cream in a jug; and sugar in a basin; and the sight did not make Mike feel sick.

  Gran was sitting behind the teapot, and she was calling to them: ‘Come in – come in, to a feast for heroes!’

  So they went in to tea.

  Early Transparent

  Agrey squirrel impudently ran on the Chapmans' lawn – skipped and ran and then suddenly froze in attention. Then, as suddenly, it streaked towards a fruit tree and up into its invisibility.

  The old man glared out on the scene from his invalid chair in the glassed-in veranda. His mouth had made a sound which was not intelligible to his wife or to his grandson standing by. But they recognized it as some word, and a word of rage.

  ‘Why's Grandpa so angry?’ whispered the boy.

  His grandmother whispered back: ‘They're thieves. They steal the fruit. Soon they'll be digging holes in the lawn for their nuts - our hazelnuts – against the winter. Then, after all that, they forget where they've hidden them! Your grandfather has never had any patience with them.’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘And that old war-wound troubles him more than ever. That puts his nerves on edge.’

  She bent over the old man and kissed the top of his head so lightly that probably he did not know it.

  So Nicky thought. He was on only a short visit to his grandparents. The last time he had stayed, his grandfather had been well and strong in spite of his age, and in spite of the war-wound that people were always going on about. He had not needed a wheelchair; he had been clear in his speech – often bitingly clear when he complained or objected. In excuse for his short temper, the old lady would murmur yet again about his having been so badly wounded in the war – and, if he happened to overhear, he would blow up in scorching fury.

  Now he was different, and Nicky was uneasy with the change.

  But, anyway, Nicky would be home again soon. For his birthday. That looming event determined the longest he could possibly be expected to stay. His mother had said, ‘Granny so loved having you visit – you remember the expeditions she used to take you on? And now she hardly gets out at all, because of Grandpa's being – well, because of Grandpa's being as he is. You could cheer her up; perhaps help her a bit. Go to the shop for her, for instance. Garden. Odd jobs here and there. You're old enough.’

  Nicky didn't like the idea of that; but he supposed that he could help a bit. Now they were moving back into the house from the veranda, leaving old Mr Chapman in his chair, still sitting in the sun. The veranda took most of the light from the living-room against which it had been built. The room was already shadowy and a little musty-smelling – but with a thin, fresh sweetness through the mustiness. A bowl of fruit stood in the middle of the big table.

  Nicky said, ‘Shall I go to the shop for you, Granny?’

  She smiled at him delightedly: ‘What a kind thought!’ (Nicky shuffled his feet, knowing that the thought was only second-hand.) ‘But everything's shut by now. And, anyway, you've come to enjoy yourself while you're here. Perhaps with Jeremy Gillespie? You get on so well, don't you? He's on holiday too, of course, and at home.’

  ‘Oh, Jeremy… Yes…’ Jeremy was the boy of about Nicky's age and only two houses along that his grandmother had decided would make the ideal holiday friend.

  ‘But you'll have to wait until tomorrow for Jeremy. Then, after breakfast, there's a job for you both, to pick Early Transparents before the squirrels get them all. There's a bumper crop this year.’ She took the bowl of fruit from the table – and the sweetness moved in the air as the fruit moved. She held the bowl under Nicky's nose. ‘Smell them. Then, before you eat one, try it ag
ainst the light.’

  Then came the little speech on the so-called transparency of these greengages – a speech always before made fretfully by his grandfather. But now his grandmother spoke it gently, almost laughing: ‘Of course, they're not really transparent: you can't see right through them, as if they were made of glass. They're only translucent: you can see the light through the ripe ones. You should be able to see the darkness – the shadow – of the stone in the middle, against the light.’

  Nicky held up one of the greengages against the sunset light from the veranda. He peered: ‘I can't see any shadow.’

  ‘You need to hold it against a better light. Tomorrow morning, perhaps.’

  Neither of them mentioned the possibility of switching on the electric light. Artificial light was not what you used in testing an Early Transparent.

  Nicky turned and turned the fruit, then gave up and popped it whole into his mouth. The resistance of the skin to his teeth, and then the almost-liquid rush of softness and sweetness! – For those few seconds he was dazed by Early Transparency.

  He had even closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his grandmother – to his astonishment – was in tears. She recovered herself instantly: ‘was just thinking of a child – of your mother as a child – of her picking Early Transparents.’

  Nicky couldn't see the point of crying over a thing like that, but his grandmother was briskly going on: ‘Now, if you and Jeremy find squirrels at the tree before you, don't try any tricks with them. They can be very vicious with those teeth!’

  ‘Of course not, Granny, said Nicky.’ His mind, however, was not on the squirrels but on Jeremy. The thought of sharing the picking of the first Early Transparents with Jeremy Gillespie depressed him. As his mother always pointed out, there was absolutely nothing wrong with Jeremy. Yet the idea of him lowered Nicky's spirits.

  Cheerily now old Mrs Chapman promised him: ‘You two can start picking straight after breakfast tomorrow morning. If it's fine.’

  But it wasn't fine. Rain began in the night and continued most of the next day. Even before Nicky was down for breakfast, a new plan had had to be made on the telephone with Jeremy Gillespie's mother: the Early Transparents were postponed until tomorrow, and meanwhile Nicky and his grandmother would go shopping in the town centre. And no, Jeremy would not come with them because he wanted to work on his Holiday Project (‘Oh,’ said Nicky as neutrally as he could); and yes, all this meant old Mr Chapman would have been left alone in the house, but Mrs Chapman could get a friend to sit with him and give him his lunch.

  In town they shopped, and Mrs Chapman bought Nicky his birthday present – something he wanted and something of which she could approve. There was a craze for poster-making at the moment, so Nicky chose a set of coloured crayons, the rather expensive sort with brilliant, deep colours. Back home again, his grandmother first of all checked that his grandfather was all right and thanked the friend and said goodbye to her; then, enjoying herself, she set to wrapping the crayon-pack in birthday paper. ‘You mustn't open the parcel until your birthday morning,’ she told Nicky; and she put it inside his holiday suitcase to take home with him.

  For the rest of that wet afternoon Nicky and his grandmother played board games and Nicky watched TV with his grandfather. (His grandmother said that she disliked what they showed on television nowadays.) In any fine interval they could glimpse the squirrels towards the bottom of the garden, where the greengage tree grew just out of sight. ‘They'll be at the Early Transparents,’ his grandmother sighed. ‘Well, at least, this year, there's plenty for all.’

  That night, at sunset, the sky was red, which gave old Mrs Chapman much satisfaction: ‘Shepherd's delight, she said, meaning a fine day to come. And her husband, who had apparently heard and understood her, gave a loud exclamation unmistakably of scorn, so that she whispered to Nicky, ‘He means I talk poppycock – that's always been his word. I irritate him,’ she added humbly.

  But the evening's weather forecast bore out Mrs Chapman's hopes; and she telephoned the Gillespies to remake arrangements for the next day.

  As he listened to her on the telephone, Nicky found a wild resolve forming in his mind. His grandmother had always stressed that they could start picking only after breakfast. But, saying nothing to anybody, Nicky would begin picking before breakfast – well before breakfast, and before Jeremy Gillespie could possibly be turning up. That meant getting up really early; but after all, these were Early Transparents, weren't they? So the early morning seemed right.

  Moreover, quite alone, he would be able to eat morning fruit fresh from the tree.

  After supper, Granny had to get Grandpa to bed, and she was already tired by the morning's shopping. So they were all in bed in very good time – Nicky much earlier than he would have been at home. He did not mind that, because he supposed he would wake earlier; and so he did.

  He lay in bed, listening carefully. From his grandparents' bedroom, two snores: one a regular, gentle sighing sound; the other rasping and deep with an occasional snuffling exclamation – old Mr Chapman suffered from dreams of the war in which he had fought years ago. Sometimes he used actually to scream aloud and wake himself – and his wife – from a nightmare. But not tonight.

  And the night was really over by now. Cautiously Nicky got out of bed and dressed to let himself out into the garden.

  There he found himself in a hushed time between birdsong and the start of human activity. He did not wish to disturb this quiet. He trod measuredly over the wet grass. He saw no raiding squirrels as he went. He reached the end of the garden, where the Early Transparent tree grew in a corner where garden fencing met hedge.

  The branches of the tree were bowed down with the fruit as he had never seen them before. Last year there had been only a very poor crop; the year before that he had not even been here at the right time; and before that – well, he could not certainly remember. But this year! His grandmother had said ‘plenty’ – and oh! the plenitude of it, the brimming abundance, the munificence! The morning sunshine lit up the fruit everywhere – larger than ordinary greengages and plump, with the lightest of blooms breathed on the skins and a freckling of red. Ripe, ready, and so many – so many!

  As he gazed, one particular fruit seemed to present itself to him, to invite him. He stretched out his hand and touched it and, at his touch, it fell into the palm of his hand. He held it up between finger and thumb towards the sun, and the morning sunlight shone through it, and – yes, this time he saw clearly the shadow of the stone at the very heart of the fruit.

  And, out of the corner of his eye, saw something else. Hardly a movement – a presence. And looked past the fruit he was holding and met the fixed gaze of eyes. Not the eyes of any wild creature, but wild all the same, with a stare of terror. He saw – how could he have missed it earlier? – a child who stood absolutely still among the leaves and branches and looked at him and also through him and beyond him with that stare of horror. The child was clutching a handful of Early Transparents to its chest.

  Their gaze was locked, without wink or blink, until Nicky drew breath. Then: ‘You're stealing!’ he accused. ‘Stealing!’ he repeated in a shout, because he was somehow frightened by the child. The child's mouth opened as if it might speak, but did not; and the mouth remained open, a little black hole of silence. And the eyes still stared and stared.

  As though his shout had raised an alarm, a door banged distantly from the direction of the house and his grandmother's voice was calling his name – calling to him again and again and (he realized) coming swiftly closer. He turned his head towards the sound and when he turned his gaze back, the child had gone. Where it had been, the leaves were still moving; but the child had gone.

  ‘What are you doing? Oh, what are you doing?’ his grandmother was calling, and now he saw her. She was still in her nightdress, and running barefoot over the wet grass towards him, her grey hair uncombed, unarranged.

  She reached him; she clutched him. ‘Nicky, what
have you done?’

  ‘There was someone stealing your Early Transparents.’

  ‘The child – only the child. Only a little girl.’ His grandmother began to weep, just as she had wept so unexpectedly on the day of his arrival. ‘She thinks nobody knows that she comes. But I know, and I don't mind – no, I'm glad for her, poor child.’

  ‘But, Granny –’

  His grandmother was rushing on. ‘She's come to stay with some cousin who lives down the road. There's no one else where she comes from; her family all dead, all killed. Nicky, she was found underneath them all, the only one left alive; and since then she doesn't speak. She can't speak. And she stares…’

  His grandmother's headlong, sobbing speech bewildered Nicky. But now they both heard from the house the irregular ringing of a bell – the bell that always stood within close reach of Mr Chapman, in case he needed anything or anyone. The ringing sounded impatient, angry.

  ‘I must go to him,’ said Mrs Chapman, calming herself. Without another word, she turned and ran back to the house. Nicky followed her. He had no more thought of the Early Transparents. He found the one he had picked to eat still in his hand when he reached the house. Violently he flung it towards the bottom of the garden for the squirrels to find.

  Old Mr Chapman's getting up and dressed and to the breakfast table was a slow and difficult business. He was cantankerous, and kept his wife busy until the very end of breakfast. By then Jeremy Gillespie had arrived, which seemed to annoy the old man further. (Fortunately Jeremy Gillespie did not notice.)

  The picking was to begin at once. Mrs Chapman gave each boy a basket, and Jeremy set off immediately towards the bottom of the garden. She held Nicky back for a moment, while she put a finger to her lips. He nodded.

  All the same, while they were picking, he said casually, ‘My granny says there's a funny girl staying down this road – I mean, she's strange. So my gran says.’

  ‘She's foreign,’ said Jeremy. ‘Quite young. Staying with some distant relative. Nobody sees her. She doesn't go out. She's too scared.’