18
Monday, 2 May 1966
Voices crackled on the car radio; the words were mangled and made no sense. Mary gazed out of the window at street after street that she did not know. The policewoman in front was talking into a thing on a telephone cord. Mary caught ‘foxtrot’. It was about Br’er Fox. She was stunned. Instead of Michael, Br’er Fox was going to eat her.
‘…we’re… Mary Thornton… to the parents… in Hammersmith. Arriving now…’
Mary’s eyes smarted; she was not going to die. The police car swung off the main road and she saw the sign for the new street: British Grove.
The policewoman pulled her out of the car. Mary’s satchel fell into the gutter, the strap around her ankle. She banged her head on the door, but acted like she hadn’t. The nice policeman who had given her a biscuit and orange juice was walking up the path.
‘Police Constable Terry Darnell, I’m happy to report that this little one’s as right as rain…’
Her mum hugged her so tightly she was lifted up and reached the house without moving her feet. She watched from the living room to see the nice man wave. He had told her his wife was having a baby. He would be a dad like her dad. He said he would be very sad indeed if it was a little girl and she ran away from him. Mary didn’t say that her dad liked boys best, that he wasn’t really her dad or that she wouldn’t run away from the nice policeman. No one called her little – that was Michael. She wished they did.
Mary gave a tiny wave when the police car moved off, but he was talking to the policewoman and didn’t see.
She discovered that she was not in trouble. She and Michael had beans on toast and a glass of milk for tea and her dad behaved as if they had both come home from school. Her mum watched them eat like she used to in the old house. Everything was back to normal.
Mary was three years older than Michael and since coming to the new house her bedtime had been promoted to eight o’clock, an hour later than his – a source of triumph for Mary and dismay for Michael. That evening neither child commented when they were put to bed at seven.
Mary submitted to the routine of washing, burrowing into her nightdress, cleaning her teeth and kissing goodnight. The point when Jean Thornton shut the door would be a signal for Mary to switch on her torch and read under the covers. Tonight she lay stiff as a board, staring at a spear of moonlight on the ceiling.
After a while, she could not have said how long, she saw her bedroom door handle turn and the door jerked open.
Michael was on the landing, hair sticking up, his pyjama jacket collar half turned in with one trouser leg bunched up. He waited until Mary struggled up to sit with her knees under her chin and then scampered into the room. He stopped and, returning to the door, shut it carefully without letting the latch click. He launched himself on to her bed. The springs groaned under his weight and something under his jacket rustled.
‘I brought you this,’ he confided in a hoarse whisper.
His sister did not move.
‘Mrs Berry gave it to me.’ He pulled out a bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate from his pyjama jacket with the flourish of a hankie from a hat. It had been opened and the foil was folded inadequately over the exposed chocolate. ‘Because I was very good when Mummy and Daddy were with the police. She told me not to give any to you. I have to have it all to myself because it’s mine.’ This information was uttered in a rasping hiss. Mary leant closer to catch it. ‘She made me have some of it with her looking.’
‘Who is Mrs Berry?’ Mary forgot to talk quietly.
‘She’s our new naay-bore.’ Michael pronounced the word with some pride.
‘Why can’t I have any?’ Mary already hated Mrs Berry. She aimed her torch at Michael.
‘Because of what you did.’ He sounded uncertain of the facts and brandished the bar under her nose. ‘I said I would save it for later. That was a good trick.’ He beamed.
‘Why did you say that? You never save things.’
‘So that you could have some. We always share and I would have told her, but I don’t think she would of let me keep it if I had of.’ He pivoted the bar on his sister’s knees; it see-sawed when he shuffled up the bed to her.
Mary took the bar and sat cross-legged beside Michael. She peeled back the foil. The chocolate had softened from being next to his skin. She tore off a soft segment, covering her fingers with chocolate, and handed it back to Michael. ‘Don’t get it on your pyjamas.’ She ripped off a smaller bit for herself.
The children munched ruminatively. They looked out at the rooftops beyond their new back garden. A light was on in one of the windows. A woman was sitting there. Every now and then she put up a hand and then lowered it. The square of light could be hanging in space.
‘She’s reading,’ Mary murmured.
‘How do you know?’ Michael breathed in her ear as he strained to see.
‘She does it every night.’
‘I think she might be painting a picture.’ Michael spoke seriously.
Mary handed him more chocolate, but did not take any herself. She had not liked to tell Michael she did not want it, that she had no appetite and the beans were still there, lurking like enemies. She tucked the rest into the foil and slipped it within the paper sleeve. She placed it beneath her pillow.
‘That’s for tomorrow night.’ She wiped her mouth with her hand.
‘Shall I come at the same time?’
‘What is the time?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Come when you hear the television go on.’
Michael clambered off the bed and, scuttling over the rug, sneaked out of the door with exaggerated determination. As he was about to shut it he stopped and regarded his sister, still sitting on top of the bedclothes.
‘Mary?’
‘What?’
‘I’m glad you didn’t run away after all.’ In the dark room, the moonlight made Michael pale, less substantial.
‘Come back tomorrow for the rest.’ Mary hopped under the blankets. The chocolate paper rustled when she repositioned her pillow. ‘Thanks for sharing.’
The door closed.
The following night, mechanically eating her way through the rest of the bar, Mary decided that the woman in the window was painting a picture.