The Dun Cow Rib Read online

  Mrs Warmley returned the white-faced Hewitt to his remade bed. ‘Please try and make it to the lavatory if it happens again,’ she implored as she tucked him up. ‘Now straight back to sleep, please, boys.’

  In class Twig was vile. We dreaded her lessons; longed for the gentle caress of Mrs Warmley’s kindness. I was a precocious reader, taught on my mother’s knee. At six I could read well. I loved books. ‘You’ll never feel lonely with a book,’ my mother had said. Mrs Warmley had smiled generously: ‘I hear you love reading. That’s marvellous.’ But it was Twig who took us for reading lessons. ‘We’ll see,’ she had sneered.

  In one of her first lessons she had handed out an early-reader picture book about a Mr Fox with a narrow snout and long whiskers, pointed black ears, slanty eyes and a long bushy tail. He lived in a burrow house with a green door set among the roots of a huge tree on a bank. The five or six lines of text on each page were large, printed below extravagant and jaunty illustrations. Night after night Mr Fox snatched chickens from a farm until the farmer called in the hunt. It chased him over the hills and far away; a timeless country tale made all the simpler to comprehend because I was a country boy and so familiar with it. I read it in a flash, flicking through the twelve pages to the end. Twig saw me close it.

  ‘Open the book,’ she screeched.

  ‘I’ve read it,’ I answered, unwisely.

  ‘Oh, he’s read it!’ she jeered to the whole class. ‘Did you hear that, boys? Well, you’d better come up here and read it out loud to us all.’ I got up and shuffled forward. ‘Face the class.’ She spat the words at me.

  I had read it, diligently, right through. It began ‘Beneath an old oak tree on the edge of the wood . . .’, but that first large capital letter ‘B’ of the first word on the first page was not a proper letter. It didn’t resemble anything I had ever seen in an alphabet. It was a fox slouching against the bank with its legs crossed and its body and tail fashioned into an ornate and indecipherable B. I couldn’t recognize it as a ‘B’ at all. Or anything else. And the rest of the word in normal script ‘eneath’ meant nothing to me. So I left it out, starting ‘an old oak tree on the edge . . .’

  ‘Start at the beginning.’ She cut me off, voice edged with malice as sharp as vinegar. Her wobbly eye zoomed off on its own. I faltered, battling with tears prickling my eyelids. ‘Come along,’ she insisted. ‘Read.’

  ‘Please, Miss Beech, I can’t read that first . . .’

  ‘Oh, you can’t read, eh? Did you hear that, boys? He can’t read. I thought you said you’d read it all.’

  ‘I have, Miss Beech, honestly, but I can’t . . .’

  ‘But you can’t read. That’s it, isn’t it? You were lying. You can’t even read the first word.’ The tears won. ‘And now you’re blubbing because you’ve been caught out. Get back to your seat and don’t you ever lie to me and the class again.’

  At the end of the lesson she told me to go to her room. ‘Bend down and touch your toes.’

  9

  London

  ‘Mrs Warmley wants to see you,’ Twig growled as we filed into the dining room. ‘Go to her room after breakfast.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough. Now stop dawdling.’ She stalked away. Fear flooded in, edged and bitter in my throat. Was I in trouble? What had I done? What was happening?

  I asked Betty. ‘Dunno,’ he whispered with an empty, unhappy face, immediately afraid he was in trouble too.

  Every once in a while there was a random inspection of our tuck boxes and lockers, usually by Twig. If we’d been given sweets we had to hand them in – bull’s eyes, sherbet lemons, humbugs, toffees and barley sugars – to be pooled and shared out on Sundays. Sweet rationing had only just been lifted; sugar and cocoa had been unobtainable throughout the war. To many boys they were almost a novelty, certainly a luxury. My mother had made me some peppermint creams in little screws of greaseproof paper. She had written loving messages on each one encrypted with a code: ILY. It was our secret. I hated handing the sweets in, but had to. Every Sunday I looked out for them on the tray as it was passed round. They never appeared, but I knew where they had gone.

  A few weeks earlier I had been summoned to Twig’s room for some minor misdemeanour. I stood staring at the floor while she dressed me down. ‘Yes, Miss Beech,’ I heard myself mutter, ‘Sorry, Miss Beech.’ My eyes strayed to one side. There were the dreaded gym shoes on the floor beside her waste paper basket. I found myself staring down at several of those precious screws of paper with my mother’s handwriting clearly visible – ILY. Tears welled up. ‘Oh, do stop snivelling,’ she had sneered.

  ‘Sorry, Miss Beech.’

  ‘And stop saying sorry when you don’t mean it. Go away.’ Bursting with rage and antipathy I ran to the lavatories to dry my eyes. Hurt and anger were flaring in my head like a Roman candle, the hurt of injustice and the anger of a child’s utter impotence. I kicked the lavatory door and then ran to tell Betty.

  ‘She’s a pig,’ he said.

  I wondered why clean clothes had been put out for me that morning. Grey flannel shirt, long socks, my Sunday short trousers and blazer. Timidly I knocked on Mrs Warmley’s door. ‘Ah, good. Come along in, John.’ Her voice was calm; a velvet kindness issued in waves, like a tropical breeze. The dangling fountain pen was strangely reassuring. Tension avalanched away. I was still puzzled, but I knew it wasn’t trouble. ‘My goldfish need feeding.’ She moved a chair over to the fizzing tank. ‘Would you like to do it?’

  ‘Yes, PLEASE.’

  ‘Hop up here.’ She handed me a little tub of flakey, multicoloured food. ‘Now just a pinch between your fingers – that’s it – spread it around a bit to make sure they all get some. That’s enough. You mustn’t overfeed them because it makes the tank smelly.’ I could hear her jaw clicking beside my ear. The fish mouthed ‘O’s at the flakes and darted away, returning again almost immediately. I was fascinated. ‘Jump down,’ she spoke gently, but the breeze had shifted, chill slithering in. Something was wrong. She sat down and the fountain pen vanished into its mammary crevasse. ‘Now, John, your father is coming to collect you at eleven o’clock. I’m afraid your mother is not very well.’

  Not very well? What did that mean? She was often not very well – everyone knew that. Had she caught a cold or was it the ’flu I’d heard so much about? I didn’t like to ask. It didn’t seem very unusual or very important; besides, a burst of sunlight had shafted through – I was going HOME. The joy of it was pinging around in my head like the bagatelle mother and I often played together. I wanted to shout out, Yippee! But I didn’t. School had engendered a dampening sense of decorum. Mrs Warmley was Mrs Warmley, the headmistress, and I liked her. I liked her all the more because Twig was so vile. And this was her room. You didn’t shout Yippee! in Mrs Warmley’s room, even if you thought you were going home.

  She saw my face light up and hurried to soften the blow. ‘You’ll be away for the weekend. Your father will bring you back on Monday. Matron has put some overnight things in a bag for you.’ She nodded towards a small holdall near the door. I stared at it. I’d never needed an overnight bag if I was going home before. ‘What’s that for?’ The words were out before I could stop them. She sensed the bewilderment straightaway. She stood up. There was the pen again, its marbling catching the light, wobbling as she spoke. ‘You’ll need it for where you’re staying in London.’

  ‘London? Why am I going to London? Aren’t I going home?’ Hope teetered like a jogged vase about to fall.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. Your mother is in hospital in London, John. You’re going to see her there.’

  ‘Oh.’

  * * *

  My world had imploded. Not because she was in hospital but because I wasn’t going home. I was used to her being away. No threat there, that was normal. But HOME, that was different. Home was freedom: the unfettered freedom of gardens beneath scudding clouds, woods and fields, catching minnows and sticklebacks in st
reams. The rough caress of tree climbing; the velvet nose of the old grey mare in the orchard twitching and slobbering against my hand as I fed her slices of apple; the moorhens’ soggy nest on the pond; turning stones for great-crested newts like miniature dragons. Home was the prattling chitter of starlings and sparrows nesting in the Manor House stables’ roof; newborn kittens in a manger of sweet hay; finding the fox in the oak stump or peering into the dank gloom of a badger sett in the paddock bank. ‘Mr Brock lives down there,’ my grandfather had said. ‘Can you smell ’im?’ I knelt on the sandy mound of their diggings, bent to the hole and breathed deeply. ‘He’s all right, Mr Brock is. He’s a grumpy old blighter, but he minds his own business.’

  My father arrived. ‘Hullo, old chap. Jump in.’ Tobacco as rich as cinnamon; the flickering indicator that stuck out of the side of the car. The Bakelite ashtray again – out-in-out-in. ‘Damn and blast!’ he cursed when a bus pulled out in front of us as we swept into a town. I was relieved when we hit country again. Woods and fields I knew and understood.

  ‘How much further?’

  ‘Not long now.’

  Suddenly more buildings than I had ever seen. Taxis. Buses. People walking and on bicycles. Earls Court on a sign. ‘South Ken,’ he said as though I ought to know what it was. A hotel – De Vere . . . something? A bell-boy in a maroon uniform and a pill-box hat carried my bag. ‘Look sharp, old bean.’ Up some carpeted stairs, two at a time. He gave the maroon lad a sixpence. A room with two beds, flat wooden bars head and feet, and a marble washstand with a mirror; bath and lavatory along the corridor

  ‘Can we see Mummy now?’

  ‘All right, old thing. On our way.’

  Small hand clutching huge, we stepped out into the street. Traffic again. Red double-deckers, people in raincoats, crowded pavements, long queues at bus stops. Men in bowler hats with umbrellas, striding out. Pigeons in the gutter. Half-running to keep up. ‘Taxi! – Brompton Hospital, please.’ The cab rattled. Brakes squealed. I noticed his fingers were raw round his nails, one thumb was bleeding and my father kept sucking it. ‘Three bob, please, gov.’ The taxi rattled away. Then steps and a brass handrail. Steps with shiny metal edges, down, down, down and round and down again, into a tunnel.

  I can see that tunnel clearly. Its walls were cream and its ceiling domed in a complete semi-circle, pipes and cables pinned to it, wartime posters on the walls. One showed a smiling nurse. ‘Make nursing your . . .’ The bottom bit torn away. Another said ‘Don’t forget your gas mask’ underneath a picture of someone wearing one just like ours. He tugged me along. The steel plates on his brogues’ heels rang out on the concrete floor. Nurses in royal blue capes with scarlet linings and stiff white caps, blue bands crisscrossed in front, came toward us in twos and threes, laughing.

  ‘Why are they laughing?’ I asked.

  ‘Prob’ly going off duty,’ he replied distantly. ‘Heading home.’

  I wished I were heading home.

  ‘Are we going home tomorrow?’ A nagging hope surfaced.

  ‘No. Sorry, old thing. Back to school tomorrow night.’ My heart sank. Then he continued, ‘But I’ll tell you what – we’ve got a new house.’

  ‘Oh,’ I uttered, nonplussed. Why do we need a new house? I wondered. ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s down in Somerset, a place called Martock. I need to be down there for work. You’ll really love it.’ I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t imagine loving anywhere other than the Manor House. ‘Will Nellie be there?’ I asked.

  ‘No, of course not, you silly old thing. Nellie’s needed where she is.’ The conversation died. Whatever my father intended by tipping in that bit of news had passed me by. If it was meant as a distraction it failed dismally, just another worry.

  The tunnel echoed and seemed never-ending. ‘We’re under the Fulham Road,’ he volunteered, changing tack. He could have said under Timbuktu or the Taj Mahal. I’d never heard of the Fulham Road – never been to London. ‘If you put your ear to the wall you can hear the traffic up above.’ I did. There was a sort of rumble, but I wouldn’t have known what it was. ‘We’ll come up inside the hospital. Nearly there.’ I ran ahead.

  He tapped out his pipe on the wall and buried it in his pocket. A lift with clanky sliding gates you could see through – two gates. Inside smelt of Jeyes Fluid. I thought of Twig in the dorm. A smile flickered and died. Up, past more clanky gates without stopping, and more. A whining noise and a clunk. We stopped with a jerk. Clank-slidey-clank. Twice. A wave of heat and a bright corridor. ‘Ward 6,’ my father muttered. We followed signs, turned a corner. Nurses bustled past. A man in stripy pyjamas was pushed past on a trolley. His eyes were lost in sunken hollows and his toothless mouth gaped.

  ‘Is that man dead?’ I asked when he’d gone past.

  ‘Hope not,’ my father replied, glancing back. ‘He’s prob’ly just ill.’

  So that is what an ill man looks like. I walked backwards staring at him as he was wheeled away. ‘Have you ever seen a dead man?’

  ‘That’s enough of that. Come on.’ He sounded cross, hand gripping tighter, almost hurting. Huge ribbed radiators lined the walls, painted cream like school, but bigger, much bigger. I ran my fingers along the ribs. Then a big sign: SILENCE.

  Three beds in a row, my mother in the furthest from the door. We smiled lamely at the women in the first two. One didn’t smile back. She looked really miserable. I broke free and ran. We hugged. I buried my face in her satin bed jacket. I breathed her in. Father leant over us and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Hullo, old girl,’ he whispered. He pulled up a chair. I clung on and on. She looked the same to me. Sounded the same. Smelt the same. Felt the same. Warm, soft, silky. Perfume like old roses and her bed at home. Everything was all right. Everything MUST be all right. I said, ‘Mrs Warmley said you weren’t very well.’ Her silvery laugh rippled out as though I had made a joke. We all laughed, although I had no idea why. At seven you don’t do irony.

  For a few minutes my parents spoke almost as though they were strangers on a train. A stretched awkwardness seemed to pervade the ward, the very British awkwardness of stilted reserve, of buttoned-up decorum and constraint, of an inhibiting dignity and topical banalities aired between long, lofty silences. It was 1953, for God’s sake. Princess Margaret wanted to marry Peter Townsend. A divorcee. ‘Outrageous!’ I heard my father say. The very suggestion. The Church had said ‘NO’. ‘Quite right,’ he added crisply. God save the queen.

  A little while later two men in long white coats came in and straight to her bed. My father stood up. ‘Hullo,’ said the nearly bald man with a beaky nose, smiling, stethoscope round his neck like a pet snake. ‘I’m Doctor Wood. This is Mr Brock, our surgeon.’ He was thicker set and wore glasses with dark frames, hiding even darker eyes with pinpoint irises that seemed too small for their whites. He looked stern, a face of serious intent and implacable distinction. They both shook hands with my father. ‘How do you do?’ said Mr Brock, stiff as a pillar.

  ‘Shall we go?’ my father asked.

  ‘No, no.’ Dr Wood insisted amiably, swinging the end of his stethoscope in a circle as he stuffed it into his coat pocket. ‘Please stay.’ He was nodding and grinning, his face bright with confidence and understanding. ‘We just wanted to say hullo to your wife, a quick chat.’ I began to warm to this doctor. There was something easy about him, a mix of kindness like Mrs Warmley but a jolliness too, barely suppressed. He turned to my mother. ‘Are you comfortable, my dear? We won’t see you over the weekend, but we’ll be back in again on Monday. If everything’s OK you’ll be going up on Tuesday, first thing.’

  I saw my father wince. He was sucking his thumb again. But she was beaming. ‘This is my son, John,’ she said, quickly changing the subject. ‘He’s at boarding school.’ It sounded like an announcement, as if I was far more important than anything to do with doctors and hospitals. I felt a rush of blood, cheeks firing.

  ‘Hullo, John.’ A sunburst smile lit up his whole face. ‘That’s a
very smart blazer you’ve got.’ I liked Dr Wood even more. He stepped forward to shake my hand and made a little bow. And then, ‘This is Mr Brock.’ Mr Brock nodded. A quick flicker of a smile shot through and vanished.

  ‘I know a Mr Brock,’ I said. ‘He lives in a burrow near our house.’

  ‘Jay!’ My mother sounded shocked. ‘Don’t be so silly.’

  Doctor Wood leaned forward and fixed me with steely blue eyes. ‘Would that be Mr Tommy Brock, by any chance?’

  For a second and a half I was fazed. How did this friendly doctor in a white coat know about badgers? How did he know about Beatrix Potter’s badger? Surely he didn’t read children’s books. But those blue eyes weren’t intimidating in the least. He was waiting for an answer. I had to join in, drawing courage from the blithe self-assurance of the innocent. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s him. He’s a smelly old badger and Mr Tod the fox tries to tip a bucket of water over his head while he’s in bed.’

  A great guffaw broke from Doctor Wood, head thrown back. ‘There you are, Russell! He’s got the measure of you.’ We all laughed. I felt Doctor Wood was a real friend. A few minutes later Mr Brock asked if they could have a private word with my father. The three of them left the ward together.

  That night, when he tucked me up in the hotel bed, my father spoke in a sombre voice. ‘Mummy’s going to have an operation next week.’ The skin round his thumb was still oozing blood. He looked uncomfortable, rocked and not properly fitting into even his austere paternal skin, not quite sure whether to sit on the bed or not.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, not having the remotest idea what it meant, because it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. I had seen her, held her tight. She had laughed and kissed me goodbye when we left. She was OK. Nothing was wrong. She was the same old Mum, my mum, and that was all that mattered.

  10

  Bartonfield