Queenie Read online

  ‘It’s such a strain, seeing your kiddy trussed up like this,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘And it’s so far for me to come. I live right over Burlington way. I have to get the train and then that awful local bus that goes all round the moon, and you still have to walk miles. My feet are killing me.’ She slipped a high-heeled shoe off and rubbed her slim white foot. Martin’s mother frowned and looked at her own sensible fringed flatties, though she didn’t comment.

  Martin’s father stared at Mum’s foot. ‘Perhaps we could give you a lift part of the way home in our car?’ he suggested.

  ‘To Burlington! We can’t possibly go that far – and I thought you said we were low on petrol,’ Martin’s mother murmured.

  Martin’s father looked determined to give Mum a lift, even if he had to personally push his car every inch of the way.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble,’ said Mum.

  He said it was no trouble at all, and could he at least drive her to the railway station? When this was agreed, he turned his attention back to Martin, making up mental arithmetic problems and getting him to shout out the answer. He even timed him with a stop watch, only giving him a minute.

  ‘Why don’t you join in too, Elsie – make a little game of it?’ said Mum.

  I thought this an appalling idea. I was nearly always bottom of the class at mental arithmetic. I shook my head firmly.

  Martin didn’t look as if he were enjoying the game either. His face went very red every time his dad barked ‘Wrong!’ or ‘Out of time!’

  Martin’s mother objected softly, saying: ‘Don’t you think that’s enough, dear? Martin’s getting a bit tired now.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Martin’s dad. ‘He needs to keep his brain active. Just because his body’s useless it doesn’t mean his mind can go to sleep too. And it’s fun, isn’t it, Martin, old boy?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Martin, through gritted teeth.

  Martin’s mother was taking in that my male parent was missing. While there was an agonized wait for Martin to work out how much change he would get out of a pound note if he brought twelve Christmas cards at tuppence ha’penny and nine Christmas cards at a penny three farthing (extra time allowed), she leaned over towards my mother.

  ‘Is your husband working today, dear?’ she asked.

  Mum flushed a little. I willed her to tell a quick lie – but she took a warped pride in telling the truth and disconcerting people. ‘I haven’t got a husband,’ she said evenly.

  ‘Oh!’ said Martin’s mother. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, dear!’ She obviously jumped to the wrong conclusion. She lowered her voice to a sympathetic hiss. ‘Did you lose him recently?’

  Mum looked at me, then looked back at Martin’s mother, arching her eyebrows. It was clear she was indicating that she didn’t want to talk about it in front of me. Martin’s mother nodded understandingly, and offered me one of Martin’s Crunchie bars.

  I was already feeling queasy from the fruit gums and chocolate, but I ate it all up even so.

  When the bell rang for the end of visiting time, I waved to Mum until she disappeared. Then I lay very still, wondering how it was possible to feel so full and so empty at the same time.

  IT WASN’T JUST me. Everyone seemed upset and restless after visiting time. Even sunny little Michael, who only ever cried when he was given his injections, started wailing fitfully, and deliberately knocked his milk mug over, so that his whole bed had to be changed.

  Nurse Patterson and Nurse Curtis weren’t really cross with him, but they did tut amongst themselves.

  ‘It’s always the way – and they’ll be even worse on Sunday night,’ said Nurse Patterson. ‘If I had my way, parents would be banned. They just unsettle the kiddies.’

  ‘And feed them too many sweeties and make them feel sick,’ said Nurse Curtis, holding a pot under Babette’s chin. She’d eaten three Mars bars in a row and was bitterly regretting it.

  Nurse Patterson read us another magic tree story, but even that seemed to have the Saturday blues. The children climbed up the ladder into a scary new land where they were attacked by polar bears. Martin and Gillian and I weren’t scared at all, but Rita started gasping like a goldfish out of water and had to put her head in a paper bag and breathe slowly until she felt better – and the little ones were all round-eyed with worry.

  Nurse Patterson closed the book mid-chapter, in spite of a chorus of protests. ‘What’s the matter with you, you silly babies! You’re frightened half to death,’ she said. ‘I can’t possibly read any more – you’ll get nightmares.’

  ‘Pooh, it’s not a bit scary. It’s soppy. Who could ever be scared of polar bears? I love polar bears, especially baby Brumas at London Zoo,’ said Martin.

  ‘Go on, Nurse Patterson – read, please,’ said Gillian.

  ‘But look what the story’s done to your poor little pal Rita,’ said Nurse Patterson.

  ‘Oh, Rita’s a baby,’ said Gillian unkindly.

  ‘I’m not, I’m not – it’s my asthma!’ Rita gasped, still with her head inside the paper bag. ‘Go on, Nurse Patterson, I want to hear the end of the story too.’

  But Nurse Patterson was adamant. We had to make do with the half-chapter – and everyone blamed poor Rita.

  I was mean enough to be secretly thrilled that she was now despised as one of the soppy little kids, even by her best friend Gillian – whereas I was now one of the big bold ones who had clamoured for more.

  I waited until Nurse Patterson and Nurse Curtis were busy in the bathroom – and then I started.

  ‘I’ll tell a bit more of that polar bear story, shall I?’ I said.

  ‘No!’ cried Rita.

  ‘No, we’ve heard it all before, Gobface,’ said Martin. ‘It’s a stupid baby story. Those children always get away in the nick of time and go back down the tree. Yawn yawn yawn.’

  ‘I know a different story,’ I said. ‘Who’s coming up my tree with me? It’s quite a struggle to climb it. The branches are ever so far apart. The little ones can’t climb it by themselves. I suppose we could give them a piggyback but it would be very, very dangerous.’

  ‘You’re daft – you can’t climb. None of us can. We’re all on bed rest,’ said Rita sulkily.

  ‘We can climb all we want in my story,’ I said. ‘Leastways, I can climb, and Gillian and Martin. I’m not sure about you.’

  ‘I can climb if you can,’ said Rita.

  ‘But do you really want to? Remember the polar bears lurking at the very top of the tree, in the land beyond the clouds.’

  ‘There aren’t any real polar bears – Nurse Patterson promised. And there’ll be another land at the top of the tree next time,’ said Rita, but she sounded uncertain.

  ‘Oh well, you and Nurse Patterson can stick in your silly storybook version. But Martin and Gillian and me are climbing up the tree, up and up. Whoops – a huge great bird like an eagle just flew out of its nest and very nearly got caught up in Gillian’s ponytail!’

  ‘No, it didn’t!’ said Gillian.

  ‘That’s right – it just missed and you were very brave and swatted it away,’ I said.

  ‘An actual eagle, with a hooked beak?’ said Martin.

  ‘This one had a very hooked beak, and it had a squirmy mouse hanging out of it.’

  ‘Shut up, Gobface,’ said Rita, and Babette and Maureen squealed.

  ‘Ssh! We don’t want a nurse to come. Just stop your ears up if you don’t want to listen. Now, we’re climbing the tree, right?’

  ‘La-la-la, this is boring,’ said Rita rudely.

  ‘What other birds can we see? What about a buzzard? Or a kite?’ said Martin, who obviously knew far more about birds than I did.

  ‘I think one day there will be a whole land of birds up at the top of the tree – and we’ll grow wings too and see what it’s like to fly,’ I said.

  ‘Really? But that’s not in the book. I told you, I’ve heard it before,’ said Martin.

  ‘Yes, and I told you,