One Foot Wrong Page 3
We stood holding hands in the doorway of the room that would be mine when she said. The room wasn’t empty anymore; it had my bed in it with a coloured blanket on top that I hadn’t seen before. The blanket was made of coloured woollen squares. They were yellow, blue, purple, green, white and red. ‘I knitted it,’ Sack said, ‘for you.’ On the wall there was a picture of a lamb and a lion. They were lying together. The lamb was the mother of the lion. If there was something you wanted to know you asked the lamb. Cat jumped up on the bed and rolled onto her back on the coloured blanket so her tum was up for tickling. ‘Funny cat …’ Sack said, bending down and scratching Cat under the chin. I looked around the room; on the shelf was The Abridged Picture Bible and Illustrated Hymns. There was a flower in a cup; it was the same flower as the ones with the pink skirts that grew around tree. Above the shelf was Christ Our Saviour. His arms were open wide and the blood on his dress was gone. There was a carpet on the floor with swirling leaves and a moon. Light came through the small window and poured onto the pillow.
‘Do you like it?’ Sack asked me. I didn’t know what she wanted me to say or do. ‘It is your room now, Hester. From now on you will sleep in here. It is yours.’ She looked at me as if she was waiting for something. ‘Do you like it?’ she asked again. What happened next I didn’t want to happen, I didn’t wish it. I cried. Sack stepped in and put her arms on me, they were hard arms, like the arms of a chair. ‘I am sorry for things,’ she said. My crying went into the hard of her arms, and stopped. Sack stood back, her arms full with my tears, and dabbed at her eye with a handkerchief. The pink spider waved and smiled underneath. ‘It is your room now. I always wanted a room of my own.’ She blew her nose into her handkerchief and then she was gone.
I stepped into the room that was mine. I was the only one there. If I put one foot wrong, nobody could see it.
The next time Boot gave me pencil and paper I drew the lamb riding on the back of the lion. Leaves grew around the moon. In my picture Christ Our Saviour sung the hymn about the people dancing for joy, from Illustrated Hymns. He had the coloured blanket around his shoulders. When he lay down to sleep it was in a room all of his own in a bed of dark.
I was drinking cat milk on my hands and knees when I heard a loud knock at the door. Sack said, ‘Upstairs, Het, upstairs and under the bed, go on! Up up up!’ I ran upstairs, and bending I watched through the bars. A man with a round brown hat on his head stood outside One Cott Road.
‘Mrs Wakefield.’ The man put his hand out but Sack didn’t take it.
‘Yes?’
‘I am from the Department of Welfare.’
‘Yes?’
‘We have written to you but received no response. You left us no choice but to come to the house, as we advised that we would in our last letter.’
‘Well?’
‘We believe you have a daughter, Mrs Wakefield, and that she doesn’t go to school.’
Sack’s eyes became two little blue fires that burned holes in hat man. ‘Yes, I have a daughter, and she has certain problems – mental problems. We teach her everything she needs to know at home.’
Hat man wiped the shine from his face. ‘Nevertheless her condition will have to be assessed by an outside professional body – there might be a place for her in a special school, you may be entitled to some financial assistance.’
‘Do you think we don’t know our own daughter?’
‘I am not suggesting that you do not know your own daughter, Mrs Wakefield, but—’
‘Hester is not well enough to go to school.’
‘Your daughter will have to be tested – perhaps the outcome of those tests will indicate that she should stay home with you, in which case you could be eligible for some assistance.’
‘We don’t want any assistance.’ From where I watched I felt the fires burning hotter in Sack. She wanted to give that hat man a turn in the hanging room – maybe she’d want to give me a turn in there too. It was time for me to hide under the big bed.
I heard the front door close and Sack coming quickly up the stairs. Hat man was gone. Sack came into the room, bent over and looked under the bed. I made my self small and flat as the hidden pencil but the fires in her eyes lit up the darkness and she saw me hiding. She reached in and grabbed me by the arm. I took hold of her leg with her foot in her hard shoe and I held on tight. ‘Let go of me, Hester!’ I didn’t let go. She kicked and wriggled and her shoe got me smack in my throat. She pulled me out. ‘I was too old to have you – I wasn’t strong enough!’
That night I lay in my bed of dark. Hat man came from the forbidden outside. Did he come from the same place that Boot went to every day? Did he come from the same place as the eggs and porridge? What was school? That night my wooden bed sang me to sleep. Yahweh’s people dance for joy, praise Him praise Him!
For the the day of the tests Sack sewed me a dress, it was tight across the top, with a row of buttons. Buttons are small circles that hold a dress together. Without buttons the dress is a loose cape that lets you fly. You have to have buttons. Sack brushed my hair – each stroke pulled at my wicked knot – and tied it back. Sack went into her room and came out in a grey skirt with tiny flowers that grew along the edges. I had not seen that skirt before. Her shirt had little white grapes that grew up around her neck and down her back. Her shoes were shiny with an up at the back. Sack walked around the house on little boxes tap tap tap. There was a gold chain hanging on her throat, but Jesus wasn’t there, only the cross of his home.
Boot took my hand and we three walked out the front door. I could see all of the forbidden outside under the grey of the sky and all of it shone with the light of eternity.
Boot took me down to his chariot but it was different to the chariots in The Abridged Picture Bible. Its wheels were black and it had a brown roof and brown doors. The chariots in my Bible had flying red ribbons, golden doors and spikes coming from the wheels to stop the other chariots. Thick-legged Romans rode the chariots in my Bible. They wore helmets and whipped the horses in front shouting, ‘Win! Win!’ Sack wanted me to lie across the back seat. She pushed me down. ‘Try and sleep.’
I lay across the back seat and made up a song to the rumbling music of the chariot. It was about Abel and what he did to Cain when his father was out. Abel knew it was wrong but he did it anyway, he did it over and over with a stick, he couldn’t stop himself. He did it again and again, it didn’t matter that Cain was shouting no, please don’t, please don’t, Abel, please don’t, Abel kept on doing it anyway. He wanted to see blood on Cain’s knees. After a long time of driving Boot stopped the chariot. ‘We’re here. Wake up, Hester.’ Boot touched my arm. ‘Time to get out.’
Sack turned round from the front seat and pinched me short and quick. ‘Behave in there.’ The pink spider held a fist up at me. I climbed out of the brown chariot and Boot and Sack took a hand each. I saw two dogs from Jesus and the marketplace. They chased each other and barked. Water came from a pipe and wet the grass. There were many trees and houses. In front of the houses were squares of grass with bars for hanging and plastic buckets. The road was full of chariots without spikes speeding past. I wanted to run and sing my song loud. The madness of the world was infecting me.
We walked down a path into a big box house. There were flowers growing all along the sides of the path. They were white with yellow stripes. The flowers rested in beds of leaves. I wanted to stop and look closer to see if there were ants and if they lived under the flowers but Boot and Sack pulled me along. Tap tap tap went the box shoes of Sack as she walked. My dress was tight across my chest. We went inside the building. There was a room full of chairs with a jar of flowers in the corner. A lady sat behind a desk. Her lips were red and shining and around her neck was coloured glass. She smiled at Boot and Sack and me. ‘Please take a seat, the doctor will be with you shortly.’
We sat in three seats. Sack let go of my hand but Boot didn’t. There was a pile of paper books on a table in the corner. If I turned my head
I saw a queen on the front. She was not the same as the queen in The Abridged Picture Bible; she didn’t have as many clothes on. Sack did a sharp turn with her head at me and I stopped looking at the queen because it was wrong. That’s why Adam ran so fast.
A man came through a door. He walked towards us with his arm held out. Boot shook the hand. ‘Mr and Mrs Wakefield?’ He looked down at a paper he was holding. ‘Come inside, Hester.’ Boot and Sack wanted to come into the room with me but the man who looked like hat man but more smiling and no hat, said, ‘Just Hester this time, please.’ Sack’s mouth went as straight as the fence outside One Cott Road. Boot patted her hand and in I went.
The man took me into a room. There were a lot of coloured things in boxes. There were yellow chariots made of plastic, there were blocks and bells and dolls made of wool and a soft mouse and a white rabbit with pink ears, and books with shiny pictures of trains, clouds and a man with a red nose and shoes too big for him, round at the top. There was a pile of paper and pencils. One of the pencils was green. The man with the smile asked me to point at a circle and a triangle and a line. He asked me to put the same things together and take the different things away. He asked me which way the lines were going. He said, ‘Which one is different?’ He said, ‘What is the biggest?’ and, ‘Hold up your fingers when you see the light go on.’ He sat me on a bed and looked close at my eyes and ears with a torch tied to his head. He held up a picture of a man, a lady and two children sitting on a blanket eating bread with cheese. The man said, ‘Can you tell me about this picture, Hester?’
‘They are outside. They are eating. Christ has blessed the bread,’ I told him. He held up another picture. ‘That’s Noah in the boat that got out of the bottle. The Lord is sending his punishment out of the clouds. It’s making them wet,’ I told him. The man smiled. He didn’t have The Abridged Picture Bible at home under his bed. He needed Hester to show him.
Next the man held up a picture of many beasts. ‘What is your favourite animal, Hester?’
I pointed to the cat, ‘Meeeee-oooowww!’ The man smiled wide.
‘Then you won’t like this picture.’ He held up a picture of a cat being chased by a dog.
‘Dog wants to eat cat for his dinner!’ This time the man laughed. Did Sack hear from outside? Was her ear pressed to the door?
‘Yes, I think you are right there,’ he said. He held up a picture of three girls jumping over rope. The sun shone on their heads. ‘I think these girls look happy. What do you think, Hester?’
I looked at the picture for a long time. ‘They are outside. They can jump high, they can laugh, nobody can hear them. They are happy, they are outside and they are friends.’
‘Yes, yes. I agree with you entirely,’ the man said. I looked across at the pencils. He pushed the pencils and paper towards me. ‘It looks like you want to draw, Hester.’
I took my wish and I drew the leaves on the path, they were growing all around the wheels and through the windows of Boot’s chariot. The green leaves grew into the chariot and then they grew around Sack and they grew around Boot, over their heads, around their legs and wrists and into Sack’s mouth and then into my mouth and then into Boot’s mouth so nobody could talk anymore.
‘Would you like to go to school, Hester?’
‘What is school?’
‘It’s a place where children go every day to be with each other and to learn new things. School is a place of discovery, or it should be.’
‘The wickedness of man is great on the earth,’ I told him. I wasn’t sure that the man knew.
‘I can’t argue with you there.’ He smiled. ‘Hester, at school you would be with other children your own age. You would have to be away from your mother and father every day. Are you ready for that?’
School is a place of discovery. A discovery was what the Pharaoh’s daughter made when she found Moses in the reeds. That’s how she saved Moses from drowning. I nodded a yes. The man smiled again, stood up and took my hand.I waited for him to throw my picture away. He said, ‘Why don’t you take it with you?’ I didn’t know the answer he wanted so I left it there.
I followed the man back to where Boot and Sack were waiting. There were no fires in Sack’s eyes now. There was cold water, deep, without waves. If you threw a stone into one of her eyes it would sink forever, there would be no bottom for the stone to reach. It would always be sinking. The smiling man talked to Boot and Sack. I stayed sitting on my chair, my eye trying to see the queen with no clothes, though it was a sin. Soon the man shook the hand of Boot again and we left the building.
When we were back in the chariot, Sack cried, ‘What did you tell him? How did you betray me?’
Boot said, ‘It will be alright Kathy – let’s just get home.’ Was the man with the smile still there after I left?
When we got back to One Cott Road Boot didn’t hold my hand as we walked up the path. He was half-carrying Sack. She was small and folded and falling against him like cloth. ‘Go on, Hester, get inside,’ he said. ‘Put the kettle on while I help your mother to bed.’
The next morning broom and me were sweeping the hallway when we heard crying. We followed the sobs into the living room where we found Sack in the fireplace – no fire, just ashes. The ashes were on her cheeks and her hands, legs and arms. She had no clothes on. She was curled up like Cat when she’s sleeping but Cat doesn’t cry. I stood with broom in my hand. Broom asked, ‘How do you sweep a fireplace with a Sack inside?’ We listened to the crying. ‘Broom, stay here,’ I said. I let him go and he fell to the floor behind me. ‘Ouch!’ I walked to Sack; I bent down into the fireplace and I touched her leg where the knee was. Sack stopped crying; she turned her head, all black, all sooty, and she looked at me like I was a new person in the house, a bright stranger she might wish for – not Hester, her source of great shame, not this.
I said, ‘God forgives our sins.’
Sack grabbed me and she pulled me into the fireplace. Now there were ashes on my dress, my socks, my elbows. Sack cried on me, her tears down my neck, arms, and face. I grew heavy and sodden with her tears. I needed a hand to wring me out. ‘God might forgive me but you never could – you – you shouldn’t!’ she cried. ‘I am going to lose you, I know it – it’s coming, it’s coming.’ Those were the words – hard to hear with so much crying – but Hester has big ears and she heard.
Sack cried on me a while longer and then she said, ‘Get up and sweep like I told you.’ I got out and picked up broom, who was lying there waiting, and together we swept the ashes while Sack went and washed hers down the sinkhole.
The fire was hot in the kitchen. The dishes were stacked and I was drying. Spoon was whispering something to me but I couldn’t hear her properly. Boot said, ‘Hester, tomorrow you are going to school.’ He sat at the table and looked into my eyes. ‘It is not what we want but there is nothing we can do about that. We know you belong at home. You are not the same as other children. Your mother is not well, Hester, we mustn’t upset her.’
Spoon whispered, ‘What is school?’
Chair and table answered, ‘A place of discovery.’
Sack pulled the tight dress with the row of buttons over my head. ‘I want to know everything, Hester. I want to know what you do there.’ Her hair came down over her face; some of it covered an eye, but I could still see the pink spider. I wondered if Sack could see with that too. Would the things she saw when she looked with her spider-eye be different to the things she saw with her blue ones? Would she be able to see, with her spider-eye, the invisible web, its sticky strands? She pressed me to her. I smelled sugar and toilet. ‘Don’t believe them,’ she said.
Boot took me down to the chariot and opened the back door. ‘Lie down in there, Hester.’
‘Why?’ I asked him.
‘Don’t ask your questions now that your mother isn’t here. Just do as you’re told. I have to get to work.’ I climbed into the back seat, lay down and listened to the chariot drive us away from One Cott Road.
Boot and me walked up to the school. It was bricks with porches going all around. There were rows of windows with white crosses in the middle. My feet shook in my brown hard shoes with a lace. My feet would have run away if it weren’t for the lace. My chest pushed against the dress and the row of buttons. Jesus beat the drum from the feasts beat beat beat. The light over all things burned my eyes. A lady with hair in soft circles and pink on her lips came down the porch steps towards us. Her dress was made of green and blue wool. She was in a cloud of grass. She said, ‘I will be your teacher, my name is Mrs Dane – it’s Hester, isn’t it?’