The Pinhoe Egg (UK) Read online

  “Better wake her up then, Cecily,” said the uncle or aunt. “She’ll be calmer by this time.”

  So Mum would take the spell off and Gammer would sit up with a shriek. “Pheasant pie, I tell you!” she would shout. “Tell me something I don’t know. Get the fire brigade. There’s balloons coming.” And all manner of such strange things. After a bit, the uncle or aunt would say, “On second thoughts, I think she’ll be better for a bit of a sleep. Pretty upset, isn’t she?” So Mum would put the sleep spell back on again and solemn peace would descend until the next Pinhoe arrived.

  The only one who did not go through this routine was Uncle Charles. Marianne liked Uncle Charles. For one thing – apart from silent Uncle Simeon – he was her only thin uncle. Most of the Pinhoe uncles ran to a sort of wideness, even if most of them were not actually fat. And Uncle Charles had a humorous twitch to his thin face, quite unlike the rest. He was held to be “a disappointment”, just like Joe. Knowing Joe, Marianne suspected that Uncle Charles had worked at being disappointing, just as hard as Joe did – although she did think that Uncle Charles had gone a bit far when he married Aunt Joy at the Post Office. Uncle Charles arrived in his paint-blotched old overalls, being a house-painter by trade, and he looked at Gammer, snoring gently on the sofa with her mouth open. “No need to disturb her for me,” he said. “Lost her marbles at last, has she? What happened?”

  When Marianne had explained once more, Uncle Charles stroked his raspy chin with his paint-streaked hand and said, “I don’t see Jed Farleigh doing that to her, little as I like the man. What was the row about?”

  Marianne and Joe had to confess that they had not the least idea, not really. “They said she’d let a sacred trust get out and it ran into their Dorothea. I think,” Marianne said. “But Gammer said she never did.”

  Uncle Charles raised his eyebrows and opened his eyes wide. “Eh?”

  “Let it be, Charles. It’s not important,” Uncle Arthur told him impatiently. “The important thing is that poor Gammer isn’t making sense any more.”

  “Overtaxed herself, poor thing,” Marianne’s father said. “It was that Dorothea making trouble again, I’ll bet. I could throttle the woman, frankly.”

  “Should have been strangled at birth,” Uncle Isaac agreed. “But what do we do now?”

  Uncle Charles looked across at Marianne, joking and sympathetic at the same time. “Did she ever get round to naming you Gammer after her, Marianne? Should you be in charge now?”

  “I hope not!” Marianne said.

  “Oh, do talk sense, Charles!” all the others said. To which Dad added, “I’m not having my little girl stuck with that, even for a joke. We’ll wait for Edgar and Lester to get here. See what they say. They’re Gammer’s brothers, after all.”

  But when first Great Uncle Edgar and then Great Uncle Lester arrived, and Marianne had gone through the tale twice more, and Gammer had been woken up to scream, “We’re infested with porcupines!” at Uncle Edgar and “I told everyone it was twisted cheese!” at Uncle Lester, neither great uncle seemed at all sure what to do. Both pulled at their whiskers uncertainly and finally sent Joe and Marianne out to the kitchen so that the adults could have a serious talk.

  “I don’t like Edgar,” Joe said, moodily eating left over sandwiches. “He’s bossy. What does he wear that tweed hat for?”

  Marianne was occupied with Nutcase. Nutcase rushed out from under the great table demanding food. “It’s what estate agents wear, I suppose,” she said. “Like Lester wears a black coat and striped trousers because he’s a lawyer. Joe, I can’t find any more cat food.”

  Joe looked a little guiltily at the last of Great Aunt Sue’s sandwiches. They had been fat and moist and tasty and he had eaten all but one. “This one’s sardine,” he said. “Give him that. Or —” He lifted the cloth over the one untouched plateful. These were thin and dry and almost certainly Aunt Joy’s. “Or there’s these. Do cats eat meat paste?”

  “They sometimes have to,” Marianne said. She dismantled sandwiches into Nutcase’s dish and Nutcase fell on them as if he had not been fed for a week. And perhaps he hadn’t, Marianne thought. Gammer had neglected almost everything lately.

  “You know,” Joe said, watching Nutcase guzzle, “I’m not saying you didn’t feel Gaffer Farleigh cast a spell – you’re better at magic than I am – but it wouldn’t have taken much. I think Gammer’s mind was going anyway.” Then, while Marianne was thinking Joe was probably right, Joe said coaxingly, “Can you do us a favour while we’re here?”

  “What’s that?” Marianne asked as Nutcase backed away from the last of Aunt Joy’s sandwiches and pretended to bury it. She was very used to Joe buttering her up and then asking a favour. But I think her mind was going, all the same, she thought.

  “I need that stuffed ferret out there,” Joe said. “If I take it, can you make it look as if it’s still there?”

  Marianne knew better than to ask what Joe wanted with a horrid thing like that ferret. Boys! She said, “Joe! It’s Gammer’s!”

  “She’s not going to want it,” Joe said. “And you’re much better at illusion than me. Be a sport, Marianne. While they’re all still in there talking.”

  Marianne sighed, but she went out into the hall with Joe, where they could hear the hushed, serious voices from the front room. Very quietly, they inspected the ferret under its glass dome. It had always struck Marianne as like a furry yellow snake with legs. All squirmy. Yuk. But the important thing, if you were going to do an illusion, was that this was probably just what everyone saw. Then you noticed the wide open fanged mouth too, and the ferocious beady eyes. The dome was so dusty that you really hardly saw anything else. You just had to get the shape right.

  “Can you do it?” Joe asked eagerly.

  She nodded. “I think so.” She carefully lifted off the glass dome and stood it beside the stuffed badger. The ferret felt like a hard furry log when she picked it up. Yuk again. She passed the thing to Joe with a shudder. She put the glass dome back over the empty patch of false grass that was left and held both hands out towards it in as near ferret shape as she could. Bent and yellow and furry-squirmy, she thought at it. Glaring eyes, horrid little ears, pink mouth snarling and full of sharp white teeth. Further yuk.

  She took her hands away and there it was, exactly as she had thought it up, blurrily through the dust on the glass, a dim yellow snarling shape.

  “Lush!” said Joe. “Apex! Thanks.” He raced back into the kitchen with the real ferret cradled in his arms.

  Marianne saw the print of her hands on the dust of the dome, four of them. She blew on them furiously, willing them to go away. They were slowly clearing when the door to the front room banged importantly open and Great Uncle Edgar strode out. Marianne stopped doing magic at once, because he was bound to notice. She made herself gaze innocently instead at Edgar’s tweed hat, like a little tweed flowerpot on his head. It turned towards her.

  “We’ve decided your grandmother must have professional care,” Great Uncle Edgar said. “I’m off to see to it.”

  Someone must have woken Gammer up again. Her voice echoed forth from inside the front room. “There’s nothing so good as a stewed ferret, I always say.”

  Did Gammer read other people’s minds now? Marianne held her breath and nodded and smiled at Great Uncle Edgar. And Joe came back from the kitchen at that moment, carrying Aunt Helen’s sandwich basket – which he must have thought was Mum’s – with a cloth over it to hide the ferret. Great Uncle Edgar said to him, “Where are you off to?”

  Joe went hunched and sulky. “Home,” he said. “Got to take the cat. Marianne’s going to look after him now.”

  Unfortunately Nutcase spoilt this explanation by rushing out of the kitchen to rub himself against Marianne’s legs.

  “But he keeps getting out,” Joe added without a blink.

  Marianne took in a big breath, which made her quite dizzy after holding it for so long. “I’ll bring him, Joe,” she said, �
��when I come. You go on home and take Mum’s basket back.”

  “Yes,” said Great Uncle Edgar. “You’ll need to pack, Joseph. You have to be working in That Castle tomorrow, don’t you?”

  Joe’s mouth opened and he stared at Edgar. Marianne stared too. They had both assumed that Gammer’s plans for Joe had gone the way of Gammer’s wits. “Who told you that?” Joe said.

  “Gammer did, yesterday,” Great Uncle Edgar said. “They’ll be expecting you. Off you go.” And he strode out of the house, pushing Joe in front of him.

  Chapter Two

  Marianne meant to follow Joe home, but Mum came out into the hall then, saying, “Marianne, Joy says there’s still her plate of sandwiches left. Can you bring them?”

  When Marianne confessed that there were no sandwiches, she was sent down to the Pinhoe Arms to fetch some of Aunt Helen’s pork pies. When she got back with the pies, Aunt Joy sent her off again to pin a note on the Post Office door saying CLOSED FOR FAMILY MATTERS, and when she got back from that Dad sent her to fetch the Reverend Pinhoe. The Reverend Pinhoe came back to Woods House with Marianne, very serious and dismayed, wanting to know why no one had sent for Dr Callow.

  The reason was that Gammer had no opinion at all of Dr Callow. She must have heard what the vicar said because she immediately began shouting. “Quack, quack, quack! Cold hands in the midriff. It’s cabbages at dawn, I tell you!”

  But the vicar insisted. Marianne was sent to the vicarage phone to ask Dr Callow to visit, and when the doctor came there was a further outbreak of shouting. As far as Marianne could tell from where she sat on the stairs with Nutcase on her knee, most of the noise was “No, no, no!” but some of it was insults like “You knitted squid, you!” and “I wouldn’t trust you to skin a bunion!”

  Dr Callow came out into the hall with Mum, Dad and most of the aunts, shaking his head and talking about “the need for long term care”. Everyone assured him that Edgar was seeing to that, so the doctor left, followed by the vicar, and the aunts came into the kitchen to make more sandwiches. Here they discovered that there was no bread and only one tin of sardines. So off Marianne was sent again, to the baker and the grocer and down to Aunt Dinah’s to pick up some eggs. She remembered to buy some cat food too and came back heavily laden, and very envious of Joe for having made his getaway so easily.

  Each time Marianne came back to Woods House, Nutcase greeted her as if she were the only person left in the world. While she was picking him up and comforting him, Marianne could not help stealing secret looks at the glass dome that had held the ferret. Each time she was highly relieved to see a yellow smear with a snarl on the end of it seemingly inside the dome.

  At long last, near sunset, the hooves, wheels and jingling of Great Uncle Edgar’s carriage sounded in the driveway. Great Uncle Edgar shortly strode into the house, ushering two extremely sensible-looking nurses. Each had a neat navy overcoat and a little square suitcase. After Mum, Aunt Prue and Aunt Polly had shown them where to sleep, the nurses looked into the kitchen, at the muddle of provisions heaped along the huge table there, and declared they were not here to cook. Mum assured them that the aunts would take turns at doing that – at which Aunt Prue and Aunt Polly looked at one another and glowered at Mum. Finally the nurses marched into the front room.

  “Now, dear,” their firm voices floated out to Marianne on the stairs, “we’ll just get you into your bed and then you can have a nice cup of cocoa.”

  Gammer at once started screaming again. Everyone somehow flooded out into the hall with Gammer struggling and yelling in their midst. No one, even the nurses, seemed to know what to do. Marianne sadly watched Dad and Mum looking quite helpless, Great Uncle Lester wringing his hands, and Uncle Charles stealthily creeping away to his bicycle. The only person able to cope seemed to be solid, fair Aunt Dinah. Marianne had always thought Aunt Dinah was only good at wrestling goats and feeding chickens, but Aunt Dinah took hold of Gammer’s arm, quite gently, and, quite as gently, cast a soothing spell on Gammer.

  “Buck up, my old sausage,” she said. “They’re here to help you, you silly thing! Come on upstairs and let them get your nightie on you.”

  And Gammer came meekly upstairs past Marianne and Nutcase with Aunt Dinah and the nurses. She looked down at Marianne as she went, almost like her usual self. “Keep that cat in order for me, girl,” she said. She sounded nearly normal.

  Soon after that, Marianne was able to walk home between Mum and Dad, with Nutcase struggling a little in her arms.

  “Phew!” said Dad. “Let’s hope things settle down now.”

  Dad was a great one for peace. All he asked of life was to spend his time making beautiful solid furniture with Uncle Richard as his partner. In the shed behind Furze Cottage the two of them made chairs that worked to keep you comfortable, tables bespelled so that anyone who used them felt happy, cabinets that kept dust out, wardrobes that repelled moths, and many other things. For her last birthday, Dad had made Marianne a wonderful heart-shaped writing desk with secret drawers in it that were really secret: no one could even find those drawers unless they knew the right spell.

  Mum, however, was nothing like such a peace addict as Dad. “Huh!” she said. “She was born to make trouble as the sparks fly upwards, Gammer was.”

  “Now, Cecily,” said Dad. “I know you don’t like my mother —”

  “It’s not a question of like,” Mum said vigorously. “She’s a Hopton Pinhoe. She was a giddy town girl before your father married her. Led him a proper dance, she did, and you know it, Harry! It was thanks to her that he took to going off into the wild and got himself done away with if you ask —”

  “Now, now, Cecily,” Dad said, with a warning look at Marianne.

  “Well, forget I said it,” Mum said. “But I shall be very surprised if she settles down, mind or no mind.”

  Marianne thought about this conversation all evening. When she went to bed, where Nutcase sat on her stomach and purred, she sleepily tried to remember her grandfather. Old Gaffer had never struck her as being led a dance. Of course she had been very young then, but he had always seemed like a strong person who went his own way. He was wiry and he smelt of earth. Marianne remembered him striding with his long legs, off into the woods, leading his beloved old horse, Molly, harnessed to the cart in which he collected all the strange plants and herbs for which he had been famous. She remembered his old felt hat. She remembered Gammer saying, “Oh, do take that horrible headgear off, Gaffer!” Gammer always called him Gaffer. Marianne still had no idea what his name had been.

  She remembered how Old Gaffer seemed to love being surrounded by his sons and his grandchildren – all boys, except for Marianne – and the way she had a special place on his knee after Sunday lunch. They always went up to Woods House for Sunday lunch. Mum couldn’t have enjoyed that, Marianne thought. She had very clear memories of Mum and Gammer snapping at one another in the kitchen, while old Miss Callow did the actual cooking. Mum loved to cook, but she was never allowed to in that house.

  Just as she fell asleep, Marianne had the most vivid memory of all, of Old Gaffer calling at Furze Cottage with what he said was a special present for her. “Truffles,” he said, holding out his big wiry hand heaped with what looked like little black lumps of earth. Marianne, who had been expecting chocolate, looked at the lumps in dismay. It was worse when Gaffer fetched out his knife – which had been sharpened so often that it was more like a spike than a knife – and carefully cut a slice off a lump and told her to eat it. It tasted like earth. Marianne spat it out. It really hurt her to remember Old Gaffer’s disappointed look and the way he had said, “Ah, well. She’s maybe too young for such things yet.” Then she fell asleep.

  Nutcase was missing in the morning. The door was shut and the window too, but Nutcase was gone all the same. Nor was he downstairs asking for breakfast.

  Mum was busy rushing about finding socks and pants and shirts for Joe. She said over her shoulder, “He’ll have gone back to Woods
House, I expect. That’s cats for you. Go and fetch him back when we’ve seen Joe off. Oh God! I’ve forgotten Joe’s nightshirts! Joe, here’s two more pairs of socks – I think I darned them for you.”

  Joe received the socks and the other things and secretively packed them in his knapsack himself. Marianne knew this was because the stolen ferret was in the knapsack too. Joe had his very sulkiest look on. Marianne could not blame him. If it had been her, she knew she would have been dreading going to a place where they were all enchanters and out to stop anyone else doing witchcraft. But Joe, when she asked him, just grumbled, “It’s not the magic, it’s wasting a whole holiday. That’s what I hate.”

  When at last Joe pedalled sulkily away, with a shirtsleeve escaping from his knapsack and fluttering beside his head, it felt as if a thunderstorm had passed. Marianne, not for the first time, thought that her brother had pretty powerful magic, even if it was not the usual sort.

  “Thank goodness for that!” Mum said. “I hate him in this mood. Go and fetch Nutcase, Marianne.”

  Marianne arrived at Woods House to find the front door – most unusually – locked. She had to knock and ring the bell before the door was opened by a stone-faced angry nurse.

  “What good are you going to do?” the nurse demanded. “We asked the vicar to phone for Mr Pinhoe.”

  “You mean Uncle Edgar?” Marianne asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s poltergeisting us,” said the nurse. “That’s what’s wrong.” As she spoke, a big brass tray rose from the table beside the door and sliced its way towards the nurse’s head. The nurse dodged. “See what I mean?” she said. “We’re not going to stay here one more day.”

  Marianne watched the tray bounce past her down the steps and clang to a stop in the driveway, rather dented. “I’ll speak to her,” she said. “I really came to fetch the cat. May I come in?”