Back Home Read online

  ‘O.K.,’ Rusty said, snatching it back up.

  She dropped her head and placed the towel round her head, twisting it in front as Beatie had done so that she had a Queen of Sheba turban.

  With that she walked haughtily past her mother and strode back across the garden, never once looking down.

  Beth began to shiver. ‘I think I’d better go home now,’ she said.

  Peggy, who was still holding the umbrella over her head, nodded. Together they walked back in silence towards the house.

  9

  ‘She’s an independent, free-spirited young girl,’ said Beatie, pouring away the washing-up water. ‘Quite able to look after herself. If you’re worried about her safety, why don’t you take a boat out with her?’

  ‘I’m not a strong enough swimmer.’

  ‘But she is. And after all you did say she could go with Beth, didn’t you?’

  ‘Beatie, she won’t be able to go wandering off on her own in Guildford or at school. It wouldn’t be fair to allow her to begin doing that here.’

  ‘Then stay.’

  ‘Please, Beatie, don’t start that again.’

  ‘She could go to Beth’s school and run and explore to her heart’s content.’

  ‘I’ve told you, it’s totally out of the question, so there’s no use discussing it.’

  Beatie and Rusty’s mother were standing in the kitchen looking out of the window. Rusty was sitting on the jetty. Since the rain incident, the river was out of bounds until such time as her mother wished. The jetty was the nearest she could get to it.

  ‘Charlie and Susan have more freedom to go off on their own than she does.’

  ‘They know the area better, and anyway,’ she murmured, ‘they haven’t been away for five years.’

  The telephone rang. She turned away stiffly and left to answer it.

  Beatie couldn’t bear to see Rusty sitting on her own. She decided to wander down and have a chat.

  She had hardly reached the conservatory when Beth appeared around the corner with a wheelbarrow.

  ‘Hello, Beatie,’ she said brightly. ‘Got anything I can take for the bonfire?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I have. Look in the woodshed and help yourself.’

  Beth glanced around briefly and lowered her voice. ‘Is Rusty allowed out of bounds yet?’

  Beatie shook her head. ‘Her mother won’t give her permission to go on the river until she’s apologized. Rusty apologized and then apologized for apologizing.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘She said that she wasn’t really sorry. That she was only apologizing because she wanted to go on the river. So her second apology was for the lie she told when she apologized.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘So it’s stalemate. Rusty doesn’t believe she’s in the wrong. Her mother believes she is.’

  ‘ ‘I suppose,’ said Beth, whispering, ‘it’s all right us being together, is it? I mean I’m not supposed to contaminate her or anything, am I?’

  ‘No,’ said Beatie, laughing. ‘Why don’t you go and join her? She’s down by the jetty.’

  Beth put down the wheelbarrow and sprang off in the direction of the back garden. ‘Hey!’ she yelled. ‘Hey!’

  Rusty turned and gave a light wave. ‘Hi.’

  Beth ran up to the jetty and flung herself down beside Rusty.

  ‘You look bloody miserable,’ she commented.

  Rusty gave a shrug.

  ‘It’s shitty of her to be so strict,’ said Beth. ‘I never knew she’d be like this.’

  ‘Me neither,’ murmured Rusty. ‘She even got mad when I moved the furniture around in my room. She said it wasn’t my room, they weren’t my possessions, and I had no right to touch them. I only wanted to make it homey. But I suppose she’s right. It isn’t my room, or my home, or my anything. As soon as we leave here, I’ll be going to boarding school.’

  ‘I wish you could stay here, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t care any more. I’ll be glad to go away. Anything’s gotta be better than this. At least I’ll have company. I get so lonesome here.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Beth.

  Rusty swung around.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean with you. It’s just that I’m not allowed to do anything with you, that’s all. When I’m at boarding school, I won’t have her breathing down my neck any more. I’ll have more freedom.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Beth. ‘I don’t know about that. We’ve had people come to our school from boarding schools, and they’ve been so surprised at the difference that they’ve just gone berserk.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, because at my school there aren’t so many rules, and you don’t have to go to the classes if you don’t want to, and –’

  ‘You don’t have to go to classes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You mean, you can just play around all day?’

  ‘If you want to.’

  ‘But isn’t your school a private school? I mean, you have to pay to go to it, right?’

  ‘Yes. My parents don’t, because they work on the Estate. Anyone who works on the Estate, their children can go there free.’

  ‘But the ones that pay, don’t they get mad, paying for their children to play around all day?’

  ‘Sometimes they get a bit funny when they’re older, and then they take them away when it gets near School Certificate exams, but most people who stay and take the exams usually pass them.’

  ‘But you said no one goes to any classes.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I said you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But some of the classes are really good.’

  ‘I wish I was grown up,’ said Rusty. ‘Then I could go wherever I wanted instead of having someone else tell me where I was, going to and where I had to live.’

  ‘Where would you go?’

  ‘America.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll go back when you’re older?’

  ‘You bet. I hate this dump of a place.’

  ‘It is not a dump,’ said Beth hotly. ‘You’ve only seen a little patch of it.’

  ‘Don’t I know it!’

  ‘Listen,’ said Beth, ‘do you want to help me collect wood for the bonfire?’

  ‘You bet.’ She frowned for an instant. ‘I hope I get to go to it.’

  Beth put an arm round her. ‘I’ll tie some sheets together and throw them up to your window so you can climb down.’

  Rusty smiled. ‘So where can we find dead wood? I mean, the river is still out of bounds for me.’

  ‘Beatie says there’s some wood in the shed.’

  Once inside the woodshed Beth let out a loud groan. Leaning up against the walls were several thick branches.

  ‘We’ll never get those into the wheelbarrow,’ she said. ‘I suppose I could drag a couple home and ask my father to cut them up.’

  Rusty spotted two axes leaning in the corner, one large and one small.

  ‘That’s O.K.,’ she said, ‘I’ll cut them up.’

  ‘With what? Your magic wand?’

  ‘With the axe, dumbo.’

  ‘Listen, I don’t fancy telling your mother that you’re lying in the woodshed with amputated hands or feet, thank you very much.’

  Rusty waved her aside.

  ‘Uncle Bruno taught us all to chop wood. So did the Fitzes. I sometimes earned money doing it.’

  Beth stared at her in disbelief as she took hold of the smaller axe.

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ she said, backing towards the door.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s a cinch.’

  She cleared the top of a huge log, propped a branch on top, and held it firmly. As the axe swung upwards and whistled diagonally downwards, Beth placed her hands over her eyes and peered through her fingers.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ she exclaimed, when the first branch had been sliced into a pile of clean fragments. ‘You really can do it!’

  ‘I’ll keep them a little long. You don’t want them too short for the fire. Doesn’t
it have a great smell?’ she said, holding a freshly cut branch. ‘Reminds me of cookouts, back home.’ She turned eagerly to Beth, who was now sitting in the wheelbarrow. ‘We used to cook over a big wood fire: hamburgers, pickles, olives, potatoes baked in the hot ashes, stuff like that. And Uncle Bruno would throw some butter in the fudge pan and start making up fudge. And we’d play games and music, and people would bring their latest swing records for the music box. Last summer we used to play Frank Sinatra records over and over and over. And when the guests had gone home, we’d all huddle around the fire and have hot chocolate and cinnamon toast or dip cinnamon sticks in hot milk. Did it taste good!’

  ‘Oh don’t,’ groaned Beth. ‘You’re making me hungry.’

  ‘I’m making me hungry too.’

  She lifted up the axe and started chopping again. Last summer? she thought. It wasn’t last summer. It was this one. Only it seemed so far back. Was it only a few weeks ago that she was in America, and Janey and her American sisters were nuts over Frank Sinatra? She began humming.

  ‘What’s that tune?’ said Beth.

  “This Is A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening”. It’s one of the songs Frank Sinatra sings. Don’t you know it?’

  ‘No. I’ve never even heard of him. Is he popular in America?’

  ‘Popular? He’s the tops. Everyone’s crazy about him. Girls just line up for hours so they can get to see him perform. Phew!’ she added, putting the axe down. ‘This is hot work.’ She gazed at two large branches leaning up against the wall. ‘I guess I better cut those up outside. Work up a good swing.’

  ‘You’re not going to use the big axe, are you?’ asked Beth, alarmed.

  ‘Sure I am. If you get a good swing, it’s O.K. I’ll probably have to yell some to get the strength.’ She picked up the axe. ‘It’s heavier than I thought.’ She glanced at the branches again. ‘You know, I think a saw would be better. Then you could hold it steady for me.’

  Beth tipped herself out of the wheelbarrow.

  Between them they dragged out the two branches and rolled out the large chopping log. In the conservatory they found an old saw. At first they took turns, one holding the branch steady while the other pressed her knee on one side of the log and began sawing; but Beth didn’t seem to have the same strength as Rusty.

  ‘Did you do body-building exercises in America?’ she exclaimed as Rusty eased the saw through the wood.

  ‘No. It’s just you gotta let the saw do the work for you.’

  ‘Why do you sometimes close one eye?’

  ‘To keep the line straight. It helps some. You don’t have to press so hard.’ She looked at Beth, who was steadying the branch. ‘What you gotta do is pull the saw toward you to make the first groove, then keep your head over the saw so you can keep it straight. If you can keep it straight, it’s not hard.’

  Rusty had almost finished a third branch when she became aware of someone striding briskly towards them. It was her mother.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ she muttered. ‘What have I done wrong this time?’

  She pretended not to have seen her, and continued sawing. Her mother stopped and stood beside her. Rusty slowly raised her head.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  Peggy glanced at Beth. ‘I think you had better go home,’ she said.

  ‘We’re nearly finished,’ said Rusty. ‘I’d like to give Beth a hand loading up the wood.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Peggy followed them into the woodshed and held open the door for them as they pushed the wheelbarrow out. She caught sight of the small axe lying beside some newly cut branches.

  ‘Virginia,’ she said quietly, ‘have you been using that axe?’

  ‘Uh-huh. The branches were too long, so I cut them down a little. Oh,’ she said, catching the repressed wrath in her mother’s face. ‘I should have asked permission, right?’

  Her mother nodded slowly.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t think.’

  ‘She was only helping me out, Peggy,’ said Beth.

  Peggy flinched. She was used to Beth, and her brothers and sister calling her by her first name, as they did most adults, but now suddenly, in front of her daughter, it made her feel strangely uncomfortable.

  ‘Do you realize you could have had a serious accident?’

  ‘Uncle Bruno taught me how to do it a safe way,’ Rusty explained.

  ‘Well, in this country we don’t expect young girls to chop up wood. That’s a boy’s job.’

  Rusty could feel herself getting riled.

  ‘O.K. Next time I’ll ask Charlie to do it, seeing as he’s the only boy around here.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ retorted her mother. ‘Hurry up and finish helping Beth. I want to have a word with you.’

  Rusty continued picking up the branches. ‘Party poop-er,’ she muttered.

  Once the wheelbarrow was loaded, it was obvious that Beth would need help wheeling it.

  ‘I think I ought to give Beth a hand pushing it,’ said Rusty. Clenching her fists behind her back, she asked permission. ‘May I?’

  ‘I want a word with you first.’

  Rusty followed her mother through the conservatory. As she passed the kitchen window, she glanced aside, hoping to catch a glimpse of Beth, but all she could see was the forbidden river gurgling at the bottom of the garden.

  Her mother remained silent until they had reached the living room.

  ‘Now,’ she said, whirling around, ‘I don’t want you helping yourself to other people’s property without asking. I thought I had made that quite clear after you borrowed the boat.’

  ‘I was only helping out.’

  ‘Don’t answer back.’

  ‘Why not? I have a right to have my say, same as you.’

  ‘You’re a child and you’ll do as you’re told.’

  Rusty gave a loud sigh.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re so insolent all the time,’ Peggy began. ‘I thought you’d be glad to be back here in England with your brother and me and –’

  ‘You’re both out doing things,’ said Rusty. ‘Charlie’s with Susan and you’re always helping people out.’

  ‘Don’t answer me back!’

  ‘I might as well leave, then,’ said Rusty, ‘since I’m not supposed to say anything or do anything. Maybe I ought to just go back to the Omsks. They don’t think I’m such a nuisance.’

  ‘Virginia!’

  Her mother’s face reddened. Rusty watched her light a cigarette. That was another thing Rusty didn’t like about her mother: her smoking. If she smoked long cigarettes in an elegant holder, maybe, just maybe she would have approved, but her cigarettes were always such cheap, stubby-looking things, and often she’d only smoke half of one, stub it out, and then put it back into the cigarette packet for later.

  Her mother was staring down at the carpet.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said quietly.

  Rusty wandered over to the sofa.

  Her mother sat down beside her. ‘Virginia,’ she began, ‘when in Rome, one does as the Romans do. Do you understand?’

  ‘Uh-huh, I think so. You mean toe the line, that it?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Peggy said slowly. ‘But you’ll have to learn to adapt to the English way of life and, of course,’ she added, ‘to living with us again.’

  ‘Uh-huh, but I don’t know when I’m doing anything wrong until after I’ve done it, and even then it doesn’t seem so bad. I mean, what’s wrong with chopping up wood?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just that’ – Peggy hesitated - ‘well, it’s not very lady-like.’

  ‘Grandma Fitz does it. She’s all for us girls learning to fend for ourselves. I mean, it isn’t as if I cut down a tree’

  ‘But it’d be considered a bit odd here if you chopped up wood.’

  The Omsks didn’t think I was odd.’ She paused. ‘Sometimes other people thought we were a little odd, but they were usually pantywaists.’

  ‘Parity what?’

  ‘Pantywaists. You know. Cowards.
People who are too cowardly to do anything.’

  ‘Well,’ said Peggy, ‘you’re not with the Omsks now. I expect when you were with them, you had to make adjustments to their way of life.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess.’

  There was a brief silence.

  ‘Well, I’m glad we’ve had this little talk, Virginia,’ said Peggy, and she stood up awkwardly. ‘I suppose you’d better hurry up and join Beth.’

  ‘You mean I can go?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Rusty sprang to her feet. ‘Zowee!’

  Peggy found it impossible to restrain a smile.

  Rusty ran for the door, and then stopped.

  ‘I guess,’ she said, ‘you’ll want me back for tea.’

  ‘If you’re hungry. Otherwise you don’t need to be back until six.’

  ‘See you later, then. So long.’

  As Rusty dived out through the door, Peggy found herself saying ‘So long’ back. She gave a groan and stared out of the bay window.

  The door swung open. It was Beatie.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she said excitedly. ‘I heard a lot of whooping down here.’

  ‘Oh dear. I hope it didn’t wake you up.’

  Just then Rusty and Beth pushed the wheelbarrow past the window.

  ‘Hello’ said Beatie curiously. ‘What’s changed your mind?’

  Peggy drew on her cigarette. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m at my wits’ ends to know what to do with her. I mean, honestly, do you know what I found her doing in the back garden? Sawing wood! Before that, she’d been chopping it up!’

  ‘Oh good,’ said Beatie. ‘It’d be splendid if she could tackle some of that pile.’

  ‘Oh Beatie, don’t be silly. She’s a girl. I can’t have her breaking up wood.’

  ‘I see. So it’s all right for you to fix car engines, but not for your daughter to saw wood.’

  ‘That’s different. I did it because there was a war on. And I have to do it now because, well, there’s no one else to do it.’

  ‘Tosh! You love it.’

  10

  As soon as they reached the road, Rusty let go of the wheelbarrow and did a crazy dance, throwing her head back and beating her chest with her fists.