IT WAS NOT Hilda who first talked of being driven mad, up there in the high flats, far above the noise of the traffic and the bustle of the crowds. On the contrary, it was her neighbours who complained to her about the stresses. “It’s driving me up the wall!” said her neighbour on the right: and “I can’t stand it any longer!” said her neighbour on the left: and “I’ll go out of my mind!” said the woman in the flat below. But not Hilda. Hilda was the young one, the busy one. From the point of view of the neighbours it was she who was the cause and origin of all the stresses. She wasn’t the one who was being driven mad, Oh no. That’s what they would all have told you.
But madness has a rhythm of its own up there so near to the clouds; a rhythm that at first you would not recognize, so near is it, in the beginning, to the rhythms of ordinary, cheerful life …
*
“What’s the time, Mr Wolf? What’s the time, Mr Wolf?” Thumpty-thump-thump-thump. Thumpty-thump-thump-thump … The twins’ shrill little voices, the thud of their firm little sandalled feet reverberated through the door of the kitchenette and brought Hilda to a sudden halt in the midst of the morning’s wash. Her arms elbow-deep in warm detergent, she just stood there, while the familiar, helpless anger rose slowly from the pit of her stomach. She would have to stop them, of course; the innocent, happy little game would have to be brought once more to a halt by yet another “No!” And quickly too, before Mrs Walters in the flat below came up to protest; before Mr Peters on the right tapped on the wall; before Miss Rice on the left leaned across the balcony to complain of her head and to tell Hilda how well children were brought up in her young days.
Miss Rice’s young days were all very well; in those days children had space for play and romping. If they were rich they had fields and lawns and nurseries and schoolrooms; if they were poor, they had at least the streets and the alley ways. But today’s children, the sky-dwellers of the affluent twentieth century, where could they go to run, to shout, to fulfil their childhood? All day long, up here in the blue emptiness of the sky, Hilda had to deprive her children, minute by minute, of everything that matters in childhood. They must not run, or jump, or laugh, or sing, or dance. They must not play hide-and-seek or cowboys and Indians, or fling themselves with shrieks of joy into piles of cushions. Except when she could find time to take them to the distant park, they must sit still, like chronic invalids, growing dull and pale over television and picture books.
“What’s the time, Mr Wolf? … One o’clock—two o’clock three o’clock….” Thumpty-thump-thump-thump. Hilda had a vision of the sturdy little thighs in identical navy shorts, stamping purposefully round and round the room, little faces alight with the intoxication of rhythm and with the mounting excitement of the approaching climax. Before this climax—before the wild shriek of “Dinner-time, Mr Wolf!” rent the silence of the flats, Hilda would have to go in and spoil it all. “Martin! Sally!” she would have to say, “You really must be quieter. Why don’t you get out your colouring books, and come and sit quietly? Come along, now, over here at the table.” And she would have to watch the bright little faces grow tearful, hear the merry, chanting voices take on the whine of boredom; watch the firm, taut little muscles relinquish their needed exercise and grow flaccid as they sat … and sat … and sat. It was wicked, it was cruel….
“Mrs Meredith? Could I speak to you for a minute, Mrs Meredith?”
So. Already she had left it too late. Here was Miss Rice out on her balcony, hand on brow, headache poised like a weapon, and already sure of her victory.
“It’s not that I want to complain,” she began, as she began every morning “And if it was just for myself, I suppose I’d try to put up with it, but it’s Mrs Walters too, she hasn’t been too well either, and it’s driving her up the wall, it really is, all this hammer, hammer, hammer. She’s just phoned through to me, asked if I could have a word with you, save her coming up the stairs with her bad knee.”
Bad knees. Headaches. Not-too-well-ness. These were the weapons by which happy little four-year-olds could be crushed and broken; there was no defence against them. “I’m sorry,” said Hilda despairingly; and again “I’m sorry … I’m sorry….”
*
The twins had been settled at their colouring books for nearly an hour before Mrs Walters below rang up to enquire if Hilda couldn’t somehow stop that boom-boom noise? “Boom-boom-boom” the clipped voice mimicked explanatorily down the wire. “It goes right through my nerves, Mrs Meredith, it really does. I can’t think what they can be doing, little kiddies like that, I can’t think what they can be doing.”
Firing cannon? Riding roller-coasters round the room? No, it turned out to be Sally’s energetic rubbing-out of her drawing of a cat. It wobbled the table, it set the floor vibrating.
“No, Sally, don’t use the rubber any more, just colour it how it is, there’s a good girl.”
“No, Martin, you must keep your dinky-car on the rug, Mrs Walters will hear it on the linoleum.”
“No, Sally, leave that chair where it is, we don’t want Mr Peters knocking on the wall again.”
No…. No…. No. Two lively little creatures reduced to tears and tempers, to sobbing, hopeless boredom.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t Hilda saying “I can’t stand it!” It was Miss Rice. And Mr Peters. And Mrs Walters.
*
Autumn passed into winter, and it was less and less often possible to take the twins to the park. Their bounding morning spirits had to be crushed earlier and earlier in the day. The search for a quiet game, for something that wouldn’t annoy the neighbours, became a day-long preoccupation for Hilda; but in spite of all her efforts nothing, nothing seemed quiet enough; for still, without respite, came the voices, from above, below, on every side:
“Really, Mrs Meredith, if you could keep them a little quieter….”
“Mrs Meredith, I don’t want to seem to complain, but….”
“Mrs Meredith, sometimes I think it’s a herd of elephants you’ve got up there….”
“It’s not that I don’t love kiddies, Mrs Meredith, but that’s not the same as letting them grow up little hooligans, is it, Mrs Meredith?”
“It’s my head, Mrs Meredith.”
“It’s my nerves, Mrs Meredith.”
“I’ve not been feeling too well, Mrs Meredith.”
So No, No, No, all through the grey November days. No, Martin. Stop it, Sally. No. No! No! No! The twins grew whiney and quarrelsome; their sturdy little legs looked thinner, their faces paler.
And still it wasn’t Hilda who said “I can’t stand it.” It was Miss Rice. And Mr Peters. And Mrs Walters.
*
It was the new carpet that gave her the idea; the new square of carpet bought to deaden the sound of footsteps in the hallway. It was not really new, it was second-hand and somewhat worn, but the twins were enchanted by it. They had never seen a Persian carpet before, and for a whole afternoon there was silence so absolute that not a word of complaint came from above or from below or from either side. From lunch-time till dusk, Martin and Sally crouched on the carpet examining every brown and crimson flower, every purple scroll and every pinkish coil of leaves. Hilda felt quite light-headed with happiness; a whole afternoon with the twins truly enjoying themselves and the neighbours not complaining!
“It’s a magic carpet!” she told them hopefully, when she saw that their interest was beginning to flag. “Why don’t you sit on it and shut your eyes, and it’ll take you to wonderful places. See? Off it goes! You’re flying off above the rooftops now, you’re looking down, and you can see all the houses, and the streets, and the trains….”
“And the Zoo!” chimed in Sally. “I can see the Zoo and all the animals in it. I can see the tigers and the lions …”
“And now we’re over the sea!” squealed Martin. “I can see the whales and the submarines and—and—Oh, look! Look, Sally, I can see an island! Let’s stop at that island, let’s go and live there!”
The game took hold. The perfect quiet game had been found at last. Hour after hour the twins would sit on the carpet travelling from land to land, and seeing strange and wonderful sights as they went. They would land in Siberia, or at the South Pole, or on a South Sea Island, where wild adventures would befall them, and they only escaped in time to fly home in time for tea.
But their favourite destination of all was Inkoo Land. In Inkoo Land there were tiny elephants just big enough to ride on; there were twisty, knobbly trees, wonderful for climbing, and from which you could pick all the kinds of fruit in the world. There were wide spaces of grass to run on, there was a jungle to play hide-and-seek in, there were monkeys who talked monkey-language, and Sally and Martin learned it too, with fantastic speed and ease; and then they played with the monkeys, swinging from branch to branch through the green, sun-spangled forests.
But always, in the end, they had to come home; they grew tired of sitting even on a magic carpet; and the moment they disembarked and set foot on the floor, the voices would start again, from all around:
“It’s my head, Mrs Meredith.”
“It’s my nerves, Mrs Meredith.”
“It’s not what I’m used to, Mrs Meredith, it’s making me ill, it really is!”
*
If only they could stay in Inkoo Land all day! Such a lovely game it was—there were moments when Hilda caught herself thinking how good it was for them, on the grey winter afternoons, to have all that exercise, rushing through the sunny glades, and clambering about in the forest trees. So much better for them than the steely winter park, with its asphalt paths and “Keep Off the Grass” notices.
Then she would recollect herself, smile a little wryly at her own childishness in getting so caught up in her children’s fantasies, and set herself to preparing tea ready for their “return”.
But at last, inevitably, the novelty of the game began to wear off: the “return” became earlier and earlier; and one day, a grey, hopeless day of fog and cold, the twins refused to go to Inkoo Land at all.
Hilda was conscious of a sickening, overmastering despair. They must go to Inkoo Land! In vain she pleaded, bribed, even scolded. Go to Inkoo Land they would not.
“We’ve got nothing to do, Mummy.” the old cry began again; and as if at a pre-arranged signal the voices returned, above, below and all around:
“It’s my nerves, Mrs Meredith.”
“It’s my head, Mrs Meredith.”
“I don’t want to complain, Mrs Meredith.”
“The doctor says I need rest, Mrs Meredith.”
The voices seemed to go on and on, whispering in the air, sighing in through the window, seeping in under the doors, and suddenly Hilda knew what she must do.
“I’ll come with you to Inkoo Land,” she declared. “You must show it to me—I’ve never seen it, you know.”
The twins interest was at once revived; they scrambled eagerly on to the carpet. “Mummy come too! Mummy come too!” they chanted; and when they were all seated on the carpet, Martin gave his orders in a clear little treble. “Inkoo Land, please!” he told the carpet; and they all clutched each other tight against the tipping and rocking to be expected as the carpet lifted itself off the floor.
But what had gone wrong? The carpet didn’t move at all! Hilda stared stupidly round the four walls that still enclosed them.
“Say it again, Martin!” she urged him; and, a little surprised, the child obeyed.
Still nothing happened. Hilda felt her heart beating strangely. Was it too heavy for the carpet, having to carry an adult as well as the two children? Or—why, that was it!—they should be near a window! How could they expect the carpet to fly if there was no window to fly out of? Jumping up, she hurried into the living room and opened the window wide to the foggy winter air.
“Bring the carpet in here!” she called, and hurried out to help the twins drag it in from the hall.
She was surprised to see them both looking a little frightened. Sally’s lips were quivering. “Play properly, Mummy!” she pleaded: and: “Oooo—it’s cold in here!” complained Martin, as they laid out the carpet in the sitting room, now slowly filling with swirls of icy fog.
“Never mind. We’ll soon be in Inkoo Land,” Hilda encouraged them. “On to the carpet, both of you. We’ll soon be in the lovely warm forest now, with the sun shining, and all the monkeys and the elephants. Say the words, Martin; say them again.”
And still the carpet didn’t move. The three of them together must definitely be too heavy, decided Hilda; they would have to help the carpet. One could see how hard it must be to lift the whole lot of them bodily off the floor; but if they were to give it a start by launching it off the window sill, then it would be able to glide along easily above the roof tops.
But why were the twins crying? Backing, hand in hand, away from the window, refusing to help as she dragged the unwieldy thing on to the ledge of the open window?
What a floppy sort of magic carpet it was! How it hung, limply, half in and half out of the window, dangling down on either side! But of course it would stiffen up when it began to fly. She clambered awkwardly on to the ledge and sat herself, as well as she could, balancing, on the carpet-covered sill. She began to feel excited. In a minute now she would be in Inkoo Land. Instead of this chilling fog, there would be a tropic sun beating down upon her; leaves on the great trees would shimmer in the golden light; bright tropical flowers would be there, and luxuriant creepers; and she would see her little twins romping joyously at last: running, shouting, jumping in the sunshine, far, far from the complaining voices.
“Mrs Meredith!” came, for one last time, the shocked voice of Miss Rice on her balcony; but already it seemed far, far away, a little thread of sound from the world of fog and chill which Hilda was leaving. “To Inkoo Land!” she cried to the carpet, and together they launched forth from the High Flats into the swirling, silver emptiness of the sky.
*
It was warm in Inkoo Land, just as she had known it would be; and there was grass, and great forest trees, and the sun shone. The grass was like great sweeps of lawn, and once or twice the twins had come, to run about on it, and laugh, and shout, and turn head over heels, just as she had imagined. But mostly it was people like herself, wandering slowly among the trees; and other people, in white coats, moving more briskly. And several times Miss Rice had mysteriously appeared, a quite changed Miss Rice, crying, and saying, “If only we had known!” and “When you come back, dear, everything will be different.” Miss Rice, it seemed, had saved her “in the nick of time”; but somehow Hilda couldn’t think about that just yet, not about the long, long problem that lay behind. Enough, for the moment, to be in Inkoo Land, and to know that, sooner or later, she would return, just as the twins had always returned, in time for tea.