The Exiles at Home

Rachel and Phoebe woke up at five o’clock on Easter morning and discovered, to their huge delight, that the Easter bunny had left his presents on the end of their beds.

‘Which will never happen again,’ said Mrs Conroy, later that disastrous day.

Between five o’clock and half-past six that morning, Rachel and Phoebe consumed three large chocolate eggs, one packet of marzipan ducks, one packet of peppermint cream rabbits, three bananas taken from the kitchen for no good reason that Rachel could give, two hard-boiled eggs, painted pink with their names on, and two cooking apples, raw, because they were thirsty. Strengthened by their efforts, and finding there was nothing left to eat, they went to see how Ruth and Naomi were getting on.

Naomi was lying very curled up on the edge of her bed, clutching the pillow with one hand and looking strangely pale.

‘Happy Easter!’ said Rachel, bouncing on to her feet, ‘thanks for your Easter egg; we ate half each. Here’s yours from me, home-made at school.’ She pulled an oily parcel from her dressing gown pocket. ‘It’s made of coconut ice. We could do six little ones or one big one so I did you one big one! And Phoebe made one for Ruth.’

‘Where’s Ruth?’ demanded Phoebe. ‘She didn’t find her Easter egg. I hid it for a surprise for her up Old Teddy’s jumper and I’ve just looked and it’s still there!’

‘She must have slept with it all night,’ remarked Rachel. ‘Is it squashed?’

Naomi had unwrapped her parcel and was gazing at a large greyish egg, splashed all over with paintbox-red dots.

‘In a minute!’ snapped Naomi, so fiercely Rachel and Phoebe stared in surprise.

‘She’s in a mood,’ said Phoebe, and when Ruth pushed the door open and collapsed on to her bed, she asked, ‘Are you in a mood too?’

‘Shut up. Go away,’ said Ruth, and pulled her pillow over her head. Naomi pulled it away again to ask, ‘Were you?’

‘We’ve eaten all our Easter stuff,’ Rachel told Ruth. ‘We had a feast; we didn’t mean to, but then it didn’t seem worth stopping so we ate the hard-boiled eggs and ducks and rabbits that Big Grandma sent, to finish!’

‘Look under Old Teddy’s jumper, Ruth,’ said Phoebe. ‘I’ve put a surprise!’

‘Something in this room smells disgusting,’ said Ruth, not listening. ‘Really sweet and disgusting, I’ve been smelling it all night.’

Phoebe lost patience and banged Old Teddy down on Ruth’s stomach so hard that he laid an egg, damp and rather hairy. It was suddenly too much for Ruth.

‘Where are they?’ asked Mrs Conroy, coming in a few moments later to see what all the noise was about.

‘Nothing, well, Naomi ate a bit of the Easter egg we made her. Ruth wouldn’t even look at hers, she shouted, “Get it out of my bed! Get it out of my bed!” and ran to the bathroom, and then Naomi ran after her!’

Except for a temporary loss of appetite at breakfast time, both Rachel and Phoebe continued to be all right. Ruth and Naomi spent the day in bed.

‘Tummy upsets,’ said Mrs Conroy, and ordered Rachel and Phoebe to stay out of the way. However, Rachel visited the invalids on Monday morning and returned looking pleased with herself.

When they weren’t any better by Tuesday the doctor came and said, ‘Gastric flu. Lucky the other two have escaped.’

‘Catching what your big sisters have gone down with,’ said the doctor, who was an old friend of Rachel’s. ‘Stick your tongue out. Give me your wrist, jump up and down a bit, say “Ah!”’

‘Sound as a bell,’ said the doctor, handing Mrs Conroy a sheaf of prescriptions. ‘And how’s Phoebe, the wonder child? Still top of the class?’

‘Yes,’ said Phoebe, not very modestly. ‘Do you think I have gastric flu?’

‘How much longer do you think it’s going to last?’ asked Naomi wearily on Thursday. Her head was hot and thumping and her back was shaking cold and when she tried to write a note to Toby, she found herself going dizzy.

Dear Toby and Emma,

I am sorry we have not been but we have flu. Will come as soon as we can.

Love, Naomi and Ruth

It took her all afternoon, in bits and pieces, to write it. Ruth, staggering out of bed to look for a stamp, suddenly slipped and bashed her head on the windowsill.

‘Wait,’ commanded Phoebe, and came back wearing her winter mittens as protection.

‘The doctor said it wasn’t the paint we put on your eggs,’ she said, grabbing the letter and going out again very quickly.

‘And the egg up Old Teddy’s jumper couldn’t have made anyone as sick as this.’

‘Oh well,’ said Ruth, ‘we knew you probably would. Go and borrow Josh, so Martin doesn’t forget he said we could share him, and post this letter for us.’

‘Mum said we’d go to the park after lunch,’ said Phoebe. ‘We’ll post it on the way. We’re taking bubbles because it’s lovely and windy. When are you going to get better?’

Ruth said she didn’t know. It felt like they’d been ill for months. However, by the weekend they had progressed to dry toast and orange juice and could sit up and read without feeling that their heads might explode at any minute. The next day they staggered downstairs and managed scrambled eggs for tea.

‘You’ve wasted all the holidays,’ said Phoebe, ‘school again on Monday.’

‘Not for these two,’ said their mother. ‘They’re going up to Grandma’s for a few days of fresh air! They’re still far from fit for school; they’d pick up the first thing that was going around.’

‘It’s not fair,’ said Rachel bitterly that afternoon in the garden. ‘You two always leave me and Phoebe out of everything!’

‘You didn’t care that we ate your Easter eggs! You were poorly without us and now you’re going to sneak off to Big Grandma’s and we’ll be left behind! You even write letters to people we don’t know, and,’ concluded Rachel, gratified to find that real tears of frustration were rolling down her cheeks, ‘you’ve had a huge, great big money secret without us for ages now! It’s not fair!’

‘Yes, you are,’ agreed Ruth. ‘We’re only going to Big Grandma’s because we were ill. You could have come and caught it if you’d wanted to! You never came near us, except to pinch our Easter eggs!’

‘I didn’t know about missing school and going to Big Grandma’s then,’ said Rachel, sniffing.

‘And how do you know we’ve got money secrets? And if we had, why should we tell you? You’d tell everyone and you wouldn’t help!’

‘I would!’ Another tear trickled down Rachel’s face and she wiped her nose on her knees and tried to look pathetic.

‘You would what?’ asked Naomi suddenly. ‘Help? Or tell everyone?’ Once again she and Ruth were worrying about Joseck’s money. It was obvious that very little, if any, could be earned that month. Two weeks had gone already and all their savings had been spent on the Easter eggs.

‘I wouldn’t tell anyone,’ said Rachel hopefully, ‘I would help. Promise!’

‘I’ll promise not to tell anyone,’ agreed Phoebe, who never told anyone anything anyway, ‘but,’ she added cautiously, ‘I don’t promise to help!’

Ruth began. About the cold day in the library when she had read about Africa to get warm. About Joseck and his school. About saying she was eighteen when she wasn’t. And in between there was Peter and Toby and Emma, goats on roofs, and chickens. Manchester United and being a sponsor. Halfway through she fetched Joseck’s photograph and his letter, and that made it easier.

Then Naomi took over, and explained about the charity that arranged it all, and the ten pounds a month that was so hard to find.

‘What will happen if you don’t send the money?’ asked Phoebe. ‘I mean, except for Ruth getting arrested for saying she was eighteen?’

‘We don’t know,’ Naomi said. ‘Perhaps they’ll just tell him we’re not bothering any more. Perhaps they might even stop him going to school. Then he will feel awful.’

‘He likes school, he’s clever. I bet he’d be miserable. And we’re supposed to be his friends.’

‘You have to send his money,’ said Phoebe firmly, ‘or else you will be mean pigs and I will bury your cage in the garden and worms will come and live with you!’

‘But we spent all our money on Easter eggs, and then we got ill and we couldn’t earn any more and now we’ve got to go to Big Grandma’s,’ said Ruth miserably.

‘Well, me and Rachel will help,’ said Phoebe grandly, ignoring Rachel’s alarmed expression. ‘You should have asked us before!’

Two days later found Rachel staring at the envelope Ruth and Naomi had left behind, and feeling completely unheroic.

‘It’s addressed and got a stamp on and everything,’ Ruth had said. ‘All you have to do is put a ten pound postal order inside, or a ten pound note if that’s easier.’

Nothing was easy about the task. But it was too late now; Ruth and Naomi were gone, Rachel had promised, and Phoebe’s train had refused to yield its riches.

I suppose, thought Rachel, wriggling with horror at the thought, I suppose I’ll have to rob the Post Office.

It was the only solution she could think of, and because worrying about robbing the Post Office somehow felt even more alarming than actually doing the deed, Rachel stowed Ruth’s envelope in her usual hiding place and set off at a nervous trot to commit the crime.

There was a queue at the counter. One position was closed, and at the other, where Rachel’s nice cashier was sitting, two old ladies waited to draw their pensions. The cashier recognized Rachel at once and cheerfully waved a ten pound note at her. Pretending not to notice, Rachel lined up behind the old ladies. It would have been comforting to be in disguise, but then the whole success of Rachel’s plan depended on the fact that the cashier would know who she was. The first old lady moved away and Rachel’s hands tightened on her quaking stomach.

It isn’t really crime, she thought, feeling unburglarish, It’s my money. It’s not my fault they won’t give it to me without a grown-up. They should have told me that, before I put it in. I never would have then; they’re the burglars, not me. I’m only getting it back. It’s my money! She found herself standing at the counter and realized she had spoken aloud.

‘Of course it is,’ agreed the cashier. ‘Did you think I’d spent it? There you are,’ and he slapped a ten pound note down on his side of the counter.

‘That’s not mine,’ said Rachel, determined to take only what was her own. ‘You know it isn’t. Mine was much newer and had a bent corner.’

‘How could I have forgotten?’ asked the cashier, reaching down and producing a new, bent-cornered one. ‘There it is!’

Rachel’s hand, damp and grubby and cold with fear, but small enough to achieve her purpose, shot beneath the grille, grabbed the ten pound note, and the next moment she was running, running as fast as she could, out of the Post Office, and round the corner to the letter-box that stood at the end of the street. Here she paused and looked back. She had expected to be pursued, but no one had given chase. Hastily she retrieved the envelope from her front, stuffed the ten pound note inside and posted it.

Now Joseck’s safe! she thought, and the feeling of relief and achievement was so great that she hugged herself with delight. A second later her happiness left her. If Joseck was safe, it was equally certain that she, Rachel, definitely wasn’t. Why hadn’t the cashier run after her, she wondered? Or perhaps he had, but she’d been too fast. Perhaps he had simply called the police and they were at her home, waiting for her, or tracking her footsteps with Alsation dogs on leads. Rachel looked down at her dusty trainers and wondered if she should take them off, to baffle the dogs. It seemed a sensible idea.

Cautiously, in her socks, she retraced her footsteps to the corner and looked round. There was the Post Office, she could see the red and yellow sign, but nobody was outside looking for her. Except for two small boys on bikes and a tortoiseshell cat, the street was empty.

No policemen waited for her at the Post Office door. Rachel, tiptoeing past, listened for the sound of voices, unaware that inside, the manager and the cashier were laughing and laughing. They had not called the police, or prepared an ambush or given chase because they had another plan. It was to have a word with Rachel’s mother.

Weak with relief, Rachel reached her home and noticed with satisfaction that no police vans were parked outside. It looked unbelievably normal. Her mother was potting up seedlings in the shed.

‘I’ve grown far too many,’ she remarked to Rachel, not seeming to notice that her daughter had turned into a criminal. ‘Perhaps Naomi will take a few to her old people when she gets back from Big Grandma’s.’

It was as if the past hour had been a dream. Mr Conroy sat in his usual chair, reading gloomily through a pile of bills.

Phoebe was sitting on her bunk bed, looking very guilty. As Rachel entered, she jumped and stuffed something under her pillow.

‘You’ll get in awful trouble,’ said Rachel, not without a certain amount of satisfaction.

Side by side they sat on Phoebe’s bed and contemplated the tattered remains of the Post Office book, and the shattered china of Phoebe’s train.

‘Just proves,’ remarked Rachel eventually, ‘how stupid it is to save money. I never will again. Look what happens!’

Phoebe, remembering with awe all the horrible things Rachel had ever done, things which included setting fire to Big Grandma’s house and being accidently sick into someone else’s desk (‘Well, at least it wasn’t your own,’ Naomi had remarked at the time), shuddered in sympathy.

Downstairs there was a sudden clamour of voices: Mrs Conroy’s raised, exclaiming, and Mr Conroy’s and at least one stranger’s.

‘Rachel!’ shouted Mrs Conroy up the stairs. ‘I think you’ve got some explaining to do, young lady!’

‘Come with me,’ begged Rachel, ‘before they come up here and see your train.’

‘Just keep saying sorry,’ advised Phoebe, and, ‘Sorry I robbed the Post Office!’ said Rachel over and over again, to her dissatisfied parents and the Post Office manager, who had arrived as soon as he was able to manage.

Nothing could persuade her to say any more, to explain why she had done it, or how she had disposed of the money. Backed loyally by Phoebe, she repeated that she was sorry, she wished she hadn’t, and she never would do it again.

‘Try and cry a bit,’ suggested Phoebe, in a whisper that was unfortunately overheard. She was sent from the room, and Rachel, without her support, really did manage to burst into tears – loud, noisy roaring ones, drowning the sound of all further questions.

‘What are you doing to her?’ enquired Phoebe, returning to the room after concealing the remains of her train.

‘Nobody is doing anything to her,’ said Mrs Conroy crossly, and eventually they gave up and sent her to bed, where she slept soundly and awoke to a day of bright sunshine and the cheerful thought that the worst was over.

‘I know,’ agreed Rachel, staring at her knees, but she did not feel disgraced. She felt noble.

CHAPTER SIX