Clever Girl by Tessa Hadley Page B

what she actually knew, or didn’t know.
    — They shouldn’t have chopped down a grove of beech trees, I said sternly, improvising. — It’s unlucky.
    — Why?
    — Because they were sacred. In the olden days, people worshipped them.
    She thought about this. — What d’you mean, worshipped?
    — Prayed to them. Believed that they were sacred – you know, like God.
    — God?
    Perhaps she’d never noticed who she was praying to at school. I stood up carefully, respectfully from the stump. — I hope the gods aren’t angry.
    — Is it alive now? Madeleine asked warily.
    — Kind of, in a way.
    I showed her where the tree was feebly sprouting. — It’s still trying to grow.
    — Ooh, I don’t like it, she squealed, backing off in a pantomime of shuddering.
    She looked like the kind of girl who would join in when there was squealing over anything: blood, wasps, veins in school-dinner liver – although she wouldn’t quite mean it, would just be enjoying the noise and distraction. She was too robust to be properly squeamish.
    — You’d better not say you don’t like them, I said. — They might hear.
    A gleam of inspiration pierced her vagueness. Taking me by surprise, she dropped to her knees on the clay, squeezing her eyes shut and clasping her hands together. — For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful, she gabbled in the prescribed drone. — In the name of the ferrership of the spirit. (She meant fellowship.) Oh holy tree. Who art very nice; and we’re sorry that they’ve cut you down.
    I knew that this was mostly for my benefit. Nonetheless, I glanced involuntarily upward. A few fat drops of rain fell without warning or follow-through, darkening spots on the dried clay.
    — See? said Madeleine. — It doesn’t mind.
     
    That evening my mother boiled eggs and warmed beans on a primus; our gas stove wasn’t connected yet. We buttered sliced bread straight from the bag and had the milk bottle on the table.
    — Isn’t this an adventure? she said excitedly.
    I was suspicious of something new in her face: not romance, exactly (she was never soft), but as if a force had filled her out, carrying her forward in exhilaration. She must have been just waiting to be married, I realised. I tried intently to imagine my father (missing, presumed dead) taking up the space that Gerry was filling now; but my picture of my father was too vague, Gerry was too assertive. He was sweaty, naturally, after the work he’d done; his hair was wet because he’d doused his head under the tap in the bathroom. His bodily presence intruded every way I turned, making the new house seem crowded when I ought to have felt its succession of spaces flowering ahead of me, after the two rooms that Mum and I had shared since I could remember. As twilight thickened outside, the house’s shell seemed too pervious, swelling with the electric light as if it were as insubstantial as the canvas tents at school camp.
    Mum and Gerry discussed with deep interest the economics of using the immersion heater. After he’d dried each cup and plate he held it up to the light to inspect it. He complained that when I washed up I splashed water on the floor and used too much squeegee. Already I didn’t like living with him, and it had only been a matter of hours. I retreated to my cell-bedroom where at least now a bed was installed – though it wasn’t the old double bed that I’d slept in since I outgrew my cot. That bed had never been ours, apparently; it had belonged to the old flat. On this new narrow one was a pile of ironed candy-stripe sheets. With a martyred consciousness – where did they think I was? why didn’t they wonder? – I tucked them inexpertly over the mattress, then climbed between them in my knickers and vest. I heard my mother and Gerry talking downstairs. Though I couldn’t make out their words, I knew that they were deciding with wholehearted adult seriousness where to put each piece of furniture.