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‘Do I have to?’
He waggles his hands in frustration. ‘Don’t you ache to be free?’
‘Free of what?’
‘Just once, I wish you weren’t such a stick-in-the-mud, Edie. I’m never able to do what I want. Always chained to you, shackled like a prisoner—’
The barrage of words finds its target and stings.
‘Oh,’ I say.
He frowns. ‘Dash it all, Edie, I didn’t mean it like that. Don’t take on so.’ But he does mean it, exactly like that. ‘Forget I spoke. I should hold my tongue.’
He makes amends by sticking out his tongue and pinching it tight. I try to smile, but it is not easy. I don’t understand how he can say such a cruel thing. I never demand that he come and play with me. I never force him to stay. If he finds me so tiresome, I don’t know why he insists on my company. It is confusing.
Gnome piggy-backs me home. He does not grumble, not once.
‘I thought you said I was as heavy as a hod of bricks,’ I mumble.
‘So you are. But I am strong as a bricklayer.’
I squeeze him so tight we can’t breathe. ‘Don’t leave me, Gnome. Not ever.’
He doesn’t answer; too busy hoisting me on to the roof of the outhouse, up the pipe and through the window. We tumble through, tickling each other and rolling on the floor like puppies.
‘Get into bed,’ chides Gnome, herding me towards the cot he hauled me out of such a short time before. ‘It’ll be light soon.’
I skip across the floor, ears buzzing, fingertips shooting sparks as though I’ve brought the fireworks home. ‘No it won’t.’
‘It’s usually you who is the sensible one.’ He tries to be stern, but I can hear glee at the back of his words.
‘How can I sleep after such an adventure? It is quite impossible.’
‘No, you are quite impossible. Hurry up. Get out of these britches,’ he says, fumbling with the buttons. I try to help but I’m all fingers and thumbs. ‘Leave off,’ he cries. ‘I’ll be quicker.’
He wrestles with the fly and wins. The trousers fall to my ankles. I take a step, trip and fall flat upon the mattress. Marbles scatter across the rug. He seizes his opportunity, pins me down and endeavours to drag the shirt over my head.
‘We’ve got to fold the trousers and put them away tidily,’ I mumble.
‘No time,’ he says with an odd urgency. He sounds an awfully long way off, as if he has turned into a gnat and is whining in my ear. I flap my hand but it is stuck half in and half out of the shirt. ‘Stay still,’ he says, so grave and unlike his usual self I can’t help tittering.
All my clothes are off. The blanket is scratchy, coarse.
‘Tell me a bedtime story, Gnome,’ I say, halfway gone.
Breath close to my ear, hot and stifling. He folds his hand in mine. My hand in his. I think of Nana folding butter into flour. I flutter my fingers and hear Gnome giggle.
‘That tickles.’
Perhaps I say it. Perhaps it is Gnome. I’m so sleepy I’m no longer sure where he ends and I begin. Nor does it matter: I have never known such bliss and I know he feels it also. I know everything he has ever known, feel everything he has ever felt. It is so simple. I did not realise—
The door flies open. Ma stands against the light, her candle shivering the walls with shadow.
‘Come now, Edie,’ she says. ‘What’s all this noise?’
‘Ma!’ I cheer, still fizzing with excitement. I reach for her to gather me into her arms.
‘Why aren’t you asleep?’ She plonks down the candle, marches across the room and closes the window.
Shh, hisses Gnome. Don’t tell.
The space between my ears is spinning with red and yellow lights; rockets are bouncing off the walls of my ribs. I can’t help myself.
‘I’ve been to the fireworks!’ I crow. ‘It was wonderf—’
‘You naughty girl!’ she exclaims, pushing aside my grasping hands. ‘If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times. You’re too little to step out on your own.’
‘I didn’t. Gnome held my hand.’
Don’t say my name! says Gnome. Not to her.
‘What?’ Ma swallows so heavily I see the muscles in her neck clump together. ‘Who …?’
‘I told Gnome you’d be cross, but he wouldn’t listen …’
‘Gnome?’ she gulps. ‘No.’
Her eyes stretch so wide they look like they might pop out of her head. I hold my hand over my mouth to push the giggle back in.
That’s torn it, says Gnome.
‘No. No. No,’ she mutters, over and over, shaking her head from side to side. ‘I’ll not have it. There’s no such person.’
‘There is! He’s here every night.’
I don’t know why Ma is being so silly. The candle flame wobbles. Her expression twists from disbelief to belief, belief to shame, shame to fear, fear to anger. She slaps the back of my legs. Not hard, but it stings.
‘Ow! Ma, you’re hurting.’
‘Serves you right for telling lies.’
‘I’m not. Gnome!’ I cry. ‘Come back and tell Ma!’
I can’t see him. Maybe he’s hiding under the bed. But Gnome doesn’t need to hide. He’s not afraid of anyone.
‘Shut up!’ Ma cuffs the side of my head. My ears whistle. ‘He’s not real. He can’t be! When are you going to get it through that thick skull of yours?’
I shrink into the bed as far as I can, curl against the wall. There is no further I can go. I don’t know why Ma is so furious. She is strict, but not like this: wild, white-faced. I want the mattress to open its mouth and gobble me up.
‘It was all Gnome’s idea!’ I squeal. ‘He made me go with him!’
It’s a terrible lie. The air freezes, pushing ice so far down my throat I can’t breathe. Ma seizes my shoulders and shakes me.
‘He’s not real! Say it!’
‘No!’ I wail.
‘Say it!’ she roars.
My head jerks back and forth, my neck as brittle as a bit of straw.
‘Say it!’
Roaring in my ears. Dark, sucking.
‘He’s not real,’ I moan.
‘Louder!’
‘He’s not real!’ I whimper, the thin squeal of a doll with a voice box in its chest.
‘What’s all this to-do?’ booms Nana. She can barely fit into the tiny room beside Ma, but fit she does. She throws a quick glance the length of my body and turns to Ma. ‘Well, Cissy?’
Ma’s face contorts. ‘Lies. Nightmares,’ she spits. ‘She says she’s been to the fireworks. With – no. No! Her and her wretched imaginings. It’s enough to try the patience of a saint.’
‘Stuff and nonsense,’ says Nana pertly. She lowers herself on to the mattress and huffs a sigh that matches the springs in weary music. She pats the blanket. ‘Come here, Edie.’
I shake my head the smallest fraction and cling to the bedstead.
‘No one is going to punish you.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ growls Ma.
‘Pipe down,’ snaps Nana, throwing her a glance that could burn toast. ‘Now then, Edie,’ she says very carefully. ‘Why aren’t you in your nightdress? You’ve not a stitch on.’
I shake my head again. It seems to be the only thing of which I am capable.
‘Filthy little heathen,’ says Ma.
Nana continues in her soft burr, coaxing me out of my funk. ‘You’ll catch your death. Here.’ She plucks my nightdress out of thin air, or so it seems to my fuddled brain. I clutch it to my chest. ‘I think we could all do with some sleep,’ she adds.
I nod. My head bounces, broken and empty. Nana turns to Ma and frowns.
‘Look at her. She doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going. Be gentle with her. As I was with you.’
‘Since when did any of that nonsense do any good? She’s tapped. I’ll have her taken away, I will.’
‘Hush. You’ll do no such thing. You’re frightening the child. If you let her play out rather than keeping her cooped up, she wouldn’t need to make up stories.’
‘Who cares about her? What about my nerves?’
Nana ignores her and returns her attention to me. ‘You’re a good girl, aren’t you, Edie love?’
‘Yes?’ I say uncertainly.
‘So you haven’t really been to the fireworks, have you?’
Ma glares over Nana’s shoulder, eyes threatening dire punishment. I am afraid of lying, terrified of the truth. My heart gallops like a stampede of coal horses.
‘No,’ I squeak.
Ma smirks; Nana does not. I have satisfied one and not the other. I have no idea how to please them both.
‘Was it a nightmare, Edie?’ Nana purrs.
I can tell the truth, if that’s what she wants. But I no longer know what anyone wants. ‘Yes,’ I lie.
‘Well, then,’ she says. ‘You were dreaming. That’s all.’
Ma storms out of the room, grumbling about my disobedience. Nana pauses, screws up her eyes until they are slits. I have the oddest notion she’s trying to see through me and find Gnome. She leans close.
‘Herbert?’ she whispers.
‘Shh,’ I hiss. ‘He hates that name.’ She gives me a startled glance. ‘I’m sorry, Nana. I didn’t mean to be rude. But he likes to be called Gnome.’
She looks over her shoulder, as though worried Ma is watching. I did not think grandmothers were afraid of their own children.
‘Quiet now,’ she murmurs. She kisses my brow. ‘Let’s have no more of this talk. Not in front of your mother. You can see how it riles her.’
‘But he’s my brother.’
‘No, he’s not.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘I can’t explain. You’re too little. One day. Just don’t say his name again. A quiet life. That’s what we all want.’
‘Can we run away, Nana?’
‘Hush, my pet. Do you want your ma to come back in here?’
She pinches my cheek. It is affectionate, but her eyes are desperate. She slides away, taking the light of the candle with her. I lie in a darkness greater than the absence of flame. I’m afraid. If Nana is too, there’s nowhere I can turn. Through the wall I hear them argue, voices muffled by brick.
‘This wasn’t supposed to happen,’ wails Ma. ‘She’s ruined everything.’
‘She’s ruined nothing. She’s the same as you and me, that’s all.’
‘That’s all? I raised her to be normal.’
‘Cissy, for goodness’ sake …’
‘It can’t be true. I won’t let it be.’
