Unfortunately, Mum drove us down in Neils car. Its small and slow, with so little space for people that Chriss guitar was digging into me all the way; and there are horrible crunching noises from the suspension when you drive with luggage in. Chris and I wanted to go by train. That way we wouldnt have to go on the road over Cranbury Head. But Mum ignored our feelings and put on her brave and merry manner which annoys Chris so much, and off we drove. Chris and I tried not to look at the pale new section of fence on the clifftop, and I think
Mum tried too, but we could sort of see it even when we werent looking. Theres a big gap in the trees and bushes there, because its not quite spring yet and no leaves have hidden the place. Dad must have swooped right across the road from left to right. I wondered how he felt, in that last second or so, when he knew he was going over, but I didnt say so. We were all pretending we hadnt noticed the place.
Aunt Marias house failed to cheer us up. Its quite old, in a street of other old houses, which look very picturesque, all in shades-of-cream-colour, and its not very big. It looks bigger inside almost grand and imposing. It must be the big dark furniture. All the rooms seem dark, somehow, and it smells of the way your mouth tastes when you wake up to find youve got a cold. Mum hasnt admitted to the smell, but she keeps saying she cant understand why the house is so dark. Perhaps if she put up cheerful curtains, she says, or moved the furniture round. The house must get quite a lot of sun through the garden at the back.
Aunt Maria greeted us with the news that Lavinias mother was ill and Lavinia had gone to look after her. It doesnt matter, she said, stumping towards us with two sticks. Chris can have the little room now. I can manage quite well if somebody helps me wash and dress, and Im sure you wont mind doing the cooking, will you, Betty dear?
Mum of course said shed help in any way she could.
Well, so you should, Aunt Maria said. Youre not at work at the moment, are you?
I think even Mum privately found this a bit much, but she smiled and put it down to Aunt Maria being old. Mum keeps doing that. She points out that Aunt Maria was brought up in the days of servants and does not realise quite what shes asking sometimes. Chris and I suspect that Aunt Maria no sooner knew we were coming than she gave Lavinia a holiday. Chris says Lavinia was probably going to give notice. He says anyone who has to live with Aunt Maria is bound to want to leave after an hour.
We dont need to have supper, Aunt Maria said. I just have a glass of milk and a piece of cheese.
Mum saw our faces. We can go out and find some fish and chips, she said.
What?! In Cranbury! said Aunt Maria, as if Mum had offered to go and carve up a missionary or the postman. Then she hummed and hawed and said if poor Betty was tired after the journey and didnt want to cook, she thought there was a fish stall of some kind down on the sea front. Though I expect itll be closed at this season, she said.
Chris went off into the dusk to look, muttering things. He came back in half an hour looking windblown and told us that everything by the pier was shut. And doesnt look as if it had ever been open in the last hundred years, he said. Now what?
What a good boy you are to look after us all like this, said Aunt Maria. I think there were some nut cutlets Lavinia put somewhere.
Im not a good boy, Im hungry, said Chris. Where are the beastly nut cutlets?
Christian! said Mum.
We went and searched the kitchen. There were two nut cutlets and some eggs and things, but there was only one saucepan and a very small frying pan and almost nothing else. Mum wondered how Lavinia managed. I thought she may have taken all the cooking things with her when she went. Anyway, we invented a sort of nut scrambled eggs on toast. When I set the table, Aunt Maria said, Were just camping out tonight. Dont bother to put napkins, dear. Its fun using kitchen cutlery.
I thought she meant it, so I didnt look for napkins until Mum whispered, Dont be silly, Mig! Its just her polite way of saying shes used to napkins and her best silver. Go and look.
Mum was very good at understanding Aunt Marias polite way of saying things. It has already caused her a lot of work. If she doesnt watch out, shes not going to get any kind of holiday at all. It has caused her to clean the cutlery with silver polish and to roll up the hall carpet in case someone slips on it in the night, and put the potted plants in the bath, and force Chris to wind all seven clocks, and help Aunt Maria upstairs, where Mum and I undressed her and put her hair in pigtails, and plumped her pillows in the way Aunt Maria said she wouldnt bother with as Lavinia was not there, and then to lay out her things for morning. Aunt Maria said we were not to, of course.
And I wont bother with breakfast, now Lavinias not here to bring it me in bed, dear, was Aunt Marias final demand. Mum promised to bring her breakfast on a tray at eight-thirty sharp. Its a very useful way of bullying people. I went downstairs and tried it on Chris.