The Exiles

them.’
    ‘I’m not!’ said Phoebe indignantly. ‘You don’t know how much they cost!’
    It seemed Big Grandma was not easily shocked however, for Phoebe, recklessly ignoring her sisters’ warnings, showed them to her after tea. Big Grandma admired the sheep and ironed the cards flat so that they were almost as good as new. Phoebe explained to Big Grandma her likeness to the lady in the picture, and Naomi and Ruth were surprised to find that she considered herself complimented.
    ‘We thought you’d be cross,’ remarked Ruth.
    ‘Not at my age,’ said Big Grandma.

    It seemed that the village weatherforecasters were right in their predictions. By bedtime the sky had clouded over and the wind had dropped to the ominous trickle of a breeze that comes before a gale. In the middle of the night, Ruth was woken by rain on her face, blown straight across the bedroom from the open window. The curtains were streaming into the room like flags, and they flapped wetly down on her as she pushed the window shut.
    ‘About time!’ came a voice from Naomi’s bed. ‘I’ve been getting soaked for ages but I couldn’t wake you up!’
    ‘Why didn’t you go and close it?’
    ‘Couldn’t be bothered. My legs are still stiff. Can you put the light on?’
    With the window now shut they became more aware of the sounds inside. The sea wind thrummed across the chimney pots, tugged and smacked at the windowpanes, and whipped the walls with trailing branches of the ash tree that grew by the front door.
    ‘It sounds as if the house is falling to bits,’ said Naomi uneasily.
    ‘Or as if it’s alive,’ added Ruth as at that moment the kitchen door crashed open below them, and the stairs in the sudden draught and dampness shaped their three hundred year old treads and timbers to the new conditions.
    ‘The creaks sound like coffin lids,’ whispered Naomi, and clutched at her knees in fear as the bathroom door slammed itself shut across the passage.
    In the quietness that followed, the electric light shone cold and empty on their anxious faces.
    ‘I’m sure this house is haunted.’
    ‘Shut up.’
    ‘Or there’s someone out there.’
    ‘Shut up. Who?’
    ‘Big Grandma?’
    ‘She wouldn’t crash around like that.’
    ‘Typical of Big Grandma,’ said Naomi bitterly, ‘to live in a haunted house!’
    Although the worst of the storm had passed, the new, heavy silence was awful. Even the noise of the rain on the windows could not drown it. They dare not lie down, in case they might have to get up quickly to escape. Escape what? They did not know. Instead they dozed, sitting up and waking with startled jerks, listening. When the rain and the wind grew louder they found themselves straining to hear above them.
    There seemed to be no hope of rest or peace, and yet towards morning they fell asleep and dreamed wistfully of home.
    Something very hard landed on Naomi.
    Terrified she struggled with the blankets, sat up, and saw the electric lamp glowing inanely in the morning light. Phoebe was sitting on her.
    ‘Have you any clean socks I can borrow?’ she asked.
    ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack!’ Naomi shoved her onto the floor. ‘And no I haven’t. Anyway, mine would be too big for you.’
    ‘I often wear your socks,’ said Phoebe incautiously.
    ‘Well, you’re not going to this time.’ Naomi returned happily to the world of scrounging sisters and petty theft. ‘Go and pinch some of Ruth’s before she wakes up.’

    Two slates had fallen off the roof in the night, wrenched away by the wind. One of them slithered to the ground and smashed on the front doorstep exactly where Naomi had been sitting the day before. It rained all day, not hard, but continuously. Big Grandma hardly took any notice of the weather at all. She spent the afternoon in a deck chair in the greenhouse, peacefully writing letters, and seemed surprised, on returning to the house, to find that nobody else had been out. The washing from the day before hung on the line so heavy with rain that it would have sagged to the ground if it hadn’t been sustained by the clothes prop in the middle. ‘You’d think one of us would have had the wits to bring it in,’ remarked Big Grandma, but she did not seem particularly distressed.
    Nobody but Ruth and Naomi seemed to have been disturbed by the noises of the night. Not wishing to make fools of themselves, they did not mention their uneasy night to anyone, but privately, in their bedroom, they