The Exiles

Naomi. ‘You behave! We want to borrow his books for one thing.’
    ‘And find out if he can remember where we were yesterday,’ added Ruth.
    ‘If you don’t stop being so awful,’ threatened Naomi, ‘we’ll take you away to somewhere and abandon you.’
    ‘Like we did before!’ reminded Ruth, referring to the time when Phoebe had so badly disgraced them in town that they had tied her by her anorak strings to the sweet counter in Woolworths and left her there. In the end she had been brought home by the police, in bad trouble for stealing chocolate fudge and biting a policeman. When asked why she had done these things she had replied that the fudge was all she could reach, and the policeman’s hand ‘got in her mouth’. She had been walloped rather hard and sent to bed. Later she had been dragged to the police station and Woolworths and forced to make humiliating apologies. No one had believed that she had been tied to the sweet counter. She had not been tied up when she was found.
    ‘Nod your head if you’re going to behave,’ ordered Ruth.
    Phoebe nodded, pulling awful faces, and the tea towel was removed.
    ‘Pigs,’ she said.
    Graham was mashing the potatoes when they returned to the kitchen.
    ‘How does Graham know where everything is?’ asked Rachel.
    ‘He often spends a day up here with me,’ explained Big Grandma. ‘He helps me in the garden. Put that tea towel aside for washing, Ruth. It won’t be fit for anything now. I hope you did a good job with it,’ she added, looking at Phoebe as she spoke.
    In spite of the good job done on Phoebe the dinner was not a great social success. Phoebe sulked, and Big Grandma suddenly remembered why they had gone down to the beach that morning.
    ‘I take it you found my belongings?’ she asked them.
    ‘They were just where we left them,’ said Ruth truthfully.
    ‘We left them there for next time,’ added Rachel bravely.
    ‘I want them back,’ said Big Grandma. ‘They’ve lost my frying pan, Graham, among other things, and they think I’m a fool. What do you make of that?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Graham.
    ‘Well, I do,’ said Big Grandma, ‘and I think they had better be careful!’

    ‘You said you could remember,’ accused Phoebe.
    ‘Well, I can’t now,’ snapped Naomi, staring helplessly around the beach.
    That day a battle began in which Big Grandma attacked, demanding her property, and Ruth, Naomi, Rachel and Phoebe skulked, evaded, lied, and finally starved. Big Grandma chose the weapons, and the weapon she used was hunger.
    For three mornings running Big Grandma gave them raw potatoes and bacon for dinner, to take down to the beach and cook.
    The first day they ate sweets from the shop until they felt sick, smuggled the potatoes into the garden shed, and found, to their great surprise, that they could not bring themselves to throw the bacon away. In the end Ruth took it to bed with her, and later crept downstairs in the dark and sneaked it back into the fridge.
    The second day the shopman said he’d been asked not to sell them so many sweets, and they got very hungry, although not hungry enough (they discovered) to enjoy eating raw potatoes. That day the bacon went to a black and white collie dog, chained to a gate with a barrel for a kennel.
    ‘It’s not wasted if he eats it,’ said Ruth, unwrapping the package. The dog took the bacon politely in his mouth, and they waited eagerly for him to swallow the evidence, but instead he spat it out, sighed deeply, and appeared to go to sleep.
    ‘Perhaps he’ll bury it,’ said Ruth hopefully.
    ‘Perhaps it’s poisoned,’ said Naomi.
    On the third raw bacon day they realised that they would have to ask for outside help, and they hung around the village waiting for Graham. He didn’t turn up, and eventually they got so hungry they decided they would have to go to the house where he lived and ask for him. Ruth and Naomi were unable to force Rachel and Phoebe to do this, so they had to go themselves.
    ‘Two young lasses for our Graham,’ shouted a man into the house when he heard their request. ‘Tell him to choose his favourite and I’ll have the one he doesn’t want!’ and he winked at them as Graham came out. ‘Didn’t know you were courting, Graham!’
    ‘I’m not,’ said Graham. ‘What do they want?’
    ‘You, of course,’ said the man, slapping him on the back and winking again at Ruth and Naomi. ‘You give me a shout if they get too much for you,’