The Exiles

out of the corner window on the other side of the wardrobe.
    ‘It must go into the garage,’ she announced. ‘She must have had an upstairs room built on top of the garage when she got the garage made. And that door is where a window used to be. I wonder what she keeps in there?’
    ‘It’s too dark to see anything,’ said Rachel with her eye to the keyhole.
    ‘Well, we haven’t time now anyhow,’ said Ruth. ‘Come and help me get this stuff up off the floor. They’ll be back soon – it’s nearly night already. What’s Phoebe doing?’
    Phoebe was writing a letter home which simply stated: We hav run ot of muny .
    She was doing the kisses when the car pulled up and Naomi, half doped with painkillers, staggered out of the back. Sisterly enquiries filled the air.
    ‘What bone did you break? Did you see the X-ray? Would you recognise one like it only coming off a sheep?’
    ‘Did you have a nice time? What did you have for dinner? Did you get that plaster free for nothing?’
    ‘Did they nail it? Did they nail it?’
    ‘I’m going to bed,’ said Naomi, pulling a bundle of screwed up magazines from under her anorak and handing them to Ruth. ‘Pinched them,’ she explained, climbing wearily up the stairs. ‘Tell Phoebe to shut up.’
    ‘Shut up,’ said everyone to Phoebe.
    ‘I’ve got everything ready,’ said Ruth proudly, leading the procession to the bedroom.
    ‘Very nice too,’ commented Big Grandma when she saw the invalid chamber that had been prepared during their absence. Two beer glasses, one full of orange juice, the other full of flowers, stood beside Naomi’s bed. Ranged on the floor within easy reach was all the reading matter they possessed, including Shakespeare and Phoebe’s colouring book, a plate of cheese sandwiches, a half-eaten bar of chocolate (Rachel’s idea), and a rather too obvious bucket.
    ‘You could have made my bed,’ said Naomi ungratefully.
    ‘Sharper than a serpent’s tooth,’ commented Big Grandma. ‘And what’s my rug doing in here, may I ask? I suppose you’ve been rifling through my bedroom. I’ve told you to keep out of there. Is nothing sacred?’
    ‘Why’ve you locked the door that goes into the top of the garage?’ asked Rachel.
    ‘To keep you out,’ said Big Grandma. ‘Why else? Anyway, I suppose I’d better have Ruth’s bed tonight, and she can have The Rack and a sleeping bag in Rachel and Phoebe’s room.’
    ‘What’s The Rack?’ asked Ruth suspiciously, but it turned out to be only Big Grandma’s way of describing a camp-bed.

    Deep in the night Naomi lay staring into the dark, listening to the windy sound of Big Grandma’s breathing. Her arm hurt very badly. The tablets must have worn off. Her left hand was throbbing.
    ‘They’ve put the plaster on too tight,’ she thought, and remembered a girl at school who had kept an elastic band round one finger until it went cold and black.
    ‘Gangrene,’ said Naomi out loud.
    Big Grandma gave a sudden snort and woke herself up.
    ‘Are you all right?’
    ‘I was just wondering if I had gangrene.’
    ‘No,’ said Big Grandma firmly, ‘you haven’t.’
    ‘I have rotten luck.’
    ‘You surely can’t want gangrene.’
    ‘I meant falling off.’
    ‘That was just vertigo. Fear of heights. Nothing to do with luck. Nelson had it too.’
    ‘I thought he had sea-sickness.’
    ‘And vertigo,’ said Big Grandma. ‘The poor man had both. Think yourself lucky. Go to sleep.’
    Naomi lay silent for a while, listening to the night-time sounds of the house; slow creaks and unknown rustling sounds and the rattle of the branches of the elm tree outside the house.
    ‘Why did Uncle Robert run away?’
    ‘I don’t know. It was all a long time ago. Go to sleep.’
    ‘Don’t you think about him?’
    ‘Not very much,’ said Big Grandma, truthfully but rather unmaternally.
    Naomi ate one of her cheese sandwiches. It tasted horrible.
    ‘D’you mind if I put the light on and read?’
    ‘Very much indeed,’ said Big Grandma. ‘Try counting sheep jumping over a gate.’
    ‘I don’t know what sheep look like jumping over a gate. I didn’t know they could jump.’
    ‘Try it.’
    Naomi tried it for a few minutes. ‘They keep bashing their knees,’ she said eventually. ‘Big Grandma?’
    Big Grandma dragged herself awake again.
    ‘D’you think this house is haunted? Ruth does.’
    Big Grandma made an enormous concession, recognising that if Naomi did not have something to