The Exiles

it upstairs? Why can’t I have it to play with for the summer?’
    ‘We’ll have more than enough mess in the house this summer as it is,’ answered Mrs Conroy. ‘Take it outside for now anyway. I don’t know what’s the matter with you both, wailing like babies. Perhaps you’d better go to bed!’
    ‘Why will we have more than enough mess this summer as it is?’ asked Naomi, who had been wondering what was in the air ever since the steak and mushrooms.
    ‘What’s for tea tonight?’ asked Ruth. If it was another exotic meal, she decided, something must be afoot.
    ‘Cold meat and chips,’ said Mrs Conroy, squashing her hopes, ‘or …’
    ‘What?’ asked Ruth and Naomi together.
    ‘Egg and chips,’ said Mrs Conroy, ‘and someone come and peel the potatoes.’

    ‘Your father and I want a few minutes in peace,’ said Mrs Conroy after tea that night.
    ‘And out of hearing,’ added Mr Conroy.
    Reluctantly, Ruth and Naomi took themselves off into the garden, where Rachel and Phoebe sat in the evening sunshine surrounded by schoolwork dating back to the previous September. For as long as they could manage they ignored this unenticing array of knowledge, but eventually Rachel, by continual repetition of the same question, succeeded in luring them over.
    ‘Here’s an Easter card I made for you,’ said Rachel by way of a bribe to Ruth.
    ‘Thanks,’ said Ruth. ‘What’s that dog doing coming out of that egg?’
    ‘I thought you liked dogs. Here’s my dinosaur project.’
    ‘ “A long time ago all our grandparents were monkeys”,’ Ruth read aloud, ‘ “but before that it was all dinosaurs”.’
    ‘That’s all wrong then,’ said Naomi. ‘Look at Big Grandma. She’s a dinosaur now!’
    ‘Don’t you like Big Grandma?’ asked Phoebe.
    ‘No,’ said Naomi.
    ‘You won’t either when you’re older,’ said Ruth wisely.
    ‘I don’t now,’ said Phoebe, ‘she says I’m spoilt!’
    ‘She says we all are,’ Naomi agreed, ‘and that we read too much and answer back and never do anything to help.’
    ‘Last time she was here,’ added Ruth, ‘she said we’d soon know the difference if we lived with her and I said, ‘I expect it would be lovely, Grandma’, and she said “Don’t kid yourself”.’
    ‘She talks like that to make herself feel modern,’ explained Naomi. ‘I don’t blame Uncle Robert a bit for running away. I would have. If I could have thought of anywhere to run to. What’s this?’
    ‘My Christmas Present List,’ Phoebe told her.
    It read:

    A train set
    A black velvet clok
    A donkey
    A television
    A sack of Ester Eggs
    A swiming pool not to depe
    My own magots

    The Easter eggs, swimming pool and maggots were obviously later additions.
    ‘Imagine anyone keeping a Christmas present list up to date,’ said Ruth. ‘Since last December! When did you add the maggots?’
    ‘Yesterday. I tick things off when I get them.’
    ‘Nothing’s been ticked off.’
    ‘I know. Give it me back. I still need it.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘Next year.’
    Mr Conroy appeared at the back door and shouted, ‘Bedtime, Rachel and Phoebe, and pick all that mess up before you come in!’
    ‘Don’t you want to see my pictures and projects?’ asked Rachel.
    ‘I’m going to put that on your gravestone,’ remarked Naomi. ‘Rachel Conroy. Born first of February. Don’t you want to see my pictures and projects? And then the date you die.’

    The shadow of the garden wall was gradually covering the lawn, and Ruth and Naomi were retreating in front of it. The talcum powder smell of night-scented stocks drifted through the air. Ruth sat in a day-dream, her mind running over the talk of Big Grandma and Uncle Robert, who Naomi did not blame for running away.
    ‘Why don’t you blame Uncle Robert?’ she demanded suddenly. ‘I do. He should have at least written or something. He should have come back, not just left everybody wondering.’
    She looked across at Naomi who sat reading, all hunched up with her cardigan buttoned over her knees, her head bent, and her straight brown hair falling in screens on either side of her face.
    ‘He was in a bad temper,’ said Naomi eventually. ‘Fancy staying in a bad temper for thirty years! He must have hated Big Grandma!’
    ‘Expect that’s what she thinks.’ Ruth lost interest and changed the subject. ‘They haven’t got the radio on indoors you know. They’re just talking and talking. And I can’t work out about that steak