The Secret Page 9

  ‘I spent the rest,’ said Roy.

  ‘One pound thirty-seven altogether,’ said Nicky. ‘It’s not going to go very far. It’s not even enough for Sunday roast.’

  Roy’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Aren’t we going to have Sunday roast, then?’

  ‘How can we, if there isn’t any money to buy it?’

  Roy twisted his fingers, pulling at them until they cracked.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ said Nicky, sharply.

  ‘I think we’re going to starve,’ said Roy.

  ‘No we aren’t. We aren’t going to starve at all. There’s still more food in the house, you know; we haven’t finished it all yet. There’s a half packet of rice I found, I could cook that. And some potatoes still. And some bread. It’s a bit mouldy but we can have this jam, look, to cover the taste.’

  ‘The jam’s mouldy too.’

  ‘Don’t be fussy.’

  ‘And it’s Sunday tomorrow, and we supposed to have Sunday roast!’

  ‘But this is special, Roy. We can’t have everything the same when it’s special.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it’s special. I want us to have our Sunday roast.’ He was twisting his fingers frantically. He was being totally unreasonable, and she didn’t understand it properly, but she could see that Sunday roast was somehow tremendously important to Roy.

  They ate the peas and the hard stale meat in silence, and afterwards Roy slumped again in front of the television that didn’t work.

  ‘Haven’t you got nothing interesting to do?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can’t you find nothing interesting?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you want to do nothing interesting?’

  ‘No.’

  She was irritated for a moment, and then her heart turned over with pity. She picked up Mum’s shopping bag, and went to the High Street, and she went with dragging steps, because she was quite a bit afraid about what she was going to do. There was a notice inside Safeway, which said THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED. Nicky took one of the wire baskets and put Mum’s shopping bag inside it, with the opening facing upwards. It felt as though everyone in the shop was looking at her, but when she peeped out of the corner of her eye, she saw they were all much too busy thinking about their own shopping. There was a notice about detectives in plain clothes, as well as the one about thieves, and that made her uneasy, because it meant you wouldn’t know who was a shopper, and who was a detective.

  Nicky walked round the aisles, putting things into the wire basket. She had a plan of a sort, though not a very clear one. She was actually not very good at making plans, being more used to acting on the spur of the moment, but she knew she couldn’t just trust to inspiration in this case. There had to be lots of packets and tins in her basket, that was the first thing; then no one would notice, perhaps, that her own bag was not quite empty.

  She reached the frozen poultry section at last – and this was the first really important bit. Nicky chose a middle-sized chicken, and put it into the wire basket, with the tins and the packets. She carried the basket along, seeking a convenient spot for the next part of the plan. There were not many people in the biscuit tin section. Nicky put the wire basket on the ground, right against the shelves, as though to ease her aching arms. Then she bent over the basket, shielding the sight of it with her body. She hoped that anyone noticing would think she was just rearranging the weight, to make it more comfortable for carrying. What she was really doing was transferring the frozen chicken from the wire basket to her own shopping bag. Then she pushed the shopping bag with the chicken in it right underneath the packets and tins.

  She had done it! She was a thief! Well not quite yet, but nearly. It was amazing that nobody challenged her. She expected that at any minute someone would come up from behind, and tap her on the shoulder, and say, ‘I saw what you did, little girl. I saw you put that chicken in your bag to steal it. Come with me to the police.’ But nobody did say that; it was as though she were invisible. Stealing was really easy, after all.

  Heartened by the ease of it, Nicky moved to the frozen dessert section. She was looking for another rich, creamy gateau, one Roy could make himself sick on if he wanted to. Might as well get a good one, while she was about it. There was no freezer at home, but the gateau would keep in the fridge until tomorrow.

  Taking the gateau was no more difficult than taking the chicken. Now Nicky had a basketful of things she didn’t want, and a bag with two things she was going to steal. There was only one difficulty ahead of her, and that was to get the chicken and the gateau out of the store. And this was the bit she was vague about.

  Nicky regarded the long queues at the checkout. She had heard of people passing through the checkouts, and paying for what was in their basket, and there was more in their own bag all the time. It wouldn’t work for her, though, because she hadn’t got enough money to pay for the stuff in her basket anyway.

  There were loads of people waiting to pay, and most of them were taller than she was. Might it be possible to squeeze past them, hidden from the eyes of the checkout lady? Could she pretend she was with her mother really, and just pushing to catch up? She had almost decided to try that one, when she noticed a man standing just beyond the checkouts, and it seemed as though his eye was right on her. Perhaps he was one of the plain clothes detectives! The fear that he might be put her off squeezing past the checkouts, and she went back to her first idea, the one that had occurred to her as she was coming in. With an indrawn breath, signifying to anyone looking that she had just remembered something, Nicky walked briskly round the aisles to the entrance.

  The big glass doors opened only one way, but people were coming through from outside all the time. Nicky rested her basket on the ground again, pretending to check the contents with her left hand. The handles of her own bag, protruding through the packets and tins, were held firmly in her right. She was watching her opportunity and she saw it: a whole family apparently – mum, dad, grandma, and a horde of kids and a pushchair, all shoving and pushing their way through the glass doors. It would be the easiest thing in the world, Nicky thought, to yank up the bag, abandon the wire basket, and push through the glass doors herself, under cover of the family which was so obligingly keeping them open for her.

  She wasn’t even afraid any more.

  She could do it easily – and yet she couldn’t do it! She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t steal! What was the matter with her? She had gone to all this trouble and now, it seemed, she had just wasted her time.

  She grabbed the bag – and hesitated! The family pushing through the doors was nearly through. Another moment, and the chance would be gone. Nicky scolded herself for letting the chance go by, but something very peculiar was happening inside her.

  Once she walked through that door, she realized, she would really have made herself into a thief! And she didn’t want to be a thief. She wasn’t afraid of being caught, she just couldn’t make herself be a thief.

  Angrily, Nicky glared at the backs of the family now struggling to free a trolley from the stack inside the door; as though it was their fault she couldn’t make herself into a thief. Then, regretfully, she took the chicken and the gateau back to their respective sections and replaced them.

  Back at home, Roy was still sitting, staring blankly at the television that didn’t work. His dejection, going on so long, made Nicky uneasy. A nice dinner for tomorrow – now that would cheer him up! Only she had been out to get one, hadn’t she, and now if she couldn’t steal it she must buy it. She brought in the clothes, and ironed them, and pondered.

  There was Mum’s post office savings, and Nicky knew where the book was. Mum wouldn’t mind; Nicky was sure Mum wouldn’t mind, since it was for food, and they really needed food. But somehow Nicky didn’t think the post office man would let her have any of the money.

  Who had money?

  Joycelyn! Joycelyn had had a birthday some weeks ago, and she had got money for her birthday, which she
surely wouldn’t have spent, because she was saving for some smart red shoes she had seen. Nicky knew where Joycelyn lived, because she went to her birthday party that time. And there was something Joycelyn would like to have, even more than she would like to have the red shoes.

  Nicky went to the top drawer of her dressing table, and took out her own most precious possession – a very unusual necklace of multi-coloured stones, that she had seen in the junk shop and longed for. The lady said it cost seven pounds, which was more money than Nicky ever had at one time in her life. She told the lady in the junk shop that she would save up for the necklace, but it would take a long time because she only had fifty pence a week, unless Mum felt generous, and please, please, please not to sell it to anybody else. Nicky took the lady the two pounds twenty pence she already had saved, and the whole of her pocket money every week after that, and in the end the lady let her off the last eighty pence because she clearly loved the necklace so much.

  And when she took it to school, to show the few people she was associating with at the time, Joycelyn fell in love with the necklace as well. She didn’t say she wanted it for herself, just gazed at it with unconcealed longing in the warm brown eyes. Well – now she could have it! She could have it instead of the red shoes, which were quite ordinary after all, and would be too small for her anyway, next year.

  Joycelyn was surprised to see Nicky standing on her doorstep. Except for the birthday party, Nicky had never been to her house before. ‘How much money have you got for your shoes now?’ said Nicky.

  ‘Three pounds.’

  ‘Is that all? You had more than that last week!’

  Joycelyn looked sheepish. ‘There was a nice bracelet—’

  ‘You silly fool, Joycelyn! You should have saved your money for the shoes.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘All right, you can have it for three pounds.’

  ‘Have what?’

  ‘My necklace. You can have it for three pounds. There!’ She held it up, and the multi-coloured stones glistened in the sunlight.

  ‘You paid a lot more than that, though. You saved for weeks and weeks, you said.’

  ‘Don’t matter.’

  ‘It’s your best thing!’

  ‘Oh don’t go on and on,’ said Nicky. ‘Do you want it for three pounds or don’t you?’

  ‘I do want it.’

  ‘Good.’

  Nicky ran all the way back to Safeway. She put the chicken and a smaller gateau into the wire basket, and paid for them like everyone else, at the checkout. She had exactly fifty pence left, altogether.

  And after all, what was the use of what she had done? Food for one more day, or two – and what then? Roy happy with his roast chicken tomorrow, perhaps, and all the money spent again! Perhaps she didn’t ought to have spent the money on food. Perhaps she should have saved it, for that other thing they might have to do. Only it was so hard that other thing, she didn’t even know where to start. And at least now there would be a nice dinner tomorrow. But if Mum didn’t come, if she went on not coming, then what would happen next? What would happen to her and Roy?

  She sat beside him, on the sofa with the broken springs. ‘Roy, I think we have to do something a little bit hard.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think we have to go to Southbourne, to find Mum.’

  ‘I don’t want to. . . . Anyway, we can’t.’

  ‘If I think out a way, will you come?’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘I know you don’t want to, but will you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think we have to, though.’

  ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk about it.’

  Confused and uncertain still, Nicky fretted for half the night.

  Coming home from Sunday School, next day, Sonia was very tiresome and inquisitive. ‘I haven’t seen your mum for a long time,’ she persisted.

  ‘That’s because you weren’t looking.’

  ‘I was out in the garden this morning, and I was looking in your back, and I never see her at all.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Sonia, you know she always has a lie-in, Sundays.’

  ‘It’s like she’s gone invisible though.’

  ‘Well she’s not invisible to me. She’s not invisible to us, is she, Roy?’

  ‘I haven’t seen her neither,’ said Eric.

  ‘Mrs Willams said she never see her for a long time,’ said Sonia. ‘She told our mum.’

  ‘Why is everybody so interested in our mum?’ said Nicky. ‘Our mum is fine. In fact, she is so fine, she might be going to take us to the seaside this afternoon.’

  ‘We went yesterday,’ said Sonia. ‘In the car.’

  ‘We haven’t got a car,’ said Nicky. ‘So we’re going by the train. My mum says we might go to Southbourne.’

  ‘You should have went in the morning,’ said Sonia. ‘It takes a long time.’

  ‘It’s quicker by the train though. Only my mum says she doesn’t know for certain what station we have to go from.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Do you? Do you know what station it is, to go to Southbourne?’

  ‘No. We don’t go by the train, you see, we go in the car.’

  ‘You don’t have to make a big thing about it, Sonia, that you got a car and we haven’t.’

  Sonia was so unhappy to think she might have been unkind, that she made herself think really hard, to make up for it. ‘It might be Victoria.’

  ‘The station?’

  ‘It might be Victoria. I know it’s Victoria for Easthaven, and I think Southbourne is quite near to there.’

  ‘I’ll tell my mum when she gets up.’

  ‘I think she is up,’ said Sonia. ‘There’s ever such a nice smell coming out of your house, Nicky!’

  ‘That’s because Mum is making roast chicken for our dinner,’ said Nicky proudly.

  ‘What’s the matter with Roy?’ said Eric.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Nicky. ‘He’s just walking more slower than usual.’

  Over the meal, Roy did come alive just a little bit. Nicky tried over again. ‘We have to talk about Mum, Roy.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘I know you don’t want to, but we have to.’

  ‘I think she’s dead.’

  ‘No she’s not dead, she’s not dead. But if they find out she left us, she might have to go to prison.’

  ‘You said they wouldn’t do that to her.’

  ‘It might be different now. Because it’s been so long. So we have to find her, and tell her. In case she didn’t think of it herself. And anyway, we can’t last by ourself for a long time.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it.’

  ‘All right, don’t think about it. Don’t think about it and see what happens! I bet you won’t like what happens, if you go on and not think about it, like now.’

  ‘What then?’ He turned away from her, hiding his face and twisting his fingers.

  ‘If they find out Mum left us, and if they put her in prison, they going to do the same to us like they done to her.’

  ‘Put us in prison?’

  ‘No, stupid! Like they done to her when she was a little girl, I mean.’

  ‘Put her in a children’s home!’

  ‘Because she didn’t have a mum or a dad.’

  ‘And she didn’t like it.’

  ‘And we won’t like it. . . . But that’s what they’re going to do to us, because we haven’t got anywhere else to go.’

  ‘Don’t let them! Don’t let them do that, Nicky!’

  ‘Come to Southbourne with me, then.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You know what’s going to happen if you don’t.’

  ‘I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about it!’

  In fact, thinking about it frightened Nicky too; and she was by no means clear, even now, or sure, that what she had just been saying was right. She went up to Mum’s bedroom
again, and tried on all the things, and made her face up to look like Mum, if she could. But she didn’t look like Mum, she looked like Nicky with the wrong sort of lipstick, and the wrong sort of clothes – and everything was wrong, and a muddle, and she couldn’t make up her mind what to do, and Roy was going to be difficult anyway. And there was the letter coming from school as well. And it was all too much. It was too much!

  Nicky sat on Mum’s bed, and covered her face with her hands. Her thoughts were like a bunch of balloons on long strings, waving about, and floating off in different directions. Her head had begun to ache and throb, with the strain of trying to pull them all together. She had to decide though, she had to decide!

  She decided suddenly, and found her heart was as light as air. ‘I’ve decided,’ she said to Roy, downstairs.

  Roy didn’t want to talk to her at all, now. ‘Go away,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not going away, because you have to listen.’

  ‘I’m not going to listen.’

  ‘Yes you are. Don’t argue.’

  He was silent, not looking at her.

  ‘I’ve decided we have to go to Southbourne, and I thought of a way to go on the train without a ticket.’

  ‘I don’t want to go on the train.’

  ‘I know, but we have to. I’ve decided.’

  He was silent again. Then, after a long pause, he asked, reluctantly, ‘How do we get to the train, anyway?’

  ‘We go to Victoria Station. We go on the Number 52 bus, I seen it on the front. And I think we got enough money for that bit. If we haven’t got enough to ride all the way, we can walk part of it. Walking is good for you.’

  ‘I’m not going to come.’

  ‘All right then, don’t. I’ll go by myself if you like. I’ll just leave you here all alone, shall I?’

  Silence.

  ‘And if they find you’re here, all by yourself, they can put you in the children’s home without me. I don’t mind. I’ll be having a nice adventure, looking for Mum.’

  ‘You wouldn’t really go without me, would you?’

  ‘Watch me!’

  “When?’