Kensington Gardens

What's it all about, Alfie?

Hal David and Burt Bacharach

'Aunt Sybil! What on earth are you doing here?'

My aunt settled back in Captain Lowther's guest chair and smiled. 'I might well ask you the same question. In fact, I think I will. What do you think you are doing here? Why are you not at Highdean School?'

I was still feeling a little dazed. I had been caught on the back foot, as Gerry used to say.

'I... I'm an ambulance driver.'

'Is that so?'

'Yes.'

'I see.' Aunt Sybil turned to Captain Lowther, who was sitting completely still.

'Captain - are you aware of Sonya's real age?'

'She gave her age as nineteen when she joined us. I saw no reason to doubt her word.'

'Nineteen. I see. Would it surprise you, Captain, to learn that Sonya only celebrated her sixteenth birthday last June?'

The Captain shook her head. 'Driver Moon performs her duties as a fully enrolled member of the Ambulance Brigade.'

Aunt Sybil flushed. 'She is sixteen, Captain Lowther. She is under age. I know the law. Nobody can sign up for the armed services until they are at least nineteen.'

'The Ambulance Brigade is not an armed service, Miss Gresham.'

'Do not chop logic with me, Captain Lowther! You hold the King's Commission, do you not? You are an Army Captain?'

Captain Lowther inclined her head. 'I have that honour.'

'Then this unit is a part of the King's Army; is that not so?'

All this time I was standing by the door. I had fallen naturally into the "at-ease" position, with my feet slightly apart and my hands linked behind my back. A good thing too - it was the only thing that was keeping me from falling over, I felt so shattered with tiredness, so filthy, so much of a mess. Now it looked as if it was all going to come to nothing. Aunt Sybil would drag me back to Highdean and I'd have to turn into a schoolgirl again. 'Ma'am...?'

'Driver Moon?' The Captain turned her attention to me.

'Don't let her take me away, please! I don't want to go. I don't have to go, do I?' My voice sounded like a pathetic little squeak in my ears. Alfie snuggled against my cheek.

'Is it true, what your aunt says? Are you nineteen, as you stated on your enrolment form, or merely sixteen?'

'Sixteen, Ma'am.'

'I see. So you lied to me.'

'Yes, Ma'am.' I looked at my feet. My boots were caked with mud and red brick-dust.

'You see?' said Aunt Sybil. 'Sonya, surely you realise that you have done a dreadful thing, telling falsehoods to a commissioned officer? I demand that you apologise to the Captain now.'

'No! No, I won't!'

'Driver Moon?' The Captain's face was stern. I remembered what Mabel had told me about her - that she would stand no nonsense.

'I mean yes. Yes, I'm sorry I lied to you, Ma'am. It was wrong. But,' and I turned to Aunt Sybil, 'I'm glad too!'

My aunt bridled. 'Glad, Sonya? Glad you told an untruth? You have indeed fallen into low company if you can be glad that you have brought down the good name of your family in this manner. Are you aware, Captain, who Sonya's father is? Perhaps you are not. He is Captain Sir Ronald Moon, lately a minister in His Majesty's Government and presently serving his country in command of HMS Undaunted. He is not without influence, Captain Lowther, and neither am I.'

'I have no doubt of that, Miss Gresham. But, you see, there exists a certain... difficulty.'

'Difficulty?'

'Yes, Miss Gresham. You see, you assure me that Driver Moon is below the normal age for service in His Majesty's forces, and she has just this moment admitted as much.'

'Then where is the difficulty?' Aunt Sybil grasped both handles of her handbag. It was a particularly large one, made of black leather and fastened with a silver grip. Her cat-daemon stared straight ahead.

'It lies here.' Captain Lowther leaned forward. 'I accepted Driver Moon's application in good faith. She stated that her age was nineteen and I wrote that information on the appropriate form. It is now a matter of official record that Driver Moon's age is nineteen years and three months. Do you see?'

'Yes, do you see?' I said. I could tell what the Captain was getting at.

'I did not give you permission to speak!' I looked at my feet again.

'Are you trying to tell me that my assertion, and Sonya's admission, that she is not old enough to serve carry no weight with you?'

The Captain leaned back in her chair and sighed. She was as worn-out as I was - as we all were. 'As I have said, it is recorded otherwise.'

'But I can show you her birth certificate!'

'You are perfectly free to do so, Miss Gresham. I should be pleased to see it.'

'And then will you let me take Sonya away from this... place, and back to her family?'

'No!' I shouted. 'No! I'm not going back with you. You're not my family!'

'You forget yourself, Sonya. You know perfectly well that, as your poor mother's sister, I am responsible for your well-being.'

'You're not! How dare you talk about Mummy! Mummy never liked you. "That awful Syb-Thing" she called you. Daddy too. He only let you stay with us because you wouldn't take a hint and because he was too kind to kick you out. You're a sponger, that's what you are, living off Daddy and me! I hate you!'

'Driver Moon!' The Captain was looking as angry as I had ever seen her.

'Shut up!' Alfie hissed, but I didn't listen to him.

'I'm sorry Ma'am, but I'm not going back with this... this gorgon!' I turned back to my aunt. 'You say I can't serve because I'm only sixteen. Do you know how old the little boy who died this morning was? He was only ten! Do you know how old some of the soldiers on the Eastern Front are? They're only fourteen! I've seen them when we ship them out to the Royal Berks and the John Radcliffe. They're all little kids!'

'Do not shout at me, Sonya. It is a bad habit, and people of our class should never shout. We do not need to shout.'

'Oh beggar you!' I bellowed. 'I hate you! I hate you!' I bent over with my hands on my knees and let my tears fall on to the office floor.

Aunt Sybil stood up. 'You see, I am sure, how impossible this has become. Sonya, you will get out of those disgusting clothes and come with me. Now!'

I stood up straight. 'I will not. I will not come with you.' Aunt Sybil was quiet for a moment. I wondered what she was going to say next. She looked at me and shook her head, and to my utter surprise I saw that there was a tear in the corner of her eye. She sat down again.

'Sonya, please listen to me. You are a bright girl, a very clever girl. You have opportunities; the like of which women my age never had. Let me tell you about something that happened when I was a child.

'My father, Lord Oakdale, once took me to hear a lecture. I was terribly young, and it was when we were living in London, in the old place. You won't remember it. Anyway, he took me to hear someone speak about the North Lands. The Arctic, where the Armoured Bears and the witch-clans live. It was a wonderful lecture - I remember the photograms the speaker showed us, of the ice-fields of Svalbard and the Northern Lights glittering in the sky. But there was one thing, one very special thing, about that talk. Do you know what it was, Sonya?'

I was intrigued, despite myself. 'No, Aunt Sybil.'

'It was the speaker. She was a woman. It was unheard of then, that a woman would get up in front of an audience at the Arctic Institute and give a lecture, and be listened to as attentively as if she were a man. She held the audience spellbound, Sonya. She inspired me. I wanted to be like her, but it was not possible.

'I knew that our father would never have let your mother or me go to the Varsity, even if we met the entry requirements. Girls of our station in life did not do such things. But Sonya, it's different for you. You have opportunities that we never had. The world has changed. Don't throw away your chances.'

'I suppose she had a monkey-daemon, this woman.'

'Yes, she did.'

'I haven't.' I stroked Alfie. 'Do you want me to be like all the old monkey-women at Highdean? Old and clever and ugly?'

Aunt Sybil shook her head sadly. 'Oh Sonya, if you only knew. She was clever, oh so clever, but she was young and very beautiful. So extraordinarily beautiful that nobody in the audience could take their eyes off her.'

'And is she still beautiful now?'

'I cannot tell. She disappeared many, many years ago. I suppose she's dead. I've still got one of the books she wrote. The Bronze Clocks of Benin, it's called.'

'And who was it written by?'

'Mrs Coulter. Mrs Marisa Coulter.' Aunt Sybil took hold of the handles of her bag once more.

There was silence for a moment. Captain Lowther looked up from her desk. 'Sonya,' she said quietly, 'what do you want to do? If you like, I'll release you from your terms and conditions. You can go home with your aunt. It's irregular, but...'

I was horribly tempted. Aunt Sybil's words had touched me. Why couldn't she have been like that with me before? More honest? Why hadn't she told me more about herself? And again, what good was I doing here? I hadn't saved Jack and Minta, had I? They'd died, even though I'd done all I could to help them. Nor was I all that good a driver. All of a sudden I had a choice. I could leave here right now, go back to Highdean and study, and go up to Oxford or Cantabriensis in two years' time and write and draw and paint as much as I liked. I hadn't written any stories in months or pained any pictures. I could go back to doing all the things I liked doing. I wouldn't have to have any more to do with this awful War.

'No we wouldn't, would we?' said Alfie. 'We could hide away from it all and be safe.'

'Yes...' It would be lovely, to be able to sleep as long as I liked.

And then Alfie said it. If he hadn't, I would have. 'What about Gerry?'

I gasped for breath. For a moment, I thought I was going to stop breathing for ever. Gerry. Gerry hadn't chosen the easy way out. Nor had Daddy. How could I? My choice was perfectly obvious when I looked at it that way.

I stood up as straight as I could. 'Ma'am? Permission to get cleaned up and return to my duties?'

'Granted, Driver Moon.' I saluted and without looking back I left the Captain's office and marched across the yard to the washrooms, tearing off my dusty tunic as I went.

I'm not sure how it happened, but it happened like this; that Alfie and I were with Mabel and Hal in Jekyll Park one Saturday afternoon, a couple of weeks after that little scene with Aunt Sybil. The War was going well, or it was going badly. It depended who you asked. Either way, it was quiet - so quiet that we had been given the afternoon off. Mabel had suggested going into Town, and I'd agreed, because Mornington, although was the buzzing hub of activity when it came to the running of the Ambulance Brigade, was a pretty dull place otherwise.

We had done a bit of shopping in Kensington and then, seeing that the weather was fine even though it was well into December, we strolled northwards, hoping for a cup of tea and a bite to eat at a little café that Mabel knew by the Serpentine Lake. The Park was broad and wide-open to the sky and a great relief from the cramped streets we had left behind in Knightsbridge, even though the trees were bare and leafless. I hadn't realised how much I was missing home, the countryside and Regulus, my pony.

With a loud slap of leather on cobblestones a platoon of soldiers marched past us, their rifles on their shoulders and their boots brightly polished. They looked wonderful, I thought, and I turned to watch them pass. 'Eyes right!' shouted the corporal leading them and he saluted us. I saluted him back, even though Mabel and I were in civvies.

'Do they always do that?' asked Mabel.

'What, salute me?'

'Yes.'

'Quite often, yes.'

'They never do it for me.'

'No?'

'No.'

'Look!' I said, changing the subject in a hurry. 'Horses!' I could see through the naked branches of the trees a pair of riders cantering up Rotten Row. 'Come on!'

We ran across the grass to the Row, but the horsemen were long gone by the time we got there. 'Oh well,' said Mabel. 'Not to mind.' I did mind, though. I minded terribly.

It looked as if we were in for an afternoon of disappointments, for when we got to the Serpentine we found the café was closed - "For The Duration", the sign on the door said.

'Beggar it!' I said. I looked at Mabel, who was blushing.

'I wish you wouldn't talk like that,' she said and her Hal shook his head at me. I giggled.

'Prude!' I said.

'Brat!' Mabel replied.

Honour satisfied, we linked hands and, with an hour or still left before we had to return to Mornington we wandered out of the Park and into Kensington Gardens. There was a particular place - a special place - I wanted to see. There was something - a special something - I had to say.

It was a circle of gravel surrounded by stone benches and rose beds, and in the middle of the circle stood a statue of a boy, flying. I don't know how the sculptor had done it, because when you got up close and looked it was obvious that the figure of the boy and the plinth of the statue were made of one unbroken piece of white marble, very firmly attached to the ground. All the same, he was flying and his daemon was flying next to him. The boy was dressed all in oak-leaves, blowing in the wind of his passage, even though they were carved from the same stone as him, and his daemon clearly hadn't settled yet, because she had many different forms depending on the angle from which you looked at her. Mabel and I sat down on one of the benches and looked up at the boy. I put my shopping bags down beside me.

'Was he a witch?' said Mabel.

'Of course not, silly! He's a boy, not a girl! And look - no cloud-pine!'

'No, I see.'

'How old do you think he is?'

'Who - the boy or the statue?'

'The boy. The statue was put up in 1912. Look, it says so on the plaque.'

Mabel got up and examined it. 'Oh yes, so it does.'

'Anyway, how old do you think he is?'

'Eight? Nine? Eleven?'

'Look at his face. Go on, have a good look.' Mabel examined the boy's head closely.

'I was right. He's about ten. No, wait...'

Ah. She'd seen it.

'It's funny.' She turned to me. 'He's ten, but at the same time he's much older than that. Sometimes he looks like he's only nine or ten, and sometimes he looks like he's a grown-up. And from over here he looks like an old man.' She stood back, nearly tripping over one of the benches. 'Now he looks like a young boy again. Anyway, he must be a boy. His daemon's not settled.'

Mabel sat down next to me. 'What a funny statue! I'm not sure I like it much.' She tossed her head and her Hal perched on the back of the bench. I held Alfie in my arms.

'Mabel,' I said. I paused. I never found it easy, saying what I was going to say.

She turned to me. Her hair had come loose from its band and was hanging over her shoulders, a frizzy ginger mop. 'Sunny?'

'I, er... Where do you think we could get a cup of tea?'

'What?'

'A cup of tea. I'm parched.'

'Not here!' Mabel laughed. 'We'll have to go back into the centre of Town. Come on!' She stood up.

'Wait a mo. Sit down, please.'

'Sunny? Are you all right?' Mabel sat next to me. I had my hands on my knees and was looking down at the gravel.

'What is it? What's wrong? Are you unwell? Do you want to go back now?'

'In a minute. Mabel, there's something I've got to tell you.'

'A secret?'

'Yes. A most terribly secret secret.'

'Are you sure you want to tell me?' Mabel's broad, freckled face was full of concern. 'It's not a bad secret, is it?'

'That depends.'

'Depends? Depends on what?'

'Not what. Who. It depends on you.'

Sweetest Gerry,

I've done it. I've told someone, just like I told you last summer. It's Mabel, the girl you met at the Hunt Ball. The red-haired girl who was so keen on you. Don't tell me you didn't notice! She's my best friend now and she's ever so nice. Do you know what, she thinks she's plain! That's not what you told me, is it?

Anyway, we had this talk, like I had with you. She's only the second person I've told. About Alfie, I mean. I don't think she's the only person who knows about him. I'm sure Captain Lowther does, and I think Miss Alton did, at Highdean. Neither of them ever said anything about it, though.

It's funny. When I told Mabel I had a secret, she thought it was you. She'd seen me writing to you. You can't hide much here, we're so crammed in together. My advertising campaign's been jolly successful. Lots of new girls have joined us. That's one reason why I've had time to write to you now, us coming off double shifts as we have.

'I know you've been writing to Geegee,' she said. 'I've seen you. He is... he is really dead, isn't he?'

'Yes,' I sighed. 'Yes, he's dead. I'm sure he is. I mean; there's no body. There never is, you know.'

Mabel knew. You know. Down with all hands. Sailors don't have graves, do they?

'Oh Mabel!' I said. I put my head on her shoulder for a while.

'Sunny,' she said. 'There's nothing wrong. Nobody minds. You don't think we didn't know, do you?'

'No,' I sniffed.

I could have left it there. I could have let her go on thinking that that was all it was; that I was ashamed of writing to my dear, dead, lost-at-sea brother. I could have let her comfort me, there on the bench in the Gardens by the statue of Peter Pan. But I couldn't. I didn't know when I'd next be able to screw myself up to telling her about Alfie and me. I had to tell her. I had to tell someone, just like I had to tell you.

So I started off by telling her about Freaky Freda. Do you remember her? Freda Bamber, with her twin daemons. Sohrab and Rustum. You know. They were always arguing with each other. It was so comical to watch! Two cat-daemons, yammering away at each other and poor Freda stuck in the middle. The racket they made!

We gave her a horrible time, and it wasn't really fair, but you know how it is when someone's a little bit different. They get picked on.

Mabel shook her head. 'Nasty little brats, you schoolgirls.' I flicked at her. 'Ouch!'

'Serve you right,' I sniggered. Then I told her. Straight off, without stopping, without letting her interrupt me.

Mabel stared. 'But... You're normal, aren't you?'

'Apart from that, yes.'

'You get the curse?'

Yes.' There was no way any of us could hide that.

'But...'

'Yes.' Then I told her about being special, and Alfie showed her what I meant. It was very, very quiet. There was nobody else nearby; else we wouldn't have taken the risk.

Mabel stood up and walked over to the statue. She stared at it for a minute or so. 'I see,' she said, turning to face me. All the colour had left her cheeks. I sat and waited and held on tightly to Alfie. She turned away again. What had I done? What would Mabel do now? Would she betray me to the Captain and the other girls at the depot? I looked at the ground again. I was shaking from the effort of telling her our secret. Mabel said nothing.

I was getting ready to stand up and go home by myself when suddenly there was a hand resting on mine. I looked up. Mabel was smiling and all her freckles were showing. Hal was resting on her forearm. 'Come on!' she said. 'Let's take the bus home. Don't forget your shopping!' She laughed out loud and so did I.

So there it is, brother mine. Somebody else knows and it's such a relief. I hate keeping secrets - I'm rotten at it.

I'll write again soon,

Your Sunny.

I wondered as we sat on the top deck of the northbound bus, whether Mabel had taken in what I'd told her or decided to forget all about it and pretend nothing had happened. But that night she and her Hal came to my bunk and snuggled down next to Alfie and me, nice and warm and soft.

'Is it all right then?' I asked.

'Of course it is, silly,' she replied and kissed me on the forehead. I hugged her in return.

'Thank you, Mummy,' I said.