Eight Days of Luke

“Not these days,” David explained politely. “It’s the fashion you see, and it really isn’t wrong. I expect you’re a bit out of date, Uncle Bernard.” He smiled kindly and, he hoped, firmly at Uncle Bernard, and was a little put out to hear Astrid snorting with laughter across the table.

“I never heard such a thing!” said Uncle Bernard. Then he went frail and added pathetically, “And I hope I shall never hear such a thing again.”

David, to his amazement, saw that he was winning. He had Uncle Bernard on the run. It was so unheard of that, for a moment, David could not think of anything to say that would clinch his victory. And while he wondered, Mrs Thirsk turned his success into total failure.

“Yes,” she said, “and did you ever see such a thing as this, either?” Triumphantly, she placed a small mat with crochet edging in front of Uncle Bernard. In the middle of the mat, very thoroughly stuck to it, was a wad of something pink and rather shiny, with teeth-marks in it.

Uncle Bernard peered at it. “What is this?” he said.

“David can tell you,” said Mrs Thirsk, throwing David another malicious look.

Uncle Bernard, frail and puzzled, looked up at David.

“It’s chewing gum,” David confessed wretchedly. How it had got stuck to the mat on his dressing-table, he could not imagine. He supposed he must have put it down there while he was hunting for clothes. But he knew it was all up for him now.

“Chewing gum? In my house!” said Uncle Bernard.

“How simply filthy!” said Aunt Dot.

Astrid and Cousin Ronald closed in again then too, while Mrs Thirsk, looking like the Triumph of Righteousness, briskly plonked a plate of stiff, cold chocolate pudding in front of David. Such of it as David managed to eat tasted as thick and brown as the rest of supper. As the row went on, as all four of his relations continued to clamour how disgusting he was and Mrs Thirsk to shoot smug looks at him, David resolved bitterly, vengefully, that if it was the last thing he did, he would tell Mrs Thirsk how rotten her food was.

It ended with David being sent up to bed. By that time he was quite glad to go.

CHAPTER TWO The Second Trouble (#ulink_4a7a50f5-4c0c-51d8-80a7-6636a1663b59)

The next day was hot and sunny. David got out of bed deciding that he would walk the three miles to the recreation ground after breakfast. There were almost certain to be boys playing cricket there, and a little artful hanging around fielding stray balls should earn him a game quite easily. He was half dressed when Mrs Thirsk came in. She was carrying an armful of clothes.

“Your Aunt Dot had me look these out for you,” she said. “Your Cousin Ronald is too well-built for them these days. The trousers won’t fit too bad if you turn them up round the waist. You can hold them up with a belt, can’t you?”

David eyed the armful with horror as Mrs Thirsk dumped it on the bed. “I suppose so,” he said, and decided he would rather die than wear Cousin Ronald’s cast-offs.

“And don’t say you will and then not wear them,” said Mrs Thirsk. “I know you. You’ll do what your Aunt wants for once, you will.”

“All right,” said David.

“It had better be all right, or I’ll tell your Uncle,” said Mrs Thirsk turning to go.

By that, David knew he was condemned to wear the things and misery made him angry. “Your food isn’t,” he said to Mrs Thirsk’s back.

“Isn’t what?” demanded Mrs Thirsk, turning round quickly.

“Isn’t all right. It’s horrible. I never tasted such horrible stuff,” said David.

Mrs Thirsk’s blunt face went purple. She said not a word, but she slammed the door as she went out. David laughed.

He stopped laughing when he saw himself in Cousin Ronald’s clothes – though he was afraid that most other people would laugh their heads off. The trousers were far too loose, belt them as he would, and the large fawn sweater flared out over them like a ballet skirt. Cousin Ronald had been what Mrs Thirsk called well-built most of his life. David blushed when he looked in the mirror. The only comfort was that the wide trousers were not at all too long – it was pleasant to think that he was suddenly the same height as Cousin Ronald and going to end up taller – but the rest of him was so grotesque that he knew he would have to give up going to the recreation ground. He dared not show himself to anyone looking like this.

He was so ashamed of his appearance that he dashed down to the dining room before anyone else was up and – in a great hurry to get away before Astrid or someone came in and started to laugh at him – shook all the toast out of the toast-rack on to the tablecloth. He put butter on all of it and marmalade on half, and quantities went on the cloth because he was in such a hurry. He arranged it in a stack that he could carry, seized the radio from the sideboard to provide entertainment, and made off with the lot through the French window to the end of the garden where he could keep out of sight. There was a tall hedge there. Behind the hedge was a steamy compost heap with baby marrows growing on it and a spade stuck in the compost, and a strip of gravelly ground where Cousin Ronald always meant to have a carpentry shed. Beyond that was the high brick wall that ended the garden.

There David sat, with his back against the compost heap and the radio among the marrow-plants, and spent the kind of morning most people would rather not spend. It got very hot in the sun, and David was able to take off the fawn ballet-skirt sweater for an hour or so; but the gravelly space was quite without interest. David saw forty-two birds and listened to the morning service, a review of records, a concert and to someone promising to tell him about sport in the afternoon. Then the dinner-gong went, and he had to hurry to put the radio back so that Cousin Ronald could hear the news during lunch.

Lunch produced a scene far worse than the night before. It started with Aunt Dot coming in, followed by Mrs Thirsk, followed by Astrid.

Mrs Thirsk was saying, “And you may ask him why there was no toast, but what I want to know is why was there marmalade all over my clean tablecloth.”

“Yes indeed,” said Aunt Dot, and she turned ominously to David. “David,” she said, and then – though this was clearly not what she had been going to say – “Good gracious! Whose clothes are you wearing?”

“Cousin Ronald’s,” said David, very much ashamed, but also rather glad of the diversion.

“Good gracious!” said Aunt Dot again.

Before she could begin on the tablecloth, Astrid sniffed piercingly and asked in her most complaining way, “Whatever is this dreadful smell?”

This made Aunt Dot pause and sniff too. “You’re right,” she said. “There is a most peculiar smell.” To David’s secret pleasure, both she and Astrid looked accusingly at Mrs Thirsk. David felt it confirmed his theory about the human sense of smell.

Mrs Thirsk backed to the door. “I’ll go and fetch lunch, Mrs Price,” she said primly, and made off.

“David—” began Aunt Dot, but this time it was Uncle Bernard who interrupted by tottering in and saying, in his most failing voice, “What is producing this vile smell, my dear?”

“We don’t know,” said Astrid.

“David—” Aunt Dot began for the third time.

But Cousin Ronald bustled in with a sheaf of papers in his hand and hurried over to the radio. “Quiet, please. I must hear the news.” He reached out to switch on the radio, gave a throttled sort of shout, and dropped his papers. “What’s this? Where has this radio been? Look! Look at it!” He picked it up in both trembling hands. A cloud of green and blue flies rose with it, flatly buzzing. Then, to David’s acute dismay, a wad of brown smelly stuff gently detached itself from the base of the radio and sank on to the sideboard. It was followed by another. The flies sank after both wads, as if they were relieved to see them.

There was a nasty silence. Then all four of David’s relations turned to look at him. “David!” they said, with one voice. After that, they said a great deal more. Lunch was held up while they said it, and then held up further while David took the radio and the wads of compost outside and some of the flies went with him. But most of the flies were of the opinion that the compost was still on the sideboard somewhere, and they stayed to look for it, maddening everyone, throughout lunch.

By the time David returned to the dining room, Mrs Thirsk, as if she were trying to prove David’s point, had served up thin grey meat in thin grey gravy and everyone else had started to eat it. David started to eat it too, wishing it could be magically transformed into fish and chips, and discovered that the rest of them were discussing the important question of how they were to spend next week in Scarborough now that David had come home earlier than they expected.

“What are we to do?” wailed Astrid. “I did so need this break.”

“I detest cancelling bookings,” agreed Aunt Dot.

“Oh, there’s no real problem,” said Cousin Ronald. David agreed with him. To his mind, there was no problem at all, and his heart warmed to Cousin Ronald. He thought he must certainly get Cousin Ronald to himself after lunch and tell him about those wickets at last. Cousin Ronald had the right ideas. “Look at some of these,” said Cousin Ronald, passing his papers round. “It’s not easy to find something at such short notice that doesn’t involve considerable outlay, but I think it can be done. The one you’ve got, for instance, Mother.”

“T. W. Scrum MA,” read Aunt Dot off her paper. “Holiday Tutorials in Elementary Mathematics. Starting next Tuesday, I see. Quite reasonably priced, but it says board and lodging extra, dear.”

“And no doubt a terrible bill for books,” quavered Uncle Bernard, frail at the mere thought, scanning the paper he held. “This Cruise doesn’t start till next month.”

“Here’s a Camp that might do,” said Astrid. “Oh no. It says for under tens. David’s older than that, isn’t he?”

“Of course I am,” said David. No one seemed to hear.

“I think Scrum’s our best bet,” Cousin Ronald said jovially, and Aunt Dot agreed with him.

In growing outrage and dismay, David listened to them planning – just as if he were not in the room – to get rid of him by sending him to do maths with Mr Scrum until the end of August. Cousin Ronald had gone into it very thoroughly. He assured them that Mr Scrum was the best and cheapest way of disposing of David. David revised his opinion of Cousin Ronald. As for the others, he had no opinion of them to revise. He bore it until he heard Uncle Bernard say, “Yes, I think so too. David’s mathematics are very weak.”

“They are not!” David said indignantly. Then, realising that it would not do to annoy anyone any further, he said as politely as he could, “I’m quite good at maths, Uncle Bernard. I came third in my form this term.”