The Cornflake House: A Novel Read online

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was the last word he was to utter. Well, he may have cursed as he hit the ground, but there was nobody with him to record the fact. Eric’s eyes would moisten as he told of the rush of wind which swept through the carriage when Victor opened the door …

  ‘He was one of the best,’ he’d assure us, shaking his huge head. Then a smile would cross Eric’s face and he’d nod knowingly. ‘Still, he was right after all. Train hit a stray cow, stopped for hours while they cleared the line. Police car picked up Victor’s body, drove him to Peterborough and there he was, when we pulled in, waiting for somebody to identify him.’

  Editha would whisper to us children that the end of this story was pure fiction, sugar to sweeten a bitter pill, and we believed her. But since invention wasn’t one of Eric’s strong points, we grew up confused, yet with the whole scene in our heads: the corpse in the police car was always pictured smiling, grinning even, having had the last laugh.

  There was never any question of a second child. Eric named his only offspring after his only friend. I expect the ‘y’ was Editha’s contribution. Victory had no second name.

  Of course Victory’s teacher didn’t dislike her merely because of her name and her dishevelment. She could have been a filthy child called Battle Zone and been teacher’s pet if only she’d behaved herself. But Victory wasn’t an ideal girl to have in a class of reasonably well-behaved between the wars children. For a start she abhorred rules and regulations, or at least found them wholly incomprehensible. Why must a drawing be the size of one small piece of paper? Why should a poem have more than two lines but less than twenty? Why all sit together, stand in rows, walk in crocodiles and eat the same food? It made no sense to that one little girl.

  War was waged between the difficult child and the uncompromising Miss Downy. The teacher had her own armoury, of course; the ruler and the weight of authority. But Victory had a secret, superior weapon which she could use without moving from her desk or batting an eyelid. In fact batting an eyelid would have ruined everything, because the secret weapon was The Stare. The trick was to stare for some time and with unwavering concentration at an object, until said object responded in its way. It was as simple as that.

  The Stare could cause sticks of chalk to snap in two just as Miss Downy began to write on the blackboard. Under pressure from The Stare, the heel of one of the unfortunate teacher’s shoes was seen to tremble and collapse. A chair leg fell off, landing Miss Downy on the floor. The door refused to open when class was over; and, my mother’s personal favourite, one beautifully straight-seamed stocking succumbed to the pull of The Stare and burst with a joyful ping from the grip of Miss Downy’s suspenders.

  Miss Downy was, naturally, suspicious; but who in their right mind would accuse a small girl of such trickery? Although she couldn’t blame Victory outright, the teacher subjected her to punishments both physical and mental. She found fault with all of Victory’s work, often holding up pages of writing for the entire class to ridicule. This left my poor mother with a lifelong complex about reading and writing; she would do neither in front of anybody else – although I often came across her struggling with a letter or a book when she thought she was alone.

  For hours at a time the other children saw only the back of the scruffy child as she stood in a corner or faced the blackboard. Victory’s classmates were perfectly content to laugh out loud at her when they were all assembled under Miss Downy’s supervision, but they gave her a wide berth in the playground or when passing in corridors. They knew instinctively that she was too frightening a soul for them to bully, and too dangerous for them to befriend.

  The pupil–teacher war reached a climax one day in January, in the so-called spring term. During the morning lessons Victory began to shake violently. At first she couldn’t explain herself to the angry Miss Downy, but when pressed she muttered that it was the roof which was frightening her. Encouraged by their teacher’s sneer, the whole class tittered. All eyes peered upwards at the ceiling which looked exactly as it always did. More giggles followed, until order was called.

  ‘I’ve had just about enough of this silliness,’ Miss Downy complained, as if Victory was forever finding fault with parts of the building. ‘You will sit still on your seat or you can stand in the corner until break-time.’

  Without further invitation, Victory scraped back her chair and hurried to her usual corner.

  I’m sorry Matthew. We’ll have to leave young Victory there, facing the wall, for a while. My cell mate has returned from the laundry, her face puce, her hands wrinkled from steam and hot water. Her return means lunch is nearly ready and hungry or not, when the bell tolls …

  I share this little home from home with a lass called Liz who’s as dark as I am fair but otherwise similar to me in that she chooses silence instead of chatter. On my first day, using a language of grunts and nods, we laid down a few ground rules; as long as we stick to these I see no reason for the quiet, but not antagonistic, status quo to change. I shall return to rescue Mum from her corner when I have stuffed myself with whatever delicacies the kitchen staff have dreamt up for our delight.

  Two

  Rice pudding; one of the few foods which manages to be disgusting and comforting. I would describe the main course, but even after my efforts I doubt if you’d be any the wiser. Besides, why should you share my abundant interest in food? I can’t imagine that you were also brought up in a clutter of children, that you know what it is to have to fight for every slice of bread, to dash for the last biscuit, to wonder how it feels to own a whole packet of crisps. I bought myself some Kraft Cheese Slices with my first wages, sat in a secret place near home and scoffed the lot. I remember the luxury of having so much, the completeness of those squares as I folded them, not to be divided amongst my siblings, but in order to fit an entire slice into my greedy mouth.

  Liz is asleep above me. She was reading, but now I can hear that tell-tale breathing which is almost a snore. I find the routine of prison life infuriating, Liz finds it exhausting. I feel like a schoolgirl, sneaking out to meet a forbidden boy. These bunks creak, but I’ll brave it. I need to sit at the desk to write properly.

  I’ll take you back to that different time and place, to the East of England whose flatlands have a temporary air, as if a wave might come and reclaim them any moment. To the company of an unusual little girl who stands in a corner of her classroom because she says she’s afraid of the roof. In this child’s company, anything is possible; but right now she’s just a vulnerable schoolgirl, shivering, close to tears of fear and frustration.

  In vain the class tried to ignore the virtual rattling of the child in the corner as the minutes to break-time crawled by. Finally the bell rang and they all escaped to the freezing playground.

  ‘The sky was just a white sheet,’ my mother would say when telling this tale, ‘as still as a shroud on a corpse. And so it stayed, right through break and on into the next lesson, which was, as I remember, arithmetic. I was so scared I couldn’t speak, not that anyone would have listened to my warning. I went straight back to my corner without being told. I felt it was safest. The children were doing sums, heads down over their books, and Miss Downy was marking homework. How they managed not to notice the silence I shall never understand. It was as if the world was holding its breath and all the animals had gone underground, the birds too.’

  It was a freak storm; everybody who discussed it afterwards used that word, freak. It came from nowhere and hurled the still English countryside into sudden, devastating turmoil. Throughout the little school doors slammed and window panes cracked in two. The wind rushed through the cloakroom and ripped all the coats from their pegs. Gym bags were tossed about like kites and a flood of rainwater appeared instantly in every doorway. In the playground swings wound themselves round and round their frames, while the one and only tree creaked, swayed and shed branches like tears. But while the rest of the school was being amazed by such trifle
s, Victory’s class were hanging on to their desks for dear life, because they were actually exposed to the battling elements by the sudden disappearance of their roof.

  With wonderful ease, the preternatural wind plucked the tin roof from the classroom and left the children screaming at the dreadful sky. Within seconds they were soaked through and frozen. In sheer panic they clutched each other and the furniture. Arithmetic books flew like birds above their heads. The little girls’ skirts blew skywards and their plaited hair whipped their faces. Hysteria spread from child to child.

  ‘Down on the floor,’ screamed Miss Downy as the roof, a silver, headless pterodactyl, flapped away from sight. The wind ate the teacher’s words. The children stampeded, charging through the door, fighting their way to the playground following the flight of their roof.

  ‘It was War Of The Worlds, played out for us right there in our own familiar yard,’ my mother said. ‘The black sky ripped by lightning flashes, wind so strong it was lifting us off our feet and bringing objects from miles away to display before it jerked them on again, dustbin lids, pots, even a whole washing line complete with mangled, twisted laundry. And the roof, so unwieldy and threatening as it hung over us, but wonderful too, awesome and alien being freed like that from all its confines.’

  The children were gathered up, herded back into the comparative safety of the brick-built hall where they found the rest of the school sitting in a clutch on the floor.

  ‘It was then that I began to feel the pain,’ Victory explained to us, her children. ‘At first I ached all over, but looking around me I could see others were scratched and shaken so I supposed I’d bumped into something when running from my classroom. Those of us who’d been outside were frozen, the sound of teeth rattling was a kind of harmony to the awful noises coming from the weather itself. I tried to concentrate on them, the sounds, but the pain was too strong and then I realized it wasn’t all over me anymore, it was only in my right leg. In my right thigh. It was so sharp I wanted to cry out, but I bit my tongue. I must have gone a funny colour, I caught Miss Downy giving me a worried look, probably thinking “whatever next”. Then she turned away and I took a peep at my thigh, lifting my frock to see if perhaps my knicker elastic was too tight, praying that I’d find a wound which would take away the feeling of dread. But there was nothing, not a mark on me.’

  The whole school sat shivering and listening. Amongst the howling of the wind and crashing of thunder there was one almighty thump which shook the building. Then, as quickly as it had arrived, the storm left them and went to cause havoc somewhere else.

  ‘I didn’t find the passing of the storm as comforting as most,’ my mother told us, ‘because I was sure the pain, which now felt like a saw cutting through me, meant there was worse to come.’

  The Headmaster stood on the platform and spoke to his quivering flock.

  ‘We have had a bad storm, a freak storm,’ he told them, as if they didn’t know, ‘but now it has passed and we must all try to calm ourselves, to carry on as normal. In a few minutes it will be dinner time, and I would like my class to get the tables and benches set up, please. A hot meal will do us the world of good. The rest of you can stay in here, but move to the sides please.’ For a few minutes the ploy worked, children forgot their fear as they shifted to the sides of the hall or pulled out the furniture for dinner. Many hands were raised because many small bladders could contain themselves no longer, but the Head told them to wait until he had a chance to check the playground. The toilets were outside.

  It was at this point in the story that we, Victory’s children, would snuggle down in bed, pulling our covers up for protection. For once we’d be glad we had to share our bedrooms. Knowing what came next only made the tale more gruesome. We trembled as we anticipated the arrival of the Roof Giant.

  Once everything was ready for dinner there was quiet in the hall, and not a sound from outside.

  ‘Then my leg gave way under me,’ Mum would say, ‘and I collapsed on the floor, unable to get up. All eyes turned on me, but only for a second because that was when the sound came. It was the sound of a giant climbing out of bed, his bones creaking as he lifted one leg, “Errrumpth,” then the other, “Grraahh.” And it came from directly over our heads. We hardly had time to wonder what it was when an almighty crash was heard, and hurrying to the windows the braver kids called, “It’s fallen, it’s in the playground.”’

  It seems that for a short time there’d been two roofs over the school hall; the freed tin roof had landed there, balancing precariously on top of the tiled one. Then it had shifted, the Roof Giant as we called it, and tumbled to earth. This time not even the Headmaster could control the children. The entire school ran outside, eager to explore this tunnel in the playground.

  ‘There was such a din,’ my mother would whisper as we lay in our beds, ‘boys whooping, girls yelling, children kicking the roof and running sticks along it to make it echo and sing. It looked as if there should be a house underneath it, buried in the concrete. It was inviting and uninviting all at the same time, but it had to be explored. Not by me, I was still dragging my right leg along, wincing as the pain increased. I made it to the cloakroom door, but no further. I was still convinced there was something bad, something worse than the roof, to come, but those few moments when the other children first broke away to go exploring were pure delight for them.’

  Of course it was dark in the roof-tunnel, the far end was resting against a classroom, so light could only get in the near end. The first adventurers to brave going inside screamed as they bumped into each other and tripped each other up. Their cries had the hollow distant sound of riders in a ghost train, thrilling and chilling the timid outsiders. Amongst all this noise, my mum picked out the genuine, piercing screams of a little girl called Kathleen Tucker.

  ‘She’s found him, she’s found him,’ my mother shouted. And this time Miss Downy, who was standing just behind the semi-collapsed child, acted. She grabbed the school bell and churned it up and down until it rang louder than ever before.

  ‘Get back inside,’ she ordered between clangs, ‘all of you, this instant, back inside.’

  Victory pressed herself to the wall as a few obedient children reluctantly passed by. Then Miss Downy went to the mouth of the roof-tunnel and rang her bell there, making a dreadful echoing knoll to which all but one adventurer responded by coming out holding their ears. When the teacher laid the bell on the ground there was only one sound left, the clear high screams of Kathleen Tucker who had reached the point where nothing short of a slap would calm her.

  ‘She had only found his leg,’ my mother explained, his right leg, the only part of Donald Clark which was actually in the roof-tunnel. Poor Kathleen had stumbled on this limb and, thinking it was part of a teasing playmate, had tried to kick it out of her way. But it was stuck fast, a fact she realized when she felt around in the near darkness and discovered there was no body, no second leg or trunk, attached to it. Although she was shocked by the leg and the state Kathleen was in, Miss Downy did the right things. She led the trembling child from the tunnel and gave her into the care of another teacher. She couldn’t find the words to answer questions, to say what it was that had upset Kathleen so, but she squeezed her way down the outside of the roof-tunnel and came across the rest of Donald wedged there.

  The Headmaster called for the ambulance and the fire brigade, there was some heavy lifting to be done. Donald was freed from his tin prison and taken to hospital. His classmates suffered more from the trauma than he did, initially. He was, thankfully, unconscious when found. As they carried him on his stretcher across the playground his almost severed leg refused to join the remainder of his body, it simply wouldn’t lie parallel but dangled at an aberrant angle from under the grey blanket.

  It was this sight that woke the children of my mother’s school in the nights that followed, this glimpse of the abnormal sent their fingers creeping under the covers, feeling for reassurance. It kept us, the next generat
ion awake, for long hours too, but we were always ready to hear the story again and again.

  The teachers, who tried not to mention the storm too often in the company of their pupils, spoke of little else in the staffroom, and they discovered that many of the children had taken to absent-mindedly rubbing the tops of their right thighs in class. As if they, like Victory, were suffering in sympathy with Donald who had, ultimately, lost his right leg and who then lay recovering in hospital.

  ‘Donald had always had a problem with his bowels, they didn’t work to order,’ Mum told us, ‘so although he tried to start and finish what he had to do during break-time, he was often still there, sitting in one of the outside toilets, when the bell rang. He got caught by the storm, stranded on the far side of safety. They found the door of the toilet he’d used hanging by one hinge, whether he’d kicked it in an attempt to get somebody to rescue him – his shouts would never have been heard above the roaring wind – or whether the storm had tried to invade, was never clear. He became a hero overnight, and he’d been a quiet, unassuming little boy ’til then. But once he was back with us we bestowed on him instant charisma, or perhaps his limp and his false leg did that for him. Nothing was more provoking and exciting than to get Donald to tell of how he’d sat, trapped on his throne as the world outside his door churned. How he’d waited and waited and, best of all, seen the Roof Giant land on the hall, watched it coming to rest. Then, once the storm was over and everything seemed calm, how he’d stood up, looked around and decided to make a dash for it. But his tummy hurt him, he clung to the wall and had to take one slow step at a time. He’d heard the roof before he saw it, being doubled up with pain. Then …

  ‘Well, we tried to help him out, but the poor lad couldn’t remember anything else, so the less thoughtful children used to fill in the gaps for him. He was never allowed the luxury of pretending it hadn’t happened.’