Aunt Maria Read Free Page A

here and there, swinging the big torch and looking at Mum’s knitting and my notebooks and Chris’s homework piled on various chairs. She was wearing a crisply belted black mackintosh raincoat and she was very thin. I wondered if she was a policewoman. “She likes the place tidier than this,” Elaine said.
    â€œWe’re in the middle of unpacking,” Mum said humbly. Chris looked daggers. He hates Mum crawling to people.
    Elaine gave Mum a smile. It put two matching creases on either side of her mouth, but it was not what I would call a real smile. Funny, because she was quite pretty, really. “You’ve gathered that she needs dressing, undressing, washing, and her cooking done,” she said. “The three of you can probably bathe her, can’t you? Good. And when you want to take her for some air, I’ll bring the wheelchair round. It lives at my house because there’s more room. And do be careful she doesn’t fall over. I expect you’ll manage. We’ll all be dropping in to see how you’re getting on, anyway. So…” She looked round again. “I’ll love you and leave you,” she said. She shot Chris, for some reason, another of her strange smiles and marched off again, calling over her shoulder, “Don’t forget the electricity.”
    â€œShe gives her orders!” Chris said. “Mum, did you know what we were in for? If you didn’t, we’ve been got on false pretenses.”
    â€œI know, but Aunt Maria does need help,” Mum said helplessly. “Where’s that electricity switch? And are there any candles?”
    There were two candles. Mum added candles to her list before she got into bed just now. Now she’s sitting there saying, “These sheets aren’t very clean. I must wash them tomorrow. She’s not got a washing machine but there must be a launderette somewhere in the place.” Then she went on to, “Mig, you’ve written reams . Stop and come to bed now or there won’t be any of that notebook left.” She was beginning on “There won’t be any of that candle left, either—” when Chris came storming in wearing just his pants.
    He said, “I don’t know what this is. It was under my pillow.” He threw something stormily on the floor and went away again.
    It is pink and frilly and called St. Margaret. We think it is probably Lavinia’s nightdress. Mum has spent the last quarter of an hour marveling about it. “She must have been called away in a hurry, after all,” she said, preparing to have more agonies of guilt. “She’d already moved down to the little room to make room for us. Oh, I feel awful!”
    â€œMum,” I said, “if you can feel awful looking at someone’s old nightie, what are you going to feel if you happen to see Chris’s socks?” That made her laugh. She’s forgotten to feel guilty now and she’s threatening to blow out the candle.

Two
    T here is a ghost in Chris’s room.
    I wrote that two days ago. Since then events have moved so fast that snails are whizzing by, blurred with speed. I am paralyzed with boredom, Mum has knitted three sleeves for one sweater for the same reason, and Chris is behaving worse and worse. So is Aunt Maria. We all hate Elaine and the other Mrs. Urs.
    How can Aunt Maria bear living in Cranbury with no television? The days have all gone the same way, starting with Mum leaping out of bed and waking me up in her hurry to get breakfast as soon as Aunt Maria begins thumping her stick on the floor. While I’m getting up, Aunt Maria is sounding off next door. “No, no, dear. It’s quite fun to eat runny egg for a change—I usually tell Lavinia to do them for five and a half minutes, but it doesn’t matter a bit.” That was the last two days. Today Mum must have got the egg right, because Aunt Maria was on about how interesting to eat flabby