“The history of this organism begins in vegetation in slow-moving streams, where it exists in the form of slime-encrusted eggs. You can see a picture of these in your textbook, labeled diagram A. Please copy it carefully into a blank page of your exercise books.”
He waited, the chalk in his hand, till everyone had finished.
“The eggs are then eaten by a sheep and make their way through the animal’s bile duct into the liver, where they become adult flukes.”
He drew a liver (but not a sheep) and put in the adult flukes, explaining their effect on the animal, which was bad. “I will allow five minutes for you to copy from the blackboard,” he said.
Tally, filling her liver with the flattened parasites, felt increasingly miserable, and angry, too. Why did everyone tell her how wonderful biology was? The nuns had taught it better.
“There now follows hermaphrodite fertilization, and the resulting eggs pass out through the alimentary canal and on to the grass, where they turn into conical organisms which are known as miracidia,” he droned. “You will find these on the next page, page seventy-seven . . .”
When the lesson was over Tally hurried out past Julia and her friends. She wanted to be on her own, for it seemed clear that they had been playing a joke on her, pretending that the biology teacher was special. She didn’t mind being teased usually, but she had written to her father about him because she knew how much he wanted her to enjoy science.
But they caught her up.
“I’m sorry—that was a shame,” said Julia. “We should have warned you—but everyone was sure that Matteo would be back today.”
“What do you mean? Wasn’t that Matteo? ”
Julia stopped dead and glared at her friend. “Well, really, Tally! I may not be a genius, but I would hardly tell you that Smithy gives brilliant biology lessons.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Smithy stands in when teachers are ill or away. He lives in the village; he used to teach at the high school in St. Agnes, but he had to retire early. He’s the most boring teacher in the world, but Daley keeps him on because he’s good at getting people through external exams when we have to take them.”
But two nights later, as Tally drifted into sleep, Julia knocked at her door.
“Wake up! Open your window and listen.”
The courtyard was deserted; the cedar tree stood silvered in the moonlight. And floating toward them, very faintly, came the sound of a long, drawn-out, and very melancholy noise.
“What is it? ” asked Tally.
“It’s Matteo’s Moan,” said Julia. “He likes to play it on the sackbut last thing at night. He says it’s a folk song from the mountains—but we think he’s made it up, it’s so weird.”
The headmaster, sitting in his study, was frowning over documents and decisions. The founders of Delderton, who were still very much concerned with the school, had written from New York suggesting that if war came, Daley should evacuate the school to America. They offered the use of a large farmhouse in Maine, which could be the basis of a school while the war lasted.
Daley had read this letter a dozen times and pondered it, but he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to leave Delderton and he knew that many children—especially those on scholarships—would not be able to go; the fare to the States would be far too expensive. But did he have the right to turn down such an offer?
This was a big issue, but there were other annoyances. The parents of Phillip Anderson wanted him to learn the accordion so that he could mix with the “common people.” And the Ministry of Culture had written asking Daley to send a folk-dance group to a festival in an obscure country in central Europe.
This last letter annoyed him particularly. Delderton did not go in for folk dancing—the mere mention of Morris dancers with bells and funny hats would have the children up in arms, and it was not exactly a time when schools wanted to send their pupils gallivanting all over Europe. The man from the ministry had written very earnestly: there was nothing, he said, so likely to increase goodwill among nations as an exchange of cultural activity, especially if it involved children or young people—but the whole idea was ridiculous. All the same, Daley would bring it up at the council meeting at the end of the month—it would take everybody’s minds off the free period the children had decided they needed on Wednesday afternoons, not to mention the matter of the trash cans which came up at every meeting.
And at least Matteo was back.
It was through the founders—Mr. and Mrs. Ford-Ellington—that Matteo had come to Delderton, arriving two years earlier with nothing but a leather suitcase and his sackbut in a battered case.
No one knew much about his early life. He was a European who spoke five languages and had a Nansen passport—the document given to those who no longer have a country of their own—but he had spent most of his adult life traveling and working in the wild places of the world: the Galápagos Islands, the Mato Grosso, the high peaks of the Andes.
The founders had come across him on the Amazon, where he was doing research on the harpy eagle. They were with a party of tourists in the charge of a tour guide who turned out to be incompetent and lazy, and when they met Matteo they left the party and persuaded him to take them into the jungle for a week.
It was a week that they never forgot. Matteo took them through a maze of secret rivers to a valley where the morpho butterflies, in a shimmer of ultramarine and turquoise, came down to the water’s edge to drink, and the trees were brilliant with humming-birds and parakeets. He told them nothing about himself, but one night as they lay sleepless under their mosquito nets, watching the stars moving like fireflies between the waving branches, he admitted that his mind was once again turning to Europe. He foresaw great trouble over there, but at a time when so many people were planning to flee from the dangers they foresaw, Matteo wanted to return.
The founders offered him the cottage they had kept in Delderton village when they sold the school, and he had accepted. He had meant to stay for a few months at the most but now, nearly two years later, he was still in Devon and living in a room in the school. Yet Daley, as he greeted him and ordered coffee for them both, knew that at any moment he might move on. Like so many people during this uncertain time, Matteo was waiting.
“I’ve given you another girl to tutor,” Daley said when they had talked for a while. “She’s new. Her name’s Tally.”
“Oh? And what particular problems does she have? ” said Matteo suspiciously, for he knew that the headmaster liked to send him the most difficult and troubled children.
Daley smiled. “It is rather you who will have the difficulties, I’m afraid. She is a girl who wants to make the world a better place.”
A few days after Matteo’s return, Julia called Tally into her room and asked her if she would come to the cinema in St. Agnes.
“Daley says I can go but I have to take someone with me. The bus times don’t fit, so we have to walk, but it’s only an hour and there’s a matinee.”
They were sitting on Julia’s bed, and from the way she spoke Tally realized that this was no ordinary visit to the cinema. She looked at the photograph on Julia’s bedside table and her heart sank.
“Is it a film with Gloria Grantley in it? ” she asked.
“Yes, it is. It’s called I’ll Always Be Yours. It’s got an ‘A’ certificate but one of the maids will go with us and then go and sit with her boyfriend.” As Tally hesitated Julia went on. “Please, I’d rather it was you. The others tease me.”
“Yes, of course I’ll come. Is she a good actress? I mean, I can see she’s beautiful, but can she act? ”
Julia flushed. “She’s an absolutely marvelous actress.”
Later Tally thought how different her life would have been if she had refused to accompany her friend—so much happened as a result of that visit to the cinema. But she did not go back on her word, and the following Saturday they set off to walk to St. Agnes. The cinema was in the market square and alre
ady there was a queue of people waiting for the doors to open at two thirty.
“Her films are always terribly popular,” said Julia.
They decided to go for the good seats, which cost six pence, and settled down to enjoy themselves.
The newsreel came first. The queen had launched a big aircraft carrier, releasing a champagne bottle to swing on to the hull, only it didn’t smash the first time and had to be swung back again. The little princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, looked worried, but the second time the bottle smashed properly and the ship slid safely into the water.
After that came some pictures of Hitler and his followers yelling, “Sieg Heil!” and goose-stepping in jackboots. Hitler said Germany needed more room for the German nation and he wanted Danzig, which really belonged to him and not to the Poles, and if they didn’t give it to him he would take it by force. And an American had invented a new kind of bath plug.
Tally had hoped that there would be a cartoon: The Three Little Pigs perhaps . . . but what came next was a travelogue about a country called Bergania.
Bergania was in the news because the king of Bergania had just refused to allow Hitler’s troops to march through his country if there was a war, and this was brave because it was a tiny kingdom, one of the smallest in Europe, and everybody feared the worst.
Though she was disappointed about the cartoon, Tally enjoyed the travelogue very much indeed. Bergania might be small, but it seemed to have everything one could want. A ridge of high mountains with everlasting snow, wide valleys planted with orchards and vineyards, and meadows where children herded goats like in Heidi. The capital of the country, which was also called Bergania, was a pretty town on the banks of a river, and overlooking it on a hill was the royal palace, guarded by soldiers in splendid uniforms.
The last part of the film showed the king on horseback at the head of a procession making its way toward the cathedral, where they were celebrating the birthday of Bergania’s patron saint, a brave woman called Aurelia who had been beheaded by the Romans because she wouldn’t renounce her faith.
Obviously St. Aurelia was important to the Berganians. They had draped their balconies with flags and decorated the streets with flowers and the procession was very grand. Behind the king rode courtiers and soldiers in splendid uniforms—and beside him, on a spirited pony, rode the crown prince, who was only a boy.
Tally was staring at him, wondering how it felt to be a prince so young, when the ancient projector gave a hiccup and the image on the screen stayed frozen. But though she saw the boy’s arm held up to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd, she couldn’t catch even a glimpse of his face. It was completely hidden by the gigantic feathery plumes on the helmet that he wore.
The film ended with a close-up of the king looking stern and resolute but rather tired, while the voice of the commentator said: “To the brave ruler who defied Hitler’s bullying, we, the people of Great Britain, send our greetings. Well done, Bergania!”
Then came the film they had come to see.
I’ll Always Be Yours was not a good film. In fact, it was a perfectly awful film.
Gloria Grantley played a poor girl who went to work in a department store where she caught the eye of a handsome millionaire. She fell in love with the millionaire and he promised to marry her but it turned out he was married already, so Gloria jumped off a bridge and everyone thought she had drowned and the millionaire felt terribly guilty. But it turned out that she hadn’t, and she became a nun and looked after little children in a convent and taught them to sing. It ended with her on her deathbed looking up to heaven and saying the millionaire’s name (which was Lionel) in a throbbing voice before she closed her eyes forever.
Tally was glad it was over; she couldn’t wait to get into the fresh air, but although people were streaming out of the cinema, Julia hadn’t moved. She was sitting with her shoulders hunched and her hands over her face.
“What is it, Julia? What’s the matter? It ended all right—she’s perfectly happy with God. It’s what she wanted.”
Julia shook her head. She was crying—not at all in the way that Gloria Grantley had cried, with glycerine tears rolling down her perfectly made-up cheeks, but hopelessly, her face scrunched up, her shoulders heaving. She had no handkerchief and Tally didn’t have one to give her; the children in Magda’s house did not come easily by handkerchiefs.
“Come on,” Tally urged her friend. “Let’s go outside.”
She took Julia’s arm and led her across the square and down some stone steps to the towpath along the river. There was a bench looking over the water and they sat down on it side by side.
“If you feel like telling me what’s the matter, I wouldn’t tell anyone. It isn’t because she didn’t get Lionel, is it? It’s something else.”
Julia went on sniffing and gulping. Then she lifted her head and said, “I miss her so much!”
Tally stared at her. “Who? Who do you miss so much?” And then: “What is it about Gloria Grantley that you—”
“She’s my mother.” Julia’s voice was flat and exhausted. She sat bent up like an old woman.
“Your mother? ” It seemed incredible, but now that Tally looked out for it she could see a likeness . . . something about the set of Julia’s mouth and her eyes.
“No one knows except Daley and Matteo, so you mustn’t tell.”
“I won’t say anything. But if she’s your mother . . . you mean you miss her during term time? I miss my father but—”
“No. I miss her all the time; I don’t see her even on the holidays. Well, hardly ever—just in secret places for a very short time. I’m too old, you see. I’m nearly thirteen, and it wouldn’t do for her to have a daughter my age. She’s supposed to be twenty-five, so I have to be kept out of the way, but I just want to be able to be with her. I love her so much.”
Tally knew what she should have done next—sat quietly beside Julia and let her talk—but she couldn’t. She got to her feet and collected the largest stones she could find and hurled them one by one into the river. Except that in her mind it wasn’t stones she was throwing, it was Gloria Grantley she was sending into the swirling, icy water. Gloria with her pout and her bosom and her fluttering eyelashes, who was too busy being famous to acknowledge her daughter.
It was a while before she could come back to comfort her friend.
“I expect it’s just as hard for her. She must long to be with you, but I expect it’s her manager who told her she has to be careful.”
Julia looked at her with gratitude. “Yes—he says it’s only while her contract lasts. Then when she’s saved lots of money she can retire and we can be together.” She looked wistfully at Tally. “There’s another performance at five o’clock. I’m going to stay for it—even if I get into trouble. Will you tell Magda? ”
Tally sighed. “I’ll stay with you,” she said. “You shouldn’t go home by yourself in the dark.”
The thought of another two hours of the swan-necked Gloria was appalling. But at least she’d get another look at the brave king of Bergania, not to mention the prince-under-plumes.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Biology at Dawn
Dr. Hamilton was reading the latest letter from his daughter:
We had our first biology class with Matteo today. Only it wasn’t a class really. It was a sort of walk . . . or an exploration . . . or an expedition. It was like being hunters on a trail and having your eyes sharpened with special drops so that you saw things that you didn’t think you could see and yet they had been there all the time.
Matteo is tall with broad shoulders and very dark hair and eyes. He looks foreign and he is—he has a slight accent and his voice is very deep. He can look quite scary but he has a very funny laugh. I’m not describing him well because he isn’t really like anybody else I’ve met. And the biology class wasn’t like anything I’d imagined either.
For one thing it started at four o’clock in the morning. You wouldn’t think a class could start
then, would you, but Matteo’s classes start at whatever time he thinks we will see the things he wants to show us.
So I was woken by him walking down the corridors and opening our bedroom doors and saying, “Out”—and then we were all huddled in the courtyard, trying to wake up.
But we didn’t stay huddled for long because as we followed him into the copse where the path goes down to the river we were greeted by the most incredible noise! I’d read about the Dawn Chorus, but I thought it was just a gentle twittering. I didn’t realize that while I was asleep all the birds in England were singing their heads off.
Matteo made us stop to listen but actually he didn’t have to make us—it was so beautiful we couldn’t help listening. He didn’t tell us the names of the birds—it was about listening not identifying. Barney told me later that there were thrushes and robins and warblers and wrens—but I heard them like instruments in an orchestra, each one distinct and separate but joining up to make a marvelous whole.
Then we went on through the wood and no one said a word. If anyone starts talking when they’re out with Matteo he bites their head off.
It was getting lighter now, and when we came to a boulder lying on the side of the path, Matteo stopped and said, “Well? What do you expect to find?”
All the others stood around and Barney said, “Snails’ eggs,” and Tod said, “Centipedes,” and Julia said, “Wood lice,” and Matteo nodded and said, “Anything else?” and when no one said anything he said, “What about the humidity?” and one of the other boys said, “Violet ground beetles,” and Matteo said, “And a sheltering toad perhaps?”
So then he turned the stone over—and all the things were there, and I know it sounds silly but he made us all so pleased—I suppose because he was so pleased himself. It was as though what was under the stone was a splendid present that God or whoever does these things had put there for us. Then he put the stone back—putting things back is the core of fieldwork, he says. And we walked on a bit farther and crossed a paddock, and he bent down to a tuft of rough grass by a hedge and parted it very carefully, because he said it was the sort of place where there might be a field-vole’s nest but there might not.