“Yes, Daddy. Mummy says she needs a babysitter, not me.”
“And your Mummy is dead right, as ever.” He put the girl down and planted a kiss on top of her white-blonde curls. “Look after Henry, won’t you, and we’ll see you at bathtime.”
“If you’re back in time.”
“Yes, Mabel, if we’re back in time. Which we will try to be.”
“But that’ll depend on Grandma. Mummy says she’s in one of her imp…” Mabel struggled with the word – “impish moods.”
“Something like that.” Ricky ruffled her hair, as if he didn’t want to leave her, then looked up to see Lola approaching, grabbed her arm and set off for the car. “Bless you for looking after them, Jude.”
“No problem.”
“‘Bye.” And the large front door closed.
First Mabel insisted on showing Jude all her dolls and cuddly toys in the playroom. They were arrayed in a long line on the windowsill. “They’re here so that Henry can’t reach them when he crawls. He can’t crawl yet, but when he can crawl he won’t be able to reach my dolls and cuddlies.”
Mabel introduced each of her collection by name. Then she announced that they must play a game.
“What game do you want to play?”
“I want to play Grandmother’s Footsteps.”
“But can you play that with just two?”
“Oh yes,” Mabel assured her.
So they played. One of them – “Grandmother” – faced the wall while the other crept across the room towards her. If, when ‘Grandmother’ whirled round, she caught a glimpse of movement, then the other had to go back to the beginning and start again. Mabel had clearly played the game many times and had become expert at taking tiny steps and then freezing.
They played for so long that Jude was beginning to feel a little weary (and not only from her late night), but fortunately, just when her acolyte thought she could take no more, the Mistress of the Revels decided it was time for a different game. “This is not a real game, not like Grandmother’s Footsteps. This is a game my Daddy made up,” she said proudly.
“What’s it called?”
“It’s called Hiding Things.”
“Oh yes, I heard you and your Daddy talking about it another time I was here.”
Mabel nodded. “That was when you came to make Grandma’s back better.”
“You’re absolutely right.” The little girl had an excellent memory.
“How you play Hiding Things,” she went on, “is one person hides things and the other person has to find them.”
“That sounds good. What things do you hide?”
“Well, Daddy says there’s a game where people hide slippers, but his game is better than that. We hide Woolly Monkey.” And from her array of dolls she took down a toy whose name described him perfectly. He was about six inches high and knitted from dark and light brown wools. Attached to one hand was a knitted banana. “This is Woolly Monkey,” said Mabel unnecessarily.
“Right, so what do we do? One person closes their eyes and counts to a hundred?”
“I can’t count to a hundred. I can only count to twenty. So we count to twenty. And then we say ‘Coming, ready or not’. And then we have to find Woolly Monkey. And the person who’s hidden him has to say ‘warm’ if you’re near him.”
“All right, I think I understand the rules. And do we just do it in this room?”
“No, in this room and the hall and the sitting room.”
“So who’s going to hide Woolly Monkey first?”
“You do, because you’re a guest,” said Mabel, who had clearly studied protocol. “So I close my eyes and you hide Woolly Monkey. One…two…three…”
Fortunately, Mabel counted slowly. Jude decided that her best policy might be to hide Woolly Monkey in full sight, so she put him in a different position amongst the toys on the windowsill.
“Twenty!” Mabel crowed. “Coming, ready or not!” She looked at Jude, sitting innocently on the sofa. “I wonder if it’s in this room or – ”
“Yes, it’s – ”
“No, you mustn’t make clues. You just say if I’m warm.”
Mabel set off towards the hall. “You’re getting colder.” She came back into the room. “You’re getting warmer.” To the toy cupboard. “Colder again.” Towards Jude. “Still cold.” Then in the direction of the window. “Warm. Warmer. Ooh, very warm. You’re going to burn your fingers.”
Triumphantly, Mabel picked Woolly Monkey off the windowsill. Then, patiently, she explained to Jude, “He doesn’t go there. His place is between Fluffy Ted and Pollyanna.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“He doesn’t like sitting anywhere else.”
“I’m doubly sorry.”
“It’s all right,” said Mabel magnanimously. “You didn’t know. Now it’s my turn to do Hiding Things.”
“I’ll stay here and close my eyes and count up to twenty.”
“Don’t do it fast. Daddy sometimes does it too fast, and that’s cheating.”
“I won’t do it too fast.” Jude closed her eyes and started to count, very slowly. She heard Mabel’s footsteps scampering off into the hall. When she reached twenty, Jude shouted, “Coming, ready or not!”
She made a great play of walking around the playroom, saying, “Ooh, I wonder if Woolly Monkey could be under the sofa…or could he be in the toy cupboard?”
Mabel appeared in the doorway. “He’s not in here,” she announced.
“I thought he might be.”
“I’m not in here. Daddy says there’s a clue in where the person who’s hidden Woolly Monkey is when you stop counting.”
“I see. Because they might have only just hidden him and not had time to go anywhere else?”
Mabel nodded gravely. “Yes. So I was in the sitting room. That’s a clue.”
Taking the hint that had been proffered, Jude went through into the sitting room. In the crush of the party the night before she hadn’t taken in its full splendour. It was a tall room, panelled and roofed in old, dark oak, which was studded with carved wooden roses. A large fireplace in what looked like Cotswold stone dominated the space. Huge logs flared in the grate, in front of which stood a fire guard with the dimensions of a portcullis.
As Jude moved towards the fire, Mabel said, “Warm…warmer…very warm…”
“Well, I know that, because the fire’s warm.”
The child didn’t approve of any part of her game being treated with such levity. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, you’re warmer because you’re near Woolly Monkey.”
“Yes, I’m sorry.” The heat from the fire was intense. Jude made a cursory examination of the log basket and the coal scuttle, but there was no sign of the hidden toy.
She moved away from the fireplace. “Colder, colder,” crowed Mabel.
“Well, I can’t think where…You didn’t throw Woolly Monkey on the fire, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. I love Woolly Monkey.”
“Then I’ve no idea…”
“It’s a very good Hiding Things place. A special Hiding Things place. Daddy’s used it.”
“What, when Daddy was playing Hiding Things with you?”
“No, we weren’t playing the game.”
“Oh?” Jude was suddenly alert.
“But Daddy used it as a Hiding Things place. I don’t think he knew I was watching. I think he thought I was asleep on the sofa. Mummy had brought me down to sleep on the sofa, because I was uncomfy in my bed. And I was asleep, but I kept waking up, because I was hot and my head hurt.”
“When was this, Mabel?”
“It was when I had my ear infection.” As before, she said the words correctly, and with pride. “Before the doctor gave me the…anti-things.”
