Authors: Diana Wynne Jones
Aunt Maria
Diana Wynne Jones
AUNT MARIA
A GREENWILLOW BOOK
Contents
W
e have had Aunt Maria ever since Dad died. If that sounds as if we have the plague, that is what I mean. You have to call this plague
Ma-rye-ah
. Aunt Maria insists you say her name like that. Chris says it is more like that card game, where the one who wins the queen of spades loses the game. “Black Maria,” it is called. Maybe he is right.
That is the first thing I wrote in the locked journal Dad gave me that awful Christmas, but I think it needs more explanation, so I will squeeze some in. Dad left early in December and took the car. He rang up suddenly from France, saying he had gone away with a lady called Verena Bland and wouldn't be coming back.
“Verena Bland!” Mum said. “What an awful name!” But she said it in a way which meant that wasn't the only awful thing. Chris doesn't get on with Dad. He said, “Good riddance!” and then got very annoyed with me because all I seemed to be able to think of was that Dad had gone off with the story I was writing hidden in our car in the space on top of the radio. I mean, I
was
upset about Dad, but that was the way it took me. At that time I thought the story was going to be a masterpiece and I wanted it back.
Of course Dad had to come back. That was rather typical. He had left a whole lot of stuff he needed. He came and fetched it at Christmas. I think Verena Bland had disappeared by then, because he came with a necklace for Mum and a new calculator for Chris. And he gave me this lovely fat notebook that locks with a little key. I was so pleased about it that I forgot to ask for my story from the car, and then I forgot it completely because Mum and Dad had a whole series of hard, snarling rows, and Mum ended up saying she wanted a divorce. I still can't get over it being
Mum
who did! Nor could Dad, I think. He got very angry and stormed out of the house and into our car and drove away without all the stuff he had come to fetch. But my story went with him.
He must have driven off to see Aunt Maria in Cranbury-on-Sea. He was always very dutiful about Aunt Maria, even though she is only his aunt by marriage. But he never got there, because the car skidded on some ice going over Cranbury Head and went over the cliff into the sea. The tide was up, so he could have been all right, even so. But there was something wrong with the door on the driver's side. It had been like that for six months and you had to crawl in through the other door. The police think the passenger door burst open and the sea came in and swept him away while he was stunned. The seat belt was undone, but he may have forgotten to fasten it. He often did forget. Anyway, they still haven't found him.
Inquest adjourned. That is the next thing I wrote. Mum doesn't know if she's a widow or a divorcée or a married lady. Chris says, “Widow.” He feels bad about saying, “Good riddance!” the way he did before, and he got very annoyed with me when I said Dad could have been picked up by a submarine that didn't speak English or swum to France or something. “There goes Mig with her happy endings again,” Chris said. But I don't care. I
like
happy endings. And I asked Chris why something should be truer just because it's unhappy. He couldn't answer.
Mum has gone all guilty and agonizing. She sent Neil Holstrom packing, and I thought Neil was going to be her boyfriend. Actually, even when I wrote that I wasn't sure Mum liked Neil Holstrom, but I wanted to be fair. Neil reminded me of an earwig. All Mum did was buy Neil's nasty little car off him, which was hard on Neil, even though I was glad to see the back of him. But it was true about Mum going all guilty. Chris and I went rather strange, tooâsort of nervous and soggy at the same timeâand couldn't settle down to do anything. There are huge gaps in the notebook when I couldn't be bothered to write things in it.
Mum's worst guilt was about Aunt Maria. She said it was her fault Dad had gone driving off on icy roads to see Aunt Maria. Aunt Maria took to making the lady who lived with her ring up twice a day to make sure we were all right. Mum said Aunt Maria had had quite as much of a shock as we had, and we were to be nice to her. So we were all far too nice to Aunt Maria. And suddenly we had gone too far to start being nasty. Aunt Maria kept ringing up. If we weren't in, or if it was only Chris at home and he didn't answer the phone, Aunt Maria telephoned all our friends, even Neil Holstrom, and anyone else she could get hold of, and told them that
we
'd disappeared now and she was ill with worry. She rang our doctor and our dentist and found out how to ring Mum's boss when he was at home. It got so embarrassing that we had to make sure one of us was always in the house from four o'clock onward to answer the phone.
It was usually me who answered. Mum worked late a lot around then, so that she could get off work and spend Easter with us. The next thing in my notebook is about Aunt Maria phoning.
Chris has a real instinct for when it's going to be Aunt Maria. He says the phone rings in a special, gently persistent way, with a clang of steel under the gentleness. He gathers up his books the moment it starts and makes for the door, shouting, “You answer it, Mig. I'm working.”
Even if Chris isn't there to warn me, I know it's going to be Aunt Maria because the first person I hear is the operator, sounding annoyed and harassed. Aunt Maria always grandly forgets that you can look up numbers and then dial them. She makes Lavinia, the lady who looks after her, go through the operator every time. Lavinia never speaks. You just hear Aunt Maria's voice distantly shouting, “Have you got through, Lavinia?” and then a clatter as Aunt Maria seizes the phone. “Is that you, Naomi, dear?” she says urgently. “Where's Chris?”
I never learn. I always hold the phone too near my ear. She knows London is a long way away from Cranbury, so she shouts. And you have to shout back or she yells that you are muttering. “This is Mig, Auntie,” I shout back. “I prefer to be called Mig.” I say that every time, but Aunt Maria never will call me anything but Naomi, because I was called Naomi Margaret after her daughter who died. Then I transfer the receiver to my other ear and rub the first one. I know that she's shouting to know where Chris is again. “Chris is working!” I shriek. “Math!”
She respects that. Chris has somehow managed to fix it in her mind that he is a Mathematical Genius and His Work Is Sacred. I wish I knew how he did. I would like to fix it in her mind that I am going to be a Great Writer and My Time Is Precious, but she seems to think only boys have the right to have ambitions.
Aunt Maria's voice takes on a boomingly reproachful note. “I'm very worried about Chris,” she says, as if that is my fault. “I don't think he gets enough fresh air.”
That starts the tricky bit. I have to convince her that Chris gets plenty of fresh air without telling her how he gets it. If I say he goes to see his friends, then either she says Chris is neglecting his work or she rings his friends to check. I nearly died the time she rang Andy. I want Andy to think well of me. But if I leave it too vague, Aunt Maria becomes convinced that Chris is in Bad Company. She will ring Chris's form master then. I nearly died when she did that, too. Mr. Norris asked me about Aunt Maria every time he passed me in the corridor. She obviously scarred his soul.
But I've learned how to do it now. Chris will be surprised to know that he plays tennis every day with a friend who doesn't have a phone. Then I have to do the same for Mum. Mum plays tennis, too, with the phoneless friend's Mumâwho is a widow, in case Aunt Maria gets worried about that. Then we get on to me. For some reason, I am not supposed to do anything, even get fresh air. Aunt Maria says, “And what a good little girl you are, Naomi, working away, keeping house for your mother!”
I agree with this, for the sake of peace, though it always makes me want to say, “Well, really I'm just off to burn the church down on my way to the nudist colony.”