The Wish Pony (14 page)

It was Tom who told me when I dropped Grinder off rather late one afternoon. Sarah and I had taken him around to introduce him to Rajah. Fortunately they'd got on very well and Sarah and I had lounged on the swings, watching them chase each other up and down the park.

‘Your mad friend's moving,' he said, ‘did you know?'

‘Who? Bailey?' I wouldn't have called Bailey mad but I could see he was a little – unusual.

‘Bailey? Who's Bailey? No, I meant the old woman with the bright orange hair.'

‘Magda! Moving?'

‘Well, I guess. There was a removalist truck outside her place very early yesterday morning.'

‘But she hasn't said anything! Oh my heavens, I'll have to go and see. Pay me next time, okay?' I shoved Grinder's lead into his hand and took off down the street.

There was no removalist van there now and I wondered if Tom had imagined it. I flew up her stairs and banged on the door.

‘Coming, coming.'

She was still there. Tom was wrong. But when she opened the front door, I saw straight away that he'd been right. There were no husbands on the hallway wall and you could see straight down into the kitchen – everything had been packed.

‘You're moving,' I said, ‘and you didn't tell us.'

‘I was coming over this evening,' Magda said, but her eyes looked past me and I knew she was lying. ‘I don't like big farewells. They make me feel uncomfortable.'

‘I like to know where my friends are,' I told her. I wasn't backing down. She should have said something. ‘That's how you stay friends with them.'

‘Oh, there are many ways to be friends,' Magda said. ‘I'll always remember you, Ruby.'

‘So where are you going? Why?'

‘West,' she said waving her hand vaguely in an upwards direction, ‘west. Yes, someone … close to me … needs me.'

‘Someone close to you? You mean like a son or a daughter?'

‘Oh, no, not quite. A … goddaughter, I suppose you could say.'

I glared at her. ‘What do you mean, you suppose you could say. Either she's a goddaughter or she isn't. What about Bailey – he's kind of your godson.'

‘Hmm. Things are pretty good for Bailey. His mum's much better. Gone on the internet. You know, networking.'

‘Computer dating?' I said. ‘Debbie?'

‘Well, the hours she keeps, how else can she meet anyone? Although it won't work. No, there's someone else in her future. Serendipity. Now there's a word for you, Ruby.'

‘How do you know she's going to meet someone?'

‘I can see him. He'll be very good for Bailey. You just wait and see if Magda isn't right. Round about honeysuckle time next year.'

‘So just because you can see that Debbie's going to meet someone, it's okay for you to go and just leave them?'

‘It's not that, Ruby. I'm needed by Charlotte.'

‘That's the sort of goddaughter?'

‘Yes.' Magda smiled and touched her hair – which was still quite orange.

‘What about us? We've just got to know you. You can't just leave. What'll happen to the house? Who'll live here?'

‘Oh, very nice family. Two kids – you'll go swimming with them. You'll get on. Good for a street to have kids in it.'

‘I don't want kids. I want you, Magda!' I was nearly in tears. I wanted to hug her, but she kind of sidestepped me as though she didn't want me to touch her.

‘Oh, Ruby,' she said and her voice was all warm, ‘you'll be fine, just fine. Now, off you go – I've got an early start in the morning. You and Bailey can wave goodbye, if you get up in time!'

‘So you told Bailey? And not me?'

‘I haven't told Bailey, yet. I thought you would. In fact, I know you will. You'll get on to SNM and let him know as soon as you get in the front door.'

‘MSN,' I said, but I shouldn't have bothered. Magda never remembered computer stuff.

Which I did, but only because I wasn't at all sure that Magda was going to tell him herself.

Bailey rang as soon as he read my message.

‘She's going? Where?'

I told him everything I knew.

‘What time?' he demanded. ‘What time do we have to get there?'

‘She just said early. Maybe you should get Debbie to call her. She really didn't tell me much at all.'

I told Mum and Dad but they weren't as sad as I expected. They were too overwhelmed with the news that Gerald would be allowed home in a week's time.

‘That is upsetting,' Mum said, but she was kind of glowing. ‘But think of a family moving in, Ruby. More kids to play with. I think that's exciting. And Gerald will be home and we'll be a proper family again, too!'

‘She was my friend,' I said, ‘don't you get it?'

‘She's got her own life,' Dad said. ‘This Charlotte girl must be pretty close to her, if she's going to move across to Western Australia.'

‘I don't think she even knows Charlotte,' I said, ‘I don't think she's even met her yet.'

‘Well, darling, she has to know her to know that Charlotte needs her. I'd say it's some relative, wouldn't you, Edward?'

‘Have to be,' Dad said, ‘you don't just pack up and move across Australia for someone you haven't met!'

I remembered Magda once telling me that my father was a sitter-still but that she was a get-up-and-goer. I didn't think Dad was right. Not about Magda.

Bailey and I were outside by seven the next morning. Debbie was there, too, wearing a short skirt, lipstick and high heels.

‘I can't stay, Magda,' she said, ‘breakfast meeting. Ridiculous but it's what you do these days. We'll miss you so much. You've been wonderful with Bailey and I can never thank you enough. Never in the whole world.'

‘Oh, don't fuss, Debbie,' Magda said but she let her cheek be kissed and she patted Debbie's shoulder.

‘Stay in touch,' Debbie said, getting back into the car, ‘ring us, won't you and let us know your number and everything? Bailey and I might come across for a holiday?'

‘I'll be in touch,' Magda said, ‘have a good meeting!'

‘Have you got a phone number?' Bailey said when his mother had driven away. He took out his mobile phone. ‘I can put it straight in here.'

‘No. No, I haven't got a number yet.'

‘An address then?'

‘No, not really.'

‘Magda, you are going
somewhere
, aren't you?'

‘Yes. Oh yes. I'm going to the airport. I'm catching a plane. But then I'll have to play it a bit by ear. It mightn't be quite the right time for me to turn up yet. I have to stay finely tuned.'

‘So where will you stay?'

‘I'll find somewhere.'

‘But we won't be able to contact you. Magda, do you even have
our
number?'

Magda looked a little shifty, I thought. ‘Probably somewhere,' she said, ‘on a bit of paper in one of the boxes. But I don't need a number to stay in touch.'

‘Well, of course you do,' Bailey was all business-like tapping his mobile phone, ‘that's how people stay in touch these days. They text each other. They phone each other. What's your mobile number?'

‘Oh, I don't know. I've never had to know.'

‘Well, give me your mobile and I'll text my mobile. That way I'll have your number in my phone and be able to give it to you, too.'

‘I haven't got it.'

‘You haven't got your mobile?' Bailey stared at her. ‘But you should always have it. That's why it's a mobile phone. Mobile – moving around, you know.'

‘I packed it,' Magda said. ‘They make you turn them off in the plane anyway.'

‘Magda! How am I going to get your number?'

A cab pulled into the street.

‘Oh, here's my taxi,' Magda said. ‘Got to go.'

‘How will we keep in touch?' I asked, suddenly desperately sad. ‘Look, I've brought you the Wish Pony – for Charlotte. Do you need him back?'

‘No, he's yours. No, Charlotte might need – might need Emperor. That's what my fingers thought, anyway. I've packed him in here,' she patted her carpet bag, ‘so that'll be all right. I'll keep in touch, Bailey, Ruby – there's always SMN. I'm on that, thanks to you, Bailey, fixing up my notepad like that.'

‘MSN,' Bailey said automatically, ‘notebook.'

‘Quick hug,' Magda said, throwing her carpet bag into the boot, ‘then off!'

We were both grabbed up and held for a few seconds that smelled like talc powder and apples. Then she let us go just as suddenly.

‘You'll both be fine,' she said and looked at each of us for what seemed a long time. Her eyes were almost green, I realised, or looked it with the orange hair. They were almost green and when she looked at me, I felt somehow washed over by love. The way I felt when Mum or Dad praised me for something I'd done, or talked about how they'd both watched me when I was a baby. It was such a strong feeling I almost closed my eyes, to try to keep it for longer.

Then the taxi door was pulled shut and with a last wave out of the window, Magda was gone.

Bailey and I turned and looked at each other.

‘That was intense,' Bailey said, ‘did you feel it?'

I nodded. Intense was a good word. Trust Bailey.

‘So this is the Wish Pony?' he asked, turning my hand over so he could see the little glass horse I was holding. ‘He's pretty small.'

The taxi came haring back down the street.

‘What? She must have forgotten something!'

‘Sorry,' Magda sang out, ‘last books from the book basket.'

A book sailed out of the open window towards Bailey. He caught it and then the second one.

‘Enjoy!' Magda called – and was gone again, before we could even say thank you.

‘What's the book?' I asked. ‘Which is whose do you reckon?'

‘They're both the same,' Bailey said, ‘look – she's given us each a copy of
The Three Musketeers
. Now she must have bought them specially. She couldn't have two copies just lying in the book basket. That would be silly.'

I took the book and gave it a sniff. It smelled of sand, old overcoat and apples.

‘We didn't say thank you,' I said.

‘She didn't give us time. But we can, when she's on MSN. You know, she gave me the Music Box of Happiness.'

Bailey sounded a little sheepish when he told me this. As though it was a secret he didn't really want to tell anyone.

‘The music box of happiness?'

‘Yeah. It was from her cupboard.'

‘Oh, I saw that. It played a waltz or something.'

Bailey nodded, ‘When you open it two little people dance together while it plays. She said it was really important to remember that … well, you know, that once upon a time Mum and Dad must have been more like that, than always arguing. She said it was really important.'

‘Did it work?'

‘Well, yeah, it plays the waltz and the people dance.'

‘Yeah, but did it
work
?'

Bailey scuffed the gravel with his shoe. There was a long silence. Finally he said, ‘Well, when I played it at night – and I didn't want to at first, it seemed too girly – but there was something, you know, something … So I did play it. I could remember – I must have been really young. They took me to the beach and swung me between them. Mum sang. One night I was playing it and she came in, Mum – Debbie – and she sat down on the end of the bed and told me … stuff. You know. The stuff they say. But at the end, she grabbed me out of the bed and kind of waltzed me around for a minute or two. We were laughing. She said, “See, life doesn't stop. The dance goes on, Bailey.” '

‘So it did work.'

‘I don't know if
it
worked, but I suppose something did.'

I nodded. ‘The Wish Pony worked too,' I said, ‘once in a really bad way but then I got the hang of it. Do you reckon we will ever talk to her on MSN?'

‘Yeah, of course,' Bailey said, but he kept scuffing the gravel.

 

 

The day before Gerald came home, five pansies came out all at once in my secret garden. I showed Mum and Gerald where they could sit on the handsome wooden chair Dad and I had bought for them. I think Mum got tears in her eyes. She certainly gave me such a big hug that Gerald cried.

He cries a lot. But not that little whimpery sound he made in the hospital. These days he cries big round howls. Mum says she loves to hear them because it means he's hungry. Or he's pooed. Baby poo isn't quite as bad as Grinder's poo – it doesn't smell as much. I still don't change him though. I do enough picking up after Grinder.

The family moved in across the road. It was strange how Magda knew everything about them, but they hadn't even met her. Well, it would have been strange, if it hadn't been Magda. She was right – we went swimming all summer and the girl, Fran, taught me to do butterfly. I have the smallest crush on Fran's brother, Max. No one knows about it except the Wish Pony.