Listen to the Moon by Michael Morpurgo
So it was not entirely for medical reasons that I went back with the family to Veronica Farm this afternoon. I went with them as much as their friend now as their doctor. They remain first and foremost my patients of course. But, even so, I did go out of kinship also, sensing how beleaguered and isolated the Wheatcroft family must be feeling. I was not wrong. Indeed, I found them to be hardly the same people I had known before. Mrs Wheatcroft, usually the mainstay of the family, was quite distraught, and seemed to have lost her spirits entirely. Lucy Lost had withdrawn into herself again, which, considering everything that had been happening at school, I should have expected, I suppose. It seems – and I have learnt this from Miss Nightingale – that she is to be found often on her own at school and crying quietly. So much of the progress I had previously seen in Lucy has clearly been lost.
We sat for a while, listening to Lucy’s favourite record on the gramophone, none of us speaking, all of us lost in thought. When Lucy went upstairs, Mrs Wheatcroft took the record off, and sat down at the kitchen table, disconsolate, head in her hands. Still no one spoke. I did so, only to break the silence. I expressed my condolences as best I could for the hard times they were enduring. “I’ll do whatever I can to help,” I told them, and I meant it. But it sounded rather formal and hollow. “Lucy doesn’t seem so well,” I went on. “Are they still persecuting her at school?” No one answered me. “I shall speak to Mr Beagley if you wish me to.”
“That’s kind, Doctor,” Mary said, her voice no more than a whisper. “Kind.”
Jim sat slumped by the stove in his chair, with Alfie nearby hunched in the inglenook, poking at the fire and looking as dejected as his father. Even so, they were, I felt, grateful that I had come back with them to the house, and were trying their best to make me feel welcome. But, try as they did, I could see their hearts were not in it. It was just that neither they nor I could find anything to say, and so, for some time, we said very little. I lit up my pipe. I’ve always found that smoking my pipe helps me through difficult moments. It keeps the hands busy, the mind elsewhere, temporarily at least.
“Did you see, Doctor, as you come in,” Jim said, speaking suddenly out of the silence, “did you see the paint smudges all over the door? You know what they painted on it, on our door, do you? ‘Remember the Lusitania.’ They did that. They wrote that. It’s like they think Lucy herself fired the torpedo. And all because of a lousy blanket. I’m telling you, Doctor, sometimes I think this isn’t a place I want to live in any more.”
A while later, Lucy came downstairs into the kitchen, clutching her blanket and holding her bear. She went and sat on Mary’s lap, and laid her head on her shoulder. Her presence seemed somehow to lift the gloom. I had noticed before that Lucy could have that effect on them, but it was more apparent now than ever. We talked then, and had tea together. That was when they began to talk about it, and, once they began, it all came out. They seemed to want to confide in me, to tell me everything. There had indeed been a name on the blanket, just as Big Dave Bishop said: ‘Wilhelm’. And one of the words Lucy had spoken was ‘Wilhelm’. They didn’t know what to make of it, but Alfie said that no matter what he was sure she was English.
Mary told me that she knew what people would think if it was found out, which was why she had long since cut off the name tape, and a German-looking label she had found on the teddy bear too, but how that had made no difference when she had showed both the blanket and the bear to the Vicar and everyone else when they came to the house. The island, she said, had made up its mind that Lucy was German, and that’s what they would go on thinking, until and unless Lucy spoke English. And now they had daubed white paint on her front door and thrown a stone through Lucy’s window.
I was enraged at their treatment, but also touched that they had taken me into their confidence, and entrusted me with their story. I wanted to help them if I could. “It is clear to me that Lucy will not talk,” I told them, thinking aloud, “unless she first remembers. I feel sure it is her inability to remember, or her unwillingness to remember, that is preventing her from speaking. Whether she speaks in German or in English, it is no matter. That is what we have to remember. All that matters is that she finds herself again, finds out who she is.”
“True enough, Doctor, that’s true enough,” Mary said, her spirits suddenly restored. “But we know who she is, don’t we? She’s Lucy. So, I’m thinking now that I don’t much mind any more whether she speaks or not. English, German or Chinese. Who cares? We love her as she is. If she never speaks, never remembers, we’ll all love her just the same. We won’t never let anyone take her away, and we don’t care what language she speaks. She’s family. She stays with us.”
Mary kissed Lucy on the top of her head. “Come on, Lucy,” she went on, getting up out of the chair. “We’ve got things to do. Let’s leave the men to it, shall we? Up we get. Boots on. We’ll feed the hens, see if there are any eggs. And then we’ll go down and say hello to Uncle Billy. Give him a couple of eggs. He likes his eggs. Have you seen how that Hispaniola of his is coming on, Doctor? Beautiful, isn’t it? She’s brought him back to life. They’ve brought each other back to life. And d’you know what Uncle Billy told me about Lucy yesterday? He said: ‘That girl’s not a stranger any more.’ He’s taken quite a shine to her, like we all have, come to that.”
After they had gone out, Jim, Alfie and I sat in silence for a while, and then I had a sudden thought, the kind of thought that comes to you sometimes in a flash out of nowhere, and you wonder why you never thought of it before. “Maybe,” I ventured, “maybe you should retrace her steps, try somehow to rejoin her to her memory, take Lucy back to where she came from, to where you found her, to St Helen’s, to the Pest House, wasn’t it? You never know, something there might awaken her memory.”
Jim looked doubtful for a while, but then he was leaning forward in his chair. I could see he was thinking it through. “Why not?” he said, nodding. “Worth a try, I’d say. And the doctor was right enough about the music, weren’t he, Alfie? That got her out of bed, didn’t it? Got her interested, got her outside, got her to school, got her riding that horse. But she didn’t do any of it with me, Doctor. She done all that with Alfie, most of it anyway. If she talks again, then it’ll be to Alfie, you can be sure of that. You do it, Alfie, you take her over there to St Helen’s, like the doctor says. Could work. And we haven’t got a better idea, have we? You’ll give it a go, won’t you, Alfie? She’ll come in the boat with you now, won’t she?”
“She’ll come,” Alfie said, and the more he thought about it, the more he seemed to like the idea. “She’ll be frightened. She still don’t like boats much, don’t like water, but maybe if we do a bit of fishing. I’ll make it a fishing trip. Tomorrow, I’ll take her over tomorrow, shall I? If the weather’s right. There’s a bit of a sea running at the moment, but maybe it’ll blow through by morning.”
I left the family an hour or so later in much better heart than I had found them, after another cup of tea and some of Mrs Wheatcroft’s cake, to which she knows I am rather partial. It was as good as ever. As I walked away from the house, Mrs Wheatcroft and Lucy Lost were busying themselves scrubbing down the front door, observed by that horse who was grazing in the field nearby. Father and son were mending the broken bedroom window. It occurs to me that I have examined no one, offered no medicine, or medical advice, and yet I feel that I have perhaps done the best day of doctoring I ever did.
What will come of all this trouble and strife, and what will become of Lucy Lost in the end, heaven only knows. But the Wheatcrofts are good and fine people, people I have come to like and respect. As for Lucy Lost, to me she is like a young swallow fallen from the sky. That family has picked her up and cared for her. It is surely up to them and to me, to all of us on these islands, to keep her from harm, to do all we can to help her fly again.
One thing I know for sure: Lucy Lost will only ever fly once she remembers who she is, from whence and from whom she came, and to where an
ALL NIGHT LONG MARY LAY awake beside Jim, worrying whether it was such a good idea to take Lucy back to St Helen’s, whether it might awaken something in her memories that would disturb her, that would remind her only of something she wanted to forget. The more she worried about it, the more she became convinced she shouldn’t go. In the end she nudged Jim awake. She had to talk to him. “She shouldn’t go,” she told him. “Lucy and Alfie, they shouldn’t go over to St Helen’s today. I don’t like it. I got a bad feeling about it.”
“Don’t you worry yourself none, Marymoo,” he said, still half asleep. “That old Penguin of mine might toss a body about, might give you a rough old ride, but she’ll get you there. She won’t never sink, not that boat. I should know, Marymoo, I been out in her often enough. Lucy will be all right, and Alfie knows what he’s doing. I taught him all I know, didn’t I? It’ll be fine, you’ll see. Now let’s get some sleep, shall us?”
But Mary kept on, revisiting again all the anxieties of her long night awake. “It’s not the boat, Jimbo. It’s her, it’s Lucy. What happens if she remembers, like the doctor says she might, and then she don’t like what she remembers? What if remembering is worse than not remembering? And anyway, the doctor could be wrong, couldn’t he? Who’s to say that just cos she remembers things, she’ll suddenly be able to speak, to tell us who she is? I want to know who she is, you know I do. So do we all, but she may not be ready to remember. Maybe it’s best if she remembers in her own good time, talks in her own good time. Maybe we’re trying to make things happen too quick.”
She was silent then for some minutes. Jim thought she might have talked herself out, done all her worrying and gone to sleep. But she started up again.
“Things in the brain, Jim, you can’t make them happen if they don’t want to happen. Like with Uncle Billy. In that hospital they tried to make him something he wasn’t, tried to make him behave different, like he was someone else. That nurse he had was the only one in the place who understood him and was kind to him. She’d read to him, spend time with him. She was the one who brought him in that Treasure Island book, read it to him, listened to him read. She knew who Uncle Billy was, half out of his head maybe, a dreamer, but himself, and that you couldn’t and shouldn’t change him. She just helped him, did what she could, saw Billy was happiest when he was living in his dreams, and let him be.
“It’s the same with Lucy. I’ve been thinking that maybe we should just leave her be. I’ve been trying too hard to make her remember, and I shouldn’t have. If she don’t remember who she is, nor anything about herself, and stays silent and locked away inside herself, then maybe that’s how she wants it to be, maybe she can live with that. And if it’s all right with her then who are we to try to change it, Jimbo?”
Jim didn’t answer, because he knew it wasn’t really a question.
“And then I been thinking something else too, Jimbo,” she went on. “Let’s suppose the doctor is right, and Lucy comes back from St Helen’s and somehow she’s remembered who she is, and where she came from, all of it. And just imagine how it would be if she opens her mouth, and talks, and she tells us the whole story of her life, and it’s all in German, every last word. What’re we going to do then?”
Jim propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at her. “You know your trouble, Marymoo?” he said. “You do too much thinking, and most of it in the middle of the night. You can’t think straight in the middle of the night. You only think the worst. That’s when the brain should be resting, sleeping, not thinking. If you’re right, Marymoo – and you usually think you are – then there is a God in his heaven, which as you know I have my doubts about. But if you’re right then that God of yours will look after Lucy, won’t he, even if it turns out she speaks German? God helps those who help themselves, don’t he? That’s all we’re trying to do, help Lucy help herself. Isn’t that what the good book says? Isn’t that what you believe?”
Mary didn’t reply for a while. “It’s what I try to believe, Jim,” she said. She turned away from him then, and added, “But sometimes I find it hard to believe. Believing’s not easy, y’know.”
“It’ll all seem better in the morning, Marymoo,” Jim said, lying down and turning over.
It did seem better too. The next morning, as they all walked down to the boat in Green Bay, Jim was full of last-minute advice for Alfie.
“You’ll have high tide all the way, Alfie. South-westerly breeze. The waves will still be coming in after the storm, so it’ll be choppy in the middle of the channel. You’ll have to go round Carn Near into Crow Sound. Keep along Pentle Bay, past Lizard Point, and across the lagoon into St Helen’s Pool. Land on the beach opposite Tean. You can’t miss it. That’ll see you through. But look out for Foreman’s Island. Got a mind of his own that island, moves around all the time. Treacherous beggar, so you look out, Alfie. Eyes peeled like I taught you. And, when you get to St Helen’s, come in slow. There’s rocks hidden away in the weed, nasty rocks, sharp rocks. Look for the weed. Where there’s weed, there’s rocks. So you take care now. You bring my Penguin back safe and sound, and Lucy too.”
Mary was helping Lucy into the boat, settling her down, wrapping her in her blanket, and making sure the lunch basket she had prepared, and the fishing gear, were safely stowed under her seat and in the dry. They saw Uncle Billy was out on deck, looking at birds through his telescope. They shouted and waved, and he took off his pirate’s hat and bowed low.
“You know what Uncle Billy told me?” Alfie said. “He told me that once the Hispaniola is finished – and by the look of her it won’t be long now, will it? – he said he’s going to sail her away for a year and a day to the land where the bong tree grows, or something. That’s from one of they poems he reads us, isn’t it, Mother? Uncle Billy, he likes his books, don’t he? Knows so many poems and songs and stories, keeps them all in his head. How does he do that?”
“Cos he’s clever,” Mary said. “That’s how. Clever with his hands, clever in his head. Once he reads something, once you tell him something, Uncle Billy never forgets. That’s how come he’s like he is, Alfie. Trouble is, there’s a few things he’d like to forget, and can’t.”
Jim took Alfie to one side. “Never mind about your Uncle Billy, Alfie,” he said. “You just keep your mind on where you’re going, on what you’re doing. Remember what I told you: in the corner of the Pest House, left-hand corner as you look at the fireplace, that’s where we found her, hiding in among the bracken she was, remember? That’s where she must’ve spent most of her time over there. It’s the only shelter on the island. That’s the most likely place, I reckon. So, take her there first, right?”
“But what’ll she be looking for, Father?” Alfie asked.
“She won’t know till she finds it,” Jim told him. “And make sure you have a good look round the whole island while you’re there. Take her everywhere. She must have been marooned there on her own for weeks, months even, judging by the state of her when we found her. Dr Crow thought so too. So, like as not, she’ll know every inch of the place. Keep close to her, Alfie, keep your eye on her, so’s you can see if she recognises anything.”
It was early. There was no one else about on Green Bay, except Uncle Billy, which was how they wanted it. Jim and Mary pushed the boat out and stood watching on the shore as the sail went up, saw the wind flap it and crack it and catch it, and then the boat was dancing away from them out into Tresco Channel, Lucy wrapped in her grey blanket, her bear hugged to her, clutched tight. She looked pale and cold, and a little bewildered, nervous but not frightened, excited rather.
“It’s up to Alfie now,” Jim said. “Let’s hope he’ll bring back a fish or two, if nothing else. He’s got a good nose for mackerel, my boy.”
“He’s my boy too, y’know,” Mary
“Our boy then,” Jim laughed, “and our girl, eh, Marymoo?”
“Our girl,” she agreed.
They watched them sail away up the channel, out around Puffin Island, and stood there watching till they were clear of it, and tacking in a fair breeze past Samson. “Let’s hope,” Mary breathed as they turned away. “Let’s pray.”
Hooded under her blanket, Lucy looked nervously about her as the boat dipped and rode in the swell. Every time the spray came over the side, or the boat keeled suddenly in the wind, she gave half a cry or a sharp intake of breath. She was holding on tight, wherever she could, her knuckles white. “Better’n school, Lucy?” Alfie laughed. She managed a smile then, and it wasn’t long after that she was sitting there without holding on any more at all, hugging her knees, and looking all about her, growing more confident and happy by the moment, and happier still when she saw the Arctic terns come swooping down, diving into the water all around them.
Alfie decided this was the moment to get fishing. There would be rougher water ahead, so any kind of distraction was going to be helpful. But he needed her to take his place on the tiller, so he could have his hands free to bait the line. When he helped her up on to her feet to come and sit beside him, she did it quite willingly, with little hesitation. She was only on the tiller for a few minutes, but she took to it as if she had been doing it all her life. It was the same when she was fishing. Once she had the line in her hand, she seemed to know instinctively what to do, and to forget altogether that she was out in the sea in a boat. Alfie was amazed at her.
Lucy clearly loved the wait and expectation of fishing. Her concentration, Alfie saw, was complete. She caught three mackerel quite quickly. Whenever she caught a fish, she was beside herself with excitement, but then, once caught, hated to see them wriggling on the hook, and would make Alfie take them off and throw them back in the sea at once. She was so intent on the fishing by now that she did not seem to notice at all the rearing and plunging of the boat as they came out of the protection of the channel and into the swell of the open sea. Alfie saw her eyes widen once with fear as the spray came over the side and hit his face. But he whooped and laughed and wiped it away, and her fear too was soon laughed away and forgotten, and she was back to her fishing.