Listen to the Moon by Michael Morpurgo
“Silence!” roared Mr Beagley.
Alfie steeled himself for the whack on the head. It came sure enough, and it hurt, but not like his knuckles hurt.
There were times in the weeks that followed when Alfie felt he was talking to Lucy only because someone had to say something, to fill the silence. He knew he was talking to himself, but he would tell her anyway, tell her all the news. He’d tell her what had gone on at school that day, who Mr Beagley had picked on in particular, who had got the cane, who had got the ruler, who had been stood in the corner, or about the peregrine falcon he’d seen hovering over Watch Hill, or the sleeping seal he’d seen basking on the rocks off Rushy Bay. He tried his best to make his day interesting for her, and funny too when he could, however tedious and ordinary the day had been. And some were.
Alfie may have had plenty of practice at this with Uncle Billy, but with Lucy it was different. He had no idea who he was talking to. He knew Uncle Billy, knew all about who he was, his whole sad story, how Uncle Billy was his mother’s twin brother. He’d been born and brought up with her on Bryher, but at fifteen years old, after an argument with his father, he’d run away to sea, without ever telling her. For years, his mother never knew where he had gone, nor what had happened to him.
Then she had found out how, twenty or so years later, and a master shipbuilder in Penzance by now, his wife had died in childbirth, his baby too, how grief and guilt had driven Billy mad, how he’d gone off wandering the wild moors of Cornwall, and had ended up in the County Asylum in Bodmin. Alfie’s mother had asked after him, searched for him for years, and finally tracked him down in the asylum, and, with Dr Crow’s help, had brought him home. He had one thing only with him, his mother told Alfie: a copy of Treasure Island. All through his time in the asylum he had read and read it. Talking to Uncle Billy, Alfie always had his whole life story in his head. They knew one another, trusted one another.
But he didn’t know Lucy like he knew his Uncle Billy. He was talking to a face, someone from nowhere. He wanted to get to know her. He longed for her to talk back, to tell him about herself, who she was and where she had come from. So on he’d go, day after day, telling her his stories: about the porpoises he’d seen swimming out in the Tresco Channel, about Uncle Billy and how he was getting on with his work on the Hispaniola, what fish his father had caught, about another merchantman sunk out in the Western Approaches by a German submarine, how there’d been no survivors.
Whatever he told her though, however he told it, no matter how animated, inventive and expansive he became in the telling, her face remained quite expressionless. But what was so frustrating and disconcerting for Alfie was that he was sure that from time to time she was in fact listening, that she was understanding something of what he was telling her. He had the feeling too – and this always encouraged him to go on – that she liked him to be there with her, liked listening to his stories. Even so, she simply would not or could not show it, would not or could not respond.
Then, out of nowhere, there came a quite unexpected breakthrough. It happened on the afternoon after yet another fight with Zeb at school. Alfie found Dr Crow in the house when he got back, talking earnestly with his mother and father round the kitchen table. Alfie sensed he was interrupting something the moment he walked in. When his mother asked him to take Lucy up her milk and cake, and sit with her for a while, he knew there were things they’d prefer to talk about without him there. He didn’t mind anyway. He wanted to see Lucy. He had plenty he wanted to tell her.
He found her sitting up in bed, looking out of the window and humming softly to herself. It wasn’t the first time she had been humming when he walked in. It was always the same tune – he had noticed that. She looked a little brighter than usual, still unsmiling, but it occurred to Alfie that she had sat up in bed because she had heard him coming, that she might even have been looking forward to it. He could see she had noticed his split lip, and had a sudden hope that she might ask him about it. She didn’t, but she did stare at it. And, better still, she did reach out and touch it.
Alfie could hear the doctor talking downstairs with his mother and father. He was tempted to try to listen to what they were saying, but the words were a mumble, too indistinct to hear properly. And besides, he had things he needed to tell Lucy. Lucy ate her cake slowly – she always ate slowly – nibbling at it, while Alfie gave her a blow by blow account of his fight with Zebediah Bishop, and of the punishment he’d been given too, showed her his bruised knuckles, told her all about Beastly Beagley and his ruler, showed how he held your arm in a vice-like grip and hit you on the knuckles with the edge of the ruler so hard you couldn’t move your fingers afterwards at all. He told her how Zeb had again threatened to tell everyone about Lucy’s blanket with Wilhelm on it, but how he wouldn’t dare because Alfie knew about Zeb and his cronies robbing the money box in the church, and how he had threatened he would tell the Reverend Morrison if Zeb ever mentioned a word about the name on the blanket.
It was at that moment that Lucy responded for the first time to anything he had ever said to her. She looked up at him for a moment, and then lifted a corner of the blanket to show him. The word came out slowly, and only with great concentration and effort. “W… Wil… helm,” she said softly, and said no more.
But she had spoken! Lucy had spoken! It was indistinct, but it was a spoken word, a recognisable word, definitely a word.
Alfie had to tell someone, anyone, at once. He ran downstairs and burst into the kitchen. “Lucy spoke!” he said. “She said something. She did! I’m sure she did.”
“You see, Doctor? Did you hear that? She is getting better, she is!” Mary said, and she reached out to grasp Alfie’s hands. “That’s wonderful, wonderful, Alfie. What did she say?”
‘Wilhelm’ was on the tip of his tongue. Then he thought again. No, he thought, no one must know, not even the doctor. He had so nearly blurted it out. Trying to gather his thoughts, he said, “I’m… I’m not sure. Couldn’t really tell, but it was a word, promise, a real word. It was!”
The doctor smiled up at him, prodding the tobacco deep into his pipe with his thumb. “It doesn’t matter what it was,” he said. “She was trying to speak, that is what is important. You have done well, Alfie, very well indeed. But in spite of this – and it is good news, Alfie, very good news – as I have been telling your mother and father, I do still have grave concerns about Lucy’s future. I have examined her again this afternoon, and I have to say there is a great deal I do not properly understand. I should have expected her to have recovered much more quickly by now than she has. Her health and strength are much restored – her ankle is now as good as the other one – thanks in large part to how well your mother has cared for her. But it is not only Lucy’s inability to speak properly that worries me, it is also her reluctance to get up out of bed. And this is not just physical. There is something else wrong here, something in her mind.”
“In her mind?” Alfie asked. “What do you mean, in her mind?”
The doctor sighed. He lit up his pipe and sat back. “Listen,” he went on. “This is how I see it. Only a few weeks ago – what is it now, eight or nine weeks, is it, Mr Wheatcroft? – you found that poor child half dead from cold and starvation on St Helen’s. A couple more days out there on her own, and I’m telling you she would not have survived. You found her just in time. And you’ve all done wonders with her, brought her back from the brink. She’s eating better now, that terrible cough of hers is all but gone, and she’s stronger now every time I see her. She is in no danger any more. She will survive, of that I have no doubt – in her body at any rate. But as for her mind, as I say, there I do have some concerns. It is a good sign that she spoke, Alfie, very good. Yet, all the same, I do worry for her sanity. And I do have to say that, in this regard, I have seen very little improvement up till now.”
He paused, puffing long on his pipe before beginning again. “To me, she seems lost, lost deep inside herself, as lost as she was on that i
“I told you, I’ve tried. She won’t be moved, Doctor,” said Mary. “I’ve tried everything I know. She just lies there. I don’t know what else I can do.”
“Believe me, I understand, Mrs Wheatcroft, I do,” the doctor went on. “No one could have done more. But that’s my point. I’m afraid that sooner or later, if she does not improve, she may need more… well, let us call it specialised help. And that she can only get in a hospital on the mainland.”
Mary started to her feet, tears in her eyes. “You mean the madhouse, don’t you, Doctor? That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it! Like the asylum in Bodmin, where Billy was. Over my dead body! I have been to that place. We were there together, Doctor. Or have you forgotten? It is a hell on earth, you know it is. I won’t let that happen, not again. I saw what they did to Billy in that place. For goodness’ sake, Doctor, you helped me get Billy out of there. You know how they’re treated. They don’t live, poor souls, they just exist. It’s a prison, Doctor, not a hospital. They just lock them up and throw away the key. There’s no care in the place, no hope. No, until her mother or father comes for her, she is ours to care for. You hear me, Doctor? I’ll not let her into one of those dreadful places in a million years. We shall make her well in body and mind, you’ll see. And God will help us. Didn’t Lucy just speak to Alfie? Isn’t that a good sign?”
“Indeed it is, but I just want you to face the possibility, Mrs Wheatcroft, that’s all,” said Dr Crow.
“It is not going to happen, Doctor,” Mary whispered fiercely through her tears.
“None of us want it to happen,” the doctor went on. “All I can tell you is that if we’re to have any hope of healing her mind then you have to get her up and walking, somehow. She must be strong enough by now to walk. You have to try to get her outside.”
“I’ve tried, Doctor,” Mary told him despairingly. “Do you think I haven’t tried?”
The doctor turned to Alfie. “What about you, Alfie? You got her to speak just now. Take her round the island, take her out in the boat, maybe over to Samson to see the cottages, or down to Rushy Bay to see the seals. We’ve got to get her to take an interest in life, to get her out of herself. And Mrs Wheatcroft, you go on doing just what you’ve been doing, talk to her, read to her, care for her, but try to bring her downstairs more, get her helping in the kitchen, out on the farm.”
“She’s seems so damaged, so fragile,” Mary said. “I can’t force her, can I? How can I make her do what she doesn’t want to do?”
“Marymoo,” said Jim, reaching out and taking her hand in his. “Let’s do what the doctor says. Let Alfie try to take her out a bit. He’s more her age. She might go with him. You can’t do it all by yourself, Marymoo.”
“She’s got to learn to live again, Mrs Wheatcroft,” the doctor said, getting to his feet. “Even then we can’t be sure she’ll get well. But it’s her best hope and my best advice, that’s all. Get her up, get her moving, whether she wants to or not.”
He stopped at the door as he was leaving. “This is just an idea,” he said. “Music. Maybe music would help. I’ve got one of those wonderful gramophone contraptions back at home on St Mary’s, and some records to go with it. I’ll bring them over next time I come. Easy enough to operate: you just wind it up, put the needle on, and out comes the music. Magic. Extraordinary invention. Everyone should have one. No one would need a doctor then, put me right out of a job, but I shouldn’t mind. Very healing stuff, music.”
All that week Alfie tried, and his mother tried, but no amount of gentle persuasion or cajoling could induce Lucy to get out of bed. Then the next time Dr Crow came calling, a week or so later, he brought his gramophone with him as he had promised. As soon as he arrived, he wound it up, and put a record on. Miraculously, piano music filled the room, filled the whole house. Jim, Mary, Alfie, and the doctor, all of them simply stood there, watching the record going round and round, listening in wonder, utterly lost in the music.
“It’s Chopin,” said the doctor after a while, conducting the music with his pipe.
The stair door opened behind them. Lucy was standing there in bare feet. She was swathed in her blanket, her teddy bear in her hand. She drifted across the room towards them, towards the gramophone. For long moments, she simply stared down at it. “Piano,” she whispered, and then again, “Piano.”
I REMEMBER I WAS PLAYING PAPA’S favourite piece on the piano when Old Mac brought the letter in. Old Mac was Papa’s uncle and had always lived with us in the house, along with Aunty Ducka who had been my nanny and nurse. She had looked after me all my life, taught me to sew, to make bread, and to say my prayers at night. She had looked after Mama too before me, when Mama was little. I called her ‘Ducka’, apparently, because she was the one who used to push me in my pram down to the lake in Central Park to feed the ducks every day. So Ducka I called her, and Aunty Ducka she became to everyone else too after that. And Old Mac had taught me how to fly kites in the park, and skim stones, and look after the horses and saddles. The two of them looked after just about everything else as well – house, stables, garden, our every need. Life could not have gone on without them.
I hated my daily piano practice, especially scales, but Mama had ways of persuading me every time.
Threats: “You will not be allowed to go out riding unless you practise first.”
Bribery: “Play well enough, Merry, and you can go for a ride afterwards.”
Or blackmail. Since Papa had left for the war, it was Papa she often used to blackmail me into doing my daily piano practice: “Your papa will be very disappointed in you, Merry, if you have not learnt your pieces by the time he comes home. Remember, Merry, you promised him you’d practise your scales every day.”
The trouble was that it was true, I had promised him. But I still did not like Mama reminding me of it, and I most certainly did not like her sitting there watching me either, which was why I was sulking that morning as I played my scales, with as little application as possible and no enthusiasm whatsoever, just so she would know how I felt.
The routine was always the same with Mama. She’d stay in the sitting room with me until I had played my scales three times without hesitation or mistake. Only then would she let me play what I wanted. I rarely played the pieces that my music teacher, Miss Phelps, had told me to. First of all I didn’t like her, as she was so unsmiling and severe. She frowned all the time, and had very thin lips, and several long brown whiskers growing out of the two moles on her chin. And the pieces she told me to practise were either too difficult for me or I didn’t like them – one or the other, or usually both – which was why, as soon as I’d done my scales to Mama’s satisfaction that morning, I decided not to play my practice pieces at all, and instead began playing my favourite Mozart piece, ‘Andante Grazioso’.
Papa loved it. I loved it too, because I thought it was the most beautiful tune I ever heard, because I could play it well, and because Papa loved it as much as I did. He would stand behind me sometimes, and hum along as I played. He always called it Merry’s tune, which was why I was reminded of him every time I played it. I could almost feel he was there with us in the room that morning, his hand resting on my shoulder, even though I knew he was far awa
I missed him so much: seeing him coming down the path, loping like a giraffe, home from work, leaping at him, making him catch me and hold me, his deep voice in the house, sitting on his lap, his moustache tickling my ear, and listening to the gramophone with him, our games of chess together by the fire in the evenings, his footstep on the stairs coming up to say goodnight to me, reading The Ugly Duckling to me in bed. I only had to play our tune, his tune, to feel he was back home and with me again.
As I played, I forgot my sulking, forgot Mama was there, and lost myself entirely in the melody, and in thoughts of Papa. I was aware of Old Mac coming in with a letter for Mama, and leaving moments afterwards, and paid little attention as Mama read it. But then she started up suddenly out of her chair, hand to her mouth, choking back her tears. At once I dreaded the worst.
“What, Mama?” I cried, rushing over to her. “What is it?”
“It’s from your papa,” she said, recovering a little by now. “It’s all right, he’ll be all right. He’s been wounded. He’s in hospital, in England, somewhere in the country he says.”
“Is he bad? Will he die, Mama? He won’t die, will he?”
“He says we’re not to worry, that he’ll be up and about in no time.” She was reading fast, turning the page, but saying nothing.
“What’s he say, Mama? Can I read it? Please?” I asked. But she was hardly hearing me.