Far to Go - By Alison Pick Page 0,86

paper.

There was no bedtime story. Mrs. Milling left the room briefly and came back with a thermometer. Pepik opened wide and stuck out his tongue, but it was her son Arthur’s temperature she was interested in. She gave the thermometer a vigorous shake after pulling it from Arthur’s mouth, as though she hoped to change the number she saw there. Then she flicked off the light and the room was plunged into blackness.

“Sladký sen,” Pepik said to nobody, and nobody answered him back.

He leaned back on his pillow. He could see out the window from his bed: the sky was slowly ticking down into a cool cobalt blue. There were a few stars out, messengers arrived too early. Down the length of the block there were long rows of brick houses, and warehouses with their gates closed and locked. The front windows were lit, small squares of yellow against the blackness, so that the street looked like a filmstrip. He thought of Snow White, of the Happy dwarf and his own Happy face, but he didn’t feel happy; he felt terribly alone. If he crushed his head up against the wall he could see all the way down the street. He needed to keep watch for his family walking up the long road towards him.

Tata would be in the middle, with Mamenka and Nanny on each of his arms.

Pepik had smuggled his lead soldier into bed with him, and as his eyes adjusted he pushed the covers back and set the soldier on the windowsill. He sat up and crossed his legs, watching. He and his soldier standing guard together. How impressed Tata would be to see him up so late, defending the house, his gun at the ready.

“At ease,” he commanded the soldier, roughly.

He didn’t want anyone getting shot by mistake.

Across the room Arthur’s breathing was raspy and irregular, like someone tuning a radio, stations coming in and out of range. There were long stretches between breaths. Only now, in the darkness, did Nanny’s words come back: it was Pepik’s job to help Arthur get better.

“Artoor?” he whispered.

There was phlegmy gasping from the other bed. Finally Arthur spoke. “I need help. Call my mother.”

It was like hearing a dead body come suddenly back to life. Pepik imagined Arthur reaching out a clammy hand to touch him.

He didn’t understand Arthur’s words, and didn’t answer.

Morning was a needle plunged into his arm. He woke to a chill draft of air. The covers had been pulled back and Mrs. Milling was standing over him. Her eyes were small and black and her lips were pressed into a perfectly straight line. Pepik tried to pull his knees up to cover himself, but it was too late. He’d wet the bed. She had seen.

“Zarmoucený,” Pepik said.

Mrs. Milling held her breath.

She worked quickly, matter-of-factly, pulling off Pepik’s nightshirt and underpants. She managed to strip the sheets without moving him from the bed, manoeuvring his body into different positions and cradling his head under her arm. She bundled the offending sheets into her arms and left him there, naked and uncovered.

Pepik was cold, and the skin of his bottom was red and sore. The pain in his stomach reasserted itself, and he turned his head to the side and threw up on the blue floorboards.

Two minutes later Mrs. Milling returned carrying a pile of clean sheets. She was humming under her breath, but when she saw the vomit she stopped, her song breaking off mid-note. “What . . .” She leaned down and sniffed at the little pile of regurgitation, the white jelly of last night’s boiled cauliflower flecked with yellow. Then she shouted something in the direction of the hall; the round man emerged eventually at the top of the stairs, out of breath, a bottle of tomato ketchup in his hand.

“Look, Frank! He’s ill!” Mrs. Milling motioned her husband over and showed him the vomit. “More germs for . . . Doctor Travers said . . .” She was talking quickly and gesturing at her son; she sounded like she might burst into tears.

Pepik rolled over and cradled his head in his hands. It dawned on him suddenly that morning had arrived. He’d fallen asleep at his post. Nanny hadn’t come in the night, and Arthur was still sick. He had failed them. He had failed all of them.

By mid-morning Pepik was feeling a little better and half expected Mrs. Milling would make him go outside to play, but she preferred to treat him