Black Maria. Diana Wynne Jones

CHAPTER ONE

       We have had Aunt Maria ever since Dad died. If that sounds as if we have the plague, that is what I mean. 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 an 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 seatbelt 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 divorcee 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 had gone all guilty and agonising. 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 too – sort of nervy and soggy at the same time – and 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 Lavinia, the lady who looks after 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