'Once upon a time there were goats who lived in a feild by the sea, a Billy goat and a nanny goat and their kids Mitten and Hitten, they all lived happily in a feild by the sea except Mitten and Hitten who wanted to sale on a ship to a far away land…'
She chewed her pencil, which tasted a bit like a stick of liquorice, and tried to think what came next. How did daddy always know? He must do, to be able to write so much.
She stared out of her playroom and tried to think. Out on the road a car sped by, looking like one of the paintings she'd done when she was little and couldn't keep the paint inside the drawing. Rain wriggled on the window. If she stared at it long enough she felt she was underwater, especially when she let her eyes go out of focus. Or perhaps it looked more like transparent spaghetti. She shook herself impatiently – daddy wouldn't be wasting his time like this, he would be getting on with his writing. She decided to give the nanny goat a capital N. That didn't look right either, none of it did. She wished she could ask daddy to help.
Why couldn't she? She knew she mustn't interrupt him when he was working, but surely this was special? This was for him. Besides, he'd once told her that she'd helped him with a story before she could even talk, when he'd had to write about a baby. Surely he wouldn't mind if she asked him to help now? She wanted to finish this story, she wanted him to be proud of her. His editor – that was the man at the publishers who helped him write – said they might publish her one day: Knight Junior, he called her. Maybe she'd be on television for all her schoolfriends to see, and all the friends she'd had in London. Daddy would be prcjd of her then, mummy would be too – they'd record her programme for her to watch whenever she wanted to.
She had written 'and', and was staring at her exercise book, when all at once it was too dark to see. The sky was suddenly almost as dark as a cinema when you went in after the film had started. She got up at once: now she had an excuse. Besides, she had another reason to go upstairs to see him. She couldn't help it, she was still worried about him.
She didn't know why. She would have told mummy if she'd been able to put it into words. As she went into the hall she could hear mummy in the kitchen, the mixer growling as it buried its nose in whatever she was making. Anna would have to look after him all by herself. She used to think she could, but by now she had some idea how unpredictable and mysterious grown-ups could be. Some things about them were too big for her to grasp. It made her feel small and lost sometimes, like a mouse in someone else's house. She ran up the stairs two at a time, to see that daddy was all right.
On the stairs to the top floor she hesitated. Perhaps she did know why she was worried. She remembered now that she'd had the same feeling yesterday – that someone had got into the house, into daddy's room. How could she tell mummy that? It would sound silly, the kind of thing grown-ups only pretended to listen to. She couldn't hear daddy's typewriter. She hurried up the last flight and across the landing to his room.
He was sitting at his desk in front of the window. He was hunched over the electric typewriter, which was humming loudly. Rain danced on the sill of the open window. Never touch anything electric while your hands are wet, never let water anywhere near anything electric. She was afraid to speak in case he didn't answer.
No, he was all right, for he'd hunched closer to the window. She went forward to see what he was looking at. She heard the waves rumbling like an earthquake; on the horizon the grey sky looked as if it was pouring into the sea. There seemed to be nothing else to watch, except the bedraggled goats that were huddling in the shelter of the pillbox. Or was he watching her reflection? She could see his face on the glass against the sea, but not his eyes, which were out there in the foaming waves.
All at once he growled, 'Well, what is it now?'
'Are you busy?'
'What does it look like?'
'No.'
He turned to glare at her. 'Well then, I can't be, can I?'
He was being so fierce that she couldn't help laughing. He was always like this when he was working, even if she brought him a cup of coffee that mummy made. He tried to look more fierce, then he smiled ruefully. 'I can't pretend I was thinking anything worth thinking. What's up?'
'I wanted you to help me with my story.'
'That's a laugh,' he said, not laughing. T can't even manage my own.'
'Shall I help you?'
He hugged her, tousling her hair. 'I wish you could, little one, believe me.'
'You said I did once.'
'That's right, you did. Well then, let's see if I can repay the favour.'
When she brought him her exercise book he switched off the typewriter and sat her on his knee while he read what she'd written. She couldn't look, she was so ashamed of having changed the N and making the page messy; when she'd started she'd tried to write as neatly as typing. She snuggled her face against his bare arm so that she wouldn't have to look.
'Well, that's a good start,' he said. 'What happens next?'
'I don't know.'
'Yes, you do. Do the kids go away?'
She pondered. 'I think so.'
'So you send them off and see what happens. Where do you think they end up?'
'Africa.'
'See, you did know after all. You get them there and see what happens next.'
She was comfortable on his lap; she felt warm and safe as the rain clawed at the house. 'Tell me about Africa again.'
'Look, darling, I'm having enough trouble writing about it myself. I can't squander the little I've got.' He held her away from him so that he could gaze into her eyes. 'You don't want me not to be able to write, do you?'
'No.' She'd wanted to please him, but all she seemed to have done was to get in his way. She would have left him before if he'd told her to go. She carried her book down to her playroom* but she didn't feel like writing any more.
She looked for something else to do to make the dull day start moving.
There was nothing. She'd done all her jigsaws already, except for the Little Red Riding Hood one that was too old for her – which really meant she was too young. She was too young to have a pet, too, mummy had said so. If she'd had a puppy she could have played with it on days like this. There was nobody to play with, that was the trouble. It wasn't like London, where she could have played in her friends' houses up the street; all her schoolfriends in Norfolk were miles away. She knew she oughtn't to wish it, because mummy and daddy loved it here so much, but sometimes she wished they hadn't come to live here at all.
She mustn't be selfish. She liked it here really, except on days like this. She wandered into the kitchen, but there was nothing to help mummy with. She went up to her bedroom, where her shelves were piled with her Read It Yourself books and Enid Blytons, but she didn't feel like reading, not even to show daddy how much she could read. She jumped downstairs two stairs at a time for want of anything else to do, then ran up two at a time to see how many times she could do it. She'd thumped up and down the stairs six times before daddy came out of his room to glare at her.
This time he wasn't just pretending to be fierce. All at once she felt very small. She would have gone up to say she was sorry, except that she felt too ashamed. She went into the kitchen, to be with mummy. Mummy was making bread; she was wearing lumpy gloves of flour. Anna wanted to tell mummy that she was afraid she'd done something naughty, and she was just opening her mouth when mummy said, 'What on earth have you been doing to yourself, young lady?'