And the next day, way too bright and early, we were packed into Evan’s little car—a gray Escort, matched the overcast perfectly— luggage in our laps stacked up so high Evan could hardly see out the back window, and the whole car sagging until I swear I felt my butt bounce on the road whenever we went over a bump, and we’re actually off for Dorset, wherever it is. I knew it was somewhere south, that’s all. And sort of west.
We were in the backseat, Tony, Julian, and me. Julian grabbed one window right off, and Tony let me have the other, treating me exactly like Julian, and letting me know it. I just lay back and tried to get comfortable under a suitcase and a box of kitchen stuff, and closed my eyes.
I actually dozed a little bit on the drive out of London, and maybe a bit more than that, because I only woke up when Julian started to sing “One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” which I had no idea they sang in England. We were still in the suburbs, which look just about the same there as they do in New York— malls and McDonald’s and cineplexes and garages and TV antennas sticking up from so many red roofs your eyes go funny. I don’t know why they’re all red, even today.
Evan told Julian he might want to reconsider his repertoire if he had any plans for his eleventh birthday, so Julian sang “I Am the Walrus,” all of it, straight through, and then he was going to sing “Come Together,” but Tony got a headlock on him. Julian loves the Beatles the way he loves enchiladas and pizza. It still takes a headlock to stop him.
Sally wanted me to sing with her, some of the old stuff we used to do together, like “The Water Is Wide,” or “Plaisir d’amour,” or “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” but I wasn’t about to, not in front of these people, no chance. That hurt her feelings, and I felt a little bad about that, but I was also starting to feel sick, because of the car wallowing so much, and because we kept hitting one roundabout after another just going in circles and circles until I had to shut my eyes again and think about nothing. Sometimes I thought about Mister Cat, and sometimes about Jake and Marta, but thinking about nothing’s better for your stomach. I guess I slept some more.
What woke me this time was Evan singing by himself. It was a long, slow, really sad song about a fisherman and a mermaid, and his accent was funny, different from how he usually sounded. I listened to him, trying not to, and now and then Sally would come in, harmonizing in a couple of places where she knew the words, and my eyes would start to fill up, and you’re just going to have to imagine how much I hated that. Because it wasn’t the damn song that was making me cry—it was something in Evan’s voice that wasn’t sad at all, but peaceful, and it was me having to face the idea that he and my mother had been making this other world for themselves that didn’t include me for one minute. Oh, it did, in a way—I knew that, Sally’s my mother—but now there were places in it where only they went, places where I just wasn’t and Norris wasn’t, and there wasn’t any history but theirs together. And that’s what I hated, and that’s why I didn’t talk to anybody or sing a damn note on that whole absolutely endless drive to Dorset.
It’s a pretty drive, too, now that I know it. We took the freeway from London, and once we were out of the red roofs and roundabouts, the country started becoming country, with cows and a lot of sheep, and stuff growing in the fields, which I can mostly identify now, but I couldn’t then, so there’s no point pretending. The land turned rolling after a while, but in a nice rocking-chair sort of way, and the sun even came out, practically.
This first part of the trip was Hampshire—that I did know, but only because of Sally. She kept turning around in the front seat every other minute to tell me something like, “Jenny, look, we’re coming up on Winchester—you remember, ‘Winchester Cathedral…’” and she sang a lick from that dorky song. “It’s really old—it was the Saxons’ capital, and then King Alfred was crowned here, and William the Conqueror built the cathedral.” And a moment later it’d be, “Jenny, quick, over there, Evan says that’s a Roman camp!” She was like a damn tour guide—“Baby, look, look, on the horizon, that’s Salisbury, doesn’t it look like the Constable painting we saw?” And Tony and Julian would look at each other, and Evan would sort of murmur, “That’s Southampton, love, we’re a good bit south of Salisbury.” And Sally would just laugh and say, “Shows you what I know,” and I didn’t know who I was madder at—her for sounding like such a total idiot, Evan for being right and gentle, both, or the boys for having good manners and looking so embarrassed for my mother and me. Boy, Meena’s right— you start writing something down, and it all comes back.
After Southampton, we went through the New Forest, which didn’t look anything like the way I’d thought a real forest would look. There weren’t even that many trees along the road—it just seemed like more of the cows-and-sheep country we’d been driving through forever. Sally was just starting to talk about the Knightwood Oak—how it was practically the biggest, oldest tree in England, and how oaks were always supposed to be magic—when all of a sudden Julian grabbed my arm and said, “There! There’s one!”
I pulled away from him, hard, because he was hurting my arm, and I said, “Quit it!”, and then I saw what he was pointing at, just up ahead. There were two of them, actually—a couple of shaggy little ponies standing right by the road, almost in it, one of them eating grass, the other just looking at things. Evan slowed down to go around them, and the one who wasn’t eating lifted his head and stared right at me, looking me over with his big, wild black eyes. And I can’t explain it, but I think that was maybe the first time I knew I was really in England, and not going home.
Tony said, “They’re supposed to be descended from the Armada horses.” I guess I blinked, because then he said, “The Spanish Armada. Some of the ships broke up in a storm, and the horses swam ashore. In 1588.”
“I know about the Spanish Armada,” I said. Tony nodded and didn’t say anything more. Evan caught my eye in the rearview mirror. He winked at me, but I didn’t wink back. He said, “Jenny, you want to be very careful if you see a black one—all black, like your cat, without a white hair on him anywhere. It might be a pooka.”
I wasn’t going to say a word, but I couldn’t help it. I said, “A pooka?”
Evan grinned at me. “Very magical creature. The country people say it can change into almost anything—an eagle, a fox, even a man, if it wants to. But mostly you meet it as a fine black pony, absolutely black, inviting you to get on its back and take a ride. Don’t you do it.”
And he didn’t say one thing more, just to make me ask. Evan does that. I held out all the way through the New Forest, before I mumbled, “Okay, why shouldn’t I?” And when he just raised his eyebrows and waited, I said, “Why shouldn’t I go for a ride on a pooka?”
“Because it’ll toss you right into a river, or into a bramble patch. That’s a pooka’s idea of a good joke. They aren’t as dangerous as Black Annis or Peg Powler or the Oakmen, but you don’t ever want to trust one. Very warped sense of humor, pookas have.”
Julian giggled. He said, “Maybe our house’ll have a boggart, wouldn’t that be splendid?”
Tony punched his shoulder lightly. “We’ve already got one, thanks very much.”
Julian got really pissed then. You couldn’t ever tell what’d get to him in those days. He hit Tony back, hard—he could get in a good shot because there was a lot less stuff piled on him than on either of us—and he started yelling, “I’m not a boggart, I’m not a boggart, don’t you call me a boggart!” He’s a lot better now, but you still have to be a little careful with Julian. Don’t ever tell him he’s got curly hair, for instance. He hates having curly hair.