David Nobbs - A Piece of the Sky is Missing

‘Which little boy doesn’t like potty?’ she said.

Robert threw a buttered muffin at her and was taken upstairs, screaming and kicking, to bed. Such scenes were surprisingly common, did the parents but know it.

When they were alone Emma said to her husband: ‘Will there really be a war?’

‘Probably.’

‘Poor Robert. What sort of a world have we brought him into?’

‘A man’s world,’ said his father.

‘I don’t think a child ought actually to like potty,’ said Emma. ‘He should endure it as a necessary evil.’

‘Yes. Quite right,’ said his father.

‘Thomas?’

‘Yes?’

‘It isn’t true, is it?’

‘What isn’t true?’

‘That you – what people are saying, Thomas. That you keep me in poor health because – because you have – another woman. Oh, Thomas, I know it isn’t true.’

‘Of course it isn’t true, my dear.’ He kissed her gently, so as not to hurt her. ‘How could I keep you in poor health? Your poor health is your own.’

‘I know. It’s ridiculous. People are wicked to say such things. I could believe them of some men, but not of you. You’re such an idealist.’

‘I’ve tried to be,’ said Thomas.

‘I only hope Robert grows up to be like you, Thomas.’

‘It won’t be our fault if he doesn’t.’

And then the war came.

War

When he was young they had a war. They lived in a house in the country then. It was a small house. Mummy and Nanny and Robert lived in it. His daddy was in the war. His daddy had gone a long way to the war, because it was very important, and his daddy was brave. You had to be brave to go to the war, because it was such a long way away.

Mummy wasn’t well. She spent a lot of the time in bed. Daddy sent her dispatches, in which he was mentioned. Nanny did the cooking. Soggy pudding. Soggy Nanny pudding. Once his daddy came home. Everything was different from before. Nobody enjoyed it. His daddy was very quiet. He smelt of war. Mummy smelt of bedrooms and Nanny smelt of soggy Nanny pudding. Robert went to school. He fell in love with Cerise. He had tempers. You mustn’t show your temper. Cerise doesn’t show her temper. But Cerise doesn’t show her temper because she hasn’t got one, Nanny. Then you shouldn’t have one. But I have. It’s so unfair. Who ever said life was fair, said bitter jilted long ago dealt with unfairly always unlucky Nanny. I did, said Robert. And God. We did. I wonder where he gets it from, said his mummy. It’s his red hair, said his nanny. Yes, but I have red hair too, said his mummy.

One snowy evening his friends Trevor and Cerise and Helen and Simon came to tea. The world was white. The light faded. The logs crackled. Helen was a fat person. Cerise was a thin person. Nanny was a Nanny pudding. Mummy was upstairs.

After tea Cerise built a hospital with some bricks. He tried to help and knocked the bricks down. Cerise howled and said: ‘You’ve spoilt my hospital.’

‘I didn’t know it was a hospital.’

Cerise built the hospital again. The others played other games, but Robert had eyes only for Cerise.

‘It’s finished,’ she said. ‘This is where I work and this is where you eat and this is where people who are ill go and this is where you put all the broken legs and this is for dead people and this is outpatients and this is babies and this is the annexe.’

‘What’s an annexe for?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then why do you have one?’

She stuck her square little jaw out and said: ‘All hospitals have one.’

‘Will I go there when I die?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hard luck, I won’t, because I’ve decided not to die.’

‘Everybody dies, silly.’

‘No, they don’t. They get better, because it’s a hospital.’

‘A hospital is where you die.’

‘Won’t you make them better, then?’

‘If I made them better, I’d be God.’

But that’s just what she was.

She left the hospital and joined in the game with the others. He kicked the hospital and it fell down. She didn’t care. He couldn’t hurt her that way. So he bashed her face in. She cried. She had a nose-bleed and a black eye. Simon bashed his face in. They fought bitterly. Nanny rushed in, flailing and shouting. Order was restored. Cerise held her head back and still the blood came. He wanted to say sorry and he wanted to taste the blood. Cerise was taken home by her big sister Jessica.

The next day they heard that his daddy had been killed. The snow was white, and the sun shone. His mummy cried, and his nanny was very quiet. That night Mummy didn’t go to bed so early. She read a book until very late, and during the next few days people came, and his mummy was up and about, and his mummy did some of the cooking, and Nanny was ill, and Cerise never mentioned it, and the snow melted, and they had a war, when he was young.

‘How do you know Nanny’d been jilted?’ said Dr Schmuck.

‘I don’t,’ said Robert.

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