Mary Olivier: A Life | Page 3

back lane
and slept standing on three legs with his ears lying down.
Mary loved old Jenny next to Mamma and Mark; and she loved the
white donkey. She wondered why Jenny was always cross when you
stroked her grey face and called her "Donkey-Jenny." It was not as if
she minded being stroked; because when Mark or Dank did it her face
woke up suddenly and smoothed out its creases. And when Roddy
climbed up with his long legs into her lap she hugged him tight and
rocked him, singing Mamma's song, and called him her baby.
He wasn't. She was the baby; and while you were the baby you could
sit in people's laps. But old Jenny didn't want her to be the baby.
The nursery had shiny, slippery yellow walls and a brown floor, and a
black hearthrug with a centre of brown and yellow flowers. The greyish
chintz curtains were spotted with small brown leaves and crimson
berries. There were dark-brown cupboards and chests of drawers, and
chairs that were brown frames for the yellow network of the cane. Soft
bits of you squeezed through the holes and came out on the other side.
That hurt and made a red pattern on you where you sat down.
The tall green fireguard was a cage. When Jenny poked the fire you
peeped through and saw it fluttering inside. If you sat still you could

sometimes hear it say "teck-teck," and sometimes the fire would fly out
suddenly with a soft hiss.
High above your head you could just see the gleaming edge of the brass
rail.
"Jenny--where's yesterday and where's to-morrow?"
IV.
When you had run a thousand hundred times round the table you came
to the blue house. It stood behind Jenny's rocking-chair, where Jenny
couldn't see it, in a blue garden. The walls and ceilings were blue; the
doors and staircases were blue; everything in all the rooms was blue.
Mary ran round and round. She loved the padding of her feet on the
floor and the sound of her sing-song:
"The pussies are blue, the beds are blue, the matches are blue and the
mousetraps and all the litty mouses!"
Mamma was always there dressed in a blue gown; and Jenny was there,
all in blue, with a blue cap; and Mark and Dank and Roddy were there,
all in blue. But Papa was not allowed in the blue house.
Mamma came in and looked at her as she ran. She stood in the doorway
with her finger on her mouth, and she was smiling. Her brown hair was
parted in two sleek bands, looped and puffed out softly round her ears,
and plaited in one plait that stood up on its edge above her forehead.
She wore a wide brown silk gown with falling sleeves.
"Pretty Mamma," said Mary. "In a blue dress."
V.
Every morning Mark and Dank and Roddy knocked at Mamma's door,
and if Papa was there he called out, "Go away, you little beasts!" If he
was not there she said, "Come in, darlings!" and they climbed up the
big bed into Papa's place and said "Good morning, Mamma!"

When Papa was away the lifted curtain spread like a tent over Mary's
cot, shutting her in with Mamma. When he was there the drawn curtain
hung straight down from the head of the bed.

II
I.
White patterns on the window, sharp spikes, feathers, sprigs with furled
edges, stuck flat on to the glass; white webs, crinkled like the skin of
boiled milk, stretched across the corner of the pane; crisp, sticky stuff
that bit your fingers.
Out of doors, black twigs thickened with a white fur; white powder
sprinkled over the garden walk. The white, ruffled grass stood out
stiffly and gave under your feet with a pleasant crunching. The air
smelt good; you opened your mouth and drank it in gulps. It went down
like cold, tingling water.
Frost.
You saw the sun for the first time, a red ball that hung by itself on the
yellowish white sky. Mamma said, "Yes, of course it would fall if God
wasn't there to hold it up in his hands."
Supposing God dropped the sun--
II.
The yellowish white sky had come close up to the house, a dirty
blanket let down outside the window. The tree made a black pattern on
it. Clear glass beads hung in a row from the black branch, each black
twig was tipped with a glass bead. When Jenny opened the window
there was a queer cold smell like the smell of the black water in the
butt.
Thin white powder fluttered out of the blanket and fell. A thick powder.

A white fluff that piled itself in a ridge on the window-sill and curved