Muriel's Reign by Susanna Johnston Page A

of their past as childhood brothers.
    With Hugh now humiliated, living without luxuries in the squash court whilst he, Peter, relaxed in a position of contentment with Hugh’s wife almost always beside him, it was as well to remember that Hugh had had earlier control.
    They were the only two children of a father who hated snow and Christmas, talked like a tycoon but failed to make a fortune and a fluttering, freckled mother who blinked and fussed and had inherited a tumbledown estate near London from a great-aunt. The house was large, Georgian, faced due north and needed repair. Peter remembered it with agonising precision and was glad, as his brain clicked to the present, that Bradstow Manor had been in reasonable repair when Muriel had been faced with the same type of unexpected windfall. His mind threaded back again. The ha-ha, the field that flourished in nettles, the Wellingtonia burdened with broken branches, the soggy grass tennis court and a haunted yew walk. It was wartime and bombing a remorseless threat. No lights were to be shown; black blinds were barely lifted during the day and sticky paper zigzagged over windowpanes to stop glass splintering during a raid. A pail stood on every landing to catch drips when pipes thawed after freezing. Gas masks lay under sofas where they were unlikely to be found in emergency and they ate boiled squirrel and stinging nettle soup. Outside there were dilapidated stables and a sketchy number of people to help in home or garden. Men and boys at war.
    The boys’ mother worked hard to keep things going but had poor organisational skills. Since the house was large Peter, as he thought back, found it bemusing that he and Hugh had been made to share a bedroom. That had been easily the worst thing about the war – sharing a room with Hugh whose brutal ghoulishness knew no limit.
    Neither parent had influence – for a start Peter barely understood what either of them tried to say but Hugh was blood-curdlingly comprehensible.
    Although their features were alike, the boys differed greatly in childish development. Hugh was taller than was average for his age. Peter grew slowly and was chubby – in spite of rationing.
    Sometimes, at night, doodlebugs went silent and the household evacuated to the cellar for fear of calamity. They were always ill-prepared and dreadfully cold. Doodlebug nights, as Peter cast his mind back, were the best, for then, at least, he was not alone with Hugh. In the image he held he was no more than six or seven years old.
    Anything had been happier than the chilly hours at Hugh’s mercy. Sheets were clammy and paint on the walls, an air-force blue, peeled – leaving jutting-out flakes that formed faces of witches with snot pouring from their noses in the near darkness.
    No sooner were they both in bed than Hugh started his favourite game. It was called ‘how do you know?’ and drove Peter almost insane with despondency.
    When he hid his head in the lumpy pillow, he used to try being nice and often said, ‘Good night, Hugh. I’m going to sleep.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘Cos I always do.’
    ‘How do you know you always do?’
    ‘Cos I want to.’
    ‘How do you know you want to?’
    This torment went on and on and on – often starting again when Hugh woke.
    Peter, at that time, had a morbid fear of dead animalsof which there always seemed to be several around the place; a stiffened frog by the pond, a jellified dead baby bird with eyes bulging onto the path; a mouse floating in a water butt. One summer morning there was a rat, newly dead, beside the grass court that had no lines as they had run out of paint. Peter circled wide so as to avoid it but Hugh picked it up and swung it by the tail – squash – into Peter’s face. He retched and cried. Hugh called out, ‘Crybaby. Crybaby. Wet. Wet. Wet.’ Then he thought again. ‘But you are wet. You wet your bed. I’m telling everyone.’ Peter had once done this when he had whooping cough and knew