A Song for Summer

Soon the words "Where's Ellen?"' could be heard with increasing frequency as children came in with grazed knees, bruised foreheads or more complex bruising of the soul. They learnt by the state of her hair how much time she could give them: when it was screwed up on top of her head it was best to fall in behind her with a cloth; when it was in a plait over one shoulder she was bound for the garden; when it was loose she had time to talk. Her clean, starched aprons, pink or white or blue, became a kind of beacon. On the days that they were blue, Chomsky would make an excuse to leave the metalwork shop and tell her that she reminded him of his nursemaid, Katya, whom he had deeply loved.

During that time, when she took almost no time off and did not even allow herself to think of Kohlr@oserl Ellen began to feel that she was some way to accomplishing her task.

But pride goes before a fall. Ellen's fall came at the end of the first week when she was cleaning out a strange collection of debris she found in a small round room in the East Tower.

She had noticed a painting hanging on a dark wall above a table full of unsavoury litter: an old tin of Cerebos salt, rusty round the rim, a candle-end burnt dangerously low, a dead bunch of marigolds with slimy stalks and a piece of bread covered in mouse droppings.

Appalled by this health and safety hazard, Ellen got to work. She tipped the bread and salt into her dustpan, threw the dead flowers away, gathered up the frayed cloth with its mouse droppings and soaked it in disinfectant. Half an hour later the room was clean, the blinds rolled up to let in the light and the painting--which was of a number of little men in conical hats and underpants adrift on an ice floe--was left in possession of the field.

Ellen had gathered up her dustpan and bucket and was turning to go when her way was blocked by a tall, thin woman with long strings of hennaed hair, a pinched nose and wild, navy-blue eyes. She wore a muslin dress with an uneven hem, her long feet with their

prehensile-looking toes were bare and slightly yellow, and she was in a towering rage.

"How dare you!" she shrieked in a strange accent which Ellen could not place. "How dare you destroy my sanctuary--the only place where I can refresh my soul."

"Sanctuary?"' stammered Ellen, looking at the mouldy bread, the rusty salt tin in the waste bucket.

"You ignorant English peasant!" the woman shrieked. "Of course you know nothing of how the Russians worship. You have never heard of the icon corner which in every Russian household is the heart of the home."

Ellen could find no words. The woman's wrath flowed out of her; her narrow nose was white with anger and to her own annoyance, tears came to Ellen's eyes.

"I didn't realise ... the bread was mouldy and--"'

"Oh yes, of course; that is all you care for, you little bourgeois housekeeper. I have heard how you have scrubbed everything ... This picture," she pointed to the little men cowering in their shifts on the ice, "was given to me by Toussia Alexandrovna, the Prima Ballerina of the Diaghilev Ballet. These men are the martyred bishops of Tula--they died on an ice floe rather than renounce the Old Faith. Every day I light a candle here in this corner--the Krasny Ugol--and now you come here in one hour and destroy the atmosphere with your lower-class hygiene."

"I'm sorry; I really am. I didn't know. But the flowers were dead and--"'

"Enough!" The woman raised a hand as long and yellow as her feet. "Go! I shall speak to Bennet of this.

It is possible you will be dismissed."

Though she could see the absurdity of the encounter, Ellen found it difficult to shake off the misery and embarrassment of having upset a fellow member of staff, and instead of going to the common room at tea time, she went to find Margaret Sinclair in her little office.

"Oh there you are, dear," said the secretary. "I was meaning to have a word with you."

"Margaret, I have done this awful thing--but I didn't know. I just thought it was ... well, you know there are so many things lying around that have been forgotten and I'd simply never heard of the martyred bishops of--"'

"No, of course you hadn't. It's a disgusting place and we're all absolutely delighted that you got rid of it."

"Yes, but she ... Tamara was furious. She's going to tell Bennet and she said she'd get me dismissed."

"Oh my dear ... Come, I'll make you a cup of tea. What nonsense! Bennet knows all about the work you're doing; he wouldn't dismiss you in a thousand years and he never takes the slightest notice of what Tamara says."

But Ellen was not so easily comforted. "Do you think I should go and explain to him and apologise all the same?"'

"Well, he'll be happy to see you--he's going through a bit of trouble with the new play at the minute. But it's best not to talk to him about Tamara; it's not easy for him. He never speaks against her, but of course she is a deeply unpleasant woman, and what he goes through--"'