‘Came this afternoon,’ she said. `Front page.’ Her expression as she watched me unfold it and read MERIONETH MERCURY across the top was disquieting.
‘Further down,’ she said.
I looked at the lower half of the page and saw a photograph of Matthew looking back at me. Not at all a bad photograph either. I looked at the headline to the story beside it. It said: BOY-HERO TELLS OF ‘GUARDIAN ANGEL’ RESCUE. (*) My heart sank a little. I read on:
‘Matthew Gore (12) of Hindmere, Surrey, on holiday at Bontgoch has been nominated to receive a medal for his bravery in saving his sister Polly (10) from drowning in the estuary at Bontgoch last Monday.
‘Matthew and his sister were playing on a light wooden jetty not far from the Bontgoch Yacht Club when a motor-cruiser belonging to Mr William Weston, a local resident, was torn from its moorings by the force of the ebb tide, and crashed into the jetty, demolishing ten feet of it, and hurling both children into the swirling current.
‘Matthew immediately struck out, and, seizing his sister, supported her head above water as the flood bore them away. The alarm was given by Mr Evan Evans, a familiar figure in Bontgoch, whereupon Colonel Summers, a well-known local resident, hastened to the scene and lost no time in giving chase in his motor-cruiser.
‘Colonel Summers was compelled to pursue the two children nearly two miles down the treacherous waters of the estuary before he was able to manoeuvre his boat alongside them so that they could be safely grappled aboard.
‘Said the Colonel: “Matthew undoubtedly saved his sister’s life at the risk of his own. England could do with more boys like him.”’(*)
‘Most astounding fact of all: Matthew did not known he could swim.
‘Interviewed by our reporter he modestly denied any claims to heroism. “Polly could not swim, and when I found I could, the obvious thing was to help her,” he said. Questioned about this, he told our reporter that he had taken swimming lessons, but had never been able to learn to swim. “When I was suddenly throw into the water I was terrified,” he acknowledged, “but then I heard a voice telling me to keep calm, and how to move my arms and legs. So I did as it said, and found I could swim.”
‘There seems to be no doubt that Matthew is telling the truth. Our reporter was unable to find anyone who had seen him swimming before that, and it was generally thought that he could not swim.
‘Asked if he was not astonished to hear a voice speaking to him, he replied that he had often heard it before, and so did not find it very surprising.
‘When our reporter suggested that it could be the voice of his Guardian Angel, he admitted that it might be that.’
I looked up at Mary. She shook her head slowly. I shrugged,
‘Shall we …?’ I began to suggest.
Mary shook her head again.
‘He’ll be fast asleep by now. Besides, what’s the point? It’s done now.’
‘It’s only a local paper,’ I said. `But how on earth…?’ Then I remembered the young man who had been talking to Matthew on the shore…
‘They know we live in Hindmere,’ Mary painted out. ‘They’ve only got to look in the telephone directory.’
I was determined to be hopeful.
‘Why should they bother? It reads like a pretty phoney sensation worked up by a local reporter, anyway.’
il don’t think either of us was quite certain just then whom we meant by this `they’, but it did not take long for me to discover that I was underestimating the abilities of press-reporters.
I have fallen into the bad habit of switching on the radio when shaving – bad because untroubled shaving is itself a serious enough affair – however, that’s modern life, and the next morning I turned on Today’ (*) as usual, and Jack de Manio (*) said: `The time is exactly twenty-five – and a half minutes past eight – no, hang it, (*) I mean past seven. Now the news from our local reporters. lt was become known that young Matthew Gore while on holiday from his home at Hindmere, recently, and gallantly, saved his still younger sister from drowning, and the peculiar thing is that young Matthew had never swum before. Dennis Clutterbuck reports:’
The quality of the transmission changed. A voice said:
‘I am told that when an accident flung you and your sister into the fast-flowing river you immediately went to her rescue and supported her in the water until you were picked up more than a mile downstream. is that so?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Matthew’s voice. He sounded a little doubtful.
‘And they also tell me you had never swum before?’ ‘Yes – I mean, no,’ said Matthew, in some confusion. ‘You hadn’t ever swum before?’
‘No,’ said Matthew, definitely now. `]‘d tried, but it wouldn’t happen …’ he added.
‘But this time it did?’
‘Yes,’ said Matthew.
‘I am told you heard a voice telling you what to do?’
Matthew hesitated. `Well – sort of …’ he agreed. ‘And you think this must have been the voice of your Guardian Angel?’
‘No,’ said Matthew indignantly. `That’s a lot of rot.’
‘But you told the news reporter …’ Matthew interrupted him.
‘I didn’t. He said it, and I didn’t know he was a reporter, anyway.’
‘But you did hear a voice?’
Matthew hesitated again. Once more he could manage no better than:
‘… Sort of.’
‘And after you had heard it, you found you were able to swim?’
A grunt from Matthew.
‘But now you don’t think it was your Guardian Angel that told you how to do it?’
‘[ never said anything about Guardian Angels – it was him.’ Matthew sounded exasperated. `All that happened was that I got into panic, and Chock… ‘ He stopped abruptly. I could almost hear him bite his tongue. `I just found I could swim,’ he ended lamely.
The interviewer started to speak again but was cut off in the middle of the first syllable.
Jack de Manio said.
‘Swimming in one easy lesson. Well, whether there was a Guardian Angel involved, or not, congratulations to Matthew on the way he put the lesson to use.’
Matthew came down to his breakfast as I was finishing mine.
‘I’ve just been listening to you on the wireless,’ I told him.
‘Oh,’ said Matthew. He did not seem disposed to follow that up, and attended to his cornflakes, rather apprehensively.
‘When did it happen?’ I inquired.
‘A man rang up, when Mummy was out. He said was I Matthew, and I said I was, and he said he was BBC, and could he come round and see me. I said I supposed it be all right, because it seemed rude to say no to the BBC. So he came; and he showed me a bit about me in the paper. Then he turned on his recorder, and asked me questions. And after that he went away again.’
‘And you didn’t tell Mummy, or anyone else, that he’d been?’
He dabbled his cornflakes.
‘Well, you see, I thought she’d be afraid that I’d told him about Chocky – though I didn’t. And I didn’t think it would be interesting enough to get broadcasted, anyway.’
Not very valid reason, I thought. Probably he was feeling guilty over letting the man into the house at all.
‘H’m. – It can’t be helped now,’ I said. ‘But if there are any more interviewers, I think you’d better refer them to Mummy, or me, before you talk to them. Will you do that?’
‘Okay, Daddy,’ he agreed, and then added, with a frown. ‘It’s a bit difficult though. You see, I didn’t know the man at Bontgoch was a reporter and the BBC one – well, it didn’t seem like an interview exactly.’
`Perhaps the simplest way would be to treat any stranger as a suspected interpreter,’ I suggested. `You might easily make a slip, and we don’t want them getting on to Chocky, do we?’
Matthew’s mouth was now too full of cornflakes to let him speak, but he nodded very decisively.
8
A young man representing, as he put it, The Hindmere and District Courier turned up that afternoon. Mary dealt with him briskly. Yes, she had seen that rubbish about a guardian angel, and was surprised that a paper had printed such nonsense. Matthew had swimming lessons, but had lacked the confidence to trust himself to the water. What had happened was that in the emergency he had known that he ought to do to swim; he had made the motions he had been taught to make, and discovered that he could swim. He had been very brave in going to the rescuee of his sister, and very fortunate, but there was nothing miraculous about it. No, she was sorry he couldn’t see – Matthew; he was out for the day. And, in any case, she preferred not to have him troubled about it. After considerable persuasion the reporter went away, ill-satisfied.