The snake Mary called Lanmo was away from her for a month and then another month and then for much longer than Mary would have liked. She kept a tally of the days in her notebook so that she could be cross with him when he did appear. Then she kept a tally so that she could show him she had missed him very much and noticed that he hadn’t been with her.
In the meantime, she went to school and found the other pupils were, indeed, as nice to her as they could manage. Most of them were quite boring. She learned her lessons quietly, even though she didn’t always agree with them, and sometimes she went for walks with the boy called Paul and they would collect bottle tops, or string, or discuss new names for stars and what the moon might be thinking and whether it minded very much when it shrank to a curvy line, or swelled up to a silver-yellow eye that stared.
Whatever she did, she never forgot the snake, and when she rested her head on her pillow she wished Lanmo well and then enjoyed the wonderful dreams he sent her. She never mentioned those dreams on her Dream Assessment Form, of course; she just made things up about riding ponies and making pies.
Away from Mary, the snake she called Lanmo travelled to many far lands in the world and many near lands. He rode in tiny boats and wriggled into deep mines full of gold and coal and all manner of other substances which humans believe to be precious. He looked out across desert cities from the tops of new buildings in construction and looked out across rubble and dust from the ruins of buildings which had been destroyed. He sat up nicely in expensive restaurants and lay under pillows in hospitals. He slipped very delicately here and there in great towns built out of tents and slid along inside little wooden shelters and into shallow wells and cups and between folded blankets. He watched at the corners of streets next to busy crossings and quiet crossings and lounged across the dashboards of cars. He was very busy. Lanmo was always very busy. He could not remember a time when he had been idle, although he did, if he thought about it hard, recall a time when there had been far fewer humans and more trees. Lanmo liked trees. They were good for climbing. Sometimes he sent Mary special dreams where the two of them journeyed through old, old forests and scrambled and undulated together up to the highest branches where they could see the sunrise and be immensely glad together. This made him happy. It was much better than just climbing up and then climbing back down again.
The snake knew that he would have been much busier had it not been for humans helping him with his work. When night rolled over the curve of the world and across whichever country he was visiting, Lanmo would sometimes be able to rest and curl himself into a coil and flicker his clever tongue through the breeze so that he could taste how many, many times the humans of each darkened land were busy instead of him. They worked hard and saved him the task of visiting this or that other human and showing them his needle teeth as white as bones and making them hear his beautiful voice and look into his honest red eyes. But this did not make Lanmo love the humans. In fact it made him think rather badly of them, although his opinion made no difference to either the humans or his duties.
One evening, Lanmo came to call upon a grandmother. Lanmo met a lot of grandmothers. This granny was seventy-seven years, three months and fourteen days old and she was called Mrs Dorothy Higginbottom. When the snake arrived at the foot of Granny Higginbottom’s bed she was sitting up in it, leaning against her pillows and turning over a page in her magazine about terrible things happening to strangers and amusing things happening to cats. Unlike many of the other grandmothers, as Granny Higginbottom glanced beyond a picture of a cat wearing a knitted waistcoat and looking annoyed, she was able to see Lanmo.
She put down her magazine. ‘Hello,’ she said in a whispery grandmothery voice.
‘Hello,’ said Lanmo in his best pearls-and-chocolate voice. ‘I have come—’
‘Oh, I know,’ interrupted Granny Higginbottom. ‘I know quite well why you have come and I am content, but I would like to talk a while, if you don’t mind.’
Since leaving Mary, because he had been too angry and then too guilty, Lanmo had missed talking to a sensible human. This meant he was happy to smooth along, all the way up the bed, until he could rest on the covers above Granny Higginbottom’s lap. ‘What would you like to talk about?’
‘Well, I suppose it is too late to discuss most things.’
The snake nodded and made himself comfortable in the warmth of the quilt. He waited. Although he was always busy, he was never in a hurry. That was the nature of the snake.
Granny Higginbottom began: ‘I think I would like to tell someone how much I dislike my grandchildren. They are very mean-spirited and when they come to visit they bring me grapefruit which I do not like and presents that other people have given them and which they don’t want. I once found a little card they had forgotten to remove from one offering – a plastic box containing nail clippers and a nose-hair remover. The card said: “Please enjoy this free gift from Gentleman’s Grooming Monthly.”’
‘That is unimpressive,’ said the snake. No one but Mary had ever given him any kind of present. She had given him food and kisses and conversation and company.
‘Quite,’ said Granny Higginbottom. ‘I gave birth to three children – two girls and a boy. I loved them and showed them sunsets and the insides of apples and let them hear the voices in shells and we walked in meadows and slid on slides, but the boy and one of the girls were only ever interested in shiny pennies and gossip and making their other sister cry. And the children they gave birth to and raised are terrible children. My cruel daughter and my cruel son come and visit me with their herds of ghastly offspring every Sunday. While some of them stay in here with me, I can hear the rest of them searching my house for nice ornaments to sell, or jewels, or money. I ask them, “What is that noise of someone lifting up my floorboards?” and they tell me, “Nothing, silly Granny – it’s the wind in the rafters.” I ask them, “What’s that noise like greedy fingers opening my boxes and rifling through my cupboards?” and they tell me, “It’s just the rats in this big, old house, silly Granny. You should let us sell it and move you into a home.” And I ask them, “What’s that sound like my pictures being taken down and my chairs being carried away?” and they tell me, “You are going mad in your old age, silly Granny, and you should let us put you in a home at once and take care of all your belongings so they don’t bother you any longer.” It has begun to wear me out. The only pleasant thing they do is send me a bunch of roses on the first day of January. Roses are my favourite and they make my new year smell sweet and they fill it with colours.’
‘That would be pleasant,’ agreed the snake, tasting the essence of Granny Higginbottom which was kind and puzzled and very, very tired. ‘What happened to your other daughter?’
‘I don’t know. I think they sent her away. Or maybe they drove her away. Inside my mattress I have hidden my engagement ring and my wedding ring and the ring my husband gave me when we had been married for forty years – that was just before he died – and I have also tucked away four jewels and sixteen gold pieces. That is all I have worth having and it is for my good daughter, but I do not know where to send it. When I am gone my dreadful other daughter and my horrible son and their ghastly children will come and take everything.’ Granny Higginbottom fell silent and looked very sad. Since the snake had left Mary he understood a lot more about being sad.