by Pamela Brown
‘Which shall we call you at home, Gladys or Gloria?’ demanded Maddy.
‘Gladys, I’m afraid.’
‘O.K. We’ll try to remember.’
‘My mother’s not particular about it, though,’ said Snooks. ‘She’s not particular about anything really—except about not wearing high heels with slacks.’
Maddy thought she must be rather a remarkable mother, and couldn’t wait to see her.
When Mrs Bosham heard that the two girls were going out to tea she was delighted.
‘It’ll be nice fer you,’ she said, ‘to see a bit of life.’
‘We’re going to watch television,’ Maddy told her.
‘Coo, have they got the telly? I wonder whether I ought to get one—on the never-never, you know. The lodgers often ask, when they first come, ’ave I got the telly. If I’ad, I could put me terms up…’
She pondered on it, and Maddy said, ‘Well, it would be a good idea to have it, but not to put your terms up, because then no one from the Academy could afford to come here…’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t put them up fer the students—only fer the commercials.’
‘That’s right,’ urged Maddy. ‘Then the students could look at the television that the commercials were paying for!’
Next day Maddy had a hard job to persuade Zillah to accept the loan of any clothes.
‘I’ll wear my Sunday,’ she insisted. ‘That’s what it’s for—going visiting…’
‘But it’s too dressy,’ said Maddy desperately.
‘Don’t you like it?’ Zillah looked hurt. ‘It’s new. My mother made it—specially for London.’
‘I should keep it,’ said Maddy, inspired, ‘for wearing on the stage. If we do a modern play at the end of the term, we have to provide our own clothes, you know.’
‘Do we? Then I’d better. But can I wear my everyday…’
‘Here, borrow a white blouse of mine, and my grey skirt.’
‘It’ll be too short…’
It was, but the white blouse suited her so well that Maddy persuaded her to wear the outfit.
‘You can wear my grey blazer too, and it looks almost like a suit, you see. I’ll take my mackintosh in case it rains.’
‘Mother’s making me a real summery frock for later on,’ said Zillah. ‘So I shan’t need to borrow anything again.’
They set out early to make sure of getting to Snooks’s in time. In fact, they started before lunch, and Mrs Bosham gave them some sandwiches to eat in the train. Zillah was terrified of Victoria Station, with all the bustle and scurrying people, and the constant train noises. She was quite pale, and Maddy had to take her by the arm and drag her along. They caught the train with plenty of time to spare, and found an empty carriage. As soon as they sat down Maddy suggested they should eat their sandwiches—‘before they got stale’. Mrs Bosham was not a very good sandwich cutter—the bread was too thick and the meat was too lumpy, and apt to fall out. They both agreed that she was not so good at sandwiches as their own mothers.
‘Where are we now?’ Zillah kept demanding, once the train had started.
‘London still,’ Maddy kept replying.
‘Isn’t it big,’ cried Zillah. ‘Where does it end?’
Maddy was amazed to find that not only had Zillah never been to London before she came to the Academy, but until then had never left her village of Polgarth.
‘Never?’ inquired Maddy incredulously.
‘No. Never. Dad used to go over to town to market, but he never took Mum and me…’
‘Goodness!’ Maddy snorted. ‘Didn’t you insist?’
‘You don’t know my Dad!’ said Zillah darkly.
When they reached Sutton, Snooks was at the station to meet them, waving and shouting ‘Yoo-hoo’ with as much excitement as though she hadn’t seen them for six months.
‘We didn’t think you’d expect us quite so early,’ said Maddy.
‘I guessed you’d come in good time,’ said Snooks. ‘It’s a long way to our house. Shall we take a bus or walk?’
‘Walk,’ said Maddy. ‘There’s plenty of time, isn’t there? I mean, television doesn’t start yet, does it?’
‘No. Not for ages.’
They dawdled along, looking in shop windows and talking and giggling, until Snooks said, ‘Oh, help, I’d forgotten Buster. She’ll probably be waiting at home. We’d better get a move on.’
They hurried along to Snooks’s house, where Buster, looking very clean and tidy, was sitting rather stiffly on a settee talking to Mrs Snooks. Mrs Snooks was large and pretty and nicely dressed, and determined to put her daughter’s friends at their ease.
‘I’m having my tea in here,’ she said. ‘I’ve laid yours in the dining-room. I’m sure you’ll like to have it by yourselves, won’t you? And afterwards you can come in here to watch the television.’
‘Will you call us immediately it starts, even if we haven’t finished?’ asked Snooks anxiously.
‘Yes,’ laughed Mrs Snooks. ‘Do you really mean that the programme’s more important than food?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Snooks and Buster promptly. And even Maddy agreed.
The tea was enormous and delicious, including jelly and blancmange and three sorts of cake, but the girls hurried through it, so that they were back in the lounge when the children’s television started.
They sat in a row on low humpties and stools and watched in earnest silence from beginning to end, except when Snooks put in, ‘This bit isn’t as good as usual,’ or ‘This is a new item—I’ve never seen her before.’
The first part of the programme was a band show, with some children singing and dancing, and the second was a play, in which there were two boys and three girls, all about twelve years old.
When it was over and Mrs Snooks had switched off, Maddy said, ‘H’mm, wasn’t bad, was it? But we could be as good as that, don’t you think? Where do they get the kids from?’
‘Other schools like ours,’ said Buster. ‘I know, because we met some when we did our show.’
‘Did you like it, Zillah?’ asked Maddy, trying to bring her into the conversation, for she had hardly spoken since she arrived. ‘Did you like it better than the pictures?’
Zillah looked at Maddy blankly.
‘I’ve never been to the pictures.’
‘Never been to the pictures?’ they all repeated.
‘My dear child,’ cried Mrs Snooks, ‘where have you lived?’
Zillah was so embarrassed that Maddy told her life story for her—as much as she had heard from the Blue Doors—occasionally saying to Zillah, ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ ‘No, no,’ Zillah would reply frantically when Maddy’s imagination roamed too far from the truth.
Mrs Snooks was fascinated, and looked at Zillah as though she were some strange animal.
‘You poor little thing,’ she said. ‘Now you’re here we must see that you do go out. Shall we all go to the cinema tonight—just to show Zillah?’
‘Oh, yes,’ they all cried, and made a dash for the evening paper to see what was being shown locally. Finally they decided on an exciting double-feature programme, which included a cowboy film and a comedy. Before they got ready for the cinema Snooks took them all round her home, and Zillah saw for the first time a refrigerator, an electric hair-dryer and a washing machine.
‘Isn’t it a lovely house!’ she breathed to Maddy, who agreed, but secretly thought she would probably prefer the farmhouse at Polgarth, which was Zillah’s home. Snooks’s house was very comfortable but awfully ordinary, she felt.
When they went into the cinema the cowboy film had started, and as they stepped into the darkness of the auditorium there was the sound of hooves, and stampeding wild horses seemed to leap out of the screen at them. Zillah gave a scream of terror, and made to run back into the foyer. Maddy grabbed her by the arm.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s only on the screen.’
‘But it’s so… so big.’
It surprised Maddy to he
ar someone complaining that the cinema screen was too big. She had heard that people used to the cinema often found a television screen too small, until they became accustomed to it, but she had never heard of anyone who objected to the size of a cinema screen.
At the end of the programme they were all bleary-eyed and exhausted and it was very late. Poor Zillah had dark rings under her eyes and looked as if she were half asleep.
‘It was wonderful,’ she said to Mrs Snooks. ‘I can never thank you properly.’
Mrs Snooks laughed a little and straightened her smart hat.
‘My dear child,’ she said, ‘I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed it. I’m afraid it’s so late that there isn’t time for you to come back for supper, so we’d better all see you and Maddy on to the train, then we’ll walk home with Buster.’
In the train Zillah fell asleep and slept all the way to Victoria. Maddy studied her carefully. She really was a strange girl! Asleep, she looked so beautiful that it was difficult to realise she was so… so simple when she was awake. And how did she manage to be such a good actress, when she had never been to a cinema—let alone a theatre? In some ways she was rather a liability to have around, because she seemed so dumb, and yet there was a great satisfaction in showing her things for the first time.
It was so late when they reached Fitzherbert Street that Mrs Bosham was quite worried.
‘Thought you’d bin kidnapped,’ she cried when she opened the door.
‘My father always says that if anybody ever kidnaps me they’ll soon send me back,’ laughed Maddy as they went inside.
‘Did you ’ave a good time?’
‘We’ve watched television and been to the pictures,’ said Maddy.
‘And seen a refrigerator!’ added Zillah, with shining eyes.
Mrs Bosham had the grace not to laugh.
‘Well I never! What a day. Now off to bed, both of you, and I’ll bring you up a nice supper. What would you like to eat?’
‘We had an enormous tea,’ said Maddy. ‘But perhaps a little something…’
They ate slices of Mrs Bosham’s home-made cake, which was of a soggy consistency, and Maddy said, ‘What shall we do tomorrow?’
‘’Tis the Sabbath,’ said Zillah picturesquely.
‘Er—yes,’ said Maddy. ‘So ’tis.’
But it sounded different when she said it.
‘I go to Chapel,’ said Zillah. ‘Is there a chapel in London?’
‘There must be,’ said Maddy. ‘Would St Paul’s count, I wonder?’
‘St Pauls’s—that be a cathedral…’
‘Is a cathedral,’ Maddy corrected her. ‘Not be a cathedral. You don’t mind if I correct you?’
‘No, surely, I don’t. That is a cathedral. I’d dearly love to see it. Would it be so very wicked to go, think you?’
Zillah was constantly amazing Maddy.
‘Wicked! To go to a cathedral! Oh, Zillah, of course not,’ Maddy assured her.
‘Are you sure? Everything’s so different in London,’ said Zillah in a bewildered fashion. ‘Isn’t it all worshipping idols, though?’
‘We’ll go to St Paul’s tomorrow,’ said Maddy firmly. ‘And then you’ll see…’
Next day was beautifully sunny, and Mrs Bosham decided to accompany them, leaving the joint and potatoes to roast in the oven. Zillah wore her ‘Sunday’, Mrs Bosham wore her best and most atrocious hat, and for once Maddy looked quite subdued beside them.
‘How do we get there?’ demanded Zillah.
‘I dunno, I never bin.’
‘Never been? And you’ve lived in London all your life! Really, you two are a fine pair,’ Maddy told them. ‘You’d never get anywhere without me.’
Nevertheless, under Maddy’s guidance, they took two wrong buses and the service had started by the time they arrived. They were all extremely impressed by it, especially Zillah.
‘It’s ever so different from Chapel,’ she whispered.
When the service was over they stood on the steps and watched the congregation depart. There were visitors of every race and colour.
‘Look at all the black people,’ cried Zillah delightedly.
‘Sh!’ Maddy hissed at her, as though she were a small child. ‘They’ll hear you and be hurt. Do you really mean to say you’ve never seen any coloured people before…?’
‘No, we never had them in Polgarth.’
Zillah was the only person who made Maddy feel old.
When they got back to Fitzherbert Street, on the right bus this time, the Sunday dinner was cooked to a turn, and Maddy and Zillah ate theirs with the other lodgers, in the dining-room. This was the only meal of the week at which they met the others, and Maddy always enjoyed it enormously, chattering sixteen to the dozen to the ‘commercials’ and the university students who made up the rest of Mrs Bosham’s household. Zillah huddled in her chair, however, keeping her eyes on her plate, and looking terrified that someone might speak to her.
The girls were so replete after lunch that they went and lay in Regent’s Park, and worked on their speeches for Mr Manyweather.
‘It’s no good my doing a serious speech,’ said Maddy. ‘He says I’m a comedienne, so I shall have to be one.’
And she chose a comedy speech from Junior Miss, which she proceeded to rehearse with an American accent.
Zillah did her Saint Joan speech several times, and Maddy was very much impressed by it. But to her amazement Zillah asked after a while, ‘Who was Joan of Arc?’
‘Who was Joan of Arc?’ ejaculated Maddy. ‘Goodness, girl, didn’t you ever go to school? She was—she was—well, she was Saint Joan,’ she finished lamely.
‘But where did she live?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake read the whole play and find out. I can’t understand how anyone can deliver that speech as well as you do, and yet not know who Saint Joan was.’
Maddy was quite indignant about it.
‘If Mr Manyweather found out you didn’t know he’d be furious.’
So Zillah spent the rest of the afternoon reading Bernard Shaw, while Maddy yapped away beside her in an infuriating juvenile American accent.
The ‘Babies’ worked on their speeches all the week, to the detriment of their other homework, and when Friday came everyone was determined to impress Mr Manyweather. He turned up late for the lesson, as untidy as he had been the previous week, saying, ‘Now, we must get a move on or we shan’t get through. And I particularly want to hear you all because this week there’s a prize—one for a boy and one for a girl.’
His pupils looked towards the strange assortment of parcels he was carrying. Whatever could the prizes be?
‘That knobbly-shaped one looks nice,’ whispered Maddy to Snooks. ‘I’d like to win that one.’
‘I think it’s books,’ said Snooks. ‘He’s got lots of books with him.’
All did their best to remember what Mr Manyweather had told them the previous week. They didn’t use large gestures, they didn’t use too much voice, they tried not to overact, but at one moment Colin, the elder of the choir-school boys, suddenly made a sweeping gesture of pointing right into the distance, and then looked at his own finger in a horrified fashion. Everybody roared with laughter, including Mr Manyweather.
‘I’m sorry,’ Colin said. ‘That one got away by mistake. I learnt it in Shakespeare.’
Zillah was already shaking with apprehension, and Maddy, too, was unusually nervy as her turn approached.
‘Come on, Little-by-little,’ said Mr Manyweather, and Eric, the younger choir-school boy, resigned to this nickname all his life, stood up and did his speech. Mr Manyweather had approved of him last week, and this time he was obviously even more delighted.
‘He’s won the boy’s prize all right,’ whispered Maddy. ‘Go on Zillah, you get the girl’s.’
But poor Zillah was so nervous she dried in the middle. She just could not remember, and had to give up, although she had said her speech perfectly a dozen times to Maddy.
�
��What a shame. It would have been good,’ said Mr Manyweather regretfully, ‘very good. Still, I’d rather have people nervous than feeling nothing. You’ll learn to control it.’
Although they had both appeared on television, neither Buster nor Snooks put up a very good show. They both overacted, and Mr Manyweather told them they appeared affected, which made them very crestfallen.
Maddy’s stomach was turning over in a most unpleasant fashion, when Mr Manyweather said, ‘Come on, Gretchen, it’s your turn.’
She gave a covetous look at the knobbly parcel on the floor beside his briefcase, and got up and did her Junior Miss speech, trying not to overdo the comedy. Her American accent was hideous, and very funny, and all the class began to giggle. She kept her voice at a conversational level, and directed her speech at one imaginary person standing quite close to her.
The whole class clapped when she had finished, and Mr Manyweather roared with laughter.
‘What a little horror!’ he cried. ‘I’ve never seen anything so nauseating, but excellent!’
The last few speeches were not particularly good, and Maddy began to feel excited.
‘You’ve got it—you’ve got it,’ whispered Buster and Snooks.
‘Whatever can it be?’ thought Maddy.
‘Well, that’s that,’ said Mr Manyweather. ‘You’ve all worked jolly hard, I can see that. Now who shall have the prizes?’
‘Eric and Maddy,’ cried several voices.
‘Yes, that’s what I think,’ said Mr Manyweather. ‘I’m glad you all agree. Now, Maddy—and Eric.’
They stood up, and the class clapped and Maddy looked to see which parcels he would pick up. But he didn’t pick up any.
‘Your prize,’ he told them, ‘will be a visit to the television studios.’
3
‘AGATHA’
Amidst the buzz of envy and congratulations Maddy asked, ‘Which sort of television, B.B.C. or commercial?’
‘B.B.C. probably,’ said Mr Manyweather. ‘I work for both sides; I’m a free-lance. I’ll let you know next week when and where it will be. I shall have to ask well in advance, because they don’t really like visitors. The studios are cluttered up enough already.’