The Saturday Girls

by Elizabeth Woodcraft

  There was a spatter against the window, like hail.

  Judith sat up. ‘You look out the window.’

  ‘All right, but stay awake. In case . . .’

  ‘Well, hurry up.’

  The garden was in darkness but I saw a movement in the shadows, by the shed.

  ‘It’s someone,’ I whispered, scarcely able to speak. ‘There’s someone down there!’

  ‘What do you mean? I’m going to get Dad!’ Judith threw back her covers.

  I saw a flash of beige. ‘Don’t,’ I said. I squinted through the window. ‘I think it’s Sandra.’

  ‘What’s she doing down there?’

  ‘I don’t know, she’s supposed to be married.’

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing. What shall I do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Open the window?’ She tucked her legs back under the covers.

  ‘What if Mum hears?’

  ‘All right, leave her out there. She’s your friend.’

  I opened the window and leaned over the windowsill. It was definitely Sandra, standing in the rain. We looked at each other for an instant.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I whispered.

  ‘Can I come in? I can’t go home.’

  ‘She wants to come in,’ I said to Judith.

  ‘Then let her in. Hurry up, it’s cold.’ She pulled the blankets over her shoulders.

  I closed the window and put on my slippers.

  I padded down to the kitchen with mixed feelings. Turning up in our back garden in the middle of the night in the pouring rain was not a sensible thing to do, but she was back. She was back. But what did it mean?

  In the kitchen I closed the door behind me before I switched on the light. As I turned the key to open the back door, I suddenly panicked – what if she’d brought Danny with her? His laugh was so loud.

  I opened the door and Sandra stepped into the kitchen. She looked terrible. She was soaking wet. The Nottingham lace dress clung to her legs. My eyes flicked behind her. ‘Is Danny . . .?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m on my own.’ She sagged against the sideboard and drops of rain from her hair dripped onto the red and white Fablon covering. I handed her a towel from the rail on the back of the broom cupboard. Roughly she rubbed her hair.

  ‘Are you . . . are you married?’ I whispered.

  She said nothing.

  ‘Where’s your suitcase?’

  ‘Back in your shed,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Why aren’t you in Scotland? Where’s Danny?’

  She looked at me. Her eyes were huge in her face.

  ‘Was he there to meet you?’ I asked.

  ‘He was at Liverpool Street Station. And we went to a hotel.’

  ‘A hotel?’

  ‘It was horrible. The toilet was miles away from the room and there were all these really rough men walking around.’ She hung the towel back on the rail. ‘Then he disappeared. And then the police came.’

  ‘The police!’

  ‘They searched the room. They were looking for something, of course.’

  I knew what she meant. My heart was racing.

  ‘They asked me if I had any packages. I said I had a wedding present.’

  ‘You didn’t!’ Those parcels had come to our house, they had had my name on them. I was implicated. This was terrible; it was the end of my life. I tried to speak. There was a gurgle in my throat.

  ‘I was terrified,’ she said. ‘It was the middle of the night and these two big policemen were going through everything in the room.’

  ‘Did you tell them how you got it?’

  ‘No!’

  I whispered, ‘What happened?’

  ‘They opened the drawer in the dressing table and, of course, there it was.’

  My heart was pounding. ‘What did they do?’

  ‘They opened it.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Well, if you don’t know, I don’t know who does.’

  ‘It was nothing to do with me, it just came to our house. I didn’t . . .’

  ‘It was a torch, stupid. A torch! It was the present you gave me. It’s all there was. Danny must have taken the real present.’

  I wanted to laugh with relief, even if she was implying that my present wasn’t real. ‘So what did they say?’

  ‘They said I was a very lucky girl not to be involved. So we’re both in the clear. They could see it was nothing to do with me. He’d taken everything, all his clothes and his slippers. He’d brought his slippers! And the parcel. He’d taken five pounds out of my bag, which was all I had, and he took the wedding ring. He didn’t need to – it was money in those parcels, you know, piles and piles of ten-pound notes. It was Trevor’s. It was, what do they call it – money-laundering, going through Danny. And he took it all and he just disappeared.’

  I wanted to ask her about the fifteen pounds I’d given her.

  ‘Can I stay here?’

  ‘Here?’ Sandra never stayed at our house.

  ‘I’ll go home before anyone knows I’m here.’

  ‘What will you say to your mum and dad?’

  ‘I dunno. I’ll tell them there’s been a miracle, Halina’s mum’s cured.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I wanted to laugh out loud. She was back. ‘You’ll have to share my bed unless you want to sleep on the floor. Do you want something to wear?’

  She shook her head and tapped her bag.

  I locked the back door. We crept upstairs and Sandra slid into the bathroom. She came out in the baby doll pyjamas and climbed into bed beside me.

  She pulled the covers up to her neck. There was silence. We were lying back to back and I thought she’d gone to sleep.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for your money I wouldn’t have had anything to eat and I wouldn’t have been able to get back to Chelmsford. Thank you.’ Her voice was small. ‘There’s some change.’

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ Judith murmured.

  ‘No one,’ I said.

  We were silent.

  *

  Later I woke up and she was crying, sobbing quietly into the pillow, her back towards me. I put my arm round her and then I went back to sleep.

  *

  When I woke up in the morning, Sandra had gone and there was only the small lump of the baby doll pyjamas under the bedspread.

  ‘What did Sandra want?’ Judith said.

  ‘Don’t ask me.’

  I shook out the tablecloth after breakfast and checked in the shed. Her case was there. I covered it properly with the old sheet.

  I thought she might ring me before I caught the bus to work; I thought she might come into the Milk Bar. But by the time we closed at half past two she still hadn’t appeared. And she wasn’t waiting outside.

  On my way home I dropped a note through Sylvie’s door. ‘S is back. She had a nice time. Nothing happened.’

  CHAPTER 26

  Changing

  IT WAS SEPTEMBER AND TIME to go back to school. But I wasn’t as reluctant as usual because now I was in the fifth year. This was the year things got serious, the year for O levels. At last I got to wear a white shirt, not the pale blue one of the first four years. The shirt said everything about who you were. It made me look different. And I felt different, wearing the white shirt and my navy skirt with a swing and a sheen from years of wear, and my tie with its special knot. It all added up to being someone in the school, someone important.

  We were in a new form room, one that I had always thought was for the impossibly senior pupils; and now that was us. Our form mistress was Miss Beasley, the most respected teacher in the school. Her subject was history, one of my subjects. I’d got 75 per cent for that in the exams, out of my final average of 65 per cent. I wanted to get serious. I wanted to get good marks.

  Cray and I were on our way to English when Judith’s friend, Rosemary, stopped us. As well as running the drama group, she was the new head of our house,
Tancock. The Tancock colour was unfortunately yellow and if you wanted to, you could wear a badge on your tie that was an enamel strip of sunshine. I didn’t want to. But Rosemary wore the diagonal yellow stripes of the house tie, which only members of the sixth form were allowed to wear. ‘Could I have a word?’ she said to me.

  ‘Why?’ I looked round.

  ‘They probably want you to join the house hockey team,’ Cray murmured. Although this was inconceivable, unless the roof of the gym had fallen in on every other member of Tancock, I still had a small thrill of hope.

  ‘Your sister Judith . . .’ Rosemary began.

  ‘Judith?’

  ‘. . . says you’re free in the evenings after school.’

  ‘Does she?’ Oh God, what did they want? Would they ask me to clean the hockey sticks? Prepare the pitch? Pick up litter?

  ‘She says you’re funny. Can you come to a meeting of the drama group tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘The drama group!’ I said to Cray, as we walked into English. I hadn’t expected that. It wasn’t what mods did, but I was quite excited.

  ‘Get you, funny girl,’ Cray said.

  *

  Casually I walked past the noticeboard where the school societies put up information. There it was. ‘DRAMA SOCIETY, PANTOMIME AUDITIONS’. The word Thursday was crossed out and replaced by ‘TONIGHT! ROOM 31’.

  After school, back in Miss Reeves’ classroom with the drama group, I half-recognised a few of the girls. Some of them even said hello to me. Rosemary was there and seemed delighted to see me, which made me feel better. Then I noticed she was thrilled to see everyone as they came through the door. She described the roles that needed to be filled and then she handed out the script to each of us. It was two sheets of paper.

  ‘Really?’ I said hesitantly. ‘It’s going to be a very short evening.’

  People laughed.

  ‘It’s a draft,’ Rosemary said. The play would develop as the weeks went by, she said. It was going to be a modern take on an old favourite – Cinderella. She wanted input from everyone, those who wanted to act and those who would work backstage. Everyone had ideas, what Cinders should wear, what music might be good, who would do the scenery, and then Rosemary said, ‘What about a mod view?’ Everyone turned to me.

  I wasn’t expecting that. ‘Erm. Scooters? Prince Charming could wear a parka.’

  ‘Ooh, yes!’ said a little first-year, clapping her hands.

  ‘The Ugly Sisters could be rockers,’ I said.

  ‘Ye-e-es,’ said Rosemary. ‘We were hoping we could get teachers to play those roles. Not sure what they’d think about having beehives.’

  ‘Miss Soames has one already,’ I said. ‘She just hasn’t mastered the full leather-jacket-with-chains look yet.’ People sniggered.

  ‘Miss Reeves would look good in American tan,’ said another girl with short blonde hair and a sixth form tie. American tan stockings were what rocker girls wore. There was someone in the group who got the joke!

  ‘And white stilettos look good on anyone,’ I said. We looked at each other and laughed.

  It was half past five. The time had gone so fast.

  Rosemary said, ‘Charlotte, can you collect the drafts?’

  ‘OK.’ It was the girl who’d talked about American tan. ‘Can I have all the drafts and your lists of ideas,’ she shouted.

  I handed in my papers. I’d scribbled a note about a possible double act. Charlotte glanced at it, then turned back to me. ‘Perhaps we should do something together.’

  I nodded. ‘All right.’

  CHAPTER 27

  Birthdays

  IT WAS A COLD, SUNNY Sunday morning in October and it was my first Quaker meeting. Finally I had decided which church I wanted to attend, and now I was walking into the Friends’ Meeting House.

  I stepped hesitantly through the door. To go in on a Sunday morning, I realised, was a different thing to attending CND meetings here. In the foyer was a table with a vase of bright red and purple anemones and some leaflets. A woman I didn’t know approached me, smiling quietly, and welcomed me. Then Mrs Grenville came out of a side room carrying a bowl of large pink and red roses. ‘Linda!’ she said. She introduced me to two or three people who all smiled in a kindly way and seemed pleased to see me. Mrs Grenville took me with her into the meeting room. It was the same cool, light room, filled with pale wooden furniture, but set out in a different way. Now the table was in the middle and Mrs Grenville put the bowl of flowers in the centre. Around the table were rows of chairs. I sat down at the back near the door. Gradually the room filled as people silently took their seats. Olivia from the YCND group came in. When she saw me she opened her eyes wide and smiled.

  I knew there would be no hymns or formal prayers or a sermon, but the effect of the silence I hadn’t expected. All was calm and seriousness. The words contemplation and peace came into my head. Two people spoke, referring to something that had happened to them in the week that had made them think about love. An older woman who was sitting beside the table said a short prayer. I wasn’t sure what I should think about. My mind drifted across what had happened over the last few months with Sandra and Danny, their chaotic love affair, and Sylvie, with her sadness and her illegitimate baby and her love for the father who wasn’t there, and now choosing Kenny. And me – who did I love? My stomach rumbled. Then the woman by the table shook hands with an older man sitting next to her, and people began to cough and stand up. There was quiet chatting. Olivia came across and gave me the date of the next YCND meeting. She didn’t ask me why I was here, and I liked that. People shook my hand and said they hoped they would see me next week, and I said I hoped so too.

  I walked home along Buxton Avenue, behind the Clock House. Sylvie was almost upon me, pushing the pram, before I saw her. ‘Hello stranger,’ she said. ‘We are off to the weekend chemist’s.’

  ‘Why? Is Mansell all right?’

  ‘He’s got a bit of a cough, and Mum said I’d better get him some medicine. Do you want to come? I don’t see you so often these days, Miss Linda.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got rehearsals. And I’ve joined CND. And there’s the Milk Bar . . .’ I trailed off. It was true I hadn’t been to see Sylvie since Sandra had returned. I still felt stupid about trying to find Bob, and confused that she wasn’t even going to give him a chance. But I knew she was afraid he might take the baby away. She was too complicated.

  There was a silence. I made faces at Mansell.

  Then Sylvie said brightly, ‘What are you doing tomorrow after school?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s Mansell’s birthday.’

  ‘Oh!’

  And he wants to put up the Christmas decorations.’

  ‘Does he?’

  Mansell looked at me from the pram and gave a little throaty cough.

  ‘But Christmas is weeks away yet.’

  ‘It’s his first birthday and his first proper Christmas. The tree is already up, we’ve got lots of glitter and tinsel. He loves it. Tomorrow it will be cake and candles and paper chains, and we need you with your artistic know-how to come and assist. Don’t we, Mansell?’

  ‘Mama?’ he said, looking at me.

  ‘Linda,’ I said. ‘I’ll try.’

  I liked Christmas. I liked Mansell. I liked birthday cake. And there were no rehearsals.

  *

  ‘Hello, chicken!’ she said when she opened the front door. ‘Come in. We are very grateful you can spare us the time from your busy schedule. And you have balloons!’

  I’d bought them in the sweet shop and blown them up as I crossed the road.

  I followed her into the living room. The floor was littered with strips of coloured paper. Mansell was sitting up in his pram near the settee, watching everything. There were birthday cards on the sideboard. Some had teddy bears and clowns on, but some had flowers and pictures of birds. I picked one up. It was to Sylvie.

  ‘Sylvie – is it your birthday too?’

 
‘Yes,’ she said absently.

  ‘The fourteenth of October,’ I said. It had been in the story. I should have remembered. I had a present for Mansell, but not for Sylvie.

  ‘Don’t worry, chicken,’ she said, looking at my face. ‘I don’t advertise the fact.’

  I gave Mansell the paper bag containing the soft ball I had bought as a special present. I tied the two balloons onto some pieces of string and attached one of them to Mansell’s pram and handed the other balloon to Sylvie. ‘Happy Birthday.’

  ‘Thank you!’ she said. ‘A balloon on a string is a perfect present.’

  Mansell was tearing at the bag.

  ‘How is he?’ I said.

  ‘He’s fine, the chemist gave him some cough mixture. I’ve been giving it to him religiously even though, quite frankly, I think it’s just green sugar-water, but it makes Mum happy. Right. Now you’ve arrived . . .’ She rushed out into the kitchen and and when she came back she flicked off the light and stood in the doorway in the glow of a single candle, stuck into the thick icing of a home-made cake.

  ‘Shouldn’t your mum be here?’

  ‘Oh, we’ll do it again when she gets in from work.’ She began to sing ‘Happy Birthday to You’ and I joined in and Mansell cocked his head and stared at the candle. At the end Sylvie said, ‘Blow out the candle!’ and he looked at it. She blew it out for him and his lower lip trembled. So she did it again. And again. After the fifth time he was laughing.

  ‘OK, my darling,’ she said to him, ‘that’s enough.’ She switched the light back on and handed me an unopened packet of paper strips. ‘This is your pile. Let’s see what you can do.’

  For five minutes we sat in silence, licking and sticking, creating decorations. The electric fire hummed and Mansell grizzled for the candle till Sylvie gave him a rusk.

  ‘How are Rat, Trap and . . . Danny ?’ she said casually, licking the end of a red strip.

  ‘I don’t see them very much these days,’ I said. ‘Sandra said the police are after Danny.’

  Sylvie looked at me thoughtfully.

  ‘But she said we’re in the clear.’ It was a relief to talk about it.

  ‘I think you’d know by now if you weren’t. What did her parents say?’