The Saturday Girls

by Elizabeth Woodcraft

  ‘They never knew about the parcels, and they never found out about the elopement – not officially. But they whisked her away on holiday straight after she got back. I think Danny’s disappeared, but Sandra’s not saying anything.’

  Sylvie tilted her head to one side. ‘And you’re not asking her?’

  ‘I’m not seeing her,’ I said. I felt suddenly lonely.

  ‘But you’re very busy at school with all your clubs and things.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She smiled. ‘You really are moving on up, aren’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said suspiciously.

  ‘Nothing – it’s just, your world is obviously changing. All your groups and activities, things at school. You’re moving off the estate. And that’s good.’

  ‘Is it? You told me to do it.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘It was your idea. You said.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  She knew very well what she’d said. ‘You said I should relish school. You said I should make the most of it. So I joined the drama club, I started doing my homework. And now I’m in the school pantomime. The pantomime!’

  ‘But that’s good, isn’t it? Your face is telling me it’s not good.’

  ‘Because you’re saying I’m moving on up.’ I wasn’t ready to go. ‘Do I have to move off the estate?’

  ‘Well, not just yet, obviously. Wait till you finish school. Then you can live anywhere. Anywhere in the world.’

  ‘But the world is so huge.’

  ‘That’s the point. The estate is so small.’

  ‘You came back to the estate.’

  ‘I don’t think that was something I really chose to do. It happened to me.’

  ‘You mean, Mansell. Mansell happened to you. And if he hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here at all, telling me what to do, saying I should live in France. Well, that’s hardly fair to . . . to Mansell! Or me!’ I knew my face was red.

  Sylvie looked at me with her head on one side. ‘I’ll tell you what we need.’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘We all need a slice of the birthday boy’s cake, and you and I need a cup of tea to wash it down.’

  I burst into tears.

  ‘And I can tell you,’ she went on as if nothing embarrassing was happening, ‘that it’s a very good cake. Mum made it, courtesy of Betty Crocker, because it’s nice to have a cake around the house.’ She sat down beside me. ‘Linda, you are on the verge of something wonderful. I can feel it. You have your whole life ahead of you. I only say the things I say because . . . because I care what happens to you. Look at me, I’ve made so many foolish mistakes. I did things, I made choices – and now I’m here, terrified that I shall lose my son. I went for the easy option. I hung out with . . . the wrong people, I danced, I laughed.’

  ‘Dancing and laughing are nice things to do.’

  ‘I know, of course,’ she clucked. ‘But, if you have a glass of lager and then another, laughing and dancing take you somewhere else. To the back of the dance hall, for a kiss and a cuddle and then . . . Anyone can dance and laugh. You – you can go places. You are a very special person.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Well, perhaps not right at the moment with those red eyes, but yes, yes you are. Don’t get caught up like I did. I got as far as Paris, and now I’m passing the baton to you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes!’ She bounced up. ‘And now for cake. And then you need to listen to one of the most beautiful voices in the world – Nina Simone.’

  I felt empty and tired and scraped dry. I wanted to lie down on the settee and go to sleep.

  Sylvie came in with a tray. She put the tray on the sideboard and went over to the record player. ‘Listen to this.’

  I found a hanky, creased, at the bottom of my bag and I blew my nose. I scrubbed at my face as syrupy violins filled the room, then a tinkling piano, and a woman with a deep, creamy voice began singing, ‘I put a spell on you’.

  Her voice rose, rich and powerful, and I wanted to cry all over again.

  ‘Angel food!’

  Sylvie handed me a slice of cake. It was delicious. Not like Mum’s Viota sponges, which were only nice if you ate them while they were still warm, before they went cold and hard and dry. This was soft and creamy. The word ‘moist’ came into my mind.

  I drank my tea. Surrounded by the tea, the cake and the music, I felt like an invalid who was being looked after. Like an invalid who was feeling better. Silently Sylvie passed me my unfinished paper chain. ‘Do you want the blue?’ she said.

  ‘No.’ I was trying to work out my own sophisticated colour scheme for the living room.

  ‘So tell me about your rehearsals. What is this play?’ Sylvie said.

  I told her about the drama group, my proposed double act with Charlotte, the current lack of a proper script, the ad-libbing and the exciting prospect of a group called Styx, made up of grammar school boys, actually playing during the performance.

  Sylvie licked the end of the yellow strip of paper in her hand. ‘I’d really like to come.’ She ruffled the paper strips left on the floor. ‘What goes with yellow?’ I looked at her and she said, ‘No, honestly. It sounds so wonderful, and you are obviously enjoying it very much. I would love to see you in action.’

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  ‘Will you get me a ticket?’

  ‘They’re not on sale yet.’

  ‘Can you get me two?’

  I looked at her.

  ‘I might take Mum.’

  We hung the chains round the room with drawing pins. Mansell watched us with serious eyes, giving an occasional small, rasping cough. Sylvie found two old candlesticks – the type you carried up to bed like Wee Willie Winkie – and put them on the sideboard, with candles from under the stairs. She struck a match and the two candles flickered and shimmered. She turned on the standard lamp in the corner of the room and then switched off the overhead light. The room looked pretty and mysterious and celebratory and Christmassy. The paper chains dipped and swayed on the walls and we sang ‘Happy Birthday to You’ again. Mansell clapped his hands.

  Sylvie stroked his head and murmured, ‘You’re my little ball and paper chain, aren’t you, sweetheart?’ and wiped his nose with her hanky.

  *

  That night I rang Sandra. She was in. ‘Doing anything?’ I said. ‘Fancy a bag of chips?’

  ‘See you at the chip shop in five minutes,’ she said.

  I hadn’t seen her for weeks. She was wearing a new coat, black and white dogtooth check, but apart from that she looked the same. I was wearing my duffel coat, so I knew I looked the same. It was so good to see her. We bought two bags of chips, covered them in salt and vinegar and carried them back to her house. We sat on her front wall, eating them.

  ‘Heard anything from Danny?’ I said.

  She made a sort of hissing noise. ‘I haven’t heard a word.’ She picked out a large chip. ‘So I suppose you could say they’ve got the result they wanted.’ She jerked her head towards the house.

  ‘Do you miss him?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know. After all that in London, I never want to see him again. But if he walked up the road right now, I don’t know. I do miss him. I miss his ring.’ She touched the chain at her neck. ‘He took that back the first night, said he was going to make it smaller. And I miss his letters.’

  Anger rose in me. ‘Sandra.’ I stopped myself. I didn’t want to argue.

  ‘But what’s the point?’ she went on. ‘I don’t know where he is, though I know where he should be – in the nick. Running off with my ring and all my money. Him and that Trevor. It was all about the parcel. Danny kept asking me about it, “Where’s the parcel?” “What have you done with it?” “Keep it safe.” Nothing about “Ooh, nice nightie”.’

  ‘I blame Trevor,’ I said.

  Sandra smiled. ‘You’re probably right. Danny said Trevor’s record is three miles longer than his. But
it wasn’t Trevor who left me. It was Danny. If we’d been married I could have divorced him for desertion.’ She screwed up the newspaper and scrunched it into a ball. ‘So, I’ve decided what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Forget him. Do something completely different,’ she said.

  I looked at her. Perhaps this was the moment. She would pass her scooter test. We could swoop away from Chelmsford together, get those jobs in hotels. I really could leave the estate. ‘Oh Sandra,’ I said. Tears were pricking my eyes. ‘I think that’s a fab idea.’

  *

  A few days later I was walking home from school. It was dark going home from school now, but I liked it like that, the lamp posts alight and glowing and the air so cold you could see your breath.

  We’d just had a rehearsal for the pantomime. Sylvie was right. I was enjoying it all, being part of a group that was working together, making suggestions, being asked for my opinion. And I’d had a history essay returned with an A+ mark and the comment ‘Excellent work!’ from Miss Beasley. Perhaps I didn’t hate school as much as I thought. I was half-dancing along the road, singing ‘Out of Sight’, doing James Brown’s moves, when the green-and-white Corsair went past, slowed down and then stopped.

  ‘Cooky’s everywhere,’ I thought.

  As I got closer, the window on the passenger side slid down and Sandra stuck her head out. She grinned at me.

  ‘Why aren’t you at work?’ I said.

  ‘Why aren’t you at school?’

  ‘School’s finished.’

  ‘So’s work.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s home time.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  ‘It is for me. Cooky and I have just been to Southend.’

  A rush of emotions burst from my stomach up into my throat. It was Cooky. She’d been to Southend, with Cooky, in his car, when she should have been at work, and she hadn’t told me about it, let alone taken me with her. But mostly I felt disappointed. This was her doing something completely different. Cooky.

  ‘Shut up,’ Sandra said, as if I’d spoken out loud. ‘You wouldn’t have come, you wouldn’t have liked it and we never got there anyway, because the car broke down. We only got as far as Canvey Island. But we’re going to see Mark Shelley and the Deans at the YMCA tonight. Do you want to come?’ She leaned out of the car window, bent round and opened the back door. ‘Get in.’ She was half in and half out of the window. ‘This is like Cool for Cats,’ she said, and began singing, ‘Last Train to San Fernando’ and doing the hand jive. If she missed this one, she’d never get another one. Slowly she tipped out of the window, slipping towards the pavement. She started yelling and I grabbed her arms, shouting because she was heavier than she looked. We were laughing.

  When I climbed into the back of the car, Sandra said, ‘What are you doing, coming home so late?’

  ‘We’ve had a pantomime rehearsal.’

  ‘I told you,’ she said to Cooky. ‘She’s not just a schoolgirl, she’s an actress. We’ll come, won’t we, Cooky?’

  Cooky said, ‘Yeah, if you like.’

  Sandra turned up the radio. It was Brenda Lee singing ‘Sweet Nothin’s’. Sandra and I used to sing that when we were ten or eleven, sitting on their front doorstep as the sun went down and the street lights came on, scaring each other with stories of bats flying into our hair and worms coming out of the grass.

  ‘What station’s this?’ I said.

  ‘It’s Radio Caroline,’ Cooky said.

  ‘Radio London’s better,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t start that,’ Sandra said. ‘Have a crisp.’ She handed a packet over to me and said to Cooky, ‘Don’t worry, you can share mine.’ She was happy, and it was nice sitting in the car, eating crisps, listening to the radio, thinking about nothing. I stopped minding about Sandra and Cooky and their trip to Southend. Perhaps I’d go to the YMCA with them. I liked Mark Shelley and the Deans; they were Chelmsford’s best group.

  ‘Wake up, England,’ Sandra said. ‘You can get out of the car now.’ We were at the shops.

  I got out while Sandra said goodbye to Cooky, which involved a lot of stopping and starting of the car and her getting out and in again and then banging on his window and laughing.

  We walked up to her gate. ‘So?’ I said.

  ‘I’ll try anything once,’ she said, and laughed. ‘He wants to buy me an eternity ring.’

  ‘He doesn’t!’ She hardly knew him.

  Her face drooped. ‘What alternatives have I got?’

  ‘I don’t know. You could get a new job. We could go to London. Or Manchester?’ I said wildly. ‘You’re bound to pass your test.’ Her scooter driving test was the next week. ‘Once you’ve got your licence, you can do anything. We could go anywhere.’

  ‘I’ve cancelled it,’ she said. ‘What’s the point, if I’m courting? And courting someone who can drive. Legally.’

  This was awful. ‘But is Cooky exciting?’ I said. ‘Does he make you laugh?’

  ‘He’s a good kisser,’ she said. ‘That was a surprise. And he’s got good genes.’

  ‘Jeans or genes?’

  ‘His mum’s got nice hair and all her own teeth.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s good.’

  She looked at me. ‘I told you. I’ve got to look elsewhere. I’ll have to settle down sometime.’

  ‘So should I start saving up for another torch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You mean you might not actually get married?’

  ‘I mean I don’t want another torch.’

  ‘Aren’t you meant to give back the presents when an engagement’s broken?’

  ‘You can’t have it back. It’s the only thing I’ve got left of Danny.’ She gave a small hiccup, like a sob.

  ‘Tell me two good things about Cooky,’ I said, to stop her thinking.

  ‘He hasn’t got a criminal record. My mum and dad should be pleased.’

  Perhaps he was the right one for her.

  ‘You coming to see Mark Shelley?’

  ‘No,’ I said, with regret, shifting my school bag from arm to arm. ‘I’ve got too much homework.’ It was too late. We were heading in different directions. We both knew it.

  CHAPTER 28

  Rehearsals

  THE PRODUCTION WAS COMING TOGETHER. A beautiful girl called Gwynedd who was in the upper sixth was Cinderella. There were no Ugly Sisters, just the Beverley Sisters, who were played by Miss Soames, Miss Harmon and Miss Laybourne, the youngest members of staff. Charlotte and I were the comic relief. We were Pete and Dud, from Not Only . . . But Also. I was Dudley Moore, the short one. Charlotte, who was taller, was Peter Cook.

  We were now having rehearsals almost every night, except for the mistresses, who had private rehearsals with Rosemary in the lunch hour.

  Rosemary said that although she had the final say, Charlotte and I could write our own script. Charlotte was in the lower sixth and had been in the drama group for years, so Rosemary trusted her. Charlotte and I had started slipping away from rehearsals and walking down to Snows, sitting at the back of the café, trying out lines and laughing. Sometimes, if we really made ourselves laugh and the session went well, we’d put on ‘Dancing in the Street’ by Martha and the Vandellas, which was Charlotte’s favourite, or ‘Hi-Heel Sneakers’, which was mine, even though the small silver jukebox which sat on the counter was really quiet.

  One day, three weeks from the first performance, we were laughing hard over a new idea for the ballroom scene, something to do with pouring tea into Cinders’ discarded shoe, which we knew would never make it into the final version. Charlotte was searching for a sixpenny piece so she could put on our two favourites, when Tap walked in.

  I hadn’t seen him for weeks. I hadn’t seen anybody. These days my life was filled with the pantomime, with Quaker meetings on a Sunday, the occasional CND meeting and some homework on the side. As he stood in the doorway, looking round the roo
m, he felt like a stranger. But he didn’t look well. He looked almost scruffy.

  There were no mods in the room, no one from the Orpheus except me. I was the only person. He walked over to our table. Normally this would have thrilled me, that he was coming to speak to me, just me; but now I wasn’t sure.

  ‘Watcha,’ he said.

  I could feel my cheeks reddening. ‘Hello. Charlotte, this is . . . my friend, Tap. Tap, this is Charlotte.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Charlotte,’ he said, twirling a chair round and swinging his leg over.

  I could feel Charlotte wondering who he was, and in particular who he was to me. I hoped he wouldn’t call me Lorna. There was silence.

  ‘I’ll just go and put something on the jukebox,’ Charlotte said. Tap and I watched her walk over to the counter.

  Tap shivered.

  ‘Where’s your coat?’ I said.

  ‘Which one? They’re all down at the cop shop. They say they’re evidence.’

  I hesitated. ‘Evidence of what?’

  ‘Evidence that every time I get a new coat the Old Bill nicks it.’ He shook his head. ‘My brief reckons I’m in deep shit.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Time. A long time.’ He looked distant and sad.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It was a stitch-up. The usual. The mods are always the ones that get nicked.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s all just fucking boring.’ He was biting his finger.

  I said, ‘Well, that Fred Perry looks fab. Navy and cream – good colour combination.’

  He looked down at his top. ‘Yeah.’ He gave a little smile. ‘I wasn’t sure at first. I got it in Carnaby Street.’

  The first twanging guitar notes of ‘Hi-Heel Sneakers’ whispered through the room.

  ‘So, still at school, I see. What’s all this paper? Studying for exams?’ He was making conversation. I wondered if he wanted something from me. If he wanted me to be something to him. I wasn’t sure I wanted that now.

  ‘It’s a play – a pantomime.’ I looked over at Charlotte. ‘We’re in it.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Is it good? Shall I come?’

  ‘I hope so – I mean, I hope it’s good. It might be a bit tame for you.’