A Little Learning

by Anne Bennett

  ‘I couldn’t have been on yours if I’d wanted to,’ Ruth said. ‘I couldn’t get near you. You froze me out that night in your room. Really I’m on no one’s side. But if we’re going to become friends again – and I’d like that – we can’t ignore Ben as if he didn’t exist, and go round the Wrekin to avoid using his name, as if he’s some kind of pariah. He’s my brother and your ex, and a lot of the unhappiness you carried around was because of him. We probably need to talk about it.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Ben,’ Janet said firmly.

  Ruth shook her head. ‘Maybe you don’t want to talk about him,’ she said, ‘but I bet you’ve often wondered about him and what he’s been doing since he walked out on you. It’s only natural.’ Janet didn’t answer. She wasn’t going to admit how often she’d wondered, certainly in the early days. ‘The company he did research for are sponsoring him at medical school,’ Ruth said. ‘He’s specialising in mental illness and they have a job for him when he’s finished. His son Jacob Eli was born in May.’

  ‘Jacob?’ Janet said in surprise. ‘I would have thought a first son would have been called for his father.’

  ‘Ben would have liked it that way, but Jacob Eli is the name of Therese’s father,’ Ruth explained. ‘He’s provided the apartment in New York and a nanny for the baby, because Therese was screaming and complaining that she couldn’t cope. Ben’s salary alone at the moment wouldn’t keep her the way she wants to be kept. As it is, Mr Steinaway’s sizeable allowance enables Ben and Therese to live in high-society New York and therefore gives him a big stake in their lives and that of their son.’

  There was a short silence, and then Ruth said suddenly, ‘He’s not terribly happy, Janet.’

  When Janet had first learned of Ben’s marriage, she wanted him and his new wife to rot in hell together. Now, she was sorry it hadn’t worked out, but it mattered to her no more than that. She shrugged. ‘That’s life. We don’t always get what we want, what we hope for.’

  Ruth let out a sigh. ‘Or what we deserve,’ she said. ‘Yet I’d want to murder someone if I’d been just left like you were, and in such a cowardly way.’

  ‘What about Sam Oppenheimer?’ Janet said, glad to change the subject a little.

  ‘Oh, he’s history,’ Ruth said. ‘It was all right till we began university. Then he made it plain that there was no commitment on either side and we were both free to see other people. I felt a bit of a fool and for a while mooned after him, but I soon saw what a flirt he is. He’s gone through most of the girls in my year already.’

  ‘Oh, Ruth, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m over it now,’ Ruth said, ‘yet if he’d crooked his little finger at one time, I’d have done anything he wanted. I even toyed with the idea of giving up my course and everything, if he proposed marriage and wanted me to. Not that he ever mentioned the word marriage, it was just a fantasy I had. Anyway,’ Ruth gave a definite shake of her beautiful black mane of hair, ‘I’m over it completely now and I’ve had quite a number of romances, but I’ve kept it light.’

  ‘Me too,’ Janet said. ‘Once bitten, twice shy, as they say.’

  ‘It’s awful here at home at the moment as well,’ Ruth said. ‘Ben’s miles away and Aaron might as well be.’ She was silent a minute and then said, ‘My grandmother is eaten up with bitterness and hatred, and Mom and Dad are so worn down by her … oh,’ she said almost impatiently, ‘they have no life either. Grandmother pushed Ben and Therese together and refuses to see the cracks opening up in their marriage, and yet she won’t even speak to Aaron, because he married out.’

  ‘Married out?’ Janet said in a high, surprised voice.

  ‘Yes, to a lovely girl called Lisa,’ Ruth said. ‘Aaron told Mom and Dad he loved her and that was that, he wasn’t marrying someone he didn’t love because she was the right race or religion. Grandmother kept screeching about disgracing the family name, and she told Dad he should disown Aaron and cut him out of his will as she had done. Mom said she wasn’t prepared to lose her son pandering to an old woman, and poor Dad was caught in the middle.’

  ‘Who won?’

  ‘If I’m honest, it was Aaron,’ Ruth said with a smile. ‘For while all this mayhem was going on in our house, Aaron and Lisa just carried on serenely planning their wedding. Eventually their happiness won Mom and Dad over, but my malicious old grandmother has continued to carry on a hate campaign.’

  What’s new? Janet thought, but she didn’t say it. She didn’t want to rock the boat in this new friendship she was building with Ruth. It wasn’t quite the same between them as before; once they could say anything to one another, and now they were cautiously feeling their way, anxious not to annoy or offend. But it was a start. They met again and again over the Christmas break and discussed many things, especially the English degree they were both studying for.

  ‘What do you want to do eventually? Still teach?’ Ruth asked one day.

  ‘I think so,’ Janet replied. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Ruth said, ‘but I think I’d like to have a shot at journalism. It’s a tough world to get into for a woman, so I’m learning shorthand and typing too in the evenings, as it might give me a greater chance.’

  Bert said he imagined Ruth would have a hard job to prove her worth. ‘Not many women journalists,’ he said, ‘and yet it was often women who kept the papers going during the war, so there’s no logical reason for it to be male-dominated. Good luck to the lass, if that’s what she wants.’

  Both Betty and Bert were pleased that the two girls seemed to be friends again, and they told Janet that Ruth was welcome at their house any time. The pair never seemed to run out of things to say, and Janet was glad to have someone to talk to about Claire’s odd and worrying disappearance. Ruth had also discovered that Claire had left, but knew no more than that, and they discussed the whys and wherefores endlessly, both anxious about her safety.

  The younger children took Ruth’s reappearance in their stride. The twins were at any rate basking in the praise from the family at passing the first part of the eleven-plus, and it was hard to get them to do any more of the work Janet had prepared for them in the holidays. ‘The second part’s harder,’ she scolded, ‘and you’ll need to work for it.’

  The twins grumbled, refused to settle and were unable to concentrate. They were delighted to see Ruth when she began visiting the Travers’ house again, knowing that Janet’s attention might be taken up by the friendship long enough for them both to slip away.

  Sally regarded Ruth solemnly with her large blue eyes and asked, ‘Why haven’t you been to see us for such a long time?’

  Both girls were embarrassed, not knowing how to answer. They began gabbling excuses about being busy, living away from home and the pressure of their university courses, but Sally patiently waited till they’d finished and then asked searchingly:

  ‘Did you fall out?’

  Janet wondered how her little sister just seemed to know things. She looked across at Ruth, and with a grin and a shrug admitted, ‘Yes, Sally, yes we did.’

  Sally looked from one to the other. She loved them both and had missed Ruth’s presence, and yet had said nothing. She shook her head sadly as she remarked, ‘That was rather silly of you, wasn’t it, considering you’re almost grown up?’

  Janet burst out laughing as she put her arms around her sister and hugged her. Sally was unsure about why there was such hilarity, but she didn’t mind being cuddled by Janet, which she considered her right anyway, and she put her arms around her big sister and gave her a kiss.

  Ruth felt a sudden stab of envy. Janet’s home seemed so full of fun and laughter and noise, and though they all shouted and swore, she knew they cared for each other. Her home seemed sterile in comparison. She dreaded her grandmother returning home. She’d been bad enough before she broke her hip, and worse after Aaron’s defiance, carping, demanding, finding fault. She’d blamed Joseph and Naomi for allowing their eldest son the freedom
of living away from home in the first place. She’d insisted Joseph forbid the marriage, but he’d refused to do so, and she’d chided and ridiculed him until Naomi, goaded out of her customary respect and good manners, turned on her.

  Now there was an uneasy peace, but no one was happy, Ruth thought, except perhaps Aaron and Lisa. She certainly wasn’t. Her parents had little energy left for her, and desperate though she often was for companionship, she had always avoided her grandmother’s company. She had made friends at Oxford, but not such good friends as Janet’s flatmates seemed to be. Janet, despite her undoubted ability, had rejected both Oxford and Cambridge, much to Miss Phelps’ chagrin. The school’s success was judged by the pupils who gained a place at Oxford or Cambridge, but Janet had refused to consider either.

  ‘I’d not fit in at either place,’ she’d maintained, and despite all the pressure applied by the school she had not been moved in her decision. Ruth wished wistfully that she’d gone with Janet to Leicester University. It seemed to be a great deal more fun than Oxford.

  ‘I’m so glad we’re friends again,’ she said on their last night together, as Janet walked her to the bus stop. ‘I often wanted to call on you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see me.’

  ‘I was a bloody fool,’ Janet said cheerfully. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken to either of you the way I did that day at Chloe’s funeral.’

  ‘You were upset,’ Ruth said. ‘I should have tried to see you again, or write to you. Your mom would have given me the address. But in the end I did nothing. I’m afraid I’m not as brave as you, Janet.’

  ‘Forget it,’ Janet said. ‘We’re friends again now, that’s all that matters.’

  ‘You’ll write, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ Janet said. ‘And you be sure to write back.’

  And when she waved Ruth off on the bus, Janet went home with her heart lighter than it had been for some time.

  NINETEEN

  The three girls were always buying things to make their flat more homely, but it was Shirley’s parents, far richer than Lou’s or Janet’s, who made such a difference donating things they said they had no further use for. They’d taken to driving Shirley down in their car at the beginning of term or if she’d gone home for a weekend, and she seldom came in empty-handed.

  ‘A set of pans Mum said we might find useful,’ she’d say, or ‘A large casserole dish Mum doesn’t ever use.’

  The fluffy pink bath set that looked rather incongruous in their cupboard of a bathroom appeared new to Janet but ‘It’s an old one,’ Shirley assured her. ‘It hasn’t had much wear, because it was always in the guest bathroom.’

  ‘Oh, the guest bathroom, of course,’ Lou mocked in her plum-in-the-mouth accent, and the girls fell about laughing.

  They took turns to cook and had tremendous fun trying out recipes on one another. They threw the odd party, or just invited friends round for the evening, but had strict rules on each girl having the place to herself one night a week, when the other two would guarantee to make themselves scarce. Shirley, after Janet’s talk, had finished with Stuart and had a fling with a few others before settling with someone called Paul.

  Janet knew that, although Lou and Shirley weren’t actually sleeping with their boyfriends, they were going much further than she was prepared to go with Simon. She didn’t have to ask them, as they still discussed things in great detail together. Simon couldn’t understand her reluctance to go further, and sometimes she couldn’t understand herself.

  ‘Do you love him?’ Lou asked one night.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Don’t you know for sure?’ Shirley said.

  ‘No, not really,’ Janet replied. ‘How do you know if it’s love or not? I loved Ben, I do know that. I couldn’t think about anything else but him, day and night. I only had to see him to start trembling, and when he kissed me …’

  ‘Yes?’ Lou and Shirley said together, leaning forward. Janet gave a grin and said:

  ‘Mind your own business.’

  ‘Ooh, Janet,’ complained Lou, ‘as soon as it gets interesting you go all coy on us.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Shirley said loftily, ‘that sounds like infatuation to me, not love.’

  ‘You’d know all about it, of course.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I suppose I am entitled to an opinion.’

  ‘Oh, don’t go all stuffy on me,’ Janet complained.

  ‘Stop arguing,’ Lou commanded. ‘Come on, Shirley, we’re trying to establish if Simon’s in with a chance. Now, Janet, how do you feel when Simon kisses you? And don’t tell us to mind our own business, we’re trying to help.’

  Janet shrugged helplessly. ‘It’s all right, I suppose,’ she said. ‘I mean, pleasant enough, but I don’t hear a full orchestra playing or anything.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that happened with Ben, because I won’t believe it,’ said Shirley.

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ Janet said, ‘but you know what I mean. And when he … when we … well, anyway, the earth doesn’t move or anything.’

  Lou fairly rocked with laughter. ‘God, Janet, you are green,’ she spluttered through her hilarity. ‘It’s not the earth that moves.’

  There was no more sensible discussion after that, as one ribald comment followed another. It clarified nothing for Janet, but cheered her no end, and she was grateful for Lou and Shirley’s friendship and sense of fun.

  She went home for the Easter holidays and for the first time really missed Simon. She wondered if she was beginning to fall in love with him or whether he was just becoming a habit. She decided to test him on her home ground, and when he phoned one day, just after the holiday had begun, she asked him down for the weekend.

  ‘Don’t get excited,’ Janet warned her mother. ‘He is a boyfriend, but nothing special, just someone I go round with.’

  ‘All right, love,’ Betty said, but she was still as pleased as Punch that her Janet was asking a lad to stay. There had been no one since Ben, and that had worried Betty a little. It wasn’t that Janet didn’t seem to be having a good time, but both of her flatmates had steady boyfriends and Betty was glad there was someone on the horizon for her girl. She was determined that no one should spoil the weekend for her. She threatened the twins what she’d do if they misbehaved, but Janet, knowing that threats were useless on her young brothers, promised to give them the money to go to the cinema if they were good.

  It went surprisingly well. Janet couldn’t but be impressed at how calmly Simon took the Travers clan at mealtimes, which she often thought resembled feeding time at the zoo. Gran was there too, as she ate with Betty and the family most weekends anyway.

  Eventually the talk got round to university and the course, and then the flat Janet shared with her friends. ‘They’ve made it lovely,’ Simon said to Bert. ‘It’s a pity you haven’t seen it.’

  ‘You’ve seen it then?’ Bert almost snapped, and Simon realised from Bert’s tone, and Janet’s foot that had come into sharp contact with his ankle under the table, that he’d better be careful how he answered.

  ‘Oh, a number of times,’ he said breezily. ‘Lou and Shirley and Janet are very popular girls, and they’ve thrown a number of very good parties.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Bert, who wasn’t so worried about crowds at parties. It was the thought of what the young man – however nice he seemed – might do to his daughter alone in a flat that brought him out in a cold sweat. ‘Our Janet’s always enjoyed a good party. Maybe,’ he added, turning to Janet, ‘maybe we could come up and see this place after term starts. We could go one Saturday, just your mother and me?’

  ‘Course you could,’ Mrs McClusky said. ‘I could look after the children.’

  ‘We don’t need looking after, Gran,’ Conner said.

  ‘No,’ Noel added, ‘we’d look after you instead, Gran, and our Sally.’

  ‘I can look after myself,’ Sally retorted. ‘I’m nine now, not a baby any more.’

  ‘You’ll all do as your gran b
ids you,’ Bert said, ‘if we go at all, and we haven’t decided yet.’ He nodded at the twins and said, as a form of explanation to Simon, ‘These two have been getting above themselves since they heard they’ve both passed their eleven-plus.’

  ‘Dad!’ The complaint from Noel and Conner was simultaneous, but before Bert could reply, Simon was saying:

  ‘That’s great. Congratulations to the pair of you,’ and went on to tell them about his own eleven-plus success and the fun he’d had and scrapes he’d got into at his grammar school. He soon had the whole family laughing.

  Later, as Simon and Janet walked arm in arm to the pictures, Janet said, ‘Thanks for coming today and praising Noel and Conner like you did. They’re little devils at times, but I’m beginning to think that a lot of what they did when they were little was to get attention.’

  ‘They’re okay. I think I was much the same,’ Simon told her. ‘They’re just lads, that’s all. Your family’s all right, Janet.’

  ‘I’m not apologising for them,’ Janet snapped, stung by the implied criticism. ‘I’m just explaining. It’s easy to get ignored in a big family.’

  ‘Ssh,’ Simon said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Peace. I’m a friend not an enemy.’ His words brought back an echo of the past, something Ben had said about not being the enemy, something that concerned Claire and Chloe. The vague memory disturbed Janet, so that when Simon attempted to draw her into his arms to kiss her, she wriggled free.

  ‘What’s up?’ he said, and she shrugged.

  ‘Nothing, I don’t want to be late for the film, that’s all.’

  Simon gave a sigh. Sometimes he couldn’t get to grips with Janet. He seemed to be going one step forward and two back all the time. He wanted to come clean, to tell her how much she meant to him, and wondered if he’d ever be able to tell her. He felt his heart thud against his ribs and sighed because he knew he could say nothing, for if he spoke those words he might lose her. So he tucked his arm inside hers and they made their way to the cinema in silence.