Gemini Girls

by Marie Joseph

  They were both very tired. Libby had held the afternoon’s emotions in check from the moment she walked through the door. Then for more than two hours she had sat with her mother, listening to Ettie wondering plaintively how it would be at Westerley without Sarah.

  ‘I feel in my bones that Sarah needs to be with her mother and the boy. She says her mother hasn’t picked up since her father dropped dead. One of these days she won’t come back from her weekend off. I feel it in my bones,’ she had said again. ‘And there’s Carrie. She’s bound to meet the man she wants to marry before long, and that will leave me here alone in this big house with your father.’ Ettie had shivered and stared with watery blue eyes into a future that looked as bleak as the Lancashire moors.

  Harry had been called out to a patient at five o’clock that morning, and had left his dinner to drive out with Sarah – and now he was faced with Libby’s rejection. But he felt his anger evaporating as he saw the way she held herself still, as if she wanted to say much more and was determined not to do so.

  ‘Let’s not quarrel, love, I know things aren’t easy for you here. Maybe it’s not such a good idea my popping round every day. Weddings are nerve-racking things.’

  ‘There isn’t going to be a wedding.’ Libby’s expression hardened. ‘I’m sorry, Harry, but I can’t help it. To marry you would be a terrible mistake, feeling the way I do.’ She started to pull the ring from her finger, only to have her hand taken in a firm clasp.

  ‘I won’t listen!’ Harry pushed the ring back, then squeezed her left hand hard. ‘I have to drive my parents over to see their new house tomorrow; on Monday I have an evening surgery and two consultations, so we’ll have to leave it till Tuesday.’ He gave her a quick sideways smile. ‘On Tuesday I’ll pick you up from school at four o’clock, and we’ll drive out somewhere for a meal. Then if you still feel the same you can tell me.’ He released his tight hold on her hand and gave it a little shake. ‘And now I’m going, but remember this.’ Gently he cupped her face in his big hands and as he smiled at her she saw the hurt bewilderment in his brown eyes. ‘I love you more than life itself. I’ll never let you go, not if I have to chloroform you to get you down the aisle.’ He glanced round the big room with its overstuffed furniture and preponderance of potted plants. ‘I want to get you away from this mausoleum, with your father drinking himself to death across the hall and your mother thinking herself into invalidism upstairs. You were meant to be happy, Libby, and happy is what you’re going to be.’

  Without attempting to kiss her he walked to the door, a thick-set brown man in his tweedy speckled jacket, a well-fed confident man with his comfortable life mapped out for him. So different from the tall gaunt man with his hair blowing untidily in the wind, running along the pavement for the chance of a job he would hate even if he were lucky enough to get it. They were such worlds apart that Libby felt she could not bear to dwell on the comparison.

  When Tuesday came it would all be settled. One way or the other her life would never be the same again. She bowed her head as the silent tears ran slowly down her cheeks.

  The hall was already full when Libby took her seat with Margaret Bottomley at the back. The women were in the minority, but the rows of men sat united, their faces serious and intent, some of them leaning forward the better to hear the speakers on the platform.

  ‘This town is in a bad way.’ The speaker, a miner, spoke with a fiery delivery that belied his puny appearance. ‘And what do our bosses care?’ He raised a fist and shook it. ‘I’m no Marxist, and neither are most of the men who think like me, but we have one thing in common in this fight of ours. We are all asking for a fair wage for a fair day’s work. They – the bosses – can go on living in their big houses for all we care. We don’t covet what they’ve already got. No! All we want is a fair slice of what’s going. We just want what’s ours by right, and that’s a decent standard of living. Is it wrong wanting that?’

  Libby could see Tom Silver’s dark head four rows in front. He looked down now and again and she guessed he was making notes. He was so naïve, she thought tenderly, believing better conditions would come through the Labour Party. It was men like her father who made the conditions, the rich and the educated. Why couldn’t Tom Silver see that? She looked round, startled, as a heckler seated directly behind her, jumped to his feet, shouting and waving his arms about.

  ‘Nay, nay. Of course it’s wrong wanting just that! You lot would be satisfied with half a loaf, but I say we deserve a whole! Labourism? You lot are nowt but Tories in a different hat. You want to be definite one way or another!’

  ‘He’s a Communist,’ Margaret whispered. ‘He even went so far as to stick one of their posters on the board outside the police station last week. Cheeky blighter. The police will have him if he doesn’t watch out.’

  Libby turned and saw the eager, screwed-up look of dedication on Margaret’s face. She looked harder and saw an unhappy woman, and in a revealing instant realized that political argument could never be the centre of her own existence. It was exciting, it was fascinating, but it wasn’t enough. She shivered, holding her arms close round her as if to ward off a sudden freezing wind. What was there to satisfy this restless feeling always bubbling up inside her. Would even Tom Silver be able to give her what she wanted, when she wasn’t sure herself?

  She wrinkled her nose at the smell of closely packed bodies and cheap tobacco, then drew herself slightly away from the woman sitting on her other side. Shifting her position on the hard bench, Libby closed her eyes and willed the meeting to end.

  When Tom sat beside her on the slatted seat on the top deck of the tram and paid her fare, she knew the pennies he was counting out in his hand represented more to him than mere coinage. She could see her reflection in the window, all eyes beneath the tiny cloche hat, the fur collar of her wrapover coat snuggled up to her chin.

  The shiny material of Tom’s jacket looked as if it would disintegrate at the slightest tug, and his bony knees had poked blisters in his trousers. He was a man who did not care very much how he looked, she guessed, but surely, in the time he had been in full employment, he could have provided himself with a coat? His shabbiness caught at her throat, irritating her and at the same time making her feel ashamed of her own warm clothing.

  He was talking about the meeting, laughing at the affectation of a Councillor Tomlinson, a big-stomached man who persisted in wearing a cloth cap.

  ‘He never wanted to be a councillor; it’s just that he truly believes that his ideas, if they could be put into practice, would improve the lot of working people. I think he must have read every book, every pamphlet, every paper on what the Party stands for. You’ll never catch old John out, not on any point of order. He has a case for housing, wages, anything you can think of, and there’s no putting him down.’

  ‘He stood up well to the heckling,’ Libby said confusedly. They were nearing the terminus now, and they might have been two casual acquaintances returning from the meeting making conversation about what had taken place. She followed him between the rows of seats to the platform, held on to the rail until the tram pulled up, then with a nod of thanks accepted the arm he held out to help her down.

  ‘Now,’ he said, as they walked down the wide road towards the lane leading to Westerley, ‘what’s all this about, Libby?’

  He made no move to touch her, not even when her heel caught in a patch of uneven ground. He’s proud, she thought, feeling her heartbeat quicken. He’s going to leave me to make all the running, and oh, dear God, what do I say? I can’t tell him that all I want is to be near him. She tried to see his expression, but now they had left the well-lit road and were turning into the lane where deep shadows filled the long spaces between the lamps. His face was no more than a pale blur.

  They walked on in silence for a while, then she stopped suddenly. ‘This is where I live,’ she told him. Through the gap in the hedge down the long, winding drive was Westerley, with lights gleaming from the downstairs win
dows and from the upstairs front bedroom where Ettie would be reading, trying to get to sleep.

  Tom stuck both hands in his pockets and whistled softly. ‘And there’s just you and your mother and father live in that mansion of a house?’

  ‘And my sister.’ Libby felt her face burn at the implied sarcasm. ‘And the maids,’ she added defiantly. ‘Mrs Edwards, and the maid of all work, and Sarah who looks after my mother.’

  ‘I never knew you had a sister.’

  ‘I used to have a brother, too, but he was killed in the war. She brought up her eyes to meet his and saw that he was watching her carefully.

  ‘What do you want of me?’ he asked abruptly.

  She was trembling now, rather frightened, but when he suddenly pulled her to him and held her so close that there was no point at which their bodies did not touch, and then put his mouth over hers, she responded to him with an almost animal-like ferocity.

  ‘There!’ His voice had a challenging all-male aggressive ring to it. ‘There, Libby Peel. Is that what you want? Did you want to find out if my kiss was less clinical than your doctor lover’s? Were you for finding out the difference, then?’

  When she hit him, an open-handed slap on his right cheek, he threw back his head and laughed out loud. Pulling her to him again he ran his hand down her back, down her spine, lingering on her buttocks, so that she felt it as intimately as if she had been unclothed.

  ‘Would you marry me, Libby? Would you come with me and be my love in that room you saw? Would you stop in there all day long and cook my tea on the gas ring, and manage on less than you spend on frocks and shoes, and silly hats like the one you’ve got on now? Because I tell you straight – not a penny would I take from that father of yours.’

  She could feel every inch of him. It was as though she was being made love to, there in the dark of the wild night with the wind tossing his words away and the lights of Westerley shining out behind his head like some incongruous backdrop to a Victorian drama.

  ‘I . . . I . . . You’re frightening me!’ She struggled to break free, but it was as though she were being held in a vice.

  ‘Right!’ Suddenly he let her go. ‘If you really want me, then go inside. Go into the house this minute and pack a bag, and come out to me.’ He thrust both his hands in his pockets. ‘I’ll wait ten minutes, and if you don’t come then I’ll know you’ve changed your mind. Go on now! Make it snappy! I’ll be waiting.’

  Without further words he turned and walked a few yards down the lane to stand in the shelter of the high hedge, a dark waiting blur, with head held high and the collar of his jacket upturned against the seeking wind.

  While he waited he strained his eyes against the darkness, dimly assessing the rolling meadows and the dark blue haze of hills in the distance. Dear God, he thought, this is one gamble that has to come off. Then, because even in the worst of times his northern sense of humour never quite deserted him, he admitted to himself wryly that he had always been a gambling man. Even in France on the Somme, coming unexpectedly face to face with a real bloody German, he had accepted that the best form of defence was attack. He could smell the acrid musty smell of the mud and dead bodies as he remembered the German, a lad of no more than seventeen years, lowering his bayonet in that one weak moment of indecision. Then his jaw tightened as he remembered too the look of bewilderment on the young face as the German realized that his indecision had cost him his life.

  But the war had been over now for eight years come next month and Tom Silver was still fighting. Now the war was against misery and poverty. The grit of the unmade road crunched under his shoes as he walked back to the place where he could see the big house, a cocoon of warmth and light, a haven for those who could afford to be sheltered inside its walls.

  What he had just done was cruel, but then he had always accepted that there was a cruel streak in him. He narrowed his eyes and held his breath for a moment as he saw a curtain move at an upper window. That lass, Libby Peel, with her half-formed ideals and the longing in her eyes for something to give a touch of drama to what she considered to be the boring pattern of her days . . . that lovely, lovely lass was no more for him than he was for her.

  Tom turned away, back down the lane with his slogging soldier’s walk, to the main road and the terminus where a tram stood ready for its rhythmic clanging journey back into town. But tram rides cost money, and anyway he needed to walk. He needed to despise himself a little for the way he had behaved and, besides, walking took longer and kept him out in the air, away from the room at the top of the house that smelled of the misery he swore to eradicate some day.

  And the Libby Peels of this world had no place in that scheme of things, no place at all.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BY THE MIDDLE of November, with the wedding of Libby Peel to Doctor Harry, son of Dr Henry and Mrs Brandwood, only five weeks away, Carrie found herself trapped in the school’s basement cloakroom by the man she had been avoiding for weeks.

  ‘You have at least to talk to me, Carrie! You owe me that!’

  Mungo’s face was violin-shaped with self-pity, and a faint bruise showed up in a yellowish tinge at the side of his jaw. ‘I need a friend so much, Carrie, someone to understand. And who else is there but you?’

  He stood before her in the narrow passageway between the rows of hanging coats, felt hats and shoe bags, holding out an arm so that she was trapped between him and the wall. He was so close she could feel his breath on her face; so close that she could see the despair In his eyes, and so close that even his hoarse whispering came to her like a shout.

  ‘Mungo!’ She tried to duck beneath his arm, but his hand came down and clamped itself on her shoulder. ‘Someone might come down! Mungo! Don’t be so stupid. The bell will go any minute, and if they find you down here with me . . . oh, God, Mungo, let me go!’

  His mouth was against her ear. ‘You’re driving me mad, Carrie. It’s hell coming here day after day when you won’t even look at me properly. I’m not made of stone. Carrie! Two people can’t have meant what we did to each other, and then act like strangers!’ He made a sound halfway between a groan and a sigh. ‘Is there someone else? Tell me. Have you met someone else?’

  ‘No!’ Carrie jerked her head away only to have her chin grasped and twisted round again. ‘No Mungo! There isn’t anyone else. I’ve told you over and over, you’re married and I . . . I no longer love you.’ Her brown eyes were pleading. ‘There was no future for us, you know that, and now you must get on with your life and leave me to get on with mine.’ Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. ‘You have to be a man, Mungo and accept that it’s all over.’

  ‘Never!’ To her horror, he brought his head down and fastened his mouth over hers. His hand slid down her back to hold her close. The more she struggled, the more his thwarted passion flared, and when he felt her lack of response he began to kiss her closed eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, whispering incoherent broken words of love.

  ‘Carrie . . . Carrie . . . oh, my love. I need you, I must have your love. Oh, dear God, please be kind to me, please!’

  When the voice of the headmaster sounded behind them, Mungo released his hold of her so abruptly that Carrie felt her knees give way. Grasping at a school gaberdine raincoat to save herself, she slid down to sit on the narrow bench in front of the row of pegs, knocking a shoe bag to the floor. Shaking so violently she could actually see her legs trembling, she looked up and met the furious, incredulous stare of the small man respected and feared by both teachers and pupils alike. Mr Eccles’s eyes glittered behind the rimless spectacles worn habitually halfway down his hawklike nose.

  And at that very moment the clattering of outdoor shoes on the flight of stone steps leading down to the basement heralded the onrush of Form Four hurtling in from their PT lesson, followed by Miss Clayton, with a scarlet band round her short hair, her cheeks polished red by the cold wind.

  ‘Come with me! Both of you!’ Mr Eccles nodded first to Mungo, then to Carrie, be
fore leading the way with his small head poked forward and the back view of his trousers hanging loose over what seemed to be a non-existent behind.

  ‘What’s up?’ Miss Clayton caught at Carrie’s arm, then stepped back as Carrie brushed her impatiently aside.

  ‘Now then. No talking!’ Miss Clayton bellowed the command automatically, her eyes fixed on the trio disappearing up the basement steps.

  ‘Snogging behind the coat racks, I bet.’

  The gym mistress whipped round just too late to catch the girl responsible for the whispered words.

  Upstairs in his study overlooking the rhododendron-fringed drive Mr Eccles MA faced the two cringing members of his staff.

  ‘Never,’ he said, in his reed-thin, trembling voice, ‘never in the whole of my career have I been faced with a situation so degrading, so shameful, so repugnant.’ He lifted his small pointed chin. ‘I am not going to ask you what was going on because I could see only too well.’ Taking out a white handkerchief he mopped his forehead. ‘Teachers have a very special responsibility to their pupils, a grave and serious responsibility to show an example, to be themselves beyond reproach. And yet I find you . . .’ here words failed him for a moment, ‘doing what you were doing in my school, in class time . . .’ Picking up a lined ruler from his desk, he threw it down again. ‘What were you doing out of your classroom, Miss Peel? Just for the record, of course.’

  Carrie seemed to be finding difficulty in forming her mouth round the words. ‘One of my girls had come upstairs without changing into her indoor shoes, and as they were in the middle of copying something from the blackboard I went to fetch them for her.’