by Lissa Evans
The nanny’s face fell. ‘But they’re quite advanced for their age.’
‘Yes, we’re quite advanced,’ repeated Avril. ‘Well, I am, anyway.’ Winnie, rounder and plainer, retaliated with a jab of the elbow.
‘Only I’d got something I have to do,’ said the nanny.
‘She’s seeing her young man,’ said Avril, ‘even though she’s just told our mother that she was going to take us to the boating pond. He’s called Harold. He’s a house-painter.’
The expression that flitted across the nanny’s face was one part anguish to three parts murder. She caught Ida’s eye and a flag of fellow feeling flapped between them.
‘If they stay, I’ll look after them, Miss Simpkin,’ said Ida. ‘I know how.’
Mattie hesitated and looked around. It was starting to rain and there was no one else in sight.
‘Very well,’ she said, reluctantly. ‘Meet us back here at twelve o’clock.’ The nanny hurried away.
‘Let us begin by finding the best shelter that the open air can offer,’ said Mattie. ‘Any suggestions, Ida?’
‘Under a tree?’
‘In summer, yes. In winter, less useful. Avril?’
‘The bandstand.’
‘Good suggestion, but it’s nearly half a mile away. Winnie?’
‘The Ladies’ Convenience?’
‘That’s right next to the bandstand, you idiot,’ said Avril. Winnie hit her on the hip with a clenched fist, and Ida inserted herself between the two of them, like a copper separating brawling drunks.
‘Let me show you where I mean, rather than standing here becoming gradually damper,’ said Mattie. ‘Follow me, and as we walk, perhaps someone could tell me why there is an area of untamed heath and woodland very near the centre of one of the great capital cities of the world? Anyone? No? Well, which wild animal might have lived here in the past? In herds? With antlers?’
‘Deer,’ said Avril.
‘Very good. Hampstead Heath was none other than the place where King Henry the Eighth came hunting.’
‘I’m in the top set at school,’ said Avril. ‘I can name all of his wives, in order.’
‘And now this wonderful wilderness has been preserved to enable us city-dwellers to breathe fresh air and feel the grass under our feet. As Wordsworth said, “Come forth into the light of things, let Nature be your teacher.” Not far now.’ Mattie led them into a stand of dripping beeches. The furthest and largest had been scooped out by age and disease to form an irregular dark cave. A large white dog was sniffing delicately around the entrance; as Mattie approached, there was a distant whistle and it loped away.
‘And in we go.’
Winnie held back. ‘Are there spiders in there?’
‘Not in winter,’ said Mattie. ‘Have you heard of hibernation, Winnie?’
‘It’s when animals go to sleep when it’s cold,’ answered Avril. ‘I’m afraid it’s no good asking her anything. Our father calls her Witless Winnie.’
Ida, following Avril over the jagged threshold, managed to give her a sharp kick.
‘Ow!’
‘Sorry.’
‘And now we are perfectly dry,’ said Mattie, savouring the richly fungal smell of the interior. ‘And we can proceed with the inaugural meeting of the Hampstead Heath Girls’ Club, although I’ve decided, since placing the advertisement, that the name is rather a mouthful and we should have a snappier title. Why don’t we each think of one and the winner shall get a prize.’
‘I won seven prizes at last speech day,’ said Avril.
‘And were any of them for inventing a new name for a girls’ club?’
‘No.’
‘Then you are under no particular advantage in the current situation,’ said Mattie. ‘Ida, do you have a suggestion?’
‘No, Miss Simpkin,’ said Ida, who was wondering if she’d ever in her life spent a more dispiriting Saturday morning. She was standing inside a mouldy tree.
‘Any thoughts, Winnie?’
‘No. But honestly, Miss, I’m sure I just saw a spider.’
‘Avril?’
‘The … the …’ Avril was clearly thinking hard, desperate to win the competition. ‘The Healthy Heath Girls.’
There was a pause, during which Winnie tittered.
‘My suggestion,’ said Mattie, who’d actually thought of it the day before when re-reading Herodotus, ‘is the Amazons. The Amazons were a legendary race of female warriors, renowned for their athleticism and skill in archery and imbued with a spirit which I would like to kindle in this group – a spirit encompassing self-reliance, knowledge of the countryside and a daring approach to physical exercise. Any other suggestions from anybody? No? So who votes for the Healthy Heath Girls?’
‘I do,’ said Avril, putting up her hand.
‘And who votes for the Amazons? Excellent. Carried by a clear majority.’
‘So does that mean you win the prize?’ asked Winnie, daringly.
‘The prize is a bar of chocolate and we shall all share it later on. Now, what I would like to start with is—’
‘What on earth are you doing?’ asked a dark-haired girl of about Ida’s age, peering into the hollow trunk.
‘Conducting the inaugural meeting of the Hampstead Heath girls’ club,’ said Mattie, with dignity.
‘Is that like the Girl Guides?’
‘No.’
‘In what way isn’t it like the Girl Guides?’
‘Do you learn to use weapons in the Guides?’ asked Mattie.
‘No.’
‘Well, there’s a difference, for a start.’
‘Weapons?’ repeated Avril.
‘Like the Amazons of old, we shall be learning archery, and also use of the slingshot.’
‘Whizzo. If I join, can my dog come, too?’ asked the dark-haired girl.
‘I can think of no activity that cannot be improved by the addition of a dog,’ said Mattie. ‘What is your name?’
‘Freda.’ The girl turned, and shouted over her shoulder. ‘Billy! Billy! Come here!’
‘Girls can’t use weapons,’ said Avril, primly. ‘Only boys.’
‘And why should that be?’ asked Mattie.
‘Women aren’t strong enough.’
‘Strength is not the sole criterion for their use. A woman who can unerringly thread a needle can accurately throw a stone.’
‘But why would she need to throw one?’
‘As a protest; as a means of defence; as an exercise in coordination. Weapons are not only for those who begin disputes, they are for those who wish to end them.’
The dog had returned, panting, and Freda tied him to a nearby hawthorn before climbing into the hollow tree; the number of elbows in the narrow space seemed to double.
‘We always start Guides’ meetings with a prayer,’ remarked Freda.
‘We shan’t be doing that, either,’ said Mattie. ‘However, I am happy to begin with a quotation. John Stuart Mill wrote, “I consider it presumption in anyone to pretend to decide what women are or are not, can or cannot be, by natural constitution.” In other words, one can assume nothing about a person’s capability until one gives that person the freedom to attempt the new, the bold, the untried. When I was your age, women were scarcely considered capable of levering themselves from a chaise longue, and yet, even then, there were women crossing India, and conducting electrical experiments, and climbing the Matterhorn. While we wait for the rain to stop, I would like to hear each of you name a personal ambition – a career or an achievement that might currently seem to you no more than a daydream. Something beyond the conventional, something not defined by your sex, something with grandeur. Freda?’
‘I’d like to own a trout stream and fish every day.’
‘That would require only money. Can you think of an aspiration for which you would have to strive?’
‘I’d like to catch a record-breaking fish after a day-long struggle, then, and have it in a glass case with my name beside it.’
‘Very good. Wi
nnie?’
Even within the darkness of the tree, Winnie’s blush was visible. ‘I’d like to play Wendy in Peter Pan.’
Avril snorted.
‘That sounds most exciting,’ said Mattie, ignoring her. ‘I believe that Wendy is one of the characters who flies?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hope the wires are strong,’ said Avril. Ida managed to grab Winnie’s hand in mid-air.
‘And you, Avril?’ asked Mattie.
‘My father says I would make a very good headmistress. But I would like to sculpt statues.’
‘Is there a particular sculptor you admire?’
‘Magua in The Last of the Mohicans,’ said Winnie.
‘She’s trying to make a joke,’ explained Avril, loftily. ‘But that’s only because she doesn’t know the difference between “scalp” and “sculpt”.’
‘And what about you, Ida?’ asked Mattie swiftly.
‘I don’t know,’ said Ida. She was, by this time, grasping a twin’s wrist in each hand, but the urge to leave them tussling, to step out into the daylight and walk away, was almost overwhelming. These children with their piping, poking accents, their certainty that they were worth listening to, the fairy-tale nonsense they were talking (sculpting! Mohicans! trout-fishing!) were making her clench her jaw so hard that her teeth were aching; she kept thinking that she could have still been asleep – in fact, that was her grand ambition: to lie in bed for the whole of a Saturday.
‘No daydreams at all?’ asked Mattie.
‘No.’ Ida relaxed her grip on the girls, and Winnie instantly leaned round the back of her and yanked her sister’s plait so hard that Avril’s head jerked backwards. The interior of the tree erupted into a congested scuffle that reminded Mattie of certain scenes in Parliament Square.
‘Violence should always be a last resort and have a purpose,’ she called over the melee. ‘Let us adjourn to the open air, and there will be a reward for those who renounce fisticuffs.’
The sky between the trees was beginning to brighten. Freda untied Billy and he bounded across to where Mattie was handing round chocolate; Ida flinched away.
‘Don’t you like dogs?’ asked Freda.
‘Not really,’ she said, looking at Billy’s pale blue eyes. It was a colour she associated with unpredictability.
‘My nursemaid didn’t like dogs, either.’
‘I’m not a nursemaid.’
‘Oh.’ Freda’s gaze, not unfriendly, darted from her face to her clothing. ‘A nanny, then.’
‘Ida is neither a nanny nor a nursemaid,’ said Mattie, overhearing. ‘She is a fellow Amazon, who brings her own array of knowledge and ability to add to our commonwealth. We shall pool our strengths and divide our weaknesses, and the whole shall be greater than the sum of the parts.’
‘Like a Trades Union,’ said Freda. ‘My people are socialists,’ she added. ‘I’m already persona non grata in the Girl Guides, after I told Brown Owl that I thought Great Britain should be a republic. Did you know that you could win an Empire Badge by naming Crown colonies?’
‘Can we have badges in the Amazons?’ asked Avril.
Mattie nodded. ‘If that is the wish of the majority.’
‘All right,’ said Avril. ‘Who votes for badges?’
No one put their hand up.
‘You might wish to enlarge and deepen your case,’ said Mattie. ‘What advantage would a badge confer? How would it be earned?’
‘What would it look like?’ added Winnie.
‘Why don’t you prepare a speech for the commencement of our next meeting?’ said Mattie. ‘And if you manage to win the vote, then you will earn the very first badge. For public speaking.’
‘But what are we going to do today?’ asked Winnie. ‘It’s stopped raining. Nearly.’
Mattie took a small notebook out of the pocket of her coat and thumbed through to a page ruled into closely written columns.
‘I propose that we divide each meeting into three parts: firstly, discussion or debate; secondly, recreation; and thirdly, training.’
‘Training for what?’ asked Avril.
‘For your lives as twentieth-century women, to enable you to take your places as equals in society, in Parliament and in the professions. In future, we shall vote upon our itinerary but, for today, I propose a lively game of forty-forty, followed by a lesson in ju-jitsu.’
‘But how will ju-jitsu help our lives as twentieth-century women?’
‘Thereby hangs a tale,’ said Mattie. ‘As we pivot and lunge, I shall tell you of its place in the struggle for equality. And we shall end with refreshments at our Heath headquarters, to which Ida will guide us, demonstrating the use of the magnetic compass.’
Ida looked up, horrified. ‘But I don’t know how to!’
‘Those who are prepared to argue about geography should also be able to navigate,’ said Mattie. ‘An intelligent girl such as yourself won’t find it hard to learn.’
Ida felt her face grow hot; Avril was looking at her with the expression of someone who’d just bitten into a meat-paste sandwich and found it full of ham.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll give it a go.’
‘Excellent,’ said Mattie. ‘As Thomas Fuller said, “An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men.”’ She smiled suddenly, and Ida was surprised to see a row of regular, well-shaped teeth, like the illustration in a dental-powder advertisement. She didn’t know what she’d expected. Fangs, perhaps.
Tentatively, she smiled back.
‘I’m meeting Pomeroy at the Criterion so I shall be passing Fortnum’s,’ said Mattie to The Flea. ‘Should I buy a tin of those Highland oatcakes you’re fond of?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Or the butter shortbread with the imprint of a cow?’
‘No. If I wish for biscuits, I can make some.’ The Flea was rolling pastry with what appeared to be unnecessary force. Mattie paused to look at her.
‘Are you feeling quite the thing?’ she asked.
‘I’m in perfect health, I’m simply busy.’
‘Very well. I imagine that I won’t want anything beyond toast this evening.’
‘I’m sure that’s the case, but I should like something to eat, so if you don’t mind I shall carry on making this pie.’
‘Of course,’ said Mattie, attempting an emollient tone. Moodiness had always baffled her – the way that it placed the onus on the other person to gauge which breeze of circumstance was the cause of this particular weathercock twirl. If one were cross about something, then one should simply say so; conversation should not be a guessing game.
‘I’m going to ask Pomeroy’s advice on this business with Major Lumb. He may see an angle which might help us. His instincts are invariably decent, as you know.’ There was no response. The Flea draped the oblong of pastry across the pie dish with the visage of someone easing a flag over a coffin.
‘I shall see you later, then,’ said Mattie.
In the front hall she paused beside the large Georgian mirror, whose dappled reflection had followed her from her childhood bedroom to her current home. She removed and then repositioned a hairpin, and gave her hair a satisfied pat, before fastening her cloak and leaving.
The Flea heard the front door close. She finished trimming the pastry edges then bundled the trimmings into a soft ball and threw it at the larder door.
‘You’re a silly woman, Florrie,’ she said, out loud, but saying it didn’t dissipate the jealousy. Nor did reminding herself that Mattie had known Pomeroy for nearly half a century, nor that she saw him only once or twice a year, nor that the man was, in any case, married. She had seen the way that he looked at Mattie, eyes like melting chocolates.
She picked up the pastry ball and dropped it on the scraps plate that Mattie kept for the birds. She felt almost sick; when one could say nothing, do nothing, then the slightest trickle of bad feeling stayed and stewed like a bit
ter marinade.
Untying her apron, she went into the garden and shook out the folds of cloth until flour hung in the air like talcum powder and the parcel of sparrows who’d been squabbling in the currant bushes had long since scrambled clear and dived over the wall into the wilderness beyond.
Mattie bought the shortbread anyway (The Flea’s moods seldom lasted for long) and then continued on foot to the restaurant, swinging the package by its striped ribbon. She enjoyed her lunches with Arthur.
She had been ten, and he thirteen, when they’d first met: ‘Pomeroy’s going to be staying with us for the summer,’ her older brother Stephen had written from school; ‘You’ll like him, he’s a splendid fellow,’ although Mattie had actually been annoyed at the prospect, since she hadn’t wanted to share Stephen with anyone. But Arthur Pomeroy, a boy with sandy eyelashes and a face that looked vaguely unfinished – as if the sculptor still needed a day or two in order to refine the features – hadn’t attempted to annex Stephen, nor to dominate the days with his own wishes; instead, he’d seemed content to be an acolyte, just as Mattie had been.
‘This is my sister,’ Stephen had said on their introduction. ‘She is cleverer than I am.’
‘Though not so good at needlework,’ Mattie had added, and Pomeroy had laughed – a loud, schoolboy ‘Ha! Ha!’ – a reaction both unexpected and rather gratifying. The needlework remark had been a reference to Stephen’s attempts at taxidermy the previous summer, starting with a grass snake and culminating with a labelled mallard (anas platyrhynchos), whose limp, crisply feathered corpse had proved tricky to restore to a living shape and which had undergone a rapid, maggoty disintegration just a fortnight later. Further experiments in that direction had been forbidden, but by then Stephen’s brain had already been teeming with fresh ideas – growing crystal forests in alum, keeping an indoor ant-colony, lighting a fire using the friction method employed by Hottentots – for while it was true that Mattie was the quicker study, it was Stephen who always reached wider and further, a gibbon swinging through the tree of knowledge.
The summer of Pomeroy’s first visit had been devoted to hydraulics. With Stephen as chief engineer, and utilizing the steep-banked stream that skirted the wood beyond the kitchen garden, the three of them had built a series of dams of increasing sophistication, incorporating parapet walls, sluice gates and spillways and inadvertently flooding the back lane to a depth of three feet. ‘Every dress ruined,’ her mother had said, faintly, after Stephen and Pomeroy had returned to school and Mattie was once again under the tutelage of a governess, who taught her the French for ‘button hook’ and thought that grass snakes were poisonous.