Just One More Day

by Susan Lewis

‘Well, if they put my pension up, I might not think ’em so bad,’ she says, taking his hand so he can pull her up.

  ‘Are you picking up Uncle Bob and Karen and Julie on the way back?’ Susan asks.

  ‘Yes. Now give your gran a kiss before she goes.’

  After Eddie’s gone I make a start on the washing-up, leaving the kids to go on playing. Normally I’d make them help, but it’s such a mess out here, they’ll only get in the way, and I wouldn’t mind a quiet five minutes to meself. At least out here I can hear meself think. I’m feeling a bit bad now about snapping at our mam like that earlier, but she’ll know I didn’t mean it. If she brings it up again I’ll say sorry, otherwise it’s probably best left alone. I hope she doesn’t mention it to Eddie, while they’re in the car, but I can’t imagine she would. They’ll talk about Churchill, or the war, knowing those two, or the price of everything now.

  When it’s all done and put away I stick the kettle on to make a nice pot of tea, and carry it in next to the fire, where my fags are on the arm of my chair. Glad Eddie’s not around to give me one of his looks, I light up and sit back to enjoy it. I’m only about halfway through when the kids drag me into a game of ludo, which we’re still playing when Bob, Flo and their kids come back with Eddie.

  Flo and I go out to the kitchen to make a fresh pot, leaving Eddie and Bob to the games. What a palaver. The place is turning into bedlam. Hide-and-seek, blind man’s buff, musical chairs, you name it, Eddie, Bob and the kids play it, while Flo and I take the tea in, then sit and have a chat and do our knitting. Bob’s as soft as Eddie when it comes to his children, so like me, Flo has to take a firm hand. Hers are still young though. Julie, her eldest, is Gary’s age, and Karen’s only two, so she doesn’t have a strong-willed young madam to deal with yet, though watching the two of them now, as bright as buttons and twice as cute, the time doesn’t seem too far off.

  They’re on to hunt the slipper now. The kids are all out in the kitchen, while Eddie and Bob find a place to hide it. They’re like a pair of kids, honest they are. Where shall they put it? Somewhere not too obvious and not too high. Bob has an idea which makes me smile. He’s as sharp as his brother, he is. Let’s see what the kids make of this now.

  ‘All right, you can come in,’ Eddie shouts out.

  They spill in from the kitchen ready to start searching, until they spot the slipper in the middle of the floor in front of them, right next to its mate.

  ‘Which one is it?’ Bob wants to know.

  For a moment they all look a bit bewildered, until they get the joke and start to laugh.

  ‘That’s cheating,’ they cry. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Yes I can. Now come on, which one is it?’

  The real joke is neither Eddie nor Bob can remember either, but they just make it up and let Karen be the winner. She gets a selection box from under the tree to go with the packet of Opal Fruits she won in pass the parcel.

  It’s time now for some home-made mince pies and custard, or cream, or both if you’re Gary. Eddie and Bob have a big helping of Christmas pudding with real Cornish clotted cream, Flo has a slice of cake, and I’m still too full up after dinner, so I just have a cup-a-tea and a fag.

  All in all it’s turning out to be a lovely Christmas Day. The kids seem tickled pink with their presents, and God knows they had enough; the goose wasn’t bad, something a bit different, anyway; reckon our mam enjoyed herself while she was here (she never says anything, but you always know from how much she eats); and what better way to end it than with Eddie rolling round on the floor with his brother and the kids. What a pair they are. Never saw a couple of brothers like it. And to think I was scared out me wits when they whisked me into that hospital a few months ago, that I might not be here to see it. What a daft bugger I am. Good job I never said anything to anyone then, I should feel proper soft now if I had.

  Chapter Six

  Susan

  It’s March now, and I’m sitting here, at the back of the class, with my hands stuck on top my head, because I flicked ink over Kelvin Milton. He flicked it at me first, but it missed, so I’m clean and he has dark blue splodges in his sticky-out ear and on his frayed white collar. Good. Serve him right. Trouble is, now, every time I put my hand up to get the teacher’s attention she just ignores me, or tells me to wait. But I can’t wait. I have to meet Mum at the bus stop outside the park at twenty past ten, and if I don’t leave now the bus will go without us.

  I try putting up my hand again, but the teacher just waves it back down and goes on telling us all about the Romans and Christians and gladiators. It’s a really good story, but I’m very worried now about what Mum’ll have to say if we miss the bus. I’ve got to take a test today for the stuck-up school at Westbury-on-Trym. I don’t want to go there, so I don’t care if we’re late, but Mum will. She’ll play merry hell, because she doesn’t want me going to any other school but the best.

  It’s quarter past already. I look up at the windows. They’re too high for me to climb out of, and the teacher would spot me anyway. Also, I don’t want to go without my coat because it’s cold and windy outside, and Mum would be furious. I try saying a magic spell to make myself invisible so I can walk across the room, but when I look down I’m still there.

  If I was sitting next to Sophie (who used to be my best friend until she went off with Carol Adams) I could whisper to her to put her hand up for me, but I’m stuck back here on my own, like a dunce. And I’m not a dunce, because I came sixth in the class at the end of last term, and I had a really good report that put Mum in a good mood with me for days. She still gets lots of bad moods, but she hasn’t gone off with her other family again for ages, and anyway, they don’t exist so she won’t.

  I’m getting a bit panicked now. I wonder what’ll happen if I just stand up and walk out. The teacher wouldn’t be able to stop me, would she? She might try though, and the next thing I know I’ll be sent to Mr Dobbs and everyone’ll be so angry with me I’ll be like a Christian in a den full of lions. I wonder if Dad will be able to rescue me, it would be hard fighting a lion and I don’t want him to be eaten.

  Suddenly the door flies open and there’s Mummy, looking even crosser than a lion.

  ‘What are you doing back there?’ she roars at me. ‘What’s she doing back there?’ she roars at the teacher. ‘I gave her a note this morning. She’s supposed to leave here at ten past ten. Did she give it to you? Did you give it to her?’ she asks me.

  I nod.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Lewis,’ the teacher says, going all trembly and red in the face, ‘I’m really sorry. I completely forgot. Yes, she gave me the note . . .’

  ‘Go and get your coat,’ Mummy commands me. ‘And make it double quick. As for you,’ she says to the teacher, ‘when I give my daughter a note I don’t expect you to forget and make me come in here to fetch her. I’ll be having words with the headmaster about you.’

  I can hear the others sniggering as we leave. No-one ever dares to tell the teacher off, except my mum. She did it once before, when I fell over in the playground and landed on my head and nearly bashed all my brains out, and the teacher didn’t send me to the doctor. Mummy came up here the next day and tore her off such a strip she was nearly crying by the time Mummy finished. I could have fractured my skull, Mummy told her, and what would have happened then? She deserved to be reported to the police, because it’s criminal, not making sure a child gets the proper attention when she hits her head that hard. And it was hard. I kept throwing up when I got home, so Mum stopped Dr Tyldesley as he was coming out of Witchy Beryl’s, to come and have a look at me. I wasn’t going to die (it hurt so much I thought I might so I was already saying sorry to God for all the things I’ve done wrong so he’d let me into heaven), but I had a great big bump and she had to keep me home the next day. It was almost worth falling over for that.

  As we get outside the bus is coming up the hill.

  ‘Quick!’ she cries, grabbing my hand. ‘Run!’

  We’re c
loser to the bus stop than the bus, but it’s going too fast. It catches up with us as we cross over Park Road, and there’s no-one at the bus stop to make it stop anyway.

  ‘Wait! Wait!’ Mummy shouts as it draws alongside us.

  Everyone listens to Mummy, even the bus, because it stops, right there next to us, just like she told it to.

  ‘It’s your Uncle Bob,’ she laughs, spotting the driver. ‘Lucky for us, or it might have gone straight past.’

  We can’t speak to him, because he’s in his driver’s cabin, but he waves out, and when we get to Bristol Centre, where the bus has to wait for ten minutes before going on to the Downs, he comes to sit on the top deck with us to have a chat.

  ‘So where are you two going, all dressed up to the nines?’ he asks.

  It’s true, I’ve got my best coat on today, and so has Mum. Mine’s dark blue with silver buttons and a scarf for a collar, and Mum’s is green with wooden buttons, great big pockets and a brown fur collar. She’s got her smart A.G. Meek shoes on too, with pointed toes, high heels and slingbacks. I think her feet must be very freezing because the wind is bitter, and the gloves that match don’t have any fur so her hands must be cold too. I know mine are.

  Mum reminds Uncle Bob that I’m sitting my first test today for the Red Maids School. I start to feel a bit nervous. I don’t like tests, and I have to pass this one or I won’t be any daughter of Mum’s.

  ‘What sort of test is it?’ Uncle Bob asks, giving me a wink.

  ‘General knowledge and IQ, that sort of thing,’ Mummy answers. ‘It’s a preliminary entrance exam. The big one comes when she’s ten.’

  ‘So you’re going to be a lady,’ he says to me.

  ‘If I have anything to do with it she is,’ Mummy tells him. ‘She’s going to pass that exam, or else, aren’t you, my girl?’

  I give her a salute which makes Uncle Bob laugh and Mum roll her eyes.

  ‘I don’t know where she gets it from, really I don’t. It must be your side of the family.’

  ‘Oh she’s a Lewis all right,’ Uncle Bob says. ‘But I think she’s got a bit of her old mum in her too, all that fiery red hair and plucky spirit.’

  ‘Don’t encourage her,’ Mummy admonishes. (New word I learned at the weekend with Dad. We learn two a day, but I keep forgetting them.)

  ‘I think it might be easier for me to pass if I’m not wearing my glasses,’ I mention to Mum. ‘I can’t see properly with them on.’

  Mummy looks at Uncle Bob. ‘Now if that isn’t crafty,’ she says.

  I grin cheerfully at Uncle Bob who gives me another wink. I nearly love him as much as Dad, especially when he says, ‘She’ll sail through, won’t you, my angel? She’s going to make us all proud.’

  ‘She’d better,’ Mummy replies, tidying up my hair after taking off my glasses.

  ‘Gary still got his patch on?’ Uncle Bob asks.

  ‘It came off yesterday. Still too early to tell how much good it did, though. A right pair of wonky-eyed kids I’ve got myself. Must get that from your side of the family too.’

  ‘No!’ I cry. ‘It’s you who’s got wonky eyes, not Dad.’

  ‘They’re not wonky, and mind who you’re talking to in that tone of voice.’

  ‘At least Gary didn’t have to wear a patch on a pair of glasses,’ I tell Uncle Bob. ‘Not like me. Will he have to go in hospital again?’ I ask Mum.

  ‘Not that we know of.’

  I wouldn’t mind if he did, because Mum went with him in January and slept there, so it was just me and Dad at home, which meant I got to stay up late and do everything Mum never lets me do. I don’t want her to go again though, and I missed Gary a lot, so really it’s better when we’re all together. We all made a great big fuss of him when he came home, which he really liked, because he had all his favourite food, and was allowed to stay up late to watch his favourite programmes.

  ‘All right, better get this bus back on the road,’ Uncle Bob says, looking at his pocket watch. ‘Still in plenty of time, are you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Mummy assures him. ‘Just make sure you don’t break down going up Blackboy Hill.’

  I know he won’t, but I wish he would.

  By the time we get off it’s started to rain and Mum has to fight the March wind to keep her umbrella up. A car splashes us and makes her feet all wet. She shouts blue murder after him, waving her fist, but he doesn’t care, he’s in a car and she can’t get him. (Lucky for him.) My feet are dry because I’ve got boots on.

  We walk past lots of tall, posh houses with great big windows and driveways, and statues outside. They must be where dukes and duchesses live. There’s no-one around. Apart from the traffic and wind there’s no noise either, which makes it all seem very scary indeed.

  After a while we reach some big gates that are open. Just inside, on the edge of the grass, is a sign saying ‘Red Maids School for Girls, Westbury-on-Trym. Founded by John Whitson, 1634’.

  Mummy treads on her cigarette end, tidies up her headscarf, and takes hold of my hand. ‘All right?’ she says.

  I think I’d better say yes, so I do, but I’m not. It looks a horrible place, with a long winding drive that dis appears into thick, dark trees like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It’s leading to an evil person’s castle, I can tell, so I hold on tighter to Mummy’s hand in case we have to run away. I don’t want her to go without me.

  It’s not raining too much any more, but big fat blobs are falling down from the trees as we walk under them. The ground is covered in thick brown slimy leaves. There’s no sign of anyone, but on a field one side of the drive I can see some goal nets and I think I can hear some singing coming from somewhere.

  We go round the bend and there it is, the evil person’s castle. It’s the most frightening-looking house I’ve ever seen in my whole life, with dark red walls, huge tall pointed windows and secret towers where people can be locked away and never seen again. I expect it’s got a dungeon too, and a torture chamber and kitchens where I’ll be whipped and beaten with brooms.

  Mummy stops walking. I look up at her. ‘Your father should have brought you,’ she murmurs.

  That really frightens me, because Mummy’s usually never scared of anything. ‘Let’s go home,’ I say.

  She just ignores me and carries on up to the massive front door that’s definitely the entrance to Satan’s house.

  ‘There’s no knocker or bell,’ she says. ‘How are we supposed to get in?’

  ‘I don’t think we are,’ I answer.

  She ignores me again and takes off her glove. Her knocks don’t seem to be very loud, even though she thumps the door really hard.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Mummy says, standing back to look up at the place. ‘We can’t be the only ones taking the test today, so where’re the others?’ She checks the Timex watch Dad gave her for her birthday last September. ‘We’re not late.’

  ‘I expect they’ve cancelled it,’ I tell her.

  ‘We know we’re in the right place. It said, on the board by the gates.’

  ‘Maybe they’ve moved and forgotten to take the sign down.’

  She spots a rope hanging down one side of the door. ‘What’s this?’ she says, and tugs it.

  Somewhere, a long way off, deep inside, a bell clangs, and I shiver. What if she’s woken up all the ghosts and vampires? They’ll come swooping and screeching down through the halls and out through the windows to suck out all our blood and turn us into toads. I really want to run away now, and I think Mummy does too.

  We wait.

  ‘There’s no-one in,’ I say, but then the door starts to open. I’m so sure a witch is going to appear out of the darkness, that I’m a bit surprised when we see a fat woman who looks like Harry Worth, the comedian, in a nurse’s uniform. I wonder if she stands sideways against a mirror and puts out an arm and leg the way Harry Worth does. I love it when he does that, it always makes us laugh, especially when Dad did it in C&A once.

  ‘Can I help you?’ t
he woman says.

  ‘We’re here to sit the test,’ Mummy tells her. ‘Susan Lewis.’

  The woman frowns. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The entrance exam.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Mm, you’d better come in.’

  We follow her into a dingy hall where paintings of people from olden times hang on the wooden walls, and a huge staircase leads up into dark shadows.

  ‘Wait here,’ she says, pointing to a couple of chairs.

  ‘She looks like Harry Worth,’ I whisper as she goes off down a corridor.

  Mummy claps a hand over my mouth, but I can see she’s trying not to laugh. ‘Ssh,’ she says sharply, and taking a hanky out of her A.G. Meek matching handbag she dabs it with her tongue and starts wiping my mouth, and rubbing the mud splashes off of her nylons.

  I look around. The faces in the paintings are mostly round and red-cheeked. You can tell they’re lords and ladies, or dukes and duchesses. I wonder if they used to live here, before it was a school. They probably get down from the paintings at night and haunt the place.

  ‘It’s ever so quiet,’ I whisper. ‘Where are all the girls?’

  ‘In class I expect.’

  ‘Do you think they have playtime here? I didn’t see a playground.’

  ‘It’s probably round the back. Now, ssh.’

  After a while we hear the sound of high heels coming our way. Mummy starts to get up, so I do too. A tall, skinny woman appears from a corridor, her hair all piled up on top of her head, like Dusty Springfield’s, except hers is black, and her arms are full of books.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ she says, in a squeaky posh voice that sounds as though it’s coming out of her nose. ‘Are you being helped?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ Mummy answers, turning red.

  I wonder if we’re supposed to curtsey.

  ‘Very good,’ Dusty Springfield says, and walks on across the hall into a room the other side.

  ‘She’s no better than she ought to be,’ Mummy mutters after the door has closed.

  ‘Let’s go before anyone comes,’ I say. ‘They’re all snobs . . .’