Girls on the Up

by Linda Newbery

  “Cool.” Kris paused, one hand on the curved banister. “How about tomorrow? You doing anything?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Good – we’ll go out, then. I can’t do Sunday – we’re visiting someone. Come on. It sounds like the others are here.”

  The kitchen was now full of bodies and laughter, bright colours and cooking smells. Marilyn introduced Andie to the new arrivals: Mrs. Kapoor, a handsome woman in an embroidered tunic of ruby silk, and her husband, who wore a formal suit and tie like Dad’s. The children, Ravi and Sushila, were both rather beautiful. Their hair was black and shiny, and their eyes were the darkest brown imaginable, under smooth brows. Sushila, who was dressed in Indian clothes like her mother, was already talking to Prune by the Aga; Ravi seemed shy, and had retreated into a corner with a handful of crisps. When introduced, he said hello to Andie with his eyes fixed on the floor.

  Soon Marilyn shooed everyone into the sitting room, which was furnished in rich, dark colours and drapes. She and Patrick brought in food of a kind Andie had never seen before – trays of delicious spicy things, and dips, and little dark-green squarish shapes which Marilyn said were stuffed vine-leaves. Dad heaped his plate; Mum proceeded with caution, nibbling a vine-leaf parcel with great suspicion. Andie tried a bit of everything, liking it all except the olives, which made her think of eyes, and tasted weird.

  When everyone had eaten as much as they wanted, there was apple sorbet, served with cinnamon biscuits. Andie and Kris sat together on a big floor-cushion, with Ravi nearby, cross-legged on the floor. Kris took care of the record player, putting on one LP after another. She chose Indian sitar music, and something with a harp, and some jazz – nothing Andie recognized.

  After the dishes and plates had been cleared away, Marilyn made coffee and the grown-ups sat chatting. Having dealt with estate agents and rent, Mum and Dad’s list of thrilling conversational subjects had now reached school. “So your two go to St. Dunstan’s?” Dad was asking Mrs. Kapoor. “Might that suit Prue and Andrea?”

  Patrick passed round a packet of cigarettes, and lit up one for himself and one for Marilyn. Andie’s mum, who was supposed to have given up, took one too.

  “Come on! Let’s go to my halfway place,” Kris said to Andie. “The smoke makes my eyes sore.”

  “What’s a halfway place?”

  “I’ll show you,” Kris said, adding, “Coming, Ravi?”

  Ravi had been sitting so quietly that Andie had forgotten he was there, but he nodded and stood up.

  Kris led the way to the big central flight of stairs. “This staircase used to lead all the way to your floor,” she told Andie, “before the house was divided up. Now we’ve got stairs that lead nowhere – see?” She bounded up to a half-landing, then showed Andie how the next three steps faced a blank wall. This landing had been made into a sitting area, with another Indian rug in jewel colours, and cushions scattered about. “It’s my reading place. Reading and thinking. No one bothers me here.”

  Andie was envious. “You’re so lucky! I’m sharing a bedroom with Prune here. At home I’ve got a room to myself.”

  “There’s always the attic,” Kris told her. “Patrick can lend you a key.”

  “Oh!” Andie remembered the creeping footsteps in the night. “He doesn’t work up there, does he?”

  “No, he’s no need to. He keeps a few boxes of clutter up there, that’s all.”

  “I heard creaky footsteps up there, about midnight. It must have been a ghost,” Andie said, half joking, but still wondering.

  “No.” Ravi was looking at her very seriously. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.” It was the first time he had spoken to her.

  “But,” said Andie, “you can’t be sure about that, can you?”

  “Well, it wasn’t Patrick,” Kris told them. “He had an early night, ’cos he’d been out drinking the night before. He was in bed before I was – I heard him snoring. So obviously it was a ghost. Our very own ghost. But I’ve heard it’s a friendly one.”

  She gave a quick, almost furtive glance at Ravi. Andie looked from one to the other; was there something here she wasn’t getting? But now Kris was crooning in a spooky voice, holding out both arms with hands dangling. “I am the spirit of Chelsea Walk…who-oooh!… I stalk the attic by night…”

  “Don’t be daft!” Andie giggled, though fear prickled her skin.

  “Hey, let’s play Murder in the Dark!” said Kris. “We need more people, really, but we can make up special rules for three.”

  “But it’s not properly dark yet,” Ravi pointed out.

  “I know! We’ll pretend it is.”

  They played Murder until it was Ravi’s turn to hide, which he did so successfully that Andie and Kris were still searching for him when the adults came into the hallway, and Andie’s dad said it was time to go back to their own flat.

  Darkness had fallen by now, and although it wasn’t really cold, Andie shivered as she followed her parents in through their side door and up the steep, narrow stairs.

  She knew that Kris and Ravi had been hiding something from her, something about the ghost. Maybe it was only a game – or maybe it wasn’t.

  “Here,” said Mum, handing Andie two half-crowns. “You’ll need to get yourself some sandwiches at lunchtime – I expect they sell them in the museum café. Don’t be late back, will you? I imagine Kris knows her way around, but phone us if there’s a problem.”

  They were all getting ready to go out. It was Saturday, and Mum and Dad had decided to visit the Tower of London, something they’d meant to do ever since they were married. Andie and Kris were going to the Science Museum, and Prune was spending the day with Sushila. “She seems a very sensible girl,” Mum had remarked. “Lovely manners, both those children.”

  It suited Andie for Prune to have a new friend. Sushila, being sixteen, was probably as obsessed with fashion as Prune was, so they could hang around the King’s Road together. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed Friday night: Andie and Prune because they’d each made a friend, Mum and Dad because the neighbours had been so welcoming. Now the Kapoors had offered to have everyone round in a week or two. “But what about when it’s our turn?” Mum fretted; Andie didn’t know anyone as determined as Mum to turn everything into a problem. “We’ll have to invite them all in here – and what will I do about food? I’m no good at those exotic things they gave us. A wine-and-cheese party would be more my sort of thing, or perhaps bridge rolls, and sausages on sticks.”

  “Let’s not worry about that till the time comes,” said Dad, in weekend mood.

  Before leaving the flat, Andie had to submit to the ritual briefing by Mum: “You won’t speak to any strangers, will you? Or go off with anyone? Or stay out too long? Or do anything you know you shouldn’t? Promise me, now?”

  At last she escaped downstairs to meet Kris. Andie’s first choice for their day out would have been the Tate Gallery, but Kris seemed intent on going to the Science Museum: “With all the moon stuff going on, they’ll have something special there – and besides, it’s near Hyde Park. We can go there after.”

  Oh well; there would be plenty of other days for going to galleries. Andie fell in with Kris’s plans, and they caught a bus to South Kensington.

  The Natural History Museum, and the Victoria and Albert opposite, looked like vast, ornate palaces, made of stone. The Science Museum, a more modern building, was in the same street. Kris led the way purposefully inside; Andie gazed around, trying to take in everything at once. Where to start? A plan showed that there were three floors of galleries, with signs pointing to Rail Transport, Electric Power, Children’s Gallery.

  “Space Technology,” Kris said, pointing. “We’ll save that till last.”

  It was fun to have the freedom of the whole museum, with no teacher and no question sheet to fill in. They looked at the giant pendulum in the entrance hall, which was supposed to show how the Earth turned on its axis. “Though,” Kris said, “we’re not going to stand
here long enough to see it happening.” They passed quickly through Printing, paused for a while at Time Measurement, then went on to Flying Machines, which ranged from the first spidery contraptions to warplanes and models of modern jet aircraft.

  Best of all was the space section. There were replicas of the Russian sputniks that had started the Space Race, and of the Saturn V rocket that would power the astronauts to the moon. Andie gazed and gazed, and thought how strange it would be when it became real – not just something that was talked and dreamed about. The painting she’d finished early that morning – a moonscape – had turned out well after all, in spite of her struggles the day before, with a kind of accidental eeriness that was better than she’d meant. If Kris hadn’t been with her, she’d have made quick drawings in her sketchbook now; but seeing Patrick’s studio had made her self-conscious. She didn’t want Patrick to know that she thought of herself as an artist. But, then again, why not – mightn’t he be able to help her? It would be daft to live in the same house as a real artist and never have the nerve to approach him, wouldn’t it? Maybe when she knew Kris better…not yet.

  They bought sandwiches and Coke at the café; then Kris said it was time to go. “We can come back another day, if you want. It’s free, after all.” She seemed to be in a hurry, for some reason.

  Out in the sunshine, they crossed Exhibition Road and a wide, traffic-filled street that bordered Hyde Park, with its avenue of trees. Hundreds of people seemed to be making their way in the same direction.

  “Is it always this busy?” Andie asked Kris.

  Kris laughed. “No. There’s something special happening today. Didn’t you know? The Rolling Stones are giving a free concert – and there are other bands too. We can’t miss it, not when we’re so close!”

  “You knew all along? Why didn’t you say?”

  Kris grinned. “You might not have been allowed to come.”

  Well, no. Andie’s mum and dad would never have let her; Kris had guessed rightly. But now that they were here, it would be hard to resist joining the drift, just to see what was going on. They were in a green expanse of parkland, with trees and winding paths, so vast that the buildings on the north and east sides looked very far away. Beyond a boating lake, which Kris said was the Serpentine, the grass was clotted with a mass of people. Most sat or sprawled, some with picnics or cans of drink; others were dancing to the beat of music that came from a distant stage. Andie and Kris made their way through the crowd, trying to find a good vantage-point, but the figures on the stage still looked as tiny as dolls.

  “We should have come earlier,” said Kris, disappointed. “We’re miles away.”

  “Is that them? The Rolling Stones?”

  “No! The other groups will come on first. We can wait, though – we don’t have to hurry back, do we?”

  Picking their way, they found a place to sit, a very long way from the stage. Every tree had people massed beneath its branches, seeking shade. Andie squinted in the strong sunlight, gazing at the scene in front of her. She liked the Rolling Stones – especially, perhaps, because Mum tutted at them and thought them disgraceful – though she preferred the Beatles, especially George.

  Kris offered her a Polo mint. “You heard about Brian Jones drowning in his swimming pool? He’d already left the Stones, but all the same I wondered if they’d go ahead and play today. It was only three days ago.”

  Andie nodded. Last week, while they’d been packing at home, she’d found Prune red-eyed and sniffy in her bedroom, listening to the radio. Prune wasn’t, as far as Andie knew, a particular fan of the Stones, but for the next twenty-four hours she behaved as if she’d been Brian Jones’s most devoted follower. His photograph now filled the space only recently vacated by Paul McCartney on Prune’s bedroom wall. Paul McCartney had been taken down in disgrace, having behaved to Prune with unforgivable treachery by marrying Linda Eastman.

  At last, to great excitement from the crowd, the Rolling Stones were announced. Tiny figures came onto the stage; Andie strained her eyes to make them out. She had never before seen a real famous person, and now here was Mick Jagger – it must be him – tiny as a distant fairy, and dressed like one, in a white dress with frills, over white trousers.

  “Is that really him?” she whispered to Kris. She had the sense that if she blinked, or didn’t believe hard enough, he’d disappear, like Tinkerbell.

  “Course!”

  Taking the microphone, the figure who was Mick Jagger said something Andie couldn’t hear. The audience fell silent while he read from a book.

  “A poem for Brian,” Kris whispered. “It’s so sad.”

  Mick Jagger opened a box and released a flutter of white that dispersed into the air. It’s like that myth about Pandora’s box, Andie thought – except that Pandora released badness. What came out of this box was white butterflies. Wouldn’t they be bewildered? Where would they go, in all this space? She knew she ought to be sad for Brian Jones, for drowning, but instead she could only think: there’s Mick Jagger. I’m looking at him in real life. The dazzle of fame made it hard to believe that a starry person like Mick Jagger walked about in the same world as everyone else, breathed the same air, but there he was, on the stage.

  The mood had changed. The respectful hush that had settled over the crowd was now an expectant pause. Moments later, the volume was turned up and the drums began to pound a heavy, intoxicating rhythm. People began to sway and cheer and wave their arms to the music as the band launched into songs Andie knew: “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, “Midnight Rambler”, “Street Fighting Man”. The last butterflies flickered and vanished like snowflakes in the sun. A passenger aircraft flew overhead; a naked toddler stamped his feet on the grass and shrieked with laughter; Mick Jagger’s voice rose and fell.

  A crowd, while it stayed together, was a living thing, with its own mood, its own ways of behaving. Although Andie didn’t know anyone here except Kris, it felt like being in an enormous team, or a club – people who had chosen, just for this afternoon, to link themselves through the hum of expectation, the music and the sunshine, the smell of warm grass and the festival atmosphere. Andie had never felt anything like it before. She thought: I’m listening to the Rolling Stones, in Hyde Park with my new friend Kris. She couldn’t make it seem quite real.

  When it was all over, and the last whoops and applause had faded, people began to get to their feet, looking surprised – realizing where they were, then gathering their belongings ready to walk across the park and wonder about buses or tube trains back to normal life.

  “I don’t feel like going home yet,” Kris told Andie. “Let’s walk over to the lake. We can get ice cream there.”

  It was the kind of long summer evening that made for lingering. Kris and Andie walked through the dispersing crowd to the Serpentine, and bought raspberry-ripple cornets at the stand there. Then Kris wanted to walk home rather than bothering with a bus, and took Andie on a complicated route avoiding all the main roads, instead taking quiet side streets and alleyways. Sometimes she stopped to show Andie an interesting little shop or recording studio, or an art gallery owned by someone Patrick knew.

  “Are you allowed to go wherever you want?” Andie asked, rather envious.

  Kris shrugged. “Pretty much. I know my way around, and Marilyn trusts me.”

  It took an age to reach Chelsea Walk. By the time the back of the houses came into view, Andie was tired and thirsty. And she knew that there would be trouble the minute she got in.

  Andie and Kris parted at the side gate, and Andie went upstairs, hoping that for some reason her parents had stayed out later than they’d intended. But as soon as she’d turned her key in the lock, she was met by a hail of questions.

  “Where’ve you been? What made you so late?” Mum was hot and flustered. “Why didn’t you phone? You must have known we’d be worried!”

  “Andie, you really should have rung, if you were going to be as late as this.” Dad was less agitated, but still annoyed. “Ther
e must have been phones at the Science Museum.”

  They were all standing in the hallway. Andie pushed past to the kitchen, to fetch a glass of water.

  “We didn’t spend all day there – only this morning. We’ve been in Hyde Park. I couldn’t phone from there. There was this concert – you know, a free concert, with, er, lots of different groups? And Kris wanted to go, and it was free, and—”

  “What – you haven’t been there? It was on the news. You haven’t been to see the Rolling Stones?” Mum made the words sound despicable. “Andrea, whatever got into you? You know I’d never have let you!”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Andie felt herself putting on what Mum called her young madam voice. “There were hundreds of other people. Anyone could go – we just sat on the grass and listened. It’s this big park.”

  “I know what Hyde Park is, Andrea. But a pop concert! The Rolling Stones! Who knows what you might have come across? Drug-taking…LSD or whatever they call it…flower people and all kinds of carry-on I don’t even want to think about—”

  “Mu-um! Honestly, you could have been there, with Dad – you wouldn’t have seen anything wrong – and anyway, there were lots of police—”

  “Well, that just proves it!” said Mum in triumph. “The police were there for a reason! On the lookout for drug dealers and pickpockets and the like, I don’t doubt. And you two young girls on your own, in the middle of all that! Anything could have happened!”

  “But it didn’t!” Andie humphed. “We just listened like everyone else, and came home. We’re not little kids. Kris is thirteen –”

  “Yes, and I think it was unwise of me to let you go out with her. We hardly know her, and she’s obviously got no idea of what’s appropriate. You’ve hardly begun to find your way around, and that’s the first place she takes you! And saying you were going to the Science Museum? I suppose you planned this yesterday, the two of you? You lied to me?”

  “Come on now, Maureen!” Dad tried. “There’s no need to accuse Andie of telling lies.”