The Staircase Girls

by Catherine Seymour

  He turned to Rose and amazed her by saying, ‘But that’s how I like it.’

  ‘Oh,’ she responded, ‘but you’ll die eating it.’

  He laughed then, and so did she, and they became firm friends.

  When Maurice reached his middle teen years Rose managed to persuade the junior bursar at the college to give him a job. She had taken on extra work as a dishwasher in the kitchen three nights a week, for the dinner shift. Maurice was taken on as a waiter on the same days that she was there. He was one of a half-dozen local teenagers who were paid to serve, clean and run errands on formal hall days.

  They were not considered to be ‘proper’ waiters by the older, experienced and proud servants at table. In the late-1950s a generation gap had appeared in British society, with working class teenage boys on one side with their Elvis and Tony Curtis-inspired haircuts and James Dean attitude they picked up from films like Rebel Without a Cause, and the upper class sons of veterans of a world war, who had inherited their parents’ sense of decorum and deference, on the other. That class gap lasted well into the 1960s, and it was inevitable that Maurice and the other young lads at the formal hall dos would annoy the older ones in any number of ways, not least when, at the end of their shift, the lads would jump into what was known as the meat lift, a dumb waiter that rose from the kitchen into the dining hall. To them it was simply a short cut out of the college. The chef would shout and bawl at the ‘young ’ooligans’ if he caught any of them in the lift, though, usually telling them that they were ‘sacked’ as they ran across the quad to the gates. But the same boys would be back the following week, the junior bursar having no idea of what the chef had done (plus, the chef had no authority to sack waiting staff anyway).

  Maurice was a hard worker usually, and the head waiter gave him extra work waiting at table, although only on the first course. All went well until one night when Maurice spilled boiling hot soup on one of Rose’s ‘boys’ named Graham, who was, she always said, putting on a voice that was supposed to mimic his, ‘verrry posh’. The soup accident wasn’t Maurice’s fault strictly speaking, although an experienced waiter would anticipate the person they were serving not moving to the left, as was customary to allow soup to be ladled into their waiting bowls. Maurice had been shown how to virtually throw it at the bowls as the diners leant left, but on this occasion Graham failed to move and the hot liquid landed in his lap as the ladle caught his shoulder. Graham leapt to his feet shouting, and chased Maurice out of the dining room, through the kitchen and into the college grounds. He couldn’t catch him, though, and so Maurice waited for ten minutes before returning to the kitchens, where he stayed to load plates and didn’t go into the hall again that night.

  That occasion earned Maurice a reputation among Graham’s cohort for being entertaining, and not long after the soup incident he was invited to a college party, held near the river. Rose was partly proud and partly jealous when he told her. ‘You’ve barely been there a month, and I’ve never been invited to no proper college parties all the years I’ve been there!’ she said. ‘Well, I don’t count the Senate House graduation, nor the two times I was took in a punt by one of my boys,’ she added.

  Maurice laughed and told her that she should try dunking hot tea on them if they didn’t get out of bed quick enough in the morning. ‘That might get you invited to all sorts of places, Mum.’

  ‘That’d get me to the ’ospital, more like,’ she replied, ‘’cos I’d have to ’old the student’s hand. So was the river party really good, then? You didn’t get up to no trouble, did you? Them college boys can be a right bunch an’ all, I tell you.’

  ‘No, Mum, there were just very nice boys and girls drinking wine. Bloody ’orrible stuff it was. Wished I’d taken some of Uncle Bob’s ’ome-brew with me. Still, nice to see ’ow the other ’alf live, innit?’

  ‘That’s all well and good, but you be careful with them if you get invited again. Some of those boys are funny and get into all sorts of trouble. There’s a rower has fits now ’cos he got bashed on the head by some local lads on Midsummer. Sometimes he just sort of slumps over, with his eyes open, but can’t see nothing.’ She lit a cigarette from the gas flame on the cooker, and turned back to her son.

  ‘All that grad bashing is rotten. Some might say it’s their own fault, you know, ’cos they walk around with them boards on their heads and their long gowns like they’re showing off. And they are privileged and that, but there’s no reason for anyone to bash them up. It’s a ’orrible thing to do to anyone, what they did to that rower. They lay in wait and then pounced on ’im and a mate. Gave them a right pasting they did, before legging it, leaving him for dead. He says that when he has his fits he sometimes wishes he were dead.’

  ‘Was it night-time, Mum, when he got hit? Weren’t the proctor’s bulldogs out there nannying them back to their colleges?’

  ‘It were, and you know them bulldogs go out round town, but this were over by the Fort St George, a bit further out than usual, silly bugger. Poor boy. What must his parents be feeling? They send them away to college and think they’re going to be safe and then . . . I’d ’ate for one of you or your brother to be responsible for that sort of thing. You don’t, do you?’

  ‘No, Mum! I ain’t gonna run away if one of their lot starts something, but I don’t go in for all that fighting. Might rip my new jacket what you nicely did up for me.’

  Rose smiled. She knew that Maurice wasn’t the fighting kind, even if he knew how to look after himself. No, Clark was more than likely to be one of the townies who went grad bashing, she knew that, but didn’t really want to confront her son with the accusation. He was becoming more unpredictable with age, and at sixteen was already a good few inches bigger up and across than her. She also knew that the previous Bonfire Night Clark had worked out how to land bangers in cowpats near to where students were standing, making sure that they got sprayed when it went off.

  Mind you, the students had started it. It became something of a tradition on every 5 November for students to throw fireworks at townies. The rugby players and rowers from different colleges would team up and run through the market place, throwing bangers and letting fly at any townies who got in their way. It wasn’t always a matter of townies starting fights with the gowns, by any means. Fights between town and gown had been happening in the streets and on the commons of the city for centuries, and during the Second World War there were times when students had sided with townies in fights with American airmen.

  The most memorable occasion was in 1943 at the market place, where the 5 November bonfire had been built, and after that Bonfire Night became a regular date for US airmen and Cambridge townies, plus a few students, to go to battle with each other. When things became very nasty in the 1950s – with bicycle chains and knives being used – the local police, American military police and college bulldogs had to team up in order to keep the sides apart. By the early 1960s, thankfully, the number of US airmen in the region had declined to such an extent that there were never any in uniform to be seen at the bonfire. So it was just the juvenile delinquents of the town who got into fights with the gown and mortar board wearing students, with fireworks, cowpats and the occasional knife and cricket bat as weapons. Rose didn’t know whose side to be on, and so stayed away from the bonfire and fireworks celebrations. That way she wouldn’t have to witness either of her sons fighting with any of her boys from college.

  AUDREY

  Cambridge 1960

  Following Edith’s awful death in 1956, Maud became the only constant woman in Audrey’s life, and so when Audrey was aged twelve in 1960 and Maud asked if she’d like a part-time job on Saturdays, helping her prepare the college fellows’ breakfasts, Audrey said ‘Yes’ without a second thought.

  Audrey had loved the college rooms that she’d been to with her mum and Maud. They were always warm in deep mid-winter, while the stone corridors and dark stairwells were cool in high summer. She’d smelled expensive aftershave and run her hand o
ver expensive silk and cashmere clothes as she helped tidy students and masters’ rooms, all of which were totally unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Sometimes she’d got to eat cake, bread and all manner of fruits that were left for her by the bedders, who knew she’d be in with her mum (and who’d been given the food by the boys in the rooms that they did for). The college was a world away from the one Audrey usually inhabited and she’d loved being able to escape into it when a small girl, especially when she hadn’t had to do too much work and could sit and read a book instead.

  So after agreeing to the Saturday job, Audrey said, ‘I can’t tell Dad though . . .’

  Maud knew that was wise – she also knew that Edward wouldn’t notice Audrey was missing on any given Saturday morning, because he was always nursing the worst hangover of the week, having drunk a good portion of his Friday pay packet the night before. ‘Well, I can’t tell the college either,’ she said conspiratorially to Audrey, ‘they might not like it if they cotton on to it being a regular thing. It’s fine every now and then to bring your kids in, but best if it’s our secret. I need the company and you need some pocket money, so it’s a good arrangement.’

  Audrey smiled at the memory of having often done the same with her mum as a small child.

  ‘What are you smirking at?’ asked Maud with a smile of her own.

  ‘Oh, not much, just that some of my mates asked yesterday if you was Dad’s girlfriend – you know, ’cos I call you my aunty and we’re not blood related.’

  Maud looked shocked. ‘Your dad! Not on my nelly.’

  ‘What?’ Audrey giggled. ‘He ain’t that bad, is he? He’s actually quite handsome, my dad.’ Maud shook her head, and then looked sad, thought Audrey. ‘But, I know,’ she continued, ‘it’s his temper, ain’t it?’

  ‘No, you’re right, love,’ Maud placed a consoling hand on Audrey’s arm, ‘he ain’t bad looking. But Audrey, I wouldn’t even dare look at a man at my age. I’m thirty-six. You don’t get married when you’re as old as me. And I doubt any man would look at me, anyway. Not with these lovely brown pegs in my mouth.’ She smiled to show her unfortunate gums and teeth, badly worn and discoloured from the years of neglect. ‘Mind you,’ she continued cheerily, ‘they’ll fall out when they’re good and ready. But no, I’m alright, love. I reckon you live longer if you avoid men. Nothing but trouble if you ask me.’

  Audrey took one of the encyclopaedias that sat on Maud’s sideboard down and thumped it onto an armchair saying, ‘I like boys though.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said a mock-shocked Maud, ‘you better not let your dad hear you say that. I’m sure he’s determined to keep you locked up forever, I reckon.’ She was sitting at a small, round table with a deck of cards, and turned her attention to them.

  ‘How often can you play patience and not get impatient, Aunty Maud?’ Audrey asked in wonder.

  ‘It keeps my mind busy, Audrey. And in some strange way it helps with my rheumatism.’ Maud twisted the new copper magnetic bracelet around her wrist. ‘Tea’s not gonna be ready for another half hour, it’s slow-cooked beef bourguignon. I’m experimenting I am, Bertha at work told me how to cook it.’

  ‘Sounds nice,’ Audrey said politely.

  Several weeks into her ‘job’ as Maud’s assistant, Audrey was standing in the gyp room staring at the dirty plates and cup that had been left there from the previous night. ‘You wash and I’ll dry,’ Maud told her.

  ‘I always have to dry,’ Audrey replied sulkily.

  ‘You don’t have to come if you don’t like it, Audrey. I don’t want you to feel like I’m forcing you,’ Maud told her sternly. It was as if Audrey had grown moodier after each Saturday, Maud thought, and she was growing tired of her sullen moods. Perhaps it was getting too much for the girl, after all she travelled from the other side of town to school, was running the house at home for her dad, and now had to get up early on Saturday mornings to do more work.

  ‘No, no. I don’t. I’m sorry, Aunty Maud,’ Audrey’s sad voice interrupted Maud’s thoughts. ‘I’m saving really hard. Come on let’s get started.’ Audrey passed Maud her pink marigolds and told her, ‘I’m just tired – and hungry, Aunty Maud.’

  ‘Oh,’ Maud started. ‘That reminds me. Remember I told you about Professor B. never eating anything in the mornings, and I told him, “You’ll get ill if you don’t eat proper?” Well, he’s only gone and bloody died!’

  ‘What!’ Audrey exclaimed. ‘You can’t die from not eating breakfast, can you?’

  ‘No, course not. He died of a heart attack. Only young he was, maybe forty-three.’

  ‘That ain’t young, that’s how old my mum was when she had me.’

  ‘Well, it’s young to me. Anyway, one of the porters found him. We’ve got to clear out his room, pack his things up.’

  ‘Lovely.’ Audrey looked queasy at the thought.

  ‘Sorry, love,’ Maud told her, ‘don’t know why they can’t do it. All they do all day is bloody sit on their backsides listening to the wireless, reading the papers. Don’t seem fair.’

  ‘It’s alright. I don’t mind,’ Audrey replied. By now she was putting the plates and cups away in the cupboards. ‘You know, Aunty Maud, I think that’s probably the best way to go? He didn’t know, did he? Not like my mum, slow and drawn out. We had to watch her die really. It was cruel to have an illness like she had.’

  Maud couldn’t avoid thinking about her husband’s death, and she quickly steered Audrey back to the subject of the fellow that had been found dead. ‘There was talk of him having a baby with one of the female students from Girton, you know, but I don’t know how much of that is true. People talk, don’t they?’

  Audrey thought that Maud certainly did. In the past year Maud had moved into a new flat and Audrey noticed that she seemed to be forever gossiping about people at the college and even more about her new neighbours. It was beginning to get on Audrey’s nerves and she much preferred it when Maud was quiet, so she usually buried herself in a book when she went to visit, which was often because her dad wouldn’t turn the rented television down so she could read at home. Maud didn’t have a telly, only a radio.

  While they were finishing up in the gyp room, and as if it had just struck her, Maud began another of her stories, this time about a neighbour and not a fellow. ‘’Ere, I forgot to tell you about the Willis girl,’ she began – the Willis family lived next door to Maud. ‘There was a knock at my door from old man Willis in the early hours of the morning. I could see the nurse’s bike propped up against their gate and he was in a right old panic he was. He wanted me to go to number sixteen and ask for some nappies, told me not to tell them why, just to borrow them. So I went and got some, took ’em back to the Willises and it turns out that their big daughter wasn’t big ’cos she was eating all them cakes from Hawkins. No, she was pregnant! And she didn’t even know, so naturally nor did her mum and dad neither.’

  Audrey knew that Jennifer Willis had been out with Jim, a good friend of her brother Ron, and hoped he wasn’t the father. She liked Jim. Maud continued in a whisper, as she always did, even though there was only ever the two of them in the gyp room and the bedrooms were further down the corridor. ‘She’s been sent away now, and no one’s to know. A couple that can’t have kids will adopt the little ’un. That poor Jennifer won’t see it again. I bet she only did it once an’ all. That’s all it takes, Audrey.’

  Audrey felt faint. She disliked the idea of talking about such things with her Aunty Maud and disliked even more the thought of Jim being with that girl. She could feel herself getting angry, and tears pricked her eyes. Unaware that Audrey was upset, Maud hurried her assistant along. ‘Come on, we’ll get the bathrooms done and the fires made before we do Prof. B.’s room.’ Audrey reluctantly followed her into the bathroom and Maud went straight into another tale of terrible things other people had done, still not noticing Audrey’s discomfort at hearing about their sex lives, if that’s what it was to be (and it more often was than wasn’t,
with Maud). ‘’Course, that Jennifer’s story is different from fat Marlene’s, do you remember fat Marlene, Auds? She worked with me and your mum, and lives down Whitehill Road near the Co-op. Your mum must have mentioned her, she used to help her sometimes with that fellow who had trouble remembering who he was. Anyway, fat Marlene had a baby boy about ten years ago, and ever so brainy he is. Goes to Priory. Very nice boy, lovely looking.’

  Maud handed Audrey the Ajax and Brillo pads, and perched herself on the side of the deep bath, ready to turn on the taps to rinse after Audrey had scrubbed, and continued. ‘She got pregnant by a student.’ Audrey sighed deeply, and thought she really didn’t want to hear any more, but Maud went on. ‘She told Bertha that it was one of the grads. The one with real black hair she said, and her boy had the same hair. Now, I don’t remember the student. Marlene must have been about forty so she must have thought that she wouldn’t get caught out, you know like your mum did with you. But she did, and do you know, her husband stayed with her! He knew that boy weren’t his. Bertha said because she was married she could get away with doing something like that, but if you’re not married . . . So don’t you be getting into trouble, Auds. ’Cos it’s a hard secret to keep something like that. Living a lie is a hard secret to keep.’

  ‘I wish you hadn’t told me,’ Audrey said quietly.