I know Mum’s used Dad’s name deliberately.
‘Have it your own way,’ Bill grins as if he’s unaffected by Mum using Dad’s name.
That’s the problem with Bill. He’s always so happy. All the time I’m practising I can hear him laughing, even when Mum looks serious, although at times I hear Mum laughing too. I can’t remember Mum and Dad once laughing together not like Mum and Bill do, anyway.
‘Your Mum and her brother get on well, do they?’ the girl next to me asks.
‘You’re making a wonderful job of being a squirrel,’ Bill says at the finish of my lesson and as he squeezes closer to Mum to make room for me to sit on the bench and take off my ballet pumps.
‘Thank you.’ I continue to untie the pink ribbons. How can either of them know whether or not I’ve been making a good job of being a squirrel when they’ve been so taken up with each other?
On the day Dad bangs Mum’s last three pounds housekeeping on the table, the barometer hanging in our passage – another find from the bombsite - shows a rise in pressure. The roads and pavements become a slushy mass and drops of water cascade like diamonds from the roofs and gutters of Blountmere Street.
After these last few weeks I’ll never again take the weather for granted.
‘The weather forecast’s good so let's keep our fingers crossed it keeps up,’ Mum says as we watch Dad load up his ladders. He’s whistling his tuneless whistle which I’ve learnt isn’t always a good thing.
As if everything in nature has got together to say enough is enough, the Arctic weather is replaced by breezes like warm fingers brushing my face. The fluffy clouds seem like a baby’s shawl. A green shadow of growth smudges the bombsite. I wonder if the ducks will return to the large crater this year.
In the garden, crocuses rise like gold from the winter-hard ground.
At home, Dad’s mood apes the barometer.
After a week when spring has kept its promise, Dad says, ‘Here's a bob.’ He fishes deep into his overall pocket and hands it to me. ‘Go and get a bottle of that fizzy stuff you like and a couple of packets of crisps. We'll ‘ave one of those treat-nights of yours.’
The evenings become lighter and Bill is always outside the hall when we arrive for my ballet lessons. Although Mum says it’s ridiculous him showing up like this every week, her protests usually sound weak. Lately, however, she hasn’t seemed so pleased to see him.
‘I thought I told you not to come again.’ She glares at Bill. Her face has red patches on it as she yanks me into my squirrel outfit.
‘Where’s the harm in it?’ Bill replies.
‘Plenty. You may have forgotten I’ve got a husband and you’ve got a wife!’
Bill doesn’t seem too bothered. ‘Don’t get yourself worked up about it, Lil,’ he says.
‘I’m not getting myself worked up.’ Mum is obviously worked up. ‘And what are you doing standing there like a statue,’ she barks at me. ‘Have you forgotten this is a dress rehearsal? Get up there on the stage with the others.’
As I slope away, I overhear Mum say, ‘I want you to promise me, Bill, that you won’t go turning up at the concert.’
I can’t hear if Bill has promised that he won’t.
‘Isn’t Bill coming to ballet lessons any more?’ I ask on the way home as I trot to keep up with Mum.
‘Why should he?’
‘He’s very nice.’ Now that it looks as if I won’t see him again, I know I’ll miss him.
Mum sniffs, which is never a good sign. ‘Be that as it may, it’s still daft. And … ’ Her voice is sharp. ‘Keep a button on that mouth of yours.’
‘I promise,’ I say, and immediately regret having said it.
It’s a battle to keep my mouth buttoned now that Tony and I are back to our Saturday afternoon comic reading and confiding on our back doorstep.
‘Do you ever miss your father?’ I venture. At home I’ve been rehearsing getting this conversation to go in the direction I want it to.
‘Nope. Anyway, I’ve got Fred. He may not be my dad, but he is my godfather. I’ve … we’ve … me and Ang have sort of taken the place of his own children. I told you his children are abroad, didn’t I?’
I want to scream, “You’ve told me dozens of times, just like you keep telling me about Fred being your godfather.” But I don’t say anything and sit with my hands in my lap like the good little girl people think I am.
‘D’you know that his son hasn’t even got the same surname as Fred. I think he must have Fred’s wife’s name. Perhaps Fred’s wife had a fancy man before she died and his son’s got his surname.’ Tony lowers his comic. ‘Fred doesn’t talk about her, his wife, that is, but I bet she was horrible. Just the sort to have a fancy man.’
‘Perhaps she was lonely, or she and Fred weren’t right for each other. Maybe she knew her fancy man before she met Fred. Perhaps they’d always loved each other but for some reason she married Fred instead.’
Tony screws up his face in a puzzled sort of way. ‘Sounds daft to me.’
‘Sometimes … I begin. I squeeze my lips together. What’s the use! And I have made a promise. ‘I have to go soon. I’ve got to practise my ballet part,’ I say instead.
‘Is that what you want to be – a ballet dancer?’ Tony asks. He says it as if it’s a pretty wet thing to want to be, even for a girl.
‘I don’t know, but I want to do my best in the concert on Saturday, even though offering Dad a million pounds wouldn’t make him come and see me.’
‘It doesn’t matter about your old man not being there; you’ll do really well, anyway.’ Tony hesitates. ‘You’ll be smashing. The best one there.’
My squirrel costume is already hanging in my wardrobe ready for the concert on Saturday. Mum spent a whole night resetting the sleeves she maintained weren’t sitting right, although I couldn’t see anything wrong with them. My ballet pumps are wrapped in their tissue paper. Mum’s ironed their pink ribbons so that they don’t have a single crease in them.
Every spare moment I have I use to practise. “Three steps to the right, pivot, jump, second position, step forward arms raised,” I repeat, in between humming the piece of music Miss Kilip has chosen.
As the concert gets close I get more and more nervous. I have to dance really well, the best I’ve ever danced, better than any of the others so that when we tell Dad, he’ll smile and offer to come to my next concert. It’s all very well Mum saying he isn’t keen on that sort of thing. What sort of thing is he keen on?
All at once I want to punish him and make him pay. I seize last night’s Star and tear it into shreds. Then I trample on it and shout every swear word I’ve ever heard Dad utter. I pummel the cushions on his armchair and curse him. I take his teacup from its usual place on the sideboard, spit into it and smear my saliva over it.
Hatherington Street Hall seems different from the dingy place The Kilip School of Dancing practises in every week. Someone has painted a forest scene onto a piece of plywood at the back of the stage. The trees look quite real, even though they’re all the same shade of green. The piano has been tuned and Mrs Lieston the pianist is banging out a tune I haven’t heard before. It sounds old fashioned like something from before The War.
Backstage I peep through the curtain and look out at the audience. Through a haze of smoke I can pick out Mum’s face in the front row.
We take up our positions for the first act. I swallow down my nervousness and the curtain opens. The routine goes much better than it did in any of our rehearsals. From the back someone whistles. Although I can’t see who it is, I know it’s Bill and somehow my fear disappears and I want to dance just for him. He’s turned up while Dad’s sitting at home reading The Star
My squirrel dance is a big success and at the end, Bill claps so loudly I’m sure Mum will know it’s him.
Afterwards, I run straight to the back of the hall but Bill has slipped away and out of our lives.
Chapter Five
‘I think you’re r
eally lucky to be having a proper holiday, not just hop picking in Kent like half the kids at school.’ Tony traces a criss-cross pattern with his finger on our back step. ‘I’ve never seen the sea. Fred and Lori say they might take me and Angela to Bognor a bit later in the summer on one of those cheap day excursions.’
‘Bognor would be all right, but Devon’s a long way to go on a motorbike, and it’s only for a week,’ I reply, thinking of the journey.
‘You’re lucky to be going camping and everything. I might go with the Cubs next year.’ Tony spits on his finger and draws squiggly lines like waves on the concrete. ‘What’s the name of that place you’re going to?’
‘Newton Abbot.’
‘How d’you hear about a place like that? It sounds like you’re going to Timbuktu.’
‘Dad knew about it. He’s written to a farmer to ask if we can stay on his farm.’
It had taken Dad all evening to write the letter. He’d used the fountain pen Mum had found on the top of a thirty seven bus. His writing was fancy with lots of loops but he needed my dictionary for practically every other word.
‘How’re you going to get your tent and things on the motorbike?’
‘We’ve already sent it on with all the big stuff by Carter Paterson. It’ll be there when we arrive. Dad’s made a folding table and chairs, even a folding larder.’
I recall him making them. He’d been almost as bad-tempered and boastful as when he’d built the sidecar for his motor bike. “Not so stupid, your old man is he, eh? Show me anyone round ‘ere who could’ve done it. Not one of ‘em’s got the brains of a bleedin’ flea. It takes savvy and craftsmanship! They wouldn’t have an original idea in their thick skulls.” He’d bragged.
I shudder. ‘I wish I wasn’t going.’
Until he asked me to get him a book on Devon from the library, I didn’t know Dad knew I’d started going there every week with Miss Lorimore, Mr Stannard and Tony. It makes me wonder what else Dad notices but never mentions.
‘What about this one? “Devonshire – The Sunshine County”. Mr Stannard thumbs through the pages of a book with a faded photograph of thatched cottages on the cover.
‘It doesn’t look very sunny, does it, Fred?’ Miss Lorimore says, looking fondly up at him.
Recently, Mr Stannard and Miss Lorimore have taken to openly calling each other by their christian names. And now Miss Lorimore doesn’t make excuses like slippery pavements to hold Mr Stannard’s arm. Mr Stannard smiles back. At the same time he brushes his hand along her shoulder. It’s very romantic but I know Tony thinks it’s sloppy. “Fred’s gone bats in the belfry about Lori, lately,” he said the last time we read our comics together. “Not that I’m jealous.”
I wasn’t certain about that. He seemed jealous to me.
Until Dad started reading ‘Devonshire – The Sunshine County’, I’d never before seen him read anything other than The Star and The News of the World. There’s a book belonging to Dad called ‘Rommel, The Desert Fox’ buried under Mum’s curlers in the drawer of the sideboard next to his armchair but I’ve never seen him touch it.
As if a library book on the sideboard next to Dad’s chair makes him a genius, Mum prods me and winks every time he opens it. For the first time in months, Mum looks affectionately at Dad.
‘You chose just the right book.’ Mum tells me. ‘Did Miss Lorimore and Mr Stannard help you?’ Anyone who contributes to Dad’s knowledge deserves Mum’s praise.
‘Sort of, but they didn’t take much notice of what they were doing. They just kept looking at each other,’ I reply.
Mum sniffs. This time it’s a knowing sniff. ‘Something’s in the wind there.’ She lowers her chin into her neck and purses her lips.
‘What’s in the wind?’
‘We’ll just have to wait until it happens, then we’ll both know, won’t we? Now come on, let’s “wire in” and get a bit more packing done.’
During the next week, when Mum isn’t “wiring in” packing, she’s “wiring in” leaving everything as she wants it to be when we get back.
‘If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s coming home to a dirty house,’ she says, although I can’t remember us going away before.
Dad’s swaps his book for a rake and a hoe. Returning from holiday to more than week-old weeds is as unthinkable to him as a dirty house is to Mum.
On the evening before we’re due to leave, Dad polishes his motorbike and fixes his homemade twin sidecar to it. He walks round and round admiring his handiwork and dabbing at specks of dust here and there.
‘We ought to have an official launch, like they do ships,’ Mum says, smiling. I can’t believe she’s forgotten what happened when Dad was making it.
‘Have a wonderful time,’ Miss Lorimore says the next day as we prepare to leave. ‘If Devon holds true to its reputation, you’ll have lovely weather.’ She’s still connected to Mr Stannard’s arm.
A group of people from Blountmere Street hover on the pavement outside our flat. No one I can remember down our street has ever been on holiday. A proper one, that is. Not just hop picking. I still don’t want to go.
‘I’ve given you the whiting and milk for Betsy and here’s some money to buy more when it runs out.’ Mum rummages in her pocket for an envelope marked “Cat’s Money” and hands it to Miss Lorimore. Mum’s flustered. I know the signs.
‘Ain’t the girl in the back of that sidecar, yet?’ Dad demands from behind the tower of boxes and tins he’s carrying.
‘Quick, Paula, get in.’ Mum has difficulty undoing the catch of the door to my tiny compartment behind hers, because her hands are shaking. Eventually she opens the door and practically pushes me in. I lower myself on to the seat Dad’s upholstered. It’s hard and lumpy, not even as comfortable as a seat on a bus. The space where I’d expected to tuck my feet is already crammed with boxes.
Without waiting for me to wriggle myself into a more comfortable position, Dad begins ramming tins either side of me.
‘Do you think you ought to have left her a bit more room?’ Mum asks nervously.
‘Now don’t start fussing. Jump in or we’ll never get there.’
Through the Perspex screen that separates our two small compartments, I watch as the back of Mum’s neck flushes. She still manages a shaky laugh to Miss Lorimore. ‘My Les does like to do things properly.’ Her voice is quivery.
I try to straighten a leg but a corner of a tin digs into it.
‘Let’s see if we can make you a bit more comfortable in there.’
I hadn’t noticed Mrs Addington from upstairs standing by her front door. She hardly ever goes out and the most I usually see of her is when she peers from her window every now and then. Tony says it’s because she’s got bad legs and can’t walk much.
She limps towards the pavement until she’s next to the sidecar and bends to talk to me. ‘We need to rearrange things to give you a bit of leg room.’ With that, she begins pulling tins and boxes away from me and piling them on the pavement, while Dad’s eyes shrink to shirt-button size.
‘This won’t take long, Mr Dibble,’ Mrs Addington says firmly.
Dad forces an insipid smile and I look on as the usually withdrawn woman quietly takes charge.
‘Here, I’ve bought you this.’ Tony looks round to check no-one’s watching, then hands me a liquorice skipping rope.
‘Thanks.’ I stuff it into my pocket. It’s a token of our friendship.
When I’m a little more comfortable in my compartment of the sidecar, Mrs Addington disappears into her flat without even waiting to wave goodbye. I’m grateful to her. At least I won’t have to travel all the way to Devon with my knees touching my chin.
‘Grab ‘old of this.’ Dad thrusts a map at Mum. He pulls on his balaclava and black gauntlets, like someone in medieval times. Then he kicks the motorcycle into action which causes everything around me to vibrate. I wonder how Mum and I will be able to tolerate the shaking and the deafening sound of the engine all the way
to Devon.
The Devonshire countryside is veiled in twilight as the motorbike bumps along a rutted farm track. The journey’s been far worse than I could have imagined. It’s been hours and hours of jolting discomfort, a bursting bladder and piercing hunger pangs.
When Dad had finally allowed us a stop and Mum and I were able to struggle from the sidecar, I’d felt so sick I couldn’t bear the thought of food. While Dad was using the toilet, Mum quickly sorted through our things and found a dish. “For goodness sake, use it if you need to,” she’d said. “Just as long as you’re not sick over anything. And whatever you do, don’t ask your father to stop.” Mum had been trembling. It was probably because Dad had called her a useless navigator and had torn the map into pieces.
Tears slide along the side of my nose and into my mouth. Why did we have to be different? Why couldn’t we stay at home like everyone else in Blountmere Street? I don’t care if I’ve travelled further than anyone at school. I don’t want to be on holiday. I don’t want to “show those buggers a thing or two”.
My spirits sink along with my eyelids. I barely remember the farmer’s wife offering Mum milk and eggs in a soft Devonshire burr. I vaguely recall sipping a cup of cocoa while Dad loads the tent onto the motorbike, and Mum disappears to fill our mattress case with straw.
I realise Dad must be having difficulty putting up the tent, because at some stage the farmer comes into the cluttered kitchen and whispers to his wife that he’s going to help “Yon London fellow who is getting himself into a fair state.”
Walking across the field to where we are camped is a hazy recollection of damp grass like a thousand tongues licking my legs, before the outline of a tent appears out of the mist.
I remember nothing more, except sinking into the crunchy straw mattress, as I drift into sleep and back to Blountmere Street with its safe familiarity.
When I stir, it’s to nature giving out sounds of busy contentment: birds singing songs I’ve never heard before, insects buzzing to strange rhythms and cows bellowing unfamiliar calls. The mist has melted into a pale blue-washed sky. Mum and Dad have already emptied the boxes and unfolded the table and chairs. Now they’re positioned at the front of the tent, shiny from Dad’s paint work. The tins that had given Mum and me such a horrible journey are stacked on the shelves of the larder, which Dad has put together and positioned by the tent flap so that his handiwork can be admired every time we enter or leave.
The Best in Blountmere Street (The Blountmere Street Series Book 2) Page 4