by Sonia Tilson
Even more excruciating than the dorm discussions had been the time when the biology teacher had given the Upper Fourth a lesson on the mechanics of human reproduction, using unspeakable words like engorgement and ejaculation. As Miss Sinclair, glaring over her shoulder, wrote and even drew on the board Gillian had wished she could be anywhere but there, or that she could—perhaps not die, because that would attract too much attention—but just cease to exist, right there in the smell of formaldehyde, amongst the test tubes and Bunsen burners and stained sinks.
In time however, she had roused herself and managed some success at taking part in school life. She had begun by joining the knitting circle, where she made Tom a pair of too-small socks, and had gone on to help Miss Lamb with the organization of a junior poetry competition. To the delight of her father she had been selected for the junior tennis team, but it turned out that while she could be a competent player if merely enjoying the game or bringing up the score, whenever a game reached a critical point, in an interschool match for instance, she could never hit a winner. This, no doubt, was why she had never made it to the senior team.
She was on the senior hockey team, though, playing defense; always and only defense, but nevertheless definitely participating. When school started again, she would be in the sixth form and had agreed to work behind the scenes on the senior school production of Twelfth Night. What was more, she would be a junior prefect, and had been asked to join the editorial board of the school newspaper. She was playing her part as well as she knew how. What more could they ask?
The side door slammed and Tom burst into the room, dropping his tennis racket with a clatter on the parquet floor, and throwing himself sideways into an armchair. High colour burned on his cheeks as he fixed the blue blaze of his eyes on her. “You’ll never guess who I saw in Woolworth’s earlier this morning, Gill! Go on. Guess!”
She sighed. “Just tell me, Tom.”
“I saw Vanna! Vanna Farrell!”
Gillian sat up. “Vanna? You saw her here in town?”
“Yes. And she’s absolutely gorgeous, Gill! She’s the most beautiful girl I ever saw in my whole life!” He grabbed the quiff of dark hair on top of his head in both fists.
“I see. And is she still covered with freckles?”
“Yes, but her freckles are gorgeous too! And you should see her hair! She’s cut off her plaits, and it’s all long and loose and curly. She’s absolutely stunning!”
Remembering her first sight of Vanna’s mother, Gillian knew what he meant. “Did you talk to her?”
“No, she was busy serving someone. She didn’t see me.”
“Serving someone?”
“Yes, she was behind the counter in the women’s bit; jewelry ’n stuff.”
Gillian put the letter from school down on a side table, her self-satisfaction draining away. Instead of being behind the counter in Woolworth’s, Vanna too, should have been getting excellent G.C. results at this point, with a good chance of being able to go to university in a couple of years on a scholarship.
“Could you go and see her, Gill?” Tom fixed pleading eyes on her. “Maybe get her to meet you after work? And then, maybe I …”
“Don’t be daft, Tom. Vanna’s two years older than you, and if she’s as gorgeous as you say, she probably has a boyfriend already.”
Tom pouted and kicked at the coffee table with a hefty tennis shoe. He was awfully big for fourteen, she thought; strong enough to have beaten their father at tennis the day before, and with the makings of a mustache showing on his upper lip.
“You could go and see her anyway,” he suggested, leaning forward. She could tell Vanna that he, Tom, wanted news of Francis.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
He flung himself back. “Oh I couldn’t! I’d be terrified to go up and talk to her just like that. Please, Gill, go to see her. Just to say hello?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Tom. It’s sort of awkward.” Gillian was remembering her last face-to-face encounter with Vanna after the Eleven Plus exam.
“Listen.” Elbows on knees, chin in hands, he fixed his eyes on her. “I’ll tell you something. For years now, ever since we left Tregwyr, I’ve had this dream about Vanna. Don’t laugh, Gill. We’re at Grandma’s having tea, and Vanna eats a whole sponge cake.”
Gillian laughed. “And are you angry in the dream? You certainly wouldn’t like it in real life.”
“No. I’m giving it to her, slice after slice.”
Gillian studied his flushed face. “Crikey, Tom, I’d no idea it was as bad as that.”
“Neither had I, not really, not ’til I saw her today. Well, some idea, of course. I always thought she was fabulous, but this, today … It was like a bolt from the blue!” He propped an ankle across a tanned knee, the hairs on his leg much more noticeable than she remembered. “You know, maybe I’m not too young, Gill. Old Glad Eyes doesn’t seem to mind.”
“What? What do you mean? Are you saying Gladys fancies you?”
“Yeah, well. Me and whoever.”
Gillian and Tom saw Gladys from time to time during school holidays when she came in to collect her mother. Dark-haired and fine-boned, she had cultivated the Audrey Hepburn look with more success than many, despite her lack of height. She would tease Tom, flirting with him shamelessly, and to Gillian’s disgust, act towards her as if they had always been the best of friends.
Earlier in the holiday, she had casually let drop that she sometimes visited her mother’s cousin, Auntie Blodwen, in Croesffordd. “I seen Angus there one time.” She smiled up at Gillian, batting her long eyelashes. “He’ve got ever such a posh girlfriend now. All tall and blonde she is, and la-di-dah English.”
Gillian could not have cared less about the girlfriend, but the mention of Angus had sent her into a flat spin for days, and she had avoided Gladys ever since. Why couldn’t he just stay in the deep, dark cellar she had assigned him to? Why did he keep popping up when she had forgotten all about him, like some monstrous Jack-in-the-box?
“What about it, Gill? Will you go? Please!” Tom often got his way through sheer persistence.
“I’ll think about it.” She was distracted by her unwelcome memories, the multiple shock of the Vanna sighting, and the glimpse into the secret lives of Tom and Gladys.
Two days later, she entered Woolworth’s. Vanna was leaning over the jewelry counter, sorting cardboard boxes of earrings. Even taller than Gillian, she not only looked like her mother, but moved as gracefully. Holding back their glittering contents with a long, white finger, she was turning over the boxes to check the price sticker underneath. Absorbed in her task, she did not look up until Gillian stood across the counter from her.
“Can I help you?” She raised her head, a mechanical smile on her rose-tinted lips. At the sight of Gillian, she dropped the box she was holding, her face flooding with the deep colour Gillian remembered. “What do you want? Buying Woolworth’s earrings are you? You must’ve come down in the world!”
“Vanna,” Gillian faced her, “couldn’t we be friends now? I know what happened was terrible for you, but none of it was actually my fault.”
Vanna ducked down to see to something under the counter, muttering something that sounded like “You could’ve tried to help.”
Gillian was taken aback. She couldn’t have known Vanna needed help, could she? If she had been another sort of girl perhaps, a generous, sensitive, thoughtful girl, she might have thought to ask, but she was not, and had not. She ran her fingers through the pink and blue pearls hanging from a hook and pooling on the counter beside her, trying to think what to say.
Vanna resurfaced, darkened lashes blinking away tears. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. But I’ve always been so jealous of you. And that damned exam ruined my life. Totally destroyed it! I’m doomed to stay in jobs like this, if I’m lucky, and live in poverty forever!”
“I’m glad you’re amused.” Vanna had gone back to her checking.
“No, I wasn’t laughing at you. I just remembered Tommy and Francis running ahead to your house shouting out the good news to your mother that we’d found Jesus, and the old woman next door to you screeching, ‘Glory be! Praise the Lord!’ Do you remember?”
The corner of Vanna’s mouth tweaked. “Yes, poor old Mrs. Lloyd. I’d forgotten that.”
“How is Francis, anyway? Tom was wondering about him. And your mother? And all your family?”
A large shiny dress of navy and red vertical stripes loomed up beside her as its occupant rapped on the jewelry counter and glared at the two girls.
Gillian persisted. “Look, why don’t we meet for a chat. How about at the Kardomah after you get off work today?”
“Wednesday, maybe,” Vanna said after a pause before turning her attention to the customer.
At the Kardomah Café, Gillian took a table for four near the window and facing the door. Waiting for her pot of tea, she thought about Vanna’s likeness to her mother. She knew that girls sometimes did look very like their mothers—there were a couple of girls at school like that—but this was almost uncanny: the height, the poise, and every detail of build, feature, and colouring.
Unlike Tom, she herself did not take after their well-built, dark-haired, blue-eyed mother in the least, and despite the head-shaking on the subject on the part of her mother’s friends, she was glad of it. Nobody quite knew whom she did look like, apparently, with her tall thin build, strange hair, and green eyes. “She’s one of a kind,” her father would say. “One in a million is our Gillian.”
Her mother said she was a throwback to an ancestor on their grandmother’s side, one Great-Uncle Theophilos, who had gone out to Patagonia and become a famous preacher.
The Kardomah was noisy and bright with the clatter and sparkle of crockery and cutlery, the aroma and roar of the huge, stainless-steel coffee machine, and the babble of gossip. Gillian worried about what to order. Would Vanna be hungry and want her tea? Would she have to catch the bus to Tregwyr, or did she live in town now? Should she treat her to tea, or would that enrage her? Twiddling her hair, she realized she was getting in a state, almost as bad as Tom who had said he intended to bump into them accidentally.
He had spent an hour in the bathroom before she left, probably squeezing his spots and shaving off his moustache, and sloshing on their father’s Imperial Leather aftershave. She had advised him not to wear his suit; “Just wear those tan linen trousers and a clean white shirt. Try to look normal.”
At ten past five she was surprised to see Gladys, heavily made up, her hair in a pixie cut, teetering into the café on the arm of a short, thin man. She was wearing a red dress with the plunging neckline, tight bodice, and voluminous skirt that was the latest fashion. Large gold hoops dangled from her small ears. Seeing Gillian, she gave a shriek of delighted recognition. “Cooee!” she called, waving across the crowded restaurant, “Cooee, Gillian!” and made her way over, dragging the man with her.
The man wore a pinstriped brown suit. He had a narrow moustache and was holding a fedora.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said, as Gladys introduced “my friend, Gillian Davies, the doctor’s daughter, you know.” His name was Stan.
Gillian realized with alarm that he was staring at her intently, a slight smile on his thin lips. I know you, his little dark eyes seemed to be saying, I know everything about you. His eyes roved down to linger on her blouse, then slid back up to meet hers. I know your secret.
Her mouth dry, Gillian turned to Gladys. “Tom will be here in a minute. He’ll be pleased to meet your friend.”
“Got to go now!” Gladys led Stan off, past the plump matrons with their perms and their diamonds, who looked them up and down over forkfuls of chocolate cake. “Lovely to see you!” she fluted over her shoulder.
He couldn’t know. How could he? But she felt that he did, and that he could have power over her somehow, like Angus. She gave herself a shake. She would not think about Stan. She would relegate him to the place where she kept Angus: throw him down into everlasting darkness and bolt the trapdoor over him. She sat up straight and shakily poured herself another cup of tea.
A few minutes later she looked at her watch. Half past five. Vanna would not come now. But as she looked, first through the window, and then down to the front of the café to see if Tom was in sight, the revolving glass door swung around, and Vanna made her entrance. The sun blazing on her hair, she surveyed the populace. Heads turned to follow her progress towards Gillian’s table. A young man sat up straight and smoothed back his Brilliantined hair, openly staring. A solitary, middle-aged man watched furtively from behind his newspaper as she swept past. Across the café, Gillian saw Gladys and her loathsome companion crane their necks and gape as Vanna arrived at her table.
“Sorry I’m late.” Vanna took the chair opposite Gillian, ordered a pot of tea from the waitress, and accepted a Cherry Danish from the plate of pastries Gillian had ordered. “Had to help with inventory. Can’t stay long. Got to catch the Tregwyr bus at six.”
“I’m glad you came, anyway.” The two girls looked warily at each other as the waitress appeared with the tea.
Vanna picked up her teapot and put it down again. “I’m sorry about the other day, Gill. Of course you’re absolutely right. None of that was your fault. I’m ashamed that I was so horrible to you, and that I sulked like that for five years. Can I ever hope to be forgiven?” She raised her eyebrows, her mouth turned down in a tragic mask.
“Of course!” A hard little pain dissolved. “Forget about it.”
Vanna smiled and sat up, filling her cup. “How’s boarding school? I suppose you’re carrying all before you?”
Tea sloshed into their saucers. “Sorry! Sorry!” Apologizing for his clumsiness, and declaring his amazement at seeing them, Tom, pale for once, except for his spots and a gash on his chin, stood gawking at Vanna.
“Sit down, Tom.” Gillian patted a chair. “D’you remember Vanna?”
“This is Tommy?” Vanna opened her eyes wide as Tom folded himself into the chair. “My, what a big boy!”
Tom blushed up from his throat, and seized a Chelsea bun. “Hello, Vanna,” he said in a sepulchral voice. “Long time no see!”
Vanna grinned, “You speak the truth, my noble Indian friend,” and Gillian saw them all as children, crowded around the radio in the back room of her grandparents’ house, listening to The Lone Ranger.
Tom looked over his bun at Vanna with drowning eyes, his mouth open. Gillian kicked his ankle. “Tom was asking after Francis, Vanna.”
Vanna drained her cup. “He’s fine thanks, Tom. Doing well in the grammar school. As is Bridie. Listen, I’m sorry to rush off. I’d love to stay and talk to you both and get all the news, but I’ve really got to go now.” She stood up, people turning again to look. “Tell you what. Why don’t you both come out on Sunday afternoon? Mama’d love to see you, and so would the others. Francis was so excited when he heard that I’d seen Gillian!”
Tom swung his eyes round to Gillian.
“That would be lovely,” she said.
The next day Gladys came to the back door asking if she could see Gillian. Gillian’s mother, who, to Gillian’s disgust, always had a soft spot for Gladys, had called Gillian down to the kitchen. “She’s a sweet little girl,” she would say about Gladys, “Always so bright and chatty.”
Not like some, Gillian would t
hink, hating the two of them.
“Hello Gillian.” Gladys put her head on one side and smiled up at Gillian as her mother went back to the living room. “There’s a nice surprise, isn’t it, seeing you in the Kardomah yesterday!” She fiddled with the clasp of her patent-leather handbag and fluttered her eyelashes. “Um, I was just wonderin’, Gillian, who was that girl you was talking to? The thing is, see, Stan thought she looked like a model, and he wondered what her name is, and if she do live round here. Is she a friend of yours? I never seen her before.” She looked up, wide-eyed.
Remembering with a shudder the way that man had looked at her, Gillian thought of saying that Vanna was a friend from school, but knew that would not work in the long run.
“Why does he want to know?”
“Oh, well, he just might be able to put a bit of modeling work her way, he says. He’ve got connections in the business, you know. He says she’s just the type they’re looking for.”
“Has he found anything for you then, Gladys?”
Gladys pursed her lips and batted her eyelashes again. “I’m pretty enough, he says, but I’m not tall enough for most of the work in that line. But he says he got another idea for me.”
A horrible thought struck Gillian; so horrible that she could not look at Gladys. “Gladys, what does Stan do? Where does he work?”
“I dunno really. A bit of this and a bit of that, you know. He makes a lotta money, whatever it is, and he’s ever so good to me. He takes me to posh restaurants, and he buys me things. He bought me that dress I was wearing yesterday, and this handbag.” She heaved up the gleaming object.
“Does your mother know he does that?”