One Day at a Time

by Susan Lewis

  Sarah lives in one of the smart private houses over on Willis Road. I can just imagine me and Kev living somewhere like that when we get married.

  I’ve been at The Grange School for about two months now, and I suppose it’s not too bad. At least it’s a brand-new building, so not fusty and creepy like Red Maids. There are loads more girls here than there were at Red Maids, and they all talk Bristolian, like me, and live around Kingswood and Warmley, like me. The ones I go round with think I’m really it for getting expelled and keep wanting to hear all about it. They think it’s hilarious when I put on my posh voice. (I never let on that I don’t always mean to, it just keeps coming out, or they’ll think I’m a snob.) The lessons are quite easy, because I’ve already done a lot of them, and most of the teachers are loads younger than the ones I had before and even a bit trendier.

  Actually, the best part of going to The Grange is having some freedom after we finish at quarter to four, when I can do more or less what I want until Dad comes home at twenty past five. If I don’t go to Sarah’s, I usually meet Mandy over at the bus stop where we wait for Kev and his friends to go past on their way home from work. Sometimes Mandy’s friend Julie is there too, and if we walk over to the railway hut on the common with the chaps she usually goes with Larry or Clive, while Mandy goes with Rich, and I go with Kev. If Kev’s not there I have to go with one of the others or Mandy and Julie say they won’t let me go round with them any more, and if I don’t go round with them I’ll never see Kev, so I don’t have a choice.

  Most of the time when I’m out at night Dad thinks I’m in bed, or over Sarah’s, but he caught me sneaking out last weekend, so I haven’t dared to try it again since. Mandy’s managed to creep into my bedroom a couple of times though, and we sit in the dark whispering about Kev and Rich until the coast is clear and she can creep out again.

  I’d never tell Dad this, but actually going to The Grange isn’t turning out to be anywhere near as fabsville as I thought it would be. I mean I like it some of the time, but I really miss Sadie and Cheryl and Laura, and even Peg and her gang. We write to one another every day, and I’ve even been up to visit them after church some Sundays. It feels really strange when the bell rings and they have to go in. I stand at the end of the drive watching them, waving until I can’t see them any more, then I walk off to the bus stop wondering what they’re having for dinner, and thinking about all the laughs we used to have. It’s horrible having to go home on my own, and even remembering that I don’t have to lie on my bed for two hours doing nothing doesn’t seem to cheer me up very much.

  They say they really miss me too, and that life’s become very dull now they’re all behaving themselves. I can imagine that’s true, because if we weren’t getting into trouble, we were always bored stiff. Even the teachers ask about me, apparently, and Mrs Lear, the Latin teacher, only gave me a Commended for the last Latin homework I handed in.

  We don’t do Latin at The Grange, and because I’m already on top of most of the lessons, I’ve started spending a lot of my time in class making catapults to fire at the teachers, or thinking up all sorts of practical jokes to play on them, or on other girls. I’ve made a special friend called Lainey Burrows who’s in my year and is the leader of a gang in Cennick house, which I’m in too. She lives quite close to us, on Grace Drive, so we walk to school together most mornings, or ride two on a bike until someone catches us and makes one of us get off. Yesterday, during English, we jumped out on Miss Doors and made her scream, and the other day in rural science we locked Mr Lee in the cupboard and left him there while we went off for break. It was so funny hearing him shouting out for help that we’re thinking about doing it again the next time we have a lesson with him.

  One of the teachers told us that we might like to think we’re as clever as the kids on Please Sir!, but we aren’t.

  Lainey said, ‘You’re right, miss, because we’re cleverer,’ and the whole class screamed with laughter.

  Actually, we get some of our best tricks from that programme, but worse luck our teachers aren’t anywhere near as dishy or understanding as Mr Hedges, who all the girls fancy, in his class, and in ours.

  Lainey’s definitely the prettiest girl in the school. She’s a real laugh too, and so are most of the others in our gang – Tina, Carol, Marilyn and Jess. We’re always getting told off for not wearing our uniforms; sometimes we’re even sent home to fetch our ties which we all hate wearing. It’s not as if we’re boys, so why should we have to dress like them?

  I’ve told Lainey all about Kev and she’s really understanding. She’s mad about an older boy too, Greg Phillips, who goes down the club sometimes with Kev and his mates. She’s already shagged Greg, loads of times, she says, but she’s made me swear not to tell anyone else. It seems as though everyone’s done it, so I’m really glad I have too, because I wouldn’t want to be the odd one out – or one of the squares who always pays attention in class, and never has any boyfriends at all. Or if they do, it’s usually one of the ugly bugs in the school next door, who make me and Lainey want to gag, because they’re all spotty and smelly and really immature.

  Our form mistress is Miss Vaughan. She teaches domestic science and invites all her friends into the cookery room at break times – Miss Batt, Miss Hawkins, Miss Perry and sometimes Mrs Webber, who’s twice as old as the others. If we’ve got nothing else to do we creep up to spy on them through the windows, watching them eat the food Miss Vaughan makes for their dinners, then after they smoke cigarettes with their feet up on chairs showing all their legs. Miss Vaughan is definitely the prettiest, and really young for a teacher, but she’s always going on at me to tie back my hair, which really gets on my nerves. Nag, nag, nag, nag. She’s just said it again now and I’m getting really fed up with it.

  ‘No!’ I say. ‘I don’t want to tie it back.’

  ‘You’ll do as I tell you,’ she snaps, going all red in the face.

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  She starts winding through the stoves and mini-kitchens towards me, looking as though she’s going to slap me. ‘I’m sick to death of you cheeking me,’ she rages, grabbing my arm. ‘You think you’re so grown up, but you aren’t. You’re just a nasty disobedient little child.’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that, you old cow!’ I shout back, feeling my fists starting to clench.

  Lainey and the others are sniggering, and Miss Vaughan’s looking like she’s going to fry me up with the eggs. She lashes out. I dart back, but she’s suddenly on me, and is grabbing my hair in both hands.

  ‘OW, ow! That hurts! Let me go!’ I scream.

  ‘You’re coming with me,’ she shouts, and keeping hold of my hair she hauls me out of the classroom, across the playground and up to the headmistress’s study, never letting me go once, even when I trip and nearly fall to my knees. I would have, if she hadn’t yanked me up by my hair.

  ‘I’m going to smash your face in,’ I warn her, as she drags me into the office.

  ‘What on earth’s going on?’ Miss Fisher demands, coming out of her door.

  ‘I can’t take any more of this girl,’ Miss Vaughan shouts. ‘She cheeks me all the time, calls me names, refuses to do as she’s told …’

  ‘Let go of me!’ I yell. My scalp’s on fire. I really want to kill her.

  ‘You’ll do as you’re told!’ Miss Vaughan seethes, shaking me by the hair and making me scream again.

  ‘Miss Vaughan, you have to let her go,’ Miss Fisher tells her.

  It’s only when I part the nest Vaughny’s turned my hair into that I see what a state she’s in too. Mascara’s streaming down her face and her hair’s not looking all that much better than mine.

  ‘Now, what’s all this about?’ Miss Fisher asks.

  Miss Vaughan’s sobbing. ‘She won’t tie back her hair,’ she gulps, trying to flatten her own.

  Miss Fisher turns her beady eyes on me. ‘Why won’t you tie back your hair?’ she demands. ‘You know it’s school rules.’
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br />   ‘I don’t want to,’ I say. I’m still watching Miss Vaughan, who can’t stop sobbing. It’s like someone’s put a shilling in the meter and she won’t let up till it runs out.

  ‘You aren’t given a choice in the matter,’ Miss Fisher tells me.

  I look at her, then back at Miss Vaughan, who’s in such a state now that she can hardly catch her breath. ‘I’m – I’m sorry,’ she stammers, ‘but I – I can’t take any – more of her.’

  ‘There, there, dear,’ Miss Fisher says, patting her arm. ‘Fetch her a drink of water,’ she instructs the secretary.

  I’m still staring at Miss Vaughan, hardly able to believe my eyes. I mean, I’m the one who got dragged here, and whose hair has been torn out by the roots, so if anyone should be sobbing their heads off surely it should be me.

  ‘Are you proud of upsetting your form mistress so much?’ Miss Fisher asks me.

  I glance at her, then back to Miss Vaughan, who I’m actually starting to feel a bit sorry for, and glad for her sake that the others can’t see her like this, because they’d take the mickey out of her forever if they could. ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Then perhaps you’d like to apologise.’

  I baulk at that, because I don’t like saying sorry to anyone. On the other hand, poor Miss Vaughan’s so upset that I’m starting to wonder what else I could have done to get her so worked up, and if she’s not splitting, then maybe I should say I’m sorry before she does. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ I mumble. ‘I’ll tie it back now, if you like.’

  Miss Vaughan looks at me. Her eyes are all red and black and her head’s jerking about like a puppet’s, she’s sobbing so hard. ‘Yes, you do that,’ she says, taking a tissue from the box Miss Fisher’s offering her.

  The trouble is, I haven’t got anything to tie it back with, but Miss Fisher soon solves that by digging an elastic band out of the secretary’s drawer.

  I ought to brush my hair first, but I don’t like to ask for one, and anyway, it would probably be agony with all the knots I’ve been left with. Plus, my head’s still smarting like I’ve been stung by a thousand bees. Come to think of it, I reckon Miss Vaughan ought to be saying sorry to me, but I don’t have the guts to suggest that either, so I twist the elastic band into my hair, dreading how much it’s going to hurt when I try to get it out again.

  ‘So, are we friends now?’ Miss Fisher asks, looking from one of us to the other.

  Miss Vaughan tries to nod, but suddenly she’s off again, sobbing as though someone’s just whacked her, or something, and I didn’t do a thing.

  ‘Miss Vaughan, is something else bothering you?’ Miss Fisher asks.

  My stomach goes over in case Miss Vaughan’s about to go on about something else I’ve done.

  She shakes her head. ‘No, I’m all right now,’ she sniffs, even though she clearly isn’t. (I bet it’s the time of the month – and she’s taking it out on me. Blooming cheek.)

  ‘Good, then perhaps you’d like to take Susan to the toilets so you can both clean yourselves up. Can I trust you to do that without a fight breaking out again?’

  I can’t believe she’s talking to Miss Vaughan as though she’s a child, and what’s more, Miss Vaughan doesn’t seem to mind. I’d go mental if I was Miss Vaughan’s age and someone spoke to me like that. Still, when it’s Miss Fisher talking no one answers back, apparently not even a teacher.

  After Miss Vaughan’s drunk her water and blown her nose a couple of times, Miss Fisher gives us a hairbrush and off we go to the nearest bogs to sort ourselves out. Because the school is brand new the toilets are nice and clean, but they stink of smoke, so someone’s obviously just been in for a crafty fag.

  I glance at Miss Vaughan’s reflection as she starts brushing her hair, wondering if she’s going to mention the smell. For ages she doesn’t say anything, just tidies herself up, and after passing the brush to me she pats some cold water on her face. Then she gets some bog roll to try and clean off the mascara under her eyes.

  I’m wincing like mad as I struggle to get the brush through all my knots and tangles. It’s not that I’m trying to make her feel bad, or anything, because it really does hurt, but she’s watching my face in the mirror and then she only goes and says she’s sorry.

  ‘I shouldn’t have pulled your hair,’ she says.

  ‘That’s all right,’ I manage to reply, even though it isn’t. ‘I suppose I deserved it.’

  She gives a little smile, then taking the brush she starts to tidy me up, going very gently to make sure she doesn’t hurt me any more.

  I don’t much like the ponytail I end up with, but she’s being so nice that it would be mean to complain, and anyway, I don’t want her going mental on me again. ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  She slips an arm round my shoulders and we look at one another’s reflections for a while. She’s taller than me, blonde, and a bit like Petula Clark. I remember the day we saw her and the other teachers dancing in the cookery rooms on a dinner time. They’d kicked off their shoes and they were twisting and jiving to something we couldn’t hear, and I remember thinking how cool she was for a teacher.

  ‘I wonder what the rest of the class is up to by now,’ she says.

  I keep my eyes on her, waiting for what she’s going to say next. I’m sure she’s going to blame me if we get back to find there’s a riot going on. Then I blink as I realise that she’s trying not to laugh.

  Suddenly I start to laugh too, and the next minute we’re both in hysterics and weakly holding each other up. I’m not sure what’s so funny, except being in the bogs with a teacher laughing our heads off is pretty hilarious. If anyone came in they wouldn’t believe it.

  ‘Friends?’ she says when we get our breath back.

  ‘Friends,’ I reply, meaning it, because actually, I really like her now.

  ‘If you want,’ she says, as we walk back to the cookery room, ‘you can come and have some dinner with us today. I’m making mushroom omelettes.’

  I can’t believe it. I give her a quick look, expecting to find it’s a joke.

  ‘I mean it,’ she says. ‘You could tell us about your old school, Red Maids, if you like. I expect it was an interesting place, and we’d love to hear about it, if you don’t mind, that is.’

  All of a sudden I feel really important, and I can hardly wait to hear what Lainey and the others have to say when I tell them where I’ll be going instead of the canteen today.

  Eddie

  My thoughts are taking me deep down inside myself. Down and down, passing doors that must remain closed, all the way to the bottom, where there’s what …? Emptiness? Death? The asylum where I fear I belong?

  I come up again, bursting into daylight, dazzled and breathless and glad to be alive, because I can hear Gary laughing. Susan is too. There’s no greater pleasure in life than seeing my children happy. Knowing I can make them laugh so easily always lightens the darkness inside me.

  Gary climbs on to my lap and Susan watches us hug. I know she wants to come too, but holds herself aloof, considering herself too grown up for these childish things now. I hold out an arm anyway, and let her decide. It takes a while, but in the end, with an exasperated roll of her eyes, she says, ‘Oh, all right, if it’ll make you happy,’ and in she comes, doing me the biggest favour she possibly can.

  We’re in the dining room after breakfast on Easter Sunday. It’s a gloriously sunny day, providing an understanding of why the season is called spring. It makes you want to leap and bounce with the joy of birdsong and blossom. I’m going to church soon, taking Gary with me. I wish Susan would come too, but she’s going to stay here to do her homework.

  Do I believe her?

  Alas no, but I don’t want to spoil the day with more rows.

  She’s both demon and angel. She makes me think thoughts that belong only in darkness, never to be spoken, or even written by my hand. They remain inside me, falling through my conscience as silently as leaves fall from a tree. When she smiles, showing us glimpses of
the tenderness deep in her soul, the tenderness she tries hard to hide, I am reminded of why I am so happy to have her at home.

  I try not to think of what the neighbours are saying.

  ‘A girl Susan’s age shouldn’t be living in a house with two men. It’s not right. She needs a mother.’

  ‘Eddie won’t get married again.’

  ‘She’s going off the rails, anyone can see that. They threw her out of her last school, and the way she’s going on now, it’s not hard to see why.’

  I’m sure they don’t know I can hear their gossip, because they aren’t normally malicious. They’ve watched my children grow up with their own, but they’re coming to a point now where they don’t want Susan mixing with their girls. Susan doesn’t want to anyway. She says they’re all square and childish. Her friends are much more trendy and grown up, she tells me, which is all that seems to matter to her.

  There’s so much sex on TV these days. It’s everywhere, and now, added to the legality of abortion there’s a new pill they’re saying will stop a girl getting pregnant. One little pill and she can have as many sleeping partners as she likes. Bad enough for girls of a legal age, but what’s happening to the youngsters, is anyone asking themselves that? Is anyone watching?

  I thought the crush on the Sawyer boy would have burned itself out by now, but I can see no sign of it happening yet. I’m sure she’s still friendly with Mandy Hughes, even though she swears she isn’t. I know she lies to me about many things. The demon sends out words of duplicity and deceit, and I wonder where the angel is hiding. So few glimpses, but each one as precious as the child she still is. Where is that child? How can I get her back?

  Is it weak to admit I need help?

  We still go to see Dr Leigh every second Thursday in the afternoons, but I haven’t noticed any improvement in her manner, and I don’t think he has either. If anything, she seems to be more unruly and insolent than ever. I’m not sure what she’s like with him, he never lets on, and she never wants to talk about it after. I’ve considered telling him about this boy and her friendship with Mandy Hughes, but I haven’t forgotten that he was the one who recommended she be taken out of Red Maids. It’s left me afraid that telling him too much might lead us down an avenue we can’t get back from, so I end up keeping a lot of things to myself.