Mothers and Daughters

by Fleming, Leah

  1) My favourite day out.

  2) Where I will be in ten years time …

  3) A day in the life of …

  That last was the one she fancied doing and she knew just what she was going to say.

  ‘Wasn’t that hard?’ sighed Joy, who was chewing on her pencil after the final arithmetic exam was over, while her mother was fussing over them in Santini’s, where they’d gone with Rosa.

  ‘Well? How did it go, Rosa?’ Auntie Su asked.

  She shrugged nonchalantly. ‘I can kiss Our Lady of Sorrows goodbye,’ she sighed, tucking into a huge triple Neapolitan ice. They rarely came to Santini’s since Auntie Ria had the B.F.O. with her family, but Rosa was allowed to come in on her own with them. Old Nonna Valentina still wanted to treat her grandchild and her friends.

  Auntie Su was giving them a grilling and wanted to know about every question and how they answered. ‘What essay did you do, Joy?’ she whispered.

  ‘The one about being a ballerina when I grow up, like we practised,’ she replied. Joy had no intention of being a ballet dancer. She had barely scraped through her last Royal Academy exam.

  ‘What did you do?’ Joy smiled turning to Connie.

  ‘A day in the life of a bag of chips,’ Connie said, watching their faces gape with surprise.

  ‘That’s not one we practised with Miss Scorah,’ Joy replied, and Mama’s face dropped with disappointment.

  ‘I know, I know, but it just came into my head and it was a good story about a fish landed from the sea and a potato pulled out of the earth who didn’t feel very special but when they got together with the newspaper they were turned into magic food and made us warm and happy. The newspaper was thrown in the bin but jumped out and began another adventure.’

  Suddenly her idea seemed silly and she knew she had blown her chance, but she didn’t want to be a ballerina, not like Rosa, who was the best dancer in the school.

  ‘You’ve all done your best, I’m sure,’ said Mama, patting her arm and giving her a two-bob bit to spend as a treat. All she could think of was that the exam was over and now she could forget it and get on with Christmas.

  On the spring morning that the letters allocating scholarship places arrived, Connie had to go to school not knowing her fate.

  There were tears and tantrums and mums squeezing letters through the playground railings. ‘You’ve got a place at the technical school.’ ‘You’ve passed for Moor Bank.’ It was an agony to wait until dinnertime to rush home to see what fate was waiting for them on the kitchen table.

  Auntie Su was sitting smiling at Joy. ‘You’ve passed, you passed for Moor Bank.’ This was the council grammar school in the centre of town and strictly second division, but everyone knew it was better than Broad Lane Secondary.

  Connie’s own result lay unopened on the table. Mama was on duty but she couldn’t wait until teatime to know her fate. The envelope was torn open and the letter read.

  ‘Crikey Moses! I don’t believe it!’ she cried, shoving the letter across the table to Auntie Su, who went pink when she read it.

  ‘Congratulations, Connie, Grimbleton School, Girls’ Division for you! They must have liked that fish and chip story after all.’

  Connie wakes from her dreaming, looking at her watch with dismay. How time crawls when you watch it. Turning the pages of that family album is like stepping into another world for her children; a world where girls wore frocks and sandals – patent leather with ankle straps – and boys wore shorts until they were thirteen or more. How they laugh when it comes out. Kids played in the street until it was dark, walking unmolested through parks, sat in cinemas, mooched around for miles, playing out all day. Not like now.

  With hindsight Connie realises that there must have been other kids who were not so lucky as the Winstanley tribe. Judging by the books in the shops, they have a different story to tell of blighted childhoods and abuse. Whatever half-truths she was fobbed off with were accepted as gospel. In this fifties world, grown-ups knew best. Parents often had their reasons to lie.

  Just three girls and Neville, living in a bubble, protected by aunties, friends, neighbours who made up for there being no fathers around. So many of their school friends had none either, because of the war.

  What you don’t have, you don’t miss, they say … That’s a lie! Together, war babies like Rosa, Joy and me might be children of peace, but each of our own private battles was devastating none the less.

  We had no fathers to guide us through those difficult years. Is that why we made so many mistakes?

  3

  Rosa

  Rosa stood in the dining queue daydreaming. She was rehearsing her audition routine in her head: dégagé derrière … jeté … pas de bourrée and plié. There would only be minutes to impress the judges for a place in the Royal Academy, Manchester classes. There would be lines of competition from other twelve-year-olds in their white leotards and sashes. Miss Liptrot was giving Rosa extra lessons to make every movement perfect.

  Every morning she went into the chapel early to beg Our Lady for a place. Sweets were sacrificed in favour of buying a strip of photos of little black babies for Jesus, saved by the missionaries in Africa from starvation. Sometimes she would practise her port de bras as she pleaded to the Holy Mother for this special favour. Then Sister Gilberte caught her prancing and there’d been trouble ever since.

  Her arms were extended and fingers outstretched. They were her best feature, for her legs were a little on the short side and her arches were not fully rounded to make her pointed foot look as good as it should. She did all her barre exercises faithfully hanging onto the banister rail at the top of the stairs, but there wasn’t enough space to extend out and stretch properly because of the pram in the hall.

  She stretched out her brown brogues to see if her ankles had shrunk. They looked awful in her grey wool socks with the gold and brown stripes at the knee. If only she could wear stockings like the sixth-form girls. Her brown serge pinafore was shaped and fitted, and a size too big, having once belonged to her cousin Marcella. Everything was handed down, shiny with wear and had hems and tucks. She felt like a cross between a wasp and a bumblebee.

  Our Lady of Sorrows liked their girls in shapeless drab uniforms the colour of a ploughed field or a ‘number-two job’, as her friend Maureen Brady had whispered to her. She lifted her skirt to examine her knees. As usual they were scuffed and pitted with ash marks from chasing her brother, Salvi, round the park.

  ‘Put that skirt down, Rosaria,’ shouted Sister Gilberte, who had eyes like radar for any fidgeting and infringement of the rules. ‘How many times do I have to drum into this numbskull that Sorrows girls do not display bodily parts except on the playing field? Sorrows girls are ladies first and foremost, even if we do have to suffer the scruffier elements of our community from time to time. We will have no common boldness in this school, do you hear, Santini? What can you expect from Italian peasant stock!’ the nun sniffed, pulling Rosa roughly back into line.

  ‘Virtue and decorum at all times, girls. You are the Holy Mother’s little flagships sailing on a sea of wickedness and heresy.’

  Rosa hated Sister Gilberte, in her long black habit, swishing along the corridor like a black swan gliding over a polished sea of oak. She was Odile to her Odette in Swan Lake, the sorcerer’s evil daughter, all sweetness and light on the outside but a black heart at the core. How she had cried when poor Odette was denied her prince. It wasn’t fair.

  Sister Gilberte knew her every move, caught her running when she should be walking, skipping when she should be walking crocodile, told her off for singing too loud, sneezing in chapel, for having dirty hands and knees, and her hair ribbon missing.

  Mamma would sigh and find sixpence for another hair ribbon, for they could only be bought from the school. It was not fair. There must be hundreds of ribbons hidden in Sister Gilberte’s desk.

  It was a good job lessons were easy and she could do her prep on the bus home or tucke
d under a spare hair dryer in the salon when it was quiet. If only her exercise books didn’t end up smelling of ammonia and bleach. Once she got hair tint splashed on her work and got the cane again. She needed all the gold stars she could get so that she might ask for the afternoon off to attend the ballet audition. A place at the Academy morning school was another rung on the ladder to becoming the next Fonteyn, Beryl Grey or Markova. She was not fussy which. She already had a good stage name.

  ‘Rosa Santini, rising star of the Royal Ballet School dances at the King’s Theatre, Grimbleton as a gesture to her home town and alma mater, the Lemody Liptrot School of Dance,’ the paper would read. The whole convent would come to see her perform and Sister Gilberte would not have a ticket but would sit alone eating her words about the Santinis being common and bold.

  For the moment she must suffer for her art; a little drone at the court of the big fat queen bee in the wimple, fussing over her favourites with their sashes and big busts. She would like a Sabrina bust one day, but not until she was famous. Busts got in the way of jetés and entrechats; they bounced and wobbled and hung over flimsy tunics. Sister Gilberte said they were bodily parts that gave occasions for sin and lust, and must be bound over at all times.

  Hers were like two half lemons but they still had to be encased in a tiny cotton dancing bra so that nothing showed under the white leotard. Her body was changing and she hated the hair sprouting at the top of her legs; it was coarse and dark, and showed through her leotard without a lining sewn into it.

  Nuns didn’t have busts but wore long white spatulas over their habit like penguins waddling down the shore in squeaky brogues that looked like coal barges.

  Sister Gilberte had spies everywhere feeding her morsels of information. How else did she know that Rosaria cavorted in ice-cream parlours with Protestants and danced to juke box music, which everyone knew was of the very devil himself? If only she could fit in with the rest of her class.

  When she giggled with Maureen, who was clever and wanted to be a teacher, they were separated and Rosa was told she was a bad influence so she was sat next to poor Celia Whitehouse, who had red hair and spots and was working hard to be a saint, and whose parents had a sweet shop and tobacconist’s and gave the school lots of prizes for the Christmas parties.

  Somehow Sister Gilberte knew all about the Santini scandal and the Big Fall-Out after Dada went to heaven. How her mother had left the café and had a baby and lived with Protestants before Sylvio Berterolli made an honest woman of her. The Santini stock was not rated highly after cousin Marcella left at fifteen before her exams to work in the café. Enzo went to St Vincent’s so no one was expecting much from this humble offcut. Rosa’s scholarship had been a surprise even to herself. It was a burden she had to bear.

  ‘I hope you last longer than your cousin,’ sniffed the nun. ‘Girls from your background should not be entered for scholarships. They take up valuable places. You will do cookery and extra religious studies to nip any contrariness in the bud. The Sorrows girls are the future homemakers of Catholic Grimbleton, shining beacons of motherhood within the sanctity of holy matrimony fortified by Papal Blessing and Nuptial Mass. I can’t see you qualifying for anything much. Good Catholic girls do not go on the stage and we don’t want show-offs in our midst. I shall be watching you, Santini.’

  It was hard enough kitting her out for the grammar school now that baby Serafina had followed Salvi and they were bursting at the seams living above the salon. Mamma was so busy downstairs seeing to customers that Rosa was lumbered with watching the babies whilst trying to practise her barre work on the banister rail in the hallway.

  A place at the Royal Academy would change all that. School was just something to do between ballet lessons and listening to the juke box, but she still needed a letter to get her off classes so she could catch the bus to Manchester.

  Mamma was not good at spelling, and Sylvio was even worse. In the end it was Queenie Quigley, one of the Olive Oil Supper Club, who came to the rescue and wrote the letter on peach-coloured scented notepaper, which was all they had to hand, and Mamma signed it. Rosa handed it in to the school office and thought nothing of it until she was summoned by her form teacher at the end of registration.

  ‘We don’t give days off to go cavorting with theatricals, Rosaria. There aren’t enough days in the week to drum the basics into a schoolgirl’s head if she is to avoid all the temptations of the flesh and the devil in this day and age,’ said Sister Gilberte drawing herself up into a puffball of indignation. ‘Dancing and prancing half naked on a stage for men to lust after – is that what any good mother wants for her daughter? Permission is withheld for your own good and let’s hear no more about it. Do you understand?’

  Rosa nodded, feeling sick in the pit of her stomach. A nun’s word was second only to the priest’s but she just had to go. There was nothing for it but to ignore the order and lie, for Mamma would never argue with a nun. She was on sticky ground already, being in mortal sin. Disobedience was unthinkable for someone who was in disgrace with her own Church. It was only one measly afternoon’s leave. But how could she lie to her own mother?

  She was glad that Joy and Connie were waiting in Santini’s after school. They always met up there on Fridays. Connie was sitting in her red uniform looking like a stick of striped rock, and poor Joy, in her heavy navy-blue coat and felt hat, was sipping an ice-cream soda. They were already comparing their homework.

  ‘When’s the audition?’ they asked, for the whole dancing school was thrilled that someone had got through to the last selection day. It was a good job they were her oldest friends and she could trust them with the truth.

  ‘That cow Gilberte won’t let me off school,’ Rosa whispered ‘But I have to go. What shall I do?’ she asked as she tucked into a huge bowl of vanilla, raspberry sauce staining her tongue.

  ‘Say nothing and just go,’ said Connie, trying to be helpful. But she was so clever Rosa knew she would never miss school. She was destined for certificates and prizes, and her pockets were always stuffed with library books.

  ‘Pretend to be sick,’ whispered Joy, who often stayed off school. She said it was to help Auntie Susan with the lodgers at Waverley House. She hardly ever came to dancing class now, but preferred to meet them in the café afterwards.

  Joy didn’t seem to have her own gang of friends at Moor Bank and was always hanging around the girls from the Girls’ Division with Connie. None of them bothered with her much, which was a shame, for Joy was kind and good at window-shopping and choosing materials on the market stalls. She was pretty even if she was plump. Rosa felt sorry for Joy.

  On the morning before the audition, she double-checked everything in her ballet box, a round case with a handle that was her pride and joy. She decided to skip school altogether. If she brought a sick note no one could say anything the next day.

  She deliberately missed the bus and walked into town as if she was going to the dentist, dawdling back home slowly and checking her bag once more.

  Sylvio offered to take them all in his van so he could call in at the warehouse for his salon supplies. It was half-day, and Mamma wanted a trip into Manchester herself. It would have been better if just the two of them had gone on the bus but Sylvio couldn’t be expected to look after babies.

  Rosa’s selection class was at two thirty: barre work, dance, interview and medical examination. She was so excited she was shaking. It was hard to hurry everyone along into the van for the fifteen-mile journey into the city centre.

  They were almost at Salford when they got a puncture and everyone had to get out. That was when Sylvio discovered he had forgotten to put the spare tyre back and Rosa felt a wave of panic as she looked at her wristwatch. None of them knew the right bus route but Mamma was not going to let a little matter of a lift get in the way of her daughter’s future so she flagged down the first car that passed as if it was a national emergency, checking to see if there was a woman in the passenger seat.

  It
was a couple on their way to Cheetham Hill and, hearing her story, offered to drop Rosa off at the foot of Deansgate so she could walk up to the studio halfway along the street. Mamma promised to join her there as soon as she could organise Sylvio with a new tyre. She kissed her and shoved a little crucifix into her palm.

  ‘Put it in your bra for good luck,’ she smiled. ‘I will be praying for you.’

  By the time she got to Deansgate it was ten past two and there was a long way to run to the top-floor studio. The street was much bigger than she’d thought and she was not so sure just which doorway staircase to take. Panic was turning her limbs to lead and she was in tears as she kept stopping shoppers and asking the way. Nobody knew where it was.

  It was half-past two when she recognised the doorway and found the right staircase, flying up two at a time. In the foyer she stripped off her uniform and flung herself into her leotard and ballet skirt. In her rush she knotted her ballet ribbons up wrong, her hair was flying out of her bun and she was pink with anxiety as she crept into the dancing studio, late, breathless and dishevelled. She took herself to the end of the barre, trying to catch up and keep in time.

  ‘Plié … battement tendu …’ came the orders from the dancing master, who marched up and down with a tall stick, watching them carefully. There was no time to cry that this was not how it was meant to be. Rosa tried to concentrate and gather her trembling limbs into shape. Then her ballet shoe fell off and spun across the wooden floor. She crumpled and forgot everything she had ever learned. Mamma’s lucky crucifix was still in her coat pocket.

  The letter of rejection when it came was no surprise. From the moment she entered the class late, there was never any hope of retrieving her poise. After all, had she not sold her soul and lied to gain this precious opportunity and now she was being punished?