Nora saw tears in her father’s eyes, something she had never experienced before.
“You must have loved her very much,” she suggested.
“Yes, you can say that. You can most certainly say that,” he said and blew his nose. “I never saw her again.”
“And you never heard from her or about her?”
“Oh, once, only once. Someone told me he’d seen her with someone else, and he told me some awful things about her. I didn’t believe him. He was such a bad guy himself. He just told me to hurt me. He knew I’d loved her once, so he knew he could hurt me by telling me such awful lies about her. You see, Nora dear, you couldn’t trust anybody in those days. It was a terrible time.” He shook his head.
Nora saw he had come to the end of his revelations about his young love. She knew it was no use pressing him for more, but she was confident that she would eventually find out more.
The subject was not mentioned again for several months, but Nora knew that her father was suffering. Their confident talk about his young love had opened a gate between them, and he must have re-opened another gate in his own memories. When nobody was watching him, Nora observed, he would often fall into a sad mood, even shaking his head to himself sometimes. She knew it was all about Anna, his memories of her and what he’d heard about her later. She didn’t know why she knew. She just knew.
Meanwhile, her life happily went on with Debbie and her other friends. The spring showers became rarer and the weather turned warmer every day.
It was in early June when the blow fell. The shocking news about her friend Janet struck like lightning, and it changed her group of friends forever.
Nine
Nora had only just reached the classroom when she sensed the strange atmosphere. Everyone was quiet, there were only some whisperings and a few silent coughs. One girl sniffed into her handkerchief.
Debbie looked at her with a questioning face and shrugged her shoulders. She obviously didn’t know anything either.
When the class was ready for the school day, Miss Wallace, their form teacher, entered and sat down at her desk to go about her task of registration. Nora looked around and noticed that Janet was absent. When Miss Wallace came to Janet’s name she didn’t read it out aloud waiting for the girl’s response but only quickly murmured something and immediately proceeded to the next name on her list. After registration, Nora expected Miss Wallace to make some sort of announcement because it was obvious that there was something going on concerning Janet.
Miss Wallace looked at her pupils with a stern face, her eyes travelling just slightly above their heads from one end of the classroom to the other. Then she left without another word.
Everyone looked around for explanations. Nora suspected that some of her classmates must have more information because the strange atmosphere had been there before registration, before Miss Wallace’s obvious neglect or omission of Janet’s name.
If Janet was ill the school must have known, but it still wasn’t the usual procedure when one of the pupils was ill. There had to be another reason behind Janet’s absence. Suddenly, Nora felt very uneasy.
“I hope nothing serious happened to her,” Debbie breathed into Nora’s ear. But before she could answer, Mr Brathwaite, their English teacher, stepped in and immediately began to ask them about their reading for the day. Still no word about Janet. So they had no choice but to go along with whatever was required of them in the various lessons of the day. When the lunch-break came, all the pupils stood together in groups, wildly chatting and wondering what could have happened.
It was in the early afternoon between Latin and maths that a rumour emerged. “Janet got herself knocked up by a boy,” was the way it was communicated. When, towards the end of the school day, the rumour hardened into certainty because Sophie had overheard two teachers discussing what had meanwhile grown into a big scandal in the corridor when she was on her way to the toilet, Nora and her friends were shocked. It felt like the outbreak of some terrible natural catastrophe, like an earthquake. It was clear to every pupil of the school, and especially to those in Nora’s class, that their world would never be the same again.
After school, Nora and Debbie sat down on a park-bench and stared ahead, at a loss for words, before they approached the delicate subject.
“Did you have any idea?” Debbie began.
“No. Did you?”
“Of course not. And she never even gave a hint.”
“Well, how could she? This is going to ruin her life forever.”
“How do you mean?” Nora asked, surprised. “I know this is a big scandal, and things are certainly going to be difficult for her, but I don’t think it’ll necessarily ruin her life. Once there is another scandal it’ll all be forgotten, and she can go on with her life.”
“You have no idea. Everybody is going to pounce on her from their moral high ground. The school’s going to dismiss her, and no one is going to give her a job. Besides, she won’t have time for either school or work. She’ll have to look after her baby.”
Nora went home, lost in thought, wondering what was going to happen to Janet. When she entered the kitchen, her mother looked at her with a stern face. “You’ve heard?” she asked. So the scandal had spread like a wildfire in the African bush.
“It’s so unfair,” Nora said. “Why do people treat her like that? She hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s just allowed a boy to do things with her. She probably didn’t know what it could lead to. I know her, she’s very naive. Most probably her parents haven’t even told her the facts of life yet.”
“That’s a cheap excuse. A girl knows perfectly well how far to go.”
“Obviously, Janet didn’t know. Or do you think she wanted this?”
“Nora dear, I know she’s one of your friends. But how can you be so certain? She gave me the impression that she was asking for it, you know, the way she dressed and all that. She’s just not our sort.”
“How unfair of you, Mum! Just because her parents don’t make the same money as you! She’s my friend, and her outfits are just cheaper than mine, but they’re always decent.”
“I seem to remember she was practically naked when you sat together in your group in the park last summer. That’s just to make the boys look at her, if you ask me.”
“Mum! That was on a hot summer’s day! I had my bathing suit on, too, and so we all had. Hers was a very nice bikini, and that was perfectly decent. I thought she looked great in it, with her figure.”
“Well, did she have to taunt the boys with her breasts nearly jumping out of her top?”
“She didn’t do anything of the sort. And it’s certainly not her fault if her boobs are bigger than most other girls’ in our group, now is it? Are you going to give me an operation to cut me down to size when I grow bigger?”
“Don’t be silly, my girl! I can see what I can see. She just doesn’t belong here. She belongs to the Jesmond lot.”
This was too much for Nora. She had really tried to discuss the matter reasonably, but her mother’s attitude disappointed her. She felt abandoned with her view of the world. She stood in the kitchen for a few more moments, utterly speechless, before she rushed out, slamming the door behind her.
It was later, when she lay on her bed, thinking of the events of the day, that she turned her mind to Janet and her predicament. She was convinced it was Jeff Benson. Then she tried to imagine Janet and Jeff making love. Where could they have done that: in her house in Osborne Road or at his home? Did they really know what they were doing? Or were they just carried away by their wonderful feelings? She remembered her fragmentary attempts with Ned, their kisses, Ned’s eager hands on her breasts, their passionate embraces, but she simply couldn’t imagine how she could ever lose herself so far as to allow a boy to go the whole hog. Janet must have this experience now. Did this make her more gr
own-up?
Over the next few days, the scandal of the lower-class girl who got herself pregnant by a good-for-nothing boy was all over the community. People were shaking their heads over such low morals, parents were warning their daughters of any sexual activities with boys, and the teachers in Nora’s school only spoke in whispers about the delicate subject, whispers that could be overheard by most pupils anyway. They were probably intended to be heard, Nora thought. They followed a strategy of keeping up an atmosphere of a horrible natural catastrophe that was just too awful to be discussed in the open, but too juicy to be avoided altogether. Besides, Nora suspected the teachers of welcoming such a scandal which served to cement their power, to strengthen their position of a more elevated moral authority. They worked in close collaboration with the church people. The canon of the local church came and spoke to the whole school in three successive morning assemblies. Of course, he didn’t take such filthy words as “sex” or “pregnant” in his mouth, his hypocritical rhetoric meandered around all sorts of phrases from the Bible, and the only half-way intelligible message to the pupils consisted of a thundering warning. He warned them of parties that lasted into the night, he warned them of the consumption of alcohol, he warned them of mixed camping holidays and he warned them of what he called indecent clothing. The rest of his babblings were lost. Nora asked Debbie if any of it had made sense to her.
“Well, not really, except the bits about booze and parties. But don’t worry. He had his great field day.”
“The worst thing about it all,” Nora concluded, “is the fact that nobody seems to care for poor Janet. They’re just pouncing on her like a pack of hungry wolves.”
The issue of Janet’s pregnancy had a series of consequences for Nora and her view of her mother’s world and indeed of the entire society in which she lived. She considered the reactions of those in authority callous and hypocritical. From this day onward, she decided to ignore any advice or warnings issued by either the teachers or the churchmen. As for her parents, she overheard a conversation between them which showed her that while her mother was as hysterical as her teachers, her father took a much more enlightened view. She heard him even plead for Janet. “The poor girl needs help,” she heard him say.
His wife answered, “A good hiding, that’s what she needs, if you ask me!”
Thus, Nora lost all respect for those in power. Also, she made it her special task to take Janet’s side, to remain a good friend to her, to be there when she needed someone to talk to. And she decided to stand up for her in discussions. No girl deserved to be talked about the way Janet was talked about.
Unfortunately, it became more difficult to keep in touch with Janet because her good friend was not only dismissed from their school. She was also banned from Nora’s home by Mother’s decree. “I won’t have such low riff-raff from Jesmond in my house. No working-class slut is going to corrupt my daughters.” However, what the mother didn’t realize was the fact that such strong language had the opposite effect on Nora. It confirmed her resolution to stay in touch with Janet at all costs, even if Janet had been a working-class girl, which she wasn’t.
Over the next few weeks, while the scandal was artificially kept hot by the righteous people of Gosforth, Nora managed to escape the common witch-hunt and sneaked over to Jesmond to visit her friend Janet, who was rather shy and downcast at first, clearly feeling guilty, but who gradually regained more self-confidence in their meetings. She found a place in a different school, a comparatively new type called a secondary modern school, where the headmaster was informed about her “condition” from the outset and promised to protect her from accusations by teachers or pupils. He even promised to defend her in front of other parents in their meetings. While Nora was glad to be at her own school because of the academic excellence offered there, she couldn’t help feeling a little envious of Janet at her new school, which was obviously more tolerant and more humane.
When Nora told Debbie that she was still seeing Janet, Debbie congratulated her. On one of her next walks across the park in the direction of Osborne Road, Debbie accompanied her. When both of them arrived, Janet was overjoyed. And from now on the three girls maintained their friendship, a friendship based on mutual confidence and on common moral experience. It was to last for many years.
* * *
In Nora’s family, the question of Dad’s proposed business trip to Germany became the most important issue debated over the dinner table. He had mentioned such a possibility on various occasions before, and Nora had always wondered why this should be such a big deal. Business people often went on business trips. Dad had been on trips back to the States several times since their move to Britain, and he had been to other countries like France, Belgium and Norway, but never to Germany.
“Why are you discussing this with us?” she asked one evening over their cold supper. “Is there any special challenge for you? Do you have any problems with your German business partners?”
“Oh no,” her father answered, “it’s not that. I’m just a bit worried about travelling by air, you know, with all those terrorist attacks these days.”
“What terrorist attacks?”
“Well, you remember last year’s IRA attacks, the Aldershot bombing and the black September, don’t you?”
“Of course. But when you travelled to all those other places you weren’t worried. Why now?”
“Listen,” her mother interrupted. “Don’t use such an arrogant tone to your father.”
When the father had left the dining room for his study, Nora took up the matter again with her mother. “I just want to know what’s so special about a simple business trip to Germany. That’s all.”
Mother hesitated before she answered. “You know your father originally came from Germany. So he’s a bit worried about the language. He doesn’t like to admit it, but he’s not too confident about his German, which is not only antiquated but also mixed with Swiss German, a thing the Germans will laugh at.”
“Okay, I see,” Nora mumbled, but she sensed that there was more behind the issue and decided to let the matter rest for the time being.
A few days later, the topic came up again. Dad announced he would definitely fly to Germany in a few weeks’ time. He simply had to go to the Leipzig Trade Fair, the world’s oldest trade fair, going back to the twelfth century, the most important venue for business contacts between East and West during the Cold War. In his position it was of the highest importance that he should meet some important men who worked for East Germany’s state-controlled industry. A whole new market was opening up for many Western companies now that the treaties between West Germany and the Soviet Union had been signed and ratified.
“So, you’re no longer worried that people will laugh at your accent?” Nora teased him.
“I have it from the East German Embassy in London that they will treat me as an official guest, which will give me VIP status. So I should be met with the necessary respect.”
“Was it really only that?” Nora persisted.
“Well, my girl, if you want to know the truth, I was - and I still am - a bit worried about my past experience. You know I was in a concentration camp towards the end of the War, so my name might still appear on some old lists.”
“From my understanding of history, they should rather treat you as a hero if they find out about your time in a concentration camp.”
There was a slight twitch in his shoulder. “You don’t understand. Things got so muddled up at the end of the War. They might want to put me in prison by mistake, and once you’re in you can’t get out so easily in East Germany.”
Nora accepted this. Even though she had learnt quite a lot of facts about the War, about Nazi Germany and about the concentration camps, she had to admit to herself that the reality in people’s minds was often bound to be more complicated or even chaotic. She began to feel more sympathetic towa
rds her father and his latent fears.
A month later, Didi Woolf left Newcastle on a five-day business trip to Leipzig. When Margaret and Nora sat down for a sisterly chat after the evening meal, Margaret asked, “Don’t you think Dad was a bit nervous about his trip when we said good-bye?”
Nora hesitated before answering. “Yes, and he told me why. It’s because people in Germany might misinterpret his role during the War. You know he was in a concentration camp?”
“Oh, I see. But why do you keep pestering him about all that? Don’t you know he doesn’t like to talk about those years and all the horrible things he must have experienced? Can’t you leave him alone?”
“I never pestered him. I’m just interested in history. And he was a witness to important events in modern history. So why can’t he tell us more?”
“Simply because it hurts him too much. You have no idea of what a bad trauma can do to people.” Margaret got quite worked up over this.
“Okay okay, hold your horses. You are not interested in history, but I am. Let’s just agree to disagree over this.”
The sisters didn’t like to quarrel. Nora accepted the fact that Margaret just wasn’t interested in recent history as much as she was. She also came to the conclusion that, perhaps, she was being a little unfair towards her father. After all, if he had really suffered at the hands of the Nazis, one could understand that he didn’t particularly enjoy talking about his ordeal.
So when their father returned from his business trip, the daughters welcomed him with the usual warm feelings, and Nora didn’t press him for any tales from Germany.
A few days after his return, however, Dad opened up the topic himself. They were sitting around their living-room, the mother doing some knitting - an activity she had only recently taken up again after having neglected it since her childhood - and the girls lounging on the sofa with their books, while their father had just finished reading the papers. He usually read The Times and The Guardian - sometimes also The Financial Times - in the evening, often taking quite a long time to get through his papers, probably reading every bit of news. Tonight, he was through with them after only half an hour. Outside, it was raining and there was a heavy wind.
White Lies Page 15