No Talking after Lights

by Angela Lambert

  Have I ever been happy, she wondered, other than through my brother Jamie, for such a little time when we were children together, and for a long time now through my son James? Certainly I was not happy as a young girl. That day on the hills with Roly. Blot out the images, Henrietta, blot them out. Such a gentle, companionable beginning, as she had shown Roly her favourite walk to the clear, shining lochan near the top of Ben Mor. They had walked easily together while he told her about his long friendship with Jamie - for they had met and become friends in their very first half at Eton. Then he had reminisced about triumphs on the cricket field, long reading holidays, mutual discoveries of Lucullus, Ovid and Donne, of Macaulay, Browning and a poet she’d never heard of then, called Gerard Manley Hopkins. He had walked and quoted and she had walked and listened until, with the sun high and hot, they had stopped to eat their picnic in the shade.

  Cook had packed cold chicken and cold beef, fruit pie and a bottle of father’s good claret. Henrietta drank water, watching Roly with the wine bottle tipped to his mouth, his lips squashed around it, his throat swallowing strongly. He smiled at her, then settled himself down into the heather saying, ‘Will you be all right if I sleep for a little - half an hour - before we go on?’ She sat a little distance apart from him, watching the hawks circling lazily high up in the sky as they waited for some unwary small animal to betray its presence as it scuttled hundreds of feet below. Insects buzzed and twittered, but otherwise there was a great stillness all around. She could see deer on the opposite hillside, grazing and lifting their heads and dropping them to graze again. She herself was not drowsy but alert, for once full of serene thoughts about Jamie’s brilliant schooldays. At least he’d had that, she thought; he has good memories, too. Her heart, which had been hard as marble, warmed for the first time in weeks to a sort of passive restlessness that could not be called happiness, but was not icy either. She could not understand herself, but she saw a glimmer that promised light and warmth one day, and maybe even fire - not the fire that in her dream had annihilated Jamie, but a thrilling, life-giving fire. She looked towards Roly, to see if he still slept.

  He was not asleep, but looking at her.

  ‘Come here, Henrietta,’ he said, his voice very steady and neutral. He sat up. ‘Come here.’

  ‘Shall we go on?’ she said. ‘It’s another good hour if you want to look at the view from the top.’

  ‘How does a girl like you, a sheltered young miss who hasn’t yet put her hair up or her skirts down, a gently reared, devout girl, know about rogering? What do you know?’

  She was afraid. Men should not say such things, no, nor do them.

  ‘I heard the word yesterday for the first time. I didn’t understand at first. Mr Graham, shall we go on? Or shall we at least talk about something else?’

  ‘Henrietta, whatever is the matter? Why are you frowning like that? My dear, are you all right?’ asked Peggy Roberts.

  ‘Why,’ said Henrietta Birmingham slowly, ‘why do people expect to be happy?’

  Four

  ‘… Eleven … twelve … thirteen … FOURTEEN!’

  On the last count Fiona Cathcart, still in her pyjamas, flew into the air, tossed upwards by the energetically heaving arms of the four girls who were giving her birthday bumps. She landed in a heap on her bed as the others in her dormitory began to sing, their excitement overtaken by the almost dignified clarity of their strong, sweet voices:

  ‘Happy Birthday to you,

  Happy Birthday to you,

  Happy Birthday dear Feeny,

  Happy Birthday to you!’

  Then they clapped and gave the ritual call for ‘Speech!’ Fiona stood up on her bed and, grinning with joy and embarrassment, was just starting off, ‘Friends, Romans, country - I mean, fellow members of Starlings …’ when the door opened and Miss Peachey walked in.

  ‘I know,’ she said, to their cries of protest. ‘I know perfectly well that it’s Fiona’s birthday - many happy returns of the day, dear - but that’s no excuse for you all to be late down to breakfast. No she may not, Charmian, she can open her cards later. Now then, there’s only five minutes to the bell: get a move on, all of you!’

  At eleven o’clock when the bell rang for Break, half the form ran to the Covered Way with Fiona to look for her name on the parcels list. Birthday presents were always held back until the actual day, even if they’d arrived earlier, so she had the satisfaction of seeing Fiona Cathcart (5) on the list for everyone to read. She and Anne Hetherington collected her parcels together and put them up in the dormitory, to be opened during Rest. It was generally considered better to wait, even though you didn’t see your birthday presents till two o’clock; but it meant you enjoyed the luxury of anticipation, and of being able to unwrap them slowly.

  While they were upstairs, Constance was opening a letter. She didn’t know the writing on the envelope, nor was the postmark familiar, so she turned it over for a while, savouring the mystery. Inside she found a letter from Mrs Simpson, the twins’ mother, inviting her to spend half-term with them. She pushed the straw through the hole punched in the cardboard milk bottle top and sucked as she read.

  ‘Your Mother tells me you’ve taken to the school like a duck to water and I’m sure the twins will be glad to have someone to play with over half-term,’ wrote kind, misguided Mrs Simpson. ‘You’ll find us pretty dull I expect — don’t pitch your hopes too high! I’ll drive down and collect the three of you on Friday at lunch-time. Don’t worry! I won’t be late!’

  Constance looked around for Mick and Flick in case they’d had a letter by the same post, but they were whispering together with Deborah, empty-handed. Her face and shoulders sagged, but she knew it was best to get it over with, so she walked across to them. They looked at her with closed expressions.

  ‘What d’you want?’ said Flick.

  ‘Nothing. Sorry. Well, actually it’s just that your mother’s been smashing and she’s, um, invited me to spend half-term with you.’

  ‘Oh, super,’ said Mick, flatly.

  ‘How jolly dee,’ said Flick.

  ‘Yes, um, thanks very much. It’s terrifically kind of her … of you.’

  ‘Not us. First I’ve heard of it,’ said Flick.

  ‘I say, hard luck, old beans,’ Constance heard Deborah say as she walked off. ‘What a mouldy rotten chiz. Your half-term too …’

  The bell rang, piercingly imperious in the confined space of the Covered Way, and everyone began to move towards their form-rooms, some dawdling with their heads still bent over a letter, others in cheerful groups. Sheila and Charmian walked together, Charmie jiggling impatiently, Sheila flat-footed and solemn. Hermione came running lightly down from the music rooms, her smile like a flag waving its impartial brilliance. Charmie and Sheila straightened up and walked on with self-conscious deportment, turning to each other with excited whispers as soon as she had passed.

  ‘Hello, Hermione,’ said Constance, shyly, as Hermione drew level.

  ‘Oh … er - h’llo.’ And the beautiful smile flashed again.

  Oh, gosh, she is terrific, thought Constance, and forgot Mrs Simpson’s troublesome invitation.

  ‘I feel sick,’ said Charmian, staring at her untouched pudding. Her cheeks were bloodless but her eyes glittered as though reflecting candlelight. ‘Please, Miss Monk, I think I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘You don’t look very well, dear. Do you want to leave the table?’

  Charmian gulped, nodded and looked appealingly at Sheila. Miss Monk, who had heard about the Reynolds divorce at the latest staff meeting, had been expecting something like this.

  ‘You go with her, Sheila,’ she said kindly.

  As soon as they had made their conspicuous exit from the dining-room, Charmian said, ‘Quick, the lavs! Run!’ But when they got there, she wasn’t sick at all. She kicked open the lavatory doors one by one to make sure they were empty and dragged Sheila after her into the changing-room next door, where rows of blazers hung from row of peg
s and beneath them rows of shoes nestled in individual wooden lockers. She pulled Sheila into a corner where the two of them were hidden behind long green capes and there, smothered in a thick darkness that smelt of wool and gym shoes, she said, ‘Sheila I’m in trouble. You’ve got to help me.’

  ‘What on earth’s wrong? I thought you wanted to be sick.’

  ‘Much, much worse than that. I do feel sick in a way but not like you think. Cross your heart and hope to die you promise not to split on me?’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  ‘Swear on your mother’s life you’ll never ever tell?’

  With sinking heart Sheila repeated solemnly, ‘I swear on my mother’s life.’

  In the enveloping darkness Charmian put her arms round Sheila and whispered hotly into her ear: ‘It’s me, Sheil. I took the things. It’s me that’s the thief. And what’s more, I ran up to the dorm today just before lunch to pinch one of Feeny’s parcels - I don’t know why! I just did! - and as I was coming out with it stuffed into my knickers Peachey saw me. She asked what I was doing so I said I’d come to get a hanky. So then I went into the bathroom and pretended to wash my face and when she’d gone away I hid the parcel in my sponge-bag. And now Feeny’ll notice and I’m terrified there’ll be a search. Sheila, you’ve got to help me. How can I get rid of it? What if I’m caught? Oh, I wish my mummy was here!’

  Charmian began to cry, and Sheila held her steadily while she tried to be calm and grown-up, to think clearly and responsibly about what was the right thing to do.

  ‘Why don’t you just run up now - there’ll be nobody about, they’re all in lunch - and put it back?’ she suggested. ‘Or I will, if you like.’

  ‘No!’ said Charmian with amazing vehemence.

  ‘OK, OK, keep your hair on, I’m only trying to help. Now listen, shut up crying and let me think. Look, all right, this is what I’ll do. I’ll go and get it from your sponge-bag. I’ll hide it somewhere else - I don’t know where, I’ll think of somewhere - while you go back in. Rinse your mouth with soap or something first so they’ll all think you’ve been sick, and then I’ll come in after you and say I had to clean up the aunt.’

  ‘Okey-dokey. Good idea. Gosh, thanks, Sheil! You are a sport.’

  ‘Count up to fifty while you wash your face, to give me time …’

  Sheila ran up the back stairs, her legs trembling. Two flights up - Starlings’ bathroom - Charmie’s sponge-bag. There it was: a neat, rectangular parcel, criss-crossed with string and sealed with a blob of red sealing wax. She grasped it, zipped up the sponge-bag, rearranged the towel over it, and stood stock-still on the slatted boards of the bathroom, trembling with fear and indecision. Why didn’t she just put it back? That wouldn’t be breaking her promise to Charmie, and no-one would ever know what had happened. She remembered Charmie’s passionate ‘No!’ and her mind raced on. At the darkest end of the corridor, high up on the wall, was a wooden box with the electric fuses. It was locked, but there was a narrow gap on top between the box and the ceiling. Sheila grabbed a chair from the end of her bed, ran into the corridor, stood on the chair, pushed the parcel in as far as it would go, put her chair back and then forced herself to wash her hands and walk slowly and deliberately downstairs back into the dining-room.

  Lunch had just finished, and chairs scraped as the school stood up for grace. Tor what we have received may the Lord make us truly thankful,’ piped one of the squits and the school sighed, ‘Amen’.

  In the dormitory after lunch, puzzlement turned into disbelief, then accusations, denials, threats and finally tears, before Fiona settled down to open her remaining four presents. When the bell rang for games, the members of Starlings dispersed with new suspicions. Constance, knowing herself to be shunned, left the dormitory first. Let them talk about me behind my back, see if I care, she thought mutinously.

  On their way to the changing-room before swimming, Charmian whispered fiercely to Sheila, ‘What did you do with it?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Sheila soothingly. ‘It’s quite safe for the moment. No-one’ll find it.’

  ‘Well done you!’ said Charmian admiringly. ‘So where did you hide it?’

  ‘You know that box thing in the corridor, where all the electricity goes? On top of that.’

  ‘Good for you! Whoof!’ She heaved a deep sigh of relief, and Sheila was glad that she’d been able to help her troubled friend.

  ‘Now look here,’ Charmian went on, ‘I’ve got to talk to you! Make an excuse to get out of swimming and I will too. We’ll meet behind the pets’ shed. Come on, Sheil, you’ve got to! You promised!’

  For Charmian, subterfuge was simple: not only because she lied fluently, but also because the staff had been advised to go easy on her. Sheila, however, was obliged to tell Mrs Whitby, the games mistress, that she was ‘off games, with that special look and emphasis that indicated she had the curse; and since it was not an excuse she had ever used before — she didn’t yet have the curse - the lie was compounded by Mrs Whitby’s kindly inquiries as to whether she ‘knew what to do’ and assurances that she needn’t worry, it was perfectly normal and just showed she was a big girl now. Sheila then had to make her way to Sister’s room and request a packet of STs (furthermore, she knew she would have to try to remember to ask for them every month from now on) before finally racing up to the pets’ shed, where she found Charmian cuddling their wide-eyed, palpitating rabbit.

  ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave …’ began Sheila, for that was what her father used to say when he caught her out in a fib.

  ‘You’re barmy,’ said Charmian. ‘I haven’t the foggiest what you mean.’

  ‘Oh, forget it. Doesn’t matter anyway. Though you might at least be nice to me, after all I’ve been through for you. Now listen, honestly, Charmie, you’ve got to tell me everything.’

  ‘I told you. It was me. I took the things.’

  ‘What, all of them? The Parker pens and everything?’

  ‘And the photograph frame. And the ten-bob note. And Fatty’s writing-case,’ said Charmie smugly.

  ‘You must be stark raving bonkers. Whatever for?’

  ‘To send to Dr Barnardo’s. For the orphans.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘You know. Orphans. Poor children with no mothers and fathers.’

  Charmian began to cry, clutching the rabbit tightly. It trembled in her arms, its long transparent ears flat against its back.

  ‘Oh, Charmie, for heaven’s sake don’t cry. Look, we’ll sort it all out. Tell you what, I’ll go to Old Ma B and own up. I’ll say it was me that took the things and give them back, and the worst she can do is give me a stripe and I don’t care.’

  ‘You can’t,’ sobbed Charmian.

  ‘’Course I can. Where are they? I mean apart from Feeny’s parcel.’

  ‘I told you. I sent them to Dr Barnardo’s.’

  ‘To Dr Barnardo’s? Posted them? How?’

  ‘Simple. Easy as pie. The first lot I posted on Parents’ Weekend and I waylaid the postman with the rest and gave them to him.’

  ‘Well, then I’ll take the parcel and make up something about the others.’

  ‘I’ve already gone and got the parcel. That’s why I asked where you’d hidden it.’ She grinned.

  ‘Charmie! You really are - well, I’m sorry to hurt your feelings and so on, but I think you’re wicked. What’ve you done with it?’

  ‘I’m not telling.’

  Charmie’s fair hair fell across the soft grey-and-white fur of the rabbit. They were both trembling now, and Charmian began to cry again. Sheila stroked her friend awkwardly and after a while Charmie shuddered and looked up. She fished a letter out of her pocket with her spare hand.

  ‘Anyway the stealing’s nothing. I couldn’t care less about the stupid old things. Here. Go on, you read this.’

  The letter was in such extravagantly looping handwriting that Sheila couldn’t decipher it, so she handed it back and said, ‘You’ll have to
read it to me, I can’t. I haven’t got a hanky. Do you want a dock leaf?’

  Charmian wiped her nose and dried her eyes on the leaf, pushed her fringe back from her forehead and read her mother’s letter aloud, pausing from time to time to utter a great gasping sob:

  ‘My own bestest little girl,

  I’m afraid this is going to be a terribly difficult letter for Mummy to write ‘cos she’s got very bad news for you and she wants you to promise to be brave and sensible and a really big grown-up girl. I expect the Headmistress has had a word with you already, so perhaps you know that Daddy and I don’t feel we can go on being married any more. You remember nice Uncle Dickie who drove me down last Parents’ Weekend, don’t you? He liked you so much. Well, when this beastly divorce …’

  Sheila gasped. ‘Divorce?’

  ‘Yes, divorce, OK? Now be quiet and let me go on reading.

  ‘When this beastly divorce is all over, Uncle Dickie and I are going to get married, and of course you’ll come and live with us. I wouldn’t lose my little girl for anything in the world. I know it must all seem like a dreadful shock to you just now, darling, but I promise you it’ll be all right in the end and everyone will be much happier. You and me and Uncle Dickie will have such fun together, poppet! If you want to go on seeing your father we shall have to try to work something out for you, and if you decide it would all be too upsetting then Mummy will quite understand. One day you might even be able to think of Uncle Dickie as your Daddy! Poor baby. I wish I was there to give you a great big hug and make it all better.

  Meanwhile I think it’s probably best if you spend half-term with Auntie Barbara, don’t you? One last thing my pet, don’t talk about this. Anyway, I don’t suppose you feel like it much. Remember I shall be thinking of you specially just now with bestest mostest love blah blah blah from your Mummy.’

  ‘See?’ said Charmian triumphantly. ‘Now you know why I couldn’t care less about the stealing.’

  ‘Oh, Charmie, you poor, poor thing,’ said Sheila fervently. ‘I’m most dreadfully sorry.’ She had heard her mother say that and it always sounded as though she’d dragged it up from the bottom of her heart.