‘I learned to write when I was very little - my father taught me - and I carved huge, wobbly words in the sand: SYLVIA, of course, and MUMMY, but mostly DADDY. Once I wrote MY DADA, and he saw it when he came looking for me at tea-time, and teased me. But I meant it. He was my dada and no-one else’s. I thought he was so strong and clever and good. I knew he went to school every day to teach other children but I wasn’t jealous of them, only of my mother. What about you, Diana? Did you love your father very much?’
‘He died just before I was born,’ said Diana. ‘I’m sure I’ve told you that already. I didn’t love my uncles, exactly, but my father …? I think when I was very little my mother made me kiss his photograph good night. But there wasn’t much kissing in our house. We weren’t a huggy family.’
‘My father kissed me all the time.’
‘You must have adored him.’
‘Yes and no,’ Sylvia said. ‘Luckily I remained an only child. I wouldn’t have stood for a baby, I would have drowned it, so it was just as well none ever came along. Mother was just there - washing and ironing, cooking and cleaning, reading the Bible in odd moments, trudging off to chapel with her hat on, twice a day on Sundays. They never seemed to do things together much, except share the great big double bed with iron railings at the head and foot.
‘We had a lot of books and my father often read to me. Little Grey Rabbit, The Wind in the Willows, The Water Babies. Even when I could read for myself he went on sitting on my bed at night, one arm round me, the other balancing the book on his lap, rolling out the stories in his strong Welsh schoolteacher’s voice. Children of the New Forest, The Mowgli Stories, Coral Island, Treasure Island. No, those must have been later, I suppose.’
Why am I telling her all this? Must be the drink. Bet she’s bored. I remember it all so clearly, not as though it had happened to me but to some other child. There I am, see me, a tiny figure on a great expanse of empty beach, below an even huger expanse of sky. I am crouching over trails left by water in the sand. Pools collected round the rocks and flowed away in little streams which soon gave out, leaving twisting, plaited patterns that looked as if a snake had slithered by, or like the footprints of some bird. There were patterns on the wild grey ponies, too. They had close, dense hair and after rain it would form matted whorls across their flanks. They were tame, you could pat them. I wasn’t afraid.
Yes, I am lucky to have had that freedom, and the security and routine of home, which I took for granted, never thought about. It was an idyllic start in life for a clever, solitary child.
‘Yes, I was lucky, I suppose.’
The sun was dropping low, dodging behind the tall trees, flickering through their branches as it had flickered on the surface of the swimming-pool earlier in the day. The air grew cool and the wood-pigeons murmured and squabbled. Smoke from Sylvia’s cigarette inscribed a pure calligraphic line wavering slightly at the tip.
‘I don’t know why my parents married. I never saw them be demonstrative. I was the same. Never cuddly or anything. Welsh as slate.’ Sylvia didn’t smile. She finished her cigarette and smashed the tip into the lawn, grinding it under the sole of her shoe. A long silence divided them. Diana’s colour was high and she felt blood pulsing in her cheeks and neck. The veins stood out on her hands. She could hear, as well as feel, her heartbeat.
‘I’m going for a walk now,’ Sylvia said abruptly. ‘On my own, do you hear? On my fucking own! I don’t like all this reminiscing. It’s pointless.’
Diana watched her head off quickly into the smoky dusk, then she stood up and carried the supper things indoors. She washed up and put everything on the draining-board. She carried the cumbersome table back into the kitchen, and the chairs, dried the plates and cutlery and put them tidily away, then closed her bedroom curtains and sat behind the open window, waiting for the sound of Sylvia’s returning footsteps.
Henrietta Birmingham carried the tray into her bedroom, placed it on the chest of drawers and helped her husband to sit up. He leant forward while she plumped the pillows, then sank back into them with a wheezy sigh.
‘No skin on the cocoa today,’ he said.
‘That’s because I made it for you. It’s Saturday, remember? Ridley’s evening off.’ Goodness, she thought, how rare it is to see him smile. ‘After church tomorrow, would you like a little drive?’ she suggested. ‘We needn’t go far.’
‘I’d have to get dressed up,’ said Lionel. ‘All that palaver.’
‘It’s going to be another hot day,’ Henrietta coaxed. ‘Just a shirt and your linen trousers. I’d give you a hand.’
‘Has it come to that?’ he asked. ‘Can’t even dress myself?’
‘You could try, and then if you needed me, I’d give you a hand.’
‘Lot of fuss and bother for nothing,’ he said sulkily. ‘Not worth the effort.’
He means he can’t face the humiliation, thought Henrietta. He doesn’t want to admit how weak he’s become. Should I try to persuade him?
‘Would you rather I asked Peggy for a drink before lunch? She often says how much she misses talking to you.’
‘Withered old trout. I’d rather talk to the trees.’
‘Think about it, dear. The fresh air and a change of scene would do you good, I think. And it would please me.’
‘Long time since I’ve done that,’ he said, and gave her another thin smile.
She put out her hand, and closed it over his grey one, its bluish veins shockingly gnarled. Her hand was warm, his cold and flaccid. Did he ever please me? she thought. She stared at his hand and her eyes glazed and locked as she withdrew from him, deep into the privacy of thought. It was our wedding night that gave him a hold over me. It made us equal, in his eyes. We are all equal, in the eyes of God, she thought, and her hand tightened over his. She squeezed it briskly.
‘We’ll see how you are in the morning,’ she said. ‘Try and sleep now.’
By Sunday Constance knew that half-term wasn’t going to be nearly as bad as she’d feared. The twins, away from school, were actually being quite nice to her, and their mother was a darling. She fussed over Constance as though she were a third daughter, chattered enthusiastically about her parents ‘Dear Paula, she’s divine! Such a good sort! And your father … what a wonderful man he is! I’m quite in awe of him, you know!’ - and encouraged her to eat large, delicious meals.
‘It’s lovely, your house,’ Constance had said shyly to the twins on Friday morning, after Mrs Simpson had shown her the sprigged, cosy attic room where she was to sleep. Mick and Flick were bouncing on the beds in the room next door, shrieking, confident and unfamiliar in their mufti. ‘Really cosy and homely.’
‘It’s not ours,’ they said scornfully. ‘Our house is much nicer. Daddy’s just rented this one, for Mummy, for the Season.’
Constance thought ‘season’ was a funny way to describe the summer, but all she said was, ‘Well, yours must be pretty smashing then.’
Gradually they thawed and became more friendly and inquisitive. Constance dropped her guard and basked in the family atmosphere and the knowledge that, for the first time in weeks, she did not have to be perpetually on the defensive.
That afternoon, as Mrs Simpson dozed on the terrace in her sun-dress and the girls lazed about, halfheartedly trying to catch butterflies and grasshoppers in the unkempt paddock, Mick took her by surprise.
‘Who d’you think’s the thief, Gogsy? Go on, say
‘Haven’t an earthly. I thought you might know.’
‘Some people say it’s you.’
‘I know and I think it’s foul. Obviously it’s not me. I wouldn’t steal my own Parker 51.’
‘Charmie thought you had, and hidden it.’
Stung by the injustice of this, Constance said, ‘Well if you really want to know, I think Charmie’s the thief herself.’
‘Charmian Reynolds?’ said Mick.
‘You don’t!’ said Flick.
‘Why? Go on, tell us why.’
; Constance withdrew her confidence from them, pulled at a long grass stem and sat chewing its sweet, pointed end, her teeth leaving flattened marks.
‘Don’t be so mean, Gogs,’ they wheedled. ‘It’s not fair. You’re staying with us, aren’t you? We wouldn’t tell anyone, honestly. Cross our hearts and hope to die.’
‘I just made it up,’ said Constance, after a pause. The fine fluff at the top of the grass drifted between her fingers and she scattered it on the wind.
‘Bet you didn’t,’ said Flick. ‘You wouldn’t. You’re not such a clot.’
Constance was worried. It was true she suspected Charmian of stealing, mainly because she was always inventing suspicions that diverted attention away from herself and on to others, but she couldn’t justify her theory to the twins, and she knew that, in the last resort, they’d take Charmian’s side.
‘Did you say anything to Old Ma B?’ Flick persisted.
‘No.’
‘Who then? Miss Valentine?’
‘I haven’t told anyone. I said, I was making it up. It was just the first name that came into my head.’
‘Liar! Liar! Your house’s on fire!’ chanted the twins.
From the terrace Mrs Simpson shaded her eyes with her hand and called, ‘Are you all right, darlings? What are you playing?’
‘Nothing. Just mucking about…’ yelled Mick.
‘Good girls …’ drifted on the wind. ‘Lovely to have you here.’
Constance lay back in the long grass, letting the sun beat down on her closed eyes. The twins sat cross-legged, but although Mick said once more, ‘You are a swizzler, Gogs. You might tell …’ the dangerous moment had passed. Insects buzzed through the grass, the sun rode lazily through the midsummer sky, and the three girls gradually fell silent, and slept.
That evening after supper Mrs Simpson taught them to play mahjong and they sat on scratchy white-painted garden seats out on the verandah, the small bamboo tiles clicking like insects, until the light failed and they went indoors.
In her attic room, stuffy with the drowsy heat of the midsummer weekend, Constance undressed as far as her vest and knickers and went to the bathroom one floor below. Pulling her knickers down, she gasped and stood stock-still, looking at the stained cotton between her legs. Last time she spent a penny she had noticed a reddish-brown patch, a bit unusual but nothing to worry about. Now it had grown to a large, sticky area of dark blood. Constance stood rigid with embarrassment and panic. How could she wash her knickers? What with? Soap? How? Where would she hide them while they dried? A thick blush suffused her face, until her cheeks seemed to bulge with blood and her neck swelled and felt thick, as it did when she was being a tree. The curse. This must be the curse. This was what the whispers and giggles were all about. This was ‘STs, if needed.’
The twins would be wanting the bathroom. Constance took a towel and wrapped it round herself, then hobbled quickly back up to her room; aware for the first time of the prickly stickiness between her legs which, come to think of it, had been there all evening, every time she shifted her bottom on the flaky paint of the wooden chair. There must be a mark on her dress! Everyone must have seen! She snatched up the cotton dress from the back of the chair. Inside the skirt there was a faint brownish stain, but from the outside it was practically invisible. Someone knocked at the door and Constance dragged her cotton nightie over her head before asking, ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me, dear,’ said Mrs Simpson’s voice. ‘Come to kiss you night-night.’
‘Um. Yes. Sorry,’ said Constance.
‘Are you all right, duckie? You look a bit shaky. Anything up?’
‘No, nothing … important … Just’ - she tried to sound offhand - ‘started the curse.’
‘Poor old you, what a bore.’
‘Yup.’
‘Have you got your doings with you?’
‘Have I got what?’
Mrs Simpson looked at her. ‘I say, it’s your first time, isn’t it? Oh, my dear
She stepped forward and hugged Constance; then said briskly, ‘Right. Got some clean knickers? No? Never mind - I’ll go and hunt out a couple of old pairs of the twins’. You get out of those things and I’ll rinse them through for you.’
Tactfully she disappeared.
Constance sat down on the edge of her bed, got up again hastily, took her knickers off, peered at the sticky dark-red substance again - it smelt funny, not like ordinary blood, more sort of zooish - and folded the knickers carefully into a tidy white parcel with the stain hidden inside. She waited. She put her foot on the end of the chair and picked a scab on her knee with elaborate care, enjoying the tweaks of pain and the beads of blood that grew into a tiny trickle. She pushed the blood aside with her fingertip and sucked the finger. It tasted sweet and bitter. She squeezed the scab between her thumb and finger, watching the irregular brown crust split and ooze more blood. The sound of footsteps on the stairs made her straighten up quickly as Mrs Simpson walked in.
‘Here we are! Three pairs. They’re pretty shabby, so just chuck them away when you’ve done with them. Here’s half a packet of STs as well. You fix them on to this belt …’ She held up a tangled, droopy piece of elastic. ‘Just like suspenders, really. Don’t put your STs down the lavatory, there’s a good girl. They clog up the works. I’ll leave some brown paper bags in there. Now, what have you got to give me? Dress OK? Well done.’
She stopped talking and looked into Constance’s face. ‘Don’t be frightened. You’ll soon get used to it. Happens to us all. You’re a young woman now. Tummy hurting? No? Here’s an aspirin, just in case. Night-night, dear. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bugs bite.’
She closed the door behind her, and Constance picked up the twisted sanitary belt and the squashy packet called Dr White’s. It said ‘sanitary towels’ on the outside. She took out an ST, a long pad of cotton wool covered with a layer of gauze. It was soft and smelled of nurseries. It looked comfortable. She bent her knees outwards and held the pad between her legs. It felt nice. Now I need STs, thought Constance.
The next day Mrs Simpson had arranged a lunch party for two girls who lived nearby and had been at the twins’ former school. They arrived with their mother, a plump, shiny little woman called Priscilla Kenworthy-Browne. She wore a tight dress that emphasized her stomach.
‘Do you love your new school, darlings?’ she asked, and didn’t wait for their answer. ‘I’m sure you do. I bet it’s super. Wizard. We’re having such problems finding somewhere suitable for these two. Darlings’ - she turned to her listless daughters - ‘wouldn’t you like to go to the same school as the twins and, what was your name, dear? Never mind. Wouldn’t that be fun? You could be chums and get up to all sorts of mischief. You can’t fool me, I know what you naughty girls are like …’
Everyone else ate steadily through their cold ham and salad blobbed with Heinz salad cream. From time to time one of the girls would mutter, ‘Mummy I don’t feel well,’ or ‘I’m not hungry,’ which Constance interpreted as, I’m bored, can we go home? Not until the lunch was almost finished did their mother notice that they had eaten almost nothing.
‘So ungrateful of you both! Whatever will Mrs Simpson think? My dear, you must forgive their disgraceful manners. I can’t imagine what’s wrong. They’re normally such good eaters.’
‘Mummy, we told you,’ said one of the girls wearily. ‘Me and Patsy don’t feel well. Our legs hurt. And my head aches.’
‘Nonsense, darlings!’ said Mrs Kenworthy-Browne, and laughed merrily. ‘A nice walk in the sunshine, that’s what you two could do with! Mick and Flick will take you down to the meadow, won’t you, darlings, show them the pony
Glumly, the five of them trooped out.
Six
The Lower Fourth sat bolt upright. They were tense and quiet. Their classroom had been animated and buzzing with half-term gossip when Miss Parry marched in. As she strode up to the desk, her highly polished Elliott sandals slapping over the parquet floor, the gored pleats o
f her brown linen skirt flapping against her sturdy legs, the whole form braced itself. She banged a pile of biology prep books on to a desk in the front row before seating herself at her table next to the blackboard.
‘Hand these out and NOT A WORD!’ she ordered.
Her gaze travelled from one scared face to another. Nobody met her eyes. Sheila was trembling; Charmian was composed and demure. Mick was rigid, the form captain on the alert; Flick looked down at her books. Constance was sucking her finger. While the books were distributed, Sylvia continued to observe them all. She knew her anger was very close to the surface, knew it was not their fault, and she was struggling to master it. If only she could have a cigarette! Osmosis. She must pull herself together and think about osmosis.
A hand went up. Fat, spotty, greasy-haired Rachel. God, the child was ugly. Stupid too.
Put that hand down! Even you should have the wit to understand that I want NO TALKING.’
The trembling hand was lowered. Osmosis, thought Sylvia Parry again. Like the edge of my skirt in a rock pool, absorbing the sea-water, the colour gradually getting darker as it became damp, then wetting the back of my legs as I stood up and looked for seaweed to pop. She took a deep breath, turned to the board and wrote with firm strokes of the chalk, OSMOSIS. She underlined it and the lesson began.
Mrs Birmingham returned to her study from a divinity lesson with the Upper Fifth. As she walked in, Peggy Roberts said, Telephone call for you from Mr Dunsford-Smith. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about. Said he needed to talk to you.’
‘Did he leave a number, or is he going to phone again?’
‘Here’s his number. He’s waiting by the phone for you to ring.’
A moment later Henrietta Birmingham listened, appalled. There’d been a car accident, in the south of France. No, not he himself; once half-term was over, his wife had gone away for a few days with her sister, Sheila’s Aunt Muriel. They’d taken a train down to the Cote d’Azur, and hired a car there. Not used to driving on the right. French such bad drivers. Police looking into it. The bodies were being flown back. Sheila would have to be told. Didn’t think he was quite up to doing it himself.
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