An Experiment in Love: A Novel (13 page)

‘Oh yes.’ Karina trudged on, her jaw set. ‘What composition did you pick?’

We were under the pub sign, the Prince of Connaught. He creaked in the breeze, above our heads: a stiff breeze, but the herald of fine weather. It was time for skipping ropes to come out, and for all the summer games to begin.

‘I did “My Hobbies”,’ I said. If all went well, I would be beyond skipping ropes soon. Susan Millington, you may be sure, was never caught skipping.

Karina sneered at me. ‘You haven’t got any hobbies.’

‘I put, reading books.’

‘That’s not hobbies. Hobbies is stamp-collecting.’

‘I put that.’

‘You did not.’

‘I did because my father collects stamps, so it’s the same as me doing it. I put jigsaw puzzles.’

‘You lied,’ she said. ‘They’ll know.’

‘I did not lie, and I put knitting a jumper.’

‘What, that green thing you’ve been mangling? It looks more like a fishing-net.’

I was angry. How dare she malign my knitting? ‘What composition did you do, then?’

‘I did “The Person I Would Most Like to Meet”.’

‘Who did you put?’ The possibilities ran though my head. She might have put Cliff Richard. Adam Faith. Marty Wilde.

Karina smiled. ‘I put, the Pope.’

‘You did what?’ I stopped in my tracks. ‘The Pope?’

‘You should really say, His Holiness the Pope,’ Karina pointed out.

I did not have the words for the anger I felt, and the disgust. Disgust and fear: because I knew now that Karina would pass the entrance exam. A small part of me suspected those Holy Redeemer nuns would see through her; a much larger part knew that anyone as smart and smooth as Karina would pass anything she set her mind to. And I had passed too, I felt it in my bones; Karina’s piece of hypocrisy spread its great black wings over me, and wafted me towards my future, protected by its stretching shadow. She had vouched for me, in a perverse way, because even though we did not have a uniform, even though we did not know what desk to sit at, she had shown that we were the right stuff: she had not disgraced the name of our school.

So we would go to the Holy Redeemer, shackled together, and I would never have a pen or a book or a piece of knitting or anything else in my whole life that I could like, that Karina would not take away and pass comment on and spoil. It came into my mind that perhaps one day I might want to get married, if I did not become a Sister Superior or lady explorer. If I did obtain a husband, I must be sure Karina did not see him, and spoil my wedding day. I must be sure that if I
was ever sent a baby she was not there when it was christened; I pictured her screwing its little fat legs in and out of its hip-joints, and saying she could get a better baby for one and ninepence.

There’s a time when childhood ends, and it was then, under the swaying grandee on Eliza Street, under Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught. I put down my schoolbag so that I had two hands free, and gave Karina a shove into the gutter. She shoved me in turn against the wall, and we went on like that round the corner on to Curzon Street, pushing and grunting and trying to fend each other off, until we reached my front door which was on the latch and I went in and slammed it behind me. I wanted to bawl up the stairs, ‘Guess what Karina’s done now,’ but I knew that my mother was always on her side, and would think the pontiff a smart move, and want to know why I hadn’t written something similar.

Nowadays, when the word ‘child’ comes into my mind, I can never see a particular child, any single flesh-and-blood entity. I can only see one of the plaster cripples that in those days stood outside shops, effigies the height of a two-year-old, their outstretched hands supporting collecting boxes. Some of these effigies were boys and some girls, but their features were the same and their plaster-coloured curls; the only difference was that the boys wore short trousers and the girls a frill of skirt, and beneath this there was a cruel leg-iron, clamped to the lower limb. It was the leg-iron that caused people to drop pennies into the box; that, and the upturned, painted blue eyes.

You’re only young once, they say, but doesn’t it go on for a long time? More years than you can bear.

I must now tell you about our life at the Holy Redeemer; but first of all I must tell you how we came to be outfitted for it.

We had a list of what we had to get, and these were some of the things on it.

Outdoor shoes

Indoor shoes

Gym shoes

Shoe bag

Aertex blouse

Winter tunic

Girdle – girdle! ‘Martin,’ my mother said, ‘she’s required to have a girdle!’

‘Girdle!’ my father said. This had become his favoured method of communication: repeating what my mother said, as if it were alarming, far-fetched or intrinsically ludicrous.

‘A foundation garment,’ my mother said.

‘She seems very young for corsets.’

‘After all, they’re nuns, they don’t want young women going round . . . sticking out.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘It says “girdle in house colour”.’

Words came into my mouth and stuck there: backed up against my hard palate. I knew these girdles were the kind worn by princesses in distress. They were the kind you used to tether a unicorn, or to throw a lifeline to a
gallant knight some ogre had cast from a tower. They were not whalebone, they were not elastic, they were more like ropes or strings, sewn with seed pearls or knitted from your own golden hair.

‘You can really only get white,’ my mother said. ‘Or flesh.’ She sucked her lip. Ankle socks white, winter knee socks grey. Underwear as regulation – the approved outfitter will be pleased to advise. ‘They don’t want to go into detail,’ my mother said. ‘Not in print. You can understand it.’

Winter hat, grey velour

Summer straw, school colours

Hockey stick

Tennis racquet

T
ENNIS RACQUET
! I said

In summer, white gloves will be worn.

I was precipitated into Constantine & Co. by a push in the small of my back. I was in for a slap when I got home, this had been made clear to me: ‘Giggling and fidgeting like that in the bus; you ought to know better at your age!’ My mother was wearing a very big daub of Tan Fantastic, which Karina had been mocking. She was wearing a costume with a tight skirt, and pinned to the jacket her best brooch, a gilt wheel of big deep blue stones, deep as the sea. Karina’s mother lurched through the swinging glass doors behind us. Her coat came nearly down to her ankles and as usual she was lugging her tartan shopping bag.

This was the first time I had ever been taken to a shop for clothes. Everything I had needed until this point had
been manufactured by my mother. I looked at Karina to see if she was any more at ease in this situation. She was standing with her eyes closed, breathing in the deep scent of leather and polish. A saleswoman dressed in black minced towards us over the polished floor, like a panther who has spotted something juicy: like a panther who has spotted something slow.

My mother unclasped her handbag with a big snap and withdrew the uniform list, folded in four.

‘The Holy Redeemer,’ the saleswoman murmured. She seemed to curtsey as she took it from my mother’s hand and opened it. Her fingers brushed her smiling throat as she ushered us towards the curtained cubicles of her choice. The room was built up to its lofty ceiling in glass cabinets and deep wooden drawers, some of which other salesladies slid open enticingly, to reveal stacks of stiff shirts bound in Cellophane; from which they lifted jerseys with their arms strait-jacketed by cardboard, in every size from dwarf to gross.

‘In here if you please,’ the saleswoman said, as if she were threatening us. The curtain swept behind her. I was shut up with my mother in my own cubicle, at dangerously close quarters. But she was all simpering smiles now: for the duration, I was her darling. She took off her coat and hung it on one of the hooks supplied, and at once her woman smell gushed out and filled the air: chemical tang of primitive deodorant, scent and grease of Tan Fantastic, flowery scent of face powder, emanation of armpit and cervix, milk duct and scalp.

I removed my clothes. I was pale as paper, my body
without scent or flavour of its own. Each of my ribs could be counted; each vertebra was accessible to a casual eye. Around my nipples was a puffiness which looked like a disease. I had been worrying that I would have to undress in front of Karina, who was in advance of me, gently but definitely swollen. I knew I had to get a bosom, but I hoped it wouldn’t come on too quickly, because when it did I’d need an ‘A’ cup, size 32 broderie anglaise bra. And my mother would say, All this costs money, and as we are scrimping and saving for your education . . . The flatter my chest stayed, the cheaper I’d be.

The items required for the Holy Redeemer were brought in one by one, stiff on their glossy wooden hangers, by the saleswoman in black. Only the winter tunic was an exception; she carried it across her arms, palms spread beneath it, as in certain statues and paintings Our Lady bears the weight of the body of her crucified son. The tunic was clay coloured, a stiff deep grey-brown. In the uniform of the Holy Redeemer this colour predominated, but it was offset by a solid purple-red called maroon: and sometimes where you would least expect it, these two colours would collide and form stripes.

I slid my arms inside the chilly sleeves of a cream shirt blouse. My mother twitched the stiff collar into position and began to button it up; she was attending to me as if I were a three-year-old, impressing the saleslady with her maternal skills. When the blouse was fastened it came to mid-thigh. The cuffs hung below my hands as if I’d climbed into the body of an ape. ‘I’ll move the
button,’ my mother said. The saleslady made an approving noise, and picked up the tunic. She dropped it over my head and it engulfed me. Daylight vanished. I took a breath inside its clay folds. My arms moved outwards as if I were trying to swim. My mother tugged, and the daylight reappeared. I stood with my arms out from my sides, looking down at my feet, which were visible under the tunic.

‘She’s bound to grow,’ my mother said. ‘Bound to.’

‘You’ll find,’ said the saleslady, ‘that they have very strict requirements about length at the Holy Redeemer. We may have to adjust a little, upwards.’ All three of us stared at my feet. ‘Indoor shoes.’ the saleslady said. ‘I shall be but one moment.’

She came back with a box. On the outside of it was a picture of what looked like a coracle. ‘We call this “The Diana”,’ the saleswoman said. ‘Wonderfully durable and absolutely recommended.’

When the shoe was revealed and lifted from its tissue paper, even my mother was taken aback: even she, who for the next seven years would hear not a word spoken against the Holy Redeemer and its dress codes and rules and strange demands. ‘Well, it is old-fashioned,’ she said, taking it unwillingly from the saleslady’s hand. The saleslady smiled, and showed one tooth. The shoe was brown, its toe was round, it had a bar across like an infant’s shoe. It had a sort of shelf around it, a running board; its sole looked an inch thick.

‘Sit down,’ my mother said. She grappled with my ankle. I wanted to curl my toes like a baby, squirm my soles so she couldn’t ram them into The Diana. When I
stood up again I felt as if the floorboards had been fastened to my feet.

We heard, from outside the cubicle, a rush and clatter as an adjacent curtain was drawn back. ‘Show Mary,’ my mother said. She manoeuvred me out under the cruel strip lights. Karina and I stood side by side. We were clad, we were uniformed. We did not look at each other. Karina’s hands were bunched at her sides.

Karina’s mother said, ‘She must have vests.’

‘There is no mention of an approved vest-style on the Holy Redeemer’s list,’ the saleswoman said. ‘However, we do stock various excellent types which I shall show you without delay.’

‘Warm, solid vests,’ Karina’s mother insisted.

‘You’ll be needing vests, too,’ my mother said reprovingly. I understood that she had to match Karina’s mother item for item; never would it be said of a daughter of hers that she went to the Holy Redeemer ill-equipped.

An hour later Karina and I were back in our own clothes, with parcels about our feet, bolsters and boulders which contained the equipment for our new lives. We had yellow woolly vests with three buttons at the neck and big navy knickers of soft furry cloth, and ankle boots for severe weather and tan leather satchels; also grey woollen gloves and lace-up outdoor shoes and presses for our tennis racquets and maroon and clay-colour striped scarves. My mother took out her bulging purse.

I averted my eyes. It seemed to me the cost of this was almost as much as the cost of our house. And I bit my lips, thinking of the humiliation of Karina’s mother, who surely would not have planned for this, would not have
seen so much money in her whole life. I pictured the knickers and the racquet press confiscated, stacked back on the shelves, the pullover re-imprisoned in its cardboard and Cellophane and consigned again to one of the varnished drawers, and Karina herself sleeving away a tear as she recognized that she would never go to the Holy Redeemer now . . .