Cross My Heart and Hope to Die (16 page)

I gave Samantha a big hug before handing her over to her mother. Brenda brushed my cheek with hers and pushed two coins into my hand. ‘I know you're grown up, Janet, but I daresay you can spend it. Thanks for looking after the children, Samantha's taken quite a fancy to you. Hope you get on all right at college. It'll be nice to have a BA in the family, we shall be real proud of you.'

Mum and I stood at the gate to watch the lights of the car disappear down the lane. ‘You little devil,' she said with vexation, though she was signalling affectionate farewells with the torch, ‘you little devil, our Bren,' and I thought it would be tactless of me to mention Brenda's present of four bob.

We had a good row after they'd gone.

Dad said what he thought about Mum's relations, and she said what she thought about his mother, and I said I was sick to death of being got at. They agreed that they should never have married, and I pointed out that I hadn't asked to be born. Mum said she'd clear off and leave us, and Dad said if anyone cleared off it would be him, and I said I'd leave school and get a job in town and they could do what they liked. Mum cried with tiredness and vexation, and I sulked with bad temper, and Dad said he hated women anyway and stamped out to brood over the rabbits.

‘Let's clear this lot away and have a cup of tea,' said Mum, drying her eyes. So we washed up together and agreed that at least we shouldn't see any more of Brenda and her family for another year, but that Samantha was a dear little girl. Then Mum made the tea and Dad sloped in and we finished off the swiss roll and spent a nice quiet evening, Mum knitting, Dad reading, me reading, and all of us watching the telly.

We had to get up early on Sunday to catch up with the jobs we should have done on Saturday afternoon, including the remainder of the washing. Mum's dream of luxury is a washing-machine. She's saving for a twin tub with a spin-dryer, like Brenda's, but until she gets it she still has to do the washing by hand. At least she's got an electric boiler now, though, so she doesn't have to heat the water in the old copper. And it was a good blowy day, ideal for drying.

While Dad carried water to fill the boiler, Mum began collecting dirty clothes together. She gave me a searching look as I stood at the sink washing up, and I knew why. There are times when she regards me simply in terms of potential dirty washing.

‘What shall you wear this afternoon?'

‘My best, of course.'

‘I thought you might be wearing your school uniform, seeing as how you're going out with a teacher.'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake …'

‘I could wash that blouse if you took it off.'

‘I can't wear just the sweater, it scratches.'

‘Well, if I'm spending Sunday morning slaving over the wash, I'm not having you filling up the basket again directly after dinner. Give it here.'

We'd quarrelled enough for one weekend, so I sacrificed the blouse and itched for the rest of the morning.

While Mum got on with the washing, I carried the living-room mats out to the garden fence and brushed them in a cloud of dust, then swept the floor and gave the lino a bit of a polish for luck. Dad had the nastiest job, scrubbing out the lavatory and digging a hole in the garden for the contents of the bucket. The youngest Crackjaw kids stood on the other side of the fence goggling at him. Their lav hasn't been scrubbed out in living memory.

By eleven, we were glad to sit down for five minutes. I've tried to persuade Mum to buy Nescafé, but it's not just that it's more expensive, she really prefers bottled Camp coffee essence mixed with hot water and evaporated milk.

‘What shall you spend your money on, Janet?' asked Dad as we drank the gluey mixture.

I gave him a quick look, wondering how he knew about Brenda's four bob. But then I remembered the two pounds Miss Massingham had given me. ‘Clothes,' I said promptly, feeling rich and happy.

That interested him immediately. He liked clothes, and though he hardly ever bought anything new unless it was essential he was always very particular about his appearance. He polished his shoes every day, and wore a fresh shirt for work three times a week, and regularly sponged and pressed his suit. Mum sometimes called him an old woman, but I was thankful my Dad was like that. It would be disgusting to have someone as slovenly as Ziggy Crackjaw for a father.

‘Have you saved enough for your boots yet?' he asked.

‘Nearly.'

‘What sort shall you get?'

I recalled the enviable boots Mrs Bloomfield had been wearing. ‘Tan suede,' I said. ‘With about a two-inch heel.'

‘Very smart.' He thought about it as he drained his cup. ‘Though I prefer the look of the soft black leather ones, meself.'

‘Well,' said Mum, ‘I don't know why you want to go spending pounds and pounds on them fancy boots, when you've got a perfectly good pair of wellies.'

You just can't talk to her, she's got about as much clothes-sense as the hens.

We had a hen for dinner that day. If I'd had any occasion to mention it at school afterwards I'd have said we'd had chicken for lunch; I'd learned the idiom. But what we actually had was an old hen, boiled, for our dinner. Mum had killed it on Friday night and plucked and drawn it before she went to bed on Saturday.

‘Which one's this?' said Dad, inspecting a yellowish forkful.

‘The Old Rhode Island. She was a good layer in her time, but there, no use feeling sorry for fowls. She eats all right, anyway.'

After I'd helped Mum wash up, I gave the bowl a thorough going-over with Vim, poured out a kettleful of hot water, undressed and had a good wash. Then I put on my raincoat for decency and went through the living-room and upstairs to change.

My best wasn't exactly sensational, just a newish skirt and a non-itch sweater. I didn't need Mum to tell me that with over a mile to bike down to the village in all weathers, it was no use hankering after flimsy clothes. Biking doesn't do tights much good either, but I put on a new pair regardless.

I brushed my hair and looked at my face. It was depressingly round and healthy, no character there at all. I'd recently bought a pair of false eyelashes from Woollies for a giggle, but when I finally got them fixed I looked just like a cow, so I pulled them off and did what I could with eyeliner. Finally I put on the dark green poncho that Mum and I had made from a cut-out-and-ready-to-sew offer in her magazine. My school shoes spoiled the effect, it really needed boots, but when I went downstairs Dad looked up from the week's supply of shirts he was ironing and said affectionately, ‘You do look nice, our Janet. Hope you have a lovely time.'

Mum, having her feet-up Sunday afternoon treat, kept her eyes on the old film on the telly. She shifted a boiled sweet to the side of her mouth and what she said was, ‘Have you got a clean hanky?'

‘Oh,
Mum
.'

‘And have you remembered your money this time? Mind how you behave, then, and don't miss the last bus.'

Joe Willis was driving. I was quite surprised to see him on a Sunday, and evidently he was surprised to see me. ‘Well, well,' he said, looking quite impressed as he took my fare. ‘Hardly recognized you, all dressed up. Going to meet your boy-friend?'

‘That's right.'

Joe winked. ‘Tell him not to do anything I wouldn't – that'll give him plenty of scope!'

I blushed, thinking that chance would be a fine thing. As the bus toured the villages, gradually filling with families who looked as though they were going to Sunday tea with relations in Breckham Market, I longed for an unattached man to come and sit next to me and start a conversation. I'd been hoping that for years, in buses and coffee bars and the public library, but it never happened. There seemed to be a severe shortage of unattached men in my part of Suffolk. Roll on university, and a start to living.

The bus arrived in town just before four, as it was getting dark. There was an hour to fill before I could present myself at Mrs Bloomfield's, and nowhere to go on a Sunday except for a walk. To begin with, I went through the market place, down Bridge Street, and along the riverside to check discreetly where she lived. Then I circled back to the town centre, intending to look at the lighted shops, but the cold wind funnelled through the streets and up my poncho and round the seat of my tights. I had to walk fast to keep warm, so to kill time I had to go further than I'd intended. The main Yarchester road was well-lighted so I stepped briskly out along it, past the police headquarters and the library and on towards the new by-pass.

The wind was making my eyes water. I was also beginning to feel nervous about going to tea with Mrs Bloomfield, and then meeting her friends. I wanted to make a good adult impression, cool and confident, but I had no idea what to talk about and I was afraid that I might come out with some stupid Mum-type remark. Nervousness made my nose feel runny, and I stopped in the shelter of a garden hedge and opened my shoulder bag to find my hanky.

It wasn't there. I searched the bag, but I hadn't got one. I'd snapped at Mum for treating me as though I were a kid by asking if I had a clean hanky, but suddenly I knew perfectly well that I hadn't brought a hanky of any description. I'd been using one of Mum's waste-not-want-not pieces of old sheet that morning, and I'd thrown it on the fire before I had my wash, intending to take a proper hanky from my bedroom drawer. But, like a fool, I'd forgotten.

Turning my back on the street I opened my poncho and searched my clothes, hoping to discover a secret pocket where Mum might have thoughtfully planted an emergency hanky. No such luck. My nose definitely began to run, and sniffing only made it worse. Going to Mrs Bloomfield's suddenly turned into an ordeal. Fine and cool I'd look, with a running nose and a sniff. The evening was ruined in advance.

Then I had an idea. I pelted all the way back to the town centre, and dodged into the public lavatories in the market place, just behind the Town Hall. The first two cubicles didn't have any paper, but my luck changed in the third. The paper was stiff and scratchy, but I gave my nose a thorough blow and folded some of the sheets to put in my bag. I'd never used the public lavatories before and I was surprised to see that the walls of the cubicle were scribbled with messages. I started to read them, and then realized that they were about the kind of thing we didn't mention in the common room at school, so I walked out red-faced as well as sore-nosed.

I thought it was polite to arrive exactly on time for a social occasion, so I did. Mrs Bloomfield lived in a modern block of flats with several communal doorways, and when I'd found the one with her name against one of the bell-pushes I took a deep breath, combed my hair and gave my nose a final scrub.

If I'd been visiting a school friend I could have asked to borrow a hanky, but Mrs Bloomfield was so elegant that I couldn't associate her with problems like running noses. I certainly couldn't imagine that she'd ever be so uncool as to forget her hanky and dash about over the town trying to find some toilet paper to blow into. I felt a real country twit. As I pressed the bell, I wished I were back at home in front of the fire doing the Sunday crossword puzzle with my Dad.

The sight of Mrs Bloomfield, dressed even more elegantly than she always was in school, unnerved me still more. But she gave me a friendly welcome, and by the time she'd left me alone in her sitting-room for a few minutes while she took my coat away I was so captivated by the central heating, soft lighting and furnishings that I couldn't wish myself anywhere else. This was it. This was how I wanted to live, surrounded by warmth and books and pictures, with carpet from wall to wall and curtains and cushions that matched. This was what I was aiming for, and what made it well worth my while to slog on towards university and the eventual well-paid job.

My eyes must have been out on stalks. ‘You like my flat?' Mrs Bloomfield said.

‘Oh,
yes
. It's very –' I rejected the first word I thought of and scrabbled round in my head trying to find something less banal. You'd think that after seven years at the grammar school I'd have acquired a reasonably wide vocabulary, but when I'm trying to make a good impression it deserts me. ‘– nice,' I finished unavailingly.

‘Thank you,' she said, making it sound as though she valued my opinion. ‘It suits me well enough, for the time being, but it's too cramped for permanent living. Did I tell you that I'm hoping to move out to a house in Ashthorpe?'

‘The village where you grew up? Yes, you told me. I just can't imagine anyone wanting to go back like that, though – I shan't, once I get away from Byland.'

She laughed. ‘That's what I once thought, so don't be too sure. Not that I'd want to go back to the living conditions we had when I was young, of course. We lived in a poor old house that was officially condemned as unfit for human habitation.'

‘
Really
?' I was astonished, and at the same time highly chuffed. It hardly seemed possible that someone like Mrs Bloomfield could have emerged from a house no better than ours, but it was a liberation to hear it. I began to enjoy myself as we swapped details of rural inconveniences, and I felt relaxed and confident, thinking that there was no reason why I shouldn't do as well for myself in the future as she had done.

‘People who've been brought up middle-class don't realize what real country living is like, do they?' she said. ‘My husband never did believe it – he thought I was making the whole thing up.'

She spoke lightly, but I sobered out of respect for her widowhood. I'd already noticed a man's photograph, framed, on a writing table, but it had seemed impolite to stare at it. Now I did, and saw that he was very young and handsome, in the uniform of an RAF officer with pilot's wings on his tunic. It seemed desperately sad that he should have been killed.