Cross My Heart and Hope to Die (9 page)

I'd got into the habit of sitting up late whenever I had an essay to write. I always hated the thought of essays, and put them off and put them off until they were due the next day. It was my final term at school but they'd given me a year's worth of work to keep me occupied, and it wasn't easy to do it in our living-room, the only heated room in the house.

I'm not making excuses about the telly. I did watch it quite a lot when I should have been working, but whatever the programme I'd as soon have it on as not. We all would, because it drowned the other noises. There was nearly always some kind of ruction coming through the wall from next door, but on the rare occasions when the Crackjaws were quiet we were conscious of our own noises. Mum clicked her knitting needles and sniffed and sucked loud sweets; Dad's tummy rumbled; according to Mum I had an irritating cough. If we hadn't had the telly on we'd have driven each other mad with all the clicking and sniffing and rumbling and coughing. But there's no doubt that the telly wasn't conducive to writing essays, and I found it much easier to concentrate late at night.

Even then, the room was full of small noises. The coal shifted and settled in the grate. The old grandfather clock that used to belong to Gran Bowden ticked very loudly, and at two minutes to each hour it wheezed and whirred, gathering energy for the strike which, when it came to the hour, never came. A mouse scrittered about somewhere behind the skirting board. I wrote steadily, once I got a start, because I'd already made all the notes I needed. Sometimes I stopped to look up a reference, and sometimes I got up to put another lump on the fire, and once I went to the pantry and cut myself a slice of cake, being careful not to leave any crumbs to encourage the mouse.

By half-past two I'd had enough. The essay was finished, apart from the final paragraph which I'd have time to do in school. The fire had died out, and I was cramped and cold. I packed my books and papers in my satchel and then went to the kitchen for Dad's bicycle lamp. This was the bit I always hated. I opened the back door quietly and peered out.

At least it wasn't raining, so I didn't need my wellies. The moon was bright and the long brick path glittered with frost. I shivered, but there was no help for it, and I nipped tiptoe in my gym shoes down to the bottom of the garden.

Inside, the lav was familiar and friendly enough by the light of the lamp. Dad kept it well scrubbed out and whitewashed, and emptied the bucket regularly, and at least we had proper paper. Gran Bowden wouldn't hear of such extravagance when she was alive; she used to tear old newspapers into neat squares and string them up on a nail behind her lav door. Newspapers don't do a good job. Besides, they scratch.

At that time of night I could at least be sure that there was no one next door. The two lavatories were just a brick hutch with a single-brick dividing wall, and you could hear everything. We tried to make a point of not going down there when we knew that one of the Crackjaws was temporarily in residence, but they didn't bother to do the same for us.

Gran Bowden once told a story – not to me, but I happened to be holding a pow-wow with her cat under the tassels of her plush table-cover at the time – about when she was a girl and lived in one of the old yards in the village. Pulled down years ago, council houses now. The lavatories for all the houses in the yard were built on the same principle as ours. Little Gran Bowden went skipping out there after dark one night, and as she sat there she heard the old chap from next door. He was moaning and groaning and she thought, ‘Poor old Billy, he is having a bad time, it must be something he ate.'

Next morning young Billy, his son, found him in there, hanged from the rafters by his braces.

It wasn't a pleasant story to recall but it was difficult not to remember it out there late at night. Fortunately I could see a cluster of stars through the serrated gap at the top of the door. I always liked the stars. Dad had told me, when I was very small, that they were friendly twinkling eyes guarding over me. It was a helpful thing to tell a child who lived at the end of a lonely country lane; starlight made life pleasanter in winter, and helped me to forget about old Billy.

In the kitchen again, I bolted the door, blew out the paraffin stove, washed my hands and cleaned my teeth, filled a hotwater bottle with what remained in the kettle, and crept upstairs. I was dead tired, but before I got into bed I had to kneel down and say my prayers.

It wasn't that I was religious. It was more of a superstition really. Gran Bowden, who was Chapel, had taught them to me and after she died I carried on with them out of sentiment and affection for her. By the time I stopped believing that a venerably bearded God was giving ear to them in person, the habit had stuck and I felt that it would be bad luck to break it. I didn't know whether there was a God or not, but it seemed advisable to keep in with him just in case.

The ridiculous thing was that at nearly eighteen I still said my prayers just as I had learned them from Gran Bowden when I was four: Gentle Jesus meekanmild look upon a little child, pity mice implicitee, suffer me to come to Thee Amen; and God Bless everybody I could think of including Gran herself and Joey her fat cat, dead before her. I gabbled the prayers, but at three o'clock in the morning that ought to be excusable.

I crawled wearily into bed, but couldn't go straight to sleep for thinking of John Donne's poem. It didn't fit in with the ‘pity my simplicity'bit, but after all Donne was a parson, so that ought to be excusable too.

I don't know how many times Mum came to the foot of the stairs and shrieked at me, but I didn't wake properly until Dad put on the light and shook me.

‘Come on, Janet,' he said anxiously. ‘Here's a cup of tea, only you'll have to get up right away. You'll never catch the bus, it's half-past seven already.'

The bus went from the village at eight. If I missed that there wasn't another until half-past ten.

I pulled on my clothes, swallowed the tea standing and hurtled downstairs.

‘You'll put your feet through that woodwork!' Mum hollered. ‘Why can't you get up when you're called?'

I ignored her, and charged down to the end of the garden. When I got back to the kitchen Dad stood aside from the sink, shaving soap all over his face, so that I could wash my hands and wipe the sleep out of my eyes with the family flannel. Mum shoved a bowl of cereal at me. ‘I don't know why I bother, I'm sure. At your age you ought to be out earning, not idling your time at school and having me waiting on you hand and foot.'

I slurped down a couple of spoonsful, grabbed my satchel and shot out to the shed for my bike. It was still dark. I know the lane backwards but it's difficult to go fast by the wobbling light of a lamp. The frost had hardened all the ruts and pot-holes and I jolted up and down with the heavy satchel banging on my back.

As I swerved out of the lane on to the road, I could see the distant lights of the bus coming up the rise past Boundary Farm. I did a snappy free-wheel, changed gear, and hammered at the pedals, head down. Good job nothing was in my way. Then I could hear the bus coming up behind me, snorting up my rear wheel as the driver slowed for the stop just outside Gran Thacker's shop. Made it! I threw the bike against the wall for Dad to rescue later and fell up the steps into the bus, breathless.

‘Late again,' said the driver as he clipped my weekly school ticket. ‘Don't know what keeps you young girls up so late at nights …'

If I'd known it was Joe Willis driving I wouldn't have killed myself to get to the stop. He was a regular on our route, had known me by sight ever since I'd been going to the grammar school. If he passed me on my way to the stop he'd always wait for me, but the trouble was that I never knew which driver it would be.

I flopped on the nearest vacant seat and drew in a few lungsful of air. It was well-used air, fusty with early-morning people and cigarette smoke and vinyl seat-coverings, but it helped. Recovering, I tidied my clothes and combed my hair, sat up and took a cautious look round. It didn't do your dignity as a school prefect any good if the juniors saw you rushing about like a human being. There were two of them on the bus so far, but they were sitting at the back with their heads together and they didn't seem to have noticed me.

It's a horrible feeling when you don't have time to clean your teeth after breakfast. I tried to suck them clean, regretting the slimy combination of milk and cornflakes and hoping that nothing had lodged visibly between any of my front teeth. I wanted to look my best at the stop in the next village, just in case.

Polite as always, he got on last. And stood there at the front of the bus, as well-thatched and dazzlingly blue-eyed as Robert Redford, looking for a vacant seat. It was my daily prayer that he would come and sit next to me, but even if no one else took the seat first he always found somewhere else to sit. This morning, it was on the other side of the gangway. I peered round the frontage of the large woman beside me and admired his profile and wondered if he read John Donne.

His name was Mark Easton. He was about my age, a prefect at the boys' grammar school, and working like me for university entrance. With so much in common it ought to have been natural for us to be friends, but however hopefully I looked at him he didn't seem to get the message.

It was easy for girls who had brothers, or who lived in town. They met boys all the time, and some of them were paired off before they were sixteen, but I didn't know any except my old tormentor Andy Crackjaw. There were formal get-togethers between the two grammar schools several times a term, but that wasn't much help to me because I was always Cinderella, having to rush off to catch the last bus.

But at least I had university to look forward to. Everything would be wonderful when I got there. Mark and I might even end up at the same one. I leaned forward to look at him again, but he sat with his eyes closed and his pocket transistor clamped to the side of his head. The woman next to me thought I was looking at her magazine and rattled it crossly, so I got a book out of my satchel and read up the economic consequences of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

The headmistress had her ‘engaged'sign up when I went to her room, as summoned, prompt at ten o'clock. There was no one about in the corridor so I leaned against the wall and had a good yawn while I waited. I was feeling dopey from insufficient sleep and the day seemed too long already.

Presently the ‘knock and enter'light flashed, so I did, and stood looking respectful. Miss Dunlop was small and neat and grey, with a precise, finicky Scottish accent: ‘gerrls'was how she invariably addressed us, and she called me ‘Jennet'. Her standards were so high that we'd have had to dislocate our necks to measure up to them. She was an expert at making life uncomfortable for rebels, and as I didn't believe in looking for trouble I always humoured her and kept my thoughts to myself.

Another girl, Caroline Adams, was also trying for Oxford entrance, and Miss Dunlop gave us each an individual grilling twice a term.

I could see my last week's essay lying on her desk, but her greeting didn't suggest that she'd been bowled over by its brilliance.

She picked it up and looked at me through her gold-rimmed spectacles. ‘Length in itself', she said severely, ‘has no merit. You must be more selective, Jennet. Write less, and think more.'

So much for all the midnight hours I'd spent on it. So much for last night's essay, which was even longer.

‘Yes, Miss Dunlop,' I said.

She told me what else she thought of the essay and then devoted the next few minutes to a brisk rummage through my mind. She treated it like a free lucky dip, holding up an occasional find for qualified approval but for the most part throwing out the rubbish. I hated this process, it always left me floundering. And I liked most of the rubbish. I could see why she thought I ought to get rid of it, but I determined to sneak it back later.

‘Now, Jennet –' She took off her glasses. That meant she'd finished with my work and was about to have a go at me personally. ‘You're beginning to look very short of sleep. What time did you go to bed last night?'

‘Half-past ten, Miss Dunlop.'

She looked as though she didn't believe me, but I'm a good liar and I looked back at her without a blink.

‘This final term is an important preparation for your academic life,' she said. ‘I know how great the social temptations are, but you can gad about –' she pronounced it
ged
‘– after the end of term. As long as you're still at school, your work must take priority.'

Social temptations? Gadding about? What kind of life did she imagine we led, in deepest Suffolk? Ah yes, there was bingo in the Coronation hut once a week in winter, and a whist drive once a month, and it was high time the Women's Institute held another jumble sale. It was all go in our village.

‘Yes, Miss Dunlop,' I said patiently.

Then she dropped the headmistress act and became friendly, almost anxious. ‘I haven't seen you since you took the Oxford entrance papers. How did you find them? I thought they were very fair.'

Miss Dunlop had been at Oxford, some time in the Middle Ages, and every year she did her best to push some of us there as well. Caroline and I were thoroughly confused about university entrance, so we did as we were told and put down Oxford as our first choice, even though it meant staying on at school for an extra term to take the entrance exam. Mum was vexed about the extra term, but Dad was so impressed by the idea of my going to Oxford that he was all for it.

I would just as soon have taken the place I'd already been offered at one of the London colleges on the strength of last term's A-level results. University was the passport I needed to get out of Longmire End, and whether I went to London or Oxford – neither of which I'd ever visited – was incidental. But I agreed to do the extra term because it meant that I'd be able to leave school at Christmas, get a temporary job, and use the money to buy some much-needed clothes before I took off for civilization next October.