Opal Plumstead (5 page)

‘This isn’t a laughing matter, Opal Plumstead,’ she hissed. ‘You will do another hundred lines.’

‘Then it’s a
crying
matter,’ I muttered.

‘What did you say?’ she demanded.

‘I was just talking to myself, Miss Mountbank.’

‘You think you’re so superior, you silly little girl. You’ll get your come-uppance one day, just you wait and see.’ She spoke with real venom, her little eyes black beads of hatred, her great nose as sharp as any beak. It was if she were some ancient crone of the dark arts, cursing me. I couldn’t help shivering, even though I knew she was just awful old-maid Mounty, the worst teacher in the school.

I had a roaring feeling in my head and my eyes were stinging, almost as if I were about to burst into tears. I blinked hard, willing myself not to break down in front of her. She had no real power over me. I might be singularly untalented when it came to housecraft, but what did that matter? I wasn’t intending to become a cook when I grew up. It seemed doubtful that I’d ever be able to afford a cook myself, but I didn’t care. I certainly wasn’t going to spend my time stirring sweetbreads. I’d buy my hot food, fish and fried potatoes, with Fairy Glen sweets for dessert. I might grow so fat I’d burst right out of my corsets, but who cared? I didn’t want to wear them anyway. I’d lumber around happily in a capacious artistic robe and all my large bits could lollop around within, totally untethered.

I cheered myself up enough to complete the extra set of lines and handed them to Miss Mountbank. She kept me a further five minutes, going through each and every line. Her eyes darted from side to side, desperate to find a ‘t’ uncrossed or a ‘y’ without a proper tail so she could set me the task all over again, but my penmanship was perfect.

‘Very well. Run away now. I dare say you have interesting duties at home now, putting new nibs in your father’s pen and keeping him supplied with blotting paper, seeing as you say he’s going to be a published author.’ She spoke in tones of withering sarcasm.

‘That’s quite right, Miss Mountbank,’ I said blithely, and then marched out of the room before she found an excuse to detain me further.

I was terribly touched to find Olivia playing a listless game of bouncy-ball-on-a-string in the playground.

‘Oh, Olivia, you waited for me!’ I said, hugging her. ‘But I’ve been
ages
.’

‘I know,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘It felt like twenty-four hours at least. Did the old bat give you extra lines?’

‘A hundred more. She hates me.’

‘Well, I love you, and you’re my best friend ever, so let’s go to the sweetie shop because I have more funds.’

We deliberated long and hard in Mr McAllister’s sweet shop, debating the various merits of pear drops and aniseed balls, but I eventually steered Olivia in favour of lime drops, my particular favourite.

‘Amy in
Little Women
got into trouble for sucking limes at school,’ I said. ‘But I think that was the real fruit.’

‘I’ve never read that book,’ said Olivia.

‘Oh, you
must
. I’ll lend you my copy.’ I was always lending Olivia my few books, but she didn’t always read them even then.

‘What’s your father’s book about?’

I realized I wasn’t quite sure which novel the publishers had taken. Was it the story about the impoverished student at university? The tome about the daily grind of factory workers? The modern fable about all the animals escaping from London Zoo? I’d read all Father’s manuscripts. I gave Olivia a little précis of each book, trying to make them as dramatic as possible to hold her interest. I impersonated half a dozen stampeding wild animals when I came to the last story, which made Olivia laugh so much she swallowed her lime drop and I had to thump her hard on the back to stop her choking.

When I got home, there was a wonderful rich smell flooding the kitchen. Mother was making pastry, up to her elbows in flour. She even had a smudge of flour on her pink cheeks.

‘I’m making a steak pie. It’s your father’s favourite,’ she said.

‘Steak!’ I exclaimed.

‘I don’t have to settle with the butcher until next month, and then hopefully Father will have his cheque,’ said Mother.

She’d clearly bought a lot of items on tick. There was a bottle of port wine and new crystal glasses on the table, a board of cheeses and a big bunch of purple grapes.

Cassie had spent even more of the money we hadn’t yet got. She came home wearing an amazing green silk dress that set off her red-gold hair to perfection.

‘Oh, Cassie, you look a picture!’ said Mother. ‘I’ve never seen you in such a fetching dress. But however much did it cost?’

‘It’s all right, Mother, don’t fuss. I got it for a song. I just popped into Fashion Modes in my lunch break, and they were having a special sale of all their slightly shop-soiled dresses. It was half price, I swear,’ said Cassie, swishing up and down the hot kitchen.

‘But even so . . .’ Mother said weakly.

‘Madame Alouette herself said the dress might have been made specially for me. I’m paying it off weekly, don’t worry, and I’m sure Father will help me out,’ said Cassie, smiling at her reflection in the saucepan.

Father had been extravagant too. He came home with a positive armful of presents: a big bunch of roses for Mother, a fancy box of Fairy Glen fondants for us all to share and, bizarrely, a little blue budgerigar in a cage.

We all squealed at the bird. Cassie and I were thrilled, but Mother was clearly not so keen.

‘What on earth is that creature doing in my kitchen?’ she said, sounding like her old self again. ‘You know I can’t bear birds, Ernest.’

‘I know you don’t like pigeons, dear, or gulls, or starlings or sparrows – but this is a songbird, Lou. I saw it in the market on my way home, and when I heard what they’d taught it to sing, I knew I had to have it. Listen now.
Listen!
’

Father cocked his head towards to the cage, as if he fully expected the budgerigar to trill an operatic aria. The bird flapped its wings on its tiny perch, beak closed.

‘Never mind, Father, it’s still very pretty,’ I said quickly.

‘I’ll teach it to sing,’ said Cassie. ‘Come on, little birdy.
The boy I love is up in the gallery
 . . .

The bird hopped off its perch and looked around pointedly.

‘I think it’s tired and hungry,’ I said. ‘Let’s give it something to eat and drink and let it rest.’

‘Let
us
eat and drink, seeing as I spent the last two hours slaving in the kitchen to make your favourite supper,’ said Mother, still a little irritated.

I fetched the bird some water in a little dish and Father brought out a packet of birdseed from his pocket. Cassie and I discussed names for the budgerigar. I fancied calling him something poetic, to suggest a creature with wings – Puck, Cobweb, Ariel, Peaseblossom.

Cassie spluttered derisively. ‘He’s Billy the budgie,’ she said, and somehow that name stuck.

Billy settled down in his cage while Mother served her great steak pie. We were so distracted by its savoury splendour that we almost forgot the little bird, but while we were all eating fondant creams and grapes for pudding, Billy suddenly threw back his head and sang.

‘
Happy days!
’ he trilled, as clear as anything. ‘
Happy days, happy days, happy days
.’

‘You see!’ said Father, terrifically pleased. ‘You see why I had to buy him, my girls. These are
our
happy days at last!’

We hugged Father, all three of us, while Billy chirruped his one little phrase relentlessly all evening, until Mother put the chenille tablecloth over his cage when it was time for us to go to bed.

THEY WERE TRULY
happy days. Father settled himself to work on rewriting his novel about the lacklustre life of a shipping clerk straight after supper and carried on cheerfully halfway through the night. Mother stayed up with him, bringing him tea and lemonade and weak whisky, as if his talent needed constant watering. After several nights of feverish activity they both slept in. Cassie and I were late for work and school, and Father was spectacularly late for the shipping office.

Mother was agitated, especially when Father told her that evening that he’d been given an official warning.

‘They told me if I’m ever as late again they will halve my wages – and a third time means instant dismissal,’ he said.

‘Oh, Ernest!’

‘Don’t look so anxious, Lou! I won’t be needing the wretched position much longer, will I? I very nearly told them to stick their job then and there, but I just about managed to be prudent. But I reckon if the publishers accept one more novel, then I can stop the daily grind altogether and become a free man.’

‘Of course, of course, but meanwhile it’s best to be careful,’ said Mother, though she had just treated herself to a fancy Japanese workbasket. It was fitted out with household tape, assorted pins and needles, a tiny pair of scissors with blades in the shape of a bird’s beak, three skeins of darning wool and twenty coloured cottons. Mother didn’t even like sewing, and put off darning our socks and stockings till we had great potato holes, but she couldn’t resist the novelty Japanese basket. She especially liked the scissors, and sat opening and closing them with a little smile on her face, like a child with a new toy.

Cassie was rather put out. ‘
I’m
the seamstress of the family, Ma! I’m a professional! Why can’t I have a workbasket like that?’

‘You can have my old workbasket, dear,’ said Mother.

Cassie wrinkled her nose, making it plain what she thought of that idea.

‘You shall have a new workbasket too, Cassie,’ said Father magnanimously. He dug into his pockets and brought out two ten-shilling notes. ‘Here you are, girls – one each.’

‘But Ernest—’ Mother protested.

‘Don’t worry, Lou. I’ll take out a little loan of cash to ease things along until I get my advance from the publishers.’

‘But . . . is that wise?’

‘Now then, dear, you must leave all money matters to me,’ said Father.

He had a new authority in the family now. He even seemed to stand taller and walk more briskly, though he was still pale from lack of sleep, with dark circles under his eyes.

Cassie came home the next day with a beautiful Japanese lacquer haberdashery box. It had an intricate pattern of birds and flowers on the shiny black top, and a special fitted lift-out tray with little cotton-reels tucked neatly into place.

I liked sewing even less than Mother, but I felt ferociously envious of that glorious box, and it didn’t help when Cassie produced a casket of otto violet soaps that she’d bought with the change. The soap for general use in our house was harsh red carbolic. The ugly smell lingered for hours after every wash.

‘
My
personal soap,’ said Cassie, sniffing her delicate pale purple tablets. She kept them in her dressing-table drawer, taking them backwards and forwards to the sink, because she didn’t trust anyone else not to use them.

I longed for my own japanned box and fragrant soap, but I held true to my own vision. I waited until Saturday and dressed in my Sunday best frock, deep green with black buttons all the way down to the hem. It made me look very sallow and the long skirt was too tight for me to stride out comfortably, but I hoped it added a year or two to my age.

I told Mother I was going to spend the day at Olivia’s house. I didn’t go anywhere near my friend. I needed to make this expedition by myself. I’d decided to go all the way to London.

The journey was easy enough. I knew Father’s route to work, and in the past we’d made several family trips to the West End to see the Christmas decorations. I took the local bus to Putney, changed to a number 14, and caught a number 81 at Piccadilly Circus, travelling at the front of the top deck with the wind blowing my hair. Little boys breathed down my neck, wanting to bag the front seat for themselves so that they could pretend to drive the bus, but I wouldn’t budge. I stared round-eyed at all the sights, envying Father for taking this magical trip to London every day, though I knew he hated commuting. I had no clear idea of direction, and several times panicked a little, wondering if the bus was going the right way, but in Holborn I spotted the great Gamages department store at last, and shot down the steps.

I wandered aimlessly around the store for half an hour, seduced by all the wonderful things on display. The toy department was especially beguiling. I was too old for toys, of course, and I didn’t particularly care for the French and German china dolls with their disconcerting haughty expressions, but I loved the soft toys, particularly the expensive stuffed animals – the monkey, the cat, the Welsh terrier and the wonderful jointed white polar bear. I couldn’t help handling them each in turn. I set the monkey capering, I made the cat mew and the dog bark, and I took the polar bear for an amble along the glacier of the glass counter.

I loved the miniature worlds too – the grocer’s shop with its jars and packets and tiny scales, and the farmyards with their finger-sized sheep and cows and goats. Most of all I loved the big Noah’s Ark. I took off its red roof and saw all the animals stabled two by two in compartments, the fierce creatures with sharp teeth prudently separated from the small and the fluffy. I had always ached for a Noah’s Ark as a child: I imagined carrying it to the park on a rainy day and setting it to sail on the duck pond. I looked at the price tag, but, alas, it was twenty-three shillings and sixpence, much more than I could afford. I mustn’t get diverted anyway. I was here to buy a paintbox.