She's Leaving Home (3 page)

‘It says in the Bible, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, but we don’t do that these days either,’ Helen retorted, but she was not in the mood for a fight. To placate her parents she kept the rules of a kosher home and would not have indulged in secret violations or upset them more than she dared. The concepts of duty and filial respect she accepted, at least for the moment.

The altercation had brought her father to the kitchen doorway, newspaper in hand. ‘You may not like it, Helen, but as long as you live in this house you will keep the rules. When you have your own home you can do what you like.’

No, thought the girl savagely. I’ll never be able to do what I like: all my life, what I fear and shrink away from will have been determined by the taboos I was forced to accept here. It’ll start with food – I will always wrinkle my nose in distaste at the smell of bacon. I will never be able to touch an oyster or lobster. I will wince whenever I hear the word ‘Christian’, as my mother did a moment ago. But it’ll continue in my reaction to Christmas and my horror of the Pope, a foolish old man in a
gold-trimmed
robe who has never known sex but tells half the world what not to do. I’ve been brought up in a certain way and most of it’ll stick. And even as I love you, I resent and hate you for it, you and every mad old rabbi in the last twenty centuries who dreamed up the entire crazy edifice of laws out of
nothing
. And the rabbis’ wives with their shorn heads and their wigs so no other man should gaze carnally at them. Dirty-minded lot. Most of all I loathe everybody’s insistence that
I have to observe whether I believe in it or not
. But what can I do?

For the present she had no choice, but acquiescence did not improve her temper. Barry’s reaction was different, but then he was only twelve to her sixteen. He would shrug: whatever he was asked to do, he performed, with just enough enthusiasm and plays to the gallery to win plaudits. When he was with his pals, she suspected, it was a different matter. As they grew older they would egg each other on to increasing acts of sniggering defiance. It would start with minor peccadilloes – an illegal hot dog from a stand in town, or bars of Cadbury’s when they were supposed to be fasting on Yom Kippur – and could finish when they were big enough by getting some
shikse
pregnant. They’d try things with a non-Jewish girl they wouldn’t dare with one of their own. Self-preservation, of course; a Jewish girl would have a brother to complain to, or, if the worst threatened, she could tell her mother. The wrath of such a parent and the curse of the community were not to be hazarded.

Her father retreated to the cleared table, his paper and the inevitable packet of Player’s to hand. The dishes finished, and trying to avoid any further errors, Helen followed meekly. She watched his broad shoulders, her face controlled. He was nearly bald now, though the moustache was as luxuriant as ever. It gave him an old-fashioned air, and was worn in imitation of his father whom the photos on the sideboard showed he closely resembled.

Daniel held the pages away from him as if he needed glasses. He was a good man, and more intellectual than most of his contemporaries. Like them he had opened at the sports pages first. Unlike
them, he then turned to the national news. He pointed at a photograph.

‘Government’s in trouble. General de Gaulle’s said “No”, and the polls are terrible. They seem to be dogged by scandal which doesn’t help. Will you have to know about this for your A levels, Helen?’

‘Might, for General Studies. I don’t have to know what John Vassall got up to, but I may get a question on the economic implications of our not being able to join the Common Market.’

‘Macmillan is one of your heroes, isn’t he?’ Daniel laid down the paper and gazed at his wayward daughter. Was he aware that with that moustache and the quizzical eyebrows and big forehead, he quite resembled the beleaguered Prime Minister?

‘Sort of. I like the way he tries to look to the future. New bodies like Neddy and Nicky – the National Economic Development Council, and the National Incomes Commission – I have to be able to write essays on those. And his attempt to get us into Europe. Not all his ideas will work, of course, but at least he
tries
. And he’s friends with President Kennedy. Now there really is a man to inspire people – especially young ones like me.’

‘All piss and wind, seems to me, Kennedy. And his father was a great anti-Semite when he was ambassador here before the war.’

It was a signal between them; if father and daughter could not easily communicate about personal matters, they could nevertheless dispute energetically and amicably about current events. With her mother such elevated conversations were not possible; her brother was too young but showed every sign of shallowness. Her father made a point of using colourful language in these discussions, a watered-down version of what she could hear on any street corner in town, as if preparing her for the outside world – though he would not let his daughter do the same. It was like his smoking: he had started young and couldn’t help it, he declared, but as long as possible he would ban his children from the habit. Helen folded her arms in mock belligerence.

‘Well, President Kennedy saw Khrushchev off and nobody else’s done that, ever,’ the girl countered. It was important to use adult phrases and references with her father, to repay his compliment to her. ‘I’ve never been so petrified as that weekend of the Cuban missile crisis – I thought we’d had it. But the President showed huge courage and leadership.’

Daniel Majinsky considered. ‘Easy to do it when you’ve got half a million soldiers at your disposal. He wouldn’t hesitate to put those boys’ lives at risk.’

‘But you’re no pacifist, Dad. And you wouldn’t have wanted him to back down.’

Daniel chuckled. ‘Right. And if we had to choose between the Russians and the Americans, we know which side we’d be on.’

Helen changed tack. ‘D’you ever regret not going to America, Dad?’ The family photographs showed his elder sister Gertie, his sole sibling, who had emigrated in the hard years before the war to New York. Cousins Miriam and Eva had fled there at war’s end, married to Jewish GIs. Only Daniel had hesitated.

‘I was a bit too old.’ He looked at his hands. ‘That sounds daft – I was thirty-two. I could have gone: Gertie and her husband Joe would have stood surety for me. But I’d decided to marry your mother and set up my own business. My plans were made. Ten years earlier, maybe, it’d have been different. But it wasn’t.’

But a decade before he would have faced the same choice. He had never explained why he had opted to stay then, either. Whenever the question arose he referred to the time of decision as the end of the war. So did her mother.

‘You’d been ill, though, hadn’t you?’ Helen ventured.

‘That bout of TB didn’t help, that’s for sure. No penicillin in those days. A man with damaged lungs is hardly prime material,’ Daniel admitted. ‘But I didn’t bother. I wasn’t in the army – passed unfit. My war was spent cutting out khaki battledress and on fire-watch on the factory roof.
Mostly falling asleep on duty, to tell the truth.’

She waited. Her father seemed momentarily lost in a faraway world. Suddenly he looked up and grinned. ‘Right! Haven’t you got an essay to write? And I heard you say you’re coming to the workshop tomorrow. Tell your mother to do tinned salmon sandwiches. They’re your favourite, and mine.’

Helen left the room as her father resumed his perusal of the
Echo
. His jocular dismissal had been as close as he would get to an expression of affection. He had made time for her, talked to her as an adult and had accepted a point she had put, the greatest compliment he could pay.

In this family nobody hugged; there were few spoken words of regard. No one had ever said, ‘I love you, Helen,’ directly to her. Nor could she recall an occasion on which she had heard her parents exchange words of endearment. Once in a cinema an explosion of passion had erupted on the screen; she had sensed both Annie and Daniel squirm with embarrassment.

Nor could she hope for verbal encouragement. The most she could expect might be an overheard remark: ‘She’s not a bad kid, on the whole.’ If any member of the clan were lauded by an outsider the listener would become deprecatory. It wasn’t mere modesty. It was as if praise were dangerous, would expose its recipients to undue attention, make them swell-headed, put the whole fellowship at risk. Complacency might set in, effort might slacken too soon. Jews had learned to keep their heads down.

Her father took his reserve to extremes. He didn’t believe in cards and presents at birthdays and anniversaries, and naturally Christmas was forbidden. The result was a fearsome kind of puritanism against which the rest of the Majinsky family would cautiously rebel. Annie in particular looked forward to Mother’s Day in March and expected a bunch of daffodils from her children over which she would exclaim with pleasure, though in the same breath she would chide them for the unnecessary expense. She had absorbed from her husband a harsh inability simply to appreciate a gift, or to express thanks without criticism, as if either she or the donor were unworthy.

The street lamps cast a bluish glow as the crowd spilled out on to Hope Street and, taking care on icy pavements, headed for cars and bus stops. It took a long time for two thousand people to find hats, coats, gloves and exits, and to disperse into the inhospitable gloom. Their breaths hung on the frozen air like a misty curtain. Behind them shone the bright lights of the Philharmonic Hall and the hubbub still within.

Rita Nixon linked arms with her sister Sylvia Bloom, as much for the warmth of the latter’s fur coat as with any sisterly affection. On a winter’s night she was exceedingly thankful for Sylvia’s money which had brought in addition the Hillman Minx parked around the corner.

The two women were much the same shape, or would be when Rita, the younger by several years, had caught up. Both had married men they did not love, since marriage was what was expected of them, and was all that was on offer. Both had endured hurried and joyless sex sufficiently long to produce a single child, both girls: first Sarah for Sylvia, then, much later on, Roseanne for Rita. At that point their paths diverged, for once he had carelessly provided cause, and Sylvia had divorced her husband with relief. Rita merely ignored hers. Scathingly she dubbed him ‘Nix’ even to his face. Sylvia dreamed of affairs which never materialised but earned her keep encouraging others as informal proprietor of a Jewish introduction agency: a
shadchan
, or matchmaker.

Both doted on their daughters but suspected that the sentiment was not returned, though Roseanne, everyone declared, was the spitting image of her mother both in looks and personality. Rita was not sure this was a compliment and Sylvia was certain it wasn’t. Her job meant she understood such nuances.

The sisters had many tastes in common and would frequently meet for a day out, or to keep company at the type of event where a husband was useful if he could be persuaded to appear (or were
available), but where a lone woman might find herself out of place. Such an occasion had just finished. The Liverpool Conservatives had welcomed their Leader and Prime Minister. In the heart of the city he had spoken to them, to a rapturous and uncritical welcome. Rita and Sylvia felt quite inspired.

‘I didn’t think he seemed well, I must say. I don’t think that Lady Dorothy looks after him properly,’ Rita remarked.

‘Not her role, is it? They have servants. She was a Cavendish, you know. Devonshires. Chatsworth. Lovely place,’ Sylvia added airily.

‘No, he seemed – unhappy, somehow.’ They had reached the car. Rita ruminated further as her sister fumbled in the chill air for the keys. ‘I suppose it’s understandable. President de Gaulle’s given him a real brush-off.’

‘What did he say to us? Oh, yes, I remember. “If the objections to our entry to the Common Market were so strong in principle, why weren’t we told right from the start?” He’s got a point.’ Sylvia opened her side, slid into her seat and reached over to unlock the passenger door.

‘Nothing he can do about it, though.’ Rita regarded herself as the more practical of the two. She climbed in, held her coat clear of the door and slammed it hard. ‘We’re not going to gain entry, and that’s that.’

‘Would you want to?’ Sylvia pulled out the choke and pumped the pedals. She hoped that she could get the engine to start from cold without too much trouble. Although plenty of fit-looking men were milling around who could be asked for a push, their jokes about women drivers would be a pain. With a grunt of satisfaction she heard the motor cough into life on the third try and revved it for a few moments. Her next car would have a heater.

The question took Rita into realms where she preferred to be told what to think.

‘After everything the Germans did to us, any links with them leave me uneasy. On the other hand we know what’ll happen if they’re left to their own devices.’ Her face brightened. ‘I suppose that’s why it’s a good idea if the British join. Keep our eyes on the Krauts, and on the Frenchies. Maybe that’s what Mr Macmillan has in mind, though he couldn’t come out and say it.’

The car moved jerkily away from the kerb. Rita had never learned to drive but had watched her husband Nix many times. She debated silently whether to point out that the handbrake, if that was what it was called, was still on, but fortunately her sister noticed in time and let it down with an unladylike expletive. The Hillman skidded briefly then settled into a slow chug over the slushy snow towards Canning Street.

‘You’re right, though,’ Sylvia concurred. The sisters prided themselves on not quarrelling. ‘He was peaky. Drained. Not been a good start to the year for us Tories. Let’s hope there’s no more bad news to come.’

Helen picked up her bag from the hallway and climbed the stairs to her bedroom at the back of the house. It was too small for a desk as well as two narrow beds, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. She sat cross-legged on the bed by the window and arranged textbooks and files around her.