I don’t really remember the other one. Short and fat, probably. Very different, anyway.
They were airmen, stationed at a base in Norfolk, I don’t remember the name. We were only staying for a few days, till the weekend, so we had to work fast. There was a dance in the ballroom in town, and in order to make sure the Americans went to it, Janet said, ‘Why don’t we make a leaflet!’ So we did. The leaflet said, Dance! Saturday! Be there or be square!! and Janet illustrated it with a girl in a skirt with lots of petticoats and a boy in a shirt with rolled-up sleeves, jiving together.
It was pretty amateurish, but she said we had to have something. We couldn’t ask them in person – that would have been too brazen. My job was to put it under the door of the airmen’s room. But my airman opened the door as I was bending down. I felt so stupid, kneeling there, wearing a top that gaped at the neck.
‘Well, hi there,’ he said. His voice was smooth, like a film star. ‘Or should I say, “Low there”?’ He put his hand out to help me up. I remember thinking what a warm, dry hand it was. I stood up, dusting my knees, throwing looks at the rug on the lino, as if I’d been walking along the landing quite innocently and the rug had tripped me up on the polished floor. ‘And what’s this?’ He bent down and picked up the leaflet.
‘I don’t know, what is it?’ I twisted my head round and squinted at the piece of paper as if I’d never seen it before. ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘look at that! It’s for the dance at the ballroom in town tonight. Are you going?’
‘Are you?’
‘Oh, yes, we’re going. My friend and I. My friend, Janet. I’m Sylvia . . . Sylvie, by the way. We’re going.’ Suddenly I decided to call myself Sylvie – it just sounded so . . . so much more mysterious. And I suppose, in a way, I wanted to be mysterious.
He grinned. ‘We’ll probably see you there,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we could have a dance.’
The American way he said ‘dance’ made me shiver. ‘Yes, perhaps we could,’ I said, and I turned on my heel, glaring at the rug as I went.
Janet and I spent the afternoon pinning our hair into curls and drawing lines up the backs of our legs. Janet had to sit on a pile of cushions all afternoon, on top of her skirt, trying to press out the creases. I hung my dress by the window to blow out the wrinkles. We couldn’t use the iron – we didn’t want Janet’s auntie asking questions. She was a bit square. She wouldn’t have approved.
So, off we went to the dance, looking around the dance floor, but we didn’t see anyone we recognised. So we danced together, all sorts of dances – modern, some skiffle, even a bit of Tommy Steele – not in person, in case you’re wondering. This was mostly jazzy, and songs from the war. There were people of all ages there, it wasn’t just youngsters. There were waltzes, and the cha-cha-cha.
*
‘Did he know how to do those?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know, because he wasn’t there – not at first. Neither of them was there. Janet and I were quite downhearted, and I began to think I should have stayed in Braintree with Kenny.’
‘Who’s Kenny?’
‘He was my boyfriend. He wanted to marry me, and I wasn’t sure, so Janet had said this would be a good time to think about it, on my own, calmly.’
‘Why did you have to think about it?’ I said. ‘Didn’t you know whether you loved him or not? If you had to think about it, it sounds like you didn’t.’
‘I’m afraid things aren’t always that black and white, Linda. Marriage isn’t just about love. And love doesn’t inevitably lead to marriage.’ She looked at Mansell. ‘But anyway, I wasn’t at home with Kenny. I was in Great Yarmouth, and I danced with a few country lads before I looked up in the middle of a foxtrot and saw the Yanks standing at the door, gazing round the room like two strangers in paradise.
‘I apologised to my partner, I pretended I’d hurt my foot – which I had really, since he kept stepping on it – and I limped away. Of course, I stopped limping when I got to the edge of the dance floor. And I put on my smile and I walked round to greet them.
‘ “And don’t you look good enough to eat?” he said.
‘I knew I was looking nice. My hair was behaving itself, and my dress was simple but pretty, blue cotton with a yellow and blue pattern, a few petticoats underneath to make the skirt stick out, and I’d picked a flower from a display on the front as we walked to the hall, and I’d put it behind my ear.’
‘What was his name?’
‘His name. Well, I didn’t know his name at that point.’ She stretched. ‘We’ll do some more next time. And now I will put on a record to make you swoon. Johnny Mathis.’
‘Perhaps I should leave now.’
She laughed. ‘Don’t make that face. You’ll like it when you listen properly. But yes, you put Mansell down, and I’ll switch on the hi-fi. It’ll take a little while to warm up.’
*
‘But that’s rubbish,’ Sandra said dismissively. We were upstairs on their landing, folding the washing, holding the ends of the sheets, moving backwards and forwards, making neat squares, almost dancing. It was a way of making up for our argument. She’d rung and asked if I wanted to have a good time. It was sorting laundry. She’d done the ringing and I was helping with the folding.
‘Why is it rubbish?’ Their sheets were pink, slithery Bri-nylon.
‘For a start, when do people go to secretarial college? They go when they leave school, when they’re fifteen or sixteen. Not when they’re twenty-six or thirty-six, or however old she is.’
‘They might do.’
‘Yeah, that would look good, wouldn’t it? “Take a letter, Miss Smith.” “Ooh, sorry, I can’t pick up my pencil, I’ve got rheumatism.” ’
‘Twenty-six isn’t that old. Do you think she’s lying?’
‘My mum says she lies to the doctors about when she’s feeling well or ill, so no one knows what’s going on.’ Sandra put a folded sheet over the banister. ‘And who’s this Janet? I’ve never heard of her.’
‘It’s her friend. She probably hasn’t heard of your friend Halina.’
Sandra grunted.
‘Well, I don’t care,’ I said. I paused. Did I care? She was so much older than me, and lovely and sad that actually, no, it didn’t matter to me. ‘She’s like a film star, like Audrey Hepburn or someone, talking about her last film,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it’s true, perhaps it’s not. It’s a story. I just want to know what happens in the story. It doesn’t matter if it’s true. The stories don’t hurt anyone.’
‘You’re the one who’s always going on about telling the truth.’
‘That’s my mum.’ I paused. ‘Well, I suppose I think the truth is a good thing a lot of the time, but people don’t always tell the truth. Danny lies to you all the time.’
‘Oh, don’t start that again.’ She lifted up the pile of folded laundry. ‘Nobody believes anything Danny says. If they do, they’re stupid.’
‘And I like Sylvie.’ Sandra looked at me. ‘She’s different. She says interesting things.’
‘That’s nice.’ Sandra’s mouth turned down.
‘And you’re at work all the time. I have to talk to someone!’
‘And you want to know who the dad is, don’t you?’
‘Not really.’ But I was just being contrary. I was intrigued. Hearing the story of how they met was romantic. I wanted to find out as much as I could. I picked up the end of a trailing pillow case and followed Sandra downstairs. To find out would mean I’d have to keep going round there. But my mum would approve of that.
CHAPTER 8
‘Good Morning Little School Girl’
ALL OF OUR YEAR HAD TO GO INTO the hall to hear a talk by the careers lady and then, later, go and see her individually.
The day she spoke to me I reeled home from school. I’d said stupid things. I felt stupid.
Sylvie was wheeling the pram out of the shop as I walked up the road. ‘Hello, Linda!’ she said, squinting in the watery sun. ‘What a nice surprise. Hav
e you got time for a cup of tea?’
‘I don’t think I’ll be very good company.’
‘Oh, chicken, why ever not? Bad day at school?’
‘The careers lady came.’
‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ We walked into the Crescent. Sylvie unlocked the front door. ‘Now you push the pram in – gently, or he’ll wake up – and I’ll put the kettle on and then you can tell me all the exciting things they’ve suggested to you.’
‘It’s not what they suggested to me. It’s what I said to them.’
‘Aha! They didn’t like it, I can tell.’
I slumped into a chair at the kitchen table and tore off my beret.
‘So.’ Sylvie was filling the kettle at the sink. The water hitting the aluminium base made a hollow roaring sound. ‘Did you tell them you were going to follow your dad into politics?’
‘Not likely. All those meetings he has to go to.’
‘Did you tell them you wanted to be a racing driver?’
‘No!’
‘Be a woman of importance?’
‘Huh!’ I said.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I wanted to be a housewife.’
Slowly Sylvie put the kettle on top of the stove. When she turned round her face was a mixture of curiosity and concern.
‘Don’t look like that,’ I pleaded. ‘I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. I always feel wrong at school. So I said what I thought everyone in the class was aiming for. Their mums don’t go to work. They all talk about getting married and having children. And I know I could do it – I got all those badges in Guides.’
Sylvie began spooning tea into the teapot. I got the feeling she wasn’t listening, but I carried on speaking to myself, in a bitter whisper. ‘It’s what they all talk about all the time. I never join in. I’m always on the outside, with my CND badge and being bad at games and my dad being a Labour councillor. I don’t care, but when you’re face to face with someone . . . If I’d said what I really want to be, she’d have thought I’d got ideas above my station.’
‘Oh, Linda!’
‘And then it turned out everyone else said things like teacher or librarian or air hostess, even. They looked at me as if I was . . .’ I stopped. ‘As if I was strange.’ Sylvie was pouring boiling water into the pot. ‘What do you think?’ I said.
‘Well, I think housework is probably not the best use you can make of your time. But then, you only need to look round this house to know I think that. What do you really want to do with your life?’
I looked at her. Could I tell her? Should I tell her?
She was waiting. All the possibilities I dreamed of, that I wrote in very small writing in my diary – journalist, actress, traveller – seemed stupid. Would she think they were hopelessly out of my reach, a girl from a council estate who didn’t know her place? I shrugged. ‘A teacher, probably.’
‘Teaching! That’s good,’ she said. ‘But what else could you do? Let’s think.’
I looked at her. She was being serious. Hesitantly I said, ‘A journalist. Perhaps. A journalist in Africa.’
‘That’s an extraordinary thing to want to be.’
I blushed. I should have kept my mouth shut.
‘No, I mean, that’s a wonderful thing to want to do. How exciting. You could go to North Africa, Morocco or Algeria – and then, oh, you could go to the Sahara Desert. Or how about the Belgian Congo? Or the Ivory Coast?’ She was really excited. ‘There’s so much to write about. Not a lot of women do it.’
I wished I hadn’t said it – I knew almost nothing about Africa. Was Morocco really in Africa? ‘It’s just an idea,’ I muttered, before she asked me anything, like where Nairobi was or the Panama Canal.
‘But why is it just an idea? It could be a reality. You’re smart, and you’re very good with people.’
‘Am I?’
‘You talk sensibly to them and you get people talking to you. Look at me! I’m telling you all sorts of things.’
‘Are you?’
‘And then – well, what’s your favourite lesson at school?’
I thought about it. ‘French? English?’
‘You’re halfway there! You could write about the people you meet. If you’re in France, or even one of the French colonies in Africa, you can speak to the people in their own language, find out their stories and then float down the rivers, or climb the mountains. You could write about the food. Or the clothes, even. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
I wasn’t sure. It was the first time I’d said it out loud, and it sounded different from the way it did in my head. I needed time to think about the implications. ‘You should be the one to go,’ I said.
‘I would if I could,’ she said. ‘Oh, I would if I could. But I can’t. So that’s why you’ve got to do it.’
‘But I’m just me,’ I said. ‘A mod from Chelmsford.’
‘Everybody was somebody else at the beginning.’
‘I don’t even know where half those places are.’
‘I don’t know what they do teach you at that school of yours,’ she said.
‘Not very much at all,’ I said. ‘But that’s not their fault, necessarily. I’ve dropped geography.’
‘But that’s the best part of it. You don’t need geography lessons. You’ll get to find out about places by actually being there. How do you think I know about Paris? Paris would be a great place to start. It’s so easy to get to. You take the night train from Victoria Station in London. And you get off at Dover and walk onto the boat. It’s so exciting.’ She sighed as if she was remembering a journey of her own. ‘Let’s go through into the living room. You bring the tea, Dr Livingstone,’ she said. ‘I’ve decided my job will be to complete your education in the subjects they don’t teach you at school.’
‘I have quite a lot of homework,’ I said uneasily, following her.
She was looking through the pile of LPs, which was messy again. ‘Do you like modern jazz?’ she said.
‘I don’t know.’ I did know – I didn’t like it – but I also knew that was not the right thing to say.
‘This is Miles Davis.’ She put the record on the turntable and the sound of a mournful trumpet filled the room.
It felt so lonely, it made me feel sad and almost anxious, but I didn’t know if that was because I’d spoken aloud about my dream future, or if I was worried about Sylvie listening to the music.
‘So, you like travelling.’ She settled herself in an armchair. Then she spoke almost to herself. ‘I’m so pleased you want to travel.’ She looked at me. ‘What other languages do you learn at school?’
‘German,’ I said. ‘Latin.’
‘So you’ve got French and German, that’s good. And Latin will help you with other languages. So they say.’ She leaned over the arm of the chair and knocked over a pile of books and slid them around. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘This is a book I am reading at the moment, and I think you might like it. It’s called The Second Sex.’
‘Really?’
‘Don’t you know who Simone de Beauvoir is, my little radical?’
‘Is she something to do with . . .?’ I hoped Sylvie would fill in the gap.
‘Jean-Paul Sartre. She’s French.’
‘Oh, it’s the way you said it.’
She laughed. ‘Very good! She’s the leader of the new generation of suffragettes.’
I scoured my brain. ‘That’s votes for women, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, feminists. There are still countries where women don’t have the vote. Switzerland, for example. Imagine that!’ She looked at me with her eyebrows raised, to make sure I’d understood. ‘But suffragettes didn’t only want the vote, they wanted freedom and equality. Think about it. Until quite recently women teachers who got married had to stop teaching. Boom, just like that. Which is shocking, isn’t it?’
It was shocking. We were living in the twentieth century. How could people no
t have the vote? Why should women not be able to teach if they were married?
‘So you and I think it’s shocking,’ she went on, ‘but surprisingly, that’s very controversial, which is what we like, isn’t it?’
I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure what she meant.
‘The library had to order this book specially,’ she went on. ‘The librarian was looking all around as she gave it to me. I think she wanted to wrap it up in a paper bag.’
‘Have you finished it?’ I said, picking it up gingerly. It was a thick book and the print was small. Perhaps she’d only just started it and there wouldn’t be time for me to look at it before it was due back at the library. I looked in the front. Oh no – there were two weeks to go. I thought hopefully that Mum wouldn’t want me to read a book the librarian disapproved of, although Dad probably wouldn’t care. He’d say, ‘If it’s printed on paper, read it. But with a question on your lips.’ Oh, I knew I should read it. I knew it was important to fight injustice. I’d read a book about Elizabeth Fry, who had campaigned to reform prisons. I’d really liked that. But it was a much shorter book. Perhaps Sylvie could just tell me what it said.
‘So did you meet Simone de Beauvoir when you went to France?’ I said.
‘France? Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Janet and I were so young and so innocent when we were in Paris. I don’t think we would have had much to say to Simone.’
‘Was that before or after you met Mansell’s dad?’
‘What? Paris?’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Oh yes, that was the trouble. In Paris we got a taste for all things exotic.’
‘Like Mansell’s dad?’
‘A bit.’
‘Was this before your secretarial course?’
She cocked her head to one side. ‘Hmm, deep, probing questions. I’m sure there’s a job you could do that requires that skill. You could be a detective.’
‘Yeah, of course,’ I said, but I toyed with the idea for a minute. WPC Piper. Then I said, ‘So you and Janet were in France . . .’
‘Do you know, I really don’t remember much about Paris. It was another of our mad dashes . . . We’d decided we were singers. We went into a million bars asking for work until the patron of a tiny place, I think it was near the Sacré Coeur, said we could step in for one night. And so we did, there and then. His usual person had let him down. The accompanist was there – he had an accordion and smelt of sausage and garlic.’ She paused and looked over at Mansell’s pram in the hall. ‘We had hardly any songs in our repertoire, songs that we knew the words of, that is. There was . . .’ She looked up at the ceiling. “Every Time We Say Goodbye”. And . . . I think . . . “You Do Something To Me”, and, of course, “I Love Paris”. The rest we just la-la’d our way through.’
The Saturday Girls Page 8
