You Must Be Sisters

by Deborah Moggach

  How’s school? I feel such a bond with you, us both being away in institutions for the first time. Does yours have lots of awful rules like mine? Are they a bore? Mine were, so I moved out and now I live in a lovely room which I’ve filled with yellow daffodils. I have a garden too – sort of – and I’ve planted lettuce and broad beans and cornflower seeds in it. It’s only a tiny patch but I hope it’ll be dug a bit more soon by my friend with the mended jeans.

  Lots of love,

  Laura

  Holly’s friend Ann, also at the horsey stage, plonked herself down beside her on the bed. ‘Who’s it from?’

  ‘My sister.’

  ‘The one who came in the snazzy car?’

  ‘No, the other one.’

  Joyce, who had passed the horsey stage and was getting lumpy, sat down next to them. ‘He was a dish,’ she sighed.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The one with the car.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Holly. She must mean Geoff.

  ‘Didn’t you think so?’

  ‘Dunno about dishes. He didn’t like the same sorts of things as me and Claire. We couldn’t do them with him there.’

  ‘Of course,’ sighed Joyce, turning round and gazing at a poster on the wall, ‘nobody, just nobody could compare with Dave.’

  Holly and Ann looked at Joyce pityingly. ‘Here we go again,’ said Holly. ‘David Essex, I ask you!’

  ‘Honestly, Joyce,’ said Ann, ‘you can see all his mascara and stuff. He’s just like a girl.’

  ‘Worse than a girl,’ said Holly. Really Joyce was a different species, what with all the things she and the others down the dorm giggled about after lights out. There were so many more interesting things to giggle about.

  ‘Oh, you just don’t understand!’ said Joyce, gazing dreamily in the direction of the poster, her chin already bumpy with the beginnings of acne.

  Just then the bell rang for the first lesson. It was English.

  Whatever differences they had in the dorm the entire class was united during the English lessons. They dreaded them. Last term it had been all right, but this term they had a terrible new teacher called Miss Withrington. She was young and extremely friendly.

  ‘Call me Margaret,’ she had said at that now legendary first lesson. ‘That’s my name, after all. Much nicer than Miss Withrington, don’t you think?’ She had smiled down at them. ‘You see, I’d like us to be people together rather than pupil and teacher. Not you and me. Us.’

  They had sat petrified. Down the class she’d walked, between the desks. ‘I think I see some puzzled looks. Don’t worry, I understand. I expect it’s all rather a surprise for you, even a shock. After all, it is rather shocking when one’s suddenly treated as a person, isn’t it. Especially in an environment like this one, where rules sometimes seem in danger of engulfing us as individuals completely.’

  Silence. She paused. ‘Well, enough about me. This is your class. I want you to feel that it’s a special place where you can express those rather special thoughts. One thing we must never feel,’ she smiled at them, ‘is embarrassed. Now, is that a promise?’

  Her steps had taken her to Holly’s desk. Her hand was on Holly’s shoulder. Holly froze.

  ‘And what’s your name?’

  ‘Holly Jenkins, Miss Withrington.’

  ‘Now Holly, I know it might be a little strange for you to get used to this new franker way of speaking, but it’s Margaret, OK?’

  Holly couldn’t get her mouth to answer.

  ‘Anyway Holly, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself. Any interesting events in your life, something that’s made you happy or sad. Don’t be shy. Whatever you say we’ll all find it special because it’s you.’

  Holly’s mouth went dry. It was a nightmare. She clenched her palms together, clammily. Nothing; she could think of absolutely nothing.

  Never had her mind been blanker. She sat there, every muscle in her body urging Miss Withrington to pounce on somebody else. A hundred years later, she did. Smiling still – she always smiled – she went over to another girl and Holly sat back, flooded with a relief more exquisite than she’d believed it possible to feel.

  After that first lesson the classroom buzzed. ‘Cripes, what a nutcase!’ … ‘poor old Holls having it first’ … ‘she’s bats!’

  But words couldn’t really do it justice. Nor could the giggling quite cover up the acute and humiliating embarrassment of the thing.

  One of the bosomy girls, more articulate than the rest, heaved a deep sigh. ‘My God,’ she said. ‘She’s unspeakable.’

  However often she reminded them, smilingly, Miss Withrington could never get them to call her Margaret. But curiously enough, nor could they bring themselves to bestow on her a nickname. Withers, they might have called her behind her back, or Old Withered (she was definitely bony) or even, if they were really witty, Shrivel. If she’d been anyone else, they would have.

  But somehow Miss Withrington’s very informality, her unflagging closeness, had taken the wind out of their sails. She defied nicknames; she terrified them too much. Amongst themselves they could only call her, in tones of dread, Miss Withrington.

  On this particular day, the day of Laura’s letter, they trickled into the classroom even more slowly than usual.

  ‘You know what we’re doing, don’t you,’ said Holly.

  ‘That Spring Thing,’ answered Ann.

  ‘Just think. We’ve got to do it in front of the whole Junior School! Just imagine! They’ll think we’re nuts.’

  The Spring Thing was called by Miss Withrington Rebirth: An Event. It was all very confusing but seemed to consist of four girls reading poems on the subject of spring while the rest chanted. ‘It’s all very free,’ Miss Withrington had explained. There was supposed to have been a little dance, too, but even Miss Withrington had had to admit that the rehearsals for that had not been a success.

  Holly, because of her long wiggly hair, was one of the chosen four. ‘The image of Flora,’ Miss Withrington had said, smiling down.

  Today she dropped the bombshell.

  ‘Our four young readers,’ she said to the class, ‘should, I’ve decided, wear something a little more appropriate than their school uniforms, which after all have little of the spirit of spring about them. Buttons, collars and those crippling ties …’ She reached down and took something out of a carrier bag. ‘So I’ve run these up.’ She held out a thin muslin robe, grass-green.

  ‘But you can see right through it!’ one girl gasped before she could stop herself.

  Miss Withrington looked tolerant. ‘You’ll all be wearing underclothes, won’t you? So where’s the problem?’

  Holly sat back aghast. How could she wear it? She’d have to wear her vest underneath, but her vest was so dreadfully babyish. The other three girls already had bras, she knew, but she hadn’t. Everyone would see. How could Miss Withrington not understand?

  ‘Never mind,’ whispered Ann, who didn’t have to wear it. ‘I know it’s awful but it’ll soon be over.’

  ‘But …’ Even to Ann, her oldest friend, she couldn’t quite bear to talk about the vest. ‘But … nobody’s ever done anything like this in Assembly before. They’ll think we’re mad. It’s so long, too.’

  That was another point. Although every Friday one class was given the task of contributing something to Assembly – the bit between the hymns and the headmistress’s stern notices – it was an unspoken rule that this consisted of just five minutes of a girl reading from something dull or perhaps playing the piano. Any longer and it meant that the Senior House, who went to a different Assembly, would get to breakfast first and finish all the marmalade. No one had quite dared to explain this to Miss Withrington. Anyway, to dress up and chant … they’d look so stupid.

  ‘Now, remember that I’m not going to tell you what exactly to chant,’ said Miss Withrington, putting the robes away. ‘I’m just going to give you some words which you can use in any order you like. The impression, as I’ve told y
ou, should be a mass thing, suggesting all at once the richness, liberation and yet, somehow, the painfulness of spring.’

  ‘We’ll suggest that all right,’ muttered Ann.

  ‘All right? Just scribble down the words then … Green … thrust … burst …’

  Holly looked down at the poem she had to read. It was all about daffodils. She would have quite liked it at any other time, but of course she’d never be able to read it again after this.

  Daffodils reminded her of Laura’s letter. In a moment of introspection (perhaps she was growing up, despite not liking David Essex) she thought: Laura might hate her rules but I like mine. This beastly Spring Thing is against all the rules; it doesn’t make me feel safe at all.

  ‘… rustling … blooming …’

  Miss Withrington finished and looked at the girls with that understanding smile, that bright, hectoring smile. ‘It’ll be very beautiful,’ she said.

  Holly felt lost. School was so vast and unnerving that rules helped; and anyway, wasn’t half the fun breaking them? But to have a grown-up go and break them for you – it was all wrong. Laura could say what she liked. It was all wrong.

  seventeen

  THE NEXT THURSDAY Laura returned from a seminar not one word of which, now she was back, could she remember. She closed the door behind her. What had it been about? It was different with practicals; setting up labyrinths for the long-suffering rats, transporting mice from one box to another, that sort of activity occupied her hands and left her mind pleasantly free. Anyway, she enjoyed it. With the exception of slugs she liked all animals; mice and guinea pigs had been her companions since childhood. It was odd, of course, seeing them in a lab, like meeting an old friend in hospital, but at least she knew where she was with a practical.

  Seminars and lectures, though, were less successful. The professor’s voice droning on about patterns and theories and empirical situations struggled to compete with what Mac’s supple body had been doing to hers the night before. Not surprisingly, it lost. Invariably, after the first few words the voice faded to a hum, a far murmur like the noise of the sea. A pleasant sound. She just sat there, skin singing, limbs warm, mind busy with recollections. Probably she was smiling.

  It wasn’t just Mac, either. Her room, her garden, what she was going to buy for supper, how she was going to get that pipe fixed, all the mechanics of her fascinatingly real and adult life filled her head and left no space for anything else.

  She dumped her shopping down on the draining-board. She gazed at the plug-hole and tried to remember even one word. Impossible. Gone, like the washing-up water, for ever.

  In a way she knew her father had been right. You may have found Hall irksome, he had written, though I am amazed if you did. But it left you free from normal day-to-day things, free to develop your mind, make friends and readjust. Believe me, you have the rest of your life to do things just as you wish. I find it disappointing that you have suddenly decided to do it now.

  Daddy had obviously taken great pains with this letter. With extra-neat writing and no crossings-out it had certainly been copied from a rough draft. Laura preferred his chatty ones, about the peculiar people at his evening class and how Badger chased a cat right through Mummy’s crocuses. That word disappointing stuck. She could bear almost anything but Daddy’s disappointment, which made his shoulders droop and his manner, always courteous, grow achingly polite. She always pictured him in his faded green cardigan when he was disappointed, it made him look so sloping-shouldered and old.

  Also, it had continued, there is another reason. Hall protected you in many ways. It’s worrying to think of you on your own. Why did you have to be the special one like this? In October you would have all moved out anyway.

  These words slightly nagged, too. The special one. How much did she admit this as part of her motive, and how large a part?

  Upstairs as usual a baby was crying. Someone swore, she could hear the actual word, and then the television was switched on. Sounded like the afternoon racing; the tedious hysteria of the commentator, rising and falling, invaded the room. To drown it out she fiddled with the radio knobs.

  … and here we have a card from Vera, Vera Scannel of Laurel Drive, Swanage. Hi Vera! You say you’d like a card for the best Mum and Dad in the world and for all the gang, that’s Jim, Piff, John, Mo, Sue, Ned, Barney … Goodness, thought Laura … Babs, Gruggs and a very special hello to Dave …

  What a lot of friends that Vera seemed to have. Laura thought of Hall; mid-afternoon and they’d all be trooping back from their lectures, dumping their books, making tea, chatting.

  It was all right when Mac was here, of course. But when he wasn’t the solitude pressed in on her more than ever. No longer was it a stillness about the furniture; now it was a solid, weighty need. Part of the trouble was there being no one around to distract her – upstairs the large upset Irish family, downstairs the derelict spaces, nothing else. Standing here in the middle she felt so exposed. Hall protected you, her father had written. There was no protection here, no bar to go to, no friends to drop in, no warden to fear. Just her own body. No wonder she’d succumbed to Mac that first night. Lovely to succumb, of course; it was just that she was so vulnerable here.

  Today she felt more vulnerable than ever because of the diaphragm.

  Trouble was, she had no one to tell. At Hall she could have told somebody; it was just the sort of topic for the hour before bed, hour of dressing-gowns and confidential mugs of Nescafé. Here there was just a draining-board of drying plates.

  And here she was lingering over it, spending ages wiping them, even washing out the dishcloth, a thing she’d never done in her life. Anything to delay opening the door and walking up the road to the chemist. All by herself.

  Funny how she and Mac could be so bold with each other’s bodies but so shy about this. In the end, though, she’d taken it into her own hands and gone to a doctor. His trolley had been full of domes, surprisingly roomy things, whose shape was familiar from line drawings in ‘Young Marrieds’. Years before, she and Claire had discovered this intriguing volume in their parents’ bookshelves and countless nights had giggled over it with a mixture of fascination and unease. Each drawing had been thoroughly inspected until they knew it by heart. Finally their father had found it under Laura’s pillow, and in a moment of wit for which she was eternally grateful had written a note saying Really! and slipped it between the pages. He could surprise sometimes.

  So yesterday she had seen them in real life, rubber objects laid out like exhibits. The doctor, rolling on his crackling membranous gloves, had foraged inside her with one cap after another. Stiff she’d lain, comparing his rummaging with Mac’s midnight welcome, until finally he’d unpeeled the membranes and written down her hidden number – the circumference, she supposed, of her womb.

  All that remained was to go out to the chemist and buy one. Then mention it casually to Mac. Silly to be selfconscious about such a very sensible and adult thing as this, but she was.

  She bundled the rubbish from the sink basket into a plastic bag that was bursting at the seams. The trouble was, there seemed to be so much sheer apparatus piled up round this business of being free. So much she had to take care of herself – rubbish bags that kept splitting, pipes that got blocked, complicated things like diaphragms to be organized. Hall lifted off the burdens, her father had said. He was right.

  Down the stairs she went, past the pram – bulky result of a union that was dome-less. Up the road she walked.

  Outside the chemist’s shop some workmen were digging up the pavement. They gave her a bold look. She felt even more selfconscious. She opened the door.

  Her heart sank. The shop was full of customers and there was only a male assistant in sight. She realized she’d expected a woman. Waiting for her turn, she scanned the shelves hoping to see a discreet package so she could just point. Behind her she could hear more customers joining the queue.

  Her turn. ‘Good afternoon,’ said the man.
r />   ‘Er, hello. Er, I wonder if you possibly have –’ With a cough and a splutter the road drill started up outside, deafeningly.

  ‘What did you say?’ shouted the man.

  ‘An Ortho Diaphragm!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘An Ortho Diaphragm!’ All those people behind her! She felt her face reddening.

  ‘A diagram?’ shouted the man. ‘A diagram? Of what?’

  ‘A diaphragm!’

  ‘I’m sorry, could you speak up please!’

  ‘I said, an –’ Suddenly the drill stopped. ‘Ortho Diaphragm!’ The shout hung in the dead silence. Someone behind her cleared his throat.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said the man in a normal voice. ‘What size?’

  Hell! She’d forgotten that. She fumbled in her bag and found the doctor’s piece of paper. She could have just given it to him wordlessly, she realized. No need to speak at all.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, fishing out a package. ‘And would you like cream or jelly?’

  ‘Cream or what?’

  ‘Jelly. Spermicidal jelly. Cream or jelly.’ Eyes bored into her back. The whole shop was dead quiet, listening.

  ‘Jelly!’ she hissed.

  Thank God she could escape. The door swung shut behind her.

  ‘Wotcha Boobs!’

  One of the workmen was resting on his drill, grinning at her. ‘Nice,’ he called, eyes on her chest. His grin widened.

  Laura stumbled across a mound of sand, tripped over a pipe and walked up the road as fast as she could without running. She was blushirg, she knew. Never, ever had she felt so completely exposed.

  According to the clock above the jeweller’s it was 4.30. She would go and see Mac; he’d be back home at Hal and Min’s house by now. Being a gardener, he ended work at four. Perhaps she could tell him about this awful episode so that, amidst the laughter, the fact that she’d actually done something as sensible and boring as buying such an object would be less of an event.