'Cambridge Arcade. Opposite Christ Church school.'
Lily said, 'Is Mr Leigh going to show us round his house?'
'No. He's coming to see us, though,' Mam dropped her voice to a whisper. 'Don't tell Hah'd we've been nosying.'
When they reached the hotel Mam was not a bit fazed. She sailed in, giving her orders in her best voice, and soon they were unpacking in a great big bedroom that had two double beds in it and both piled high with eiderdowns over embossed silk bedspreads. Lily couldn't tear herself away from the bay window and the view of the sea and the second longest pier in England. 'Oh, Mam!' she said. 'I'll never want to leave.'
Mr Leigh put in an appearance on the second day, and after that he called for Mam every morning, leaving Lily to her own devices. She and Mam spent the afternoons wandering under the glass canopies in Lord Street, inspecting the gown shops. They sometimes spent ten minutes or more looking at the kind of outfit they would never see in Macclesfield, before they wandered up to the Floral Hall gardens, paid for deckchairs and sat, breathing in sea air that was laden with the scent of flowers, listening to the band while Lily drew in her notebook, all kinds of variations on the clothes.
Her mornings took on a routine. After breakfast every day she walked down the pier and rode the tram back, then in the fresh salt air she strolled back to the Beach View by way of all the little booths and kiosks where the snappers' photographs were displayed. Photographers stood at the pier entrance or walked along the promenade and the Marine Parade, snapping without invitation. The photographs were displayed in the windows of the kiosks, and she was half expecting to see one of herself, for people were snapped indiscriminately and sometimes didn't know they had been taken until they saw the picture in a window.
Afterwards she'd stroll in the side streets where buckets and spades and shrimping nets spilled on to the pavement from the gift shops, and she'd linger, laughing at the funny postcards, looking for gifts for Nanna, Grandpa and Shandy.
Then, near the end of the week, they spotted Sylvia and Magnus in Woodhead's Cafe where they went most days for tea. Sylvia was seventeen, beautiful and elegant, scented with cool Atkinson's lavender and wearing a lime-green sleeveless dress. She was tall and slender like Magnus, and her face and arms were covered in pale freckles. A suntan made her eyes seem larger and bluer. Her hair had been bobbed, and it slanted in waves over her brow, curling towards her cheek.
'What are you doing here?' Lily asked.
Magnus got to his feet, exclaiming on the surprise of it all. He looked taller in his striped blazer and was evidently trying to grow a little blond moustache; the hairs shone like golden prickles over his smiling mouth. 'We're staying at the Palace Hotel in Birkdale. Where...?'
'Beach View. On the prom,' Lily said. Sylvia gave Mam a sweet, well-bred smile. ‘It is good to see you, Mrs Stanway. Are you enjoying the holiday?'
'Yes,' Mam said. 'It's a nice town: She sounded off hand. Lily looked at her quickly. Mam pushed her chair back. 'But I'll leave you young ones. I'll nip over to the Cambridge Arcade while I've got a minute.’
Lily ordered. Magnus said, 'What do you do in the evenings, Lily?'
'There are ten cinemas,' she said, 'that change their programmes three times a week. We can't keep up. What do you do?'
Sylvia laughed. 'Uncle Kenneth and Mama sit over dinner and talk non-stop about Edinburgh. They don't dance. There's a band and cabaret every night at our hotel.'
'Is your uncle with you? From Edinburgh?'
Magnus answered, 'Yes. And Ian and Rowena. Ian came in at Formby yesterday. He crews for a friend who has a twentyseven-foot boat at Gourock. But it's a bit of a swizz having no young things at the Palace. Imagine having to dance with your cousins every night! Now we've bumped into you,' he went on, 'let's bring our swimming costumes tomorrow. Meet us here at two o'clock, Lily?'
'All right. I'm sure Mam won't mind,' she said, before settling down to enjoy a delicious cream tea. Afterwards, Lily had to leave them there, waiting for the taxi that was to take them back to the Palace. It didn't occur to her to wonder why they needed a taxi when there were motor buses and trams galore running between Lord Street and Birkdale.
Her concern was that Mam might be drinking in secret in the bedroom. She had already polished off two bottles of port and one of sherry since they'd arrived. Twice she'd missed her dinner, so Lily had eaten alone, giving her apologies and saying Mam had gone to bed early and could she have a plate of something cold to take upstairs for later? Lily was afraid Mam might stagger downstairs, desperate with hunger after drink.
Her feet went faster and faster until, turning the comer of Nevill Street at a trot, she went haring down the promenade to the hotel. She found Mam in the room, sitting sober and quiet, staring at her hands.
The following afternoon Sylvia and Magnus were waiting for her at Woodhead's Cafe, Sylvia holding a crocheted bag with swimming things inside. Lily had hers in a little string bag. It was hotter than ever. Sylvia and she both wore cream shantung dresses with low waists, and both wore straw hats.
'Snap!' they said together, although they were not at all alike. Sylvia was tall and blonde, Lily five feet four only, with dark curly hair worn long and fastened with a scarlet silk bow at the back of her neck.
'I'll call a taxi,' said Magnus.
Lily was about to protest, but Sylvia shot a warning glance as Magnus made towards the kerb. It was then Lily saw, by his rambling gait, that Magnus could barely walk. She had last seen him walking normally at Easter. Now his left leg was bent and drawn up so that only his turned-in toes touched the ground. He leaned against one of the plane trees that bordered the wide pavements as he attempted to hail a cab.
Sylvia took her arm and whispered, 'He won't be stopped. His left knee and hip are dreadful. He won't use sticks. Pretend not to notice.'
'All right,' Lily squeezed Sylvia's arm but wondered why it seemed like treachery to talk about Magnus's affliction. His family had no need to lie. Everyone could see that Magnus was a cripple.
Sylvia said, 'Yesterday we went to the cinema. And on the newsreel we saw that dreadful Herr Hitler. And I know that these things could never happen here, but Magnus was upset because they are forcibly sterilising people with deformities and diseases, feeble citizens, the blind and the deaf. They were herding Jewish people on to trains for concentration camps, and if they resisted, they charged them with "fighting the storm troopers."
Lily held her hand tight. 'Don't Sylvia...!'
Magnus had stopped a taxi and called them over. To the driver he said, 'Pleasureland, please. Wait outside for us.'
They made an odd trio going under the archway into Pleasureland, where all the attractions were set out in a walled-in area behind the sand hills. Magnus, in the centre, had a girl on each arm, but it was they who supported him, though he did look debonair in his flannels, blazer and straw boater. His pale face was animated as he played up to them, saying, 'My sweet! My sweet!. . .' and 'Oh, dah... ling! You are di-vine!” as he passed other young men and their lady friends.
Lily wanted to cry for him to stop it because she could see that he was in pain. There were deep creases between his eyebrows, and above the smiling mouth his eyes "were filled with terrible fear. But he was older and she couldn't speak to him as once she had.
'I'll sit in the sun while you two go in,' he'd say as they neared one of the attractions. And every time, at his insistence, they went to a nearby bench together so that they could keep the charade going until Magnus let go of their arms and sat down, leaning back lazily, to wait for them to return from their frolics. After an hour Magnus said, 'Who wants a swim?'
By half past three they were sitting in the conservatory cafe of the Sea Bathing Lake, eating strawberries and drinking dandelion and burdock that wore a head of foaming and frothing ice cream. The oval lake, nearly half an acre in area, was a natural sun trap for the hundreds of young people who baked their faces, oiled bronzed limbs, displayed and watched. Surrounding the
pool, in little rocky beds, geraniums and palm trees grew. The pool had high diving boards, a water chute and a raft moored facing the cafe. In front of the cafe, on rose bordered terraces around ornamental waterfalls, were set canvas folding chairs. Magnus nodded his head in their direction. 'I've reserved three. When you've had your swim you can sit with me.'
Lily had a great welling-up of sympathy for him. 'I don't feel much like swimming,' she said. 'I'll have a quick dip and sit out with you, Magnus. I keep getting attacks of the cramps.'
They helped Magnus to the canvas chair. Lily was getting better at making these critical manoeuvres seem like casual behaviour. When Magnus was seated and had put his boater on one seat and his blazer on the other, he leaned back, eyes closed, to enjoy the heat of the sun, and said, 'If your Nanna hadn't told us you were coming we'd never have had such fun.'
'Is that true?' Lily asked as she and Sylvia headed for the ladies' changing rooms. 'Did you come here because of me?'
'Yes.' Sylvia laughed as they picked their way through the sun-worshippers who were stretched out on towels all along the way. 'When Magnus heard you were in Southport the very week Ian and his sailing friends would be here, he pestered Mama to death to bring us.'
'I'm worried about Magnus. He can hardly walk...' Lily said.
She dared not say more because Sylvia's expression told her that Magnus must not be discussed out of earshot. They were at the queue outside the ladies' pavilion. The pool was crowded and she was longing to get into the water. 'Don't worry about Magnus,' Sylvia said. 'They're coming for us.'
'Who?'
'Father and all.' Then, in a quiet voice, 'Magnus is only happy when you're near. You know that, don't you, Lily?'
It sounded like a warning, so Lily gave a laugh, to make light of it. She didn't want to be anyone's only source of happiness. They were at the head of the line and it was her turn to be given a cubicle. 'See you in the water!'
As soon as they were changed they ran to the pool and headed for the water chute, plunging one after the other into the chilly green sea water. Lily lost sight of Sylvia and swam towards the raft, where a dozen or so bathers were dangling their legs and diving with great splashings and horseplay. She struck out, but it was farther than she thought and there was the inky, nine-feet-deep area to swim through to reach it. She was almost there when the cramping pain came, low down in her belly with such piercing strength she almost passed out. Frightened, she rolled on to her back, dropped her head back and felt the air trapped beneath her rubber cap buoying her up. Then came another cramp, making her bring her knees up. She was deaf with the cap pulled down over her ears and strapped tight under her chin; perhaps that was why she never heard the warning shouts of 'Look out!' as somebody leaped off the raft on top of her.
Sylvia told her later that she'd reached the raft ahead of Lily and seen it all. Lily went under, screaming in pain, swallowing and breathing in water. It was lucky Sylvia had seen her and shouted to her rescuer, who was sitting on the raft beside her, 'Quickly! Lily's gone under. She hasn't come up!'
They say that when you are near death you see everything slowly, as in a slow cinema reel; bright lights pull you forward out of the darkness and you hear and think but cannot speak. The only thing Lily could recall afterwards was turning on to her back, the cramping pain then nothing at all until she came to, face down on the wet rope matting of the cafe floor.
Someone was holding her ankles down, another her wrists.. Hairy male legs were astride her hips. Strong hands were pressing rhythmically and painfully down on her ribs. She was being crushed into the coarse coir matting, coughing, choking, spewing great gushes of salt water from her mouth and nose between every desperate breath she fought to take. The hands stopped pressing. Someone said, 'Pull her up. Into a sitting position! Push her head down. Hold her there!'
Through the wet curtain of hair that hung forward, she saw Magnus, squatting awkwardly, cradling his arm about her, crying, 'Lily! Thank God!'
Sylvia said, 'Sh! Magnus! Lily's going to be all right. Isn't she...?'
And then Lily recognised the deep, warm Scottish voice of her rescuer - he who had been kneeling astride her, pumping air into her lungs with firm, capable hands. 'She'll have to be examined. In case there's any fluid on her lungs. Probably all she'll have is a sore throat. And a sore head.'
Ian Mackenzie was on his feet, calling for towels, her clothes and a blanket. She was coughing and spluttering under the curtain of hair as Ian said to a waiter who was hovering near, 'A hot sweet drink, please.' He said to Magnus, 'Tell your father to bring the car round to the back.' Magnus got up and hobbled away as Ian said to Sylvia, 'We'll find her parents. Make sure she gets home and into bed. And sees a doctor. Do you know who she is?'
Sylvia gave a lovely relieved laugh. 'It's Lily! You remember Lily. At our Christmas party. She accompanied you when you played.
Then Ian crouched in front of her and gently lifted the soaking hair away from her face. 'My wee accompanist? The piano-player?'
Lily tried to say 'thank you', but no words came. She was crying and coughing and being seated on a long cane bench seat where someone had placed her big striped towel. Ian was wrapping it firmly about her waist and legs and gently tucking another towel round her shoulders. A cup of sweet tea was being offered, and as the hot liquid ran burning over her tongue Lily knew she'd be all right. Her nose and throat were raw but life was tingling through her with every breath. She shivered and opened her eyes, but she was conscious as never before of every sinew and nerve in her body.
Ian, dressed in his swimming costume, sat beside her, holding her with strong brown arms. It was odd that the first thing she noticed was the black curly hair on his muscular thighs and arms and how it went thicker like a mat into the scooped-out neck of the low-cut man's bathing costume. The hair ran right down to the wrist of his hand that was holding the cup to her lips. His black hair fell forward over sun-crinkled eyes and he gave a great delighted grin as she took the cup from him and drank. When she had drunk it all and passed the cup back, he put his face close to hers and said softly, so none of the others could hear, 'I'll put another towel around you before I carry you out to the car. Don't be embarrassed.'
Lily glanced down and saw the red bloodstain of her first period seeping through the stripy towel and to her undying shame she looked into the handsome face of the boy she loved and passed out cold.
'Sit up. Here's the doctor!'
There was tight elastic round her waist and a wodge of padding between her legs. Mam's drink-drenched breath was on her face and her thin arms were trying to raise Lily up the bed. Then the deep Scottish voice of Ian's father. 'Mrs Stanway. Allow me...'
Lily was helped into a sitting position and opened her eyes to find Dr Mackenzie taking her pulse while Mam, at the head of the bed, fussed with the pillow, saying, 'You shouldn't have put yourself to any trouble... Our Lil's been sleeping on and off since they brought her back...' in a drunken voice. Lily averted her head. The smell made her sick. Mam used to suck strong mints to disguise her breath; today it smelled of pear drops.
'No trouble at all, Mrs Stanway,' the doctor replied. 'Well, young miss? How do you feel?'
She would always be able to date precisely the moment she grew up. It was the day she almost drowned, when she returned to consciousness in the late afternoon to find she was aware of every inch of her body. 'All right. I'll be all right.' She was shivering with cold when the covers were off, and her head was pounding. 'If I could get rid of the headache..'
'I'll give you a sleeping draught. As soon as I've listened to your chest,' the doctor said.' Open your eyes wide. Good. Let me feel your neck glands. Good. Open your mouth. Good!' he said to Mam, 'Remove her nightgown, please.'
Mam fumbled while the doctor placed his bag on the bed. Did they carry their bags with them on their holidays? Lily pushed Mam's hand away and dragged the nightdress off, for once not caring if anyone saw her slight shoulders and ribs and the bouncy round
breasts with rigid dark tips that appeared to belong to a much larger frame than hers.
Dr Mackenzie warmed the stethoscope in his hand and placed it firmly under her right breast, listening intently. Then he went slowly and thoroughly all over her front before turning her and malting her call out loudly as the instrument touched her.
'Ah! Poor girl!' said the doctor.
'What's up?' Mam leaned, tipsy, over her.
'My son has been rough, Mrs Stanway. See the bruising?'
Lily moved her head sharply. 'He only saved my life,' she said fiercely, as the cold instrument on painful bruises made her draw a sharp breath.
She heard the doctor chuckle. 'I'll have to give him some advice,' he said to Mam. 'He's in his second year of medical school. Overzealous.' Then, to Lily. 'All done.' He held out the nightdress. 'All clear. Have a good sleep and you can be up and about tomorrow. In fact it is much better if you are.'
He put away the stethoscope and brought a small corked phial from the bag before asking for a drinking glass. Mam went slowly to the washstand and brought a glass, which he took from her trembling hand.
I'd like a word with you, Mrs Stanway,' he said softly. 'When your daughter is settled.’ He poured a strong-smelling dose and held it out.
'What is it?' Lily said. 'I like to know.'
'Acholorodynum preparation.' He gave a hearty laugb. 'That means nothing to you, does it?'
She closed her mouth tight shut, making him say. 'An elixir, my dear girl of chloroform, morphine, Indian hemp, capsicum, treacle, liquorice and glycerine, alcohol, peppermint..’
'I'll take it.' She didn't really believe that the medicine contained all those powerful ingredients. Quickly she swallowed the dose and leaned her head back as if she were ready to drop off to sleep. But she wanted to hear what he'd say to Mam. She closed her eyes, aware that they were waiting for her breathing to slow down.
Lily heard them go quietly to the window end of the room, heard Mam whisper, 'She'll be all right, won't she, Doctor?' and his assurance, 'She'll be fully recovered by tomorrow.'
Wise Child Page 23
