Pack of Cards

by Penelope Lively

  ‘What's up, Milly?’

  She was leaning forward, her head in her hands. Her voice rose faintly from beneath her hat, from amid her furs. ‘The shock, George …’

  ‘Oh, come off it,’ said the conductor briskly. ‘It's a job, that's all. What d'you expect? Can't pick and choose at sixty-one. I'm fine.’

  ‘It's not you I was thinking of.’ Querulously. ‘You were always difficult, George. Poor Shirley …’

  The passengers rustled and peered. A singer screeched from the jeans shop. ‘Look,’ said the conductor, ‘you'd better get off, Milly, if you're feeling under the weather. I'll stop a taxi.’

  She raised her head. ‘She'd turn in her grave, I tell you.’

  A girl now pushed her way up the aisle; a girl in her mid-twenties, blonde neat hair to her shoulders, also in London Transport grey. ‘What's the matter, George?’

  ‘Nothing. Small problem, that's all. Leave it to me, there's a good girl.’

  ‘What's up, luv?’ said the girl.

  Milly transferred, now, her attention. She stared suspiciously. ‘What's she doing? What does she want? She's never the …’

  ‘She's the driver. Now d'you want to get off or don't you, Milly? We can't stay here.’

  She closed her eyes again. ‘I simply do not believe it. The driver. A girl that age.’

  ‘What's wrong with that?’ said the girl angrily. ‘I'm qualified. Who is she, anyway?’

  ‘My sister-in-law. Take no notice.’ The conductor gave her a pat, headed her back down the aisle. ‘Come on, let's push off. I'll sort things out.’ Voices, now, were wanting to know what was going on. People were crowding on to the stationary bus. The conductor fought his way back to the platform. ‘Full up! Sorry – full up on this one. Another behind.’ The bus leapt forward, dislodging one or two of those standing. ‘Watch it! Hang on there. Anyone for Selfridges? Selfridges next stop!’

  Marble Arch and Park Lane siphoned off at least half the passengers. The conductor unfurled a pushchair for the West Indian woman and chucked the baby under the chin. He directed two Arabs to Grosvenor Square. He allowed himself, as the bus entered the long haul down Park Lane, a brief glance over into the park. Then he vanished to the upper deck. ‘Any more fares, then, please …’

  When he came down the bus had stopped at the lights. He reached, at last, Milly. ‘All right, Milly, forty please.’

  She held out a pound note between finger and thumb. ‘What Philip will say, I dare not think. I simply dare not think.’

  ‘Don't tell him then,’ said the conductor amiably. ‘But you won't be able to resist, will you, Milly? Make your day.’ He tore off the ticket, held it out. The lights changed. The bus, a broad unoccupied stretch of road ahead, rushed forward.

  Milly clasped the rail in front of her with both hands and drew in her breath sharply. ‘Does she want to kill us all, that girl?’

  ‘Oh, stuff it,’ said the conductor. ‘The girl's perfectly competent.’

  ‘What's a girl want to do a job like that for, I'd like to know.’

  ‘Rubbish, Milly. Plenty of women driving buses in the war.’

  ‘That was different.’

  He shrugged.

  She took out a powder compact, bravely. ‘You've got me shaking all over, George. When I saw you I thought I was dreaming. I said to myself, it's impossible, it can't be.’

  ‘Oh, put a sock in it.’ He turned back down the aisle. ‘Hyde Park Corner! Next stop Hyde Park Corner!’

  The clientele of the bus, Knightsbridge now within sniffing distance, had undergone a sea-change, shifted up-market, blossomed with leather and fur. ‘Knightsbridge for Harrods!’ called the conductor. ‘Hold tight now!’ He propped himself on the platform as the bus swung round the maelstrom of traffic and up Grosvenor Place, ran a huge hand round his shirt collar, curbed a woman trying to jump off at the lights. He contemplated, pensively, the green spread of the park as the bus halted throbbing on the corner; he marshalled passengers on and off at the next stop. The bus was now polyglot; it chattered in French, Italian, Arabic, unidentifiable tongues.

  The next time he reached Milly she was waiting. A lengthy transaction over a five-pound note for which he had to find change gave her her moment. To set off on a simple ordinary little expedition to Barkers’ sale for sheets and pillowcases – I'm staying with Mary Hamilton for a couple of days, not that you ever had a civil word for her, I remember – just any ordinary shopping excursion, and find your own brother-in-law handing you your bus ticket, it's beyond belief, simply beyond belief. And the bus driven by a chit of a girl, the sort of girl that should be doing a decent job behind a counter, not risking all our lives …’

  ‘Leave the girl out of it, Milly,’ said the conductor. He showered silver into an outstretched palm. ‘Fifty, sixty, eighty, one pound. Thank you, madam.’

  ‘And that frightful grey jacket thing … With a number on you. Shirley would weep.’

  ‘Leave Shirley out too, d'you mind, Milly. Any more fares then? Albert Hall next stop!’

  ‘And when I think of that gorgeous little house in Sunningdale, and Shirley's lovely drawing-room with the chintz three-piece

  ‘I shouldn't,’ he advised.

  ‘Well, at least she's spared this.’

  ‘That's right, Milly.’

  ‘I'll never get over it. Never. I'll not sleep a wink tonight, I can tell you that now.’

  ‘Get old Philip to give you a nice shot of whisky. Does marvels.’

  The bus, cruising alongside the park, was relaxed now, easy, down to a dozen passengers, taking time off. Albert brooded in his Memorial; the Broad Walk swept grandly upwards; tulips stood in ranks. A woman heading for Oxford Street discovered she was going in the wrong direction; ‘Oh, what rotten luck,’ said the conductor, pulling the cord for the request stop. He stood on the platform, tugging at his moustache, watching a posse of shrieking French schoolchildren on the pavement. He turned to the interior of the bus; ‘High Street Ken! Barkers next stop!’ The French schoolchildren invaded at the traffic lights; ‘Watch it, there! Only the lights – hold on, please.’ The park was left behind; traffic gripped the bus; the pavements bloomed with racks of clothes, a field of Agincourt in crimson, puce, lilac and blue denim. He thumped upstairs to sort out the schoolchildren, rampaging overhead.

  When he got down again the lower deck had filled. He arrived at Milly.

  ‘And how old is that girl?’

  ‘Milly, you've missed your stop.’

  ‘A chit of a creature! One feels like writing to the papers.’

  ‘I thought you wanted Barkers, Milly.’

  She stared ahead, in transports of outrage.

  ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘That'll be another twenty pence, if you're stopping on the bus. And twenty more at Earls Court Road.’

  She surfaced, glared, gathered herself into her coat, rose. ‘I'm getting off. And there's no need to smile like that, George. I don't find anything amusing about this, nothing amusing at all.’

  He agreed that it was not amusing. He escorted her down the aisle, handed her on to the pavement. She stood for a moment, stumpy, upright, befurred, affronted; ‘I'm shattered, George. I simply do not know what to say.’

  He inclined his head. ‘Sorry about that, Milly. You've done your best, I'd have thought.’

  ‘I'll never bring myself to use this route again.’

  ‘Come, now, no need to go to those lengths.’

  A blonde head appeared from the window of the driver's cab. ‘What's up, George?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he called. ‘Let's go.’ The blonde head vanished; the bus quivered and moved. ‘Cheero, then, Milly. All the best to Philip.’ A hand, a small hand, stuck now from the driver's window, thumb up. Milly, on the pavement, gave one hard, dismissive stare and turned away to the consoling certainties of Barkers’ sale. The conductor stood braced on his platform, the bus plunging ahead for Hammersmith and the terminus.

  Clara's Day

  WHEN
CLARA Tilling was fifteen and a half she took off all her clothes one morning in school assembly. She walked naked through the lines of girls, past the headmistress at her lectern and the other staff ranged behind her, and out into the entrance lobby. She had left off her bra and pants already, so that all she had to do was unbutton her blouse, remove it and drop it to the floor, and then undo the zipper of her skirt and let that fall. She slipped her feet out of her shoes at the same time and so walked barefoot as well as naked. It all happened very quickly. One or two people giggled and a sort of rustling noise ran through the assembly hall, like a sudden wind among trees. The Head hesitated for a moment – she was reading out the tennis team list- and then went on again, firmly. Clara opened the big glass doors and let herself out.

  The entrance lobby was empty. The floor was highly polished and she could see her own reflection, a foreshortened pink blur. There was a big bright modern painting on one wall and several comfortable chairs for waiting parents, arranged round an enormous rubber plant and ashtrays on chrome stalks. Clara had sat there herself once, with her mother, waiting for an interview with the Head.

  She walked along the corridor to her form-room, which was also quite empty, with thick gold bars of sunlight falling on the desks and a peaceful feeling, as though no one had been here for a long time nor ever would come. Clara opened the cupboard in the corner, took out one of the science overalls and put it on, and then sat down at her desk. After about a minute Mrs Mayhew came in carrying her clothes and her shoes. She said, ‘I should put these on now, Clara,’ and stood beside her while she did so. ‘Would you like to go home?’ she asked, and when Clara said that she wouldn't, thank you, Mrs Mayhew went on briskly. ‘Right you are, then, Clara. You'd better get on with some prep, then, till the first period.’

  All morning people kept coming up to her to say, ‘Well done!’ or just to pat her on the back. She was a celebrity right up till dinner-time but after that it tailed off a bit. Half-way through the morning one of the prefects came in and told her the Head wanted to see her straight after school.

  The Head's study was more like a sitting-room, except for the big paper-strewn desk that she sat behind. There were squashy chairs and nice pictures on the walls and photos of the Head's husband and her children on the mantelpiece and a Marks & Spencer carrier bag dumped down in one corner. The window was open on to the playing-fields from which came the cheerful incomprehensible noise, like birds singing, of people calling to each other. Except for the distant rumble of traffic you wouldn't think you were in London.

  The Head was busy writing when Clara came in; she just looked up to say, ‘Hello, Clara. Sit down. Do you mind if I just finish these reports off? I won't be a minute.’ She went on writing and Clara sat and looked at the photo of her husband, who had square sensible-looking glasses and her three boys who were all the same but different sizes. Then the Head slapped the pile of reports together and pushed her chair back. There … Well now … So what was all that about, this morning?’

  ‘I don't know,’ said Clara.

  The Head looked at her, thoughtfully, and Clara looked back. Just before the silence became really embarrassing the Head pushed a hand through her short untidy fair hair, making it even untidier, and said, ‘I daresay you don't. Were you trying to attract attention?’

  Clara considered. ‘Well, I would, wouldn't I? Doing a thing like that. I mean – you'd be bound to.’

  The Head nodded. ‘Quite. Silly question.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Clara hastily. ‘I meant you'd be bound to attract attention, Not be bound to be trying to.’

  The Head, a linguist, also considered. ‘Well … That's a fine point, I think. How do you feel about it now?’

  Clara tried to examine her feelings, which slithered away like fish. In the end she said, ‘I don't really feel anything,’ which was, in a way, truthful.

  The Head nodded again. She looked at her husband on the mantelpiece, almost as though asking for advice. ‘Everything all right at home?’

  ‘Oh fine,’ Clara assured her. ‘Absolutely fine.’

  ‘Good,’ said the Head. ‘Of course … I was just thinking, there are quite a lot of people in Four B with separated parents, aren't there? Bryony and Susie Tallance and Rachel.’

  ‘And Midge,’ said Clara. ‘And Lucy Potter.’

  ‘Yes. Five. Six, with you.’

  ‘Twenty-five per cent,’ said Clara. ‘Just about.’

  ‘Quite. As a matter of fact that's the national average, did you know? One marriage in four.’

  ‘No, I didn't actually,’ said Clara.

  ‘Well, it is, I'm afraid. Anyway …’ She looked over at her husband again. ‘You're not fussing about O-levels, are you?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Clara. ‘I mean, I don't like exams, but I don't mind as much as some people.’

  ‘Your mocks were fine,’ said the Head ‘Physics and chemistry could have been a bit better. But there shouldn't be any great problems there. So … Are you still going around with Liz Raymond?’

  ‘Mostly,’ said Clara. ‘And Stephanie.’

  ‘I want people to come and talk to me if there's anything they're worried about,’ said the Head. ‘Even things that may seem silly. You know. It doesn't have to be large obvious things. Exams and stuff. Anything.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Clara.

  The phone rang. The Head picked it up and said no, she hadn't, and yes, she'd be along as soon as she could and tell them to wait. She put the receiver down and said, ‘It wasn't like you, Clara, was it? I mean – there are a few people one wouldn't be all that surprised, if they suddenly did something idiotic or unexpected. But you aren't really like that, are you?’

  Clara agreed that she wasn't, really.

  ‘I'll be writing a note to your mother. And if you have an urge to do something like that again come and have a talk to me first, right?’ The Head smiled and Clara smiled back. That was all, evidently. Clara got up and left. As she was closing the door she saw the Head looking after her, not smiling now, her expression rather bleak.

  Most of the school had gone home but all those in Clara's form who had boyfriends at St Benet's, which was practically everyone, were hanging around the bus station deliberately not catching buses because St Benet's came out half an hour later. Clara hung around for a bit too, just to be sociable, and then got on her bus. She sat on the top deck by herself and looked down on to the pavements. It was very hot; everyone young had bare legs, roadmenders were stripped to the waist, everywhere there was flesh – brown backs and white knees and glimpses of the hair under people's arms and the clefts between breasts and buttocks. In the park, the grass was strewn with sunbathers; there were girls in bikinis sprawled like starfish face down with a rag of material between their legs and the strings of the top half undone. Clara, with no bra or pants on, could feel warm air washing around between her skin and her clothes. Coming down the stairs as the bus approached her stop she had to hold her skirt in case it blew up.

  Her mother was already home. She worked part-time as a dentist's receptionist and had what were called flexible hours, which meant more or less that she worked when it suited her. Afternoons, nowadays, often didn't suit because Stan, her friend, who was an actor, was only free in the afternoons.

  Stan wasn't there today, though. Clara came into the kitchen where her mother was drinking tea and looking at a magazine. ‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Any news?’ which was what she said most days. Clara said that there was no news and her mother went on reading an article in the magazine called, Clara could see upside down across the table, ‘Orgasm – Fact or Fantasy?’ Presently she yawned, pushed the magazine over to Clara and went upstairs to have a bath. Clara had another cup of tea and leafed through the magazine, which was mostly advertisements for tampons and deodorants, and then began to do her prep.

  The Head's letter came a couple of days later. Clara heard the post flop on to the doormat and when she looked over the banister she knew at once what the typed e
nvelope must be. At the same moment Stan, who had stayed the night, came out of her mother's room on his way to the bathroom. He wore underpants and had a towel slung round his neck like a football scarf, and was humming to himself. When he saw her he said, ‘Wotcha! How's tricks, then?’ and Clara pulled her dressing-gown more closely round her and said, ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘That's the stuff,’ said Stan vaguely. ‘Hey – I got you a couple of tickets for the show. Bring a friend, O.K.?’ He was a stocky muscular man with a lot of black hair on his chest. The smell of him, across the landing, was powerful – a huge inescapable wave of man smell: sweat and aftershave and something you could not put your finger on. Clara always knew when he was in the house before she opened the sitting-room door because whiffs of him gushed about the place. She said, ‘Thanks very much. That would be super,’ and edged into her room.

  When she came down they were both having breakfast. Her mother was just opening the post. She said, ‘Coffee on the stove, lovey. Oh goody – my tax rebate's come.’ She opened the Head's letter and began to read. First she stared at it with a puzzled look and then she began to laugh. She clapped her hand over her mouth, spluttering. ‘I don't believe it!’ she cried. ‘Clara, I simply do not believe it! Stan, just listen to this … Isn't she the most incredible girl! Guess what she did! She took off all her clothes in school assembly and walked out starkers!’ She handed the letter to Stan and went on laughing.

  Stan read the letter. Grinning hugely, he looked up at Clara. ‘She'll have done it for a dare, I bet. Good on yer, Clara. Terrific! God – I wish I'd been there!’ He patted Clara's arm and Clara froze. She went completely rigid, as though she had turned to cement, and when eventually she moved a leg it seemed as though it should make a cracking noise.