Cross My Heart and Hope to Die

by Sheila Radley

  The coffee was frothy, not nearly as good as Mrs Bloomfield’s, but a lot better than Mum’s. I had a shock, though, when they charged me one and threepence for it. I’d been going to order a cheese roll as well, but I changed my mind and bought ten of the cheapest cigarettes instead. They cost more than the cheese roll would have done, of course, but they’d last longer. There didn’t seem to be any point in buying matches when I could swipe a box from home, so I cadged a light from the nearest unattached man, who looked like a sales rep. He flicked his lighter for me, but went on chewing. I didn’t seem to have much luck with men.

  Most of the girls in the coffee bar looked as though they were secretaries. I wondered what it would be like to be one of them, working in an office from nine to five, five days a week, with coffee and a roll for lunch at the same time and in the same place every day. I envied them their clothes and pay packets, but what had they got to look forward to? A yearly fortnight on a Spanish beach with a lot of other English people, a white wedding and a bungalow on a new housing estate, two children, and then back to work in town nine to five, five days a week. They probably thought I looked a freak in my navy raincoat, but I knew that I was the lucky one. All the world ahead, and money in my purse to boot.

  In the end I bought the soft black leather ones that Dad had said he liked. Well, not actually leather at that price, but they looked as though they were. And what I’d saved on boots I invested in a cheap pair of fashion shoes to go with my dress.

  Mum had a wild spending spree on my clothes that week. I was bumping down the lane one evening, home to tea, when I saw a flashlight wavering ahead. ‘Is that you, our Janet?’ she called, blinding me with her light.

  ‘What are you doing out in the dark? The owls’ll catch you,’ I said, feeling affectionate for once and getting off my bike to trudge beside her. There was no field work to be had at that time of year, and she didn’t usually go down to the village late in the day except for her monthly game of bingo.

  ‘Been to the chapel jumble sale,’ she said, sounding pleased with herself. ‘Got something for you.’

  ‘Oh ar,’ I said cautiously. Mum loves jumble sales, but she does tend to lose her head. We’ve had many a row over whether I’ll be seen dead in some of her bargain buys.

  A few of the girls at school loved dressing up in jumble-sale tat, preferably fur coats and trailing skirts and feathered hats. They thought it was a great giggle. But they were the ones with plenty of money and a wardrobe full of clothes. They’d got nothing to aim for, so they did it to express their boredom with the conventional two-car and constant-hot-water way of life. I wasn’t so keen on having to wear baggy old jumble-sale clothes because we couldn’t afford new ones.

  Mum wouldn’t tell me what she’d bought until we’d reached home and made up the fire and put the kettle on. ‘There,’ she said, handing me a crumpled bag. I pulled out a long nylon garment, all lemon-yellow frills and flounces.

  ‘What on earth –?’

  ‘It’s a housecoat,’ Mum explained. ‘If you’re stopping the night at that college there’s bound to be a bathroom to go to. Can’t wander about in your raincoat like you do at home. Mrs Vernon sent it to the sale,’ she added, ‘so we know where it’s been. You like it, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s fabulous,’ I said, and meant it. Giggling, I tried it on over my clothes and twirled round the room with the frilly hem brushing my shoes. I could just imagine Mrs Vernon swanning about in it up at Longmire Farm, and I practised the gracious wave that she always gave us from her car. ‘Thank you, Mother.’

  ‘Stop acting so soft,’ said Mum. ‘And take it off before you spoil it. It smells clean enough but I’ll give it a wash to be on the safe side.’

  ‘How much was it?’

  ‘Never you mind. I’m not asking you to pay for it, am I? Well, five bob if you must know. I reckon it’s a real bargain.’

  Later that evening I asked Dad to trim my hair. He fancied himself as a hairdresser and always did it for me, tucking a towel round my neck as I sat on a chair in the middle of a newspaper island.

  ‘How about cutting it short, Dad?’ I asked, thinking that a shorter style might make me look more sophisticated.

  ‘I shall do nothing of the sort,’ he said indignantly. ‘It’s lovely and thick and I’m not going to spoil it.’ And I didn’t argue because I knew that he minded that his own hair was beginning to get very thin in front. He did once try brushing it forward to hide the fact that it was receding, but it didn’t suit the shape of his face so he had to learn to live with an increasingly high forehead.

  ‘Well,’ said Mum, ‘I wish you would cut it short. I hate long hair, it’s not hygienic.’ We took no notice of her.

  The cut-out-and-ready-to-sew dress arrived just two days before the interview. I was tremendously pleased with it, the first good dress I’d had for years and my first go at being in the fashion. That evening I stood on a chair trying to be patient while Mum and Dad both fussed round me fitting it, clucking like a couple of old hens.

  ‘What about the length, Janet?’ mumbled Dad, pins between his teeth.

  ‘Well it’s too short like that, Vincent Thacker,’ said Mum. ‘Let it down, do.’

  If Mum thought it was too short, it was bound to be too long. ‘Up a bit,’ I said. ‘Bit more. How does that look?’

  ‘Just right,’ said Dad.

  Mum nearly went frantic. ‘I’d never have bought it for you if I’d known you were going to wear it as short as that. All the trouble I’ve taken to bring you up decent – I’d have been ashamed to show so much leg when I was your age. Let it down!’

  We ignored her. Mum’s so respectable that she’d say ‘Pardon’if she burped in private.

  And the next night was bath night. There was never a dull moment at our house. We normally had our baths on Saturday night, but it was such a performance that we’d agreed to postpone last Saturday’s event until the night before my interview.

  After Dad had finished his tea, I helped him to carry water into the house by the bucketful. It was raining, and by the time we’d filled the electric boiler we were so wet that we hardly needed a bath. While the water was heating I vimmed the bowl, and washed my brush and comb and my face and a couple of pairs of tights.

  Then we went out to the woodshed, lifted the big zinc bath from its nail on the rafter, shooed a spider out of it and carried it into the kitchen. There wasn’t much room left when the bath was in there. I had to edge my way round to the sink to wash my hair, and Dad took his shoes off and stood in the empty bath in his mauve socks while he sloshed a jug of rinsing water over my head.

  But at least the tap on the electric boiler fitted over the edge of the bath, so it was easy to fill it. Hot water on tap, a rehearsal for civilization! We all had to use the same bathwater of course, but we played fair. I saved some hot water for Mum to add to hers, then she saved some for Dad. Goodness knows how the Crackjaw tribe would have managed to eke out their hot water on bath night, but as far as we knew they solved the problem by not having baths at all.

  Unfortunately, when we’d finished, the bath still had to be emptied. Mum, in her clean nightie, scooped out grey water by the bowlful and poured it down the sink. Dad and I put our raincoats and wellies over our clean pyjamas, and when the bath was liftable we staggered outside with it and emptied it in the ditch at the side of the garden.

  ‘This is what they call the simple life, you know,’ I panted. ‘Unspoiled rural living … Poets write about the joys of it, and people who live in towns really envy us.’

  Dad straightened his back and wiped the rain out of his eyes. ‘They must need their heads examining,’ he said.

  Before I went to bed I had a rehearsal with everything I was going to wear and take to Oxford. My new boots were super, and I was glad that the heels weren’t quite as high as I’d wanted; my new shoes, bought in a hurry, had higher heels and to be honest they weren’t very comfortable. But they looked exactly right with my new dress
.

  Mum had made up the new dress during the day, with the aid of Gran Bowden’s old sewing-machine, and to do her justice she’d resisted any temptation to lower the hem. I was thrilled with it, and so was Dad when I paraded through the living-room. He sounded very proud of me. ‘Oh, you do look nice, our Janet. A really smart young woman.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mum, tweaking the neckline into a different position and then giving the hem a tug, ‘I s’pose you look all right. I don’t hold with wearing it so short, but there, it seems to be the fashion on telly. Only you’ll have to be careful what you show when you bend down, our Janet. They say there’s some goings-on at them colleges.’

  ‘Good grief, I’ll only be there one night!’

  ‘One night’s plenty,’ said Mum darkly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I travelled to Oxford on the long-distance bus, taking most of the day to get there. Caroline Adams had been called for an interview too, but at a different college and on a different day. Mrs Bloomfield had sent each of us off with good wishes and a sketch map of the city, so I felt reasonably confident of finding my way round.

  My first impression of Oxford, with motels and industrial areas and modern housing estates, and then long Victorian roads and ordinary streets and shops and a windy bus station, wasn’t very favourable. The traffic in the narrow streets was worse even than Yarchester’s, and walking on the outside of the pavement was like being caught in Gran Thacker’s bacon slicer.

  But as I approached the centre, I began to see why Mrs Bloomfield had been so enthusiastic about the beauty of Oxford. Not that the spires could possibly dream, with all that traffic thundering through, but they were indisputably there. I peered in medieval college gateways, admiring the honey colour of the stone and the spaciousness of the quadrangles, and I really began to fancy my chances.

  Those were the men’s colleges, though. When I eventually found my women’s college, stuck away in a side road, it was a red-brick Victorian come-down. I was terribly disappointed. Even so, the sight of it gave me apprehensive twinges. Where did I go and who did I see and what did I do? I walked twice round the block to gather courage, and on the second circuit, past the bicycle sheds by the back gate, I found two other uncertain hopefuls to tag along with.

  I’d half-expected to be sleeping in a dormitory, and I was very impressed when we were directed to centrally-heated single study bedrooms, empty because the students had gone down for Christmas. This was more like it! A wash-basin with hot and cold water on tap as well! What a wonderful room to be able to call your own … It was full of fascinating posters and books and ornaments, and I’d have liked to have a good nose round, but we’d been told that it was almost time for tea and so I washed my face and changed into my new dress and shoes. I was glad to get out of my boots. That soft-looking imitation leather was deceptive, and they pinched. My high-heeled pointed shoes were just as uncomfortable, but at least they hurt in different places.

  I made my way to the common room, treading gingerly along polished wooden floors and down the massive staircase. The common room was full of girls of my age, most of them looking not only clever but unfairly attractive as well. We seemed to be divided into two kinds, a few like me on their own and feeling out of place, and the others in groups, knowing each other and talking loudly in posh voices, even more self-assured than the middle-class girls I’d envied in my first years at school. This would be the boarding-school crowd. I’d heard about them, and I didn’t see how anyone else could compete.

  True, I was more fashionably dressed than most, but that didn’t give me any confidence. The glances I got were more amused than admiring, and I realized that I simply looked conspicuous. I wished I’d had the sense to stay in my best skirt and sweater. And in my school shoes.

  Before we’d had time to wash down the cake crumbs we were called out individually for interview. I pretended to read a magazine until it was my turn. Miss Thacker. I could hardly believe that meant me.

  My first interview was with two youngish women who sat on either side of a gas fire looking through what I recognized uncomfortably as my entrance exam papers. The women were cordial but brisk. Every time they invited me to support my written arguments my mind went blank. I said something, heaven knows what, but all I was thinking of was what a poor performance I was giving. I felt as though they’d stood me on my head, shaken out the contents, picked them over, found nothing of interest and shovelled them back. They made encouraging noises as they dismissed me, but I knew that I’d hashed up the interview completely.

  There wasn’t a lot of time to brood over it before I was called to see the Principal. In a way that was less of an ordeal because she confined herself to general subjects and was clearly trying to be helpful and to understand tongue-tied answers. But her presence over-awed me. I’d never met anyone who was quite so grand. She sat in a great drawing-room of a place and her voice was as deep and rich as her carpet. She was unmistakably a lady, far more so than Miss Dunlop, even gowned in her Speech Day glory, or Mrs Vernon from the farm, or snooty Mrs Hanbury, or poor old Miss Massingham with her barking cough and tribe of cats.

  It was the Principal’s voice that finished me. ‘Just be natural,’ Mrs Bloomfield had advised, but now to my horror I found myself doing exactly what Mum would have done in the same circumstances, trying to keep my end up by putting on a posh voice in return. It didn’t work, of course. I could hear how stupidly affected it sounded. But the harder I tried to stop myself, the more exquisitely I could hear myself enunciating. The Principal was kind, but I knew I’d blown my chances.

  Back to the common room. That was it, then. All over in a couple of hours and no one to blame except me. It wasn’t that I’d been set on going to Oxford, but to get as far as an interview and then to be rejected was much worse than not having an interview at all. I felt that I’d really let Dad down. He’d been so proud about it, telling everyone including Mrs Hanbury who would now go out of her way to commiserate, implying at the same time that it was after all a bit much for people like us to aim at Oxford. I only hoped that Mrs Vernon wouldn’t get to hear that Mum had bought me her cast-off housecoat for the occasion.

  A gong sounded and we all politely after-you’d each other into the dining-room. It would be the first time I’d had evening dinner so I decided that I might as well make the most of it. We sat at huge polished tables, and the cutlery was sized to match. The soup spoons were as big as our table spoons at home. Fortunately, Mum’s magazine had occasional articles on etiquette (‘Your husband’s firm’s dinner dance? Remember these few simple rules and you’re all set for a happy, carefree evening’) so I knew to drink the salt-gravy soup from the side of the spoon without slurping, and to tilt the plate away from me.

  My right-hand neighbour was also on her own, a girl with freckles, jutting teeth and wild curly hair. My left-hand neighbour was slim, with long blond hair, and she wore fashionable clothes that made mine look cheap. Which they were. The blonde was laughing with friends on her other side, so I made overtures to the girl on the right who was wearing a skirt and a blouse that were unmistakably home-made.

  She said her name was Paula. She had a north-country accent so thick you could cut and butter it, and that cheered me up tremendously. She was ordinary, like me. I could talk to her easily, even if I couldn’t always understand her.

  She asked where I came from. I knew she wouldn’t have heard of Byland so I said Breckham Market, but she hadn’t heard of that either.

  ‘All right, then, where are you from?’

  ‘Bratfut.’

  I thought about it as we ate grilled fish, and decided that she probably meant Bradford. ‘You must be used to seeing Pakistanis about, then,’ I said, nodding down the table to where two beautifully composed milky-coffee girls sat in stunning Eastern robes. There aren’t any Asians living in my part of Suffolk, and I had to stop myself from staring at them, fascinated.

  ‘Don’t be dafft,’ said Paula scornfully, ‘they�
��re Hindu, not Muslim.’ I blushed, but at least she didn’t seem to hold my ignorance against me. ‘D’you fancy coming to this place?’ she asked.

  I denied it, though I was still feeling sore. ‘I shan’t get in, anyway, I made a terrible mess of my interview.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ She grinned with all her teeth. ‘So did I, thank God. Mucked it up good and proper.’

  She told me that both her parents were primary-school teachers, and education-mad. Not having been to university themselves, they insisted that their children must. ‘And we’ve all got to go to Oxford, they’re Oxford-mad as well. But I hate it down here, it’s full of mealy-mouthed southerners. I’ve got a place at Sheffield University for next October, and that’s where I’m going whether Mum and Dad like it or not.’

  I didn’t much care for the bit about ‘mealy-mouthed southerners’. ‘I don’t see how you can say you hate the place’, I said, ‘when we’ve only been here five minutes.’

  ‘Not my first visit,’ she said. ‘My big sister was here. Got a First, and lost all her character – she’s just like a southerner herself now.’ Paula said it with a terrible contempt, and I quickly pointed out that I was East Anglian, myself.

  ‘It’s not just southern that gets me,’ she conceded, ‘so much as upper-class. Have you tried talking to any of them? Honestly, it’s like trying to communicate with people from another planet. There’s one sitting next to you. Go on, have a go.’

  I looked sideways at the blond girl, and waited for her to stop talking to her friends. Obviously it was going to be a long wait, so I touched her arm. ‘Excuse me,’ I said in my best voice, and she turned to me immediately, giving me her full attention and the sight of the longest pair of false eyelashes I’d ever seen. ‘Could you – er, pass the water, please?’