School for Skylarks

by Sam Angus

  ‘So does mine,’ said Lyla a little too loud and a little too fast. ‘She knits all those things too and she sends them to the Red Cross.’

  Cat watched Lyla thoughtfully but said nothing, so after a while Lyla asked, ‘Anyway, why do you want to be my friend when no one else does?’

  ‘Oh, well, I don’t particularly,’ Cat teased, but she stopped smiling when she saw the hurt and shock on Lyla’s face. She took Lyla’s hands. ‘People do think you’re a bit odd, you know, but I don’t think you’re odd. I think you’re funny and sweet and brave and unusual.’

  Lyla beamed. She liked all of those words. Three out of four of them, anyway. It was only unusual that she wasn’t so sure about.

  Cat paused, then sighed, took a paper from her pocket and said, ‘Anyway, I don’t like people being mean.’ She unfolded the paper. ‘Listen to this,’ she said, and began to read.

  ‘Dear Cat,

  The boys here are horrid and won’t talk to me. It’s becos I read books. They just play silly games like football but I am no good at that becos my glasses go foggy so no one ever wants me on their team. They stole my pockit money and tore the pages of my book. It was Treasure Island that you gave me. Everyone else knows how to make friends even if they haven’t been at a bording school before but I don’t.

  Love,

  Robin’

  Cat lowered the letter and sighed. ‘Robin’s only eight. So that’s why I’m here – because I don’t like everyone being horrid to one person.’

  ‘Then you don’t actually like me at all?’

  ‘Well, you’re not very easy to like,’ said Cat, gentle and teasing.

  ‘Is it because I’m different?’

  Cat laughed. ‘You’re not really different, silly. Everyone’s different to everyone else. Don’t you see, that’s the joy of the whole thing.’ Cat leaned a little closer to Lyla. ‘Maybe you should just worry less and think less about yourself.’

  ‘I don’t think about myself,’ said Lyla abruptly. She paused before adding, ‘Anyway, certain things about me ARE different.’

  ‘Which things?’ asked Cat, still gentle and teasing.

  Just how she was different was too painful to force into words, so Lyla remained silent and watched Cat fold the letter and shove it back into her pocket, thinking it would be nice to have a brother send you letters.

  ‘Sometimes . . .’ Lyla began, struggling to voice what she felt. ‘Sometimes I feel like I am young on the outside, but all grown up and old on the inside.’

  Cat, about to snort with laughter, saw the scowling, tear-stained face beside her, and searched about instead for something helpful to say. ‘Well, you may be grown up in some sorts of ways, but not in most ways.’

  ‘Did you read the letter?’ demanded Lyla.

  ‘No, of course I didn’t. I never would.’

  And Lyla knew that it was true, that Cat was true to her core and would never read a letter that wasn’t meant for her.

  38

  LYLA’S BIRTHDAY

  At the top of the stairs, Lyla hesitated. It was Saturday, her birthday, and she was sure there’d be something from Mop. Eyeing the box, she clopped down in Wicker’s too-big shoes. An excited crowd was gathered around Trumpet because of one large, dark green parcel that was too big for the in tray. Lyla gasped. Harrods. That could be from Mop, even though Mop didn’t generally shop at Harrods.

  How nice it would be when her name was read out, and how surprised Faye would be. So, trying to look as though she had many other absorbing things to do, Lyla sauntered down the stairs, plumped herself into a nearby chair, and waited.

  ‘Jennifer Fraser . . . Daisy Saunders . . . Jane Higgins . . .’

  Lyla could see the in tray dwindling, and still her own name had not come. Too agitated now to pretend otherwise, she rose. She would go and wait beside Miss Trumpet for Mop’s parcel.

  ‘It’s my birthday,’ she told Trumpet.

  ‘Yes, dear. Happy birthday . . .’ Trumpet turned at last to the green box. ‘Faye Peak, one for you again.’

  That box was for Faye.

  The crowd of girls around Trumpet swirled and reformed like a new constellation around Faye – and Lyla, alone, outside the circle, trembled with shock. Transfixed by the sight of Faye Peak with the parcel, she stared as Faye opened it, slowly and pausing at each layer of crisp, rustling tissue to enjoy the attention she was commanding, and then, finally, quite certain of the gasps of envy that would surely come, she lifted the final layer of tissue to reveal a deep-purple satin dress.

  Still shaking, Lyla turned back to Miss Trumpet. She saw there were still three letters in Trumpet’s hand, so she edged towards her. ‘It’s my birthday,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sure Mother’s written . . .’ Lyla’s voice grew uncertain and trailed away because Faye, who was holding up her beautiful dress for all to see, and still had her circle close around her, was listening to Lyla and watching.

  Lyla looked at Trumpet, almost pleading with her silently to give her a letter, any letter, to show that someone had remembered her. Trumpet saw Lyla’s eyes and she hesitated, then sighed and quickly flicked through the three remaining envelopes.

  ‘No, I’m sorry – they’re all for Accounts.’

  Lyla blinked furiously, valiantly fighting back her tears, then said in a voice that was loud and bright and brittle, ‘Probably it’ll come tomorrow then.’

  She heard Faye say, ‘See, no one ever writes – not even on her birthday. I was told they just dumped her here, you know. I mean, even her mother doesn’t want her.’

  Lyla fled, stumbling towards the stairs. Cat grabbed at her hand but Lyla pulled herself free, ran blindly on and found herself colliding, at the foot of the stairs, with her great aunt. ‘Lyla –’ murmured Ada, trying to take Lyla’s hands.

  But Lyla again pulled herself away and staggered up the stairs.

  ‘Miss Trumpet, what is happening?’ demanded Ada. ‘This won’t do at all, not at all. Explain what is going on.’

  Lyla, now at the top of the stairs, didn’t care what anyone said to anyone any more.

  Alone in her room, she rushed to the desk and flung herself into the chair and picked up a pen to write to Mop, but as she stared at the blank sheet of paper in front of her Faye’s voice rang in her ears. I was told they just dumped her here, you know. I mean, even her mother doesn’t want her.

  Lyla paused then bent her head over the paper and began to write, knowing as she did so that a part of herself had changed, that the very deepest part of her had crystallized, had become icy and sharp, and wanted to hurt the person she most loved.

  To Mother,

  You never write to me and that makes me think you do not love me and that no one ever will. I don’t know if you know how hard it is to be always alone and have no one that loves you. I so want to be loved and I don’t know if that feeling will ever go away because I think all children need to be loved by their parents.

  I will never write to you again.

  Your daughter,

  Lyla

  She sealed the envelope, lifted her head, rose from her desk and walked steadily down to the Hall, where she placed the letter in the out tray beside Old Alfred.

  39

  SUNDAY

  After chapel every Sunday, once they’d hung their long Sunday cloaks in their wardrobes and returned to the Painted Hall, came letter writing, when for an hour the girls were expected to write, as best they could sat cross-legged on the floor, the mandatory weekly letter home.

  As so often, that Sunday Lyla sat apart from the rest of her year group, her back turned to the room. When Trumpet handed her a sheet of writing paper, she picked up her pen and, frowning and biting her lips in concentration and trying to recollect the sort of normal things one might say in a letter, she began to write.

  She folded and sealed the letter, went to the out tray and carefully slipped her envelope in amidst the pile. Then she turned and walked slowly upstairs, dreading the rest of the day, for S
unday afternoons were long and lonely, and that afternoon Lyla was – as always – alone.

  Cat was Lyla’s friend, but Cat had other friends too, and they had all made other plans that didn’t include Lyla. Everyone always seemed to be doing things without her. Sometimes she would take Violet for a walk along the corridors and to the ballroom to exercise her, and sometimes she would just wander the corridors alone and make herself available in case anyone should see her and ask her to join them. There was, of course, always Brenda. Brenda was always on her own, but Brenda never went to Ladywood and never talked to anyone unless she had to.

  The corridors were very long, and sometimes Lyla counted her steps, and sometimes she got bored of counting because it took so many footsteps to get anywhere and you could forget even a very important thing from one end of a corridor to the other.

  That afternoon Lyla first went to exercise Violet in the ballroom, and Violet was company of a sort, and then she went to see Sir Galahad. He was the first in the line of suits of armour in the corridor. He and his men were rather companionable really. You grew fond of people you walked past every day, and if you were bored you even gave them names. Lyla placed her palm on Galahad’s forearm and paused in a queenly sort of way, then nodded briefly to each as she passed . . . Lancelot, Percival, Tristan, Boris, Garth . . . and as she went, she was thinking of Tuesday.

  40

  TUESDAY

  At break-time on Tuesday, Lyla decided that Trumpet’s heart must be bigger than she’d thought, for as Lyla was queuing for milk and biscuits, Trumpet sought her out and said clearly so that lots of people would hear, ‘It’s come for you – the letter you wanted has come. Isn’t that nice?’

  Lyla smiled gratefully and reached for the envelope.

  ‘Oh, Lyla, that’s wonderful.’ Cat had come and was standing by her.

  Lyla turned and smiled and reached for her milk and biscuit.

  ‘Well, hurry, open it . . .’ said Cat.

  ‘Oh, yes. Shall I read it to you?’

  Cat looked a little surprised, but Lyla was determined. She finally had a letter to read, and since everyone read their letters out loud, she would do the same. And so, clutching her glass of powdered milk and her Fox’s ginger biscuit, Lyla led Cat to a corner, sat down and unfolded her letter and, glancing up to make sure Faye had seen that she had both a friend and a letter, began to read, loudly enough for Faye to hear.

  ‘My darling Lyla,

  I haven’t sent you any lovely parcels because London is very dangerous just now and I’ve had to spend so much time in the Anderson shelter. I never go to the Ritz or to the Café de Paris or any of those places where the wrong sorts of people go.’

  Cat, who had been half listening, half trying to finish some French Prep, raised her head and began to listen intently. Lyla was pleased and read on:

  ‘I do hope that you have a friend who will help you carry Violet’s buckets up and down – things are so much more fun in pairs.’

  Lyla glanced at Cat. It would be nice if Cat did keep her company with that sometimes.

  ‘I do lots of ambulance driving and nursing, but I do so, so long to see you and to hear how everything is going at school. I am already so busy looking for your Christmas present. It probably wouldn’t be a purple dress because that is a vulgar colour for a young girl, but I hope it will arrive safely because so many things get lost in the post in wartime.

  All my love,

  Mother’

  41

  GARDEN HILL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS

  The term wore on, the staff growing increasingly tense and drawn, murmuring to one another in hushed voices the things they’d heard on the wireless. The prime minister was a worried man. As a nation, we would fight to the last man and the last woman. Britain was fighting on all fronts. Germany wanted to conquer the whole of continental Europe from the Atlantic to Moscow, but Britain had the largest navy; she would be all right.

  There was no longer any talk of any girl returning to London. The city was burning. Fires were raging over the East End chemical factories, the skies lit up night after night by the flames. Parents wrote that they were sleeping under their stairs or on the platforms of the London Underground, that the sky went black at times with the number of German planes overhead.

  A new duty called ‘roof-spotting’ was suddenly introduced to the timetable, and a new duty roster pinned to the noticeboard in the hall. Roof-spotting meant long hours on the roof, two girls at a time, watching the skies for German planes.

  The summer wore on – the girls were kept busy with lessons as though there was no summer break at all.

  Then one morning in October, Pinnacle told the girls that she had to be away for a short while in London, and that Miss Threadgold would step in. The girls sighed and rolled their eyes at one another. Threadgold.

  Pinnacle returned two days later, subdued and saddened. She was reported by Imelda, who made it her business to know such things, to have entered the Billiard Room and been closeted there a long while with Lyla’s Great Aunt Ada.

  The following morning at assembly, the Pinnacle made an announcement.

  ‘It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that the beautiful old buildings of our school, the buildings for which I fought with my every atom, were bombed by the Luftwaffe. Almost nothing remains.’

  There was a collective intake of breath, then silence. After a while, someone began to sob, louder perhaps than was strictly necessary, and it was of course Faye Peak, who was always conscious that tears could make you the centre of attention.

  ‘I am only glad that none of you were in those buildings; that we have the good fortune to be here.’ Pinnacle lifted her head. ‘But remain assured, we will go on. This school has been my life’s work. I will fight for it and for you all, for the spirit of a school does not lie in its buildings. Be in no doubt, Hitler will soon find that the British are not like other nations – the British cannot easily be beaten.’ She paused. ‘And Garden Hill School for Girls is, of course, fortunate to be here at Furlongs, fortunate that our hostess is allowing us to remain here for the duration of the war, and until such a moment as I am in a position to rebuild the school.’

  A ruckus erupted in the Painted Hall, girls hugging and kissing one another, and Lyla looked about, astonished that everyone should be so pleased. Pinnacle cast her eyes about the hall and smiled a grim, quiet smile.

  42

  A HAWKER TYPHOON IN THE DAMSON

  My dear Lyla,

  Are there still blackberries at Furlongs? Does the gorse still roll and swell and blaze like a yellow sea? Those were golden years for me, Lyla, and I long to hear you’re happy there, that you swim at Shearwater, that you skate on the lake in winter and picnic in the bracken in summer.

  Did I tell you Solomon was my servant – batman, they call them in the army – in the last war? I think not – you weren’t in a talking frame of mind when I drove you down to Furlongs. Solomon’s a gentleman to the core. There was no pension for the wounded after the last war, no work for a man with a wooden leg, so it was Ada, of course, who took him in. He would lay down his life, I think, for your Great Aunt Ada.

  Do watch out for her inventions – they’re not entirely safe. When I was a boy, she blew up her own glasshouses with a remarkable long-range projectile that she lobbed rather casually out of the window of the Billiard Room as she sipped her whiskey and read The Times.

  I think of you so often. And of Ada, dear Ada. Have you grown fond of her? She has the heart of a Crusader, the will of a tornado, the vigour of a Viking . . . but she’d never remember to eat or do any of the small, ordinary things in life were it not for Solomon being there to remind her.

  Let’s hope America will join the war. At least all the contestants would then be in the ring, the gloves off, and we would stand an even chance.

  Lyla, do – sometimes – think of me, for if I fight, I fight for you.

  Yours always,

  Father

  43<
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  ROSE AND SILVER

  That Friday morning, a most strange apparition was observed on the drive, for a very large, dark green box appeared to be making its way up it almost entirely of its own accord; appeared, that is, until one spotted the intrepid lace-up boots of Mabel Rawle, the postmistress, poking out beneath it.

  At break-time, an excited crowd gathered about the mail table, but Lyla sat alone once more, determined to be not at all interested in the largest box that had ever arrived for a Garden Hill girl. She opened a notepad and took out a pen to busy herself so she could block out the names of all the girls getting letters from their mothers, and to show that she didn’t need packages from the people that loved her.

  Miss Trumpet, relishing the attention and suspense of the girls, left the green box till last before finally looking up and reading aloud, her eyebrows arched in pleasure and surprise, ‘Miss Lyla Spence.’

  Notepad and pencil spilling from her lap, Lyla leaped up and pushed her way through to Miss Trumpet. The girls withdrew into a cautious, distant circle, nudging one another and raising eyebrows.

  ‘Lyla Spence, is this a thing you’ll actually be wanting?’

  ‘Of course I want it. It’s from Mother,’ said Lyla as if Miss Trumpet were half-witted.

  It was postmarked ‘Knightsbridge’ and Lyla wondered that Mop had gone to Harrods, for she generally shopped in Selfridges. She took the parcel and walked slowly back across the hall so everyone could see just how big it was, how she had a mother that loved her, just like everyone else did, and who sent her lovely things and thought of her every day.

  She positioned herself on the edge of her chair, remembering how Faye had unwrapped her dress and thinking, Very slowly, so everyone can see.

  Under the last layer of white tissue was the softest and silkiest of dresses, rose-coloured, embroidered with trailing silver honeysuckle and white butterflies, with a silver sash to tie at the back of the waist. Tears came to her eyes for she’d never seen a thing of such sweetness in a dress before, and an unlikely picture came to her mind of Mop clambering over all the rubble in all the streets of London to trawl all the shops for the prettiest dress. She looked up at the circle that surrounded her and held it out so they could feel the silky weightlessness of it, and she saw Great Aunt Ada beside Solomon at the foot of the stairs, both of them watching.