by Sam Angus
‘If my father left me –’ Cat spoke carefully – ‘I probably wouldn’t care what happened to him either. But I don’t see that he has really left you, since he’s always writing.’ At the warning look on Lyla’s face, Cat placed the envelope deep in the pocket of her skirt but nevertheless she asked, ‘Do you look when Solomon throws them out into the tree? Do you even know if they’re there next day? Have you ever looked?’
Lyla shook her head.
‘They’re never there in the morning, Lyla, that’s the thing. They’re never there. If you even looked, you’d know.’
‘That’s just because Tawny doesn’t like litter in the park,’ said Lyla.
‘I look for them, you know, because I mind. I mind for you and I mind for your father and I mind for Solomon, because it makes him so sad – he has tears in his eyes, Lyla, when he folds those letters up.’
‘Father left us!’ Lyla suddenly erupted with bitterness. ‘He walked out. Left us to go and live in a grey house with hard chairs and a lady from Brighton.’
‘Oh, Lyla,’ said Cat wearily.
‘Shall I read you my letter from Mop?’ offered Lyla. She wanted Cat to sit and stay with her and for everything to return to how it was before the letter came.
‘No, actually. Not today, thank you,’ came Cat’s reply.
55
A DE HAVILLAND MOSQUITO IN THE DAMSON
My darling Lyla,
How I long to be back in England. How I long to see you face to face. There will be so much to say one day. I collect and save the things I want to tell you, the little things to ease you on your way, gentle breezes to launch the fragile craft that is a child setting forth into the world. I hoard these things like marbles in a chest, to pass on to you one day.
Growing up is a confusing, drawn-out thing, and sometimes the places where there are the most people can be the loneliest, and of those crowded lonely places, schools are undoubtedly the worst. But do not be tempted to rush things. Wait and choose a friend, one true friend. Choose her slowly and carefully. Life is a long game, Lyla – the friends that last are the ones that answer to something in yourself, and the friends that last are the only ones that matter.
Here in the Middle East, we British fight the Germans and Italians alone. Things are dangerous and uncertain and I am to go off alone and undercover into the enemy-occupied territory in the north.
By God it is hot here, sand and flies and scorpions. How I long for green grass and deep rivers, for England and to see you, Lyla.
I pray, every morning and every night, that I will one day see you again.
Yours always,
Father
56
CURRICULUM
The summer holidays came to an end, leaves began to brown and redden and drop. The Upper VIth had left: some to marry, some to join the WRAAF and some to do secretarial training. And Lyla had moved up another year. Pinnacle, however, the girls were told, was to remain in London for the foreseeable future. The death of her son and the loss of the school had been a fierce double blow. Aunt Ada was to remain, by what she said was the unanimous vote of the governors, in charge of Garden Hill School for Girls, and was thus at liberty to make all the adjustments she could dream of to the curriculum.
First aid was to be instructed by Miss Macnair as a matter of urgency in case any wounded soldier in need of resuscitation should find himself in the vicinity.
Dreaming, rhetoric, invention, imagination, curiosity and history backwards classes were to be continued, and Currants would soon start – though the content of a Currants class was still as yet entirely a matter of conjecture.
New prefects were appointed and, as far as Lyla could see, they soon became intolerably pleased with themselves, just like the prefects that had gone before. Lyla and Cat were now in the Lower Vth with Primrose as form teacher. Cat saw less of Imelda, and that, from Lyla’s point of view, was very satisfactory, though Faye, who no longer had Mary Masters around to chum up with, recruited Imelda as her sidekick.
The winter that came was fierce and bitter. In November the inkwells and water pitchers froze once more. Icicles hung from the goalposts, and all the park was white and sparkling. The lake had frozen solid, and one morning, as a group of girls tumbled through the Orangery in a rush with their skates, Lyla, sitting alone at her easel and watching them, overheard Faye say to Imelda, ‘See, she still doesn’t have skates. I told you nobody bothers with her.’
‘You can borrow mine,’ whispered Cat to her.
‘But it’s you I want to skate with, not anyone else,’ answered Lyla.
Cat thought for a minute. ‘In that case, I’m going to get myself a fever and get off games and stay inside with you tomorrow, so at least we can be together.’
Lyla was deeply moved by that and grinned at Cat. ‘Shall we go up to my room later and see Bucket? Do come.’
Cat answered that there was someone she had to talk to about something before she did that but she might come up later, and Lyla – so chuffed still that Cat would stay in with her the next day – thought no more about who and what that someone and something might be.
57
IN VIOLET’S QUARTERS
Cat did engineer herself a fever by the simple means of dunking Macnair’s thermometer in a scalding-hot cup of tea. Miss Macnair, for once, let this wily subterfuge pass. You were supposed to do silent reading if you were off games, but Lyla and Cat decided to spend the afternoon with Violet instead.
Lyla, though touched that Cat should want to spend the afternoon with her instead of skating, was also tormented by the laughter that came from the frozen lake. She crept to the window and, after stroking Violet’s ears and whispering to her, wiped away a patch of fug and stood watching the pirouetting and twirling going on below.
‘My father knows your father a bit, I’ve discovered,’ Cat remarked, out of the blue.
Lyla tensed. ‘Mop says if you come out of a certain sort of hat box and then go to a certain sort of school, then you all end up in the same Gentleman’s Club and everyone knows everyone else. And, actually, that’s all rather useful because that means everyone we don’t like is generally in the same club and we know not to go there.’ Lyla knew she’d been hurtful but couldn’t stop herself.
Goaded into having a dig herself, Cat replied, ‘Anyway, that’s why Father told me to be nice to you.’
‘He told you to be nice to me?’
‘Mmm hmm.’ Cat picked up her book.
‘Is that the only reason you’re my friend?’ demanded Lyla.
‘Mmm hmm, obviously it is.’ Cat smiled, and turned away, opening her book.
At that moment, Ada strode in then drew up suddenly, apparently astonished to find Lyla and Cat inside of an afternoon when Fresh Air was The Thing, until she appeared to recollect why she’d come.
‘What are you waiting for, girls? Chop-chop,’ she said, gesturing vaguely. ‘Solomon’s waiting on the drive – the pony’ll get cold if you don’t hurry. Sponge cake and hot chocolate in Ladywood.’ She turned to the door, paused and then added in an offhand manner, ‘Oh, yes, and there’s a lady in Evanses expecting you, Lyla. Something or other for you to try on. I’m told you lack the right footwear for ice?’
Thrilled, Lyla nodded.
‘Good, good, well, hurry up. Take the back drive and get back before they finish skating, or Pigeon’ll be after you.’
Huddled together under a blanket, the conversation in the library forgotten, the trap took them out along the drive and past the tiny church at Heaven’s Gate where they waved at Father Scott.
‘The Rector Scott Talks Rot,’ Cat whispered.
Lyla giggled and looked down at the sweet spires and hollows of Ladywood, thinking how they’d soon be sauntering up the cobbled main street to Evanses to buy skates, and how then they’d go and sit by the log fire in Farthings Tea Rooms and drink hot chocolate and eat sponge cake.
‘I know!’ said Cat suddenly, taking Lyla’s hand. ‘Let’s go tonight! Let’s skate by moonl
ight – wouldn’t that be just the thing?’
That night, Lyla and Cat crept from their rooms, met by Sir Galahad, tiptoed down the Great Stairs and went out towards the lake. Stepping outside, they caught their breath – for the thrill of the thing, for the cold and the fear, for the moon that was full and the sky that was high and starry.
The grounds were radiant with ghostly brilliance, every blade and twig encased in glittering glass. A branch snapped eerily under the weight of snow, and an owl hooted as they staggered past it out on to the lake, glassy and freckled with the reflection of stars.
They began with circles, faster and faster, performed figures of eight, spun and turned, twirled and swizzled, transported by the trembling thrill of the speed, the shiver of fear and the cold brilliance of the night.
58
THE WIRELESS
‘Hurry, Lyla – it is most important.’
Lyla eyed the envelope Ada held, but as she rose from her desk, Ada tucked it quickly into a pocket and hauled Lyla downstairs to the kitchens. She settled herself on the stool by the enormous Primus stove, very erect, and waited, hands folded on her lap.
Disconcerted by this second appearance of the mistress of the house in her own kitchen, an alarmed Prudence grew giddy and began to drop things. When she sent a second copper pan clattering to the floor, Great Aunt Ada sighed and eyed the clock.
‘Well, turn it on,’ she snapped.
‘Turn what on?’ asked Prudence.
‘The wireless, of course.’ Aunt Ada gestured impatiently at it.
Prudence, in her fluster, had for the first time forgotten the news bulletin at eight, but she hurried over to the wireless and turned it on and they heard that the Allies had halted the Axis advance on Cairo and Suez.
Churchill spoke: ‘Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’
Ada rose from her stool, triumphant, victorious and suddenly weightless, as if great anxiety had been lifted from her mind. She skipped about as the words of the Prime Minister resonated around the kitchen.
‘Here we are, and here we stand, a veritable rock of salvation in this drifting world.’
Ada took Lyla’s hands. ‘Don’t you see – it’s marvellous, marvellous, what’s happening in Egypt.’ She looked into Lyla’s eyes. ‘This is most important to us both – most important.’
Lyla stared at her light-and-skipping-maiden-great-aunt, and wondered why she should care so much what happened in Egypt.
‘Solomon, Solomon!’ called Ada. ‘D’you hear? We’re a rock of salvation in this drifting world. Take the contraption upstairs, it is the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end – I forget which – take it upstairs, I said.’
As the wireless, borne aloft on Solomon’s salver, processed out of the kitchen, Prudence’s face wobbled and grew pinker, and Lyla thought she might cry, but Ada went to her and said, ‘Dear Prudence, you and I will share the contraption. D’you see? I’ve come round to this particular Convenience of the Modern Age. Both as a scientist and as a civilian, I approve of it. I must be kept informed – critical events – victories, and so on – I’ll need it every evening at eight.’
That was the beginning of Currants. Currants, as it turned out, were actually current affairs, and it appeared now that they had been delayed until current affairs finally began to conform to Great Aunt Ada’s worldview and therefore became both palatable to her and a suitable subject for the curriculum of Garden Hill Girls.
Currants began every evening at ten to eight, when Cedric would appear with the logs, and the girls would file down in their nightdresses and several layers of jerseys, and Aunt Ada would be waiting in her smoking jacket and embroidered slippers, and then, finally, Solomon would make an entrance with the ceremonial salver on which stood the newly favourable Contraption of the Modern Age.
The news would start, and the girls would strain to understand it all due to Aunt Ada’s interruptions and expostulations, all invariably directed at all the other peoples of Europe who were ‘not dependable’.
‘Why? Why? Why should we care about Belgium? Well, speak up! What do you care about? Well, what is it? What is it we’re fighting for?’
‘For the French?’ suggested Imelda.
‘No! For democracy! For freedom!’ Ada glared at the assembled faces.
So it was that a generation of Garden Hill girls came to understand that ‘currants’ and ‘history backwards’ were almost the same thing, because actually all the interesting things were happening now. And of course there was no point doing history forwards as that meant starting at the beginning of everything, and why would you ever do that unless you were a) in your cradle, or b) in your dotage and thus incapable of comprehending anything other than nonsense concerning burnt bread and round tables, so there was no point, no point at all, to history forwards.
59
A DOUGLAS HAVOC IN THE DAMSON
My darling Lyla,
I am a prisoner of war, Lyla, held in a jail at Hasufa, a scrap of North Africa that still remains in German hands.
The war in Egypt was a very different war to that in the trenches of Europe. There were no civilians mixed up in the fighting there, it was a good clean game, we had a go at them, they had a go at us, then one of us retreated. Montgomery was a fine commander and Rommel a fine enemy, and both sides treat their prisoners fairly.
We have one square yard of concrete floor per man, a wall of barbed wire six feet wide. We dream of food, of Red Cross parcels and of England. All I have are the clothes I wore when I was captured taking water from a well.
Anything could happen now – the Germans are being beaten back, but we do not know what they will do with us nor where we will end up. Perhaps they will take us with them as they go to Germany or Italy.
How I miss you, for you are all that keeps me going. Men die like flies among us from hunger and disease. We pounce on parcels sent from home like savages and fight among ourselves for scraps of food.
How is dear Ada? She’s as wise a person as you’ll ever meet, with more wisdom in her head and more tenderness in her than you’ll find anywhere. I heard from Solomon a while ago. He worries she is growing frail, some weakness in the heart perhaps, he thinks, though he says she hides it well and soldiers on. I hear that Cedric has laid the ballroom floor with turf for Violet’s pasture and that her sleeping quarters are hung with a maharajah’s silks. How splendid. Only at Furlongs.
Oh, I would that I were there.
Yours always,
Father
60
RIVERS AND BLACKBERRIES
On the grounds that French was unnecessary, poor Frou-Frou had been relegated by Ada to being in charge of the stationery cupboard, but there was now such a shortage of paper and pens in the country that the stationery cupboard was empty and Frou-Frou no longer had a role to play until a thing called wool-gathering was begun.
Wool-gathering, the most miserable of all Great Aunt Ada’s initiatives, involved the disentangling of filthy-smelling wool from barbed wire and barbed trees such as thorns in order to send it on to the manufacturers of soldiers’ uniforms, being, as they were, in dire need of more wool.
Not surprisingly, Frou-Frou soon handed in her notice, and Great Aunt Ada declared herself victorious for she had had, from the start, great scorn for Frou-Frou.
A new initiative was suddenly announced: knitting. Instead of wool-gathering there would now be knitting. In the afternoons, the girls would gather around the fire in the Painted Hall, Primrose would read Shakespeare aloud, and the girls were to knit for prisoners, because something had made Ada all of a sudden most agitated about the well-being of British prisoners in far-flung places. The girls must do all they could for British prisoners of war, must give their utmost and so forth. Even Aunt Ada herself took to knitting and went at it with fearsome vigour at all hours, going about the corridors trailing reams of coarse and rather smelly wool, which, as she proudly ex
plained, were kindly donated to the nation by her own sheep.
The haws ripened and the apples reddened, and Tawny began once more to chop logs and burn leaves. There was to be no more lacrosse, no, no, every girl at Furlongs would pull her weight, give her all in this hour of need. Pigeon was to supervise the girls as they collected acorns for the nation’s pigs, because the nation’s pigs had not enough to eat. On blustery afternoons Lyla and Cat would find Tawny and linger by his fire or they might roam far through the woods, talking and talking, but still there were the things that Lyla couldn’t voice.
Christmas came and went, and still the girls and Ada knitted. Gradually the days grew longer. Spring came and the days grew still longer and hotter, until, finally, Aunt Ada announced that she had ‘temporarily abolished education’. No, no, during the summer the girls must read. Everything they needed to prepare themselves for life was in novels, plays and poetry. Dickens, Shakespeare, Tolstoy. The writers, didn’t everyone see, were the rule-breakers, the people who changed things, the people who built the ladders to the places you wanted to be. Yes, during the day the girls must take books, they must go outside and they must read – and they would find that each book would be a stepping stone to somewhere else. Prudence was to provide picnic lunches, and each girl was to choose a book from Ada’s library.
On such a day in August, Cat, Lyla, Flea and Elspeth sat with their books and their picnics at the boundary of the park amidst bracken and foxgloves and ate their ration of bread and cheese and lolled about in the sun, flicking off the summer flies and talking of the things they’d read, the things they dreamed of doing one day. Lyla was happy for a while. But then Imelda joined them and said, ‘I want to be just like my mother.’
‘I do too,’ said Flea.
Lyla shrugged as if to shake a thing away, and she decided that life was easy if you had no imagination, because then you couldn’t imagine any other way of being than what you knew.
