She stole a look at James from under her thick lashes to see what his reaction was. His serious face gave away nothing as he worked at loosening the brake callipers. Then he stood up, turned the bike the right way up and squeezed the brake levers on the handlebars to see if it was all working properly. The pause before he replied seemed like a hundred years to Lillian.
‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘I don’t know anything about it, but they do say it’s a hard life.’
‘I don’t care. I’m used to working hard, and it’d be working at doing something I love,’ Lillian told him.
James stopped fiddling with the brakes and looked at her. ‘That’s what makes the difference, isn’t it? I don’t mind how hard I work when I’m trying to get a car going. But I’m not doing that for someone else all my life, slaving away to make them money. I want a garage of my own.’
Lillian felt quite breathless. He was offering her his secrets.
‘Is that your dream?’ she asked.
‘That’s my dream. I’ll have a business of my own with people working for me, and a car of my own, and I’ll get a decent place for my mum to live with a proper kitchen and bathroom, so nobody can look down their noses at her any more—’
He broke off, gazing over Lillian’s shoulder, a rapt look on his face. Where a second ago his attention had been all hers, now it was as if she was no longer there. Slowly, he straightened up.
Lillian didn’t have to turn round to know who was there. She was seized with such a storm of rage and jealousy that she thought her chest might burst open. She didn’t know where it had come from or how to deal with it. She gritted her teeth and growled, only just stopping herself from leaping up and attacking her fascinating sister with teeth and nails and feet.
Wendy stopped a couple of feet away. Lillian picked up one of James’s spanners and started jabbing it into the sour earth for all she was worth. In spite of herself, her eyes were drawn to her sister. Wendy was still dressed in the old skirt and blouse she had been wearing for the spring cleaning, with a spotted scarf over her hair. Anyone else would have looked scruffy and bedraggled after the hard day’s work. But Wendy had stopped to apply bright red lipstick to her full mouth, her waist was cinched in with a wide black elastic belt, her blonde curls escaped from beneath the scarf and the blouse was undone at the neck just enough to give a tantalising glimpse of cleavage. She stood with one hand on her hip and flicked James with a cool assessing glance.
‘So you came to see to the famous bike, then? She’s been going on about it all week.’
‘She’s made a good job of it. I’ve just done a bit of maintenance.’
‘Yeah, I can see that. Your hands are covered in oil.’
James flushed. ‘It’s honest dirt. You like men with soft white girly hands, do you?’
Wendy gave a knowing smile. ‘I like a man who can take me out dancing and show me a good time.’
‘I can dance,’ James said.
‘They all say that. Then they tread all over your feet. I can’t bear being trampled on.’
‘No danger of that with me.’
For a moment their eyes locked, each of them challenging the other. It was as if Lillian didn’t exist. She wanted to leap up and scream Look at me! but something held her squatting by her bike, raging inside.
Wendy raised her eyebrows and turned away. ‘I don’t think I’ll take a chance on it.’
She walked back into the house. James’s eyes were fastened on her opulent backside until the door shut behind her. Even then he didn’t come back to Lillian immediately. He stood staring at the closed door.
‘Idiot!’ he muttered. ‘What did you go and say that for?’
‘What?’ Lillian asked.
Slowly, he turned his head to look at her, his eyes seeming to adjust like someone who had just come indoors from bright sunshine outside.
‘I went and told her I could dance. I can’t, not properly.’
A whole beautiful new vista of opportunity suddenly stretched out before Lillian. She beamed at him.
‘I can,’ she said. ‘I could teach you, if you like.’
Chapter Four
THE kid’s bike was the perfect excuse to get in with the Parker family. Or, to be more precise, to get closer to Wendy. Wendy filled James’s days and haunted his dreams. He had never met a girl like her before, not in real life. She was like something out of a film, what with her luscious body, her lovely face and her exotic natural blonde hair. And then there was the way she treated him. He knew she didn’t take him seriously. He was only a few months older than her, and she was looking for men in their twenties with money in their pockets, so he knew she regarded him as a kid who hadn’t even started his national service yet. But he was not without hope. There was something in the way she looked at him, a certain challenge in her big blue eyes and her mocking smile, that kept him coming back for more.
So when Lillian announced that she had saved up enough for the tyres and almost enough for the inner tubes, he offered to loan her the rest.
‘The weather’s getting almost summery. You want to get out on that bike as soon as you can,’ he said.
She looked at him in total amazement. ‘Would you?’ she cried. ‘You’d do that for me? Trust me with your money?’
If only it were so easy to please her sister.
‘’Course,’ he said. ‘I know you’re good for it.’
‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘You must be the nicest person in the world!’
And as she often did when really pleased, she put her delight into action, crossing the narrow yard in two flick-flacks. James laughed and clapped. It was a pleasure to see her dance or perform gymnastics. She moved with such grace and athleticism that even someone like himself, who knew nothing about it, could see that she was good.
Once the bike was up and running, it was more difficult to find reasons to visit the Parkers. What was more, time was getting short. In July he would be eighteen, and then his call-up papers would arrive. But luck was on his side. He called in after work one Monday with the excuse of making sure that Lillian was managing all right, and found Mrs Parker in despair over the mangle.
‘It’s stuck,’ she explained, practically in tears. ‘And we’ve had PGs in over the weekend and there’s all these sheets to get dry.’
She indicated the big galvanised tub full of wet bedlinen.
James had rather overlooked Wendy’s mother in the past. There were so many large personalities in the family, what with Wendy herself, and little Lillian, and their old hag of a grandmother, as well as Boring Bob and Shifty Frank, as he thought of them, that Mrs Parker rather faded into the background. He smiled at her as she stood there in her floral overall, her wispy hair tied up turban-style in a scarf and her sleeves rolled up to reveal thin arms and red, work-roughened hands.
‘Would you like me to take a look at it for you?’ he asked.
Relief flooded her tired face. ‘Oh, would you? I’d be ever so grateful.’
It was the work of a moment. Mangles were hardly difficult pieces of machinery to understand. Mrs Parker was so fulsome in her thanks that James was ashamed to earn so much praise for so little.
‘Let me turn it for you,’ he offered. ‘You just feed the stuff in.’
Turning the heavy handle to squeeze the water out of the washing was easy for him, young and strong as he was. In no time the job was done. James carried the basket of damp sheets and towels and pillowcases into an outhouse, ready to be pegged out on the lines in the morning. Just as he had done this, Wendy’s father arrived home. He looked at James with suspicion.
‘You here again?’ he asked.
There was something about the man that irritated James. Maybe it was the apologetic stoop to his shoulders, or the way he always seemed to be looking for a way to get at other people. James supposed he must be bitter about having a crippled right arm and just managed to bite back a sarcastic reply. After all, this was Wendy’s father. He needed to keep in with him.
‘Oh, Doug,’ Mrs Parker said. ‘James has been such a help to me. He got my mangle going and everything.’ She turned to James with real warmth in her smile and for the first time he saw something of her daughters in her. ‘Won’t you come in for a cuppa, dear? Kettle’s boiling.’
After that, he seemed to be accepted as the fixer of anything mechanical, just as he was at home. Mr Parker couldn’t have done these tasks, not with his bad arm, but it amazed him that neither Bob nor Frank seemed capable of doing them. He was glad that they weren’t, though. He now had the perfect reason to be calling in at the Parkers’ whenever he liked. He soon found out what time Wendy got in from her job at the big department store at the top of the High Street, and timed his arrival to coincide with hers.
Of course, she knew perfectly well what he was up to.
‘You’re a regular little ray of sunshine, aren’t you?’ she commented. ‘Fixing Gran’s glasses, getting the clock going. Whatever would we do without you?’
‘I’m sure I could fix something for you, if you let me,’ James told her.
Wendy gave him one of her dismissive up-and-down looks. ‘I don’t think there’s anything I need from you, sweetie.’ And she teetered elegantly out of the room on her high heels.
Lillian, who always seemed to be around when he was there, launched into a savage take-off. She put her hand on her hip the way Wendy did and looked back over her shoulder with the same don’t-touch-me pout.
‘I don’t think there’s anything I need from you, sweetie,’ she repeated, with exactly Wendy’s intonation, and walked to the door with an exaggerated wiggle to her bottom.
Despite his disappointment at the brush-off, James had to laugh. ‘You’ve got her to a T,’ he said.
‘Huh, she thinks she’s so wonderful, but really she’s such a cow.’
‘Lillian, language!’ her mother protested feebly.
‘But she is,’ Lillian insisted.
Her mother handed her a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits.
‘Take these along to your grandmother, there’s a good girl.’
Lillian sighed and went. A few minutes later, she came back through the kitchen and out of the back door.
‘Got to go and get something for Gran,’ she explained as she went.
Her mother hardly seemed to notice.
This was something that James had picked up on since he’d been spending more time at the Parkers’. Lillian hadn’t just been whinging when she’d said it was horrible being the youngest. None of her family seemed to speak to her except to tell her off or get her to do something for them. She was forever running around doing errands. It had changed his view of what it was like to be part of a large family. Often when he was young he had yearned to have lots of brothers and sisters like the families he read about in adventure stories. Now he was beginning to realise that, though his family was a bit claustrophobic at times, at least they did all value each other. He certainly wasn’t left out like Lillian seemed to be. He brought up the subject with Susan one day.
‘Don’t you think it’s unfair, the way they all treat Lillian?’
His sister looked surprised. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, getting her to do all their jobs for them, like she’s was some kind of servant.’
Susan didn’t seem to think it was important. ‘Oh, she doesn’t mind. And it keeps her out of mischief. If she wasn’t doing something useful she might be getting into trouble. She’s got that wild look about her, don’t you think?’
‘No, I don’t. I think she’s rather a nice kid, and she’s getting a raw deal from that lot. She does all this stuff for them, but do they do anything for her? No. She cleans your Bob’s shoes for him every day, but it wasn’t him who helped her with that bike, it was me.’
Susan just laughed. ‘Oh, yes, and why did you do that, I wonder? Out of the kindness of your heart, or to get to see Wendy?’
She was right, of course.
‘At least I did do it. Now the bike’s roadworthy and Lillian can ride it,’ he pointed out, not wanting to lose the argument.
He didn’t like to admit that he was taking advantage of Lillian’s good nature himself. The dancing lessons were a great success. There had been a problem to start with, because both of them wanted to keep it a secret. There was always somebody around at the Parkers’ so going there was no good, but then Susan had started going out with Bob on Tuesday evenings as well as at the weekend, which just happened to be when his mother went to her Townswomen’s Guild meeting.
‘Won’t your parents think it’s a bit off, you coming round to mine of an evening?’ James asked. His mother always wanted to know where Susan was and certainly wouldn’t have let her go to an older boy’s house when nobody else was there. After all, he knew his intentions were entirely innocent, but the Parkers might not look at it that way.
Lillian just shrugged.
‘They won’t notice. Or, if they do, I’ll say I’m going round my friend Janette’s.’
He had to take her word for it. And she was an excellent teacher. They didn’t have a record player or much space, but they pushed back the furniture and rolled up the carpet square, then twiddled the tuner of the big Bush wireless till they found some dance music. Lillian showed him the basic steps to the waltz, quickstep and foxtrot, and soon he was moving round the floor with confidence.
‘I can do it!’ he said, as his feet began to obey the music.
Lillian beamed at him. ‘It’s fun, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ he agreed. ‘I never thought it would be, but it is.’
She was a strict teacher.
‘Don’t look at your feet,’ she told him. ‘Head up—arm higher—elbow out—now glide, glide, don’t just walk—think of Fred Astaire!’
‘That’ll be the day,’ James said.
He asked her how she came to learn to dance herself. ‘Did you say your friend taught you all this?’
‘Yeah, Janette. Her parents have got the newsagent’s on the London Road—you know?—and they let her go to lessons, lucky thing.’ She sighed. ‘She goes to everything—ballet, modern, tap and ballroom. It’s so unfair! She’s an only child and they let her do everything she wants. I wish I was her.’
James gave one of her plaits a little tug. ‘I bet she’s a spoilt brat. Not like you,’ he said.
Her sharp little face flushed with delight. ‘Do you like me?’ she breathed.
He was shocked by the longing in her eyes.
‘Of course,’ he said, feeling uncomfortable. ‘You’re a good sport. Now, show me again how that reverse turn goes.’
By the beginning of June he felt he knew enough to venture onto the floor at the Kursaal dance hall on the seafront. He spent an evening steering various girls around, managed not to step on anyone’s feet or bump into any other couples and even found he enjoyed himself.
‘It was fun,’ he admitted to Lillian afterwards. ‘I think I might get to like this dancing lark. Now, the question is, am I good enough at it to ask Wendy out?’
The dancing lessons had been the highlight of Lillian’s life. She could hardly believe her good fortune when James had actually taken her up on her offer. Here was her chance to be really useful to him, to do something for him that nobody else could. She was beside herself with excitement, imagining wafting round a ballroom with him like a film star. More than once she’d got into trouble at school for daydreaming, picturing herself in a wonderful gown, waltzing in James’s arms. Mostly she’d managed to banish from her mind the fact that James wanted to do this because Wendy had said she liked men who would take her dancing. When she did remember, it sent her into such a pit of despair and hatred for her sister that she could hardly bear to be in the same room as her.
For once she was pleased that her family took no notice of her, for nobody remarked on her volatile state and nobody questioned where she was off to. But the pressure of all these new emotions was too great to be contained. She’d confided it all to her bes
t friend Janette as they’d sat eating sweets in her pretty pink bedroom in the flat above the newsagent’s.
‘He’s just the most wonderful person in the whole wide world,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Ooh—’ Janette teased. ‘Have you got a pash on him?’
‘No! It isn’t a pash—’ Pashes were what first formers got on prefects, or even the young PE teacher. This was far more serious, far more painful. It was taking over her life. But she didn’t know what to call it.
‘P’raps it’s love,’ suggested Janette. She reached up to stroke the picture of Frankie Laine that she had cut out of a magazine and pinned on her bedroom wall. ‘I’m in love with Frankie. I kiss him every night before I go to sleep.’
‘That’s only a picture,’ Lillian scoffed.
‘But he’s much more handsome than your precious James,’ Janette said, highly offended. ‘And he’s famous, and he’s got a wonderful voice. When he sings Answer Me I know he’s singing it just for me.’
She sighed dramatically and gazed at her hero.
‘It’s not the same,’ Lillian insisted. ‘The days when I don’t see James are like…like…a desert.’
She didn’t admit, even to Janette, that she cycled the long way back from school each day just so that she could go down the street where James worked. The garage seemed the most wonderful place in the world, while the smell of petrol was sweeter to her than roses. She never got to see him there, although once she had heard someone call his name. She had waited to see if he appeared, but in the end whoever had called must have gone to seek him out. After hanging about outside the garage, she would cycle down the street where he lived, even though she knew he wasn’t there.
‘Do you think he’s interested in you?’ Janette asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Lillian said miserably. ‘He can be so kind, but—’
Burnt into her memory was the time when he had said she was a ‘good sport’. Sometimes she managed to convince herself that this was a compliment, but mostly it brought her close to tears, for she knew in her heart that it was a brush-off.
Follow Your Dream Page 4
