One Day at a Time

by Susan Lewis

  Gertie pats her hair, trying not to look defeated. I can’t say I like seeing her embarrassed and hurt, but better that than let her stay. Heaven only knows how embarrassed and hurt we’d both end up then.

  ‘Well, I s’pose I’d better be getting home,’ Betty says. ‘I’m going up the road later, if there’s anything you want.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, ‘but I expect I’ll go up myself, with our Nance. Nice to see you, Gertie. Hair’s looking smart. Say hello to your Bert for me. Tell him if he wants to borrow my bike again, the puncture’s mended now.’ Bert’s her brother, who’s lodging with her while his house is being redecorated after a fire.

  ‘That’s kind of you, I’ll pass it on.’ She takes out her cigarettes and offers them round. Betty takes one, but I don’t. ‘I’d best be on my way then,’ Gertie says, shaking out the match and blowing two streams of smoke from her nostrils. ‘Me and our Bert’ll be over the Anchor tonight, if you wants to join us.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, hating and loving the smell of the smoke. It reminds me of Eddress in a way that seems to make all the clouds in the world gather at once. She’d probably still be here if she hadn’t become addicted to that evil weed. ‘If there’s time,’ I add. I’m not a drinker, and I’ll have my hands full with cooking our Gary’s tea and putting him to bed, but I don’t have to tell Gertie that.

  When finally they go, I wait in the kitchen, willing them not to stand out by the gate gossiping, or they’ll start to wonder where our Nance is.

  This time, fortune’s on my side, because after a couple of minutes they tread on their fag ends and go their separate ways.

  Now, where was I, before I made a great big chump of myself? Oh, that’s right, trying to mend our Gary’s shoes. He’s gone to school in his daps today, or plimsolls as his teacher calls them, but they won’t do now it’s getting cold, nor with all the rain we’ve been having lately. I’ll have to get him a new pair of shoes soon, because the ones I’m repairing are starting to pinch, but we’ll have to stretch it out as long as we can. Money’s going to be tight now we’re having these strikes, and it won’t be long before I have to find the fees for Susan’s next term.

  It’d cheer her up no end to think we can’t afford to send her there any longer, but I’m not going to let that happen. Come what may, I’ll find the wherewithal and she can holler and shout all she likes when I take her back after Christmas, I won’t be listening, because I know she’s a lot more settled there than she’s letting on to us all.

  I’m not sure about the black eyebrow pencil she asked for in her latest letter though. I can’t imagine those girls are allowed to have make-up, especially not at her age. And black, when she’s got red hair? That can’t be right, but I can already see the face on her if I turn up on Sunday without this pencil. If I do give in, though, I’ll probably end up getting her into trouble for having something that’s banned.

  Dearie me, what to do for the best?

  Susan

  ‘Are you ready? Get steady. Go!’

  Everyone shrieks and screams as we launch ourselves off the top of our wardrobes to plunge, kilts round our ears, stockings twisted round our thighs, on to our beds below.

  Five flying angels. And it didn’t hurt a bit, unlike when we had to jump off the piano in the classroom and I nearly broke my back. That was how it felt, anyway. It was agony. I screamed and screamed, so did everyone else because they were really scared. They were grouped around me, jumping up and down, not knowing what to do, while I writhed and sobbed and yelled for my dad. It turned out I’d landed on my cockish, or something like that (it sounds a bit rude, anyway), and Cluttie went on and on making a huge fuss about the dangerous things we do, and if there’s any more of it, she’ll send us to Miss Dakin. If that happens we might have to sign the black book, and anyone whose name goes in three times gets expelled.

  I’d love to be expelled.

  So would everyone else. We all agree it’s absolutely foul here, and we absolutely detest it, and if the only way out is to get chucked out, then that’s what we’ll have to do. I don’t want to hurt my back again though, so I’ll have to find another way to get my name in the black book.

  I wish they’d expel Nina Lowe. I hate her, but at least she’s leaving me alone more now, since Sadie told Paula Gates about the way I was made to sleep in wet pyjamas. When she heard about it Paula walked straight up to Nina’s bed, ordered Nina out of her cubicle and right in front of everyone, she told Nina that if she ever did it again she’d report her. Nina went so red in the face I thought she was going to catch fire. I even thought she was going to do something horrible to Paula, but she can’t, because Paula’s Upper Sixth which means she’s in charge. I know Nina wants to kill me now, but if she comes near me Laura has promised to go straight to Sadie or Paula.

  ‘OK. Well done, everyone!’ Cheryl shouts. ‘Five more fully-fledged angels.’ Everyone’s saying ‘OK’ now, so I am too. Mum always said I shouldn’t, because it’s American slang, but she was just being old-fashioned. I don’t expect she’d mind so much if she heard the Red Maids saying it.

  I’m still feeling all breathless and excited from my jump, and as though I want to do it again, but I’m secretly quite glad when no one suggests it.

  We’re in Speedwell dorm with two girls from Discoverer who came to join us because the other first-formers in their dorm are too chicken to fly, and are getting a blowing up now from Discoverer second form. Glad it’s not me. If I find one of them crying later I’ll tell her to ignore them, they’re just bullies and it’s all right if you’re too scared to risk your life trying to fly. (It’s not, but I don’t want to make them feel any worse than they already do.)

  ‘Now, tonight is the last night Johnny’s going to visit,’ Sadie tells us.

  I feel myself going cold, but I don’t want everyone to know I’m a coward so I keep my head up and carry on looking at Sadie. She’s got lovely dimples in her cheeks and her eyes shine like sparklers when she’s in a good mood, which is most of the time. I still haven’t plucked up the courage to ask if I can get struck on her yet, but I’m trying. At the moment I’m struck on Claire Radley who’s in second form Seabreake. I chose her because she’s quite ugly, so I thought she wouldn’t mind that I’m ugly too. She’s a bit boring though, because she’s not very mod, or anything, and she’s got loads of spots which makes me wish she wouldn’t kiss me goodnight. I’m afraid one of them might burst in my face. I only got struck on her because everyone said I had to be struck on someone, and I didn’t want Nina Lowe blowing me up again for thinking I’m better than everyone else.

  ‘And how do I know it’s Johnny’s last night?’ Sadie’s asking.

  ‘Because tomorrow is Founder’s Day,’ Laura answers, ‘and he never comes after that.’

  ‘Correct.’ Sadie claps her hands. She’s always really enthusiastic about everything, especially pop music, like me.

  I still haven’t heard back from Davy Jones who I wrote to over a month ago. I sent it to Top of the Pops so they might be waiting for the next time he’s on the programme to give it to him. I wonder where he actually lives.

  Here’s what I said,

  Dear Davy, my name is Susan and I think you’re really fab and groovy. I have lots of pictures of you in my cubicle at school and I kiss them all goodnight before I go to bed. I’m going to be fourteen on my next birthday (everyone says I look much older than my real age so I reckon it was all right to put that – he’ll be more interested if he thinks I’m grown up). I would love to meet you and if you’re looking for a girlfriend I think you’d like me. I’m not sending a photograph, because I haven’t got any (I don’t want him to know I’ve got ginger hair or he might be put off!) but if you can send one of you, signed to Su Lu, because that’s what all my friends at school call me, then that would be great.

  I love watching you on Top of the Pops, and on The Monkees. You are the greatest, the grooviest, the coolest and the most lush. I love you, Su Lu (and then
I filled up the rest of the page with kisses).

  ‘So, Su Lu,’ Sadie is saying, ‘as the youngest in our dorm it’ll be you who Johnny leaves a letter for. In it he’s going to tell you how well you’re doing at school and whether or not everyone likes you.’

  Though I do my best to keep smiling, I’m not finding it very easy, because I’m very nervous and worried. It’s true, people have been a bit nicer to me lately, and since I started to realise that everyone else hates it here I haven’t felt quite so much of an odd one out. Apart from when they’re taking the mickey out of my hair, or my eyebrows, or my accent, that is. They’re not doing it so much any more, though. I wonder if it’s because everyone knows Paula Gates is on my side. It was her idea for me to get an eyebrow pencil. She said it one day when I was in her private room with Laura, watching her putting make-up on Sadie and Cheryl. She’s really good at it and they’d looked really super when she’d finished. Then, when Dad brought me an eyebrow pencil, like I asked, I took it to her and she showed me how to put it on. I think I looked a bit stupid actually, with thick black lines over the tops of my eyes, but everyone said it was really cool.

  I hope they weren’t laughing at me behind my back.

  If only I was in second form already. If I was then Johnny wouldn’t be visiting me again tonight to deliver a letter. I know the youngest in every dorm is getting one, and we’re all dreading it. He should stay away from us, the revolting monster. Anyway, I know he’s really someone from second or third form hiding under a sheet with a broom handle to make the sound of his wooden leg. I haven’t let on to anyone that I know that, just in case I’m not right and they all start laughing at me, but I’m sure I am. It doesn’t stop me being scared, though.

  Anyway, apparently he’s going to leave a parchment letter under my bed, and I’m not allowed to look at it until tomorrow morning when I’ll probably get to find out that everyone in the entire school hates me.

  I wonder who’s really going to write it. (I don’t care what anyone says, I know there’s no such thing as ghosts really, so it can’t be him.) I even know how the piano plays on its own now. Someone from second or third form Sellotapes cotton to the keys, then they hide under Laura’s bed when no one’s looking and after lights out they pull the cotton and because no one else can see it, it looks like the piano’s playing itself. Laura told me, because Cheryl told her.

  It must be lovely having a sister.

  I wonder what Gary’s doing today. He hasn’t written to me lately. I’ve had loads of letters from my aunties and uncles though – on my mum’s side I’ve got more than ten aunties and uncles and on my dad’s side I’ve got three. I used my best handwriting when I wrote to them, and double-checked my spelling – I even remembered to ask how all my cousins are. They all wrote back saying more or less the same thing, that they’re sorry I don’t like my school, but they’re sure I’ll grow to in no time at all. Not one of them said they’d talk to Dad to persuade him to let me go home, like I asked, so it just goes to show that none of them care about me really. In fact, no one in the world does, not even Dad, or he’d have given in by now and taken me home – and if Mum’s watching I don’t think she cares much any more, because she never does anything to help me.

  I wonder if she can, where she is.

  Anyway, I definitely feel like an orphan.

  Gary can’t come to the cathedral tomorrow for the Founder’s Day service because he has to go to school, but Dad promised to take a day off so he could be there. It’s really dumb what we have to do. Everyone’s in a bad mood about it, because we have to walk all the way from school, across the Downs and down over Park Street to the cathedral wearing our dark red capes and straw bonnets.

  I hope Davy Jones never sees me like that.

  Or George Harrison.

  Or anyone else I know.

  ‘Su Lu, are you paying attention?’

  It’s Sadie who’s asked and I feel really soft for having been caught out. I hate it when I feel soft, it makes me angry and like I want to start shouting at someone, maybe myself.

  ‘Do you have something to say?’ Sadie asks me.

  I can feel my face starting to burn as I shake my head. I expect my freckles look like stupid specks of sick on a piece of red paper now.

  ‘Are you scared about the letter?’ Sadie says.

  I shake my head again, but I am.

  ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ she tells me.

  Everyone’s looking at me.

  ‘I know,’ I say.

  She looks a bit surprised, then she says to Cheryl, ‘Do you think we should let them go now?’

  Cheryl nods. ‘They’ve done their angels and … Oh, wait a minute, we’ve forgotten the most important thing. The cellar.’

  ‘Oh bloody hell,’ Sadie says. She likes swearing. Everyone does, and we’d do it a lot more if we didn’t keep forgetting to. I know loads of words, but I don’t have the guts to use them yet. I want to hear someone else say them first. Or I suppose I could always teach them if they haven’t heard them themselves.

  ‘OK,’ Sadie says. (It sounds really good when she says it.) ‘One of you has to go down into the cellar under Dotty’s study and bring back a bottle of wine to prove you went. So who’s it going to be?’

  I can feel my mouth turning dry. I don’t want it to be me, but somehow I already know that it’s going to be. I can feel Laura and the others looking at me.

  ‘What happens if we get caught?’ Laura thinks to ask.

  Sadie and Cheryl shrug. ‘No one ever has been,’ Sadie answers, ‘but I expect you’d have to sign the black book.’

  If I signed that book it would make me famous and take me one step closer to being expelled. I’m terrified of being expelled really, but it’s definitely what we all want. I think some girls are just saying it to try and look big and actually I might be one of them, but there again, I might not, because at least it would get me out of here. ‘I’ll go,’ I say.

  Sadie looks impressed and really pleased. So do Cheryl and the others. By tonight they’ll have told everyone else about how quick I was to offer, and they’ll all think how cool I am, and fearless and much more grown up than the rest of the immature first form who don’t have the guts to smuggle a jar of Marmite into the dorm, much less to sneak down a tunnel for a bottle of wine.

  ‘When does she have to do it?’ Laura asks.

  Sadie looks at the clock. It’s five past four. We have to change into our evening uniforms by ten past, ready for tea, then we’ve got some free time until prep at five.

  I shiver and hope she’s not going to say now, because it’s freezing outside and starting to get dark.

  ‘If you want to come to our midnight feast,’ Sadie says to me, ‘you can, but only if you bring some of Dotty’s wine. So it’s up to you when you go. Before or after tea.’

  My heart’s doing some big thuds now. No first-formers ever get invited to an older girls’ midnight feast. It would make me a legend if I went, but the thought of going down that tunnel in the dark and not knowing what I might find waiting for me at the bottom – dead bodies, vampires, skeletons – is sucking out all my courage.

  Everyone else is looking excited and eager and ready to go. It’s all right for them, they only have to keep watch.

  ‘When you get the wine,’ Sadie says, ‘take it to Paula’s room. She’ll keep it with the food we’ve already smuggled up here.’

  That’s another thought, how am I going to get a bottle of wine past Cluttie? Even when she’s in the nursery, her spies are out on the landing because she’s like a Hydra. The other matrons aren’t much better, Miss Daisy and Miss Hunter. (Miss Hunter looks exactly like Harry Worth, which is hilarious and definitely true, because even Dad says he can see the resemblance.) A bottle of wine isn’t something I can stick up my jumper or down a stocking top without it being noticed.

  I wish I hadn’t said I’d do it now, because even though I want my name in the black book, and I’m dying to go t
o the midnight feast, I definitely don’t want to go down that cellar.

  As it turns out God’s on my side, because while we’re having our peanut butter and lemon curd sandwiches for tea (which, for the first time ever I couldn’t eat because I was so nervous) a humungous storm breaks out with thunder and lightning howling round the school, and even some hail, so there’s no way anyone can go outside.

  It’s the nicest thing God’s ever done for me, because normally He just ignores everything I ask Him.

  We’re in prep now and I’m having to write my history as though I’m a river. So this is what I write:

  At first I started out as a very small stream and little children often used to paddle through my cool waters. They had several names for me. They called me either Lilly Brooke, or Buttercup Stream, or Pebbles Puddle or just the brook. I got used to the children and came to know their names. There was Sheila, Paul, Lynn, Susan, Nicola and John. I was in the middle of the country and there was just one big house where all the children lived with their mum and dad. I was there, just behind the wall in the children’s garden, for more years than I can remember. It was only about fifty years ago when it all happened. It was a stormy day, the wind was howling and the rain was coming down in buckets. There was so much of it that I turned into a river.

  I’m hoping I might get a Commended for that. I’ve had quite a few already for maths and English and French, so I’m not anywhere near the bottom of the class the way I expected to be. I keep wondering if it might be better if I was, because if I’m not doing well with my lessons there wouldn’t be any point to sending me here, would there?

  We’ve got half an hour now before supper, then it’s bedtime. I’m trying not to think about the letter Johnny’s going to bring, but I can’t think about anything else.

  ‘Su Lu, do you want to come and play some records?’

  It’s Peg and her gang asking, which is very nice of them because they don’t normally include me. ‘All right,’ I say, ‘but only if Laura can come too.’