One Day at a Time

by Susan Lewis

  It’s fantastic when you get away with it. We run off screaming down the street and hide somewhere as soon as we can. Doing it is the most terrifying thing in the world though, in case we get caught. We haven’t yet, but we did see someone who was. Lucky for them the manager of Woolworths didn’t call the police, but he told the girls never to set foot in the shop again. We didn’t go there ourselves for ages after, just in case, because I definitely don’t want to swap one prison for another.

  I know it’s wrong to steal, and I do feel bad about it sometimes, but it’s a really good way of getting the private things I need, like bras and tights and knickers without asking Dad. I know I take make-up too, but that’s because it’s easy to drop in my pockets, and anyway, I have to have some for when I go out. It’s the smalls that are the most important though, because I can’t stand Dad even to see my knicks and stuff when I hang them on the line to dry, never mind to think about me getting new ones. (Usually I peg them right down the bottom of the garden, out of view of the house, but then I end up forgetting them and the next thing I know he’s brought them in and I want to curl up and die of embarrassment.)

  Lucky Mandy, she’s got a mum to do her washing and buy her Dr Whites, and so has Julie Archer who goes to Mandy’s school and comes around with us sometimes. Julie’s all right, but she can be quite bossy and if she doesn’t get her way she usually goes off in a sulk, which is really childish, especially for someone who’s nearly fifteen. She’s got a great big crush on Larry Frost, one of the brothers who goes round with Kev and Rich, but he packed her up a few months ago and keeps saying he doesn’t want to go out with her again. I feel sorry for her when she gets upset, because I know how I’d feel if Kev ever packed me up, but at least Larry sees her sometimes and takes her for walks up the common, which is more than Kev ever does with me.

  I’ve heard other girls who hang around the Anchor and Made for Ever club calling Mandy horrible names, which I think is really mean when they don’t actually know her. She’s the kindest and friendliest person I’ve ever met, and if I was older, and tougher, I’d tell them all to shut their faces, because she’s not a scrubber or a groupie. They’re just jealous because Rich Sawyer likes her better than them, and I don’t blame him, because she’s much prettier and more intelligent than all those fat tarts put together. Actually, I suppose some of the older ones are OK, like Judith Prince and Christine Flowers who work up the corset factory in Kingswood, and Ruby Gosling whose dad owns the pub. (Mandy says that Kev’s been out with Judith Prince and shagged her quite a lot of times, but he packed her up last June and now she’s going out with Pete Newman who’s got a scooter that he takes her up the common on.)

  Because everyone’s so horrid to Mandy she doesn’t go down Made for Ever club very much, and I can’t anyway, because you have to be fourteen to get in on Thursday nights, which is when everyone goes. Instead, we go to the bus shelter along Anchor Road, where we sit talking for hours and hours, hoping that Kev and the others might go past on their way up the Horseshoe. If they do, sometimes they stop to see if Mandy wants to go for a walk with Rich, and then they all go along too, leaving me behind to wait on my own for them to come back. Mandy’s sure they’ll ask me to go too one of these days, but it can’t be until bloody half-term now, because the exeats are no good when I have to be back at fucking school by six.

  I’ve written in my diary that I’ve been having lots of shags in case anyone reads it, because there are lots of snoops around the school. The real truth is I haven’t even snogged anyone yet, but I’m dying to. I wish I’d snogged Robert, but it makes me feel really upset when I think that, so I have to stop myself and think about something else. That’s how I got over Mum, by thinking of something else, though I still have times when I get very angry and frustrated inside about not being able to talk to her any more. It just doesn’t seem fair, but nothing is, at least not for me, so why should I care?

  Anyway, if I could, I’d practise snogging on Slash, or one of the other boys who come to the lane, so I’d be good at it by the time I snog Kev, but I don’t want them telling Peg and the others that I’m rubbish at it, or they’ll guess that I’m making things up about Kev.

  Bloody hell, here comes Seaweed, foaming at the mouth and looking like she’s just been chucked up on the shore by Neptune’s dog.

  ‘Susan Lewis, were you not told to report to my office?’ she squawks.

  ‘Yes, miss,’ I answer, sounding bored.

  ‘So what are you doing here?’

  ‘Playing jacks with Sadie, miss.’

  ‘Very clever. Cook wants to know what’s happened to the large tin of coffee that’s vanished from the kitchen, and I feel sure you can enlighten her.’

  I glance up and treat her to one of my dirtiest looks. ‘Why does it have to be me who’s taken it?’ I enquire. ‘Did anyone see me? No, because I haven’t even been in the kitchen.’

  ‘Miss Clutterbuck is searching your cubicle as we speak,’ Seaweed informs me, ‘and if anything is found you’ll be reporting to Miss Dakin, do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, miss, but I’m not worried, because nothing will be found, unless someone’s planted it on me, and if they have, they’ll be sorry.’

  I’m aware of all the first-formers listening, who are already dead scared of me, and now they’ll be scareder still.

  ‘Miss Sayward,’ someone calls, coming through the dining room into the back of the hall, ‘Cook’s looking for you. She’s found the coffee. It got put into the wrong cupboard after the delivery.’

  Seaweed’s face goes purple and starts to twitch. ‘I see,’ she says, her mouth as tight as a duck’s arse, as Granny would say. ‘I’ll come right away.’

  As she follows Carol Beadle from fifth form back through the dining room, I say, ‘Don’t bother to apologise. I don’t mind being called a thief, thank you very much.’

  She either doesn’t hear, or pretends not to, because she keeps on going, and I don’t much care, because someone’s just put ‘Young Girl’ on the record player, and I get so full up with longing for Kev that I can’t think about anything else. I’m going to write him another letter later that Mandy’s promised to pass on, just in case his mother, or that smelly little sister of his, stole the first one I sent.

  After the record’s over I feel restless and stroppy. I want to get out of here so much that I could scream and scream. Maybe I should, they might let me out if they think I’m going mad. I start sifting through the records, trying to sort out which ones are mine. Someone’s put ‘Mony Mony’ on now, which reminds me of the shows, and I feel as though I’m going to burst with frustration. I start to dance with Sadie, but I’m too angry to keep going, so I storm off to the bogs to be on my own. I can’t stop thinking about Kev and feeling terrified that he might be getting off with another girl. I wish I could run across the grounds, out of the gates and all the way home to Kingswood. I need to do something, anything, or I’ll go off my head.

  Returning to the rec area I say to Sadie, ‘Come on, let’s go and blow up bloody first form. I caught one of them looking at me just now, and it’s not allowed.’

  Sometimes I feel sorry for the first years and how mean I am to them, but then I think about how horrible it was for me when I first started, and if I had to go through it, why shouldn’t they?

  Eddie

  Another exeat comes and goes with our Susan remaining at school in detention. As usual I go to see her for an hour after church, but to tell the truth, she doesn’t seem very interested in seeing me. She’s always keen to walk back with Sadie who’s generally in detention with her, linking her arm and whispering the whole way to make sure I can’t hear what they’re saying. Under any other circumstances I’d be heartened to know that she’s made such a good friend of a Red Maid, but considering how often they’re in trouble I can only carry on worrying about where it’s all going to end. With Sadie being a year older I feel inclined to say she’s leading our Susan astray, but I very much fear it’s the o
ther way round.

  Headstrong’s no longer the word to describe my daughter, because from what I’ve been hearing from Miss Sayward, she’s downright defiant, disruptive and offensive. She doesn’t seem to care about anything any more, neither her lessons, nor her behaviour, not even me or Gary. She’s even stopped begging me to let her come home to live with us, which, not so long ago, would have allowed me to hope that she was finally starting to settle down. Now, it’s making me more anxious than ever, but for reasons that I haven’t yet been able to put into words.

  Miss Sayward wants me to talk to Susan, so I tried last Sunday, but to no avail. She was too distracted to listen, and for the few minutes she did she looked at me as though she was tired of the sight of me.

  ‘Do you have to go on and on and on?’ she sighed. ‘I only see you for an hour on a Sunday, and here you are, picking on me already, accusing me of being hostile and uncommunicative, when it’s you who put me here, so if you don’t like the way I’m turning out, you’ve only got yourself to blame.’

  She’s got an answer for everything, and an attitude that’s as unpleasant as it’s annoying. Sometimes I find myself wanting to slap her, and I will if she keeps it up. She might be twelve, but that doesn’t make her too old for a damned good hiding, and our Nance, and her gran, think it’d do her the world of good. I’m inclined to agree, but showing her up in front of her friends at school won’t get us anywhere, and as she’s never at home these days, it’ll have to wait till she is.

  With all my heart I want everything to be right for her, which is why I’m writing to her now, in the hope that reading what I have to say might have more of an impact on her than hearing it, and indeed than a good hiding.

  To give myself guidance I start by writing down a list of words as they come to my mind so that I can sew them in as I go. Goodness. Obedience. Kindness. Respect. Understanding. Tolerance.

  My dear Susan, I’m sorry we had a bit of a falling-out when I was at the church last Sunday. You’re right, I shouldn’t pick on you when the time we have together is so short, so I will try not to do it again. I would like to explain though, how important it is for you to understand the value of obedience and kindness, not only towards me, but to all your elders, whether they be staff at the school, old people like Gran, our neighbours here in Greenways, or strangers you come across in the street. These are qualities that will stand you in very good stead for the future, my love, and will help you a great deal now.

  I know you don’t think so, but your teachers at Red Maids are full of goodness. They have a tolerance that is most admirable when dealing with so many girls at once. It would make me very happy if you would respect them, Susan, because they have your best interests at heart and can do more to help you achieve your goals in life than I will ever be able to.

  Perhaps, when you come home at half-term, we can have a longer chat about all this, and I’ll be happy to help you with your schoolwork, the way I did last year.

  I won’t mention how her marks have gone down since the beginning of this term, she knows, so I don’t need to rub it in. Nor will I mention Miss Sayward’s suggestion, which has come from Miss Dakin, that Susan might benefit from some sessions with a psychiatrist. I’m too afraid of how she might take that, so it would be better to leave it until she’s at home.

  No one’s asked me if I think it’s a good idea. Florrie reckons it’ll end up disrupting her even more, having some stranger probing about in her head, asking all sorts of questions she won’t want to answer, and she might have a point. If our Susan resents it, the way she is now she’ll only take it out on everyone around her, and I certainly don’t want her picking on Gary any more than she already has. However, something has to be done to get her back on the rails, and if our betters at the school think she needs to see a psychiatrist I mustn’t allow myself to dismiss it without at least giving it some consideration.

  A psychiatrist, for heaven’s sake. What on earth would Eddress say? I know what I say – she’d be a different girl now if her mother was here. I’m a failure as a father, useless, no good to her at all.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Susan

  IT’S THE NIGHT before half-term and I’m so excited, and nervous, that I don’t know what to do with myself. Kev’s only agreed to see me next week! Or that’s what Mandy said when she came up to school last Friday, and I don’t see why she’d be lying.

  She met Sadie and me in the back lane during the hour before tea and prep. That’s the really fabsville thing about her life, she can knock off school whenever she likes, while it’s impossible for us to, stuck here round the clock. Slash and the other boys were there too, but Mandy, Sadie and I didn’t take any notice of them. They’re too juvenile, especially compared to Kev and his mates. Let Peg and her friends have the boys; Mandy, Sadie and I are much more interested in chaps who wear jeans and denim jackets and shave every morning while having a smoke, instead of those with spots, braces and bumfluff chins.

  Oh, that reminds me. I smoke now. I decided to take it up when the school governors never bothered to write to me or Dad. It made me realise that I have no choice but to take matters into my own hands – if I want to get out of here then the only way of doing it is to get expelled. I’m serious about it now, no more messing about and saying wouldn’t it be great to get chucked out, because it really would be. So, I’m going to make it happen and that’s that.

  Taking up smoking is part of my plan, though I have to admit I didn’t like it all that much at first. Nor did Sadie, but we’re getting used to it now and don’t choke quite so much. We still haven’t inhaled properly yet, we keep heaving and spluttering every time we try, but Janet Crawley-Phipps and Lisa Dunlop, the older girls who are teaching us behind the stable block before prep, keep insisting it gets easier in time.

  Isabelle, the day girl, still brings the cigarettes from my Auntie Phil, and Auntie Phil still thinks they’re for the older girls, but not all of them are any more, because some are for us. We’ve only bought one packet of No. 6 so far, because that’s all we’ve been able to afford, but we should have more pocket money by the time we come back after the break, so we might even splash out on some Embassy which is what Mum used to smoke. (Dad would go completely berserk if he knew because he hates smoking, but I’m sorry, if he won’t do as I ask and get me out of here, then he’ll have to find out that this is what happens.)

  It’s Top of the Pops tonight, so, as usual, we’re allowed to stay up until the programme’s finished. We all give a groan at the end when it turns out that Mary Hopkin is at number one with ‘Those Were the Days’, because it’s really soppy and square and useless to dance to. It’ll be all the mums and grannies who are buying it, who should have their own chart instead of messing up ours.

  By the time we’re ready for bed I’m getting so worked up about going home tomorrow that I don’t want to sleep, so I suggest to Sadie that we play Johnny on the first form. Babies that they are, they get terrified every time we glide down the dorm under a sheet, clumping a broom handle on the floor to make the sound of Johnny’s wooden leg, and putting on spindly, Seaweed-type voices to tell them they’re all going to die.

  Sadie’s all for it, but we decide to blow them up first, so we turf them out of bed and start marching them up and down the dorm singing grace. It’s hilarious when we make them dance a jig, you should see them hopping about like idiots, and after forcing them down on their hands and knees to crawl back to bed we dash out to the corridor to laugh our heads off. Serves them right. I had to do it, so why shouldn’t they?

  Next comes Johnny, but instead of using a sheet tonight, I climb on Sadie’s shoulders and we wrap two capes around us, making us look like a giant. It’s so funny that we end up collapsing on to Natasha Furloe’s bed, which frightens her so much that she actually wets it.

  What a weed!

  After that I still can’t sleep, so Sadie and I have the brilliant idea of spending the night in the loo. We take our counterpanes, bl
ankets and pillows and wrap ourselves up either side of the toilet. Next thing we know bloody Cluttie’s banging on the door, and we’re sent down on the landing.

  ‘What for?’ I cry as she marches us off in a southerly direction.

  ‘You know very well what for,’ she replies.

  ‘We’re loo mates, so we have to sleep in the loo,’ Sadie tells her.

  ‘Try to grow up,’ Cluttie snaps.

  This really annoys me, so I say, ‘Why don’t you, you old bag?’

  Cluttie stops in her tracks and turns me round to face her. ‘What did you just call me?’ she demands.

  I tilt up my chin, and I’m about to repeat it when I wonder if they can keep me in detention for the entire half-term. Not wanting to risk it, I say, ‘Nothing, miss. Sorry, miss.’

  She eyes me nastily, then shoves me on down the stairs.

  We have to hang around in the draughty, cobwebby dark for over half an hour, jumping out of our skin when the stupid grandfather clock chimes for no reason, and practically belting back up the stairs when we hear footsteps dragging across the staffroom. That place is definitely haunted, and I’m not surprised, given all the old witches that go in there every day.

  I wish Sadie was coming home with me tomorrow, I’d love her to meet Kev, except I’m afraid he might fancy her more than me. Anyway, she has to go to Dover to stay with her parents, which is miles away, so we won’t even be able to meet halfway. Still, they have a phone at her house, so I’ll be able to ring her from the phone box at the bottom of Holly Hill if there’s anything to tell her, which I’ve already promised to do.

  At last Cluttie comes to send us back to the dorm, where we wait about half an hour before returning to the loo. We end up spending the whole night there without being disturbed again. So now we really and truly are loo mates, and will be for ever!

  ‘You are not going out of this house wearing that!’ Dad is shouting.