by Jane Bailey
‘Oooh, Joy! Look at those nails! We’ll have to do something with those!’ Then she looked into my face, circling it with her eyes. ‘You know, you could be quite pretty with some make-up.’
I rolled my eyes.
‘No – really – you could!’
I was devastated, but all I managed was, ‘I’m sure anyone could look quite pretty with make-up.’
‘Oh, I don’t mean it like that. You would look stunning. You are pretty in a natural, country girl sort of way, but there’s a ravishing beauty in there somewhere just waiting to come out!’ At this she leant over and touched my hair, pushing a piece behind my ears. ‘Your hair! The things we could do with that! Gosh, I can’t wait! You won’t know yourself!’
The waitress plonked a pot of tea on our table, with matching jugs of water and milk. I felt embarrassed, because I recognized her suddenly as Olive Truss, who used to go to our Sunday School. I smiled, but she didn’t meet my eyes.
‘Celia … I’m not sure about all this. Can’t I just come as I am – I mean, with nicer clothes?’
Celia breathed in deeply and sat back in her chair. She was quiet for a second or two, and then she said, ‘You know, James really likes you.’
‘James? How on earth can you say that? He’s never met me.’
‘Ah – but he’s seen you.’ The table seemed to float away. A lady on the next table was telling her companion that she wouldn’t employ Derek again if he came begging. A woman’s shout drifted in from the kitchen like an echo: ‘Table four!’ Hooves clopped loudly outside the shop window and a horse’s flank stopped inches from where we were sitting, steaming.
‘Where?’
Celia sighed patiently. ‘Well, on Saturday for a start.’
‘Where, on Saturday?’
‘In town, you goof. Just after you left he came out of the cinema and asked who you were.’
I stared at the tea she was pouring out. She had forgotten to put in the milk, but I was too intrigued to point it out. ‘What did he say, then?’
‘He asked who you were. He said, ‘Who was that lovely girl?’ – or something like that.’
‘So he just saw my back. He might think very differently if he saw my front.’
‘No, no, he’s seen you before.’
‘Where?’
‘Oh, Joy! I don’t know. He just has, I can’t remember. We were driving through the village once and he saw you come out of Griffens.’
‘So he knows I’m a seamstress?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he doesn’t mind?’
‘Why on earth would he? Milk?’
‘Yes, please.’
The ‘fancies’ arrived: a little two-tiered affair with Peek Freans on the bottom and tiny iced yellow and pink cakes on the top. Normally I would have wanted to try them all, but I had no appetite. Celia ate one after another – very delicately chewing with her lips closed – and made arrangements for me to be picked up on Saturday. I said I would prefer to come to them. So it was agreed: seven thirty at Buckleigh House. I could hardly breathe.
‘Do you think I could take one or two of them home for Gracie?’
Celia sighed. ‘We’ll buy some on the way home.’
I fiddled in my coat pocket for my purse, and awkwardly placed two threepenny bits on the tablecloth, which was all I had. Celia picked them up and grinned. ‘That’s an awfully big tip – you are a sweetheart!’ Then she plonked half a crown on a plate as we left, and ignored Olive Truss who said, ‘Thank you, madam’ to her back.
22
When I got home, Grade was sitting by the range, her knitting in her lap. She was looking at her hands in astonishment. It was as if they didn’t belong to her at all and she had just happened to notice them, this very moment for the first time, at the end of her arms.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘When did this happen?’ she said, flexing her fingers. As she did so, the skin puckered into little mountain ranges like the ones on the maps hanging in our classroom. ‘Whenever did they get like this? I used to have lovely hands. Everyone said I had lovely hands … slender … that’s what they said … Look at Gracie’s slender fingers, oh, look how elegant they are on the piano, she should be a pianist.’
I could imagine Gracie with slender white hands. Since I’d seen the photograph, I could see her young and lithe and smiling, ready for anything the excitement of life could throw at her. But the idea that change could happen so quickly, that it could come as a shock to older people, was new to me.
‘Pale, they were. Flawless.’
I could see there were tears in her eyes which she tried to blink away. I knelt down and took one of her brown-blotched hands in mine. It had never occurred to me that these changes would matter to her. I loved her just as she was, didn’t I? But as the tears spilled over down her cheeks and she could not look at me in her shame of it, I saw that it was the waste of it all that mattered. The slender white hands that had barely had a chance to be held. My throat felt sick with sorrow, but I wasn’t certain how much was for Gracie, and how much was for me, because I had always believed I was enough for her. While Gracie cried for her lost youth I was sickened by my own self-pity.
Since my invitation outside The Daffodil I had been plotting ways of going to the party without Gracie needing to know, but Celia turning up like that had forced my hand. Perhaps, after all these years, it was no longer an issue. Or at least, perhaps I could make Gracie see that it wasn’t. There would be no need for me to see her old sweetheart, Mr Buckleigh, at all, and she surely wouldn’t stop me from going to my first proper party. I sat down opposite her and produced the cakes we had bought.
‘Oh, Joy. You needn’t have done that, you silly. How much did that lot cost?’ My silence told her who had bought them. ‘I won’t stop you going, you know.’ We smiled at each other. ‘In fact, I’ve been thinking about a dress for you. That new silk’ve come in, and I reckon we’ve just time to run you up something from the catalogue.’
She brought out the pattern book from beside her chair – a heavy book we usually kept in the shop. The corners of several pages had already been folded down, and they were beautiful dresses: the very latest fashions.
I went to stand behind her chair, bent down and hugged her. I could feel a tear sandwiched between our two cheeks.
‘You’re going to be the belle of the ball.’
I went to sit at her feet and stroked her hands as she leafed through the pages. ‘I thought you’d be dead against it.’
‘Me? All I want is for you to be happy, my love. I don’t want you stopping at home and wasting your life like I did. You get on out there and find yourself a husband—’ I opened my mouth to protest but she put her finger on it – ‘then I shall have some grandchildren to entertain me in my dotage!’
‘Your dotage!’
We giggled, and I hugged her lap.
‘There’s only one thing you must promise me, mind.’
‘What’s that?’
‘There’s a lad – Celia’s brother …’
‘James?’
‘Is that him? Well, don’t go messing with him, will you?’
‘What d’you mean, messing?’
‘Leave well alone. Go for any of the young men you like, but he’s no good for you.’
I frowned, and sat back on my heels. ‘What do you mean?’
Gracie had that hunted look I’d seen only a few times before, and the last time had been in the dress shop when Celia flounced in. She swallowed, and I saw that her eyes were glistening with tears. ‘He’s no good, Joy – just stay away from him. Promise me you’ll stay away from him.’
There seemed nothing else to do. Nothing would stop me going to the party on Saturday night, and nothing would stop me seeing James Buckleigh. If Gracie was right about him, I was perfectly capable of finding out for myself. And I had begun to enjoy the feeling of Gracie being on my side, plotting to dazzle them all: the country girl in the most sizzling dress of the sea
son.
‘I promise.’
She squeezed my hand, then turned the catalogue round for me to see. ‘This one would cause a stir: shaped seams under a lightly gathered bust – diamond-shaped bodice; softly pleated skirt; matching clutch bag – I could do that for you – it’s just a little fold-over affair …’
23
The days until Saturday were like hunger. An empty stomach before a long-awaited meal. Everything around me became a threat to Saturday: opening a tin might chip my nail, walking in the woods might cover me in gnat bites, a sleight of the hand at work might snag the silk and ruin the emerging dress.
At night with my eyes closed for sleep, I would cover every possibility. I practised my entrances and exits, my hellos, my demure smiles, my modest replies to flattery. In my dreams I could flirt, make people laugh, win people over without even trying. And sometimes it would occur to me that I hadn’t even seen James, except as a dull smudge in a photograph and as a dark profile in a car. But I had seen his sketches, been in his room, stood in the heart of his chaos, and I had smelt his shoes. Years of fantasy could not be wiped out so easily, and nothing could convince me he was not the man for me.
On Saturday afternoon I bathed by the fire and washed my hair over the sink. Gracie put grips in my damp fringe to give it a wave around my face. At four o’clock I tried on my cream-coloured outfit. At seven o’clock I put it on again and paced the parlour, breathing deeply. Gracie placed a dark green shawl around my shoulders to match my glass beads, the little velvet clutch bag she had made, and the shoes she had dyed for me.
I set off at around ten past seven, calculating that it would be better to be early than late – although, looking back, I cannot imagine why. The evening sun was still warm, and bathing everything in its mellow glow.
When I arrived it was barely twenty past, even though I had trodden slowly up the hill to protect my shoes. I stood at the gates and wondered how I should get in: there was no bell. The car was in front of the house, and I could hear faintly the sound of movement inside: a door shutting or opening, a woman’s voice rising and dipping. I took a few paces back and stood by the wall at the side of the gate. Glancing at my little bracelet watch, I was suddenly embarrassed to be early. I didn’t want to be found staring through the bars of the gate like some waif. I stood still by the wall, hoping no one I knew would walk past and see me.
Eventually the voices erupted from the house, and began to get louder.
‘Oh please, James, please!’
‘You’re an arch troublemaker! I don’t see why I should go out with some grubby little village girl just to please you!’
‘James, you’ve got to – she’ll be here soon—’
‘I know what you’re up to, Celia – don’t think I don’t know the little games you play.’
His voice was getting louder, and I realized he was coming to open the gates. I took off my shoes and ran as nimbly as I could down the road, but I could hear the iron clang as he opened the gates. I replaced my shoes and, just in time, started to walk as slowly and elegantly as my emotions would allow back towards the house.
‘Hello!’ he said, on seeing me. ‘You must be …’
‘Joy.’ I couldn’t bring myself to smile.
‘Joy!’ He stood and looked at me for a moment. I hardly dared to look at him, but swallowed hard, and when I did look, I was distraught to find that he wasn’t the ghoul I now wished he was.
‘Well …’ He indicated his own immaculate evening suit. ‘You put me to shame.’
I bit my lip. I tried to remember all my well-practised greetings, the casual little laughs, that urbane, confident, popular Joy who had been so ready to meet the world. All I wanted to do was cry. I wanted to cry so badly that I had to hold my lips between my teeth.
‘Won’t you come in?’
‘I … I don’t really feel like a party. If you don’t mind, I think I might …’
He came towards me and took my arm. ‘Thank heavens for that! I don’t feel like a wretched party either … Why don’t we sneak off somewhere else?’
As he drew me through the gates, I could see that Celia, not realizing I was there, had gone inside. He led me silently to the car and, opening the passenger side, beckoned me in with a wink. I felt so wretched that all power had gone out of me and I did as I was told. And I was terrified of Celia coming out. The only thing worse than sneaking off with someone who thought I was a grubby little village girl, would be to spend an evening with a whole crowd of people who thought I was a grubby little village girl. As soon as we were out of the gates, I would ask him to take me home.
We drove up the road, and continued for a minute or two until he turned down a lane and stopped the car on the crest of the hill. The sun was gathering pink clouds around itself, and we could see way across the western valley.
He sat staring at it for a moment. ‘Where would you like to go, then?’
‘Home.’
He turned to look at me, and his eyes were the darkest green, his lashes long and black under thick brows. I took in his beauty and dismissed it. I loathed him and I loathed his sister. Everything they stood for made me sick, and I felt these things as a stranglehold around my throat.
‘Oh, please don’t say that.’
‘I want to go home.’
He put his hand up to his forehead and raked his dark hair desperately. ‘Heavens! You think I brought you here to … you think … look, I only wanted to avoid passing Celia’s cronies on the road. And it’s so nice here. I wasn’t trying to …’ He looked at me so helplessly, I put him out of his misery.
‘No, honestly. I really do just want to go home.’ I said it in such a bumpkinish way. I didn’t care any more.
‘Oh hang! You did want to go to the party, didn’t you? Look, I can take you if you like. There’s bound to be someone there far better than me – someone who can show you a good time.’
I fiddled with my clutch bag. Gracie had stayed up late embroidering the front with gold thread, and it broke my heart. ‘Please. I know you don’t want to be here with me, but you don’t have to make it so obvious.’
He let out a huge sigh, ‘Look, I’m sorry. It’s Celia – she’s such a manipulator – she plays these games with people.’
I stared at the luxurious chrome and green glove compartment. ‘I’m beginning to see that now.’
The leather seat was so comfortable, the sunset so glowing – everything was so perfect – I had to stop blinking to prevent anything from spilling over on to my carefully powdered face.
‘Come on,’ he said, turning on the engine. ‘I’m taking you somewhere.’
We went into Cheltenham and left the car at the top of the Promenade. He took me to the Gaumont cinema, but the showing was full. We trouped over to the Coliseum, but that was full too. I felt almost sorry for him, trying to do right by a grubby village girl. But he wouldn’t give up. He suggested The Daffodil, which meant a long walk back through town. My shoes were already hurting: some grit had got in them from my shoeless scamper outside his house, and it had remained trapped against my stocking. By the time we came to the Promenade, I couldn’t conceal a limp.
‘You know, I ought to pick you up and carry you.’
I smiled weakly, and carried on disguising the pain as best I could. We walked on in a crushing silence, each second seeming to underline the failure of the evening.
All of a sudden he put his arm around me and grabbed me behind the knees, sweeping me up into his arms. He marched along the pavement, face fixed, as if nothing untoward had happened, and didn’t put me down until we were outside the cinema.
We went in to see King Kong. I didn’t tell him I’d seen it before, because I assumed he knew. But oddly, if he was to be believed, it was the first time he’d seen it.
We had missed the supporting film, and arrived just as the lights were dimming after the interval. The attendant showed us to two empty seats between two other couples on the back row. Even this offended me. Di
d we really look like a couple who wanted a back seat, dressed up to the nines as we were, so that we could slobber over each other in the dark?
I was relieved when the darkness came, though. That first dimness, so imperceptible that you feel you’ve imagined it, followed by the reassuring extinguishing of light. Now at last I could wallow in my misery without being seen, and I realized that the iron hold on my throat was so tight I was ready to burst. I would have to wait until the end of the film before there was any legitimate opportunity for a sob, so I bided my time, running through the things that had happened, from the insult at the gate to the strange arrival here in his arms. I slipped off my shoes in the dark and remembered doing so outside his house. I wanted to dwell on the insult, to run it over and over again, to be certain of it, to loathe it, to savour it. There could be no mistaking what he had said, and what he had meant by it. He saw me as so vulgar, so scummy, so pitiable, so coarse that he couldn’t bear to be matched with me. (So Celia had lied, and that was something else which made me fume, but I would have to deal with that later.) And now he was trying to act the gentleman and overdoing it out of sheer charity. Well, he could keep his charity. I glanced at him once or twice, but he was staring solemnly at the film. I thought he looked at me once or twice, too, but I couldn’t be sure. And I didn’t care. The couple on my left were beginning to get amorous, and I felt uncomfortable. I could tell the couple on his right were rustling about a bit too. Both of us pretended not to notice. And what did he mean by ‘grubby’ anyway? I had been wearing a perfectly decent dress and cardigan last week. They had been clean. I wiggled my sore toes and pushed them under the seat. I was sure I didn’t smell – did I smell? Lord above. I tried to lean away from him, but came across the couple who were now foraging in each other’s clothes. And what did he think he was playing at, picking me up like that? If he thought he could make a laughing stock of me just because I worked in a shop, just because I didn’t pour my tea like Celia and say wizard and frightful and go on exeats and stuff my face with buns every day … ooh! I had a good mind to stand up and walk out! I was just gearing up for this dramatic action, when there was a distinct little moan from the girl on my left, and James leant over to me and whispered, very close to my ear, ‘Would you like to move somewhere else?’
