GOOD DAUGHTERS Read online

  Now, as she went up to the bedroom, she felt bodily discomfort to add to her meanness of spirit. Her clothes no longer fitted her properly; her dress pulled beneath her breasts and was too tight under the arms. She had a headache, and her hair felt messy.

  She went to the window without speaking to Claire. She liked the winter view when the trees had lost their leaves and she could see much further. It was nearly four o’clock. The sun had set, although the sky to the west was still tinged with a pale, frosty pink. The street lamps had not yet been lit, but there were lights in several rooms and chimneys were smoking. The chimney fires made her think of crumpets, and this made her think of Grandmother Fairley. Her grandmother was now very ill, and Alice had only been to visit her once. She should have gone with her father this afternoon, but had made out to her mother that her period pains were bad. She did not even feel sorry.

  It was becoming dark and very cold in the room. Claire had her dressing gown on and the eiderdown wrapped around her. In spite of all this discomfort, Alice suddenly felt excited when she thought of the mysterious life that was going on in shaded rooms where the lights had not yet been lit. Her moods swung unpredictably lately. She opened the window and leant out into the sharp, smoky air. She wanted to reach out, to be drawn into, to take part . . . But in what?

  ‘I’ve made up a story about Kashmir,’ she said to Claire. ‘Do you want to hear it?’

  ‘As long as you shut the window.’

  Alice put on her dressing gown and sat on her bed with the eiderdown draped across her stomach.

  ‘There’s this mysterious place which travellers have always sought. No one knows where it is, you see. Some people have searched for it down the Amazon, and others in the Himalayas, and in deserts, too. And all the time, it has been hidden away in an ordinary town like Shepherd’s Bush.

  ‘People see the brick wall from different angles, like we can see part of the wall of Kashmir from this window; but no one sees the whole wall so they don’t realize there’s a place hidden away there.

  ‘Then this boy and girl decide to climb the wall because they have been told there is an old mulberry tree there and they haven’t ever had mulberries. And when they get over the wall . . .’

  ‘How do they get over the wall?’ asked Claire, who felt all the interesting things were being left out.

  ‘I haven’t worked that out yet.’

  ‘Do they go in the house?’ Claire asked impatiently.

  ‘No, they sit on the grass.’

  ‘Sit on the grass!’

  ‘You see, it’s the garden that matters.’

  ‘What’s so special about the garden?’ Claire was plainly disgusted.

  ‘You can sit on the lawn and pick the flowers; there’s nothing forbidden.’

  Claire screwed up her face trying to think of rules she might like to break. ‘Is that all?’

  Alice had seen it in a dream, just two people, a girl and a boy, sitting on the grass making a garland of flowers. It was hard to understand what was so disturbing about that; and yet, in the dream, when the image came to her there came with it the sense of something dreadful awaiting these two beyond their border of flowers. She had been at once entranced and terrified. The one sensation did not follow the other: the enchantment and the menace were inextricably part of the image. But it was the terror which had been uppermost when she awakened. If only she could write the story, perhaps she could recapture the enchantment. ‘It’s not finished yet,’ she said to Claire. ‘I’ll have to do a lot more work on it.’

  Their mother called to them that tea was ready, and they went downstairs talking about the sort of dog they would have.

  The next day was Sunday, and they went on a bus to hear their father preach in a chapel in Cricklewood. Alice’s new friend, Irene, came with them, and she and Alice sat together. Claire looked out of the window. They were travelling through an area which seemed to consist entirely of railway arches and coalyards; the few houses, sooty and dour, were unnoticeable until the bus was on top of them and, once passed, faded quickly into the grime. It was hard to imagine Kashmir hidden away here, but not so hard to imagine the families of the men who had been left to die in the coal mine.

  It was a solemn service, because this was the first Sunday Armistice Day since 1928. They had heard on the wireless before they left home that thousands of people had been to the Cenotaph, and there was a mountain of wreaths there. Mr Fairley preached a particularly long sermon as befitted the occasion.

  As they went through the dingy streets on their way home, Alice commented on the lack of window-boxes. Even in the poorest areas of Acton there were window-boxes, and in most of the streets there were houses with laurels in the front gardens and an occasional tree. There was no green here, and the whole area looked and smelt as if it had been sprayed in coal dust.

  ‘Do they have enough to eat?’ Claire asked her father.

  ‘I’m sure they don’t,’ he said grimly, looking at his watch and thinking they would be late for their own dinner.

  They sat down to eat at half-past one. Irene, an only child, was three months younger than Alice, but seemed older. She had an air of grave assurance, and spoke as one used to being taken seriously. In answer to Mr Fairley’s question, she said that her parents went to the Church of England, although her father had been a Quaker. ‘I’ve been to one or two Quaker meetings, and I haven’t made up my mind yet whether I want to be confirmed.’ The Fairley girls were impressed that something so important was to be left to Irene to decide: this, presumably, was the way with the notoriously lax Church of England. Mr Fairley put in a few good words for the Quakers.

  ‘I’m not very good at being silent.’ For a moment a more mischievous person showed an inclination to take over, but was apparently banished when Mr Fairley expounded his views on the Quaker silence. Irene, used to attention herself, was also an admirable listener. There was, however, a not entirely appropriate merriment in her eyes as she regarded Mr Fairley which suggested she might be enjoying his performance as much as his ideas. At school, she had the reputation of being a good mimic.

  She left before tea, saying her thank you as though it must be a matter of some importance to the Fairleys to know that she had enjoyed herself. Obviously she did not see her visit as an incidental part of their busy day. Irene had not yet found that undemanding position which lies between being of integral importance in the lives of others and of no importance at all.

  Alice accompanied Irene to the bus stop. Mr Fairley, watching them from the window, said, ‘A firm little character that!’ He was by no means disapproving.

  ‘And such pretty bobbed hair,’ Louise said. Her own thick, springy hair would look splendid bobbed.

  ‘You can’t play this dream child with bobbed hair,’ her mother said. ‘Irene will be a good influence on Alice. Perhaps she won’t see so much of Katia now.’

  ‘It’s Katia who won’t have time for Alice,’ Louise laughed. ‘She’s going to prompt our play.’

  ‘I’m surprised at Jacov encouraging her.’

  ‘So am I. She’s an awful prompt; all she thinks about is the boys.’

  ‘At her age!’ Mr Fairley was shocked.

  ‘She was fifteen in September,’ Judith said. ‘She’s older than Alice.’

  ‘But she’s still a child,’ he insisted, thinking of Alice.

  Alice did not throw one friend over for another, and she continued to see Katia and enjoyed listening to accounts of rehearsals on their way home from school. While Claire raced ahead to the tram terminus to help the conductor turn the seats the other way, Katia told Alice about the boy who was stage managing. ‘He says I’m always under his feet. He picked me up and sat me in a wastepaper basket the other day. Then on the way home he wanted to make it up with me. He pulled me into Shanks Alley.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Alice asked with interest, for who knew but that similar experiences might lie ahead of her.

  ‘He tried to kiss me and I spat at h
im.’

  This seemed to Alice a foreign solution, like kissing hands and clicking heels, and she could not imagine herself adopting it.

  On the day of the Royal Wedding they went for a walk in Holland Park. Neither was much interested in the royal romance, but they were glad of the day’s holiday. Katia told Alice, ‘I’ve got a boyfriend in Germany. He tried to take my knickers down.’

  Alice, as taken aback by the crudity of the statement as the act itself, said, ‘How awful, Katia! Weren’t you frightened?’

  ‘I was at first; my legs went shaky. But it’s surprising how hard you can fight when you have to. I felt fine and he got scared; so I let him kiss me and fondle me a bit.’ Then, as Alice was silent, contemplating fondling, she added, ‘Of course I wouldn’t do that with Brian; he’s got a spotty face and I don’t really like him. I wouldn’t go too far with Ernst, either.’

  How far was too far? Alice wondered. She asked, ‘What does Jacov think?’

  ‘He doesn’t notice me; he only thinks about your sister. They’re all mad about your sister, Jacov and Ben and Guy.’

  ‘I didn’t think Ben liked Louise. He’s always so nasty with her.’

  ‘That’s because he’s mad about her, stupid! If I was Louise, I’d have him.’

  ‘Don’t you like Guy? I think he’s ever so handsome.’ And he would never push Louise into Shanks Alley or try to take her knickers down.

  ‘You haven’t got a pash on Guy, have you? He’s soft!’ Katia spat her contempt. ‘Ugh! It must be like kissing butter.’

  The way that Katia said this gave the impression of her having watched someone kissing Guy. Perhaps Louise had to kiss Guy during rehearsals, or perhaps she kissed him after rehearsals? When a suitable opportunity arose, Alice decided she must have a talk with Louise about kissing – and about fondling and this ‘too far’ business.

  That evening, however, Alice had other business to attend to. The play was to be presented on the Friday and Saturday of the following week, and tonight there was a dress rehearsal with make¬up. Louise had said to Alice, ‘If I’m going to be back by nine o’clock there won’t be any time to get my make-up off. I shall have to rush home and Daddy will be horrified if he sees my face. If you can let me in I can go up to the bathroom and get it off before he sees me.’

  So Alice, eiderdown wrapped round her, was sitting by her bedroom window anxiously staring into the dimly-lit street. It was a wild night, and the wind blew the branches of the trees and howled in the chimney. In the sitting-room where Stanley Fairley was listening to the wireless, smoke gusted out of the fireplace and Judith said, ‘This will bring the fence right down.’

  He said testily, ‘Yes, yes, I know it needs to be done.’

  ‘By tomorrow morning it won’t be there to be done.’

  In the street, two figures passed beneath the light of the gas lamp and one waved a hand. This was Alice’s signal. She tiptoed down the stairs, not daring to put on her dressing gown for fear of losing a second. As she undid the latch a huge gust of wind buffeted the door, sending it flying back. Alice’s nightgown whipped straight over her head. She heard a startled ejaculation. Then the front door closed and someone rushed past her. She just had time to pull down the nightdress before her father came into the hall.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked sternly, thinking of the fence which must indeed have come right down.

  Alice, red in the face and very distressed, stammered, ‘I came down because I heard Lou. I let her in.’

  ‘My dear, why were you waiting for Louise? Were you afraid she was going to be late, was that it?’ He could think of no other reason for his daughter’s distress. ‘Am I really so severe that you are frightened of me?’ He kissed her. ‘Off you go. Louise is only five minutes late. I shan’t be angry with her.’

  Later, Louise came up and said to Alice, ‘Thanks, my pet. It was rather an unconventional way to greet us, but never mind.’

  ‘Who was with you?’ Alice asked anxiously.

  ‘Ben. He walked home with me; the others are still rehearsing.’

  When next she had her bath, Alice crept into her parents’ room and, slipping off her dressing gown, studied her body in the long mirror in the wardrobe door. As she turned this way and that, she was dismayed to find herself reminded of the Rubens paintings she and Katia had laughed about. It wasn’t an exact image, of course, only a kind of half-way creature, a cherub come to adolescence. She was deeply ashamed that there was so much of her for Ben to see, and resolved then and there to lose weight.

  The incident spoilt her enjoyment of the entertainment provided by the St Bartholomew’s Dramatic Society. It was only when Louise was on stage that Alice was aware of what was happening. Whereas the gestures and grimaces of which Guy’s performance was made up most notably displayed his stagecraft, Louise acted without apparent effort. One forgot she was not suited to the part. When the moment came for the poignant cry, ‘I don’t want to be a might- have-been!’ even her family, who knew her to be too resilient for such a fate, were persuaded of the possibility. Mr Fairley had tears in his eyes, and Judith felt chilled as she looked at her daughter.

  Louise joined them during the interval. People were watching her and there were whispers of ‘Who is that girl?’

  They remained in their seats while tea was brought to them, inexpertly balanced on trays by such members of the society as could be spared by the backstage staff. Alice looked uneasily around her, hoping that if Ben appeared she would see him first and have time to make an excuse for leaving the hall. When her father asked where he was, Louise said, ‘He’s doing the lighting,’ and pointed to the rafters.

  ‘Good gracious! Is he safe?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so.’ Louise laughed. She was very happy.

  For the rest of the evening Alice thought of Ben up there, seeing but unseen, and her flesh prickled.

  She was glad that when it was all over her father refused to go backstage to see Guy and Jacov. Louise, who hoped to persuade him to let her stay to the party on the following night, held her forces in reserve. Alice pushed rudely as they made their way out of the hall; but her haste was of no avail because Ben was waiting outside and accompanied them home.

  ‘What did you think of this girl who played Margaret?’ he asked cheerfully, falling into step between Alice and Judith.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind her for a daughter,’ Judith said. ‘She’s a much better listener than some people I know.’

  ‘Oh, she’s got the gift, no doubt of that.’ He bent to look at Alice. ‘Everything all right down there?’

  Alice said, ‘I thought it was very good’ in a constrained voice.

  He chuckled and tweaked her ear. When they were in the house he did not take much notice of her, and by the time he left she was at ease with him again.

  Judith said to herself as she watched his departing figure from the front door, ‘Oh, how I wish . . .’

  But how could she make wishes for Louise? She often tended – because she was busy and it was convenient to generalize – to talk about her children as though she had the measure of them. But in her quiet moments, she began more and more to suspect that the family home of the future would not be as she had once imagined it, spilling over with loving children and grandchildren, herself the central figure which held all the pieces together. She went into the kitchen to fill the hot water jars, not wanting to join the others in the sitting-room. They would come home, she thought, looking at the steam misting the windowpane, but in their own way: her hopes and dreams would not be the controlling factor.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In late January Alice and Claire visited their grandmother who was still living with Aunt May. Rain and wind battered the window of Aunt May’s living-room and Dickie, the bullfinch, swung on his perch cheeping bad-temperedly.

  ‘It said in the paper the gales were particularly bad round Porthleven,’ Claire said. ‘Granny Tippet said Charlie Tremayne’s son was washed away while he was
watching the high seas.’

  Grandmother Fairley rolled her eyes heavenwards. It offended her that another person’s misfortunes should be discussed when she had been so ill. ‘Porthleven, eh?’ It took some effort to enunciate Porthleven, and her teeth slipped. She adjusted them with a shaking hand and said, ‘Why didn’t your mother come, then?’

  Alice and Claire exchanged glances and Alice said sulkily, ‘She’s coming later. She had to go to a meeting at the YWCA. She’s on the committee.’

  Grandmother Fairley’s interest was aroused. ‘Always out at meetings now, ain’t she? I wonder she finds the time with a house to run and all of you to look after.’

  ‘We’re growing up,’ Claire said, the corners of her mouth turning down.

  ‘Yes, dear, but you’re all at home still.’

  ‘I think it’s nice for Mummy to go out,’ Alice said grudgingly.

  Claire thought that her grandmother smelt rather badly and hoped nothing had happened. She said, ‘I’ll go and see if I can help Aunt May.’

  ‘Tell her it’s no use putting out jam with pips in it for me, dear.’

  Claire repeated the message to her aunt and added, ‘But you needn’t worry about Alice and me; we can eat raspberry jam.’ She looked with interest at the food spread out on the kitchen table. Aunt May always provided a good tea.

  ‘Grandma smells a bit,’ she said.

  ‘Does she, dear? I expect we need a window open, only the wind is so strong.’

  ‘Do you think she wants to go to the lavatory?’

  ‘She would say if she did. She’s not incontinent, you know.’ Aunt May smiled at Claire. ‘Does it worry you, dear, seeing her like this?’

  ‘I don’t like her face being so twisted.’

  ‘It’s much better than it was. But if you don’t like it, you can help me butter the bread.’ She began to cut bread and Claire fetched the butter which had been warming near the stove. ‘Your mother said she would be here about five, didn’t she? Is it the NSPCC meeting?’

  ‘No, this is the YWCA. Mummy goes to ever so many meetings now.’