No Talking after Lights Page 10

  ‘No need for you to sound so pleased with yourself,’ Charmian sneered.

  ‘Why? What makes you say that? I think that’s really foul.’

  ‘Grown-ups do slushy, soppy things to each other in bed at night when they’re married and if they sleep in different beds it means they don’t want to do those things any more, and you said once that your parents don’t sleep in one bed, so they’ll have to get divorced too.’

  ‘You’re making it up. I bet you haven’t got the foggiest clue. Anyway, let’s change the subject. I’m frightfully sorry about your parents and all that, but we ought to think of what to do with Feeny’s present. I bet someone’s been to Old Ma B about it by now.’

  ‘They do dirty things to each other underneath the blankets, and then the lady has a baby.’

  Sheila’s sex education was non-existent. If she gave the matter any thought, she assumed babies came out of their mothers’ tummy-buttons. It made her feel squeamish to think about it, and she hadn’t cared to speculate about what went on between grown-ups. Once last term, one of the girls in the dormitory had been persuaded, after mock hesitation, to sing a song called ‘Mademoiselle d’Armentières’ and Sheila had cringed with shame at the words. Some girls had giggled knowingly, but most of them had been embarrassed and rather disapproving, and the song had never been sung again. It sounded disgusting. Was that what grown-ups did to each other underneath the bedclothes? No wonder her mother wanted a bed to herself.

  ‘I don’t believe you. You’re making it up.’

  ‘What a baby you are! You don’t know anything. Mummy’s little baba. Bye baby bunting …’ Charmie chanted mockingly. ‘Your father and mother must have done it too or you wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Oh, do shut up. I don’t like talking about it,’ said Sheila, primly.

  ‘You’ve gone all red.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Yes you have. Bright red. You’re blushing, la la la-la la, Sheil’s blushing, ‘cos she’s embarrassed,’ said Charmian in a sing-song voice.

  ‘Charmian, you’re being a really mean pig and if you won’t talk about Feeny’s parcel, I shall go away and leave you on your own. Then you can jolly well sort it out.’

  ‘I won’t be on my own. I’ve got Flopsy.’

  ‘I’ll go and tell Miss Valentine.’

  ‘You wouldn’t. You promised! You swore solemnly on your mother’s life that you wouldn’t.’

  ‘That was before I knew what you were going to say. I wouldn’t have sworn if I’d known. Anyhow I take it back.’

  ‘If you take it back, then it’ll mean something awful’s going to happen. Your mother’ll die or your parents will get divorced like mine,’ said Charmian, her eyes hard as little pebbles.

  Sheila’s face drained, leaving it as white as milk. Charmian grinned defiantly. There! That shut you up!’

  ‘Charmian Reynolds, that’s a wicked thing to say. You ought to be ashamed.’

  ‘Says who?’ said Charmian. ‘Fat lot of good you are, when I tell you all my secrets. You’re supposed to be my friend. You’re the one that ought to be ashamed. Oh, yuk! How foul! The rabbit’s done a poo on me!’

  She jumped up, grabbing the rabbit by its ears, and ran into the pets’ shed. A moment later she emerged and raced off towards the swimming-pool, her pony-tail swinging: a carefree, pretty child.

  Sheila stayed where she was, unmoving, turned to salt. Impossible to believe that this very morning she’d been throwing Fiona up in the air to give her birthday bumpsies, and now … Now she was in Charmian’s power because of that frightful threat, and only by keeping her secret could she prevent it from coming true. She put her head on her knees, clasped her arms over her head and wept, to the faint background noise of high-pitched shrieks from the swimming-pool.

  After a while she heard the bell ring, far and sweet, signalling the end of games. She waited till all the voices from the tennis courts and the swimming-pool had receded. Then she got up, shook her legs because she’d got cramp, and walked down the hill towards the form-rooms. She looked into the swimming-pool as she passed. The water was still lapping gently against the side from the movement of the last bodies that had scrambled out, dripping and glistening. In the middle of the pool a bee was buzzing frantically, turning in a desperate circle that grew slower and slower. Sheila stopped and watched it. When at last it floated motionless on the still surface of the pool she walked away.

  * * *

  At half past five the bell rang for the end of prep. Miss Valentine stood up and raised her hand, interrupting the slamming of books and desk tops and the murmurs of ‘Will you hear my French vocab?’ and ‘Does anyone know why Sheil’s in a foul mood?’ which would erupt into cacophony the moment she left the room.

  ‘Girls!’ she said. ‘I want to hold a form meeting. Yes, now. Stay in your places everyone, please, and Michaela, will you come up and stand here. Now then. As you all know someone, probably in this class, is stealing. This affects every one of us, and is something that I, personally, feel deeply ashamed about. You have been a good and happy form so far this year, and I have been proud of you. It makes me very sad’ (Mick lowered her eyes and looked sad too) ‘that my form should be the centre of suspicion and, probably, wrong-doing. Now then, I have Mrs Birmingham’s word that if we can sort it out between ourselves, if the culprit will own up, then whoever she is (or it may be more than one person), she will be punished privately and nothing more will be said. This is your last chance to clear things up. Otherwise I’m afraid it may end in someone being expelled.’

  She paused to let the full weight of this sink in.

  ‘Michaela, is there anything you would like to add?’

  ‘No, Miss Valentine,’ said Mick, nervous and self-important. ‘Except that I feel awfully ashamed too and so please, whoever you are, do own up.’

  ‘Right. Now then, I’m going to go round the form asking each of you two questions in turn. Do you know anything at all about this stealing? And is there anything you would like to tell me in private? All right? Good. I’ll start with you Madeleine, since you’re at the front: do you know anything at all about these thefts?’

  ‘No, Miss Valentine, honestly.’

  ’Is there anything you’d perhaps like to say to me in private?’

  ‘Umm, no, thank you, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You’re on your honour all of you: remember that. Next. Deborah?’

  Round the desks she went: the front row, the second row. Fiona Cathcart thought she might like to have a private word with Miss Valentine - it was easy for her, she obviously wasn’t the thief - and so did Anne Hetherington.

  ‘Sucking up,’ mouthed Fiona silently.

  Next row. ‘Charmian Reynolds? What about you, dear? Is there anything you know? Anything you’d like to tell me?’

  ‘No, Miss Valentine … except, oh, gosh, it’s all so rotten!’

  ‘I’m sure every single one of us feels that, Charmian,’ said Miss Valentine, kindly. Poor child, she had enough on her plate already.

  ‘Sheila Dunsford-Smith? Do you know anything, anything at all about the stealing? Or is there perhaps something you’d like to discuss with me alone, just the two of us?’

  Charmian turned her wide blue gaze sympathetically upon Sheila. There was a pause of one, two, three heartbeats.

  ‘No, Miss Valentine,’ said Sheila quietly. ‘No to both questions.’

  Only when Miss Valentine had moved two desks further on did a blush begin to suffuse her face and neck.

  The staff-room was a hot, female fug of powder and cigarette smoke. The women were sprawled in sagging armchairs; one or two sat at the table trying to mark prep books; all wore relaxed, unguarded faces in this brief interval away from the scrutiny of the girls. As Ginny Valentine walked in, her shoulders drooped and she slumped into the nearest chair.

  Fag, someone, for Christ’s sake,’ she said.

  ‘Any joy?’

  ‘None whatsoever. Two or three
sycophants want to talk to me in private; otherwise nothing. Frankly, I haven’t the faintest idea who it could be. I seriously begin to wonder if it’s someone from outside my form, laying a false trail. God, I hate this business.’

  ‘Girls are sly at that age. Nobody even looked guilty? No shifty eyes, twisting hands, nobody blushed?’ asked Sylvia.

  ‘They blush out of sheer embarrassment, I think. Yes, some of them blushed. Flick … Jennifer and Rachel … Sheila. What can you read into that? Damn and blast it, let’s talk about something else.’

  ‘You’re on supper rota,’ said Diana.

  ‘Oh, no. That’s the last thing I need.’

  ‘Shall I take them for you?’

  ‘Sweet of you. No. There’s the bloody bell. I’ll go.’ She stubbed her cigarette into a ring of coffee in the nearest saucer and left.

  ‘Poor cow,’ said Sylvia. ‘Rather her than me.’

  The drawing-room bay-window was clouded by a light summer drizzle. From the junior common-room came the sound of two or three gramophones playing at once. Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto mingled its sweetness with ‘Stranger in Paradise’, and a subdued buzz of voices underlay the clear enunciation of the Head and her Deputy.

  ‘I think it’s a waste of time getting cross,’ said Henrietta Birmingham. ‘It would simply be seen as a loss of control which will upset everyone and undermine my authority. Besides, what can I back it up with? I’m not going to threaten to cancel half-term or the school play unless I mean it. I’m left with pointless tyrannies like stopping swimming. How can it be fair to punish a hundred and twenty girls in order to catch one or two? It’s even possible that it isn’t one of the girls at all.’

  ‘Well, I’ve talked to the Scandies,’ said Peggy, using the girls’ name for the Scandinavian maids, ‘and I’m reasonably confident it’s got nothing to do with them. They might just steal a photograph frame while cleaning the dormitory, I suppose; but at lunch-time, when Fiona Cathcart’s parcel disappeared, they’re all busy in the kitchen. Besides, they’re decent, healthy, industrious, honest country girls. That’s why we engage them.’

  Henrietta sighed. ‘I agree. I think you’re right.’

  ‘What about the teaching staff?’ said Peggy. ‘Sylvia Parry, for example. Now there’s a bitter and very angry woman.’

  ‘In a dormitory?’ said Henrietta.

  ‘Unlikely. I take the point. But not impossible.’

  They relapsed into silence. ‘All lost in a wonderland/Of all that I’ve hungered for …’ crooned the gramophone. ‘When I stand starry-eyed

  ‘That terrible song!’ said Henrietta. ‘Why must they play it the whole time? And that other frightful thing I hate even more - you know the one - “Sugar Bush” …’

  Miss Roberts smiled thinly. ‘Sugar Bush, I love you so’ was hardly a sentiment to appeal to Henrietta. The Head saw the smile, and returned it disarmingly.

  ‘I know, I know. Must move with the times. Turn on the wireless, Peggy. I’d rather think gloomy thoughts against a classical background. Oh, look. According to the Radio Times there’s a Kathleen Ferrier recital. They say she’s gravely ill, you know. Such a beautiful voice.’

  The liquid notes freed her mind. The strong,

  pure-throated contralto lifted her spirits. She leaned back in her chair and smiled at Peggy Roberts. ‘Sorry I’m so irritable,’ she said. ‘Wretched girls.’

  The rain had settled into a steady downpour by the time Diana Monk and Sylvia walked across to the cottage. The staff-room that evening had been full of speculation and concern. Diana was sympathetic and longed to contribute some insight; Sylvia was dismissive and scornful. ‘Lot of fuss about nothing!’ she had said as soon as they were on their own.

  ‘You wear such lovely clothes,’ Diana said, to placate her and change the subject, watching as Sylvia ironed a silk blouse, taking pride in doing it to perfection. ‘You are lucky to have such good taste. I don’t know how you can afford it. My mother makes most of my stuff. She buys remnants in sales and makes clothes for both of us. It keeps her occupied, and it would hurt her feelings if I didn’t wear them.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Sylvia non-committally. The iron slid smoothly across barely damp silk and she reflected on her incongruous passion for expensive clothes. I couldn’t look like a frump, she thought. No matter who had made them, I couldn’t wear cheap dresses.

  When I started at the teacher training college I’d chosen in Twickenham, near London, I spent as much money as I could afford on dressing myself - more than I could afford. I bought lengths of beautiful, luxurious materials and found a woman who made them up for me into soft, swaying garments that half-disguised my stockiness and were long and low to hide my thick legs. It became an obsession, collecting beautiful clothes with the same care that I’d once tracked down shells and flowers. I never spent money on going to films or the theatre. I didn’t send money home, though I dare say my mother had hoped I might. I lived in cheap lodgings, and once I began to teach my accommodation was free, more or less. Gradually I built up a magnificent wardrobe. I bought only the best, saving for a whole year, if necessary, so as to be able to spend seven guineas on a lizard-skin handbag or twelve guineas on real crocodile shoes. And of course, good things last. I have that handbag still.

  You develop a feel for quality; your fingers know blindfold the difference between handwoven fabrics and factory, lengths of stuff. I learned to play up my swarthiness with jewelled colours - purple and rust, deep Persian blues and forest greens. I had my hair professionally cut so that instead of sticking out in a frizz round my head, it was shaped into a cap that curled over my ears. This was just after the war, and good clothes were scarce, but good materials could be had. Liberty’s in London was a treasure-house.

  I had to wait till I was twenty-two before I made love to a woman, and the odd thing was, she seduced me. I hadn’t noticed her, fixated as I was on the impossibly feminine creatures who had more men than they could juggle. My clothes made her notice me.

  ‘Do you dressmake professionally, Miss Parry,’ she asked, ‘or are you just vain?’

  Twenty-two, in my first teaching job, and someone had noticed me. We were in bed together that same night. I never stopped to wonder whether I was attracted to her; the miracle was that she had fancied me. All the staff slept on the top corridor, in adjoining cubicles that must once have belonged to the servants. She and I slipped in and out of each other’s rooms in the dead of night, and I acquired a taste for making love in silence. I grew to judge by the quickening of her breath, or my own … not that what I was registering was love; lust would be more like it, and for me, the explosion of appetite.

  Diana grew uneasy at the long silence.

  ‘Do you want a coffee?’ she asked. ‘Shall we listen to the recital on the wireless?’

  ‘Please yourself,’ Sylvia answered abruptly, thinking, For you’ll never please me.

  An hour later, having passed one another in silence on the way to and from the bathroom, they lay in separate beds listening as the rain lashed softly, coolly against the window: a sound so lonely when you are alone, so comforting if you are not. In the darkness, quietly so as not to be heard through the adjoining wall, Diana wept. On the other side of the wall Sylvia listened to the soughing of the rain and the stifled sobs and thought, I’ll have to make it better with her tomorrow. Poor, virginal, empty, frustrated Miss Monk.

  The school tide swelled and gathered and swept towards half-term. Whirlpools of effort concentrated here and there. Athletic girls trained hard for Sports Day or tennis matches against neighbouring schools; some ran their lone course up and down the drive each morning in preparation for the 100 yards, the 220, the 440 or the relay; others lobbed or served balls diligently for hours on end, persisting, never bored, until they had mastered the correct delayed-action drop, swing and follow through.

  From the amphitheatre, a natural green bowl hidden among the trees behind the swimming-pool, came the voices of other girls re
hearsing the play for Speech Day. Singing lessons would send high, clear notes spiralling upwards, to break free at the level of the tree-tops and float downwind. They practised sweet, old-fashioned songs like ‘Time, you old gipsy-man/Will you not stay?’ and ‘Nymphs and shepherds, come away, come away, come away …’ Their voices carolled and sang, unselfconsciously pastoral. ‘Come follow follow - follow — follow follow - follow me!’ And on fine, calm evenings the Lower Fourth forgot its secrets and suspicions in the darting energy of Kick the Can.

  Nowadays Sheila, like Constance, seldom played. Instead, she bent over her garden each evening, pulling out weeds when they were only an inch or two above the earth; spraying with the finest rose on the watering-can so as not to inundate their delicate seedlings as they grew tremulously towards the light. Charmian had given up any pretence of helping, yet they were still bound together by secrecy, and Charmian had become bolder now that she had an accomplice and alibi. She seemed to delight in her cunning, and would steal pointless, useless things - a prep book in which someone had been marked 10/10 for a careful piece of work; a letter from someone’s mother, left lying for a moment in the Covered Way. Out of the corner of her eye, Sheila would see Charmie’s little hand dart out to pocket it. She would stroll away, taking her time, and be in the lavatory before its loss was noticed.

  ‘Hey! Where’s my letter from Mummy?’ the girl would ask a moment later; and Sheila would mutter sullenly, ‘Crikey, don’t look at me. I haven’t got your silly old letter.’ And there would be an argument.

  When the first pale-blue airmail letter arrived from Kenya, it seemed very foreign to Constance. Her mother could hardly suppress her excitement at the new life she had found out there, a world of swimming-pools and sundowners, cocktail parties and black house-servants. ‘The laundry boy is marvellous,’ she wrote, ‘and irons Daddy’s shirts far better than the laundry at home used to, and as for my summer dresses, you won’t recognize your smart new Mummy!’ Often she described outings they’d enjoyed together. ‘We three …’ these descriptions began, as though she and Daddy and Stella were some holy trinity from whose face Constance felt herself to be cast into outer darkness. ‘We three are going on a “safari” soon, just for the weekend. Stella’s a bit young really, but you can imagine how she begged, and in the end Daddy gave in.’