No Talking after Lights Read online

  The Hon. Henrietta Birmingham was a devout woman. She had fallen to her knees beside her chair in the study to pray as soon as she had despatched Miss Roberts to give the staff news of the King’s death. Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, she had intoned mentally. Comfort the widows and orphans, and God save the King … God save our new Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth the Second, she thought to herself, trying out the sound. And now I suppose our present Queen Elizabeth will become the Queen Dowager. She felt an affinity with the newly widowed queen, having been born in the same year, 1900, into the same sort of Scottish family - though her own was not quite as aristocratic as the Bowes-Lyons. She often reflected that she too had married a man whose character was less formidable than her own. She did not dwell on that thought, which was disloyal, and besides she didn’t care to think too much about her ailing husband, who spent his days at the Lodge peevishly confined to bed.

  During break she wondered what to say to the girls. The King had not been well for some time. He had looked terribly frail in recent newspaper photographs as he waved goodbye to Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh on their departure for Kenya. She had heard a rumour that he had had a lung removed, but there was no need to mention that.

  When the bell rang for the end of break she composed herself, patted her snow-white hair neatly back into its accustomed waves and waited until the shuffle of feet towards the common-room had subsided. Then she and Miss Roberts began their stately progress down the stairs and on to the dais. The school awaited them in silence.

  ‘Girls,’ said Mrs Birmingham in a low, modulated voice, ‘I’m afraid I have tragic news for you. It has been announced this morning on the BBC that our beloved king, His Majesty King George the Sixth, has died.’

  The uplifted faces took on shocked, grave expressions as the girls searched for an appropriate response to the news. The king’s death was a historic event, and they wanted to look suitably patriotic. Everyone except the juniors, who were too little to be devious, covertly checked the staff and seniors. Many people glanced towards Hermione Mailing-Smith, the most popular girl in the school, who looked touchingly fragile and dewy-eyed. None of them felt genuinely, personally bereaved - how could they? - but everyone was anxious that they should seem to be. Charmian Reynolds burst into tears. Sheila leant across and patted Charmian’s shuddering back.

  ‘Oh, Charmie,’ she muttered, ‘isn’t it ghastly? Never mind …’

  Before any girl had time to become overwrought - if one did, they’d all start, the Head thought to herself; emotions ran like wildfire through adolescent girls -she continued in a firm voice: ‘And now, it would, I think, be appropriate if the school were to sing the National Anthem: God Save the Queen.’

  She glanced at Miss Valentine, who left the row of teachers and seated herself at the piano. The school rose to its feet. As the first, sombre notes gave their cue, several more girls began to sob. Strong young voices rose tremulously in acknowledgement of their new sovereign. When they had ended with a rousing ‘Go-od save the Queen!’ the Head said, ‘Let us pray.’

  Heads bowed, the staff and girls of Raeburn School prayed fervently for the soul of the late King George the Sixth, for the consolation of his widow, and for the reign of his daughter.

  ‘And now, girls, will you all return to your form-rooms quietly and in single file for your next lesson.’

  Mrs Birmingham and Miss Roberts departed in an august diminuendo of powder and the cloying scent of Yardley’s lavender brilliantine, which Miss Roberts used to keep her hair under control.

  Constance King and her parents were driving back through dank Sussex lanes, under colonnades of dripping branches, past the occasional driveway flanked by heavy gates, through nodding villages with one butcher and two pubs. Constance sat in the back seat of the car and listened to her parents talking about the school fees. When she thought she could speak in a steady voice she leaned forward so that her head was between their shoulders.

  ‘Please not, Mummy. Please don’t make me go there.’

  ‘Buck up, darling, don’t be such a silly billy. Why ever not? It’s a beautiful school in the heart of the country. The Simpson girls are getting on very well there. And it’s most generous of Daddy.’

  ‘Mummy, honestly, please, not there. They call the Headmistress Old Ma B and they’ll call me Goggles and the girls are awful.’

  ‘Constance, control yourself and stop being so ridiculous,’ her father said. ‘And don’t let me ever hear you using that impertinent, unkind nickname for your new Headmistress. Now listen to me. I’m sick and tired of your grizzling. You’re a thoroughly ungrateful little girl. After all the trouble we’ve been to.’ Trying to see her face in the rear view mirror, he went on firmly, ‘I shall have to sit down when we get home and work out whether Mummy and I can afford it. It’s going to mean a great many sacrifices. But if we do decide to send you there, I don’t want any nonsense.’

  ‘Daddy,’ said Constance evenly. ‘I beg of you, I really and truly beg of you in the name of - everything -don’t send me there. I’ll go anywhere else. Let me go on to Wimbledon High like everyone else. If not that, I’d much rather come to Kenya with you and save you the sacrifices anyway. Please, please, please, please don’t make me go to Raeburn.’

  Her mother turned and looked into Constance’s desperate face. Her National Health glasses were askew and beginning to mist up.

  ‘Darling, Daddy and I will talk it over this evening between ourselves and I promise we’ll bear your wishes in mind. All right? In return, will you trust us, and abide by our decision like a good girl?’

  Constance nodded.

  ‘Is that a promise?’

  Another nod.

  ‘There’s a sensible girl. Now, don’t get car-sick, we’re going to stop for lunch as soon as we see somewhere nice.’

  ‘I wish I had my black tie with me,’ said her father.

  ‘You couldn’t have known, darling,’ her mother said. ‘No-one will mind.’

  Although it was nearly eleven o’clock and her usual bedtime was 7.30, Constance’s curtains were drawn back and she was still awake. She had been sitting at the top of the stairs, listening through the banisters as her parents talked about the school. They hadn’t taken her wishes into account at all. Daddy had said that the Colonial Office would contribute £150 a year towards the fees, and if he cashed some shares and they sold the piano - they couldn’t have taken it to Kenya in any case, and it would cost a fortune to store …

  Constance heard, understood, and knew herself to be doomed.

  One

  Everyone said summer was the best term. There was swimming and tennis instead of hockey, and long, light evenings when all the girls were allowed to stay up half an hour later than in the other two darker terms. Even after lights out, those who were lucky and had a bed under the window could read till almost nine o’clock. They woke soon after sunrise, as soon as it was light, to the sound of wood-pigeons cooing in the high surrounding trees. Everyone wore striped cotton frocks, not the stiff, scratchy, Harris-tweed uniform of the rest of the year; they wore straw hats for Sunday and soft, shapeless, felt hats on ordinary days - the more shapeless the better because it showed they had been there a long time.

  Waterloo Station at the beginning of term was crowded with schoolgirls in brand-new or freshly washed frocks, newly name-taped socks and shiny new shoes. Fathers supervised the buying of train and platform tickets while mothers hovered round with last-minute advice, reassurance, or expressions of love.

  ‘Remember, darling,’ Paula King said to Constance, ‘when your Parker 51 needs filling, don’t you try and do it. Take it to Mrs Birmingham and ask her politely if she would mind filling it for you.’

  Constance knew that it was out of the question to go to the Head and ask her to fill a fountain-pen, but she nodded and didn’t argue.

  ‘It cost 31s. 6d.,‘ said her mother. ‘It’s a very good one and you must make it last right through your ti
me at school. You look like a little Princess. Everything new. Remember to thank Daddy.’

  Constance, who had thanked her father for each handkerchief and games sock, as new items were added to the pile of school uniform, nodded again. She couldn’t speak and she would not cry. Around her dozens of unfamiliar schoolgirls, who all looked the same except for the very pretty ones, were greeting each other with rapturous or scornful cries.

  ‘Did you have t’riffic hols? I saw Call Me Madam.’

  ‘So what? I saw South Pacific. It was wizard.’

  ‘Well, who cares? My brother took me to see The World in His Arms and The Snows of Kilimanjaro ‘cos he knows I’m batty about Gregory Peck.’

  ‘Isn’t he smashing? You can’t have him, though -he’s mine. I’ve bagged him!’ and, turning round, ‘Oh, hello, Feeny. Picking up fag-ends as per usual!’

  Constance wouldn’t have been allowed to see any of the films they were talking about. She had spent the Easter holidays in a state of numb acquiescence, being measured at Kinch & Lack for dreadfully expensive clothes that looked hideous on her since they were all a size too big to make them do for next year.

  Her mother had ticked off the items on the clothes list one by one. Sweet tin, they had finally got down to; 2 face flannels (must be marked); hairbrush and comb (‘Look, darling, Mason-Pearson brush and Addis beauty comb. Mind you make them last. They’re the most expensive’); toothbrush with one term’s supply of toothpaste; shampoo. Boots was the last shop they visited.

  ‘What does it mean, “STs (if needed)”?’ Connie asked her mother.

  ‘Shush, darling, not so loud. I’ll tell you some other time.’

  She hadn’t, though; and Constance wondered if she would need STs, and what for.

  All around them on Platform Nine at Waterloo parents were left to smile stiffly at other half-recognized parents while their daughters found friends and formed their familiar cliques, abandoning home life for school loyalties. Constance recognized Madeleine, who had shown her round the school, but Madeleine avoided her eye. She didn’t know anyone else, so she stood looking into the middle distance, longing for her father to arrive and tell her it wasn’t true, longing for her mother to stay, longing to be home in her own comfortable hand-knitted jumper and outgrown kilt.

  ‘Can you see the Simpson twins?’ asked her mother. ‘Their parents don’t seem to be here. Perhaps Universal Aunts had to see them off, poor little things.’

  Constance wouldn’t ask who the universal aunts were, knowing by now that it would be just another grown-up trick like the godmother at school, which had turned out to mean another girl. She saw her father hurrying towards them and could tell he felt guilty about leaving his office in the middle of the afternoon. He kissed her moistly, formally, in the middle of the forehead.

  ‘There was a little girl and she had a little curl/Right in the middle of her forehead,’ Constance’s brain chanted idiotically.

  ‘Now, Constance,’ he said, ‘I want you to remember all the things we talked about last night, to work hard and be a good girl and make us both proud of you. It’s a wonderful opportunity. You’re a very privileged little girl and you mustn’t forget that. We’re not asking for gratitude; but we do expect you to work hard and play hard.’

  Constance felt the wet kiss fading from her skin and thought, ‘And when she was good she was very, very good/But when she was bad she was horrid.’

  ‘I’ll have to be off now,’ he said, after a long, awkward silence. ‘What about you, dear? Are you going to wait till the train goes?’

  ‘I think I will,’ said her mother. ‘I want to wave till the very last minute.’

  ‘Right-ho, then. Back to the grindstone.’

  ‘Your father works very hard, Connie,’ said her mother, adding in a whisper, ‘Thank him again, darling.’

  Settling his hat back on his head and swinging his tidily furled umbrella, her father strode away down the platform. Constance saw her mother’s face begin to loosen. Any moment now she would be in tears. The shame of having her mother cry in front of everyone was more than she could bear.

  ‘Mummy, don’t!’ she hissed. ‘Please don’t cry. I couldn’t stand it.’

  Touched by this evidence of emotion and concern from her undemonstrative child, Paula King pulled herself together and enveloped her stiff little body, smelling of freshly washed hair and new cotton, in a loving hug. Constance patted her mother’s shoulder feebly and let herself be kissed.

  ‘Might as well go and find a seat then,’ she said. She picked up her overnight case (the trunk had been sent ahead) and climbed the two high steps on to the train.

  She walked into the compartment and sat down. Looking through the window she saw with horror that her mother was indeed starting to cry. ‘Turn round,’ she mouthed through the glass. ‘Turn round!’ Her mother failed to understand, so Constance twirled her index finger until, obediently, her mother turned away. Constance’s last image as the train finally drew out was of her crumpled face peering furtively over her shoulder to catch a last glimpse of her daughter.

  * * *

  ‘You’re new, aren’t you? What form are you in? You can’t sit here. Who’s your godmother?’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ said Constance. ‘Where am I supposed to sit?’

  ‘Anywhere except here. This is reserved for the seniors and you’re a squit.’

  I’m not a squit, am I? thought Constance. What’s a squit? Is it anything to do with STs?

  ‘Are the squits the ones who need STs?’ she asked, and a tide of giggles convulsed the girls sitting close enough to hear what she had said. They hunched their backs and spluttered into their chests, then looked slyly at one another and began to titter again.

  Constance left the seat and made her way through the rocking compartment as laughter exploded behind her. Head bowed and burning with humiliation, she almost bumped into a woman coming the other way.

  ‘Hold on, hold on a minute, where are you going?’ asked the woman. ‘You’re a new girl, aren’t you? You shouldn’t be here. Do you know which form you’re in?’

  ‘Lower Fourth, I think,’ said Constance.

  The woman smiled quite kindly at her. ‘Come along, let’s see if we can find your godmother.’

  ‘Excuse me, but am I a squit?’ asked Constance.

  ‘Those wretched girls!’ The woman sighed. ‘No, if you’re in the Lower Fourth you’re not a squit. I’m afraid that’s what they call the little ones, in the third form. It’s a horrid word. What’s your name?’

  ‘Constance King,’ said Constance King.

  In the dormitory just before lights out, Constance’s godmother, a fifth-former called Sarah, came across to her bed (she’d had to take the worst one, just inside the door) and asked dutifully, ‘Are you all right? Are you sure you’re all right? You’re supposed to tell me if you’re not. If you want to cry or anything, come and find me. I’m in Blackbirds. Have you got a teddy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’re allowed teddies. It says on the clothes list: “one teddy bear or other soft toy”.’

  ‘Must be marked,’ guessed Constance. ‘I haven’t got a teddy,’ she said. ‘I don’t like dolls.’

  ‘Oh. Well. Do you want me to kiss you good night or anything?’

  ‘No, thank you very much all the same.’

  ‘Don’t anyone be foul to Constance, OK?’ said Sarah firmly as she shut the door of Starlings.

  On the bed opposite Constance’s, fat, sloppy Rachel and square-jawed Jennifer, who were best friends because no-one else would have them, were poring over Rachel’s precious album of Royal Family postcards. These were soft-focus black-and-white photographs by Marcus Adams, Cecil Beaton or Dorothy Wilding. Rachel’s mother and aunts and godmothers had sent some to build up her collection and Rachel had bought the rest herself out of her pocket-money. The two of them glanced across at Constance, but not in a friendly way, as though challenging her to show interest. I don’t care, thought Con
stance; I don’t want to see their silly old pictures. But she wished her mother had packed a book into her overnight case.

  The matron, Miss Peachey, came in a few moments later and said, ‘Lights out,’ although the summer evening was still pale and airy and the light wasn’t switched on. ‘Good night, everyone. Welcome back.’

  ‘I don’t think,’ somebody muttered.

  Matron twinkled. ‘And no talking, do you hear? No talking after lights. Try and be a bit better behaved than last term’s Starlings.’

  When her crêpe-soled shoes had squeaked away down the corridor the girls started to whisper, then to giggle, and one or two sat up in bed and pulled out secret packages from under their pillows and began to distribute presents: bags of sweets or glass animals. Each girl had her own bedside locker on which stood a collection of treasures: a pair of capering Chinese horses or a model of a Scottie dog or a fluffy cat. These animals were often named after a pet left at home. Two girls, Anne and Fiona, were whinnying as they pretended to put their ponies to bed for the night. Glass animals - fish with elaborate tails or upright feathery cats with bulging eyes - were favourite ornaments.

  On top of each locker lay the modest beige booklet of the Bible Reading Fellowship: a biblical extract for each day, annotated for private meditation. In pride of place was a photograph of the girl’s parents. These ranged from home-made passe-partout frames enclosing jolly family snapshots to elaborate silver frames containing a studio portrait by Lenare or Vivienne or Dorothy Wilding, their signatures scrawled diagonally above an embossed Bond Street address. They provided the best indication of each girl’s status. Anyone coming into the dormitory - Matron, prefects, other girls - could see at a glance if someone’s people were young, glamorous and rich, and deduce whether they lived in town or in the country, whether family pets were low-status ones like cats, rabbits, guinea-pigs, or high-status ones like a large dog or two, a horse or pony. Sometimes the pictures showed a house in the background. Being rich mattered very much indeed, but boasting about being rich was the worst kind of swanking. The locker arrangements allowed a girl to indicate her social standing without seeming to show off.