Queenie (6 page)

‘I’m not ashamed of
you
, Nan,’ I said. ‘But please please please, don’t make me ask Laura to tea.’

I should have realized Nan wouldn’t let it alone. She went right up to Laura and her mother after school one day, while I was still only halfway across the playground, doing up one of my wretched laces. I saw her and charged over, but I didn’t get there in time. I saw Laura and her mum walk away from Nan. Laura peered round worriedly.

Nan was looking puzzled. ‘That
is
Laura, isn’t it – the dark girl with the pink ribbons?’ she said.

I thought of lying again, but then Nan might
interrogate
every girl in my class, trying to find the right Laura. I nodded miserably.

‘The Laura who’s your best friend?’

‘Well, she’s not actually my
best
friend,’ I mumbled.

‘Her mum says you’re not friends at all. You don’t ever play together,’ said Nan. ‘You don’t even sit together in class.’

‘Well . . . I did give her some chocolate,’ I said madly.

‘Oh Elsie,’ said Nan. ‘Was it all a story then? Have you been fibbing to your old nanny?’

I nodded, not daring to say any more in case I burst out crying. Marilyn and Susan were standing nearby while their mothers were chatting. If they found out they’d have a field day.

I must have been going red in the face.

‘Come on home then, ducks,’ said Nan.

I was scared she might be cross with me for fibbing, but she didn’t tell me off at all.
We
had tinned peaches and evaporated milk for tea, just the two of us. Nan didn’t mention Laura again, so neither did I.

I waited in suspense the next few days at school, but Laura didn’t tell anyone. She gave me nervous little smiles when we passed each other in the corridor. Once she dropped a Merry Maid Caramel on top of my desk. I wasn’t sure if it was an accident or not. I wondered if she could possibly want to be
friends
after all, but she never made any other overtures and I didn’t dare.

Now, while I waited for Mum, I drew a picture of Laura and me in a dancing display, both of us wearing white tutus. I copied our ballet positions from the ‘Belle of the Ballet’ strip.

When Mum got up at last, I showed her my drawing and she nodded and said, ‘Very good’ – but she didn’t really look at it properly. I asked if we could go to see Nan again that afternoon, but Mum sighed at me.

‘We’ve just this minute seen her! We’ll go again next week. Now stop hanging around with those big moony eyes – you’re getting on my nerves. Go and play.’

It was hard finding something to do with Mum glaring at me. She hated it when I played pretend games. She said I looked gormless gesturing to myself and mouthing words. She didn’t like me playing with my paper dolls either. She didn’t mind so much when I was cutting out their clothes, snipping carefully round every white tag, but when I’d got them all dressed up and chattering happily, ready to go out, Mum said I looked loopy shaking bits of paper about. She was even less thrilled when I took Albert Trunk for a trundle across the carpet. Once she caught him doing a little pile of red plasticine dung and smacked me for being dirty.

‘Play a proper
game
, Elsie,’ she said, tapping the
sideboard
where Nan kept the Ludo and Snakes and Ladders and our pack of Happy Families.

‘Will you play too, Mum?’

‘I’ve got too much to do. I’ve got to mend the armpit of my best silk blouse and press my suit,’ she said.

‘Why?’ I said, not really concentrating.

‘
Why?
’ Mum said, taking hold of me and shaking me hard. ‘Because I can’t go back to my job up north on account of the fact I’ve got to look after
you
.’

‘I’m sorry, Mum!’ I stuttered, my teeth rattling. ‘Look – you go back to your dancing job. I’ll be fine. I can look after myself, really. I can make tea and cheesy beanos and all sorts.’

‘Oh yes – if I leave you for just one blooming evening, then someone will blab and you’ll be whipped into care quick as a wink. And if you don’t stop annoying me I’ll start to consider it a tempting option,’ said Mum.

I clamped my mouth together, and when she let me go I ran outside. I found a stump of chalk in my pocket and played a game of hopscotch on the pavement. I hummed under my breath, pretending I was feeling just fine, though my heart was hammering inside my chest.

Mrs Brownlow from next door came bumbling along, her massive bulk squeezed into her huge scarlet coat. She looked like a London bus and
certainly
seemed intent on running me over.

‘What are you doing, Elsie Kettle?’ she asked.

‘Playing,’ I mumbled.

‘On a Sunday?’ she said, sniffing. ‘You been to Sunday School today?’

‘We don’t go to church, Mrs Brownlow,’ I said, hopping. My right leg was aching so I had to hop with my left and I was much clumsier.

‘I know that mother of yours wouldn’t set foot in a church,’ she said. ‘She’s no better than she ought to be.’

That was what Nan’s work friend had said. Mrs Brownlow often used this mysterious phrase when she talked about Mum.

‘I feel sorry for poor Mrs Kettle, her Sheila bringing shame on the family,’ Mrs Brownlow went on.

I knew
I
was the shame. I turned my back on her, trying not to care.

‘Where
is
your grandma, Elsie? I nipped round to borrow half a pint of milk for a custard the other day and I couldn’t get any answer.’

‘She’s poorly,’ I said warily.

‘Oh dear. In bed, is she? I’ll pop round tomorrow then, see if she needs any shopping.’

‘No, she doesn’t,’ I said.

‘And I’ll bring her my
Woman’s Home Companion
. It’s a good read, that,’ said Mrs Brownlow. ‘I’ll fetch it now.’

‘No, you can’t come in. Nan isn’t here.’

‘What? She’s never in hospital, is she?’ said Mrs Brownlow.

I nodded.

‘What’s wrong with her then? It’s nothing really serious, is it? Elsie, I’m
talking
to you. What’s the matter with your nanny?’

‘I’m not allowed to say,’ I mumbled.

Mrs Brownlow looked even more interested. ‘Is it women’s troubles?’ she hissed.

I didn’t have a clue what she meant, but it seemed a good idea to nod.

‘Oh, the poor thing. She’ll never be the same again,’ said Mrs Brownlow.

‘Yes, she will. She’s going to get better. She said,’ I retorted, turning my back on Mrs Brownlow and hopping. I used my right leg and staggered a little.

‘What’s up with your leg then?’ she asked.

‘Nothing!’ I said, and hobbled indoors.

It did ache a lot though. I knew it irritated Mum when I limped – but perhaps if I exaggerated it, she might take it more seriously. She might even let me stay off school.

Mum was in her petticoat in the living room, ironing all her clothes, humming along to
Family Favourites
on the wireless. She had an insistent, high-pitched hum, almost as if she were playing a
tune
on a comb with a piece of toilet paper. I wondered if she was trying to be brave too.

‘Mum?’

She frowned at me, mid-hum.

‘Mum, my leg hurts really badly. Look, I’m limping,’ I said, parading around the living room.

‘Well, stop it,’ she said.

‘I can’t help it,’ I said. ‘Ouch, it really, really hurts.’

‘Then stop marching about and sit down, you silly fool,’ said Mum.

‘I think I really wrenched it playing hopscotch,’ I said. I rubbed my leg gingerly. ‘I can hardly bear to walk. Maybe I’ve broken it!’ I was warming to this theme. I’d always wanted a limb in plaster. People wrote little messages all over the hard white surface and made a big fuss of you. I stomped harder with my bad leg, trying to make it worse.

‘Do pack it in, Elsie,’ said Mum. ‘I’ve got enough on my hands without you playing silly beggars too. If I don’t get another job, we’ll be in Queer Street, I’m telling you.’

‘My
leg!
’

‘You’re just putting it on to get attention.’

‘No I’m not. Mrs Brownlow saw and asked me what was wrong with it,’ I said.

‘Mrs Brownlow? That nosy old cow! What have you been saying to her? You didn’t tell her about Nanny,
did
you?’ Mum asked, suddenly giving me her full attention.

‘No, I didn’t. Well . . .’

‘Elsie!’ said Mum, catching hold of me.

‘I didn’t say about the TB, I swear I didn’t. I said Nan had women’s troubles,’ I said, wriggling.

Mum stared and then burst out laughing. ‘Good for you,’ she said.

She stayed in a good mood after that. We played Beauty Parlours when she had finished her ironing. She let me brush her hair after she’d washed it, and then buff her nails – her toes as well as her fingers.

‘You’re so pretty, Mum,’ I said enviously.

‘I just know how to give Nature a little helping hand,’ said Mum smugly.

She let me stay up with her all evening, singing along to the music on the Light Programme. I did my best to be useful, making her cups of tea and running for a fresh box of matches and emptying her ashtray.

‘You’re a good little soul really,’ said Mum, giving me a pat. ‘Maybe we’ll get on together OK, you and me.’

‘You bet,’ I said, but my chest went tight again. ‘Mum, Nan
is
going to come home, isn’t she?’

‘Yes! For pity’s sake, you’re like a broken record,’ said Mum.

‘And if my leg’s really bad tomorrow, can I stay off school?’ I asked.

‘No you can’t, so stop going on about it. Now go to bed.’

I could try wheedling with Nan, but there was no point arguing with Mum.

She sent me off to school extra early the next day, because she wanted the flat to herself to prepare for her job interview. I stumped along the road, exaggerating my limp. I pretended to be a pirate with a wooden leg. I hunched my left shoulder because I had a parrot perching there, pecking my ear affectionately and crooning, ‘Pieces of eight! Who’s a pretty girl? I’m Polly Parrot and I love Elsie.’

Then I caught sight of myself in a shop window and blushed because I looked such a fool. I stepped out properly, marching left, right, left, right, but I’d got into such a limping habit it was more like left, hobble, left, hobble.

I hoped at the very least to get out of doing PT today. It was now my absolutely worst lesson. I hated it even more than mental arithmetic. I wasn’t
bad
at PT – I could run quite fast, limp or no limp, and I could do all the silly arms-stretch, knees-bend exercises, and I could catch a ball neatly and throw it high in the air with one deft flick of my wrist. It was my new knickers that were the problem. We were supposed to wear regulation navy school knickers with elastic legs. I didn’t have the right knickers.

‘I’m not wasting my money on hideous school bloomers!’ Mum had told me.

She’d bought me a pack of three from the market. They were pink, pale blue and lilac, with a white lace frill at the back.

I was pleased at first and thought they were pretty, but when I took my tunic off at school, all the children collapsed, laughing and pointing. I had a new nickname now: Frilly Bum.

I tried to find the old navy knickers I’d had ever since the Infants, but Nan had already cut them up for dusters. I begged Mum to buy me more proper knickers, but she refused. She was adamant, particularly after Miss Roberts sent a polite letter asking if Elsie could wear school underwear on PT days in future.

‘No, our Elsie blooming well can’t!’ said Mum. ‘She can’t tell me how to clothe my child. It’s none of her business. I don’t tell
her
what kind of knickers to wear!’

I was terrified she might say something of the sort to dear dignified Miss Roberts. At home I kept quiet about the Frilly Bum teasing. Nan might have understood and tried to save up for a proper pair of knickers – but she wasn’t here now.

I decided I couldn’t face another day of giggles and cat-calling. I wouldn’t go to school at all today! I hadn’t had the opportunity to bunk off school before because Nan nearly always walked there with me,
then
went to the shops on her way home. But now I could run straight past the school gate. I could go all the way into town and look round the big shops. I could look at the filmstar photos outside the Odeon and make up the story of the film. I could go to the park and play I was in the countryside. I could go paddling in the duck pond and pretend it was the seaside.

My heart soared. I skipped down the road in my boy’s shoes, my limp vanishing. I didn’t go over the crossroads and join the little troop of mothers and children hurrying down the road to Millfield Juniors. I turned quickly up Burnley Avenue, heading for freedom.

A big Rover car was turning into our doctor’s surgery at the end. It was Dr Malory himself, smiling at me and waving me past. Then he suddenly wound down his window.

‘Hey, you’re the little Kettle girl, aren’t you?’

I froze. He was still smiling but I was sure I was in trouble. I wanted to run, but he was out of the car now.

‘Hang on a minute! It’s Evie, isn’t it?’

‘Elsie,’ I mumbled.

‘Oh yes. And your grandma’s in the sanatorium now. They wrote to notify me,’ said Dr Malory, in his great booming posh voice. He might as well have been
shouting
through a megaphone. I didn’t know what to do. Everyone could hear, and yet I couldn’t shut him up or contradict him, because he was a doctor.

‘Have you been to visit her? How’s she getting on?’ he asked.

I had been trying hard not to think of Nan too much because it made me want to cry. I could already feel my eyes burning and my throat tickling. ‘She’s all right,’ I said quietly, my head down.

Perhaps Dr Malory was more sensitive than he seemed, because he patted me gently on the head.

‘Now listen, Elsie. I sent a message to your mother that you two, and anyone else who lives in your house, must come and have a chest X-ray and a little skin test, to make sure you haven’t contracted tuberculosis too. I dictated the letter to my secretary the moment I heard about your grandma. Hasn’t your mother mentioned a letter?’

I shook my head anxiously. Mum didn’t always bother to read the letters that came when she was home. If they looked official, she was likely to toss them straight in the bin.