She's Leaving Home (49 page)

‘Terrific, if it was that simple to cast our sins aside,’ he chuckled. ‘What a medieval religion you come from, Helen. Perform a little dance, and all is forgiven.’

‘It’s medieval in more ways than one. We skirt round it, Michael, but there is no way my parents would accept you. Not in a million years. Even if you converted, we wouldn’t have a ghost of a chance. There are other Jewish groups like the Liberals and Reform who’d say fine, welcome in, brother. But not the Orthodox.’

‘What’d happen, if…?’ He left the question unfinished.

‘We’d be ostracised. Not invited to anything. No contact of any kind, probably, if my parents’ resolve held out. If we invited them, they wouldn’t come. If we turned up, say, for someone’s funeral, we’d get the cold shoulder from most people. They would not speak to us. Oh, one or two might, but they’d be a bit shame-faced about it, and would prefer it if we didn’t show up. It’d be much the same if I appeared alone, to be honest. And heaven forbid if I had a child of a mixed marriage with me. They’d say how pretty she was, with regret in their voices.’

‘My God.’

‘They’d only be pleased if the marriage broke up and I returned to the fold. Then they could say, I told you so.’

‘No, no.’ He took her in his arms and rocked her, backwards and forwards. She wept on his shoulder and he felt the tears damp through his shirt.

‘It is wrong, Helen,’ he hissed, and held her away from him at arm’s length. ‘You do believe it’s wrong, don’t you?’

She nodded blindly. ‘Of course I do. It’s prejudice, pure and simple. In any rational discussion, you, Michael, or somebody like you, would be exactly what my parents would seek for me. But they’re not on the same wavelength – you’re anathema to them, and if I made a – a permanent liaison with you, I would be too.’

He breathed hard as he brought her into his embrace once more. Shorty’s parting shot came back to him. ‘Free will: we have free will in all of this. That is the Almighty’s gift to us. We don’t have to be cruel to other people. They don’t have to be cruel to you, Helen. They could say – fine, that wouldn’t be our first choice, but it’s OK by us. Couldn’t they?’

‘They won’t. Wouldn’t.’ He sensed that she did not want to trap him into any assumptions.

He grinned ruefully. ‘Never in my life have I been rejected by anyone, for any reason. I guess I’ve always assumed a cool superiority to every person I’ve met. It sure feels odd to be on the receiving end of prejudice.’ He peered down at her. ‘So now I know how it feels to be discriminated against. And I do
not
like it.’

For answer she pressed her hand to his body, over his heart, and let him feel the warmth of her fingers.

He kissed her gently, on the lips. ‘Oh my, Helen. All I want to do is make love to you, and hear your laughter in the same room. Never mind anyone or anything else.’

‘Yes, I know.’ They talked a while longer, then Helen rose to her feet and brushed down her skirt. ‘I have to get back.’

‘I’ll walk a while with you: it’s gone a bit breezy.’ Michael put on his jacket. Side by side but not touching they headed for the far gates, the long way round to her house.

The tobacconist was on the corner. A gust of wind blew sweet wrappers out of a litter bin in their path. As they passed in front of the shop the door opened suddenly and a tall moustached man emerged and bumped into them. With a flustered apology he turned to face them.

‘Dad!’

‘Helen?’

‘What are you doing here?’ The girl stopped dead. Beside her Michael took a step back and
stood, confused.

‘Me? Oh, Lord. I was desperate for a smoke. If I went home for one your mother’d make a fuss. Don’t say anything, will you?’

He had transgressed twice – not only in wanting to smoke, but in carrying money. That would have slightly shocked the younger Helen and should have amused her today, but her reactions were to start and cover her mouth. She struggled to recover control.

Her father had pulled out his lighter but was having trouble in the wind. Michael automatically stepped forward and offered the front flap of his jacket as shelter. The flame caught and Daniel puffed gratefully for a minute. ‘Thanks.’ He offered the packet. ‘Want one?’

‘I don’t smoke, no, thanks,’ Michael said gravely.

Daniel looked from one to another. ‘American? Don’t I know you? I’ve seen you somewhere, haven’t I?’

Helen intervened. ‘Yes, I think so. This is Michael Levison, Dad, of the United States Air Force. He’s one of the GIs who comes to Harold House. I think he was in the crowd in the Rembrandt the night we were there. With Aunt Gertie.’ She emphasised the
Levison
, the first two
Jewish-sounding
syllables.

Her father was gazing in puzzlement at Michael’s casual clothes. On this holy day his dress gave him away – as a non-observer, at the very least, or possibly worse. Helen heard alarm notes screaming in her ears. Michael was trying to take his cue from her, but as at the Rembrandt she shook her head imperceptibly at him.

Ostentatiously Michael checked his watch. ‘Gotta get back to the base – I’m on call later tonight. It was good to bump into you again, Miss Majinsky. And to meet you, sir.’ Formally and as coolly as he could, as if this were a chance acquaintance which did not matter to him, Michael shook hands with them both, then strode hastily away.

Helen quickly linked her arm with her father’s and began to steer him in the direction of home. The still-glowing cigarette put Daniel at a disadvantage both moral and physical and he coughed once or twice.

‘Slow down. I can’t keep up with your young legs.’ She obeyed and they strolled more casually. Fifty yards from their gate Daniel sucked greedily on the dying stub and threw it away. Then the puzzled expression returned and he looked back over his shoulder. Michael was nowhere to be seen.

‘Who was that exactly, Helen? What did you say his name was?’

‘God! My poor feet.’

‘Mine too. D’you think anybody’ll notice if I slip my shoes off?’

The plump solidities of Sylvia Bloom and her sister Rita Nixon collapsed gratefully into the chairs of Reece’s elegant café. Carrier bags with the names of the city’s most exclusive dress shops, crammed full, were deposited on a spare chair. The crystal vinegar bottle and condiments were pushed back, an ashtray found and Sylvia lit a cigarette.

‘What’ll it be, ladies?’ The waitress trudged towards them and came to a halt, notepad ready. She would be about their age, Rita noted, though far more careworn. A wisp of frizzy hair escaped from under the lace cap and was pushed back.

‘Tea, lots of it, and none of your teabags. And we’ll see the cakes, please.’

Rita unfolded a new blouse from its tissue paper and held it up. ‘Not bad for twenty-seven and eleven,’ she remarked. She leaned forward. ‘So come on, tell me. How was the conference in Blackpool? It looked a proper bellyful of laughs on the TV. Lord Hailsham ringing the bell and making a fool of himself…’

‘Everybody made a fool of himself,’ her sister answered crisply. ‘Absolute shambles. I don’t know what the party’s coming to. Poor Mr Macmillan in hospital with his prostate. They couldn’t wait till he’d resigned. Like ruddy performing seals. Now what have we got in his place? Lord Alec Douglas-Home, that’s what. A blinking aristocrat. That’ll go down well in the Dingle, and I don’t think.’

‘Mr Wilson’s having a field day with him.’ Rita mimicked the Labour leader’s Yorkshire vowels. “‘After ’alf a century of democratic advance the ’ole process has ground to a halt with a fourteenth Earl of Home.”’ She pronounced it correctly, Hume, with a drawn-out vowel, lips pushed forward.

‘I liked the answer, though. “And I suppose Mr Wilson, when you come to think of it, is the fourteenth Mr Wilson.’” Sylvia shook her head. ‘But you’re right. We Tories have taken leave of our senses. Anyone’d think it was still the nineteenth century when people tugged their forelocks as the nobility swept by. Those times have gone. But not in the upper echelons of the Conservative party.’

‘It won’t help in the elections.’

‘It won’t. I think Wilson’ll win, God help us. End of an era.’ Sylvia took a quick pull of her cigarette and left a ring of scarlet lipstick around its end. ‘And you can see why: the working class used to vote Tory not out of deference so much, as because they believed a man should strive for himself and his kin, then keep the fruit of his labours. But look what goes on down the docks these days. Those as work hard are idiots. Power lies with the unions. The shop steward decides who’s in a job, who’s blacklisted, who’s out on strike. So the ordinary bloke might as well vote Labour. No Tory government’s going to face down the unions, is it? And if they won’t nobody will.’ She prodded her sister. ‘You and me, we were brought up to graft. Gone out of fashion, it has. Specially in a dump like this.’

The two women poured their tea, chose two cakes each and concentrated on eating them without unduly scattering pastry crumbs and squirts of jam and cream over their clothes.

‘Not everybody’s doing badly,’ Rita perked up. ‘The Mersey Beat has put Liverpool back on the map. Roseanne keeps me informed. The Beatles are gear, she says. We have to “get with it”.’

‘Saw them on TV on
Sunday Night at the Palladium
,’ Sylvia sniffed. ‘Not impressed. They’re held up as a collection of lovable mop-tops but they’re only four scruffy yobs – or were, till Brian Epstein got his hands on them. Did you see the photos of his wedding to Barbara Matteson in the
Echo
? There’s a man with style. Next they’re going to be on the Royal Variety Performance, God save us. I hope they behave in front of the Queen and Queen Mother. If they act cheeky it’ll shame us all.’

‘Roseanne wants to leave school and follow them round. Apparently some girls queue the whole night for tickets for their concerts. Then when they’re inside all they do is scream their heads off. You can’t hear a thing. So why go, I asked her – why not stay home and listen to their records? Because they’re fab, Mum, she says, and acts like she’s about to swoon. Teenagers! I’m sure we were never like that.’

‘Not even over Mario Lanza?’

‘No,’ Rita answered firmly.

The roomy café, on a corner in the centre of town, was quiet after the lunchtime rush. The waitress sidled back, her raised eyebrows questing for additional orders. She rested her weight on one foot and nodded in vigorous agreement. ‘The time and money that goes into their antics. I wish somebody’d devote a fraction of it to looking after us poor housewives. Did you see that chap from
MANWEB
warned there’ll be electricity cuts on Christmas Day if everyone cooks their turkeys at the same time? Country’s short of power stations. Do ’em the night before, he suggested. Disgusting, I call it.’

Sylvia was about to demur that since she and her sister were Jewish they were not affected, then thought better of it. ‘I have a gas cooker,’ she smiled instead.

‘That’ll make it worse,’ the waitress added darkly as she began to clear plates. ‘It said in the
Echo
that it’ll take seven years to replace the gas lamps still in use in Liverpool with electric light. You’d think they’d leave ’em, if we’re so short of power? And now they want to build a Channel tunnel. Mad, the lot of them.’

The sisters looked at each other, bewildered but intrigued. Reece’s staff were always friendly. It occurred to Rita that had life not been so kind she too might have found herself in a waitress’s pinny and pair of battered shoes with a fund of inconsequential remarks.

‘Cost a fortune, they say.’ Sylvia showed off her knowledge as a man would. ‘Nearly a hundred and fifty millions. But cheaper than a bridge. If our government and the French were to decide to go ahead, it could be open by 1970.’

The waitress shuddered. Her arms were full of crockery but her audience sensed that otherwise they would be waved dismissively. ‘Ugh! Who wants it? The place’d be full of dirty foreigners in no time. And rabid dogs and what have you. No thanks. We’re an island, and we should stay that way.’

The woman had become so heated Rita feared for the dishes. ‘I shouldn’t worry,’ she counselled. ‘They’ll never do it.’ She slipped a sixpence under her saucer.

‘I should darned well hope not. Thank you, ladies. Pay at the till.’

‘It’s not fair. I wish we could vote.’ Brenda folded the
Daily Telegraph
with care. As the newly appointed Head Girl of the school she had first claim to read it.

‘If Mr Wilson wins, he says he’ll give votes to eighteen-year-olds.’ This from Meg, who as deputy was next in line for the paper.

‘A purely cynical move,’ replied Brenda loftily. ‘He thinks young people are more likely to vote for him than for the other lot, that’s all.’

‘He may have a point.’ Meg had succeeded in sliding the newspaper from under Brenda’s fingers and started to read.

The girls lounged contentedly in the prefects’ room, the inner sanctum of Blackburne House. A former parlour, it was comfortably if shabbily furnished with leather armchairs, a rug, bookshelves, a kettle and a gas ring. The gas fire glowed. A toasting fork with blackened crust burnt on to its
prongs rested against the fender. On the table a bunch of Michaelmas daisies wilted in water in an old milk bottle. The style, had they but known it, resembled the study of an elderly academic but the atmosphere was more like a gentleman’s club. The room was out of bounds to all but the most senior pupils. Even staff would knock and pause before entry.

Brenda put the kettle on the ring, lit the gas and busied herself making two mugs of instant coffee. ‘No milk left. It’ll have to be Marvel.’ She stirred the dried powder into the hot liquid and sipped. ‘Ugh, tastes horrible.’

The door opened. Helen Majinsky stood on the threshold, a brown envelope in her hand. Her eyes shone and a grin was spread over her features; her whole body seemed to dance.

‘You’ve got an offer,’ Brenda guessed. As Helen nodded happily, Brenda whooped and punched the air in triumph. Generous of spirit, she was instantly delighted.

‘It came this morning. Manchester, two Bs, for chemistry.’

‘Not bad. You’ll get that easily.’ It was not their style to hug but Brenda handed over her own coffee and began to make a third.

‘The next Marie Curie, then?’ Meg meant to tease but as ever the sharp edge of her voice lent sourness to her words.

‘I doubt it.’ Helen held the mug in both hands and drank. ‘Thanks. It’s freezing out. I was beginning to worry that I wouldn’t hear. It’s no great shakes though. I’d have to live with an uncle and aunt. And they are
frum
– I mean, religious. No staying in hall for me, nor out all night either.’ She pulled a face. ‘Glad I’ve caught up with you two. You’ve got your place in Leeds, Bren, and both Liverpool and Manchester want Meg.’

‘White heat of the technological revolution, that’s us!’ Brenda laughed. ‘Did you read Mr Wilson’s speech? We’re in the frame, girls, as scientists. Gonna change the world, us. Watch!’

The three giggled together, but each felt the frisson of pleasure that their endeavours had been so recognised. Chemists might not be as flashy as those who would read English Literature or French nor as dull as the mathematicians. Nevertheless it was resented when their choice of study was derided. Mr Wilson’s emphasis on science as the necessary foundation of the nation’s future had notably elevated their position in the school and enhanced their confidence in themselves.

‘Has Colette had any offers yet?’ Helen inquired.

Brenda shrugged. ‘If she has, she hasn’t said. She’ll get in on Miss Plumb’s say-so, even if her results aren’t brilliant.’

‘I’m sorry she wasn’t made a prefect.’ Helen straightened her prefect’s girdle, the blue, green and gold braided belt which was a precious possession. ‘I think Miss Plumb made a mistake. It would have given Colette a boost.’

Brenda frowned. ‘You can’t have a prefect who keeps missing school. We have to set an example. Colette’s horrible family stand in the way, too.’

Helen met her eyes briefly for a moment, then dropped them. There had been comment in the corridors as to why Helen herself had not been made Head Girl or deputy but it was generally recognised that, as with Colette, her family background made her not quite suitable.

Some instinct made Helen persist. ‘I am terribly worried about Colette. I tried to get her to confide the day of the prizegiving – we went to the Cavern but we couldn’t get in. She wouldn’t budge: not a word. I take your point about our duties to school, Bren, but as a gang we have obligations to each other.’

Brenda pursed her lips. ‘Well, maybe,’ she conceded. ‘But what the hell action can we take? If a girl makes up her mind that she’s going to give up, there’s not much we can say to stop her. After all she’d be in the majority.
Most
kids give up, especially girls. It’s a few nuts like us that keep going, and to be frank we need every scrap of our energies to succeed.’

‘I don’t think it’s like that. Something’s holding her back. Left alone she’d be here with us –
in fact she’d be beating us hands down like last year. Something’s
wrong
– I can feel it in my bones.’

‘It probably
is
that horrible family of hers,’ Meg persisted. ‘She’s inherited her slackness from them.’

‘I know what: I’ll take the homework round to her place tonight,’ Helen resolved. ‘It’s not much of a detour. At least I’ll have satisfied my own conscience. She was my best friend, once.’

Brenda indicated the envelope. ‘What about you? You must start putting yourself first, Helen. You’ll still do the Oxbridge exams?’

‘It’d mean a battle royal with my parents if I got in.’

‘Rot. If Oxford or Cambridge makes you an offer they won’t prevent you. It’s beforehand they apply the pressure. They want you to stay put and be just like them: that’s perfectly normal. But if you made it quite plain that you’re off, there’s nothing whatever they can do. You’ll get a full grant, yes? So it won’t cost them a penny.’

‘That’s true. But that’s not the issue.’

‘You should prance around saying to yourself,
I’ll show ’em. I’ll show ’em I’m the best
.
And that they were foolish to try and deter me
. Make your parents proud of you and they can’t say no.’

‘They are frightened for me – my mother especially. And they can’t see that while I’m – apprehensive – I’m not frightened one bit. At any rate, not of what scares them.’ Brenda looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

Helen put down the mug. ‘Oh, they think I’ll face a lot of prejudice out there, away from home. I might, but it doesn’t worry me much: I wouldn’t value the opinion of anybody who spoke disparagingly of Jews or anybody else. Then they’re petrified I’ll break with the faith. They don’t see that’s likely anyway.’ She stopped dead, conscious that she had said too much.

Meg pounced. ‘You going to stop being Jewish? You planning to convert? What to?’

Helen shook her head. Brenda became gently protective. ‘This American boyfriend got something to do with it, Helen?’

Helen glanced at her friends in anguish. ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t say a word. My parents don’t know. About him, I mean.’

A glance passed between the other two.

‘You should aim seriously for Cambridge,’ Brenda suggested quietly. ‘Lots of US bases in that part of the country. He could be posted there, then you could kill two – no, three – birds with one stone: leave home, get an education and see him in safety. A million miles from prying eyes.’

The three were silent for a moment then Meg started to laugh. ‘God, that reminds me. Last year I was in the Cavern when the Beatles were on stage. John’s Aunty Mimi hadn’t known what he was up to and she barged in and tried to drag him out. Mrs Harrison – George’s mum – was in the audience and she tells Mimi, Aren’t they great? And Mimi yells back that she’s glad someone thinks so. The two of them nearly came to blows. If Mimi’d had her way there’d be no Beatles. She still doesn’t think what John’s up to is respectable.’