Someone Special (32 page)

‘She was a pretty little thing until about a year or eighteen months ago,’ her mother was saying chattily. ‘It so often happens though, don’t you find? Now she’s plain as a pikestaff; how I’m going to get her married off I don’t know and you know JJ; he adores pretty women but plain ones leave him cold. How he’ll feel when he realises he’s produced an ugly duckling I shudder to think.’

‘Oh, she’ll probably change again,’ Aunt Beryl said in her light, amused voice. ‘Diet works wonders too, Connie. Kids these days eat too many sweets, that’s why they get spots and are so often overweight.’

Anna began to dry her hands on the towel which hung beside the basin; they were talking about her and it was all true, she knew it! She was fat and even if she didn’t have spots yet, she probably soon would have. Her face grew hot as the blood rushed to her cheeks and she turned away from the basin and took her coat off the hook. She began to struggle into it, her fingers on the buttons all thumbs.

‘A diet, for a child of ours? JJ wouldn’t hear of it, but he’ll blame me if we find ourselves landed with a great lump one of these days,’ her mother remarked. ‘Isn’t it sad though? Jamie’s such a handsome child, and looks aren’t nearly as important for a man. I’m afraid Anna is going to find life very difficult as she gets older. Plain girls have a hard time of it.’

Anna crouched on the cloakroom floor, trying to do up her laces as she fought tears. Her face burned with humiliation. She had been pretty once but she was plain now, she knew it was true, but she didn’t think it was her fault. She ate her crusts, but her hair wasn’t nearly as curly as Jamie’s and he chucked his crusts on the fire. She brushed her hair a hundred times a night, but still it got darker. She cleaned her teeth, wore the brace … she was worse than plain, she was a fat, scarlet-faced toad, ugly and unwanted, a child no one could possibly love.

She could not shut out the conversation, no matter how hard she tried.

‘How do you know plain girls have a hard time?’ Aunt Beryl’s voice was mocking now. ‘You’ve always been the prettiest girl around, and you’ve always known it. But there are plain girls who have enormous sex appeal, or haven’t you noticed?’

‘Oh,
sex
appeal,’ Anna’s mother said, as though Beryl had mentioned drains or bowels. ‘Anyone can have sex appeal, but you’re either pretty or plain.’

‘Rubbish,’ Aunt Beryl said briskly. ‘Look at Andrea Hopkins! You can’t call her pretty, but men buzz round her like bees round a honeypot.’

‘She won’t get a good man, though,’ Anna’s mother said. ‘she’s just not marriageable, all she’s got is this sex appeal you keep on about.’

Beryl laughed. ‘I don’t keep on about it, and the only reason Andrea hasn’t married is because she’s too busy playing the field. Do you know, Connie, some of your remarks sound most awfully like jealousy. It does you no credit, my dear.’

‘Me? Jealous? Of Andrea Hopkins? I should have thought, Beryl …’

Beryl cut across her words, her voice ice-clear. ‘No, not necessarily of Andrea, of anyone who gets between you and JJ, Connie dear, even if that someone is only a child!’

But it had all been too much for Anna. Listeners always hear ill of themselves, but Mummy had
known
she was in the cloakroom, she might have gone somewhere else to say such horrible things – unless she wanted Anna to hear, of course. Unless she was trying to warn her daughter that she must get pretty for her own sake. But it was no use telling herself to be sensible; Anna had wept until she was as soggy as a sponge and now, to her horror, the cloakroom door began to open. Someone would see her blubbing in here, and on her birthday too!

She left the cloakroom at an inglorious run. She bumped into the person who was trying to get into the room and recognised Phyllis, the elder sister of one of her guests. The girl went sprawling, but Anna took no notice. She charged at the stairs and thundered up them, red-faced, tearful. Well, if she was ugly she might as well act ugly; no
point in trying to be nice when people must hate looking at a child so hideous.

‘Anna, come down at once. You knocked Phyllis clean off her feet … my dear child, you must apologise …’

Anna ignored her mother’s voice; she rounded the last bend in the stairs and began to hurl herself at the straight. She was not going back, all red-faced and blubbery, to be laughed at, not she! That Phyllis was pretty – she would be all right, she would marry and have babies and be happy. She would never be a great lump, the despair of her parents! But as she ran across the upper landing heading for the nursery stairs, a door opened and someone caught her arm.

‘Hey, what’s up? I thought you were coming with me to take the cousins home?’

It was Daddy, of course, smiling gently down at her, but even as Anna flung her arms around him she saw out of the corner of her eye her friend Mabel’s mother emerging from one of the bedrooms. Mabel’s mother was tidying her hair, brushing the shoulders of her cream blouse, smiling to herself.

‘Oh Daddy, I forgot … you weren’t down there. Are you
sure
you wouldn’t rather take Jamie?’ Her father returned her hug, then turned her so that they could walk down the stairs side by side. He did not look at Mabel’s mother and she hung back, not wanting to interfere between father and daughter. What a nice lady she was, Mrs Platt, as nice as Mabel, who was Anna’s best friend.

‘Why should I take a baby boy in the car when I can take my beautiful daughter?’ Daddy asked, squeezing her. ‘Now then, what’s upset you? I can always tell when things haven’t gone right for my girl.’

But she would not, could not, say. To admit that she had listened while Mummy said how plain and ugly Anna was growing, how she would never get a husband, would
make the worries even more real, more important. As yet, Daddy hadn’t noticed her new plainness, so instead of answering, she took his hand in both of hers and dropped a kiss on the back of it.

‘Nothing’s wrong really, I was being silly. Daddy, what happens to girls who don’t marry?’

‘They stay at home and look after their old, old fathers,’ Daddy said promptly. ‘But you’ll marry all right, darling … if you want to, that is. The handsomest, most eligible man in Norwich, I shouldn’t wonder. Look, sweetheart, if Mummy’s been on about marrying you off one of these days, don’t you worry your head about it. The trouble is, Granny Peyton-Grant thinks all girls must marry well, and it’s made Mummy … well, a bit silly about things like that. So forget it, eh?’ They had reached the hall, which was emptying as children were called for, and Daddy pulled her to a halt and smiled into her eyes. ‘No more worrying, eh? Promise me?’

‘I promise,’ Anna said weakly. ‘Oh Daddy, I do love you!’

‘Feeling’s mutual, darling. Now we must round up the cousins or we’ll be late for dinner.’

He took her hand. Mummy was standing in the doorway, saying goodbye to a group of guests. As they passed, Mummy gave Anna a big, bright smile and reached out and smoothed a hand over her hair.

‘The birthday girl! Had a nice day, poppet?’

Anna nodded and smiled back and would have gone on, but Daddy lingered for a moment.

‘Someone had been having a go at her, Con – I hope it wasn’t you? It’s her birthday, her special day, no time to find fault.’

To Anna’s horror, bright colour suffused her mother’s cheeks and she was almost sure she could see tears shimmering, unshed, in her eyes.

‘Me? Darling, of
course
not! Poor baby, who was nasty to you? Who made you unhappy?’

Anna, head down, mumbled something, but her mind was whirling. Mummy
knew
! She knew very well that Anna had overheard that conversation, she had read the knowledge in her mother’s eyes. What was it about grown-ups that they could be so strange? Now Mummy’s eyes implored her not to tell – as if she would! But it was very confusing. Children must not lie, but grown-ups, it seemed, could do so whenever they liked. And then turn round and, with a look, ask a child not to split on them.

Daddy took her hand, leading her out of the front door and down the steps to the motor car. ‘Oh dear, pet, we’re late, the cousins are already in the back. Never mind, we’ll show them how a Humber eats up the miles!’

Anna was squeezed happily in the front seat with her cousin Lionel when Mabel and her mother came out of the house. Daddy leaned across her and called out through the open window.

‘Would you two like a lift? It’s a bit of a squash, but I can get another couple in!’

Rather to Anna’s dismay they accepted, so she and Lionel, being nicely brought up, had to get into the back with the others while Mrs Platt and Mabel sat in front. But it was fun in the back with the cousins, all squeezed up together giggling and kicking, reciting rude rhymes under their breath and now and then breaking into song. And when they reached Unthank Road and dropped the cousins off, they continued on to Judge’s Walk and Mabel came in the back with her while the grown-ups talked in the front.

‘You like Dan, don’t you?’ Mabel asked as they drove along. ‘He’s going back to boarding school in a couple of days; wasn’t it lucky your birthday wasn’t after term started?’

‘Very lucky,’ Anna said. ‘Who’s Amanda?’

She had just heard the name on her father’s lips.

‘That’s my mother, silly,’ Mabel told her. ‘Only I suppose you think of her as Mrs Platt.’

‘Yes, I do. I thought Daddy did too.’

Mabel shrugged and produced the bag of jelly babies she had won in Pass the Parcel.

‘Oh, I don’t know, they must have known each other for years, ever since we were small. Want a jelly baby? I like the green ones best.’

Forewarned, Anna selected a red one. The two of them sat in the back ignoring the quiet conversation taking place in the front, chewing jelly babies and gossiping. It was, Anna decided that night as she climbed into bed, the perfect end to an almost perfect day.

Almost. Who cares if I’m not pretty, Anna told herself with drowsy defiance as she was hovering on the verge of sleep. At least I can have sex appeal, then I can play the field.

And without the slightest idea of what this meant, she fell happily asleep.

‘But he said he’d come! He should keep his promises. I’m supposed to keep mine, and Margaret Rose is supposed to keep hers though she’s not even six yet. Hunty, why didn’t he come?’

‘He didn’t come because he’s the king now, and he’s most dreadfully busy, and important though your birthday is, my dear, the business of the kingdom is more important still.’

The garden at Royal Lodge was in glorious blossom and the princesses had enjoyed a birthday tea under the apple trees with a score of small friends and relatives, but now Elizabeth was upset because Uncle David had promised and not performed. It was so difficult, with a child as well brought up as Elizabeth, to explain that an uncle who had been charmingly attentive had found an
alternative attraction so strong that a promise to a niece could become a straw in the wind.

‘It’s that woman, isn’t it? That Mrs Simpson?’

Miss Huntley, startled, could not immediately think of a reasonably honest reply. Instead, she took the coward’s way out and asked a question of her own.

‘Why that tone, Elizabeth? You scarcely know your uncle’s … I mean you’ve only met Mrs Simpson once, when they popped in for a cup of tea.’

‘Uncle David came to show my Daddy his new car, and I didn’t like her and she didn’t like us,’ the princess said calmly. ‘Mummy didn’t like her either, nor did Daddy, nor did you, did you, Margaret Rose?’

‘No,’ squeaked the small princess. ‘I did
not
like her; she said there was cake crumbs on my cheek.’

‘There were,’ Elizabeth said sternly, then smiled at the small girl beside her. ‘But she shouldn’t have said so; it was rude. And Uncle David shouldn’t do as she says. He’s the king, he should do what he wants.’

‘Kings can’t always do what they want, but perhaps he’ll come tomorrow,’ Miss Huntley said diplomatically. ‘And he did send you a present, didn’t he? A very handsome present.’

Elizabeth’s eyes, which were a surprisingly dark blue, brightened and the familiar, three-cornered smile broke out.

‘Yes; a pony, a real beauty. I’m going to call her Beauty as well.’ Her face darkened again. ‘But I wanted to thank him properly, not just with a letter, and I wanted to show him which stall she’ll have and which bridle she’ll wear. Uncle David’s let me down, Hunty.’

He’s let a lot of people down, Miss Huntley thought to herself, and if you ask me, he’ll do worse than that. But you couldn’t say that sort of thing to a child, especially a princess. Elizabeth met the great and the good and conversed with them on equal terms; you had to watch every
word you uttered in front of her because all children are a bit like parrots.

‘It’s time the two of you were in bed,’ she said instead. ‘Come along, you’ve had your baths, you’ve had your hot drinks, you mustn’t try to make even the best of days last for ever, you know. Off with you both!’

‘Margaret Rose is supposed to go to bed earlier than me,’ Elizabeth objected. ‘You let her stay up, Hunty, because it was my birthday. Now shouldn’t I stay up as well?’

Miss Huntley laughed with genuine amusement. Children were children, no matter how royal!

‘Very well dear, just for half an hour. You may sit in the chair by the fire and read one of your new books. I expect it will be about ponies, or dogs, or budgerigars.’

The princess, selecting a book from the shelf which ran the length of the nursery, shook her head. ‘It won’t, not tonight. I want that book about the wicked stepmother and how the little girl got the better of her. I can’t remember the title, but it’s a blue book with gold writing. Hunty, can you find it for me?’

‘Ye-es,’ Miss Huntley said, half-laughing. ‘And why do you want to read that book, pray?’

Elizabeth looked down at her feet, then up at her companion through her thick, curly lashes.

‘Just in case Uncle David gets his way and Margaret Rose and I find ourselves with a wicked step-aunt. I want to be prepared!’

It was raining in the resigned, steady way it does in December, which usually means that there won’t be a change in the weather for some time. Nell shivered and wrapped her arms round herself because she was cold despite the hissing naphtha flares lighting the hoopla stall where she stood; she hadn’t bothered to put on her coat and her much-darned jumper and draggly skirt were
small protection against the cold. Still, once this job was over she would be able to get back in the warmth of the trailer, eat a meal and read a book before the evening opening.