The Girls from See Saw Lane (13 page)

I
woke
the next morning to a strangely quiet room. Even when Rita was asleep she made this kind of snorty sound and it was strange not to hear it. It made the room feel kind of empty. I got out of bed and pulled back the curtains. There had been a heavy frost overnight and the garden looked beautiful. Bright sunlight streaked across the lawn and dappled through the trees and shrubs, making everything sparkle and glisten. It was lovely. Dad's new shed looked like a piece of art, covered in silvery spider's webs. The shed had been there for at least eight years, but Mum still insisted on calling it new. Dad says it's just to remind him that he burnt the old one down. I turned back into the room and looked across at Rita's empty bed. It was unmade, just as she had left it, the sheets and blankets tumbling onto the floor, the pillow smeared with Rita's trademark black mascara. To my utter surprise I felt a lump forming in my throat. Rita and I had shared this little bedroom for as long as I could remember and I had looked forward to the day when I had it all to myself. So why was the empty bed making me feel sad?

Just then Mum walked in holding a cup of tea. She saw the look on my face and said, ‘I thought you might be feeling a bit lost.'

‘I don't know what I'm feeling,' I said. ‘It's not as if we ever got on, is it?'

‘Feelings are funny old things,' said Mum. ‘They catch us on the hop sometimes and they don't always make any sense.'

‘Feeling sad about Rita's empty bed certainly doesn't make much sense.'

‘You may not have got on with her, but you were used to her, and if it makes you feel any better, your dad couldn't eat his boiled egg this morning and it had something to do with not having to fight Rita for the bathroom.'

‘And how about you, Mum?'

‘Don't start me off,' she said and hurried out of the room.

I smiled to myself as I picked Rita's dressing gown off the floor and hung it on the back of the door. It seemed that Rita, with all her stroppy ways and her notions of grandeur, was going to be missed.

In the afternoon, Mary and I were sitting having a coffee in the cafe. She had been unusually quiet on the way there, not looking in the shop windows as she usually did, and now she was sitting staring into space.

‘Penny for them,' I said.

‘I'm not even sure they're worth that,' she said, sighing.

‘Talk to me.' I said.

‘Do you know, Elton never asks me about myself,' she said. ‘I bet Ralph knows everything about you.'

‘I don't know about everything, but I suppose we do share most things.'

‘Elton doesn't even care about my dream of going to study art in Paris.'

‘Maybe he's jealous.'

‘Maybe.'

‘What do you talk about then?'

‘
Him
, we talk about
him
.
His
music,
his
dreams,
his
ambitions.'

I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to go on about how different it was with Ralph.

‘And I'm not really myself when I'm with him,' she went on. ‘I'm always frightened of saying the wrong thing, because if I do, then he sulks for days. That's not good, is it?'

I took a sip of my coffee; I was beginning to understand what she was saying. To be yourself, to make mistakes, even to be unkind, you have to feel loved. You have to know that however you behave that person will forgive you, because they care about you. A bit like your parents, I suppose. Elton's feelings for Mary weren't unconditional. They depended on how good she made him feel about himself. As long as she was bolstering his ego everything was fine, but as soon as she needed some attention he lost interest in her. Mary had pretty much answered her own question.

‘When did you last see him?'

‘I don't know, a week ago, I suppose.'

‘Ralph said he'd see me here this afternoon, maybe Elton will be with him.'

‘I'm tired of playing games, Dottie. I'm almost eighteen for heaven's sake and I'm still acting like the lovesick girl I was when I was twelve.'

Just then Ralph came into the café, followed by Elton, who had his arm around a pretty dark-haired girl. Ralph sat down next to me and Elton and the girl went up to the counter.

‘She's just a friend of his, Mary,' said Ralph. ‘We met her on the way here.'

‘I've got to go,' she said, standing up.

‘Sorry,' I said to Ralph and I followed Mary out of the door, almost running to keep up with her. We didn't speak till we got to the seafront. We sat in one of the shelters and stared out over the sea.

‘I'm an idiot, aren't I?' she said softly.

I shook my head. ‘Actually I think it's Elton that's the idiot, not you.'

‘What the hell do I see in him? I mean, who but an idiot would put up with that? But I do, don't I? I just put up with it till he decides he wants to go out with me again.'

‘I guess it's that Achilles heel thing that you were going on about.'

‘Well I'm beginning to think it's my head that's weak not my heel.'

Mary's eyes were full of tears and she was swallowing hard to keep from crying.

‘It's okay to cry,' I said.

Mary blinked furiously. ‘I wouldn't give him the bloody satisfaction,' she said.

I squeezed her arm. ‘That's my girl,' I said.

Later, me and Ralph were sitting on a bench in the park. I took his hand and held it on my lap.

‘Has Elton spoken to you about Mary?' I asked.

‘In what way?' said Ralph.

‘Well, does he want to go out with her or doesn't he?'

Ralph took his hand back and put his arm around my shoulder.

‘You don't like him much do you?' he said.

‘It's not so much that I don't like him, it's more to do with not trusting him. If he doesn't want to be with Mary, why doesn't he just leave her alone? At least then she might find someone who
does
want to be with her.'

‘You'd have to know Elton to understand it.'

‘What is there to understand?'

‘He doesn't like change and he doesn't like losing people. So even if he sees other girls, he won't want to let Mary go because he knows how she feels about him. When we were growing up and we fell out with each other, he would always be the first one to say sorry even if the row wasn't his fault. You say you don't trust Elton, but the truth is Elton doesn't trust
anyone
.'

‘But why? I don't understand.'

‘It's to do with his dad dying when he was so young. The only people he cried in front of were me and his mum. He's devoted to his mum but he's always worried that he's going to lose her.'

‘That she'll die like his dad did?'

‘It's not only that. She's had a couple of boyfriends, but Elton kicked up such a fuss that they never worked out. He's a bit complicated is our Elton.'

‘But he does
like
Mary, doesn't he?'

‘Well she's the only girl he keeps going back to, so he must like her.'

‘But why walk into the cafe with another girl when he knows there's a chance Mary will be there? That's just mean, isn't it?'

‘Elton's always been a flirt. He picks girls up and then he drops them, it's what he does. I can't say I approve of it, but it's never interfered with our friendship. What it
is
affecting is you and me because we seem to spend an awful lot of time talking about it.'

‘I know we do. It's just that when Mary gets hurt and angry so do I.'

‘Well I'm not Elton's keeper and you're not Mary's. Whatever we say or do, it isn't going to change anything is it? Elton will continue being Elton and Mary will continue being hurt, but she's not a child Dottie, she will do exactly what she wants to do whatever you say and however much you worry.'

‘You're right. I know you're right.'

‘So can we concentrate on our relationship and stop worrying about theirs? Because I'm pretty sure they're not worrying about us.'

T
rue to form
, the very next day, Mary and Elton were together again. Elton said sorry about the girl he walked into the cafe with and Mary, of course, forgave him. The four of us started to have fun together. ‘Brainless' were getting quite a name locally and the three of us went to as many of Elton's gigs as we could. We went to Eastbourne and Hastings and, once, even as far as Croydon.

That time they were playing in a really nice hotel. Mary and I sat on a red velvet sofa in the foyer while the boys were setting up. We were dressed up to the nines and the people who had paid for tickets to the concert were milling around chatting and smoking and talking about the band. It was exciting being there and being part of the band's entourage. Mary was perched on the settee and she kept flicking her hair and checking her reflection in the mirror behind us. She pulled a face at me when I laughed at her.

‘Well it looks as if all your dreams are coming true,' I said.

‘What dreams?' said Mary as if she didn't know what I was talking about.

‘
Your
dreams,' I said. ‘You know, getting out of the estate and sitting in swanky hotels and going to fabulous places. Isn't this everything you ever wanted?'

‘It's some of what I wanted. I wouldn't call Croydon fabulous,' she said. ‘It's not Paris, is it Dottie? It's not Montmartre.'

‘But one day it could be.'

‘I wish I could be sure of that.'

I tucked my arm through hers and gave it a squeeze. ‘Where's the old Mary gone, the Mary that used to say: “What's the point in doing something if you always know how it's going to turn out?”'

‘When did I say that?'

‘When you were eight.'

‘Sounds as if I was wiser then than I am now.'

‘You were barmier,' I said, smiling.

One night the four of us went to the fair at Southwick, a town just along the coast. We could hear the music as soon as we got off the train and the sky above the green was a blaze of light, orange and red and gold. As we got closer to the fairground we became part of a crowd of people, most of them our age, everybody all wrapped up in coats and scarves. Everyone was happy, everyone was laughing. There was a buzz in the air and the sugary-pink scent of candyfloss mingling with the frying smell of sausages. We stepped over the tangle of wires on the ground, walked past the noisy generators and the caravans all parked up round the outside with mean-looking dogs chained outside, and into the fair. It was a bright, noisy mix of music and shouting and people, all bumping and jostling and laughing. Ralph held my hand tight and I leaned closer to him. Mary could hardly contain herself she was so excited, her enthusiasm rubbed off on the rest of us, even Elton. We went on the waltzers, the four of us pressed up tight together as it spun. Mary's eyes were bright and shining and her cheeks were rosy. She hung onto the handle and screamed with laughter and Elton laughed with her. They were like two kids. And it was nice to see them like that, having fun.

‘Let's do that again!' Elton said, but Mary said no. She was so giddy she wobbled on her feet when we climbed off the ride, and had to sit down on the steps for a moment or two with her head on her knees.

I rubbed her back. ‘You okay?' I asked.

‘I've never felt better!' she said.

Suddenly Elton held out his hand, ‘Come on, Mary, you lightweight!' he said. ‘Bet you're not man enough to join me on the bumper cars!' Mary was on her feet in an instant, running towards him saying she'd show him who was the best driver.

So Mary and Elton went on the bumper cars and Ralph and I watched; it was as if they were on a dance floor, circling one another. I noticed that Elton never took his eyes from Mary's green car. I saw how he wove amongst the other cars, waiting until he could drive towards Mary's, and bump her. The electricity flashed and crackled in the grid above them, and I wondered if maybe there was a future for Mary and Elton after all.

I
t was the old Mary
, the Mary I loved, the feisty little girl who hung upside down on the railings. She was so happy. She wanted to go on everything. We followed in her wake as she ran towards the Switchback. We went on all the rides that evening, ending up on the Ferris wheel. Ralph and I sat cuddled up together in one seat while Elton and Mary were in the seat above us, we could hear her squealing as the wheel took us high above the crowds, it was windy up there and my hair was blowing across my face, I wanted to stop the clocks, I wanted that night to last forever, I was sitting on top of the world with the boy that I loved and my best friend was happy; I was happy too. I was so happy.

M
e and Mary
were sitting on the swings down the park.

‘You know I said I would tell you when we did it?' said Mary

‘You've done it?' I screamed. ‘What was it like? When? How?'

‘What do you mean, how?' said Mary.

‘No I don't mean how, obviously,' I said, giggling, ‘but when?'

‘Well we haven't exactly done it yet but we're about to.'

‘Really?'

‘Elton's mum has joined a bingo club.'

I must have looked totally bewildered.

‘Yes, that's how I reacted when Elton told me. It means the house will be empty every Thursday.'

‘You're going to do it every Thursday?'

‘Oh for heaven's sake, Dottie, I don't know. We haven't done it
once
yet.'

‘Are you scared?'

‘I am a bit.'

‘You will be careful, won't you?'

‘I'm not a complete idiot, Dottie Perks.'

‘You can be, Mary Pickles,' I said, frowning.

‘The thing is,' said Mary, ‘I know things have been better between us, but I mean, even when we
are
together he's still eyeing up other girls.'

I'd already noticed that but I couldn't say it to Mary.

‘I have to have some sort of commitment from Elton before I go to art school. If I don't, I'll lose him.'

‘I don't want to put a downer on it, Mary, but it sounds as if it's something you've decided you've
got
to do, not something you
want
to do.'

‘I have to do it, Dottie.'

‘No, you don't.'

‘Yes, I do.'

‘You might not like it.'

‘If I never try it, I'll never know,' she said.

‘Huh?'

‘That's what my Mum always tells my brothers when they don't want to eat something.'

‘I can't imagine your brothers ever not wanting to eat something. They'll eat anything.'

Mary laughed, and leaned back on the swing, tipping her head back, letting the ends of her hair brush the ground underneath.

‘In a week's time I probably won't be a virgin any longer, Dottie. In less than seven days I will have crossed over to the other side, no longer a girl but a woman. And once I've crossed over, there will be no going back.'

‘Do you think you'll feel any different? I mean, do you think you'll still want to hang around with me once you're doing it with Elton?'

I was tipped back now as well, mirroring Mary. We were both looking at one another from this weird position.

‘Now you're the one who's being stupid,' she said.

And she smiled an upside-down sort of a smile.

Ralph and I had been going out together for five months by now. Mostly we just went for long walks over the Downs or along the beach. The council had put up some Christmas lights along the seafront, and we liked to walk there in the evenings, watching the lights reflected in the waves that came splashing over the pebbles. Nothing Ralph and I did was particularly exciting when I thought about it, but we both sort of knew without saying anything that it really didn't matter what we did as long as we were together. The more I got to know Ralph the more I liked him. He was sweet and kind and he made me feel special and safe. I trusted him; that was the thing. I knew he would never lie to me, or say mean things behind my back, or look at another girl any more than I would do anything to hurt him. It was strange at first, being part of a twosome, because the only twosome I had ever been part of was me and Mary Pickles, and yet in another way it didn't feel strange at all – it just felt right.

 ‘I wish I'd told you when we were at school,' said Ralph one evening.

‘Told me what?' I said.

‘That I liked you.'

‘You sort of did,' I said, grinning. ‘I've always kind of hoped that it was you who sent me a Valentine's card. Am I right?'

Ralph laughed and squeezed my gloved hand. ‘Quite the little Romeo wasn't I?'

‘So it was you, then?'

‘Guilty as charged.'

One evening when we were sitting on a bench down beside the lagoon and the moonlight was rippling on the water, and the snow was falling around us, we kissed and it was the sweetest kiss in the whole world and the kiss tasted of spearmint toothpaste and raspberry ice lolly. And something else. Ralph. It tasted of Ralph. The kiss went on forever. It was a grown-up kiss, a beautiful kiss. When the kiss finished, Ralph cupped my face in his hands and said: ‘I love you, Dottie Perks, and I think I've wanted to tell you that for the whole of my life.

Me and Ralph had always walked in Mary and Elton's shadows, maybe now the only shadows we would be walking in would be our own.

That Christmas was perfect. Ralph joined my family for Christmas dinner. We played daft childish games that had bored me the year before but seemed hilarious with Ralph there. I gave Ralph a snow globe. It had a little cottage inside and when you shook it the snow fell on the roof and on the hills around it. It was the cottage of my dreams, the sort of cottage that I dreamed Ralph and I would live in one day. Ralph bought me a beautiful silver locket. He hadn't put a picture inside but he had written ‘I love you' on a piece of paper instead.

‘I thought you could put your own photo in there,' said Ralph.

‘I want one of you,' I said.

‘Madwoman,' said Ralph, smiling.

‘We can go to one of those booths and get some taken.'

‘There's one on the pier,' said Ralph. ‘We'll go there if you really want to.'

‘I do,' I said.

T
he four of
us saw 1964 in together. We watched the fireworks exploding over the pier, sending sprays of silver and gold into the sea. Passing ships sounded their horns as midnight struck. It was magical. Mary was hanging on to Elton, her hair was blowing across her face and her eyes were shining with excitement. She looked across at me and smiled. It was one of the most loving and tender smiles I had ever known. That smile was to come back to me in the dark days that followed.

Ralph and I saw each other every day during January. He met me straight from work and usually we went to the cafe and sat together making one drink last as long as it could. He told me about his day and I told him about mine and gradually we learned little things about each other and everything I learned about Ralph made me like him more. After that, if the weather was cold, which it usually was, he would walk me home. We held hands, sometimes he put his arm around my shoulder and I liked the feeling of the weight of it; I liked the feeling of having someone care for me in the way that Ralph did, as if I were something precious.

‘Don't you get bored of just sitting around doing
nothing
with Ralph
?
' Mary asked one day.

‘We're not doing nothing. We're talking.'

‘About what?'

‘I don't know. Nothing.'

Mary rolled her eyes and I laughed and said: ‘Okay, point taken!'

But she didn't understand and she couldn't understand how I felt about Ralph. I couldn't explain how things were changing between us, how I knew, without him having to say or explain, that he felt the same about me as I felt about him.

I had never been able to keep up with Mary, not properly, she was always the leader, but Ralph encouraged me to step forward. He asked me what I thought about things, he seemed to respect my opinion.

And those evenings, those January evenings when we walked home in the dark, I'll never forget them. I won't forget how Ralph held my hand or how he would stop when we reached a dark corner, and how he would press me back against a wall and tilt my face up towards his and kiss me. His face was cold and his hands were cold, but I was warm, I was burning up as he kissed me, and as the days wore on we got better at kissing, we were learning about each other, we were learning about desire.

I thought about him all the time; at work, at home, in bed. I imagined what it would be like to be married, to have a bed of our own, when we would be able to do more than kiss and do it as often as we wanted. I drove myself half mad thinking of how it would be to be in bed with Ralph. I think it was the same for him. I could feel it in the way he looked at me, and knowing how much he wanted me made me feel precious; it made me feel beautiful.

Mary still hadn't told me about her special night with Elton. It was weeks ago and she still hadn't mentioned it, so I just blurted it out one day.

‘You haven't told me about the night Elton's mum went to the bingo.'

‘And I'm not going to,' said Mary, ‘it was too embarrassing for words.'

Seeing the look on Mary's face I knew better than to push it.

January turned into February. There was a Valentine's dance at the local Youth Club and we all had tickets. I bought a card for Ralph, nothing flash, just a red heart on a white background and the words
Be Mine
on the front. Mary bought a big card for Elton with a cartoon of two cuddling puppies.

‘What do you think?' she asked and I said I thought it was lovely but I couldn't see Elton putting it up on his window ledge somehow.

We all went to the dance, everyone did. The Youth Club was just an old green tin hut in the middle of a field, but it had been decorated with hearts made out of crêpe paper and streamers and red balloons, fairy lights were strung across the stage and they twinkled in the darkened room, and as long as you didn't look too closely it actually looked quite glamorous for once.

Ralph and I danced five dances in a row. We were really into rock and roll and he was a good dancer, but after that we were very hot.

‘Come outside to cool down,' he said and Elton made a jeering noise and raised his glass to Ralph and said: ‘Good luck, mate!' and Ralph laughed and scratched his ear and said: ‘Come on, Dottie, ignore him. He's jealous.'

I couldn't understand why Elton would be jealous when I knew Mary would have been out of the door with him in a flash if he'd asked her to step outside with him.

Ralph took my hand, and we walked through the room, out into the darkness. The air was icy, but it felt clean and it smelled of the sea. I leaned on the railings at the front of the club, and I took a few deep breaths and the next thing I knew Ralph's hands were on my shoulder. He turned me round to face him and he kissed me and I kissed him back and his hands were on either side of my head, in my hair, and he was pressed up against me and perhaps I was a bit dizzy with the dancing. Perhaps it was because it was Valentine's night, I don't know. But that night I put my hands underneath his shirt and I felt his chest, I felt how strong and broad it was, how warm and different to mine. I put my hands around him and then I moved them to the front, to the button of his trousers. My heart was racing and I was scared but I knew what I wanted. I'd always told Mary that I wanted to save myself for the right time, for when I was married, but suddenly I didn't care about all that, in fact, any morals I might have had about sex before marriage were about to fly out the window.

Ralph pulled gently away from me but held me close. His breathing was fast and although it was cold I could see beads of sweat on his forehead.

And then I asked him something that had been on my mind for a long time but had been too embarrassed to mention. ‘Have you ever done it before?' I said.

‘Not properly,' he said, breathing more easily. ‘Just a few fumbles in the dark. What about you, Dottie?'

‘The same,' I said, ‘and always with the wrong boy.'

‘So let's wait,' he said, ‘let's make it special, not here, not in the car park outside a grotty club. How will that sound when we tell the grandchildren?'

I laughed. I pretended I hadn't noticed what he'd said about our future grandchildren. I pushed my hair back from my face.

‘God, Dottie, you're so… so perfect!' Ralph said. He took hold of both my hands, held them tight. ‘We can wait a bit longer, can't we?' he said. ‘We've got all the time in the world.'

I smiled up at him. He tucked his shirt back into his trousers and smoothed my hair, and when we both looked respectable again, we went back into the club.

Everything looked the same, the lights twinkled and the music was soft and romantic. I looked across at Elton and Mary, they had their arms around each other and Mary was smiling up at him. Everything looked exactly the same, but I suddenly had this terrible feeling of loss, as if it was all too perfect, as if I needed to remember everything before it all faded away.