White Boots (23 page)

“She seems all right, but I can't get her out of bed, so I'm getting Dr Phillipson to look at her.”

When Lalla heard this a cold feeling like drips of icy water ran down her back. Dr Phillipson! His medicine had not done much good but she knew he was clever. He wouldn't be fooled into thinking a person was ill when they were not, and he wouldn't say Harriet was not to take a test, unless he thought she was ill. What was Harriet going to do now? She couldn't be such a mean dog as to tell the truth. All the morning the thought of Harriet seeing the doctor made her inside feel wobbly and her hands damp. Not that she was ashamed of what she had said, of course she wasn't, but she wouldn't want everybody knowing, they didn't understand about skating, and so wouldn't see how sly Harriet had been. At the end of lessons she said in as uninterested a voice as she could manage:

“While I'm putting on my coat would you telephone Mrs Johnson, Goldie dear, and ask what the doctor said.”

When Lalla came back to the schoolroom dressed to go out Miss Goldthorpe seemed sad and grave.

“I'm afraid it's bad news, dear. Harriet's dreadfully ill. The doctor told Mrs Johnson he had never known anybody live whose temperature showed so high a reading.”

Lalla gaped at Miss Goldthorpe. Harriet very ill! Harriet with so high a temperature she might be going to die! It couldn't be true. Harriet had been perfectly well five days ago. She wasn't ill now, only pretending because she wanted a reason not to take her inter-silver.

“What's the matter with her?”

“The doctor can't say. Mrs Johnson asked if she had been working too hard. She says she's worrying about something. She's talked a lot about you, and an inter-silver test.”

Lalla licked her lips which had gone very dry.

“What did she say about me?”

“Mrs Johnson didn't say. Rambling, I expect, poor child.”

Lalla felt most peculiar. Worrying! Inter-silver! What had she done? She heard bells ringing somewhere and Goldie was behaving in a very odd way, far off one minute, and near the next. Then everything spun round, and she felt herself falling.

Lalla opened her eyes to find herself lying on her bed; Nana was dabbling eau-de-Cologne on her forehead.

“There, there! This won't do. It won't help Harriet if you get ill.”

Slowly everything came back to Lalla. Tears oozed in a tired way out of her eyes.

“She's terribly ill, Nana. She's got so high a temperature, she might die.”

“Nonsense, dear, you weren't meant to take it so serious. For all she's so frail-looking, Harriet's tough. You look more like dying, green as a lettuce you are.”

Miss Goldthorpe came hurrying in carrying a glass.

“Here's a brandy. I've rung the doctor, he'll be along in a minute.”

Lalla, though she still felt very come and go-ish, sat up.

“I won't see the doctor. He'll say I've to stop in today, and I won't. I must see Harriet.”

Miss Goldthorpe put an arm round her and held the brandy to her lips.

“Sip this. You couldn't see Harriet anyway. Her doctor said you weren't to see her unless he gave you permission.”

Lalla choked over the brandy.

“I must. This is disgusting stuff.”

Nana took the glass from Miss Goldthorpe.

“Nonsense, dear. You drink it up. I don't hold with spirits as a rule, but for fainting brandy's good.”

Lalla knew it was no good arguing with Nana about medicine, if she said “swallow” then swallow it was. She finished the brandy and at once felt better.

“If I see the doctor, will you ring Harriet's doctor, Goldie, and say I must, absolutely must, see Harriet?”

“Very well, dear, but it can't be today. I'm sure you've got to stop in bed today.”

“Of course you have,” Nana agreed. “Fainting indeed! That's something quite uncalled for and not what I like from a child of mine.”

Lalla's doctor was old and rather grumpy, but he was a good doctor; when he saw Lalla he was not at all pleased; he told Nana to undress her and he would thoroughly overhaul her. The overhauling took a long time; it seemed to Lalla that there was no bit of her he was not interested in. At last she got cross.

“I've nothing the matter with my eyes, so there's no need to pull them about, and my knees are quite well, so there's no need hitting them to see if my legs bounce.”

But Lalla might just as well have kept quiet. The doctor did not care what she said but went on calmly with his examination. At the end he packed his case.

“She's to stay there, Nurse, until I give her leave to get up. Now, where's Mrs King, I want to see her?”

Lalla spoke pleadingly.

“Don't be all doctor-ish. What are you going to tell Aunt Claudia?”

The doctor came back to the bed. He pointed at the boots and skates in the glass case, and to the text.

“There's to be no more of that business for quite a time. You're thoroughly run down, young woman. I'm telling your aunt you're to go away somewhere bracing.”

“I can't just now, my friend Harriet's ill, and I've got a skating test.”

The doctor made a tush noise.

“There will be no more skating tests for many months. I can promise you that.”

Nana went out of the room with the doctor. Lalla lay as still in bed as if she had been carved in wood, waiting to feel all over her the frightful words the doctor had said. When that happened she would do something, dash downstairs, make a scene, tell Aunt Claudia not to listen, that she was going to take her test no matter what anybody said. But although she lay as still as still for a long time, and understood in every inch of her what the doctor had ordered, she didn't get angry, or dash anywhere; instead she felt as if she had been carrying a weight on her back which was far too heavy for her, and somebody had quietly lifted it off and said, “Don't bother with that. Sit down and rest.” She had not given in to anybody about the test. The doctor didn't even know about her trouble with loops. She had fainted. She was run down. She wasn't to skate, she was to go away for a holiday. In the autumn, after the holiday, she would take the test. There would be nobody whispering, “Lalla isn't taking her test because she isn't ready for it.” Nobody saying,“Lalla Moore's not doing as well as everybody expected, is she?” Nobody could say anything but the truth: “Lalla isn't taking her test because she's terribly run down. She fainted, absolutely unconscious.” Almost, as in imagination she heard the dramatic story of her faint passed round the rink, Lalla said, “Giggerty-geggerty” but before the “gig” was in her head she remembered Harriet.
Harriet with the highest temperature anybody ever had all because of what she had said to her. Poor, poor Harriet, and they wouldn't let her see her, wouldn't let her say she was sorry and that of course she could take the inter-silver if only she'd get well.

Miss Goldthorpe came in. She drew a chair up to the bed. She sat down looking cosy and like somebody not in a hurry.

“This is upsetting. No skating for a bit.”

Lalla brushed the skating aside.

“Goldie, I've got to see Harriet, absolutely got to.”

“Why, dear?”

Lalla wriggled.

“I can't explain why but I've got to.”

“I can't help you then. I thought perhaps you could send a message by me to Mrs Johnson. She could have passed on whatever it is you want to say to Harriet, if she thinks she's well enough to hear it, but if it's a secret it will have to wait until both you and Harriet are better.”

Lalla bounced in the bed with impatience.

“I'm not ill. I fainted, which I never did before, but that's not having the highest temperature anyone ever had without being dead.”

Miss Goldthorpe looked fondly at Lalla.

“Don't you think you could trust me and Harriet's mother with the message? It can't be as secret as all that, is it?”

Lalla saw she would have to admit at least part of the truth.

“It's something I said that's made her ill.”

“You! What did you say?”

Lalla was still peculiar after her faint, and deadly worried. Her voice rose in a howl.

“Oh, Goldie, I've been an awful beast, the nastiest beast that ever, ever was. You'll despise me for ever and ever, you see…”

Miss Goldthorpe sat on the bed, her arms round Lalla and heard the shocking story. It was difficult to hear it through Lalla's chokes and sobs. At the end she lent Lalla her handkerchief, and brushed her hair off her face.

“You'd better tell Mrs Johnson all this, and she can tell Harriet how sorry you are, and I'm afraid you'll have to tell Nana. You see, the doctor said you were to be kept quiet and Nana won't let Mrs Johnson in unless she knows how important it is.”

Lalla gave her nose an enormous blow.

“All right. I'll tell Nana too. I'll tell everybody anybody likes. I'll even tell Harriet's brothers if she wants me to, and that would be awful, especially Toby, who's always been a bit despising.”

Nana sat by Lalla's bed knitting and heard the confession. Occasionally she shook her head or made a clicking noise with her tongue against her teeth. At the end she said:

“It was wrong of you, dear, and you know it, but if Harriet's well in time she can take that test, and no harm done.”

“But she couldn't be well in time, not with the highest temperature in the world.”

Nana went back to her knitting.

“I shouldn't wonder, funny things temperatures. Now you stop fretting and it'll all be Sir Garnet. You'll see.”

Olivia had been shocked to hear of Lalla's faint, and came round as quickly as possible. Although she had to keep her promise to Dr Phillipson and not tell Lalla that Harriet wasn't ill at all, she couldn't let her go on worrying.

“Harriet's better, pet.”

“Oh good! Will you tell her I'm awfully sorry. I didn't mean what I said, at least I did then, but I don't any more, and please tell her she can do her inter-silver test if she's well in time, do you think she will be?”

“I shouldn't wonder.” Olivia took off her coat and gloves and sat down. “Suppose you tell me all about it.” Not by a flick of an eyelash did Olivia let Lalla know she already knew the story. She wanted to hear it again, for only that way could she help Lalla. At the end she asked: “Why did you mind about the photograph? You've had so many taken.”

Lalla pleated her eiderdown while she tried to explain.

“It wasn't the photograph… it was those loops I told you about… I hoped I couldn't do them because I'd outgrown my strength, like you said, but it wasn't that…”

“What was it?”

Lalla struggled with herself. It was what she had never admitted and had never meant to admit.

“I just couldn't do them. They were too difficult.”

Olivia jumped up and kissed her.

“Bless you, my pet, I've been longing to hear you say that.”

Lalla wriggled away.

“Why?”

“Don't be cross. I don't know anything about skating; you may be the great skater of the future, I don't know, but since that matinée we went to together I do know you're worrying too much about it. Miss Goldthorpe tells me you're not to skate for a while, and I think it very good news. You might find it isn't the only thing you want to do.”

Lalla threw her chin into the air.

“I won't. You see, I've got to be something important and how else would I be except skating?”

Olivia put on her coat.

“I must get back to Harriet. I don't know, but I have an idea that if, for a little, you would stop thinking about being a skating champion, you might find out that it wasn't so important as you thought.”

AUNT CLAUDIA RENTED a cottage on a lonely part of the south-east coast, and into it moved Lalla, Harriet, Miss Goldthorpe and Nana. The doctor said there were to be very few lessons for Lalla, so sitting-round-the-table lessons only happened on wet days, and on fine days she and Harriet went about doing just what they liked, wearing hardly any clothes, and getting browner and browner every day. Every night Lalla went to sleep the moment her head touched the pillow, and she did not wake until Nana came in and drew back her curtains. She ate the most enormous amount of food, including all the things Aunt Claudia had said made a person fat, and although she got fatter nobody cared.

“Anyway,” Lalla said, “I don't go on getting fatter. I just got fatter to start with and now I've stuck that size.”

Harriet too had an enormous appetite but she remained thin, and nobody minded that either.

“You're that kind, dear,” Nana said. “You won't fatten not if you ate forty meals a day.”

To begin with Harriet was told to try not to talk about skating to Lalla, but that soon wore off, for Lalla would talk about it. She had not watched Harriet when she had passed her inter-silver test, but she loved teasing her and showing her how she must have looked taking it. She would pull down the corners of her mouth.

“Watch me, Harriet. This is you waiting to begin. Now this is you doing your back change. Here's you doing your threes. This is your one foot eight. And this is you trying not to show how much you want to look at your tracings.”

Lalla was funny enough imitating skating on ice, but with bare feet on wet sand she was so silly that Harriet would laugh so much that it hurt, and then Lalla would laugh too, and they would have to lie down or they would have fallen over.

But as she got better and gayer Lalla began to think. Not the frightened dashing from side to side thinking, but sensible thinking, and what she thought came out in things she said to Harriet.

“I shan't try for my inter-gold until Max says I'm ready…Down here where Aunt Claudia isn't I see it's silly to rush, and get in a state…I don't think even working hard from September I'll get those loathsome change loops right this year. I don't care
a bit if I wait till May…” Then suddenly one morning she said: “Harriet, d'you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to write to Uncle David, at his office so Aunt Claudia won't know I've written, and get him to see Max and ask him when he thinks I'll be ready to take the inter-gold. I'd rather know than not know. If Max says not till May, Uncle David can tell Aunt Claudia for me while they're in Canada in August. Canada's a gloriously long way off, I wouldn't know what she was saying and I wouldn't care.”

There was no answer for quite a while to Lalla's letter to Uncle David, except a postcard saying “OK, poppet”. Then suddenly he telephoned. Lalla answered the phone; they could tell by her excited squeaks something nice was going to happen.

“All of them! What fun! Lucky them, I wish we could. In the car! Giggerty-geggerty, I must tell Harriet, I can't wait.”

It was wonderful news. Uncle David had taken rooms near the cottage for Olivia and George for a week, and for himself for a night. For the boys a tent was coming and they were camping in it all of August. Uncle David was bringing the Johnsons by car.

A week later they all arrived. At first there was such a lot to say that it seemed they would never catch up with each other's news. Over the tent putting-up, at which Lalla and Harriet helped, Alec told of the wonderful thing that had happened to him. Mr Pulton had seen George and said he would like to send Alec to an agricultural college, and when he had finished
training he would invest some money in a market garden. He had said that he would like to help make somebody else's dream come true, because it was too late now to find his own.

“And I'll tell you one reason why he said that,” said Toby, “it's because Alec took him some of our strawberries. My word, Lalla, they've been stupendous. Simpson's been marvellous, he's picked them for us every day and had them ready when Edward and I went to fetch them.”

Harriet was terribly pleased about Alec.

“That'll mean more chances for you, Toby, you can go somewhere like Oxford and be a professor at mathematics, for Alec won't cost anything.”

Edward was knocking in a tent peg. At this he stopped and looked in a pained way at Harriet.

“There is me. I shan't go to a university because by then I'll be a film star…”

The rest of what Edward had to say was lost. They all fell on him and rolled him in the sand.

That night it was fine. They had supper on the beach. While it was being cooked Lalla and Uncle David went for a walk. Lalla, in spite of trying not to care, felt wormish inside.

“What did Max say?”

Uncle David lit a cigarette.

“There's no thought of you going in for that test you were working for until next year.”

Lalla was frightened to ask, but she made herself.

“Did he say anything else?”

Uncle David took her hand.

“Prepare yourself for a shock, poppet. He doesn't see you as a world champion. He says you'll never be a good enough figure skater.”

Lalla stopped. Her eyes were frightened.

“But I couldn't just be ordinary, I'm not used to it.”

Uncle David laughed.

“You won't be. We've got ideas, that Max of yours and I. Anyway there's nothing for you to worry about. You go back to your skating as usual in the autumn.”

Lalla could hear Uncle David was happy about her.

“Tell me what you and Max have thought of, I can feel it's something nice.”

“There's something else first which you've got to know. It's about Harriet. Max thinks she's a find.”

Lalla gasped.

“Harriet! Do you mean it might be her who's a champion grim, and not me?”

“Might. It's too early yet to say. But don't think that means you're out of the picture. You're not. You'll like Max Lindblom's idea for you.”

Lalla was impatient.

“Well, why don't you tell me what it is?”

“I've got your Aunt Claudia to talk round. You know, it's been tough on her not being allowed to discuss skating with you.”

“But I ought to know, it's my future.”

“Don't take that tone with me, young woman, or I'll drop you in the sea. Now listen. How would you like to be a professional skater?”

When Lalla and Uncle David got back to the picnic, supper was almost cooked. Olivia and Nana were tasting some soup they were boiling over a fire of driftwood.

“There you are, Lalla,” George called out. “Harriet says you'll give us an imitation of her on the ice.”

Lalla was delighted, she felt so gay, just in the mood to make people laugh. An audience again! It made her tingle as if it was Christmas Eve. She ran on to the sand and not only imitated Harriet, but Max, a fat judge trying to keep warm, and Mr Matthews nearly falling over as he presented a bouquet. She had a perfect audience; everybody laughed until they could not laugh any more.

“You must stop, Lalla darling,” said Olivia, drying her eyes, “or I shall upset the soup.”

Lalla knelt by Olivia and looked at the soup.

“I wish that was a witches' brew, and you could see things that are going to happen. Uncle David says he's told you Harriet's more likely to be a champion grim than me.”

Edward peered into the soup.

“See that bubble. That's you, Lalla, getting awfully important.”

Uncle David had a look at the bubble.

“I shouldn't wonder. I can see Lalla as a professional. She's got what it takes, and she can be funny too. The world is short of funny queens of the ice.”

Edward gave a squeak.

“Look at that piece of carrot that's come to the top. That's Harriet skating with one leg stuck out behind her.”

Olivia gave the piece of carrot a little push.

“My Harriet skating to the stars, I can't see that happening.”

Lalla looked in the soup.

“I can. I expect Aunt Claudia will help.”

Harriet could hardly believe all she had heard. Max thought she might make a star skater! Lalla not minding!

“I feel curiouser and curiouser, nearly twelve, which is old enough to start proper training, and perhaps something gorgeous is going to happen.”

Lalla felt mad-doggish with gayness. A professional! She would have to be able to do all the figures of course, but after that, free skating for ever and ever, and an audience to watch her do it.

“Giggerty-geggerty, I can't wait. Imagine if that soup could show the future. Don't you all want to know what happens to Harriet and me? Because I do.”