Down an English Lane (32 page)

‘Er, well…that’s why I wanted to see you now,’ said Ted, staring down at his feet and wiping his clammy hands on his trousers before he raised his head and looked at her. ‘Before you see Celia at choir practice, I mean. I’ve got summat to tell you, Maisie… I’m awful sorry, but…’

‘But you’ve started seeing Celia, haven’t you?’ she interrupted. He nodded silently. If she were honest with herself she was not surprised, although it had given her rather a start all the same. She had noticed, on the odd occasions that the three of them had been together, that the other two seemed to get on very well. She gave a slight shrug. ‘Well then, that’s OK, if it’s what you want. Thanks for telling me and not leaving me to just…find out.’

‘I’m sorry, Maisie,’ he said again. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, honest I don’t, and neither does Celia. I haven’t taken her out whilst I’ve been seeing you, only this week while you’ve been away. And she said I had to tell you before I saw her again. I do think a lot about you. And I know I could easily get to – you know – be even more fond of you. But it’s
no use… You’ve got all your studying to do, your sixth form an’ college an’ all that. An’ I’m just an ordinary bloke. Nowhere near good enough for you, Maisie…’

‘You mustn’t say that, Ted,’ she replied. ‘Never, not about me nor about anybody else, because it’s not true. We’re just different, that’s all… But I suppose it wouldn’t have worked in the long run, with you and me. Anyway… I hope you and Celia get on OK. She’s a nice girl and she’s probably better for you than I was.’ She stopped speaking because she didn’t know what else to say and she was beginning to flounder; besides, even though what she was saying to him was true, it still hurt to think that he didn’t want to go out with her anymore. She blinked hard.

Fortunately he stood up then. ‘Well, I’ll go now… There’s no reason why we can’t still be friends, Maisie. You’ll still… talk to me, won’t you? And Celia…she feels quite bad about it.’

‘Yes, Ted…it’s OK,’ she said briefly. ‘Thanks for coming. See you soon then…’

‘Ta-ra, Maisie. Be seeing you…’

‘He’s dumped me, Mum,’ she said when her mother came into the room a few moments later. ‘And he’s started going out with Celia James from the choir; you know, the girl who was Cinderella.’

‘Oh dear!’ said Lily, sitting on the settee and putting an arm around her. ‘I guessed it might be something like that; he was looking a bit shifty.
Well, never mind. You can’t really call it dumping you, love, because you weren’t really much more than friends, were you?’

‘Er, no… I suppose not.’

‘And he wasn’t right for you. I never thought he was. He’s a nice enough lad and all that, but he’s not the one for you, Maisie.’

‘Why? Because he’s got a Yorkshire accent and he works on a farm and gets his clothes mucky?’ Maisie’s hurt was making her feel that she wanted to strike out at somebody, although she knew, deep down, that her mother’s words were true. Ted was not the one for her, and she had known that their friendship could not have continued for much longer.

‘Now, now, I didn’t say that,’ replied Lily. ‘I know you’re upset, but you’ll get over it, really you will. Anyway you are only sixteen, and you’re going into the sixth form soon, remember. You have years and years ahead of you before you need to start thinking seriously about boyfriends.’

‘You didn’t say that when you met my dad, did you? How old were you? Seventeen?’

‘Yes…but that was different. I was just a mill worker and so was he. I could never have gone to college an’ all that even if I’d wanted to. But I want you to make the most of your opportunities, Maisie. Times are so very different now…’

As had been expected, both Maisie and Audrey’s School Certificate results were very good. They had both passed in all their subjects, Maisie gaining distinctions in English Language, English Literature and History, and credits in most of the other papers; apart from General Science, which had never been of great interest to her and in which she had scraped through with only a pass mark. Audrey’s results were equally gratifying. She, too, had excelled in the English papers and also in Mathematics. Her prowess in this subject she had inherited from her real father, who had been a bank manager in Leeds.

They were both well qualified to enter the sixth form and start studying for their ‘Higher’. Maisie chose English Literature, Geography and History as her main subjects, and Audrey, English, Geography and Art; she would need to be proficient in this last subject if she were to succeed as an Infant teacher, and she already had a flair for painting and drawing.

Audrey, therefore, was not one of the group of twelve girls, plus two teachers, who journeyed to York during the first week of December on a History trip. It was known educationally as an Environmental Visit, to provide an insight into the subject they were studying, and also, it must be admitted, to be a little holiday as well, one of the perks of being a sixth form student.

They alighted from the train at York Station, said to have been the largest railway station in the world
when it was completed in 1877. With its high arched glass roof, supported by an iron framework, it was an impressive sight. Maisie had visited the city before on a couple of occasions, but mainly to look at the shops and to take a cursory look at some of the well known sights. But for the next few days they were to make a detailed study of the city and, inevitably, write a thesis on returning as part of their coursework.

The place was steeped in history, and it was not difficult to imagine themselves back in Victorian, or even Medieval, times as they wandered through the narrow twisting streets with their jettied houses practically meeting across the cobbled roadways. Their quaint, old-fashioned hotel was in a black and white building in Low Petergate street that, they were told, had originally been part of the Roman fort’s main road.

Maisie had known that York – Eboracum, as it was then called – had been an important city, second only to London, fortified by the Romans, but she had had no idea that Constantine the Great had been proclaimed Emperor there in AD 306.

And after the Romans came the Vikings from Denmark and Norway. They had captured Anglo-Saxon York in AD 867 and settled there. They called the town Yorvik and made it their main base in England; until they were driven out by King Edward of the Saxons in 954…

All too long ago and too far away to be of much
consequence to us today, thought Maisie. All the same, she was captivated by stories such as these, and enthralled by their in-depth studies of such places as the Minster, the Treasure House and the Mansion House, Clifford’s Tower, and the many old churches, tucked away in corners of the cobbled streets.

They walked through the streets in a crocodile, more or less, and for most of the time they were expected to wear their school uniform of navy and pale blue. But the teachers trusted them to behave as sensible young women, and provided they were all back at the hotel at five o’clock – by which time it was dark – in readiness for their early evening meal at six, they did not do too much counting of heads.

Maisie had palled up that week with a girl called Jill, with whom she was sharing a room along with two other girls, Hilary and Sheila. On the third day of the holiday the girls were told they could make their own way back to the hotel – they had been visiting the Minster and the hotel was only a few streets away – provided they kept in twos or threes and promised, on no account, to be late. Maisie and Jill, who had been together all afternoon, looked at one another and grinned.

‘There’s a shop I want to look at in Stonegate,’ said Jill. ‘We passed it the other day, but there wasn’t time to stop. I noticed a gorgeous teddy bear that my little sister would love…’

‘OK,’ said Maisie. ‘Let’s go then. And I’ll see if there’s anything I can get for my brother and sister…’

York was a magical sight at that time of the year, only a few weeks prior to Christmas. Already a dazzling Christmas tree was shining out into the darkness surrounding the Minster, and the shop windows were gay with toys and gifts, glittering baubles and streamers and artificial snow; such a contrast to the gloom of only two years before, when blackout restrictions had made all such light and gaiety impossible. Fairy lights were strung across Stonegate, a somewhat broader road than many of the others, and here there was a variety of shops: high class ladies and gents’ outfitters, hatter’s, and exclusive shoe shops such as only the rich could afford to patronise, cheek by jowl with toy and gift shops; tobacconists, tea rooms, from which there drifted an appetising aroma of roasting coffee, even a butcher’s and a grocer’s shop.

The little shop that Jill had sought was a veritable treasure house, and both girls felt like tiny tots again as they admired the exquisitely dressed dolls and cuddly animals, wind-up trains and cars and boats, the jigsaws, games, coloured balls and skipping ropes… Jill had known all along what she wanted. The little teddy bear was no more than six inches tall, dressed in a blue coat and woolly hat. Maisie, after much deliberation, decided to buy an identical one for Joanie, but dressed in red instead
of blue. She did not play very much with her dolls now, but Maisie knew she would love him. And for Jimmy a Chinese Chequers game and a pack of Happy Family cards. The gifts were not as expensive as they might have imagined for such a prestigious area of the city, and the lady shop assistant thanked them profusely for their custom and invited them to ‘Come again’.

‘Okey dokey,’ said Jill. ‘That was great, wasn’t it? Let’s get back to the hotel. I’m starving, aren’t you?’

Maisie agreed that she was, and was looking forward to their evening meal. The food was well cooked and filling rather than ‘posh’; such things as shepherd’s pie, toad-in-the-hole, or battered fish and chips, suitable for hungry girls and no doubt offered at a special rate, distinct from the hotel’s usual pricey menu.

‘Hey, wait a minute…’ she said, grabbing hold of her friend’s arm as they passed by a shop that she had not noticed before. It was a travel agency; there was a model of a green and cream coloured coach in the centre of the window, and all around it were large photographs of scenes of the British Isles; Trafalgar Square, the Scottish Highlands, Blackpool Tower, Windermere, the Welsh Mountains… ‘Galaxy Travel’ read the sign over the door, and on the pile of brochures displayed in the window.

‘So what?’ said Jill. ‘We’re not thinking of booking a holiday, are we? Come on; there’s nothing here of interest to us… What’s up?’ For
Maisie was showing no sign of moving. She was staring at the coloured pictures longingly, as she had done at those in the London travel agencies, and at something else she had noticed; an advert fastened to the window…

‘WANTED; INTELLIGENT AND ENTERPRISING YOUNG WOMAN TO ASSIST AS A BOOKING CLERK, AND ALSO WITH THE PLANNING OF TOURS AND EXCURSIONS FOR GALAXY TRAVEL. GREAT TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES FOR SUITABLE APPLICANT. ENQUIRE WITHIN.’

‘Look at that…’ She pointed to the notice. ‘Read it…’ Jill read it while Maisie watched her. Then she shrugged.

‘So what?’ she said again.

‘That’s what I want to do,’ said Maisie. ‘I didn’t know it before, but that’s just the sort of job I want. Look what it says… Great travel opportunities…’

Jill stared at her. ‘Are you bonkers or what? You’re in the sixth form. They’re expecting you to go to university. You can’t go and work in an office like that…’

‘Who says I can’t?’ retorted Maisie. ‘Be blowed to university! I’ve never wanted to go there, and I only stayed on at school to please my mum and because I didn’t know what else I wanted to do. But now I do. Oh Jill, I’m so excited…’

Jill took in her shining eyes and the elation in her voice. ‘Gosh!’ she said. ‘You really mean it, don’t you?’

‘You bet your life I do…’

‘Well then, go in and enquire about it, like it says…’

‘Shall I?’ Maisie took a step towards the door, then she stopped. ‘No, not in my school uniform. They’ll think I’m a bit of a kid… Just a minute; I know… They’ve said we can have tomorrow afternoon to ourselves, haven’t they? To do Christmas shopping or whatever we want, and that we don’t need to wear our school uniform. That’s what I’ll do; I’ll come back tomorrow…’

‘Gosh, Maisie! I wish I had your courage and that I was as sure of what I wanted to do,’ said Jill as they headed off back to the hotel. ‘My parents want me to be a History teacher, like my dad is, and I suppose I will. I never really dare to argue with them…’

‘Don’t tell any of the others, will you?’ said Maisie. ‘This is just between you and me. Anyway, p’raps nothing’ll come of it; it might be just pie in the sky.’

‘No, I won’t say anything, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die…’