My Secret Diary (4 page)

We did some mad projects together. For the first
two years at Coombe we did a combined history
and geography lesson called 'social studies'. We
learned all about prehistoric times, and made a
plasticine and lolly-stick model of an early stilt
village. We also started to write a long poem about
a caveman family. We thought up our first line –
Many millions of years ago
– but then got stuck.
We couldn't think of a rhyme for
ago
, so Chris
looked up the word in Jan's rhyming dictionary.
We ended up with:

Many millions of years ago
Lived a woman who was a virago.

perhaps the worst rhyme in many millions of years.

Mostly we simply played games like Chinese
Chequers, Can You Go?, and Beetle, and made
useless items with Scoubidou.

I loved Chris's bedroom, though it was very
small and she didn't have anywhere near as many
books as me. She had a little stable of china horse
ornaments, big and small, because she longed
passionately to go horse-riding, and saved up all
her pocket money and birthday money for lessons.
Her only other ornaments were plaster-cast Disney
replicas of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. A
few childhood teddies drooped limply on a chair,
balding and button-eyed. Her clothes were mostly
more childish than mine, though I hankered after
her kingfisher-blue coat, a colour Biddy labelled
vulgar – goodness knows why.

Chris's bedroom felt
safe
. You could curl up
under her pink candlewick bedspread, read an old
Blyton mystery book, and feel at peace. You
wouldn't fall asleep and dream of mad men walking
out of your wardrobe or monsters wriggling up
from under your bed. You wouldn't wake to the
sound of angry voices, shouts and sobbing. You
would sleep until the old Noddy alarm clock rang
and you could totter along to the bathroom in your
winceyette pyjamas, the cat rubbing itself against
your legs.

I'd slept at Chris's house several times, I'd been
to lunch with her, I'd been to tea, I'd been on
outings in their family car to Eastbourne, I'd been
to Chris's birthday party, a cosy all-girls affair
where we played old-fashioned games like Squeak
Piggy Squeak and Murder in the Dark.

It was way past time to invite Chris back
to my flat at Cumberland House. So Chris came
one day after school and met Biddy and Harry.
My home was so different from hers. Chris was
very kind and a naturally polite girl. She said
'Thank you for having me' with seeming
enthusiasm when she went home. I wonder what
she
really
thought.

Maybe she liked it that there was no one in our
flat to welcome us after school. It was fun having
the freedom of the whole place, great to snack on
as many chocolate biscuits as we wanted. When
Biddy came home from work she cooked our tea:
bacon and sausage and lots of chips, and served a
whole plate of cakes for our pudding – sugary jam
doughnuts, cream éclairs, meringues. Biddy
considered this special-treat food and Chris nibbled
her cakes appreciatively – but all that fatty food
was much too rich for her sensitive stomach. She
had to dash to the lavatory afterwards and was sick
as discreetly as possible, so as not to offend Biddy.
When Harry came home from work he was in a
mood. He didn't call Chris Buttercup, he didn't say
anything at all to her, just hid himself behind the
Sporting Life
.

Chris came on a sleepover once, and thank
goodness everything went well. It was just like
having a sister: getting ready for bed together and
then whispering and giggling long into the night.
We weren't woken by any rows, we slept peacefully
cuddled up until the morning.'

However, Biddy and Harry couldn't always put
on an amicable act. I remember when we got our
first car, a second-hand white Ford Anglia. Biddy
learned to drive and, surprisingly, passed her test
before Harry. We decided to go on a trip to Brighton
in our new car, and as a very special treat Chris
was invited along too.

We sat in the back. I was dosed up with Quells,
strong travel pills, so that I wouldn't be sick. They
made me feel very dozy, but there was no danger
of nodding off on
this
journey. Biddy and Harry
were both tense about the outing and sniped at
each other right from the start.

'Watch that lorry! For Christ's sake, do you want
to get us all killed?' Harry hissed.

'Don't you use that tone of voice to me! And it
was
his
fault, he was in the wrong ruddy lane,' said
Biddy, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.

'
You're
in the wrong lane, you silly cow, if we're
going to turn off at the Drift Bridge.'

'Who's driving this car, you or me? Ah,
I'm
driving because I'm the one who's passed the test!'

They chuntered on while I sat in the back with
Chris, my tummy churning. I talked frantically,
nattering about school and homework to try to
distract her from my angry parents. I madly hoped
she wouldn't even hear what they were saying.
She talked back to me, valiantly keeping up
the pretence, though she was very pale under
her freckles.

Biddy and Harry had gone past the stage of being
aware of us. We were stuck in a traffic jam going
up Reigate Hill. The car started to overheat, as if
reacting to its passengers. Biddy had to pull over
and open the bonnet so the engine could cool down.

'It's your fault, you're driving like a maniac. You
do realize you're ruining the car!' Harry said.

'If you don't like the way I drive, then
you
blooming well have a go,' said Biddy, bursting into
tears.

'Oh yes, turn on the waterworks,' said Harry.

'Just shut up, will you? I'm sick of this,' Biddy
sobbed. She opened her door and stumbled into the
road. She ran off while we stared.

'That's so typical! Well,
I
can't ruddy well drive,
as she's all too well aware,' said Harry – and
he
got out of the car, slammed the door with all his
strength, and marched off in the opposite direction.

Chris and I sat petrified in the back of the car,
our mouths open. Cars kept hooting as they
swerved around us. I reached out for Chris's hand
and she squeezed mine tight.

'You won't tell anyone at school?' I whispered.

'No, I promise,' she said. She paused. 'Jac, what
if . . . what if they don't come back?'

I was wondering that myself. I couldn't drive,
Chris couldn't drive. How would we ever get home?
I thought about jumping out and flagging down a
passing car to give us a lift. But they'd all be total
strangers, it was far too dangerous. It was also
obviously dangerous to be sitting in the back of a
car parked at a precarious angle halfway up a hill
heaving with traffic.

'They
will
come back,' I said firmly, trying to
make myself believe it as well as Chris. I made my
voice sound worldly wise and reassuring. 'They just
need a few minutes to calm down.'

I was wondrously right. As I spoke I saw Biddy
tottering back up the hill – and Harry appeared on
the horizon too, strolling down towards us with his
hands in his pockets. They both got back into the
car as casually as if they'd just nipped out to spend
a penny in the public toilets.

Biddy started up the car and we went up and
over the hill, off to Brighton. Biddy and Harry
barely spoke for the rest of the journey.

We had chicken and bread sauce for our lunch
in a café near the beach, and then Chris and I were
allowed to go off together. Biddy and Harry both
gave us money. We scrunched up and down the
pebbly beach, walked to the end of the pier and
back, went all round the ornate pavilion, and
treated ourselves to Mars bars and Spangles, two
Wall's vanilla ice creams, and two portions of chips
with salt and vinegar.

Heaven help us if Biddy and Harry had had
another big row on the journey back. We'd have
both been violently sick.

Girls' friendships are often complex. Chris was
my best friend – but Carol was too. She lived
in Kingston so we went home from school together,
and we spent a lot of time in the holidays with each
other. Both our mothers worked full-time so Carol
and I spent day after day together.

I can't clearly remember going to Carol's house.
I hardly knew her family. I met her mother but I
can't remember her father. Carol had an older
sister, Margaret, but she wasn't chatty and cosy
like Jan, Chris's sister. I don't think she ever even
spoke to me. Margaret looked years older than her
age. She wore lots of make-up and high stiletto
heels and had many boyfriends.

Carol seemed to be heading that way too. She
was a dark, curvy girl with very white skin and
full lips. By the time we were fourteen she could
easily pass for seventeen or eighteen. She
effortlessly managed all those teenage female
things that I found a bit of a struggle: she plucked
her eyebrows into an ironic arch, she shaved her
legs smooth, she styled her hair and tied a silk
scarf round it just like a film star. She was as
expert as her sister with make-up, outlining her
eyes and exaggerating her mouth into a moody
coral pout.

Carol could be moody, full stop. I went round
with her for several years but I never felt entirely
at ease with her. We'd share all sorts of secrets but
I always felt she was privately laughing at me,
thinking me too earnest, too intense, and much
too childish. Carol had two other friends, Linda
and Margaret, sophisticated girls who flicked
through the beauty pages of women's magazines
in the lunch hour and yawned languidly because
they'd been out late the night before with their
boyfriends. I'd sit with the three of them each
lunch time and feel utterly out of things. I'd risk
a comment every now and then and catch Carol
raising her immaculate eyebrows at Linda
and Margaret.

She never openly criticized me, but sometimes
it was the things she
didn't
say that hurt the most.
I remember one time in the holidays I'd been
maddened by my wispy hair straggling out of its
annual perm. I'd taken myself off to a hairdresser's
and asked for it to be cut really short. A few avant-garde
girls were sporting urchin cuts that year and
I thought they looked beautiful.

The trouble was,
I
wasn't beautiful. I was
appalled when I saw my terrible new haircut. It
cruelly emphasized my glasses and my sticky-out
ears. I went home and howled.

I was meeting Carol that afternoon. I felt so
awful walking up to her and seeing her expression.
I badly wanted her to say, 'Oh, Jacky, I love your
new haircut, it really suits you.' We'd both know
she was lying but it would be so comforting all
the same.

Carol didn't say a word about my hair – but
every now and then I caught her staring at me and
shaking her head pityingly.

However, we did sometimes have great fun
together. We both loved to go shopping, though
neither of us had much pocket money. Kingston
has always been a good town for shopping, though
in 1960 Bentalls was just a big department store,
not a vast shopping centre. We wandered round the
make-up and clothes but we never actually bought
anything there.

We had two favourite haunts, Woolworths and
Maxwells. When I was fourteen, Woolworths was
considered cool, a place where teenagers hung out.
There was no New Look or Claire's Accessories
or Paperchase or Primark or TopShop. I spent my
pocket money in Woolworths. I walked straight
past the toy counter now (though when Carol
wasn't watching I glanced back wistfully at the
little pink penny dolls) but I circled the stationery
counter for hours.

It was there that I bought the red and blue
sixpenny exercise books, or big fat shilling books
if I was really serious about a story idea. I was
forever buying pens too – red biro, blue biro, black
biro, occasionally green – that was as varied as it
got. There were no rollerballs, no gel pens, no felt
tips. There were fountain pens but they didn't have
cartridges then, so you needed a bottle of royal-blue
Quink, and I always ended up with ink all
over my fingers. I used to think that if I could only
find the perfect notebook, the most stylish pen, my
words would flow magically.

There's a little childish bit of me that still
thinks that. I've got more ambitious in my taste.
I thumb through beautiful Italian marbled
notebooks now, trying to choose between subtle
swirling blues and purples, pretty pale pinks and
blues, bold scarlet with crimson leather spines and
corners, wondering which is the luckiest, the one
that will help me write a truly special story. I've
bought a handful of expensive fountain pens, but
I
still
end up with ink all over me so I generally
stick to black miniballs.

I liked Woolworths jewellery too, big green or
red or blue glass rings, 'emeralds' and 'rubies' and
'sapphires', for sixpence, and I loved the Indian
glass bangles, treating myself to three at a time:
pink and purple and blue. Biddy said it was
common wearing so much jewellery at once. We'd
both have been astonished to see me now, huge
silver rings on every finger and bangles up to
my elbows!

Monday 4 January

Met Carol in Kingston this morning. (We are still
on holiday, go back to school next Wed. worst luck.)
I bought a new pen from good old Woolworths, a
pair of red mules, and some tomatoes for my lunch.

Woolworths sold old-lady slippers, cosy tartan
with pompoms on the top, but of course I didn't
want a pair of these. They were definitely grandma
territory, and much as I loved Ga, I didn't want to
look like her. No, these were special Chinese scarlet
satin embroidered mules, incredibly exotic for
those days. I was particularly keen on anything
Chinese since reading a highly unsuitable adult
book called
The World of Suzie Wong
by Richard
Mason. Biddy might fuss excessively about the way
I looked but she didn't always manage to monitor
my reading matter.

Suzie Wong was a Chinese prostitute living in a
house of ill repute in Hong Kong. I thought her
incredibly glamorous. I didn't necessarily want to
copy her career choice, but I wished I
looked
like
Suzie Wong: long straight glossy hair, and wearing
a silk embroidered cheongsam split to the thighs.
Both were way beyond my reach, but I
could
sport Chinese slippers from Woolworths. Well, I
couldn't
wear them actually. They were flat mules
and I had the greatest difficulty keeping them on
my feet. I walked straight-legged, toes clenched,
but could only manage a couple of steps before
walking straight out of them. I didn't care. I could
simply sit with my legs stuck out and
admire
them.

We never went shopping in Kingston without
going into Maxwells. It sold records. There
weren't any HMV shops selling CDs in those days,
let alone songs to buy on iTunes. Singles came
on little '45' records in paper sleeves. They were
actually doubles rather than singles, because each
record had an A side (the potential chart topper),
and then you flipped it over to the B side. You
listened to the top twenty records in the hit
parade on your little portable radio – only I didn't
have one till I was fifteen, and I couldn't tune
our big old-fashioned Home Service wireless to
trendy Radio Luxembourg. I simply had to go to
Maxwells with Carol and listen there. You told
the spotty guy behind the desk that you wanted
to listen to several records – Carol would reel
off three or four likely titles – and then he
would give them to you to take into the special
listening booth.

We'd squash in together and then, when we
started playing the records, we'd bob up and down
in an approximation of dancing and click our
fingers in time to the music. We considered
ourselves very hip.

Sometimes there were other girls in the next
listening booth. Sometimes there were boys, and
then we'd bob and click a little more and toss our
heads about. Sometimes there were older men,
often comic stereotype leery old men in dirty
raincoats. They'd peer through the window at us,
their breath blurring the glass. We'd raise our
eyebrows and turn our backs, not too worried
because we were together.

We rarely
bought
a record. We played them
several times and then slipped them back into their
sleeves and returned them to the spotty boy.

'Sorry, we can't quite make up our minds,'
we'd chorus, and saunter out.

Up until January 1960 I didn't even have a
record player so it would have been a pointless
purchase anyway. We had my grandparents'
gramophone, one of those old-fashioned wind-up
machines with a horn, but it wouldn't play modern
45 records. We had a pile of fragile 78s, that
shattered if you dropped them, and I had my
childhood Mandy Miller records, 'The Teddy Bears'
Picnic', 'Doing the Lambeth Walk', and some Victor
Silvester dance music. They weren't really worth
the effort of strenuous handle-winding. But on 9
January everything changed.

I did the shopping with Dad and you'll never
guess what we bought! A RECORD PLAYER! It
had previously been £28 but had been marked
down to £16. It is an automatic kind and plays
beautifully. We bought 'Travelling Light' by Cliff
Richard and Dad chose a Mantovani long player.
It sounds very square but actually it is quite good
with some nice tunes like 'Tammy', 'Que Sera
Sera', 'Around the World in 80 Days'. I've been
playing them, and all our old 78 records, all
the afternoon.

I know, I know – Cliff Richard! But this wasn't the
elderly Christian Cliff, this was when he was young
and wild, with sideburns and tousled hair, wearing
white teddy-boy jackets and tight black drainpipe
trousers, very much an English Elvis, though he was
never really as raunchy as Presley. I remember Celia,
a lovely gentle girl in my class who was very into pop
music. Her mother was too, surprisingly.

'My mum says she'd like to put Cliff to bed and
tuck him up tight and give him a goodnight kiss –
and she'd like to put Elvis to bed and get in beside
him!' said Celia, chuckling.

Celia knew the words to every single pop
song and would sometimes obligingly write them
out for me in her beautiful neat handwriting.
I would solemnly learn every single
bam-a-wham-bam
and
doobie-doobie-do
and also try hard
to copy Celia's stylish script. There are passages
in my diary where I'm trying out different
styles, and it's clear when I'm doing my best to
copy Celia.

I saved up my pocket money to buy another
record the very next week: Michael Holliday's
'Starry Eyed'. It was currently Carol's favourite
song and so we could do a duet together, though
neither of us could sing to save our lives.

I didn't buy another record until March, when
I decided on the theme tune from
A Summer Place,
a very sugary recording, all swirly violins, but I
declared it 'lovely'. I had no musical taste
whatsoever at fourteen. I'm astonished to see I next
bought a Max Bygraves record, 'Fings Ain't Wot
They Used t'Be'. I can hardly bear to write those
words on the page!

By August I was staying up late on Saturday
nights listening to David Jacobs's
Pick of the Pops
,
and hearing 'Tell Laura I Love Her' by Ricky
Valance for the first time. I
adored
'Tell Laura'.
It was like a modern ballad poem, a tragic
sentimental song about a boy called Tommy trying
to win a stockcar race in order to buy his girl a
diamond ring. Each verse had a chorus of '
Tell
Laura I love her
' – and of course Tommy's dying
words from his wrecked car were '
Tell Laura I love
her
'. I didn't take the song
seriously
but loved
singing it over and over again in a lugubrious voice
until Biddy screamed at me to stop that stupid
row
now
.

Thank goodness my taste developed a little over
the next year – in the summer of 1961 I discovered
traditional jazz. I fell in love with all the members
of the Temperance Seven, a stylish crowd of ex-art
students who dressed in Edwardian costume.
'Whispering' Paul McDowell sang through a horn
to make an authentic tinny sound. It was the sort
of music my grandparents must once have played
on their wind-up gramophone, but it seemed mint-new
and marvellous to me: 'I bought Pasadena, it's
an absolutely fab record and I've now played it at
least 50 times.'

I went to see the Temperance Seven at Surbiton
Assembly Rooms, and when I was sixteen I used
to go up to London to various jazz cafés in Soho
with a boyfriend. That was way in the future
though. I might manage to just about
pass
for
sixteen when I wanted to get into an A film at the
cinema – but I certainly didn't act it.