She's Leaving Home (15 page)

‘That’s not fair, either. The point is, Dad, that you can’t generalise about who will settle out of town. They’ll all be council tenants for a start. That might increase the proportion still here of owner occupiers like ourselves. We might be seeing the back of the weaker families, not the stronger.’

He had chewed his moustache for a minute. Then he turned towards the end of the paper and with a triumphant shake found what he wanted. ‘Look at the property ads. What’s on sale for the likes of us? Crosby, Southport, even over the water in the Wirral. Beautiful new houses, all mod cons. Fitted kitchens included, for heaven’s sake. Semis ideal for newlyweds, it says here, or detached houses for the family seeking a pleasant environment for their children. Excellent schools – big play made of that. I tell you, Helen, that if you and your brother were still little your mother and I would be on our way, Liverpool born and bred though we are.’

He waved a finger in the air. ‘As for your council tenants: yes, the gullible ones will scramble off to the new towns. Then they’ll find it’s an hour’s bus ride back to the bright lights on a Saturday night, and no decent alehouses or shops, and those that do open’ll have to charge a fortune to make ends meet: no competition, see, and not enough customers. Soon people’ll be clamouring to get back, mark my words. Those won’t be happy communities. But families which choose to leave and lay out
their
own
money will dig their new gardens and plant roses. Their kids’ll blossom in those smart schools. Top results, no discipline problems. They won’t return and neither will the next generation. Lost to us for good. Once that kind of change starts it’s permanent.’

As she remembered her father’s heated remarks Helen found she was debating with herself. This was exactly the sort of material which might appear on the General Studies paper with which Miss Plumb had threatened them. ‘Are cities a thing of the past? Discuss.’ But she was not in an examination room, not yet.

Harold House was time off. She could think about herself. She could think about boys, even if the drip from Merchant Taylor’s who had started off this set of reflections was not to her taste.

Colette had accused her, though lightly, of setting her standards too high. Was that true? Up to a point. For choice she would have preferred a boy who could join in proper conversation of the kind she had just conducted with herself. That only occurred at school with her closest friends, or with her father. No boy on earth had she ever met with whom such a discussion was possible.

Maybe being at a single sex school had something to do with it. A few eccentric establishments had opted to be co-educational, but mostly it was feared that the constant presence of the opposite gender would be a distraction. Boys and girls behaved differently in scholastic terms. In mixed schools a powerful natural differentiation asserted itself. Girls leaned towards the arts, and boys more to maths and science: nobody knew quite why. As a girl scientist Helen didn’t feel herself that she would have been put off had boys been around – indeed she’d have bridled at any suggestion that only boys could manage chemistry and would have worked the harder to prove them wrong. But it undeniably affected girls
en masse
, while the boys seemed to feel that a passion for Jane Austen or poetry was cissy. So separate was better: both sides could make clearer choices.

Boys and girls in the same classroom at the same age didn’t gel. That was a well-known and an uncomfortable truth. The girls were more mature – physically, intellectually. A fourteen-year-old female was nearly a woman, with a woman’s secrets and hopes and fears. Give her
Romeo and Juliet
and she would weep; give it to a fourteen-year-old boy and he would giggle, if he understood the emotions at all.

It had to be admitted, nevertheless, that this separation turned
all
boys into sex objects. Their daily absence paradoxically made the girls much more excited about them, and probably had an identical effect on the boys. Maybe that explained why it was impossible to discuss anything intellectual such as politics with a member of the opposite sex: the whole time she was sizing him up as a possible partner, and he was almost certainly doing the same to her. It made simple friendship unattainable.

It’d have been better had she had brothers. Barry didn’t count, partly because he was so young. But he didn’t seem to care about anything important. You could grab his interest with a remark about football but he could never in a million years have held his own on, say, the prospects of a General Election. Had the topic come up he’d have slunk out of the room and regarded it as a signal to vanish upstairs and turn on his record player. The really depressing fact, Helen reflected glumly, was that most of the young males she knew were similar, with the addition, which doubtless Barry would acquire before long, of an unwholesome if furtive obsession with sex.

Sex. She would have argued with Colette that she wanted a boy to be serious, and a friend, and had found nobody who came within a mile of either. But Colette might have countered that she was ignoring the sex angle – no, Colette wouldn’t. She didn’t talk like that and kept her head down, literally, whenever the subject arose. Meg just looked angry as if the question of sex was an intrusion. Brenda was more forthright, maybe because she had older brothers who, though protective, would try to explain how boys
felt
. That they felt the same way as girls, often – anxious, eager, exposed – had come as a revelation to Brenda’s circle though her accuracy and authority were undoubted. Both her mother and grandmother were sources of information as well. Helen envied her. No wonder Brenda
faced the future with equanimity and cheerful optimism.

None of them had had sex, Helen was fairly certain. In that sense none of them knew what they were talking about. No one respectable did. No one.

It was wrong, for a start. Every religion said so: sex was for marriage and procreation. Catholics especially were taught to believe that these were its only purposes: the activity undertaken with any other aim – just for fun, perhaps, or out of passion or lust – could be mortal sin. Oh, people did it outside marriage, but most of them
were married
or had been, if to somebody else. You could read about what went on every Sunday in the
News of the World
. Dad had caught Barry engrossed in a copy and had hidden it thereafter but her father still bought it, for the sport, he claimed. Divorce cases involving adultery littered the pages, sometimes with spectacular and hilarious results, but always with the killer phrase, ‘intercourse took place’. Intercourse: sex. But ‘sex’ was a word never used, not in the context of the act itself. It was too simple, too direct. Too stark.

The inhibition against sex was also a practical matter. To do it – to ‘have intercourse’ – needed several prerequisites not readily on tap for people her age. Somewhere private, for a start. Somewhere quiet, and warm. A bedroom at home, perhaps. But parents were everywhere, and horrible little brothers. And neighbours, who would spy and report.

And – precautions. My God, to get pregnant would ruin everything. It’d probably mean a speedy wedding to somebody you might quickly discover you couldn’t stand – and then you’d be stuck: husband, baby and all.

Precautions were supposed to be a man’s responsibility but Helen suspected that the boys she knew were as ignorant about sources and systems as she was. It was hard to see how a sixteen-
year-old
youth could lay hands on – whatever. A chemist would laugh at him and threaten to phone his mother. Gentlemen might ask their barbers for something for the weekend – at least, they did in
Carry on Doctor
and Ealing comedies. Everybody in the cinema fell about with laughter at such innuendoes but the adolescents in the audience were left frustrated and cross. Why wouldn’t anybody help? Why wouldn’t any adult tell them what to do, and how to avoid trouble? Why was the evident pleasure only obtainable by those in the know, and how on earth did you get to
be
in the know?

Once when rummaging in a wardrobe for an old cardigan of her mother’s Helen had come across a cardboard box. Inside was a mass of red rubber tubes and a booklet in small print with diagrams. Perplexed, she had sat on the floor and started to read. Her mother had found her and bundled the box and its contents back into the cupboard with a sharp remonstrance, but Helen had grasped only scraps of what she had seen. It remained an enigma. The message was clear: pregnancy was an ever-present danger, not to be risked by those like herself who had other plans for their lives.

Her mother wouldn’t talk about it. Whenever the subject came up she would purse her lips and look skyward. She gave the impression that those who indulged deliberately in sex had somehow abandoned their better selves. But some in the family knew – those American women relatives, for example. They could have been an invaluable source of information. But they were 3,000 miles away.

In reality nobody she had met so far had awoken in Helen any sensations other than boredom. And distaste. Pimples, mostly. So much acne on pale, thin cheeks. Dirty fingernails which scratched at the pustules and made them bleed. Brown stains on teeth and the stink of cigarettes on the breath. The thought of kissing that! Bloody marks on shirt collars from inefficient attempts at shaving. Dark patches of sweat under armpits. Broken cracked voices with no timbre or resonance. Greasy hair – why on earth did anyone wear that Brylcreem with its pungent perfume which she found so disgusting? Look at what made the Beatles so fantastic: they were clean, their hair shone. When they shook their heads the well-cut manes tossed like lissome rivers then settled back into shape across their brows. George Harrison had pimples, that was true. But Paul didn’t. If any of the American visitors looked like Paul, she might be interested.

That had not occurred to her. The GIs might be more than well-off and intriguing strangers
whom it was her job to entertain. They might be terrific to look at. If any of them resembled James Dean – she checked herself. That was unlikely. The invitation had made it quite clear that it was a Jewish club and only Jews would be welcome. Sal Mineo, then. He would do.

She quickened her pace, turned the corner to the clubhouse, opened the door and entered.

‘Right. Are we ready? Nurse Wilkins, tidy that curtain,
if
you please.’

Sister folded her arms over her well-corseted bosom and frowned. The reputation of the male orthopaedic ward of Sefton General Hospital was at stake. Outside it was snowing yet again. Behind her the clock ticked loudly towards seven fifteen p.m..

The long row of beds was neat, each bed precisely parallel to its neighbour. Sheets and blankets were turned down at right angles, corners folded at exactly forty-five degrees. Temperature charts and notes on metal clipboards hung vertical. Over-bed tables were carefully aligned. On them vases were placed ready for flowers – left in their wrappers they’d droop petals in a frightful mess. Sister was sure Florence Nightingale had never permitted flowers in
her
wards but she had been unable to ban them except at night.

Patients who were well enough sat up, watchful in pyjamas or dressing-gowns. Two insisted on reading their newspapers and ignoring her. She swept her gaze over each body. Every button was fastened: nothing lay loose or unattached. And
nothing
was exposed.What a pity about those three beds at the far end. Patients in traction with elevated limbs in plaster made the ward appear so untidy. Bother orthopaedics. If a transfer came up to a general medical ward, she swore she would apply for it.

Now to the nurses. Their tasks complete, they lined up, led by the qualified SRNs in crisp navy blue cotton dresses clinched at the waist by a broad belt with an elaborate silver clasp, the lower grade Enrolled Nurses in pale blue. At the end the two girls in training wore blue and white gingham. Firmly muscled legs were encased in seamed stockings and black laced shoes. No jewellery but wedding and engagement rings was allowed: each had a fob watch pinned upside down to her chest. On each head perched an alarming starched cap secured by several hairpins which owed more to the attire of medieval nuns than to the demands of modern medicine. Every face was supposed to be scrubbed clean but some had suspicious traces of lipstick. Sister sniffed.

‘Nurse Thomas! What has happened to your cap? It looks as if it has been through the mangle.’

Nurse Thomas stayed rigid but her eyes glazed. Her accent was ripely scouse. ‘Sorry, Sister. It has been through the mangle. It got mixed up with my uniform and my mother –’

‘Enough. If it happens again you’ll be fined. I cannot have Ward Six letting the profession down. And Staff Nurse, I know you are exceptionally busy but we are privileged, we
trained
nurses –’ she glared at the probationers, who cringed on cue ‘– to wear the silver buckle at our belts. It behoves us to keep it polished. Gleaming, do you understand?’

‘Yes, Sister.’ It was all the staff nurse could do not to curtsy. Her glance wandered uncontrollably to the clock.

Sister turned on her heel. Outside the ward doors a murmur could be heard, but at her step it fell silent. The small crowd in snow-sodden coats and scarves fell back, bunches of flowers and brown paper bags of fruit secreted like contraband.

‘Visiting time!’ Sister announced as she opened the doors. ‘Forty-five minutes only! All visitors will be asked to leave –’

But the determined jumble had swept past her. Soon most beds had acquired one or two huddled figures. The junior nurses gratefully slipped away for a cup of tea while Sister kept watch.

Nellie had decided to wear her fake fur. The journey on the moped had made her wetter than she had expected. In the warmth of the ward the soggy coat gave off an odd faint smell which added
to her unease. She did not like hospitals and had never before visited anyone other than her mother and sister. It was even odder to see Mr Feinstein flat on his back in a bed. Despite the plaster cast up to his chin it did not seem quite respectable. For the first time she noticed the hairs on his forearms – long, fine and silky. She wanted to stroke them.