She's Leaving Home (58 page)

Next week at the prefects’ meeting she anticipated that the entire body would put its foot down and petition Miss Plumb, and through her her successor, not to order a repeat the following year. At least the Head had had the grace not to appear which would have killed proceedings stone dead, but had left it to Mrs Egerton, fresher faced and more motherly, who had children of her own and was marginally more human. School dances were passe and stupid. The authorities had not the
faintest notion how the young conducted themselves. It was time to bury the tradition.

The whole point of places like the Cavern and the dozens of other clubs which had mushroomed was that only under twenty-fives could grasp their magic. If adults were shocked, that was the idea. For the first time in history, young people would set their own standards, do their own thing. The old guard were not to be in charge, not any more. Instead strenuous efforts would be made to obtain then ensure their exclusion.

It was a question not merely of style: something more fundamental was at stake. It showed in the dancing. As the band assembled its ramshackle equipment Mrs Egerton, spectacles on her nose, checked her written instructions and put the ‘Tennessee Waltz’ on the turntable. A youth from Merchant Taylor’s, the head boy in his school uniform, dutifully approached Brenda as host Head Girl, bowed formally and asked her to waltz. Brenda was too polite to refuse, but for the entire number the couple were pointedly left to circle the dance floor alone.

As the record finished Brenda marched swiftly to Mrs Egerton and whispered to her. She beckoned Helen to join them.

The teacher removed her spectacles and gazed from one to another helplessly. ‘Then you take over,’ she said. ‘If you must have rock and roll, I wash my hands of it. But if there’s trouble, a riot or fight, you will be held responsible.’

And that was how the sounds of Freddie and the Dreamers, the Dave Clark Five and Presley and Chubby Checker filled the hall, though the new disc jockeys decided against the Crystals’ ‘Then He Kissed Me’ or Mike Same and Wendy Richards’ ‘Come Outside’ as a fraction too suggestive. This was not the juncture for a full-scale revolution.

Hesitant and self-conscious at first then with evident pleasure, pairs swung out on to the floor and began to jive. Mrs Egerton stood with hands on her hips, then chuckled.

‘We used to call it the jitterbug,’ she remarked. But nobody heard her.

By nine the band were at full pitch. The music was deafening, the gym hall crowded and hot. Half-bottles of cheap rum and vodka were passed secretively around among the bolder lads. The teachers had retired to the staff room where they sipped tea and bemoaned the disappearance of their status and influence with every crashing chord.

‘Wanna dance?’

Behind the hatch Helen cursed. She had preferred to busy herself in the kitchen to avoid undesired attention. And if the facilities were kept tidy she could slip away quickly at the close. She raised her head. The gangly youth looked familiar.

‘Met you before, haven’t I?’ He twitched awkwardly. From out of the sleeves protruded his wrists and hands, large and knobbly, with bitten nails. ‘That day at the Cavern. I’ve not forgotten. Name’s Mack.’

She gave a suitably withering glance but he was not put off.

‘Come on. Just one. I like that frock. I promise I won’t be a pest.’

His tone was wistful. Merchant Taylor’s had meanly insisted that their pupils attend in uniform but his tie was askew and his blazer hung off his shoulders. Had Miss Plumb tried any such injunction her pupils would have refused to appear. There was a world of contrast between the offspring of conventional wealthy suburbanites and the streetwise inner city.

‘Oh, well.’

It wasn’t him she wanted. Not a tall, skinny schoolboy. Not an Englishman. His father was probably a bank employee and he’d be one in his turn. He’d adjudicate solemnly on the lives and proposals of those twirling around him in years to come as they negotiated the shallows of mortgages and bank loans. Despite the beads of sweat on his forehead and his efforts to keep to the rhythm he was ultra-respectable, committed to doing what was correct however meagre its appeal to him. He’d make a great pharmacist. He’d ride the bus till he could afford a car, then sit in the morning rush hour
till he retired or keeled over with a coronary. Boys like that did not feel the rhythm. They did not know what it could mean.

‘Drat,’ Helen grumbled. She had failed to move away adroitly enough. The band, perspiring freely, had started to play a slow tune. Her partner made a lunge and dragged her into his arms.

‘But I’m not cheating,’ Helen muttered savagely to herself. Her nose wrinkled against Old Spice aftershave mixed with body odour. She was stuck, enfolded by thin arms and sticky palms. She wanted to yell, and shove him away.

It was not merely that she was with the wrong boy, whose presence made her body revolt in fury and anguish. Such a lot was in the balance. It was as if a timebomb set seventeen years ago the day she was born but held in abeyance during her minority had begun to tick, loudly. Things were about to happen, mostly beyond her control. It was a strange and uncomfortable sensation: exhilarating, necessary, unavoidable. And quite terrifying.

To distract herself Helen examined the boy. His acne had worsened since their first encounter. An inch from her eyes a large pustule was about to burst. She gazed concentratedly at the scarlet hillock, then felt ashamed. She ought to have pity. He must hate being adolescent, was probably as disgusted by his skin condition, by his general state, as she was.

What would he know about sex? In all probability he had well-thumbed magazines,
Playboy
and similar, hidden in secret places away from prying parental eyes. Some such, and others brought in from Germany and France, circulated in most Liverpool schools. But the nearest he’d have got to a live female form would have been a quick grab in the dark after a dance such as this, a squeeze of a brassiered breast, a tug at knicker elastic. He’d never have dared buy a contraceptive; his cheeks would have flamed, he’d have fled in panic. If he wasn’t careful, that kind of boy got married young to somebody he didn’t love, and was trapped in his turn.

Two decades before boys like him on National Service would have learned their business in Aden or Cyprus. Michael hinted as much, since Uncle Sam depended on conscription. Their service in the military educated men in more ways than one. But not this boy, who might never perform sex with skill and joy, as Michael did. How different they were: how far she had come.

So Helen gyrated with a fretful air, and saved her energy for Michael, and itched to get away.

‘Reverend Mother, the next girl is here.’

‘In a minute. How have you been today, sister? Better, I hope?’

‘I cope, Reverend Mother. This is the cross women must carry.’

‘The punishment for the faithlessness of our mother Eve. God’s curse, indeed.’

‘But worse at a certain age – at the change of life.’

‘For some. It means we understand suffering, sister. Far better than men. It brings us closer to Our Lord. However, your trials will terminate eventually, be sure of that. Pray for fortitude. Send her in.’

‘Yes, Reverend Mother. Thank you, Reverend Mother.’

‘Good evening. My name is Mother Ignatius but you can call me Reverend Mother. What are you known as?’

‘Colette, Reverend Mother. Colette – Thomas.’

‘Indeed. It says O’Brien here. Father O’Connor knows you?’

The girl bowed her head but did not reply. In her hands was a small handkerchief twisted tight. The knuckles showed white. Reverend Mother pursed her lips.

‘Never mind that. Do I need to ask why you’re here? Speak up, child, I can’t hear your mumble.’

‘I’m having a baby.’

‘Are you now. And not married? Who is the father?’

‘I – I can’t say.’

‘So
he
is married, is he not. Otherwise it’s a wedding you’d be seeking, not a bed for your confinement.’

The girl shifted uncomfortably and glanced around as if seeking a means of escape. Her voice was a low monotone, but took on a pleading note. ‘I have a while to go but I can’t stay at school till the end. Or at home. I thought –’

‘Yes? Do speak up. Goodness, they get worse each time. What is it you thought? Pity you didn’t think a bit sooner, young lady, and avoided this pickle from the start.’

‘I – I wondered if I could come and work here, skivvying, anything, for my keep, while I wait.’

‘Hmm, you wouldn’t be the first. Mostly they’re straight off the boat. You don’t look like you’re used to scrubbing floors.’

The girl bridled. ‘I can work. I’d do whatever I was asked.’

‘You’d do whatever you were told, if we admitted you early. This home is for confined pregnant women. It’s not a rest cure. And we’d expect you to confess your sin, and give us the name.’

‘I know I’ve sinned, Reverend Mother. I’m a good Catholic – I go to confession. I’ve just been, but there was a long queue.’

‘The name, then?’

Mother Ignatius waited, pen in hand, but Colette slowly shook her head. The nun’s wimple rustled crisply.

‘Ah, what’s the use? You might not even have it, if you’ve had carnal relations with several men. Mortal sin – do I need to tell you? Evidently yes. If it weren’t my God-given duty to save your soul, young woman, I would not stoop to try. But this order will strive mightily to bring you to redemption through the blood of our Saviour. Then there is the matter of the adoption.’

It took a long time before the girl would reply, but her hands were busy, twisting and straining at the handkerchief.

‘Yes, Reverend Mother. That will be for the best, anyway.’

‘Well, you’re not capable of bringing a child up yourself, are you? You’ll be able to see the baby, of course. We’re not ogres here, we don’t steal the infant wet from the birth-bed. But a fortnight after delivery, barring hitches, it’ll be handed over to a God-fearing couple. A Catholic family. You can rest assured that your child’ll be brought up properly.’

‘He will go to kind people, won’t he? Where they’ll love him?’

‘Huh.
You
are in no position to make that proviso since you can’t provide any kind of home yourself. Make up your mind: once it’s gone you will never see it again. Never. Is that clear?’

‘Why won’t you?’

‘Because. That’s why. Not until we’re married.’

‘Oh, come
on
, Roseanne. That’s a completely out-dated attitude. Nobody believes that nowadays. I’ll be careful, I promise.’

Roseanne Nixon eyed Jerry Feinstein grimly and wondered how long her refusal could be maintained. He had called at her house in Menlove Gardens to collect her; newly decorated, it smelled of paint. The aim had been to go to the cinema, probably the Odeon at Allerton for
The Day of the Triffids
. Jerry liked what he called sci-fi, though Roseanne had other preferences.

Her parents however were due at the JNF dinner and had no intention of being late. The
Braddocks were the main guests, the new Leader of the city council and his wife the MP, one of the handful of women elected to the House of Commons. Their presence had led Mrs Nixon to consider not going at all. Then her sister had suggested that these scions of the Liverpool Labour party could best be humiliated if government supporters flaunted their finery as demonstrative of a world of which the Braddocks and their ilk were both ignorant and critical. ‘That’d show ’em,’ Sylvia had urged, and discussed which of their cherished fur coats – the silver fox or her beaver lamb – would fill the bill most effectively.

So Rita Nixon, dressed to impress in brocaded silk, a diamond pendant and the fox, her husband fidgety and irritable at her side, had departed the moment Jerry had arrived, with admonitions to the children to lock up properly and mind the paint before they went out and not leave any windows open.

Jerry had made appropriate soothing noises. As soon as the car had vanished down the road he took off his own coat and scarf, King them casually on the knob at the end of the banisters and pinned Roseanne’s warm, plump body against the fresh wallpaper on the hall wall.

‘No,’ she repeated primly. ‘Apart from anything else, they could come back any minute. You know my father’s ulcer plays up.’

‘He uses it as a convenience. I mean, I’m sure he has one, but it only plays up when he’s had enough.’

‘Probably. All men are the same, my mother says.’

His right forearm was firmly placed on the wall above her head, his left about her waist. Around them the smell of paint and wallpaper paste was mingled with Coty’s
L’Aimant
. She could not easily evade his advances. Nor, to be truthful, did she mean to. The trick was to get him where she wanted, and it wasn’t here. She was not scared of him; if the worst came, he could be kneed in the groin and put out of action for a day or so. Roseanne, like most Liverpool girls, could take excellent care of herself.

Jerry’s eyes flickered. He bent and began to nibble her earlobe. ‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘Please let me. I love you, Roseanne. You’re gorgeous. It’s driving me nuts.’ Suddenly he put his tongue in her ear and she squealed.

Coolly she planted her hand on his chest and pushed him off. ‘Are we engaged?’ she demanded. ‘Like you said?’ He shrugged. ‘Sure. I just can’t afford a ring, yet.’

‘Well then.’ Roseanne pondered. Jerry leaned towards her and pressed his erection into her. She yelped and struggled a little, but did not remove herself. ‘Well: you can’t go the whole way. But you can have a bit of a feel, if you like. Will that keep you happy for the time being?’

Jerry groaned. ‘God, then I’ll be like this for hours. Or else I’ll come and make a mess on my trousers. When your parents get home they’ll guess. At least, your Dad will.’

‘Can’t help that. Halfway or nothing at all. And don’t ask me to play with your – thingy, or touch it. I don’t even want to see it.’

Jerry bent again, pulled her to him, and covered her lips with his own. From the way he thrust his tongue into her mouth Roseanne gathered he was genuinely hungry for sex. Not that Jerry especially wanted it from her – she was under no illusions about that. But the tensions of his writhing body told her firmly that should she continue to deny him he’d find what he craved elsewhere. Prudence nevertheless ordained that if she succumbed too readily she would never be Mrs Jerry Feinstein, with no guarantee that anything better might ever walk in.