She's Leaving Home (65 page)

‘I don’t want any breakfast.’

Annie hovered, frying pan in hand. ‘What’s the matter? You were tossing and turning last night. Aren’t you feeling well?’

‘I’m fine. Don’t nag.’

Daniel shook the newspaper like a shield and buried himself in the sports pages. His surly demeanour told its tale. With the smallest movements possible Annie toasted bread and put the plate before him. Then she sat down opposite.

‘Danny. Something’s eating you. Can’t you tell me?’

A hand reached out from behind the newsprint and picked up a piece of toast.

‘Daniel Majinsky!’ Crossly Annie swept the paper aside. ‘What is it? If you’re not well you should go to the doctor. And if you are, then speak to me. Stop acting like a child.’

Her husband allowed the paper to drop. With a glower he answered her between mouthfuls.

‘Acting like a child? It’s your child that’s the matter. Your daughter. Her behaviour. We’re about to be disgraced, Annie, if you but knew it.’

Annie began to stack dishes nervously. ‘My daughter? Why – what have you heard?’

Daniel stared at her until Annie could bear it no longer. ‘Stop goading me, Danny. What have you heard about Helen?’

‘She’s going out with an American boy. An airman from Burtonwood.’

Annie glanced away. ‘You’ve heard that too?’

Daniel grunted. ‘I saw him. I should’ve known. We both met him, Annie, that night at the Rembrandt with Gertie. Only our daughter didn’t introduce us. Then Morrie Feinstein tells me all about it. He got it from his son Jerry. Everybody knows but us.’

Annie, realising at once that her source was the same, kept her own counsel. Whereas her husband would regard his informant as reliable, hers would be seen as tellers of tales.

‘Well!’ Annie continued, primly positive, ‘I’m sure if there’s anything serious in it, Helen will bring the boy home to introduce him. Are we saying we can’t trust our own daughter?’

‘But, Annie. Why might she keep it a secret – have you considered that?’

Miserably his wife concurred. ‘I wondered, ever since I heard the rumours too. She hasn’t said a word.’

‘Has it occurred to you that the reason could be that we would disapprove?’

‘Not if he was a nice boy from a good family,’ said Annie, stoutly. Then she gaped. ‘He’s not – black, is he?’

‘Christ. No. I tell you, I’ve seen him. Bumped into the two of them some weeks ago. He pretended he didn’t know her well, and when I questioned Helen she poo-poohed the idea. God help us.’ Daniel recollected himself and decided not to tell Annie any more about the encounter outside the tobacconist’s. ‘But there’s one obvious explanation which is staring us in the face.’

‘Don’t say it.’

‘Come on, Annie. You know what I mean.’

‘I don’t believe it. She’s a good girl.’

‘Oh, not
that
. She’s got too much sense to get pregnant. Something else. Suppose he isn’t Jewish.’

‘No. Surely not. Not our Helen.’ Annie’s voice betrayed her doubt. She placed a hand on her husband’s arm. ‘You’ll have to put it to her – get to the bottom of it.’

Daniel stood, his expression despondent. ‘I don’t want to in case I find out the truth. We’d
have to put our foot down. Can’t have the kids marrying out. We have a position to keep up in this community. Rules are rules. It won’t do.’

‘When will you see her? Best as soon as possible. Tonight? I think she’s going out later.’

‘So I’ll come home early and catch her.’ With that, Daniel made ready to leave for work and in a few more moments was gone.

Alone in the kitchen Annie debated whether to eat the cold fried eggs with their congealed butter then decided against. Waste not want not, but she was neither hungry nor greedy. She made another slice of toast, buttered it and spread marmalade, and made a fresh pot of tea.

What would her husband say? He’d lay down the law, certainly. Come the heavy-handed father: he would feel he had no option. Yet there surfaced the vexatious notion that it might not succeed, and that it was dangerous to have no alternative stance. If Danny threw his weight about to no avail – if Helen was determined to ignore them – then their authority would have been permanently shattered. And that would leave the girl rudderless, directionless, just as she entered the adult world and needed their guidance most.

Annie, perplexed, drank the tea slowly. What if she were Helen – how would she feel? What would she expect? The love and regard of her parents, of that the mother was sure. The child was not rebellious by nature. Spirited and independent, yes. As she herself had been. So many similarities between herself at that age and her pretty, troubled daughter came to mind that Annie smiled ruefully, and poured another cup.

When she had been young she had tried to please her parents, for example by leaving school and working for Auntie Ida Bernstein in that awful shop. It had been up to her to better herself and she had triumphed: after, warm plaudits had come from her family – apart, of course, from Auntie Ida.

But once her needs were met, resistance had been abandoned. She knew where the barriers lay and kept her distance from them. While she had sought advancement, defiance for its own sake had not attracted her, nor had she developed the slightest inclination to test those barriers for height or strength. And not at all to peep over the top. It was never apparent to Annie that the grass was greener on the other side. The grass was much the same everywhere you looked. What was smart was to improve your lot as much as possible within the confines of the life into which you were born. To seek anything else was foolhardy, and mostly led to misery and despair.

So her husband would be doing no more than his duty to dissuade Helen or somehow prevent her from leaving – from intermarriage, or from contemplating such a cataclysmic step. It was not clear however what sanctions they possessed any more. Helen was a young woman in reality, perfectly capable of tossing her head and storming out. Old enough to earn her own living: why, at seventeen Annie had been into her third job with better money, and so were many other girls today. As for university, with public support and scholarships a student could manage without parental approval if necessary, though it was seldom satisfactory.

But would she? A well-brought-up youngster, taught to honour her father and her mother – the fifth commandment? A scion of the
schul
, who could quote scripture at will, wh’d been a star of the choir? Who could acquit herself splendidly in discourse with Reverend Siegel, and was lauded and admired by him, and held up to others as an example of a fine modern Jewish girl? Surely she would not walk away from such richness. Helen could not slough off her heritage and the hopes pinned on her by so many like a discarded outgrown skin. The child was too genuine for that. She would surely not do it.

With increasing anxiety Annie washed up. Memories had been stirred. The arguments she had put to her husband the day the war ended came to mind but had not been exactly the same. There’d been no need to describe to Daniel what he would lose if he eloped with his Lady Mary. He had known better than anyone – and that liaison had had no substance, had been a romantic dream, an adventure. He had hurled himself against the barriers and found them insurmountable. But Annie had
wanted him the more because he was tempted to run off; the romance in her own soul had responded to the urge to save him from himself. That had inflated Daniel into a much more desirable figure than earnest, predictable Simon, however much rosier the latter’s prospects were. Dear kind Simon, who still carried a candle for her, and of whom she was so fond.

She’d guessed Daniel would never be a commercial success. In pleading with him to marry her she had given up expectations of wealth and ease. Instead she’d plumped for doing what was proper. The element of sacrifice had heightened her satisfaction rather than diminished it. To be respected and worthy were the best options. Preferably in the eyes of your neighbours also, naturally. That worried her occasionally for these days, it appeared, it was money that counted; the worthy poor man who kept his obligations had slipped badly in the hierarchy.

Danny would have married out, given half a chance. If his Mary had been single or widowed – if, say, her husband had died in captivity as many did – it could well have happened. In those days he would have scoffed at the criticism that it was wrong on principle to assimilate. He would have been disgusted at racial prejudice, would have rebuked his friends and spoken angrily. Yet here he was, about to act the paterfamilias and enforce precisely that view. And would convince himself that he agreed with it.

Annie shivered. If her husband had forgotten (or had resolutely put those events from his thoughts) then he would take a hard line with his daughter without recalling the magic of what was different. Or maybe the girl was in love: though Annie had merely a passing acquaintance with passion and largely distrusted it, she could grasp how it could drive people to their own destruction.

Were Helen indeed in love nothing would stop her, but the end result could be dreadful. At the worst, she could throw up her education, abandon home and religion to go chasing off after this American boy, only to find she’d pursued a will-o’-the-wisp and that love had evaporated in the night as love often did. Or she’d discover she didn’t like America and was homesick for a family that had closed its doors and wanted no more to do with her.

For Danny was capable of that, Annie was certain. The strains and contradictions in his personality, ossified by middle age and exacerbated by whatever disease it was that disrupted his sleep and caused him more pain than he would admit, made him irritable and erratic. He could be caring and wonderful one day: erudite, charming, liberal-minded. The next he’d make a fuss about some petty matter and insist on things being just so, though similar lapses had not been a problem the previous week. It made him hard to live with; in the Majinsky household, it seemed, love had been replaced by blind loyalty. Plus adherence to a set of religious diktats which, Annie admitted to herself, Daniel the atheist did not regard as gospel.

There was another way. They could as loving parents support their daughter in whatever choices she wanted to make. If the child acted foolishly they might point it out, but still tell her that they loved her, and that she would for ever be welcome in their house, that it would be her home for as long as she needed it.

It was possible. She could tell her husband not to be so silly. She could tell her daughter to respect her father, and to reflect on the future with care and common sense. She could push Danny not to be so absolute in his judgements. She had persuaded him before, forced him to use his better judgement: once, long ago. As a last resort she could defy him herself and announce that whatever Danny might do she, Annie, would support her lovely girl and make welcome whichever partner she picked.

But that would mean taking Helen’s part against her father. Wives should not do that. Wives should back up their husbands especially when the pressure had become almost unbearable. Children should obey their parents, as wives promised in their wedding vows to obey their husbands – as she had promised, and meant it. The alternative would be ghastly, chaotic disorder. Society would fall apart as they knew it, and neither marriage nor religion nor authority would hold sway any more.

So there would be no defiance, not by her. No opening of another flank of battle. It would not be fair, nor correct. She would stand by the man she married. She had made her bed decades before when she had taken him, warts and all. She would not cross him: not now, not ever.

Instead Danny would shout, and Helen would cry or be sullen, and the battle of wills between father and daughter which had simmered for ages would come to its climax and its conclusion. If one of them weakened, reconciliation was possible. But if neither did, then Annie knew the household would be riven from top to bottom, and her heart would ache till the day she died.

The atmosphere at school was listless and downhearted. For the younger girls the assassination of the President of another country meant little but they felt the sadness of their elders and the fear of calamity. So for once the lower forms behaved themselves though by the end of the day boredom would set in. They would be as boisterous as usual on the morrow.

The prefects’ den at mid-morning break was also quiet, with most of the usual occupants supervising playtime. Only the Head Girl and Meg were present.

The gas fire blazed, creating a pool of warmth in the dank chill. The table was covered in that morning’s newspapers and the weekend’s. With a determinedly purposeful air Brenda busied herself for want of something better to do by clipping articles about the American tragedies and pinning them on the noticeboard. She had brought with her a black ribbon and stapled it around the President’s picture. The theatricality of the gesture gave a sense of condolence.

Brenda assembled cups and dried milk. ‘How did you get on at your interviews?’ she inquired over her shoulder.

Meg stretched out her legs towards the fire. ‘OK, I think,’ she said, with a show of brashness. ‘But they do expect us to be geniuses, don’t they? They asked me about the relationship between high pressure and temperature in the manufacture of ammoniacal compounds and I hadn’t a clue what they were on about. That’s degree-level stuff. But I tried to reason from first principles so I hope they were satisfied.’

‘Makes you wonder why they bother,’ Brenda sympathised. ‘They probed some of my answers to the written paper but I’d swotted it up, fortunately. You’d think the A level results would be sufficient for them as they are for the other universities. But no, both Oxford and Cambridge have to set their own exams then follow them up with interviews. Give themselves masses of slog, and for what?’

‘The true tests are outside the classroom,’ Meg observed dryly. She accepted a mug of coffee. ‘At dinner in hall, for example. I was warned they watch how you eat. Do you know the correct etiquette? Do you tuck your napkin into your neck instead of over your skirt? And d’you call it a napkin or a serviette? D’you know what the various knives and forks are for – do you eat your peas off your knife? Stuff like that.’