Tennis Shoes (15 page)

The answer from grandfather came two days later. Annie did not put it on the breakfast-table. She gave it to Nicky afterwards in the kitchen.

‘Here's the answer from your granddad. Thought you wouldn't want everybody being nosy about it.'

Nicky opened the letter:

M
Y DEAR
N
ICKY
,

If there is one thing I dislike in a man, or in a woman, it is hinting. Had you written directly and asked for a guinea to join the tennis club, I should have sent it at once. As it is, I am sending it to your father this morning. I have not told him that you have written to me, and I suggest that you do not show him this letter. But, as a secret between you and me, this subscription is instead of a birthday present for your tenth birthday, or a present at Christmas. Remember in future to ask outright. People can always say no.

Your affectionate

G
RANDFATHER
.

Nicky showed the letter to Annie, who read it and laughed.

‘There are no flies on that old gentleman. Quite right too. I hate a lot of 'intin' meself. Unlucky with your Christmases and birthdays, you are. If he had only thought he could have sent you a nice umbrella.'

Next birthday was still a good long way off, and Christmas was not until after that, so Nicky did not mind very much about the presents. The great thing was, she was joining the club. Her father told her that evening.

‘Your grandfather has sent a guinea so that you may be able to play at the club, as he thinks it's dull for Susan with Jim away. I think you're a bit young for it, old lady. But I shall let you go up with Susan every day after tea on two understandings. You must obey Susan absolutely walking to and fro. And you are not to make a nuisance of yourself up there. If you don't keep the rules you won't go inside the place for another year at least.'

Nicky hopped happily on one foot.

‘Good! I am glad. 'Course I won't make a nuisance of myself. Why should I?'

Her father laughed.

‘You'd be surprised to find that your long-suffering family would say to a man: “Why shouldn't you.” All the same, perhaps this time you'll behave yourself.' He gave her an affectionate pat on the tail. ‘Mind you do. I shall hate to stop you going to the place, but I shall if there's any trouble.'

As a matter of fact, Nicky was angelic at the club. She knew that her father meant every word he had said. She might, and did, carry on heated arguments with Susan as they walked there and back, but she obeyed her all right when it came to crossings and things like that.

All through that term they played every single day except at the week-ends. When the holidays came it was expected Nicky would stop at home. After all, Jim and Susan always had played against each other. But not at all.

‘You aren't going to the club, are you, Nicky?' her mother asked at breakfast the day after Jim was home. ‘Come for a walk with me, David, and Agag. The other two have a court booked.'

‘Thank you.' Nicky helped herself casually to some marmalade. ‘I've an engagement. I'm playing too. I've a court booked.'

Susan looked surprised.

‘Who on earth with?'

‘A girl called June. She's the same age as me. Nobody to play with in the holidays. We're going to play every day.'

‘You'll have to make it the same time as we go up then,' Jim pointed out. ‘You mayn't go alone.'

Mrs. Heath poured out some more coffee.

‘We'll manage, Nicky. You fix your game, and if it doesn't fit in with the others Pinny or I will take you.'

Nicky turned red. She was so used to thinking everybody was against her that she found it muddling when they showed they were nothing of the sort.

For one week of the Easter holidays the children, Mrs. Heath, and Pinny went to stay with grandfather. They went there because he would not be able to have them in the summer, as he was going abroad. They enjoyed the week at Easter, but they could not help feeling a bit depressed to think they were not going in the summer. They were fond of Tulse Hill, but not in August. On the night before Jim went back to school their father told them a secret. For the whole summer holidays he had rented a bungalow at Pevensey Bay.

When something nice is going to happen it seems to make time go slower. The summer term was really very nice. Jim broke the school swimming record for the 220 yards, and he won the championship cup for the second year. He had one more summer term before he went to Marlborough. If he could win the cup next year it would be his altogether. No boy had ever won it outright. He enjoyed cricket. He played in the second eleven. He got some odd tennis practice. All the same, when he thought of Pevensey the days seemed as if they would never go.

Susan played in the first pair of the school second tennis six, and in the first pair of the house six. She still liked being like everybody else, but now she was a bit more than part of St. Clair's. She was Susan Heath, who's awfully good at tennis. It was nice for her sort of person to be a success, but she knew it did not mean much. At home the school tennis was treated as if it were ping-pong, and she never mentioned it if she could help it. All the same, the summer term was the nicest for her, yet she wanted to hurry it through. What was any summer term worth compared with going to Pevensey?

Nicky had been moved up. She was moved up because she was too old for her form, and she was not allowed to think it was for any other reason. In her new form she had to work. Her form mistress thought it was bad for people to be always at the bottom of the class, and anybody who was she worked with out of school hours to help them catch up. Nicky had no intention of doing a spot of work when lessons should be over, so she pulled herself together and kept a place about five from the bottom. Except for having to work harder she loved the summer term. She liked lying on a rug with a lot of friends watching people play matches. She found the smell of the grass mixed with rug, and the sun on her head, made her extra funny. She liked being the centre person who made everybody else laugh. All the same, she had hardly ever seen the sea. She wished it was August.

David was supposed to do lessons with Pinny, but he struck.

‘It's not,' he explained to his father, ‘that she's not com'etent. But it's not the life for a man.'

‘That's all very well,' his father had said, ‘but school's expensive. I'll send you when you're eight.'

Probably that would have been the end of that if grandfather had not come to stay for a fortnight on his way abroad. He found David in the garden brushing Agag.

‘Hallo!' he said.

‘Hallo!' David got up and shook hands. ‘Daddy and mummy have gone to meet you.'

Grandfather sat down in a deck-chair.

‘Came by an earlier train. How's the dog?'

‘You shouldn't never call a dog jus' “dog,”' David protested. Then he added politely: ‘He's very well, thank you.' He brushed Agag's tail. ‘I'm a little bored myself.'

‘Are you?' Grandfather lit a cigarette. ‘Sorry to hear about that. Why?'

David sighed.

‘Edchucation. I don't care about it.'

Grandfather smiled.

‘Neither did I. All the same you have to have it.'

‘But not,' David explained, ‘female toition.'

The red hairs on grandfather's eyebrow stood out stiffly.

‘Who's teaching you? Pinny?'

‘Pinny,' David agreed sadly.

‘Ah!' Grandfather looked thoughtfully at the sky. David went on brushing Agag. You would have thought they had finished with the subject of education, but suddenly grandfather said: ‘Care to go to Eastbourne next term to this fellow Partridge?'

David rolled Agag over to brush his underneath.

‘I would. Daddy says when I'm eight. Pinny says I ought to go to a choir school which won't cost daddy anythin'.'

Grandfather made spluttering noises.

‘Choir school! Got up pretty. Singin' all day long. Rubbish! Never heard such nonsense. You'll go to Partridge in the autumn. Knock this music nonsense out of you.'

David paid no attention to grandfather being annoyed. He did not know what it was all about. He just went on brushing. Presently grandfather felt sorry he had been angry. He gave David sixpence.

David put on Agag's collar. They walked together to Mrs. Pettigrew's. David had an ice cornet and a pink cake. Agag had a biscuit. His was free. He found it on the floor. On the way back they went to the butcher's, and David bought him a bone. They usually shared an unexpected windfall.

Dr. and Mrs. Heath were sitting with grandfather. Mrs. Heath called David.

‘Darling, you don't really want to go away to a boarding-school, do you? You needn't go for a long time.'

David wriggled free from her arm as politely as possible.

‘I want to go now,' he said.

Grandfather nodded.

‘He shall go next term. Choir school indeed!'

David and Agag lay down under a tree in the corner of the garden. Agag lay on his tummy and ate his bone. David lay on his back and ate his pink cake. Next term! And before next term there was Pevensey! He felt so pleased inside to think of all the exciting things that were going to happen that he rolled Agag over. Of course Agag made the most dreadful growls. David looked at him severely.

‘One more growl an' you won't be took to Pevensey.'

However long time may seem in passing, it does go at last. There came a morning when Pinny, Nicky, and David got into a train. One hour later Dr. and Mrs. Heath, the twins, Agag, and Annie got into the car. Everybody set their noses for the sea.

CHAPTER X

PEVENSEY BAY

Pevensey was a most satisfactory seaside place because it never stopped smelling of the sea, which the children felt it ought to do. Everything was different from everything at Tulse Hill. They had a sort of lawn, but instead of green grass there was some greyish stuff that looked as if salt was mixed with it. The wall of the bungalow garden was also a sea-wall keeping out the beach. Being right on the beach like that gave a very coastguard feeling. It was the least grand of places. Nobody dressed up and there was nothing you could wear that was too shabby. When the girls put on ordinary clean cotton frocks and the boys a tie they felt quite embarrassingly overdressed. They never did dress like that except on Sundays or to drive to Eastbourne or Bexhill. Ordinarily they had shorts and a shirt or jersey, or, of course, bathing things.

Bathing at Pevensey was the least fussy of affairs. There were a few bathing-huts, but most people dressed and undressed on the beach. The Heaths, of course, changed in the bungalow. There was a small lavatory by the front door. In there Annie made them all leave their bathing things and wash their feet before they put their big towels round them and went to their rooms.

‘Don't want half the beach in the house, and that's a fact.'

‘No, indeed,' Pinny agreed.

The children tried to make both Annie and Pinny bathe, but they would not. Pinny said:

‘Well, dears, I may be foolish, but I feel rather a figure of fun in a bathing-dress.'

Annie snorted.

‘What! Get into water what I seen horses walkin' in? Not me.'

Under the garden wall a father and son kept boats for hire—the
Princess Anne
, the
Betsy
, the
Rose
, and the
Queen of the Ocean
. When anybody hired one of the boats the father, whose name was Dan, and the son, whose name was Joe, laid boards down to the beach, put the boat on them, and pushed it into the sea. All the children helped push. It was difficult to know whether Dan and Joe liked being helped because they never said anything. If a customer came they spoke to him and told him what a boat would cost, but that was the end of the conversation. Joe chalked a figure on a slate. Dan picked up the slate and looked at it. Then in absolute silence they lifted the boat on to the boards and began to push. It was the same when it got to the sea. They helped the passengers in without a word, pushed the boat off as if they were tired of the sight of it, and walked back up the beach without a word. Jim thought, though he never said so, Dan and Joe must be glad of help, as he had timed how long it took with them helping and how long without, and when they helped it saved part of a minute. In any case, whether Dan and Joe liked it or not, the children liked helping. Seeing the boat off, waiting to pull it in again, the tar smell of boat on their hands, it was all very sea-doggish.

It was Dr. Heath who found out that Dan and Joe could hear, even if they said very little. He planned to go fishing. He came down to the sea-wall after breakfast. He leant over it with his pipe in his mouth. Dan and Joe had the
Betsy
upside-down and were mending something.

‘'Morning,' he called out cheerfully. Dan and Joe jerked their heads sideways and said nothing. ‘Can I hire a boat this afternoon and some lines? Taking those kids of mine fishing.'

Dan looked at Joe. Then he made a chalk mark on the slate.

‘Barty got bait?'

Joe spat.

‘Might have.' He jerked his head at Dr. Heath. ‘He's got a motor.'

Dan nodded.

‘Ah!' They both went on with their work. Apparently they thought they had given all the information that was necessary.

Dr. Heath was quite used to getting things out of patients who did not want to talk.

‘Where does Barty hang out?'

Dan felt in his pocket for a nail.

‘Two miles this side Cooden.'

‘Right.' Dr. Heath nodded and went away. Presently he got out the car and went the two miles this side of Cooden. He found Barty, and came back with a newspaper parcel of worms.

After lunch Dr. and Mrs. Heath and the twins came down to the beach. That was when they found out what a lot Dan and Joe heard. The moment they arrived they lifted the
Princess Anne
on to the boards, pushed her down to the sea. On the bottom of the boat some fishing-lines were lying. Dan looked at the parcel of bait. Then he looked at Joe.