1951
I KEEP THINKING IT MUST BE awful for Lucy, seeing Mr Wheaton at school all the time, knowing what he put her through, knowing that he can just carry on with his life as if nothing happened whilst she must carry her secret and her pain.
Not that I can say any of this to Lucy, seeing as she still isn’t speaking to me. She’s back in school at last, which means she must be better, but she hasn’t so much as looked in my direction.
I’d like a chance to explain myself, to tell Lucy that my diary is just for me, that she doesn’t need to worry, her secrets are safe, but I am worried about approaching Lucy and being rejected. I don’t think I could stand it if she rejected me again. At least I’m not the only one she has fallen out with; I’ve noticed Lucy and Judy aren’t speaking, which isn’t surprising after what happened with Judy’s mother.
I’ve heard a rumour that Mr Wheaton is leaving at the end of term. I hope he does leave. Looking at him makes me angry and it’s hard to concentrate when you are angry. I got a low mark for my last history essay. He gave me a D, writing in the margin: This reads like fiction! which I suppose it was. I’ve always thought history is about making up the bits we don’t know about in order to join things together in a more satisfying way.
At home Reg has been in an unusually good mood after a recent windfall. He’s going about the place whistling ‘The Lambeth Walk’, and has bought my mother a sewing machine and a new pair of dancing shoes. He thinks we don’t know where he keeps his money, but I’ve seen him stuffing cash into the empty Rinso box at the back of the kitchen cupboard. I told you our luck was in, he said to my mother. He is also in a good mood about the upcoming fete. He thinks my mother should raise her prices. ‘You’ve got to remember you’re a star,’ he tells her. ‘They’ll be queuing all the way to the fishmonger’s.’ His cheerfulness makes me suspicious; I don’t trust it. I also don’t want to be at home anymore, but I know the only way to move out would be to get a job and try to find lodgings, which would mean I wouldn’t be able to return to school in the autumn. It’s a dilemma that runs continually through my mind. I haven’t been over to the undergarment factory like I promised; I just can’t bring myself to.
At Friday lunchtime I’m walking along the side of the gymnasium with my English exercise book and a copy of Thomas Hardy’s selected poems (Miss Munby loves all the Emma ones – we’ve got to realise what we’ve got when we have it, girls!) when I spot Judy Simpson coming the other way. As soon as she sees me, her expression clouds and her eyes narrow. I try to give her a wide berth but she stops right in front of me, trapping me by the side of the gymnasium wall.
‘I know this all has something to do with you,’ she hisses.
‘What are you talking about?’ I ask, genuinely bewildered.
‘All of it. Lucy not wanting to see me, her acting so strange all the time. What happened with my mother.’
I almost laugh. ‘What happened to your mother had nothing to do with me. I didn’t steal anything, did I?’
Judy looks as though she might strike me; her anger palpable, her fists tightly clenched. ‘My mother didn’t steal anything. She was framed.’
‘Framed?’ It sounds like Judy has been spending too many Saturday afternoons at the pictures, and I try to swallow my amusement, reminding myself that I should feel sympathy for Judy and her mother. Martha Simpson must have been desperate if she needed to steal from the Theddles, and I know what it’s like to live without much, to have a mother who must scrimp and save and who always yearns for more.
‘You have no idea what this has done to my family, do you?’
‘I’m sorry, but I really don’t know a thing about it,’ I say edging carefully away then breaking into a brisk walk. How can Judy possibly believe her mother’s dismissal is my fault, that it could have anything to do with me? I know she’s aways disliked me but I’m beginning to think she might be slightly barmy.
‘I know it all comes back to you. And I’m going to find out how. You won’t get away with this,’ Judy calls after me.
*
I’m cycling along the High Street on Saturday morning, running errands for my mother (can you get me some peppermint oil from the chemist’s, Edie. Oh, and see if Mr Goy has any kippers in). I haven’t got far and am passing The Bird in Hand and the pawn shop when I see Lucy. I do a double take, drifting unintentionally into the middle of the road, not quite believing it’s her, that Lucy would be at this end of town. The only reason I can think of for her being this way would be to see me, and she certainly isn’t doing that. She’s coming out of the pawn shop wearing a headscarf and sunglasses and, as I watch, she glances up and down the street as if someone might be watching her. I am about to wave but something stops me: she clearly doesn’t want to be seen. Her manner is guarded, hesitant, secretive; it’s the way she looks left and right, the slight hunch of her shoulders, how she pulls at her cardigan as if trying to cover up as much of herself as possible.
I drag my bicycle up the kerb, watch her walking hastily away, then approach the shop, peering into the window, as if it might give me a clue as to what she was doing.
There in the window display are the earrings Lucy wore to the dance a few months ago, the ones she borrowed from her mother, the tiny pearls and sapphires. Next to them is Lucy’s rose pendant, the necklace she always wears. I stare at them, a fuzzy feeling in my head. It doesn’t make any sense. Lucy said her mother was given the earrings by a sweetheart. Why would she part with them now? And why would Lucy give up her favourite necklace? Was that what she was doing in the shop? Selling her mother’s possessions? Why?
*
An uneasy feeling claws at my stomach. Nothing about this is right. I remember Lucy’s words when I asked about Martha Simpson, what it was she had been stealing.
Trinkets. Jewellery.
I look again at the earrings and necklace so brazenly on display. What else has Lucy brought to the pawn shop? Is she in on something with Martha Simpson? Another thought slowly dawns on me. What if Martha didn’t steal from the Theddles? What if it was Lucy? But why would she steal from her own family? From her mother?
I hop back onto my bike and take off, skidding around the corner by the hairdresser’s, flying up the High Street in the same direction as Lucy, my feet driving at the pedals, going as fast as I can on my rickety old bicycle.
I finally catch up with Lucy by the cinema, slowing my pace to cycle alongside her. She stops when she realises it’s me.
‘What do you want?’ she asks crossly.
At least she’s acknowledged me. I hop off my bicycle, wheeling it alongside her.
‘I saw you just now.’
‘I can see that.’ She carries on walking.
‘No, I mean I saw you coming out of the pawn shop. What were you doing?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t know I was required to tell you my business these days.’ Her manner is cool yet I can tell I’ve startled her; she wasn’t expecting to be seen.
We’re reaching the end of the High Street and she cuts up Cucumber Lane, meaning I have to walk behind her with the bike.
‘What’s going on?’ I say, when we emerge by the church. ‘I saw your mother’s jewellery in the window.’
Lucy says nothing and so I take a deep breath. ‘Judy’s mother didn’t steal anything, did she? It was you.’
Lucy stops walking and stares at me. Her steely expression wavers.
‘I know it must have been you,’ I press, praying I am right, not wanting to create a deeper rift between us.
‘In here,’ she says, opening the gate to the churchyard.
I leave my bicycle tucked behind the gate and follow Lucy along the path between the gravestones, a smell of flowers and newly turned earth in the air. Someone has left a bunch of sunflowers on a grave and they’re beginning to wilt.
She stops by the old yew and turns to me. To my surprise she buries her head in her hands. ‘I didn’t want to do it, Edie. You can’t imagine how I’ve been feeling. I’m so fond of Martha. After all she’s done for us . . .’
She looks at me, her eyes bright and feverish. A small bird scuffles around in the tree.
‘So why are you stealing things?’
She hugs her shoulders and glances around desperately, ‘It was so difficult to get the money together. For the, you know . . .’
I nod.
She lowers her gaze. ‘And then when he asked for more.’
‘Who asked for more?’
‘Reg,’ she says, biting down on her lower lip. ‘He said I’d been given the wrong price, that the doctor needed more money. I got what I could but then, afterwards, late that evening, he just turned up at my house saying that it had been such a risk for the doctor, and for your mother and him, given whose daughter I was and my age and everything, and that he needed more money. I had to get rid of him, I couldn’t have him coming to the door, standing on my doorstep. I told him I didn’t have any more money, but he said if I wanted it all to be kept quiet then I was going to have to find what he’d asked for. I did, but then he came to me when I was on my way home from school the other day and told me I still hadn’t given him enough, that he was going to need even more.’
My body tenses. Reg. I can’t believe it. I picture him coming through the door with the sewing machine under his arm, splashing out on cigarettes, whistling cheerfully to himself. All the time I thought he’d had a win at the races.
‘And then my mother noticed a few things were missing.’ Lucy draws a hand down her face. ‘I didn’t realise she would catch on so quickly. Oh, Edie. It was just awful. Martha in tears and my mother so upset about having to let her go, my father going on about getting the police involved and my mother begging him not to. Of course I couldn’t tell them it was me. They would have wanted to know why I needed the money.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, suddenly realising Judy was right in her accusation: it is all my fault. If I hadn’t asked Reg to help, he’d never have taken a cut from the doctor, never asked Lucy for more money, and she wouldn’t have stolen from her mother. Martha Simpson would not have lost her job.
My breathing sounds loud in my ears and I sit down on the space between the graves, my shoulders slumped. I’ve been so stupid. I should have guessed.
‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ Lucy replies, sitting next to me and hugging her knees to her chest. ‘I got myself into this mess, didn’t I?’
‘Don’t give Reg any more money.’
‘But he said he’d tell my father.’
‘He won’t.’
‘How do you know that?’
I stare at a sun-bleached cherub. She’s right. I don’t know for sure.
‘I feel so trapped,’ Lucy says.
I nod. I do too. Trapped with my mother and Reg. Trapped in this town. Soon I’ll be trapped in a job I’ll hate.
An idea begins to form. I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before.
‘Let’s go away,’ I tell Lucy, my thoughts all crowding in on me at once. ‘We could go somewhere. Anywhere. I need to get away, and so do you. We’ll leave this. All of it.’ I wave my hand in the air, gesturing towards the town, to Reg, Mr Wheaton, his wife, Rupert, Lucy’s parents. Everything.
Lucy stares at me. ‘Where will we go?’
‘London,’ I say, the idea of it just coming to me. ‘You want to go to London. Well, we’ll go now. Why should we wait?’
Lucy blinks. ‘But where will we live?’
‘We’ll find somewhere. There must be hundreds of rooms to rent in London. We’ll get jobs for the summer. In a hotel or a shop or something. When the autumn comes, we can study in the evenings. Then once we’ve got our qualifications, we can go to college together.’
Lucy glances around. ‘I don’t know if I can just leave, Edie. My parents . . .’
‘You can contact them when you’re settled. We both can. I can’t stay here,’ I tell her. ‘I just can’t stay any longer.’
‘Neither can I. But what would we do for money?’
‘I can get some,’ I tell her, thinking of the stuffed Rinso box and not feeling any guilt about stealing from Reg. Anyway, it’s Lucy’s money. I’d just be taking it back. ‘It will keep us going for a while,’ I tell her. Then we’ll get jobs as quickly as we can.’
I picture us riding cramped red buses, walking down famous streets under black umbrellas, sitting in sophisticated cafés wearing berets and putting cubed sugar into our tea. We’ll find lodgings and make a little home for ourselves. The landlady will be a kind old widow with a grey cat. She’ll invite us down for tea and treat us as if we are daughters of her own. We’ll come home each evening tired but happy, cook our supper on the gas ring, go out to the pictures at Piccadilly Circus or to dance halls where we’ll dance with Irish boys until our feet hurt and our dresses stick to us.
‘When would we go?’ Lucy says, getting excited.
‘Saturday,’ I tell her. ‘It’s perfect. Everyone will be at the fete. No one will miss us. By the time they’re all wondering where we are, we’ll be far away.’
‘Will we leave a note?’
I shrug. ‘If you like. But we should avoid telling anyone where we’re going.’
Her expression clouds.
‘What is it?’
‘Rupert. I’ll have to tell him.’
‘Why?’ I ask, crossly. ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘We’ve been friends for such a long time, and he thinks he’s going to marry me. I can’t just leave without giving him some kind of explanation.’
I shake my head. ‘You mustn’t tell him you’re leaving, or where we’re going. You don’t owe him anything. Not after what he did to you. You don’t owe Rupert Mayhew or Mr Wheaton a thing.’
Lucy looks conflicted. ‘I think I at least ought to tell him that it’s never going to happen. Me and him. Then he can move on and find someone else.’
‘Fine,’ I say impatiently, determined not to let anything spoil our new plan and my good mood.
‘I said I’d go to the fete with Rupert on Saturday.’ Lucy looks at me apologetically. ‘Well, you and I weren’t speaking, and I did really want to go to the fete.’ She stands, brushing down her dress. ‘I’ll meet Rupert and tell him he should forget about me, that we can never be together, and then I’ll come straight to the station.’ She grins at me. ‘I can’t believe we’re really doing this.’
‘I’ll get the tickets,’ I tell her.