‘Oh!’ said a little voice.
We looked up and there was Robin at the bathroom door, his mouth open in astonishment. ‘Sorry, Robin!’ said Jo, grabbing the towel back and wrapping it round herself.
‘Are you fighting?’ Robin enquired timidly.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘No, of course we’re not,’ said Jo. ‘Take no notice of Charlie, Robin. She’s a wild child, totally out of my control.’
‘Grrrrrr!’ I said, baring my teeth dramatically.
‘Will she fight me?’ Robin asked.
‘No, of course she won’t, she’s only teasing,’ said Jo.
‘Yes, I will,’ I said, and I swooped on him and picked him up under his armpits and swung him round wildly so that his spindly legs kicked in the air.
He squealed noisily but he seemed to be enjoying it.
‘Stop being so rough with him,’ Jo called, pulling on her clothes in the bedroom.
‘Is he lean and lost like his daddy then?’ I said, setting Robin back on his feet. His face was flushed robin red, his eyes dark with excitement. He took a step and staggered. I caught hold of him.
‘It’s OK, you’re just giddy,’ I said as he clung to me. His hands were like little monkey paws. I wondered if he’d ever clung to his mum the way he was clinging to me.
‘Giddy,’ Robin repeated. This was obviously a new experience for him. He moved tentatively.
‘There, it’s getting better, isn’t it? Hey, did you put all the tops back on my felt tip pens, yeah?’
‘Oh yes. Honest,’ said Robin.
‘Did you do a drawing?’
‘I started.’
‘Let’s see then.’ I walked him over to the kitchen table. He’d drawn a very big Birdie as I’d suggested, with a tiny Robin clinging to his back. They were just landing in the Magic Land, Birdie’s wings outstretched.
I touched the strip of green below Birdie’s claws. ‘Is this the Magic Land then?’ I asked.
Robin nodded. ‘Yes! Shall I draw it for you, Charlie?’
‘OK. Go on then. What’s in your Magic Land, eh? Pink candy-floss trees and rivers with tame dolphins and unicorns you can ride and it’s never ever bedtime?’ I suggested, trying to conjure up a dinky little Magic Land that might take his fancy.
Jo and I elaborated endlessly on our own Magic Lands. It was one of our favourite games. Jo’s current Magic Land was a huge turquoise swimming pool and she’d float endlessly on a white lilo sipping champagne and eating white cream chocolates all day long. My special Magic Land was an immense jungle and I’d hack my way through, not the ‘slightest bit scared even when huge pythons wound themselves round my waist or tigers roared at me or elephants suddenly charged. I’d whistle a magic tune so that the python swayed in a hypnotic trance, I’d roar right back at the tiger, and I’d catch hold of the elephant’s trunk and get him to lift me up on his head between his mighty ears and we’d thunder across the land together.
I started drawing my own Magic Land, concentrating on the immensely tall trees, home of great gorillas and hairy orang-utans and tribes of funny furry monkeys, and I was Queen of all the Apes and swung through the trees faster than any of them.
‘Look, this is my Magic Land. See the monkeys?’ I said, showing Robin.
He was kneeling up on his chair, drawing intently, his tongue sticking out he was concentrating so hard. I peered at his picture.
‘That’s not a Magic Land!’ I said. ‘You’re just drawing your mum and your dad again.’
‘Yes, they’re in my Magic Land, and we all live there and it’s magic,’ said Robin. He bent his head very near his drawing, as if he was trying to step inside it.
‘It’s nearly time we were off, Robin. We’ll show Daddy your lovely picture, yes?’ said Jo.
That wasn’t all they were going to show off to Daddy. Jo was wearing her shortest skirt and her little angora wool jumper. I usually call her Fluffy Bunny when she wears it. I didn’t at all feel like flattering her with babyish nicknames now. What was she doing, getting all dolled up to deliver little Robin back home? She was supposed to do some housework when she was there too, so why dress up like she was going dating, not dusting?
‘What?’ said Jo, all wide-eyed, as I glared at her.
‘You know what,’ I said.
She was hours getting back home too. Well, an hour late. Just over half an hour. But she was still late.
‘What are you playing at, eh?’ I said furiously.
Jo burst out laughing.
‘It’s not funny!’ I exploded.
‘Yes it is. Talk about role reversal. Watch it, Charlie. You’re starting to sound just like Grandma. “Why are you so late back, Josephine? This simply isn’t good enough. And wipe that smirk off your face, it’s not funny.”’
‘Well, maybe if you’d listened to Grandma instead of thinking you knew best then you wouldn’t have ended up as a single parent having to go out cleaning for other people to keep a roof over our heads,’ I said.
There was a sudden silence. We were both shocked. Jo’s never minded if I shout back at her but I’ve never tried to hurt her like that before. I put my hand over my lips to try to get them under control.
Jo was struggling too, no longer laughing. ‘OK. Maybe that’s a good point – if a cheap one. Though I’m glad I made that major mistake because I got you out of it. And you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, even if you’re acting like a right old ratbag at this present moment in time,’ said Jo. ‘I’m sorry if you were worried I was late. I didn’t realize. Mark and I just got talking and—’
‘So it’s Mark, is it?’
‘Oh come off it, Charlie. He’s not the sort of man you call Mr Reed.’
‘No, he’s the little-boy-lost type, yeah?’
‘I don’t know why you’re being so stupid,’ said Jo. ‘You’re acting like I’m going out with him or something.’
‘Well – don’t you want to?’
‘Of course not. He’s my employer. He’s a nice quiet friendly man who adores his son and he’s still hurting after the break up of his marriage and he’s lonely and he just likes to talk a bit, that’s all. And – and – I like to talk to him too.’
‘Why? You’re not lonely. You’ve got me.’
Jo looked as if she might giggle again. ‘You’re sounding like my husband now!’
‘Well, why do you have to get all prettied up in your best clothes just to talk to this Mark?’
‘Definitely like a husband. Oh, Charlie!’ Jo put her arms round me, her angora tickling my cheeks.
‘Get off. You’re getting fluff all over me,’ I said, sneezing.
‘Well, stop being such a prize berk, eh? Look, if it keeps you happy I’ll tell Mark tomorrow that I’m not allowed to say another word to him because it annoys my fierce bossy man-hating daughter.’
‘Right, you do that,’ I said.
I knew I was being ridiculous. But I couldn’t help it.
I was fed up at school too. Angela and Lisa were being stupid stupid stupid. Angela had joined this dippy fan club and had a special magazine and a signed photo of her new favourites and a T-shirt with all their heads on which she wore every day under her school shirt. She endlessly read aloud the most amazingly trivial facts about her new darlings, like one had a thing about red-and-white striped toothpaste and another had a wacky Scottish auntie and another fell about laughing every time he saw Bugs Bunny. Well, so what??? But Angela kept giving great excited whoops and yelling, ‘Listen to this, listen to this!’
Lisa was getting pretty cheesed off with this too, but she was just as bad over Dave Wood. Worse even. She went bright red whenever he came remotely near her, and when one day in singing the music teacher had her standing right next to Dave, Lisa was so overcome she couldn’t sing a note, she just opened and shut her mouth like a goldfish.
‘I was so embarrassed,’ she kept saying afterwards. ‘I mean, we were practically touching.’
‘Yuck! I
wouldn’t touch Dave Wood with a bargepole,’ I said.
‘Oh you,’ said Lisa. ‘Look, do you think Dave likes me?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said impatiently. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘I can’t ask him! No, I’ve got to find some subtle way of finding out.’
‘I’ll ask him, if you like,’ said Angela, reaching down her school blouse and blowing kisses to the faces on her T-shirt.
‘No, that’s not subtle enough,’ said Lisa.
‘Angela, stop doing that, it looks seriously weird,’ I said. ‘And you’re trying to be so subtle it’s just a waste of space. Never mind whether that twerp likes you. He most likely doesn’t have a clue that you like him.’
‘Well, I can’t tell him that!’ said Lisa.
‘Why not? Though how you can like him I just can’t fathom. I can’t stand the way his hair flops forward into his eyes so that he has to keep flipping it out the way!’
‘I think that’s seriously cute,’ said Lisa.
‘Yuck!’
‘Yes, double yuck,’ said Angela, giving me hope, but then she started on about the hairstyles of all her pop darlings until I was ready to tear out my hair. In fact I got so seriously bored that I stalked off by myself.
I was feeling so fed up that when some stupid boys kicked their football and hit me right on the head I found I had tears in my eyes. I blinked rapidly, horrified. I never ever cried at school, no matter what. Even when I was a little kid right back in Year One and some big boys gave me a Chinese burn I didn’t cry.
‘Watch it, you stupid idiots,’ I said, and I took their football and threw it as far away as I could, right over behind the bike sheds.
‘Oh, you rotten pig, why did you go and do that?’ they groaned. ‘What’s up with you, Cakehole? Just because you’ve had a tiff with your little girly gang there’s no need to take it out on us.’
I responded with a very rude gesture. Miss Beckworth was on playground duty. I hoped she hadn’t seen. I made off sharpish in the opposite direction, dodging behind the Portakabins.
Jamie Edwards was sitting on the steps, head deep in a book. He looked startled when he saw me – but he smiled nervously.
‘You still reading about that Esther?’ I said.
‘I finished that book ages ago. I read ever so quickly,’ said Jamie, unable to resist a little boast.
‘So what you reading now then, eh?’ I peered at the densely printed pages. ‘It looks even worse. Ever so hard.’
‘Ever so Hardy,’ said Jamie, chuckling, showing me the spine.
‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy – oh, I get you, ha ha, very droll. It sounds awful! Is it French with that funny name?’
‘No. It’s English, about this girl Tess and she goes to work on a farm and this man has his wicked way with her,’ said Jamie, eyes gleaming.
‘Oh, another one of those. You are awful, Jamie.’
‘And it’s ever so sad, because Tess has a baby and then she falls in love again but it all goes wrong and I know it’s not going to have a happy ending.’
‘Oh, hang about! I’ve seen it on the telly, I think. There’s a bit about Stonehenge at the end – I watched it with Jo and we both wept buckets.’
‘Is Jo your sister?’
‘No, my mum.’
‘And you’re allowed to call her by her first name?’
‘I can call her whatever I like,’ I said.
I felt like inventing some new and incredibly nasty names for her because I was still so annoyed with her. I kept thinking about her with this creep Mark. I didn’t know what he looked like, so I imagined him like Robin but big. A total wimp. So why why why did Jo want to bound round to his house in her bunny jumper and twitch her nose at him?
‘Are you planning to go round to Lisa’s or Angela’s on Friday night?’ Jo said that evening.
‘Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve got a bit fed up with them recently,’ I said gloomily, chucking my school copy of Victorian Life on the floor. None of Miss Beckworth’s books went into the sort of detail I wanted. ‘I might just go round to Jamie’s house because he keeps telling me he’s got all these Victorian books he’ll lend me.’
‘Oh, round to Jamie’s house, eh?’ said Jo.
‘So?’ I said fiercely. ‘It’s just to borrow a book.’
‘OK, OK. But if you stay for tea or anything, can his mum or dad run you home? I can’t come and fetch you because . . . I’m babysitting for Robin.’
I stared at her. So Mark was going out?
‘Who’s this Mark going out with?’ I asked.
Jo shrugged uneasily. ‘I don’t know. Look, he just asked if I could – could come round and babysit, so I said OK, but I won’t be back late, and I can always say no if it’s not all right with you, Charlie.’
‘It’s fine with me,’ I said. It obviously wasn’t fine with Jo. I felt a bit sorry for her. But I was also thrilled for me. The wimp had got himself some girlfriend so he couldn’t be interested in Jo. He just wanted her to look after little Robin.
Or so I thought.
I was so stupid! I didn’t twig at all. Not that first Friday, or even the Friday after. I was so pleased and relieved I was extra nice to Jo.
We had a wonderful Sunday, having a really long lie in and then a dozy hour or two snuggled up in bed playing Magic Lands and then, when we eventually got up, I made us special little fairy cakes. e ate them hot out of the oven for breakfast and then later when they’d cooled down I iced them pink and then changed to white in my little icing bag and piped funny messages over them – HELLO and I LIKE YOU and FUNNY FACE – like those little love heart sweets.
I took them to school the next morning. There was a lot of silly teasing about Cakehole making cakes – but everyone seemed dead impressed when they saw them. Everyone wanted one, but they were only for a select few. I gave Lisa an I LIKE YOU and told her what to do with it. She giggled and blushed and protested and wouldn’t give it to Dave Wood outright – but he saw her leave it on his desk, so the message got through.
I gave Angela another I LIKE YOU and she pretend-fed it to the grinning faces on her T-shirt and then gobbled it up herself.
I gave more cakes to the girls I’d liked best in our old gang, and then Lisa and Angela and I had another two each. There was just one left by the time we went back into school.
‘Did you make those little cakes yourself, Charlie?’ Jamie asked.
‘Yup.’
‘They looked ever so nice. Really tasty,’ said Jamie wistfully.
I looked at him. And then I sighed and reached in the tin and gave him the last one. It didn’t say HELLO. It didn’t say FUNNY FACE. It said I LIKE YOU.
COURTSHIP
It was bitterly cold in the park today. Louisa cried because she could not feel her feet inside her boots and baby Freddie’s nose kept running in a most unattractive way. Victor ran ahead with his hoop to get warm, so I stuck Louisa into the pram beside Freddie and ran too. We raced all the way home, careering round the corner and practically running over the butcher’s boy. He did not seem to mind.
‘Whoops-a-blooming-buttercup!’ he said. ‘Mind what you’re doing with that perambulator, Miss. It’s a dangerous weapon!’
No-one has ever called me Miss before. I must admit I liked it, though I stuck my nose in the air and called the butcher’s boy a saucepot.
Trust Victor to hang back at that precise moment. ‘What were you saying to that errand boy, Charlotte?’ he enquired.
‘It’s none of your business, Master Victor,’ I said haughtily.
‘Is he going to be your gentleman caller?’ Victor asked.
‘Certainly not!’ I said, and I took Victor’s hoop and bowled it so hard he had to run like the wind to stop it going into the road and under a carriage.
That settled his hash. He well knows that his mamma does not allow the servants to have gentleman callers. I had to protect Eliza when she was canoodling in the kitchen with her current sweethe
art, the draper’s assistant, who had come to deliver the Mistress’s new shawl and gloves. In finest cashmere. If only I had a warm woolly shawl and mittens! I have chilblains that throb and itch like the devil.
Anyway, I was down in the kitchen fetching the children’s hot milk and biscuits when I heard the Mistress clip-clopping down the stairs in her neat kid boots.
‘Quick, Eliza, the Mistress is coming!’ I hissed, and then I bounded up the stairs and waylaid the Mistress by telling her a very long story about Miss Louisa-not-drinking-her-milk-even-though-it’s-so-good-for-her, and by the time I’d done and the Mistress had made her way down to the kitchen Eliza had had time to bundle any number of gentlemen callers out of the back door.
She didn’t say anything to me, but Eliza and Mrs Angel stopped calling me Baby and laughing behind my back – and yesterday when the children were asleep Eliza slipped into the nursery with a bowl of Mrs Angel’s special sherry trifle for my supper.
Mrs Angel is Mother’s age but she has gentlemen callers too! The fat policeman for the street calls on a regular basis for his piece of pie and Mrs Angel’s patter. I was astonished to see a woman so old go rosy-cheeked and chuckle when he praised her pastry.
I received a letter from Rose today and now I am starting to worry that Mother herself might be courting!!! Rose says that Mr Higgins from the Dog and Duck brings Mother a jug of ale from time to time, and in return she cooks him a meal. I do not like the sound of this!
Rose’s letter makes me feel so homesick. It is a poor ill-spelt half-page but I have read it as avidly as if it were a masterpiece by Mr Dickens. Rose has never tried hard enough at school. She writes that Miss Worthbeck sends her kindest regards and can scarce manage without me. And a certain Edward James sends a most impertinent message to Dear Little Lottie. Hmm!
SUNDAY
I found it seriously weird going round to Jamie’s house. I mean, this was Jamie Edwards, the worst boy in the whole class, old chubby-chops super-swot wimpy-wuss Jamie. I made pretty sure all the boys in our class treated me with respect but I wanted a capital ‘R’ from Jamie.