I smiled at Mr Jeziewski and savoured my chocolate. I couldn't resist writing a similar scene in my book Love Lessons, in which my main girl, Prue, falls passionately in love with her art teacher, Mr Raxbury. I promise I didn't fall for Mr Jeziewski, who was very much a family man and rather plain, with straight floppy hair and baggy cords – but he was certainly my favourite teacher when I was at Coombe.
Having Chris for a friend was an enormous help in settling into secondary school life. She wasn't quite as hopeless as me at PE, but pretty nearly, so we puffed along the sports track together and lurked at the very edge of the playing field, pretending to be deep fielders.
We managed to sit next to each other in maths lessons so they were almost enjoyable. We didn't learn anything, though our teacher, Miss Rashbrook, was very sweet and gentle and did her best to explain – over and over again. I could have put poor Miss Rashbrook on a loop and played her explanation twenty-four hours a day, it would have made no difference whatsoever.
Chris and I pushed our desks close and tried to do our working out together – but mostly we chatted. We daydreamed about the future. We decided we'd stay friends for ever. We even wanted to live next door to each other after we got married. We could see the row of neat suburban houses outside the window and picked out two that were ours. (I had private dreams of a more Bohemian adult life, living romantically in a London garret with an artist – but wondered if I could do that at the weekends and settle down in suburbia Monday to Friday.)
We don't live next door to each other now but we did stay great friends all through school and went on to technical college together. We used to go dancing and I was there the evening Chris met her future husband, Bruce. I was there at Chris's wedding; I was there – in floods of tears – at Bruce's funeral. We've always written and phoned and remembered each other's birthdays. We've been on several hilarious holidays, giggling together as if we were still schoolgirls.
Chris lived in New Malden so she went home for dinner, and at the end of school she walked one way, I walked the other, but the rest of the time we were inseparable. Chris soon asked me home to tea and this became a regular habit.
I loved going to Chris's house. She had a storybook family. Her dad, Fred Keeping, was a plumber, a jolly little man who called me Buttercup. He had a budgie that perched on his shoulder and got fed titbits at meal times. Chris's mum, Hetty, was a good cook: she made Victoria sponges and jam tarts and old-fashioned latticed apple pies. We always had a healthy first course of salad, with home-grown tomatoes and cucumber and a little bit of cheese and crisps. I had to fight not to be greedy at the Keepings. I could have gone on helping myself to extra treats for hours. Chris's sister, Jan, was several years older and very clever but she chatted to me as if she was my friend too. We were all passionate about colouring. Chris and Jan shared a magnificent sharpened set of Derwent coloured pencils in seventy-two shades.
After Mrs Keeping had cleared the tea things and taken the embroidered tablecloth off the green chenille day cloth, we three girls sat up at the table and coloured contentedly. We all had historical-costume colouring books. Jan had the Elizabethans and coloured in every jewel and gem on Queen Elizabeth's attire exquisitely. Then she settled down to all her schoolwork while Chris and I went up stairs. We were supposed to be doing our homework up in Chris's bedroom, but we muddled through it as quickly as possible.
We did some mad projects together. For the first two years at Coombe we did a combined history and geography lesson called 'social studies'. We learned all about prehistoric times, and made a plasticine and lolly-stick model of an early stilt village. We also started to write a long poem about a caveman family. We thought up our first line – Many millions of years ago – but then got stuck. We couldn't think of a rhyme for ago, so Chris looked up the word in Jan's rhyming dictionary. We ended up with:
Many millions of years ago
Lived a woman who was a virago.
perhaps the worst rhyme in many millions of years.
Mostly we simply played games like Chinese Chequers, Can You Go?, and Beetle, and made useless items with Scoubidou.
I loved Chris's bedroom, though it was very small and she didn't have anywhere near as many books as me. She had a little stable of china horse ornaments, big and small, because she longed passionately to go horse-riding, and saved up all her pocket money and birthday money for lessons. Her only other ornaments were plaster-cast Disney replicas of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. A few childhood teddies drooped limply on a chair, balding and button-eyed. Her clothes were mostly more childish than mine, though I hankered after her kingfisher-blue coat, a colour Biddy labelled vulgar – goodness knows why.
Chris's bedroom felt safe. You could curl up under her pink candlewick bedspread, read an old Blyton mystery book, and feel at peace. You wouldn't fall asleep and dream of mad men walking out of your wardrobe or monsters wriggling up from under your bed. You wouldn't wake to the sound of angry voices, shouts and sobbing. You would sleep until the old Noddy alarm clock rang and you could totter along to the bathroom in your winceyette pyjamas, the cat rubbing itself against your legs.
I'd slept at Chris's house several times, I'd been to lunch with her, I'd been to tea, I'd been on outings in their family car to Eastbourne, I'd been to Chris's birthday party, a cosy all-girls affair where we played old-fashioned games like Squeak Piggy Squeak and Murder in the Dark.
It was way past time to invite Chris back to my flat at Cumberland House. So Chris came one day after school and met Biddy and Harry. My home was so different from hers. Chris was very kind and a naturally polite girl. She said 'Thank you for having me' with seeming enthusiasm when she went home. I wonder what she really thought.
Maybe she liked it that there was no one in our flat to welcome us after school. It was fun having the freedom of the whole place, great to snack on as many chocolate biscuits as we wanted. When Biddy came home from work she cooked our tea: bacon and sausage and lots of chips, and served a whole plate of cakes for our pudding – sugary jam doughnuts, cream éclairs, meringues. Biddy considered this special-treat food and Chris nibbled her cakes appreciatively – but all that fatty food was much too rich for her sensitive stomach. She had to dash to the lavatory afterwards and was sick as discreetly as possible, so as not to offend Biddy. When Harry came home from work he was in a mood. He didn't call Chris Buttercup, he didn't say anything at all to her, just hid himself behind the Sporting Life.
Chris came on a sleepover once, and thank goodness everything went well. It was just like having a sister: getting ready for bed together and then whispering and giggling long into the night. We weren't woken by any rows, we slept peacefully cuddled up until the morning.'
However, Biddy and Harry couldn't always put on an amicable act. I remember when we got our first car, a second-hand white Ford Anglia. Biddy learned to drive and, surprisingly, passed her test before Harry. We decided to go on a trip to Brighton in our new car, and as a very special treat Chris was invited along too.
We sat in the back. I was dosed up with Quells, strong travel pills, so that I wouldn't be sick. They made me feel very dozy, but there was no danger of nodding off on this journey. Biddy and Harry were both tense about the outing and sniped at each other right from the start.
'Watch that lorry! For Christ's sake, do you want to get us all killed?' Harry hissed.
'Don't you use that tone of voice to me! And it was his fault, he was in the wrong ruddy lane,' said Biddy, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.
'You're in the wrong lane, you silly cow, if we're going to turn off at the Drift Bridge.'
'Who's driving this car, you or me? Ah, I'm driving because I'm the one who's passed the test!'
They chuntered on while I sat in the back with Chris, my tummy churning. I talked frantically, nattering about school and homework to try to distract her from my angry parents. I madly hoped she wouldn't even hear what they were saying. She talked back to me, valiantly keeping up the pr
etence, though she was very pale under her freckles.
Biddy and Harry had gone past the stage of being aware of us. We were stuck in a traffic jam going up Reigate Hill. The car started to overheat, as if reacting to its passengers. Biddy had to pull over and open the bonnet so the engine could cool down.
'It's your fault, you're driving like a maniac. You do realize you're ruining the car!' Harry said.
'If you don't like the way I drive, then you blooming well have a go,' said Biddy, bursting into tears.
'Oh yes, turn on the waterworks,' said Harry.
'Just shut up, will you? I'm sick of this,' Biddy sobbed. She opened her door and stumbled into the road. She ran off while we stared.
'That's so typical! Well, I can't ruddy well drive, as she's all too well aware,' said Harry – and he got out of the car, slammed the door with all his strength, and marched off in the opposite direction.
Chris and I sat petrified in the back of the car, our mouths open. Cars kept hooting as they swerved around us. I reached out for Chris's hand and she squeezed mine tight.
'You won't tell anyone at school?' I whispered.
'No, I promise,' she said. She paused. 'Jac, what if . . . what if they don't come back?'
I was wondering that myself. I couldn't drive, Chris couldn't drive. How would we ever get home? I thought about jumping out and flagging down a passing car to give us a lift. But they'd all be total strangers, it was far too dangerous. It was also obviously dangerous to be sitting in the back of a car parked at a precarious angle halfway up a hill heaving with traffic.
'They will come back,' I said firmly, trying to make myself believe it as well as Chris. I made my voice sound worldly wise and reassuring. 'They just need a few minutes to calm down.'
I was wondrously right. As I spoke I saw Biddy tottering back up the hill – and Harry appeared on the horizon too, strolling down towards us with his hands in his pockets. They both got back into the car as casually as if they'd just nipped out to spend a penny in the public toilets.
Biddy started up the car and we went up and over the hill, off to Brighton. Biddy and Harry barely spoke for the rest of the journey.
We had chicken and bread sauce for our lunch in a café near the beach, and then Chris and I were allowed to go off together. Biddy and Harry both gave us money. We scrunched up and down the pebbly beach, walked to the end of the pier and back, went all round the ornate pavilion, and treated ourselves to Mars bars and Spangles, two Wall's vanilla ice creams, and two portions of chips with salt and vinegar.
Heaven help us if Biddy and Harry had had another big row on the journey back. We'd have both been violently sick.
5
Carol
Girls' friendships are often complex. Chris was my best friend – but Carol was too. She lived in Kingston so we went home from school together, and we spent a lot of time in the holidays with each other. Both our mothers worked full-time so Carol and I spent day after day together.
I can't clearly remember going to Carol's house. I hardly knew her family. I met her mother but I can't remember her father. Carol had an older sister, Margaret, but she wasn't chatty and cosy like Jan, Chris's sister. I don't think she ever even spoke to me. Margaret looked years older than her age. She wore lots of make-up and high stiletto heels and had many boyfriends.
Carol seemed to be heading that way too. She was a dark, curvy girl with very white skin and full lips. By the time we were fourteen she could easily pass for seventeen or eighteen. She effortlessly managed all those teenage female things that I found a bit of a struggle: she plucked her eyebrows into an ironic arch, she shaved her legs smooth, she styled her hair and tied a silk scarf round it just like a film star. She was as expert as her sister with make-up, outlining her eyes and exaggerating her mouth into a moody coral pout.
Carol could be moody, full stop. I went round with her for several years but I never felt entirely at ease with her. We'd share all sorts of secrets but I always felt she was privately laughing at me, thinking me too earnest, too intense, and much too childish. Carol had two other friends, Linda and Margaret, sophisticated girls who flicked through the beauty pages of women's magazines in the lunch hour and yawned languidly because they'd been out late the night before with their boyfriends. I'd sit with the three of them each lunch time and feel utterly out of things. I'd risk a comment every now and then and catch Carol raising her immaculate eyebrows at Linda and Margaret.
She never openly criticized me, but sometimes it was the things she didn't say that hurt the most. I remember one time in the holidays I'd been maddened by my wispy hair straggling out of its annual perm. I'd taken myself off to a hairdresser's and asked for it to be cut really short. A few avant-garde girls were sporting urchin cuts that year and I thought they looked beautiful.
The trouble was, I wasn't beautiful. I was appalled when I saw my terrible new haircut. It cruelly emphasized my glasses and my sticky-out ears. I went home and howled.
I was meeting Carol that afternoon. I felt so awful walking up to her and seeing her expression. I badly wanted her to say, 'Oh, Jacky, I love your new haircut, it really suits you.' We'd both know she was lying but it would be so comforting all the same.
Carol didn't say a word about my hair – but every now and then I caught her staring at me and shaking her head pityingly.
However, we did sometimes have great fun together. We both loved to go shopping, though neither of us had much pocket money. Kingston has always been a good town for shopping, though in 1960 Bentalls was just a big department store, not a vast shopping centre. We wandered round the make-up and clothes but we never actually bought anything there.
We had two favourite haunts, Woolworths and Maxwells. When I was fourteen, Woolworths was considered cool, a place where teenagers hung out. There was no New Look or Claire's Accessories or Paperchase or Primark or TopShop. I spent my pocket money in Woolworths. I walked straight past the toy counter now (though when Carol wasn't watching I glanced back wistfully at the little pink penny dolls) but I circled the stationery counter for hours.
It was there that I bought the red and blue sixpenny exercise books, or big fat shilling books if I was really serious about a story idea. I was forever buying pens too – red biro, blue biro, black biro, occasionally green – that was as varied as it got. There were no rollerballs, no gel pens, no felt tips. There were fountain pens but they didn't have cartridges then, so you needed a bottle of royal-blue Quink, and I always ended up with ink all over my fingers. I used to think that if I could only find the perfect notebook, the most stylish pen, my words would flow magically.
There's a little childish bit of me that still thinks that. I've got more ambitious in my taste. I thumb through beautiful Italian marbled notebooks now, trying to choose between subtle swirling blues and purples, pretty pale pinks and blues, bold scarlet with crimson leather spines and corners, wondering which is the luckiest, the one that will help me write a truly special story. I've bought a handful of expensive fountain pens, but I still end up with ink all over me so I generally stick to black miniballs.
I liked Woolworths jewellery too, big green or red or blue glass rings, 'emeralds' and 'rubies' and 'sapphires', for sixpence, and I loved the Indian glass bangles, treating myself to three at a time: pink and purple and blue. Biddy said it was common wearing so much jewellery at once. We'd both have been astonished to see me now, huge silver rings on every finger and bangles up to my elbows!
Monday 4 January
Met Carol in Kingston this morning. (We are still on holiday, go back to school next Wed. worst luck.) I bought a new pen from good old Woolworths, a pair of red mules, and some tomatoes for my lunch.
Woolworths sold old-lady slippers, cosy tartan with pompoms on the top, but of course I didn't want a pair of these. They were definitely grandma territory, and much as I loved Ga, I didn't want to look like her. No, these were special Chinese scarlet satin embroidered mules, incredibly exotic for those days. I was particu
larly keen on anything Chinese since reading a highly unsuitable adult book called The World of Suzie Wong by Richard Mason. Biddy might fuss excessively about the way I looked but she didn't always manage to monitor my reading matter.
Suzie Wong was a Chinese prostitute living in a house of ill repute in Hong Kong. I thought her incredibly glamorous. I didn't necessarily want to copy her career choice, but I wished I looked like Suzie Wong: long straight glossy hair, and wearing a silk embroidered cheongsam split to the thighs. Both were way beyond my reach, but I could sport Chinese slippers from Woolworths. Well, I couldn't wear them actually. They were flat mules and I had the greatest difficulty keeping them on my feet. I walked straight-legged, toes clenched, but could only manage a couple of steps before walking straight out of them. I didn't care. I could simply sit with my legs stuck out and admire them.
We never went shopping in Kingston without going into Maxwells. It sold records. There weren't any HMV shops selling CDs in those days, let alone songs to buy on iTunes. Singles came on little '45' records in paper sleeves. They were actually doubles rather than singles, because each record had an A side (the potential chart topper), and then you flipped it over to the B side. You listened to the top twenty records in the hit parade on your little portable radio – only I didn't have one till I was fifteen, and I couldn't tune our big old-fashioned Home Service wireless to trendy Radio Luxembourg. I simply had to go to Maxwells with Carol and listen there. You told the spotty guy behind the desk that you wanted to listen to several records – Carol would reel off three or four likely titles – and then he would give them to you to take into the special listening booth.
We'd squash in together and then, when we started playing the records, we'd bob up and down in an approximation of dancing and click our fingers in time to the music. We considered ourselves very hip.
Sometimes there were other girls in the next listening booth. Sometimes there were boys, and then we'd bob and click a little more and toss our heads about. Sometimes there were older men, often comic stereotype leery old men in dirty raincoats. They'd peer through the window at us, their breath blurring the glass. We'd raise our eyebrows and turn our backs, not too worried because we were together.