A Family Affair Page 19

  ‘Do you think Barry will ever go out with me again?’ she asked Rowena wistfully.

  ‘I don’t know!’ Rowena sounded impatient – she was as fed up with Jenny mooning over Barry as Jenny was fed up with the details of her conquest.

  ‘Do you think he might?’ Jenny persisted, unabashed. ‘I mean, it’s not as if we had a row or anything. It was just that dressed-up doll June Farthing getting her claws into him.’

  ‘If he liked you, why did he let her?’ Rowena asked, maddeningly reasonable.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jenny said. ‘Oh, if he won’t go out with me again, I just wish I could die. I bet if I’d died when I had that ear thing he’d be sorry.’

  ‘He stood you up,’ Rowena said patiently. ‘How can you even want to go out with him again when he treats you like that?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I do!’

  ‘It wouldn’t do any good anyway,’ Rowena said reasonably. ‘I thought your mother wouldn’t let you go.’

  Jenny said nothing. She thought she would be prepared to go to any lengths of deception if only it meant she could go out with Barry again.

  ‘I tell you who is sweet on you,’ Rowena said. ‘Jimmy Tudgay. He was watching you all through Maths. I saw him. If you want someone to go out with, I bet you could get him to ask you.’

  Jenny felt a flush warming her cheeks. She’d been aware of him looking at her too, and though he hadn’t gone so far as to ask her how she was, she had found herself remembering how kind he had been the day she’d first been ill. But Jimmy Tudgay! He wasn’t in the same league as Barry or Rowena’s new boyfriend.

  ‘I’m not that desperate,’ she said. Then her face flamed even more hotly as she realised Jimmy and another boy were passing, almost within earshot.

  Oh, don’t let him have heard! she prayed. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  Partly because she was worried about this and partly because she kept thinking of what Rowena had said, Jenny found herself watching Jimmy surreptitiously – and beginning to like what she saw. There was something powerfully attractive about someone who actually liked you – and that was not all. Jimmy had changed quite a lot, she realised. He might not have the film-star good looks of Rowena’s boyfriend, but he wasn’t at all bad-looking, with his strong-featured square face and a well set-up body that seemed to have grown an inch or so taller every time she saw him without thickening any more. Being the same age as her was a disadvantage, of course, But still, he really was rather nice.

  With only a few days left to the end of term, serious lessons had been more or less abandoned. Curriculums for the year were completed, exams had been sat, and a sort of holiday air overtook everyone, even the teachers who were usually the hardest task-masters. The PE lesson was turned over to a game of Pirates, when all the equipment was set out at the same time and pupils played an elaborate version of tag, which immediately ended for any contestant caught by a pirate, or who fell into the sea – that is, touched the floor. Jenny was ridiculously pleased that she managed to be among the last half-dozen to be caught – she had at last managed to master the knack of climbing a rope, and by shinning to the top and moving from one to the other along the row that hung in the centre of the gym she evaded capture for quite a long time. In English they played Hangman, taking turns at the blackboard and setting a crossword-type clue for the rest of the form; in Maths there were number games, in Chemistry fun experiments, and in the period devoted to Art they were allowed to take their drawing blocks into the field that sloped away from the school and sit on the grass to sketch whatever they liked.

  They congregated in that same field at lunchtime, sprawling contentedly under the huge spreading chestnut tree to find some shade from the relentless midday sun, boys and girls together now, because the days when they segregated naturally into single-sex groups were almost at an end.

  On the day before the last day of term, Jenny was lying on her stomach, head resting on her arms, and almost asleep – the effect of the antibiotics still brought on drowsy spells – when she felt something tickling her neck. She released one hand and flicked at the tickling spot, thinking it was a fly or even a wasp, but there was nothing there and a few seconds the tickling came again. This time, as she slapped at it more vigorously, one of the others laughed and she rolled over to see Jimmy with a long blade of dry grass in his hand.

  ‘Jimmy!’ she said. ‘What are you doing? I thought it was a creepy crawlie!’

  Jimmy said nothing, just grinned at her, but unexpectedly she felt her tummy tip.

  ‘Stop it! I’m trying to go to sleep,’ she said, but there was a coquettish note in her voice. Jenny, who would have said she hadn’t the first idea of how to flirt, was doing it naturally and quite unconsciously. There was even invitation in the way she plonked her head back on her arms – and of course, inevitably, he did it again.

  ‘Jimmy!’ She sat up, pretending outrage. ‘I said leave me alone.’

  ‘He’ll stop on one condition,’ Ginger Jacobs said. ‘He’ll stop tormenting you if you’ll go out with him.’

  Jenny blushed furiously; glancing at Jimmy she saw that he had gone red too – a flush that ran right down his neck under the collar of his grey school shirt.

  ‘Ginger – you bastard!’ he muttered.

  ‘Well, it’s true!’ Ginger said, unabashed. ‘He wants to go out with you. How about it? Put the poor bloke out of his misery.’

  ‘I can’t …’ Jenny started to say, then broke off as she caught sight of the tortured expression on Jimmy’s face. She couldn’t humiliate him in front of his friends by turning him down without a reason – and she couldn’t explain either that she was not allowed, because that would humiliate her. And in any case …

  I’d quite like to go out with him, Jenny thought. It would be nice to be with someone who liked her – and why should Carrie know? Jenny certainly wasn’t going to make the mistake of confessing again.

  ‘Why can’t he ask me himself?’ she said now, and the coquettishness, so new to her, was there again. ‘I’m not going out with someone who has to get his friends to do his asking for him.’

  She still didn’t really think he’d do it. She thought he’d be too afraid of being made to look a fool if she said no. But to her surprise, a mulish look came over his red face.

  ‘That’s right, Ginger,’ he said to his friend. ‘I don’t need you to talk for me.’ And to Jenny: ‘Can I have a date, Jen?’

  Well, good for you, Jimmy! she thought, and smiled demurely.

  ‘All right,’ she said.

  It really was very easy lying to Carrie, much easier than it had been to lie about Barry, because she still felt aggrieved about the way Carrie had behaved when she’d found out about it. It was also easier in practice, because she had a good excuse – all the school crowd had arranged to meet up almost daily at the open-air swimming pool at South Compton.

  It was a wonderful pool – unheated, of course, and not really very big, but big enough, with a springboard and a high board that they could ‘bomb’from, curling their knees up to their chins and leaping the ten feet into the shimmering ice-blue water beneath. Some of the boys even climbed on to the surrounding railing, or even the breeze-block wall beyond, and jumped from there, though if Mr Catley the pool attendant saw them, he shouted at them and they had to stop it or risk being turned out. In winter, Mr Catley was one of the council road sweepers, in charge of nothing more exciting than a broom and bin on wheels, and he relished the power that was his in the summer months.

  The swimming pool was set in the long valley that ran between Hillsbridge and South Compton, and surrounded by fields. It was simplicity itself to have a quick dip, the girls screaming with laughter as the boys ducked them or pushed them in, then get dressed, meet Jimmy outside the turnstile gate, cross the wooden bridge and follow the stream through the cool green fields. As soon as they were out of sight of the others, Jimmy would take her hand or put his arm around her, and if they could find a ho
llow to sit down in he would kiss her. He wasn’t as good a kisser as Barry had been, but then she supposed he was less experienced and it was very pleasant all the same.

  One afternoon when she emerged through the turnstile gate, a gang of rather rough-looking boys was waiting to go in. Jenny went to hurry past them towards the bridge where Jimmy was waiting and she was surprised to hear her name called.

  ‘Hey, Jenny! It’s Jenny Simmons!’ She glanced round and saw Billy Edgell sitting astride his old black Hercules bicycle. ‘Hey, Jenny – come over here!’

  Jenny felt her face going red. She didn’t want anything to do with Billy and his friends. She turned away quickly but before she had gone more than a few steps the boys had surrounded her.

  ‘Come on, darling – someone’s talking to you …’

  ‘Leave her alone.’ Billy cycled slowly over, parking his bike right in her path. ‘You been swimming, Jenny?’

  ‘Yes.’ She glanced helplessly towards Jimmy but he and his friends had climbed down over the bank to the river and he hadn’t noticed what was happening. ‘I’ve got to go, Billy.’

  ‘What’s your hurry?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve just got to go.’

  ‘I’ll walk you home if you like.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Another time, then? How about coming out with me one night?’

  ‘No. I’ve already got a boyfriend.’

  One of the others laughed. ‘You’re getting the brush-off, Billy.’

  ‘Am I?’ Billy challenged her. ‘I could show you a good time, Jenny. I know a thing or two – not like that lot of stupid kids.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the river bank.

  From somewhere Jenny found a courage she hadn’t known she had.

  ‘I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last person on earth!’ she said scathingly. ‘Now, are you going to get out of my way, or am I going to call Mr Catley?’

  ‘Oh, you’re really scaring me now,’ Billy sneered, but he moved to one side anyway. As she slipped past he called after her: ‘I wouldn’t go out with you either. I was only winding you up. I wouldn’t want to go out with a prissy-knickers like you!’

  But he looked none too pleased, and Jenny guessed that she’d made him look a bit of a fool in front of his friends. She tossed her head to hide the fact that she was trembling a little and ran to the river bank, calling to Jimmy.

  ‘Are we going for a walk or not?’

  ‘Oh, you’re there!’ Jimmy joined her. ‘I didn’t know you were out yet. What’s the matter, Jenny? You look all red.’

  ‘Nothing.’ She didn’t want to tell him about Billy. He might go back and cause trouble. With a determined effort, Jenny put the incident out of her mind.

  She always enjoyed her walks with Jimmy. He seemed to know so much about the countryside that she did not, in spite of having lived in it most of her life. He could identify the different trees, he could tell her about the wildlife that lived on the river, he could even catch tiddlers, though he always let them go again. When the herd of cows were in the field he would go right up to them, rubbing their noses while Jenny stood well back, half afraid. Carrie didn’t care for cows and she had passed her fear on to Jenny. With Jimmy’s encouragement, however, she had learned to conquer that fear and even rub a hairy nose herself. The day one of the heifers actually licked her outstretched hand in return, Jenny had heard herself laughing with nervous delight.

  All in all, it was a wonderful summer, one of those summers she would always remember in the years to come, when the reality of adulthood stole the magic of youth. But even as she enjoyed it, every sun-filled moment, every new experience, every languid lazy hour, an underlying feeling that was not quite a premonition nagged from a corner of her subconscious. She didn’t want to acknowledge it and break the spell, but she knew all the same.

  It couldn’t last. Before long something would happen that would put an end to these halcyon days out of time, and they would be gone for ever.

  Chapter Ten

  Helen parked her car on the edge of the triangle of grass that divided Amy’s front garden from the steep slope of Porter’s Hill. She reached into the back seat for her medical bag, locked the car and headed for the garden gate. She should have begun to look around for a home of her own, she thought. She couldn’t expect to stay with Amy for ever – wouldn’t want to – but Amy was insistent that she enjoyed having her and hectic as life was at present it was an ideal situation for Helen. It was good not having to worry about laundry or shopping for the basic necessities of life – Amy’s housekeeper, Mrs Milsom, took care of all that. And apart from the odd hasty glance in an estate agent’s window, Helen simply hadn’t had time to do anything about looking for property.

  She pushed open the gate and made her way along the path between the burgeoning shrubs.

  ‘Hello, Helen! I thought I heard the car!’

  Amy emerged from behind a rose hedge, a pair of secateurs in her hand. She was wearing a collarless cotton shirt, linen trousers and a floppy straw hat to protect her fair skin from the still-warm sun. Once, Amy would have gone bare-headed whatever the weather – winter and summer alike. Now, at fifty, she knew better.

  ‘This darned garden!’ she said now. ‘It’s out of control.’

  ‘I thought you enjoyed gardening,’ Helen said.

  ‘In moderation, yes. But at this time of year it suddenly goes crazy. Everything happens at once. You turn your back for a second and it’s a wilderness. Just look!’ She waved the secateurs towards a herbaceous border where clumps of forget-me-nots and the sort of spindly dandelions they had, as children, called wet-the-beds had sprouted almost overnight and the hedge which formed a backdrop, thick with brambles, threatening to smother the whole lot. ‘The trouble is, Roly just can’t manage it any more. He’s got terribly slow. And I haven’t got the time, and neither has Ralph.’

  Roly Withers had been their gardener for years now, and in that time had grown as old and wizened as some of the trees which had been there even longer than the house.

  ‘I wonder …’ Helen hesitated, not sure whether or not she should interfere. ‘I think I might know someone who could help you out.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t put Roly’s nose out of joint.’ Amy dragged viciously at a column of ivy which had twined itself amongst the roses. ‘He’d be so hurt if he thought I thought he was past it.’

  ‘Oh well, never mind.’ Helen looked at her watch. ‘I was thinking of going to see Gran this evening. Why don’t you come with me?’

  ‘I’ve got my work cut out here,’ Amy said. ‘Mam wouldn’t want me there, anyway, when she’s got you. You and she are as thick as thieves.’

  ‘She always asks about you,’ Helen said.

  ‘Does she?’ Amy looked surprised.

  ‘Well, of course she does! She is your mother, after all!’

  ‘I know.’ Amy sighed. Since she had grown up, she and Charlotte rarely saw eye to eye – because they were too much alike, Ralph said, and what he meant was that they were as spirited and stubborn as one another and could be equally difficult. Amy couldn’t see it, though. She only knew that her mother was often sharp with her and almost always seemed disapproving. Amy, as different as could be from her placid older sister Dolly, would retaliate, and the visit would end with sparks flying.

  ‘I’m going to get changed,’ Helen said. ‘I feel really sticky and horrible. Then I’ll come and give you a hand until dinner, if you like. I’m no gardener, but at least I could pull a few weeds.’

  ‘You don’t have to, honestly.’

  ‘It’s OK – I’d like to.’

  She went into the house, which was cool and dim after the bright sunshine outside and smelled of roasting meat and roses, thinking about the patients she had seen today, and also about Paul Stephens. He’d turned up again this evening on some pretext or other just as she was finishing her surgery, breezing in as the last patient left and perching himself, as he usually did, against th
e sink.

  ‘Good day?’

  ‘OK. Apart from that I got the results back on Linda Parfitt’s tests.’

  ‘Not good news, I take it.’

  ‘Uh-huh. They confirmed what I was afraid of. Leukaemia.’

  Paul swore softly. ‘Does she know yet?’

  ‘I’m seeing her tomorrow and I’m not looking forward to it, I can tell you. Why, Paul? Why does it have to happen to someone like her? To anyone, come to that?’

  ‘You know as well as I do, Helen, cancer is no respecter of youth.’

  ‘It’s so bloody unfair.’

  ‘Life is, Helen. It’s just that in our job we see more of it than most people.’

  ‘I know … I know.’ She ran a hand through her hair, which had flopped down over her forehead. However often she came up against something like this, she didn’t think she’d ever get used to it. ‘I’m getting her in to see Mr Brownlow as soon as possible, but …’

  ‘But even he can’t work miracles.’

  ‘Unfortunately.’

  ‘You won’t tell her that.’

  ‘Of course not! Never underestimate the power of the mind, my old tutor at med school used to say. But in the last resort …’

  ‘Let’s talk about more cheerful things,’ Paul said. ‘Are you going to Matthew Vezey’s soirée?’

  Helen did a double take.

  ‘Soirée? What’s a soirée?’

  ‘You’re asking me?’

  ‘Oh – I know what a soirée is. I just didn’t think people had them any more. And certainly not Matthew Vezey. Anyone less likely …’

  ‘It’s not so much Matthew as his sister. She suffers from delusions of grandeur. Haven’t you had an invitation yet? Mine came this morning.’