Christmas Past (24 page)

‘What’re you on about?’ asked the boy from the end house.

‘She’s been to see our grandad who’s dead.’

‘My grandad’s deaded,’ said Alan. ‘He’s gone to Jesus.’

‘No he hasn’t. I’ve seen him. He’s going to Heaven tomorrow.’

‘What did he look like?’ Una enquired, rather wishing she’d been brave enough to go with her cousin.

Jacqueline shrugged. ‘Just like Grandad,’ she said, ‘only different.’

‘Can I go and ’ave a look?’ the boy asked.

‘No.’

‘Oh, go on, just a peep.’

‘No.’

‘I’ll give yer tuppence,’ he said, knowing how he would rise in status with the gang if he could boast about seeing a dead body. ‘Go on, Jacqui. I liked yer grandad. Let
me ’ave a look.’

‘It’s not worth it, not for twopence.’ Jacqueline had her eye on a jar on the window sill. ‘What’s in there?’ she asked.

‘A butterfly, a Red Admiral, go on let’s ’ave a look.’ By now it had almost become an obsession. ‘I’ll mek it threepence,’ he said.

‘Well perhaps just a little look, but only if you give me the butterfly.’

His face fell, he opened his mouth to protest and Jacqueline turned to walk away.

‘OK, you can ’ave the butterfly,’ he said.

‘Come on then, but you’ll have to be quiet, and wait until they aren’t looking.’ Grandma Holmes suddenly came out and went across the yard to the lavatory. Jacqueline
looked into the kitchen. Her mother was on her knees in front of the fire, polishing the brass fender, and Auntie Margaret was nowhere in sight. The cellar door was open; she was probably down
there.

‘Come on,’ she whispered, and the pair tiptoed behind the table unseen.

Once in the room Jacqueline watched proudly as the boy, taller than herself, peered over the side of the coffin. His face whitened and he turned and crept out, Jacqueline making sure the coast
was clear before they made their way back through the kitchen.

‘Blooming ’eck,’ he said. ‘I don’t ’alf feel funny. I thought I were going to roll over in there.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t or I wouldn’t half have been in trouble,’ Jacqueline said. ‘Now can I have my butterfly?’

Reluctantly he parted with the jar. Eeh, but it would be worth it when he told all the gang what he had seen. She was all right that Jacqueline Holmes, a right good sport. He would stick up for
her in future.

Jacqueline studied the perfection of the fragile wings, memorising every colourful detail for future reference. She would paint a butterfly picture tonight when she got home. She unscrewed the
pierced lid, walked up to the top of the yard where the banking began and released the trembling butterfly. It fluttered uncertainly, then made its escape to rest amongst the moonpennies and
clover. She heard the boy from the end house utter a swear word worse than any Grandad Holmes had ever used, but she didn’t care so long as the butterfly was free. Besides, just because he
swore it didn’t mean she didn’t like him. He had liked her grandad enough to go and look at him when he was dead, and any friend of Grandad Holmes could be her friend too.

She ran down the yard and joined the queue for hopscotch.

‘You can have my best piece of slate if you like,’ she said to her new friend.

‘Wow, thanks, Jacqui,’ he said, and threw the heavy grey slate across to where it landed with a slight slither in number eight square. He grinned at the slightly built girl with the
large brown eyes and the lovely smile. ‘I like yer ’air,’ he said.

She blushed to the roots of it, and a close implausible friendship was sealed; between the scruffy ragamuffin Freddie Cartwright, the youngest of a family of ten, and the immaculately dressed
Jacqueline.

Freddie grinned, wiped his nose on the bit of sleeve which was still minus a hole, and set off with a hop from one square to the next, intent on showing off to his new friend.

Pepper nuzzled his nose into Jacqueline’s hair as she brushed his mane perched on an old chair bottom which she had found in the shed. She was tempted to mount the docile
old horse and trot along the lane, but Grandma Roberts had forbidden her to ride without a companion and she must wait for Douglas Downing. Douglas had taken over from his brother Cyril who had
recently started work in the steel works in Millington. She was sorry for Cyril, who like his father was more suited to farmwork, but he had decided a steel worker’s pay was more adequate to
his needs. No one except Jacqueline knew his ambition was to own a farm of his own one day, and he had confided not so much in the girl as in the horse, whom he conversed with as if it was
human.

‘One day I’ll be grooming a horse or two of my own, just like you, owd boy,’ he had said. ‘And on me own farm and all.’ Then he had become all serious and sad.
‘But until that day comes I’ll ’ave to put up with it over yonder in’t sweatshop.’

Jacqueline had missed Cyril a lot until Douglas had begun to help at Moorland House. He seemed to be there every weekend and after school each day and had proved to be every bit as industrious
as his brothers before him. Now being hay-making time and the school holidays he was working all day alongside his father, and Jacqueline would just have to be patient until he arrived. She wished
he would hurry; she really liked Doug. She decided to climb the rocks above the house and walk even higher on the moor. The heather was purple and sweet and she trod the bracken into a path. As she
walked she searched for insects, large lazy moths and scarlet ladybirds. She could hear the grouse calling, and worried when shots on the distant hill could be heard. She knew that each gunshot
probably meant the death of another bird. Some of the boys from the village would be working as beaters, disturbing the bracken to send the birds fleeing into the air and almost certain death.
Jacqueline knew none of the Downings would entertain such sport and that Douglas would be up here as soon as he could. She picked a handful of bilberries, large, juicy and almost black. She
wondered if Grandma Roberts would use them to make a crumble for tea, but by the time she had slid down to the house again most of them had either been eaten or squashed into a purple pulp, so she
finished off the rest of them and wiped her hands on the grass. She went in through the back, into the glass lean-to where the pungent heady scent of chrysanthemums tickled her nose, causing her to
sneeze. Grandma Roberts was humming to herself and Jacqueline wondered if she would allow her to play the piano. ‘Can I practise my lessons, Grandma?’ she asked.

‘Of course, love.’ Gladys came from the kitchen, bringing her mending with her. ‘When you’ve washed your hands.’ Jacqueline did so, then followed Gladys into the
lounge and sat on the velvet-topped piano stool. Gladys placed the music book on the rest, and Jacqueline opened it to the page on which the music started.

Gladys had led her through the first exercises and Jacqueline had already mastered the simplest pieces. She began the first one, saying to herself as she played, ‘Thumb two two thumb two
two, one four four one two one,’ and so on until she finished the tune.

Gladys clapped and said, ‘Bravo,’ and the little girl flushed with pleasure. She began the second piece, and faltered as a breeze wafted in through the open window, mingling and
enhancing the fragrance of flowers and Mansion polish.

‘Now now,’ said Gladys. ‘You’re losing your concentration.’

‘I couldn’t help it. I was just wondering.’

‘Wondering about what?’ Gladys knew that Jacqueline’s active mind was always wondering about one thing or another.

‘Well, Una says that in Heaven there are many mansions. I was wondering if they all have to be cleaned with Mansion polish.’

Gladys stifled a smile. ‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised,’ she said.

Jacqueline sighed contentedly, and thought that if Heaven was half as peaceful as Moorland House, Grandad Holmes must be a very happy man. In fact she wished she could live here for ever.

The school seemed eerie and unfamiliar without the bustle of normal everyday activities, and Jacqueline’s leather soles seemed to echo on the long marble corridor. She
stopped at a door marked
Examination Room
and went in. The desks, which were normally placed together in rows, had been set apart so that a large space separated each from the next. Some
early arrivals were already seated, most wearing expressions of extreme anxiety, others simply waiting for the day to end, knowing that even if they were lucky enough to pass it was unlikely their
parents would be able to afford new uniforms and other grammar school essentials.

Jacqueline found a vacant place near the window, where she could look out at the tree tops and the clouds which were gathering, low and dark as though a storm was brewing. She hoped it
wasn’t a bad omen. Not that she had any qualms about passing the County Minor. She had found the attainment tests easy, and had no doubt she would end up at grammar school rather than moving
up to the senior section. The only thing worrying her was that Pam might not pass, and it was inconceivable that she and her best friend should be parted.

The papers were placed face downwards on the desks and the signal was given to begin. Remembering Grandad Roberts’s advice she glanced through the papers from beginning to end, so that any
problem she was unsure of could be left until last. Satisfied that she was capable of completing the lot she began at the beginning, finishing with time to spare. Jacqueline looked across to where
Pam was crouched over the paper, her arm circling her work, her face set in concentration. If she didn’t pass it would be the English paper which let her down, and Jacqueline willed her to
complete the paper successfully. She was growing restless waiting for the finishing time and began composing a poem about the scene outside. She could hear a blackbird’s song echoing, as
though rain was on its way, which gave her inspiration. The problem was that after a few lines she had forgotten the beginning. If only she could jot it down.

‘Time’s up.’ The man’s voice startled her, and the shuffling of papers began. ‘Now you may go home,’ he said, after carefully collecting the exam papers, and
the candidates hurried thankfully out into the corridor.

It wasn’t until they had descended the stairs and reached the playground that Jacqueline asked Pam, ‘Well, how did it go?’

Pam rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t ask,’ she groaned.

‘Oh, come on, it wasn’t all that bad, was it?’

‘I don’t suppose so, except for the second part of the English paper.’

‘Ah, the part about adverbs. I was uncertain about that at first.’

‘Really? Well, there isn’t much hope for me then, is there?’

‘What answers did you give?’ Jacqueline asked.

‘I can’t even remember the question now.’

‘We had to name three adverbs of time.’

‘Oh, yes. Now, Then and Yesterday, and I’m sure they’re wrong.’

‘Well, if your answers are wrong mine must be too.’

Pam cheered up. ‘Why, what did you put down?’

‘Soon, Then and Tomorrow.’

‘Do you think we were right, then?’

‘We’ll just have to wait and see, but I think so.’

‘Well that’s a relief.’

The friends linked arms and skipped down the school drive.

‘Shall we go to the flicks tonight?’ Pam asked.

‘I’m not sure I can. My mam is measuring Una and me for our bridesmaid dresses.’

‘Not another wedding. You’ve already been bridesmaids once, lucky things.’

‘Our Una’s been one twice already, and you know what they say, three times a bridesmaid, never a bride. Though I can’t see her being left an old maid somehow.’

‘Me neither. She’s certainly a beauty, your cousin.’

‘She’s thinking of entering the Miss Millington competition, though my mam seems to think she’s heading for trouble, and she might be right. I saw her down by the air-raid
shelter the other night whilst I was walking Tittle Harry, and she was with a man. He looked ever so old, twenty at least, and you’ll never guess what he was doing.’

Pam was all ears. ‘What?’

Jacqueline whispered confidentially, ‘He had his hand inside her brassiere.’

Pam gasped. ‘What happened then?’

‘Why, she buttoned up her blouse immediately she saw me, of course.’

Pam giggled. ‘What did you do?’

‘Pretended I hadn’t noticed, but it made me feel all hot, like ... well, like when I see Gregory Peck on the pictures.’

‘I know what you mean. The new teacher has the same effect on me. Though I would never let anyone touch me,’ she hastened to add, ‘not even him.’ She climbed on to the
low wall and balanced her way along its narrow surface, jumping the gates as she came to them. ‘Anyway, who’s getting married this time?’

‘Auntie Margaret. She’s only known him a few weeks but he’s lovely, almost as lovely as Gregory Peck. My mam says she’s never seen her so happy. It’s a case of love
at first sight, she says. Oh, and you’re being invited, she’s promised.’

‘Really?’ Pam jumped down. ‘I’ve never been to a wedding.’

‘Never?’ Jacqueline was shocked. ‘If I’d known you could have come to Uncle Harry’s. Oh, that was a lovely wedding. Auntie Sally looked absolutely beautiful.
She’s having a baby, though I’m not supposed to know, only Una told me.’

‘She’ll be having a baby herself if she keeps letting men put their hands inside her brassiere,’ Pam said knowingly.

The two friends paused when they reached the top of Pam’s street and Pam said, ‘It seems strange being home from school so early.’

‘Yes. We should have an exam every day,’ Jacqueline replied.

‘Oh, give over. It’s OK for you being the brainy one but I haven’t slept properly for ages.’

‘I’m sure you’ve passed. Anyway, if you haven’t I’m not going either.’

‘Oh yes you are. You know how determined you are to be a teacher. Grammar school is the only way you’ll make it.’

‘No it isn’t. We can both sit for the tech next year.’

‘Hmm, and what if I fail that too? No, you must go, you know you’ve set your heart on it. Besides, your mother’ll have a fit if you don’t.’

‘Well then, we’ll just pray we’ve both passed.’