Miss Purdy's Class (18 page)

Her mother was saying something about seed pearls. Gwen dragged her attention away from the stranger in the mirror. She felt distant from it all suddenly. What did any of this matter really? How selfish she was being, she told herself. Her mother, Edwin, everyone was excited about the wedding. It was every bit as much their occasion. She must stop all these silly thoughts she was having and try to get into the spirit of it.

‘That sounds a lovely idea,’ she said to Mrs Twining, though she had scarcely any idea what the woman had said.

In the mirror she saw her mother’s tense face light up with relief.

‘Do you really think so? Oh, I am pleased, dear. And I thought you were going to be so difficult about it all!’

Gwen did not see very much of Edwin. It was Holy Week, one of his busiest times of the year. She spent most of the time with her mother, surrounded by scraps of silk and lace, discussing sleeves and bodices and what colour dress her cousin Jane’s little daughter Patricia should wear as a bridesmaid. She tried to be as agreeable as she could to her mother. After all, it was her wedding, she must be enthusiastic, and her mother was doing her best!

On Easter Sunday they all went to the morning Communion service. Gwen stood between her parents. Her father hummed the hymns in a vague sort of way, her mother wore a green hat with a colourful peacock feather tucked in the band and held the book a long way from her to read the print.

‘
Christ the Lord is risen today, alleluia!
’ they sang as Edwin processed in behind the vicar, Bernard Thompson, looking very upright and solemn, his hands clasped. Gwen watched Edwin’s long back in his white surplice move along the aisle. And once again, just for a moment, the strangest feeling came over her. A sense of distance, of tiredness with everything, with the idea of watching Edwin parade about for the rest of her life.

As the service went on, her mind wandered. Sunlight slanted in through the windows and she found herself wondering about Joey Phillips. No one knew where he had gone and there was really no one to ask. Where did a small child just disappear to on the streets?

Just a couple of days before the end of term she had thought she had seen him when she was outside on playground duty. Standing in the spring sunshine, she she looked along towards the boys’ end of the schoolyard and caught sight of a small figure outside, pressed against the railings near the gate. Her heart beat faster. Putting her hand up to shade her face she stared, screwing her eyes up to see better. Was that Joey? Something about the size of the child, his slightness, made her think it might be. By the time she had hurried to the end to see, there was no one there. She had opened the gate and looked along the road. Nothing. She was taken aback by how bereft she felt, staring along the empty street.

‘Did you see anyone looking through the railings?’ she asked the children who were playing nearer that end.

‘No, Miss,’ they chorused. They were all caught up in their games.

She still wondered now, unsure whether it had been him. Keeping her eyes turned towards the pulpit where Bernard Thompson was preaching, she pictured all sorts of terrible misfortune coming over Joey. Perhaps someone had already picked him up and he was in a home somewhere. That thought didn’t cheer her at all. The little she had heard about orphanages was grim and she couldn’t imagine Joey in an institution. But to be eight years old, a little scrap like that, and alone on the streets. Her eyes filled at the thought, and she lowered her head, pulling her hanky out from up her sleeve. She felt her mother eyeing her. Why had this one child got so much under her skin?

After the service they were all greeted by the Reverend Thompson.

‘Happy Easter to you!’ He shook Gwen’s hand outside the church door and added with smile, ‘I shall let Edwin off the lead a little after today!’

Edwin was waiting outside. He didn’t kiss her in greeting – it didn’t seem right to him when he was ‘on duty’ – but came up to her immediately.

‘Hello, darling,’ he said fervently. ‘I’m longing to see you properly.
Sorry
about this week. It’s been nonstop.’

‘Not to worry,’ she said brightly. ‘I can hardly complain when I’m hardly ever here anyway. And Mummy’s had me on wedding duty all week. I think I’m the one who needs letting off the lead, not you!’

Edwin appeared slightly wounded. ‘I thought you’d enjoy all that.’

‘Oh, I do!’ She smiled. ‘Look, I’ll see you for lunch. You’d better go and meet and greet a bit more.’

They were able to spend some of Easter week together, going for walks, visiting each other. On the Monday they went to see Mr and Mrs Shackleton out in Callow Hill. Gwen’s father once again lent Edwin the motorcar.

‘Mummy’s in bed pretty much all the time now,’ Edwin said as they drove between spring-green fields. ‘She’s happiest there really. It’s such an effort to move her, and her speech is going as well.’

Knowing that they were expecting visitors, the Shackletons were well prepared, or rather James, Edwin’s father, was.

‘Well, hello-o, both!’ he greeted them, beaming. Rufus, their old red setter limped at his side.

Despite his brave cheerfulness, Gwen was shocked by the sight of him. He was a slightly smaller man than Edwin, but now in his mid-seventies he had become very stooped and his kindly face seemed more wrinkled and worn than when Gwen had seen him at Christmas.

‘Joan has been worth her weight in gold today,’ Mr Shackleton said, leading them through the hall. Joan was the woman who gave them extra domestic help. ‘There’s a leg of pork in the oven – and I’m sure I saw signs of an apple pie. Now, how about a spot of sherry before lunch?’

‘Is Mummy up to having one?’ Edwin asked.

‘Oh, I think so, with a bit of help,’ Mr Shackleton said, pouring amber sherry into a row of little glasses. He handed one to Gwen with a smile. ‘There – and how is life in old Brum treating you?’

‘Very well, thank you. Full of interest – just as you said it would be.’ Mr Shackleton had been an ally in her decision to work in Birmingham.

‘One of my early parishes was up there,’ he had told her when she announced her decision. ‘Yes – in King’s Heath. I had a marvellous time – splendid place, Birmingham. Jolly good idea.’

Now he picked up two glasses. ‘Come on through. We’ll go and have a drink with Edwina. She’d like that. Best thing is if I help her with her lunch and then we three can come through and eat here. Easiest that way.’ He lowered his voice. ‘She’s not keen on having an audience – not with eating.’

Gwen felt a plunge of dread as he spoke, despite his considerateness in trying to smooth over the distress of what was happening. Edwina Shackleton’s decline over the past three years had been terrible to witness.

Edwina’s bed was downstairs now, in a back room overlooking the garden. When Gwen first met Edwin’s mother she had been in the very early stages of her illness and was still a tall, hearty woman with a thick head of gingerish blonde hair, frizzy, cut to shoulder length, and a healthy, freckled face. She strode about in slacks, working hard in the garden, and in the summer she put on big, loose sandals. She had a loud, ringing laugh and she had laughed often.

They all filed into the room.

‘Darling? Edwin and Gwen are here,’ James Shackle-ton announced. ‘And I’ve brought you your little tipple.’ His tone was very loving. Gwen felt a pang go through her. Everything here was good and kind, had been settled for her until now. It
had
to be right. And yet, and yet . . .

Edwina’s bed was arranged to face the sunny garden, where she had spent so many hours. There was a paddock at the far end, owned by the neighbours, with a piebald pony grazing in it. Edwina was propped up on pillows, her head inclined to one side. She tried to move and say hello, but her neck went into spasm and her words of greeting came out as an indistinct groan. She did manage a smile. Rufus came and laid himself in a patch of sunlight close to her.

‘Hello, Mummy.’ Edwin leaned over and kissed her. They were strikingly alike and Gwen had often smiled at the sight of them together.

‘Hello, Edwina.’ She had always insisted, in her hearty way, on Gwen calling her by her Christian name. Gwen kissed her pale cheek and took her hand for a moment. She smelled sourly of sickness, mingled with rose-scented talcum powder. Gwen felt her hand give an answering squeeze.

‘Here we are – take a pew,’ James said. ‘You can both tell us all about everything.’

With loving carefulness, he helped his wife to tiny sips from her sherry glass. She no longer had reliable use of her arms, so he had to tilt the glass delicately to her lips. At the same time both of them listened as Gwen tried to think of things they would be interested in: Ariadne’s dreadful cooking and about the school and her class. She told them about Joey Phillips. She could see that Edwina was listening intently although she could make little comment, and she made sure she spoke to her as much as to anyone. She had always been very fond of Edwina, who was the free spirit of the family. Edwin was much more proper by comparison.

James Shackleton shook his head sadly. ‘Yes – what a terrible thing. Life is so very harsh for so many people.’

‘Gwen’s certainly seeing how the other half live,’ Edwin said. She wondered if she imagined the terse note of disapproval – or was it envy? – in his voice. Hadn’t he thought that that was the value in her going to Birmingham? She had always talked about school and her pupils before. Now Edwin seemed put out by it. She stopped talking and asked after affairs in the parish instead.

‘Well.’ James Shackleton stood up finally. ‘Our lunch is all ready for us.’

While he gave Edwina her food, Gwen and Edwin walked to the end of the garden. The air felt clean and fresh and a brisk breeze riffled the daffodils. The pony strolled over to join them at the fence and Gwen stroked its soft nose.

‘How lovely to see animals again!’ She smiled at Edwin, but he was preoccupied.

‘She’s not looking too good is she?’

‘No,’ Gwen agreed sadly. There was no point in pretending otherwise. His mother’s decline was painfully obvious.

There was a long pause while she patted the pony’s smooth coat, then Edwin said in a tight voice, ‘Not getting too involved up there are you?’

Gwen turned, her hand still on the animal’s neck. ‘What – in Birmingham?’

‘You seem very steeped in it all of a sudden.’

‘Well.’ She laughed. ‘I suppose I’m living there all the time at the moment. I get involved in the things I’m doing, you know that. I always have.’

‘It’s not for much longer, though. You’ve got duties and obligations here, don’t forget.’ He wasn’t looking at her. He spoke staring across the paddock, which made his pomposity worse. His hands were pushed into his jacket pockets. She wondered if he was still hurt that she had shown less than his expected enthusiasm for the wedding arrangements.

‘I know,’ she said, baffled. ‘But that’s where I am at the moment. And I’m learning so much! Understanding things for the first time.’ Her enthusiasm spilled out. ‘I mean about the way things work. You know – about capitalism, and the way the workers, who are kept poor, are exploited by the capitalist bosses. There’s no justice for the poor in the way things are organized – I’ve seen it, the way people have to struggle to survive. The way some of the people live round our school – you’d hardly believe it!’ Her uneducated impressions tumbled out clumsily. She could have told Edwin about who she had begun to learn from, about Daniel Fernandez, but she didn’t want to. Daniel felt like her precious secret.

Edwin looked startled. ‘Where on earth did you get all these ideas from?’

Gwen brushed her skirt. ‘Karl Marx,’ she said rather haughtily. She didn’t like Edwin’s implication that she should not have any ideas.

‘Oh, I
see
. . .’ Edwin turned back towards the house, laughing in a dismissive way which enraged her. She found herself clenching her teeth. ‘I hope you realize that Communism is an atheist philosophy?’

‘It may be.’ She folded her arms, not automatically following him. If only she knew more, could express what she wanted to say better, the way Daniel could! ‘But what if it’s
right
?’

‘Darling Gwen –’ Edwin beamed indulgently, coming towards her with his arms open – ‘you’ve always had your heart in the right place. But you don’t want to tangle with big political ideas and such like. Best leave those to the politicians. And they don’t have much bearing on our life here, do they? It may be all very well in the Soviet Union.’

She didn’t return his embrace. ‘What about the poor?’ she demanded. ‘And the miners in Wales? It has some bearing on
them
. Surely there’s more to things than our life here – the parish?’ She could hear the sarcasm in her voice.

Edwin chuckled and insisted on embracing her anyway, although she was stiff in his arms.

‘Yes, yes – of course. And you know what I think about the fascists. But we can all only do so much, darling. We belong
here
. And your job is going to be to work at my side. Communists or no Communists.’ He looked down into her eyes. ‘Isn’t it?’

Until now she’d always thought of him as knowing best. Kind, stolid old Edwin, her husband to be. She was destined to marry him and be here, in the place she knew. Why was she even thinking otherwise? She felt completely deflated. Everything would be all right as long as she toed the line. She looked back at him and said neutrally, ‘Yes. I suppose so.’

On the Friday Gwen went for a fitting with Mrs Twining, who had hurried to stitch together the beginnings of her wedding dress. As usual she had done an excellent job and the white silk hugged Gwen’s curves like a second skin. Gwen stood in her stockings, suspenders and brassière as Mrs Twining prodded and pinned and tucked fabric round her abdomen.

‘Very nice,’ she mumbled, pins nipped between her lips. ‘Oh yes – we’ll need to bring that in a shade . . .’

To Gwen the whole idea that she would process along the aisle in this silk creation seemed more and more unreal. But her cooperation and attempts at enthusiasm had done a good deal to appease her mother. They had chosen a pretty fabric for the bridesmaid and agreed on how they would wear their hair, so Ruth Purdy had relaxed and become quite excited. Gwen was glad she had managed to keep her happy.