Theatre Shoes (10 page)

Though Winifred watched with the utmost care and gave Holly some especial chances to show what she could do, she could not see any sign of remarkable dancing talent. Of course, she trusted Madame, but a scholarship from Posy Fossil was something rather special. Winifred dismissed the class feeling disappointed and low of heart.

The written examination papers in the afternoon were easy and so were the verbal questions. The children had been well taught in their schools and were all of them ahead for their ages. Winifred corrected the papers and then looked at the children with a smile.

“Very nice indeed.” Then she sighed.

Mark got up and stretched himself, he was cramped with writing.

“Why did you sigh if our papers are good?”

Winifred thought about his question.

“One of the difficulties of this sort of school is to fix the classes. It's much easier to put you in a class and leave you there for everything. You can see for yourselves that it must be. Now what am I going to do with Sorrel? She is very well on for age in lessons, but she has done no ballet at all.”

Sorrel got up and pushed her chair into the table.

“Well, you haven't got to decide until Monday.”

Winifred flicked over Sorrel's papers.

“As a matter of fact I've already decided about you. For everything except ballet you will work with the upper middle. The girls in that class are rather older than you, but about your level in work. It'll be interesting for you because in your class you will find your cousin Miranda.”

CHAPTER VIII

COUSINS

The children had all noticed one point about the Academy, the right thing for a proper pupil to carry was a little brown attaché case. In it you carried all your belongings to hang up in your locker; in it you carried things like your towel, shoes and spare socks for your classes, and in it you took home any of your belongings which needed to be washed. They did not want or expect the full Academy wardrobe. They were so used to coupons, or rather lack of them, that they knew they could not have clothes just because they needed them; but an attaché case was different. It was not on coupons and it was the sign of being a real pupil rather than a child who just came in for holiday classes.

They decided not to explain about the attaché cases to Hannah. Hannah could not be made to see that anything to do with the Academy really mattered. She looked upon the whole business of their going to the Academy as something that would pass, like having measles. Instead, they told Alice. Alice was the sort of person who understood how having just one of the right things could make all the difference.

Alice lived up to their expectations.

“That's quite right, that is. That's just what you do need. I'll have a word with Hannah about bees and honey, and then you can go shopping Saturday morning.”

Saturday morning was wet. Hannah had a great deal to do and only terrific cajoling could get her to go out at all. Alice advised trying the King's Road, Chelsea. They could walk to it, which meant no escalators to put Hannah off. The morning was a dismal failure. They splashed along in the wet, Hannah absolutely refusing to hurry, and they went into every single shop in the King's Road, including Woolworths, that could possibly sell attaché cases. The King's Road is long, and they did not leave one suitable shop unvisited on either side, but it was not until they got to the far end where the shops finished that they faced the awful truth. Cheap attaché cases were one of the things you could no longer buy. In a few places were grand little cases of leather costing pounds and pounds, but the cheap kind could not be bought anywhere.

On Monday morning they went to the Academy each carrying a brown-paper parcel. Inside Sorrel and Holly's parcels were their black tunics, which had been given them second-hand at the Academy and brought home to be shortened, their black knickers, their black belts, their pink satin knickers and tunics, two pairs of white socks, their dancing sandals and a rough hand towel. In Mark's parcel was a bathing suit, a pair of cotton shorts, some dancing sandals and a rough towel. The nearer the children got to the Academy the worse they felt about the parcels.

“If only it was boxes!” said Sorrel. “A little box, now, would be neat and you could carry things about in it.”

Mark angrily kicked a stone off the pavement.

“Even that awful Shirley that did Mistress Mary and was only a holiday pupil had an attaché case.”

Sorrel and Mark were walking fast and Holly had to run and skip to catch up.

“And so has even that smallest child who is almost a baby—she's so small that she doesn't even carry her case herself, her mother does—and here's us, old enough to go to the Academy alone, and not an attaché case between us.”

Sorrel slowed up because the Academy was in sight.

“I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for us being Grandmother's grandchildren. People expect us to be good at everything because of her and because of our mother and the uncles and aunts and all the rest of it, and because of our having scholarships, and it's bad enough that we aren't good, but when as well we haven't got anything but brown-paper parcels we really look most peculiar.”

The Academy was quite a different place now that the term had started. Winifred was standing at the Students' entrance with some lists in her hand, and she told the girls to hurry up and put on their black tunics with their white socks and dancing sandals, which they would wear for lessons. Sorrel and Holly had lockers side by side in one changing room, Mark's was in the boys' room down the passage. Sorrel opened her locker quickly and pushed her parcel inside and tried to unpack it in there. There did not seem to be many of the girls about that she knew, but all the same she thought she would like to get her parcel undone and everything hung up before anyone noticed. All round the room there was a flow of chatter.

“Hullo! Had a good holiday?”

“Hullo, Doris! Have you come back to live in London?”

“Have you heard Freda will not be back until half term, she's still with that concert party in Blackpool, lucky beast.”

Then it happened. Somebody hurrying by tripped over Sorrel's feet and the back half of her that was sticking out of her locker and a voice said:

“Oh, bother! I nearly fell,” and then added, “One of the new girls grubbing about with a paper parcel.”

Holly was sitting on the floor changing her socks. She did not so much care what anybody said to her, but she would not have anyone being rude to Sorrel. She raised her voice to what Ferntree School, who had not approved of such behaviour, would have called a shout.

“We would have attaché cases if we could, but we can't because there is a war on. Perhaps you didn't know that.”

There was a lot of laughter, and then somebody said, “That's put you in your place, Miranda.”

Miranda! Sorrel turned, her cheeks crimson. What an awful start she had made with her cousin. What an even worse start Holly had made, shouting like that. Miranda was walking up the line of lockers, she ran after her and caught hold of her arm.

“Are you Miranda? I—I mean we—are your cousins. We're Sorrel, Holly and Mark Forbes. Mark isn't here just now, he's in the boys' room changing.”

Miranda turned and Sorrel gave a little gasp of surprise, Miranda was so very like what Grandmother must have been like when she was a child. The same brown hair—it hung down at the back, of course, but the top part was piled up into curls—the same dark eyes, the same effect of being a patch of colour in a dull room. Only Grandmother was like a sparkling bit of colour and Miranda was more like the last smouldering red cinder lying amongst grey ash. Miranda was evidently not a person who minded if she had been rude to her cousins or not, or rather she seemed to have forgotten it, for she put on a very grown-up gracious air.

“How do you do? I heard you were coming. We shall be quite a family gathering this term, for Uncle Mose is sending Miriam, did you know? You're a beginner, aren't you? I'm afraid that means we shan't see much of each other.”

Sorrel wished most heartily that this were going to be the case, but she remembered what Winifred had said about their both being in the same class. Quite time enough, however, for Miranda to find that out if it happened. So she just smiled politely and admitted to being a beginner and went back to her changing.

Sorrel and Holly had just got into their overalls and were fastening their belts when the changing-room door was thrown open and a little girl dashed in. She had on a frock of bright orange linen, against which her thin little face looked pale and yellowish, in fact there seemed hardly any face at all, it was so surrounded by a fuzz of black hair. In one hand she carried a grand leather attaché case of the sort which cost pounds and pounds. She glanced imperiously round the room.

“Which is my cousin Holly?”

Holly was shy of being called out in front of all the big girls and she spoke in a very small voice.

“Me.”

The child dashed over to her, put her attaché case on the floor and gave her a kiss.

“We're cousins. I'm Miriam Cohen. You're just a tiny bit older than me, I won't be eight until the end of this month.”

This was so insulting that Holly forgot to be shy.

“If you don't mind my saying so, I'm a great deal older than you. I shall be nine just after Christmas.”

Miriam seemed to be a person who did everything quickly. She snapped her attaché case undone and threw everything in it out on to the floor.

“Never mind, let's be friends. Mum says if we're friends I can ask you to tea. I can't come to you because we're not on speaking terms with Grandmother just now. We hardly ever are, you know, except at Christmas. Of course, we always go to Grandmother's then.”

Sorrel and Holly rather liked the look of Miriam, who was, at any rate, friendly. Sorrel knelt down beside her and began collecting the things that Miriam had upset.

“I'm a cousin, too. I'm Sorrel. Do you know which your locker is?” She picked up a white satin tunic and knickers and gave them a shake. “These will get awfully dirty on the floor.”

Miriam got up and began tearing her orange linen frock over her head.

“Mum's made me two tunics and two knickers. She cut up one of her best nightdresses. I think that was pretty decent of her, don't you? She said I'd have to have two, she knew I wouldn't be clean a minute if I only had one. I've got the locker next to Holly, they told me so at the door.”

Sorrel hung up Miriam's tunic and knickers and her linen frock and helped her into her black knickers and tunic. Holly passed Miriam her dancing sandals.

“Are you absolutely new, like me, or have you learnt it before?”

Miriam sat on the floor to put on her sandals.

“Learnt what?”

Holly crouched down beside her.

“All these routines and things the big girls do, and that tap and that work at the bar.”

Miriam tied the tapes of one of her sandals.

“I began tap when I was three, then I started acrobatic work, you know, flip flaps and all that. I learnt to sing when I was four. I did some shows with Dad for charity when I was five. I don't really ever remember a time when I wasn't learning, but mostly I went to special classes or learnt at home. That's why they've sent me here. It's to see which way I'm heading—at least, that's what Dad says. He thinks it's time I specialised. He says I'm too plain for the glamour type and I ought to do a lot of acrobatic work and become a comedienne. But I shan't, I'm going to dance. He knows that really.” She tied her second sandal tapes. “There's no doubt about it, I'm a bitter disappointment.”

A bell clanged in the passage. At once there was a crash of locker doors and everybody hurried out. Winifred was standing at the foot of the stairs with a list in her hand.

“Get in line, please, children, and come past me slowly.”

Sorrel leaned a little way out of the line and looked up the passage for Mark. Boys were easy to pick out amongst that mass of black tunics and white socks. Mark had changed into his sandals, otherwise he was dressed exactly as he had started out in the morning. He saw Sorrel and gave her a grin. It was a cheerful grin, but she knew that inside he was feeling very much as she was, sort of sinking and wishing they were not so new.

Winifred had stopped Miranda and told her to wait. She was standing at the foot of the stairs when Sorrel arrived at the head of the queue. Winifred laid a hand on Sorrel's arm.

“I expect you've met Miranda in the changing room.” She looked at Miranda. “I want you to look after Sorrel. You two are in the same form.”

Miranda gaped at Winifred.

“But she's younger than I am and she's never done a thing.”

Winifred spoke nicely, but you could not help feeling she was not sorry to be able to say what she did.

“She may be younger, but from the paper I set her she's well up to the standard of work in the upper middle, and, as well, Madame has granted her the scholarship Pauline Fossil has given for dramatic work.”

This last remark seemed to stun Miranda into silence. She caught Sorrel by the hand and pulled her up the stairs after her. It was only when they were outside the door of the practice room in which the upper middle worked that she suddenly stopped.

“I didn't know you could act, nobody told me.”

“I don't know that I can.”

“What did Madame see you do?”

Sorrel was just going to tell her and then she thought better of it. Perhaps Madame had been over-generous in granting her the scholarship. Perhaps she had not really seen very much talent, but if that was so she was certainly not going to let Miranda know about it. Like a distant light at the end of a long tunnel a thought shaped in Sorrel's head. She had not ever thought of being an actress, but she was the daughter of one and the grandchild of an actor and an actress, and the great-grandchild of a very great actor indeed, if all they said about that old Sir Joshua was right. Anyway, there was every bit as much reason why she should be an actress as why Miranda should. Why should not she see if she could be good? If she could really be worth Pauline Fossil's scholarship? She answered Miranda casually: