White Boots (17 page)

“Come into the drawing room. We'd better have a talk about this.”

Lalla was frightened by the tone in Aunt Claudia's voice, and it made her sound a little rude.

“Talk as much as you like. I've told you what happened, and it's me that minds most, not you.”

In the drawing room Aunt Claudia dragged a full description of the figure test out of Lalla. Because she had taken an interest in skating when Lalla's father was learning, and because of Lalla, she knew more or less what Lalla was talking about. She grasped how bad Lalla's tracings must have been, and she felt convinced that Lalla could have done them perfectly if only she had worked. Obviously something must be done to make her work in future. She had got to get through these tests before she could enter for the open championships, with all the fun and the excitement that those would mean.

“I must see Max Lindblom; you must, of course, have extra
lessons so that you pass easily in the autumn, and I must arrange somehow for your lessons to continue throughout the summer.”

“You can't. Max goes home to Sweden every summer. He sees his family then.”

“We shall see. Then clearly you're having too many distractions. I was never sure if it was a good idea having Harriet to work with you; I knew what it would be, you'd play about and fritter away your time. I'll telephone to Mrs Johnson and explain that the arrangement must finish.”

Lalla was trembling inside and this made her speak in an extra loud voice, so that it would not tremble too.

“If you do that, I won't skate any more.”

Aunt Claudia was as surprised as she would have been if a worm had turned round in the garden and told her to look more carefully where she walked. She repeated what Lalla had said in a shocked voice.

“You won't skate any more!”Then, as the words made sense, “Lalla! Child! You don't know what you're saying. That isn't my Lalla speaking. Why, ever since you were a baby you've thought of nothing but skating. I can see you now, insisting on holding your first little boots and skates when you were so small you had to ride in a perambulator. Not skate any more! Silly child. Why, you couldn't live without skating.”

Lalla had heard what skating meant to her ever since she could remember, but as Aunt Claudia spoke she felt glad to hear it again. It made her feel more ordinary than hearing Nana and
Uncle David say that it was possible she could give it up. But she was not going to give in about Harriet.

“I only said I wouldn't skate any more if you took Harriet away.”

Aunt Claudia had been badly frightened. She had been looking forward for so long to the fun that she was going to have when Lalla was a star that even the suggestion that it might not happen made her feel as if the sun had gone in for ever. She did not want to give in to Lalla, but, small though Lalla was, she could see that she meant what she said. The only thing to do would be to agree that Harriet went on sharing Lalla's classes and speak to Harriet. Harriet must be made to feel her responsibilities. She was getting this wonderful chance of sharing Lalla's expensive classes and she must understand that she was only being allowed these privileges if they were good for Lalla.

“Come here.” Lalla came unwillingly. “Don't look cross, darling. You know I'm only thinking of you. I know what a great gift you have and what a wonderful future you're going to have, if only you work. Everything we've planned is for that. We'll say no more about today as a set-back, but we won't let it happen again, will we? We'll just be more determined than ever…” She was going to say “more determined than ever that Lalla should be world champion,” but Lalla was sure the quotation was coming and said it for her.

“That my square-turn'd joints and strength of limb, will
make me a champion grim. I know I've been a carpet knight today, but I won't be any more if you won't say anything more about Harriet going away.”

Aunt Claudia kissed her.

“That's the spirit, now run along up to the schoolroom, it's lunch time.”

The rest of that skating season passed quickly. If Max was upset that Lalla had failed to pass her test, he did not tell her so. In spite of Aunt Claudia suggesting that Lalla should have extra lessons, he refused to give them to her; in fact, before the season came to an end, he stopped giving her lessons. He said she could just enjoy herself on the ice and forget about figures because she was getting stale. In the autumn, when he came back from two months in Sweden, they would get down to her training and work really hard. To Harriet he said:

“And you too must work in the autumn. After Christmas you will be taking your preliminary and bronze tests. I think it good that you and Lalla should both be working for tests at the same time.”

Harriet was terribly pleased Max thought she was good enough even to try to pass a test. She had not thought of herself as the sort of skater who would enter for tests. She decided, if she was going to try for them, she was not going to wait for the autumn to start working. The rink would be closed for a month, but right up to the day it closed, and on the day it opened again, she would be there for her usual afternoon practice. She was
surprised that Max thought it a good idea for her and Lalla to work for tests at the same time, but perhaps Max did not know that Lalla always wanted an audience, and that you couldn't watch her bracket tracings and practise figures yourself at the same time. Then, of course, Max did not know what Aunt Claudia had said. Harriet had not understood absolutely everything that Aunt Claudia had said herself, but she had understood how lucky she was to be allowed to work with Lalla, and that in exchange she must see that Lalla passed her silver test in the autumn with almost full marks. Harriet did not need to be told to want Lalla to pass with a lot of marks in the autumn; she wanted it without any telling, but she did wish Aunt Claudia did not think she could arrange it. Lalla had worked really hard for a bit after she failed in her test, which was why Max told her not to work any more in case she got stale, but Lalla was not the sort of person to go on working like that. If ever she thought she knew a figure and did it well, she would go mad-doggish and probably not work again for weeks and weeks.

Luckily that summer lots of nice things happened which stopped both Lalla and Harriet thinking about skating tests. Miss Goldthorpe's Saturday afternoons were lovely. She arranged trips by river steamer to Greenwich, and in Uncle David's motor launch to places like Windsor and Hampton Court. She took them to Wimbledon to watch the tennis championships, and to matinées of Shakespeare's plays in Regent's Park.
Sometimes she invited Alec, Toby and Edward to come too, which she could do without permission because they were her parties. At first, after she had failed at her test, Lalla did not want to see Toby in case he said something rude like “I warned you”.

“You can tell him I passed my free,” Lalla told Harriet, “but I didn't exactly pass the figures.”

Harriet had not had to say anything. Her family were not interested in skating tests unless they worried Harriet. Harriet went skating to grow strong and look less like a daddy-long-legs, and Lalla because it was going to be her profession, and that was the end of that. Everybody knew they both went to the rink every afternoon, and both had lessons from somebody called Max Lindblom, so there was nothing to talk about.

That summer Alec's dream began to come true. In consultation with Toby he spent the money he had made on his paper round on fruit and vegetables bought at Covent Garden. He and Toby would get up very early and go to Covent Garden on the Underground. They would be there so early that they saw the fruit and vegetables arrive, smelling quite different from Uncle William's fruit and vegetables. They would watch the stuff unloaded and sometimes, when it was carried on a cart drawn by a pony, Alec would nudge Toby and say: “That's the sort of pony and cart I'm going to have.”They could not go to Covent Garden every day because getting up so early made them sleepy at school, and Alec terribly stupid on his evening paper round, so that unless he was careful he put the wrong papers in the
wrong letter-boxes. But they usually managed to go on Tuesdays and on Fridays. Tuesdays to get some of the good stuff that had not been picked on Sundays, and Fridays because Saturdays were holidays and it was possible to make up sleep missed by getting up early. Toby made an arrangement with George about Alec's fruit and vegetables. They were sold separately from Uncle William's, and the money they made was put on one side for Alec. George found the arrangement worrying at first because he never could do accounts but Toby helped him.

“If you have five pounds of Alec's strawberries at two shillings a pound, and ten pounds of green peas at one and twopence, and five pounds of broad beans at one and fourpence, and you've sold all the strawberries except half a pound, all the broad beans except two pounds and all the peas except one pound, you have to give Alec twenty-three shillings and sixpence, and you are holding four shillings and tenpence in convertible stock. It's quite easy, Dad.”

George never found it easy, but he did see that for some reason the shop was doing better. Having good vegetables and fruit on regular days brought people into the shop who might not otherwise have come, and when they were there, seeing a rabbit hanging up or some trout in a basket, made them wonder whether they could use rabbit or trout. In the same way they might come in to buy Alec's good green peas and then notice some unripe peaches which had fallen off Uncle William's wall, and think, “Well, stewed peaches will make a change.”

Of course there were days when what Uncle William sent nobody could possibly buy. He had read somewhere that there was a form of edible toadstool which was nourishing, so several days running he went out with a sack and picked every toadstool he could find. He sent the sacks to George with a note saying, “Sort these out, I believe some of them are good for eating, somebody ought to know.” George, trusting his brother William, did try to sort the first lot of toadstools but luckily Olivia spotted what he was doing.

“George! Put those loathsome things back in the sack, and burn the lot. I should think you've got enough poison there to kill everybody for miles around.”

Because more customers came to the shop things were easier for Olivia. Quite often she would say, “Imagine! I've had to buy everything for supper this evening, there was nothing left over. You can't think what fun it is choosing food, instead of cooking what the shop can't sell.”

In July Uncle David and Aunt Claudia went to stay with friends in Canada and Nana went to visit her sister in the Midlands. In August Nana and Lalla were going to an hotel in the Isle of Wight, so while Nana was away Miss Goldthorpe moved into the house and took charge. It was while Nana was away that the exciting thing happened about Lalla's garden. That summer Aunt Claudia had engaged a new young gardener. His name was Simpson and he was not only a good gardener, but a proud one. It had worried him very much to see his best
herbaceous border finishing up with tomatoes, lettuces and some ridge cucumbers. He had spoken about it to Aunt Claudia. Aunt Claudia was not really garden-minded, but when Simpson pointed out that vegetables were not really right in an herbaceous border she could see what he meant. She told Simpson that it was Lalla's garden, but if he could find Lalla another piece of garden that she liked he could arrange an exchange. Simpson had heard in the kitchen that Lalla was not really keen on gardening, so he planned to offer her a shady little bit of ground behind a laburnum tree, which would not show much. It was not until after Aunt Claudia had left for Canada that he saw Lalla to talk about the exchange, and on that day Alec and Toby had come over to plan autumn planting. Toby had a piece of string between two sticks, and while Harriet held one end and Lalla the other he worked out how many strawberry plants the bed would hold, and Alec wrote the number down in a book. When Simpson came along he said “Good morning” and then stopped in the loitering way of somebody who wants to be noticed and has something to say. Lalla was enjoying herself, and did not want anyone to bother her, so she spoke in her most madamish voice. Simpson had children of his own and was not going to be madamed by Lalla.

“I spoke to your auntie about veg. in my border, and she says if you was agreeable I could give you a bit of earth some other place for you to dig in.”

Lalla looked at Simpson despisingly.

“Thank you. This is my garden and it's stopping my garden, and it's not a piece of earth, it's going to be a strawberry bed.”

Simpson had grand ideas for next year; he was ordering many new plants, lots of them tall, and he could see the effect of his bed would be quite spoiled by short things like strawberries. He was just going to speak his mind about this when Toby said:

“What other garden were you going to give her? Could it be something bigger? You see, there's not much acreage here for strawberries, and we had meant to invest in some prize plants.”

At the words “acreage” and “prize plants” Simpson looked altogether different. Evidently Lalla had sensible gardening friends. He knew at once that the bit of a bed behind the laburnum would not do and thought what else he could spare. He was a gardener who grew vegetables because he must and flowers because he liked them. He had a bright idea. It would be very nice for him if he could have all the herbaceous border, and Lalla's friends would look after a bit of his vegetable garden. There was quite a long strip of vegetable garden in which he was meant to plant winter greens. He thought growing winter greens a waste of time; cooks never seemed to want to cook them, and they were what he called “messy” if not used.