When I Was Young Read online

  Behind me I could hear Mother slapping the sheet of paper onto the oiled cloth which covered the kitchen table and I turned round slowly.

  “Good God!” She was looking down at the paper. “I’ve never heard of such nonsense!” Her voice was sharp with derision. “Have you taken leave of your senses? What makes you think for one moment that I would waste good money on a…” she struggled for a moment, “…a jaunt like this.”

  She jabbed her fore-finger at the paper and I noticed again, with a shudder of distaste, the dirt ingrained into the skin over her joints and beneath her nail. Mother never looked entirely clean although she did make an effort with carbolic soap every day. Even her weather-beaten face seemed to be covered with film of grey mud and a faint sheep smell of lanolin always emanated from her. Only her hair was bright. It was red and so curly that it seemed to spark off her head in wild spirals. I think she hated her hair and had it cut short every month at the hair-dressers by the market. It was the only indulgence she allowed herself. I didn’t like it either and thanked God always that my hair was dark like my father’s, curling a bit at the ends but nothing like hers.

  When I was at Suzy’s, I often found myself staring at Phyllis Franklin’s hair and skin and particularly at her hands. They were white and smooth and her nails were painted the same colour as her lipstick. They looked as if they’d never done any work, which was probably true. It wasn’t fair, of course. Mother ran a hill farm and worked the land and sheep like a man and had no time for manicures or even hand cream. But when those hands slapped tea and batch cakes on the table only minutes after dragging sheep through a chemical bath, it was no wonder that Suzy picked at her meal when she came on her only visit.

  “I knew that sending you to St Elizabeth’s was a bad idea,” Mother raged, jabbing at the leaflet again. “You should have gone to the High School like all the other girls. You’re getting above your station, like that friend of yours.”

  “It’s alright, Mother. I knew I couldn’t go.” I said it evenly. It was always better to agree with her. She had a vile temper. “I just thought I’d show it to you. That’s all.”

  She stood up and gathered her and Dada’s plates and crashed them into the sink. Fortunately we ate off thick china.

  Dada sat silently in his place at the head of the table and unseen by Mother who was pouring water from the kettle onto the plates to give them her usual cursory wash, I saw him put out a thin hand and draw the leaflet towards him.

  The French Exchange holiday wasn’t mentioned at home again that day nor during the days that followed. Not so in school. Everyone was excited, discussing where in France they could go and whom they might meet. Suzy gave Miss Baxter the filled in form and the five pounds deposit the very next morning, as did several other girls.

  “I can’t,” I said, when Suzy begged me to join them. “We haven’t got the money.”

  “Poor you,” she said, sympathetically and I think she meant it.

  “Is there no way you can arrange it?” asked Miss Baxter. “You of all girls, Eleanor, would get so much from this trip. Would you like me to talk to your parents?”

  I was horrified. “No.” I swallowed. “No, thank you, Miss Baxter. It simply isn’t possible.”

  “Oh well,” she nodded. I think she knew something of my circumstances at home. She turned back to the class. “Quieten down now girls. We have our work to do.”

  The rest of the week was very hard. My friends talked of nothing else, particularly Suzy.

  “Mummy is taking me into Manchester after Easter to buy clothes for the trip and we’re thinking about a present to take. It’ll have to be something very special. I so hope I’ll go to a smart sort of place. Daddy said he’d have a word with the organisers.”

  As far as I knew the French Exchange programme was an international organisation and Mr Franklin ‘having a word’ seemed an impossible concept, but then, the Franklins seemed to be able to do anything. Suzy and her family took advantage of every situation.

  “Maybe you’ll meet a boy in France,” I said. We talked about boys all the time.

  “I jolly well hope so.” She giggled and dug me in the ribs. “French men are terribly handsome, you know. Mummy said she wished she’d known one when she was young. She said Englishmen are so dull.”

  We were sitting on a bench in the school garden. It was lunch time and after our cheese pie and blancmange we’d wandered out, huddled in our coats, to spend the remaining twenty minutes before classes started again. Our friendship had started on the first day at St Elizabeth’s when I felt horribly out of place. Many of the new girls were classmates from the junior department and a few others who joined had the confidence imbued by private education and seemed totally at ease with the situation. Not me. I was a scholarship girl from a village school and hovered, yearning for invisibility, in the corner of the hall where we had to wait for the head mistress. I didn’t know what to say or even how to approach anyone. It was Suzy who rescued me.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling, leaving her group of chattering friends and coming over to me. “I’m Suzy Franklin.”

  She had that downy blonde look then that many young English children have, her cheeks rosy with good health and her hair shining in the September sunlight which pierced the diamond paned windows of the old school building.

  “I’m Eleanor Gill,” I swallowed the nervous lump in my throat. “Hello.”

  “Well, Eleanor Gill,” she ordered, matter-of-factly, “come and join us.” And that was that. She made me part of the group and subsequently, when I could have killed her for the stupid things she did and said, I never forgot that initial kindness. We were best friends.

  Five years later, sitting on that cold bench on a raw February afternoon, she’d changed very little. Still blonde, still glowing with good health and entirely confident of her future success in life.

  I hadn’t changed either, much. My hair had darkened, which, as Susie generously said, did make my eyes look bluer but I was as naïve as ever. The world outside school, home and the books I read, remained a mystery.

  “Come to our house on Saturday,” Suzy said as we huddled on the bench. “We can talk about things.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t. I have to help Mother with the sheep…they may have started lambing.”

  That was a lie. They weren’t due to lamb for at least another ten days and we didn’t do much to help them in those days. They generally got on with it themselves and if we lost a few, it was too bad.

  I didn’t want to go because she would talk about the French Exchange. Either that or about boys. Both subjects made my heart sink. I wasn’t going to France and the possibility of my having a boyfriend was beyond a joke.

  “Sorry,” I said, as we went back into school, “but thanks for asking.”

  “It’s alright. I’ll go shopping with Mummy instead.”

  As it turned out I was quite busy on that Saturday. We had a storm on Friday night which blew part of the roof off the big barn and I was needed to help pull a tarpaulin over the gap. Our neighbour, Jed Winstanley and his son Graham came to help us, driving over from their holding on an old tractor, towing the small animal transporter in which they’d loaded the tarpaulin.

  “Ee! That’s a right bloody bugger,” mumbled Jed gazing up at the remains of the barn roof.

  “Yes, it is,” Mother replied angrily. “It never rains but it pours.”

  It took hours to get the tarpaulin fixed. Jed and Mother did the bulk of the work while Graham and I hauled on the ropes, trailing from one side of the barn to the other, silently obeying the orders shouted down from our respective parents. Graham barely spoke to me. He’d already left school and was working with his father and the fact that I went to St Elizabeth’s had put me on a different plane from most of the children with whom I’d gone to Primary School.

  I caught sight of Dada watching us from the kitchen window and I waved to him.

  “Stop messing about, Eleanor. Concentrat
e on what you’re doing,” Mother barked from her vantage point on top of the barn. I saw her glance over briefly to the house and when I looked again, Dada had disappeared.

  That evening, after Jed and Graham had gone home, I made egg, chips and bread and butter for supper. Mother looked all in and although she didn’t say anything I think she was grateful for me doing the meal.

  “That roof should have been sorted out years ago, but it’ll have to do as it is for now.” She poured a cup of tea for Dada and stirred two large teaspoons of sugar into it. “Here. Drink that before it gets cold,” she ordered putting in down in front of him before collapsing back in her chair to drink her own tea.

  Dada got up and left the table. I thought he’d gone for the night, even though it was only half past six, but within minutes he re-appeared carrying one of his tins. Dada had several tins, old cigarette tins in which he kept various possessions, coins or nails and little rolls of twine which he’d picked up from the yard. A larger tin which he often carried around with him held pieces of paper folded into four, the back and front of them covered in his tiny writing. He dropped it once and it flew open by my feet. I’d picked up the tin and all the pieces of paper and quickly put them on the table. I didn’t say anything and tried to behave as though it was an everyday occurrence. Poor Dada. His hand was shaking when he reached out to gather in the papers and I shot a quick glance at him. Tears had gathered in the corners of his eyes and he looked so frightened that I quickly left the room. I couldn’t bear to upset him more.

  But tonight he put the tin he’d brought downstairs on the table and with a movement more deliberate than I’d ever seen him manage, he pushed it towards me. I stared at it. It was one I’d never seen before, a Players cigarette tin with a picture of a bearded sailor on the front. I didn’t know what to do and looked round to Mother

  She was examining a cut on her finger which was going septic. I’d seen her soaking it in hot water yesterday but it obviously wasn’t better. I turned back to my father.

  “Is the lid stuck, Dada,” I asked. “Do you want me to open it?”

  He said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the tin and his hand lingered on the table beside it.

  “For goodness sake, Eleanor, open it for him,” said Mother, impatiently. “Then you can clear the pots while I go out to check on the ewes.” She yawned and reached behind her chair to grab her boots which stood warming beside the range.

  I was still uncertain, hating to interfere with something that mattered so much to him. But as I hesitated, he tapped his index finger on the oiled cloth beside the tin, indicating without words that I was to open it.

  The room was still and quiet as I grasped the tin and pulled off the lid.

  “Oh!” I said. A spool of tightly rolled bank notes jumped out of the tin and lay on the table in front of me.

  “Good God almighty!” said Mother. “Where the hell did all that come from?”

  One of Dada’s little notes had jumped out of the tin with the money and cautiously I picked it up and unfolded it. ‘For the girl,’ his tiny writing read. ‘For the trip to France.’

  “What does it say?” demanded Mother.

  “The money is for me. For the French Exchange.” I was breathless.

  “What?” Mother’s face went red and she stood up so quickly that her chair crashed over behind her and the cups and saucers on the table rattled dangerously. “He’s giving you money for that ridiculous trip when this bloody farm is falling to pieces? Don’t think for one minute that you’re keeping this. Any spare money in this house goes straight back into the stock.”

  Snorting with anger she reached over the table but before her calloused hand could touch the roll of bank notes Dada’s hand closed over them.

  “Eddy!” she shouted, flecks of spittle flying from her lips. “Let go.”

  Then the most astonishing thing I’d ever seen happened. Dada lifted his head and stared at Mother full in the face. She too must have been shocked because her hand came to an abrupt halt in mid-air and the colour drained from her face. For a moment she stared back at him, her eyes wild, her frizzy orange hair standing up on end and her lips moving as words formed.

  I waited, sick at heart, for the furious tirade that would burst from her but to my amazement, nothing happened. Instead, biting her lips, she abruptly turned away from the table and grabbed hold of her boots. I was still motionless in my seat when the back door slammed.

  The silence which followed was palpable. Even the normal sound of the wind in the chimney seemed to have died down and the muffled tick of the grandfather clock in the passageway was no more than the usual creaks that were part of our old house.

  Dada was the first to move. He pushed the roll of money towards me again and watched as I closed my fist over it.

  Chapter 2

  “Eleanor Gill; you, Janet Blaine and Margaret Hibbotson come with me.” Miss Baxter’s voice was easily audible above the bustle of trains and passengers at the Gare du Nord in Paris. In the class room she spoke softly even diffidently but the excitement and responsibilities of her present situation added a frenetic element to her orders. “We must get our connection now. Hurry!”

  As we trailed along after her I noticed several French passengers pause on the platform to turn and stare. We must have looked strange in our gingham school dresses and navy blazers. We’d been told that, for once, we wouldn’t need our hats; straw boaters, which was a relief, but for travelling to and from France, our uniform was a must. It didn’t make much difference to me…I didn’t have many clothes anyway but Suzy was fed up.

  “This is a holiday, after all,” she wailed when the dress code was announced. “And I’ve bought so many lovely outfits.”

  Several of the girls had already been picked up. Two at Calais and one at a station between Calais and Paris. Now, French families were arriving and announcing who they were.

  “These are mine,” said Suzy, grinning as an elegantly dressed woman and a smiling teenage girl came up to them, the girl holding out a card which read ‘Susan Franklin.’ “Don’t they look just perfect?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure you’re going to have a wonderful time.” But my words were lost as Suzy fell into the perfumed grip of the woman who was kissing her on both cheeks. Suzy’s exchange family was situated in Paris itself and even though I was grateful about being on the Exchange, I was deeply envious of her. Why couldn’t I have been exchanged with a city girl? What wouldn’t I have given to experience a few weeks of shops and streets and wonderful sight-seeing? It wasn’t fair, really. My exchange family lived on a farm in a village in the Loire valley. A village so tiny that I couldn’t find it on the map.

  “Where you are placed doesn’t matter,” Miss Baxter had said, kindly, during the French lesson when we were being instructed about how to behave on the school exchange. “The whole object of the exchange is to improve your French language and for you to get a feel of the local culture.”

  “Onions and cattle feed, that’s what you’ll be feeling,” giggled Suzy, beneath her breath as she smoothed out the long letter she had received from her host family. It was written in exquisite English on thick creamy notepaper and described an exciting itinerary the host family had planned. I bit my lip and wondered if Mr Franklin had indeed ‘had a word’.

  The letter which I’d received from Madame Martin, my hostess to be, was written on a piece of paper which looked as if it had been torn from an exercise book. Faint blue squares covered the sheet and the blue ink writing was old fashioned and quite difficult to read. Compared to Suzy’s letter, mine was brief almost to the point of rudeness. It was in French and merely said that I would be met at the station in the nearest town and that Jean Paul was looking forward to greeting me.

  “Jean Paul, eh?” said Suzy. “Lucky you. I bet he’s absolutely gorgeous.”

  I nodded and grinned as one or two other girls remarked on my having a boy as an exchange host but every time I thought about it, my stomach
churned. Since leaving Primary School I’d rarely had occasion to meet any boys and I couldn’t imagine having anything in common with one. English boys were a mystery to me so a French counterpart would be even more complicated.

  When I told Mother that my exchange partner would be a boy and showed her the letter, she’d snorted with exasperation. “Huh! I might have known it. He’ll just want feeding more than a girl.”

  Ever since Dada had given me the money, the Exchange had been hardly mentioned at home. The roll of notes amounted to forty seven pounds and I gave Miss Baxter five pounds for the deposit the very next school day. The remaining forty two pound notes went into my the Post Office account. I kept the savings book under my pillow, taking it out every morning when I woke up, to examine it. It became my most pleasurable exercise and I felt stupidly bereft when I had to remove some money to pay for the balance of the holiday. It left me with twelve pounds, but I did have another four, so I had plenty of spending money. I planned to buy a present for Dada first when I was in France. A fancy tin, maybe. Getting something for Mother would be more difficult.

  I went to the shops with Suzy and bought a dress. She’d already been with her mother to Manchester and chosen several outfits which she showed me when I went round to her house.

  “I’ve got to have more than one thing to wear,” she said hanging the smart navy blue dress back in her wardrobe amongst her other clothes. “After all, according to Madame de Fourcies, I’ll be going on lots of outings.”

  I’d bought a pale pink linen dress with a round neck and a full skirt. I forgot that it would need ironing and when I took it home Mother was scathing.

  “What a waste of money,” she said. “By the time you get it out of your case it’ll look like a rag.”

  She was right, of course. But the Martins had an iron and I did wear it.

  “Bye,” called Suzy as she followed her elegant hostess and the cheerful girl to the station exit. “Give my love to the cattle.”

  I pretended to laugh and waved my hand but I had no time to brood. Orders were being shouted again and the remaining girls who hadn’t been met at Paris were lined up to be taken by a teacher to a bus which would take them to another station. I followed Miss Baxter across the Gare du Nord to the platform where our southern bound train was waiting. The last of my travelling companions, Janet and Margaret, were best friends and had luckily found themselves placed with families in the same town. They had never stopped talking since we’d got on the train at home and although Miss Baxter told them to be quiet more than once, excitement over-ruled her orders and they were soon at it again.