Bilgewater (10 page)

“And who is this?” asked water-snake one (The Headmaster), mellifluous and kind.

“Why,
Marigold
,” said water-snake two (Mrs. Gathering) and I took to my awful high heels and fled.

T
here's a visitor for you. Come on now.”

Paula's voice through the door was quieter, more bewildered than usual. I had come back the night before, running, running through the garden, dashed past her and father in the hall and upstairs into my bedroom. There I had locked the door, drawn the curtains, and flung myself on the bed. Much later when the various rantings and ravings and bangings on the landing had stopped I had got out of bed, taken all my clothes off and bundled them in a heap in the grate, pulled on my striped pyjamas, got into bed, covered my head and lay like a carcass under the blankets through the hot, late evening.

Clinking of a supper tray left cunningly on the landing, even a tactful cough and “I say Marigold. Anything wrong?” from father failed to penetrate the great heaviness of my soul.

At dead of night, I had got up and unlocked the door and stepped over the cold beans and sausages and gone to the bathroom and stood for ages looking in the glass, looking at my toothbrush wondering whether to brush my teeth, watching the toothpaste emerge from the tube and hang there. James Joyce. Then I put the brush and toothpaste down and went back along the silent landing, past father's door and the door to the Boys' Side, back to my own room, relocking the door and lying heavy and still again.

Next day I didn't get up. Paula's voice and Mrs. Thing's floated into my consciousness now and then, sometimes raucous, sometimes cajoling, sometimes shrill. Aeons went by.

The cracks of light between the curtains had brightened and sharpened and spilled bright streaks over the carpet, then faded again to twilight, or summer midnight or grave-light or Styx light. The deep hollow in my pillow grew damp.

“Come on. A visitor, duck.” Paula's voice came through rather different this time. It was sharp, not full of its usual Dorset vibrations. The criticism and the crossness had gone and instead there was—good gracious! There was fear. Paula frightened.

Oh no, no, no!

I heaved out of bed and blundered across the room to the key in the lock and began to turn it. Then I leaned my head against the door and stopped, like a machine run down. Through the door I heard whispers and quick conversation.

“No. Never. Never like this. Whatever happened over the road?”

“Nothing.” (Grace Gathering's voice.) “Nothing. She was looking weird. She simply ran away.”

“Ran away! Whatever from, dear sakes?”

“I don't know. We were coming forward over the grass—Ma and father and I and one or two. Some people of my parents, and Jack Rose—he'd been playing one-handed—and she suddenly became oh, absolutely—well, mad.”

“Mad?” said Paula and I closed my eyes and started shaking.

“Mad? Marigold's not mad. That's one thing certain. Now look you 'ere young woman, I explained that to half a clutch of psychiatrists in Newcastle years back. Marigold's not mad. She's too sane, that's what's wrong with our Marigold. She sees clear and pure and sometimes it's a bit more than she nor anybody can bear.”

“Oh but—”

“You watch your step calling Marigold mad.”

“Oh I didn't—”

“You come precious near it. Precious near. Marigold's not just anyone, you know. Ho no. Just anyone can be mad. Almost everyone is a bit mad, seems to me. Not our Marigold. Just you mind—”

(Oh Paula I love you so.)

“Mad indeed, I never did!”

“But I never—” Poor old Grace. The flood gates were open.

“I've known Marigold since the minute her mother went and died on her and let me tell you she's the best and most uncommon creature.”

(Why couldn't she have told that to me? Good gracious!) “All that eye-trouble, all that disapoplexia and what's thiz. Having to be read to. I've brought her up. I know her. She's the finest, straightest, brilliantest, no fancy nonsense neither.”

I could just imagine what Paula must be looking like.

“Sorry. All right. Goodness me. I'm only saying what it looks like. Everybody says—Oh no! All right. Stop for heaven's sake. What I was going to say was that whatever you've done for her character you haven't exactly done much for her looks, have you?”

There was a sort of yell and so I opened the door and Grace who had been leaning against the other side of it fell backwards on to my floor and lay there. Paula and I looked down at her and even on the floor she looked graceful. Well named. She smiled up.

“Hi,” I said.

“Well hullo,” said she.

We established without the least self-consciousness our first familiarity. I helped her up. “For instance,” she said. “where did she get those pyjamas?”

Paula made a wild noise and thundered off out of sight. A door slammed.

“You know,” said Grace, “you ought not to wear viyella pyjamas in brown and pink stripes and buttoned on the right. With a woven draw string.”

“I've had them ages.” I looked down and saw my legs sticking out from the knee downwards. My legs have been changing lately and it occurred to me, looking down that there was a lot more of them than there used to be. A good deal of arm hung out of each sleeve, too. “They've got
flies
,” said Grace.

“They're from the Boys' Side. I expect Paula was using them up.”

“Does Paula do all your clothes? Choose them?”

“Well she doesn't choose them exactly. When I need more she just looks round for something. There's usually something that'll do. She's very keen on being tidy and clean but—”

“I don't know what you mean by ‘do'. If those pyjamas ‘do'.”

“Well nobody sees what you wear in bed do they?”

Grace looked at her pink fingernails for a minute. Then she walked to the window and drew back the curtains and flung the window up wide. She walked back and put out the light which I'd switched on. Seeing the bundle of clothes and the high-heeled blue shoes in the grate she walked over and stirred them with her foot. “That's good,” she said. “Look, go and get washed.”

“I got washed.”

“When?”

“In the night.” Then I remembered that I had merely examined the facilities.

“Wash again,” said Grace.

“With a
clean
towel,” she called down the landing, “and a nail brush and do your teeth.”

I still couldn't use the toothpaste because of James Joyce but I washed all over. I got a new piece of purple-brown coal-tar which is so beautiful, in yellow paper, and I filled the basin utterly with hot water. I soaped myself all over to the knees then rinsed it off. Then I lifted one foot at a time into the basin and coal-tarred them, getting well in between the toes. A kind of ritual cleansing. I cut my toe nails with some scissors lying about and rubbed myself all over with one of father's brown towels with a red stripe at each end until I was very pink and blotchy. I had a very good go at my neck.

I wrapped the pale brown towel around me and another one out of the cupboard, picked up the pyjamas, and went back to the bedroom where Grace was reclining gazing unashamedly into the windows of the big dormitory.

“They need some blinds in there,” she said, “it's not a pretty sight. Good Lord—look at you! You look like a digestive biscuit. Give me those.” She took the pyjamas by the tips of her fingers and dropped them on the heap in the grate. Then she shovelled the whole lot on to a bit of paper which seemed to be the lining of one of my drawers and made a big parcel. “Get some others,” she said, “and come on. It's a quarter past four.”

“Where are we going?”

“Shopping. Look—that'll do. That jersey and skirt thing and there's some pants—glory! Elastic legs! Shangri La.”

“No—Lyme Regis.”

“Well come on then—I hope the shops don't shut on Tuesdays.”

“What shops?”

“Clothes shops.”

She sailed through the dying chrysanthemums with the bundle under her arm and me running behind. Faces appeared all along the Boys' Side and there were some whistles. We met father at the gates who said. “Hello dear? Better then? Is this Grace?”

“We have to fly,” said Grace, flowing on.

“To fly. Dear me. I'm not sure that's very wise.”

We reached the street behind the High Street which is called Arthur Street—not a very well-thought-of street, full of purple brick houses with bay windows picked out in Bird's Custard brick. In one of these several pictures were displayed and some pink frilly curtains and the back of a hair dryer. A cardboard banner cried out
CYNTHIA
.

“I didn't know there was a hairdresser here.”

“I found it last week.”

“You've hardly been here a week. Hey—listen. I've never been to a hairdresser.”

“She wants it cut,” said Grace, “and
shaped
. Do you know how to layer?”

“Aye I do.” said Cynthia who was muscular and had a bristling chin, “So don't come it over me. You lot” (it was the Dartington voice) “think we don't know owt up 'ere.”

Grace, as bland as chestnuts, said, “A good
lot
off don't you think? Quite short and with a
shape
.”

Great crunching noises took place around the back of my neck and orange blotches began to drop all over the floor. “Look,” I said, “Paula—”

“Forget Paula. It's looking wonderful.”

“Wonderful!”

“Yes wonderful.”

Crunch crunch crunch.

“Aye it is that,” said Cynthia. “Shall I wash it.”

“No time. We've clothes to buy.”

“Come back tomorrow. I'll set it up lovely in big rollers and give it a nice bit of back combing. It's a grand colour.”

“Look,” said Grace, and there I was with a sort of rusty flower on my head all curly bits. My face had a different shape and looked less bemused and I had grown a neck. My skull had a clean, oval shape. “You can cut hair,” said Grace to Cynthia and the two of them nodded to each other in mutual respect. A little later we were tearing down the promenade to Marks and Spencers and Grace was dropping the parcel of my old clothes into a litter bin that stood by the door. I said, “What about Oxfam?” But “Pity Oxfam,” said Grace, “what have the destitute done to deserve those pyjamas?”

She sped about the counters picking up garments, dropping them in a heap beside the central cash desk. Now and then she looked at me and went off and burrowed for something else.

“We're on closin',” said the saleswoman.

“Won't be long,” said Grace. There was a good deal of rattling of doors and bolts and counters began to be covered with dust sheets for the night.

“What size shoes d'you take?”

“Oh—fives.”

“Look Miss, we're really shutting.”

“These would do. Yes—I really think these would do.”

“What—for me? Look Grace, where's the money—? And wouldn't I break my neck?”

They were very high-heeled shoes but not like the old blue stilettos. They were criss-cross chestnut plastic with rounded toes and a strap over the top. They were a bit the colour of my hair. They had a lovely slinky way of going in near the instep. I got hold of one and it smelled wonderful.

“Miss—I'm sorry. If you don't finish I'll have to call in the authorities. My last bus to Dormanstown leaves in five minutes.”

“All right,” said Grace. “How much?”

There were five or six great big Marks and Spencers bags on the desk. “Will you take a cheque?”

“Eh? How old are you? Have you got a credit card?”

Grace produced one, then another.

“Yes—oh all right,” she said. “Miss the Archers at this rate, Er—Madam. It's twenty-six pounds.” We were out in the street with all the bags and I had to clutch at the litter bin.

“
I
haven't got twenty-six pounds,” I said.

“I have,” said Grace. “I got it for you.”

“Wherever from?”

“Hastings-Benson,” she said. “Sweet old thing. He'll get it back from your Papa. I told him to put it around that you were a disgrace.”

 

“A disgrace,” I said when I was alone at home again. “A disgrace.” Grace had swept away towards her own home and I had carried the great big crackling packages in. Before opening them I had had to eat. I had not eaten for twenty-four hours. I was faint, I was tottering. I stood in the kitchen and went all the way through a loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese and a bottle of milk and a bag of apples. Then upstairs again, tenderly, gently I drew out of the first bag the first garment.

Pair of jeans.

Next: skinny tee shirt.

Next: three-quarter length sage-green skirt, velvet, tight round hips.

Next: orange jersey colour of new hair.

Next—shoes. I put my face in them.

I put on the jeans and the jersey. Then I took them off and put on the velvet skirt and the shirt. Then I played around with a number of variations, as in chess. Then I put on the shoes and rose miles in the air. I looked in the glass, walking as far back from the mirror as I could and a tall thin girl with rather good legs and noticeable hair looked back at me. Her face was exalted. It was the face that was most surprising. I looked down and saw my glasses lying by the bed—great thick lumps. They had been lying by the bed since last night. I had been out shopping and had not even noticed. I had not needed them at all.

S
o began my half term of happy friendship with Grace Gathering.

“Whom do you think of marrying?” she asked out of the blue at the week end, decorating a long green talon.