No Talking after Lights (12 page)

‘Hello, Hermione,' said Constance, shyly, as Hermione drew level.

‘Oh … er - h'llo.' And the beautiful smile flashed again.

Oh, gosh, she is terrific, thought Constance, and forgot Mrs Simpson's troublesome invitation.

‘I feel sick,' said Charmian, staring at her untouched pudding. Her cheeks were bloodless but her eyes glittered as though reflecting candlelight. ‘Please, Miss Monk, I think I'm going to be sick.'

‘You don't look very well, dear. Do you want to leave the table?'

Charmian gulped, nodded and looked appealingly at
Sheila. Miss Monk, who had heard about the Reynolds divorce at the latest staff meeting, had been expecting something like this.

‘You go with her, Sheila,' she said kindly.

As soon as they had made their conspicuous exit from the dining-room, Charmian said, ‘Quick, the lavs! Run!' But when they got there, she wasn't sick at all. She kicked open the lavatory doors one by one to make sure they were empty and dragged Sheila after her into the changing-room next door, where rows of blazers hung from row of pegs and beneath them rows of shoes nestled in individual wooden lockers. She pulled Sheila into a corner where the two of them were hidden behind long green capes and there, smothered in a thick darkness that smelt of wool and gym shoes, she said, ‘Sheila I'm in trouble. You've got to help me.'

‘What on earth's wrong? I thought you wanted to be sick.'

‘Much, much worse than that. I do feel sick in a way but not like you think. Cross your heart and hope to die you promise not to split on me?'

‘Cross my heart and hope to die.'

‘Swear on your mother's life you'll never ever tell?'

With sinking heart Sheila repeated solemnly, ‘I swear on my mother's life.'

In the enveloping darkness Charmian put her arms round Sheila and whispered hotly into her ear: ‘It's me, Sheil.
I
took the things. It's me that's the thief. And what's more, I ran up to the dorm today just before lunch to pinch one of Feeny's parcels - I don't know why! I just did! - and as I was coming out with it stuffed into my knickers Peachey saw me. She asked what I was doing so I said I'd come to get a hanky. So then I went into the bathroom and pretended to wash my face and when she'd gone away I hid the parcel in my sponge-bag. And now Feeny'll notice and I'm
terrified there'll be a search. Sheila, you've
got
to help me. How can I get rid of it? What if I'm caught? Oh, I wish my mummy was here!'

Charmian began to cry, and Sheila held her steadily while she tried to be calm and grown-up, to think clearly and responsibly about what was the right thing to do.

‘Why don't you just run up now - there'll be nobody about, they're all in lunch - and put it back?' she suggested. ‘Or I will, if you like.'

‘No!' said Charmian with amazing vehemence.

‘OK, OK, keep your hair on, I'm only trying to help. Now listen, shut up crying and let me think. Look, all right, this is what I'll do. I'll go and get it from your sponge-bag. I'll hide it somewhere else - I don't know where, I'll think of somewhere - while you go back in. Rinse your mouth with soap or something first so they'll all think you've been sick, and then I'll come in after you and say I had to clean up the aunt.'

‘Okey-dokey. Good idea. Gosh, thanks, Sheil! You are a sport.'

‘Count up to fifty while you wash your face, to give me time …'

Sheila ran up the back stairs, her legs trembling. Two flights up - Starlings' bathroom - Charmie's sponge-bag. There it was: a neat, rectangular parcel, criss-crossed with string and sealed with a blob of red sealing wax. She grasped it, zipped up the sponge-bag, rearranged the towel over it, and stood stock-still on the slatted boards of the bathroom, trembling with fear and indecision. Why didn't she just put it back? That wouldn't be breaking her promise to Charmie, and no-one would ever know what had happened. She remembered Charmie's passionate ‘
No!
' and her mind raced on. At the darkest end of the corridor, high up on the wall, was a wooden box with the electric fuses. It
was locked, but there was a narrow gap on top between the box and the ceiling. Sheila grabbed a chair from the end of her bed, ran into the corridor, stood on the chair, pushed the parcel in as far as it would go, put her chair back and then forced herself to wash her hands and walk slowly and deliberately downstairs back into the dining-room.

Lunch had just finished, and chairs scraped as the school stood up for grace. Tor what we have received may the Lord make us truly thankful,' piped one of the squits and the school sighed, ‘Amen'.

In the dormitory after lunch, puzzlement turned into disbelief, then accusations, denials, threats and finally tears, before Fiona settled down to open her remaining four presents. When the bell rang for games, the members of Starlings dispersed with new suspicions. Constance, knowing herself to be shunned, left the dormitory first. Let them talk about me behind my back, see if I care, she thought mutinously.

On their way to the changing-room before swimming, Charmian whispered fiercely to Sheila, ‘What did you do with it?'

‘Don't worry,' said Sheila soothingly. ‘It's quite safe for the moment. No-one'll find it.'

‘Well done you!' said Charmian admiringly. ‘So where did you hide it?'

‘You know that box thing in the corridor, where all the electricity goes? On top of that.'

‘Good for you! Whoof!' She heaved a deep sigh of relief, and Sheila was glad that she'd been able to help her troubled friend.

‘Now look here,' Charmian went on, ‘I've got to talk to you! Make an excuse to get out of swimming and I will too. We'll meet behind the pets' shed. Come on, Sheil, you've got to! You promised!'

For Charmian, subterfuge was simple: not only
because she lied fluently, but also because the staff had been advised to go easy on her. Sheila, however, was obliged to tell Mrs Whitby, the games mistress, that she was ‘off games, with that special look and emphasis that indicated she had the curse; and since it was not an excuse she had ever used before — she didn't yet have the curse - the lie was compounded by Mrs Whitby's kindly inquiries as to whether she ‘knew what to do' and assurances that she needn't worry, it was perfectly normal and just showed she was a big girl now. Sheila then had to make her way to Sister's room and request a packet of STs (furthermore, she knew she would have to try to remember to ask for them every month from now on) before finally racing up to the pets' shed, where she found Charmian cuddling their wide-eyed, palpitating rabbit.

‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave …' began Sheila, for that was what her father used to say when he caught her out in a fib.

‘You're barmy,' said Charmian. ‘I haven't the foggiest what you mean.'

‘Oh, forget it. Doesn't matter anyway. Though you might at least be nice to me, after all I've been through for you. Now listen, honestly, Charmie, you've got to tell me everything.'

‘I told you. It was me. I took the things.'

‘What, all of them? The Parker pens and everything?'

‘And the photograph frame. And the ten-bob note. And Fatty's writing-case,' said Charmie smugly.

‘You must be stark raving bonkers. Whatever for?'

‘To send to Dr Barnardo's. For the orphans.'

‘For what?'

‘You know. Orphans. Poor children with no mothers and fathers.'

Charmian began to cry, clutching the rabbit tightly. It
trembled in her arms, its long transparent ears flat against its back.

‘Oh, Charmie, for heaven's sake don't cry. Look, we'll sort it all out. Tell you what,
I'll
go to Old Ma B and own up. I'll say it was me that took the things and give them back, and the worst she can do is give me a stripe and I don't care.'

‘You can't,' sobbed Charmian.

‘'Course I can. Where are they? I mean apart from Feeny's parcel.'

‘I told you. I sent them to Dr Barnardo's.'

‘To Dr Barnardo's? Posted them?
How?
'

‘Simple. Easy as pie. The first lot I posted on Parents' Weekend and I waylaid the postman with the rest and gave them to him.'

‘Well, then I'll take the parcel and make up something about the others.'

‘I've already gone and got the parcel. That's why I asked where you'd hidden it.' She grinned.

‘Charmie! You really are - well, I'm sorry to hurt your feelings and so on, but I think you're
wicked
. What've you done with it?'

‘I'm not telling.'

Charmie's fair hair fell across the soft grey-and-white fur of the rabbit. They were both trembling now, and Charmian began to cry again. Sheila stroked her friend awkwardly and after a while Charmie shuddered and looked up. She fished a letter out of her pocket with her spare hand.

‘Anyway the stealing's nothing. I couldn't care less about the stupid old things. Here. Go on, you read this.'

The letter was in such extravagantly looping handwriting that Sheila couldn't decipher it, so she handed it back and said, ‘You'll have to read it to me, I can't. I haven't got a hanky. Do you want a dock leaf?'

Charmian wiped her nose and dried her eyes on the leaf, pushed her fringe back from her forehead and read her mother's letter aloud, pausing from time to time to utter a great gasping sob:

‘My own bestest little girl,

I'm afraid this is going to be a terribly difficult letter for Mummy to write ‘cos she's got very bad news for you and she wants you to promise to be brave and sensible and a really big grown-up girl. I expect the Headmistress has had a word with you already, so perhaps you know that Daddy and I don't feel we can go on being married any more. You remember nice Uncle Dickie who drove me down last Parents' Weekend, don't you? He liked you so much. Well, when this beastly divorce …'

Sheila gasped. ‘
Divorce?
'

‘Yes, divorce, OK? Now be quiet and let me go on reading.

‘When this beastly divorce is all over, Uncle Dickie and I are going to get married, and of course you'll come and live with us. I wouldn't lose my little girl for anything in the world. I know it must all seem like a dreadful shock to you just now, darling, but I promise you it'll be all right in the end and everyone will be much happier. You and me and Uncle Dickie will have such
fun
together, poppet! If you want to go on seeing your father we shall have to try to work something out for you, and if you decide it would all be too upsetting then Mummy will quite understand. One day you might even be able to think of Uncle Dickie as your Daddy! Poor baby. I wish I was there to give you a great big hug and make it all better.

Meanwhile I think it's probably best if you spend half-term with Auntie Barbara, don't you? One last thing my pet, don't talk about this. Anyway, I don't suppose you feel like it much. Remember I shall be thinking of you specially just now with bestest mostest love blah blah blah from your Mummy.'

‘See?' said Charmian triumphantly. ‘
Now
you know why I couldn't care less about the stealing.'

‘Oh, Charmie, you poor, poor thing,' said Sheila fervently. ‘I'm most dreadfully sorry.' She had heard her mother say that and it always sounded as though she'd dragged it up from the bottom of her heart.

‘No need for
you
to sound so pleased with yourself,' Charmian sneered.

‘Why? What makes you say that? I think that's really foul.'

‘Grown-ups do slushy, soppy things to each other in bed at night when they're married and if they sleep in different beds it means they don't want to do those things any more, and you said once that
your
parents don't sleep in one bed, so they'll have to get divorced too.'

‘You're making it up. I bet you haven't got the foggiest clue. Anyway, let's change the subject. I'm frightfully sorry about your parents and all that, but we ought to think of what to do with Feeny's present. I bet someone's been to Old Ma B about it by now.'

‘They do dirty things to each other underneath the blankets, and then the lady has a baby.'

Sheila's sex education was non-existent. If she gave the matter any thought, she assumed babies came out of their mothers' tummy-buttons. It made her feel squeamish to think about it, and she hadn't cared to speculate about what went on between grown-ups.
Once last term, one of the girls in the dormitory had been persuaded, after mock hesitation, to sing a song called ‘Mademoiselle d'Armentières' and Sheila had cringed with shame at the words. Some girls had giggled knowingly, but most of them had been embarrassed and rather disapproving, and the song had never been sung again. It sounded disgusting. Was that what grown-ups did to each other underneath the bedclothes? No wonder her mother wanted a bed to herself.

‘I don't believe you. You're making it up.'

‘What a baby you are! You don't know anything. Mummy's little baba. Bye baby bunting …' Charmie chanted mockingly. ‘Your father and mother must have done it too or you wouldn't be here.'

‘Oh, do shut up. I don't like talking about it,' said Sheila, primly.

‘You've gone all red.'

‘I haven't.'

‘Yes you have. Bright red. You're blushing, la la la-
la
la, Sheil's blushing, ‘cos she's embarrassed,' said Charmian in a sing-song voice.

‘Charmian, you're being a really mean pig and if you won't talk about Feeny's parcel, I shall go away and leave you on your own. Then
you
can jolly well sort it out.'

‘I won't be on my own. I've got Flopsy.'

‘I'll go and tell Miss Valentine.'

‘You wouldn't. You promised! You swore solemnly on your mother's life that you wouldn't.'