Opal Plumstead Read online

  Cassie was certainly in the mood for foolishness as she’d had several glasses of wine, but she confined herself to eyeing up all the gentlemen in the room, including the waiters, who seemed very eager to flap about her. Mother was so jovial she seized Father’s hand and brought it to her lips.

  ‘You’re the best husband in the whole world and I’m quite the luckiest wife,’ she declared, making Father’s face crumple, as if he were going to cry.

  I didn’t make any proclamations, but I raised my glass to Father. I drank it down to the dregs, consciously trying to drown all the doubt and fear coiled in my stomach.

  When we reeled home, rather the worse for wear, Father and Mother went to their room to have a nap and Cassie starting trying on all her clothes, planning to discard most of them now that she had the promise of a whole new wardrobe.

  I fetched my paintbox and tried experimenting with each of my new brushes. I composed a picture of our house, cut off down the front wall to resemble a doll’s house. I drew us cowering in corners and Billy flapping in a panic in his cage, while the animal originals of our new purchases stampeded through the house. The buffalo violently butted the coat-rack in the hallway, the giant tortoise took possession of the sofa, the kid bleated on the kitchen table, lapping up spilled milk, and the camel kicked down my bedroom door in a fury.

  I was rather pleased with the effect and showed it to Cassie, but she shook her head at me and said it was clear that the wine had addled my brain.

  On the Sunday Father took us for a pleasure boat trip on the river Thames, all the way up to London. It was a great novelty at first, looking along the riverbank and seeing all these different little islands. It made Cassie and me remember our games of ‘Island’, when she was Queen Cassie and I was Princess Opal and we ruled over our own desert island kingdom. We used to play it on Mother and Father’s big bed, pretending the dark lino all around was the sea.

  Now, we started fantasizing about owning our own island, building a little house and rowing our boat to shore to collect provisions. We got so carried away it felt as if we were nine and seven again. Father and Mother seemed to have retreated into the past too, and were huddled up together holding hands like young sweethearts. But we had all underestimated just how long the boat journey would take, and how dreary the riverside became when dark warehouses took the place of weeping willows. Mother grew pink and fretful because she needed a ladies’ room and didn’t care to use the reeking little cupboard down below. Cassie got tired of playing games and waved at all the boatmen instead. She was delighted when they responded, until they became raucous.

  We were all heartily sick of boats by the time we reached town, but Father had made the mistake of booking a return trip. We were supposed to stay in our seats, but Mother couldn’t help wishing aloud that we could go to a decent restaurant where we could have a proper bite to eat and relieve ourselves in comfort.

  ‘Very well, Lou. Hang the return trip. We’ll catch the train back instead,’ said Father grandly.

  ‘Thank you, Ernest,’ said Mother, not breathing a word about the expense of the wasted tickets.

  We went to a restaurant and ate huge portions of steak-and-kidney pudding, and then jam roll and custard. I was glad I didn’t wear corsets yet. Both Mother and Cassie squirmed uncomfortably afterwards.

  ‘I’m sure I can’t carry on eating like this. If I lose my figure, I won’t be able to fit into any of my new dresses,’ said Cassie.

  We were all tired out by the time we got home at last. We weren’t used to such hectic family outings, especially not two on the trot. We were all ready for bed, but Father insisted we stay up for a while ‘to make the most of our lovely day’. He had us playing card games together, though we were too exhausted to think straight, and then he suggested a sing-song around the piano.

  The piano was very old and battered and hadn’t been properly tuned in many a year. It had been a long-ago impulsive purchase from a curiosity shop. Mother thought that it would make our humble parlour look genteel. She couldn’t play a note and neither could Father, but Cassie and I had been forced to take piano lessons with a fierce old lady up the street. She put pennies on the backs of our hands, and poked us hard between the shoulder blades because she said we were slumping.

  Cassie soon rebelled and refused to go any more. I stuck it out because I rather wanted to be able to play the piano. I attended weekly lessons for a couple of years and practised grimly most days. I became passably competent at playing a few tunes, but I was so hopelessly unmusical that Miss Bates would cover her ears and shudder.

  ‘No, no, with feeling!’ she’d protest. ‘Not plink-plink, plod-plod. Where is the passion? Don’t you have any soul, Opal?’

  This upset me, because as I grew older I was starting to worry that I really didn’t have any soul. I didn’t seem to think the same way as anyone else. The girls at school became passionate about the silliest things. They screamed with joy if they scored a goal at hockey, they giggled and nudged each other in geography lessons because they all had a crush on the fair-haired master, and they vied with each other to run errands for Judith, the head girl. I detested hockey and couldn’t see the point of knocking a ball into a net. I thought Mr Grimes, the geography master, was a silly, vain man who delighted in all the attention, and I didn’t give a hoot for rosy-cheeked Judith and her favours.

  I couldn’t seem to let go and just be. I felt as if I were watching myself all the time, commenting slightly sourly on my actions. I couldn’t really feel passionate about anything at all. I didn’t believe in romantic love. I suppose I loved Father and Mother, and even Cassie, but in a reserved, embarrassed fashion.

  I hated playing the piano now, horribly aware of my shortcomings, but I loved Father more than anyone else, so I did my best. I hadn’t been taught any amusing singsong-in-the-parlour pieces. Miss Bates would wince at the very notion. The tunes I could play properly were either classical extracts or a selection of particularly melancholy hymns, which were completely unsuitable. So I tried very hard to play by ear, reproducing plonking versions of the music-hall numbers Mother used to sing when she was dusting, plus several silly novelty songs Olivia and the other girls sang at school. I frequently missed the right notes, but luckily Cassie knew all the songs and was word-perfect. I played badly and she sang loudly but off-key, yet somehow we sounded jolly enough to please Father. Mother joined in too, but Father didn’t try to sing. He just sat in the soft lamplight, gazing at us intently, as if he were trying to commit every little detail to memory.

  We didn’t go to bed until nearly midnight, an unheard of event in our house. Not surprisingly, we all overslept in the morning.

  I woke to hear Mother shrieking, ‘Ernest, Ernest, get up! It’s gone eight o’clock! Oh my Lord, you’ll never be at work by nine, and you’re on your last warning at the office.’

  I expected poor Father to fling on his shabby business suit and bolt from the house within minutes, but when Cassie and I went down to breakfast, pulling on clothes and doing up laces as we staggered downstairs, Father was there in the kitchen, chewing on a triangle of toast and marmalade.

  ‘Father! Why aren’t you going to work?’ I asked.

  ‘I am going to work at home today,’ said Father calmly.

  We stared at him.

  ‘Your father’s not going to the office any more. He’s going to concentrate on his writing,’ said Mother. She said it proudly, but her voice was high-pitched and she kept giving Father worried little glances.

  ‘You mean you’ve given in your notice, Father?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t really need to,’ he said.

  ‘What about a reference?’

  ‘I don’t need a reference.’

  ‘Do stop your silly questions, Opal,’ said Mother. ‘You can be very aggravating at times. Now, take a piece of buttered bread and get yourself off to school, sharpish. You quit gawping too, Cassie, and get to Madame Alouette’s. Dear me, what a pair you are.�
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  So we had to leave the house. I dare say Cassie was late and got told off. I arrived at school a full ten minutes after the bell, and then Mounty screamed at me for a further ten minutes, which was a terrible bore.

  I couldn’t concentrate all day. I didn’t even want to dawdle at the sweetshop with Olivia after school. I felt I had to get back home immediately to check on Father. He was acting so strangely now, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d discovered him perching on the chimney stack pretending to be Father Christmas, or banging a drum in the parlour in his under-drawers. But when I got home, he was neatly dressed, writing decorously in the parlour. Mother had decided that being banished to the bedroom with a tea tray was ignominious. She had set him up at the parlour table. We only used it at Christmas time. It was generally shrouded with a fringed chenille cloth. Father was writing rapidly in his manuscript book. He paused to nod his head at me. ‘Hello, my dear,’ he said, and then carried on writing.

  ‘May I join you, Father?’ I asked. ‘I could do my homework while you write.’

  I knew Mother wouldn’t trust me not to spill ink or somehow scratch the polished table, but she was busy preparing a rabbit stew in the kitchen so couldn’t intervene. I settled down at the other side of the table with my schoolbooks. Father nodded again and smiled at me, hunched over his work. The table was a fair size and I couldn’t read what he was writing, but I was impressed by the fluency of his hand.

  Then Mother came tiptoeing in with a cup of tea and exclaimed crossly when she saw me. ‘For goodness’ sake, Opal, leave your father in peace. Gather your things and go on up to your bedroom.’

  She patted Father’s shoulder and set his tea down beside him. He had covered his page protectively, but when I squeezed past his chair, I dropped my ruler and he lifted his hand to retrieve it for me. In that split second I saw what he’d written: Oh dear Lord, what am I going to do? He’d written it over and over again, as if he were doing lines for Miss Mountbank.

  I DIDN’T SAY anything to Father. If only I’d had the courage to confront him! I might have been able to help in some way. I could have devised some desperate plan. At the very least I would have urged him to run away. But I said nothing because I was too worried and embarrassed. Perhaps I thought, like Father, that if I said nothing, then somehow it wouldn’t become real.

  We both tried to act as if everything was normal that long evening, while Mother and Cassie prattled away, making plans for a grand holiday for the four of us. When we all went to bed, I put my arms around Father and hugged him hard instead of just brushing his cheek with my usual quick kiss. He hugged me back too, his hands icy cold on my back through my school tunic. I’m so glad we had that last close embrace.

  We were all late again in the morning. Mother didn’t have the same incentive to get Cassie and me out on time now that Father was choosing not to go to work. I was in more trouble with Miss Mountbank. She was outraged that I dared be late two days in a row. She said I was an idle, lazy girl who couldn’t drag herself out of bed in the morning, and I must write five hundred lines in detention: Procrastination is the thief of all time.

  ‘Poor poor you, Opie. And what on earth does pro-whatsit mean, and how do you spell it anyway?’ said Olivia.

  ‘Don’t know and don’t care,’ I said. I couldn’t be bothered to explain.

  ‘It’ll take you hours to write all that. But don’t worry, I’ll still wait for you.’

  ‘You needn’t, Olivia.’

  ‘That’s what friends are for. And you’re my absolute best friend, Opal. I was thinking – we should start our own select club. We could call ourselves the two “O”s, after our names. We could make badges with two “O”s intertwined. It would look ultra select.’

  I wasn’t so sure. It was the sort of thing that little girls did, not great girls already in their teens. But I was very fond of Olivia, so I went along with this idea, furtively designing a heraldic sign for us during geometry, and at break time I scrupulously split my Fairy Glen fondants with her – my share from the box Father had bought.

  It was lucky we filled up on fondants, because school lunch was particularly atrocious that day: fatty grey mince with lumpy mashed potato, and then frogspawn tapioca, which would make anyone heave. I was messing about with mine, stirring it with my spoon, imagining little tadpoles squirming in the milky depths, when Miss Mountbank came through the canteen door and called my name.

  ‘Oh no, not more lines,’ I muttered to Olivia.

  Miss Mountbank pointed at me and then beckoned. I had to climb off my bench and go right up to her while the whole school craned their necks to see my disgrace.

  I thought she would jab her beaky nose at me and maybe tap me about the head with a spoon. But she simply said, ‘Go to the headmistress immediately, Opal Plumstead.’

  I stared at her. You were only sent to Miss Laurel if you were in the most terrible trouble. I hadn’t been that bad, for goodness’ sake. I had been late for school and I had fooled about with my lunch. Surely these were relatively trivial crimes?

  ‘But, Miss Mountbank!’ I protested.

  Her eyes were very small and beady. ‘Go to Miss Laurel now.’

  I glanced back at Olivia, who was red in the face with shame and sympathy, and then walked out of the canteen with every single girl staring at me.

  I tried to tell myself that this was just silly old school and they couldn’t really punish me properly. I wasn’t going to be beaten or locked in a dark cupboard, but even so, I felt pretty scared. Miss Laurel could be a most formidable woman, with intricate coiled plaits pinned all over her head, like a coiffured Medusa. Last year she had awarded me a prize at Speech Day – a copy of Little Women, which I already owned and had read at least a hundred times, but I treasured it all the same, especially as it had my name in fancy italic writing and the words Form Prize embossed in gold ink.

  I knew from Miss Mountbank’s tone and the gleam in her tiny eyes that Miss Laurel didn’t want to see me to give me another prize. I knocked timidly at her door.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ she called in her very deep voice.

  I slipped into the room and stood before her, my fists clenched.

  I expected her to start berating me, but she stood up, came round her desk, and patted me on the shoulder.

  ‘There’s been a message from home, Opal. You’re needed there. You must go at once,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’ I said, totally unnerved.

  ‘Why, Miss Laurel?’ she corrected, but gently. ‘I don’t know the details, my dear. I just know that your mother is unwell and needs you now.’

  ‘My mother? Not my father . . . Miss Laurel?’

  ‘I’m simply passing on the message. I do hope this is just a temporary crisis. Now run along.’

  I ran. I ran nearly all the way home, the mince and tapioca slopping uneasily in my stomach, so that I wondered if I might have to stop and be sick in the street. Mother unwell? What on earth had happened? Mother was always in the rudest of health. She rarely had coughs or colds and I’d never known her take to her bed, ever. Father was the parent who got influenza every winter, had to inhale a steaming bowl of Friars’ Balsam, and endure goose grease rubbed into his chest.

  Why on earth would Mother call for me? Why me and not Cassie? She was the eldest and Mother’s favourite. I couldn’t help feeling a flicker of pride that Mother had asked for me.

  I was exhausted by the time I got home, my shirt sticking to my back, a hole worn in my stocking so my toe poked out uncomfortably. I let myself in the front door, calling, ‘Mother, Mother, it’s me, Opal, I’m home.’

  Mrs Liversedge from two doors along was lurking in our hallway. Mother couldn’t stand Mrs Liversedge, a large blousy woman known to be a terrible gossip. She was flushed with excitement now.

  ‘Thank goodness, Opal! I’ve taken the liberty of putting your mother to bed, she’s in such a state,’ she said. ‘I had to give her smelling salts to calm her down. Go up to her now, dear, an
d see if you can quiet her.’

  I ran up the stairs. I heard the most tremendous sobbing, a wild keening sound that seemed near demented. I ran into Mother’s room, and there she was writhing on the bed, the collar of her dress undone and her boots unbuttoned, but otherwise fully dressed. She was clutching a lace handkerchief but totally failing to mop her face. Tears were streaming rapidly down her cheeks and her nose was dripping too.

  ‘Mother? Oh, Mother, what’s happened?’ I looked around wildly. ‘Where’s Father? Is it Father? Oh Lord, what’s happened to Father?’

  Mother heaved herself up, gasping. ‘Your wretched father!’ she cried. ‘Trust you to be more concerned about your father! God rot his soul – I wish I’d never set eyes on him,’ she declared, so caught up with emotion she continued to let her eyes and nose stream freely.

  I heard footsteps and saw the dreadful Mrs Liversedge standing in the bedroom doorway, arms folded, watching avidly.

  ‘Mother, please. Stop it! You don’t know what you’re saying,’ I said. I took her lace handkerchief and tried to dab her damp face.

  ‘Oh, she knows all right,’ said Mrs Liversedge, making tutting noises with her large horsy teeth. ‘Poor soul, this has hit her hard. Your ma’s always considered herself a cut above us ordinary folk in the street, I know that. I’m not blaming her – it’s natural to want to better yourself, especially when you’ve got a husband with a fancy Oxford degree who goes off to the City every day in his serge suit, with his bowler at a jaunty angle. Oh, it’s always that type what lets you down in the end, never your decent working bloke who does his share of honest toil.’

  I wanted to scream at her. How dare she talk to us like this? Why didn’t Mother shut her up?