Coronet Among the Weeds Read online

  Except for that damn eightsome, the dance was quite fun. Afterwards we all arranged to go to a movie the next day. This boy who was my partner stayed the night with us because he lived in Surrey. He ate up all the trifles from the night before for breakfast. My mother was awfully pleased, and she thought he had nice manners. I liked him too but he didn’t make me swoon. You know. It was this other girl’s partner I liked. We all did actually. He had one of those boy-next-door faces. He was there when we went to the movies, but this girl sat next to him until the elastic in her knickers went and she had to go to the loo and find a safety-pin. Then I moved up and sat next to him. We were both laughing because it was quite funny, and he said, ‘Are you going to the rugger match tomorrow?’ and I said, ‘No.’

  I didn’t see him again after that until the Easter holidays when me and this girl got asked to a dance by the daughter of a friend of my mother. We had to take our own partners, so she brought this boy-next-door type and I didn’t know anyone I wanted to bring so I didn’t take anyone.

  The dance was in a sort of hall, and there was a band and a friend of my mother’s played the drums. He was damned good actually. Anyway, I didn’t have a partner so I had to dance with this boy called George. Honestly, it was terrible. He had glasses and his hair came up to my chin; he was much worse than anything I’d met at the dancing classes. And he just couldn’t dance. I mean, he couldn’t even do a straight walk in time to the music, and we had to do this shuffle up and down because he couldn’t manage the corners. And this other girl was having a fabulous time with her old boy-next-door type, whirling by because he danced absolutely marvellously, and they kept on smiling at me so I had to pretend George was my dream come true.

  Then the other girl was asked to dance by someone else and the boy-next-door type came up and asked me to dance. We danced a waltz and then the lights went out and he whirled me about in the candlelight and he kissed my cheek just before the lights went up. I nearly died it was so romantic. Then George came up and asked me for my address and I gave it to him just to show the boy-next-door type he wasn’t the only thing around.

  Do you know that stupid ass wrote to me. I didn’t get many letters, so of course my mother wanted to know who had written to me. I just said it was from a girl. You wouldn’t believe it, but he wrote to me at school too. All about him playing squash. It made me sick to think of him playing squash, bouncing up and down and sweating. My cousin laughed her head off though; she said I should keep the letter, but I just couldn’t bear to. It made me sick.

  I forgot about the corny old boy-next-door type after two different girls told me they were swooning about him in the cloakroom. I hate obvious men. When girls go on about a man being attractive he never is. He’s just stomping round being madly attractive. You know, ‘Here’s super old me. Now swoon everyone.’ Of course some girls find everyone attractive. No, honestly, they really do. It’s not the anything-in-trousers technique, they really think all these types are swoony. My mother says her sister’s like that. She says she tells my mother she’s got the most super young man coming to dinner and a bottle-nosed man of forty comes in. Rather sad really.

  After that the most awful thing happened. I got this nervous reaction about this uncle of mine. Least he’s not a real uncle, he’s an uncle by marriage. He’s frightfully nice actually. But God it was boring having this nervous reaction. I wasn’t in love with him or anything, I just went this awful colour every time he came into the room or said something. A friend of mine had the same thing, only she went this colour every time anyone at all looked at her. So we used to do this thing. Every time we felt a blush coming on we’d look at something white. It really helped, honestly, it was fantastic. I still do it sometimes, even now.

  Well, me and this girl kept on having bets about things. You know:

  ‘Bet you I get a bra before you do.’

  ‘Bet you I’m engaged before you are.’

  And so on. Anyway she’d won on the bra stakes. She had a bigger bust than me. So I was absolutely determined to be kissed before she was. Only it’s not so damned easy, because you’ve got to get someone to kiss you. It didn’t count if you went up and kissed them. Well, we were all at this curry party a girl-friend gave in her flat. And we sat around on the floor eating curry and wearing jeans and shirts and things. Then everyone started sort of dancing a bit, and this boy in a kilt did a Highland-fling in the hall.

  But I just went on dancing with this same boy all the time, because I knew if you wanted someone to kiss you, you had to dance with him the whole evening. I didn’t like dancing with just one person, but I wanted to win this bet. I’d got quite good at talking to people by then. I mean I didn’t feel shy or anything, and I think he rather liked me. I quite liked him actually, and he didn’t have spots or anything. I did draw the line at being kissed the first time by someone with spots. I mean you can take betting too far.

  Anyway, they switched the corny old light off for the last dance, and he said,

  ‘Can I kiss you?’

  And I said,

  ‘All right.’

  So he did.

  I was jolly disappointed. I don’t know what I expected to happen, but it was so dull. Honestly, I remember thinking what a lot of fuss people made about nothing. He kissed me again by the back door after he’d driven me home. I thought I’d better let him, though I didn’t like it much, but anyway I won that bet.

  Then this boy called Mervyn whom I’d met at the dancing classes rang me up and asked me to this party. He just said it was a party so I put on a sort of party dress and flowers in my hair, and me and a girlfriend went to his flat. She was wearing a party dress too. When we arrived at his flat we rang the bell but nothing happened, so I pushed the door and it opened. So I said,

  ‘Let’s go in.’

  It was one of those flats with long expensive corridors. You know. You wouldn’t know you were walking the carpets are so thick. The only way you can tell is that your legs keep moving. Anyway we walked along these corridors, and kept peering in and out of different rooms, but they were all just terribly quiet and expensive. Then we got to the end of this corridor and we heard a gramophone going, so we went in. And it was terribly dark, nothing but a few candles. I was a bit scared and I said,

  ‘Shall we go?’

  But this other girl said,

  ‘No, hell let’s stay and see what happens.’

  I couldn’t help thinking about my mother. She gets a bit conventional sometimes. I didn’t think it was her sort of party. But we found Mervyn, and he was a bit drunk, but he introduced us to these other friends of his who were quite nice, and we all danced a bit, and I didn’t feel so nervous. And there was a boy sitting in a corner reading a book and laughing, and they all asked if I’d read it. I hadn’t. So they said I should: it was a frightfully rude book someone had bought in Paris. But I said I didn’t want to. Honestly, I’m not a prude, but I hate that awful commercial-traveller attitude. You know: it must be funny because it’s rude. Actually I think the English are rather awful like that. Anyway, this boy called Mervyn kept on giving me these drinks that tasted just like lemonade, but I realised they couldn’t be when I started feeling dizzy. I said to the boy I was dancing with,

  ‘I feel a bit drunk.’

  And he said,

  ‘You look a bit drunk.’

  So I went and looked in the mirror, and I looked awful. The flowers were hanging off their kirby grip, and someone had spilt something on my dress. I said to this boy,

  ‘Maybe I’ll feel better when I’ve had something to eat.’

  But he said why didn’t I try walking in a straight line and that he’d help me. I just couldn’t do it. So they got this other boy and they all helped me along very slowly, but I looked so funny that we kept on giggling. All the time, though, I kept on wondering what my mother would say if she saw me. It was some thought. Honestly, she’d have had a fit. Then Mervyn started throwing glasses at the wall. I think he must have felt insecur
e or something. He just kept on picking up these glasses and throwing them at the wall. There was nothing wrong with the glasses, he just kept on breaking them. Mind you, his parents were divorced.

  I went up to him, and he stopped throwing glasses, and I said I wanted to go home and thank you for the lovely party. But he said I couldn’t possibly go home, I must come to this night club he knew. I said I didn’t like night clubs. Actually I’d never been in one. He said I would adore this one, so everyone got into a taxi, and I had to go too because I didn’t have the taxi money to take me home. When we arrived, there wasn’t enough money for everyone to go in, but I wasn’t going to miss seeing inside now I was there, so six of us went in with Mervyn. It was as corny as anything inside. Honestly, all that money, and there wasn’t any decent vice anywhere. It was just rather dark and there was this old band playing away, and a lot of old men sitting around with women and thinking and eating. And a few of them were creeping up and down the floor with these stupid-looking blondes. And that was all. Still it made something to talk about at school.

  Then Migo and I decided to give a party. We made up a rhyming invitation, sitting on the radiator at school, and she typed it out on cards with one of the nuns’ typewriters. They looked rather good and we knew a lot of people by then, what with the dancing classes and things. My mother said we could have the party in our house. She spent days putting nuts on trifles and cheese in celery and things, and we put the food in the dining-room downstairs and kept the drawing-room for dancing and asked this woman in to wash up. All the parents went off for the evening as soon as they saw everyone arriving. We had this huge bowl of punch in the drawing-room and rock-and-roll records.

  Actually it was quite gay. Everyone started dancing and playing these games where you have to stand on a matchbox with a name written on your back and try and find someone to match the name on your back. Then whoever finds the person that matches them, without getting off the matchbox, wins. I went down to the kitchen when they started passing grapefruits under their chins. There was this woman there washing up.

  ‘The floor’s going to give in,’ she said.

  I looked at the ceiling, and it did look a bit bendy.

  ‘It oughtn’t to be allowed,’ she said.

  She wasn’t very nice. And she had this nervous tic. She kept on licking her finger and pushing at her forehead with it. Like one of those fly-catching frogs with long tongues.

  I went upstairs with more glasses, and they’d all started dancing in our garden. It’s not very big, but anyway they did. And, do you know, it was fantastic the next morning. There wasn’t a single thing growing there. It gave my father a bit of a shock I can tell you. Honestly, one moment he was looking for greenfly and the next he was just standing around with all this earth.

  ‘Your father’s very hurt,’ my mother said.

  It’s always much worse if they’re hurt. I think she knows that.

  ‘A friend of mine broke the punch-bowl,’ I said.

  ‘Are you sure he’s a friend?’ she said. She can be rather sarcastic sometimes. The drawing-room smelt like a pub for weeks, but I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

  Well, the thing was what with one thing and another I was nearly sixteen by this time. So my mother said I should leave school. She doesn’t believe in girls knowing a frightful lot or going to university. She says they’re mucky, the rooms of girls who go to university, I mean. She just thinks girls should have a bit of culture, and know how to cook and keep things clean. Actually I don’t know if she isn’t right sometimes. I mean all those suffragettes and things, no one gets up for you on the Tube now. I think it must have been quite fun when women were rather mysterious, and men didn’t know all about them. Look at the end-product of women being free. I mean, go on, look at it. It’s a poor old career girl sitting in her digs wondering whether she ought to ring up her boy-friend or not. It makes you think sometimes.

  Anyway, my mother said she thought I ought to leave school. The nuns didn’t want me to, but she did. So I did. I was jolly sad to leave school actually. I went to the most super convent. All the nuns were marvellous; honestly, they were the most broadminded people you’ve ever met. I get very cross about nuns. People always go on and on about them not knowing anything and shutting themselves away from life and all that stuff. Like the saints. I bet if you met a saint he’d make Wyatt Earp look like a weed. Really, they had to be frightfully tough.

  Migo went to a convent too. She left when she was sixteen with me. She wanted to go to Paris. We both did. We used to sit about and talk about it, and make up the most marvellous things that were going to happen to us. But this nun asked Migo if she thought she had a vocation. Honestly, she really thought Migo would make a good nun. We couldn’t get over it. I remember I was so stunned I kept on asking her if it was true. I ask you – Migo a nun. They never asked me if I wanted to be a nun. I don’t think I ever showed any tendencies actually. Most girls do. I remember I once asked my mother what she’d do if I became a nun, and she said I couldn’t possibly, it was too expensive. She’s quite holy, but you have to give them this lump sum when you go in, and we never seem to have lump sums.

  Actually I don’t think that nun could have known Migo very well. Anyone can see she’s just looking for a superman.

  2

  Just before I went to Paris with Migo, I fell in love. It was the older man routine. Though he wasn’t that old actually, but he was a grown-up and I wasn’t. I didn’t like it much, being in love I mean. But I was quite resigned. It’s just one of those things you have to go through, like teething or something. I fell in love with him for a funny reason. It sounds stupid. But he didn’t flirt with me or anything. And he had the most innocent eyes. I know it sounds soppy for a man, but they were really innocent. ’Course he was amusing and good looking too, but that was the main reason, this sort of innocence I mean.

  He was an actor, and he was staying with us till he got a flat. He used to rehearse in his room, and I would sit on the stairs for hours listening to him. That’s the thing about being in love, you find yourself doing nutty things, and you don’t even think they’re nutty. I knew a girl once who was madly in love with a married man, and she used to stand outside his house with her mother’s hats on, waiting for his wife to go out. She didn’t want the wife to know what she looked like. I said, didn’t it get a bit boring, and she said, yes, but it was worth it.

  It’s pretty funny living in the same house as someone you’re in love with. I used to have breakfast and everything with this actor, and sit on the kitchen stairs and talk. And he used to lend me his aftershave lotion to stop my mother smelling when my dogs made pools on the carpet.

  Migo and I had to go by train to Paris because of my luggage. My mother’s got funny ideas about luggage. I once watched her packing for a weekend. She kept walking round her room muttering and putting clothes in suitcases.

  ‘I must take my gold lamé for drinks, and my blue for dinner, and six jumpers because the heating’s so bad, and my tweed in case we beagle.’

  ‘You don’t know how to beagle,’ I said. But she said you never knew.

  Even when I’d gone to Paris she never stopped sending me parcels with more clothes and medicines in them. She made me swear on the family Bible, that my aunt’s poodle chewed up, that I wouldn’t buy French medicines and to send her a telegram if I was ill. When I was ill, they never gave me anything but suppositories. Honestly, whatever you had wrong with you they just said:

  ‘Ah-ha, il faut les suppositoires.’

  Nothing much happened on the journey to Paris except someone was sick down my coat. I told my mother when I rang her after we arrived, but she wasn’t interested. She was annoyed about this person not waiting till they got to the loo. She said there was no excuse, you could always feel it coming on, and really it was too annoying all down my nice new coat.

  I was staying with a Marquis in Paris. A very nice Marquis actually, with six children and a very old flat near the
Pont des Arts. They were de-moneyed aristocrats, like my family. Only I think we enjoy it more than they did. I think you either do or you don’t. I know my mother’s jolly relieved; she says she couldn’t have stood all those draughty castles. But some people miss them – their castles I mean – they sit about and regret them and talk about their ancestors. Ancestors are hell’s boring. I’ve had to sit through eveningfuls of them. It’s all right if there are lots of people, because they all talk quite happily about their own, and no one listens. Like when everyone starts talking about their fillings. They all have their fingers in their mouths pointing out their fillings so no one listens to anyone else, but they’re quite happy. But, if you get only a couple of people telling you about the Battle of Bilsworth Common, you’ve got to listen. Then sure as hell they’ll suddenly find they’re related and go all the way back to the Black Death, and you’ve had it.

  Migo was staying with a family of Communists. She said they weren’t at all bad, they just kept on going on about Moscow. Everything in Moscow was marvellous, rather like the Irish and the Old Country. Migo got a bit bored of Moscow at every meal, so she said, why didn’t they go and live there if it was so marvellous. They said, no, they weren’t rats to desert a sinking ship, they preferred to fight for Communism in Paris. What I said to Migo was, I bet they’d get browned off if all the women in Paris looked like the women in Moscow. I bet they would too.

  Migo said that except for Moscow they were quite nice. Amusing too, which is unusual for Communists really. On the whole they’re a bit inclined to be po-faced. When I was about fourteen I got a bit atheistic, so I thought I’d have a go at being a Communist. My mother was frightful squashing. She said I’d never be any good, I was far too happy and washed too much. And I hadn’t got a grudge. Apparently it’s no good unless you’ve got a grudge.