The Following Girls Page 9

  According to Ads and Admen there was going to be a new bubble bath campaign which would be designed for the young teen market, advertised in magazines called things like 19, but read by Lower Fourths in a hurry. The new product was called Three Wishes. The cheap scent, oil and soap it was made of separated out into layers of orange, red and yellow gunk, which meant you had to shake the bottle hard before using, then offer up your three wishes. Baker stared at the carriage ceiling wishing she was thinner, wishing she was twenty-two, wishing Julia Smith would get off her back.

  Julia got out of the far door when the train stopped and breezed along the platform to the exit, the pleats of her divided skirt lapping against the back of her thighs beneath the shortie blazer, her not-especially-limited resources bouncing revoltingly as she walked. She walked very fast. In a hurry to get to O’Brien presumably: spill beans, let cats out of bags. Another letter home.

  Baker swam wearily against the tide of passengers surging up the stairs to the platform and grumbling at her for bucking the morning trend. She paused just beyond the station entrance to peer in through the steamy windows of the Victory Café and check if Bunty was at one of the tables. Sometimes, when Baker managed to catch an earlier train, they would meet there and spend half a blissful hour and forty pence on two teas and a buttered bun, composing dirty limericks and watching the office workers milling past, the same faces almost to the minute, on their way to take up their places in the ‘real world’ as Mrs Mostyn liked to call it.

  The café clock read eight fifteen. Baker almost ran up the hill to the school gate and just caught Bunty in the empty cloakroom, about to head off for Registration.

  ‘The balloon’s about to go up.’

  ‘A balloon? We have a balloon? Now you tell me. Not a word about it in the prospectus. Can you get a badge for it?’

  ‘Stop wittering, woman. Julia Smith just saw me having a fag on the train.’

  ‘Her again? Is she following you? Are you following her?’

  Baker didn’t smile but then maybe Bunty wasn’t joking – hard to tell after yesterday. They were back on speakers right enough, but it still wasn’t quite the same.

  The two of them sneaked back into the cloakroom after assembly. Free periods were supposed to be spent in the library but the librarian taught first year elocution on Wednesday mornings (Browning, Belloc, Little Yellow Dogs) so there was only the slimmest chance of discovery.

  The cloakroom smelled powerfully of gym shoes and wet fish. Wednesday’s domestic science project was to be rollmop herrings, ‘a nourishing and economical supper dish’ according to Mrs Chifley but an odd choice for a class of girls who’d never knowingly eaten a piece of fish without batter on it.

  ‘It’ll be tripe next.’ Bunty was curled up on the windowsill on top of the radiator. Not a proper window, more of a vent really, designed to make escape impossible – you never saw windows like that on houses. She yanked it open and lit one of her new cigarettes with a flourish. The packet had drawings of flowers all over it and the fags themselves were unusually long and thin with a band of daisies marking where the filter began. Cigarettes for girls.

  No dog fags yet (beagles didn’t count; beagles would smoke anything). But they already had children’s fags. Not just the tiny white sugar ones. Baker remembered once buying cousin David a whole chocolate smoker’s set for his birthday: chocolate pipe, chocolate tobacco, a box of chocolate matches, a pack of chocolate fags rolled in edible paper and a huge chocolate ashtray all nesting in custom-moulded dimples in a big cellophane-fronted box. Everything but chocolate lungs. There was no girl’s equivalent. No flowery packs or pink sugar cigarette holders. Nothing to be going on with until you could pass for sixteen and buy the real thing (not that the old man in the fag shop ever cared). Smoking was your destiny, one of the things grown-ups did, like Scotch whisky and headaches and indigestion tablets.

  You didn’t wake up on your sixteenth birthday with a royal flush of adult kit (fag in one hand, pack of three in the other), not like one of Mrs Mostyn’s tribes where you got locked in a typical hut while the tattoos healed. In deepest South London the signs of adulthood were awarded in stages like personal survival badges: sherries at Christmas; a dab of lipstick on the bridesmaid; a trendy aunt offering you a few puffs after the wedding. They knew you’d end up with the whole set eventually, but they liked to pick and choose: one minute they wanted to keep you in vests and socks and sandals and ponytails and take-that-stuff-off-your-face-Amanda; the next they were on at you for being ‘immature’ when you didn’t play nicely about the nine-to-four school day plus homework, plus netball practice. A 50-hour week? Miners struck for less.

  ‘You’re supposed to leave the last third.’ Bunty waved her cigarette at Baker’s Rothman which was almost down to the filter. ‘Says so on this little card thingy – “leave longer stubs and take fewer puffs” – buy more fags, in other words. I mean, how come they carry on selling them if it’s so bloody bad for you? How come your parents carry on doing it? “Wish I’d never star-ted, dah-ling.”’ Mummy in the room all of a sudden. ‘But Mummy says the same about plucking her eyebrows and that doesn’t give you cancer – or does it? Maybe it does . . .’

  Bunty lit another cigarette from the remains of her last one – not quite the look the brand manager had in mind – and flicked the still-glowing stub out of the window.

  ‘At least Spam leaves you alone.’

  Bunty was always saying that, pretending to envy Baker her semi-detached stepmother who didn’t do cosy chats and had the grace to take a back seat at parents’ evenings and who wasn’t forever bursting into your bedroom to tell you how much deodorant to use or how your father would be so proud if you’d only pass Grade Seven or finish in the top fifteen or stop shaving your legs with his safety razor.

  ‘I think Mummy sees me as Gloria Bunter-Byng Mark II: new improved, with added flavour, fewer calories, bigger tits, more miles per gallon,’ she giggled. ‘“Don’t make the dweadful mistakes I made dah-ling.” Explains everything: not being allowed to give up Chemistry, piano lessons. Everything. Her latest wheeze is for me to leave after O levels and do one of Mrs McQueen’s crappy Cordon Bleu courses, then get a job cooking directors’ lunchicles in the city somewhere. With luck I will look so fetching dishing up the boeuf en croute I’ll be able to truss and stuff a spiffy little company director and drag him back to the family cave. Never mind whether I’d like it or not. I don’t want to be a bloody skivvy.’

  Baker was due a termly careers check-up that afternoon: a quarter of an hour locked in the sick bay with Miss Batty and her leaflet collection.

  ‘Tell her you’re settled on nursing, that’s what I said. She has loads of leaflets on nursing so she feels useful. And you only need about three O Levels cos they teach you it all anyway, so she can’t say you’re aiming too high like she does when you say fashion designer or airline pilot.’

  ‘I could always say teaching, I suppose.’

  Baker pulled out the Eunuch and began quoting the bit about teachers and servility.

  ‘Only one third of teachers are still at work after six years in the job. All that training down the drain.’

  Bunty yawned. ‘Baker dearie, could you possibly, just once, read a book and then just keep it to yourself? Just to please me?’

  Baker caught her breath: what a rotten thing to say.

  ‘Sor-ree. Pardon me for breathing.’ Was she really that boring?

  ‘No, doll, don’t take it the wrong way but I really mean it. Whenever you read anything you never stop banging on about it. Like Dr O’Brien reading out bits from the paper in assembly – gets on your nerves. Deadly. Nick hates it when I read anything out.’

  Nick again.

  Bunty shrugged and smiled. An automatic there-that-didn’t-hurt smile and she was all ready to change the subject and no hard feelings. Bugger that. Baker took an angry, actressy drag on her fag and hit right back in a shouty whisper.

  ‘Sod right off. Boeuf en crou
te’s about all you’re fit for. It’s important. It’s not just boring stuff you can’t be bothered to read.’

  Bunty did her cute ‘sorry’ face – only not so cute. Must have worked once upon a time when the hair was blonder and curlier, the eyes bluer and larger in that cheeky baby face. A daddy’s girl – you could always tell: they gave it away whenever they tried to win you over by turning on one of those pathetic doggie-in-the window looks. Mummy’s girls worked on a different principle: deceit, bribery, guilt. Baker had herself down as a mummy’s girl – just minus the mummy.

  Bunty wasn’t giving up. Nonono Baker was quite right. Bunty knew zackly what she meant. Sorry to snap, sorry for being a cow. Falling over herself to be nice. Did Baker want a nice chocolate biscuit? Nice fag, then? And please do lend her the book because yes-no-absolutely, God, no, didn’t want to end up dishing five star pommes dauphinoise to James D Right Esq.

  ‘Talk about getting off on the wrong foot. You’d end up tied to the stove if you cooked to that sort of standard. Lousy cooks like Mummy have a much easier life. Start boning and rolling and they’ll expect it nightly: “What’s for dinner, darling?”, “Entrecote chasseur, Sachertorte and a spot of fellatio anglais to follow.”’

  ‘And Stottie thought those language classes were a waste of time.’

  And Bunty smiled again. Not the daddy’s girl simper this time but a proper smile, like a toy with a light on inside.

  ‘Couldn’t your dad get you a job breaking stock or something?’

  ‘With my maths? You’re barmy.’

  ‘Yeah, but you can do sums. Oonagh Houseman wants to be a doctor like her dad and she’s a semi-moron.’

  ‘So? Probably an advantage. My GP’s a halfwit. My GP’s a halfwit. He wears a halfwit’s hat.’

  ‘I reckon you can take this whole daddy’s footsteps lark too far,’ said Baker. ‘My dad’s a surveyor and no power human or divine is going to get me into that lark: wandering in and out of hot huts in hard hats all day, drinking tea and quantifying aggregate or whatever it is he does on his “projects”. I don’t want any job that has its own headgear.’

  ‘Except Queen,’ said Bunty, ‘and policewoman, ob-viously. What is aggregate anyway?’

  ‘You get it in football.’ Queenie had just arrived from double Art. ‘Leeds United are on it.’ She squinted across at Baker’s advertising magazine.

  ‘Three Wishes, eh? What would yours be?’

  A funny look on Bunty’s face, like she’d been asked this one before and always got it wrong.

  ‘Smaller tits, longer legs and a Lamborghini. How about you, Baker baby, what are your three?’

  ‘Roxy Music,’ she lied.

  ‘There’s four of them. Five, possibly.’

  ‘Yeah, but not the bald one, ob-viously.’

  As the Mandies jostled back out into the corridor towards their History lesson, Baker saw Julia coming in the opposite direction.

  ‘You can’t go on meeting like this,’ muttered Bunty in come-to-the-casbah tones. Cow. Like she was jealous or something.

  The sixth-former stumbled along the crowded corridor and deliberately bumped Baker with her tote bag as she passed and, before Baker could speak, crackled a folded scrap of paper into the side of her bag. Bunty stared after her in surprise.

  ‘Getting a bit bolshie, isn’t she?’

  Baker was almost fighting for breath, heart racing.

  ‘She’s put something in my bag . . . a note.’

  ‘Oh shit. Wossit say?’

  Baker’s voice was cold, dry.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you everything.’

  She dumped her bag on a desk in the far corner and, with her back to the blackboard, began reaching into the side pocket for the bit of paper Julia had put there, trying and failing not to catch on the torn skin around her nails.

  ‘Amanda!’ Mrs Horst’s cracked soprano rose above the buzz of arriving Upper Shells. ‘Bags over here please. Test today, don’t forget. Pencils are provided.’

  The note was in too deep and the Horst would be sure to think it was a crib and confiscate it and read it. But read what? If Julia had reported her to O’Brien what did she need to send a note for? What was she after?

  Mrs Horst began going over the previous week’s homework – a freehand map of Ancient Egypt – and itemising her disappointment: colours too strong; not coloured enough.

  ‘Print place names, please and make a note of my corrections. Very nice, Joanna.’ (This in an undertone to her pet.) ‘Only one S in Rosetta, Davina.’ But today’s special treatment was reserved for Bunty.

  ‘Was this supposed to be a joke, Amanda? Because I can tell you here and now that I am not amused by it.’

  Girls on all sides craned to see the map in her hand.

  ‘It’s topological, Mrs Horst.’

  ‘It’s to be done again.’

  And all at once Bunty lost her rag, her voice getting louder, her face getting redder as she demanded what the hell was wrong with it. Any fool could see it was Egypt (it had ‘Egypt’ written on it for one thing). North, South, East and West all worked, Thebes was south of Rosetta (only one S). It was only supposed to be a basic outline. It wasn’t as though they were all planning to go there on a hiking tour for Christ’s sake. If they were, they’d buy a proper map, wouldn’t they? Or hire a native guide, or get the tour bus, or a ta-xi.

  Suppressed giggles (ta-xi clinched it) and a thrill of anticipation breezed round the room. Mrs Horst had gone very pink. Her lips were trembling with unspoken retorts and ingenious punishments, but Bunty was unstoppable. Straight to Dr O’Brien’s office? That suited Bunty just fine. The Horst had asked for ‘A Sketch Map’ – Bunty jabbed at her prep diary with a furious finger. S-k-e-t-c-h. If she wanted pages copied from the atlas then she should have bloody well said so.

  And with that she shimmied out from behind her desk, extracted her tote bag from the mound under the blackboard and stormed from the room.

  ‘Great telly,’ muttered Queenie.

  You could see that Mrs Horst was at a loss as she weighed up the pros and cons of a. keeping her cool and handing out the multiple choice papers or b. chasing after Bunty and rugby tackling her before she reached the blasted headmistress. O’Brien could be tricky. She was frightfully keen on ‘cross-fertilisation’ as she called it, and Bunter-Byng’s lazy little map might be exactly the sort of thing she was after. The girl would be punished for discourtesy but the damage would have been done . . .

  Mrs Horst grew up in a world where a mistress would have left an exam room without a qualm if the need arose. The girls would all have been ‘on their honour’ not to cheat, sighed Mrs Horst to herself, but leave this fifth form zoo without supervision and you could definitely wave goodbye to ‘exam conditions’. And yet there’d be no time left for the progress test at all if she risked delaying the start till after her return . . . Her dilemma was resolved by the History monitor taking the pile of test papers from the front desk.

  ‘Shall I hand these out, Mrs Horst?’

  Oh well. With any luck O’Brien would be out in any case. As the class settled down to its test (Mark Antony was defeated at a. Trasimene, b. Trebia, c. Actium, d. Antirrhinum), Jennifer Horst returned to her chair and set about tearing the offending map from Bunter-Byng’s book together with the companion half of the sheet at the back: as if it had never been.

  Trying to present a calm front, she made a circuit of the silent room, oblivious to the frantic semaphore of signs and pointings as Upper Five A collectively upped its average. The mistress noted with unworthy satisfaction that the foreign-looking girl whose name she could never remember was circling her answers instead of cancelling them with the neat vertical line specified in the exam board’s rubric, thus invalidating her entire paper. There was always one. It would be a useful object lesson to the rest of the class when the results were pinned up: nought out of forty: naughty. But Mrs Horst was rather ashamed at the pleasure it gave her to contemplate the tearful sc
enes and caught the girl’s eye, giving her head a cross little shake. The silly creature frowned at her paper and hastily rubbed out the ring around answer a. and circled d. instead: Mrs Horst was a sport. The mistress sighed again and turned away. What was the point?

  ‘Fifteen minutes have gone, you have five minutes left.’

  Mrs Horst gazed out of the window at the rainy spring sky. She was still itching to go downstairs and collar the Bunter-Byng baggage: give her some lines or some copying to do, some rocks to break – Mrs Mostyn wouldn’t have hesitated. Mrs Horst’s heart was still drumming hard from the girl’s assault. It didn’t use to be like this when she did her B.Ed. Nobody had mentioned not letting your pupils smell fear; riot, rebellion, gross impertinence, third party, fire and theft hadn’t really been anticipated, not in fee-paying schools. The better type of girl knew how to behave and even the charity pupils were no trouble, a few rough edges but generally pleasant enough and keener, if anything. Nowadays one could scarcely tell the two tribes apart. Bunter-Byng didn’t have a scholarship. Her grandmother had been one of the original thirty Fawcettians but it made no odds. The girl was discourteous at the best of times, and as for that lunatic tirade about the lazy so-called map she’d drawn . . . Almost as though she were trying to get herself expelled from the room, or miss the test . . . This worm of doubt arrived too late. Damn. By now the girl might be regaling the head with her topological tosh. Damn, damn, damn.

  Test over, Mrs Horst returned to the chalkface. Could anyone tell her the three causes of the Graeco–Persian wars? Anyone?

  Not a single hand raised.

  ‘Amanda McQueen, let’s have one cause shall we? One reason for Xerxes’ invasion . . .?’

  ‘Boredom?’

  ‘Don’t be flippant, Amanda. Examiners don’t like it.’