them, aren’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You’d be surprised how often I hear the same story.’
The two women stood close together at the window, linked by a sort of despair.
‘I wish I knew what was going on,’ said Mrs Kent.
‘Don’t we all.’
They went back into the office where the girls, who had been giggling and laughing at the older women’s expense, resumed their silence and their sulky looks.
Mrs Kent said, ‘I’m going to give you another chance. Mrs Lennox says she will help you. But in fact I am exceeding my brief; I hope you both understand that you have had a very narrow escape. You are both fortunate girls, to have a friend in Mrs Lennox.’ This last remark was a mistake, though Mrs Kent could not know that. Frances could positively hear the seethe of resentment in the girls, in Rose at least, that they could owe anyone anything.
Outside the building, on the pavement, they said they would go off shopping.
‘If I told you not to shoplift,’ said Frances, ‘would you take any notice?’
But they went off without looking at her.
That night they announced at supper that they had nicked the two Biba, or Biba-type dresses they were wearing, both so short they could only have been chosen with the intention of inviting shock or criticism.
And Sylvia did say she thought they were too short, in an effort that cost her a good deal to assert herself.
‘Too short for what?’ jeered Rose. She had not looked at Frances once, all evening, and this morning’s crisis might never have happened. Jill, though, did say in a hurried mutter that combined politeness with aggression, ‘Thanks, Frances, thanks a million.’
Andrew told the girls they were bloody lucky to have got off, and Geoffrey, the accomplished shoplifter, told them it was easy not to get caught if you were careful.
‘You can’t be careful on the Underground,’ said Daniel, who did not buy tickets, in emulation of his idol, Geoffrey. ‘It’s luck. You either get caught or you don’t.’
‘Then don’t travel on the Underground without a ticket,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Not more than twice. It’s stupid.’
Daniel, publicly criticised by Geoffrey, went red and said he had travelled ‘for years’ without a ticket and had only been caught twice.
‘And the third time?’ said Geoffrey, instructing him.
‘Third time unlucky,’ chorused the company.
That was the week that Jill allowed herself to get pregnant, no, invited it.
All these dramas had played themselves out in the four months since Christmas and, as if nothing had happened, here were the protagonists, here were the boys and girls, sitting around the table on that spring evening making plans for the summer.
Geoffrey said he would go to the States and join the fighters for racial equality ‘on the barricades’. A useful experience for Politics and Economics at the LSE.
Andrew said he would stay here and read.
‘Not The Ordeal of Richard Feverel,’ said Rose. ‘What crap.’
‘That too,’ said Andrew.
Sylvia, invited to go with Jill to her cousins in Exeter (‘It’s a groovy place, they’ve got horses’) said no, she would stay here and read too. ‘Julia says I should read more. I did read some of Johnny’s books. You’d never believe it, but until I got to this house I didn’t know there were books that weren’t about politics.’ This meant, as everyone knew, that Sylvia could not leave Julia: she felt too frail to stand on her own.
Colin said he might go and pick grapes in France, or perhaps try his hand at a novel: at this there was a general groan.
‘Why shouldn’t he write a novel?’ said Sophie, who always stuck up for Colin because he had hurt her so terribly.
‘Perhaps I shall write a novel about St Joseph’s,’ said Colin. ‘I shall put us all in.’
‘That isn’t fair,’ said Rose at once. ‘You can’t put me in because I’m not at St Joseph’s.’
‘How very true that is,’ said Andrew.
‘Or perhaps I could write a novel all about you,’ said Colin. ‘“The Ordeals of a Rose.” How about that?’
Rose stared at him, then, suspiciously around. They all stared solemnly at her. Baiting Rose had become a far too frequent sport, and Frances tried to defuse the moment, which threatened tears, by asking, ‘And what are your plans, Rose?’
‘I’ll go and stay with Jill’s cousin. Or I might hitchhike in Devon. Or I might stay here,’ she added, facing Frances with a challenge. She knew Frances would be pleased to have her gone, but did not believe this was because of any unpleasant qualities in herself. She did not know she was unlikeable. She was usually disliked, and thought that this was because of the general unfairness of the world: not that she would have used the word dislike or even have thought it: people picked on her, they put their shit on her. People who are kind or good-looking or charming or all three; people who trust others, never have any idea of the little hells inhabited by someone like Rose.
James said he was going to a summer camp, recommended by Johnny, to study the senescence of capitalism and the inner contradictions of imperialism.
Daniel said forlornly that he supposed he would have to go home, and Geoffrey said kindly, ‘Never mind, the summer won’t be for ever.’
‘Yes, it will,’ said Daniel, his face flaming with misery.
Roland Shattock said he was going to take Sophie on a walking tour in Cornwall. Noting signs of misgiving on certain faces – Frances’s, Andrew’s – he said, ‘Oh, don’t panic, she’ll be safe with me, I think I’m gay.’
This announcement which now would be met by nothing much more than, ‘Really?’, or perhaps sighs from the women, was too casual then to be tactful, and there was general discomfort.
Sophie at once cried out that she didn’t care about that, she just liked being with Roland. Andrew looked gracefully rueful, and could almost be heard thinking that he wasn’t queer.
‘Oh, well, perhaps I’m not,’ amended Roland. ‘After all, Sophie, I’m crazy about you. But have no fear, Frances, I’m not one to abduct minors.’
‘I’m nearly sixteen,’ said Sophie indignantly.
‘I thought you were much older when I saw you dreaming so beautifully in the park.’
‘I am much older,’ said Sophie, truthfully: she meant her mother’s illness, her father’s death, and then Colin’s ill-treatment of her.
‘Beautiful dreamer,’ said Roland, kissing her hand, but in a parody of the continental hand kiss that salutes the air
