The Lido Girls Read online

  ‘We’re friends, friends with similar interests – that’s all.’ She hated to think their friendship had been subject to dissection and speculation, that they stood out simply because they understood one another. Her cheeks were hot once more.

  ‘It’s all right. I’m not prying.’ Jack held up his hand. ‘For what it’s worth, I agree. Delphi needs her own life and I’m working on something actually; let’s call it Jack’s escape plan.’ He brushed his lips to zip them together.

  ‘Are you still dreaming of becoming an Olympic diver?’ she asked.

  ‘Always,’ he said, ‘always.’

  *

  It had been raining in Kent. The air was damp and chilled for so close to May. Jack slid a packet of Navy Cut cigarettes from his back pocket. He offered one to Natalie – she shook her head – and then he slotted one between his teeth and lit it, his spare hand slouched in his baggy trouser pocket. Then came the sweet tobacco as it burnt in the night air and drifted away.

  She removed her own bag from the boot, thanked him for driving her back. He took her by surprise; moving in to embrace her, his hands spread on her back, and she closed her eyes for a second or two before she jerked away and pulled herself free.

  ‘So what’s next for you?’ She held her satchel in front of her and backed away from him.

  ‘Training and trying to make the team for the Berlin games next year.’ He smoothed his fringe back with his fingers. ‘And I’m on the job hunt. The less time spent with Mother, the better.’

  ‘It will be good for Delphi to have you home. If you’re feeling miserable already, think what it’s like for her.’

  ‘Over there…’ he gestured in the dark towards America ‘…it was easy to forget what was going on at home, but now I’m back here, well…’ He trailed away.

  ‘It’s not so easy to ignore?’ she offered as he pulled on his cigarette.

  He nodded in the darkness. ‘We’ll see if my escape plan leads us anywhere.’

  A branch snapped behind a shadowy rhododendron bush at the border of the driveway. A fox or a badger perhaps. Then a rustling of leaves. She strained her eyes towards the dark mass and approached it. Then the night returned to the deep silence of the countryside.

  ‘You’d better be on your way, or I’ll be in trouble.’

  He climbed back into the driver’s seat. ‘Let’s not leave it another seven years,’ he said as he tipped his hat and snapped the door shut.

  She listened to his tyres crunching back down the gravel until the sound of the engine faded away, the residue of Olympia’s cacophony still playing faintly in her ears. It had been so nice to escape for a few hours, to feel the pulse of life beyond the grounds, but she was back where she belonged now and there was no use her being down in the dumps about it.

  What does Jack have planned? She wandered back towards the house, hoping he might do a better job of helping Delphi, perhaps undo the damage she’d done tonight with Prunella Stack.

  In the darkness, the mansion house felt more like a stranger than the old friend she’d left behind earlier that afternoon. There was a disconcerting feeling of not knowing where the college ended and the night began. Several rectangles of yellow light were beacons in the night. Beacons that should have been long extinguished. Lights out was hours ago. But then the Principal, Miss Lott, was unwell and so she was awake through the night more and more often. Natalie fought to ignore the sense she had here of being hemmed in, as if she lived on a tiny island that afforded no variety, no change of company.

  Then movement from the bushes again. This time more rustling and another branch snapped. She yelled. Clutched her chest. A shape emerged, too big to be an animal, and then another. She realised too late it was a girl’s voice, nothing to be afraid of, and that the girl had been giggling.

  ‘Quick!’ the girl whispered and scampered across the gravel towards the dorm entrance. Natalie didn’t pursue them. The second figure, with a deeper voice, whispered something and then ran past Natalie in a blur back down the driveway towards the gates. The curfew was very strict: ten o’clock. The girls didn’t miss it by a minute. For a girl to be out three hours after curfew, and with a young man, was unthinkable.

  But she had led a poor example herself, and who knew if the girl had seen her being dropped off by Jack. Seen the two of them in their awkward embrace. What had that been? An innocent gesture, a thank you perhaps for helping Delphi? Had she jumped to the wrong conclusion when she pulled away? He was her best friend’s brother after all, much younger than her, and he had no shortage of admirers. ‘I had no idea you had such great legs.’ But he had said that, hadn’t he?

  She’d recognised the outline of the spectacles and the thick thatch of hair on the person who had just run into the dorm, though she would have guessed who it was without the physical clues. Margaret Wilkins following her own timetable again. It would wait until the morning because as it happened Miss Lott had already arranged for the girl’s mother and father to come to the college to discuss what they were to do about their wayward daughter.

  *

  Last night’s rain hadn’t returned and instead the sky showered them with blue. She’d heard the crunch of gravel and the girls chattering as they’d cycled to church, and then the awful Sunday silence fell on her. She didn’t have the comfort of a busy timetable to pull her through the day. There wouldn’t even be a letter from Delphi this weekend.

  Aside from writing to Delphi, Sunday usually meant a few hours to herself that she had the challenge of trying to fill. She had a new pattern for a trouser suit. She’d splashed out on a length of powder-blue silk too. But when would I wear it? She could make two blouses and some embellishments out of this length, far more practical. But whatever the silk was to become, it would have to wait because the Principal, Miss Lott, had asked to see her, no doubt for a briefing before Miss Wilkins’s parents arrived for their meeting that afternoon.

  She left the fabric on the narrow patch of her bedroom floor. As she stood she caught a quick glimpse of the box that once again safely stored her Women’s League of Health and Beauty uniform.

  Cutting straight through the study to the adjoining private dining room, she found the Principal alone with one arm pressed against the mantelpiece, her body crooked, stooped over, while her other hand was splayed across her stomach. Her usually curled hair was in tufts, floating around her head like un-spun wool. She looked frail and vulnerable – not yet even dressed. She was still in her flannelette dressing gown and slippers.

  As soon as she saw Natalie she pulled herself upright and forced a smile. Her face was pinched, pain carved into it. Her Scottie dog, Murray, wagged his tail at her ankles, looking at Natalie as if he expected her to make things better.

  ‘How was your brother?’

  Natalie snatched a quick look at Miss Lott. Does she know I lied about my whereabouts yesterday? ‘As dull as ever…’ She left it hanging. Miss Lott knew exactly how she felt about her only surviving brother.

  Miss Lott winced as she straightened up. With light, careful steps she led her out to the sheltered balcony where in contrast to the exposed playing field, the sun baked the tiled floor.

  The relief of seeing the teapot on the table, its steam curling out from the spout, made tears warm her eyes. She hadn’t quite realised it before but she’d been afraid that the word had somehow got out that she’d been at Olympia yesterday with the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, and not with her brother.

  The adjoining building sheltered them from the breeze and the clear skies were a hint of summer. Despite this, Miss Lott wrapped a blanket around her thin legs.

  Her eyes and mouth closed tight for a second until the sudden pain had passed. Her breathing had quickened. Natalie waited.

  ‘My goodness, you look terrified,’ Miss Lott said once she’d harnessed her breath again, but she had to stop to cough.

  She’d been thinking how much she wished she could tell Miss Lott about Olympia, about the League, Delphi
’s desire to be a part of it, and how she’d spoiled a chance meeting by offending Prunella. But I can’t. Absolutely not. I won’t put her in the position of knowing that I lied or that I am desperately bored of life here.

  ‘You have Miss Wilkins’s family coming in today?’

  Natalie nodded.

  ‘Tread carefully. I had Lord Lacey on the telephone last night. He has a personal connection with the family, but he disapproves of the girl, and her mother. He wants you to get rid of Miss Wilkins so he can plead the decision was out of his hands.’

  Natalie waited while Miss Lott took another breath. She thought again about seeing the girl out late last night, messing about with a boy too. She couldn’t mention it, not if she wanted to save the girl’s skin – as well as preserve her own.

  ‘She’s very talented, you know.’

  ‘I do know. But she’s made no effort to play along with the rules and now she has a trustee against her. I’m afraid she’s run out of lives.’

  Just then, the second-year girls dressed in their ankle-length sage hooded cloaks wobbled in along the driveway below, slowing their bicycles to a stop in the sheds to the left of the house. They unloaded their handlebars of wooden hoops and totes bulging with skittles, beanbags and canes used to take the primary school children for games after Sunday school. One of the girls frantically pumped up her old bicycle’s front tyre while the others left her to it. Chatting and laughing, they drifted off like dandelion seeds towards the new wing at the rear of the house.

  The smile fell from Natalie’s face when Miss Lott let out a little exhalation as she lifted the teapot. She gently stirred up the tea leaves by swirling the pot’s fat belly, her thumb holding the lid steady. She shot a sideways glance at Natalie, letting her know she had caught her watching her and that she knew she was taking in how much weaker she’d become.

  ‘Wilkins wasn’t the reason I asked you here, actually.’ Miss Lott’s tone had changed, her voice tremored as her emotions plucked at her vocal cords. ‘The hard truth is that my time here is coming to a close.’

  Natalie gripped the arm of her chair. Only serious ill health would drive Miss Lott from the college. She had been there so long that it was unimaginable to think of the place without her.

  The Principal was careful not to look at her. Instead she spent too long setting the teapot down and adjusting the angle so that the handle sat parallel to the edge of the table. Then she tipped some pills into her mouth with a flat palm and swallowed them down dry.

  ‘Will you stay much longer?’ Natalie ventured.

  ‘It’s hard to say, but I don’t think I’ve got long.’

  Natalie swallowed hard. The news stuck in her throat like molasses. Her own restlessness would grow and grow without Miss Lott around. She would become even lonelier at the college without her to talk with. It was such an awful thought that she couldn’t completely let it in.

  Murray broke the awkward silence, scampering through the French doors, his paws sliding on the polished floors, taking a running jump on to his mistress’s lap.

  Natalie angled up the lid to peer inside the teapot, the tea now a deep copper.

  ‘Shall I pour?’ she said. The thought of Miss Lott’s decline brought to the surface the mangled pain of her father’s death, her brothers’ too, anguish she supposed she’d always have to live with.

  Miss Lott rhythmically stroked the dog, shifting him on her lap. His head tilted upwards. He licked the end of her nose, making Miss Lott wrinkle her face with delight.

  Meanwhile the tea slipped through the strainer and purred into the floral bone-china cups, the steam unfurling into the spring morning. Once she was finished, she looked down at the playing field ahead. She had to say something to Miss Lott, but what?

  ‘The rose garden is shooting up,’ was the best she could do.

  Below the white-spindled frontage of the balcony was the Principal’s own private garden. In two large beds, framed by shin-height box hedges, the new season’s rosebush shoots shouldered fresh burgundy leaves.

  The truth about the severity of Miss Lott’s illness had been right in front of her. The soil hadn’t been dug over; the tubers hadn’t been planted out. Instead, deep-toothed dandelion leaves and a ground covering of bindweed had taken advantage of her weakness and were overrunning the beds and the bricked pathway.

  Mrs Lancaster, her secretary, entered with two squat tumblers on a tray, ice cubes chinking, the soda water fizzing and the whisky staining the water a thin amber. She set the glasses down with an appraising glance at Natalie. She must have known that Miss Lott was going to break the news to her today – the whisky the medicine to help the sadness go down. Perhaps, she thought, a dull Sunday wouldn’t have been such a bad thing after all.

  ‘Bottoms up, ladies.’

  Natalie took a large gulp.

  ‘I’ll be off to the village to get the newspapers then.’ Mrs Lancaster left them to it.

  As comforting as cocoa, the whisky warmed her up and left her feeling alive and awake and tired and ready for a rest all at the same time. It also relaxed her tongue and mind almost instantly.

  ‘None of the words that I can think to say sum up my gratitude to you…and my devastation that you won’t be here.’ Still, I can’t be honest. Still, I can’t tell you how frustrated I’ve become here. If I am, you’ll think me ungrateful.

  Miss Lott’s breathing came in a pattern of shallow snatches of air.

  ‘Words can do that, can’t they? Language is so rich and expressive and yet so insubstantial and hollow at times.’

  On the playing field the girls began their Sunday bowling practice with Miss Hollands in the mid-morning sun. Murray spotted the red cricket ball as the batswoman rolled it over her shoulder. He jumped down to put his nose through the bars, yapping at the ball.

  ‘Murray! Murray!’ Miss Lott called. ‘Cricket isn’t for you, I’m afraid. You must know by now that you need to be a female to join in our games.’

  *

  Natalie wiped her nose, catching a glimpse of its red tip and her blotchy eyes in the mantelpiece mirror as she headed for her study door.

  Mr Wilkins, the girl’s father, shuffled in, hat in hand. He was tall in his brown woollen suit, with salt and pepper hair smoothed down, but only in places.

  He looked first at Natalie’s made-up face, no doubt noticing that the tears had streaked her powder, and then her Sunday attire of taffeta bows stitched to her shoulder seams, her silk skirt. She was used to this preliminary assessment by now. She worked hard to not fit the expected schoolmarm bill of tweeds and sensible shoes, and it often unsettled the parents.

  People wondered who she thought she was making the effort for, thought that she was deluded and wasting her time, but she’d heard stories of love creeping up unexpectedly on other women of her age. Why not her? Why not someone like Jack? Don’t be silly. You know why not.

  Behind him came Mrs Wilkins, a black silk scarf wound around her head with chestnut wisps creeping on to her face. Her matching black silk kaftan billowed behind her as she swept in, the fabric as iridescent as a scarab beetle. She dodged Natalie’s hand and instead kissed her on the cheek, planting the scent of patchouli beneath her nose. She curled into one of the chairs Natalie had placed on the hearthrug, her legs up from the floor, feet tucked beneath her.

  She waited for Mr Wilkins to drape his folded mackintosh over the back of his chair and saw that despite the silk tie, his suit was fraying at the cuffs and was worn on the elbow and knees.

  ‘You know our trustee Lord Lacey, I hear?’ Natalie asked as he tossed his hat on to her desk.

  ‘That’s right. He’s one of our Heathfield Players.’

  Natalie lifted her shoulders in question.

  ‘Gerry runs the local am-dram society.’ Mrs Wilkins’s shoes clattered from her feet to the rug. ‘Lacey is always trying out for the male lead.’ She rolled her eyes. Natalie suppressed her smile. She could well imagine it. ‘Can’t act for toffee…but he
doesn’t let that…’

  ‘Now, now, Clarissa.’

  ‘Well…’ Her false eyelashes tickled her powdered cheek as she winked at Natalie and wedged a cigarette into a slender black holder.

  ‘You both act.’ Natalie said it more as a statement. It was coming back to her now: their first meeting at Miss Wilkins’s assessment. She’d been too distracted with the task in hand to really register how out of place the family were and consider whether their daughter would fit in.

  ‘I write too,’ Mrs Wilkins explained, ‘some of the scripts for the Heathfield Players that our dear ham Lacey murders on stage.’

  ‘I see,’ said Natalie, understanding now the source of Margaret’s bohemian tendencies.

  ‘He earned us a terrible review in the Heathfield Times.’ She lowered her head and Mr Wilkins put his hand on her arm.

  ‘Well, anyway, thank you for coming here today to discuss Miss Wilkins – Margaret, that is.’

  Mrs Wilkins lit her cigarette and filed the smoke into the air. Natalie had previously moved her chair out from behind her desk so it was opposite the parents’ chairs. She’d liked the idea of meeting them in an open space. She’d thought it would be less confrontational for their delicate discussion, but now she wished she was tucked behind the safety of her desk.

  ‘Oh look.’ Mrs Wilkins stood, her cigarette cocked at her shoulder, as she walked barefooted to the window. ‘Is that our Margaret out there? Taking a class on a Sunday?’

  The three of them stood and moved to the bay of the window to watch the girls line up on the fir-tree-backed playing field.

  ‘Just an hour of drills for the first years. It’s quite an impressive sight, isn’t it?’ Natalie said, resting her hand on the windowsill.

  Margaret, their nineteen-year-old daughter, in the front row, was easily marked out by her black-rimmed glasses and chin-length thatch of hair.