Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls
‘You might at least help,’ she said, and then they’d fight, about Somerville, and his lungs, and his pictures, and Cowley Garrison, and whose job the washing-up was anyway. He was utterly ruthless about his art, always had been. Somehow it had never seemed to matter before.
He was sleeping badly. He worried desperately about the men he knew who were still ‘out there’, and insisted on sending them parcels of cigarettes and sweets that they could ill afford. The arrival of spring, and with it the likelihood of a new offensive, sent him into paroxysms of anxiety. And there was nothing Evelyn could say that would soothe him. After all, there very likely would be an offensive. And his friends would in all probability be in it.
In April, when the weather had finally turned, the Americans had at long last joined the war, and things had begun to look up, they got the news that Teddy’s brother Herbert had been killed in the Battle of Arras.
Teddy had never been close to either of his brothers, both of whom were so much older that they had always been distant, rather glamorous figures in his childhood. Evelyn was therefore taken aback by how badly he took the news. He went so white that she thought he was going to faint, and was violently sick. He followed this with a bad relapse of what she supposed was influenza, which kept him in bed for a week. He seemed to regard this whole episode as a personal failing, despite her efforts to reassure him.
‘But we ought to be in London,’ he insisted. ‘I’m the only one left now. I ought to be looking after Mother and Father, not ill, again.’
‘But you aren’t the only one left,’ said Evelyn, her frustration rising. Why did she have to deal with this? Didn’t the universe know how bad she was at comforting people? ‘Stephen hasn’t died yet.’
‘You might be a bit sympathetic,’ he said crossly.
He began to have nightmares. He would wake in tears, and she wouldn’t have the first idea how to soothe him.
‘They’ll pass,’ said her mother reassuringly, but they hadn’t.
‘I love you,’ Evelyn whispered, over and over and over, night after night, and he buried his head in her arms and whispered, ‘I love you too, old man.’
But love, as Evelyn’s grandmother used to say, didn’t buy a bonnet for the baby.
On top of all of this, there was Evelyn’s degree, which required just as much study and thought and attendance at lectures as it always had. The tutors seemed to Evelyn to have a permanent air of disapproval as she hurried in, the hem of her skirt spattered in mud from the bicycle ride into town, her hastily pinned hair already tumbling down, her satchel filled with books half read and essays barely finished. She seemed to be always behind, that year, and always to be turning down invitations to student affairs she had neither the time, nor the money, nor the energy to attend. Struggling over her books by the light of an oil lamp at the kitchen table, she was beginning to wonder if the degree was even worth continuing with. Only the thought of the alternative, a life filled with housework, and sick-beds, and the toil perhaps of a dreary job in an office somewhere, kept her at it.
Meeting in the Middle
MAY COULDN’T STOP thinking about it, what Sadie had said to her. And other things too. Nell’s desolate expression, that last day in her bedroom. Her mother’s warning about treating Nell’s feelings with respect. Her feelings about her mother and the bailiffs and the empty rooms, which she still hadn’t managed to untangle to her satisfaction. The suspicion that she’d broken something that should perhaps have been handled with great gentleness and care, that things should have worked out differently, and that no matter what else had happened between them, she and Nell should always have been friends.
The May she had been then felt like a different person entirely. A furious, miserable, black and white sort of a person, always simplistic, sometimes cruel. She burned with shame to think of how she had treated Nell; Nell, whose brother had been so ill! Nell, whose family were starving to death! She wanted to find her, and apologise. She wanted to know that Nell had been all right without her.
And she wanted – yes, why not admit it? – she thrilled at the thought of seeing her again, even after all this time. Nell was the only person she’d ever been properly in love with. (Sadie didn’t count, and nor did Miss Cage, the games mistress she’d been puppyishly in love with in the First Form). Nell was still the only person who’d ever made her physically thrill with longing.
She’d spent over a year travelling away from this girl, and now?
All it took was half a conversation with Sadie, and Nell was all she could think about.
She had a day out from the factory on Sundays, May knew. She’d seen her once, coming off the motor omnibus one Saturday evening with her bag. May had ducked behind a pillar box and watched. It had made her feel strange and trembly, just to see her again. She was too far away to pick out any details, but Nell was unmistakable. She hadn’t looked brokenhearted, or despairing, or bowed down with grief. But perhaps she was. May was surprised at how deeply it had affected her, that brief glance. She’d thought of nothing else for weeks afterwards. She should have said something to her then, but she’d funked it.
Standing here now, at the end of the street, she felt like she was going to funk it again. What did she think was going to happen? She hadn’t seen Nell in such a long time. Probably she had another girl now. That boarding house, that factory, full of girls … May had spent six years in a girls’ school. She knew what happened.
She perched on the wall with a copy of The Three Musketeers on her lap and waited. Every time another omnibus came up to the stop, she tensed. She watched as factory girls, and shop girls, and dock workers, and mothers with children piled off the ’buses, and she clenched her long hands tightly together. She was nervous. More nervous than she’d been when campaigning in Trafalgar Square. More nervous than she’d been of the white-feather women, or the soldiers at Charing Cross, or the men who came to break up the anti-conscription meetings. Public ridicule was one thing.
Nell was something else entirely.
And then, suddenly, so suddenly it took May off balance, there she was.
She wasn’t in breeches this time, but her munitionette’s outfit. A long, shapeless dress, rather like a nurse’s uniform, with a wide, white collar, and a cap to tuck the hair underneath. Her skin was a jaundiced yellowish colour – canaries, they called the munitionettes – and the strands of hair that the cap didn’t hide were gingerish. She was taller than May remembered, and in the uniform, with her dark hair tucked away under her cap, she looked almost unrecognisable.
It threw May, seeing her. It made everything she’d been thinking seem suddenly absurd. What exactly was she doing here? What exactly did she expect to happen?
She couldn’t answer. She didn’t have time even to think of an answer. Nell had looked up and seen her. She stared at May, her expression blank with shock. You could hardly ever tell what Nell was thinking by looking; she kept so much of herself hidden, always. Even now, the shock was all May could be sure of.
She couldn’t tell, for instance, if Nell was pleased to see her or not.
‘Hullo,’ she said, and Nell scowled.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I know I looks a guy. You needn’t say it.’
‘You look like a nurse on the Western Front,’ said May. ‘In an illustration from one of those stories – you know, “our angels”.’
Nell snorted.
‘Angel! Me! Not likely! Blimming hard work, that’s what it is. But then, what did you ever know about that?’
‘That’s not fair,’ said May.
Nell flushed. ‘Ain’t it?’ she said. There was an awkward pause. Two boys ran past, chasing a cricket ball and yelling.
‘How’s Bernie?’ said May.
‘He’s grand,’ said Nell stiffly. ‘Thanks for asking.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘Are you?’
Now it was May’s turn to flush.
‘Of course I’m glad!’ she said. ‘What sor
Nell had the grace to look chastised.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I ain’t— Look, what are you doing here? Come to have a go? Cos I ain’t interested, all right?’
‘No,’ said May. ‘I just—’ This was all going wrong. Perhaps there was just too much stacked against it. Perhaps there always had been. Looking at Nell’s furious face, she wondered what she’d ever seen in her. What had they ever had in common, after all?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That’s all. That’s all I came to say. But if you aren’t interested – well!’
Nell’s face was a curious mixture of fury and indignation. May almost thought she was going to hit her.
‘Damn you!’ she said. ‘Damn you, damn you! After all this time, couldn’t you just leave me alone?’
Charcoal
‘TEDDY! TEDDY, DEAREST, wake up.’
He came awake all of a sudden, with a cry.
‘But I have to!’ he said.
Sometimes, when he had bad dreams, he woke and fell quickly back into sleep without seeming to realise that he’d been awake or dreaming. Not tonight, though. Evelyn could hear the panic in his voice. She fumbled for the matches and lit the lamp. He cried, ‘No, don’t! They’ll see us!’
His eyes were open, but, still caught in the dream, he didn’t see her. Evelyn took his hand in hers.
‘Hush,’ she said. Sometimes, after a nightmare, he needed help to reorientate himself to the real world. ‘That’s our lamp with the green shade, look – the one we got for one-and-six in the market, remember? And that’s the eiderdown your mother found for us – you’ve kicked it right off, no wonder you’re so cold. There – that’s better, isn’t it? And there’s the awful washstand Uncle Robert gave us as a wedding present. One day I’m going to smash it into pieces and blame it on you. And there’s the fireplace, there, and the fire screen with all the shepherdesses, and the funny cottage beams, and the dear old nursery coal-scuttle from home. See? Do you know where you are?’
He nodded, yes. His hand was like ice. He said, ‘I’m going to be sick.’
Eight months of marriage had taught her more about illness than she’d thought she’d ever need to know. She bolted for the basin on the washstand and then went over to the fire. While he retched, she shovelled coal onto the embers with the furious abandon of a millionaire’s mistress. A bedroom fire, in spring! But it had been a rotten cold April. They’d even had snow, last week.
He was trembling when she came back to bed. She took the basin and set it down on the floor. He said, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and began to cry.
She climbed back into bed beside him and took him in her arms. He buried his head into her shoulder, still weeping. His pyjamas were sodden with sweat, and his body against hers was rigid and cold. He was much too thin. She whispered, ‘Hush. Hush, my darling. I love you.’
At last, he quietened. She said, ‘If you tell the dream, it’ll be easier.’
He shook his head against her shoulder.
‘I can’t. It’s too awful.’
She said, softly into his ear, ‘It’s like in fairy tales. If you name the monster, it can’t hurt the miller’s daughter any more.’
He gave a laugh that was half a sob. They lay quietly together in each other’s arms, listening to the putter of the flames, watching the long shadows thrown by the lamplight against the slope of the ceiling.
At last, without moving his head, he said, ‘I’m crawling back to the trench. It’s night, and the air is thick with smoke from the guns, so I can’t see further than my nose, and I have to feel my way forward. I’m following the noise of the artillery, and all the time I’m hoping I haven’t got turned around in the dark, and am heading toward the German trenches. But after a while, I know I’m going the right way, because I start to crawl over the bodies of the dead men from my platoon. The earth is vile and sticky with blood, and – worse. I can smell it. And I can hear some poor devil moaning, close by. But I can’t stand up, and I can’t see, so I can’t help him. I just have to keep crawling.’
He began to tremble again as he spoke. She stroked his hair.
‘Did that really happen,’ she whispered. ‘Or is it just a dream?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It really happened.’
She tightened her arms around him.
‘Nothing like that will ever happen to you again,’ she said, but she wasn’t sure he believed her.
She could feel the tension gradually leaving him. His narrow body growing warmer. She made no move to turn out the lamp, knowing it comforted him, knowing he wouldn’t sleep yet, but she let her eyes close. She was beginning to drift back into sleep when he sat up and started rummaging in the drawer of the nightstand.
‘What are you doing?’ she said, sleepily. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’ He didn’t answer. She rolled over, and saw that he was sitting up in bed, his sketchbook and a box of charcoal pencils open on the bed beside him. He was drawing rapidly.
‘Teddy, I’ve got class in the morning,’ she said.
He flung down his pencil.
‘Look here,’ he said. ‘I have to get it down before I forget. I can go downstairs if you want, but I can’t stop.’
She sighed, recognising the old ruthlessness.
‘Don’t be a goose,’ she said. ‘It’s beastly cold down there. Just – don’t be too long, all right?’
He grunted, but did not reply. The figures were already forming on the creamy paper. It was the picture from the dream. The wounded man crawling. Bodies in the mud.
‘How do you know what to draw,’ she asked, ‘if you couldn’t see?’
‘I’m naming the monster,’ he said impatiently. ‘Do you actually need anything? Or could you please just let me work?’
She lay for a while, watching the charcoal soldiers as they appeared beneath his fingers. But it was late, and she had an early tutorial. She turned over onto her side, and closed her eyes.
Stones at the Window
THUD.
Thud. Thud.
May rolled over and closed her eyes.
Thud.
Whatever it was wasn’t going away. Something hard, landing against her bedroom window. A bird?
Thud.
She climbed out of bed, went over to the window, and drew back the curtains. Nothing. She looked down. Standing in the street below the window was a dark figure. It held up a hand to May, who opened the window and leant out.
‘It’s me! Can I come in?’
It was Nell.
May drew back and peered at the clock on her nightstand. Three in the morning. It was very cold. She pulled on her slippers and dressing-gown and hurried downstairs. Nell! What was she doing here in the middle of the night?
She was standing on the doorstep, hugging herself a little awkwardly, as though she wasn’t quite sure of her welcome.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hello,’ said May. ‘What are you doing here? Come in! It’s freezing!’
‘I weren’t sure you’d want me,’ said Nell. But she followed May inside. May pulled her coat off the hook and on over her dressing-gown. Nell didn’t have a coat. She must be frightfully cold. May took her mother’s black coat off the hook in the hall and handed it to her. There was something rather intimate about seeing Nell in her mother’s coat – the lining was much darned, and it was strange to think that Nell knew that, when most of her mother’s friends didn’t. But of course Nell, who didn’t even own a coat of her own, wouldn’t care about darning. It had always looked shabby and shapeless on May’s mother, but it seemed rather exotic on Nell. Nell always looked queer and awkward and most unlike herself in women’s clothing, but the coat worked somehow, like the lipstick on the male impersonators at the music hall. Erotic, thought May, and shivered. Erotic was the last word she’d ever have thought to use about her mother’s old coat.
They went into the back room, and May lit the gas. Nell sat on the edge of her seat, arms wrapped round
‘You came to see me,’ she said.
Nell nodded.
‘Yeh,’ she said. ‘Well. I’ve got to help me mum with all the baking tomorrow. I’d not get to see you otherwise.’
There was a pause. May waited. Nell scratched on the arm of the chair with her fingernail.
‘About what I said …’ she said.
May waited.
‘I dunno why I said it. I just … it were all such a mess. You, and … War and … Bernie, and Suffragettes … I dunno.’ She looked up. ‘But it weren’t right, what I said. It weren’t fair. So, I’m sorry. That’s why I come.’
‘I’m sorry too,’ said May. ‘I was a frightful prig, wasn’t I? I knew I was at the time too, only … well, it seemed so important.’
‘It were important,’ said Nell. There was an odd intensity in her eyes. ‘That’s what I loved about you,’ she said. ‘How important it were. Remember how they used to laugh at us? And say it weren’t worth it, going to prison and that, for a cause? Bet they ain’t saying anything like that to the boys at the Front, is they?’
‘No,’ said May quietly. ‘Now Mama and I say it to them.’
Her heart was pumping, the blood throbbing in her ears. To think that Nell had this effect on her still, after all this time! She reached out and touched her hand, lying there on the chair-arm. She half expected Nell to flinch away, but she didn’t. Very slowly, very deliberately, May moved her index finger along the side of Nell’s finger and up her arm. Nell did not move, but her breath quickened. May’s throat tightened. She continued to move her finger, very slowly, up the arm, across her neck and still further up until it touched her mouth. Only then did she lift her eyes to look into Nell’s. In the gaslight, they were dark, and the canary-yellow cheeks were flushed. She stared at May and, very deliberately, leant forward and kissed her.