Full House - Caroline Clough (top android ebook reader txt) 📗

FULL HOUSE

I did make things up. What youngest child in a large family doesn’t? It’s called survival. But I didn’t make it up about the horses, and I didn’t dream it either. But no-one believed me. They laughed. Pony mad they called me. But I did see the horses, and the riders. It was the first time I saw her.

There, under my street light, the one that threw its sickly fluorescence over my eiderdown, stood the two horses. Their sweat stained coats shone purple in the yellow light, and dragon clouds of breath steamed from their cupped nostrils, as their flanks quickly rose and fell. I scratched frantically at the frost swirls patterning the inside of my window, making a hole to peep through. I still couldn’t see the riders so I lifted the window latch and thumped the slippery glass. The thud of the opening window broke the cold stillness below and the riders glanced upwards. She

looked up at the girl in pyjamas hanging out of her bedroom window on a freezing November night. I saw her smiling and watched in awe as she raised her gloved hand to wave. She gazed straight at me and smiled that smile of one who knows her power, even over a little girl, creased with sleep, who had jumped from her bed at the excitement of hearing the unusual metallic clatter of horseshoes on the suburban tarmac.
I had never seen anything or anyone so beautiful. The horses were straight out of the Stubbs’ painting that I had a crumpled picture of, stuck inside my pony scrapbook; all bulging eyes and Thoroughbred light-leggedness. The man rider was swathed in a heavy gabardine hunting mackintosh, and wore a top hat. But it was the lady that took my attention. She was a real lady, a real lady riding side-saddle with her habit swathed over the front, the neatly booted right foot peeping out. She too wore a top hat, hers had a fine veil that fell over her face, accentuating her mystery but not hiding the beauty. I stared.
The lady laughed, a high tinkling sound made of glass; the man was trying to fish a box out of his pocket whilst keeping the dancing horse still. The horse circled and shook its head impatiently. She leant down and tried to catch at its bridle but missed, another laugh spilled over the frosty pavement to fragment into tiny slivers. The man peeled off his bulky woollen gloves and awkwardly pulling out two cigarettes, placed them both in his mouth. He lit them and then held one out to the lady. With one graceful sweep of a gloved hand she brushed aside the veil and taking the cigarette, spun her horse and kicked it forward. The man fumbled with his reins and gloves as she set off at fast trot, laughter and cigarette smoke spilling from her parted lips. I leant out of the window, the cold biting through my skin, wishing she would turn and wave once more. The staccato beat of the horses’ hooves and the jingle of their bridles receded into the dark night. They were gone.
I shut the window and returned to my bed, pushing my feet down to find the lingering warmth of the hot water bottle. I lay and slowly turned over every detail in my mind, like one would caress warm pebbles on a beach, until every cherished second was familiar. The more I went over those few precious moments the better it got; the man had blown me a kiss, and the lady had turned and waved goodbye. After all they were my memories.
I knew that we would meet again. There had been a connection, unspoken, but in that smile. Now I thought I knew of love, infatuation, a crush, whatever you wanted to call it.
I shouldn’t have told the family about my lady and my horses. I should have known that they would ridicule them, and me. It was that note of intensity that gave me away. They knew then how important it was. That was my mistake. Never, ever let anyone see how much you care about something. It’s ammunition. And they will use it.
The next time I saw her it was summer and the season of Sunday School picnics and galas. I was forced by Mum and Dad to go with another family to the annual Dr Barnado’s Children’s Fete at the neighbouring Holy Trinity Church. We arrived late as I had been trying hard not to be ready. I didn’t want to go, and for a very good reason.
The church hall was filling with families, all happy smiling faces and excited gabbling children, swirling round the room in a colourful pattern of summer frocks for the mums, bright shirts for the men and boys, and party dresses for the girls. As their confidence grew so did the noise, loud hellos across the hall, and exclamations of mutual adoration bounced off the walls. Excited toddlers ran around shouting nonsense and wiping their snotty noses on people’s best trousers. I leant against the wall and watched with distaste.
A large lady leant over into my face and gushed;-
“Hello sweetheart and who do you belong to?” The posh accent spoke to me of money and a dislike of children. I stared at her whiskery chin and the powdery pores of her rouged cheeks. The violent red of her lipstick was sneaking into the deep ravines that ran from her lips up towards her nostrils. Draped across her shoulders a dead fox stared belligerently at me through its glassy eyes. She drew herself up stiffly, the tight floral silk dress bulging over her impressive bosom and hips.
“No-one.” I was defiant. She stared back at me, and I was reminded of the fox as her small beady eyes, framed by the brown line of her drawn-on eyebrows and defined by lines of smudged eye pencil, stared back at me. I suddenly felt hot and unwashed, and that she was taking note of the grimy line round my neck that stayed from one bath night to the next. I wished I had cleaned my teeth after lunch; from the curl of her nostrils she was catching the acrid whiff of vinegar from my fish and chips. She smelt of expensive perfume which enveloped me in a warm embrace. It was no relation of Mum’s Boot’s lavender water.
“What a silly goose, you must be with someone.” She laughed a little too heartily. I pointed in the direction of the Todd family, their wholesomeness radiated across the room to where I was clutching my Dr Barnado’s collecting box made in paper Mache in the shape of a little house. It was just the sort of house that I desperately wanted to live in; shutters framing the windows, a glint of pink chintz curtain peeping out, and roses round the door. It was just the sort of house the Todd family would live in.
“Well go over there just now, my dear, and hand your box into Mrs Lancaster. She’s the lady in the turquoise cardigan standing behind the table,” she said. I hesitated but a firm hand in the small of my back propelled me over to the table.
“This little girl would like to hand her box in, Marjorie.” The bosom smiled at the turquoise cardigan who in turn smiled at me. I didn’t smile back. I didn’t want to hand my box over to this woman. She would know by the weight of it sitting in her hand that it wasn’t full and I didn’t want her to know it was my box. My plan had been to sidle up to the table and when no one was watching, push it into the collection of little houses sitting on the table, to be anonymous, like me.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” said the turquoise cardigan. “That’s very good of you to have filled this box.” I winced at the word filled. She was purposely tormenting me now, she must have felt that it wasn’t full. I felt my face colour with a mixture of anger and embarrassment, and staring down at the cracked linoleum, drifted away from the table.
Across the hall I could see the family I had come with, the children looked glossy and healthy, like well-bred thoroughbreds; tall limbed and shiny haired. Their clothes fitted and looked bought for them. Not for them the hand-me-downs and jumble bargains. I looked down at my one and only party dress, its bright blue faded by too many washings. It had been bought for me but that was two years ago and now I had to keep pulling at the waist to keep it from riding up my bony chest. It had been a favourite, a real frock with a skirt that flounced out from the tight waist which was fastened with a bow at the back. Two big deep pockets were stuck on the front and decorated with a puppy on one and a kitten on the other. I had chosen it myself from a proper shop. The shop assistant had said how grown up I had looked in it but as I caught a glance of myself in the hall window, the prim white Mary Jane collar and the too tight waist with the ridiculous billowing pockets, made me feel young and stupid. I tried to disappear into the walls, staring red faced into the paintings done by the Sunday School children, of Jesus being nailed to the cross.
“Come along now! Tea is being served in the kitchen!” Another large lady swept me up and ushered me towards a cavernous cold kitchen filled with trestle tables lines with wooden benches. Tea turned out to be a repetition of Sunday School’s Christmas party tea with pink and squidgy fish paste smeared onto thin white bread, burnt sausage rolls, a bowl of crisps which was quickly commandeered by some big lads at the top of the table, and little wooden sticks upon which were speared greasy yellow chunks of cheese. This was all washed down with weak orange squash splashed out of large kettles that gave the juice a horrible metallic tang. The other children smiled and battled bravely to eat the fodder placed in front of them, but I didn’t bother, as we always had fish and chips on a Saturday lunchtime. It saved time on washing up and Mum could get off early to the shops. The sandwiches were followed by tasteless ice cream and watery jelly, and then it was back into the hall to play games.
Two ladies organised the games while the other two sat at the table surrounded by the little houses and broke the seals on the bottom of the boxes then counted the piles of pennies that fell out. They wore white gloves to do this, presumably to keep their hands clean; money is a filthy thing and one doesn’t know just where it has come from. The large bosomy lady, whom I now knew to be called Mrs Osberton, sailed between the two groups, dishing out encouragement and praise. Apart from Mrs O they all looked the same to me; lambswool twin-sets in pastel colours and pearls in a single rope close to the neckline, above which the wrinkled turkey skin of their necks wobbled furiously as they shouted instructions to the children or bent over the piles of pennies, counting under their breath.
I won the first three games; nice middle class children weren’t much competition for my particular approach to musical chairs, pass the parcel and British