Skating Shoes

  “I wish you’d leave me alone. Fuss, fuss, fuss. I’ll pass my silver test, but if I didn’t it would be your fault. It’s very bad to keep worrying a person, Goldie told me that. She said before examinations and things you ought just to forget, and then you did much better.”

  Miss Goldthorpe was not at the rink, but if she had been she would have been very surprised indeed to have heard this description of what she had said. Harriet knew Miss Goldthorpe had not said anything about not working before her test, and hoping to get through on the day, but she did not want to make Lalla crosser, so she said in as nice a way as she could:

  “I didn’t mean you wouldn’t pass. I only meant those brackets are awfully difficult, you told me so. And you are supposed to work at them every day, and today you haven’t. I was only reminding you.”

  Lalla felt angrier than ever.

  “Well, don’t remind me any more. I don’t want any reminding from anybody, especially not from you who doesn’t know any more about skating than Nana does, and never will.”

  Nana knitting as usual, had been disturbed by Lalla’s raised voice, and had heard the last part of what she had said.

  “What’s that, Lalla? Come over here both of you.” She waited until they reached the barrier. “What were you saying to Harriet, Lalla?”

  Lalla leant on the barrier.

  “I was telling her to leave me alone. She was fussing me about my practice.”

  “And why shouldn’t she? Isn’t she having lessons, and put on this private rink with you, to see that you work? What were you wanting her to do, Harriet?”

  “Brackets.”

  Always when the word was used Nana saw in her mind’s eye some brackets that had been in her home when she was a little girl. They had been made of wood, covered in a pinkish plush, and on each bracket stood photographs of relations. To her it meant nothing what sort of skating Lalla did, one figure was the same as another, but she had grasped that something called brackets, though not made of pink plush, was part of the silver test, and had to be practised.

  “And Harriet’s quite right. I was thinking we weren’t seeing much of those brackets myself. Now back you go on the rink, and let me see them right away, or I’ll go outside and call Mr Lindblom and tell him how you’re behaving.”

  As they skated back across the ice Lalla, her temper quite gone, squeezed Harriet’s hand.

  “I’m going to imitate you doing curves. As I finish them you are to clap and say what lovely brackets they were.”

  Lalla was very good at imitating people. Standing ready to start, looking serious, she stopped being Lalla and became Harriet; almost she looked as thin as Harriet. Harriet forgot that she ought to be cross with Lalla, because she still had not practised her brackets, and laughed and laughed. It was very painful sort of laughing, because it had to be done inside where Nana could not see it. Nana watched Lalla being Harriet doing curves for a few moments, then she nodded in a pleased way: “Very nice too, dear,” and went back to her knitting.

  As the day of the test grew nearer and nearer Harriet worried more and more. It was not that she thought Lalla would not pass exactly, but even if she only just passed everything nice might come to an end. Aunt Claudia was sure to say that Lalla was doing worse instead of better since she had known Harriet, and stop her going to lessons with her, and that would mean no more fencing, no more dancing and, worst of all, no skating lessons from Max Lindblom. When Harriet thought of that happening a lump came in her throat. No more lessons from Max Lindblom! It would be the most terrible thing that could happen to anybody.

  As the date of the test grew nearer Harriet stopped reminding Lalla about practising her figures; for one thing, Lalla was practising them without being reminded; it was not the sort of practising Max expected her to do, but she did practise them for a bit, and then dash round the rink in a mad-doggish way, and then come back and practise them again for a few minutes. The other reason why Harriet stopped reminding Lalla was because of what Miss Goldthorpe had told her when they were waiting for Lalla to be called for her inter-silver test. That lots of people passed examinations who did not know much, and people who knew a lot sometimes failed. Lalla was the sort of person who passed even if she didn’t know a lot, and it was no good worrying her now that it was almost test day; it was much better for her to go on feeling certain that she would pass with almost full marks, as she had passed the inter-silver.

  That Harriet was worried was noticed at home.

  “Hallo, Long-face,” Alec said.

  Harriet flushed, for she did not want anybody to notice she was worried.

  “I haven’t got a long face.”

  Toby looked up from a sheet of figures on which he was working.

  “You haven’t usually, but lately you’ve seemed as if it had been raining for weeks and weeks.”

  Edward was lying on the floor, making something out of the Meccano set Lalla had given him for Christmas.

  “This morning a lady said that seeing me was as good as the sun coming out.”

  Alec made a face at him.

  “One more word like that and we’ll drown you. You get more loathsome every day.”

  Olivia looked at the clock.

  “Put that Meccano set away, Edward. I dare say you make strangers think the sun is coming out, but you make me think it’s time you were in bed.”

  Edward gazed reproachfully at Harriet.

  “If you hadn’t looked miserable I wouldn’t have remembered what that lady said, and then I wouldn’t have been sent to bed for another ten minutes, would I, Daddy?”

  George was doing accounts. He murmured, “Two rabbits, ninety-two sacks of winter greens, eight of them too decayed to sell, a rook that probably got in by mistake… what was that, Edward?”Then he turned to Olivia. “A rook should cook nicely with a rabbit, shouldn’t it?”

  “I shouldn’t dream of cooking the poor rook. You can give it to the cat up the road if you like. We were saying Harriet looked worried. Are you worried, Harriet?”

  George looked at Harriet.

  “Seems all right to me. Has the doctor seen her lately?”

  Harriet was standing by George; she leant against his chair.

  “Not as a doctor, in the street. He said I was his walking advertisement.”

  George said “Good” and was going back to his accounts but Toby stopped him.

  “All the same she is looking worried. I suppose it’s because she thinks Lalla won’t pass that skating test.”

  Hearing Toby say her worst thought out loud like that made Harriet feel as though she had the wind knocked out of her. She glared at him.

  “Of course I’m not worried. She’s going to pass just as easily as she passed her inter-silver, probably better.”

  Toby shrugged his shoulders.

  “All right, keep your hair on, but if she’s going to pass I don’t know what you’re getting in such a flap for.”

  “I’m not in a flap.”

  Olivia was helping Edward put away his Meccano set. She smiled at Harriet.

  “It’s natural you should worry for her, darling. Everybody worries when people are going in for examinations, but I’m sure you needn’t.”

  “Of course you needn’t,” said George. “I thought the child was a genius when I saw her. Passes my comprehension how you spin round like that on a pair of skates, bad enough to do it on the floor.”

  “Anyway,” said Alec, “you haven’t long to wait. I wouldn’t get into a state if I was you.”

  Olivia had finished clearing up Edward’s Meccano set. She stood up and gave Harriet a kiss.

  “I shall be very glad when that test is over, because Miss Goldthorpe is planning some nice Saturday afternoons for you two this summer.”

  Harriet was surprised.

  “Saturday afternoons, but…”

  Olivia shook her head.

  “Don’t ask me, it’s a secret until after the test, but it’s something to look forward to, I promise you
that.”

  Because all the family seemed so sure that Lalla would pass, and Lalla herself knew she would pass, Harriet did worry less, and came to the rink on the test morning not feeling too scared. Miss Goldthorpe was the perfect person to wait with, when you were scared of something. She thought it unimportant if Lalla passed or not, though she did realise that other people thought it important, so she was happy and calm. She knew Harriet would not feel happy or calm, so she did not bury herself in one of Shakespeare’s plays, but talked to her about ordinary things.

  They were using the big rink for the tests that morning, so part of it was roped off, and on the other half Lalla and the other people going in for tests were practising. Lalla, as usual, was wearing a white kilt and jersey and white bonnet, and because it was a test, white gloves. She looked calm and unconcerned, but presently she skated over to Miss Goldthorpe and Harriet. She leant on the barrier.

  “You won’t forgot about holding your thumbs, will you, Harriet?”

  “Of course not. I was going to anyway.”

  Lalla looked at Miss Goldthorpe.

  “Haven’t you anything you can do to bring people luck, Goldie?”

  Miss Goldthorpe was just going to say that she did not believe in luck, but believed in knowing your subject before the examination and then hoping for the best, when she saw that Lalla was fidgeting in a nervous way with one of her gloves. Lalla never fidgeted in a nervous way, for she was never nervous. Seeing her nervous surprised Miss Goldthorpe and made her sorry, so she tried to think of something which would help.

  “I shall sit on my handkerchief. When I was a child I remember hearing an aunt say when she was playing whist and was having bad luck she would improve it by sitting on her handkerchief. As soon as it’s your turn I shall sit on mine.”

  “Did your aunt win after that?”

  Miss Goldthorpe took her handkerchief out of her pocket.

  “Of course. That’s why I remember it, it seemed such a simple thing to do.”

  Lalla hesitated, as if she would like to say something else. Instead she nodded as if she were satisfied, and skimmed back across the ice to her practice.

  Half an hour later it was Lalla’s turn. There were two judges, as there had been for the inter-silver. This time they were two women, one fat and one thin. They both seemed to know Lalla and greeted her with friendly smiles. Lalla, just as she had done when she went in for her inter-silver test, seemed completely at ease. She found a piece of ice with no tracings on it and stood calmly waiting to be told to start. Standing by the barrier close to where she and Miss Goldthorpe were sitting Harriet saw Max. His eyes were on Lalla, but he was looking quite at ease, his hands in his pockets. “He doesn’t seem fussed,” thought Harriet, grasping her thumbs, “so I shouldn’t think there’s anything to fuss about.” At that moment Lalla was told to start her first figure, and Max’s attitude changed. Harriet saw that his face looked grave and she could see by the bulge it made that he had clenched the hand in the pocket nearest to her. She turned to Miss Goldthorpe.

  “You are sitting on your handkerchief, aren’t you, Goldie? It’s now.”

  Miss Goldthorpe patted Harriet’s knee.

  “Of course I am. Don’t worry.”

  Harriet knew more about skating than she had when she watched the inter-silver. But the place Lalla had chosen on which to skate was near the centre of the rink, and she could not see the tracings. She watched the faces of the two women judges, as they stooped down and examined the tracings, and tried to gather from their faces, and from the way they wrote on their cards, how Lalla was doing, but people like judges, she discovered, did not have faces that told you things. Because she had watched Max giving Lalla lessons, and because for the last two or three days the lessons had been a run-through of exactly what she had to do in her test, Harriet knew when the figures were finished. She let out a gulp of breath.

  “She’s finished the figures, Goldie. She’ll do her free skating presently, she likes that better.”

  But Lalla had not finished her figures. The two judges called her to them and told her something. It was clear from Lalla’s way of standing that she was surprised at what she heard; she threw up her head so that her chin was in the air, and clearly was answering in a proud way. Max moved up so that he was standing next to Harriet.

  “It is those brackets. She must do her forward inside again.”

  “If she does them right this time will she pass?”

  Max had his eyes on Lalla. He spoke as if he were talking to himself.

  “How can she do well if she will not work?”

  It seemed as if everybody round the rink was holding their breath. It felt to Harriet as if Lalla took hours and hours doing the two repeat figures. When at last she had finished Max, who was wearing his skates, went across to hear the results with her. The judges seemed to take a long time adding up. Harriet, who remembered exactly how everybody had looked when Lalla had got good marks for her inter-silver test, saw that things were different this time. The judges smiled, but it was a different sort of smile from the ones she had got last time, and Lalla did not dash over to Max and hold his hands. Instead, she said some quick thing, which Harriet could not hear, threw her chin in the air and skated towards herself and Miss Goldthorpe. As she reached the barrier she said in a be-sorry-for-me-if-you-dare voice:

  “It will surprise you to know that Miss Lalla Moore has failed her test.”

  Miss Goldthorpe said:

  “I’m sorry, dear. But not by much I hope.”

  Lalla looked prouder than ever.

  “If you want to know, very badly indeed. I needed fifty-four marks to pass, and all I got was forty-one.”

  Chapter Eleven

  PLANS

  IT WAS AWFUL for Lalla going home after her test. Miss Goldthorpe tried to talk about other things, but nobody answered; Harriet kept looking at Lalla’s face, and answers to Miss Goldthorpe dried up inside her mouth. She was sure, if it had been her who had hoped to pass and had failed, she would have cried, but Lalla did not look a bit like crying, she looked much more as if she might bite somebody. Her face was pink, her lips pressed together tight, and she had a very angry look in her eyes. Just before the car reached the house Lalla, still speaking in a proud voice, said:

  “No one is going to tell Aunt Claudia instead of me. I know I ought to have passed, it was those silly old judges who were wrong.”

  Miss Goldthorpe looked worried. Too often in the past she had heard girls blaming the examiners when they did not pass examinations, but she did not say so. It was not the moment to make Lalla feel worse than she was feeling already. Instead she said that of course Lalla must tell Aunt Claudia, and explain that Max Lindblom had said she would try again in the autumn. She and Harriet would go straight up to the schoolroom and Lalla could find Wilson and ask when her aunt would be in.

  Aunt Claudia was not in but Wilson said she thought she would be in for lunch, then she looked at Lalla.

  “What’s the matter, dear? You passed your test all right, didn’t you?”

  Lalla was standing on the bottom of the stairs leading into the hall; she swung on the banister rail so that her back was turned to Wilson.

  “Actually I didn’t, but I ought to have. It was the silly old judges’ fault.”

  Wilson, like everybody else in the house, had got so used to the idea that Lalla was destined for great things in the skating world that she was sure, if she had not passed a test, it wasn’t Lalla’s fault.

  “What a shame, but I wouldn’t worry if I was you, dear; skating as prettily as you do I don’t see what you want with any old test. Look at the lovely pieces in the paper about you.”

  “You have to do figures, that’s the awful part. Do you know, Wilson, I hate, hate, hate figures.” Lalla sat down on the stairs. “I shall wait here for Aunt Claudia. I want to get telling her over.”

  Wilson knew just how Lalla felt; when she had to tell Aunt Claudia something had gone wrong she would
hang about waiting to get it over; but it was not the best way to please Aunt Claudia to be found sitting on the stairs in your outdoor things.

  “I know how you feel, dear, but if I was you I’d run up to Nana and change into something pretty; you know the way she likes you to be dressed up. The moment she comes in I’ll ring Nana’s bell three times.”

  Lalla got up slowly.

  “All right, I’d much rather sit here, I don’t want to tell Nana, still Aunt Claudia would rather I was dressed up, so I’ll do it.”

  Miss Goldthorpe and Harriet had not told Nana that Lalla had not passed, but of course Nana knew. She had said the moment they had come in,“Where’s Lalla?” and when they said that she was downstairs waiting to see Aunt Claudia Nana had made upset, clucking noises, and gone into Lalla’s bedroom thinking, “Oh dear, there’ll be trouble about this.”

  When Lalla came in, still looking as though she would bite if anyone spoke to her, Nana said nothing about skating. She took Lalla’s coat and hung it up in the cupboard and was just her usual cosy self. Because she was her usual cosy self and not looking sorry or worried, Lalla stopped feeling angry, and the moment she stopped feeling angry she felt miserable and had to cry. She flung her arms round Nana, and sobbed and sobbed. Nana sat down in an armchair and took her on her knee, and heard, between the gulps and the sobs, that Lalla was shamed for life, that Aunt Claudia would be so angry that she would probably kill her, that she ought to have passed, that it was the judges’ fault; that she would be the greatest skater in the world and then they would be sorry; and, as the tears grew a little less, that Aunt Claudia would say she had not worked very hard, and the awful thing was that it would be true, that she hated those old brackets and she thought she could do them without working, and now, because she had not passed, Harriet would not be coming for lessons any more, and nothing nice would ever happen again.

  When at last she finished crying after explaining Nana stroked the hair out of her face, and lent her a handkerchief to blow her nose.