Skating Shoes

  Olivia did arrange it. She saw Dr Phillipson and told him all about Lalla, and he and she made a plan. It was arranged that the next Saturday Miss Goldthorpe, instead of taking Lalla to a theatre, should take her to see a film at a local cinema, and afterwards they would have tea at the doctor’s house.

  That next Saturday Miss Goldthorpe talked to Mrs Phillipson in the drawing room while Dr Phillipson talked to Lalla in her surgery. He explained it could be only talking; Lalla was not his patient, but he might find out what sort of medicine she needed just by talking. He was, Lalla found, easy to talk to and enormously interested in skating. He wanted to know all about her training from the very beginning, all about tests, what you had to do at them; it was almost as if he wanted to skate himself, everything she said absorbed him. To make figures clear to him Lalla drew them for him. The last she drew was loops.

  “These are what I have to do in May and they’ve been going wrong; I’ve fussed and fussed because I’m not used to not being able to do a figure. So that’s why Goldie has brought me to tea because I was sure a man like you who thought of skating to cure Harriet’s legs being cotton-wool, would know what to give me for outgrown strength which makes my loops go wrong.”

  Dr Phillipson seemed to be studying Lalla’s drawings. Inside his head he was wondering how best to help her. It seemed as if what she most needed was to believe it was any reason, except that they were too difficult, which was making her fail at loops. After a bit he sat down, took a piece of notepaper and began writing.

  “I can’t guarantee this, but have it made up, take it regularly, and it should do the trick.”

  Lalla looked at the sheet of paper. Most of it she couldn’t understand for it was written in doctor-writing, but at the top was printed in big letters, “Skating Mixture for Lalla Moore. One tablespoon to be taken daily before visiting rink.”

  The medicine worked. Lalla felt better, and so worried less, and so her loops were better. Then, so slowly she hardly noticed it, the effect of the medicine began to wear off. Max Lindblom could have explained that if she was judging the medicine by her loop tracings it was bound to stop helping her, for her loops were as good as she was going to get them for the present, and no medicine would make them any better; but Lalla had not told Max about the medicine; she wanted him to think she did her loops marvellously without help, so when they stopped getting better she could not talk to him or anybody about it, but just felt more fussed and bothered than ever, all by herself. As each day she got more miserable and more anxious her tracings got worse and worse, and as the tracings got worse so did Lalla’s health. She slept worse because she spent her night practising, and in the morning felt too tired to eat or do lessons, and the result was she grew crosser and crosser, and if anyone even hinted that she might leave taking her test until the autumn, she was angry for hours, so though everybody was sorry for her, nobody knew how to help her.

  “She’s like a reel of cotton come unfixed in a workbasket,” Nana said, “tied into knots round everything, you don’t know where to start to look for an end to start rewinding.”

  Aunt Claudia was as bothered about Lalla as everybody else, but her bothering over her, though she did not know it, got Lalla into a worse state even than doing a bad tracing. Aunt Claudia thought Lalla was suffering from quite unnecessary nerves.

  “Cheer up, dear, it’s not like the Lalla Moore I know to worry. Where’s that champion grim got to, I wonder?”

  Lalla usually refused to answer, but sometimes she would be rude.

  “Don’t talk like that! I’m not a baby.”

  That would make Aunt Claudia try to be especially understanding.

  “Of course you aren’t. Eleven and a half is a big girl. Don’t think I mind for myself if you’re a little rude, I know that’s just a sign that you have temperament, and a skater must have that, but my Lalla mustn’t forget a great skater has also to be her country’s ambassadress.”

  Once Aunt Claudia suggested that perhaps Lalla should see the doctor.

  “You’re getting thin, darling. Perhaps the doctor would give you something to make you fatter.”

  “My goodness! I thought you wanted me thinner. All those months no potatoes, no cakes, no nothing nice. Now you want me to see a doctor because I’ve got thinner. Well, I won’t see him, so there. I’m not Alice in Wonderland eating things all the time to make me grow littler and bigger.”

  Aunt Claudia did not mention a doctor again to Lalla, but she did to Nana.

  “I think Lalla ought to see a doctor. She seems a little nervous, but I won’t worry her until after her test.”

  Nana said politely, “Just as you say, ma’am,” but her tone showed that she did not think much of what Aunt Claudia had said.

  Aunt Claudia was not particularly worried about the test, because she did not know how Lalla was doing, for the moment the effect of the medicine began, as Lalla thought, to wear off, she told her she was not to come to the rink. Nana heard her tell Aunt Claudia this and was terribly shocked.

  “A child your age speaking that way to your aunt! You won’t have her coming indeed! The nursery is now the schoolroom, but from the sound of it you ought to be in my nursery again. I’d teach you how a little lady ought to behave.”

  Aunt Claudia was shocked too, and also hurt.

  “Not come! But you know how I love watching you skate. And now that we are nearing the time when you can enter for amateur championships you must get used to me watching you. Just think, Lalla, if you get your inter-gold this time, there is only the gold left, and then our fun starts, but it’s our fun, we’re going to share your triumphs, aren’t we?”

  Lalla’s inside felt as if it rolled over. Inter-gold this time! Only the gold left! Share our triumphs! If only it was happening. It had got to happen. It had been promised her since she was a baby, and she had to go on being promised it. Aunt Claudia was not going to watch her, and perhaps go and whisper to Max afterwards. Somehow she would pass her inter-gold, and then Aunt Claudia would never know she nearly had not been able to do loops.

  “I don’t want you to come until I ask you.”

  “But why not, dear?”

  “Because I don’t.” Lalla remembered how she had made Aunt Claudia let Harriet go on sharing classes. “If you come, I won’t skate, I’ll go home.”

  That settled it. Nana opened the door for Aunt Claudia and saw her downstairs. When she came back her face was red.

  “That I should hear a child of mine speak that way. It’s not altogether your fault, you’ve been brought up very foolishly in many ways, and so I’ve always said, and through it you’ve become a shocking little madam, but you’ll suffer for it, pride comes before a fall, you’ll see.”

  Lalla swallowed a lump in her throat. If only Nana would understand it was not she was being a madam, but Nana could not, it was no good trying to explain. She turned away to the window, blinking to keep back tears which wanted to run down her cheeks. It made things more awful than ever if Nana was turning against her.

  It was not only Nana who seemed to Lalla to be turning against her, it was everybody, and the worst turner-against was Harriet. Harriet had done her best. It was not easy being friendly with Lalla when she was in a state. If she talked about skating Lalla would probably say something like “What do you know about it anyway?” and if she did not talk about skating she got suspicious. “Why do you try and not talk about my test? I suppose Max has told you not to. You two are always talking to each other, jabber, jabber, jabber. I guessed you were talking about me.” In the few weeks while Lalla thought her medicine was working it had been all right. Harriet had her usual fun with her, they talked all the time when they were not at lessons, and rushed out every day to look at Alec’s strawberries, but when the effect of the medicine finished Harriet found the only thing to do was to keep out of Lalla’s way as much as possible, and talk to her at little as possible. She did not want to have a row with her, and she knew she would in the end. Nobody could
go on giving soft answers that were supposed to turn away wrath, when the wrath went on coming at you just the same.

  As it happened, as her inter-silver test day came nearer, Harriet did not feel talkish. During the last six months the little-girl Harriet, without her noticing it, had disappeared and a new Harriet had taken her place. A Harriet who looked much the same outside, but was more of a person inside. Everybody else noticed it. Miss Goldthorpe told Nana it was a pleasure having Harriet about, she was becoming interesting to talk to. Nana said she didn’t know about talking, but Harriet was paying more for dressing, she looked really nice now at the rink, in the new things she had knitted for her, and when she had first had her it hadn’t mattered what she had put on her, she had never looked more than three-halfpence worth of nothing. Alonso Vittori, watching Harriet, murmured, “It’s a funny little personality but she’s got something, that child.” Monsieur Cordon said of Harriet to Miss Goldthorpe,“Un type curieux!”At the rink she stopped being just the little girl Mr Matthews allowed to skate free, or the child Lalla Moore’s aunt had taken up, and became Harriet Johnson, one of Max Lindblom’s promising pupils. As the day of the test came nearer Harriet was more and more wrapped up in skating, and less and less noticing what people were thinking or saying. She had private plans. If she passed the inter-silver, and she knew it was a big “if”, she would tell the family. They knew about an inter-silver test, for they had heard about it when Lalla went in for it. It would be fun to come home and say, just as if it was nothing, “I passed my inter-silver test today.” How surprised they would be. They would laugh of course. Her mother would say, “Darling! You have? I didn’t know you could skate properly.”Toby was sure to tell her not to get cocky, that if Lalla’s chances were less than one in a thousand, then hers were less than one in fifty thousand. But telling them would be the beginning of her idea. If she passed, she held her thumbs when she thought of it, perhaps this autumn she could try for the silver, and, if she passed that, the next spring the inter-gold, and have a try for the gold six months later. That would mean if she got on as fast as that, she would have her first try for the gold the autumn she was thirteen, and, allowing for lots of failures, she might have passed everything by the time she was fifteen. Even if she didn’t pass them all she would have a lovely career for when she was old enough. She would be a professional skater like that poster of the girl in the ballet skirt skating on one foot, which she had seen just before it was first planned she should go to the rink. Nobody must know what she was planning or they would laugh at her, which was natural, while she was no better than she was now, but she was sure if she worked she would get better, and then she would surprise the boys by earning money much sooner than they could.

  Harriet’s was a very full day. Every morning she caught the bus in time to reach Lalla’s house by a quarter to nine. The moment Wilson let her in she rushed up to Nana to change and was in the schoolroom by nine. After lessons there was ballet, fencing, a walk sometimes, gardening or shopping for Lalla. Then lunch. Then the rink, Max’s lessons, and hard practice. Then home and homework, for now she and Lalla were eleven and a half, more lessons had to be squeezed in, so having tea with each other had to come to an end. After lessons there was supper and bed. When, as well, there was thinking and planning a future there was not much room for other people’s troubles, and that was how the quarrel with Lalla started.

  Rinks draw press photographers. Lalla was so used to being photographed that she broke off whatever she was doing, posed charmingly, and skated off as casually as if she had only stopped to sneeze. But one day a photographer noticed Harriet.

  “Who’s the little ginger girl?”

  Somebody explained.

  “A pupil of Max Lindblom’s. Only been skating about eighteen months. He thinks a lot of her.”

  The photographer took an action photograph of Harriet practising a back change. It was a lucky photograph, Harriet looked charmingly serious. The photographer’s paper published it, over the caption “Little Harriet Johnson, for whom a great future is predicted.” It was an evening paper, and of course somebody saw the photograph. Harriet was having a lesson at the time, so the picture was shown to Lalla. Lalla said how nice it was, and she must buy a copy for Harriet, but inside she was furious. Harriet! Poor little Harriet who wore her clothes, and had her lessons paid for to keep her company, sneaking around and getting her photograph taken! The bit about her future was, of course, only idiotic, Harriet had no future. It was the meanness of it she minded, Harriet had only been photographed to be annoying; she knew that just before a test, if anyone’s photograph was published it had to be hers. Now she came to think of it Harriet was being mean all round. She was pretending to be so quiet and mousey, and all the time playing up to people like Alonso Vittori, Monsieur Cordon, and Max, trying to show them how good and hardworking she was. As the angry thoughts flew round in Lalla’s head, so she skated faster and faster, until it was as if she was in for a relay race. “Mean! Mean! Mean!” But if Harriet was going to treat her like that she would show her.

  When Harriet knowing nothing about the photograph, skated back on to the private rink, Lalla, her face scarlet, dragged her into a corner.

  “Look at that!”

  Harriet stared at the photograph. Her! Her in a paper! Then she saw what the paper had written.

  “Oh, bother! I never knew it was being taken, or I wouldn’t have let them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the family might see it, and I don’t want to tell them I’m taking tests or anything, I want to surprise them.”

  Lalla looked at Harriet, and a stab shot through her. Surprise them! Suppose she did! Suppose she could! Suppose… but she would not think of that. She was frightened at her half-thought, and so worried and miserable she could have cried, but she was too proud to do that in public, and anyway she knew something better, something to make Harriet feel as awful as she was feeling.

  “You’d better keep this photograph, for it’s most likely the only one they’ll ever take of you, for if you pass your inter-silver I’ll tell Aunt Claudia I don’t want you to work with me any more.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE THERMOMETER RISES

  HARRIET FELT AS an insect must feel who flies round and round a room unable to find a way out. What was she to do? If she told Max she would not enter for her inter-silver he would just flick his fingers, and tell her not to be silly. She could not explain to Miss Goldthorpe or Nana, they would be furious with Lalla, who would think her a mean beast to tell tales, which she would be. In any case it would do no good; neither Nana, Goldie nor anyone else could make Aunt Claudia let her go on sharing things with Lalla if Lalla said she didn’t want her. Nor could she tell her family. First of all they wouldn’t understand; they had never heard she was going in for her inter-silver, so all they would say would be, “Well, don’t enter for the inter-silver if Lalla’s cross about it,” not seeing that if you learnt from Max Lindblom you couldn’t just say “I’m not entering” without making him understand why. As well, she couldn’t tell her family because of Lalla. They thought Lalla was sometimes a bit grand; she might have been much worse seeing the silly way she had been brought up, but they all liked her, and talked about her as if she was part of the family. It would be horrible to have to tell them what Lalla had threatened and why. It would make the boys turn against her, they probably wouldn’t even pick the strawberries they had grown in her garden. Olivia, who not only liked but really loved Lalla, would find it hard to forgive her. The terrible thing was that Harriet had to make up her mind quickly. Having made her threat Lalla wouldn’t speak any more. It had been possible, Harriet hoped, to hide from Nana that she and Lalla weren’t speaking. They had both practised at different ends of the private rink until it was time to go home. When Nana called they went to the changing room speaking only to Nana. Outside the rink Nana said goodbye to Harriet and Harriet said goodbye to Nana; it had not been noticeable, Harriet thought,
that Lalla did not say “See you tomorrow” or “Bet I get my homework finished sooner than you do” or something usual of that sort.

  To make up her mind what to do Harriet walked home by the longest way she knew, and just before she reached home she found the answer. She couldn’t tell Max she would not try for her inter-silver after he had worked so hard to make it possible, and she couldn’t let Lalla tell Aunt Claudia she didn’t want her to learn things from her. It would not be true, Lalla would be miserable doing things all alone again, but being Lalla, having said she would say something, she would say it, even if it hurt her. Harriet got a lump in her throat when she thought of not learning things with Lalla. No more Nana! No more Goldie! Never to see Lalla again! It couldn’t be. No more dancing! No more fencing! It was at that thought, although it was not a cold evening, that Harriet shivered. No more skating! She could go to the rink and practise, but she knew she never would. What good would practising be to her when she had dreamed of being good enough to be a professional? How could she practise at the rink where Lalla was? How visit a rink just to practise, after having daily lessons from Max? It was not to be thought of. Lalla must be given in to, and no one but Lalla must know why she was unable to take the test.

  When Harriet reached home only Olivia was in. She was in the kitchen.

  “Hallo, darling. You’re first. Edward’s gone to tea with one of his admiring old ladies. Toby’s in the shop with Daddy, and Alec, of course, is doing his papers.”

  Harriet leant against the kitchen door.