But I was lucky that evening. I wrote: 'I had a partner for nearly all the dances, but I'm not particularly keen on any of the boys here although they are really very nice.'
'Very nice' sounds a little limp. I was obviously still feeling depressed. Harry was very quiet too, though he did dance with Biddy several times, and even steered Grace around the room in a jerky quickstep. Biddy and Ron danced too. I wonder if those snatched five-minute sessions on the dance floor made the whole holiday worthwhile.
But the next evening:
we went for a walk around Zennor head. First we climbed up a very high stony hill which was covered with very soft earthy grass that looked rather like lava from a volcano. When you reached the top a tremendously powerful wind almost lifted you off the peak, so that I experienced a sensation almost equal to flying. The wind seemed to cleanse and lift my spirits until I was almost bubbling over.
I can still vividly remember staring up at the stars and wanting to spread my arms and leap upwards.
'Then we went for a walk along the cliff in the dark and poor Uncle Ron tripped over and sprained his ankle.'
Did he trip – or was he pushed? Did Harry bump into him accidentally on purpose? Did Grace shove him with a sharp elbow? What were we doing, walking along a clifftop in the dark?
But we all got back to St Ives safe and sound, though Ron limped for a few days and wasn't able to trip the light fantastic at the farewell dance on Friday night.
We moved on to Newquay on the Saturday, all booked up for one more week. I'd much sooner have gone straight home to Cumberland House, where I could have a bit of privacy in my own bedroom, read and write whenever I felt like it, and go to the pictures or the shops or the lagoon with Chris or Carol. I even fantasized about seizing my train ticket from Biddy's purse and travelling home on the train by myself.
I tried suggesting this in a very roundabout way – 'It's been a lovely holiday but I'm a bit worried, I didn't take any of my school set work. Tell you what, I could always go home a bit early and get on with it. You don't have to worry about me, you know I like being by myself, and I could have my dinners at Ga's, she wouldn't mind a bit.'
'Don't be so silly!' said Biddy. 'Come on, start getting your things laid out nicely on your bed for me to pack. You're coming with us.'
'But I don't want to,' I mumbled childishly.
'Well, that's just too bad,' said Biddy. 'Now get cracking with those clothes, pronto, and stop being so ruddy ungrateful. I never went away on holiday for a whole two weeks when I was your age. Stop pulling that sulky face. You'll love it when you get there.'
She was right, oh so right!
13
Cookie
Saturday 27 August
Our new landlady, Mrs Philpotts, is an absolute scream of a character, although she means very well. She is a very hearty type with an enormous bust and a horsy face. I think I'm going to like Newquay and this hotel better than St Ives. The young people are – two teenage blondes that are nicknamed 'The Beverley Sisters', a big hefty boy called Jeff, and a nice-looking boy about 13–14 called Colin, with his sister and his sister's friend, both called Gillian and both 16.
I never got to know the Beverley Sisters or big hefty Jeff – but I did get to know Colin.
I got up early on Sunday morning and wandered downstairs a good half-hour before the breakfast gong. Mrs Philpotts had said there was a recreation room with a small library. I still had Gone with the Wind as a standby but I wanted to see what other books were on offer. I peeped in several doors and found the dining room all set up for breakfast and a sitting room with big sofas and a small television set – and then I stumbled upon the recreation room. It was just a small room with a shelf of Agatha Christie and Alistair Maclean paperbacks and a lot of board games, Monopoly and Ludo and Snakes and Ladders. There was a table-tennis table crammed into the room – and Colin was standing at the net, madly trying to play his left hand against his right hand.
He grinned when he saw me and clapped his tennis bats together. 'Hurray! Come and play with me!' he said, as if we'd known each other for ever.
'I can't play. I don't know how,' I said.
'I'll teach you,' said Colin, thrusting the bat in my hand.
'I'm not any good at games,' I said. 'I'm sure I'll be hopeless.'
I was hopeless, but Colin didn't seem to mind. He was happy to chase after the ball and win spectacularly.
'Champion, the wonder horse!' he sang. (It was the theme tune from a children's television show.) He threw back his head and neighed while I giggled uncertainly.
'You are daft,' I said.
'Course I am. Totally nuts,' said Colin happily. 'I'm Colin. What's your name?'
'Jacky.'
'Have you got any brothers or sisters here?'
I shook my head.
'I've got my big sister Gillian. She's with her friend Gillian. She's OK but she's sixteen, too old for me. How old are you, Jacky?'
'Fourteen.'
'Well, I'm nearly fourteen. Do you want to be my girlfriend?'
I stared at him. I liked him but I didn't want a boyfriend who was younger than me – and totally nuts.
'Let's just be friends,' I said cautiously.
'OK,' said Colin, not seeming to mind. 'I've got this friend Cookie. He's a great laugh. He's got this beach hut. We muck around together. Maybe you could be his girlfriend?'
'I don't think so!'
Cookie! He sounded as odd as Colin. I didn't think it at all likely I'd want to be his girlfriend.
'Well, you could still come and hang out with us by the beach hut,' Colin suggested.
'It's very kind of you, but I'm here with my parents and their friends,' I mumbled. 'Shall we have another game of table tennis?'
'Yeah, yeah, great,' said Colin, immediately serving and not even giving me a chance to return the ball. 'One to me. Are you going to the beach today then?'
'Yes, I expect so.'
'Are you going to do any surfriding?'
'You bet,' I said.
He looked surprised and wiggled his eyebrows. 'You can really surf?'
'Of course I can,' I said proudly.
I'd been to Newquay two years before and surfed every day. Not the surfriding guys in wetsuits do today, standing up and zigzagging over huge breakers. I wish! No, in 1960 in England, surfriding meant basic wooden boards. As long as you were a strong swimmer anyone could wade out, wait for a big wave, lie on the board and be whisked along into the shallows. I might be a total duffer at table tennis but I loved swimming and I'd taken to surfriding in a big way.
'Two to me. My pal Cookie's super at surfing. I'm just sort of so-so,' said Colin. 'I don't like getting my head under the water.' He shook his thick brown hair, pulling a silly face. Then his eyes brightened.
'So what kind of swimming costume have you got, Jacky?' he said, serving again. The ball whizzed straight past me. 'Come on, you can't be that bad . . . Is it a bikini?' he added hopefully.
'No, it's not a bikini,' I said.
'Oh, spoilsport,' said Colin. As he served he started singing the 'Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini' song.
'Mine's a swimsuit. It's not itsy-bitsy or teeny-weeny, and it's not even yellow, it's blue and white,' I said. I actually managed to connect bat with ball and smash it past him.
The breakfast gong sounded and Colin grinned.
'Just as you were coming into your own. Oh well, maybe see you on the beach? Or if not, come and find us along the beach-hut terrace. Cookie's hut is number sixty-eight.' He put his head on one side, squinting at me earnestly. 'You're absolutely sure you don't want to be my girlfriend?'
I was still absolutely sure, but I did like Colin a lot. He waved to me enthusiastically when I entered the breakfast room with Biddy and Harry, calling, 'Hello Jacky!' nearly knocking his orange juice over.
'I see you've made a friend here already, Jac!' said Biddy.
'We just played table tennis together,' I said casually.
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'You played table tennis?' said Harry, raising his eyebrows. He'd tried very hard one summer to teach me the rudiments of tennis, with spectacular lack of success.
'I'm not very good at it,' I said humbly.
'Never mind, as if it matters,' said Biddy. 'It's lovely that you're chumming up with someone. You never know, you might meet up with him on the beach.' She sounded a little patronizing.
'Well, his friend's got a beach hut. He wanted me to go there, practically begged me,' I said. 'But I'm not sure I want to. In fact I definitely don't.'
'Oh, Jac,' said Biddy, exasperated. 'I don't understand you at all.'
I didn't really understand myself. I'd been so fed up traipsing around with Biddy and Harry and Ron and Grace. Now I had a chance of younger, livelier, albeit crazier company and I was wilfully turning it down. I suppose I was just a bit shy, a bit scared. You couldn't be shy or scared of Colin but this unknown Cookie might be a different matter.
So I ignored Colin's gesturing queries and went off to get ready for a day on the beach with Biddy and Harry and Ron and Grace. This involved a lot of packing. Biddy had her favourite Evan Hunter book and her spare white cardigan and her camera and her swimming costume, just in case. Harry had his racing papers and his windcheater and his woolly swimming trunks and a spare towel snaffled from the hotel bedroom. Ron and Grace took beach time even more seriously. Ron had his trunks and his own big stripy towel and his hairbrush and Brylcreem and a beach ball and a big bag of toffees. Grace had her knitting and a map of Cornwall and a thermos and plastic cups and a damp cloth in a plastic bag and a Woman's Own. I had my swimming costume and Jane Eyre and my journal.
We wandered down to the beach, lugging our burdens. I saw the rows of beach huts and hesitated for a moment, but I scurried off after the others. I hoped they might settle on the smooth golden sand near the beach huts but they seemed intent on doing a Lawrence of Arabia trek across the sands, seeking an ideal spot.
We eventually set up camp way down the beach, out of sight of the beach huts. I pretended I didn't care. I struggled into my swimming costume under cover of my towel and then lay on my tummy, reading and eating Ron's toffees. Ron tried to tempt us with a game of ball, and for a little while he and Harry tossed it about while I was piggy in the middle. Biddy and Grace made strained conversation while peering at the map, plotting little outings to Polperro and Mousehole and Jamaica Inn.
There were families all around us, some of the boys rushing in surfing.
'Shall we give this surfing lark a go?' Ron asked eagerly. 'Come on, Biddy, I bet you're a dab hand at it. Get your costume on!'
'No, no, I'm much too comfortable,' said Biddy.
'Jac, you'll have a go, won't you? I'll show you what to do,' said Ron.
'Jac's a good surfer already,' Harry said coldly. 'I showed her how on our last holiday to Newquay.'
This was a downright lie. Harry was a weak swimmer and didn't have much clue how to surf, but I smiled at him loyally. The three of us trailed all the way to the surf shack to hire boards. No one bothered to ask poor Grace if she'd like a go.
I clutched my board and waded gingerly into the water, lifting my feet high and jumping every time a wave swelled past me, a total wimp about getting wet. But though it took me ages to get in properly up to my neck, with Harry and Ron shouting and splashing me, I came into my own once I was in. I paddled around on my surfboard, eyeing up each likely wave, and then, just before it crested, I leaped forward and hurtled full tilt all the way into the shallows. I waded out again and again, while Harry and Ron wobbled and wavered and fell off their boards.
Biddy came picking her way to the water's edge, her Brownie camera in her hand. She lined us up and commanded us to smile, bossily intent – so much so that she shrieked when a wave suddenly swirled round her ankles, wetting the hem of her frock. We all smiled easily enough then.
I hated the getting-out-the-water stage, blue and shivering, with the towel wrapped around me, struggling out of my wet costume and into my knickers, trying not to get everything all sandy. But the sun was out and I gratefully drank a cup of tea from Grace's thermos. I combed my straggly hair and fished my coral lipstick out of the pocket of my skirt.
'Haven't we got any sandwiches?' said Ron, rubbing his big tummy. 'I'm starving after all that surfing. Let's have a picnic.'
'Oh, Ron, how can I make up a picnic when we're staying in a hotel?' said Grace.
'I'll magic up a picnic,' said Ron, reaching for his wallet. 'I'll nip along the beach to the shops. Who's coming with me to help carry the goodies?'
He looked hopefully at Biddy, but she was stretched out, eyes closed, seemingly asleep. Ron looked at me instead. 'Come on, Jacky.'
So I sauntered along beside him, carrying my sandals, while he laughed and joked and clowned around. He attempted daft conjuring tricks, plucking pennies from my ears, hankies from my hair. People on the beach smiled at us, obviously thinking he was my dad. In lots of ways I wished he was my dad. You could laugh and joke and tease him back, you never had to be wary, you could say the first thing that came into your head.
I wrote later, cruelly:
How happy we'd all be if Uncle Ron and Mum married. Dad would have Aunty Grace! (Two awkward ones together.) I am writing a lot of nasty things about him, we haven't had a quarrel or anything but I'm just fed up and truthfully admitting things I've loyally tried to ignore. Later I'll probably want to tear out this page. But if Daddy wasn't my father I wouldn't be the same, as I am very like him in some ways.
I know Biddy tried to read my diary, which was why I kept trying to find new hiding places for it. I do so hope Harry didn't ever find it and read that last passage. Today I went through many files of my old manuscripts, looking for the story I wrote about that Cornish holiday. I came across two letters that Harry wrote to me when I was living in Scotland several years later – lovely, funny, stylish letters that made me want to cry. I couldn't find the story anywhere, though I did find a letter telling me that it had won a competition, the first time I'd ever won anything with my writing. But I don't really need to find that story. I can still remember the holiday as if it was only last summer.
Ron and I went to the general shop and bought five big Cornish pasties, five Scotch eggs, five packets of Bovril-flavoured crisps, two pounds of tomatoes, a bunch of bananas and a bag of apples. He dawdled at the sweet counter and then chose five Fry's Five Boys chocolate bars. There were faces of the five boys on the wrapper, labelled DESPERATION, PACIFICATION, EXPECTATION, ACCLAMATION, REALIZATION. Uncle Ron imitated each one with his big red rubbery features, making everyone in the shop chuckle.
There was a particularly loud hoot of a laugh behind me, curiously familiar. I turned round. There was Colin, choking on his choc ice, standing beside a boy with intense brown eyes, fair curly hair and a smooth golden tan. He was wearing a casual white shirt and blue shorts and his sandy feet were bare. I stared at him and he stared at me.
'This is Jacky – you know, the girl I told you about. We played ping-pong this morning,' said Colin. 'I won, both games. Jacky, this is my friend Cookie.'
I swallowed. I smiled. Cookie put his hand out in a charmingly old-fashioned way, shaking mine.
'Hello. Colin's told me all about you. I'm Peter Cookson, but all my friends call me Cookie.'
Did that mean I could call him Cookie too? What exactly had Colin told him? Had he told him I didn't want to be his girlfriend?
Uncle Ron was wiggling his eyebrows and beaming at us, clutching our two big brown carrier bags.
'Are you Jacky's dad?' asked Colin.
'No, he's my . . . Uncle Ron,' I said.
'OK, Uncle Ron, can Jacky come and hang out with us over at the beach huts?' said Colin.
'Well, that's fine with me, but I expect she should ask her mum first. And she's got to come back up the beach with me for her picnic lunch.'
'She could have a picnic at our hut. My mum always has heaps,' said Cookie.
'Or we could come with you and wait till she's had her picnic and then walk back with her,' said Colin, licking the last of his choc ice from the wrapper.
So they ambled along beside us. My heart was beating fast underneath my white T-shirt. It was wonderful having not one but two boys begging for my company – and Cookie seemed so special.
Biddy sat up and blinked when we got back to our little camp. There I was, a boy on either side of me. Harry looked startled, Grace mildly surprised. Uncle Ron did the introductions and Colin sat down cross-legged at once and started chatting nineteen to the dozen. Cookie was much quieter, though he politely answered all Biddy's questions. He lived in Sale, he was fifteen years old, he went to a grammar school.
'Mum!' I mumbled. She'd be asking him what his father did for a living next.
Grace took over the picnic, arranging pasties and Scotch eggs on the paper bags and circling them with tomatoes. I was so excited I just nibbled at a Scotch egg and then an apple.
'Don't you like pasties, Jacky? I love them,' said Colin blatantly.
Grace offered him one and he wolfed it down.
'I don't suppose there are any crisps going spare?' he said.
Cookie had a few crisps too, and then stood up. 'So it's OK if Jacky comes with us this afternoon?' he asked Biddy. 'We're number sixty-eight if you need to come and find her. Otherwise I'll walk her back to your hotel by six – is that all right?'
'I'll walk her, seeing as it's my hotel too,' said Colin.