Opal Plumstead Read online

  Cassie was certainly in the mood for foolishness as she’d had several glasses of wine, but she confined herself to eyeing up all the gentlemen in the room, including the waiters, who seemed very eager to flap about her. Mother was so jovial she seized Father’s hand and brought it to her lips.

  ‘You’re the best husband in the whole world and I’m quite the luckiest wife,’ she declared, making Father’s face crumple, as if he were going to cry.

  I didn’t make any proclamations, but I raised my glass to Father. I drank it down to the dregs, consciously trying to drown all the doubt and fear coiled in my stomach.

  When we reeled home, rather the worse for wear, Father and Mother went to their room to have a nap and Cassie starting trying on all her clothes, planning to discard most of them now that she had the promise of a whole new wardrobe.

  I fetched my paintbox and tried experimenting with each of my new brushes. I composed a picture of our house, cut off down the front wall to resemble a doll’s house. I drew us cowering in corners and Billy flapping in a panic in his cage, while the animal originals of our new purchases stampeded through the house. The buffalo violently butted the coat-rack in the hallway, the giant tortoise took possession of the sofa, the kid bleated on the kitchen table, lapping up spilled milk, and the camel kicked down my bedroom door in a fury.

  I was rather pleased with the effect and showed it to Cassie, but she shook her head at me and said it was clear that the wine had addled my brain.

  On the Sunday Father took us for a pleasure boat trip on the river Thames, all the way up to London. It was a great novelty at first, looking along the riverbank and seeing all these different little islands. It made Cassie and me remember our games of ‘Island’, when she was Queen Cassie and I was Princess Opal and we ruled over our own desert island kingdom. We used to play it on Mother and Father’s big bed, pretending the dark lino all around was the sea.

  Now, we started fantasizing about owning our own island, building a little house and rowing our boat to shore to collect provisions. We got so carried away it felt as if we were nine and seven again. Father and Mother seemed to have retreated into the past too, and were huddled up together holding hands like young sweethearts. But we had all underestimated just how long the boat journey would take, and how dreary the riverside became when dark warehouses took the place of weeping willows. Mother grew pink and fretful because she needed a ladies’ room and didn’t care to use the reeking little cupboard down below. Cassie got tired of playing games and waved at all the boatmen instead. She was delighted when they responded, until they became raucous.

  We were all heartily sick of boats by the time we reached town, but Father had made the mistake of booking a return trip. We were supposed to stay in our seats, but Mother couldn’t help wishing aloud that we could go to a decent restaurant where we could have a proper bite to eat and relieve ourselves in comfort.

  ‘Very well, Lou. Hang the return trip. We’ll catch the train back instead,’ said Father grandly.

  ‘Thank you, Ernest,’ said Mother, not breathing a word about the expense of the wasted tickets.

  We went to a restaurant and ate huge portions of steak-and-kidney pudding, and then jam roll and custard. I was glad I didn’t wear corsets yet. Both Mother and Cassie squirmed uncomfortably afterwards.

  ‘I’m sure I can’t carry on eating like this. If I lose my figure, I won’t be able to fit into any of my new dresses,’ said Cassie.

  We were all tired out by the time we got home at last. We weren’t used to such hectic family outings, especially not two on the trot. We were all ready for bed, but Father insisted we stay up for a while ‘to make the most of our lovely day’. He had us playing card games together, though we were too exhausted to think straight, and then he suggested a sing-song around the piano.

  The piano was very old and battered and hadn’t been properly tuned in many a year. It had been a long-ago impulsive purchase from a curiosity shop. Mother thought that it would make our humble parlour look genteel. She couldn’t play a note and neither could Father, but Cassie and I had been forced to take piano lessons with a fierce old lady up the street. She put pennies on the backs of our hands, and poked us hard between the shoulder blades because she said we were slumping.

  Cassie soon rebelled and refused to go any more. I stuck it out because I rather wanted to be able to play the piano. I attended weekly lessons for a couple of years and practised grimly most days. I became passably competent at playing a few tunes, but I was so hopelessly unmusical that Miss Bates would cover her ears and shudder.

  ‘No, no, with feeling!’ she’d protest. ‘Not plink-plink, plod-plod. Where is the passion? Don’t you have any soul, Opal?’

  This upset me, because as I grew older I was starting to worry that I really didn’t have any soul. I didn’t seem to think the same way as anyone else. The girls at school became passionate about the silliest things. They screamed with joy if they scored a goal at hockey, they giggled and nudged each other in geography lessons because they all had a crush on the fair-haired master, and they vied with each other to run errands for Judith, the head girl. I detested hockey and couldn’t see the point of knocking a ball into a net. I thought Mr Grimes, the geography master, was a silly, vain man who delighted in all the attention, and I didn’t give a hoot for rosy-cheeked Judith and her favours.

  I couldn’t seem to let go and just be. I felt as if I were watching myself all the time, commenting slightly sourly on my actions. I couldn’t really feel passionate about anything at all. I didn’t believe in romantic love. I suppose I loved Father and Mother, and even Cassie, but in a reserved, embarrassed fashion.

  I hated playing the piano now, horribly aware of my shortcomings, but I loved Father more than anyone else, so I did my best. I hadn’t been taught any amusing singsong-in-the-parlour pieces. Miss Bates would wince at the very notion. The tunes I could play properly were either classical extracts or a selection of particularly melancholy hymns, which were completely unsuitable. So I tried very hard to play by ear, reproducing plonking versions of the music-hall numbers Mother used to sing when she was dusting, plus several silly novelty songs Olivia and the other girls sang at school. I frequently missed the right notes, but luckily Cassie knew all the songs and was word-perfect. I played badly and she sang loudly but off-key, yet somehow we sounded jolly enough to please Father. Mother joined in too, but Father didn’t try to sing. He just sat in the soft lamplight, gazing at us intently, as if he were trying to commit every little detail to memory.

  We didn’t go to bed until nearly midnight, an unheard of event in our house. Not surprisingly, we all overslept in the morning.

  I woke to hear Mother shrieking, ‘Ernest, Ernest, get up! It’s gone eight o’clock! Oh my Lord, you’ll never be at work by nine, and you’re on your last warning at the office.’

  I expected poor Father to fling on his shabby business suit and bolt from the house within minutes, but when Cassie and I went down to breakfast, pulling on clothes and doing up laces as we staggered downstairs, Father was there in the kitchen, chewing on a triangle of toast and marmalade.

  ‘Father! Why aren’t you going to work?’ I asked.

  ‘I am going to work at home today,’ said Father calmly.

  We stared at him.

  ‘Your father’s not going to the office any more. He’s going to concentrate on his writing,’ said Mother. She said it proudly, but her voice was high-pitched and she kept giving Father worried little glances.

  ‘You mean you’ve given in your notice, Father?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t really need to,’ he said.

  ‘What about a reference?’

  ‘I don’t need a reference.’

  ‘Do stop your silly questions, Opal,’ said Mother. ‘You can be very aggravating at times. Now, take a piece of buttered bread and get yourself off to school, sharpish. You quit gawping too, Cassie, and get to Madame Alouette’s. Dear me, what a pair you are.�€