Envy. A Tale
Mrs. Rachel Simmons stood beside the teachers deskbusinesslike, severe, tightly wound, nervous, with a fresh halo of tightly curled permanent waves.
Have you written it all down? Weeks one and two, thats the plan. This is the Upper Sixth, mind! Its not a game. Your A-levels are ahead, and you must show yourselves worthy of this school.
She brushed chalk dust from her thin, unpolished fingers. Nail varnish wasnt for a schoolteacher.
Alice copied the timetable from the board before anyone else. She always did everything quickly. She glanced out the window. Summer was gone. She wished she could freeze time inside it forever, like amber on the slender pines. In the little park opposite, birds wheeled alreadysensing autumn before us all.
Yes, September had come, bringing the sixth form, their last year together. Alice looked around the classroom. High overhead, set against the white wall, hung imposing portraits of famed writers; at their desks her classmates hunched over diariesone more year together, side by side.
Tessa Tessa Blackwood Her friend since Year Seven. She wrote out each letter carefully, chewing her lip in concentration. Her pinafore was interesting, as always, and her satchel was different tootwo brass clasps, grey trimmed with black. But that was typical Tessa; after all, her father went abroad on business trips all the time.
Then Rita Godfreysmall, never tidy, always wringing her hands in worry and doubt. A proper crybaby since infants school.
Stanley Fletcherfair hair, straight nose, dreamy eyes. Girls daydreams everywhere, though not among their own classmates, who knew his slyness and how quickly he fell apart when life got tough. Let him pose for the year below.
Sophie Perrinher ribbons were magnificent. She hid her earrings, surely. If the teachers caught her, shed have to remove themno jewellery in school, everyone knew after last years grand expulsion: she was marched straight to the loos to scrub off her mascara.
Well-read Robby Atherton, who once tried to walk Alice home. She put a stop to thathe wore glasses and was shorter than she.
Alices gaze flickered over them all, thinking of each in turn, but mostly, really, thinking of herself. A year lefta year till childhood ended.
And then Alice realised the girls in her class were already young women, yes, womenwhite stockings, frilly pinafores, silly ribbons, all kinds, but still there it was. Plump Lucy Parker, joined from the parallel class, had such a front that the apron wings stuck out ahead, while Sophie had spots everywhere. If the old superstition was to be believedthat every spot meant someone loved youSophie must be loved by every lad in the schools youth club.
It struck Alice, this curiosity: their blossoming would surely lead to love. It must. But what would it be?
Open your books. Smith, youre reading, commanded Rachel, and Alice, like the rest, looked down, but her mind was far away.
Tessa Tessas course was quite clear. One day her father would bring home a charming, gifted young Foreign Office chap, or a polished civil servant, and Tessas long black lashes would fluttercase closed. That was Tessa sorted: wife of a specialist in international trade, with all the trappingsconnections, money, travel, a flat. A comfortable life.
Someone would pity Rita, as she desperately needed, and shed give her whole self to the first who did.
Sophie would find some stocky labourer, shed end up in retail for certain. Was always bragging about the perks beyond her mothers official pay, being a shop manageress. Still, she could sewa trade to fall back on.
And Alice herself? What would she have?
Oh, to have a father like Tessas!
Shed loved Tessas father from the bottom of her heart, in a way only a girl can adore the father she wishes shed had. He was everything a father should be. Tall, loving, charismatic, a shining diplomat who wanted for nothing. When he hugged Tessa to his broad chest, when Tessa hugged him back, Alice held her breathher own stepfather had never held her that way. The thought sickened her.
And the Blackwoods house It was like something out of a dream. High ceilings, rows of books, a roomy kitchen, a goldfish tank, a piano.
But Tessas mother scared Alice. She was strict and plainsolid, black-browed, peering over her glasses, asking uncomfortable questions and clearly drawing silent, unfavourable conclusions.
Martin, carry on, Rachel called, yanking Alice back to the present.
Tessa poked at the paragraph with her fingershe always helped.
Sloppy work, Martin. Counting crows, are we? No essay for you.
Afterwards, they loitered outside school, talking out the new schedule before parting their separate ways.
Alice lived the other side of the main road, not in these tall, lively blocks, but over the brook. Over the brook was an expression stuck in her mind since childhoodnow it split not just the landscape, but their whole way of life.
The brook split the community in two: one side, a clutch of rundown terraces, on the other, new estates with grand expensive flats. Along the terrace side snaked a huge black pipeeveryone from school, adults even, crept under it to save the long walk, thanks to someones homemade tunnel. Youd scramble down the slope, crawl through the pipe, clamber back upand suddenly, across the road, there was the school.
Whenever Alice emerged from the brook, shed straighten herself, and it felt like crossing to another world. You could live either side of the brookbut better, surely, to live as the Blackwoods did. Still
Their terrace was one of the bestonly six families shared it. Their home: a big room and a kitchen. Alice had younger ones: brother Charlie and sister May.
Four little patches outside made their whole family plot. That was their due, though there was a potato patch out in the fieldpotato digging was backbreaking, and harvest time drew near.
Alices stepfather had done four years insideconvicted after a brawl. He came back three years ago, when May was born. Alice could never understand her mother. Why? With everyone packed in that roomstepfather, who felt like a stranger, rough and always reeking of tobacco; nine-year-old Charlie, scruffy and wild, who Alice had to take to school with her, and then little sister too.
In truth, her mother was a difficult womanalways busy, sharp-toned, forever cross with Alice.
Alice would come back from school to a room overflowing with clothes and toys, collapse onto the sofa, and imagine Tessas mothera housewifewelcoming Tessa, asking about school, feeding her a hearty lunch. Alice pitied herself. Her own lot was dusting, washing mountains of plates, then fetching May from nursery, listening to her whinge, scrubbing tights, and scrounging something for supper. Otherwise, woe betideher mother would come home and rage about the mess, accusing her of never lifting a finger.
And the next morning it would start againthe endless laundry, toys, pots and pans.
Shed won a little corner for herself: a writing desk, a chest, and her uniform hung neatly on pegs. Even her mother didnt dare touch it, nor Charlie and May, who knew Alice would erupt if they did.
Evenings, Alice would cover her ears to block the blaring telly and Mays shrieks, burying herself in homework. Then, while her mother grumbled herself to sleep, shed get ready for school with care.
Shed fought for the right not to look worse than the rest. Her grandfather had given her money for a new apron, shed topped it up herself, working summers at her grans farm, to buy the school dress she wantedher mother wanted something cheaper; Alice stood firm.
Who dyou think youre showing off for? Who are you trying to impress? her mother would moan, used to pinching every penny.
Who? No one, really. Herself, perhaps. She wanted to be on the other side of the brook. Shed climb up, dust off her shoes, nudge Charlie ahead, and stride along the clean city pavement, head held high.
***
September shone warm, clear, and blue. Yet something had soured their old routineno more wandering, chatting, even doing homework together in the park. And Tessa, ashamed, knew she was partly to blame. Something had broken between her and dear Alice.
Alice was sharp now, pricklyeven snappy at teachers. Yesterday shed handed out exercise books with an angry flourish, practically throwing them at the desks, and when their maths teacher told her off, shed snapped, hunched down, and shoved the nearest boy.
Meanwhile, Tessa had music lessons, French tuition, and chores at home to juggle. In the lower school, Alice had come round often; theyd eat lunch then mess about in Tessas room, do homework together. But now
Now, with childhood games replaced by girlish gossip, Tessa grew bored. The endless talk about boys and which girls were going out, running off to school dances, had become tedious. Just the other day, Lucy Brewster turned up in nylon stockingssent straight home, never to return. She was in open rebellion, apparently.
The whole thing had been chewed over a thousand times, and Tessa was tired of it. Her father would bring home fantastic books, and shed burn for her next chance to read in peace.
Shed gulp down lunch, then drift to her room, lost in a novel.
Tessa! Youre late for music lessons!
I know, MumIve got half an hour yet
Mrs. Blackwood would sighwhat could she do; Tessa read like one possessed.
Tess, remember were off to Canterbury at the weekend?
Canterbury? Oh must I come?
Dont be sillydont you want to see Graham?
Of course, but hes got Polly now. If only I could stay home and finish my book
Her brother Graham worked at the munitions factory in Canterbury, newly married, expecting a baby, living with his wifes parents. Sitting round with adults didnt appealbut Tessa had secretly planned to bring a book alongher mother would never let her stay behind. Still, Canterbury meant barbecues in the garden, guitar-playing, the old village bathhouse, and the chilly plunge pool.
Canterbury? And whats there? asked Alice when Tessa mentioned the tripno walk in the park for them.
Well family get-together, Pollys birthday. Parents chatting endlessly. But at least Pollys uni friends will be therelovely crowdbrilliant singers, know all those old folk songs. And the pool, though I never go inits freezing.
Brilliant! Id have shown them how its doneI dive in at Grans. If only Alice sighed, Were digging spuds at the weekend.
Potatoes? Oh, thats rightautumn means harvest time.
Oh, Tessa, how dyou live? Youve no idea what real life is!
And again, Tessa was stung. Before, shed have begged forgiveness, but now just shruggedshed tired of apologising for what Alice saw as her comfortable life. Was it her fault, after all, to be born where she was?
She never thought her life was easy. Her parents were always worn out. Her mother wore herself to the boneorganising, keeping house. It never seemed much to Alice, but it was. There were always guests to receive, family occasions, shopping, banquets. Tessa did her bit, but her mother could never sit stillalways finding herself work.
Nothing happens by itself, Tess love. If you want a lovely home, with warmth and good pies, you must work for it.
Her father, meanwhile Some nights her mother had to pull his boots off, so tired was he. Vital, stress-filled work; his asthma and weak heart she was sorry for him.
Alice, meanwhile, was eaten alive by a sense of injustice. She was sure she didnt deserve her own hard lot, and Tessa felt it, too. So, for a while, she stopped inviting Alice round. Her mother loved fine things, and tried her best. Over the summer theyd redone the bathroom and replaced the lampshades in the hall. Tessa was embarrassed even by these, as if they were tokens of some bourgeois shame.
Their trip to Canterbury was a delight. No longer treated as a mere child, Tessa listened in on Pollys university friends, but for Graham she was still only a little sister.
This time, Grahams new colleague came tooLeonard, dark-haired with glowing cheeks in a black suit and blue tie. The rest were dressed plainly, but he had a post in design and was soon cornered by Tessas father, grilling him about ordnance manufacture. Leonard kept glancing her way and, when he finally joined the younger crowd, proved a gifted storyteller, steady and likeable.
In the evening, as they all wandered out into the woods, Tessa offered him some wellies, and he took her arm as if nothing could be more natural. She felt a flash of awkwardness, then swung herself up by his shoulder and walked with him, because the groups mood was warm and welcoming.
Blue sky stretched over brown fields, the woods glowed with golden velvet, and the distant pines grew blue-black. Tessa was glad shed come.
***
Potato digging was postponedit rained. Half the day, Alice and her mother cleaned, washed, and cooked. Alice was tired. She had to get out, and walked to Sophie Perrins.
The rain had stopped, leaving a damp chill, and the streets were empty. Sophie lived in a house with a gardenperfect for escaping the noise of home.
They decided to stroll through the waterlogged park and talk.
Potatoes, washing, tidyingfed up with it all. May woke with earache, Mums fussing like mad. I thought, Im off out
Mum had me pickling cabbagebored stiff. I cant wait to finish school and leave, Alice. Its all I dream of.
Off to train as a seamstress? You still sure?
Probablyhavent made up my mind. What about you? Sophie asked.
Me? I might try medicine.
The college? Sophies jaw dropped.
No! University, Alice nodded stoutly.
But thats where Blackwoods going too.
So? Why shouldnt I?
No reason just
Just what, Sophie? What? Alice snapped, her voice rising, What makes her better than me? I get good marks too! I do more than enough for the school. Shes allowed, but not me? Why? Is it the money? Is it because I live in the terraces? Wheres the fairness in that, then? Where?
Even the old ladies on the benches turned to look.
Oh come on, Alice, take it easy! I didnt mean anything Sophies eyes were round with surprise.
Alice fell silent, but resentment burned inside her. She was no less than Tessacertainly not! Still, in everyone elses eyes, she was always second-rate. Thats how it was, for everyone. Tessa might as well have been born with blue blood, and Alice could never quite decide if they were friends or rivals.
Go on, Sophie, be honestwhy do people always think she deserves the world, and not us? Alice asked quietly.
Well, she moves in different circles, doesnt she? Lifes different there.
Circlesyes. Alice thought aloud. Yesterday we had my stepdads mate rounda train driver, Mum was dead proud. But over at theirs, its all professors and diplomats.
Exactly. Thats what I mean.
That evening, Alice brooded on how much our lives are shaped by those around us. Even silly Sophie was right in that. Birds of a feather
And Alice decidedfor now, she wouldnt quarrel with Tessa.
