Kitabı oku: «White Boots», sayfa 2
Olivia mentally ran a distracted eye over Harriet’s wardrobe. She had grown so long in the leg since her illness. There was her school uniform, but that wanted letting down. There were her few frocks made at home. There was the winter party frock cut down from an old dinner dress which had been part of her trousseau. Dimly Olivia connected skating and dancing.
“I don’t know, darling, do you think the brown velvet?”
Harriet thought once more of the poster.
“It hasn’t got pants that match, and they would show.”
“She must match,” said Toby. “She’ll fall over a lot when she’s learning.”
Olivia got up.
“I must go and get our supper. I think tomorrow, darling, you must just wear your usual skirt and jersey; if you find that’s wrong we’ll manage something else by the next day.”
George stood up and shifted Harriet into a carrying position.
“Come up to bed, Miss Cecilia Colledge.”
Harriet’s skating ceased to be a serious subject and became funny. Olivia, halfway to the kitchen, turned to laugh.
“My blessed Harriet, what is Daddy calling you? It’s only for exercise, darling.”
Alec drew a picture of Harriet on his blotting paper: she was flat on her back with her legs in the air. Under it he wrote, “Miss Harriet Johnson, Skating Star.”
Toby gave Harriet’s pigtails a pull.
“Queen of the Ice, that’s what they’ll call you.”
George had a big rumbling laugh.
“Queen of the Ice! I like that. Queen of the Ice!”
Harriet wriggled.
“Don’t laugh, Daddy, it tickles.”
But when she got back to bed Harriet found that either the laughing or the thought of skating next day had done her good. Her legs were still cotton-woolish but not quite as cotton-woolish as they had been before her father had fetched her downstairs. Queen of the Ice! She giggled. The giggle turned into a gurgle. Harriet was asleep.
Chapter Two MR PULTON
ALEC CALLED ON Mr Pulton after supper. Mr Pulton had been born over the newspaper shop and so had his father before him, and likely enough rows of grandfathers before that. Nobody could imagine a time when Pulton’s newsagents had not been a landmark in the High Street. By luck, or because Pulton’s did not hold with meddling, the shop looked as if it had been there a long time. It was a little, low shop with a bow-fronted window, and there were the remains of some old bottle glass in one pane. Nobody knew Mr Pulton’s Christian name, he had always been just Mr Pulton to speak to, and C. Pulton when he signed his name. There was a lot of guessing as to what the C. stood for; local rumour had decided it was Carabas, like the marquess who was looked after by Puss in Boots. There were old men who were at school with Mr Pulton, who ought to have known his name, but they only remembered he had been called Pip Pulton. This was so unlikely a name for Mr C. Pulton that nobody believed the old men, and said they were getting on and had forgotten. It was true they were getting on, for anyone who had been at school with Mr Pulton was rising eighty.
Alec went to Mr Pulton’s back door for the shop was closed. He knocked loudly for Mr Pulton was a little deaf. After a moment there was a shuffling, grunting, wheezing sound, and Mr Pulton opened the door. He was a very thin, very pale man. His hair was white, and so was his face, which looked as if it had been a face for so long that the colour had been washed out of it, and it had been battered around until it creased and was full of wrinkles. His hands were pale too, long and thin and spidery; he wore clothes that nobody had ever seen anyone else wear; a little round brown velvet cap with a tassel hanging down on one side and a brown velvet coat and slippers embroidered with gold and silver thread. His paleness and thinness sticking out of the brown skull cap and brown velvet coat made him look like a delicate white moth, caught in a rough brown hand. There was, however, nothing delicate or mothlike about Mr Pulton’s mind; that was as quick and as tough as a lizard. This showed in his extraordinarily blue, interested, shrewd eyes. His voice was misleading for it matched his body and not his mind. It was a tired voice, which sounded as if it had been used such a lot that it was wearing away. Mr Pulton looked at Alec and his eyes showed he was remembering who he was, and anything that he knew about him.
“What can I do for you, young man?” Alec explained that he had come about the paper round. There was a long pause, not a pause of tiredness but a pause in which Alec could feel Mr Pulton was considering his paper round, and whether he was the sort of boy who could be trusted to deliver papers without bringing dishonour to Pulton’s Newsagents. Evidently his thoughts about Alec were nice, for suddenly he said a very surprising thing. “Come inside.”
Alec had never been inside Mr Pulton’s house before, and neither, as far as he knew, had anybody else. He had often wanted to go inside, because leaning across the counter waiting for his father’s paper he had sometimes seen glimpses of a back room, which seemed to be full of interesting things. Now he was inside the room and he found it even more interesting than he had thought it might be. It was a brownish kind of room, so evidently Mr Pulton was fond of brown. There were brownish curtains, and brownish chair covers, and brownish walls. There was a gay fire burning, but in spite of it the room was dark because Mr Pulton had not yet got around to electric light, and could not be bothered with lamps, so he lit his home with candles, which gave a queer, dim, flickering light. In spite of the dimness Alec could see the room was full of pictures, and the pictures were all of horses, which was amazing, for nobody had ever thought of Mr Pulton as being interested in horses. There were dozens of portraits of horses: race-horses, hunters, shire horses, almost every sort of horse. As well on the top of a bookcase, on brackets and on tables there were bronze models of horses. It seemed such a very horse sort of room that Alec thought it would not be rude to mention it.
“I say, what a lot of horses, sir.”
Mr Pulton picked up a candle. He walked slowly round his walls, his voice took on a proud, affectionate tone, though it still kept its frail, reed-like quality.
“Old Jenny, foaled a Grand National winner, she did. There he is, his portrait was painted the day after, so my father heard, you can see he was proud; look at him, knows he’s won the greatest test of horse and rider ever thought of. That’s Vinegar, beautiful grey, went to a circus, wonderfully matched greys they were. Now there’s a fine creature, you wouldn’t know what he was – Suffolk Punch. It takes all sorts to make up a horse’s world, just as it takes all sorts to make our world; Suffolk Punches are country folk, simple in their ways, not asking much nor wanting changes. Now there’s a smart fellow: Haute École they call that, see his feet? That’s fine work, that is, takes a clever horse for High School.” He paused by a bronze cast of a horse which was standing on a small table. He ran his hand over the back of the cast as if it were alive. “You were a grand horse, weren’t you, old fellow? My grandfather’s he was; used to hunt him, he did. My father used to say you were almost human, didn’t he? Whisky his name was; clever, couldn’t put a foot wrong. And how he loved it. Why, there’s mornings now, especially at this time of year, when there’s a nip of frost in the air, and the smell of dropped leaves, I can fancy old Whisky here raising his head, and I can see a look in his eye as if he were saying ‘What’s keeping us? Wonderful morning for a hunt, let’s be off.’”
Alec was so interested in the horses and the little bits of their history that Mr Pulton let drop, that he forgot the paper round, and it was quite a surprise to him when Mr Pulton, holding up his candle so that he could see Alec’s face clearly, said:
“Why do you want my paper round? Not the type.”
“Why not? I’m honest, sober and industrious.”
Mr Pulton chuckled.
“Maybe, but you haven’t answered my question. Why do you want my paper round?”
Alec, though privately he thought Mr Pulton was a bit inquisitive, decided he had better explain.
“Well, sir, it’s to hire boots and skates for my sister Harriet, who’s been ill and…”
Mr Pulton held up a finger to stop Alec.
“Sit down, boy, sit down. At my age you feel your legs, can’t keep standing all the time. Besides, I’ve got my toddy waiting in the fireplace. You like toddy?… No, course you wouldn’t. If you go through that door into my kitchen, and open the cupboard, you’ll see in the left-hand corner a bottle marked ‘Ginger wine’. Nothing like ginger wine for keeping out the cold.”
Alec went into the kitchen; it was a very neat, tidy kitchen, evidently whoever looked after Mr Pulton did it nicely. He found the cupboard easily, and he brought the bottle of ginger wine and a glass back to the sitting room. Mr Pulton nodded in a pleased way, and pointed to the chair opposite his own.
“Sit down, boy… sit down… help yourself. Now tell me about your sister Harriet.”
Mr Pulton was an easy man to talk to; he sat sipping his toddy, now and again nodding his head, and all the time his interested blue eyes were fixed on Alec. When Alec had told him everything, including how difficult it was to make the shop pay because of Uncle William eating so much, and how Dr Phillipson thought he could get Harriet into the rink for nothing, he put down his glass of toddy, folded his hands, and put on the business face he wore in his paper shop.
“How much does it cost to hire boots and skates?”
“Two shillings a session.”
Mr Pulton gave an approving grunt, and shook himself a little as if he was pleased about something.
“Morning and evening rounds. Good. The last boy I had would only do mornings, no good in that, never get into my ways. I pay ten shillings a week for the morning round, and four shillings for the evening round; there’s not so much work in the evenings, mostly they buy their papers from a newsboy on the street, nasty, dirty habit. Never buy papers from newsboys. You can have the job.”
Alec was reckoning the money in his head. Harriet would only go to one session of skating a day, that meant for six days, for there would be no skating on Sunday, which would cost twelve shillings. That would give him two shillings over for himself. Two shillings a week! Because of Uncle William’s mixed and irregular supplies to the shop, it was scarcely ever that he had any pocket money, and the thought of having two whole shillings a week made his eyes shine far brighter than Mr Pulton’s candles.
“Thank you, sir. When can I start?”
“Tomorrow. You said your sister was starting skating tomorrow. You’ll be here at seven and you’ll meet my present paper boy, he’ll show you round. You look pleased. Think you’ll like delivering papers?”
Alec felt warm inside from ginger wine, and outside from the fire, and being warm inside and out gives a talkative feeling.
“It’s the two shillings. You see, Harriet will only need twelve shillings for her skates, and you said fourteen.”
Mr Pulton had picked up his hot toddy again.
“That’s right. What are you going to do with the other two shillings?”
In the ordinary way Alec would not have discussed his secret plan, the only person who knew it was Toby; but telling things to Mr Pulton was like telling things to a person in a dream; besides, nobody had ever heard Mr Pulton discuss somebody else’s affairs, indeed it was most unlikely that he was interested in anybody’s affairs.
“I’ve no brains. Toby has those, but Dad and Mother think I’ll go on at school until I’m eighteen, but I won’t, it’s a waste of time for me, at least that’s what I think. I’d meant to leave school when I was sixteen, and go into something in Dad’s line of business. You see, it’s absolutely idiotic our depending on Uncle William. Dad doesn’t see that, but of course he wouldn’t for he’s his brother, but you can’t really make a place pay when for days on end you get nothing but rhubarb and perhaps a couple of rabbits, and one boiling hen, and then suddenly thousands of old potatoes. You see, Uncle William just rushes out and sends off things he doesn’t like the look of, or has got too many of. Now what I want to do is to get a proper set-up. I’d like a pony and cart to go to market and buy the sorts of things customers want to eat. What we sell now, and everybody knows it, isn’t what customers want but what Uncle William doesn’t want. I think knowing that puts people off from buying from Dad.”
Mr Pulton leant back in his chair.
“It’d take a lot of two shillings to buy a pony and trap.”
“I know, but I might be able to do something as a start. You see, if I put all the two shillings together, by next spring I’d have a little capital and I could at least try stocking Dad with early potatoes or something of that sort. We never sell new potatoes, Uncle William likes those, so we only get the old ones. If the potatoes went well I might be able to buy peas, beans, strawberries and raspberries in the summer.”
“You never have those either?”
“Of course not, Uncle William hogs the lot.”
“You’d like to own a provision store some day?”
“Glory no! I’d hate it. What I want is to be at the growing end; I’d give anything to have the sort of set-up Uncle William’s got. There’s a decent-sized walled fruit and vegetable garden, where you could do pretty well if you went in for cloches, and there’s a nice bit of river and there’s some rough shooting.”
“How does your Uncle William send his produce to your father?”
Alec looked as exasperated as he felt.
“That’s another idiotic thing, we never know how it’s coming. Sometimes he has a friend with a car, and we get a telephone message, and Dad has to hare up to somebody’s flat to fetch it; mostly it comes by train, but sometimes Uncle William gets a bargee to bring it down; that’s simply awful because the stuff arrives bad, and Uncle William can’t understand that it arrived bad.”
Mr Pulton had finished his toddy, and he got up.
“I am going to bed. Don’t forget now, seven o’clock in the morning. Not a minute late. I can’t abide boys who come late.” He was turning to go when evidently a thought struck him. He nodded in a pleased sort of way. “Stick to your dreams, don’t let anyone put you off what you want to do. All these…” he swept his hand round the horses, “were my grandfather’s and my great grandfather’s, just that hunter belonged to my father. When I was your age I dreamed of horses, but there was this newsagency, there’s always been a Pulton in this shop. Where are my dreams now? Goodnight, boy.”
Chapter Three THE RINK
OLIVIA WENT TO the rink with Harriet, for the more Harriet thought about the girl on the poster, standing on one skate with the other foot high over her head, the more sure she was that she would be shy to go alone to a place where people could do things like that. Dr Phillipson was very kind, but he was a busy, rushing, tearing sort of man, who would be almost certain merely to introduce her to the manager by just saying, “This is Harriet,” and then dash off again. This was exactly what happened. Dr Phillipson called for Harriet and her mother just after lunch, took them to the rink, hurried them inside into a small office in which was a tired, busy-looking man, said, “This is Harriet, and her mother. Mrs Johnson, Harriet, this is Mr Matthews, the manager of the rink. I’ve got a patient to see,” and he was gone.
Olivia took no time to make friends with Mr Matthews. She heard all about something called his duodenal ulcer, which was why he knew Dr Phillipson, and all about how Dr Phillipson had taken out his wife’s appendix, and of how Dr Phillipson had looked after his twin boys, who were grown up now and married, and only when there were no more illnesses left in the Matthews’ family to talk about did Olivia mention skating.
“Dr Phillipson tells me you’re going to be very kind and let Harriet come here to skate. He wants her to have exercise for her leg muscles.”
Mr Matthews looked at Harriet’s legs in a worried sort of way.
“Thin, aren’t they? Ever skated before?” Harriet explained she had not. “Soon pick it up, I’ll show you where you go for your skates and boots. Cost two shillings a session they will.” He turned to Olivia. “I’ll have a word with my man who hires them out, ask him to find a pair that fit her; he’ll keep them for her, it’ll make all the difference.”
The way to the skate-hiring place was through the rink. Harriet had never seen a rink before. She gazed with her eyes open very wide at what seemed to her to be an enormous room with ice instead of floor. In the middle of the ice, people, many of whom did not look any older than she was, were doing what seemed to her terribly difficult things with their legs. On the outside of the rink, however, there were a comforting lot of people who seemed to know as little about skating as she did, for they were holding on to the barrier round the side of the rink as if it was their only hope of keeping alive, while their legs did the most curious things in a way which evidently surprised their owners. In spite of holding on to the barrier quite a lot of these skaters fell down and seemed to find it terribly difficult to get up again. Harriet slipped her hand into her mother’s and pulled her down so that she could speak to her quietly without Mr Matthews hearing.
“It doesn’t seem to matter not being able to skate here, does it, Mummy?”
Olivia knew just how Harriet was feeling.
“Of course not, pet. Perhaps some day you’ll be as grand a skater as those children in the middle.”
Mr Matthews overheard what Olivia said.
“I don’t know so much about that, takes time and money to become a fine skater. See that little girl there.”
Harriet followed the direction in which Mr Matthews was pointing. She saw a girl of about her own age. She was a very grand-looking little girl wearing a white jersey, a short white pleated skirt, white tights, white boots, and a sort of small white bonnet fitted tightly to her head. She was a dark child with lots of loose curly hair and big dark eyes.
“The little girl in white?”
“That’s right, little Lalla Moore, promising child, been brought here for a lesson almost every day since she was three.”
Olivia looked pityingly at Lalla.
“Poor little creature! I can’t imagine she wanted to come here when she was three.”
Mr Matthews obviously thought that coming to his rink at the age of three brought credit on the rink, for his voice sounded proud.
“Pushed here in a pram, she was, by her nanny.”
“I wonder,” said Olivia, “what could have made her parents think she wanted to skate when she was three.”
Mr Matthews started walking again towards the skate-hiring place.
“It’s not her parents, they were both killed skating, been brought up by an aunt. Her father was Cyril Moore.”
Mr Matthews said “Cyril Moore” in so important a voice that it was obvious he thought Olivia ought to know who he was talking about. Olivia had never heard of anybody called Cyril Moore but she said in a surprised, pleased tone:
“Cyril Moore! Fancy!”
At the skate-hiring place Mr Matthews introduced Olivia and Harriet to the man in charge.
“This is Sam. Sam, I want you to look after this little girl; her name is Harriet Johnson, she’s a friend of Dr Phillipson’s, and, as you can see from the look of her, she has been ill. Find boots that fit her and keep them for her, she’ll be coming every day.”
Sam was a cheerful, red-faced man. As soon as Mr Matthews had gone he pulled forward a chair.
“Sit down, duckie, and let’s have a dekko at those feet.” He ran a hand up and down Harriet’s calves and made disapproving, clicking sounds. “My, my! Putty, not muscles, these are.”
Harriet did not want Sam to think she had been born with flabby legs.
“They weren’t always like this, it’s because they’ve been in bed so long with nothing to do. It seems to have made them feel cotton-woolish, but Dr Phillipson thinks if I skate they’ll get all right again. I feel rather despondent about them myself, they’ve been cotton-woolish a long time.”
Sam took one of Harriet’s hands, closed it into a fist and banged it against his right leg.
“What about that? That’s my spare, that is, the Japs had the other in Burma. Do you think it worries me? Not a bit of it. You’d be surprised what I can do with me old spare. I reckon I get around more with one whole leg and one spare than most do with two whole legs. Don’t you lose ’eart in yours; time we’ve had you on the rink a week or two you’ll have forgotten they ever felt like cotton-wool, proper little skater’s legs they’ll be.”
“Like Lalla Moore’s?”
Sam looked surprised.
“Know her?”
“No, but Mr Matthews showed her to us, he said she’d been skating since she was three. He said she used to come in a perambulator.”
Sam turned as if to go into the shop, then he stopped.
“So she did too, had proper little boots made for her and all. I often wonder what her Dad would say if he could come back and see what they were doing to his kid. Cyril Moore he was, one of the best figure skaters, and one of the nicest men I ever set eyes on. Well, mustn’t stop gossiping here, you want to get on the ice.”
“Mummy, isn’t he nice?” Harriet whispered. “I should think he’s a knowing man about legs, wouldn’t you? He ought to know about them, having had to get used to having one instead of two.”
The boots, with skates attached, that Sam found were new. He explained that new boots were stiffer and therefore would be a better support to Harriet’s thin ankles. Sam seemed so proud of having found her a pair of boots that were new and a fairly good fit that Harriet tried to pretend she thought they were lovely boots. Actually she thought they were awful. Lalla Moore’s beautiful white boots had made Harriet hope she was going to wear white boots too, but the ones Sam put on her were a nasty shade of brown, with a band of green paint round the edge of the soles. Sam was not deceived by her trying to look pleased.
“’ired boots is all right, but nobody can’t say they’re oil paintings. If you want them stylish white ones you’ll have to buy your own. We buy for hard wear, you’d be surprised the time we make our boots last. Besides, nobody can’t make off with these.”
Olivia looked puzzled.
“Does anyone want to?”
“You’d be surprised, but they don’t get away with it. If Harriet here was to walk out with these someone would spot the green paint and be after her quicker than you could say winkle.”
Olivia laughed.
“I can’t see Harriet walking out in these. I’m going to have a job to get her to the rink.”
Sam finished lacing Harriet’s boots. He gave the right boot an affectionate pat.
“Too right you will. I wasn’t speaking personal, I was just explaining why the boots look the way they do.” He got up. “Good luck, duckie, enjoy yourself.”
If Olivia had not been there to hold her up Harriet would never have reached the rink. Her feet rolled over first to the right, and then to the left. First she clung to Olivia, and then lurched over and clung to a wall. When she came to some stairs that led to the rink it seemed to her as if she must be killed trying to get down them. The skates had behaved badly on the flat floor, but walking downstairs they behaved as if they had gone mad. She reached the bottom by gripping the stair rail with both hands while Olivia held her round her waist, lifting her so that her skates hardly touched the stairs. Olivia was breathless but triumphant when they got to the edge of the rink.
“Off you go now. I’ll sit here and get my breath back.”
Harriet gazed in horror at the ice. The creepers and crawlers who were beginners like herself clung so desperately to the barrier that she could not see much room to get in between them. Another thing was that even if she could find a space it was almost certain that one of the creepers and crawlers in front or behind her would choose that moment to fall over and knock her down at the same time. As a final terror, between the grand skaters in the middle of the rink and the creepers and crawlers round the edge, there were the roughest people. They seemed to go round and round like express trains, their chins stuck forward, their hands behind their backs, with apparently no other object than to see how fast they could go, and they did not seem to mind who they knocked over as they went. Gripping both sides of an opening in the barrier Harriet put one foot towards the ice and hurriedly took it back. This happened five times. Olivia was sympathetic but firm.
“I’m sorry, darling, I’d be scared stiff myself, but it’s no good wasting all the afternoon holding on to the barrier and never getting on to the ice. Be brave and take the plunge.”
Harriet looked as desperate as she felt.
“Would you think I’d feel braver if I shut my eyes?”
“No, darling, I think that would be fatal, someone would be bound to knock you down.”
It was at that moment that Olivia felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned round. Behind her sat an elderly lady looking rather like a cottage loaf. She wore a grey coat and skirt which bulged over her chest to make the top half of the loaf, and over her tail and front to make the bottom half. On her head she wore a neat black straw hat; she was knitting what looked as if it would be a jersey, in white wool.
“If you’ll wait a moment, ma’am, I’ll signal to my little girl, she’ll take her on to the ice for you.”
“Isn’t that kind! Which is your little girl?”
The lady stood up. Standing up she was even more like a cottage loaf than she had been when she was sitting down. She waved her knitting.
“She’s not really mine, I’m her nurse.”
From the centre of the ring the waving was answered. Harriet nudged her mother.
“Lalla Moore.”
Lalla cared nothing for people who went round pretending they were express trains, or for creepers and crawlers; she came flying across the rink as if she were running across an empty field.
“What is it, Nana?”
“This little girl, dear.” Nana turned to Harriet. “You won’t have been on the ice before, will you, dear?”
Harriet was gazing at Lalla.
“No, and I don’t really want to now. The doctor says I’ve got to, it’s to stop my legs being cotton-wool.”
Nana looked at Harriet’s legs wearing an I-thought-as-much expression.
“Take her carefully, Lalla, don’t let her fall.”
Lalla took hold of Harriet’s hands. She moved backwards. Suddenly Harriet found she was on the ice.
“You’ll have to try and straighten your legs a little, because then I can tow you.”
Harriet’s knees and ankles hadn’t been very good at standing straight on an ordinary floor since she had been ill, but in skates and boots it was terribly difficult. But Lalla had been skating for so long she could not see anything difficult about standing up on skates, and, because she did not find anything difficult about it, Harriet began to believe it could not be as difficult as it looked. Presently, Lalla, skating backwards, had towed her into the centre of the rink.
“There, now I’ll show you how to start. Put your feet apart.” With great difficulty Harriet got her feet into the sort of position that Lalla wanted. “Now lift them up. First your right foot. Put it down on the ice. Now your left foot. Now put it down.”
Nana, having asked Olivia’s permission to do so, had moved into the seat next to her. First of all they discussed Harriet’s illness and her leg muscles. Then Olivia said:
“Mr Matthews pointed out your child to us. I hear she’s been skating since she was a baby; you used to push her here in a perambulator, didn’t you?”
Nana laid her knitting in her lap. She could hear from Olivia’s tone she thought it odd teaching a baby to skate.
“So I did too, and I didn’t like it. I never have held with fancy upbringing for my children, and I never will.”
“But her father was a great skater, wasn’t he?”
“He was Cyril Moore. But maybe your father was a great preacher, ma’am, but that isn’t to say you want to spend all your life preaching.”
Olivia laughed.
“My father has a citrus estate in South Africa, and I’ve certainly never wanted to spend all my life growing oranges and lemons.”
“Nor would her father have wanted skating as a baby for Lalla. Bless him, he was a lovely gentleman and so was her mother a lovely lady.”
“What happened to them?”
“Well, he was the kind of gentleman that must always be doing something dangerous. He only had to see a board up saying ‘Don’t skate, danger’ and he was on the ice in a minute. That’s how he went, and poor Mrs Moore with him. Seems he was on a pond; they say there was a warning out the ice wouldn’t bear, but anyway they both popped through it, and were never seen alive again.”
“Oh, dear, what a sad story, and who is bringing little Lalla up?”
Nana’s voice took on a reserved tone.
“Her Aunt Claudia, her father’s only sister.”
“And she was the one who decided to make a skater of her?”
“It’s a memorial, so she says. Lalla wasn’t two years old the winter her parents popped through that thin ice. I’ll never forget it, Aunt Claudia moved into the house, and the very first thing she did was to have a glass case made for the skates and boots her father was drowned in. She put it up over my blessed lamb’s cot.‘With all respect ma’am,’ I said,‘I don’t think it’s wholesome, we don’t want her growing up to brood on what’s happened.’ And do you know what she said? ‘He’s to live again in Lalla, Nana, he was a wonderful skater, but Lalla is to be the greatest skater in the world.’”
