The Golden Day Page 6

  What happened to all those girls once they had stepped outside the yellow gate?

  They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,

  Through Eden took their solitary way.

  Miss Renshaw had written that up on the blackboard for them to copy down in their books, to practise their italic script.

  ‘Adam and Eve, girls,’ Miss Renshaw said. ‘Out they went.

  Never, never to return.’

  Never, never. Not now. Not ever. But Cubby wouldn’t think about that, she wouldn’t.You have to stop thinking, that’s right. So she stopped thinking and listened to Miss Baskerville.

  ‘If any one of you has anything further you can say about this whole business, I need to know, now,’ said Miss Baskerville, balefully.

  There was a long grey pause. Cubby looked sideways at Icara. Her possum-coloured hair had fallen forward into her face and her shirt was, as always, white and very clean. It was because she was rich. Rich people were clean. Cubby had noticed it before. When one of Icara’s shirts became frayed and grubby, she bought another.

  ‘Obviously there is more that you can say, and for some reason you are choosing not to,’ said Miss Baskerville, now sounding almost bored. ‘I fully expect at least one of you to stand up right now and tell me exactly what happened in the Gardens yesterday.’

  Nobody stood.They couldn’t, even if they wanted to. They were frozen through, frozen to the heart. It’s our little secret, girls, we won’t tell anyone.

  They returned to their classroom in disgrace, without a confession. Miss Summers busied herself distributing pieces of coloured paper and pots of glue to each desk.

  ‘We’re going to make collages,’ she told them, ‘in the style of Matisse.’

  ‘Who’s Matisse?’ asked Georgina without enthusiasm.

  ‘Matisse was a very famous French painter,’ said Miss Summers, pleased to have something she could explain. ‘And when he was an old man, he wasn’t very well, so he couldn’t paint. So he lay in bed and cut pieces of coloured paper and made pictures out of them.’

  The little girls stared, at Miss Summers, at the squares of paper, out the window, at the ceiling, at the backs of each others’ necks.

  ‘Now,’ said Miss Summers with a frown, ‘who can tell me where Miss Renshaw keeps the scissors?’

  Before anyone could answer, there was a knock at the door. All their eyes turned to the silver doorhandle, which was turning by itself as though there was a ghost pushing it. In walked the school chaplain, Reverend Broome, not in his normal blue-and-white chapel outfit, but in the black leather pants and jacket that he wore to ride his motorbike. The girls stood up automatically but they were disturbed. What was he doing here?

  ‘If I may take a few moments of your time?’ the Reverend Broome asked Miss Summers, stepping forward confidently into the room.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Miss Summers, taken aback. ‘Sit down, girls, and listen to what Mr Broome has to say.’

  They sat. Mr Broome held his helmet in one hand and with the other hand he smoothed down his hair.

  ‘Let us pray,’ he said, rolling forward on his toes.

  They bowed their heads, amid dictionaries and rulers and the smell of paint.

  ‘O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment,’ intoned Mr Broome, who had an unusually loud voice, especially when he was praying. ‘Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what thou would have us do.’

  Miss Summers did not close her eyes or even bow her head. She caught Cubby’s eye. Cubby looked away.

  ‘Amen,’ said Mr Broome.

  ‘Amen,’ said the eleven voices in response.

  Mr Broome stopped rocking up and down on his feet and stood up very straight, like a soldier, looking out.

  ‘I can see every girl in this room. Every girl in this room.’

  This was what he always said in chapel, but here it was less impressive. After all, it was not very hard – there were only eleven of them.

  ‘Has anyone got anything they would like to say?’ said Mr Broome.

  Nobody did.

  ‘About what happened when you went out with Miss Renshaw?’

  But what did happen?

  ‘I want you to think about it,’ Mr Broome went on, drenching each word with importance. ‘I want you to think, very hard.

  Very seriously. Before it’s too late.’

  Too late. The saddest words in the English language. Cubby had read that somewhere. But were they really? There had to be sadder words – like ‘Your whole family has died in a horrible plague,’ for example.

  Mr Broome shook his head at the floor. The little girls waited. Soon he would go away. He couldn’t stand there all afternoon. They could last longer than him, much longer.

  ‘Too late,’ repeated Mr Broome.

  Bethany slumped forward on her desk. The Reverend Broome looked across at her, hopefully.

  ‘Yes?’

  It’s our little secret.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Bethany. ‘I just feel a bit sick.’

  Mr Broome lost heart. There was something implacable about the eleven little faces in front of him – how could he hope to know their secrets?

  ‘At any rate, I have planted a seed,’ he murmured to Miss Summers. ‘Something may come of it.’

  He shook her hand and smiled, then left the room quickly. They sat very still, listening to the sound of his big black motorbike boots clattering down the four flights of stairs.

  The next day, a letter arrived at the homes of the eleven little girls. It was typed on a small sheet of white paper with the blue embossed school crest.

  Dear parents,

  You may have heard from your daughter that Miss Renshaw has been absent from school recently following a class excursion.

  In the immediate future it seems unlikely that Miss Renshaw will be returning to her current position. However, we have now engaged Miss Merrilee Summers to take the girls in Miss Renshaw’s absence. You will be pleased to hear that she comes with the highest qualifications.

  Yours sincerely,

  (Miss) Emily Baskerville

  Headmistress

  ELEVEN

  Hiding Schoolgirl

  WHEN THE MOTHERS AND FATHERS opened the envelope and read Miss Baskerville’s letter, they were bewildered. What did this mean? They looked at their daughters and asked questions.

  ‘You lost her?’ said Cubby’s mother.‘How could you have lost her?Your teacher? I mean, I’ve heard of children getting lost…’ The mothers and fathers rang up other mothers and fathers and asked more questions. Some had even rung the school and demanded to speak to Miss Baskerville. But this was not encouraged. The situation had changed, that was all. Class 4F was no longer Class 4F. It was Class 4S and in the morning Miss Merrilee Summers, with her cap of silky red hair and the highest qualifications, entered the room and set them to work.

  The little girls liked Miss Summers. She didn’t shout. She wore nice clothes. But they missed their teacher. Miss Renshaw was gone, but she was still there with them in the room. She was there in her chair, with its worn cushion. The folders on the teacher’s desk belonged to Miss Renshaw, the tin of drawing pins, the narrow vase of blue glass. She was there in the posters on the walls, in the books on the shelves, in the signs saying ‘Pencils’, ‘Mathematics’, ‘Extra Reading’, ‘Social Studies’ and ‘Natural Science’.

  They constantly expected to hear her voice. Each time Miss Summers called out to them, in the corridor or on the stairs, to stop running, stop talking, stop eating, stop shouting, stop banging, stop being so silly, it should have been Miss Renshaw calling.

  Mrs Arnold, the deputy headmistress, reappeared in their remote classroom. She knocked on the door and put her head around. At once, the little girls stood up.

  ‘Sit down, sit down, girls,’ said Mrs Arnold, waving away the courtesy.

  She perched on the edge of the front desk again and looked at them over her thick-rimmed black glass
es; kindly as always. They looked back. Their eyes were clear, but their hearts were dishonest.

  ‘Now, I know you girls are feeling very upset about Miss Renshaw,’ Mrs Arnold began.

  Yes, yes.

  ‘And I know you all want to do your very best to help her.’

  They did. They nodded, and Mrs Arnold nodded back, encouragingly.

  ‘Now, you see, the fact of the matter is, some of you – it may be not all of you but some of you – have something more you can tell us about what happened that day.’

  No nods now.

  ‘I don’t want to accuse you of hiding anything. Perhaps you don’t quite understand the seriousness of the situation.’

  There Mrs Arnold was quite wrong. They understood too well. Don’t say anything, they whispered to each other, inside each others’ heads. Don’t tell.We can’t tell.

  ‘I know that you are all good girls,’ said Mrs Arnold. ‘I am sure of it. And I know you want to do the right thing.You may be afraid, but you mustn’t be afraid. You must do the right thing.’

  Oh, the right thing! It was too late for the right thing!

  Mrs Arnold stood up to go.

  ‘You know where to find me, girls, any of you, any time. My door is open.’

  She nodded at Miss Summers and was gone, coughing all the way down the four flights of stairs.

  ‘Right then,’ said Miss Summers uncertainly. She had some chalk in her hand. ‘Let’s copy down the week’s spelling now, shall we?’

  She turned her back on them and started to write on the blackboard. Her writing was nothing like Miss Renshaw’s. It was childish and lacked Miss Renshaw’s flair.

  Annual

  Cardigan

  Eight

  Fever

  The little girls pulled out their spelling books and began to copy down the words. The chalk squeaked, the pages flapped.

  ‘These words are too hard,’ complained Martine.

  Miss Summers paid no attention. She kept on writing. They watched her back, and her hand moving across the board.

  Mixed

  Orphan

  Socks

  Unless

  ‘I hate spelling,’ said Martine, and put her pencil down.

  Silence.

  There was a moan, and then a sob. It was Bethany. But she was not sobbing about the spelling words. Miss Summers stopped writing, put down the chalk and turned around to face them.

  ‘Bethany, come here,’ said Miss Summers. Her voice was not cross, but it was determined.

  Woeful and weeping, Bethany struggled out of her chair and made her way up to the front of the room.

  ‘Bethany,’ said Miss Summers, patting her arm, ‘I think you should go and see Mr Dern.’

  Ten heads shot up in alarm, as though they were one child, with one face. No, Bethany, no!

  Mr Dern was the school counsellor. He had a moustache and very short grey hair. He came to the school once a week and saw girls who had what were known as problems, in a small, cell-like square room near the chapel. Girls talked while he listened and he smoked. Girls with problems returned from these sessions stinking of nicotine and looking rather faint.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ spluttered Bethany through her tears. She put one of her plaits in her mouth and her right foot turned on its side.

  ‘Nonetheless, I think you must go,’ said Miss Summers, tightening her grip on the little arm. ‘It will be good for you to have someone to talk to.’

  Don’t go, Bethany! they screamed silently. Don’t go!

  ‘I’m all right now,’ said Bethany in a louder voice, ‘I won’t cry any more,’ but the tears kept coming.

  ‘I think I’d better take you round there myself,’ said Miss Summers. ‘Things can’t go on like this.’

  No, things couldn’t go on like this. Bethany’s shoulders slumped. Defeat was near.

  ‘You girls sit quietly and get on with the spelling list.’ Miss Summers did not look at them, she kept her eyes fixed on Bethany. ‘I won’t be long.’

  She half-pushed, half-pulled the whimpering Bethany out the door, then closed it crisply behind them.

  ‘She’s going to tell,’ said Georgina, jumping out of her chair as soon as they had gone. ‘She’s going to tell – everything!’

  ‘We’re in big trouble,’ said the shortest Elizabeth.

  Cubby trembled. Silent Deirdre put her head down on the desk. Icara got up and went over to the open window, and stared out.

  ‘Maybe it’s good,’ said Cynthia, trying to look on the bright side, as Miss Renshaw had so often advised them. ‘Maybe if she tells, they’ll go and find her.You know, in the cave.’

  They thought of the windy journey along the rocky beachfront, the waves, the naked man, the piles of rocks and shells.

  ‘If she’s still in that cave,’ said Icara from the window, ‘she must be pretty hungry by now.’

  Nobody spoke.

  ‘Remember those rock paintings?’ said Martine, breaking the silence.

  They thought of the gloom of the wet, low-roofed cave, the firefly of Morgan’s torchlight hovering about the walls.

  ‘They were amazing,’ said Georgina.

  Icara came away from the window and stood at the front where Miss Summers had just been.

  ‘I don’t believe they were real rock paintings, anyway,’ she said.

  The little girls stared. What did she mean?

  ‘I think Morgan painted them himself,’ said Icara.

  Now they were shocked.

  ‘Why?’ asked Cynthia, mystified.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Icara with a shrug. ‘To show off, maybe.’

  ‘Seeing is believing,’ said Elizabeth with the plaits, firmly.

  Icara was unimpressed.

  ‘Depends on what you see,’ she said. ‘What did you see?’

  What did they see? Cubby remembered with secret shame that she saw nothing, nothing at all in the flickering dark.

  ‘It was hands,’ said Georgina at last. ‘There were hands, lots of them. Hands on the rock.’

  Hands, hands on the rock. A man’s hand, reaching upwards.

  Like in the Bible verse the Reverend Broome had made them learn by heart in Scripture:

  Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand.

  Bethany did not come back to class that day. She didn’t dare. She went straight home after seeing Mr Dern, without even coming back to get her bag. They knew why. Bethany was afraid. She was afraid of what they would say when they found out that she had told.

  But in fact none of the little girls blamed her. Really they were glad. The secret was over and the truth was out.

  The truth?

  TWELVE

  Fallen Schoolgirl

  BETHANY TOLD MR DERN, the counsellor, everything. After all, Mr Dern could make people tell him whatever he wanted, especially secrets. He listened and waited and smiled and waited and put his head on one side and waited and dragged on his cigarette and waited and it all spilled out, like egg from a cracked eggshell.

  Everything.

  Another letter arrived at the homes of the eleven little girls, on another small sheet of white paper with the school crest embossed in navy blue.

  Dear parents,

  You may have heard from your daughter that further information has come to light regarding Miss Renshaw’s recent absence from school. You may rest assured that the matter is being thoroughly investigated.

  Yours sincerely,

  (Miss) Emily Baskerville

  Headmistress

  Words, words, words.

  Bethany told Mr Dern about Morgan and Miss Renshaw and the caves and the Aboriginal paintings and losing Martine’s hat and getting it back again and falling over and hurting her knee and there was blood everywhere and look there’s still a scab under my sock and Morgan carried me piggyback and there was a man swimming with no clothes on and it was so black in there and they were hungry and I didn’t like it and Martine kept giggling and
once Georgina saw Miss Renshaw and Morgan kissing.

  Bethany told Mr Dern and Mr Dern told Miss Baskerville, and then everybody knew.

  ‘I need not tell you, girls, I am very disappointed.’

  Oh but they were used to that.

  ‘Very disappointed in you girls.’

  Weren’t they always causing disappointment?

  ‘This is not what I expect from you girls.’

  Letting the school down, upsetting their teachers, letting themselves down.

  ‘Do you understand how wrong it was?’

  ‘You have created a lot of unnecessary trouble.’

  ‘You have not been a good friend to Miss Renshaw.’

  ‘Very disappointed indeed.’

  Oh but it was useless to talk to the little girls about disappointment, they knew they were disappointing, they were born to disappoint.

  The police came.

  ‘Look!’ cried Cynthia in excitement, peering out the window from high up in their nest of a classroom. ‘It’s the police!’

  The police! They all ran to the window, squeezed together and watched the big blue car come right into the playground and stop outside the steps that led to Miss Baskerville’s office. The car doors opened and out came two uniformed policemen and a man in a suit and a grey hat. Up the stairs they went, just like detectives on the television.

  ‘Maybe they’ve found Miss Renshaw!’

  ‘Maybe she’s been arrested!’

  ‘Sit down, girls, sit down. Arrested, for heavens sake,’ said Miss Summers, dragging herself with difficulty away from the window. ‘Goodness me, what a lot of carry-on.’

  ‘They’ll probably want to interview me,’ said Bethany importantly.

  But they didn’t. The police spoke to Mr Dern, but they didn’t ask for Bethany.

  ‘He told them what I told him,’ Bethany explained when she found out. ‘So I wouldn’t have to. Mr Dern said it might tip me over the edge if I had to talk to the police.’

  The other little girls did not comment. Perhaps they felt that Bethany had thrown herself over the edge years ago.

  ‘Miss Baskerville doesn’t want any of us to talk to the police,’ said Bethany. ‘It would be too upsetting.’