very good.’
‘Janet’s a child. She has her own life and her future to think of.’
Too right, Janet thought. She was glad that Breda at least thought of her. It came to her with absolute clarity one night in bed that whatever sex the new baby was, it would have to share her small room. There was no more space to be found in the boys’ room, nor would there be much in hers. Bang went her plans for working at night in her bedroom. Even if she could have persuaded her parents to buy her a desk, there would now be nowhere to put it.
She would work in the kitchen, where her books would be at the mercy of her messy family. She would devise an essay, or work out algebraic equations, while stale cooking smells mingled with the aroma of the damp nappies strung across the kitchen on a line. She wanted to weep, and yet she knew she was being selfish. Duncan had never complained about sharing with the twins. He’d just accepted it and asked Bert to buy him a padlock so he could lock treasures away. Janet felt ashamed of herself, but she didn’t want this baby either.
She wasn’t losing sight of her goal, though. Underlying all the worry of the family she was aware that one day an insignificant brown envelope would drop through the letterbox and its contents would decide where she would spend the next few years of her life. Because whether she passed or not, she’d have to leave Paget Primary in July.
Claire had decided to put off the visits to Birmingham until the spring, when the weather would be better and her mother might be fully recovered and returned to her own home. Until then, they explored Claire’s extensive library. They’d read Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, Silas Marner and The Mayor of Casterbridge and two of Shakespeare’s plays. Janet never took the books home; she read them only at Claire’s. Sometimes Claire would read out loud, and occasionally Mary would.
After a chapter or two, Claire and Janet would discuss what they’d read. In the beginning, it was Claire asking the questions and Janet answering. But gradually, so gradually she had not been aware of it happening, Janet was starting to analyse what she read. She was able to talk about characterisation, the structure of the plots, how the tension was built up and the dialogue between the characters.
Sometimes, if Claire had marking to do or something to attend to, Janet would play chess or backgammon with the woman she called Auntie Mary. But what she really liked to do was talk to her about Claire, her Miss Wentworth.
She attempted to model herself on the woman who’d taken her so far. Mary realised what she was doing and told her of the fun Claire had had at school, and the gaggle of girlfriends always at the house. ‘They had boyfriends,’ she said, ‘but nothing serious.’ She hoped Claire would forgive that small lie.
‘They tended to go round in groups anyway,’ Mary said. ‘None of them wanted to be tied down, certainly not while they were at school.’
‘But after school?’ Janet persisted.
‘They were split up then. Most of Claire’s friends went on to university, but of course they went to different ones, or were on different courses. Universities, though, are the place to make new friends. She went to Reading University near London. I had an aunt living in London then, and Claire used to visit from time to time.’
‘Where did she live, Auntie Mary?’
‘In the university halls,’ Mary told her. ‘I was rather worried about her, but I needn’t have been. She said it was a marvellous experience, and it’s led to a job she enjoys and independence.’
‘Yes,’ breathed Janet.
‘And that’s probably the path your own life will take,’ Mary said.
‘Yes,’ said Janet again. ‘Yes, yes, yes, that’s what I want.’
Later that same day, when Claire and Janet were discussing the merits of Keats’ poetry, Janet suddenly said, ‘Have you ever had anyone else pass the eleven-plus before me?’
‘I haven’t,’ Claire admitted. ‘That’s not to say other colleagues haven’t, but remember the disarray the country was in for six years. Many children had part-time or sporadic schooling, or none at all. You’ll find now that most of the schools like Paget Road will have a steady increase in the numbers of children going through the scholarship scheme.’
‘I hope so,’ Janet said. She felt odd and different being the only one, and wished there was another girl to go with.
Claire didn’t say that she found coaching Janet more exhausting and time-consuming than she’d thought, and it put severe restrictions on her private life. She’d already decided that any further children would be taught in extra lessons at school – she’d not open her home again, nor would she get so involved – but all these thoughts she kept from Janet.
She didn’t explain either that she didn’t intend to live like a nun for the rest of her life. She didn’t tell Janet about David Sunderland, who she’d met at a teachers’ conference after work one day, or about how he’d complained bitterly when she’d explained how her weekends were tied up. She didn’t tell Janet that they’d been out together a few times and she liked him very much.
She didn’t understand the pedestal Janet had put her on, and didn’t know Janet assumed she would work her way through life independently and free of any man, because Janet could tell her none of this.
The Easter holidays were looming and Claire believed that the day of reckoning would come before they returned to school. Betty Travers eventually gave up work. The baby was expected at the end of May and she thought it was time. Mary had had her plaster cast removed and had returned home where the obliging neighbours, the Pritchards, would be able to take her to the hospital in their car for physiotherapy.
Claire would have missed her mother more if David Sunderland hadn’t been around. Janet’s presence at the house was intermittent now and she could never stay long, as her mother’s confinement was getting closer.
David didn’t like Claire constantly talking about the girl. ‘You’ve done more for her than for any other child in your class,’ he said. ‘You have forty-nine others to concern yourself with, often from far worse homes and tragic beginnings.’
Claire couldn’t disagree with David. He was right. ‘You’ve given her a start few others have had, and certainly no one else at your school,’ he went on. ‘Now she’s either got fed up or is needed at home, but whatever the reasons for her absence, you must let her go, Claire.’
It was true, Claire knew that. Janet was strangely elusive, even at school. She arrived often just as the bell was ringing, flew out of the door at lunchtime and left on the dot of four in the afternoon.
It was hard to find out how things were when Claire wasn’t even able to snatch a quiet word with her. By tacit consent neither of them spoke about Janet’s visits to Claire’s house. They were well aware that the other children would make Janet’s life a misery, and even the school authority might view it unfavourably. They knew, of course, that the Travers’ girl was in line for a grammar school place and were pleased with that. However, Claire knew they would frown on what would be termed ‘overfamiliarity’ between a teacher and a pupil.
A general enquiry such as ‘How is your mother, Janet?’ was met with: ‘She’s all right, thank you, Miss Wentworth.’
A request from Claire to stay behind met with an agitated entreaty: ‘Oh please, Miss Wentworth, I can’t, my mother relies on me. I really must go straight home.’ How could Claire argue with that? She hoped that the birth of this fifth child into the Travers house might go smoothly and that afterwards life would settle down a little for Janet, but she didn’t say any of this to David.
By the time the Easter holidays were a few days off, Betty Travers had been in bed for over a week with high blood pressure. The family doctor, Dr Black, had wanted