Geoffrey, who was clever, would do well in his exams, and then go to the London School of Economics to do well, of course Politics and Economics. He said he wouldn't bother with Philosophy. Daniel, Geoffrey's shadow, said he would go to the LS E too, and take the same.
Jill had had an abortion, and was in her usual place, apparently untouched by the experience. The impressive thing was that ' the kids' had managed it all, without the adults. Neither Frances nor Julia had been told, and not Andrew, who was apparently considered too adult and a possible enemy. It was Colin who had gone to the girl's parents she was afraid to go and told them she was pregnant. They believed that Colin was the father, and would not accept his denials. Who was? No one knew, or would ever know, though Geoffrey was accused: he was always blamed for broken hearts and broken faith, being so good-looking.
Colin got the money for the abortion out of Jill's parents, and he went to the family doctor, who did at last suggest an appropriate telephone number. Afterwards, when Jill was safely back in the basement flat, Julia, Frances and Andrew were told. But the parents said Jill could not return to St Joseph's, if that was the kind of thing that could happen there.
Sophie and Colin had separated. Sophie, who would never in her life do anything by halves, had been too much for Colin: she loved him to death, or at least into something like an illness. 'Go away,' he had actually shouted at her at last, 'leave me alone.And would not come out of his room for some days. Then he went to Sophie's house and said he was sorry, it was all his fault, he was just ' a little screwed up' , and please come back to our house, please, we all miss you, and Frances keeps saying, Where's Sophie? And when Sophie did return, all apology, as if it were her fault, Frances hugged her and said, ' Sophie, you and Colin is one thing, but your coming here when you like is another.'
At weekends Sophie came down to London with the St Joseph's contingent, spent Friday evenings with them, went home to her mother whom she claimed was better. ' Though she doesn't look it. She just slumps around and looks awful.' Depression, let alone clinical depression, had not entered the general vocabulary and consciousness. People were still saying, Oh, God, I'm so depressed,' meaning they were in a bad mood. Sophie, a good daughter as far as she could bear to be, went home for Saturday nights but was not there in the daytime. Saturday and Sunday evenings she was in her place at the big table.
Something wonderful had happened to her. She often walked down the hill to Primrose Hill and then through Regent's Park, to dancing and singing lessons. There in a grassy glade full of flowerbeds is a statue of a young woman, with a little goat, and it is called 'The Protector of the Defenceless'. This girl in stone drew Sophie to her. She found herselflaying a leafon the pedestal, then a flower, then a little posy. Soon she would bring a bit of biscuit, and stood back to watch sparrows or a blackbird flyup to the statue's feet to carry off crumbs. Once she put a wreath around the little goat's head. Then, one day on the pedestal, was a booklet called The Language of Flowers, and tied to it with a ribbon was a bouquet of lilac and red roses. She could not see anyone likely nearby, only some people strolling in the garden.
She was alarmed, knowing she had been watched. At the supper table she told the story, laughing at herself because of her love for the stone girl, and produced The Language of Flowers for everyone to pass around and look at. Lilac meant First Emotions of Love, and a red rose, Love.
'You're not going to answer him?' demanded Rose, furious. 'Lovely Rose,' said Colin, 'of course she's going to answer.And they all pored over the book to work out a suitable message. But what Sophie wanted to say was, Yes, I am interested but don't jump to conclusions. Nothing in the book seemed suitable. In the end they all decided on snowdrops, for Hope but they had already come and gone, and periwinkle, Early Friendship. Sophie said she thought there were some in her mother's garden. And what else?
'Oh, go on,' said Geoffrey. 'Live dangerously. lily of the valley Return of Happiness. And phlox Agreement.'
Sophie put her posy on the pedestal, and lingered; went away, came back, and found her flowers gone. But someone else might have taken them? No, for when she went there the next day there was a young man who said he had been watching her ' for ages' and had been too shy to approach her without the language of flowers. A likely story, for shy he was not. He was an actor, studying at the Academy where she planned to go in the autumn. This was Roland Shattock, haggardly handsome and dramatic in everything and he was some kind of Trotskyist. He came often to the supper table and was here tonight. Older than the others, a year older even than Andrew, he wore a worldly-wise look, and a suede jacket dyed purple with fringes, and his presence was felt as a visitation from the adult world, and something like an entrance ticket to it. If he did not regard them as ' kids' , then... It never crossed their idealistic minds that he was often in need of a good meal.
When Roland was there Colin tended to be silent, and even went upstairs early, particularly when Johnny dropped in, for the arguments between the young Trotskyist and the old Stalinist were loud, and fierce and often ugly. Sylvia fled upstairs too, and went to Julia.
Johnny had been in Cuba, and had arranged to make a little film. 'But it won't bring in much money, I am afraid, Frances.' Meanwhile he had gone to visit independent Zambia, with Comrade Mo.
Now Rose: there were difficulties all the way, for what seemed like every day of the four months. She would not go back to her school, and she would not go home. She was prepared to go to St Joseph's, if she could base herself here, in this house. Andrew travelled to see her parents again. They believed that this charming, and so upper-class young man had plans for their daughter, and this made it easier for them to agree, not to St Joseph's, which was beyond their means, but to a day school in London. They would pay the fees for that and give her an allowance for clothes. But they would not pay for Rose's board and keep. They allowed it to be understood that it was Andrew's responsibility to pay for her. That meant Frances, in effect.
Perhaps she could be asked to do something in return, like housework for there were always problems with keeping the place clean, in spite of Julia's Mrs Philby, who would never do much more than vacuum floors. 'Don't be silly,' said Andrew. 'Can you imagine Rose lifting a finger?'
A school of a progressive kind was found in London, and Rose agreed to everything. ' If she could just stay here, she wouldn'tbe any trouble. ' Then Andrew came to Frances to say there was a big problem. Rose was afraid to tell Frances. And it was Jill, too. The girls had been caught without tickets on the Underground, and it was the third time for both of them. They were summoned to see the juvenile delinquency officer, in the office of the Transport Police. There would certainly be fines, and Borstal was a real possibility. Frances was too angry, in her all too familiar way with Rose, a dull dispirited emotion, like chronic indigestion, to confront her, but asked Andrew to tell the girls she would go with them to their interview. On the appointed morning she came down to find the two sullen girls united in hatred for the world, in the kitchen, smoking. They were both made up to look like pandas, with their white eye-paint and black-circled eyes and black painted nails. They wore little mini-dresses from Biba's, stolen of course. They could not have found an appearance more likely to prejudice Authority against them.
Frances said, 'If you do really care about getting off with just a lecture, you could wash your faces.' She was wondering if the girls were determined to make things as difficult as they could, perhaps even that they were harbouring ambitions to be sent to Borstal. This would of course serve Frances right: one is not in loco parentis without at some point taking punishment that is in fact aimed at delinquent parents.
Rose at once said, 'I don't see why I should.'
Frances waited, curious, for what Jill might reply. This formerly quiet, good, conforming girl, who might sit through a whole evening saying nothing, only smiling, was hardly discernible behind her paint and her anger.
Taking her cue from Rose: 'I don't see why either.'
They went by Underground, Frances buying tickets for them all, and noting their sarcastic smiles as she did so. They were soon in the office where non-payers of fares, juveniles, met their fate in the person of Mrs Kent, who wore a navy-blue uniform of a generic kind that suggested the majesty of officialdom. Her face, however, was kindly, while she kept up a severe look, to inspire respect.
Taking her cue from Rose: 'I don't see why either.'
They went by Underground, Frances buying tickets for them all, and noting their sarcastic smiles as she did so. They were soon in the office where non-payers of fares, juveniles, met their fate in the person of Mrs Kent, who wore a navy-blue uniform of a generic kind that suggested the majesty of officialdom. Her face, however, was kindly, while she kept up a severe look, to inspire respect.
' Please sit down, she said, and Frances sat to one side, while the girls, having stood, like obstinate horses, for long enough to make a point, slumped, in a way that was meant to suggest they had been pushed.
' It's very simple, said Mrs Kent, though her sigh, of which she was certainly unaware, suggested otherwise. You have both been warned twice. You knew the third time would be the last time. I could send you to the magistrate, and it would be up to him ifyou are taken into care or not, but ifyou will give guarantees of good behaviour, you will be let off with a fine, but your parents, or parent, or guardian will have to take responsibility for you.' She said this, or something like it, so often that her biro expressed boredom and exasperation, doodling jagged patterns on a notepad. Having ended, she smiled at Frances.