The Thing About Clare Read online

  ‘Yes, Mum. Course I’ll help.’ Miriam was hoping that if she did enough extra, her mother might see her way to contributing to the bus fare to London. It worked to her favour if Clare was in one of her strops. Miriam could play the dutiful-eldest-daughter card. There were few advantages to being the eldest but that was definitely one of them.

  ‘You’re a good girl, Miriam.’ Her mother levered herself up from the bed slowly and with considerable effort.

  ‘Why don’t I make you a nice cup of tea?’ Miriam offered, brownie points and bus fares clearly in her sights.

  ‘Oh, you’re an angel, but there’s no time. I have to get on or we’ll never be ready and I can’t have that Marjorie Connors thinking that I can’t rustle up a few sausage rolls and a trifle or two.’ Her mother made her way to the door. ‘The ironing board’s all set up in the scullery. I don’t know why I ever put it down. There’s always such a pile, so there is. And your father’s work shirts are on the rack.’

  Then, with one long puff out of air, she was gone.

  ‘Clare Bliss. I want you out of that bedroom and down those stairs as quick as I can say Jack Robinson. There’s work to be done,’ she shouted as she made her way along the landing.

  Miriam looked again in the mirror and tried to pull a few of the myriad of expressions that she’d just witnessed. They would all come in handy when she got to RADA, and she would be there before she knew it. She had tripped off to the postbox at the end of the road with her application form a week last Wednesday, making sure that no one had seen her. She also had a thank you letter to Uncle Stephen and Auntie Maggie to post as cover so that no one would suspect that her mission had an ulterior motive. The brochure, which she had hidden safely in her knicker drawer, said that once they had her application form they would be in touch about an audition if appropriate. Miriam was sure that if she could just get in front of them they would have to give her a place. She was born to act. She could feel it in her blood.

  She left her room and skipped downstairs, resisting the urge to bang on Clare’s door on the way past. The longer Clare sulked the better it would go for her. Clare would always hang herself if you gave her enough rope. She could hear her mother bustling around in the best room, no doubt dusting ornaments that she had dusted only yesterday. There was no sign of her father and Anna was out playing in the snicket at the back of the house. Miriam could hear her shrill voice directing proceedings.

  ‘You. Robbie McKenzie. You need to stand here on guard. No moving, now. Come on, Suzanna. We’ll go and see what that Malcolm is doing.’

  Anna’s voice became fainter as she moved towards the Connors’s house next door but Miriam knew that she would still be in charge. Anna was always in charge of her little friends. Miriam was surprised that they didn’t rebel and stage a coup but they all seemed happy to be bossed about. More fool them. It wouldn’t kill Anna to help out either, but of course her mother would never get her to break off from her games. When Miriam had children she was absolutely, definitely not going to have a favourite.

  The ironing board was set up in the scullery as her mother had said. The cord from the iron snaked up to the ceiling. Miriam flicked the switch and went in search of the clothes whilst she waited for it to heat up. The rack that hung from the ceiling was laden, and Miriam took the rope from the cleat and gently lowered it, carefully avoiding the pan of cold fat that always sat on the back ring of the oven. She touched the clothes to test for damp. The shirts at one end were dry, the rest still too wet to iron. She pulled them off one by one and held them into her chest. The cotton smelt vaguely of chips.

  Her mother bustled into the kitchen. ‘Still no Clare? What does that girl think she’s playing at? I swear I shall be hollering for her with my dying breath. CLARE!!’

  ‘No need to shout,’ said Clare, who had appeared suddenly at the door.

  ‘Well, about time too,’ said their mother, the wind slightly taken out of her sails. ‘I need you to pop to the shop. There’s a list on the table and there’s money in the biscuit tin. Take two pound notes. That should be plenty. And make sure that he doesn’t short-change you. There’s something shifty about his eyes. I don’t trust him as far as I could spit him.’

  Clare sloped to the table, picked up the list and gave it a cursory glance.

  ‘Spam? I hate Spam. Why do we have to buy Spam?’

  ‘It’s not for you, young lady. There are plenty would be glad of a nice Spam sandwich, and for the numbers that we need to feed beggars can’t be choosers. Now hurry before he sells out of cream. There’s bound to be a run on it before tomorrow.’

  Her mother shooed Clare towards the door with a flick of her duster. Reluctantly, Clare peeled two pound notes from the roll in the battered biscuit tin and slipped them into her jeans pocket. Then she picked up the basket and made for the door. Miriam gave her her sweetest smile as she passed and Clare scowled in return. Miriam mimicked her face to her back and then made a mental note of how her muscles felt. Another one for her armoury.

  She licked her finger and then touched it to the sole of the iron. It hissed. Then she began on the first shirt. All her father’s work shirts were the same, a pale-blue cotton. There were frays starting on the tips of the collars and she pressed these parts carefully so as not to be accused of making them any worse.

  ‘Mum?’ she shouted through to the kitchen. ‘Is everyone in tonight? I’ve got something that I want to talk about at tea.’

  Her mother didn’t answer but of course they would all be in. They were always all in. Where else was there to go?

  II

  Miriam finished pressing the last shirt just as Clare returned from the corner shop. She dumped the basket on the table, paying little heed to the safety of its contents. The glass bottles rattled against each other ominously.

  ‘Careful!’ said Miriam. ‘You’ll only have to go back again if you’ve broken them.’

  ‘No way,’ snapped Clare. ‘If she wants more shopping she can get it herself. She could do with the exercise anyway. I swear she gets fatter every day.’ She picked at a hangnail and then put her finger to her mouth and gnawed at the skin.

  ‘Don’t let her hear you talking like that,’ warned Miriam. ‘She’s just got a lot on with the street party and everything. I think she’s finally bitten off more than she can chew but she can’t lose face over it. Would it kill you to be a bit more cooperative?’

  Clare looked at Miriam, cocking her head and raising one eyebrow, but then she relented and smiled.

  ‘Definitely.’ She pulled at an imaginary noose around her neck, her eyes rolling into the back of her head and her mouth falling open. Miriam couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I’m mightily sick of this whole Jubilee thing,’ Clare continued. ‘Who gives a shit if she’s been queen for twenty-five years? What does she do anyway? We should shoot the lot of them and start a revolution like the bloody Russians.’

  Miriam looked hastily over her shoulder. If their mother heard Clare swearing there’d be yet another row. ‘Keep your voice down,’ she hissed, but Clare just shrugged and wandered over to the sink and looked out into the yard where yet more washing flapped idly in the breeze.

  ‘Is Dad back yet?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I expect he’ll be back in time for tea. I hope so, anyway. I’ve got something I want to tell you all,’ Miriam said, and then immediately wished she hadn’t.

  ‘What?’ asked Clare flatly, feigning a total lack of interest in anything that Miriam might have to say. ‘You’re going to be a missionary in Africa? Or a nun. No. Wait. You’re up the duff.’ She spun round, eyes wide. ‘Oh my God, you’re not, are you?’

  ‘No!’ shrieked Miriam. ‘Of course not! It’s nothing like that but I have made a decision and I want to discuss it with you all. Not now. Later.’

  She folded the ironing board and hung it on the hooks on the back of the scullery door. She wouldn’t let Clare put her off. She was bound to be negative about it all but that didn’t matter. It wasn’
t Clare she needed to convince.

  The back door flew open and in burst Anna, parting the striped fly curtain with a magisterial sweep of her arm.

  ‘That Louise Chambers is a cow. I’m not playing with her again. She’s so bossy. She takes over everything. Where’s Mum? What’s for tea?’

  Miriam and Clare exchanged a sly grin. Anna was incredibly bossy. It was rare that anyone got a word in edgeways.

  ‘Mum’s in the front room and it’s sausage and chips for tea. Or it will be if I ever get round to peeling the spuds. Give us a hand, Clare?’

  ‘Okay. I just need to go and . . .’ said Clare, and left before making it entirely clear what she had to do. Miriam sighed loudly.

  ‘Take these shirts upstairs, Anna, and hang them up. Don’t just leave them on the bed. Mum’s a bit tired and we all need to help out.’ Anna tutted but took the pile of shirts with her.

  Miriam got out what was necessary for the task and stood at the sink, peeling the potatoes. As she dunked each potato in the cold water, she marvelled at the clean yellow surface that appeared. No one had ever seen that surface before. She was the only person to whom it had revealed itself, ever. She congratulated herself on her cleverness. No one else in this house would ever have had that thought. They were all philistines. Not one of them was in tune with the world around them like she was. That was why she was going to make a marvellous actress. Whatever was required, she knew she’d be able to pull it out of the bag. She practised again now, pulling her best surprised expression and then judging it in the half-reflection of the window.

  ‘What in the name of all the saints are you doing, girl?’ asked her mother, who had appeared at the door, and Miriam stopped pulling faces and looked down at the dirty water.

  ‘Nothing. Shall I make you a cup of tea, Mum? You look done in.’

  Her mother lowered herself carefully on to a wooden chair and sighed loudly. ‘I’ll just have a quick five-minute sit-down and then I’ll get on with making the jelly for the trifle,’ she said, but having sat down Miriam thought she didn’t look as if she would ever get up again.

  ‘You’re going to do yourself a mischief if you carry on at this rate. Clare can make the trifle. She is fifteen, you know, and she just pretends that she can’t do things so that she doesn’t have to. She’s made a trifle in Cookery at school. She knows how.’

  Miriam looked over to her mother, who had closed her eyes and was breathing deeply. Miriam wondered if she’d fallen asleep there and then but then she spoke.

  ‘Well, that would be grand, Miriam.’

  ‘And Anna can help too.’

  ‘No,’ said her mother quickly. ‘You leave little Anna to play. There’ll be time enough for chores when she gets a bit bigger.’

  Miriam bit her tongue. When she was eleven, she’d had two younger sisters to run around after. No one had said she should play instead. Still, there was no point saying anything. Anna was the baby and could, and did, get away with murder. Slowly and methodically she started slicing the shining potatoes into long, thin chips, making sure that each one was as close in size to the last so that they would cook evenly. At least if she cut the chips there were never any hard ones. Or any fat ones. Miriam hated fat chips.

  ‘Is that cup of tea going to make itself?’ asked her mother.

  ‘Coming right up,’ said Miriam, who had lost the offered cup of tea somewhere in the muddle of her thoughts.

  ‘So,’ said her mother, going through her mental list out loud, ‘if Clare can do the trifles then the rest of it can wait until the morning. I can’t do the sandwiches until then anyway, and the fairy cakes won’t take two shakes of a lamb’s tail. I’ll just get the tea sorted and then I might watch Crossroads.’

  Miriam looked at her mother. Her greying hair was scraped back from her face and tied in a low ponytail. Tendrils fell loose and were curling around her temples. Her soft brown eyes, usually so sharp and all-seeing, looked tired, and from time to time something flitted across her face as if she had had a fright or was in distress. Miriam made a mental note to practise the expressions when she got a moment alone.

  In the hall the front door opened with a creak and then banged shut.

  ‘I’m back. Where is everybody? It’s like a morgue in here. Did I miss an alien invasion or have you all run off to join the navy?’

  Miriam laughed. ‘We’re in here, Dad. Well, me and Mum are. The others are upstairs. And there are no aliens!’

  Miriam’s dad breezed into the kitchen and planted a noisy kiss on his wife’s forehead. She smiled weakly at him.

  ‘Tea’s not quite ready, Frank,’ she said, straightening herself a little in her chair, a hand flitting up to pat her lacklustre hair.

  ‘No worries. No worries,’ he said. ‘And how are you, Miriam, firstborn fruit of my loins?’

  ‘Frank! Really!’ said her mother.

  Miriam turned from the sink and smiled at her father. ‘Fine, Dad. How was your afternoon? Sniff out any good stories?’

  ‘Oh, there’s always a story, Miriam, my little sweet pea. Had an illuminating discussion with the junior sports editor about how immeasurably superior Liverpool are to Manchester United. He failed to see the error of his ways but he will, given time.’

  ‘Not letting a little thing like a lost cup final worry you, then, Dad?’ teased Miriam with a stagey wink.

  ‘A minor setback, Miriam. A minor setback. We have to throw the underlings the odd titbit of success or they’ll all get bored and refuse to play. And may I remind you, not that any reminding should be necessary, that we are the rightfully crowned Champions of Europe? Who needs a poxy cup final when you’re holding the crown?’

  ‘No, Dad. I really don’t need reminding.’ They had heard little else from him since the match.

  ‘The pub was very busy when I walked by.’ He threw a little look at her mother to emphasise that he was here and not there. ‘It must be everyone avoiding all this street party malarkey.’

  ‘All the men, you mean,’ said Clare as she appeared at the doorway. ‘When’s tea? I’m starving.’

  ‘Forty-five minutes. And you can help by making the trifles,’ said Miriam. ‘In fact, you could get the jelly going now so it’s set.’

  Clare looked as if she was going to object but then thought better of it and began filling the kettle.

  ‘Right,’ said their father. ‘I’ll leave you lot to it and go and get washed up ready to eat. Are you all right?’ he said to her mother, touching her shoulder tenderly. ‘You look exhausted. You need to delegate. Where’s our third little helper? Shall I send her down here?’

  ‘No. Leave her to play. There won’t be room to turn round in here.’

  ‘And Miriam has an important announcement, apparently,’ said Clare. Miriam could hear the sarcastic edge to her voice but let it go.

  ‘How intriguing,’ said Frank. ‘Are you planning to run away and join the circus?’

  ‘No!’ said Miriam, and shot Clare one of her favourite irritated expressions. ‘I’ll tell you all at teatime.’

  The girls bustled about, both doing their own tasks and moving deftly around each other as they worked. Miriam watched Clare pull apart the little red quivering cubes of jelly, surreptitiously slipping one or two into her mouth when she thought no one was looking. Miriam didn’t say anything. She needed this unusually jovial mood preserving for as long as possible. She dumped the chips into the hot fat pan at the back of the stove and began frying the sausages whilst simultaneously setting the table. Her mother drank her tea quietly in the middle of all the activity.

  ‘Who’s putting up the bunting and all that sh— rubbish?’ asked Clare. ‘I assume that’s a job for the useless men.’

  Their mother didn’t even rise to this. ‘That Mr Williams from number sixteen is coordinating,’ she said, as if she had no interest in it whatsoever. ‘He’ll probably be needing help with blowing up balloons in the morning. And then once the trestle tables have been set up they’ll need cloths
putting on and laying with plates and cups. It’ll be all hands to the pumps tomorrow but we can’t be doing any of it tonight. It’ll have to wait.’

  III

  Her father was just wiping away the last smears of brown sauce with a slice of white bread when Miriam decided that the time was right. She needed to hit it perfectly – the exact moment when everyone was relaxed and well fed but before her mother stood and started to clear the plates. She took a deep breath and began.

  ‘I have some news,’ she said.

  ‘Ooh. At last. The big announcement. This should be good,’ said Clare, showily turning her chair in Miriam’s direction and putting her elbows on the table, only to withdraw them again smartly after a warning glance from her mother.

  Miriam threw an irritated look at Clare.

  ‘Shut up, Clare,’ she hissed. Already she could see that she did not have her mother’s complete attention. Whilst she was looking in Miriam’s direction, her focus was clearly a long way off.

  ‘And what might that be, my little chickadee?’ asked her father. ‘Do not keep us in suspenders!’

  Under normal circumstances she would have found her father’s tendency to make a joke out of any situation entertaining, but this was not normal circumstances. This was a serious business that would affect her entire life and it needed to be treated as such. Miriam sat up straight and held a dramatic pause for as long as she thought she could get away with it, and then made her momentous announcement.

  ‘I am going to be an actress,’ she said, enunciating each word with an actress-like precision, and then waited for a reaction.

  Clare snorted.

  ‘A noble profession,’ said her father in his best mock Shakespearean. ‘Although not one without its pecuniary disadvantages.’