The Lido Girls. Allie Burns
Olympia, about the League, Delphi’s desire to be a part of it, and how she’d spoiled a chance meeting by offending Prunella. But I can’t. Absolutely not. I won’t put her in the position of knowing that I lied or that I am desperately bored of life here.
‘You have Miss Wilkins’s family coming in today?’
Natalie nodded.
‘Tread carefully. I had Lord Lacey on the telephone last night. He has a personal connection with the family, but he disapproves of the girl, and her mother. He wants you to get rid of Miss Wilkins so he can plead the decision was out of his hands.’
Natalie waited while Miss Lott took another breath. She thought again about seeing the girl out late last night, messing about with a boy too. She couldn’t mention it, not if she wanted to save the girl’s skin – as well as preserve her own.
‘She’s very talented, you know.’
‘I do know. But she’s made no effort to play along with the rules and now she has a trustee against her. I’m afraid she’s run out of lives.’
Just then, the second-year girls dressed in their ankle-length sage hooded cloaks wobbled in along the driveway below, slowing their bicycles to a stop in the sheds to the left of the house. They unloaded their handlebars of wooden hoops and totes bulging with skittles, beanbags and canes used to take the primary school children for games after Sunday school. One of the girls frantically pumped up her old bicycle’s front tyre while the others left her to it. Chatting and laughing, they drifted off like dandelion seeds towards the new wing at the rear of the house.
The smile fell from Natalie’s face when Miss Lott let out a little exhalation as she lifted the teapot. She gently stirred up the tea leaves by swirling the pot’s fat belly, her thumb holding the lid steady. She shot a sideways glance at Natalie, letting her know she had caught her watching her and that she knew she was taking in how much weaker she’d become.
‘Wilkins wasn’t the reason I asked you here, actually.’ Miss Lott’s tone had changed, her voice tremored as her emotions plucked at her vocal cords. ‘The hard truth is that my time here is coming to a close.’
Natalie gripped the arm of her chair. Only serious ill health would drive Miss Lott from the college. She had been there so long that it was unimaginable to think of the place without her.
The Principal was careful not to look at her. Instead she spent too long setting the teapot down and adjusting the angle so that the handle sat parallel to the edge of the table. Then she tipped some pills into her mouth with a flat palm and swallowed them down dry.
‘Will you stay much longer?’ Natalie ventured.
‘It’s hard to say, but I don’t think I’ve got long.’
Natalie swallowed hard. The news stuck in her throat like molasses. Her own restlessness would grow and grow without Miss Lott around. She would become even lonelier at the college without her to talk with. It was such an awful thought that she couldn’t completely let it in.
Murray broke the awkward silence, scampering through the French doors, his paws sliding on the polished floors, taking a running jump on to his mistress’s lap.
Natalie angled up the lid to peer inside the teapot, the tea now a deep copper.
‘Shall I pour?’ she said. The thought of Miss Lott’s decline brought to the surface the mangled pain of her father’s death, her brothers’ too, anguish she supposed she’d always have to live with.
Miss Lott rhythmically stroked the dog, shifting him on her lap. His head tilted upwards. He licked the end of her nose, making Miss Lott wrinkle her face with delight.
Meanwhile the tea slipped through the strainer and purred into the floral bone-china cups, the steam unfurling into the spring morning. Once she was finished, she looked down at the playing field ahead. She had to say something to Miss Lott, but what?
‘The rose garden is shooting up,’ was the best she could do.
Below the white-spindled frontage of the balcony was the Principal’s own private garden. In two large beds, framed by shin-height box hedges, the new season’s rosebush shoots shouldered fresh burgundy leaves.
The truth about the severity of Miss Lott’s illness had been right in front of her. The soil hadn’t been dug over; the tubers hadn’t been planted out. Instead, deep-toothed dandelion leaves and a ground covering of bindweed had taken advantage of her weakness and were overrunning the beds and the bricked pathway.
Mrs Lancaster, her secretary, entered with two squat tumblers on a tray, ice cubes chinking, the soda water fizzing and the whisky staining the water a thin amber. She set the glasses down with an appraising glance at Natalie. She must have known that Miss Lott was going to break the news to her today – the whisky the medicine to help the sadness go down. Perhaps, she thought, a dull Sunday wouldn’t have been such a bad thing after all.
‘Bottoms up, ladies.’
Natalie took a large gulp.
‘I’ll be off to the village to get the newspapers then.’ Mrs Lancaster left them to it.
As comforting as cocoa, the whisky warmed her up and left her feeling alive and awake and tired and ready for a rest all at the same time. It also relaxed her tongue and mind almost instantly.
‘None of the words that I can think to say sum up my gratitude to you…and my devastation that you won’t be here.’ Still, I can’t be honest. Still, I can’t tell you how frustrated I’ve become here. If I am, you’ll think me ungrateful.
Miss Lott’s breathing came in a pattern of shallow snatches of air.
‘Words can do that, can’t they? Language is so rich and expressive and yet so insubstantial and hollow at times.’
On the playing field the girls began their Sunday bowling practice with Miss Hollands in the mid-morning sun. Murray spotted the red cricket ball as the batswoman rolled it over her shoulder. He jumped down to put his nose through the bars, yapping at the ball.
‘Murray! Murray!’ Miss Lott called. ‘Cricket isn’t for you, I’m afraid. You must know by now that you need to be a female to join in our games.’
*
Natalie wiped her nose, catching a glimpse of its red tip and her blotchy eyes in the mantelpiece mirror as she headed for her study door.
Mr Wilkins, the girl’s father, shuffled in, hat in hand. He was tall in his brown woollen suit, with salt and pepper hair smoothed down, but only in places.
He looked first at Natalie’s made-up face, no doubt noticing that the tears had streaked her powder, and then her Sunday attire of taffeta bows stitched to her shoulder seams, her silk skirt. She was used to this preliminary assessment by now. She worked hard to not fit the expected schoolmarm bill of tweeds and sensible shoes, and it often unsettled the parents.
People wondered who she thought she was making the effort for, thought that she was deluded and wasting her time, but she’d heard stories of love creeping up unexpectedly on other women of her age. Why not her? Why not someone like Jack? Don’t be silly. You know why not.
Behind him came Mrs Wilkins, a black silk scarf wound around her head with chestnut wisps creeping on to her face. Her matching black silk kaftan billowed behind her as she swept in, the fabric as iridescent as a scarab beetle. She dodged Natalie’s hand and instead kissed her on the cheek, planting the scent of patchouli beneath her nose. She curled into one of the chairs Natalie had placed on the hearthrug, her legs up from the floor, feet tucked beneath her.
She waited for Mr Wilkins to drape his folded mackintosh over the back of his chair and saw that despite the silk tie, his suit was fraying at the cuffs and was worn on the elbow and knees.
‘You know our trustee Lord Lacey, I hear?’ Natalie asked as he tossed his hat on to her desk.
‘That’s right. He’s