Georgia (5 page)

Reminders were all around him. The little pen-wipe she had sewn for him last Christmas with Daddy embroidered on it. A painting of him, carefully framed by Celia. Once he would never have considered hanging a picture of a man with flame red hair on his office wall, but he secretly loved Georgia’s image of him. She’d caught his hidden self, a strong-looking man playing cricket. Almost handsome in his white slacks and sweater. It was a talking point with customers, it loosened them up and made them realize he was more than just a stuffed shirt.

Finally, there was the photograph of the three of them, taken on holiday in Bournemouth. Celia in a low-cut cocktail dress, he in a dinner jacket and Georgia between them, laughing up at them, all dark curls, big eyes and dimples.

‘Your coffee, Mr Anderson,’ he hadn’t heard Miss Bowden come in. She put his cup in front of him and placed his diary beside it. ‘Don’t worry about her,’ she patted him gently on the shoulder. ‘Georgia’s a match for anyone, you know that, and don’t forget to telephone your wife.’

Georgia looked up at the school as she approached the main doors, her stomach churning with fear. It was the biggest school in South London, all glass and concrete, and although she had assured both her parents some of her old friends from Junior school would be there too, the truth was that most of them had found places elsewhere.

It was easy to identify the other first-years. Like her their uniforms were brand new, they stood white-faced and anxious, biting back tears, far smaller than the girls who sauntered by shouting to their friends, throwing each other’s berets into the air.

Girls, who looked like grown-up women, wearing prefect badges on their blazers directed the new girls to the main assembly hall. Georgia looked round with trepidation as teachers called out names and ordered the girls to stand in line.

The top class of the Junior school had only twenty-five children. In this hall alone there were nearer three hundred and she couldn’t see one person she knew.

‘Georgia Anderson.’

She put her hand up and was ushered over to a line.

The teacher who had called her name came forward smiling warmly. She was younger than Georgia had expected, probably no more than thirty, and she was very elegant. Her blonde, sleek hair was cut short and swept up at the back, and she wore a black suit with a straight skirt and a white lacy shirt. Her light-brown eyes seemed to miss nothing. She reminded Georgia of Miss Powell, the headmistress who had played the piano, and that seemed a good omen.

‘My name is Miss Underwood,’ she said in a crisp, well-modulated voice. ‘I’ll be your form teacher and I’m taking you now to your form room where I’ll explain everything to you. You are in form 1B, remember that if nothing else, someone will guide you back to your class if you get lost. Follow me.’

Georgia followed the other girls in silence. As they started up the stairs she turned to the girl behind her.

‘Do you know anyone here?’

‘No one.’ The small girl was near to tears. She hardly looked old enough to be going to a senior school, her baby blue eyes, pink cheeks and blonde pigtails looking out of place amongst the hard-faced bigger girls they’d seen strutting by.

‘Neither do I, I’m Georgia Anderson. What’s your name?’

‘Christine Fellows,’ the blonde girl whispered back. ‘Do you think we’ll be able to sit together?’

By morning break Georgia had tried to memorize every face. Christine had been given the desk next to her and although they hadn’t been able to talk yet, at least she seemed friendly.

‘Do you think we’ll ever find our way round this place?’ Christine sighed as they filed out of the form room for break. ‘Every lesson’s in a different room. What if we get lost?’

‘We’d better stick together then,’ Georgia giggled. ‘I shouldn’t think they’d punish us for getting lost in the first week!’

As they came down the last flight of stairs the number of girls converging into a large hallway had reached hundreds. Everyone was talking at once, a heaving mass of navy-blue striving to reach the doors leading out to the playground.

Christine clung on to Georgia’s blazer as they reached the hall. Surrounded by taller girls pushing and shoving, they inched their way forward blindly.

The crowd cleared suddenly as they stepped outside into bright sunlight. Both girls paused, looking around for the milk.

‘Another nigger in the first year!’

The remark was said loudly, with malice. Georgia’s head swivelled round to see a group of girls, all around fourteen, standing by the milk crates.

Thinking the insult was intended for her she blushed scarlet, stopping in her tracks. Christine didn’t appear to have heard as she walked towards the girls and lifted two bottles out of the crate.

‘What’s up?’ she asked as she came back, giving Georgia hers.

Georgia barely heard her as she watched a small West Indian girl being pushed away from the crates by a sullen-faced big girl.

‘Niggers get theirs round the corner,’ she snarled at the frightened first-year. ‘This is for whites only.’

The girl was brassy looking, with untidy bleached-blonde hair and her tie pulled down. Although she was actually wearing the uniform, she had done as much as was humanly possible to disguise it. Her skirt was short and tight, a wide ‘waspy’ belt holding it up. The sleeves of her shirt were rolled up, a heavy bust stretching the material to its limits. She wore nylons and casual shoes instead of the strong lace-ups and grey socks Georgia wore. A lovebite on her neck and a spotty, pasty face all added to her slovenly appearance.

‘Do you think that’s true?’ Georgia whispered to Christine.

‘What?’

‘That coloured girls have their milk somewhere else?’ She was torn between moving away into the crowd before someone noticed her colour, or joining the black girl in her defence.

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Christine looked puzzled. ‘My sister came here. She never said.’

‘They’ll have to put a separate crate for me if it is,’ Georgia tried to smile. ‘Halfway between the two, a greyish colour.’

By the time Georgia and Christine had gone round the corner to investigate, the West Indian girl had vanished amongst hundreds of other girls, but there were no more crates and it was obvious the big girl was playing a cruel joke.

‘Don’t get upset about it,’ Christine said. ‘My sister told me all sorts of things they do to first-years. She said they held one girl’s head down the toilet and flushed it.’

The day passed in a blur of new experiences. Books handed out, timetables which seemed formidable, so many new faces and names to be put to them, that Georgia forgot the incident at morning break.

Georgia parted from Christine at the school gates after arranging to meet her there the next day. Then joining a minority of girls going towards Blackheath, she turned left and crossed the road.

The sun was hot on her head and shoulders so Georgia took off her blazer and carried it. Up ahead on the corner of the road she was to turn into, a crowd of girls was gathering. Georgia quickened her pace to see what was going on.

She knew it was a fight, she could sense the tension in the air before she got there and she recognised the voice without even seeing over the other girls’ heads.

‘You sneaky little bastard. I’ll teach you not to go telling tales!’

It was the same big girl who had stopped the West Indian from getting any milk.

Georgie sidled round the crowd, intending to go on home, but the sight before her made her stop instantly.

The big girl had the small black girl by the hair and was slapping her face backwards and forwards like someone beating a carpet.

Georgia dropped her satchel and blazer and without thinking she ran the last few feet.

‘Stop it,’ she grabbed hold of the bigger girl’s shirt. ‘She’s smaller than you and she’s new!’

Only as the girl paused and let go of her victim did Georgia feel a stab of fear.

‘And who the fuck d’you think you are, bloody Joan of Arc?’

A roar of laughter went up from the crowd. They were all white girls, mostly third and fourth years, three or four of them Georgia had seen with the bully at break, the rest merely going home and enjoying a little diversion.

Suddenly the tree-lined suburban street with its neat gardens seemed sinister and a long way from home. Georgia knew she’d got herself into something beyond her depth.

‘I know it’s none of my business,’ Georgia said, more calmly than she felt. ‘But it isn’t right to hit someone smaller than yourself.’

The West Indian girl was backing away, her eyes rolling with fear, her face swollen from the smacking. But like Pamela that day at St Joseph’s, she hadn’t the sense to run.

‘Don’t she talk posh,’ the bully smirked round at her audience. She looked back at Georgia and her mean mouth curved into a sneer. ‘Oh, I get it,’ she said, looking Georgia up and down. ‘You’ve got a bit of nigger blood too!’

‘Yes, I’m half black,’ Georgia held her head up proudly. ‘That’s a darn sight better than being all white and a bully.’

‘Bin taken out of the jungle by a priest and educated, have we?’ The girl caught hold of Georgia’s wrist before she could move away. She twisted it round and forced it behind Georgia’s back, holding her in a tight grip. ‘Well here we’ve got our own jungle, and we don’t want no black bastards in it.’

‘Let me go,’ Georgia yelled, kicking out at the girl’s shins.

Taken by surprise the girl let go. Georgia used the opportunity to run but a greasy-haired girl stood in front of her, grinning stupidly. She stood a foot taller than Georgia, her loose, sloppy mouth full of gum.

‘I’ve got her now Bev,’ she called out. ‘Come and give her a pasting.’

Three of them were on her at once. One girl held her arms, another one caught her by the hair, and the girl they called Bev, slapped her round the face again and again.

Georgia tried to kick them, but together they were too strong for her. All she saw before Bev lifted her leg and kneed her in the stomach was the West Indian girl running up the road like a startled hare.

Winded, Georgia staggered back against a tree.

‘I ain’t finished with you yet,’ Bev shouted at her. ‘That’s just a taster to show you who’s boss round ’ere. Got the message?’

Doubled over with pain, Georgia heard them run off down the road, laughing loudly.

The rest of the crowd dispersed as if by magic. One moment they were all gawping inanely, the next gone.

Her parents had been a little tense about her coming to this school, now she knew why. Her face stung, the blow in her stomach had winded her and she felt sick with humiliation. By the time she collected her things and walked to the bus stop, the streets had cleared of school girls. She wanted to cry, ring up Celia to collect her, make her promise she’d find another school. Yet even as she thought these things, she knew she couldn’t.

Celia was talking on the telephone as she walked in the door. She waved, then went back to her conversation. Everything was just as it always was. The sun shining in the back of the house, lighting up a vase of flowers on the kitchen table. A smell of polish, a casserole in the oven. The prints on the walls, the thick, patterned carpet, chintz covers on the chairs. A spacious, middle-class home, a thousand times nicer than the one that girl must come from.

Celia was at the telephone in a crisp blue summer dress with a white collar, carefully cut to minimize her wide hips. The kitchen table was laid with dainty china tea cups and a homemade cake. If she told her mother what had happened it would bring a cloud into this lovely home, a slur on all they had taught her.

Georgia slipped upstairs and washed her face. She was flushed, but as yet there was no bruising. Ten minutes later she came back downstairs wearing an old pink dress she’d almost grown out of.

‘Hullo darling,’ Celia was in the kitchen making a pot of tea. ‘How did it go?’

She loved her mother so much. She couldn’t bear to see hurt take the smile off her face or worry spoil even one evening together.

‘It’s a bit scary because it’s big,’ Georgia said, keeping her voice even and taking a seat with her back to the window so her mother couldn’t see her clearly. ‘I met a nice girl called Christine and I’m in form 1B.’

‘That’s good.’ Celia sat down at the kitchen table, stirred the tea and poured a little milk into the two cups. She cut the large cherry cake and placed a slice on a plate for Georgia. ‘That means you are actually in the Grammar stream then. What’s your teacher like?’

‘Nice,’ Georgia said, looking down at the cake. ‘Miss Underwood. She’s youngish. Real elegant and sophisticated. But we’ll only have her for registration and English, the rest of the time we go to other classrooms.’

‘What’s the matter with your face, it looks flushed?’ Celia’s eagle eye missed nothing.

‘I ran down the road,’ Georgia lied. ‘I’m just hot.’

After eating the cake she went back to her room under the pretence of doing homework. Her bedroom was the prettiest she had ever been in. Decorated in pink and white, it had lots of shelves and cupboards, and Celia had even bought her a desk to do her homework on. It wasn’t a large room compared with her parents’ room next door, but it was on the front of the house and the window overlooked the heath across the road. Across the landing was her playroom. Even in her wildest dreams back at St Joseph’s she had never envisaged a room where she would be allowed to paint, dance, dress up and do whatever she liked.

Her mother and father had taught her everything. How to speak properly and talk to people, how to dress, everything she had came from them, how could she burden them with worry about a bully?

St Joseph’s had only taught her one thing that she clearly remembered. You had to stand up for yourself, or end up being bullied forever.

The next morning she braided her hair tightly.

‘Why on earth are you doing that?’ Celia asked in surprise. ‘It looks so much better down.’

‘It’s a bit hot for school,’ Georgia replied. ‘There’s so many big windows, and I sit right by one.’

There was no one guarding the milk crates at break and all day Georgia didn’t even get a glimpse of Bev and her friends. She hoped that was the end of it, but she would be cautious just in case.