The Girls from See Saw Lane (5 page)

I
t was
the day after Mary and I met Ralph and Elton in the record shop. I woke with a fizzy feeling in my stomach. It took me a moment to remember what it was and when I did, I rolled over and hugged my pillow with joy. Ralph Bennett had asked me out. He had asked
me! Dottie Perks!
Out on a
date
! It was going to be the start of something wonderful, I knew it was. I had never felt so happy, so excited; life had never seemed so full of possibilities and potential.

Ralph and I had been friends all through school. At the beginning we had been thrown together because he was Elton's best friend and I was Mary's. Soon, though, we became friends in our own right, because we wanted to be. Ralph was not a noisy, show-off boy, but one of the quieter ones, and everyone liked him, even the teachers. He always sat at the back of the class and he never said very much, but he was always smiling, always friendly. I'd seen him once or twice since we left school, but either I'd been with my mum or he'd been with someone else and so we'd never said more than ‘hello' to one another. He and Elton lived in a different part of town and our paths didn't cross much.

Mary and I had been out with a few boys since leaving school. Well, Mary had been out with a few boys, I'd been stuck with their friends. Memories of spotty faces, cheese-and-onion breath and clammy hands still made me shudder. I wasn't that interested in boys. The only boy I had ever felt comfortable with was Ralph and now he was in my life again and suddenly everything seemed rather wonderful, actually.

As I was enjoying this strange and delicious feeling of anticipation, something cold and wet slapped me on the face.

‘Ow!'

I sat up and removed the object. It was a flannel. My older sister Rita was standing on her side of the bedroom wrapped in a towel and smiling at me.

‘What are you looking so pleased about?' she asked. ‘You look like the cat that's had the cream!'

‘Nothing,' I said. I threw the flannel back at her and turned over.

‘Yes it is something!' Rita persisted, pulling at my covers. ‘You were sighing in your sleep. You were smooching up to your pillow! It's a boy, isn't it? You've met someone, haven't you? You fancy someone! What's wrong with him? Is he desperate? Is he blind?'

‘Oh go away!' I said. ‘Go away forever, Rita.'

‘Don't worry, I'll be out of here soon,' Rita trilled. ‘Just as soon as I'm married! And while we're on the subject, don't forget Aunty Brenda's coming over later to decide on the bridesmaids' dresses.'

I had forgotten. I groaned and burrowed back down the bed. 

That summer, Rita's wedding was all anyone seemed to talk about at our house. It was kind of exciting and I wasn't exactly jealous, but it was hard being Rita's younger, less attractive sister. And also it was hard because sometimes, just once in a while, it would have been nice if Rita and I could have gone shopping together or gone to the cinema, or even just walked down to the seafront for an ice cream, things we used to do together, just the two of us. I never talked to Rita like I talked to Mary, but she had always been there for me. Now it felt like I didn't have a sister any more.

Rita and I were good friends when we were younger, but since she had ‘blossomed', things had started to go a bit wrong. One day she was just ‘Rita' and the next she was ‘Rita the beauty'. People were always saying she could have been a film star and Rita loved that. I couldn't see it myself. She still looked exactly the same to me. We'd shared a bedroom ever since I was two, and I knew she looked pretty rotten first thing in the morning. She didn't look too great last thing at night either. She was named after Rita Hayworth and these days she acted like she expected everyone to treat her like a film star too.

I suppose Rita couldn't help being beautiful, but she always made me look worse by comparison. The most annoying aspect of this was that whatever she ate she still looked like a stick insect, whereas I only had to pass a doughnut and great blobs of fat would hurl themselves at my thighs. When I was eleven, I overheard Aunty Brenda telling Mum that she was feeding me too much starch and that I was getting very round-looking and my mum saying: ‘Rubbish, it's just puppy fat, in a couple of years it will all drop off.' I told Mary and she thought that was really funny and wondered whether it would suddenly fall off me in the middle of a maths lesson, or during assembly, or whether I'd just gradually lose bits of it all over the place. Mary was great like that. She always saw the funny side of things and then you ended up seeing it as well. In the end we were both rolling around in fits of laughter, thinking of all the funny places where the fat could drop off.

Now Rita was engaged to be married to a chap called Nigel who worked in insurance. Mum was delighted because she said that with him having a proper job like that, Rita would be set up for life. Nigel had long arms. His shirtsleeves didn't quite reach to the end of them and his wrists were very bony. He tried to sell life insurance to Dad, who said if he wasn't around to get the benefit of the money then he wasn't interested. Nigel said it would give him peace of mind knowing that his loved ones could give him a proper send-off when he departed this world. Dad said he'd be quite happy in a cardboard box which shouldn't cost very much, and anyway he thought insurance was a big con and the only people who made any money out of it were the likes of Nigel. I tended to agree with him, but I did feel a tiny bit sorry for Nigel, who went all crestfallen and started scratching the back of his ear. Mum squeezed Nigel's arm and told Dad not to show his ignorance and to apologise. Dad said he had a right to say what he liked in his own home. Mum said if he felt like that she wouldn't bother with a cardboard box when he popped his clogs, she'd put him out with the rubbish. Dad just snorted and Nigel's ears went very red and you could tell he didn't know what to do with his face.

 Poor Nigel. He was probably already fed up of our family and he wasn't even part of it yet. I knew how he felt. I'd been fed up of our family for years, but since Rita and Mum started planning ‘The Wedding', things had become a lot worse. It was all they ever talked about, and everything reminded them of it. It was like ‘The Wedding' was the most important event in the world, ever. Rita said it was. She said a wedding was the pinnacle of a girl's life. She said it was all she'd ever dreamed of since she was a little child and she was not going to let anything spoil her perfect day. It had to be absolutely, completely perfect. 

I could have pointed out that she was marrying an insurance salesman and not the heir to the throne, but I didn't, because it was kind of sweet how happy she was.

The worst of it was, back then, the wedding was still
months
away. It was to be a winter wedding and we were still in the summer. It didn't stop it completely taking over our lives though. Time and time again when I wanted to be out doing something more interesting with Mary on a beautiful evening, I ended up crammed in our front room having to listen to plans for ‘The Wedding'. I found the whole subject so boring. I decided that when I married, I'd do it in secret. Me and my beloved would elope. We'd get the bus to Gretna Green and after the wedding we'd have a proper wedding breakfast, bacon and egg and beans. It would be very romantic and it would be just the two of us, me and… whoever, because that's what I knew it was supposed to be about – two people, in love. 

Rita's wedding was taking place on the 23
^rd
of November. She'd wanted a Christmas wedding but the vicar was already booked for December. He said it was usually his busiest month for dispatches, as well as the Christmas rush of people coming over all religious because they liked the carols and the candles. Rita said winter weddings were more sophisticated than summer ones. She had chosen a gown from the catalogue. It was long and white, with a hood and a fake-fur trim and it was called a ‘Monroe'. The bridesmaids were me and my younger cousin Carol. Carol was my Aunty Brenda's daughter. Aunty Brenda was married to my uncle Ernie who seemed to cause her a load of grief. I once heard my mum tell my dad that Uncle Ernie was no better than he should be, whatever that meant. Every so often Mum and Aunty Brenda would open the Christmas gin and sit in the kitchen having what they called a ‘good old heart-to-heart'. The day after the heart-to-heart, Mum always had a headache. I used to think it was because she and Aunty Brenda got so emotional.

Dad was a self-employed painter and decorator and sometimes months would go by when he was out of work. Mum was a dinner lady at the primary school, which didn't bring in much. Rita worked at the town hall and I was at Woollies so our wages helped, but even so, money was always a bit tight. My younger brother Clark was still at school, so he didn't bring in anything. This meant there wasn't much to spend on the bridesmaids' dresses, especially when Mum realised how much else there was that needed buying and organising to make sure Rita had the wedding she'd always wanted. As a result, Aunty Brenda was going to make the dresses for me and Carol. She was coming over to talk about what colour Rita wanted. I was going to be the one wearing the dress, but I wasn't allowed an opinion. What happened was that Mum and Aunty Brenda spent hours in the front room holding bits of material up to my face with Rita commentating and Mary sitting behind her sketch pad drawing the scene and secretly pulling faces at me.  

‘What do you reckon, Bren?' asked Mum, holding something across my mouth and nose like a veil.

‘You can't put her in lemon, Maureen,' said Aunty Brenda, shaking her head. ‘It'll make her look pasty.'

Behind the sketch pad Mary sucked in her cheeks.

‘Of course, I'm lucky with my Carol,' Aunty Brenda continued. ‘She can wear anything, she has wonderful skin.'

Mary pretended to stick two fingers down her throat. I tried not to laugh.

‘What do you think of this?' Mum asked Aunty Brenda, holding up a swatch of lime-green, floaty fabric. This time Rita pulled a face.

‘I always think it's wise to steer clear of citrus at a wedding,' said Aunty Brenda.

Mary nodded wisely. ‘Me too,' she said solemnly. Aunty Brenda smiled at her. 

After what felt like hours of this, Rita settled it all by saying she wanted both bridesmaids in baby pink, which was about the only colour we hadn't tried yet. 

Dad said I'd look like a giant candyfloss and started laughing, fit to bust. Rita wiped the smile off his face by telling him that he would be wearing top hat and tails, as befitted the father-of-a-bride whose groom-to-be was in insurance. Dad said he'd rather be dead than step outside his house in top hat and tails and Mum said just give her the word and she'd be delighted to arrange it.

Rita sat on the settee looking me up and down like I was a prize vegetable or something. She swung her top leg and her slipper dangled off her foot. Mary, in the opposite chair, was quietly copying her every move. I was having to hold onto my stomach to stop myself laughing.

‘Stop slouching, Dottie,' Rita said.

‘I'm not slouching.'

‘Yes, you are. She is, isn't she, Mum, she's slouching.'

I made a sort of snorty noise as I straightened up and the laughter came out of me. This made Mary start laughing too. She clapped one hand over her mouth. I couldn't look at her.

‘She'll have to lose some weight before the wedding,' said Rita. ‘She'll ruin the photos otherwise.'

She was referring to me, obviously.

‘Dottie's not fat,' Mary said, through her laughter. ‘She's perfect!' 

‘Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?' said Rita. ‘That's like her telling you, you're not small.'

‘You're not small,' I said at once and we both went all hysterical again.

‘I think Dottie
has
lost weight,' Mum said thoughtfully. She squeezed the top of my arm. ‘She's more podgy now than fat.'

Just then Clark came banging through the back door and into the front room.

‘Have you heard the news?' he said.

‘What news would that be, then?' said Rita all sarcastically.

‘There's been a big robbery,' said Clark. His face was all red and sweaty with excitement. Clark was going to be a journalist when he grew up so he listened to the news a lot.

‘What, round here?' said Mary.

‘No,' said Clark, ‘somewhere near Buckinghamshire. Someone's robbed the Royal Mail train and got away with nearly three million pounds, they think it's a gang from London.'

‘Well, it would be, wouldn't it,' said Aunty Brenda ‘that's where they all live.'

‘My dad used to live in London,' said Mary.

‘What's that got to do with anything?' asked Rita.

‘Nothing, I was just saying.'

I looked across at Mary and she had crossed her eyes. I had to look away before I burst out laughing again.

‘They hit the train driver over the head and he's in the hospital,' said Clark.

‘Now I draw the line at that,' said Mum, ‘I mean taking money is one thing, not that I approve of it, mind, but attacking a poor innocent man who was just doing his job is just plain wrong.'

Rita cleared her throat loudly. ‘Excuse me, that's all very interesting, but aren't we supposed to be planning my wedding?'

‘But that poor man, Rita, his family must be worried sick,' said Mum.

‘Exactly,
his
family, not
ours,
now can we please get back to what is important to
our
family.'

‘
You
, you mean,' said Clark.

‘And why not?' said Rita. ‘This is going to be my special day.'

‘And don't we all know it,' I said.

‘And you can shut up,' said Rita, glaring at me.