As the school day drew to a close, Miss Finch continued her reading of Carrie’s War. Esther was captivated by the book and the adventures of the three evacuee children in wild, beautiful Wales. She lay with her head on her desk and listened dreamily. She pictured herself sitting with Carrie and Nick Willow and Albert Sandwich by the fire in the ghostly old manor house known as Druid’s Bottom. She could smell the buttery golden pastry of Hepziabah Green’s famous cheese pie baking in the stove. It was a blissful moment of peace that transported her from the brutality of her own changed world to the magical and familiar landscape of the narrative.
‘Esther, your father’s here. You’re going home a little bit early today, my dear,’ Esther had been so mesmerised by the story she hadn’t noticed Mr Gibson enter the classroom. His hand was on her shoulder as he led her down the corridor.
Her father stood in the school reception, he was distracted, turning his cap round and round in his hands restlessly. She noticed that his shoes didn’t match and that made her heart surge with melancholic tenderness. He was wearing one brown brogue and one tan one. Her mother would have laughed at that. ‘Scuzzball,’ she would have teased, ‘Tramp!’
Esther’s father never cared two hoots about clothes. ‘Brown and tan is close enough, surely?’ he would have said bewilderedly. ‘What’s the problem?’
Now he exchanged a brisk nod with Mr Gibson and took his daughter’s hand as they walked home under scudding clouds. Esther imagined her friends back at school. They would finish the chapter of Carrie’s War and then Miss Finch would play Scarborough Fair on her guitar and they would all sing. At the end of the day, they would put their chairs up on their desks, and say the Lord’s Prayer before rushing out to meet parents and older siblings. She almost wished she was there, but it did feel pleasantly decadent to be out early. Everything looked different. Even the air tasted unusual, she imagined. It was a world unseen by children, hidden. Mr Richardson, the milkman, was coming out of the churchyard with his three prancing, velvet-blue whippets. She never usually saw him on her walk from school. It was thrilling. She was a detective. She wondered what other private curiosities would reveal themselves on her journey home.
‘Can I go and see the whippets?’ she asked her father.
‘Not right now, pet lamb,’ he paused. Esther could tell he had something to say. He kept opening his mouth, as if to speak, but words wouldn’t come, only the defeated sigh of expelled breath. She waited. She noticed a fat ginger cat idly washing himself on a cottage windowsill: another treasured moment to capture and store like a postcard in a scrapbook.
Her father spoke, ‘Esther, your mum’s funeral is going to be on Friday. I’ve seen Mr Gibson to tell him that you’ll be off school that day.’
Esther reeled. This was unexpected. This was terrible. She hadn’t even thought about a funeral. Friday was her birthday. Friday was bread-making day.
‘Can’t I just go to school while you’re at the funeral?’ she asked.
‘Why, you’ll be coming to the funeral, Esther. It’s important.’
‘But I’m too young. You have to be at least ten to go to a funeral. Everyone knows that. There’s a law about it,’ she said with affected confidence.
It wasn’t just the fact that it was her birthday, or bread making day, Esther was horrified at the thought of going to the funeral at all.
‘We’ll all go together, my chick. All of us. Together.’
Things went from bad to worse when Esther arrived home to discover Aunt Rose in her bedroom, rummaging through her wardrobe.
‘Ah Esther, there you are. We need to find something for you to wear for the funeral.’
Piles of discarded ‘Simply Unsuitable’ clothes were strewn on the bed.
‘A black lace veil?’ Esther replied, intrigued. She’d seen a photo once of the funeral of a murdered American president. His wife had looked tragic and lovely behind her black veil. ‘I would quite like a veil.’
‘You are certainly not wearing a veil, Esther.’
Aunt Rose was inspecting a drab, green tartan dress. Esther had never seen it before. She decided it must have been a present and that her mother hadn’t liked it very much. It certainly had never been worn. There was a Marks and Spencer tag hanging from the sleeve.
‘This will do,’ Aunt Rose proclaimed, although the expression on her face seemed to imply otherwise. ‘I’ll have to press it of course.’
Esther sat on the bed and foraged through the mounds of clothes her aunt had cast aside. Most of them had been made by her mother. She picked up a pale green dress printed with tiny lily of the valley flowers. It was trimmed with velvet ribbon in dark emerald green. It had secret pockets in which to store hankies or pretty pebbles or pennies.
‘All dresses need pockets, Esther,’ her mum would say. ‘I mean, imagine if you found some buried treasure or a magic key, and you had nowhere to put it? Wouldn’t that be a dreadful?’
Esther longed to wear one of the dresses her mum had made for the funeral. She would stuff the pockets with treasures and mementoes for the occasion: pretty buttons from her mother’s sewing box, shells they’d collected from the beach, a pearl necklace, a pressed flower, a swallow’s feather.
‘Can I wear this?’ Esther asked, holding up the green dress with the velvet trim.
‘It is very pretty Esther, but it is certainly not suitable for a funeral.’
‘But I don’t think I’ve ever even worn that awful dress before. I don’t think mum liked it. Mum made this one.’
‘No. You can’t wear a summer dress to a funeral, Esther. Don’t argue please.’
Esther sighed. She didn’t have the energy to protest.
‘Now, we need to check that you’ve got some tights that don’t have holes in. Highly unlikely, I know. I don’t want you in socks. I don’t know how you do it, Esther, but you always have one sock up to the knee and one crumpled round your ankle. It’s really very trying of you,’ Aunt Rose sighed, obviously believing Esther’s sock outrages were deliberate acts of sartorial rebellion.
As Aunt Rose began a ferocious excavation of an underwear drawer, Esther leant over to pick up her Nancy Drew book. She’d go and sit in the kitchen by the AGA with Bakewell and read. She craved peace and privacy.
‘No young lady. No time for that. Next we need to do something with your hair.’
Esther’s hair was shoulder length, golden brown and madly curly. It rebelled against the constraints of clips, barrettes and ribbons so was usually just left loose. Once washed, it would take a whole afternoon to dry. Without her mother’s attention, it had grown matted and wild.
‘Sit down,’ Aunt Rose commanded, pointing at the dressing table stool. She picked up a hairbrush and vigorously went to work trying to untangle Esther’s hair. Esther winced as her hair was mercilessly pulled and raked. Tears were pricking in her eyes, but she refused to let Aunt Rose see her cry. She lifted her chin and stared challengingly at Aunt Rose in the cloud shaped mirror.
‘This is no good. It’s just too tatty. I’m getting nowhere with this. We’ll have to cut it off. Don’t scowl, just a trim. I’ll go and get some scissors.’
Within a minute, Aunt Rose returned brandishing her mother’s sewing scissors.
‘Don’t worry. I cut your Uncle Duncan’s hair all the time,’ she brayed.
After a few minutes of manic hacking and snipping, Aunt Rose stood back to admire her workmanship. Esther leaned forward to examine herself. She felt like weeping. Her hair had been cropped brutally, like a boy’s. She looked as scrawny and vulnerable as a baby bird; as bald and ugly as a newly cut field of wheat. Her wildness had been tamed.
Aunt Rose, on the other hand, looked triumphant. ‘Now, put on the clothes I’ve chosen and we’ll see how smart you look. Those tights are the wrong shade of blue, but they’ll simply have to do.’
Esther obediently got changed. She felt depleted. Empty. All her singularity and assurance was gone. She looked in the dressing table mirror. She did not recognise the sad girl in the drab dress who stared back at her with hollow eyes.
‘Yes. You look like a very smart young lady. I’ll go and get the Ewbank to sweep up all that hair.’
The carpet around Esther’s feet was scattered with barley coloured curls. While Aunt Rose was downstairs, Esther picked up a lock of hair. She stroked it against her cheek. She sniffed it deeply. It was imbued with the cleanness of the day’s gusty air and a soft hint of apple shampoo from her Sunday night bath. She would tie the lock of hair with a ribbon and keep it in her dressing table drawer. She went to slip it into the pocket of the tartan dress before Aunt Rose returned.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ she raged, blushing. She’d never said that word before. She hadn’t countered on saying it, but it felt wonderful.
‘For FUCK’S sake!’
The tartan dress didn’t even have pockets.
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