Page 68 of Lessons in Life

‘Eloise, it’s your coming-out ball…’

‘No, it’s not, Mummy. It’syours. It’syouwho wants me out in society.’

‘Out of my hair, to be honest, Eloise. Sitting up here on your bed, listening to this racket. It isn’t good for your posture, your ears or… or your standing in society.’

Eloise actually laughed at that. ‘I don’t think there’s much society here in Beddingfield.’

‘Exactly.’ Muriel smelt victory. ‘Andthat’swhy we’re having the ball in Leeds. At The Queen’s hotel. Now, Mrs Livesey is coming round later for both of our dress fittings.’

‘But the party’s absolutely ages off. Next year! I’m going down to Granny’s. She says I can stay the night.’

‘Why on earth do you want to spend the night with Granny?’ Muriel, at loggerheads with her mother-in-law since the day they’d first been introduced, was genuinely perplexed.

So I can go out with Janice and the others to the Regent Rooms. If I can pluck up the courage. The words, in Eloise’s head, remained unspoken. Instead, she said, ‘Granny actually knows quite a bit about cameras. She doesn’t let on that she does, but?—’

‘Oh, cameras, art, photography. Fiddle. Maude Hudson has always considered herself an artist. Bohemian, I’d say. Anyway, Eloise, I need you here this evening. Daddy and I are off to some do in Bradford.’ Muriel sighed. ‘It will be an absolute bore, the usual bankers and accountants and the like fawning over your father trying to get him to do business with them.’

‘Don’t go, then.’

‘One has to show willing.’ Muriel gave a little on-off smile to convey the graciousness that went hand in hand with being the wife of a wealthy mill owner. ‘So, I need you to look after Michael.’

‘Babysit Michael? You’re not serious, Mummy.’ Eloise felt her pulse race at the unfairness of it all.

‘Totally serious. He’s thirteen. He can’t stay here by himself – he’d eat everything in the larder and the fridge.’

Probably down the contents of her father’s drinks cabinet as well, Eloise mused. She’d mopped up three inebriated adolescents and helped dispose of the evidence back in the Easter vac when Michael’s two friends from St Cuthbert’s had come to stay. So, that was her evening out with Janice and the girls up the swanny, then. To be honest, she knew in her heart, even if she’d gone down to stay with Maude, she wouldn’t have dared take the next step, turning up at the address Janice had written down for her, before telling her to be there at 7p.m. on Saturday. Well, Saturday was here and it didn’t look as if she was going anywhere except watchingOpportunity Knockswith Michael. She adored her little brother: there was something very endearing about his naughtiness, about his arrogance. He was a gorgeous-looking, floppy-haired thirteen-year-old, the world his oyster, and one day he’d be out there, ruling it. But until then, he commanded his big sister to bowl endless balls to him down the lawn and to feed him ham and beetroot sandwiches and tell him what she knew about sex. Which wasn’t a great deal. Michael himself had opened her eyes to what went on in the big bad world when he’d surreptitiously passed her a tattered paperback copy ofThe Perfumed Gardenhe’d brought back from school. Goodness, there were things in there…

‘Oh,’ Muriel tutted, hearing a door bang and Michael’s voice calling up the stairs. ‘There’s Mrs Livesey now. Why can’t these people keep to their appointed time? I do hope you’ve clean underwear and your roll-on on?’

Eloise sighed but reached into her underwear drawer for her M&S rubberised roll-on, drawing it upwards over her long legs and, without admiring the effect in the long mirror, pulled down her skirt and followed Muriel along the landing to her mother’s bedroom where Mrs Livesey was already unpacking pins.

* * *

‘Oh, Eloise, darling? I thought you said you had to babysit Michael?’

‘Reprieve at the last minute.’ Eloise swung her camera towards Maude, catching her profile as she sat in the deckchair in the warm late-July evening sun, gin in one hand and the racing page in the other. ‘One of his school friends from Mirfield invited him over to stay. His father arrived to pick him up for the weekend. I think they’re going over to Filey to do some sailing.’

‘So, you and me, then? Lovely! There’s that funny little chap onOpportunity Knocks…’

‘Funny little chap?’ Eloise took another snap of her grandmother, wanting to take even more but conscious, as always, of the film’s capacity.

‘Les Dawson, darling. Pulls the most incredible faces. So, that’s on at seven and then there’s a film…’ Maude took the spectacles from around her neck, turning the pages of her newspaper to the TV listings ‘…Carry on Cruising.’

‘Granny.’ Eloise suddenly felt brave. ‘Would you give me a lift?’

‘A lift? To where?’

‘Over to Little Micklethwaite?’

‘Oh?’

‘I’ve been invited to a friend’s house.’

‘In Little Micklethwaite?’

‘Hmm.’

Maude peered over her glasses, examining Eloise’s pink face.

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